Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories (18 page)

She adds in a flat tone: ‘I want to see your eyes.'

He doesn't know how to react. This request is unexpected, almost insolent. Yet, coming from her, it doesn't seem hurtful. Should he say yes? It will mean that she'll see something about him that he hasn't seen for himself. What if they're horrific, these eyes that his glasses shield?

Her hot breath is on his neck. She's waiting nervously.

He says, ‘You can see them, but only if you describe them to me.'

Parvati gently removes his glasses. A heavy weight lifts off his face.

She doesn't move a single part of her body, so he knows that she is examining his eyes seriously. She seems to be searching for words as she says, ‘Your eyes are grey, the colour of the sky before it rains; murky with the opaqueness you see in the eyes of elderly people. They are still, like stones in water.' She pauses, takes a deep breath, as if this exercise is exhausting her. ‘On your right eye is a splotch, as if black ink has spilled across it. Your stare is somewhere else, looking London, talking Tokyo.'

He laughs, relieved to know what he looks like to her. There is nothing to hide any more.

With a sudden boldness Sunder would be proud of, he asks, ‘Can I touch your face?'

She doesn't reply but lifts his hands to the humid warmth of her face. Her skin is not smooth but greasy to the touch and full of pimples that he imagines she soothes with haldi at the end of every day. Her eyelashes are thin and she blinks often, probably tense. She has a large mole on her nose, a nose that is wider than her mouth and on which she wears a flat ring. Her lips are dry to touch, with tiny soft hair above them. Sunder was right. She is ugly.

He loves her more than ever.

He leans back, panting, as if they've just made love, though he never has, and he knows she doesn't pant afterwards.

With a queer inflection in her voice she says, ‘I want to tell you something. Promise me that you won't tell anyone. Not even Sunder.'

‘I promise.'

‘I've met a gora, Amreekan. He likes to help people, so when I told him about the famous blind friends of the Dagar chawl—the clip man and the cane man—he said he'd like to meet you.' She giggles. ‘He's nicknamed you both the “clip and cane brothers”.'

A clever man, Gyan thinks, and says ‘No,' rather ferociously, surprising even himself. Parvati stops giggling. ‘I don't want to meet him. And you shouldn't either. He's helping you because he wants something from you in return. Can't you see that he's making excuses to come to our chawl, so that he can enter your kholi and demand things from you?'

Parvati doesn't take offence, but calmly says, ‘Gyan, you talk like a child and think like a prostitute. Now finish eating. I have to take back the plate.'

Gyan chews slowly, allowing his emotions to settle.

Sometimes, when the blackness of his world gets to him, Gyan lights a matchstick next to one eye. He brings the matchstick so close that sometimes an eyelash burns. In those moments of sheer terror, with his face under the threat of fire, he senses a white light around him—the only time he sees a colour other than black.

Right now, all around him, Gyan is seeing white.

~

A few weeks pass like this; Parvati brings food for Gyan every other afternoon, whatever leftovers she can put together, and he eats her broken food while she talks about this and that, nothing that is new to him, but it doesn't even matter. She never stays for more than half an hour, running between her organization work and housework, making sure that Sheel doesn't notice her absences.

He asks her why she's doing this—bringing him food—and she replies, ‘I'm being a good neighbour.'

‘Then take some food for Dhoopwali Mai also,' he says in jest.

‘She doesn't have your eyes,' she laughs. Then she adds seriously, ‘And neither your kindness.'

He knows then that Parvati can hear him listening through the walls, that she has finally come to realize that she has a friend, not a spy, with whom she can share her sorrow. Maybe soon she will also learn to love him.

~

One day she walks into his kholi with slow, soft steps and sits down heavily next to him. He puts down his chisel and turns to where her taut breath meets his.

‘I have to tell you something,' she says, in a tone that tries to sound frightened but is in fact assured. ‘We will leave all this tomorrow.'

His hopes fly. She wants to come away with him. They'll find another chawl, away from Sheel, where he will continue caning chairs and she will, only if she wants to, sow sal leaves into plates, a job he's heard pays as much as caning. They will be the couple with only one good pair of eyes, and a better team no one will ever see.

