The City Son (12 page)

Once in a while Amit shows up in Bangemudha when Tarun is there. He enters tottering or with glazed eyes. He, too, has lost much weight, so he’s begun to resemble his father. In Amit, the Masterji has found the perfect person to vent his anger. His face becomes contorted, and he froths at the mouth when he sees Amit. “Take a look, take a look, what a worthless fellow. Are you happy? Are you a tourist in this house? And what nourishment have you imbibed today? Milk? Juice? Vitamins?” Most of the time Amit ignores him, but once in a while he says, “Shut your trap, old man.” The Masterji then launches into another rant.

When Amit sees Tarun, he breaks into a large grin.
“Bhai,”
he says and stumbles toward him and gives him a big, sentimental hug. “And how is my big-man brother? You’re the only one, I swear, that I’m glad to see in this house anymore.” He doesn’t let go, and either Tarun has to pry him away from his body, or Didi has to say, “If you don’t
get off him soon he’s going to start stinking like you.” Amit loosens his grip and stares at Didi. Some days he smiles, as if to say,
What a wonderful creature she is
.

Amit draws Tarun aside, to a corner, and whispers,
“Bhai, alikati paisa bhaye dena ho. Sarai marka pareko chha.”

Tarun knows what the money is for, but he doesn’t demur, only asks how much Amit needs.

Amit acts surprised, “
Arré!
That I don’t need to tell you. Whatever his highness can afford to give as baksheesh to his servant, the servant will accept.”

“One rupee?”

“
Bhai
, why joke with me?”

Tarun dips into his pocket and withdraws a hundred rupees and gives them to him.

Amit takes the money and genuflects, then slips it into his pocket.

“Fleecing your brother?” Didi says.

“If it were up to him,” the Masterji chimes in, “he’d rob each and every one of us blind.”

Amit tilts his head toward the Masterji while winking at Tarun, as though to say:
You know what the old fart is about
. Then he tilts his head toward Didi and moves his eyebrows up and down at Tarun while grinning lewdly. “La,
la, masti chha, bhai
,” he says to Tarun, slapping him hard on the shoulder. “You have the life.” His hand is still as tough as iron, and it hurts.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

M
AHESH UNCLE KNOWS
that Saturday afternoons are reserved for Bangemudha, yet it’s on a Saturday that he invites his guests. He informs Tarun only that morning. “Some people are coming over for a visit, Tarun,” Mahesh Uncle says as Tarun is about to head to the office, from where he’ll go to Bangemudha.

“Do you need to go to Putalisadak today?” Mahesh Uncle asks.

“Yes, I must take care of a couple of urgent matters. The bourbon shipment is also arriving this morning.”

“Then come home around noon, okay?”

“Today is my day to go to Bangemudha.”

“Well, come home, meet these people, and then go, okay?”

“Who are they?”

“Some friends of mine, not a big thing, but they really want to meet you.” Observing Tarun’s reluctance, he says, “Just for about an hour, then you can vanish.”

“I was really hoping to go straight to Bangemudha from Putalisadak.”

“Just one hour, okay, Tarun? I’ve already told them, and it’ll be awkward if you’re not here.”

He doesn’t understand who these people are, why Mahesh Uncle is insistent. But he says okay, thinking that he’ll just call from the office later and say he can’t come. But Mahesh Uncle phones him twice in Putalisadak to make sure that he’s coming. After a quick trip to the airport, where he finds that he’ll have to wait until next week to release his goods from customs, he returns home.

Mahesh Uncle is on the phone in his room upstairs, so Tarun waits in the living room. Sanmaya is in the kitchen, cooking furiously, and he wonders why Mahesh Uncle is being coy about the visitors. He goes up to tell Mahesh Uncle that he’s already late for Bangemudha so he has to leave. Mahesh Uncle puts his palm over the phone receiver and says, “It’s them on the phone. They’re on their way and will be here any minute now. Please.” Tarun goes to his room and lies down. He closes his eyes: by this time he’d already be in Bangemudha, and already Sumit and his father would have left the house, and he’d be alone with Didi. His body would be entangled with hers. He can taste her, and the ache in him for her is slowly rising. His hand
moves down below his navel, but he can’t arouse himself now, not with these guests of Mahesh Uncle coming. He has to save himself for later.

