Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? (24 page)

“Oof-oh! Why do you listen to that nephew of yours? Why, even Manpreet said that he is hot-headed, always in trouble these days. Now what mother would malign her son like that unless it was true? He failed his first year of college, you know. And you are a Delhi-wallah, why are you concerned with matters in Punjab? You have never even lived there.” Nimmo held a glass of milk against Kamal’s lips, urging her to sip at it.

“What are you saying? I could be living on the moon and still Punjab would be my heartland. And should be yours too, more than mine. You were born there.”

Nimmo wiped her daughter’s mouth with the end of her dupatta and said firmly,
“This
is my heartland. This house, this gully, this city. Nowhere else.” She got to her feet. “So do you want me to wait for you this evening?”

“No, yes, I will see. Don’t forget to leave the keys with the neighbours, though,” Satpal said. “Go and listen to that woman tell her lies!
Garibi Hatao,
she will shout, and we
will all cheer and vote for her. And then a week later, poverty will still be found in these gullies, and there will still be no water in the taps or electric current in our homes and it will go on and on. You will see, mark my words!”

That afternoon at around two-thirty, soon after Nimmo had convinced Kamal to take a nap, she heard a hubbub outside. She went to the window to see what was going on. A small tempo-truck was parked on the road, and Satpal was supervising its unloading. Something large—it looked like a cupboard of some sort. Nimmo opened the front door. Ever since the birth of their daughter, Satpal seemed to have thrown caution and thrift to the winds, seemed to have forgotten that they still owed Bibi-ji a large sum of money, still had uneven returns from their mechanic’s shop. Last year he had bought a refrigerator that often dripped water on the floor, thanks to the frequent power failures in the summer months. If Satpal had to buy something, why didn’t he put down a deposit for a telephone? She didn’t like going over to Asha’s to receive calls from Bibi-ji or Satpal.

She moved aside as the men staggered in carrying an enormous steel cupboard wrapped loosely in corrugated cardboard and plastic sheeting.

They shouted contradictory orders at each other. “Lower it! Watch the doorway!” “Raise it, mind the floor!” Kamal woke up startled, and Nimmo hurried her out of the way. “Why couldn’t you have told me that this was why you were coming home?” she said, annoyed. “I could have gone next door with her.”

Satpal grinned unrepentantly, his eyes shining with excitement. “I wanted to surprise you,” he said. “Now move, woman, this is going in there.”

After the delivery men had gone, Nimmo circled the khakhi green-painted steel almirah, stroking a finger across the manufacturer’s name, set in stylishly raised silvery steel lettering across the top corner, and wondered at how smoothly the handle turned down to reveal the enormous inside with its heavy shelves, its small locker right on top, the space for hanging clothes. She had seen advertisements for it in the newspapers—
Buy a Godrej, Feel Safe for Life—but
had not thought she would ever own one. At six feet it was a big cupboard, taller than Satpal, and it covered most of the wall. A person could stand inside it when the shelves were removed. It smelled cold.

“Very secure!” said Satpal, knocking his knuckles against the thick green-painted steel. “Very safe.”

“What shall I do with such a big cupboard? How much did it cost?”

“I’ll take care of the cost. You can start filling it with things for Kamal’s wedding.”

“Wedding? Are you mad? She is three! And she gets an education before a husband—you promised me that.”

“Then start saving money for her college,” said Satpal, a little annoyed by her lack of enthusiasm.

After he had left, Nimmo went outside to bring the laundry in the house before heading to the maidan for the speech. She pretended not to notice Asha, who peered over their shared wall.

“Arrey, Nimmo, you got an almirah today?” Asha asked. As usual, her voice was tinged with envy. One day, Nimmo was sure, Asha’s constant envy would puncture the fragile bubble of her happiness.

“Yes Asha, we got an almirah,” she said, hiding her annoyance. “But I don’t know what I will do with it. As you know, I have nothing to put in a steel cupboard, nothing to hide or protect.”
Except my children, my happiness, my life.

