Buddha's Orphans, page 5
Disappointed, the three turned toward home. On the way back, on the city bus, Kaki said that if Raja couldn’t go to a good school, as Ganga Da had promised, she’d rather return to Ratna Park. He snapped at her, making other passengers swivel their heads with interest. “You’re thinking only of yourself, not the boy,” he said loudly, and she sulked for the rest of the trip. When they got off at Ratna Park to change buses, Kaki told them that she needed to talk to Vaishali, that Ganga Da and Raja should go home by themselves.
After Kaki returned to Lainchour from her private visit with Vaishali, she didn’t say anything but quietly went to the kitchen and began to prepare dinner. She’d gone to Vaishali to see if the woman would take Kaki and Raja back, but Vaishali had said that since the two left, the building owner had come by and said explicitly that she was not to have guests or relatives staying with her.
Kaki watched Vaishali to detect whether she could be lying, but Vaishali met her gaze. “Just for a few days, until I find a place for the two of us?” Kaki pleaded. “That crazy Jamuna is sucking my blood.”
“If I let you stay here,” Vaishali said, “the owner will kick all of us out. Is that what you want?”
Kaki wiped her eyes and said that she wouldn’t want such a fate to befall her friends.
With great reluctance Ganga Da took Raja to enroll him in the Jagadamba School, which was not Ganga Da’s first choice, as it was merely a government school, not a private boarding school. But since the moment Kaki had stopped by Vaishali’s place, Ganga Da suspected that she was scheming. He felt he needed to begin Raja’s education immediately to discourage Kaki from leaving.
In front of the Jagadamba School stretched the expansive field where the students gathered during breaks and where, in the evening, local boys played soccer or people practiced riding bicycles and motorcycles and, occasionally, driving cars. Facing the school to the south was Ascol College, whose politically minded students frequently agitated for change; in response helmeted police often were brought in to squelch the disturbance. The Jagadamba School was a government school, which meant that many poor students attended it, wearing ill-tailored uniforms and slippers instead of shoes. Disruptions at Ascol College frequently spilled over to the school, and some days it was simply impossible to teach; then the students were let go, and the teachers headed to the nearby tea shops.
The principal of the school, Singh Sir, was a longtime acquaintance of Ganga Da, and earlier that morning Ganga Da had called him at home and explained the situation. “Bring him over,” Singh Sir had said. “Let’s see what we can do.”
Jamuna had dressed Raja in blue half-pants and a sky-blue shirt—the school’s uniform—and for added effect had even strung a tie around his neck. Raja protested that the tie was too constricting, but Kaki emerged from the kitchen and rebuked him. “If you don’t look good, which school will take you? And then what will you be, huh? An ignoramus?”
Raja sneered at her and said, “If I’m an ignoramus, then you’re . . . full of goo.”
Singh Sir was amenable to accepting Raja, but, squirming in his chair, he said, “I am not supposed to do this, I mean, take a student in the middle of the year. If the superintendent finds out, I could get into trouble.”
“I don’t want you to . . .”
It turned out that Singh Sir wanted what he called “a small donation” to deflect any possible criticism. Ganga Da understood, and he quickly went home to fetch some money. Raja’s teacher was then called to the office, and she led him through an open hallway to the first-grade classroom, which was crammed with kids; the air smelled of sweat and rancid breath. A hole in the wall the size of a soccer ball provided a glimpse of the college across the street, and another in the next wall revealed students in the classroom next door. The children’s high-pitched voices fell silent as soon as Raja walked in, accompanied by his teacher. Without speaking they watched the new boy, until someone from the back said, “Hero!” probably referring to Raja’s tie, and the rest burst into laughter. This prompted the teacher to raise the stick that had been leaning against the blackboard and slam it repeatedly against her desk. Chup! Chup! Raja watched the stick, and suddenly his knees became wobbly; shivers ran up his spine, and he wanted to cry.
During the tiffin break, Raja stayed in the classroom, lingering at the hole in the wall that gave him a view of the college students across the street; he felt impatient to grow big like them. He wondered what Jamuna Mummy was doing right now, whether Ganga Da would come to see how he was faring, and whether once he got back home Kaki would scold him for no reason, as she often did these days.
