Darshan (22 page)

He reached up and pulled the box down, marveling at how light it felt. For some reason he had expected it to be weightier, but he supposed it made sense. The effects of a boy who had lived only three years would not be very heavy.

The box brought to mind his father’s chest that had come from Hotel Toor, the one that had been hidden away under a dhurrie rug in the years before they all traveled to Fiji. It was now shoved in some corner of the house on the outer island where Baba Singh lived with Satnam. He suspected that the chest was full of sad memories, that it contained a number of sentimental artifacts, proof that people who were now gone had been on this earth; keeping their possessions meant still having a small remaining sliver of them that was tangible. It surprised Manmohan to realize he shared this with his father, that he could relate to the propensity to do such a thing.

Taking a deep breath, he carried the plywood box past the chrome-rimmed kitchen table and vinyl-upholstered chairs where Mohan was eating his cold lunch of lentils and roti. “Hurry up. And you better change your clothes before we leave,” he told his son, who nodded obediently.

On his way through the living room, Manmohan was conscious of the black-and-white family portraits hanging above the couch between a framed painting of the ten gurus and a black and gold tapestry of Fiji’s main island. The portraits were serious, unsmiling faces captured with his flash-bulb camera. The photograph just left of the center was the only picture he had ever taken of Darshan. It was hard to see the detail of it from where he now stood, but he knew that picture well. The snap of the flash had made Darshan laugh. His son had been looking directly into the lens, the only smiling face on the wall. Manmohan had taken it one morning while testing out the camera he had just purchased. After that, there had not been enough time for more pictures.

He shoved aside the sheet that curtained the glass door leading to the backyard and stepped out onto the cement patio. Sitting on one of the two wooden chairs he had built the year they moved in, he placed the box between his leather-booted feet.

Regarding his boots, newly buffed but worn after years with the Fijian police force, he thought that he should go change out of his uniform before heading back to the hospital. He had already been dressed for work when Jai’s water broke and had been in a rush after that. He had to send a courier to the outer island to fetch his father before rushing to check Jai into the hospital. He had to get her settled before driving to the ferry to pick up Baba Singh—and unexpectedly, Satnam’s wife Priya as well. He had to drop them off at the hospital before pulling Mohan from school and bringing him home for a quick bite of lunch. The thought of going to the bedroom now, unlacing his boots, undressing and redressing seemed unnecessarily tiring after the morning’s running around. The snug feel of his boots was comforting. He did not want to take them off.

He flipped up the box’s metal latch, the lid squeaking on its hinges as he lifted it open. Darshan’s soft, grey hospital-issue blanket was at the top. Unfolding it, he held it to his face, disappointed that it smelled of wood, remembering how difficult it had always been for Jai to put Darshan to bed. His son had never wanted to sleep.

Draping the blanket over his shoulder, he frowned slightly at what was underneath. There they were, the two halves of a coconut shell. He had never been able to determine where the coconut had come from, or why it had been tucked under Darshan’s arm. Although he knew that Hindus regarded the coconut as an object of worship and offered them to their deities, coconuts had no major significance for Sikhs. The doctor had been a Hindu, but Manmohan had long ago dismissed the idea. The doctor had never been alone with Darshan. Perhaps it was Baba Singh, who had been the last one in the room before Manmohan went in to find Darshan no longer breathing.

The recollection was disquieting, especially now. His father had been talking lately of having vivid dreams. He said they were messages.

“You will have a boy,” Baba Singh had told him several times over the last few months.

That alone was not particularly unsettling, though admittedly strange. What troubled Manmohan was that, because of those dreams, Baba Singh insisted that the baby’s name be Darshan. His father behaved as though he knew something the rest of them did not, but Manmohan had never known his father to be wise, only rigidly distant. It was best, however, not to argue the matter. He would pay for it dearly—as he always did when he disagreed with Baba Singh—with shame and embarrassment. Nevertheless, it annoyed him to feel so inconsequential in the issue of naming his own child, to feel so compelled to obey.

Setting the shells on the cement next to the box, Manmohan peered down at the last item within, a cotton sack filled with plastic toy tools. Resting his elbows on his legs, he scrutinized the sack as though touching it would reduce it to dust.

