The Hope Factory (34 page)

“No, no. I am buying only from you. Not to worry. That Sankleshwar is a friend of my father-in-law’s; that is why there was some conversation. But that is all. Not to worry. Nothing has been signed; no money has been exchanged with him. I am only working with you. Where this Gowdaru-saar has got this information from I don’t know. And I do not know why he has approached me like this. But no matter,” said Anand, gliding lightly over his father-in-law’s dealings. “We have to now deal with this, and we will. You please tell him that we will pay, but you must make it clear—we can only afford ten percent more.”

The Landbroker looked doubtful and worried. “They will not like to bargain this way, saar.”

“Tell him this is all we can afford. You please tell him this. We are not as big as he thinks.”

“I will try, saar,” said the Landbroker, unconvinced.

AN EMAIL PINGED ACROSS
his phone. It was a cheerful, encouraging letter from the Japanese company, looking forward to their next meeting. In Copenhagen, this time. Anand had planned to take Mr. Ananthamurthy and Mrs. Padmavati with him. For both of them, it would have been their first trip abroad. “We are very much looking forward to doing business in India,” the email said, “to participating in the growth of your great nation and, if all goes well, of your company.”

The first time Anand had traveled abroad, years before, to meet a potential client in Germany, he had not been able to stop staring: at the roads, the bridges, the tunnels, the cars, the trains, at the organized reliability of it all, so startled by such careless munificence he almost wept. When asked later to describe his trip, he was typically laconic: “Everything works,” he said. He had not been successful with the client; they had doubted Indian manufacturing capability.

That same trip, on a flight, he had met a German engineer who had complained bitterly about the proposed extension in Germany of a thirty-five-hour workweek. “So terrible!” the German had said. Anand, working a seventy-hour week with Ananthamurthy, had agreed politely, but inside, he had doubted. Within that conversation, he knew, lay the seeds of Western downfall, the stoic industry of their ancestors deteriorating into whining, waffling plaint, as full of fidgets as a spoiled child. It was the mirror image of his own existence.

THE PHONE CALL CAME
when he was stepping into the shower that evening. The voice was uneducated and slightly unctuous: “Mr. Anand, saar?” The voice went on, starting in English and
continuing in Kannada: “Ah, wun min-nut. Woru nimisha. If it is convenient, Gowdaru-saar would like to speak with you.”

Anand sat on the edge of the bathtub, the granite cool against his buttocks, a towel quickly pulled across his naked shoulders. “Namaskara.”

“Ah, Mr. Anand-saar,” said the quiet voice at the other end. “You seem to be very upset with me.”

Chuth. Behenchuth. “No, no,” Anand said. “Why do you say that?”

“Saar. Yes. Otherwise why else would you bargain like this? You are such a big man. You are not a small shopkeeper to bargain like this. Our party can thrive with your assistance only…. You please help us. What we have suggested,” said Gowdaru-saar, “is a very small sum for a man such as yourself.”

“It is very kind of you to think so highly of my company,” said Anand. Fucker. “But please understand. Ten percent is all that we can afford, Gowdaru-saar.”

“You can afford more, saar,” said Gowdaru-saar. “Twenty percent more, you can easily afford. We have heard. It is a small thing for you. Why you must say no? You please support us—and we will be like your brother, saar. We will support you for everything. Your land purchase, everything. Not to worry.”

As Anand stayed silent, the texture of Gowdaru-saar’s speech changed. “You please reconsider, saar,” he said. “We will definitely attend to this matter for you. One way or another, saar. One way or another.”

The threat was explicit. Anand felt fear rise from his stomach, from his heart, from the very center of his being, and collect in his mouth.

“We will speak again this weekend. Goodbye, saar.”

Anand stared uncomprehendingly at his surroundings: at
the steam emerging from the still-running shower, at the vapor that clung to the mirror above the basin.

How was he to raise the money? Even if he could, wouldn’t Gowdaru-saar simply assume that Cauvery Auto could indeed afford it—and keep asking for more? What then?