During the hours when Raja was in school, Kaki performed her household chores but felt as if something was pressing against the crown of her head. Once in a while her eyes would drift toward the gate, and she’d realize that only an hour or so had passed since Raja had left, that he wouldn’t come home until late afternoon. Jamuna, she knew, was also pining for Raja, but Kaki felt no sympathy for the crazy woman. For her, Raja was only a distraction from the voices in her head. She had bought his affection with toys and bright clothes. The more she dwelt on Jamuna, the more Kaki’s chest smoldered with rage. Her Raja had already begun to forget his street days in Rani Pokhari. In fact he was beginning to lord it over Kaki, treating her as though she’d crawled into the house from the street. Just the other day, when she’d put her arm around him after he got dressed for school, he flung it away and said, “You smell! Do you ever take a bath?” She had just been cooking in the kitchen, and she knew he probably smelled garlic and onions on her. It was a child speaking, but it didn’t prevent her from feeling crushed. He’d also taken to calling her pakhi, a village dolt. She didn’t know where he’d learned the word, but the first time he said it, Jamuna had put her palm to her mouth and tittered; emboldened, he’d repeated the slur. “You’re a pakhi, aren’t you, Kaki?” Fighting back tears, she’d asked him to stop calling her that, but he wouldn’t. He approached her in the kitchen as she sat skinning some potatoes and, mouth against her ear, shouted, “Pakhi Kaki!” making her head ring. Then he ran to Jamuna.
And even after Raja returned from school, he hurried straight to Jamuna, shouting, “Jamuna Mummy, Jamuna Mummy,” and ignoring Kaki. It was in Jamuna’s arms that he babbled on about his school. It was to Jamuna that he waved his notebook, showing her what he’d accomplished that day, which wasn’t much—mostly incoherent drawings, as he still had to learn how to write and string letters together to form words as he read. Kaki knew that she ought not to mind that he shunned her, that he disregarded her feelings. She reminded herself that he was only a young boy, that he’d come around one day; that, if she really cared for him, she ought to be grateful that two strangers with some financial means were showering their love on him; that he was able to attend school, unlike thousands of children in the country who labored on farms or began working as servants at an early age; that one day he was going to be a fine, intelligent young man with a job at an important office. But every day, as Kaki watched Raja becoming more attached to Jamuna, feelings of despondency preyed on her. She saw Raja repeat, in some sense, the treatment her own son had bestowed upon her. Every time Raja’s arms reached for Jamuna and not for Kaki, she couldn’t help but feel that she’d lost him, that he was never coming back to her. What is it in me, she asked herself, that has made both my sons reject me?
Once, she contemplated leaving Ganga Da’s house, thereby freeing Raja altogether from his past on the streets, leaving him unencumbered by his history as an orphan. But she couldn’t bear the thought of going back to Ratna Park without him, of surrendering him to Jamuna. How Kaki loathed the way Jamuna called him, her voice dripping with affection: “Raja! Chora! Babu!” But then, within a few weeks of Raja’s enrollment at the Jagadamba School, Jamuna’s symptoms resurfaced. One afternoon while Ganga Da was at work and Kaki was in the kitchen, she heard Jamuna muttering in the yard. When Kaki glanced out the window, she saw that Jamuna had bent down to draw something with a piece of coal on the rectangular patch of brick next to the porch. Jamuna was focusing intensely on her work, talking to herself, shaking her head vigorously when her drawing displeased her and smiling when she approved what she saw.
Kaki returned to cleaning and rearranging the cupboard, but later, when she went to the yard to dust a mat in the sun, she saw what Jamuna had drawn: badly sketched figures of a child and a woman. A looped line ascended from the head of each. It took a split second for Kaki to realize what they were: nooses.
That afternoon Kaki abandoned her work and sat on the cold kitchen floor. Jamuna napped in her bedroom. Thunder rumbled at around two o’clock, and a sudden shower poured down from the sky, washing away Jamuna’s drawing. Raja arrived home from school and as usual ran to Jamuna’s arms. Kaki quickly placed a glass of milk and a boiled egg, its shell peeled off, in Jamuna’s room for the boy. Telling Jamuna that she’d be back in an hour, she headed out. She wound through the back alleys of Thamel, then through Jyatha, and she emerged at Kantipath, where she crossed the street and entered another alley next to a hotel painted yellow. Kaki knocked on one door after another until she was directed to the house she was looking for. For a moment, she stood in front of its big brown iron gate. Then she banged on it and when a servant of about her own age appeared, Kaki identified herself and entered.
