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“Interpreter of Maladies”
Jhumpa
Lahir
At the tea stall Mr. and Mrs. Das bickered about who should take
Tina to the toilet. Eventually Mrs. Das relented when Mr. Das pointed out that
he had given the girl her bath the night before. In the rearview mirror Mr.
Kapasi watched as Mrs. Das emerged slowly from his bulky white Ambassador,
dragging her shaved, largely bare legs across the back seat. She did not hold
the little girl’s hand as they walked to the rest room.
They were on their way to see the Sun Temple at Konarak. It was
a dry, bright Saturday, the mid-July heat tempered by a steady ocean breeze,
ideal weather for sightseeing. Ordinarily Mr. Kapasi would not have stopped so
soon along the way, but less than five minutes after he’d picked up the family
that morning in front of Hotel Sandy Villa, the little girl had complained. The
first thing Mr. Kapasi had noticed when he saw Mr. and Mrs. Das, standing with
their children under the portico of the hotel, was that they were very young,
perhaps not even thirty. In addition to Tina they had two boys, Ronny and
Bobby, who appeared very close in age and had teeth covered in a network of
flashing silver wires. The family looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did,
the children in stiff, brightly colored clothing and caps with translucent
visors. Mr. Kapasi was accustomed to foreign tourists; he was assigned to them
regularly because he could speak English. Yesterday he had driven an elderly
couple from Scotland, both with spotted faces and fluffy white hair so thin it
exposed their sunburnt scalps. In comparison, the tanned, youthful faces of Mr.
and Mrs. Das were all the more striking. When he’d introduced himself, Mr.
Kapasi had pressed his palms together in greeting, but Mr. Das squeezed hands
like an American so that Mr. Kapasi felt it in his elbow. Mrs. Das, for her
part, had flexed one side of her mouth, smiling dutifully at Mr. Kapasi,
without displaying any interest in him.
As they waited at the tea stall, Ronny, who looked like the
older of the two boys, clambered suddenly out of the back seat, intrigued by a
goat tied to a stake in the ground.
"Don’t touch it," Mr. Das said. He glanced up from his
paperback tour book, which said "INDIA" in yellow letters and looked
as if it had been published abroad. His voice, somehow tentative and a little
shrill, sounded as though it had not yet settled into maturity.
"I want to give it a piece of gum," the boy called
back as he trotted ahead.
Mr. Das stepped out of the car and stretched his legs by
squatting briefly to the ground. A clean-shaven man, he looked exactly like a
magnified version of Ronny. He had a sapphire blue visor, and was dressed in
shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt. The camera slung around his neck, with an
impressive telephoto lens and numerous buttons and markings, was the only
complicated thing he wore. He frowned, watching as Ronny rushed toward the
goat, but appeared to have no intention of intervening. "Bobby, make sure
that your brother doesn’t do anything stupid."
"I don’t feel like it," Bobby said, not moving. He was
sitting in the front seat beside Mr. Kapasi, studying a picture of the elephant
god taped to the glove compartment.
"No need to worry," Mr. Kapasi said. "They are
quite tame." Mr. Kapasi was forty-six years old, with receding hair that
had gone completely silver, but his butterscotch complexion and his unlined
brow, which he treated in spare moments to dabs of lotus-oil balm, made it easy
to imagine what he must have looked like at an earlier age. He wore gray
trousers and a matching jacket-style shirt, tapered at the waist, with short
sleeves and a large pointed collar, made of a thin but durable synthetic
material. He had specified both the cut and the fabric to his tailor--it was
his preferred uniform for giving tours because it did not get crushed during
his long hours behind the wheel. Through the windshield he watched as Ronny
circled around the goat, touched it quickly on its side, then trotted back to
the car.
"You left India as a child?" Mr. Kapasi asked when Mr.
Das had settled once again into the passenger seat.
"Oh, Mina and I were both born in America," Mr. Das
announced with an air of sudden confidence. "Born and raised. Our parents
live here now, in Assansol. They retired. We visit them every couple years.
turned to watch as the little girl ran toward the car, the wide purple bows of
her sundress flopping on her narrow brown shoulders. She was holding to her
chest a doll with yellow hair that looked as if it had been chopped, as a
punitive measure, with a pair of dull scissors. "This is Tina’s first trip
to India, isn’t it, Tina?"
"I don’t have to go to the bathroom anymore," Tina
announced.
"Where’s Mina?" Mr. Das asked.
