The Hope Factory (31 page)

There was just one photograph with the two of them, Anand and Kavika as part of a larger group photo, posted by his wife. Anand did not like himself in the picture; he looked as he always did: ordinary. But he had downloaded the image onto his laptop, deleted it—and downloaded it again: it was the only evidence he possessed of the two of them inhabiting the same physical space. He pictured himself as a part of her other photographs, as a part of the rest of her life: his arm around her, casually, as though it had a right to be there, his face alive, captured in a moment of happiness.

Her visit to the factory replayed through his late night mind in an undying loop, as though she made a habit of visiting,
coming there to listen to him, to laugh, to flirt, her casual touches meaning so much more, reserved only for him, her fingers sliding their way across his impatient skin until everyone else in the factory magically vanished and he possessed her body as thoroughly as she did his mind. His intense fantasizing in front of the computer never sustained itself in the bathroom; he found himself overwhelmed, crippled, frustrated, his wayward penis, usually so easily aroused by the slightest passing image, turning flaccid despite fervent tugs, his ineffective hand rising to wipe his eyes in the cooling shower.

THE FIRST PERSON KAMALA
encountered when she stepped out of her room the next morning was the landlord’s mother. What the old woman saw on her face had her hurrying forward. “Oh, daughter,” she said. “Such misery! What a wretch I am to have caused you such anguish. Don’t distress yourself, do not. If only I could spare you this, I would. I will convince my son to agree to your offer, you do not worry. The gods will help you. Or your brother will. I know this. I wish I could spare you this.”

“Thank you, mother,” said Kamala. “That is kindness. I will raise what money I can.”

THE FIGHT IN THE KITCHEN
was different. Kamala could sense that in an instant, even through her own worries. Shanta washed dishes in a sullen silence, while Thangam muttered in
anger. “You promised,” she kept saying. “You promised. And I was a fool to believe you.”

Vidya-ma had yelled at Thangam the previous evening—not for her work, which was getting more careless as her financial troubles increased—but for the ruckus that had taken place at the front gate, where a member of the chit fund had arrived, along with her family and friends, to demand the payout that was her due. Two other chit fund members had joined in, calling for Thangam, panicked about rumors of the failure of the fund and the possible loss of all their savings. Thangam, with growing numbers of defaulters and unable to compensate all of them, had cowered within. Vidya-ma had suffered a profound shock to find her house besieged by the denizens of the adjacent slum, barely repulsed by the feeble efforts of the watchman, much to the good-natured amusement of neighboring watchmen, drivers, itinerant laborers, and ragamuffins. Thangam’s angry creditors had refused to be dislodged by Vidya-ma’s threats and scoldings; she had finally retired to her bed with a screaming headache and a bad temper, none of it improved by Thangam’s abject apologies.

Kamala was surprised that Thangam wasn’t fired for this, but beyond shouting at her through the day, Vidya-ma did nothing further. Thangam’s face this morning was swollen with tears. She had asked Shanta to return the money Thangam had loaned her in happier, easier times. You keep saying you will, she said, unmindful of Shanta’s shame and unhappiness. You promised, sister. Now do it.

Kamala kept well out of their way. After days of praying ineffectively, she was finally resolved to do the one thing she had promised herself she would not. She would approach Anand-saar for a loan. She was frightened by the potential consequences of this: suppose he was annoyed by her request and
canceled Narayan’s education sponsorship? Suppose Thangam’s ruckus of the previous day had adversely affected his attitude toward all the staff? Vidya-ma must surely have complained.

She rehearsed her speech; she would start by thanking him for all he had given her; she would praise him—and Vidya-ma, and the children, and his father—for their benevolence; she would beg leave to ask him for a further favor. Her words sounded stilted and awkward in her mind; she knew, with a gathering sense of doom, that they would sound still worse when spoken aloud. She wished fervently for her son’s eloquence and ease of manner. When the day’s work was done and Thangam had resumed her quarrel with Shanta in the kitchen, Kamala gathered her resolution, said her prayers, and made her way to the study.

