Stories for Chip (9 page)

“Let's get going,” I barked. “We can shoot the breeze at home.”

“Oh, daddu can't wait to pinch amma's waist,” said my eldest, and the other two monsters laughed.

“It is his waist to pinch,” said the missus, cool as cucumber. “Your father has lost weight. I thought I told you all to take care of him.”

In the Indica, with the girls squashed in the back, whispering God alone knew what amongst themselves, as I adjusted the gear the missus moved her hand over mine. And just like that, we were connected again.

“I want to go nowhere this weekend,” she murmured, “Go nowhere, see no one, except you and the girls. Maybe not even the girls.”

I smiled. “That is my plan as well. But what if I told you I met Martin-sir at Dadar this morning?”

She sighed. “That is not funny, please don't crack jokes about the dead like that.”

The moment she said, “the dead,” I felt a strange shiver run through me. Of course! Martin-sir was dead. He had died two years ago. We'd attended his funeral in Nagpur. Yet the memory of the morning's meeting was—then I wasn't sure any longer. Was my memory of an earlier meeting?

“He said that families, like vegetable gardens—” I began.

“Are always in a state of becoming. Yes, yes, I remember your telling me the day you met him. Martin-sir was really saying he didn't expect to be around much longer. We should have invited him for dinner. But what to do? It was my first big case; he himself called to tell me not to worry, that we'd all meet another day. Now it's too late.”

I didn't turn my head because I had a terror of taking my eyes off the road while I was driving, but I knew without inspection that I had unintentionally hurt my wife. What on Earth had come over me to bring up that meeting?

“I'm so sorry,” I said, quite vexed. “I don't know what possessed me.”

She smiled, poked me in the waist. “Don't feel so bad, sir; it is simply the excitement of seeing me.”

Yes, perhaps. Nevertheless, I resolved to tend to my family better. I considered the matter settled but Chandini, who must have overheard us, considered it otherwise. The missus came to know I'd bumped—“cracked” is the word she used—my head on the glass table. She and the girls took turns to inspect the area, and though their combined expert medical expertise could find nothing wrong, their recommendation was that I schedule a visit with our GP. I rejected their advice, but a few days, I found myself in the GP's office, with Chandini as guard, waiting to learn about the results of the MRI report.

The doctor's office had a TV tuned to the news channel, since there are few other things guaranteed to induce a desire to live. Zohrab had been released on bail. Per usual, the news item was an excuse to display a salacious album of violence the victim had had to allegedly endure. Or rather, had failed to endure.

“What is this rubbish?” I barked at the receptionist. “There are children here. Please change the channel.”

She resentfully switched to the MTV channel, and since I'd spent my aggrievement quota, there was no choice but to endure this new form of violence.

The tests had confirmed, we eventually learned, there was nothing detectably wrong with me. Four thousand rupees down the drain.

“I hope you're now happy,” I told Chandini, somewhat bitterly.

“Actually, younger-father, I'm now a bit hungry. Udipi?”

I always loved it when she wanted something. We stopped at an Udipi, not far from the quack's clinic. Once the waiter had taken our orders, I cast about for a suitable topic. We had been able to chat like old friends once. I asked Chandini whether she still kept a diary. She said she didn't and I sensed the distance between us increase. Stupid question. It's a fact that a girl whose mother had been raped and murdered would lose interest in recording reality. The fact seemed strangely unfamiliar, like I had avoided thinking about it and had just become aware of it. Yet I had to admit the fact, just as I also had to add an “allegedly,” since whether Chandini's mother had been raped and murdered or had been seduced and committed suicide depended on which side of the courtroom one stood.

I stared at Chandini, as if I were seeing her anew. This innocent child, my brother's only daughter—no, my child—how she'd suffered. I was overwhelmed with emotion.

“It's okay,” she said quietly.

I nodded, unable to speak. Some homes are protected by silence. My elder-brother, may God rest his soul, had been the strong-silent type. I had decided when the missus and I had gotten married that I would not have such a home. My home would be protected by conversation. I would say what I wanted to say. My children would say what they wanted to say.

