An Obedient Father (25 page)

"You believe in nothing."

We walked to the B-block bus stop without talking. The silence began making me nervous. Mr. Tuli could choose not to deal with me simply because he did not like me. After all, the money I was offering the BJP was not going into his pocket.

Near the bus stop an ambulance was standing under a neem tree. Several cars, jeeps, and vans were parked beside it. There was a water cart surrounded by funeral goers. The ambulance back was opened and Ajay's coffin was slid onto the floor. The bearers and Mr. Gupta climbed in and sat on the benches which ran along the sides of the ambulance.

"How much money?" Mr. Tuli asked. We were standing next to a white Ambassador sedan. People were within two or three feet of us and I imagined they could hear.

"Five lakhs." Being asked about money increased my confidence.

"Have you no shame or pride?" he asked, looking at me.

"I am afraid." Mr. Tuli's clean white hair, his broad, sturdy shoulders irritated me. "Will you promise me?" He did not say anything. "What use is it hating me now? The election is lost."

"Are you coming to the crematorium?"

"No." When this did not lead to an answer, I hissed, "Mr. Gupta steals from children. He should be hijacking school buses and stealing lunch money." Mr. Tuli emitted a startled giggle. "Do you want to give him the BJP's support?" Car and van doors were shutting. "Promise me no corruption charges. No beatings."

Mr. Tuli and I looked at each other for a minute. "Yes."

I was so relieved I thought for a moment that I had not heard correctly. I gave Mr. Tuli the bank deposit books.

Other than telling Anita what had happened, I had nothing to do that evening. I went onto the roof and stood watching the sky tilt from blue into red. It was the first time in a month and a half that I did not think I should be accomplishing something. There was a breeze. The day's traffic noises were easing. I thought of my improving health and all the years ahead of me. I had expected to feel guilt, but did not.

We had dinner, lentils and rice, on the roof I was cheerful. "We're eating in the dark because your mother doesn't want us to see what's in the food," I said to Asha. Anita had been with Pavan most of the day and kept staring at things, the ground, a plate, and blinking slowly.

We watched the Hindi and English news on television. Anita had to be told about my betrayal because Ajay's funeral ceremonies were continuing the next day and she was supposed to attend. By then the BJP would probably have informed Mr. Gupta the party was withdrawing his nomination and he would have learned what I had done. Anita and Pavan's new friendship made me afraid that she would be angry at me instead of glad I had protected us. The television was turned off I did not tell her what I had done. Anita and Asha went upstairs to their cots.

In the morning we ate breakfast. Asha went to school. Anita dressed for the next part of the funeral.

I was sitting on my cot in my underwear and undershirt. I also had socks on because I kept thinking maybe Mr. Gupta had not learned and I should go. "Why aren't you dressed?" Anita asked from the common room.

"I gave the money to the BJP and Congress." There was no need to identify what money. Anita entered my room and stood before me. Her lips were sunk at the ends. "Seven lakhs to Mr. Maurya for Congress and five to Mr. Tuli, who works for the BJP and is reliable." Anita kept looking at me. "I'm sorry," I said.

Anita turned and left. A little later I heard the living-room fan whirl.

Neither Anita nor I went to Mr. Gupta's.

That evening Mr. Gupta called. I was in my room, and Anita and Asha were on the roof getting laundry. Only after sitting on the sofa did I pick up the phone. I had been planning for this.

The ordinary introductory hellos let me understand that Mr. Gupta was not sure what I had done. "The BJP is not going to sponsor me," he said.

I waited and then said, "I know."

"You know?" Mr. Gupta sounded surprised.

"The BJP came here yesterday and told me. They took all the bankbooks. They said the money had been raised in their name."

"Why didn't you phone me? You should have phoned immediately"

"It was done. What good would phoning you be?"

Mr. Gupta was stunned for a moment by this answer. The odd-ness of my reply, I believed, might just possibly lead him to believe I had not acted willingly. Mr. Gupta began shouting. "You think I can't count. I know. I understand. You sold me into slavery"

"Several men from the BJP came here last night. They told me."

"I can have you killed."

"They told me I had to give them the books or they'd put me in jail. You are like my older brother," I said. Anita came into the room and I repeated everything for her to hear. "There were four BJP men. They said that you weren't their candidate anymore and if I didn't give them the money, they had a police jeep in the alley to take me away in. They said they would take me, shoot me in the chest, and throw my corpse in a ditch. Anita and my granddaughter were crying."

Anita leaned into the phone. "Guptaji, it's true. That's what happened. What could we do?" I was amazed by her joining me. "One of them grabbed my neck. Asha, my daughter, was crying."

Mr. Gupta hung up. I put the receiver in its cradle. Anita smiled nervously and sat on the bed. My heart was racing. We did not talk for several minutes.

