Darshan (55 page)

Elizabeth, who understood very little Punjabi, raised her eyebrows at the aggression in Navpreet’s tone.

Darshan sighed, reached for another plum.

Jai clenched her teeth, jaw muscles flexing. She ignored her daughter, who stood for several impatient moments waiting for a response. “Take some apples before you leave,” she told them all, gazing outside the bay window behind the kitchen sink. Fruit from the garden was scattered thickly beneath the trees in the mud, beginning to decay.

~   ~   ~

Dry grit caked the wooden handle of his father’s old trowel. It grated against Darshan’s palm as he tightened his grip, allowing the splinters and grains to dig into his skin. He swung it feebly in front of him, like a sword, then jabbed it into the ground at the base of the almond tree, loosening the soil that was drying without water. Striking the earth eased the beating of his heart, the oppressive quiet of his mind. He jabbed it down again, and again, leaving a number of half moons in the dirt.

The murmured noises of mourners inside the house sounded so remote to him from out here. He turned to peer through the sliding glass door, trying to discern if his brother was still inside, hoping Mohan had gone home already. With a mix of frustration and revulsion, he again stabbed the earth with the trowel, picturing his brother repeatedly accosting the posed form of their dead father with a spritz bottle of perfume. Every few minutes Mohan would rise from the front row to spray the body, interrupting the line of mourners paying their respects before the scheduled cremation. After tucking away the bottle, his brother would then snap his handkerchief in the air before wiping his nose, whispering, “Waheguru, waheguru.”

Darshan shut his eyes, haunted by the alien look of the embalmed body, the combed and net-tucked beard, the dark blue turban, the stretched skin of his father’s cheeks and hands. It disturbed him now to think that he had once cut open bodies, had sutured their organs, had searched within them for diseases and causes of death. Looking into the casket, he had found himself wondering who had examined Manmohan’s organs and what they had discovered. Perhaps the unnatural bend of the old man’s spine had revealed something deeper, something in the ligaments and joints, like the patriarchal pressure he had always applied to his children, the uncertainty and discomfort he had caused them all. Perhaps the unsaid approval that Darshan had always hoped to hear from his father after bearing that pressure were stored away and hidden in the folds of tissue and organs and in the marrow of his bones.

A small ivory comb had rested on his father’s chest, the one Manmohan used to comb his hair before growing bald. In Fiji he had run it through his tangles in the mornings as a matter of routine, flipping his head forward to get to the back strands, biting the comb in his teeth while briskly twisting his hair into a tight bun, finishing by shoving the prongs into his topknot before wrapping his turban. Darshan had watched him, had learned. Mohan, frantic for one small victory, had insisted it be cremated with the body. Grieving, aggravated with the incessant pestering, Jai had permitted it.

Darshan let the trowel fall to the ground and clapped his palms clean. He loosened his arms, allowing them to dangle at his sides. The pull on his shoulders felt good, a reminder of gravity, of the laws of nature. He surveyed the setting sun. The hills beyond the backyard were golden fire.

“Dad?” Sonya said from behind him.

Relieved to see her, he smiled. “Come.”

She stood beside him, their arms touching as the sun deepened in color to an ochreous orange. After a time she gave him a piece of paper.

He unfolded it, read the brief note. “UCLA,” he said without enthusiasm.

“I got it today. A bit of good news.”

“What about Berkeley?”

She sighed, discouraged. “That’s Anand’s dream.”

“It’s a very good school.”

“I need to see more of the world.”

“LA is not the world, Sonya. It’s just LA.”

She took the acceptance letter from him, refolded it.

“Who will help me with Howard Street when you’re gone?” he asked.

She did not answer.

“Maybe Anand,” he murmured.

She glanced at him briefly, mildly surprised. Then her expression changed. She suddenly seemed drawn and older than seventeen.

He touched her face, nodding toward the house. “Your grandmother needs help putting away the food. I’ll be in soon.”

She wordlessly turned and strode back to the house, kicking an old apple core on the patio before disappearing inside.

The sun vanished behind the hill, leaving behind a gaseous trail of color. Elizabeth called to him through the open kitchen window. “Darshan, can you please bring some foil in from the garage?”

