Don't Let Him Know (28 page)

‘That’s good,’ said Amit, hoping to hurry the transaction along.

‘Yes,’ said the man nodding vigorously as he carefully folded the paan. ‘It’s the thing these days. This neighbourhood is just gold now, you know. Remember the Sanyal house that used to be in the corner there? It’s gone. It’s become six flats. I reckon the same thing is going to happen with the judge’s house now that he’s dead. But I hear the sons are all fighting over it.’

‘Right,’ Amit nodded, desperate to flee the conversation.

‘You, of course, are an only son. You don’t have to worry about all that. But the trick is you have to find someone you can trust, you know. Otherwise they might just leave you with a half-finished building.’ The man held up the paan, inspected it and said, ‘What do you say? Are you sure you don’t want one of my special paans?’

‘Yes, sure,’ Amit said with a faint smile. ‘Before lunch, you know. Just these chips.’

‘Ten rupees,’ said the paan-wallah as he popped the paan into his mouth. He looked satisfied as he chewed, his lips stained a dark blood red from the betel juice. ‘But think about it. If you like, I can put in a quick word. My brother-in-law lives quite close by. You remember my sister, don’t you?’

Amit didn’t but didn’t want to admit it. He handed the paan-wallah ten rupees and said, ‘All right, I will think about it.’

Amit shook his head, smiling. It was the kind of story he could tell his friends in San Francisco. In India the paan-wallah doesn’t just sell paan and cigarettes. He dispenses real-estate advice. As he walked away he glanced up at what used to be the Sanyal house. It was now a three-storey boxy apartment building, the balconies grilled in like cages. He could see wet underwear and saris hanging from blue nylon clotheslines strung on the balconies. He remembered the house that had been there. It had been an old mansion with a great driveway with huge old columns on either side. There had been a big banana tree on one side and an old mango tree on the other. Every summer it would be laden with sour little green mangos. The windows had been as big as doors and he remembered old Mrs Sanyal sitting on a stool near the window yelling at the potato-wallah to run over and hand her a half a kilo of potatoes. He wondered who lived there now. A young woman walked out holding the hand of a little boy. She didn’t look familiar at all.

As he walked past the house he tore open his Bindaas Bhel chips and ate every single one. They were dusted with some lethal-looking red powder that exploded in his mouth with bursts of spiciness. It made him thirsty. He remembered he’d meant to see if the paan-wallah stocked Diet Coke but he didn’t want to go back to him again. Instead he just walked back, licking the last grains of salt from his fingers so that not a trace would remain by the time he got home.

As he passed by the cauliflower woman he paused and almost on a whim picked up a cauliflower.

‘How much?’ he asked.

She told him. ‘Okay,’ he said and handed her the money. The woman stared at him in surprise as if she had expected him to bargain. Then she shrugged and handed him his change, still looking at him as if he was slightly daft.

When he got home his mother said, ‘What? A cauliflower. Why did you get a cauliflower? We already have two.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I suddenly had an urge to eat fried cauliflower.’

‘You should have just told me,’ she said. ‘Silly boy. Did you have Indian money on you? How much did you pay?’

‘No, Ma, I paid with dollars,’ he joked. But he didn’t tell her how much he had paid. Whatever it was, he knew he had paid too much.

That day when he went for a shower Amit masturbated for the first time since he had arrived in Calcutta. They were in the middle of thirteen days of mourning – no meat, no fish, no leather shoes, no sex. He was sure masturbation was forbidden as well. But as he stood under the shower, the water turned on to full blast, smearing his head with thick golden creamy Sunsilk shampoo, almost absently, as if programmed by some faraway brain, he reached down to his crotch. He watched the water splash on the bathroom wall and heard it gurgle down the drain as he tugged at himself, trying to fill his head with erotic thoughts. June, he whispered to himself, as if attempting to rub a genie to life. But her chestnut brown hair remained stubbornly foreign in his mother’s bathroom. He shut his eyes instead and tried to remember himself at fourteen in that very bathroom ejaculating to lingerie ads in his mother’s women’s magazines.