Anita's lips began turning down. "I should go see Pavan. Maybe Mr. Gupta would have a harder time doing something then."

"I'm sorry"

Anita did not respond. Her lips pulled the rest of her face down. "What could you do?" she said.

I could have never gotten involved with Mr. Gupta. I could have withdrawn when Mr. Bajwa appeared. But Anita did not point these things out.

That night excitement and joy roused me out of sleep. Half awake, I did not understand where the pleasure was coming from, but I wanted it to be morning and for me to be drinking tea and hanging my laundry on the balcony ledge. It took several breaths for my thoughts to clear. Then I understood my happiness was from Anita's taking my side. Maybe Ajay's murder had frightened her with how complicated and violent the world was, and perhaps my confessions had made me appear less dangerous and readied her for some sort of reconciliation. Whatever the reasons, things were different.

My room was silent and dark. The flat beyond my door and the city outside the flat were also silent and dark. I lay on the cot and felt the world exhaling with me.

TWO days after Mr. Gupta's nomination was withdrawn, our flat was raided by income tax agents. The doorbell rang. Asha got up from the common-room floor, where we were eating breakfast. The bell could have been a holy man begging or the man who threw newspapers at our door, but I felt my attention arching. I had asked Krishna to come with his boys and stay with us because I had been worried about violence. They had brought shotguns wrapped in olive duck-cloth that they kept under my cot. Most of the day they spent lying on their sides on the floors of various rooms, playing cards and smoking rolls of bitter-smelling bidis.

"Income tax," a man's voice called from Anita and Asha's bedroom. Immediately five men sped into the common room. Munna and Raju jumped up. All the tax people wore the jackets and ties of office workers. I was frightened even though I was certain there was nothing to find in the flat. "Who is Ram Karan?" someone asked, and I stepped forward. A man passed me several identification cards. The stamps on the cards were accurate, but I showed them to Krishna to flatter him. Even as he was examining them, the income tax people spread through the flat. Munna and Raju followed them to see that no evidence was planted.

"Who are they?" asked the man who had given us the identification cards. He was in his early thirties and had hair only along the sides of his scalp.

"My nephews."

"Guns," somebody shouted.

"They are registered," Munna answered.

Krishna went to join his sons.

We moved into the living room, and I signed a document attesting to my name and residence. "It's all right," I whispered to Anita, who sat beside me on the sofa. I brought out receipts for the television, refrigerator, and some of the furniture. I was once offered a scooter as a bribe. I was glad I am frightened of driving. All my receipts were from local stores, which diminished suspicion.

The tax people went through the flat taking off the covers of pillowcases and poking in the flour and lentil tins. They turned upside down the can in the latrine that we use to flush. We tried to make sure they were never out of sight.

As minutes passed and nothing was discovered, Raju became bolder. "We're so poor, we hope you plant evidence."

"Shut up," said the man who had given me the identification cards.

When the tax people began gathering in the living room as if there was nothing to find, my fright eased enough for me to speak out. "I am a poor man. This is a registered slum," I said.

The raid took a little more than an hour. When they left, Krishna and his sons returned to their breakfast while Anita and I cleaned the flat. Looking around her bedroom, which appeared no different from before, she spoke to herself, "I'll mop today."

I was still uncertain of her tolerance of me. "There's nothing in the flat to find."

We ate our now-cold breakfast.

I went to work. I had been at the office for twenty minutes when Anita phoned. "There's a tax raid," she said. "I told them there was one two hours ago but they don't know about it. They have identification also."

"Should I come home?"

"No. They're just standing and talking in the living room."

"It's Congress and the BJP seeing if there's any more money to be had."

"At least the neighbors will think we're rich," she said.

I went to Asha's school that day because I wanted to comfort her if she was worried about the tax raid. But the way Asha talked of the raid, it appeared that she thought of it as an adventure.

That evening the man who tapped our phone called. "Mr. Karan," he said, "why didn't you come to me with the money you wanted to donate. I could have helped."

I wondered who this man was and whether he could still harm me. "I needed to get things done quickly."

"I wouldn't have been slow."

"I am sorry"

"I'm sorry, too."

The man remained on the line. "I wasn't thinking." He sighed and did not hang up. I thought he might want money. "I'm poor now."

When I did not follow this up, he abruptly said, "Okay. Tata," and clicked off It was an hour before the dial tone returned, and at first I believed disconnecting my phone line was going to be his revenge.

Krishna and his sons stayed for three weeks. Asha and Raju would play badminton for hours on the roof After they left, Anita and I began playing badminton with Asha. I played with her only if Anita was also on the roof

Idid not talk to Mr. Gupta again after I told him that all his campaign money was gone. I did not hear from Mr. Bajwa either. I had stopped thinking of Mr. Bajwa when his wife phoned.

The one phone for the junior officers is on a table in a corner. I had been sitting at Mr. Mishra's desk talking and got up to answer the ringing. As soon as Mrs. Bajwa introduced herself, I knew why she must be calling.