He waved, nodding, going around the side of the house.

A chill rose from the concrete floor as he entered the garage. Weaving his way through years of accumulated boxes, two-liter soda crates, and canned goods, he found an industrial-sized roll of foil on a workman’s table toward the back. There were several rusted garden tools spread out on its surface, as well as a roll of twine and several glass jars of seeds at the back edge by the wall. He ran his hand over the tools, like smoothing out dunes of sand, the tools shifting and clanking, giving way under his palm, melting into the table, everything undulating.

He blinked.

“Do you need help?” Mohan asked. His brother had come in through the kitchen, had propped open the door.

Darshan pulled his eyes from the tools. “No, I can manage.”

“Hand it to me,” Mohan insisted. “I will take it.”

Gripping the roll under his arm, Darshan shook his head.

Brow creased, his brother said more forcefully, “Let me help.”

“There is no point now.”

Mohan winced, then shook his fist with rage. Voice loud and furious, he said, “You owe me your respect.”

Jai rushed to the doorway. “What is this?” she said, pushing past Mohan. “What are you doing?”

“Bebe,” Mohan said, “I want to help.”

She glanced from him to the roll under Darshan’s arm. “It is only foil,” she replied.

He regarded her momentarily, and for one second, as he leaned over, seemed about to kneel before her. Instead he called to his family, to Lehna, to Dal, and to the recently married Amandev and her husband. Pushing the button to open the sectional garage door, which grated upward on its gears, he said, “I will not ever come back.”

It was a simple statement of fact, and it was clear that he hoped she would contradict him. But she did not. When he was outside next to his car, shuffling the family into their seats, she pressed the button, waiting until the sectional door touched the ground, then asked Darshan for the foil.

~   ~   ~

Darshan flipped the latch to unlock the sliding glass door to the patio. The leftover food was packed away, some of it sent home with guests, and the house had been tidied. The day was gone and inside was lit with the soft glow of lamps, making his reflection in the glass mirror-like against the darkness outside. He momentarily stared at himself, at his sunken eyes and graying, neatly trimmed beard. He pushed his hair back, noticing for the first time that his hairline was receding. Sliding the door to the left with a faint grinding in the track, he then pushed aside the screen and stepped into the cold night. The moon cast a dim glow on the leaves of Manmohan’s many trees. He took a deep, slow breath.

The priest who had presided over the service knocked politely behind him.

“Bhaiji,” Darshan said, nodding at the priest. “I thought you had left with the others.”

The priest shrugged as if to say
not yet
. “The smell is wonderful, isn’t it? It is not quite the same as in India, but still, the scent of earth is familiar and comforting.”

There was a dullness in Darshan’s mind, a lack of emotion. “He provided a great deal of care and attention to this garden.”

“Do you regret that?”

Darshan mutely shook his head, finding the question odd.

The priest made a general, broad gesture toward the garden and the house. “He told me how hard you worked, what you did.”

“Did he?”

The priest nodded.

Darshan lowered his chin to his chest, his throat suddenly tight and painfully contracted. Directly beneath him, by the light inside, he could see several small wet circular marks darkening the cement patio, like light, fresh rain.

The Return of the Moneylender

2000

Family Tree

The house in Berkeley had settled into a pervasive quiet, broken only by the breath and hum of the old lady who dwelled there. During her youth in India, generations had cohabited under mud hut roofs, the elderly soothed by the bustle of family, by tradition and community. But not here. Not in America, where the Toors had been scattered across a vast network of modern cities by their accumulated wealth, believing themselves risen from and superior to the days of austerity and simplicity that had ruled their lives in the village.

Anomalous activity sprouted from the silence of that house, the senses muddled, Jai’s seventy-nine-year-old mind confused. Knitting sticks in the laundry hamper, tucked into a pair of her dead husband’s tube socks. A one-pound bag of flour on the shelf behind the television. Sofa cushions restuffed with folded blankets and bed pillows. Dirty mixing spoons in the utensil drawer. Fruit from Manmohan’s garden found rotting in the farthest reaches of the bathroom cupboard. All forgotten. This was how it began. When her children came to visit, she would on occasion surprise them by inadvertently happening upon these items during moments of lucidity, gaping at the objects with apologetic tears when they questioned her about them, then suddenly chuckling in amusement, waving a dismissive hand.