Just then Mohan flung the curtain aside, joining him on the patio, crumbs of his lunch at the corners of his mouth. “What are you doing out here, Bapu? You did not eat anything.”

Manmohan pursed his lips in exasperation. “You have not changed your clothes.”

Mohan glanced down at his Samabula Government Boys School uniform. “You said we were in a hurry.”

“There is a little time.”

“But you haven’t changed either,” Mohan replied, bending down to peer into the box. Then he glanced questioningly at his father. “I remember those tools, that bag he used to carry them in.”

“Yes.” Manmohan nodded, tugging the blanket off his shoulder. He carefully folded it, squaring up the corners and hems.

“Can I open it?”

Manmohan eyed his son for a moment, until finally he gave in. “Just be careful.”

Mohan pulled the sack out and sat cross-legged on the cement. He shook out the wrench, the hammer, the two screwdrivers, and shovel, all of the tools landing with a hollow clatter on the cement.

“Be easy,” Manmohan said, gently laying the blanket on the bottom of the box and nesting the coconut shells on top of it. He took the empty cotton sack from Mohan, an onset of apprehension making him want to stop this nonsense. “Maybe it is better if we put these away and get going.” A large drop of rain struck the soil just beyond the patio. He gazed up into the darkening sky.

Mohan brandished the hammer. “Can I keep this one?”

“What would you do with it?”

The boy shrugged.

Manmohan hesitated, considering the hammer in Mohan’s hand, the brown paint of the handle meant to give the impression of wood, the line down the middle where the plastic had been cut on some assembly line. His son waited hopefully, stirring Manmohan’s sympathies at the idea that this was an expression of the boy’s grief.

“Please do not lose it.”

“Thank you, Bapu.”

“Maybe you and I can do something together when we get home.”

Brushing aside several hairs that had come loose from his topknot, Mohan asked, “What do you suppose?”

Manmohan collected the remaining tools and replaced them in the cotton sack. “You have any ideas?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

Manmohan set the sack inside the box, closing and latching the lid. “We should go.”

When he replaced the box on the top shelf of the cupboard, knowing that it was not possible, he nonetheless imagined a slight change in its weight: a short life minus a small piece.

The day’s tropical rains began to fall, first in thick, sporadic droplets, then a rushing sheet battering the corrugated tin roof of the front door overhang. It pelted them sharply as they ran toward Manmohan’s used World War II truck. Flinging the vehicle doors open, they clambered into the solid steel cabin, drenched. As the downpour hammered the windshield, and the humidity entered through the ventilation slits in the side panels, Manmohan glanced behind him at the six-foot cargo bed, wishing he had not forgotten to throw the tarp over it. He was fond of his truck, had purchased it the year the war ended. With its walking beam suspension and locking differentials that had made it such a useful off-road vehicle during the war, he easily traveled the poorly paved roads throughout the island. Noting the rust along the steel bed, he thought that he would have to treat it soon.

As abruptly as the rain had begun, it stopped, leaving the ground wet and steaming in the heat. Adjusting himself in his seat, using the hem of his shirt to dry his face, Manmohan inserted the key into the ignition. “Ice cream?” he asked as they pulled away from the curb.

Absently tapping the plastic hammer against the dashboard, Mohan grinned, his face bright and wet. But then his expression fell. “Bebe is waiting for us.”

“There is always time for ice cream,” Manmohan replied, although he was not entirely certain about it.

The diesel engine grumbled as they drove down the hill away from their house in Tamavua toward the hospital in Suva, past large palm trees and verdant jungle that blanketed every inch of soil. The last vestiges of ocean view disappeared as they descended toward the small city.

They had been living on the island now for nearly ten years, which often astonished Manmohan. He had truly believed they would be back in Barapind by now. After their initial weeks on the quarantine island of Nakulau where immigrants were taken for processing, forced to eat rice crawling with worms, and sleep on the hard ground like animals, Manmohan could never have imagined one day calling Fiji his home. Jai had been nine months pregnant with Mohan. He hated to see her eat that food, but she merely smiled and picked out the bad parts. She never once complained.

