The Guru of Love (20 page)

“Goma, please.”

“I told Sanu yesterday what happened.”

Ramchandra stared at her in disbelief. “Why did you do such a thing?”

“Why shouldn't I? She's been asking me what happened. She's been depressed.”

“And your telling her made her happy?” He didn't want to argue with Goma, but he was sickened by the thought of Sanu looking at him with scorn.

“She's old enough to deal with the truth.”

He was silent, then said, “I thought she was happy here.”

“She's a sensitive girl. She was pretending, so that I wouldn't worry about her.”

Ramchandra sat down in the chair vacated by his father-in-law. “Goma, let's go home.”

She turned toward the gate. “What will I do there?”

“It's your home. It belongs to you.”

The door burst open,and Sanu and Rakesh came out. Rakesh immediately complained to his father about his not having visited in a long time. Sanu remained at a distance, avoiding his eyes.

“Go pack your belongings. We're going back to Jaisideval.”

Rakesh looked at his mother. “So soon? You didn't tell us about this.”

Goma patted him on the head.

“What about school, then?” Rakesh asked, a trace of hope on his face.

“We'll worry about that once we get home,” Ramchandra said.

Sanu went inside.

Ramchandra waited breathlessly for Goma's response.

“All right,” she told Rakesh. “It's time for us to go home.”

 

The taxi ride to Jaisideval was filled with silence. Even Rakesh stopped his usual chattering and pressed his nose against the window to blow vapor on the glass. Sanu sat with hands in her lap, her eyes on the crowded streets. Earlier, after she had vanished into the house, they had had to search for her. She was found in the back garden, lying on the grass and staring at the sky. Ramchandra wanted to apologize to her, but he let Goma approach their daughter and ask that she get ready. For a long moment Sanu didn't move; then, muttering under her breath, she went in to pack her things.

The taxi driver was singing an old Nepali song, one that proclaimed heartbreak despite the protagonist's chasing a damsel named Sani up and down the slopes and crossing the river of Bijapur:
Ukali orali chadhera, Bijapur khola tarera, Sanilai bolaunda boldina, parnu pir paryo.
Just to break the tension, Ramchandra first hummed along with the driver. And replacing “Sani” with “Sanu,” he started singing. Rakesh began to belt out the song too, poking Sanu at each mention of her name. Ramchandra, who was sitting beside the driver, turned around and said to his daughter, “So, Sanu, who is chasing you, eh?” Sanu didn't smile, and Goma said to Ramchandra, coldly, “You don't need to teach my children about chasing and grabbing.”

Ramchandra stopped, and Rakesh went back to pressing his nose against the window. Only the taxi driver continued humming.

As they got out of the taxi, the neighbors watched. The tea shopkeeper stared at them while he was giving change to a customer. A coin slipped through his fingers and clanked its way down the street. A neighbor smiled and nodded. Inside the courtyard, Mr. Sharma leaned on his windowsill, unsmiling, and Ramchandra observed him carefully to see how he looked at Sanu, but Mr. Sharma was watching Goma.

They trudged up the stairs, and for a brief moment Goma stood on the landing, as if she felt traces of Malati's presence. “I'm going to sleep in the children's room,” she told Ramchandra. Sanu headed toward her room, and Rakesh went to a neighbor's window and shouted to his courtyard friends. Ramchandra had to remind him that they'd all gone to school. It was already nine o'clock, and his school reopened today, too. He'd leave it to Goma to decide whether the children should go.

As if reading his thoughts, Goma said, “Okay, get dressed for school.”

Rakesh pouted with disappointment. “But we haven't had anything to eat. And school's already started.”

“I'll give you money for snacks. Come on.”

She went to the children's room with the bags and helped them get ready.

Sanu, passing Ramchandra on her way down the stairs, didn't meet his eyes.

After the children had left, the apartment was silent. Goma stayed in the kitchen. Ramchandra sniffed the bedroom for the scent of Malati in the air. He peeked inside the kitchen: Goma was sitting on a pirka in a corner, her knees pulled up, her fingers doodling figures on the floor.

