Three Bargains: A Novel Page 8

  The boy untangled himself from Madan and Madan was barely able to take a breath when they were standing up again, arms interlocked, head butting against head. The crowd grew restless, but Madan’s only hope seemed to be in never giving up his position. The other boy, however, had other ideas, and in a spectacular cluster of moves, he grabbed Madan’s hand and, pivoting on one foot, kicked his other foot up and around, hooking Madan behind the knee. In a thud of bodies, they fell to earth. The boy sprawled over Madan, crushing him into the dust.

  Rolling in the mud to cool off his sweat-slicked body, the boy rose up from the ground to great applause. People flowed into the pit. Madan stared up at the blue-gray sky, grit covering his tongue and the skin of his face, arms, legs and back, stinging like a million needle pricks. No one noticed as he got up with some difficulty and slinked back to the shade of the tree, collapsing next to the wall.

  “You weren’t that bad.” Jaggu appeared at his side, slipping two hard-boiled eggs rolled up in a chappati into his hand and placing a steel tumbler of cold almond milk by his feet. Madan attacked the food and drink eagerly. “There’s more in the kitchen if you want,” said Jaggu.

  He squatted down next to Madan and scanned the scene before him, his gaze alighting on the tall silhouette of Avtaar Singh. “It’s strange,” Jaggu said. “He gives you a job, makes sure you get into school, helps your family, always wants to talk to you. Gorapur was never a boring place, but everything has certainly become more interesting since you arrived.”

  Madan scarfed down the last bite and licked the crumbs off his fingers. “Avtaar Singh used to be a pehlwan here,” he said, feeling the need to change the subject. “That’s his guru-ji.”

  The guru-ji noticed their attention and came to join them. He seemed much friendlier, and chatted fondly about his akhara, about Avtaar Singh.

  “He wrestled for a few years when he was young,” the guru-ji shared. “His father was a very stern man. Didn’t approve of him coming here, of this lifestyle of training and abstinence and sacrifice. Every day, arguments with his father. ‘Only pigs roll in the mud,’ his father used to come and shout from the wall. Avtaar . . . while he thrived in the akhara’s discipline, his father’s strictness choked him, for some reason. He’d come every morning at five before school to train, and would grapple all day if you asked him. After school, he was here again, exercising, training and competing.”

  “Why did he stop?” asked Jaggu. “No one tells Avtaar Singh what to do.”

  “Young man, you always listen to your father.” The guru-ji laid a stern look on Jaggu, but dispensed of it as he looked out onto his akhara again. “He loved it deeply, but the akhara is too small a place for a man like him. Don’t you think? Like any first love, it was not enough. He could win every Bharat Kesri, Rustom-e-Hind and Maha Bharat Kesri, but these awards would not be enough for him. Perhaps his father was the wiser one, and recognized this much before all of us.”

  Madan was beginning to see why Avtaar Singh paid respect to his guru-ji apart from his status as a teacher. The man spoke astutely.

  A crowd made up of old men from nearby farms and younger ones returning from work accumulated at the wall. Motorcycles were propped against the few trees, bicycles flung down to land where they may. Young boys in tattered shorts mock-wrestled. The chanting of prayers offered to Lord Hanuman floated wispily over the throng.

  “We’re having a few bouts of kushti in honor of Avtaar Singh,” said the guru-ji. “Time to show Avtaar Singh a real match,” he said with a laugh.

  Madan moved in closer to Avtaar Singh’s chair as the wrestling began. He noticed that Avtaar Singh did not smile or add to the mayhem of catcalls, but his whole body seemed to speak in many tongues to the spectacle before him.

  After the matches, the men returned to their training, and Jaggu poked Madan in the ribs. “Saab is calling you.”

  Standing before Avtaar Singh once again, Madan hung his head and mumbled, “I’m sorry, saab.” He was exhausted.

  “For what, now?”

  “For losing, saab.”

  Avtaar Singh looked down on him, appraising the worth of his dirty clothes and his blistered and peeling skin. His hand lifted like he was going to lay it comfortingly on Madan’s shoulder or ruffle his hair, but he paused and said, “You know why that boy was fighting?”

  Madan shook his head.

  “To save face is the obvious reason—he couldn’t lose to a fresh apple like you. But if he didn’t win, he wouldn’t get to eat. Why were you fighting?”