"My husband hasn't been home in three weeks," she said. "I haven't seen him." Mrs. Bajwa sounded both angry and afraid.

"He hasn't phoned here."

"I've called Mr. Gupta many times. He hasn't telephoned back." Mr. Gupta had not been to the office since the BJP withdrew its nomination. A corruption investigation had been started against him. As part of this, I had been interviewed and asked to mail in a form. "Perhaps you can help."

I immediately assumed that Mr. Bajwa was dead. I looked at his desk. Its top was bare. Mr. Bajwa was younger than I. "I haven't talked to him."

"Do you know where he could be?"

"You know what happened with the election?" She did not, so I told her of the withdrawal of the nomination and Ajay's death. When I told her about Ajay she began crying.

"My husband was emotional. I'm worried because of that. You know he became religious after he began being investigated? And then he stopped being religious after Mr. Gupta found work for him. His thoughts run around. That's why I'm worried." I wondered if she was suggesting suicide. The idea of killing yourself was so strange to me then that I believed Mrs. Bajwa did not want to imagine her husband assaulted and unprotected during his last moments and so was explaining things through suicide.

"Is there a guru he used to go to?" I suggested.

"I've already talked to him."

"Do you want me to talk with Mr. Gupta for you?"

"Yes."

I phoned Mr. Gupta as soon as we hung up, and left a message.

Mrs. Bajwa never called again.

Several days later Mr. Mishra learned that Mrs. Bajwa had appeared at Mr. Gupta's house and forced him to meet her. When he denied knowing what had happened to Mr. Bajwa, she became hysterical, claiming that Mr. Gupta was lying because he hated Mr. Bajwa and did not want to comfort his wife.

One Sunday afternoon, six or seven weeks after this, Mrs. Gupta and Mr. Maurya came to the flat. I had been asleep on my cot. Anita woke me and I went to the living room. Mrs. Gupta was sitting on the sofa holding her hands together in her lap. "Your friend has been kidnapped." I did not know whom she was referring to. "Your friend's wife has come to ask for help."

I sat across from them. Anita stood near me.

Mr. Maurya explained. There is a small lake in Model Town around which people walk in the morning and after dinner for exercise. In the morning people arrive on scooters and in cars but wearing bathrobes so people might think they live on the lake. Mr. and Mrs. Gupta had just begun their stroll when a police jeep pulled up beside them. Mr. Gupta was handcuffed and hurried into the jeep. When Mrs. Gupta called the police twenty minutes later with the jeep's license plate, she was told there was no such jeep. The kidnappers had phoned and said they wanted ten million rupees.

"I have no money," I told Mr. Maurya.

I knew Congress or whoever he was working for was trying to find out whether I had more money which I hadn't turned over.

"Think of your friend," Mrs. Gupta said. She had a square face and a round body. The brown sari she wore made her appear even smaller than she was.

"She called me," Mr. Maurya said, "because she thought I might be able to help sell her house quickly."

"I swear," I said.

Mrs. Gupta shouted, "The money you have is not yours."

That night Mr. Gupta's body was found in a ditch behind a school. The kidnappers had spoken with Mrs. Gupta only once, and this convinced me that the murder was not for money but for revenge.

For weeks afterward I had dreams that someone was in my room and was going to kill me. Once, I woke up screaming "Help!" but neither Anita nor Asha came to see what had happened.

Of course, after Mr. Gupta's death, the corruption investigation against him vanished. The form that I had been told to fill out and mail in asked questions such as how I first met Mr. Gupta and whether I had any knowledge of potentially illegal activities in which he might have been involved. After Mr. Gupta's death, I kept the form in my desk for a week, then threw it away. I shivered when I took it out, as if I were picking up a hunk of hair and clotted blood.

Mr. Maurya came to the office one September morning and asked whether I wanted to collect money from Delhi's schools for the BJP Party, which had won Delhi. Without Mr. Gupta, the various groups within the education department, Hindi, English, Science, had begun collecting money separately. Principals were complaining about this. I told him I did not want to collect bribes.

"Why?"

"I'm afraid," I answered, and Mr. Maurya laughed.

When he left, he gave me ten thousand rupees. "A tip," he explained.

K utumn came, short-sleeved shirts during the day and /Nk sleeveless sweaters at night and in the early morning. During the summer, you start to think that everything bad comes from the heat and so begin believing that once the weather changes, the dark thorns in your spit will no longer be there. The temperature drops, yet you have only to rub your face at any time of the day and a film of grime rolls up onto your fingertips. Living in Delhi is like residing in a coal miner's lung.

