Darshan (17 page)

“But we are friends,” Baba Singh grumbled.

“Still,” she sighed. “He hates you. He hates us all.”

She drew back the covers to reveal her sagging body. The sight of it had once made him cringe, but now he settled down next to her and cupped his hand over her breast.

Truthfully, she was the most unattractive woman he had ever encountered. When he had first come to see her, he could not imagine how she made her living as a prostitute. What right-minded man would touch her? She had black teeth, her hair was thin and oily, and her features were small and placed too close together, as if when she was a baby her mother had suctioned her face.

But she had grace.

Those narrow hips of hers swayed like ship masts on a calm day. They had fueled her reputation, and men came panting. She was also older and therefore not giggly like the other prostitutes in the house. Baba Singh especially liked the fierce aggression behind her luxurious movement. She would not hesitate to tackle any man to the ground who tried to cause her harm, as often happened to women in her profession. And the things she said often entertained him, strange things in broken Punjabi with a thick Cantonese accent. She told him she would like to learn to wear a turban for him, then wrapped her head with the long dress she had just stepped out of. She said she would mount him twice if he paid a little more so she could buy herself some wine and cheese and eat like the French for a night.

“How do you know Junjie?” Baba Singh asked her, moving his hand from her breast to caress her stomach.

“I know everyone,” she smiled. “Except your brother. Does he know what you do with me?”

Incensed, he tried to pull his hand away, but she firmly gripped his wrist and grinned wickedly. “You wish you were in love, like he is. I know. It must be painful to see that kind of devotion.”

He relaxed his arm, but turned away, ashamed. She forced his hand back to her breast and squeezed his hand around it, moaning slightly. He was not sure if she was mocking him.

“Do not be upset,” she said. “Not everyone is so lucky. Most women are terrible creatures. Junjie was thrown out like garbage and—although he pretends he is not—now he is angry and bitter. The love of his life ran away, like a startled little gazelle. She threw him out when she learned he had been cut off from his parents’ money. And I knew his father. They had a lot of money. You should move on. Empty your head of it all.” She pretended to spit off to the side, exaggerating her point.

“My wife…” he began, looking at her.

“I am sure she is no better,” the prostitute said. “Cold like a dead fish.” She brought him closer and wrapped a thin leg around his waist.

He clutched at her, roughly seizing her thigh, her flesh swelling between his spread fingers. He tried to remember. Sada Kaur was not cold, not when up close. Her skin had been hot when he touched it. It had burned into him.

But she was so far away. He gritted his teeth. She might not even have been real.

~   ~   ~

There had been warnings and signs.

Baba Singh wanted to roll his eyes at them now, at the red flags of his past telling him unambiguously that there was trouble. But he had missed them. What could be done about it now? Forward was the only direction—the only option—available.

He was pacing in front of Yashbir’s shop. Desa was there, on a stool Khushwant had brought outside for her. She sat sloppily, like a man. She slouched, her forearms resting negligently on her open knees, her mid-length salwaar hanging in the space between her legs.

“Stop it,” she said.

He reigned himself in, took a seat on the ground beside her stool.

There had definitely been warnings. Some of what he had disregarded was excusable, like his mother’s constant cramping and nausea. How could he have known what that meant? And there was his father’s opium. But Baba Singh had been dealing with his own grief. He had been too overburdened—and young—to fully grasp the extent of Lal’s.

But maybe he could have been more diligent the night he heard Kiran’s voice. That still bothered him. And there was Mr. Grewal, but he preferred not to dwell on that for too long. He still had nightmares. And truthfully, if he was absolutely honest with himself, he had known what would happen to Ranjit. He could remember the feeling he had when his brother left for Amritsar. That itchy sensation in his mind, an annoying mosquito he had just swatted away.

And Junjie. He had seen that coming, too. In all fairness, despite a growing dislike for the artist, Baba Singh
had
tried to do something about it. But in retrospect he had not made enough of an effort. From here, standing on the other side of the savage Hong Kong riots, he could clearly see how easy it would have been to rescue Junjie before the artist was swallowed by the enraged crowd. He could have forcibly dragged him away, whacked him over the head with his baton to sedate him.