  He couldn’t think why. He had thought Avtaar Singh wanted him to, but Avtaar Singh had given him no such order.

  “So soon you forgot what I told you,” said Avtaar Singh. “You must always have a purpose. Your opponent can be anyone, but to win, it’s not who or what you’re fighting against, as much as what you’re fighting for.”

  Instead of feeling chastised, Madan wanted to fall against the pillar of Avtaar Singh’s leg and cry in relief. No longer could he feel his cold shirt plastered to his back by sweat and oil or his aching muscles or dejected heart. He wanted to rush back into the ring and defeat the strongest pehlwan. I’ll never forget, saab, he said to himself, imprinting it in his mind.

  “Come,” Avtaar Singh said, calling Madan to accompany him for a walk in the green paddy fields beyond the wall.

  Floating between the rice stalks, dabchicks dipped their beaks into the cool water. “Look at that.” Avtaar Singh pointed with delight, as if he hadn’t seen these common birds in the rushes many times before.

  “How’s your sister?” Avtaar Singh asked.

  Madan wished for any other topic but this. It felt too harsh and too soon to steal away the elation pulsing through him.

  “Still in hospital.”

  They turned around to look at the akhara. The dusty, sweaty men were moving shadows against the sun, the gathered crowd dispersing, analyzing the evening’s bouts, each with their own opinions on how the play should have gone down.

  “Saab?”

  Avtaar Singh’s attention shifted to Madan. “Saab, my father, saab? Did you find him yet?”

  “Soon,” Avtaar Singh said, his words measured. “Do you want to know when we find him?”

  Madan was scared to say yes or no, unsure where either answer would lead.

  “Then what do you want to know, boy?”

  Questions like these made his head hurt. He wrapped his arms around himself. Though there was farm and town rolling away behind the akhara, from where they stood the arena could be at the edge of the world.

  “There are no rules in the akhara,” Avtaar Singh said. “No time limits. You fight till you win. That is it. Yes, you need strength and skill, you need to know every move and countermove. But you fight, until you win.”

  He took Madan’s hand in his own and they traveled slowly back, each with his own thoughts, not yet shoulder to shoulder, but leaning on one another.

  Exercise books, stationery, sports equipment, toys and more toys filled the shelves and the floor of the toy shop, brimming onto the sidewalk. Every passing gust of wind deposited another layer of dust, especially on the bicycles and strollers hanging off the sign outside. The shopkeeper kept an eye on Madan as he tried to find room to wriggle deeper into the confines of the overstocked store.

  Madan couldn’t decide what to get Swati. Maybe a chalkboard set? For her to draw on. Or a cooking play set? He settled on another doll, a blond baby with its own baby bottle, and then made his way home, his shopping bags full. Ma should be back from the hospital by now. These days, he was taking care of his grandfather, with Ma busy at the hospital when she was not at work. A few more days, the doctor had said, and then they could bring Swati home.

  The entrance to the servants’ quarters came into view and he saw a pair of Avtaar Singh’s men waiting. They straightened as he approached, greeting him with their eyes. “You are wanted by saab, at the factory.”

  Why? He was going to ask but the saliva fled his t
ongue, and his arms and legs began to tremble with the weight of his bags. “I . . . I’ll put this inside,” he stammered. They moved aside, allowing him to enter. In their room, his mother prayed before pictures of her gods, Ram, Sita, Lakshman and Hanuman. Lately Ganesh and Kali Ma had joined the confederacy pasted on the wall.

  “Ma?” Didn’t she hear him come in? “Those men are here.”

  “I know,” she said. She didn’t turn around.

  “Ma, they got Bapu. Avtaar Singh is calling me.”

  He didn’t know what to do. Should he go? He had to go. He couldn’t disobey Avtaar Singh. But he was unsure if he wanted to see his father. Why wouldn’t his mother say something?

  “Ma.” She still refused to look. “What should I do? I’ll do whatever you say.”

  He reached out to pull at her sari, make her turn his way, look at him instead of those stupid pictures. Leave your gods, he wanted to say. They never saved Swati and they won’t save Bapu. Just tell me what you want me to do.

  He heard the men rustling outside. They would come looking for him soon. His mother mumbled prayers under her breath, each incantation adding to the spiraling anger in the pit of his stomach.