“Everyone has something to hide, Nimmo,” Asha replied. “And your husband must be doing well to be able to buy such an expensive thing! So maybe you will have lots of jewellery to put in there soon?”

“I don’t have any now, if that is what you are asking, Asha,” Nimmo said, her voice sharper than she had intended it to be.

“Baba, why should
I
ask anything? Why should
I
care what you have or don’t have? Hunh!” Asha pulled the pallu of her sari over her head with unnecessary violence, her bangles jangling.

“Why speak only of me, Asha?” Nimmo continued. She remembered how superstitious Asha was about her own family. “I hear that your husband is getting very wealthy. I hear that he has many important political friends helping him rise in the world!”

“Wealthy? Us? Never! We barely manage to keep this roof over our heads!” Asha clicked her fingers over herself to ward off evil and disappeared indoors before Nimmo could say anything further about her prosperity and bring down jealous spirits.

Kaushalya’s head appeared over the other wall as soon as Asha’s had disappeared. “Baap-re-baap, the nosy parker spends the whole day watching who is doing what. When does she do her own work, I wonder?”

Asha’s face popped back, like a cuckoo from a clock, ready for an argument. “I heard you, Kaushalya!” she shouted. “Spreading rumours about me, I heard you!”

Nimmo paid the vendor and slipped into the sanctuary of her home. She peeked into the bedroom to make sure that Kamal was not up to any mischief, and then went to the kitchen to start preparations for the evening meal before heading to the maidan to hear the prime minister’s speech.

The afternoon sun was beginning to lose its intensity and a welcome breeze dried the sweat on Nimmo’s face as she pushed her way through the crowds that had arrived to hear Indira Gandhi. The enormous field was already crammed with bodies, and it was with some difficulty that Nimmo and her companions found a space for themselves. This was largely because Nimmo had insisted on finding a spot near the exit gates, where the policemen were stationed.

“If something happens,” she said, preparing as always for every catastrophe imaginable, “we can run out fast and the police will be nearby also.”

Kaushalya laughed at her fears. “Nimmo, you are always worrying about something. One day at least leave all your fears at home and relax!”

Nimmo’s face tightened stubbornly. “If you want you can go and sit up front. I’m staying here with my daughter,”
she said firmly, holding Kamal close. All she knew was that they were in the middle of a crowd of about fifty thousand people and that crowds were unpredictable— they could go berserk with joy or anger, it didn’t matter which. Look at the tragedy at the Kumbh Mela last year— a million people celebrating a holy event, and for some little thing there was a stampede, killing hundreds. This was a country of excesses, and Nimmo was determined not to be a victim ever again.

She sat there for an hour listening to Mrs. Gandhi’s nasal, strident voice echoing and whistling through the loudspeakers set up all over the field, outlining her plans to eradicate poverty, to raise literacy, to improve the lives of the people of the country. She had heard versions of the same speech before and knew there was truth to what Satpal had said about a politician’s worthless promises.

And yet, there was something about the tiny figure draped in a sari on that stage, the leader of one of the largest and most confusing countries in the world, that moved Nimmo unutterably. She admired Indira Gandhi, she thought tearfully, she adored her, she would vote for her always. Perhaps someday her Kamal would also become prime minister. At that moment, surrounded as she was by thousands of rapt faces, the lights of the city flickering to life as dusk descended and promises echoing all around, everything seemed possible.

O
ctober flew in on the back of a cold wind laden with regret for another year’s ending. Front yards sprouted scarecrows, bats and ghosts cut out from black and white cardboard, witch’s hats were propped up on poles and cobwebs were sprayed on to bushes. Bright orange pumpkins of all sizes sat on doorsteps grinning crookedly, waiting for dusk, when their black eyes would light up with the glow of candles. Trees shook their nude branches at the solemn Vancouver sky, and on the ground leaves rustled and whispered and occasionally lifted and whirled like brightly garbed dervishes. It rained briefly and the leaves settled into heaps of muddled wetness. A puddle
glinted like an uneven silver coin on the dark road outside the house.