“Chandini, your mother—your new mother—she is only doing her duty. She cannot prosecute without sufficient evidence. Hence the delay. His fame or influence has nothing to do with it.”

“I know that,” she protested. “Who cares about the Zohrab case? I don't hate anyone.”

I looked at her closely. “Do you really mean that?”

“Younger-father, I'm old enough to see things clearly. Anything can happen in this world, I know that.”

“Yes, but we all need justice—”

“Younger-father, that I can love is the only justice there is.”

“My dear child.” I didn't care if I embarrassed her; I grasped her palms. “How did you become so wise?”

“Amar Chitra Katha,” she said humbly.

She smiled when I laughed, and we talked more easily. She liked history, considered the ACK series a reliable source, and as someone who taught history for a living, I was torn between encouraging her interest and shattering her illusion. When I eventually remembered that the missus would be waiting to hear about the MRI results, Chandini said she'd already SMS'd that I was fine.

I was less sanguine. I felt fine, physically. I slept well, ate well, and moved my bowels regularly. I was virile as ever. Nonetheless, there were these odd slippages in my life. Like the morning I got up convinced I had three daughters instead of two.

“Where is Parvati?” I asked, at breakfast. “She'll be late for school.”

“Who is Parvati?” asked the missus, baffled.

“Our child, who else?”

They goggled at me. I sympathized with them. I knew exactly how they felt. I only had two daughters. What Parvati, who Parvati? I knew as well as I knew the five fingers of my hand that Parvati existed only in the gaps in my head. My wife developed this amorous little smile that said: my dear sir, we can discuss a new baby but not in front of the children! Ha-ha and hee-hee from my two monsters.

It was all very entertaining for others, but for me, a terror began to haunt my soul. How can I describe this terror, especially in an age where the existence of the soul has been disproved? My wife sensed some of this turmoil. How could she not, when what happens to one happens to us all? Or has science disproved that too?

“Is everything all right?” she asked, touching my forehead. “Ever since I decided to drop this accursed case, you have been out of sorts. You understand why I had to drop it? In the absence of evidence, Zohrab is innocent. I cannot manufacture evidence. Even if the man is suspected of raping and murdering my sister-in-law. It is a sacred principle, the foundation of law and order. Tell me what I did was right; give me clarity.”

“You did the right thing.” I saw her in the battlefield of life, face resplendent, bow in hand. Life had assigned me to be her charioteer. I would drive her wherever she wished. “What is the use of a principle if we abandon it the moment it becomes inconvenient?”

“Then please tell me what troubles you,” she begged, her voice wobbling. “I want my jolly husband back.”

I confessed then that I feared I was going mad. I told her I remembered things, bits and piece of things, things that had never happened. For example, I had this crazy idea we had three daughters. I was terrified, I told her, I would awake one day to find that I only remembered having a wife. Her face relaxed slightly, as if I'd confirmed something she'd been suspecting for a while.

“What nonsense you talk,” she said tenderly. “As if you will ever lose me. I know what the problem is. I have been working too hard, we don't see each other much, that is why. I will cut back. It pays really well, but let this job get over, I will cut back.”

We talked for a bit, she made some hot chocolate, we took out albums, we perused the photos of our family, birthdays, sports days, holidays, remember this, remember when. After a while I began to see the stupidity of my concerns. I told her so, and she sighed with relief.

“They're not stupid. Let me tell you a real incident that happened with me also. It will blow your mind.”

She told me of a pet poodle she'd remembered loving greatly as a child, then discovering in a conversation with her father that the family had never had a pet anything, let alone a filthy dog. My mind stayed in one piece and her story comforted me. She'd recounted this incident once before, only it had been a pet cat in that version. If her mind could forget, then so could mine.

In the bedroom, post-ablutions, I waited for her to get into bed, then turned off the light. The missus said in a sleepy voice: watch your step. But I didn't need the light. There was a full moon. The glass desk, a ghostly blue in the limpid moonlight, guided me to my wife's side.