“What is the matter with you?” Desa asked, although Baba Singh could tell she did not really want to know. He had been fidgeting, rolling his hands, one over the other, like washing off soap.

Flattening his palms against the ground, he asked, “Why did you give Satnam Avani’s elephant?”

“Because he liked it. Because you are his father.”

“He does not know that I made it. He does not know whose it was.”

“You two have something in common,” Desa said. “Why don’t you tell him?”

An old woman dressed in a white salwaar kameez was passing by. Her chuni was drawn up, but when she turned her head to him, he noticed that her hair was shorn, stubbly, soft like white, cut grass. She came nearer, stopping in front of Baba Singh. She bent and jutted her face toward him like a pigeon.

Baba Singh inclined his head politely. “Sat sri akal, Auntiji.”

“Reopening?” she asked, nodding at Yashbir’s shop. Inside, Khushwant and Simran were organizing and cleaning.

“Yes,” he murmured.

She leaned closer to him and he looked at her inquiringly. After a moment, she sighed and straightened, waving her hand as if pestered by an insect. “I thought you would know me,” she said, indicating her hair. “I thought it would be obvious.”

“Auntiji?”

“Your brother, Ranjit, once worked for me.”

Desa’s eyes widened.

The widow chuckled at their surprise, then glanced regretfully down the sunny road. “I should go now,” she said. “It is nice out. But a shift in the weather could undo me. I thought the wars would change things. All these women alone here, I thought I could just be another one of them, but it seems I am special. This town will never let me out of my long-dead marriage.”

“I am sorry, Auntiji,” Baba Singh said.

“I was sad to hear of Ranjit’s death,” she said gravely. “I sometimes feel responsible.”

Glancing away tiredly, Desa said, “What could you have had to do with it?”

“He was with me the night your sisters went missing. He never forgave himself.”

Desa stood abruptly. “He would not have done that.”

The old woman reached out a placating hand. “We were only friends. He was grieving for your mother and I knew something about grief.” She exhaled heavily. “He felt he was expected to save everyone, and then the girls got lost.”

She adjusted her chuni. “He was such a nice boy,” she said, smiling wistfully. “He felt everything so much more powerfully than most of us.” She again looked down the road. “I am so glad to have seen you both. I wish I could stay longer, but there are clouds approaching.” She bowed her head and continued on.

Baba Singh watched her go, remembering her manhoo, how Ranjit had spent too much time in that woman’s unlucky shadow. But it was too late and foolish to blame superstition. There had been signs, little clues that, had he paid even the slightest attention, had he given the slightest credence, would have changed everything.

~   ~   ~

“Get moving, Junjie,” Baba Singh said, roughly pulling at the artist’s tunic. “They will be here soon.”

Junjie pointed in exasperation at his latest painting. “I am not finished with this,” he said, jerking his tunic free.

Baba Singh gaped incredulously at the artist. “I am trying to help you!”

“I do not need your help.”

“Des Voeux Road is a main crossing. That mob is serious. The whole city is lost. You will be trampled.”

“They are tired of not getting paid for their work,” Junjie said, dipping his brush in a blob of yellow paint. “That is how your British bosses treat this country. They have a right to be angry. They have been told they are worthless.”

“Junjie, at this moment the reasons do not concern me. Just get away.”

“You do not have to worry about me. You should be worried about yourself. I will not be harmed.”

Baba Singh pulled out his baton and stared down the road. He could see smoke in the distance, down by the docks. “How do you know?”

Junjie stroked his brush across the canvas. “Because they are not angry with me. They are angry with you. We are not on the same side, Baba.”

~   ~   ~

Whatever side Baba Singh had been on, it was not the wrong one. That much was obvious. People died on the wrong side. Or went missing. He crawled onto his charpoy in the mud hut’s second room and closed his eyes for an afternoon nap. He was so sick of righteousness.
He
had not gone missing. He was here. He was home.

Tired, he tried to rest. After the widow had disappeared down Suraj Road, he spent the entire day helping Khushwant, Simran, and Desa clean and organize the blacksmith shop. Tomorrow he would be in the fields with Prem and Manmohan. He was reentering his routine, settling back into his life.