Even after they had cleared processing and docked in Suva, it was Manmohan who had the most trouble with the constant tropical rains, the mosquitoes that made his legs and arms swell. The Toors spoke Punjabi, Urdu, and Hindi, but Indians on the island spoke an unfamiliar dialect of Hindi that had been initially bewildering. It was too distorted. They were too far from home.

And he had hated the little shanty they all initially shared in the city the first few years: he, Jai, Baba Singh, Vikram, and Satnam and Priya. Squeezing into that tiny shack, sweltering in the humidity before saving enough money to live civilly again had been one of the hardest and longest periods of adjustment.

In the beginning, he also disliked the natives, a tall, dark-skinned, seemingly fierce people. He had been affronted by their strict unwillingness to associate with Indians, an attitude that had sharpened during World War II. Jai, however, had pointed out that the segregation worked to their advantage because they were free to maintain their cultural inclinations with little outside interference or influence. “It is hard to tell if we are in
desh
or
pardesh
,” she had once joked.
Home or away from home.

In many ways, she had been right. An array of Indian-run shops stretched along Victoria Parade, comprising a commercial district of grocers and tailoring enterprises. The stores, many of them wooden structures erected in the early 1900s, were like those Manmohan had frequented in Amarpur. A chemist’s shop—much like the astrologer’s—sold painkillers and balms. Spice shops perfumed the streets with cumin and chili. The men who gathered near the seaport to watch the tall masts of ships approaching from Sydney and Auckland—a mix of Hindus with red-stained mouths from chewing betel leaves, Muslims wearing their taqiyah caps, and turbaned Sikhs—reminded Manmohan of the men in Amarpur meeting to chat at the open market.

The Indo-Fijian community was sizeable on the island, perhaps equal to that of the local Fijian’s. Although primarily Hindus, Madrassis, and Muslims, the Sikh community—established before the turn of the century—was nonetheless strong. Like the other Indian groups, the Sikhs had their place of worship, a gurdwara centrally located in Suva on a hill across the street from Mohan’s school. There were also a decent number of grocers and textile shops run by Sikhs. Despite the stark differences between the dry, flat plains of the Punjab and the rolling green abundance of an island thick with ferns and cane palms surrounded by swells of blue ocean, Manmohan had come to appreciate that at least the faces were familiar.

Though Suva was similar in some regard to Amarpur—both towns comprised of wood, iron, and corrugated tin—Suva was larger and hillier, more populated by cars, an infant metropolis. Manmohan wove through the one-way streets past the colonial wooden buildings along Victoria Parade, around the angled intersections and contorted loops that he once found confusing but now navigated with confidence, coming to a stop at Raj’s sundry shop.

“Let’s not take too long,” he called to his son, who had already jumped out without waiting, slamming the door and darting across the street toward the shop.

A bell chimed as Manmohan stepped inside the store to find Mohan already rummaging through the freezer.

“Sat sri akal, Raj,” he nodded to the shopkeeper. “A kulfi stick for him.”

“My wife says it is almost time,” Raj said, leaning his elbows on the counter.

“Yes. Almost.”

Mohan held up a cardamom-flavored ice cream bar.

“I will also have one,” Manmohan said, taking a stick from his son and pulling off the wrapper. He bit into the cold cream, his teeth aching. “Tasty,” he told Raj.

The shopkeeper smiled. “On me.”

“No, no.” Manmohan shook his head, leaving some Fijian dollar notes on the counter. “I have to pay for Jai’s shopping the past month.”

Raj momentarily checked his books. “I had almost forgotten,” he said, putting the money in his till.

“What about your wife and daughter?” Manmohan asked, taking another bite. “Are they well?”

Raj lit a beady and inhaled. “Oh yes, very well, thank you. They run my life like queens, and I always obey.”

“And the shop? Everything is good?”

“Bapu,” Mohan said, halfway through his ice cream. “Bebe is waiting.” He wiped his sticky hands on his school uniform.

“Yes, yes, we are leaving,” Manmohan replied, quickly finishing his kulfi. He waved to Raj.

“Good luck,” the shopkeeper said, taking another puff of his cigarette.