The Unexpected Son (24 page)

Vinita slid off the bed and stood up, fighting the sensation that the room was spinning a bit. “I'm looking out for you and your parents, Rohit. Try to understand that. It could lead to a lot of problems.”

God, what had she done? Why had she felt the need to tell her son the repugnant details of her past? If she'd just donated the bone marrow and then disappeared from his life, she'd have been all right. They'd all have been. But this silly urge to get through to her son, get to know him a little and make him accept her, had led to other things.

He stood, too. For the first time she could see how tall he really was. He probably stood about five foot ten or so. Notwithstanding the nervous knots in her stomach, a warm beam of light seemed to melt and loosen some of those knots. Despite the ravages of leukemia, he was a handsome boy. And he was smart—like herself and her brother. If Rohit had brains, they couldn't possibly have come through the Kori genes.

With what sounded like a threat, he looked down at her. “You think I can't find out a simple fact like who you had an affair with? I teach at Shivraj College. You probably attended the same college.”

“Don't do this, Rohit,” she pleaded. But even before she'd said it, she knew it was futile. There was that unfortunate proclivity for obstinacy in her side of the family. He'd go after the facts like a bloodhound and hunt them down.

“I can easily find out who my father is.” His jaw was working and the eyes had a stubborn look about them, proving her hunch.

She rubbed her forehead.
What to do?
“Please, Rohit, stop asking me. A lot of people could get hurt.” Once again, Vishal's and her mother's dire predictions came to mind.

“I want to know who my father is,” he affirmed.

Footsteps were coming down the corridor. She hoped she'd be saved by them. “Someone's coming,” she said, tilting her head in the direction of the door.

“Mrs. Patil,
who
is my father?” he repeated, ignoring her remark.

The footsteps were closer now.

“You win, Rohit. But don't say I didn't warn you. If you must know, your father is Somesh Kori.”

Vinita heard a gasp and turned to look toward the door. Meenal Barve stood frozen on the threshold, her eyes wide, her hand pressed against her mouth.

Mr. Barve was a step behind her, his expression hard as diamonds.

Vinita turned her attention to Rohit. Her son's golden eyes had turned dark with emotion. Was it shock? Disgust? Fury? It was impossible to tell.

T
he odors of his mother's cooking met Rohit the instant he unlocked the front door and stepped into the drawing room of his parents' home. Fish curry. She was making his favorite—fiery red gravy with pomfret.

His mother was trying hard to draw him out, to cheer him up. But neither his appetite nor his spirits showed signs of perking up.

Just another day in the life of a cancer victim.

Kicking off his black leather
chappals,
he shut the door behind him and leaned back against it. He was exhausted. Teaching just two classes, followed by the short motorcycle ride, had worn him out. The antibiotic prescribed for his latest infection must have been powerful. He had stopped taking it, but the weariness persisted.

Pocketing his keys, he went to the sofa and stretched out on it. It was a relief to feel the firm, cool vinyl underneath his weakening body, which eased the deep ache inside his bones. He rarely spoke about it to his parents, or even his doctors.

What was the use of complaining, anyway? All they'd do is pump more medicines into him, fuss over him, and force him to eat. He was sick of medicines, sick of food, and even more sick of attention.

News about his illness had spread very quickly through the community. Not at all surprising in this gossip-hungry town. His fellow professors looked at him with uncharacteristic pity lately, offering unexpected gestures of kindness. The unfriendly ones were stopping to have a word with him. Even the stingy ones were offering to buy him a cup of tea—as if leukemia somehow made a man penniless on top of destroying his health.

His students, even the ones who used to play practical jokes on him, had begun to treat him with more respect. Who needed pity disguised as respect? Why couldn't everyone treat him like they had in the past? He was sick of being handled like an injured butterfly.

He shut his eyes and threw an arm over them. The only sounds in the house were the scraping of spoons against pots in the kitchen, and his mother's radio. The daily news was on, the monotonous voice of the reader annoyingly soothing, cultivated, and trained not to irritate the listeners. And yet its very refinement grated on Rohit's nerves.

But none of that was the reason for his present state of mind. It was something else. Ever since that woman, his biological mother, had informed him that his real father was Somesh Kori, Rohit had had difficulty focusing on anything—even his work. If there was one thing that usually took his mind off his illness, it was his job. But the shock of learning about his real identity was destroying his mind—and to some extent, his body.

He'd always known he was adopted. His parents had made no secret of it. But no one had known he was a Kori—no one other than the Shelke family.

Why hadn't he made the connection before? His unusual eyes should have been an indication. There was only one man—one conceited man—that Rohit knew, who had those very same eyes: Som Kori. Of all the men in the entire world, that one had to be his father.

