The Royal Ghosts, page 9
One evening I mustered up the nerve to confront her. We had just visited our mutual friend who’d introduced us, and were walking back to her house through an alley near Baghbazar. I stopped and, over the sounds of engines revving at the nearby bus stop, said that she better acknowledge, to me and to herself, that she was rejecting me because of my height. I felt relieved as soon as I’d said it, though she angrily protested that I held her in low esteem if I thought she’d care about such a thing. I responded that it was impossible to arrive at any other conclusion. “That’s not it, that’s not it,” she kept insisting, obviously distraught.
“Then tell me what it is,” I said.
But she didn’t, and we walked the rest of the way in silence. I said a terse goodbye to her when we reached her house.
That night I felt that I had ruined whatever we had between us, and I worried that she’d never see me again, but early the next morning, just as I was waking up, my bedroom door creaked open and there she was. My mother had gone to the market to buy vegetables, as she usually did in the mornings, so I was the only one home. Apparently she’d left the door unlocked, and now Rumila shut my door, locked it, and slipped into my bed. “This is what I think of you being a pudkay,” she said, and kissed me on the lips.
We lounged around in bed, talking, smiling at each other. She told me that last night’s argument had made her realize that she’d always felt something for me, starting with that day at the fair, and that although she still wasn’t completely sure she was ready for a relationship, this morning she became fearful at the thought of losing me. “I’ve realized that you and I have gone further than I myself was willing to acknowledge.” I kissed her soft lips then, and she returned the kiss with her eyes closed.
The sun was streaming into my room, and we went to the balcony, from where we could see the Swayambhunath temple in the distance, its spire glinting in the sunlight. “Look, even Buddha is winking at us,” I said.
Rumila and I were a funny sight as a couple: she was three or four inches taller than I was, and for any other guy that might have been embarrassing, but I was proud of the fact that she was tall and beautiful.
In the beginning she showed interest in my political activities. She’d listen attentively as I told her about the shenanigans of some member of parliament, or talked about how government money allocated for poor districts was being pocketed by bureaucrats. But after a while I noticed that she looked more and more preoccupied as I talked. Sometimes she’d reach out and run a finger across my cheek as I was in the middle of a sentence. Once I smiled at her and said, “You’re not interested in this anymore, are you?”
She became self-conscious and said, “No, I am. Go on.”
But as weeks went by, it became clear that I bored her when I talked of politics. Often she changed the subject. I’d be going on about how it was only a matter of time before the palace would be forced to accept a Western-style democracy, and she’d say, “Have you ever been to Gosainkunda? I’ve always wanted to make that pilgrimage.” I’d feel a twinge of irritation, but I’d try to ignore it as we talked about Gosainkunda and the other pilgrimages she wanted to make. Eventually I started speaking less to her about my work.
The one time that I broached the subject again, she reacted differently. We were in my room with the door shut; my mother was cooking dinner in the kitchen. Somehow I ended up mentioning the first time I went to jail, three years ago.
“What had you done?” she asked.
I told her about the article I’d written about a corrupt home minister. Two policemen came to my house and hauled me off to the home minister’s quarters, where the man read my article aloud. He laughed at my assertions, offering his own version of events, and after he finished speaking, he told the policemen, “Show him what happens to writers who lie to the public.” The policemen took me to their headquarters, and in a tiny room they smashed the side of my head and my back with a metal pipe. They repeatedly asked me to admit that I was wrong about the home minister, and when I didn’t, they hit me more, until I couldn’t take it anymore and said that yes, I was wrong about him. They asked me to write a confession, which I did, and then they let me go. The next day, all the government newspapers printed that confession with my signature at the bottom.
“Here, I’ll show you my scars,” I told Rumila, and began unbuttoning my shirt.
“No, no,” she said, grabbing my hands. “I can’t look.”
“You should,” I said. “Then you’ll know what these people are capable of.”
“Please, Suresh,” she said. She looked as if she were about to cry, and strangely I felt almost glad. She embraced me, and through my shirt she caressed my back, her long fingers tracing what she undoubtedly imagined were my scars.
At first I thought that my story had made Rumila appreciate my politics, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect. Now she reacted to my talk almost fearfully, and at times she said, “Could we talk about something else? There are less upsetting things in life too, you know.” I felt that she was refusing to acknowledge a big part of me, but I tried hard to put myself in her shoes, and convinced myself that no one, not even a woman who loves you, should have to listen to your rants day in and day out. Still, I thought constantly about the state of our country and continued my work in earnest. There was a strong momentum building against those in power. Riots were breaking out everywhere, antimonarchy slogans had been spray-painted all over the city, and at least once a month an opposition party would declare a nationwide shutdown, called a bandh, which forced the machinery of the entire country—government, businesses, even traffic—to come to a standstill. “I hate it,” Rumila said as we lay entangled in my bed. She hadn’t been able to get to work because a bandh had been declared that morning, and I joked that at least the closing allowed us to stay in each other’s arms.
“Why can’t they protest without forcing people to disrupt their everyday business?” she said.
