An Obedient Father (2 page)

Half an hour later, when I left for the office, Anita was on her knees mopping the floor of their bedroom. She had a fold of her sari over her head and held it in place by biting it. The bed she and Asha sleep on almost completely fills the room. Flies were switching about. The sight of Anita kneeling and the formality and shyness of the covered head made me think of how badly I had used my life.

"Talk to the pundit," Anita said, looking up at me. I had yet to arrange the pundit for Radha's prayers. Although Anita had told me to do this several times over the week, there was nothing accusatory in her voice. Suddenly I was angry I glared at her, until she turned her head down. Then I said, "Why are you always covering your head? You aren't at your in-laws'. People will think you're afraid of

My office is in a low white building that used to be a school. A dirt field circles it and a wall surrounds all this. Lately the wall had been lathered with political posters and painted with the giant lotuses of the fundamentalist Hindu BJP and the open hand of Rajiv Gandhi's Congress Party. For those of us who were involved in raising money and votes, the appearance of these signs of the coming election had created a sense of nervous festivity

The building itself is dark and musty. When I entered that morning, the sounds of typewriters and of voices came from departments like Hindi or science, where people were already planning for next year. In the physical education department no one even makes a pretense of working during the summer. We were almost proud of our laziness. We joked, "What can be done today can certainly be done tomorrow."

The department's four assistant education officers shared one large room with four desks, four iron armoires behind the desks, and four ceiling fans. Mr. Gupta had his own room down the hall from us.

Mr. Mishra was in the office, and he was asleep, bare feet on his desk and a handkerchief over his eyes to block the light.

"Mr. Mishra," I said, assuming Mr. Gupta's husky voice, "the public expects so little from its servants."

"It's finally learning." He tugged the handkerchief off and smiled. There was a graciousness to his round pockmarked face that

reminded me of a silver teapot. "Mr. Karan! I only arrived this morning from Bihar," he said. "Pritam and I were planning to come by the afternoon train yesterday, but we wanted to spend more time with our son. I haven't even bathed." He brought his feet down and sat up.

"How was your grandson's naming?" I asked, taking the chair from him. Mr. Mishra was very proud of his son, an Indian Administrative Service officer, and took every opportunity to talk of his successes.

"Amazing! You always think IAS officers are powerful, but it's hard to understand what it means for one man to be head of justice, the police, and the civil service. Two hundred people came. Every person who has any business of importance with the government tried to get invited. And those who didn't, probably worried that my son might be unhappy with them."

"I assume your son didn't have to pay for the whole celebration."

Mr. Mishra continued smiling, but his voice became irritated at the suggestion of bribery. "It was expensive," he said.

I felt embarrassed. Mr. Mishra and I had worked together for many years but became friends only when he visited me in the hospital while I recovered from my heart attack. Because Mr. Mishra did not accept bribes, I had thought he looked down on those of us who did. I also believed he was smarter and more generous than I was, and this made him especially irritating. During the conversations we had in the hospital, I realized that he was one of those people who love to gossip but are too well mannered to initiate such chatter. Our friendship was built on this insight, upon my leading conversations where I sensed he wanted to go but was too polite to go on his own.

Mr. Mishra asked, "What news?"

"Inspections, files, giving grants. Last week a young man, maybe twenty-six, came to me and said he wanted to open a school and needed a thousand square meters of land. I said you have to go to a different department and deposit a hundred forms before you'll get one meter on government discount. So he pushes two ten-thousand-rupee packets toward me." I slid my hands slowly across the surface of the desk toward Mr. Mishra. To delight him, I sometimes exaggerated my crimes. "I had to say, 'Put it away or I'll call the police.' I've never seen him before and he's giving money like that. For a day or two, I was so certain the corruption people were after me, I could hardly eat."

Mr. Mishra snorted and shook his head.