“Tarun! Tarun! Babu,
kahan harayo timi
?” He hears his mother call his name but her voice is blocked by a red mask with sharp white fangs. Whimpering, he opens his eyes. It’s Sanmaya, her wrinkled face close to his, whispering, “The guests are here!”

He stares wide eyed at her in befuddlement.

“The guests. You are to go down immediately!”

He’s still in his tie and shirt, but when he stands and looks at the mirror he discover that his hair is a mess. He opens his door and sneaks toward the bathroom. From the landing he hears Mahesh Uncle talking to the guests in the living room. Mahesh Uncle spots Tarun and signals him to hurry up. In the bathroom Tarun freshens up, combs his hair, then goes down.

As soon as he reaches the last step, he knows exactly what this is about. His impulse is to retreat upstairs or to quickly exit through the front door. But their eyes are already on him: Mahesh Uncle’s, the father’s, the mother’s, and the girl’s—yes, the girl. She’s dressed in an orange sari; she has a serious face; she is pretty.

The father of the girl stands, then moves forward to shake Tarun’s hand. The mother does a stiff
namaste
, and her eyes have taken in everything, from his crumpled shirt to the slouching posture. The smiling Sanmaya carefully carries a tray of tea and coffee and juice and biscuits and fritters.
She is wearing her best dhoti, one she wears only for special occasions. The elders engage in idle chat while the tea and biscuits are consumed. The girl sneaks glances at him. In Bangemudha, Didi must be watching the clock and wondering why he’s not there. He can picture her dismay rising.

The conversation turns to Tarun. “I hear you’re already handling most aspects of Mahesh Enterprises,” the girl’s father says between slurps of tea, the loudness of which elicits gentle elbow jabs from the mother.

“I’m doing what I can.”

“And he’s doing it remarkably well,” Mahesh Uncle says. “I just wish we were doing better than we are, but, Shankarji, you know what the market is like. Still, I expect us to get roaring within a year or two under Tarun’s able leadership.” He smacks Tarun on the back.

It’s a loud smack, and Tarun winces, which brings a smile to the girl’s face.

“And you finished your intermediate recently?” Mahesh Uncle asks the girl.

She replies in a soft, sonorous voice, “Yes, now just waiting for the results.”

“Tarun,” Mahesh Uncle says. “Why don’t you take Rukma out to the garden? You young people will have things in common to talk about. Whereas we fogies”—this elicits laughter—“will stay here and discuss our old-age concerns.”

“Today was Bangemudha—”

“Go, go, it’ll do both of you good to get some fresh air.”

His reclusive tendencies have been a source of worry for Mahesh Uncle, Tarun knows this. “You should go out with your friends sometimes,” Mahesh Uncle has said in the past. When Tarun spends long hours in the office, Mahesh Uncle says that the business doesn’t need that much attention. “Just leave it be, Tarun. Some of these things will take care of themselves. Or let the managers handle them. I don’t want you to lose all of your good years.” Tarun doesn’t tell him that he likes the solitude that work provides. He’s unable to hold on to friends for long; they simply drift away.

“
Girlfriend-shirlfried chhaina
?” Mahesh Uncle had asked on several occasions, pretending he was joking.

“I don’t have time.”

“A young man like you—aren’t you interested in girls?”

“I find them …” He didn’t complete the sentence, for nothing that he could say would sound right. Besides, he himself doesn’t know what he finds them. He finds them an enigma, a mystery, or he finds his own emotions about them a swirl of confusion.
“Alli kasto kasto lagchha,”
he said, which was a vague enough expression of discomfort that it would be interpreted in numerous ways. Then he said something that sounded right, that he might have read in a magazine, or heard in a movie. “Besides, the right woman has to come along.”