‘Are you done, Amit?’ his mother suddenly shouted from outside the door. ‘Rajeev just came over. He wants to discuss something before he heads back to his office. What are you doing in there so long anyway?’

Amit leaned back wearily against the wall, his eyes still shut, his crotch soapy.

‘Coming,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’ He tried half-heartedly to climax but the moment was gone. He just turned off the shower and watched the water gurgle into the drain and then, resigned, towelled himself dry.

Rajeev, of course, wanted to make arrangements about the food for the funeral. A hundred and twenty-five guests – one samosa, one kochuri and two sweets in a box per guest. What did Amit think about that?

‘Sounds good,’ Amit shrugged, trying to concentrate. The arithmetic seemed too much to wrap his brain around. ‘Have we got a shop in mind?’

‘Why don’t I talk to the sweetshop in my neighbourhood?’ Rajeev replied. ‘If you go to them they are bound to try and rip you off because they’ll know you live in America.’

‘Yes,’ shrugged Amit. ‘Why don’t you?’

Like you’ve taken care of everything else. I don’t know why I am here. You could just shave your head and perform the funeral too and no one would say a word.

‘Kakima, that’s settled then. Will you call my mother and let her know? She’ll just tell the sweetshop,’ said Rajeev. He waited till Romola left the room, then leaned forward and said in a low voice, ‘Amit, you’ll be leaving soon. Everyone is wondering what you’ve decided.’

‘About what?’ said Amit.

‘Your mother, of course,’ Rajeev threw up his hands. ‘You know, she’s not going to bring it up unless you do. You can’t leave her here alone.’

But I can’t take her with me to California. I just can’t, but how can I tell her that?

‘This house is just too big,’ continued Rajeev. ‘Look at the ceiling. I can see some plaster peeling in that corner. I bet it’ll start to leak this monsoon. The next day the windows won’t shut. How will she manage all of this on her own?’

But my house in San Francisco is too small. The walls are too thin. I will never be able to have sex any more.

‘Amit, you are going to have to decide. She’ll go along with whatever you want. She loves you.’

Too much. Rajeev, can you love someone too much?

‘I mean, I’ll do whatever you need. But this is your mother. It’s your decision now that your father’s gone. I’m always here but you know our flat is so far away. I am not going to be able to drop by all the time like I am doing now.’

That was when Amit had the brainwave. It was so simple, so obvious, he started to believe in fate after all, as if a path had been laid out in front of him all along, just waiting for him to open his eyes and walk down it.

‘What if we turn this house into an apartment building?’ said Amit. ‘I hear everyone is doing it these days. We’d get good money. And then Ma would have to deal with only one flat. Much more practical, no?’

‘Flats?’ Rajeev looked at him thoughtfully.

‘Yes, flats.’ Amit was on a roll. ‘I think we could make eight apartments here, don’t you? It’s prime real estate, people tell me. I am sure developers would salivate at the prospect. Don’t you have friends who are developers?’

‘Yes,’ Rajeev nodded. ‘My old schoolmate Alok Dastidar. Remember him? He was in the football team.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Amit could barely contain his excitement. ‘I could give you power of attorney so you could deal with all the paperwork. And once the apartments are done you could keep one. It would be much closer to your work as well.’

‘Do you really mean that?’ Rajeev sounded genuinely surprised.

‘It’s the least I could do, Rajeev,’ Amit said not insincerely. ‘You’ve been like a son to my mother. She would feel so relieved having you all close to her. And she loves your little boy. It would help her pass her time.’

‘Think about it,’ said Amit. But he didn’t want him to. In his head he could already see the apartments stacked on top of each other. He could see Romola and Rajeev and Rajeev’s mother and wife and son. He could see every one of them in his tidy domestic tableau, organized as neatly as the Christmas manger scene at his Jesuit school. Everyone neatly in place, except for him. Once that would have filled him with quiet desolation but right now he felt only fizzy relief.

‘I don’t know,’ Rajeev said scratching his head. But Amit could see the idea was slowly taking root.

‘I’ll talk to Ma,’ he told him.

But it was harder to tell Romola than he thought it would be. Every time he was ready to bring it up, something stopped him. Once it was the phone ringing. Then it was a power cut. And the next time he just couldn’t find the words.