Leela stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes. It was a day off from her job at The Bay, where she worked in the shoe department. Her neighbour Elena, the white-haired woman who had smiled at Leela the morning she had first arrived in Vancouver, and with whom she had developed a warm friendship, was a manager at the department store and had suggested she apply there when a vacancy had come up three years ago. Leela enjoyed the days she worked there, and the company of the other salesgirls, especially Erin, a pretty blonde with large, sad eyes, who wiped the cash desk clean repeatedly with a mixture of vinegar and water. She had long, beautiful hands of which she was very proud and which she kept soft by applying cream from a tube in her purse every hour. Erin had showed Leela around the store, covered up for her when she made mistakes and generally made her feel less of a foreigner and a stranger. In the early days, before Leela learned to deal with rude or demanding customers herself, it was Erin who unobtrusively managed the situation.

“She’s like One of Us,” Leela had told Balu at the end of her first month at work. “Exactly like.”

She finished the dishes and moved to the service counter separating the tiny kitchen from the living-cum-dining room, carefully balancing her knife, the cutting board and a bowl of vegetables. From there she had a clear view of Arjun moping on the battered couch in front of the television. Now fourteen years old, he was a lanky
boy, with long hair curling around his ears and down his forehead, partially obscuring his thin face.

The front door banged open and Preethi, a small, round and confident ten-year-old, came in, followed by three other children—Matt, who lived next door, Jasbeer and Wendy Wu. Leela looked up from the dishes and smiled at the chorus of greetings—
Hello Mrs. Bhat, Hi Aunty-ji, Hello Mrs. Bhat—
and the thud of feet as the four friends made their way up to Preethi’s room. At least
one
of her children appeared to have slipped into life here with wild enthusiasm, Leela thought. She guiltily remembered her initial antagonism towards the Chinese, and now here was Wendy, her daughter’s best friend. Preethi had met her in Mrs. Wu’s shop the first time Bibi-ji had taken Leela there to buy vegetables. But the two girls had not spoken until school started and they found themselves in the same class. The friendship, Leela discovered from Preethi, had been sealed when Wendy offered Preethi candy from the stash she always carried in her school bag and, in exchange, received a marble that Preethi had stolen from Arjun. Leela and Wendy’s mother, Linda Wu, had also established a friendship based on their mutual scorn of the Canadian education system.

“No math, no sentence formation, no spelling, what kind of education?” Leela demanded, as she and Linda waited outside the classroom for their daughters to emerge.

“Only play, play, play,” Linda agreed. “No homework. No classwork. Play play play!”

“Phonetic spelling!” Leela said with disgust. “Spell any way, and then learn later how to do it right! What kind of
thing is this? When we were children …” And so they went, the two women, happily dissecting western ways, agreeing that whether Chinese or Indian, the eastern way was best in the end, worrying about their children’s abilities compared with those of the genius kids back home.

And then, in 1968, Jasbeer had joined Preethi’s group, a year older than them all, tall, lost, awkward and inarticulate at first, unable to understand anything the three children said to him because the only languages he knew were Hindi and Punjabi. But in the way of children, whose minds and tongues and hearts are malleable, Jasbeer learned swiftly enough, although he still seemed to Leela an intense boy given to dark moods.

She raised her head and listened to the sounds coming from Preethi’s room above for a minute or two, and was reassured by the muffled laughter. A little more than four years had passed since she had stepped into this house. The phone book that had seemed such a catalogue of strangers that first day was now crowded with friends and acquaintances: the Singhs of course, the Majumdars, Elena from next door, Matt’s parents Brian and Cathy, other Indians scattered around Vancouver, her colleagues at The Bay, Balu’s colleagues, Wendy’s mother … the list went on. The Indians especially were now her family, Leela thought affectionately. As for her children, they must be grateful for the number of Aunties and Uncles they had acquired since their arrival here.