Every day, for an hour or so after Raja left for school, Jamuna paced the yard or stood next to the guava tree and rocked back and forth. Then she went inside and sat on her bed, which was next to the window, and kept a watch on the gate, even though Raja wouldn’t arrive home until the afternoon. After an hour or two, she’d fall asleep, her head on the windowsill, as the lunch that Kaki had prepared for her got cold.
Today, at around eleven o’clock, Kaki peeked into the bedroom and saw Jamuna stretched out on the bed. “Are you sleeping? Do you not want to eat?” she called out softly. When Jamuna didn’t answer, Kaki went to her own room. There she slung two bags, which she’d packed the night before, over her shoulders, and left the house. Rapidly she made her way to the Jagadamba School and entered its gates. She asked a man where she could find her son. “Class One is in the corner there.” The man pointed to it. Kaki went and stood by the door. Immediately she spotted him, in the back of the class, sandwiched between six or seven other boys on a bench. The teacher, who was writing on the blackboard, noticed her and came to the door. Kaki told her that something had come up and that she needed to take Raja away for the day. The teacher asked her who she was.
“I am a servant. His mother sent me.”
“Raja!” the teacher called. “Your servant from home has come to fetch you.”
Carrying his bag and looking surprised, Raja came. Kaki took his hand and led him out of the school.
“Where are we going, Kaki?”
“You want some ice cream?” she asked. These days it was so rare, she realized, to be alone with him like this.
“Is Jamuna Mummy with you? Where is she?”
“Forget about Jamuna Mummy. I’ll buy you ice cream.”
They took the same route Kaki had taken the other day. “The ice cream shop is around the corner,” she said, to reassure Raja as they navigated the alleys on the way to Kantipath, where she bought him a khuwa ice cream next to the yellow hotel. Thoroughly engaged with his treat, Raja didn’t ask where they were as Kaki banged on the large brown gate. The same servant opened it.
“We’re here,” Kaki said. “Show us our room.”
Nilu Nikunj
AT NILU NIKUNJ in Jamal, six-year-old Raja cried for Jamuna Mummy, and his wails echoed throughout the halls and rooms so plaintively that the other servant, Ramkrishan, came to the kitchen, where Kaki was frying some potatoes. He said, “Isn’t there a way you can quiet him? Muwa will have a fit.”
Kaki turned to Raja, who was sitting on the kitchen floor, throwing his legs about, his cheeks damp with tears. She said, “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll beat you with nettles.”
“I’ll throw you in Rani Pokhari,” Raja replied.
“You and your Jamuna Mummy,” Kaki said. With a spatula she scooped some potatoes into a bowl and gave them to Raja. He took the food and began eating, whining that he needed his Jamuna Mummy, that he wanted to go to school.
Ramkrishan said that his nephew attended a school nearby, and Raja could also go there. Just then Muwa appeared in the doorway. She wore the white dhoti of a widow and a white shawl. Her face was stern, her eyes were narrow, and her arms were folded at her chest. Kaki glanced at her and said, “The aloo is nearly done, Muwa.”
Muwa’s eyes fell upon Raja as he munched the potatoes. He stopped chewing and stared at her. She’d never smiled at him, nor asked him his name, and instinct told him that the best thing to do in her presence was to sit still.
“Is he ever going to shut up—what’s his name—this boy?” Muwa asked.
“Raja,” Ramkrishan, who had just finished chopping some squash, said.
“Name is Raja,” Muwa said, barely moving her thin lips, “but cries like a beggar.”
Kaki flinched, even though Ramkrishan had warned her that Muwa’s tongue was rough. The fries were done, and she scooped them onto a plate and gave them to Ramkrishan. “Does Nilu Nani also like them salted?”