"Oh! Last week a monkey went into the women's latrines," I said. "The ones down the hall. There were three typists inside. They see the monkey and begin screaming. The monkey begins screaming, too." I made the sounds of the women and the monkey screeching. "One woman runs out of the bathroom. And she shuts the door behind her. Shuts it and holds on to the doorknob. By now everyone has come to see what's happening. The screams are still going on." I started laughing. "The monkey has begun flushing the toilets." I pretended I was jerking the toilet chain. Mr. Mishra joined my laughter. "I have to pull the first woman's hands off the doorknob. One of the other women runs out. And she shuts the door and holds on. I tell her to open it and she says, 'If I do, the monkey will bite me.' Now the woman left inside is weeping. I open the door. The woman runs out. She's been bitten on her arm, her leg, her stomach. The monkey didn't leave till the hall was empty."

"Human nature," Mr. Mishra said. As he laughed, he leaned over one side of his chair.

"The needle for the rabies injection is a foot long." In my anxiety to please him, I had been talking faster than normal.

When our chortling stopped, Mr. Mishra asked, "Is there an inspection today? My stomach says, 'Feed me.' " Every school we were responsible for had to be inspected twice a year to see if government regulations were being followed. For us, these occasions were something close to a party. The home economics department of the school would spend all day cooking an elaborate lunch for us. Everywhere we went in the school, we would be met with obsequiousness.

Mr. Mishra's gentle corruption renewed my confidence in our

friendship. "Father Joseph's school," I said, and rubbed my hands for him to see. "And tonight is the wedding reception for Mr. Gupta's son. We can fill up for the next three days."

Narayan, the driver I always used, was sitting on the building's front steps drinking tea from a glass and reading a Spider-Man comic book. He was a short Brahmin in his late thirties who shaved his head and wore a blue uniform every day, even though drivers aren't required to wear a uniform.

"Narayanji, we are ready to go," Mr. Mishra said.

"Is the thief coming?" Narayan asked, glancing up at me standing beside Mr. Mishra.

Neither of us answered for fear it would encourage his insults. Mr. Mishra bent and adjusted the rubber bands that held up his socks. Narayan finally stood and walked ahead of us to the jeep.

Narayan and I had been friendly till I became Mr. Gupta's man. We still shared a small business of renting out the education department's jeeps at night and on holidays. Our friendship ended because Narayan had expected to grow rich from my new position, but since nearly all the benefits the position bestowed flowed directly to me, he felt cheated. He relieved this disappointment by insulting me whenever he could. Lately he had begun to claim falsely that I owed him fourteen hundred rupees from some complex embezzlement of the education department's diesel.

Our office is near Delhi University, and on our way to the inspection, we went through Revolution Square, where last winter several college students had set themselves on fire to protest V P. Singh's increase in caste quotas.

As we entered the square, Narayan snorted and said, "Rajiv Gandhi's sons." The outrage over their deaths had led to Rajiv Gandhi's overthrow of V P. Singh and Chandrashekar becoming Prime Minister. This was the first thing he had said since we got in the jeep, and I think he said it because he knew how much I had been moved by the actions of those foolish boys.

"Be kinder," I said, leaning over the front seat. "They didn't know better."

"How smart do you have to be? Even I know a few thousand government jobs don't matter."

"Don't be an animal," I said. "Laughing at young boys dying."

"Call me an animal, and I'll make you walk."

In the way that some people get religious with old age, over the last few years I had become sentimentally political. The young men's actions reminded me of the days when I cut telegraph wires to slow the British.

"They sacrificed themselves like Mahatma Gandhi, like the Independence leaders who went to jail." My throat began tightening with emotion.

"Mahatma Gandhi was crazy, too," Narayan answered, waving a hand near his ear where my mouth had been. "He thought sleeping naked but chaste with young girls gave him special powers. These boys probably thought dying would create new jobs out of nowhere, like magic, like my son thinks being bitten by a spider will let him climb walls."

Mr. Mishra leaned forward also and said, "Still, Narayanji, respect the dead."

"Now Rajiv Gandhi wants to take control directly, so Parliament has to be dissolved."

"Narayanji, we should at least do what we can," Mr. Mishra replied.

"You and I both eat Rajiv Gandhi's salt," I said.

"I am too far from power to eat anyone's salt," Narayan said.

