The Hero's Walk (39 page)

“Are they rehearsing the march of the demons?” called Ammayya, dragging her chair closer to the living-room door.

Nirmala realized that her rhythm was off slightly and the students were uncertainly going through the steps. She wiped her eyes and nodded approvingly at the girl who was to play King Rama. She performed the hero's walk to perfection—graceful, dignified, measured. But the one who played Ravana, the demon king, was awkward and restrained. “Stamp harder,” she urged. “Remember you are also a great king, full of valour. But you are vain, and that is what sets you apart from the hero. Thrust out your chest, child. Twirl your moustache. Flex your muscles.” Nirmala put down her baton and demonstrated. “Like this, and this. Exaggerate your walk, frown and stamp. You are showing off your strength.”

“Vanara sena!” called Ammayya. “This is the monkey brigade; look how they prance.” She giggled and rocked.

The dance class continued, ignoring the old lady, who soon grew bored of passing comments that stimulated no response.

“Where is Putti?” she demanded. “I have a headache. I want her to rub some oil in my hair. Is she on the terrace again? What does she do there all day? Has she forgotten that Gowramma's proposal is arriving this evening? Isn't she going to dress up?”

Nirmala was relieved when the class was finally over. Ammayya's fretting all the way through had grated on her nerves. When Putti drifted dreamily down the stairs, Nirmala turned on her. “Your mother has been eating my head for two hours. Why aren't you getting ready? Nobody in this house cares about anyone but themselves. Selfish, every single one of you.”

Putti gave her a startled look. “Are you angry with me, Akka?”

“Angry? Oh no,” said Nirmala borrowing some of Sripathi's sarcasm. “Why should I be angry about running around doing everything while all of you are relaxing? Your brother hasn't come
home yet, your nephew has also disappeared. And you sit on the terrace all evening listening to that fellow sing songs. Why should I get angry, tell me?”

“Who is singing songs?” Ammayya pounced on Nirmala's words. She looked sharply at her daughter and back at Nirmala. “Puttamma, what is going on? Nirmala?”

“Ask your daughter,” said Nirmala, stamping into the kitchen to set the coffee percolating for the prospective groom.

Ammayya raised her voice. “Puttamma, I am asking you once and for all, who is singing to you?”

“Nobody, Ammayya. Who will sing to
me
?” asked Putti. “Now stop talking, and watch your favourite program.” She clicked the television on and immediately the room was washed with a blue light. “I'll get dressed.”

Ammayya gave her a sharp look. She smelled something in the air—ripe and bubbling like jackfruit left out in the summer sun. “My darling baby,” she murmured, shuffling over to sit before the television. “Is there something that you want to tell me? I know there is. I might be old, but I am not an idiot.”

“There is nothing—I am telling you, no? It is cool on the terrace, and I can't smell Munnuswamy's cows up there. That is why I go, no other reason. Nirmala is angry with me and simply saying all these things.”

Ammayya examined her face closely for a few moments, and then settled down to watch her soap opera.

Soon she was absorbed in the antics of three beautiful sisters who were all in love with the same man. The hero was a plump fellow whose corrugated wig sat on his head like the roof of a poorly constructed house.

“Ayyo! Ma, what rubbish they show these days!” she exclaimed, as the hero kissed one of the sisters almost on the mouth, missing it by only millimetres. She was certain, too, that he had touched, yes, touched her bottom. And was now rubbing up against her in a way
that would make a Kopraj Street whore blush. The daring new series had somehow escaped the scissors of the censors.

The mental-hospital therapist, when he arrived, had long strands of thin hair that he had wound into a spiral around his bald pate and pasted down with some heavy oil. A few rebellious strands had come unglued and stuck out behind his left ear like feathers. He had a faintly reptilian habit of rapidly licking his plump lips before he spoke. In the middle of a prolonged discourse on the benefits of basket weaving for severely disturbed hospital patients, Putti noticed that the backs of his hands were heavily marked with stiff black hair. She thought about Gopala's smooth, exciting fingers, about spending the rest of her life being touched by this other man, and made up her mind.