Mr. Kapasi found it strange that Mr. Das should refer to his
wife by her first name when speaking to the little girl. Tina pointed to where
Mrs. Das was purchasing something from one of the shiftless men who worked at
the tea stall. Mr. Kapasi heard one of the shirtless men sing a phrase from a
popular Hindi love song as Mrs. Das walked back to the car, but she did not
appear to understand the words of the song, for she did not express irritation,
or embarrassment, or react in any other way to the man’s declarations.
He observed her. She wore a red-and-white-checkered skirt that
stopped above her knees, slip-on shoes with a square wooden heel, and a
close-fitting blouse styled like a man’s undershirt. The blouse was decorated
at chest-level with a calico appliqué in the shape of a strawberry. She was a
short woman, with small hands like paws, her frosty pink fingernails painted to
match her lips, and was slightly plump in her figure. Her hair, shorn only a
little longer than her husband’s, was parted far to one side. She was wearing
large dark brown sunglasses with a pinkish tint to them, and carried a big
straw bag, almost as big as her torso, shaped like a bowl, with a water bottle
poking out of it. She walked slowly, carrying some puffed rice tossed with
peanuts and chili peppers in a large packet made from newspapers. Mr. Kapasi
turned to Mr. Das.
"Where in America do you live?"
"New Brunswick, New Jersey."
"Exactly. I teach middle school there."
"What subject?"
"Science. In fact, every year I take my students on a trip
to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. In a way we have a lot in
common, you could say, you and I. How long have you been a tour guide, Mr.
Kapasi?"
"Five years."
Mrs. Das reached the car. "How long’s the trip?" she
asked, shutting the door.
"About two and a half hours," Mr. Kapasi replied.
At this Mrs. Das gave an impatient sigh, as if she had been
traveling her whole life without pause. She fanned herself with a folded Bombay
film magazine written in English.
"I thought that the Sun Temple is only eighteen miles north
of Puri," Mr. Das said, tapping on the tour book.
"The roads to Konarak are poor. Actually it is a distance
of fifty-two miles," Mr. Kapasi explained.
Mr. Das nodded, readjusting the camera strap where it had begun
to chafe the back of his neck.
Before starting the ignition, Mr. Kapasi reached back to make
sure the cranklike locks on the inside of each of the back doors were secured.
As soon as the car began to move the little girl began to play with the lock on
her side, clicking it with some effort forward and backward, but Mrs. Das said
nothing to stop her. She sat a bit slouched at one end of the back seat, not
offering her puffed rice to anyone. Ronny and Tina sat on either side of her,
both snapping bright green gum,
"Look," Bobby said as the car began to gather speed.
He pointed with his finger to the tall trees that lined the road.
"Look."
"Monkeys!" Ronny shrieked. "Wow!"
They were seated in groups along the branches, with shining
black faces, silver bodies, horizontal eyebrows, and crested heads. Their long
gray tails dangled like a series of ropes among the leaves. A few scratched
themselves with black leathery hands, or swung their feet, staring as the car
passed.
"We call them the hanuman," Mr. Kapasi said.
"They are quite common in the area."
As soon as he spoke, one of the monkeys leaped into the middle
of the road, causing Mr. Kapasi to brake suddenly. Another bounced onto the
hood of the car, then sprang away. Mr. Kapasi beeped his horn. The children
began to get excited, sucking in their breath and covering their faces partly
with their hands. They had never seen monkeys outside of a zoo, Mr. Das
explained. He asked Mr. Kapasi to stop the car so that he could take a picture.
While Mr. Das adjusted his telephoto lens, Mrs. Das reached into
her straw bag and pulled out a bottle of colorless nail polish, which she
proceeded to stroke on the tip of her index finger. The little girl stuck out a
hand. "Mine too. Mommy, do mine too."
"Leave me alone," Mrs. Das said, blowing on her nail
and turning her body slightly. "You’re making me mess up."
The little girl occupied herself by buttoning and unbuttoning a
pinafore on the doll’s plastic body.
"All set," Mr. Das said, replacing the lens cap.
The car rattled considerably as it raced along the dusty road,
causing them all to pop up from their seats every now and then, but Mrs. Das
continued to polish her nails. Mr. Kapasi eased up on the accelerator, hoping
to produce a smoother ride. When he reached for the gearshift the boy in front
accommodated him by swinging his hairless knees out of the way. Mr. Kapasi
noted that this boy was slightly paler than the other children. "Daddy,
why is the driver sitting on the wrong side in this car, too?" the boy
asked.
"They all do that here, dummy," Ronny said.
"Don’t call your brother a dummy," Mr. Das said. He
turned to Mr. Kapasi. "In America, you know... it confuses them."
"Oh yes, I am well aware," Mr. Kapasi said. As
delicately as he could, he shifted gears again, accelerating as they approached
a hill in the road. "I see it on Dallas, the steering wheels are on the
left-hand side."
