Darshan (30 page)

“I suppose so.” Then Darshan grinned. “But it was also fun.”

Baba Singh smiled faintly. “It is good to have fun. Otherwise life will swallow you whole, Darshan. That is what your grandmother knew; it is what she told us before we left India.”

“Are you having fun?” his grandson asked.

The question had unnerved Baba Singh, shook his very core, and the whole of his life had caught in his mouth as he shook his head.

Now cupping the coconut in his hand, the grains of sand were cool on his feet. The ocean wind whistled in his ears, and the beach trash fires became brighter and more orange. Khushwant’s letter was in his trousers, folded into squares. He walked over to one of the smoldering fires and pulled the letter from his pocket. He unfolded it and placed the paper in the sand next to the smoking pile of garbage, not setting it directly into the fire. He wanted it to burn, but he could not bring himself to watch as it did. He weighed the letter down with the coconut so that it could not escape with the wind, to keep the news of his wife’s death near enough to the flames so that it would eventually burn and turn to ash, the remaining carbon compounds of it making their way into his dreams where they would shower down from the dark dome of night sky over the Punjabi plains.

It was time to go back to India.

~   ~   ~

The smell of milk permeated the shed, its faintly sweet scent pleasantly lingering in Manmohan’s beard, in his clothes, his skin, in the wooden walls and floor. He was alone now, appreciating the solitude. His friends, who had already expressed their condolences, were still concerned for him, but he lacked the energy to speak with them about it, to sort through the complicated nature of his loss, to feign sadness when all he felt was empty.

He brooded over the homogenization machine, hoping some feeling of hurt would well up deep within him so he could catch it, pull at it until it rose upward and out. Then he would be consoled by his own humanity. But after analyzing himself for a moment, searching, he discovered nothing but fury for his father, who had told him, after all these years of waiting, after a broken promise of the greatest magnitude, that he was finally returning home.

Adjusting the tubes on the homogenization machine, Manmohan slammed one against the inside edge of the aluminum tub. After an hour on the double boiler, when the milk had cooled, the machine would squeeze the pasteurized formula through small, tapered tubes in order to disperse its fat evenly throughout. As the pressure built up, the fat globules would break apart, making the milk consistent in texture, smoother on the palate. But what difference did texture make when taste had already been lost?

“I am not coming back,” Baba Singh had told him, peering outside through the open door of the empty cowshed where they had been standing, watching as several of the cattle languidly made their way across the grazing field to huddle under a tree in the shade. “We have enough employees on the farm now so that it will run itself. I have given it to Satnam. You have always been so devoted to your own endeavors.”

Flicking on the homogenizing machine, Manmohan’s hands shook with fury. The generator revved up, humming loudly. The tubes soon grew taut, strained with the pressure of fat emulsifying. The spray of milk into the homogenization receptacle sounded like a water faucet running into an empty aluminum tub.

For as long as he could remember, it had been like this. During their first days in Fiji Baba Singh had excused Satnam from helping with the task of finding them all a place to live. Poor Satnam had been the sickest from the long voyage at sea. And when they needed to find jobs, Baba Singh had given Satnam the time to consider his options, to find something that suited him, while Manmohan’s job at Spencer’s supported the entire family. In 1944 Manmohan and Vikram had voluntarily gone with Baba Singh to help build a Sikh temple two hours northeast of Suva in Nassinu. It took a month to erect the temple and prepare it for its first prayer, but Satnam never joined them. He was too busy, or too tired, or else disinclined. Baba Singh had accepted every one of those excuses without judgment or reprimand. But only for Satnam. The rest of them had to scramble and hoist and toil and labor.

When the homogenization receptacle was full, Manmohan took a large metal pole with a masher on the end and roughly thrust it into the milk. He jabbed it in several times to break up the unwanted assembly of stubborn fat microns that insisted on clumping together even after shoved through tubes clearly meant to tear them apart.

It was dusk when he finally came out of the shed. Baba Singh and Vikram were sitting on chairs outside their shack nibbling on dried, spiced peas.