Mr. Mishra opened a newspaper. I looked out at the colonial-style university buildings that we passed. They were white turning yellow, with verandas and broad lawns. Perhaps the thought of the boys who immolated themselves shamed me into trying to be better than myself "Narayanji, I will give you the money you were speaking of"

Narayan honked his horn and reached over his shoulder to take my hand. I had bribed him and now, I hoped, Father Joseph would bribe me.

TWO or three rows of students in blue shorts and white shirts were lined up doing jumping jacks in front of Rosary School's main building. The steel pole that had defeated Father Joseph was gone.

Narayan stopped the jeep before the steps of the main entrance. We got out and stood beside the jeep and waited for our presence to be recognized. A peon came, greeted us, and went to tell Father Joseph. After a few minutes, the head physical education teacher, Mrs. Singla, a heavy woman with hennaed hair and a widow's white sari, came down the front steps smiling. "You should come see us even if there isn't any work reason," she said, pressing her hands together in namaste.

Mrs. Singla led us along a gallery that had classrooms on one side and was open to the sun on the other. A peon in khaki shorts and shirt sat on the floor outside Father Joseph's office. Mrs. Singla said, "I'm sure we meet all your requirements." The peon stood and opened the door.

Father Joseph was behind his desk reading a man's palms. Father Joseph looked up, said, "One minute," in English, and motioned Mr. Mishra and me to a sofa along the wall. We sat down. There were rugs on the floor, and the walls were lined with bookcases made of glass and curved steel. An air conditioner chilled the room with barely a hum. This school is rich, I thought.

"You have to fight your selfishness," Father Joseph said.

"I try," the man said. He was in his early twenties and might have been a teacher.

"The palm you were born with shows that you have a small heart. But the palm you have made shows that you can change."

Mrs. Singla stood near the sofa. "Sir, one day, will you read my hands?"

"Someday," he answered with his eyes on the man's palms. Father Joseph twisted his lips. "I won't tell you everything now," he said, and released the hands. "Some things only suffering can teach."

"Thank you, sir," the man said, and stood.

Father Joseph got up from behind his desk. He had on black pants and a white short-sleeved shirt which revealed thick arms with veins like garter snakes. Mrs. Singla and the man left.

Father Joseph moved to a chair across from us and crossed his legs. There was a mannered quality to his gestures. Like some other Christian priests I've met. Father Joseph had an air of condescension, as though we were still in the Raj and Christianity were still the religion of the powerful. He leaned forward and pointed at some papers on the table between us. "I've looked at your forms and I've personally made sure everything is right."

"Much of the inspection report depends on our impressions," I said, also in English. Mr. Mishra giggled at seeing the jousting start. Father Joseph glanced at him. "We have to see how the teachers teach," I said. To have to lie and justify myself without any introductory chatter made the conversation feel out of control. Also, for me, speaking in English was like wearing too-tight clothes. I had to plan all my motions or a seam might give.

Father Joseph shifted back in his chair. "Will you have something cold to drink or something warm?"

"Why don't we have something cold while the tea is being made," Mr. Mishra said. He was grinning.

After the peon had been sent to bring drinks, it was hard to start a conversation. Father Joseph appeared both aloof and firm. He took a pack of cigarettes from a pants pocket.

I moved forward on the sofa and knitted my fingers together. Normally, whoever had come with me would leave to examine the school after we had our drinks and I would be able to talk to the principal alone. But I had the feeling that Mr. Mishra wanted to push our new friendship and stay as long as possible.

I watched Father Joseph smoke for a moment and then asked if he thought Rajiv Gandhi would be a better leader for having lost the prime ministership. He knew I was raising money for the Congress Party and politeness should have made him say that Rajiv Gandhi had benefited from losing his title.

"Does a lion's nature improve from fasting?" Father Joseph asked, arching an eyebrow.

I became flustered. The peon entered with three Campa Colas and three teas on one tray. "Still," I said, immediately feeling the need to defend Congress and through it my authority, "the Congress Party is the only party that can rule India. What other party has ever been able to hold power for long. They are the only ones who have appeal all over the country. They are the only ones who have people in the villages."