The Hero's Walk (5 page)

Sripathi peered into his son's room, which was almost as large as his own. Arun had shared the room with Maya until she turned sixteen. Then Nirmala had decided that it wasn't right for an adolescent girl to have a male, even her younger brother, in the room, so Arun's bed had been shifted to the landing until Maya left the household. One wall had a large window that looked out onto the road in front of the house and was partially shielded from the raging afternoon light by the feathery shade of an ancient neem tree. The other wall had a door that opened onto a balcony exactly like Sripathi's. A few years ago, Koti had gone out there to dry some clothes and had nearly fallen down one storey when the railing gave way. Now nobody opened that door any more.

After Maya had gone, Arun had moved his bed back into the room and pushed it against the locked door. Frugal even as a child, he had grown into a hermit-like adult. He owned three white shirts and two pairs of trousers. He wore each shirt twice a week and the trousers three times. Every evening when he removed his shirt and trousers, he draped them carefully on a hanger and hung them from a hook on the wall. He then wrapped one of two cotton lungi cloths around his narrow waist.

The room was otherwise full of books and files and newspaper clippings. Even Maya's bed, with its bare mattress and uncovered pillows, was layered with papers and notebooks. Arun had been working on a doctorate in social work for the past five years, in between his involvement with various activist organizations.

Sripathi surveyed the chaos of paper with irritation. He had never pushed his children the way his father had pushed him. He
had believed that if he left them alone, they would do well. Maya for a short time—had proven him right. But this son of his had only ever been a disappointment.

Arun lay flat on his bed contemplating a lizard stalking a moth across the veined wall. He willed the moth to fly away. As soon as the lizard came close, it fluttered forward sluggishly and then lay flat against the peeling whitewash, the patterns on its wings like staring eyes. Was it daring the lizard to catch it? Arun stretched his arms above his head and smiled. Watch out, he said softly, that lizard is no fool. But perhaps the moth was aware of its own mortality and was playing one last game with fate. The lizard slid forward suddenly and with a flicker of its tongue seized the moth, drawing it quickly into its mouth.

He turned his head at the sound of his father's footsteps.

“What are you doing?” Sripathi demanded. “Come down and help me with the water. Mutthal, sleeping like a labourer. If you did half the work those poor fellows do, you would have a right to sleep like them.”

Arun sat up and slipped his feet into a pair of Hawaiian sandals that were at least as worn as his father's. He was a short, compact man of twenty-eight with a mild air about him. The only feature he had in common with Sripathi was a nose that leapt out from the centre of his face and made it look slightly out of balance. “I am not sleeping,” he said.

“Oh? Then what are you doing, pray?”

“I was thinking about—”

Sripathi did not let him finish his sentence. “Thinking? About what? How to save the world? Like Lord Vishnu? Eh? Eh?”

The phone rang again before he could continue, and he paused, walked over to the window and peered down. He couldn't see the verandah directly below, but voices floated up to him.

“Last month you sold this rice to me for five rupees a kilo, and suddenly it has gone up to seven-twenty? What nonsense! Cheating
a loyal customer,” he heard Nirmala say. And the rice-seller's voice, “Akka, how can you accuse me of cheating? You are like my sister. Would I cheat my own sister? Look at these grains of rice. Threads of gold they are. Aged for five years at the bottom of my granary. Better quality than last time. You cook half a cup and you will get such beautiful rice, so plump and light and fragrant, you will think that you are in the kitchen of the lord of the gods, King Indira himself.”

“Last time you told me the very same story.” Nirmala was not to be swayed by the rice-man's eloquence.

“Impossible, Akka! I would. never say such things about any other strain of rice. How could I? This has been fed by water from the Godavari River herself.”

“She won't pick up the phone till she has finished her haggling.” He glared at Arun, who stood up hastily.

“I'll get it,” he offered, but his father threw him another irritated look and left the room.

“It might be a wrong number, I think,” suggested Arun, following his father to the head of the stairs and leaning against the banister.

“Think!” muttered Sripathi. “If you worked as hard as you thought we would be millionaires by now.
Multi
-millionaires!”

Past the house with the petunias that looked like a storybook picture, past the row of cherry trees without cherries and the small store that said
Vancouver Buns
, to the crossing where she would have to decide whether to turn right or left. Nandana was going home. She was nervous about being alone on the road, but she knew it was only a hop, a skip and a jump away. She also kept a watchful eye out for strangers and killer bees. The first, both her mother and father had warned her about.
Never
talk to strangers, they had said. If a stranger approaches, start screaming or run away.
Never
accept anything from someone you do not know. “Even if they offer you a Mars bar, you
have
to say no,” her mother had cautioned, looking very solemn. She knew it was her favourite treat.

Not that they would ever let her go out alone. No
way
.

As for killer bees, Nandana was more worried about those. She had seen a nature program about Africa on television last week. Killer bees were dangerous. They could kill with a single sting and travel long distances without getting tired. Nandana wasn't sure where Africa was in relation to Vancouver, but on the world map in her room it didn't look far at all. She and Molly McNaughton had discussed it and agreed that it was ab-SO-lute-ly possible for those bees to fly to Canada.