“No,” she said to Ammayya soon after the therapist had left. “I cannot marry him.”

She had expected her mother to agree with her. Ammayya had never found any of the grooms suitable. But to her surprise, her mother defended him. “Good family. Good job. High caste. Why you are being so fussy?”

Putti gave her an astonished look, but a moment later understood the reason for her mother's perversity.

“I suggested he stay in this house with us. Like a son, only he will pay a small rent. He was so happy, poor fellow. He doesn't have any family members of his own, you know.”

“I am not marrying him,” insisted Putti angrily. She gave Nirmala a pleading look, but her sister-in-law merely shrugged and said, “I have to go and bring Nandana from next door. It is getting late.”

There was no sign of the child when Nirmala entered the apartment complex gates. She hurried around the two buildings with fear slowly invading her mind. Please deva, dear god Krishna, let her be safe, she thought, hurriedly mumbling a prayer. So many funny people and strangers in this town, nobody was safe any more. She
remembered rumours of children being stolen and sold to brothels or beggar gangs in the big cities. Why, just the other day there was that big newspaper article about a Nepali girl who had been rescued by the police from a whorehouse in Bombay. Kidnapped from her village when she was seven or eight, and now—ten years later—she had gone home to a family who did not want her back.

She approached the Gurkha at the gate. He saluted her smartly. “Have you seen my grandchild?” asked Nirmala. “She was wearing a red shirt and blue pants.”

“No, memsahib. I saw her playing just five or ten minutes ago, but I don't know where she went. Right there she was.” He pointed to a spot in front of the building with his stick.

“Are you sure she didn't go away while you were not here?”

“Memsahib, the baby didn't leave this place,” the Gurkha insisted. “I have been here all evening, no child left the compound. I didn't even go for a drink of water. I keep all that I need right here.” He tapped a basket on the ground beside his chair. “When I have to answer Mother Nature's call, I lock this gate. Nobody can come or go without my permission, memsahib. I am telling you.”

Nirmala nodded, relieved by the man's assurances, and diffidently approached a group of teenaged boys loitering near the entrance of Block A. They intimidated her, these boisterous young men. Although, she reflected ruefully, strangers probably felt the same way about Arun with his shaggy beard, the shapeless cotton kurta he wore, the worn sandals, the long hair.

“Did you need help, Aunty?” one of the boys asked her.

“I am looking for my granddaughter, Nandana. Small girl wearing a red shirt …”

“The foreign girl,” said another boy. “I saw her with Nithya and Ayesha a little while ago. They were running around the building.”

The boys directed her to the apartments in which the girls lived. Nirmala climbed the narrow stairs slowly, wishing there was a lift to take her to the fourth floor apartment in which Dr. Quadir's
daughter, Ayesha, lived. Very few of the buildings in the town had elevators. What was the point? Electricity came and went as erratically as the wind. The stairs were surprisingly clean and smelled pleasantly of agarbatti burning in various flats, onions frying and rice cooking. Muffled sounds filtered through the doors and mingled to become a soft murmur that rose and fell like the call of the sea. Nirmala wondered about the busy lives that went on behind the closed doors. In each of those little compartments was joy and sorrow, anger and pain, memory and forgetfulness—the salt and sugar of daily existence. Did these people share their feelings and experiences with their neighbours on the same floor? As long as she could remember, Nirmala had lived in large, independent houses full of her own people. First with her parents, her grandparents and her siblings. Then, after marriage, with Ammayya and Putti, Sripathi and her own children. The only time she felt truly alone was when she was surrounded by strangers on the bus, or on the brief walk down to the temple. Once she was inside the temple, it was almost like being in her own home, the number of people she knew there. Why, even the priest was the same one who had performed all the family ceremonies. She wondered how she would feel if Sripathi did indeed sell the house and they moved into apartments. Ah, the freedom of not living in the same house as Ammayya! The thought of Ammayya made Nirmala wonder whether she had remembered to lock her cupboard before leaving the house. She knew that the old woman snooped and for years had not even dreamed of stopping the invasion. The habit of obedience, of respect for one's elders, of subservience, ran strong in her blood. Maya's death had knocked most of those habits out of her. In losing her child, first because of Sripathi's ego, and then to Lord Yama himself, Nirmala had taken more than she could bear. For all the years of being a good wife, daughter-in-law and mother,
this
was how she was rewarded? They had repaid her honest devotion with a kick in the face. Now she no longer cared about obeying Sripathi
without question or hurting Ammayya. Now she dared to lock her steel cupboard that stored her saris, the few pieces of jewellery that she had collected for Maya, photographs, school reports, curls of hair, baby booties and tiny dresses—all memories of her children, of those more innocent times when happiness lay in the sound of their young voices and in the smile of appreciation that Sripathi sent her way when her cooking was exceptionally good. Even a day without a complaint from Ammayya had pleased Nirmala then, because it meant that she had not done anything to offend or irritate her. How could she have been so like a faithful animal? She climbed another floor and her thoughts turned to how she, too, had failed Maya. She remembered how many times during their phone conversations, her daughter had asked, “Mamma, is it okay if I come home?” And she, too afraid of going against Sripathi so completely, had said, “No, not now. Wait, I will speak to your father.” But Nirmala had never spoken to him, intimidated by his solid, impenetrable anger, unwilling to force a confrontation of any kind. She was too much of a coward to face unpleasantness head-on. Always, always, she had taken the easy, conciliatory route.