“No,” said Muwa. “And the next time, don’t feed your boy before my daughter eats, all right? I don’t want him to get the wrong idea.”
Kaki nodded. It was going to be different here for the two of them, especially for Raja, than at Ganga Da’s house. But here, Raja was hers, and she didn’t have to writhe as she watched that madwoman stake her claim on him. It was through Vaishali that Kaki had heard about the widow who lived near the yellow hotel, that she was looking for a second servant to help around the house. Nilu Nikunj, the house was called, Vaishali informed Kaki. Nilu’s Dwelling. The widow’s husband, now dead, had named the house after their only child, a daughter. Kaki had visited here two days earlier, and she’d poured her heart out to the widow about raising Raja on the streets, about how frustrating it was to live with a madwoman. Muwa had listened impassively, her back stiff as she sat on the couch, a cigarette between her fingers. She finally said, “You and your son will live well here.” She would pay Kaki twenty rupees a month and provide new clothes during Dashain, and of course their meals would be free.
“I have nowhere to go,” Kaki said, and Muwa nodded slightly, as if that fact satisfied her.
Kaki and Raja would sleep in the shack in the garden, formerly used to store garden tools and old furniture. Ramkrishan had emptied the shack and cleaned it for them. “It took me three whole days to do this,” Ramkrishan said. “That’s why you’ve been hired—I can’t do all the work in this large house. My back hurts. Now that you’re here, life will be a bit easier for me.” He leaned closer to her. “Her husband’s death has done something to Muwa,” he whispered. “You’ll find out.”
Muwa’s husband had died in a car accident when their daughter, Nilu, was four years old, Ramkrishan told Kaki. He owned one of the city’s first travel agencies, housed in an office with large glass windows in Basantapur. He also owned pieces of land and shares in jute and sugar cane factories throughout the country. That unfortunate morning he had parked his car in front of his travel agency and was locking the door when an out-of-control truck slammed into him and crushed his head to pulp. Muwa sold the agency to a cousin at a hefty price. The income from her other properties and investments was enough to last for generations, Ramkrishan said, but Muwa hadn’t yet recovered from her husband’s death. While he lived, Muwa and her husband used to lead an active social life; now she stayed home most of the time. “She likes to . . .” Ramkrishan pointed his thumb at his mouth.
Kaki knew this already. Muwa’s mouth smelled of alcohol, and Kaki had seen bottles in her room. “All the time?” she asked Ramkrishan, who replied that she usually drank in the evening, but sometimes started in the morning.
“For weeks after saab was killed, Muwa simply lay in bed, drinking. It’s hard on Nilu Nani. She’s still so young.”
Kaki’s new life began to take shape. She and Ramkrishan talked as they washed the dishes, cut and sliced vegetables, swept the floor, tasted the food from ladles, and planted flowers and vegetables in the garden. Raja wandered around the house, and now and then Kaki called him to make sure he wasn’t bothering Muwa. When not drinking, Muwa napped in her room on the second floor or read Indian magazines detailing illicit romances, murders, and decapitations. The room was lit by a bedside lamp, since she kept her curtains drawn.
Nilu’s room was next to Muwa’s. Large dolls surrounded her bed, their eyes clear and blue, their hair yellow, unlike the sorry-looking handmade dolls Kaki remembered from her own childhood. Her mother had fashioned them out of old pieces of cloth, just like the dolls poor children in the city still played with. Nilu’s dolls wore colorful, frilly dresses, and a hint of a smile played on their pink lips. The girl’s room too was dark, its curtains closed, as though she were a miniature version of her mother. When Kaki went up to Nilu’s room, the girl was often in bed like her mother, her fingers stroking a doll’s hair. She looked at Kaki with interest whenever the woman came in to sweep the floor or collect empty glasses and dishes. One day she asked Kaki where Raja was.
“Downstairs, Nilu Nani.”
The girl was flipping through the pages of a picture book, and she asked, “Does he know how to read stories?”
“He had just started school when we came here. Barely knows his alphabet.”
“Is he not smart?”
“No, no, that’s not it,” Kaki said. She was folding Nilu’s freshly laundered silk frocks and arranging them in the cupboard. “He’s a tuhuro, and we’re poor, so he got a late start.”