The door was partially open; a quiet light burned within. She thought that she would knock and poke her head through the door, that Anand-saar might see her and summon her, but instead she paused and sniffed. Sniffed again. She dithered in the shadows of the stairwell, not knowing what to do. Anand-saar alone at his table and drinking alcohol was not normal. His chair scraped back. The light clicked off. He emerged, his posture straight and his movements brisk, but so unapproachable, his eyes, sorrowful, tear-reddened. Kamala remained in the shadows, feeling like she had intruded upon a moment not meant for her to witness.

KAMALA WALKED HOME SLOWLY
, her mood tinged with failure. The bright streets of her employment yielded, at the corner tea shop, to the dull lighting of her own neighborhood. Without warning, the whole area was plunged into darkness from an unscheduled power cut.

Kamala stood still, waiting for her eyes to adjust; stepping inside the gutter would not aid matters. Behind her, in the distance, she could hear the sounds of private generators gunning and starting, harnessed to the electrical systems of large bungalows. Ahead, the tea shop owner lit a kerosene lamp; the light guided her forward.

A group of males, an undifferentiated, dark mass barely illumined by the kerosene lamp, were gathered near the tea shop. Something about them made her watchful. Even in the dark, it was easy to distinguish between men relaxing after a long day of honorable work and the malignant attitudes of those who spent their hours in less constructive ways. They were smoking, for one, a habit she despised. The intermittent glow of a puffed cigarette was succeeded by a golden arc as it was thrown into the gutter.

A woman walking alone past such a group was an invitation for trouble. Kamala slowed her steps. She could feel them watching her. One of the group disengaged and moved toward her. She tensed as he approached.

He seemed smaller than the rest. In a flash, she realized: the disquieting group by the tea shop was Raghavan and his friends; the slender figure approaching was her son.

“Amma,” he said happily, taking her small bag. She accompanied him silently, her mind burning. When had he started seeing that good-for-nothing Raghavan again? One of the benefits of the new school was that, in its strict attention to matters of attendance and homework, many of Narayan’s old, worrying ways and companions, including these loafers, seemed to have fallen away. When had he started seeing them again? Narayan spoke before she could. “Mother, listen…. I have been thinking about our troubles, and, well, I have spoken with that Raghavan—you remember him?—and from
the things he said …” he rushed his words past his mother’s defenses, “there might be other methods of earning money. Quickly. Enough money.”

The bile rose sharply in Kamala’s mouth; she spat into the drain that ran alongside, her spittle landing sharply on the dark earth below. “No.” As though he might not have heard, she repeated: “No.”

Never. For her son to throw away all his chances, his future, to engage in whatever lawbreaking ventures that Raghavan amused himself with. No. A secondary fear arose: that Narayan, with his independent mind, would not listen to her, would be tempted by notions of quick, easy money earned through disreputable means. She forced herself to smile reassuringly, as though she were a film star with an innate ability for lying drama, and patted his back. “I have a plan myself,” she said. “You don’t worry.”

“Really?” he said, doubtfully.

“Really,” she said. “You do not worry. Just concentrate on your work and make sure Anand-saar gets good reports about you from the school. That is the only thing for you to think about. Have you done your homework?”

The question distracted him. She observed the lightening of worry in his eyes, his guileless trust in her words.

At home, she prepared a meal, supervised and scolded him through his homework, and when finally he lay asleep, hunted through her belongings for a recent letter from her sister-in-law in the village.

The landlord’s mother could be right: perhaps there was such a thing as too much pride.

TWO MONTHS OF MONSOON RAIN
and the approach of winter had tempered the blazing heat of summer.
RAINFALL LOW
, the headlines had screamed in June,
DROUGHT A POSSIBILITY
, before abandoning that viewpoint a few weeks later and rushing to other extremes.
FLOODS
, they shrieked. But despite the coolness of the day, despite the air-conditioning that further cooled Anand’s office, the Landbroker seemed to be feeling the heat.

“It has never happened before to me, saar,” he said.

Anand absorbed the misery on the Landbroker’s face and knew that, whatever was going on, the Landbroker was not complicit in it. “Tell me again,” he said. “Tell me again.” He calmed his own breathing and kept his voice soft, his eyes on the agitated rise and fall of the Landbroker’s shirt and the nervous vibration of his fingers on his knees. It seemed that any sudden gestures might set him to fleeing, startled light-foot, like a gazelle in the jungle.

