The Guru of Love (3 page)

He called to Goma in the kitchen that he was going for a walk, and before she could respond, he headed down the stairs, noticing that one wooden board creaked dangerously under his weight.

Malati had told him that she lived in the neighborhood of Tangal, right behind the Sunrise Boarding School, and Ramchandra began to walk in that direction. But it was already eight-thirty, and if he wanted to see her, get back home for lunch, and make it to school on time, he'd have to take a threewheeler. He contemplated turning back. What was the point of spending his hard-earned money on this girl? But he needed to see her, say something to her. He hailed a three-wheeler, in his head deducting the nearly seven rupees' fare from his savings account, and gave the driver directions.

The wind whipped inside the small cab, and Ramchandra tightened the muffler around his face. The driver drove at breakneck speed, often missing bicycles and pedestrians by inches. Ramchandra leaned forward and shouted into the driver's ear, “Slow down. What's the hurry?”

“You think you're the only passenger I'll have today?” the driver said.

It was impossible to talk reasonably to anyone nowadays, thought Ramchandra. It wasn't like this even ten years ago, when civility existed among the Kathmandu people. Within the last few years, the city had swollen to such a point that it was ready to explode. People from the hills and mountains to the north and the plains to the south were migrating here daily, trying to survive. The land in their villages didn't yield good crops, and the rising inflation made it impossible for them to feed their families.

Because of the steady influx of migrants, the city's skyline had become dotted with satellite dishes, and one couldn't walk anywhere without inhaling fumes from three-wheelers and old, rickety buses. Ramchandra understood the suffering of these poor people, who'd had to abandon their villages and towns, but the result was that too many hands prodded, probed, and fed on the innards of Kathmandu. Soon only its carcass would remain. The other day he'd seen small huts that had sprouted up on the shore of the Bishnumati River, a sight he'd previously thought was limited to cities in India, like Bombay.

But—Ramchandra was bitter when he thought of it—the city was not his. He didn't own a house; he didn't even own a piece of land. He was no different from the driver of this threewheeler, who probably had to rush passengers to various destinations all day and then go to the small room in a squalid part of the city where his wife and kids waited for him.

In Putlisadak, the three-wheeler got tangled in traffic, and they had to wait for several minutes. Nearby, outside a shop, stood a long line of people, plastic containers in hand.

“Look at that,” the driver said. “These bastard Indians. This is all their doing.”

“Is that for kerosene?”

“Yes, what else? They've reopened the borders, but it's going to take a while.”

“Well, at least it's not as bad as it was before.”

“Well, Dashain is here, and people have a lot of cooking to do. All donkeys, these politicians. This hahakar, this chaos, just because our king and the Indian prime minister couldn't stand each other's egos.”

Whether there was any truth to that, Ramchandra didn't know. Rumors had it that contest of one-upmanship between King Birendra and the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had led India to close most of its borders to Nepal. Supposedly each felt the other hadn't shown him enough respect at political meetings. But most likely, Ramchandra thought, India was unhappy with King Birendra's purchase of military hardware from China, not to mention the way Nepal now required Indian workers to obtain permits.

“Dhotis,” the three-wheeler driver cursed, spitting out his window onto the pavement. “They'll suck this country dry.”

In the past few months, Ramchandra had heard similar sentiments expressed many times. Housewives lining up to buy kerosene cursed Rajiv Gandhi, and motorists fumed and blamed the Indians, “dhoti bhais,” while they sat in their cars waiting to be granted the ration of a few liters of petrol. Ramchandra had nothing against the Indians who worked in Nepal—he found most of them to be pleasant and hardworking. But it was true that the Indian government liked to flex its muscles toward its neighbors.