  “Fucking woman,” he shouted, unable to bear it any longer. “Only prayers all the time.”

  He stalked out of the room, but before he reached the men, he turned around. “Ma—” If she forbade him from going, he would defy even Avtaar Singh.

  But she had shut the door.

  They walked Madan to the massive steel furnace in the center of the factory. In the prism of heat surrounding the furnace, men milled about in an informal circle. The rest of the factory was deserted. There was a sharp tang of motor oil and hot metal in the air. Pushed to the center of the group, he looked up to see Feroze, the man from the hospital with the faint green eyes.

  Someone went to get Avtaar Singh. When he emerged from his office, the men moved to attention. Madan could tell that they were not used to Avtaar Singh being present at such occasions.

  “So, boy, how is the work going?”

  Madan startled at the mundane question. “Good . . . very good, saab.”

  “And school?”

  He bowed his head. He couldn’t speak anymore, nothing would come out.

  Feroze and the other men laughed. “Saab, why did you call him here? This lizard’s pussy is going to throw up all over our shoes.”

  Avtaar Singh silenced them with a look. “Come here,” he said, pulling Madan to his side, sheltering him from the heat and the cluster of hard, staring eyes. “Do you want to leave? You’re free to go if you want.”

  Madan heard Feroze titter in the crowd. He moved closer into Avtaar Singh. “No, saab,” he said. “I don’t want to go.” The furnace roared behind him.

  At Avtaar Singh’s signal, two of the men disappeared, returning shortly with a sack between them.

  “Look,” said Avtaar Singh. Madan turned to see what they had placed on the floor. It wasn’t a sack. His trembling ceased; he suddenly began to feel mellow, like he was swimming underwater.

  Released from Avtaar Singh’s side, he approached the man quivering on the floor like he was cold, and well he should be. He looked stripped clean of any cover of skin and hair. Mesmerized, Madan peered at the face, trying to discern any movement. The eyes opened and fixed on him, glazed and unblinking. A mangled stump reached out as if pleading for a hand up.

  Madan could feel the men’s eyes on him, wondering what he would do. If he’d be shocked, horrified, cry like a baby. Moving past their curious gazes, he regarded Avtaar Singh. These men did not know about that day in the dining room, and the deal he’d made with Avtaar Singh. Madan knew then where those disclosures would lead. Thinking of it now, he grasped that he revealed something about himself that would terrify anybody else but Avtaar Singh.

  Looking up at Avtaar Singh prevailing over them with a hint of a smile, he understood why Avtaar Singh had summoned him to the factory. This wasn’t a place for confusion with consequences, for trying to divine intent and meaning, or for regret. It was Madan’s rightful place, more than any of these men’s. At Avtaar Singh’s side, everything became clear and uncomplicated.

  A low, plaintive moan drew his attention back to the floor.

  “Son . . .” The stump rocked back and forth.

  A plank of wood not four feet in length lay within reach. It was in Madan’s hand now. He swung it up in the air and slammed down. Chunks of flesh flew by him, splattered on his face, slithered down his legs. But he heaved the plank up and brought it down, again and again.

  “Don’t—call—me—son.” Sweat stung his eyes, and blood misted the air, yet he pounded on. With every strike, the lump on the floor jerked up and down.

  The men, caught by surprise at first, sniggered and clapped each other on the back. “Look . . . look at the little cocksucker. Jumping up and down like a hijra.”

  Moments later, Feroze stilled his hand. “Enough,” he heard Avtaar Singh say. “He’s gone.”

  The plank slipped out of his bloody grip. Sawdust cushioned its return to the floor.

  Someone undid the hutchlike opening to the furnace. Waves of heat billowed out. The men swarmed around the broken body and Madan stood back to give them room. They gathered the mass of flesh, pushing forward through the heat. The legs went in first; there was a sound of bones popping. Then a last shove to the shattered skull.

  He didn’t notice when the men dispersed. They left him staring into the roiling flames, roaring and flaring up as if inviting him in as well. After a while, he felt someone beside him.

  “At least you got to consign him to a fire,” Feroze said. “Never got to do that last rite to my bastard father.”

  Feroze slipped a bottle into his hand. “Here,” he said. Madan lifted the bottle to his lips. He was thirsty. The sip did not cool his parched throat but instead warmed him up. He took another big sip, splashing some of the toddy on his clothes.

