The Hope Factory (17 page)

He had bought his tickets as one might for a long-awaited pilgrimage. He arrived at the grounds an hour early, accompanied by Vidya. She was excited too, but for different reasons. She had never really listened to Pink Floyd, beyond dancing to the song “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” at the discotheques of her youth, where it was packaged among the sugar-pop, soda-pop songs of that era. She seemed oblivious to the sacredness of the moment, her head whirling, dervish-like, as she registered who else was present, which friends she could wave to and what their plans were post-concert; friends, like her, who were there not for the music but simply because it was a concert, that hitherto rare thing, a place therefore to see and be seen. But the powerful magic charms of the evening soon overcame Anand’s momentary irritations: the contained energies of the crowd, the air of suppressed reverence, the pulsating excitement that swung sharply up to a boil when the first musicians walked onto the stage, the heat from the lights and the audience tussling with the cool winds of the night, and the dust that rose from the large concert grounds, so improbably situated in the Bangalore Palace compound.

“Oh, look,” said his wife, “there’s so-and-so and such-and-such….”

The music exploded from the speakers; Anand felt a surge of something that could only be happiness; on the face of the man standing next to him, shoulder to shoulder, there was an echo of that same demented smile he wore, and moisture on his cheeks, either sweat or tears, an old aching sweetness in him, an homage to the musical passions of a much younger, collegiate self, who had listened to this music all night long, stoned and sober, and had wondered what it would be like to listen to it live, to breathe the same air as these gods, knowing also that, for the likes of him and the world he lived in, these were not choices they would ever have. But a miracle of time and they were here: a gift from a city that had changed beneath him. Deities of music, singing just for him, taking the money and the adulation the worshipful city placed at their feet. Roger Waters, long-faced, long-nosed, long-toothed, small-eyed; a thoroughly alien physiognomy that was never quite how Anand had imagined the face of god to be.

“Standing for so long was so tiring,” Vidya later said, “they should have provided some seats. But the concert was quite nice,” she said, glancing at his face. “It was so fantastic! What music! I loved it!” she said to Amir, Amrita, and the other friends they met later for dinner.

The previous weekend, a new band had been playing a mixture of electronica and funk at his favorite music club. They were very good, but Anand wondered if he was on the edge of being too old to enjoy it, whether his classic-rock-trained ears could ever truly adapt. Luckily, and he had checked with the bar manager, the follow-up band would be playing some old rock covers.

He liked this place; it was not glossy but dedicated to good
music and to the small indie bands that toured the country searching for listeners. Vidya occasionally agreed to come with him; she was not musically inclined, but several of her friends were; that night she was circulating about the room. He finished his beer and looked around for the waiter—and then saw Kavika at the far end of the bar, deep in conversation. Anand squinted his eyes; he knew who her companion was. Kabir, Amir’s younger brother.

Kabir worked as a videogame designer, seemingly dividing his time between long days working and nights of partying, forever knee-deep in the most glamorous girls in the shortest skirts. There were, as usual, three of them clustered around him; Anand contemplated him with some awe. When he had mentioned Kabir’s girlfriends to Vidya, she had looked at him scornfully and said: Don’t be absurd. He’s gay.

And: Of course, she said, his parents don’t know.

It did not seem logical. Right now, Kabir was ignoring the girls and had his arm around Kavika, whispering in her ear, tugging at the scarf around her neck. She was laughing back.

The second band took to the stage and launched into a cover of Pink Floyd.

When Vidya wandered back to sip at the glass of vodka-tonic at their table, Anand could not help saying to her: I thought you said he was gay.

She glanced at Kabir and grinned. “All Kavika’s closest male friends are gay. She’s a total fag hag. You can’t be so critical of people,” she said. “Nothing wrong if he’s gay.”

“I didn’t say there was,” said Anand. “If he is gay.”

He tried to concentrate on the music. If the woman laughing at the distant bar saw him, she gave no indication of it. She seemed entirely absorbed with that idiot Kabir.