Why had her parents left her for almost three whole days in Anjali's house? It occurred to Nandana that maybe she had done something to annoy her parents. She tried to think what it could be. She had taken her favourite green pyjamas with the yellow frogs for this sleepover. They were too small, and her father had wanted her to take her red ones instead. Guiltily she remembered that she hadn't put her toys away before Aunty Kiran had come to pick her up. Perhaps
that
had made her father mad.

She was standing at the crossing, trying to decide which was her left hand and which her right, when she saw Aunty Kiran running down the street after her.

“Oh Nandu, you silly girl, I was so worried,” she started to cry. Then she insisted on carrying Nandana back part of the way, even though she was a big girl and far too heavy. She let herself be carried, so as not to upset Aunty Kiran further, but she stuck her legs out as stiff as two sticks because she felt stupid. Finally, she was allowed to slide down to the ground, and that was better, she thought. But she still had to hold Aunty's hand until they reached the white house behind Safeway.

“Oh God, oh God, this is terrible,” Aunty Kiran wailed as soon as she shut the door. “What is this poor child going to do?”

Why, thought Nandana, is she getting so agitated about me going home?

Uncle Sunny took the backpack from her and looked grim. “We should tell her,” he said to his wife. “It isn't good to keep it from her. Sooner or later she will have to be told. Better soon.”

“I want my mom,” said Nandana firmly. She was getting a funny feeling in her stomach, as if there were beetles crawling around inside. “I told my daddy I would help him recycle the newspapers. I want to go home. Please.”

Aunty Kiran blew her nose on a tissue that she pulled from the pocket of her jeans. She took Nandana into the living room with the big sofas.

“Those sofas look like fat tourists in Hawaiian shirts,” her father had commented once.

Her mother had poked him in the side and giggled. “Don't say things like that in front of Miss Big Ears. She will go and blurt it out for sure.”

As if. She knew all about not hurting people's feelings. It was called being diplomatic.

“Honey, I have something to tell you,” Aunty Kiran began, holding Nandana very close.

S
RIPATHI PICKED UP
the receiver and said hello breathlessly.

There came a series of beeps followed by a clear voice. “Is that Mr. Sripathi Rao's residence?”

Sripathi didn't recognize the voice. It sounded like that of the American social worker who had arrived to work on some project with Arun and had gone back shuddering with malaria after a week.

“Yes, yes, this is Sripathi Rao,” he said.

“My name is Dr. Sunderraj. I am calling from Vancouver. May I ask if you are the father of Maya Baker?”

Baker? With a small shock Sripathi realized that, for a moment, he hadn't even remembered Maya's husband's last name.

“Mr. Rao, are you still there? Can you hear me?”

Sripathi cleared his throat and said, “I can, yes. Maya is my daughter. Um, we haven't been in touch for a while now.” He cleared his throat, embarrassed to be admitting this to a stranger and wishing that he had not.

“Uh-huh, yes. I see, I see.” There was a small pause and then the man continued in a rush. “Sir, I am a friend of Maya and Alan's. A family friend. Your daughter asked us to contact you.”

The voice floated in and out of Sripathi's head.
Accident
, it said.
Very tragic. Thought she would pull through. Really sorry
. What was
this man talking about? Sripathi sank to the floor near the telephone, his legs unable to hold him up any longer.

“Pardon me,” he said. He could hear his voice shake suddenly, as if from cold. “Could you please repeat that? I didn't catch … Are you talking about Maya Rao? Who works at Bioenergics?” He remembered the name of that company. Nirmala had made a point of telling him about it, despite his pretending not to hear.

And the man's voice, soothing, calm. “I understand. No problem, I'll go over it again. I know this is an enormous shock for you. I am terribly sorry. We thought that Maya, at least, would come through. And sorry for the delay in calling. We tried several times, but couldn't reach you. I thought, let me try one more time to talk to you personally before sending a telegram and all …”

A roaring wave of shock crashed over Sripathi. He hardly registered the rest of the man's words. Maya and her husband had died the day before. But why didn't anyone tell us earlier? Why, what could you have done? he argued with the voice that grew louder and louder in his head. You didn't talk to her for nine years, cut her off as if she were a diseased limb and now suddenly comes this concern? Sripathi could hear his heart pounding urgently inside his chest. His breath was indecently loud in his ears.

In between he heard bits and pieces of the family friend's voice: Maya's car had crashed off the highway. Alan had died immediately. The doctors had hoped that Maya would survive, but there was severe internal damage. Fortunately, Nandana wasn't with them. She was safe in Dr. Sunderraj's home, with his wife, Kiran, and their daughter.

“Alan has no immediate family, Mr. Rao,” said the steady voice: It occurred to Sripathi that the call was probably costing the man a lot of money. He would have to offer to reimburse him somehow.

The man continued to speak. “As you are probably aware, Maya appointed you legal guardian and trustee some time ago.”

Yes, Sripathi thought numbly, I remember. I signed the papers,
but that is all I did. He wondered briefly how the family friend knew so much about his daughter's affair—much more than he did.

“There might be some problem with Social Services. They may not release the child immediately to a stranger,” continued the voice. “I believe you have never met your grandchild. Is it possible for you to arrange to stay here for a few weeks? Let the child get used to you, as it were? And there are other legal and financial matters …”