The Royal Ghosts, page 3
The next morning, a Saturday, Pitamber woke up and went to the living room, where Shailaja was arranging a basket of incense, rice, nuts, and red, orange, and yellow powder. He remembered that today was the day she planned to go to the Maitidevi temple. Despite himself, a groan escaped his lips, and Shailaja, now spooning some curd into a container, said, “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“I’ll go, I’ll go,” he said.
In the taxi on the way there, Sumit sullenly stared out the window, and Pitamber tried to lighten his mood. “Hey, champion, what happened to your chess game? You don’t play these days.”
“I don’t feel like it anymore,” Sumit said.
Pitamber looked sideways at Shailaja, but she was busy rearranging the items in her basket.
“If you stop practicing, how will you become a great player?” Pitamber prodded.
“I don’t want to be a great chess player.”
“Why not? What do you want to be, a hoodlum, and fight with everyone?” He tried to control his irritation.
“No, I don’t want to be a hoodlum,” Sumit said. “Anyway, who are you to speak? You’re the one who brought a second wife in our house.”
Shailaja looked sharply at Sumit, then at Kabita. Pitamber pinched Sumit’s left ear, pulling his head toward him. “Say that again?”
Sumit shouted, “Why don’t you and Kabita auntie go live somewhere else?”
Pitamber felt his left hand tighten into a fist, make a wide arc, and hit his son on the head. Sumit slumped in his seat, his body limp. The taxi driver braked, then continued. Shailaja gasped something like, “What? What?” and Kabita pressed her hand to her mouth. Pitamber shook his son, said, “Sumit, Sumit?”
Letting the puja basket fall to the floor, Shailaja climbed over Pitamber’s lap to her son’s side. She too shook Sumit, whose eyes were closed. She pressed her ear against his chest, then said, “I can’t hear his heart.” Pitamber tried to listen, but he couldn’t tell whether the pounding he heard was the rapid beating of his own heart. A wave of panic washed over him, but he managed to tell Shailaja, “He’s all right, he’s fine.” He felt around Sumit’s throat with his fingers—there seemed to be a pulse there.
It was the taxi driver who finally said, “Drive to the hospital, hajur?”
Fortunately Bir Hospital was only a stone’s throw away, and as they headed inside, a doctor who was on his way to work rushed over to look at Sumit, who was beginning to stir and open his eyes. The doctor fingered the purplish swelling on Sumit’s right temple, then guided them into the emergency room. There, he examined Sumit more thoroughly and said, “Nothing serious. Looks like he went unconscious for a few minutes. Did he fall or something?”
Everyone exchanged looks, and the doctor said, “Who hit your son? Did you hit him to discipline him?”
Pitamber knew he ought to step forward and confess, but admitting he’d hit Sumit would further complicate things, so he shook his head and miserably kept quiet.
The doctor said, “Do you know that we’ve had people die in here from head concussions? Do you parents think before you act?” He looked as if he were about to say something more, but a nurse came to him saying a man had just arrived who’d been injured in a bomb blast. “Take him home and make him rest,” the doctor said to Pitamber before he left. “If this type of thing happens again, I’ll have to call the police.”
The nurse stayed and applied a compress to Sumit’s temple, gave him some painkillers, then discharged him.
“We’re obviously not going to the temple,” Shailaja said as they left the hospital, and during the taxi ride back home, no one spoke. Shailaja didn’t look at Pitamber. Sumit lay with his head on her lap, and she murmured to him while stroking his hair. Pitamber glanced at Kabita in the front seat, holding Priya close to her chest, and suddenly he wished he could disappear.
At home Shailaja put Sumit to bed and went to the kitchen to make some soup. Pitamber went to his son’s room and sat by his side. He wanted to apologize, to say that he didn’t mean to hit him (he’d certainly never hit Sumit before), but as he watched Sumit lying there, his eyes on the ceiling, Pitamber found himself unable to say anything. He had always detested those who hit their children. “Son,” Pitamber finally said, and without meeting his eyes Sumit said, “All my friends tease me about her.”