“Can't live with them, can't live without them,” Ramchandra said. Yet there was no doubt that the city was filled with growing anger. Fumes of resentment seemed to rise from the people and blend with the polluted air. As the residents of Kathmandu became more vocal in their criticism of the ruling one-party Panchayat establishment, the sense of defiance, long subdued, finally began to permeate the streets and alleys, where people openly discussed how Nepal needed radical reforms, like the ones that had brought down the Berlin Wall. The image of the lone Chinese man facing tanks in Tiananmen Square, shown on television and in newspapers, had excited people's imagination. The banned political parties, it was said, were attempting to reconcile among themselves so that they could capitalize on this growing bitterness.

Of the three houses that stood behind the Sunrise Boarding School, only one had a chicken shed next to it. A mangy dog, tied with a rope on the unkempt lawn, followed Ramchandra's steps to the door with jaundiced eyes. Chicken feathers drifted from the shed onto the veranda, and the chickens clucked in unison as he knocked on the door. A short woman with yellow eyes, not unlike the dog's, opened the door. She wore a crumpled dhoti, and there were large white blots on her neck and forehead. It occurred to him that she was an albino.

“Tell Malati that her math teacher is here to see her, all right?” Ramchandra told the maid.

Immediately, he realized his mistake. If Malati was poor, it was unlikely that her family could afford a maid. Also, the woman's authoritative stance, hand on hip, should have told him that she was not a maid. But she didn't look like Malati's mother; there was no resemblance.

“And who are you?” the woman asked.

“Ramchandra. I'm her math tutor.”

“What do you need to see her for? What do you need?”

He was surprised by the roughness of her words, which, combined with her pleasant voice, had an odd effect. A baby was crying inside.

“No, no,” he said. “She didn't come to the last session, so I was wondering...”

“Do you go to all of your students' houses when they don't come?”

He didn't respond. “All right, come inside,” she said, annoyance marking her face.

She led him past a living room with a worn-out sofa, and into the kitchen, small and gloomy, with grease stains all over the walls. A yellowed poster of Goddess Laxmi, her many hands clasping her trident, conch shell, and lotus, was posted on a door in the corner. It was this door the woman opened. “Malati, someone here to see you. Says he's your teacher.”

Once Ramchandra's eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, he saw Malati sitting on the floor, her hair in disarray, a baby in her lap, one of her breasts peeking out of her blouse. The baby, who couldn't have been more than a year old, was trying to find her nipple, but the wails indicated that it was having problems. Ramchandra noticed how small the room was—barely the size of a closet. Then it occurred to him that it was indeed a closet.

Malati, not looking up, continued to struggle with the baby, cooing, pushing its head gently to her breast.

“Imagine that,” the woman said with a laugh. “A teacher visiting his student's home.”

“How are you, Malati?” Ramchandra asked.

Malati didn't answer, but the woman did. “She is very fine, don't you see? I told her to get rid of that baby when it was still in her womb, but did she listen? And now this.” She motioned toward Malati and the baby.

“Malekha Didi,” Malati said to the woman, “will you please be quiet? Your voice is disturbing Rachana.”

Didi. So, the woman was Malati's sister? She hadn't mentioned one, but
didi
could apply to anyone, even a stranger.

“Yes, I am the bad one now,” the woman said. “I have done so much for you, and, slut that you are, you don't see what I've done.”

The word
slut
stung Ramchandra. Malati finally looked up at him with a faint smile, as if to say, see what you've gotten yourself into. Then she turned again to the baby, who had calmed down and whose eyelids were becoming heavier. “I'll have to feed her Lactogen,” Malati said.

“Where is Lactogen? Who's going to buy it?”

“I bought some yesterday,” Malati said. “Sir, what brings you here?” Her breast was back inside her blouse, and she was rocking the baby in her lap.

Ramchandra looked at Malekha Didi, and Malati said to her, “Leave us to talk alone for a while.”

Malekha Didi left., but not before warning Malati that she was to cook the morning meal after feeding the baby.

Ramchandra wanted to sit down, but the only place to sit was the cold kitchen floor, so he remained where he was and said, “I just came to see, about yesterday—”

“I'll have to make formula for the baby,” she said, and got up. “Why don't we talk in the other room?”