"What’s Dallas?" Tina asked, banging her now naked
doll on the seat behind Mr. Kapasi.
"It went off the air," Mr. Das explained. "It’s a
television show."
They were all like siblings, Mr. Kapasi thought as they passed a
row of date trees. Mr. and Mrs. Das behaved like an older brother and sister,
not parents. It seemed that they were in charge of the children only for the
day; it was hard to believe they were regularly responsible for anything other
than themselves. Mr. Das tapped on his lens cap, and his tour book, dragging
his thumbnail occasionally across the pages so that they made a scraping sound.
Mrs. Das continued to polish her nails. She had still not removed her
sunglasses. Every now and then Tina renewed her plea that she wanted her nails
done, too, and so at one point Mrs. Das flicked a drop of polish on the little
girl’s finger before depositing the bottle back inside her straw bag.
"Isn’t this an air-conditioned car?" she asked, still
blowing on her hand. The window on Tina’s side was broken and could not be
rolled down.
"Quit complaining," Mr. Das said. "It isn’t so
hot."
"I told you to get a car with air-conditioning," Mrs.
Das continued. "Why do you do this, Raj, just to save a few stupid rupees.
What are you saving us, fifty cents?"
Their accents sounded just like the ones Mr. Kapasi heard on
American television programs, though not like the ones on Dallas.
"Doesn’t it get tiresome, Mr. Kapasi, showing people the
same thing every day?" Mr. Das asked, rolling down his own window all the
way. "Hey, do you mind stopping the car. I just want to get a shot of this
guy."
Mr. Kapasi pulled over to the side of the road as Mr. Das took a
picture of a barefoot man, his head wrapped in a dirty turban, seated on top of
a cart of grain sacks pulled by a pair of bullocks. Both the man and the
bullocks were emaciated. In the back seat Mrs. Das gazed out another window, at
the sky, where nearly transparent clouds passed quickly in front of one
another.
"I look forward to it, actually," Mr. Kapasi said as
they continued on their way. "The Sun Temple is one of my favorite places.
In that way it is a reward for me. I give tours on Fridays and Saturdays only.
I have another job during the week."
"Oh? Where?" Mr. Das asked.
"I work in a doctor’s office."
"You’re a doctor?"
"I am not a doctor. I work with one. As an
interpreter."
"What does a doctor need an interpreter for?"
"He has a number of Gujarati patients. My father was
Gujarati, but many people do not speak Gujarati in this area, including the
doctor. And so the doctor asked me to work in his office, interpreting what the
patients say."
"Interesting. I’ve never heard of anything like that,"
Mr. Das said.
Mr. Kapasi shrugged. "It is a job like any other."
"But so romantic," Mrs. Das said dreamily, breaking
her extended silence. She lifted her pinkish brown sunglasses and arranged them
on top of her head like a tiara. For the first time, her eyes met Mr. Kapasi’s
in the rearview mirror: pale, a bit small, their gaze fixed but drowsy.
Mr. Das craned to look at her. "What’s so romantic about
it?"
"I don’t know. Something." She shrugged, knitting her
brows together for an instant. "Would you like a piece of gum, Mr.
Kapasi?" she asked brightly. She reached into her straw bag and handed him
a small square wrapped in green-and-white-striped paper. As soon as Mr. Kapasi
put the gum in his mouth a thick sweet liquid burst onto his tongue.
"Tell us more about your job, Mr. Kapasi," Mrs. Das
said.
"What would you like to know, madame?"
"I don’t know," she shrugged, munching on some puffed
rice and licking the mustard oil from the corners of her mouth. "Tell us a
typical situation." She settled back in her seat, her head tilted in a
patch of sun, and closed her eyes. "I want to picture what happens."
"Very well. The other day a man came in with a pain in his
throat."
"Did he smoke cigarettes?"
"No. It was very curious. He complained that he felt as if
there were long pieces of straw stuck in his throat. When I told the doctor he
was able to prescribe the proper medication."
"That’s so neat."
"Yes," Mr. Kapasi agreed after some hesitation.
"So these patients are totally dependent on you," Mrs.
Das said. She spoke slowly, as if she were thinking aloud. "In a way, more
dependent on you than the doctor."
"How do you mean? How could it be?"
"Well, for example, you could tell the doctor that the pain
felt like a burning, not straw. The patient would never know what you had told
the doctor, and the doctor wouldn’t know that you had told the wrong thing.
It’s a big responsibility."
"Yes, a big responsibility you have there, Mr.
Kapasi," Mr. Das agreed.