Shailaja appeared in the doorway holding a bowl of soup, and without looking at Pitamber, she asked him to leave so she could feed her son. Pitamber went to the living room, where Kabita was trying to mollify her daughter, who was clinging to her, asking her what had happened to Sumit. “Maybe she’s hungry,” Pitamber said, and Kabita, her eyes cast down, said, “Maybe.”
For three days Shailaja didn’t sleep with Pitamber in their bedroom; instead, she slept beside Sumit. A heavy silence had permeated the flat, and Pitamber felt constantly ostracized and increasingly guilty. “I didn’t mean to hit him,” he repeated to Shailaja a few times, but she merely tightened her jaw and refused to look at him. Kabita too seemed wary of him. She averted her eyes whenever he was nearby and instinctively touched her daughter in a gesture of protection. Whenever Pitamber tried to talk to Kabita, she came up with a reason to rush off. It was Sumit who at last broke the silence in the flat one evening, when, after two days of staying home from school, he announced that he was ready for the chess club.
“The chess club?” Shailaja said. “No chess for you, after all that happened.”
“But I want to go.” They were sitting around the living room. Shailaja was sewing a garland for another attempt at puja the next day.
Pitamber said gently, “Son, don’t feel that you have to.”
“But I want to. I miss playing.”
For a while no one said anything, then Shailaja said, “Son, it’s your choice. Don’t feel forced to do anything.”
“I want to go now,” Sumit said. “Buwa, can we go now?”
Pitamber looked at Shailaja, who said, “What’s the point of staring at me? It’s Sumit who wants to go, not me.”
“Okay,” Pitamber said to Sumit. “And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to go anymore.” A few months ago, Pitamber had stopped by the club and inquired about its schedule, so he knew it would be open at this time. He had to seize this opportunity—finally here was a break in the gloom and doom of the flat, and Sumit would get a chance to hone his skills with some accomplished players. “All right, let’s go,” he said to his son.
It turned out that Sumit loved the chess club, and every day after school, he and Pitamber walked to the small brick building, where on the ground floor children and adults of all ages, their eyes intently focused, sat around small tables before chess boards and strategized about how to beat their opponents. After his first time there, Sumit asked Pitamber to wait outside. “I can’t concentrate with you in the room,” he said, and Pitamber reluctantly obeyed. From outside, he tried to peek through the window and watch his son, but the glass was too dirty and all he could see were blurred figures inside. “He plays well,” said Kamal, the man who managed the club, “but he lacks confidence. He needs more encouragement.”
That evening as they walked home, Pitamber said to Sumit, “Kamal Sir was saying that you’re a marvelous player.”
“Really?”
“Of course. You’re a natural. You only need a little practice, that’s all.” He put his hand on his son’s shoulder.
Pitamber had sensed it coming—in the past few days Kabita had often mentioned that she and Priya had stayed with them for too long. Still, it surprised him when a week later Kabita announced that she was moving out the next evening, that she and Priya would move in with one of her coworkers, a young woman who lived with her widowed mother and was looking for ways to cut down on their rent. “I can’t possibly burden you any longer,” she said. In her new flat, her friend’s mother would look after Priya while Kabita worked. “I am so grateful for all you gave me,” she said to Pitamber and Shailaja.
“I was hoping we’d put tika during Dashain and Tihar,” Shailaja said.
“That we’ll do, Shailaja didi, I promise. I’ll come back for it.”
The next evening, Pitamber hurried home after dropping off Sumit at the chess club. Shailaja and Kabita were struggling to get Kabita’s belongings down the stairs. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” Pitamber said as he grabbed the suitcase and the bedding from them.
“The taxi will be here any minute, dai,” Kabita said, smiling. She looked the happiest he’d ever seen her look.
Downstairs, he hauled her things into the trunk of the waiting taxi and said, “Now remember that we’re always here for you if things don’t work out there.” But he knew she wouldn’t return—she was too proud to ask for help again. He squatted in front of Priya. “Daughter, you be a good girl to your mother, okay?” She nodded, then opened her palm. He reached into his shirt pocket and handed her a lollipop.
“She has no shame,” Kabita said, laughing.