Finally one day when they had sat down to lunch Romola mentioned something about repairs. Amit realized this was the moment. He swallowed a mouthful of rice, chased it down with a glass of water and said, ‘Ma, have you ever thought about tearing down the house and building flats?’

‘Tear down the house? This house?’ said Romola. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I think it would be a good idea. I have been talking to a few people. I see the Sanyals down the street have done it.’

‘When did you come up with all these ideas?’ Romola sounded alarmed.

‘Well, I talked to Rajeev.’ He held Rajeev out as if he were an amulet. ‘It was hard to get any time with you, what with the funeral and all. Rajeev agrees it makes the most sense.’

‘But this house, it’s where you were born. I came here as a bride. We can’t just tear it down like that. Do you know how much history is in this house? Your great-grandfather built it with his own hands.’

‘That’s why it’s springing leaks everywhere. The ceilings are so high we can’t even keep the cobwebs off it. And you said you were okay selling it off. This way once the flats are done you can keep one for yourself. It will be smaller and much easier to maintain.’

‘But who’s going to deal with all the paperwork and lawyers and builders and contractors?’

‘Aha, I thought of all that. Rajeev. I asked him if he would take charge of this. And then when the flats are done we could give him one from our share as well. He jumped at the idea. I mean, their house is so small and so far away from his office. And it’s rented anyway.’

‘Rajeev? But it’s our house, not Rajeev’s.’

‘Ma, I am only thinking about you here,’ Amit’s voice was suddenly sharp as he tried to hold his carefully stitched plan together. ‘And you are the one who said Rajeev was just like your son.’

‘Like my son, yes,’ Romola’s voice was sharp as well. ‘But that’s just a way of speaking. You are my son. I don’t want to depend on Rajeev. He has his own mother and wife. I thought you wanted me to come to America, if not now, then perhaps in a few months.’

Amit dropped his eyes. ‘Of course, you can come for a visit whenever you like. But I don’t think you should move just like that. It might be all too much change to deal with right now. And there’s June. But don’t worry. I mean, I’ll send money for you every month.’ As soon as he said that Amit felt his heart sink. But it was too late.

I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s not about the money. I know that.

But his mother’s face had lost all colour. She sat quietly for a minute, her fingers still flecked with grains of rice and dal. Then she said quietly, ‘Don’t worry about me. I think your father left enough for me to take care of myself. I won’t be rich but I’ll be fine. You just be happy, Amit, wherever you are.’

‘Ma, this house is yours too. I mean, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I just thought this would be more manageable for you. And you’d have Rajeev nearby . . .’ Amit’s voice trailed off.

‘You could have just asked me what I wanted,’ Romola said without looking at him. ‘I was right here, wasn’t I? For once someone could have asked me what I wanted. That’s all I ever do – try to guess what everyone else wants.’ Then she got up and went to the kitchen to put away the leftovers.

But I couldn’t, Mother. I was afraid if I asked you, you would tell me.

Amit sat on the chair staring sightlessly at the newspaper until he felt the rice drying on his fingers.

For the rest of his trip she never referred to the house again. And every day like clockwork she produced one of his favourite dishes, going to the vegetable seller three markets away to get out-of-season banana blossom so she could make some banana-blossom curry.

On the day he left for San Francisco, Romola hired a driver to take them to the airport. ‘I can take you both,’ Rajeev told them. ‘I’ll just leave the office a little early.’

‘You’ve done more than enough, Rajeev,’ Romola replied firmly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take him myself. I don’t want you to rush from work. You don’t need to come so far out of your way.’

At the airport they sat in silence watching little knots of families cluster around their departing members. Occasionally the disembodied crackling voice of a woman announced the arrival and departure of unseen flights in Bengali, Hindi and English. In the harsh fluorescent light of the Calcutta airport, Romola looked tired. Hunched on the hard plastic orange seat she clutched Amit’s carry-on as if she was holding him. A little bored boy was roaming around the airport staring at the flickering goldfish in the aquarium. His father tried to entertain him with sodden paper cups of Coke.