Mr. Kapasi had never thought of his job in such complimentary
terms. To him it was a thankless occupation. He found nothing noble in
interpreting people’s maladies, assiduously translating the symptoms of so many
swollen bones, countless cramps of bellies and bowels, spots on people’s palms
that changed color, shape, or size. The doctor, nearly half his age, had an
affinity for bell-bottom trousers and made humorless jokes about the Congress
party. Together they worked in a stale little infirmary where Mr. Kapasi’s
smartly tailored clothes clung to him in the heat, in spite of the blackened
blades of a ceiling fan churning over their heads.
The job was a sign of his failings. In his youth he’d been a
devoted scholar of foreign languages, the owner of an impressive collection of
dictionaries. He had dreamed of being an interpreter for diplomats and
dignitaries, resolving conflicts between people and nations, settling disputes
of which he alone could understand both sides. He was a self-educated man. In a
series of notebooks, in the evenings before his parents settled his marriage,
he had listed the common etymologies of words, and at one point in his life he
was confident that he could converse, if given the opportunity, in English,
French, Russian, Portuguese, and Italian, not to mention Hindi, Bengali, Orissi,
and GujaratL Now only a handful of European phrases remained in his memory,
scattered words for things like saucers and chairs. English was the only
non-Indian languag’e he spoke fluently anymore. Mr, Kapasi knew it was not a
remarkable talent. Sometimes he feared that his children knew better English
than he did, just from watching television. Still, it came in handy for the
tours.
He had taken the job as an interpreter after his first son, at
the age of seven, contracted typhoid--that was how he had first made the
acquaintance of the doctor. At the time Mr. Kapasi had been teaching English in
a grammar school, and he bartered his skills as an interpreter to pay the
increasingly exorbitant medical bills. In the end the boy had died one evening
in his mother’s arms, his limbs burning with fever, but then there was the
funeral to pay for, and the other children who were born soon enough, and the
newer, bigger house, and the good schools and tutors, and the fine shoes and
the television, and the countless other ways he tried to console his wife and
to keep her from crying in her sleep, and so when the doctor offered to pay him
twice as much as he earned at the grammar school, he accepted. Mr. Kapasi knew
that his wife had little regard for his career as an interpreten He knew it
reminded her of the son she’d lost, and that she resented the other lives he
helped, in his own small way, to save. If ever she referred to his position,
she used the phrase "doctor’s assistant," as if the process of interpretation
were equal to taking someone’s temperature, or changing a bedpan. She never
asked him about the patients who came to the doctor’s office, or said that his
job was a big responsibility.
For this reason it flattered Mr. Kapasi that Mrs. Das was so
intrigued by his job. Unlike his wife, she had reminded him of its intellectual
challenges. She had also used the word "romantic." She did not behave
in a romantic way toward her husband, and yet she had used the word to describe
him. He wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Das were a bad match, just as he and his wife
were. Perhaps they, too, had little in common apart from three children and a
decade of their lives. The signs he recognized from his own marriage were
there- the bickering, the indifference, the protracted silences. Her sudden
interest in him, an interest she did not express in either her husband or her
children, was mildly intoxicating. When Mr. Kapasi thought once again about how
she had said "romantic," the feeling of intoxication grew.
He began to check his reflection in the rearview mirror as he
drove, feeling grateful that he had chosen the gray suit that morning and not
the brown one, which tended to sag a little in the knees. From time to time he
glanced through the mirror at Mrs. Das. In addition to glancing at her face he
glanced at the strawberry between her breasts, and the golden brown hollow in
her throat. He decided to tell Mrs. Das about another patient, and another: the
young woman who had complained of a sensation of raindrops in her spine, the
gentleman whose birthmark had begun to sprout hairs. Mrs. Das listened
attentively, stroking her hair with a small plastic brush that resembled an
oval bed of nails, asking more questions, for yet another example. The children
were quiet, intent on spotting more monkeys in the trees, and Mr. Das was
absorbed by his tour book, so it seemed like a private conversation between Mr.
Kapasi and Mrs. Das. In this manner the next half hour passed, and when they
stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant that sold fritters and omelette
sandwiches, usually something Mr. Kapasi looked forward to on his tours so that
he could sit in peace and enjoy some hot tea, he was disappointed. As the Das
family settled together under a magenta umbrella fringed with white and orange
tassels, and placed their orders with one of the waiters who marched about in
tricornered caps, Mr. Kapasi reluctantly headed toward a neighboring table,
"Mr. Kapasi, wait. There’s room here," Mrs. Das called
out. She gathered Tina onto her lap, insisting that he accompany them. And so,
together, they had bottled mango juice and sandwiches and plates of onions and
potatoes deep:fried in graham-flour batter. After finishing two omelette
sandwiches Mr. Das took more pictures of the group as they ate.