“Bapu?” he heard Satnam ask from the doorway. “Are you sleeping?”

Baba Singh peeled his eyelids open. “You are back from school early.”

“I wanted to show you. Look what I made.” Satnam came closer, holding a new carving in front of his father’s face. “Do you like it?”

It was a man. Or it looked like it might be one. It was at least human.

“It is you,” his son said, smiling.

Pushing himself up onto his elbows, Baba Singh looked more closely. “Is that a lathi?” he asked.

Satnam’s face dropped. “Yes,” he said. “I thought it was obvious.”

Baba Singh sat upright, setting his feet on the mud-paved floor. “Can I hold it?”

Satnam wordlessly gave him the figurine.

Baba Singh turned the carving over in his hand. He thought of Junjie. Every one of the artist’s pieces had been an experience, a tiny life, a contained universe. He could not explain that to his son. He did not have the words to express how he had felt when, long ago in his own childhood, he had drawn on a slate board, or when he had stared at a wooden block until an elephant had emerged. It was clear Satnam would not understand.

Baba Singh returned the man figure. “Maybe you should do something else with your time,” he said, but his son did not fully grasp his meaning.

“I knew it,” Satnam said, crestfallen. “I am no good at people. But I can do another animal.”

“No, son,” Baba Singh replied.

He heard Manmohan and Vikram toss their bikes against the mud hut before coming inside.

“Maybe a frog,” Satnam said, brightening. “I have not tried that yet.”

Baba Singh sighed. “Come with me.”

He took Satnam to the main room. Vikram was sprawled on Prem’s charpoy whistling tunelessly, and Manmohan stood over him, hitting him with a small pillow, laughing.

Sada Kaur smiled at Satnam from where she was stirring a pot of cooking onions. “Did you give it to him?” she asked.

Before his son could reply, Baba Singh picked up the bucket, walked the small length of the room over to Satnam’s shelf of figurines, and swept everything off and into the pail, including Avani’s wooden elephant. They landed, one by one, with a hollow, metallic thud.

“Bapu?” Satnam asked. “What are you doing?”

Baba Singh knelt beside his son, the bucket between them. “Too many people have ruined themselves with this kind of frivolous thinking. It is better you know now so you can focus on something you are good at.”

But Satnam still did not understand.

Sada Kaur rose from her stool. “You did not like it?” she asked her husband.

“I did not.”

“It is just for fun,” she said, wiping her hands on her salwaar. “There is no harm.”

Baba Singh clutched the bucket to his chest and slowly stood to meet his wife’s strict gaze. “He is still young,” he replied resolutely. “But he is old enough to hear the truth. I will not tell him that the world is easy or good. It is not. It is a hard, horrible place. It is much better to be realistic, to see things how they really are. He should not waste more of his time.”

“Please give them back, Bapu,” Satnam said, nearly in tears now.

Baba Singh glanced down into the bucket, his face bleak. “I will not.”

When he again looked up, he saw that Vikram and Manmohan were both staring at him. They were disappointed, which he had expected, but they also pitied him, which he had not.

~   ~   ~

A horde of men pushed against Baba Singh, and he stepped backward, groaning against the pressure.

“Push them back! Use your lathi!” another officer shouted.

They had been assigned to defend the docks, to reopen the supply ship flow that had been suspended by a raging and discontented labor force. Khushwant’s face was red with strain. He gripped his baton horizontally, shoving it hard against the front line of the mob.

Baba Singh felt a tug on his belt. Someone had taken his pistol. Shots were fired. “Stop!” he shouted to the rioting throng.

“Baba!” Khushwant called, pointing to a Sikh officer on the ground. The world froze momentarily. There was a swell, and then the masses trampled the body, surging forward.

Baba Singh whirled and finally pulled out and raised his lathi. “Stop!” he said again. But the crowd melted around him and swarmed the docks. “Khushwant!”

“I am here, Baba! Come this way!”

Baba Singh forced his way through the mob toward Khushwant, the crowd thickening around him like a swarm of violently buzzing hornets. A Chinaman leapt in front of him and screamed madly, spraying Baba Singh’s face with spit, “Better pay, better pay!”