“Come sit with us,” Vikram said, standing to pull out another chair.

Manmohan shook his head. “It’s late. I am tired.”

His brother offered some peas, smiling. “Just for a moment.”

“Why aren’t you angry?” Manmohan asked him. “Hasn’t he told you?”

“I told him,” Baba Singh said, raising his head from his bowl of peas.

“Manmohan, please sit,” Vikram said. “We have a lot to discuss.”

“You should be angry,” Manmohan told him fiercely.

“I am going with him,” his brother said. “I am going back.”

Manmohan stood frozen for several moments. Then he tersely turned to go.

Vikram threw up his hands. “Do not leave,” he called. “Let’s talk.”

Climbing into his truck, Manmohan started the engine. He adjusted the rearview mirror, moving it slightly so that his father came into view. He watched Baba Singh eating his peas and Vikram standing there, defeated. Then he pressed his foot to the gas pedal, steering down the dusty drive toward the main road.

He watched them recede in the mirror, getting smaller and smaller, further irritated when he saw Baba Singh finish his peas, stand, and step into his shack without any satisfying indications of regret. No long gaze as his son drove away, no hand on his forehead lamenting his mistake and the inequity of his decision. Nothing at all but stepping out of sight into his shack where he was likely beginning preparations for dinner, firing up the stove out back, pulling aside the tarps and tying them with string so the smoke could escape, then heating food that Jai had sent over. After dinner he would stretch out on his mattress and fall asleep.

Manmohan slammed down on the brake, causing the truck to skid and jerk sharply forward. A cloud of dust gusted up from under the tires. Slipping the gearshift into reverse, twisting his body around, gripping the bench seat, he made his way back to the shack, which now loomed larger in his rear window as he sped nearer. Again stepping firmly on the brake, he shoved the gear into neutral and jumped out, leaving the truck running. He walked purposefully toward a stack of corrugated iron panels he had purchased for their plans to expand the milk shed. The panels had lain untouched for several weeks, and they were beginning to rust.

From the corner of his eye, Manmohan saw Vikram signal him to stop, then give up as if knowing it would not help.

Rushing outside and following Manmohan to the panels, Baba Singh said sharply, “Enough!”

Ignoring him, Manmohan lifted the edge of two panels and dragged them toward the back of his truck, the corrugated iron making a trail of crimped furrows in the ground.

“Put them back,” his father said.

Manmohan hoisted the panels awkwardly into the truck and went back for the last two.

Spitting his words through clenched teeth, Baba Singh said, “You are behaving like a child.”

“Should I behave like you, Bapu?” Manmohan asked, his voice loud, the edges of the other two panels digging into his palms. “You who abandoned his wife? Like Satnam who is lazy and who stole my son, only to let his wife treat him like a slave and then send him back to me like garbage?”

“You know nothing about your brother, or about me.”

Manmohan shoved the two remaining panels into the truck. Catching his breath, he asked, “Why did you wait until after she died?”

“Why did you?” Baba Singh asked, his voice powerful and quiet, ruthlessly intimidating.

A sudden rush of love and regret came upon Manmohan, weakening his anger. “I wanted to stay with you, for as long as you were here.” He shook his head. “Why did you even come to Fiji?”

“Put the panels in their place, Manmohan.”

“Why should Satnam have them?”

“He needs them more than you do. He has always needed more.”

“Because he is
weaker
?” Manmohan asked, incredulous, finally understanding.

Baba Singh’s fists tightened. “Do not call him that.”

Manmohan climbed into his truck. “You have made him worse, Bapu. Not better.”

The panels vibrated against each other as the diesel engine rumbled down the road toward the mill. A memory surfaced as he drove, guilt as always beginning to prod at him. The rich smell of soil stimulated his nostrils as he remembered the canal on the outskirts of Barapind. He was eleven years old. He had fallen and his knees were bloody. Rolling over, he wiped the mud from his face, blew on his scrapes, flapping his hands in an effort not to feel the sting.

“Are you hurt?” Satnam shouted, running toward him, crashing through the reeds.

“No,” Manmohan said, but it was a lie, and he was afraid.