HIS STUDY SUPPLIED NO
solace that night. The passing hours only increased his foreboding, his sense of impending loss; waking nightmares populated by political goons and bank managers, multiplied like many-headed, fang-mouthed rakshasas until they passed the realm of the practical and danced fancifully about him, Kathakali dancers gone wild. His desk sat solidly before him, providing no answers.

Vidya appeared at the study door in an old T-shirt and pajama bottoms; her hair was unbrushed, her face flushed. She did not seem to be able to sleep either.

“Ey.” She looked stormy, spoiling for a fight—and for a brief moment he wondered if Kavika had spoken to her on the matters he’d discussed in the park. “Enough is enough. I want you to apologize to my father. I can’t live like this. You better apologize to him.”

“No, I won’t.” Anand discovered a new domestic implacability. “I won’t. Dammit. He owes
me
an apology.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you these days. It’s like nothing matters to you!”

“I know what matters to me.”

“Then, it’s like
I
don’t matter to you!” she cried. “My family doesn’t matter to you. What I want doesn’t matter. My father …”

“Your father,” he shouted, “has bloody ruined my life, okay? … You happy about that? What, aren’t you going to run
to Kavika to complain about this too …? Your father …” He found the courage to say the words. “I wish I had never met him.”

And then he said, unplanned, but the truth, blunt, recognizable as soon as it was uttered: “I wish I had never met you.”

HE WATCHED HER JERK
backward as though she had been punched. A part of him wanted to move quickly to her rescue, as he had always done, routinely, to shield her, to smooth her way, to make the patterns of life easier for her—buying tickets, paying bills, staff salaries, fixing cars, plumbing, the bubble of support he had built so she could play within. But another part of his brain—victorious, battle-scarred, finally at liberty, heady from speaking the truth—held him back, and he watched her stumble, look to the sofa, look to the door, look at him, and bewildered, lost, retreat unsteadily from the room.

KAMALA’S PLAN WAS QUITE SIMPLE
. She would telephone her sister-in-law in the morning. She would explain her difficulties and ask her to intercede with her husband and arrange a loan on Kamala’s behalf. That would be better than pleading with her brother directly. Then Kamala and Narayan would catch a bus to the village and return with the money.

The consequences of such an action would be inevitable and mortifying to contemplate: a loan of such magnitude would leave her beholden for years; for the duration of that period she would have to endure her brother’s taunts and insults, as she had when she was dependent on him in the first year of her widowhood. Endure them—and perhaps never be free from them, for who knew how long it would take her to repay him?

The landlady had indicated that fifty thousand rupees, coupled with a slight increase in rent, could buy Kamala an additional year in the courtyard. The following year, Kamala
would need to pay another lump sum. That was the best the landlord’s mother could do. Two additional years of schooling for Narayan—and Kamala, used to planning their lives a few months at a time, was content to trust the rest to the gods. Surely she could suffer her brother for such a cause? Dealing with Shanta these few months, she thought with a sudden deepening of amusement, had certainly been good training for what was to come.

She had forgotten to recharge her prepaid mobile phone card, so she made her call from the corner STD-ISD phone booth. It was mid-morning; her sister-in-law would have finished all her morning chores and be in a position to listen.

“Akke,” said Kamala, “I have something to ask you.” She glanced around; the door to the booth was firmly shut; Narayan, who had accompanied her, was chattering to the ISD booth man. Kamala hesitated no longer, comforted by her sister-in-law’s evident tongue-clucking sympathy. When at last her tale was done, she plucked up her courage. “Akke, I was so pleased to read of my brother’s success with the shop. I was wondering … is it possible for you to ask him for a loan?”

“Oh, little sister,” said her sister-in-law. “Thange. It is good that you have come to us for help. For years I have asked you to do so, but you have always refused and I have felt so terrible. I am glad you have asked. The thing is …” she said, and at Kamala’s soft comprehending groan, “No! Do not worry. We will contrive something. What a fate this is! What a karma. That I should urge help upon you unavailingly for years and finally, when you do ask—I am in no position to help. This is a cruel fate, indeed!”

“It is a large amount,” said Kamala. “I was a fool to think of asking.”

“Who else would you ask? You have done the right thing. The problem is that stupid shop.”

“Is it not prosperous?” asked Kamala.