Obviously Mahesh Uncle had been mulling that over, for soon thereafter he asked, “How will you know about the right woman without experimenting?”

“I’ll know.”

“What if I look for someone right on your behalf?”

Tarun hadn’t answered.

Now this.

He and the girl step out to the Japanese garden. The day is somewhat cloudy, with the thunder rolling lazily in the distant hills. “What a nice garden,” she says. Her face is slightly more open now, as though someone has let her out of her prison cell for fresh air. “You must spend quite some time here,” she says to Tarun.

Tarun nods, says, “Yes, it’s pleasant here.” But one is expected to say more, so he says that he’s so busy with work that he rarely comes out. He is aware of his mother’s presence at the window, watching them. She must have been instructed to stay in her room by Mahesh Uncle, lest the girl’s parents panic. It occurs to him that his mother might know more about this than he does. She might have been informed of who is coming, and given how she lurks behind the window she seems to realize that someone of consequence has been brought to the house.

“You seem lost in thoughts,” the girl says.

“I have a slight headache.”

“Not feeling well?”

“Just a small headache.” He checks his watch unobtrusively, but she’s noticed, because she says, “Do you have somewhere to go?”

He says no, and it’s clear that she doesn’t believe him. His
chest tightens at the thought of what Didi is doing right now: she’s sitting on the bed, facing the door, waiting for him.

They are standing next to a seating area with chairs and a table, but neither of them sits down. Her arms are crossed; she looks pensive, and she’s avoiding his eyes. The silence stretches. Finally, the girl says that they should go back inside.

“Your wish,” he says, “but we head back in now, those people in there will be scared witless.”

His choice of words elicits a tiny smile. He asks her whether she likes the city.

“Yes, I like the city,” she says. “Why shouldn’t I? Don’t you?”

To this he answers that he doesn’t have a strong feeling either way.

“Then why ask me,” she inquires, “when it doesn’t seem to matter much to you?”

“I was just making conversation.”

“Don’t feel compelled to be chatty,” she says with pursed lips. “We can stand here silently until you deem it appropriate to go back inside without scaring anyone. Witless.”

He suspects Sanmaya is also peering out from the kitchen window that has a partial view of the garden. And in all likelihood Mahesh Uncle and this girl’s parents are also stretching their necks to see how the two are faring. “Please sit,” he says. “I’m not in a hurry to get anywhere.”

She softens a bit at his tone. But her arms are still crossed at her chest. “It’s not easy,” she says, “this type of meeting.”

“We might as well sit down for a few moments.”

She does, slowly, as though she’s unsure of what he’ll say next and she might have to simply stand and leave.

“What aspirations do you have in life?” he asks clumsily. The words are very difficult for him because he has to pull them out from a dark pit inside his head. “I mean, what do you want to do once you complete your studies?”

She has sharp, intelligent eyes. There’s also a type of sadness etched around them. Her controlled manner of sitting, the pulling together of her body, makes her seem as if she’s posing for a portrait by a painter. Tarun has nothing to give her, and she’ll soon be disappointed in him—of this he is certain. She’s saying something to him, and he doesn’t hear. “I’m sorry?” he says.

“You’re not even listening to me,” she says. “What’s the point?”

“No, no, it’s not that.”

“I was saying that we live privileged lives. Well, at least you seem to live a privileged life, no? Is there anything you lack?” She waves her hand to mean the garden, the house. Then she’s conciliatory. “I don’t mean just you. I also meant to include me. We don’t lack anything, yet there are thousands of people in this country who are leading painful lives because they lack something.”

“You can’t always measure—”

“Doesn’t it amaze you that we happened to be born in one of the poorest countries on this earth”—he has a distinct impression that she’s recited this combination of
words often, to friends, at parties—“and here we are, can we truly, truly say that we have lacked anything for even a single day? Tell me honestly.”

“Well, I—”

“I want to do something—something big that’ll shatter this world, shatter me, shatter everyone around me, change me completely. But then I feel that I’m not up to it. It’s just my little self going around in circles inside me, like a dog chasing its tail.”