“I know, I know,” I said, and tried to change the subject. I asked her if she’d ever had a close relationship with another man. She’d never mentioned anyone, and lately I found myself curious. “Never,” she said. But she said it a little too quickly, and I pressed her further, saying that I wouldn’t hold it against her.
“Why do you care about the past?” she said. “It’s useless. Let’s focus on the present and the future.”
I joked that she sounded like the so-called Supreme Pronouncements of the kings that were scrawled on billboards across the city: “Use your hands, not your mouth, to build your country.” “Our Nation, Culture, King—dearer than our own life.”
Rumila said the billboard she liked best was the one in English that exhorted drivers to be Better Late Than Never —and this in a country where most people barely knew English.
“Come on, you’re avoiding my question,” I said. “Tell me. Anyone you loved?”
“I just told you no.”
“I don’t believe you.” I turned away from her.
She leaned over and set her chin on my shoulder. “Suresh, this is the most serious I’ve been with anyone.”
Her answer satisfied me, even though I’d have preferred her to say that I was her first love, just as she was mine. I guess it was silly of me to expect an attractive, intelligent girl like her not to have been involved with others before me.
My mother liked Rumila, and frankly I think she was amazed that such a girl had taken a liking to her short, somewhat chunky son. In her desperation to see me married, my mother had become quite liberal, allowing Rumila to come to our house. She even left her alone with me in my room. I think my mother hoped that a girl would make me give up politics. Whenever I led a protest or was hauled off to jail, my mother told me, she grew enormously anxious. Sometimes she refused to speak to me, and I had to sweet-talk her for days before she cracked a smile again. “If only your father were alive,” she said. “He’d make you come to your senses.” She’d conveniently forgotten that my political awakening had begun while my father was alive—he and I had frequently gotten into arguments about my beliefs.
My father didn’t care much about politics. He was a government worker until he died, content with sitting in his office inside that cold, gray building in the city, going over budgets and requests for payments. He was baffled by my rage at those in power. He knew what I had been through at the hands of the police, but he begged me to forget about it. “One day you’ll die, and your wrath will vanish with the smoke from your funeral pyre,” he often said dramatically. My mother objected to his talk of my death, but I understood what my father meant. All his life he had followed the scriptures, practiced dhyana and yoga, and he was attempting to make me see the impermanence of my emotions—and consequently the uselessness of my actions spurred by my emotions. But I had no patience for his spiritual analysis. No talk of the illusory nature of my existence could blind me to the reality of the scars on my back, which I would display for him as my answer. “Okay, so you suffered,” he’d say. “There are people who are suffering more. And your anger will make you suffer more.” He said the word “suffer” gently, almost in a whisper.
Despite my disagreements with him, I loved the old man. He had been a kind father, never raising his voice or a hand against me or my mother. In our neighborhood and among our relatives he was regarded as a sort of saint. After his death, many people came to me and said, “This is a great loss, Suresh, not only for you but for all of us. We need people like him to keep us sane.” In my mourning I agreed with them, but later on, I couldn’t help thinking that my father’s philosophies of love and peace weren’t going to bring about real changes in the country. I plunged into my political activities with renewed zeal. I filled up my days organizing meetings, rallies, and sit-ins, and a few months later, when I met Rumila, she was the only person who distracted me.
Everything changed for the two of us when I was picked up late one afternoon for an editorial I had written that questioned a government contract with an aircraft manufacturer. I had emphasized that the middleman for this shady deal was the prime minister’s brother-in-law, a fact other newspapers had already reported, but somehow my column irked the authorities, and I was arrested for slander. This time there was no tiny room or beatings, thankfully, and I was told I’d be in jail for only one night. Immediately I went to sleep in a corner bunk of a holding cell.
I awoke a few hours later to a flashlight shining in my eyes. “The electricity went out and the generator broke down. That’s Nepal for you,” a guard was saying as he guided another man into the cell. I couldn’t see his face properly; the guard’s flashlight jerked around too much. “I’ll bring you a candle,” the guard said, and left.
“Greetings,” the man said. He told me his name, Mohan, that he was from Pokhara, and that he’d been charged with conspiracy against the state. “Who knows what that means anymore,” he said, and sat on the opposite bunk.
I felt compelled to offer my name in the dark. He sniffed. “Smells like chicken in here,” he said, so I said, “It’s my food. You must be hungry. Why don’t you eat? I haven’t touched it.” Somehow I had forgotten to eat the dinner the guard had given me, so I picked up my container and moved it in his direction. Just then the guard returned with the candle, and after he left us, I was able to see Mohan’s features: he had a plump face, a broad nose, and a short scruffy beard. He ate the rice and meat with his bare hands. He gave a satisfied burp, leaned forward to light a cigarette using the flame of the candle. “You write for National Freedom,” he said. “I know you. And I’ve seen you with Rumila.”
“You know her?”
“Well, maybe I shouldn’t say anything.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Are you sure you want to hear? You won’t write some article about me?” He laughed.
I didn’t like how relaxed he was with me.