The BJP won Delhi, but Congress formed a coalition majority in Parliament. Narasimha Rao, a seat warmer, a turtle of a man, someone who smacks his lips so much that I am sure he wears dentures, became Prime Minister and somehow held on to power because everyone expected him to die and spent their time preparing for that. And because he was so solidly dull, it took us a while to focus on him and discover that he, too, was a shameless thief After he began to implement the World Bank's demands. Parliament members got into fistfights but finally agreed to the proposed budget. The day the BJP officially took control of Delhi, there was a swarm of trucks full of yelling loyalists racing around the city. Rajesh Khanna was shown on TV swaddled in geranium necklaces and was never seen or heard from again.

When I stopped seeing Mr. Gupta's posters, I finally felt that whatever could be resolved had been, and with passing time came a sense of having swindled fate.

Life continued as before. I saw Asha at her school several times a week. I paid Anita two thousand rupees at the start of the month. My weeks were so easy that I wondered whether I was not paying attention. At work, I napped and chatted with Mr. Mishra. When I arrived home, I drank tea and, before the weather changed too much, lay on the common-room floor with the radio.

After the nightly news, Asha continued wanting to hear stories. Because I had no more confessions, I began telling her about my past. I told her how when the king of the region that included Beri died, all the men and boys had to have their heads shaved. I told her about the young student who had lived down the alley from Radha and me when we were just married and who was possessed by a German ghost. Anita would be with us in the common room, listening. She appeared bored most days, and I was not sure whether she listened for entertainment or because she didn't want me to be alone with Asha.

Searching my life for interesting events, I began realizing how sprawling my years had been. Recounting the past somehow made it more focused, and this, after months of confusion, felt like one more source of wealth. There was a teacher I knew who went to Canada and returned for a holiday with a white woman. He was too cheap to stay in a hotel and they stayed with Radha and me for a week. The white woman was so afraid of getting sick that the only thing she ate was the chocolates that she had brought with her. Once, while the couple was out of the flat, Kusum opened the woman's suitcase and, along with Rajesh and Anita, swallowed five or six large chocolate bars. When the woman returned and discovered what had happened, she wept as though she had learned her mother was dead.

Asha laughed and talked to the characters in my stories while I recounted them. Anita listened silently.

Sometimes Asha would get angry at Anita's quietness. "Why don't you tell me a story?" she asked once.

"I don't have stories."

"Why?" It was obvious by then that Asha resented the difference between my gregariousness and her mother's reticence.

"I haven't lived as long as your grandfather."

"When do you think you'll be old enough to tell a story?"

Anita shrugged. Now that her anger was gone, she often appeared unguarded, crumpled, an abandoned house dissolving into the ground. I was afraid of openly defending Anita because I was afraid any help from me might appear unfair. In a just world I should be the one needing support. Listening to them, I thought that my good fortune had been intended for Anita but had come to me by mistake. The superstitious part of me shivered.

"What's wrong with you?" Asha demanded.

"Don't you love me?" Anita asked.

Occasionally Asha was kind. "I love you most in the world."

I felt that offering Anita comfort directly would be like a thief offering solace to his victim. But I tried giving Anita distractions. I brought home magazines and books. Anita read them, but she had no real interest. She could put a book down in the middle of reading it and only remember to go back when I asked her to tell me its story.

Before, Anita had been curious about current events. Now she no longer read the newspaper. I asked what she thought of Narasimha Rao and she answered, "We have tried idiots and villains as rulers, now we'll try not having a ruler at all." Her anger, therefore, had not vanished, nor her wit, but something had removed the banks through which they coursed and they appeared still.

There were occasions when Anita appeared engaged and happy with Asha. These were rare, but to encourage attempts at them, I bought playing cards. Anita refused to join us.

Anita loved visitors, though. When Rajesh came home, she was so happy that she followed him around the flat. From the concern she showed him—Do you have a heater? How many blankets do you have?—I realized that she was enormously lonely. Rajesh was too suspicious for such attention, though. He would turn her questions upside down and shake them to see if something dangerous might fall out and scuttle across the floor. Then his answer might be "I have enough blankets."

Anita started a brief correspondence with Kusum. They exchanged several pale blue aerograms with Anita's writing tiny and crammed with information and Kusum's long, easy sentences having such spaces in and between them that it appeared as if the details that give meaning had been sieved away. "You live on a hill? How high is it? Is yours the only house on the hill?" Anita wrote. "Do you come down the hill on a road, or on steps, or on a path? A station wagon? Is that a car or is that a wagon with horses? What do you wear to work?" When Anita told me a letter had arrived, she sounded as if she were boasting.

Kusum took longer and longer before answering and then stopped altogether. I wondered if Anita appeared needy or belligerent to her or whether Kusum just did not want to make the effort.

A few times, Anita took Asha and visited relatives around Delhi. They rented comic books for Asha and somebody was sent to buy sweets, but years of jealousy over Rajinder's success had made them see Anita as arrogant, and there was little Anita could do to win their affection other than beg.