"How much longer?" he asked Mr. Kapasi as he paused to
load a new roll of film in the camera.
"About half an hour more."
By now the children had gotten up from the table to look at more
monkeys perched in a nearby tree, so there was a considerable space between
Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi. Mr. Das placed the camera to his face and squeezed one
eye shut, his tongue exposed at one comer of his mouth. "This looks funny.
Mina, you need to lean in closer to Mr. Kapasi."
She did. He could smell a scent on her skin, like a mixture of
whiskey and rosewater. He worried suddenly that she could smell his
perspiration, which he knew had collected beneath the synthetic material of his
shirt. He polished off his mango juice in one gulp and smoothed his silver hair
with his hands. A bit of the juice dripped onto his chin. He wondered if Mrs.
Das had noticed.
She had not. "What’s your address, Mr. Kapasi?" she
inquired, fishing for something inside her straw bag.
"You would like my address?"
"So we can send you copies," she said. "Of the
pictures." She handed him a scrap of paper which she had hastily ripped
from a page of her film magazine. The blank portion was limited, for the narrow
strip was crowded by lines of text and a tiny picture of a hero and heroine
embracing under a eucalyptus tree.
The paper curled as Mr. Kapasi wrote his address in clear,
careful letters. She would write to him, asking about his days interpreting at
the doctor’s office, and he would respond eloquently, choosing only the most
entertaining anecdotes, ones that would make her laugh out loud as she read
them in her house in New Jersey. In time she would reveal the disappointment of
her marriage, and he his. In this way their friendship would grow, and
flourish. He would possess a picture of the two of them, eating fried onions
under a magenta umbrella, which he would keep, he decided, safely tucked
between the pages of his Russian grammar. As his mind raced, Mr. Kapasi
experienced a mild and pleasant shock: It Was similar to a feeling he used to
experience long ago when, after months of translating with the aid of a
dictionary; he would finally read a passage from a French novel, or an Italian
sonnet, and understand the words, one after another, unencumbered by his own
efforts. In those moments Mr. Kapasi used to believe that all was right with
the world, that all struggles were rewarded, that all of life’s mistakes made
sense in the end. The promise that he would hear from Mrs. Das now filled him
with the same belief.
When he finished writing his address Mr. Kapasi handed her the
paper, but as soon as he did so he worried that he had either misspelled his
name, or accidentally reversed the numbers of his postal code. He dreaded the
possibility of a lost letter, the photograph never reaching him, hovering
somewhere in Orissa, close but ultimately unattainable. He thought of asking
for the slip of paper again, just to make sure he had Written his address
accurately, but Mrs. Das had already dropped it into the jumble of her bag.
They reached Konarak at two-thirty. The temple, made of
sandstone, was a massive pyramid-like structure in the shape of a chariot. It
was dedicated to the great master of life, the sun, which struck three sides of
the edifice as it made its journey each day across the sky: Twenty-four giant
wheels were carved on the north and south sides of the plinth. The whole thing
was drawn by a team of seven horses, speeding as if through the heavens. As
they approached, Mr. Kapasi explained that the temple had been built between
A.D. 1243 and 1255, with the efforts of twelve hundred artisans, by the great
ruler of the Ganga dynasty, King Narasimhadeva the First, to commemorate his
victory against the Muslim army.
"It says the temple occupies about a hundred and seventy
acres of land," Mr. Das said, reading from his book.
"It’s like a desert," Ronny said, his eyes wandering
across the sand that stretched on all sides beyond the temple.
"The Chandrabhaga River once flowed one mile north of here.
It is dry now," Mr. Kapasi said, turning off the engine.
They got out and walked toward the temple, posing first for
pictures by the pair of lions that flanked the steps. Mr. Kapasi led them next
to one of the wheels of the chariot, higher than any human being, nine feet in
diameter.
"The wheels are supposed to symbolize the wheel of
life,’" Mr. Das read. "’They depict the cycle of creation,
preservation, and achievement of realization.’ Cool." He turned the page
of his book. "’Each wheel is divided into eight thick and thin spokes,
dividing the day into eight eqnal parts. The rims are carved with designs of
birds and animals, whereas the medallions in the spokes are carved with women
in luxurious poses, largely erotic in nature.’"
What he referred to were the countless friezes of entwined naked
bodies, making love in various positions, women clinging to the necks of men,
their knees wrapped eternally around their lovers’ thighs. In addition to these
were assorted scenes from daily life, of hunting and trading, of deer being
killed with bows and arrows and marching warriors holding swords in their
hands.