“Sureshji, don’t get mad, okay? In other circumstances I wouldn’t be telling you this, but look, here we are, guests of the government, in such close quarters and all for who knows how long. Rumila and I were . . . together a few years back.” He took long drags from his cigarette.
I knew Rumila had lived in Pokhara and been involved with a children’s organization there, though she hadn’t talked much about it. I remembered her saying that although she enjoyed the breathtakingly close view of the Annapurna Mountains, she found the community a bit too insular.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Mohan said.
“Rumila already told me about a man from her past,” I lied. “We don’t hide anything from each other.”
“That’s good,” he said. “But you know, what’s written in fate will come to pass. We talked about getting married, having children, but here we are.”
He had to be lying. If they had in fact talked about getting married, surely Rumila would have told me about him. “So, what ended your relationship?” I asked. I found myself beginning to feel weak and disoriented. “I mean, she told me her side, but what’s yours?”
“What did she tell you?” he asked. The cigarette had burned down to a stub between his thick fingers.
I fumbled for an answer.
“That’s all right,” he said with a smile. “Some things do have to remain private between couples. She left me because of all my political work. Frankly, I’m surprised she’s with you now.”
I said nothing. I didn’t want to hear his voice anymore. In fact, I didn’t want him near me anymore, so I closed my eyes and pretended I was alone.
That night, on the hard bed, I was unable to fall asleep, and all night long I watched the plastic tarp fastened to the ceiling to prevent leaks. Occasionally I heard Mohan cry, “Enough, enough,” in his sleep.
The sun was blindingly bright the next morning. Mohan had woken up just as the guard came to our cell to let me out. “I hope I didn’t say anything untoward last night,” he said, and I shook my head. He asked me to call his wife in Pokhara and let her know that he was fine. “I’ll pay you for the call,” he said. “No need,” I said. “I’ll let her know.” He handed me a piece of paper with his number on it when the guard wasn’t looking.
I was tired, but I didn’t want to go home and just fall asleep, so I wandered around the Dharahara area for a while. I assumed my mother had told Rumila of my arrest, and she probably expected me to visit her at work, but this was my first arrest since we’d met, and I didn’t know how she’d react. The last few times I’d participated in protests, which sometimes turned violent, she’d grown distressed and irritable. “Every time you go to these things, I hold my breath.”
Her concern made me smile, and I’d say, “Not to worry. Nothing will happen to me.”
She’d remain upset for a few hours, then things would slowly get back to normal. I realized then that I actually liked the idea of her worrying about my well-being. Perhaps one of these days, I found myself thinking, we’d talk about marrying.
But today I couldn’t get my conversation with Mohan out of my mind, and I wasn’t quite ready to see her, so I went to New Road, where, under the big pipal tree, I scanned the headlines of the day’s newspapers. National Freedom carried my arrest on the front page, and I noted that another paper ran a small paragraph about Mohan’s arrest. All the papers mentioned the big rally that the opposition parties, including mine, had planned for next week, which was to be followed by a two-day countrywide bandh. I walked around New Road, simply trying to focus on the sights and sounds around me. The area was already crowded, as people rushed to their offices or entered Ranjana Cinema Hall for the morning show or headed to the supermarket. I walked toward Indrachowk, then to Asan and the noisy vegetable market there. By the time I emerged in Ranipokhari, I was so exhausted that I was stumbling.
I slipped into a restaurant and sat there, drinking cup after cup of tea. The more I dwelled on Mohan’s words, the more sense they made. I could understand why Rumila avoided talking about her old flame. Maybe she still thought about him. No wonder she insisted that the past was useless.
I made my way back to Jhonche, to the party office that also housed the newspaper, and for the rest of the day I worked, even though I could barely keep my eyes open. Toward evening, Rumila called, asking me why I hadn’t phoned her or come by her office. I replied brusquely that I had too much work to do. For a moment she was silent, then she asked, “Did something happen in jail?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “You don’t want to talk about it?”
“There’s not much to talk about. Anyway, I’m too busy.”
In a slightly hurt voice she told me that my mother had been worried all day and kept calling her. She said that I should at least phone her at home. “So I guess that’s it?” she said. “Should I just hang up?”
When I didn’t answer, she said, “Okay, then, I don’t know what’s—”
“Wait,” I said, suddenly afraid of losing the chance to see her.
“I have to go,” she said. “I’m getting ready to go to a friend’s birthday party.”
“I’m not invited?”
“You want to come?”
“If you’ll take me.”
She said she’d drop by my house in about an hour, so I finished up at the office and caught a taxi home. There, my mother gave me a sound scolding until Rumila appeared. “I’m telling you,” she said to Rumila, “I am at my wits’ end with this boy. He spends the night in jail, and I’m the one who doesn’t sleep.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Rumila said, her face strained.
In the taxi on the way to the party, I hoped that she’d pursue the matter of whether anything had happened to me in jail, but she remained quiet. I slipped my hand into hers, and she looked at me. “Don’t do this to your mother,” she said. “You have to understand how she worries.”