His brother grinned then. “You are too fast, not looking in front of you.”

“I know. I wanted to win.”

“Can you walk?”

Manmohan winced. “In a minute.”

Satnam pulled a cloth from his pocket and wrapped it around one of his brother’s knees.

“Why do you have that?” Manmohan asked him.

His brother shrugged. “I always have one with me, just in case.”

“In case you get hurt?”

“In case you do, or Vikram,” Satnam replied. He had only been six years old.

The truck hit a hole in the ground and the panels jumped and slammed down into the bed. Manmohan turned to look at them, sighing with pity for his brother.

~   ~   ~

“That is impossible,” Manmohan said loudly, waving the document in the British official’s face. “When we received this lease, we were told—”

“Whatever you were told was inaccurate,” the official said, turning over a sheet of paper. He flicked his eyes up from where he was seated at his small desk. His expression was bland, like the whitewashed wood and mortar around him had dulled the color of his face after years of working in that office.

“You cannot simply take away a family’s livelihood.”

The official clasped his hands together over the papers on his desk and focused his attention impatiently on Manmohan. “Your father is the person of record on this lease. It is non-transferrable.”

“But he will be gone in just a few weeks. We were told—”

“Perhaps a local Fijian working at the leasing office told you something that you did not then verify with the administration. The Empire has the final say here.”

An assistant, a native Fijian man, middle aged with dark skin, his kinky hair pulled back into a band, was standing at attention to the left of the desk. A flash of annoyance crossed the dull whites of his eyes. Affronted, he adjusted his shoulders, pulling them back straighter.

“We have heard all this before,” a man shouted from the back of the small room. By the rugged creases in his face, darkened by hard labor, he looked to be an oil worker, and a Muslim from the cap on his head. “Do not waste your time,” the man told Manmohan. “We have been trying to get the British to understand that we cannot live on the pay they give us. It has been years, and they do not seem to care that we are starving. They only want to bleed us dry.”

Trying his best to ignore the oil worker, Manmohan began again, keeping his tone even. “I was an army signal for the British, and for many years my brothers and I were colonial police officers, as was my father who served in China. My brother needs this farm.”

The British official looked away as if bored. “If you wish to appeal it,” he said, “we are open to listening. The appeals office is down that way.”

Manmohan glanced toward the assistant as if to ask for help. Despite what had been a long segregation of Indian and Fijian races on the island, Manmohan could see that this native sympathized with him. The assistant pursed his lips and shook his head slightly, suggesting that an appeal would be a waste of time.

When he exited Suva’s parliament offices, Manmohan balled the lease that had grown damp from his sweaty palm and tossed it into the street. He walked away past the courthouse guard, the lease soaking in a puddle from the recent storm.

“Why did you go there?” Jai asked when he got home. “It is Satnam’s problem.” She was in the living room, sitting on a footstool, hand-grinding spices into a small wooden bowl.

Manmohan leaned back into the couch. “I don’t know.”

She stopped and looked at him with irritation. “After all this time, you feel sorry for him?”

He stood from the couch to sit on the floor next to her stool. Touching her wrist, he was about to speak, then closed his mouth, instead bringing her hand to his bearded cheek. He kept it there for a time, inhaling the freshly ground mustard seed at her feet and under her nails, until finally she sighed and let it drop.

Manmohan spent the next several days in the backlands supervising the loggers, trying to clear his head. He had felt the need to remove himself temporarily from his family’s reach, to go to a place where the only sounds were the loud crash of trees falling into the jungle underbrush and the rough gnash of the saw’s teeth on wood. Baba Singh and Vikram would be leaving soon, and this confused and unsettled him.

When he returned to the mill, he was exhausted from the steady and hard work of collecting the felled logs and roping them to his flatbed trucks. He strode slowly and heavily up the stairs to the main house. Pulling the workman’s gloves from the back pocket of his trousers, he set them on the table by the front door as he entered the living room.

Satnam was on the couch.

“I did not expect to see you here,” Manmohan said.

“I have been checking in. I heard what you did with the lease.”