  “Slowly, slowly,” Feroze said, closing the hutch door of the furnace.

  Feroze disappeared too, leaving him with the bottle of toddy. Madan took another long sip. A light spilled out of the window of Avtaar Singh’s office. He wasn’t sure if Avtaar Singh was in or had gone home. He went and stood outside Avtaar Singh’s door. He didn’t know what to do with himself. The door whooshed open, and Avtaar Singh stood in the light.

  “Where’ve you been?”Avtaar Singh said as if he had been wondering where he was. “Come in.”

  Tentatively, Madan stepped into the office. He was a mess, and reeked of perspiration, blood and the rank fumes of the toddy. A whiff of himself brought up a bit of his long-forgotten meal, and he swallowed hard to push the bile back down.

  Avtaar Singh went to his desk and Madan stumbled after him.

  Removing a hand towel hanging from the desk’s drawer handle which he usually spread on his lap when he ate lunch, Avtaar Singh soaked it through with water from the drinking jug.

  “Come here,” he said to Madan. He took the toddy bottle from Madan’s hand and tossed it into the bin.

  “Who gave you this?” he asked, but it was a rhetorical question. Avtaar Singh knew.

  Steadying Madan by the shoulder, Avtaar Singh began to wipe him down, gently cleaning his face and behind his ears, swabbing the back of his neck and running the towel down his arms. The towel changed color as Avtaar Singh attended to Madan. Intermittently, he rinsed the towel out, beginning afresh, tending to Madan’s hands, carefully scouring the blood and gore from under his nails and between his fingers. Madan could feel Avtaar Singh’s breath, warming his cleaned skin as he lifted Madan’s T-shirt, sponging his chest and under his arms, then attending to the mop of Madan’s hair, fussing over each strand, coaxing the blood and tissue matter off until his dampened hairs stood on end. Avtaar Singh’s touch was tender, as if he sensed the tension in Madan’s muscles and did not want to add to the soreness and the ringing pain.

  He bent down and ran the towel over Madan’s leg
s. Pulling his scummy rubber slippers off, Avtaar Singh placed Madan’s foot on his knee and scrubbed the dirt off Madan’s rough sole and the underside of his foot. A dirty imprint remained on Avtaar Singh’s trousers.

  Madan wanted to tell him to stop. It was ill-fitting for a man of Avtaar Singh’s stature to do such a thing. Even his father had never ministered to Madan like this. His father had never cared to bend low enough to count Madan’s toes.

  Madan’s breath caught in his throat as he remembered the events that had occurred outside the door. He tried now to connect the man who would come bellowing into their quarters and the scrap of pounded bones and flesh scraped off the factory floor. Were they the same? Would he go home and find him resurrected from the ashes, sitting on the chair with a bottle between his legs, sour and angry, waiting to exact some kind of retribution?

  Madan’s legs trembled, and he did not know at first if it was with fright or from exhaustion. He placed a hand on Avtaar Singh’s shoulder to balance himself. He could feel the strength in the sinew, tendons and tissue rippling with life under his palms. He knew then his legs shook with nothing but relief. A tear leaked out and ran unbidden down his cheek. Avtaar Singh wiped it away too.

  “These tears are too precious.” He held Madan’s chin and dabbed at the corners of his eyes. “Don’t waste them.”

  Avtaar Singh stood back and scrutinized Madan from top to bottom. Satisfied, he threw the dirty towel in the corner of the office.

  Madan looked at his arms and legs. He was glistening. Avtaar Singh had wiped every trace of his father off him.

  CHAPTER 7

  STEPPING INTO SUNRISE GENERAL GOODS, MADAN GLANCED around the empty store looking for the proprietor, Sharma-ji. He heard thumping overhead and looked up to see Sharma-ji perched halfway up a ladder, a dust cloth in hand.

  There were two clear divisions to Sharma-ji’s store. The items in the glass cases under the countertops were of Indian origin: packets of Parle-G glucose biscuits in waxy yellow wrappings, Swati’s favorite Britannia chocolate cream cookies, packets of bhujia and chewra and other salty delights—“domestic goods,” as Sharma-ji called them. On the shelves above were the goods from abroad consisting of whatever could fit in a suitcase: Kraft cheese tins, Pepsi cans, Hershey’s chocolate syrup and tins of Del Monte sweet corn.