But then there were other things, valuables surreptitiously secreted away, as if from fear. Family photos. Jewelry. A set of house keys. Bundles of Howard Street rent money. “I want only cash,” Jai had told Darshan after Manmohan’s death. “Because where will you be if I need it?” And he could not argue because she had once been left with nothing at a Greyhound bus depot. She meticulously wrapped everything in cellophane, then foil, then bathroom hand towels before expertly concealing them around the house. And soon these too were forgotten, erased from her memory.

The loss of her possessions stirred Jai’s rage, provoking a powerful suspicion against others, a narrowing of the eyes. “Someone has stolen from me,” she told Darshan in a low growl. She had then glanced about, eyes suddenly clearing, expression now worried. “I have lost my keys.”

For a time none of them did anything, believing Jai’s developing eccentricities were the natural result of old age. She was otherwise in exceedingly good health, mobile and relatively agile for her years. They left her alone during the day while at work, calling frequently but not often stopping by except on Saturdays for a weekly trip to the gurdwara, or when Darshan needed to mend something. Distances were too great across the Bay Area, traffic maddening. This was before any of them appreciated the significance of Jai’s peculiarities. They did not know—not even Darshan, who was the first to recognize, though too late—that six years of loneliness had entirely unraveled her, had forced her to invent a new world of circumstances in which she was no longer the invisible, assiduous backbone of her family, but weak and frail and in need of rescue, of everyday bustle, of constant company.

~   ~   ~

The yoga mat was well padded, a defense against the cold of Manmohan and Jai’s concrete garage floor where Darshan had managed to clear some space. He sat upon the mat as if on a pontoon, a vessel to safety as the sea of archived possessions—stacked high and in all directions—threatened to capsize on him. Many were in unopened boxes as if just purchased: a camping tent, an LED-lit vanity mirror bought in the early eighties, a handheld vibrating back massager, a VHS machine, a mini tape recorder. On the lower shelves he had found an entire set of dumbbells, cloth for tailoring suits, spare sets of silverware and dishware. High above were power tools never used, new bed sheets, lightbulbs, quite a number of spare house slippers in his parents’ sizes, flannel coats, sneakers. Everywhere he looked, he had discovered excess, things stored in reserve. It was a bunker, a safe haven for an eternity of life in which one would always have the essentials.

The door to the kitchen was propped open. He could hear his mother affably chatting with the nurse they had all hired to live with her, the chink of a spoon on a ceramic plate, several moments of light, friendly laughter.

He organized much of the paraphernalia, for donation, while in search of the cash his mother had lost. None of it had been unearthed inside the house, several thousand missing—although Navpreet and Livleen had retrieved most of the jewelry and photos, storing them in a combination safe in the master bedroom. For her protection, he had begun, once again, to deposit rent money into his mother’s account. Still, he rummaged through the garage hoping to find the hidden cash, to allay the family’s worries, because it was his fault, his ignorance about Jai’s condition, a habitual oversight when he had pressed the money into her hand every month.

He stood, hefting a wooden crate from the corner. Prying it open, he discovered some hand tools from the lumber mill. Refitting the lid over the top, he pushed the crate out of the way, the wood scraping unpleasantly across the cement. He shoved aside another crate of tools, working his way through the boxes toward the wall. He reached for a broom to brush away the cobwebs that had grown thickly in that corner, sidling between two boxes to access the recess. Looking down, through the shadows he detected the shape of a familiar old chest and small plywood box.

Resting the broom against a shelf, he made room, grunting as he pushed the crates farther out of the way. He knelt, the cold of the concrete biting his knees through the thin fabric of his trousers. Intimidated, he faltered, furtively glancing about, even now feeling it a betrayal to open these two remnants from Manmohan’s past. He remembered that night up in the lumber mill’s main house rafters, defiant and uncaring, willfully invading that private space, moving things about, attempting to uncover some secret, some personal element that would humanize his father. But in the end, when he had come across the box and chest, he was too afraid to pry them open, too afraid of what he might find, of what he could know.