‘We will go to Amreeka,' she says with ironclad conviction.

He laughs, for what do you do with a person whose ambitions are as improbable as his sight?

She is offended. ‘Don't you want to get away from here?'

‘No,' he says simply. Having made the passage through darkness seems to him journey enough.

‘Well, Bobby wants to take me there. I told him I'd go if you go. In Amreeka you can get your eyesight back. I can get away from Sheel. We will all be so happy.'

A cold hand squeezes the back of Gyan's neck.

‘Bobby?'

‘I call him Bobby but his name is Mr Bob Keen. He is my gora sahib from the organization.' Her voice has become soft. She whispers, ‘They say that nothing is stronger than the heart of a volunteer. After meeting Bobby, I know what they mean.'

Gyan feels as though a sack of cement has been poured into him and quickly hardened. He slumps. Is this heartbreak?

Parvati seems blind to his pain as she buries her face in Gyan's neck, clasping it. His skin burns in her grip.

‘I am so tired,' she says.

And suddenly she is sobbing, extravagantly.

At first he says nothing. Then, ‘I know. I know,' he utters and gathers the courage to bring his hand to her head. She becomes quiet beneath it.

He dredges up some cheerfulness and says, ‘I will come with you.' What is he saying?

Before he can retract, Parvati claps her hands with glee. ‘Gyan, I knew you'd say yes. You never disappoint me.' She moves closer to him till he can smell the onion egg curry she must have had for lunch. ‘You know that you are my dearest friend, the only one I trust. I want to give you something.'

There is a sound of something sliding against the gravel on the floor. His hands touch a wooden box. ‘Can you keep this safely for me? It has our air tickets and other documents that we need to go to Amreeka …'

‘Why can't your Bobby keep the box?'

‘He has already gone back to Amreeka.'

‘So he left you?'

‘Chaa! Don't be silly. His visa expired, almost four weeks ago, so he had to leave.'

Around the same time that she started visiting him, Gyan realized.

‘Why didn't he take you with him?'

‘My visa is taking time to come.'

‘Why don't you keep the box then? It will be simpler.'

‘Keep this in my house?' she sniggers. ‘What if Sheel opens it and sees what's inside? Yesterday he almost opened an envelope I'd got from Bobby. It's just a matter of a few days. My … I mean, our visa … will come and we can leave without being caught. Please, Gyan. You are my only hope.'

Gyan puts the box to his side, safe between him and the wall.

Parvati stands up, and says, ‘Sheel will be back in four hours. I will go home and start packing. We must be prepared to leave any time.'

‘Okay.'

‘And keep the box safe. If Sheel finds it, he will kill me.'

‘Okay,' Gyan says evenly.

‘Good boy,' she says, mimicking something she's probably heard in a movie.

He detects a stupid triumph in her voice, and she's gone.

He tries not to, but a tear rolls down his face. And then he's crying. Without holding back. Like he did when he was little and didn't know that the tears dripping from his eyes were for a sadness that he didn't yet have full knowledge of. He cries for all the years that he hasn't. Then darkness sets in.

He becomes conscious when someone throws water on his face. He splutters.

‘Are you okay?' Sunder asks. ‘I got scared seeing you sprawled on the floor like you were dead. What happened?'

Gyan sits up. He doesn't reply.

‘Is it because Aacharvati gave you this box?'

‘You opened the box?' Gyan screams. He has never screamed at his brother-in-blindness before. There is a stunned silence.

‘I … I am sorry, Gyan Da. I didn't know what to do. I thought you were dead and it had something to do with this box.'

‘How dare you!'

‘But there's not even anything important in it. Just some funny-looking money, some blue book with her photo in it, and a ticket with her name going to some place called Dallas.'

There's no ticket in the box for him. She lied to him.

Another thought strikes Gyan. ‘How do you know what's inside the box?' He stands up quickly, leaning against the wall. ‘Can you see what's inside it?' He pushes Sunder who has also stood up. ‘You, you can see. All this time, all these years, you
could
see. You … liar … scoundrel … you … how could you?'

