The Hero's Walk (7 page)

Slowly, guilt grew in him like a balloon. I, Sripathi Rao, mediocre, trivial purveyor of words, he thought miserably, am placidly alive, while my daughter … He could not complete the thought. Could not bear to put the incident into words.

A truck loaded with broken concrete reversed down the road, furiously honking its horn all the way, and stopped in front of the gates of the house. Sripathi watched the lorry vomit its load with a great sliding roar of sound, cutting off all access to the house. A cloud of grey dust rose slowly above the pile and hung motionless in the air. The truck driver was oblivious to, or totally unconcerned by, the fact that he had jammed the gates shut. Sripathi felt a rage rise in him like a fire. He was glad to be able to
feel
something at last. All the helplessness about his daughter's death, all the guilt and the shame and the pain came together in his breast against the man who was blocking his gate. He charged down to the front yard, past the tulasi planter and the oleander bush, squeezed through the jammed gates and banged on the door of the truck. “Yay! You! What do you think you are doing? You think this is your father-in-law's road, or what?” he shouted.

The driver peered down at Sripathi and turned off the engine. “Who are you?”

“I am the owner of this house,” screamed Sripathi.

“Achha, that is very good. And I am the owner of this lorry. Now why you are doing dhama-dham on my vehicle like a madman? Please to tell me?”

“I will report you to the police. You do this nonsense every week. Dump all your rubbish outside my gates. How do you think I will get them open?”

“Don't have a heart attack, sahib,” laughed the truck driver, his enormous moustache jerking upwards with the movement of his cheeks. “You say you can't open the gate, but you are standing here in front of me, no? Are you a bhooth or what, that you went right through the bars? And anyway, my load is not inside your property, it is on the road.” He laughed again and started the truck. “Better move out of the way, or you will be like the concrete—small bits!”

Sripathi watched helplessly as the truck roared off, its brightly coloured tail ribbons undulating eagerly in the underdraft. He returned to the house feeling savage. Ammayya was, as usual, stationed in her chair at the entrance to her room, from where she had a clear view of the living room, the dining area, the kitchen and, beside it, the gods' room. Putti crouched beside her, patting her knee with one hand and talking in a low voice. Sripathi stalked past them and into the kitchen. He thought vaguely that he needed to eat something, that if he filled his body with food there would be no room left for grief.

“What is there for breakfast?” he asked Nirmala, who was in the gods' room that led off the kitchen. There was no reply, and he clattered a few pot lids noisily. Still no response. He stamped into the small chamber where images of various divinities were kept and worshipped. Nirmala was crouched on the floor in a corner, tears streaming down her face. Next to her was a shallow tier of shelves holding rows of silver and bronze idols of Krishna and Shiva, Ganesha and Lakshmi. Their placid metal faces gleamed in the subtle light of cotton wicks burning in tall brass lamps. Incense sticks sent up dark spires of smoke and a dense perfume that tickled Sripathi's nostrils. Nirmala did not even look up from the sheet of paper in her hand, which, he realized, was a letter from Maya—one of the many that she had sent over the years and that he had never read. The sandalwood box containing the rest, which usually sat inside her bedroom cupboard, was open on the floor beside her. There were a few photographs scattered around as well. Sripathi saw only
Nirmala's bent head, the straight white line of her part shooting through her dark hair, the few strands of grey that branched away from that line. He was filled with a childish desire to scream.

“Did you hear me, madam? I asked for some food.”

When she continued to read in stubborn silence, Sripathi rushed onto the covered verandah, to the shoe rack along one wall, and picked up as many shoes as he could hold. Then he raged back into the gods' room, startling Nirmala. He dumped the shoes on the shelves, dislodging some of the idols. He swept the remaining ones off with one violent swing of his arm.

Surveying the damage, he said breathlessly, “There! That's what I think of your wretched gods and prayer and all. They deserve only dirty shoes, not flowers. What have they ever done for us? Tell me?
What?
” He kicked at the fallen idols. “And still you spend money on flowers and incense and oil!”

Nirmala cowered in her corner, rendered speechless not by grief or anger at her husband but by his act of desecration.

“Useless nonsense rituals she does every day,” Sripathi muttered. He aimed a final kick at an idol of the elephant god, Ganesha, that had landed near his foot. “This elephant-faced fellow is supposed to remove obstacles. Hah!”

“My rituals are no worse than yours,” cried Nirmala, goaded out of her silence.

“I don't have any, madam.”

“What do you call those idiotic letters you keep writing to this paper and that?” she asked recklessly. “That's all you are capable of—writing big-big words with different coloured pens, hiding behind some funny name that nobody can understand. And then you dare to call my son useless! At least he has the guts to go out and do something about garbage and pollution and all, while you only scribble on the balcony to strangers. Couldn't even find it in your heart to write to your own child!” She bent down and agitatedly started to gather the scattered photographs and letters, piling them
into her box, showing Sripathi her back, the deep curve of her tight, pink blouse and the sweat that had stained the thin cotton dark where it touched her skin.

“How do you know about my letters?”

Nirmala threw him a spiteful look over her shoulder. “My gods told me, that's how!”

Sripathi teetered on the edge of uncontrolled rage before wheeling around and leaving the room. He collided with Arun, who caught his father's arm and asked, “Again you were hitting her? Appu?”

“No, I wasn't. And don't make it look like I do it every day. I have never laid a finger on your mother before.”

“Then what was all that shouting about?”