“It has never happened to me before, saar,” said the Landbroker. “Usually, when such a phone call comes—and it happens, I’m not saying it does not happen—it is a simple affair. Some political fellows will call, they will ask for some money, I will pay, the deal will proceed. Normally, I would not even mention it to you. Just like I do not mention the number of times I might have visited this farmer, or drunk coffee with that one, or even helped that other one organize his daughter’s wedding.”

Anand knew all this, the laborious process of relationship building that underlay the Landbroker’s deals, part of his efforts to join a patchwork of independently owned fields into a single, consolidated sale of land. “Yes, yes,” he said encouragingly.

“All that is normal. I am doing every day. This is my work. And if a particular political party can benefit by such a sale, they will try. After all, they have to raise funds for elections, isn’t it? As I said, that too is normal. So when I received the call yesterday, at first I was not worried. I thought, okay, it will be some routine haggling with a cup of coffee. They will say a price. I will say something lower. Then we settle. As simple as that. And then that farmer will be instructed by them to sell. But this time …”

“Yes,” said Anand. “Tell me again.”

“This time, they are not fixing a price. They don’t want to meet me. They want to meet you. They say that, otherwise, they will not allow the deal to happen. They will not allow that farmer to sell.”

“Can they do that?”

“Yes, they have the power,” said the Landbroker. “This particular party is very strong in this area, many supporters. If
they decide that this one sale should not happen, the farmers will listen to them. And for those who protest, they will be threatened by the party goondas.”

“If we have no choice,” said Anand, cautiously, “then I suppose I will have to meet them.”

The Landbroker nodded, so unnerved that he did not seem to be able to utter his usual comforting mantra of “not to worry, saar.”

Anand briefed his colleagues about this new development. Mrs. Padmavati listened to him in a wise silence, but Ananthamurthy turned voluble, in his agitation asking the same question that had first troubled Anand. “Why Cauvery Auto?”

Anand wagged his head, but Mr. Ananthamurthy’s question was apparently rhetorical; he had launched into a diatribe, triggered by god-knows-what memories and years of democratic injustice. “See,” Ananthamurthy said, “this is how it is. This is the very truth of the matter. We can work. We can create. We can work very hard—and the minute we can say, yes, we are having a little success, there they are, hands outstretched like beggars. Rubbish political parties! As though this country will not run better without any of them. They dare to speak of returning to Ram Rajya, but instead of setting up a kingdom of the gods, a land of honor and justice, they create a Ravana Rajya instead, unleashing a hundred demons across the land. I tell you, sir, there is no hope. With government like this, there is no hope. I tell you, sir,” he said, “I have been expecting this. The minute we gave that last wage increase—you remember?—three months ago?—I said, now they will smell money, and they will come. Rascals! Scavengers! Feeding like hyenas off the work of others. Hyenas—and as stupid as owls, no doubt.”

“Yes,” said Anand, aiming for soothing acquiescence rather than actual concurrence.

“But, sir,” said Mrs. Padmavati, taking his words with a certain particularity, “that wage increase was a very good thing, is it not? Our workers are happy.”

“Yes,” said Anand.

“It is a good thing,” said Ananthamurthy, with decision. “But see? It has attracted these rascals.”

Anand felt a matching exhaustion; it seemed he was infected by Ananthamurthy’s sudden pessimism. Perhaps it was never going to be possible to outrun the system. It reminded him of the story in his son’s book about the girl Alice who ran and ran in a nightmarish way and, when she stopped, found herself in exactly the same checkered square where she had started.

HIS FATHER WAS CROSS-LEGGED
on the sofa in the drawing room. He was not alone, Anand saw; he was entertaining a friend.

“Ah, Anand,” he said, including his son in the conversation, “we were just discussing … Those government blighters seem to be making no progress on the power situation. What do you feel?”

“Your father tells me,” said the visitor, “that you are in business now. But that you are very successful! Very good, very good.”