“What shall we eat this morning?” he asked.

“I don't need to eat. I'll cook something for you.”

“There's nothing to cook.”

“I'll go to the market.”

“No need to cook only for me,” he said. Two thousand explanations, apologies, excuses floated through his mind, but all he could do, too, was doodle on the floor.

A loud rap sounded on the door downstairs. “Who could it be?” Ramchandra said. For a moment he didn't move, thinking that this moment with Goma was too important to break. But the rapping continued, followed by footsteps on the stairs. He went to the landing and saw Malati coming up, holding Rachana on her hip. Sucking in his breath, he bounded down the stairs, and nudged her to go back down. She started to speak, and he shook his head vigorously. In the courtyard, he whispered, “Goma is back.”

“I am so sorry, sir,” she said. “Malekha Didi kicked me out of the house.”

“Why?”

“She said she's angry about everything.”

“But you haven't done anything.”

“I pleaded with her. It was of no use.”

“Where are your things?”

“She threw everything out on the front porch. Says if I don't pick it all up by this evening, she'll throw it into the street.”

Mr. Sharma had come back to his window and was watching. Ramchandra glared at him, then he thought hard and said to Malati, “Okay, right now I'm talking to Goma. Why don't you come to the school at around eleven, and we'll find a solution.” He asked whether she'd had anything to eat, and she shook her head, so he fished in his pockets and found a twenty-rupee note for her. He told her the directions to get to his school. “If I'm teaching, just wait outside the door. I'll find you.”

“How is bhauju?” she whispered.

“She'll be fine.”

“I am so sorry about this, sir,” she said, her eyes welling up. “But I didn't know where else to go.”

“Don't be sorry. Okay, go now.”

He went upstairs. Goma was in the kitchen, sitting in the same position. It was nearly time for him to get to school. He hadn't planned on going there today, because he hoped to spend time with Goma and find ways to reconcile, but he couldn't leave Malati in the lurch. “I'd better get dressed,” he said to Goma, who didn't look up.

As he went to the bedroom, he heard her say, in a low voice, “It was Malati, wasn't it?” He said nothing, just stood in the doorway, his back to her.

“What does she want?”

“Nothing. She wanted nothing. It's over between us.”

“She's in trouble, isn't she?”

“Yes, but it's not a big deal.”

She said nothing more, so he got dressed. His stomach was rumbling. Maybe he could eat a samosa during the break.

He went back to the kitchen. Goma was now standing by the window, looking out.

“I am leaving,” he said.

She turned. Her face had a strange expression, a combination of pain and resolve, and he was slightly afraid of what thoughts were running through her mind. “What are you going to do about her?” she asked.

“It's over, Goma. Trust me. Please. I have learned my lesson.”

“Are you going to leave her, just like that?”

“It was a momentary thing, a lapse. It'll happen no more.”

“A fine man you are,” she said. “Where is she going to go?”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn't she tell you her stepmother kicked her out of the house?”

How had she heard that? Had she come down the stairs to listen to them?

“Yes, but that's her problem, not ours.”

Goma gave a short, bitter laugh. “A fine, noble man you are.”

“I've asked her to come to the school,” he admitted. “I'll give her some money.”

“You'll give her money? Is she a prostitute?”

“What do you want me to do, Goma? I don't know what to do.”

They were silent. Then Goma said, “Ask her to come here.”

“Come here?”

“Yes, here, to this miserable apartment.”

Ramchandra laughed.

“Yes, you two can sleep in the bedroom. I'll sleep with the children.”

Ramchandra leaned against the doorway. Goma was dead serious. “Is this your way of punishing me? Saying such things?”

“I am not punishing you. You asked me to help you.”

“How will this help me?”

“Don't you see?” she said, shaking her head, as if he were a child who couldn't see the obvious. “You've found something in her you haven't found in me. You have to decide for yourself exactly what that is. And the only way to do so is by being honest, by living with her, as if you were husband and wife.”