It was no longer possible to enter the temple, for it had filled
with rubble years ago, but they admired the exterior; as did all the tourists
Mr. Kapasi brought there, slowly strolling along each of its sides. Mr. Das
trailed behind, taking pictures. The children ran ahead, pointing to figures of
naked people, intrigued in particular by the Nagamithunas, the half-human,
half-serpentlne couples who were said, Mr. Kapasi told them, to live in the
deepest waters of the sea. Mr. Kapasi was pleased that they liked the temple,
pleased especially that it appealed to Mrs. Das. She stopped every three or
four paces, staring silently at the carved lovers, and the processions of
elephants, and the topless female musicians beating on two-sided drums.
Though Mr. Kapasi had been to the temple countless times, it
occurred to him, as he, too, gazed at the topless women, that he had never seen
his own wife fully naked. Even when they had made love she kept the panels of
her blouse hooked together, the string of her petticoat knotted around her
waist. He had never admired the backs of his wife’s legs the way he now admired
those of Mrs. Das, walking as if for his benefit alone. He had, of course, seen
plenty of bare limbs before, belonging to the American and European ladies who
took his tours. But Mrs. Das was different. Unlike the other women, who had an
interest only in the temple, and kept their noses buried in a guidebook, or
their eyes behind the lens of a camera, Mrs. Das had taken an interest in him.
Mr. Kapasi was anxious to be alone with her, to continue their
private conversation, yet he felt nervous to walk at her side. She was lost
behind her sunglasses, ignoring her husband’s requests that she pose for
another picture, walking past her children as if they were strangers. Worried
that he might disturb her, Mr. Kapasi walked ahead, to admire, as he always
did, the three life-sized bronze avatars of Surya, the sun god, each emerging
from its own niche on the temple facade to greet the sun at dawn, noon, and
evening. They wore elaborate headdresses, their languid, elongated eyes closed,
their bare chests draped with carved chains and amulets. Hibiscus petals,
offerings from previous visitors, were strewn at their gray-green feet. The
last statue, on the northern wall of the temple, was Mr. Kapasi’s favorite.
This Surya had a tired expression, weary after a hard day of work, sitting
astride a horse with folded legs. Even his horse’s eyes were drowsy. Around his
body were smaller sculptures of women in pairs, their hips thrust to one side.
"Who’s that?" Mrs. Das asked. He was startled to see
that she was standing beside him.
"He is the Astachala-Surya," Mr. Kapasi said.
"The setting sun."
"So in a couple of hours the sun will set right here?"
She slipped a foot out of one of her square-heeled shoes, rubbed her toes on
the back of her other leg.
"That is correct."
She raised her sunglasses for a moment, then put them back on
again. "Neat."
Mr. Kapasi was not certain exactly what the word suggested, but
he had a feeling it was a favorable response. He hoped that Mrs. Das had
understood Surya’s beauty, his power. Perhaps they would discuss it further in
their letters. He would explain things to her, things about India, and she
would explain things to him about America. In its own way this correspondence
would fulfill his dream, of serving as an interpreter between nations. He
looked at her straw bag, delighted that his address lay nestled among its
contents. When he pictured her so many thousands of miles away he plummeted, so
much so that he had an overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around her, to freeze
with her, even for an instant; in an embrace witnessed by his favorite Surya.
But Mrs. Das had already started walking.
"When do you return to America?" he asked, trying to
sound placid.
"In ten days."
He calculated: A week to settle in, a week to develop the
pictures, a few days to compose her letter, two weeks to get to India by air.
According to his schedule, allowing room for delays, he would hear from Mrs.
Das in approximately six weeks’ time.
The family was silent as Mr. Kapasi drove them back, a little
past four-thirty, to Hotel Sandy Villa. The children had bought miniature
granite versions of the chariot’s wheels at a souvenir stand, and they turned
them round in their hands. Mr. Das continued to read his book. Mrs. Das
untangled Tina’s hair with her brush and divided it into two little ponytails.
Mr. Kapasi was beginning to dread the thought of dropping them
off. He was not prepared to begin his six-week wait to hear from Mrs. Das. As
he stole glances at her in the rearview mirror, wrapping elastic bands around
Tina’s hair, he wondered how he might make the tour last a little longer.
Ordinarily he sped back to Puri using a shortcut, eager to return home, scrub
his feet and hands with sandatwood soap, and enjoy the evening newspaper and a
cup of tea that his wife would serve him in silence. The thought of that
silence, something to which he’d long been resigned, now oppressed him. It was
then that he suggested visiting the hills at Udayagiri and Khandagiri, where a
number of monastic dwellings were hewn out of the ground, facing one another
across a defile. It was some miles away, but well worth seeing, Mr. Kapasi told
them.