Something else struck him in that instant. The two Kori girls, who were his students, were his…half sisters. Good Lord, one of them even had eyes like his. Why hadn't he paid attention to that before? It was so clear now, the resemblance.

“You're home early, Rohit.” His mother's voice interrupted his thoughts as she emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “How are you feeling?”

“I'm all right,” Rohit replied testily, reluctant to tell her he had cancelled his last class because he'd felt too weak to stand before a group of students for nearly an hour and deliver a lecture. She'd end up asking more questions and he wasn't sure he had the answers.

“Would you like some tea?” she queried.

Rohit shook his head. Tea wasn't likely to remedy his problem. “I think I'll rest a little.” His parents had insisted that he move back in with them for a while, so they could keep an eye on him. He didn't like the idea of giving up his privacy, but he was too exhausted these days to do anything for himself, so it was convenient to stay with them.

His mother quickly strode over to his side and put a hand on his forehead. “You don't have a fever, I hope?”

“No fever. I'm just…tired.” She worried too much. He looked at her face. He'd been looking at her a lot lately—staring at her at times, like studying a stranger with an objective eye. This was the woman who had reared him as her own. She was thirty-nine years old when she and his father had adopted him. Shashi Barve was forty-three then.

She wasn't a pretty woman, but her face had kindness and tolerance embedded in every line and spot. There was a certain quiet dignity in her that commanded respect. From the servant who came in each day to do the household work to their friends and acquaintances, Meenal Barve was looked upon with fond regard.

He couldn't remember a single day when she'd raised her hand or her voice to him—not even when he'd disobeyed her or his father, or landed in trouble. And he had got himself into lots of mischief as a little boy, and later as a teenager.

She'd discovered that he was secretly smoking cigarettes for a while, that he had been cutting classes while in college and nearly failed in two courses, that he was betting money on card games and losing badly. But she had quietly treated him with a firm hand, and she had never broken her promise not to mention his indiscretions to his father.

To this day, Papa didn't know about those incidents. It was their secret—his and his mother's. He smiled at her. “I'm okay…really.”

“Why don't you try to sleep until Papa comes home from his meeting?” She tucked a pillow under his head.

He stiffened. “What meeting?”

“Political, of course,” she replied. “They are planning something big. Your father will not tell me, but I know.”

“Hmph,” Rohit groaned, his eyes going to the photos lining the drawing-room walls. Papa's proud legacy.

His father's political activities were the reason for most arguments in their home. It hadn't been as bad when his father had initially become involved with the Marathi Samithi because of his deep love for the Marathi language and culture, and his belief that Palgaum rightfully belonged in the Marathi-speaking state of Maharashtra. Rohit had even admired his father's passion, his capacity for selfless service to the cause.

Eventually, after retiring from his job, Shashi Barve had taken on the role of chairman of the organization. His anti-Kannada sentiments had become more acrid, then turned into a personal battle. Slowly he'd become consumed by his need to destroy the Kannada people of the world.

But Papa had backed off a little after Rohit's illness had been diagnosed. That was the only good thing that had come from the leukemia.

“You know what that means,” said Meenal, interrupting his musings again. “He is going to be moody.”

Rohit shifted from his back to his side so he could face his mother. “I thought he had withdrawn a little from the Samithi since my sickness.”

“Yes, for a short time, because he wanted to spend more time with you. But now that you have returned to work and you are waiting for a donor, he has gone back to it.” She was silent for a beat. “I'm worried about something, Rohit.”

“What?”

“Since Mrs. Patil told us about…you know…”

“Som Kori,” Rohit prompted. Both his parents seemed to have difficulty saying that name.

She nodded. “Your father has become more…”

“Vindictive? Hostile?”

“Both.” She sighed and turned to go back to the kitchen. “Get some rest until dinner.”

His eyes were beginning to shut even before she was gone from the room. It was almost as if the energy was draining from his body in droplets, slowly depleting him of life. In actuality, it was. He was tired of living this way.

The woman who claimed to be his birth mother was now offering him her bone marrow. Although the offer was tempting, he didn't want anything from her. Besides, the cost of a bone marrow transplant was prohibitive. His own meager savings would never cover the price, and he certainly wouldn't allow his parents to deplete theirs. After all that, what was the guarantee that he'd live? A minor infection could kill him when his immune system was reduced to nothing.

But the fact remained that the woman had traveled all the way from the U.S. to help him.

He wasn't as enraged at her now as he was the day he'd met her. When she'd explained how he'd ended up being adopted, he had reluctantly accepted that he had been better off as the Barves' son than the illegitimate son of a teenager. He wouldn't have had a life. He wouldn't have acquired a good education, or taken on a respectable profession.