“Is this your bedroom?”

“Yes.”

“Don't bother about tea,” he said. “I came by to talk.”

“Let's go to the other room.”

In the living room, he sat on the sofa, noticing that the carpet had large stains, and that some baby clothes were strewn about. A framed photo on a nearby table showed a younger Malati with a man about Ramchandra's age. Another photo, this one on the wall, was of the same man with the albino woman. They were standing a little apart but with an air of intimacy, which made him think they were husband and wife. There was no heater in the room, and it was cold.

Malati went into the kitchen, and when she came back, the baby was not in her arms. She held two glasses of tea, which she set on the side table before sitting beside him. To warm his hands, Ramchandra cupped a glass of tea.

“How old is your girl?” he asked.

“Eight months.”

Her face, which so far he'd seen as that of a child, became transformed. He noticed lines of maturity, creases under her eyes. The room suddenly seemed different to Ramchandra, as if he wasn't sitting there, as if he was on the ceiling, looking down at the Ramchandra below. Swallowing the saliva that had filled his mouth, he asked, “Is she your sister?”

Malati smiled. “No, that's my stepmother.”

“But you call her didi?”

“Yes, that seems the most appropriate.”

“You'd mentioned your mother.”

“My mother vanished from my life a long time ago. Malekha Didi is my mother now.”

No good mother would call her daughter a slut, Ramchandra thought—that's what stepmothers are for. Of course he knew that some stepmothers treated their stepchildren with affection, but a distant memory pressed on him. A restaurant near New Road where he used to go for tea and, when he had enough money, for samosas, after finishing college and before starting a teaching job. A small boy, in a frayed shirt and loose half-pants held up by a thin rope, was constantly scolded by the woman he worked for. She criticized him for being slow, for not boiling the tea properly, for leaving the glasses dirty. The boy looked to be barely twelve, but he had an old, sad face. One day, when the woman was about to lift her hand to slap the boy, Ramchandra confronted her. She looked at him in contempt and said, “If his mother had disciplined him, I wouldn't have to do it.” Later, when the woman had gone into the back room, he asked the boy why he put up with her, and the boy said he couldn't leave because this was his home; she was his stepmother.

“The tea will get cold,” Malati prodded him.

He took a sip. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“No, just the two of us. My father passed away a few years ago.”

“And the father of the child?”

“I'm not married. He doesn't live here.”

Ramchandra was filled with a sweet sense of pleasure, something he'd not experienced since his late childhood. He watched this girl, her sensitive face, the sadness in her eyes, the faint lines of womanhood circling her mouth, and the voice that emerged from him came from a depth he didn't know existed. “I am so sorry about yesterday.”

She must have heard the difference in his voice, for she looked at him sharply. The morning light filtered through the thin curtains, making beams of the dust in the room. Two pink clouds spread across her cheeks, perhaps signs of embarrassment at her own thoughts. She looked at him again and let a brief smile shine on her face. She prompted him toward the tea, and they both picked up their glasses.

“It was humiliating, sir,” she said in a quiet voice.

“I don't know what to say. Even my wife was angry with me.

“Does your wife know you're here?”

“Yes,” he lied.

“What did she say to you?”

“About my being so hard on you?”

“Yes.”

“She said you were young and sensitive, and I should've been kinder.”

Malati sipped her tea, pulled up her legs on the sofa, and rocked gently.

“Is your baby asleep now?”

“Yes, but I'll have to feed her soon and then help Malekha Didi.”

“So you will come for your sessions again?”

She hesitated. “Do you think I'll pass the exam?”

“Of course you will.”

“I feel so helpless.”

“I think the problem is Ashok,” he said.

“How is Ashok a problem?”

“You can't concentrate with him in the room. I'll start tutoring you alone.”

She observed him calmly, again with a soft smile, and he felt uncomfortable.

“I want you to pass,” he said, and before he could stop himself, he said, “And you'll come every day, not just two times a week.”

“You know I don't have the money.”