"Oh yeah, there’s something mentioned about it in this
book," Mr. Das said. "Built by a Jain king or something."
"Shall we go then?" Mr. Kapasi asked. He paused at a
turn in the road. "It’s to the left."
Mr. Das turned to look at Mrs. Das. Both of them shrugged.
"Left, left," the children chanted.
Mr. Kapasi turned the wheel, almost delirious with relief. He
did not know what he would do or say to Mrs. Das once they arrived at the
hills. Perhaps he would tell her what a pleasing smile she had. Perhaps he
would compliment her strawberry shirt, which he found irresistibly becoming.
Perhaps, when Mr. Das was busy taking a picture, he would take her hand.
He did not have to worry. When they got to the hills, divided by
a steep path thick with trees, Mrs. Das refused to get out of the car. All
along the path, dozens of monkeys were seated on stones, as well as on the
branches of the trees. Their hind legs were stretched out in front and raised
to shoulder level, their arms resting on their knees.
"My legs are tired," she said, sinking low in her
seat. "I’ll stay here."
"Why did you have to wear those stupid shoes?" Mr. Das
said. "You won’t be in the pictures."
"Pretend I’m there."
"But we could use one of these pictures for our Christmas
card this year. We didn’t get one of all five of us at the Sun Temple. Mr.
Kapasi could take it."
"I’m not coming. Anyway, those monkeys give me the
creeps."
"But they’re harmless," Mr. Das said. He turned to Mr.
Kapasi "Aren’t they?"
"They are more hungry than dangerous," Mr. Kapasi
said. "Do not provoke them with food, and they will not bother you."
Mr. Das headed up the defile with the children, the boys at his
side, the little girl on his shoulders. Mr. Kapasi watched as they crossed
paths with a Japanese man and woman, the only other tourists there, who paused
for a final photograph, then stepped into a nearby car and drove away. As the
car disappeared out of view some of the monkeys called out,’emitting soft
whooping sounds, and then walked on their flat black hands and feet up the
path. At one point a group of them formed a little ring around Mr. Das and the
children. Tina screamed in delight. Ronny ran in circles around his father.
Bobby bent down and picked up a fat stick on the ground. When he extended it,
one of the monkeys approached him and snatched it, then briefly beat the
ground.
"I’ll join them," Mr. Kapasi said, unlocking the door
on his side. "There is much to explain about the caves."
"No. Stay a minute," Mrs. Das said. She got out of the
back seat and slipped in beside Mr. Kapasi. "Raj has his dumb book
anyway." Together, through the windshield, Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi watched
as Bobby and the monkey passed the stick back and forth between them.
"A brave little boy," Mr. Kapasi commented.
"It’s not so surprising," Mrs. Das said,
"No?"
"He’s not his."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Raj’s. He’s not Raj’s son."
Mr. Kapasi felt a prickle on his skin. He reached into his shirt
pocket for the small tin of lotus-oil balm he carried with him at all times,
and applied it to three spots on his forehead. He knew that Mrs. Das was
watching him, but he did not turn to face her. Instead he watched as the
figures of Mr. Das and the children grew smaller, climbing up the steep path,
pausing every now and then for a picture, surrounded by a growing number of
monkeys.
"Are you surprised?" The way she put it made him
choose his words with care.
"It’s not the type of thing one assumes," Mr. Kapasi
replied slowly. He put the tin of lotus-oil balm back in his pocket.
"No, of course not. And no one knows, of course. No one at
all. I’ve kept it a secret for eight whole years." She looked at Mr.
Kapasi, tilting her chin as if to gain a fresh perspective. "But now I’ve
told you."
Mr. Kapasi nodded. He felt suddenly parched, and his forehead
was warm and slightly numb from the balm. He considered asking Mrs. Das for a
sip of water, then decided against it.
"We met when we were very young," she said. She
reached into her straw bag in search of something, then pulled out a packet of
puffed rice. "Want some?"
"No, thank you."
She put a fistful in her mouth, sank into the seat a little, and
looked away from Mr. Kapasi, out the window on her side of the car. "We
married when we were still in college. We were in high school when he proposed.
We went to the same college, of course. Back then we couldn’t stand the thought
of being separated, not for a day, not for a minute. Our parents were best
friends who lived in the same town. My entire life I saw him every weekend,
either at our house or theirs. We were sent upstairs to play together while our
parents joked about our marriage. Imagine! They never caught us at anything,
though in a way I think it was all more or less a setup. The things we did
those Friday and Saturday nights, while our parents sat downstairs drinking
tea... I could tell you stories, Mr. Kapasi."