The next time Maya had begged to come home, she had pushed her away again. Of course, there was nothing she could have done to prevent her death, but at least she could have made a stronger effort to be a part of Maya's life all these years. She could so easily have said, “Come home, child. Bring your family with you. I want to see my grandchild.”

Footsteps clattered down towards her and Nirmala leaned breathlessly against the wall. The Chocobar Ajja descended, accompanied by his servant. He glowered at Nirmala, making her shrink farther into the wall. Dirty old fellow, showing his privates to children! What madness existed in the world these days. She didn't remember being afraid of anything as a child. Was it just a symptom of a world that had lost all morality, or was it a greater awareness of the wickedness that had always lurked beneath the surface of human life?
Maybe in the past nobody spoke of these things, families kept their sins hidden behind curtains of respectability. Nirmala contented herself with giving the old man a dark look as he went by.

By the time she reached the fourth floor, she was panting. She sought to subdue the trembling anxiety that Chocobar Ajja had aroused by reassuring herself that Nandana was most likely lost in play in a friend's home, that she had forgotten the time. She grew furious with the little girl. She would have to scold her. The child seemed to take her for granted, just like everybody else in the house.

Mrs. Quadir, Ayesha's mother, opened the door. A look of surprise crossed her thin, attractive face.

“Mrs. Rao? Come in, come in. You decided to visit us finally?” she asked.

Nirmala had met her often at the vegetable store or the lending library, but although they often exchanged promises to visit, they had never really done so.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” said Nirmala, wiping the perspiration that beaded her forehead and formed a necklace above her lip.

“No-no, what you are saying? No disturbance. Full pleasure only to see you in our house, Mrs. Rao. Come, sit down. What you will have—tea, coffee, juice?”

“Actually, I just came to see if my grandchild was here. She hasn't come home yet, and I was a little worried.”

“No, she didn't come up. Ayesha came home early to finish her homework. These teachers dump everything on them to do at home. I don't know why we have to pay such high school fees and do everything ourselves only. But I will ask her. Don't worry, this is a safe area. Nothing will happen.”

She went into one of the rooms hidden from view by bright cotton curtains and reappeared with Ayesha in tow. “Say good evening to Aunty,” she commanded, pushing the child forward. “She wants to know whether you saw Nandana today.”

“Yes,” muttered the girl nervously, staring at her feet.

“Why you are so shy all of a sudden?” demanded her mother. Then to Nirmala, “This girl is usually going bak-bak like a frog in the monsoon and now look at her! Children are so funny, no?” Again she touched her daughter's shoulder and said, “Do you know where she went? Aunty is worried.”

To their surprise, Ayesha burst into tears. “What is it?” asked her mother sharply. “Are you hiding something? Look at me and tell me honestly what is wrong.”