Now, in the safe embrace of his study, the music lifted his
mind from that bar to the sunlight of his garden and to the entirely different creature who had discussed politics with him on the lawn; that arching connection between them, one that surely didn’t exist in his imagination alone?

His mind moved fleetingly to Amir’s political meeting. He entered a note on his iPhone calendar, making sure nothing else conflicted with that time.

A LETTER WAS SUCH AN INFREQUENT
occurrence in her life that Kamala did not at first recognize that the pale blue inland cover was meant for her. She squinted at it, until her neighbor’s voice demanded: “Well, are you going to take it or not?” Kamala received it gingerly from the young bride. “The old lady got it with the other mail and asked me to give it to you.”

“Thank you,” said Kamala, but she found the bride squatting down and, for a moment, leaving off her usual insolent manner. “Akka,” she whispered, “she is raising our rent again. So quickly! Is she asking more from you as well?”

Kamala was startled but did not show it. “Not yet,” she said.

“If she does, will you pay?” asked the bride.

Kamala was troubled by the young bride’s words but had no desire to discuss the matter with her, so she took refuge in rudeness. “What business is it of yours?” she said and was gratified to see the girl sniff and bang her way into her own room.

The thin, pale blue-green paper, written upon and folded possessively three times over its mysterious contents, was decorated on top with what Kamala knew to be her name and address and the sender’s identity. She studied the fat, curved squiggles marching across the paper like looped jelebis and tried to decipher their meaning like an astrologer attempting to predict the future course of life from the stars. From her sister-in-law perhaps? Possibly. But her sister-in-law was as illiterate as she was and usually preferred to communicate her news over the telephone.

She could, if she wished, knock on the young bride’s door or cross the courtyard to where the landlord’s mother lived and ask either of them to decipher the squiggles; both of them had that literary capability, but that would make them instantly privy to the contents of the letter. Instead, after studying it for a few minutes more, Kamala placed it away on a shelf and started her cooking preparations, fretting at the slow passage of time.

“There you are,” she said impatiently when she heard his footsteps. “I have been waiting.”

“Why?” Narayan asked and then, as she thrust the blue cover at him, “For us? Who is it from?”

“We will know all these things,” said his mother severely, “if you would but hurry.”

He slit the edge of the folded letter and spread it open. Its contents covered only two of the three sides; the sender did not seem compelled to get their money’s worth from the two-rupee cost of the inland letter.

“It is from Maama,” he said. “He is coming for a visit.”

“What?” she said. “My brother? Here? You lie! Now, Narayan, don’t play the fool or I will beat you. I really will. With that broom, I will beat you.”

“I’m not playing the fool,” he said. “Mother. What a thing to say. He is coming here…. For somebody’s wedding … Listen! I will read it to you…. ‘Dear little sister,’ ” he read, “ ‘My prayers that this letter finds you in good health. You will be pleased to hear that …’ ”

Kamala made him read it through twice. The formal written tone could not disguise the reality: for the first time in all these years, her brother would be visiting her in Bangalore. She sat still, processing this unprecedented event, until she heard Narayan ask her: “Amma? Are you not happy? This bothers you?”

“I am happy,” she said. “It is a good thing he is coming. Does he say when?”

“Next week. I told you. For one night.”

She nodded and, with effort, turned the conversation to other channels, distracting Narayan with some gossip about Shanta’s latest crosspatchery.

Later, when he had abandoned his evening studies to play cricket in the gully, she looked around her house with something akin to panic. In an instant, that letter had snatched away her sense of peace, her casual pride, her deep comfort in her home.

When Kamala had first started work as a domestic servant, she had lived with her baby son in the homes she worked in as a full-time, stay-in maid. If she was lucky, she was given a separate, tiny room (usually off the kitchen and just large enough to sleep herself and her son). If she was not so lucky, then under the stairs, or on the kitchen floor, her belongings stored in some unused cupboard.