“Don’t forget us, you two,” Shailaja said as the two stepped into the taxi. Pitamber squeezed Shailaja’s shoulder as they watched the car drive away. They trudged back up to the empty flat, and Shailaja immediately headed into the kitchen. He stood inside the door and called, “Shailaja, how long are you going to remain like this?”
She didn’t answer, and he heard her start to cry. He went to her and slid his arms around her. “Don’t do this to me,” he said.
“I thought he was dead,” she said between sobs. “I swear, I thought our son had died that day.”
He held her tighter.
“You’d never raised your hand against him. Or me.”
“I know, I know.” He knew that he had no excuse. And maybe he should have seen it coming, given how he’d lost control and slapped that boy in the crowd. “I don’t know what came over me,” he said.
She squirmed out of his grasp and faced him. “If you do it again, I’ll leave you.”
He nodded and embraced her again.
The country was soon plunged into mayhem. Maobadis threw bombs at the village homes of several high officials; army men shot at a group of villagers they suspected were aiding the rebels. Rumors spread about rebels stalking the countryside, carrying the severed heads of villagers who refused to give them money. Families abandoned their homes and moved to India. Every day, newspapers announced atrocity after atrocity. Pitamber refused to read the papers or watch the news on television anymore. At the office he began to keep to himself, declining Neupane’s occasional offer to go out for a cup of tea or snacks.
Sometimes Pitamber wondered whether Kabita’s wounds had begun to heal. Now and then he had the impulse to visit her at her work, and once he actually went, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk inside the shop, afraid that his old, dark feelings would resurface.
Every day he went to work, came straight home, and waited for Sumit to return from school so they could play a game of chess before he went to the club. Pitamber found a number of books on the game at a discount store, and he studied them intensely. He taught himself how to anticipate an opponent’s moves, how to consider the outcome of his own options and strategize accordingly. And ignoring Sumit’s impatient sighs, he often spent long minutes planning his next move.
One evening after work, he ran into Kabita near a busy intersection of New Road. Smiling, she told him that Priya had begun attending a school near where they lived, and that Ratnakumari had asked her to manage a new shop she was opening in Patan. He expressed his pleasure at the good news, then reminded her that he and Shailaja expected her and Priya to visit their home during Dashain, which was only a month away.
“Of course I will, dai,” she said.
The Wedding Hero
UMESH, GAURI, AND I JOINED Sagarmatha Bank after it expanded into home and small-business loans. We were part of a staff of about fifteen, newly graduated from commerce college, and our staff had a new building all our own in the bustling tourist district of Thamel. Sagarmatha Bank’s head office was in a dilapidated building in Thapathali, a Rana-style monstrosity that leaked during the rainy season, resulting in rooms that were moldy and foul-smelling. The head office’s staff had vigorously petitioned to move into the new building, but the board of directors decided that the space in Thamel was too small for the thirty-five or so workers, and that the expansion would be well served by a new staff in a new location.
The three of us had seen one another around the Shanker Dev Campus, but it was at the New Sagarmatha Bank (that’s what we called our branch to distinguish it) that our friendship developed. To this day, I can’t say exactly why, out of a group of fifteen, the three of us came together. I do remember noticing, the first day at work, how beautiful Gauri was. She had a flawless face, a long, aquiline nose, and soft, delicate eyes. I was not the only one who thought she was beautiful. The other young men in the office hovered around her, visiting her desk under various pretexts.
I was amused by all the attention Gauri was getting, and when our eyes met across the office, I smiled, and she smiled back. Soon after, she came over to my desk to get my signature for something and addressed me as Jayadev, without the honorific “ji,” which I thought was fairly bold but also somewhat refreshing. We exchanged pleasantries, and right at that moment Umesh appeared with a question for us about loan rates. Umesh had a boyish, sad-looking face and bright, shiny hair that frequently fell over his eyes and, as we soon discovered, a melodious voice. He loved to croon the popular Narayan Gopal’s songs.