“Why don't you go and save some more animals, instead of sitting around at home and cross-questioning me?” Sripathi demanded. He felt he had to leave the house immediately and occupy himself, otherwise he might do something he would regret. But where to go? Not to the office. He was in no mood to see all those sympathetic faces, to hear their condolences. No. He would go to Raju's house. He felt calmer at the thought of visiting his closest friend. And then he would have to visit the travel agent on Pyecroft Road to find out about flights to Canada.

“Where are you going? Do you want me to come with you?”

Sripathi hated himself for the words that forced themselves out of his mouth. They seemed to have a life of their own. “Oh? You don't have to save the world today? You can help your father with mundane things like airline tickets and all? Surely today the sun is going to set in the east!” He marched out of the house and past Putti, who had left Ammayya's side and was sitting on the steps of the verandah.

Arun shrugged and entered the gods' room, where he knelt beside his mother. She was still distractedly shuffling the photographs and papers in her hands, putting them in the box and taking them out again, sobbing softly all the while.

“He is behaving like a baby,” Arun remarked. He picked up the idols and replaced them on the shelves.

“Don't say things like that about your father,” Nirmala said automatically, anxious as always to maintain peace in the house. “He is very upset.”

“Yes, and so are you and me. But we don't go around shouting and throwing shoes and all that!” Arun picked up the shoes and stood up. “Are you okay? Do you want me to do anything, Mamma?”

Nirmala shook her head. “What can you, or I, or anyone do now? Too late for everything. Too late.” She leaned back against the wall and shut her eyes.

Arun carried the shoes out to the verandah and arranged them on the shelf before going upstairs to his room. He was still unable to believe the news about Maya—his older sister, the person who had been part of his everyday life until he was eighteen, who had protected him fiercely through elementary school, shielded him from bullies and fights, held his hand when they had to cross the road to catch the bus, carried his bag along with her own and once gave him her lunch when he'd dropped his on the ground. Maya had written to him from America, always including interesting bits of information about the world across the seas, and later, when he had decided to get involved in social activism, she had sent him clippings, books, any material that might be useful. As a child, he had followed her like an eager puppy, as she marched in and out of trouble. At school, in his crowded baby class presided over by Mrs. Mascarenha with her terrible billowing voice, ordering them to
settle down
, he had felt safe in the knowledge that Maya was in the same building, just three doors away. During the lunch break, while most of the toddlers were shepherded to the toilets by Mary Ayah and Ruthie Ayah, he had waited for his sister, and when she arrived he had clutched her sticky hand—so certain and comforting—and trotted obediently to the girls' toilets with her. She had knocked Susheel Prasad's big head through the bars of the Class Four window for
teasing him to tears, and then stood stubborn and unrepentant when the principal punished her for such un-girlish violence.

“But he was bullying my younger brother,” Maya had argued, when Mother Superior asked how she could have been so wicked.

And she had dared to sneak up the forbidden stairs to the terrace, where old Mother Claudette stood all afternoon taking potshots with a Daisy gun at stray dogs copulating in the football field behind the school, screaming obscenities in French every time she missed.

His sister had dared everyone that Arun could remember and had always lived to tell the tale. But she'd been no match for the God of Death. And with the memories came the shame—that he hadn't cared enough to write back to her, to keep in touch. That he had allowed himself to forget.

Dr. Sunderraj wasn't crying, but he kept taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. For the past few days—since Nandana had tried to walk home, and he had told her that her parents had been in a bad accident—he hadn't gone to his office. Lots of people had come to the house, one after another. Two women had wanted to talk to her as well. They had said that they were from Social Services. Nandana had answered their questions politely. Yes, she liked staying here. Yes, she liked Anjali a lot, even though she wouldn't let her play with her new Lego. But she wanted to go home. She liked Aunty Kiran and Uncle Sunny, yes. But she wanted to go home. The women had nodded and had written things in note-books and then talked for a long time with Uncle. There were many phone calls that he answered and many calls that he made.

Now, in the living room, he was sitting on the ground at her feet, so close that she could see herself in his eyeballs. She and Aunty Kiran were on the fat-tourist sofa. If she concentrated really hard,
she thought—if she didn't speak, if she sat absolutely still—she could see her blue house and her parents and her room with its Minnie Mouse lampshade, all reflected in those eyeballs. She could see her mother moving around in the kitchen, making supper, and her father hunched over his computer, typing away.

“Do you think she understands what has happened?” she heard Aunty Kiran say.

Of course she did, she thought indignantly, trying to concentrate on those eyeballs that kept moving and destroying the picture of her house. Her parents had gone away for some reason. They wouldn't be coming back for a while.

“Nandana, sweetie, do you understand?” Uncle Sunny asked. She saw her house. Her mother was washing something in the sink. Her father was using swear words, she could hear him. Then Uncle Sunny spoke again and the picture vanished. Why couldn't he understand that if he kept quiet, if all of them kept quiet, her parents would hear her and come to take her home?

“Your Daddy and Mummy were badly hurt in a car accident. They did not survive,” Uncle Sunny leaned forward and put his arms around her and Aunty Kiran. She could smell his aftershave lotion. Like her father's. No, just a little bit like his.

Survive
—that was a word she did not know.

“They died, honey,” said Aunty Kiran.

She had seen a dead butterfly on their patio once. It was a beautiful yellow and black one, and it was being dragged away by a troop of ants. She had been so sad that she had not wanted to speak to anyone that day. Her mother had explained that all living things died.

“But will you die too? And me and Daddy?” she had asked, after she'd thought it over.

To which her mother had replied, “Yes, but only when we are all a hundred years old.”