But things changed as her son grew older. He was in every way a beautifully blossoming little boy: noisy, curious, and his feet began to wander. He was still too young to understand
that the large residence they lived in was not their home; he was not free to run about at will, touching the things that caught his fancy, reaching his hand up for the fruit that gleamed on the table; it was not there for him. And though Kamala furiously, desperately corrected and hushed him, it was not long before she was being gently asked whether she could not make some other arrangement for her son. Could he not stay with grandparents in the village? Her employers were not bad people; Kamala realized that she would face the same questions wherever she worked.

It was time then to get a home of her own. But perhaps she was a very demanding type of person, for no matter how many places she saw, she could not be satisfied: a succession of single rooms, tiny and dingy from misuse—none of which she minded, for it was no more than she expected—but, all of them carrying with them the stench of other discomforts: potential landlords who inspected her body with disrespectful eyes; rooms that opened onto crowded, busy streets with doors that were lightweight and insecure, the surroundings so noisy that a voice raised in alarm would be swallowed up by the sounds of the street; or rooms that were so far removed from humanity that she could shout for help and go unheard. And so, like a nesting doe, Kamala had kept searching restlessly.

She had known instantly that this room was made for her. She could see her future in it: the gate at the entrance to the courtyard would keep her doubly secure; the families who lived in the dwellings within would provide her with community and security; the landlord seemed like a respectable man, and he and his family would doubtless be there for advice and assistance should she ever choose to seek it. Quickly, before the landlord could change his mind or before someone else could leap in and grab the room, she paid the advance requested
(not too high, because of the unseemly location so far from the city) and arranged to move in the very next day.

If Kamala had had one wish, in those early years, it was for a shorter commute to her work, which still took her an hour and a half each day. But, perhaps because she accepted the routine without complaint, the gods took pity upon her and, with their palms raised in benediction and gentle smiles upon their faces, they addressed themselves to the blisters on her feet and moved the city closer.

She had lived here for eight years.

He would come, her brother, and he would not see the nest that had kept her safe and cherished all these years; he would notice the peeling paint on the walls and the small size of the room and disparage her and all that she held dear, for that was what he had always done—and why should the intervening years have changed his character?

He was to attend the wedding of his wife’s connection, a cousin; Kamala wished that it was his wife attending instead of him. They, at least, had maintained a steady, affectionate communication over the years, with brief phone calls, first made from the STD phone booth at the corner and, later, from her newly acquired cellphone, which was cheaper.

She wondered, all of a fidget, whether she should buy a can of paint and put Narayan to work. Should she buy new clothes for both of them? The relentless profusion of such thoughts eventually annoyed her. What nonsense, she thought. Why should she do any of these things? Let him come. Let him say what he will. Let him poke his nose in the air and click his tongue and shake his head and make his hurtful comments. Let him.

Nevertheless, she found herself approaching the visit with an air of going into battle. Her brother would actually be
spending less than a day with her: he would arrive on the night bus and proceed directly to the wedding location, finding his way to Kamala’s house only after the morning’s festivities and lunch were completed. He would eat his evening meal with them, spend the night, and be off the following morning on the seven-hour bus ride back home to the village.

On the day of the visit, Narayan, noting the militant air with which she cooked the evening meal, opened his mouth and wisely shut it without comment, washing dishes and meekly changing into the shirt his mother gave him (his second best) and not arguing when she told him not to wander off with his friends but to stay put in the courtyard until his uncle should arrive.

Her brother arrived in the early hours of Sunday afternoon in the smart polyester shirt and pants he had donned for the wedding, a slight smattering of gray in his hair the only visible marker of the years that had passed since their last meeting. His first comment was positive: he exclaimed over how tall Narayan had become: “Taller than me soon, I think.” He then looked Kamala up and down. “You look well,” he pronounced, as though making an important diagnosis. Kamala felt herself relax slightly. She showed him about her room and the courtyard; he made no comment.