After I signed Gauri’s papers and we answered Umesh’s query, we began to talk—me sitting in my chair, Gauri leaning against my desk, and Umesh standing with his hands in his trouser pockets, jangling his keys. We talked for what seemed like hours, even though we had work to do. People walked about us, phones rang, we summoned cups of tea and drank them. I remember how pleasant it was, after days of being uneasy in this new office, to find people with whom I could chat effortlessly. What did we talk about? The latest movies, the new dance clubs, the city, buses, our country’s relationship with India, government banks, the Maoist rebels, government workers, the Shanker Dev Campus, winter fog, our inept leaders, bits and pieces of personal information. We knew we had to get back to work—our colleagues were giving us sidelong glances—but the branch manager wasn’t in, and none of us wanted to break this spell.
This is what I gathered about Umesh: He was twenty-five years old, the only child of well-to-do parents (both drove their own cars). He lived in Lazimpat and had attended St. Xavier’s School, so his speech was punctuated with well-pronounced English words. He had a passion for reading novels in Nepali and English. He even admitted that he used to drink heavily in college but had given it up. “I took this job so I wouldn’t remain idle at home,” he said. Later Gauri told me of a rumor she’d heard about him: a woman had broken his heart, and this had led to his alcoholism.
Gauri herself came from an uneducated family in Janakpur, but had graduated from her high school after performing well on the national School Leaving Certificate exam, which had prompted a Kathmandu benefactor to agree to pay her way through college. The benefactor had wanted to send her to Delhi to study, but Gauri didn’t want to live in India, so they’d found a compromise in Shanker Dev Campus in Kathmandu. Gauri rented a flat in Dillibazar. She liked to paint and had taken some art classes, but didn’t think she was very good, so she hadn’t shown her paintings to anyone.
As for me, it’s hard to describe yourself, but I’ll try. At that time I was twenty-eight and unmarried, although my parents had been pestering me about this for the past few years. I am of average height, pretty thin, with a mustache that conceals a small cleft on my upper lip. I remained unmarried because I had not come across a woman who was just right for me. My parents thought this was a very modern view, and they clearly disapproved. They had married in their teens, without so much as having looked at each other’s photographs beforehand, and they’d had a happy life. I often suggested to them that what worked for them might not work for me. Nevertheless, over the years they’d shown me countless pictures of women. At times I grew fed up and threatened to move out, live in a flat of my own. My threat worked: my parents couldn’t bear the thought of what such a move would signal to others about our family’s unity. They’d back down for a few weeks, then start hinting about potential women again. Almost all of my classmates from school and college were married and had children, so I understood my parents’ anxiety. Still, I felt deep inside that a woman was out there waiting for me, and I knew it had to be only a matter of time before I found her.
At the end of our chat at the bank that day, I wondered whether Umesh and Gauri were as surprised as I was by how quickly we’d taken to each other. Someone complained to the manager about our long conversation, so the next morning he called us into his office. He told us that the old Panchayat practice of drinking tea and chatting all day was unacceptable, that we were setting a bad example for the rest of the workers. We acted contrite, but as soon as we left his office, we smiled at one another and said, “After work? Ramey’s tea shop down the road?”
From then on, we concocted excuses to stop by one another’s desks during work, and we disbanded as soon as we noticed the manager’s disapproving looks. After work and on weekends, we often visited each other at home. Gauri’s flat in Dillibazar was small but comfortable, and she made killer tea with cinnamon and cloves. We played cards, listened to songs. We also gathered at my house a few times, but my mother began eyeing Gauri as a potential daughter-in-law, which made us edgy, so we stopped meeting there.
It turned out that Umesh’s large house in Lazimpat was the perfect place for us to get together. Busy socialites, his parents were never home. There was a scraggly garden behind his house, with a small gazebo where we could sit when it rained. The garden buzzed with bees and dragonflies, and we could feast our eyes on the bright red and yellow roses, the riotous vines that crawled up the walls of the house. “My parents pay the gardener to keep the garden unkempt,” Umesh said once, laughing. His parents had two servants, which meant our afternoons there were filled with momos, tea, pakoras, and homemade ice cream. “Treat this as your home,” Umesh said, clearly meaning it, so soon Gauri and I didn’t feel uncomfortable calling the servants to fetch us something. Once in a while, usually in the evening, we drank rum and Cokes or margaritas. Gauri always took small sips; she drank only to be sociable. Umesh never had more than a glass or two—he explained that he didn’t want to go back to his old ways.