“Are you still looking to sell it?” she asked.

I had placed ads both online and in print. No takers. I rewrote the ads, made the desk sound more tempting, re-shot the photos. No takers. Eventually, I lost all sanity and began to post completely imaginary details. Once I gave the desk fluted golden wings. Another time I claimed I'd found it buried in a Peruvian rain forest. Still later, I boasted it was Samuel Delany's personal writing desk and the real reason behind his success. I gave the desk clawed feet, headphone jacks, iPhone chargers, scaled it to golden rectangle proportions, and photoshopped religious symbols on its corpus. No takers. There did not exist a fiction that could sell the glass desk. If I threw it from a six-story building, it would probably bounce like a rubber ball and settle back in my bedroom.

“Don't sell it.” My wife was almost asleep. “The desk has no duty to perform whatsoever and that somehow comforts me.”

My wife had been fond of the desk. I remembered her request. I told my brother I'd been able to dispose of everything but the glass desk. He and his wife would shortly arrive to take me to the airport and take Chandini with them. I sat at the desk, neither here nor there, neither in time nor outside it, caught in the twilight of all things. Chandini came into the room and stood by my side. Seeing my poor darling, I still felt compelled by duty, if not belief, to offer hope. I reiterated, I advised, I comforted. I failed.

“I'll be all right, father. There is no need to worry about me.”

“Yes, yes,” I told her, clasping her hand to my cheek. “Let me set things up in Kampala and I will send for you.”

“When, father?” she asked.

The quaver in her voice stabbed me to the core. The Buddha, it is said, touched the Earth so that she would bear witness to his words. Oh, for solid ground. I took her hand, touched the glass desk.

“As soon as things are a little clearer.”

Ellen Kushner

“Writers who (as it were) fetishize straightforwardness, yes
—
and see high style as a way to achieve it. That's [Sir Thomas] Browne's legacy. But not clarity.”

—
Samuel R. Delany

1.

When two swordsmen meet, no one knows what to expect.

It's a cold night in a cold city. Cold stone under cold starlight. He walks down a deserted street, sure of himself, sure of the weapon he bears. He's not altogether surprised when the stranger steps out of the shadows.

“Hey,” he says to the newcomer. “You hungry? I'm going to friends with a fire and a big pot always bubbling on it.” By which we see that it's not just his sword that defends him, whatever he may think.

The other stands very still. “You're not what I thought you'd be,” he says flatly.

“Why not?” the swordsman asks, curious.

“The way they talk about you, I thought you would be all embroidered gloves and studded leather.”

The swordsman nods. He's used to being misunderstood. “So are you hungry?” he asks again.

“Not for friends. Not for a bubbling pot of stew.”

Slowly, the swordsman nods. “Fame and glory, then. Studded gloves and embroidered leather.”

Without another word, he draws, and the other man does, too.

It's almost too easy. This kid—he can see it's a kid, now—is sure of his own moves; he was clearly top dog in all his classes. Good ripostes, full of verve and aggression. But he's not always sure how to respond. He should be thinking more about defense. That's something you polish with time.

The kid's got his lower lip caught in his teeth.
Relax your jaw
, the swordsman thinks; but he's not his teacher. Instead he says, “Fame and glory? There's no one here to see you. No one will know. Ah! Nice move.”

“Thank you. You'll know.”

More aggression now. The swordsman is having to enlist his own flawless defense. Not what he expected.

“No silks,” the kid pants, coming at him the length of the cobbles. “No leather—”

Was there something underfoot? Too dark to see what it was, or if it was, or if it's just a kid who badly needs to win making him give way; but the swordsman finds himself on his back, with his opponent's point at his neck.

“What I want,” the kid says. He pauses. “I don't think the word has been invented.”

“Maybe it's not a word.” He's never been able to be anything other than himself. If the kids wants him to die, here, that's what will happen. But he doesn't think that's what the kid wants.