The Barves weren't wealthy and Rohit would never become rich as a college professor, but he liked his job. He was respected in Palgaum as a man who had earned a PhD at an early age, and instead of going into private industry he had decided to take up a less lucrative but more honorable occupation. He was happy. At least he used to be happy—until leukemia had abruptly invaded his life.

What was he to do now? Accept that woman's offer? Reject it because he was too proud to accept charity from a woman who was his mother but not really his mother, and eventually die? What if she wasn't even a compatible donor? She'd go back to where she belonged and he could go back to facing a death warrant.

But, as his mother, the chances of her being compatible were nearly perfect.

 

An hour later, Rohit woke up from his nap and found himself in near-total darkness. His mother must have deliberately kept the lights off in the room so he could sleep.

The temperature was noticeably cooler than when he'd fallen asleep. He sat up and stretched. The aroma of fish curry was stronger now, so it was dinnertime or thereabouts. He wondered if his father had come home from his meeting yet.

Rising to his feet, Rohit swayed a little and grabbed the arm of the sofa. He resented the weak feeling. He used to be a star cricketer in his college days—despite his diabetes. Now he was reduced to this pathetic weakling. It wasn't fair.

Shaking off the self-pity, he turned on the lights and padded toward the bathroom. He needed to take his insulin injection before sitting down to dinner. The tile floor of the drawing room felt cool on his bare soles and woke him up some more. As he headed down the short passageway, he heard his parents' voices coming from the direction of their bedroom.

His father was home. Rohit would have ignored their voices if it hadn't sounded like a heated argument.

He halted in his tracks. They spoke in low tones behind the closed door. But it was still a quarrel.

His mother sounded distressed. “Just because we know that man is Rohit's father, you can't just—”

“I didn't do anything!” His father was angry, defensive.

“Then why is this happening
now…
within a few days of finding out about Kori?”

“Coincidence. Some of our Marathi young men are hot-headed.”

“Why do you instigate such things?” she demanded.

“Inspiring people to take pride in their heritage is not instigating,” retorted his father.

“We have so many things to worry about and you are out inspiring people? Rohit is sick again. There is the transplant, and Vinita Patil…” His mother's voice trailed off, the frustration clearly evident.

Having heard enough, Rohit quietly proceeded to the bathroom. This was one of the main reasons he'd moved away from home and into his own flat. As his father had grown older, he had become more bigoted. Besides the photographs, the house was filled with pickets, banners, cuttings from newspapers and magazines, people coming over for impromptu meetings. Everywhere Rohit turned, he was bombarded by politics.

His father had progressively gone from an ordinary engineer to a political hero. Rohit was terrified of his father's philosophy. It was a virulent form of cancer in itself, not unlike Hitler's view of Semites, albeit on a small scale.

To top it all off, Rohit's parents' arguments had escalated. There was so much unnecessary strife. His own illness and the ensuing tension were making the situation worse.

As an educator, Rohit had very little interest in politics. While he was still a young and idealistic college student some years ago, he had marched in a few Marathi rallies. But that had become stale after a while. Now that he was older, wiser, and he taught an equal number of students from both the Marathi and Kannada communities, his focus had shifted. Politics was something he'd left behind a while back.

He wished his father would do the same and enjoy what was left of his retirement.

Minutes later, when he emerged from the bathroom, everything was quiet. His parents' disagreement had come to its natural conclusion: his mother had likely shaken her head in resignation and his father had marched out of the bedroom, belligerent and unwilling to give up his beloved cause.

He heard the sounds of his mother setting the table for dinner—the clang of stainless steel
thalis,
spoons, water tumblers. A variety of fiery hot pickles and chutneys would sit in the center of the table. What used to make his hungry stomach rumble with anticipation now managed to nauseate him. He rubbed a hand over his roiling belly.

His father was seated on the sofa, watching the evening news on television.

Shashi turned his head when he heard Rohit's footsteps, studying his son for a second. “How are you feeling?” he asked. There was no lingering anger or resentment from his earlier argument with his wife.

“Better. I slept a little,” replied Rohit, and sat down in one of the chairs.

“Took your insulin?”

“Yes.” He kept his eyes on the TV. He didn't want his father to guess he'd overheard some of the conversation behind the bedroom door.

The local Palgaum news segment came on, instantly capturing Rohit's attention. Plastered across the screen were the graffiti-covered wall and broken windows of Som Kori's office. The bold black-and-white sign was hanging crooked.
KORI ENTERPRISES
. So this was what his mother was accusing his father of instigating.