“Prosperous?” Her sister-in-law began to cry. “That shop is like a hungry python, swallowing-swallowing every paisa that was ever saved in this house.”

Far from being a prosperous businessman, Kamala’s brother had growing debts and was essentially serving an indenture in the shop that would allow him to pay off all the monies he owed. “Do not tell him I told you,” said her sister-in-law. “He would be very angry with me.”

I will not, said Kamala.

“In fact, he was speaking of someday coming to Bangalore to look for some alternate employment. Do not tell him I told you.”

I will not, said Kamala.

She talked a minute more and settled the bill. She answered the impatient question in Narayan’s eyes. “Your uncle is in great debt,” she told him. “Helping us is beyond his current powers.”

They made their way slowly back to the courtyard. The landlord’s wife saw them enter and called, “Kamala-akka! Your employer’s watchman was here.”

“Is it?” said Kamala, barely listening, still digesting the phone call. “Narayan, do not wander far away. What did he want?”

“I do not know,” said the landlord’s wife. “He did not stay long. He saw the lock on your door and left.”

Kamala nodded. Telling her son to sit on the stoop, she went into her room and locked the door. There was one last thing left to do. She unlocked the steel trunk and, from the
very bottom, took out a little cloth pouch and examined the contents: a small pair of gold earrings, a chain. She took off her thin gold bangles. She removed the slender gold chain from around her neck. She unscrewed the gold earrings from her earlobes. She put the jewelry she had removed into the pouch and tucked it safely in her woven plastic bag.

She examined herself in the mirror: bare of adornment, except for a black thread around her neck, and one more around her wrist to ward off evil. In the space of a minute, she was returned to the young girl who twelve years previously had stolen a bath for herself and her baby from a garden tap.

She felt bare and vulnerable, but preferred not to dwell on it. She called to Narayan and locked the room door.

“Where are we going?” He scanned her bare ears and neck and wrists.

“Hush! So many questions!” Walking down the road, she relented. “I have the name of a reliable pawnbroker, who will give us a good rate and not cheat us. We have to go to Chickpet.” The pawnbroker’s shop was in the depths of the old mercantile quarters of the city, an hour’s journey by bus.

KAMALA WAS NOT USED
to Chickpet; the pawnbroker was hard to locate, and when at last they did find the shop, it was closed for the afternoon. Establishments in Chickpet, it transpired, kept old-fashioned timings: open from 10:00 to 1:00
P.M.
, and again from 4:00 to 8:00 in the evening. Kamala crossed to the opposite side of the road, where there was shade, and squatted on her haunches. It seemed likely, from the look of the pawnbroker’s establishment, that he lived above his shop. She doubted if he would welcome being interrupted during his lunch. She would have to wait. Any hopes she’d had of quickly
finishing her work with him and salvaging a half day of work were quickly extinguished. The watchman’s visit meant that Vidya-ma was upset; perhaps there were guests for dinner that evening; perhaps Thangam was acting up and refusing to work. It could not be helped; she would not worry about it right now. Kamala gave Narayan some money to buy lunch at a nearby canteen; she herself was too anxious to eat.

The trip home in the evening seemed interminable. She felt naked without the comfort of her jewelry; the negotiation had not proceeded to her satisfaction; the amount she had received from the pawnbroker entirely inadequate. She sat silently next to Narayan on the bus, the fatigue and despair sinking so deep within her that tears slipped softly to the edges of her eyes.

At home, she crept into a corner of the room and fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke, it was the early hours of the morning; Narayan had covered her with a sheet and placed a pillow under her head in the course of the night. She looked around the room and saw his plate, newly rinsed and to one side; he had obviously managed to feed himself some dinner. Even in the repose of sleep, his face was no longer that of a small child. The gathering shadows of adulthood about him, in the gentle feathering above his lip, and in the changing smells that rose from his body.

HE SPENT THE REMAINDER
of the night in the study, worrying and dozing on the small sofa. In the early morning he slipped into his bedroom. Vidya did not acknowledge his presence, then or later, when he crept out of the shower. He could tell she was awake, his statement of the previous night still raw and trembling in the silence between them.