“What nonsense, Goma. This is not a Hindi film.”

“She needs help right now, doesn't she? She can't walk the streets with that child on her hip. The city will swallow her up. She'll become a prostitute.”

Ramchandra groaned.

“And you need help of another kind. You need to find out what it is you crave. So this is the only way.”

“Impossible,” he said. “Goma, you've lost your senses.”

“Yes, indeed,” she said. “I'm the one who's lost my senses.”

“What will the children think?” he finally said. He thought of his daughter, and a moan escaped his mouth. “I can't do it. What will Sanu think?”

“I'll explain things to her.”

“She's only thirteen years old. How do you expect her to understand?”

“You don't know your daughter.”

“She'll hate me for the rest of her life. Goma, this is absurd.”

“What you did with her, without my knowledge, is more absurd than this.”

“No, no.”

“So what will you tell her today at school?”

“I don't know.”

She came closer to him. “Listen to me.” Her voice was firm. “What you've done is irreparable. If you two want to be together, I'm not going to stand in your way.”

He leaned against her shoulder and cried. “What kind of a woman are you? You're asking me to bring someone home, as if she were my second wife. That's unnatural. It's wrong.”

“Says who?”

“Society won't accept it.”

“Why are you concerned about society now?”

“People will condemn us. They'll laugh at you.”

“I don't care who laughs at me.”

“What about your parents?”

“This is not their problem, therefore not theirs to solve.”

The room spun, and Ramchandra sat down on the floor. “This is wrong, this is wrong.”

“It's the only way. The only way we can reach the truth. The only way I'll be satisfied living with you from now on. Otherwise, our relationship will always be cold, as it has been these past weeks.”

“Please don't do this to me, Goma.”

“I'm doing nothing to you. I'm offering a solution to a problem that you caused. I'm offering a roof to a girl who has been left homeless. If you have a better solution, let me hear it.”

Ramchandra closed his eyes. “I need a glass of water.”

She brought him one, and he gulped it down. She brought him another one, and he drank it, too.

“Go and bring her home. I'll get the rooms ready,” Goma said, and went into the children's room.

Ramchandra stood up and ran down the stairs.

 

At school, he dreaded Malati's arrival. The students could tell he was distracted and became restive. Some even talked to each other while he outlined a math problem on the board. In his second period, when he was teaching the tenth grade and was writing on the board, something hit him hard on the back. He turned around, and on the floor was a dead rat. The students usually didn't play pranks on him as they did to the other teachers, and he'd always assumed, with a degree of smugness, that they respected him. Now he glared at the snickering students, and his eyes fell on one, in the middle of the classroom, a tall, lanky boy with long hair and a red bandana tied around his head. The school rules explicitly forbade extraneous clothing, such as a bandana or a hat, but some of the senior students ignored the rule. Bandana Miss also disliked long hair, and she'd had arguments with this particular student.

“Okay, who did this?” Ramchandra said loudly. “Mukesh, get up.”

Mukesh lazily got to his feet. “You need something, sir?”

“Come with me to Bandana Miss's office.”

“For what, sir?”

The rest of the students were laughing. “Yes, he did it, sir. He's a naughty, naughty boy,” someone called out.

Mukesh looked around the classroom with a smile. “Evidence, my dear comrades. Where is the evidence?”

“Okay, that's it. Don't blame me if you fail your S.L.C. You, come with me.” He pointed to Mukesh, picked up the dead rat by its tail, which brought howls of laughter from his students, and left the classroom. Mukesh followed, his hands in his pockets. Ramchandra noticed a string tied around the rat's limp neck, holding a small note. It read: “The future of Panchayat.” Ramchandra wanted to laugh at the practical joke, but this was a rat, and it had been thrown at him, a teacher. “You want to be expelled? Is that why you do these things?” Ramchandra said.

Bandana Miss was on the phone, but once she saw the rat dangling from Ramchandra's hand, she ended her conversation.

Ramchandra told her what had happened.

“I didn't do it,” Mukesh said. His eyes dared Ramchandra.