‘Shhh … shhh. Don't shout—the whole mohulla will hear you. We will not be able to live here any more.'

‘I don't care,' Gyan screams louder. ‘You lied to me, you made me believe that you were a victim like me, my brother-in-blindness.'

‘Listen, Gyan Da. Please, listen to me. I
was
blind, just like you. Nanu took me to a hospital one day, where they fixed my eyes. He did it because he knew I wanted to be an actor. I have been able to see after that, not very well, but well enough.'

‘Nanu got your eyes fixed? Then why didn't you have him fix my eyes also?'

‘Nanu didn't have any more money. Don't make a face. He really didn't. In fact, he borrowed money from Taku Bhai for my surgery and …' Sunder's voice chokes. ‘And he lost his life because of me. When he couldn't pay him back, Taku Bhai's men threw him out of a train. It wasn't an accident like we were told.'

He begins sobbing. ‘My sight became a curse; it killed our Nanu. I hate it, I hate it that I can see.'

‘Why didn't you tell me that you were cured?'

‘Nanu made me promise not to tell anyone,' Sunder replies between sobs. ‘He couldn't afford to get everyone's eyes fixed.'

‘Then why did you keep pretending once Nanu was gone, when the others left?' My voice comes out louder than I expect. ‘Why are you doing this? I am not a bad person. Answer me.'

Sunder pauses for a moment, and adds: ‘I make double the money as a blind clip-seller than a normal one. People love me. We live in this kholi, paying only three hundred rupees rent, when there are thousands willing to pay a hundred times more. And it's only because they think that we're both blind.'

‘Who's telling you to stay here? You should have left after the surgery and become a film star.'

Sunder is quiet and after a long while his voice wavers, ‘I tried. But I was not good enough to be a film star. The producers told me to dance, to project my voice, to build a big body … I couldn't. And after Nanu's death, everyone left this kholi, but you refused to go, saying that this was your home. You were all alone, and I knew you had nowhere else to go. I stayed back because I love you.'

‘Love me?' Gyan laughs. ‘Are you able to even speak the truth any more? Chaa! You even lied that I was like your brother.'

‘Gyan Da, you
are
my brother. I lied to you for your own sake. I knew that you wouldn't love me if I wasn't blind like you.'

‘Don't blame me for your lies. I didn't tell you to look after me. You are a liar, a cheat,' Gyan shouts and pushes Sunder. ‘I hate you. Get out. Get out of this house.' He hears Sunder's knees thud on the ground.

‘I was right,' Sunder shouts back. ‘You only loved me because you thought I was a victim like you.' He shuffles to his feet. ‘You only love those you think are martyrs like you. Like Aacharvati. But people like that will never love you back.'

‘How do you know that she doesn't love me?'

Sunder laughs, his voice thin. ‘I saw some photos that were proof enough.'

Gyan walks over to where Sunder's voice is coming from and catches him by the collar.

‘What photos? Are there photos in that box? What is in those photos?'

There is a silence. Sunder lets out a long sigh and Gyan hears him run his fingers through his long hair.

‘Tell me,' Gyan screams.

‘Nothing, nothing important,' he says, guilt making his voice thinner.

‘Tell me or I will burn down this kholi. This whole chawl.'

‘Okay, okay. Calm down. The box had an envelope with a stamp on it. Someone must have posted it to her—Bobby—it has photos of some gora and Aacharvati.'

‘What are they doing in the photos?'

‘Nothing.'

‘What are they doing? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.' Gyan scrambles around and lifts what must be a photo from the box. ‘This photo, describe it.'

Sunder takes the photo from his hand and when he speaks, his voice is resigned. ‘Aacharvati's face is buried in his neck.'

Like it was in his a few hours ago.

Gyan tears the photo with a roar and throws it on what he hopes is Sunder's face. ‘Get out, you liar, get out. Get out.'

He hears Sunder's footsteps shuffle out of the kholi in haste.

Gyan pictures Bobby and Parvati in bed, a week before Bobby's departure. Bobby leans over and whispers to Parvati, ‘Make friends with that cane brother. I'll send you a ticket to the USA and you can hide it in his house. That way no one will find out that you're running away with me.'