As a result of spending all her time in college with Raj, she
continued, she did not make many close friends. There was no one to confide in
about him at the end of a difficult day, or to share a passing thought or a
worry. Her parents now lived on the other side of the world, but she had never
been very close to them, anyway. After marrying so young she was overwhelmed by
it all, having a child so quickly, and nursing, and warming up bottles of milk
and testing their temperature against her wrist while Raj was at work, dressed
in sweaters and corduroy pants, teaching his students about rocks and
dinosaurs. Raj never looked cross or barfled, or plump as she had become after
the first baby.
Always tired, she declined invitations from her one or two
college girlfriends, to have lunch or shop in Manhattan. Eventually the friends
stopped calling her, so that she was left at home all day with the baby,
surrounded by toys that made her trip when she walked or wince when she sat,
always cross and tired. Only occasionally did they go out after Ronny was born,
and even more rarely did they entertain. Raj didn’t mind; he looked forward to
coming home from teaching and watching television and bouncing Ronny on his
knee. She had been outraged when Raj told her that a Punjabi friend, someone
whom she had once met but did not remember, would be staying with them for a
week for some job interviews in the New Brunswick area.
Bobby was conceived in the afternoon, on a sofa littered with
rubber teething toys, after the friend learned that a London pharmaceutical
company had hired him, while Ronny cried to be freed from his playpen. She made
no protest when the friend touched the small of her back as she was about to
make a pot of coffee, then pulled her against his crisp navy suit. He made love
to her swiftly, in silence, with an expertise she had never known, without the
meaningful expressions and smiles Raj always insisted on afterward. The next
day Raj drove the friend to JFK. He was married now, to a Punjabi girl, and
they lived in London still, and every year they exchanged Christmas cards with
Raj and Mina, each couple tucking photos of their families into the envelopes.
He did not know that he was Bobby’s father. He never would.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Das, but why have you told me this
information?" Mr. Kapasi asked when she had finally finished speaking, and
had turned to face him once again.
"For God’s sake, stop calling me Mrs. Das. I’m
twenty-eight. You probably have children my age."
"Not quite." It disturbed Mr. Kapasi to learn that she
thought of him as a parent. The feeling he had had toward her, that had made
him check his reflection in the rearview mirror as they drove, evaporated a
little.
"I told you because of your talents." She put the
packet of puffed rice back into her bag without folding over the top.
"I don’t understand," Mr. Kapasi said.
"Don’t you see? For eight years I haven’t been able to
express this to anybody, not to friends, certainly not to Raj. He doesn’t even
suspect it. He thinks I’m still in love with him. Well, don’t you have anything
to say?"
"About what?"
"About what I’ve just told you. About my secret, and about
how terrible it makes me feel. I feel terrible looking at my children, and at
Raj, always terrible. I have terrible urges, Mr. Kapasi, to throw things away.
One day I had the urge to throw everything I own out the window, the
television, the children, everything. Don’t you think it’s unhealthy?"
He was silent.
"Mr. Kapasi, don’t you have anything to say? I thought that
was your job."
"My job is to give tours, Mrs. Das."
"Not that. Your other job. As an interpreter."
"But we do not face a language barrier. What need is there
for an interpreter?"
"That’s not what I mean. I would never have told you
otherwise. Don’t you realize what it means for me to tell you?"
"What does it mean?"
"It means that I’m tired of feeling so terrible all the
time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I’ve been in pain eight years. I was hoping you
could help me feel better; say the right thing. Suggest some kind of
remedy."
He looked at her, in her red plaid skirt and strawberry T-shirt,
a woman not yet thirty, who loved neither her husband nor her children, who had
already fallen out of love with life. Her confession depressed him, depressed
him all the more when he thought of Mr. Das at the top of the path, Tina
clinging to his shoulders, taking pictures of ancient monastic cells cut into
the hills to show his students in America, unsuspecting and unaware that one of
his sons was not his own. Mr. Kapasi felt insulted that Mrs. Das should ask him
to interpret her common, trivial little secret. She did not resemble the
patients in the doctor’s office, those who came glassy-eyed and desperate,
unable to sleep or breathe or urinate with ease, unable, above all, to give
words to their pains. Still, Mn’Kapasi believed it was his duty to assist Mrs.
Das. Perhaps he ought to tell her to confess the truth to Mr. Das. He would
explain that honesty was the best policy. Honesty, surely, would help her feel
better, as she’d put it. Perhaps he would offer to preside over the discussion,
as a mediator. He decided to begin with the most obvious question, to get to
the heart of the matter, and so he asked, "Is it really pain you feel,
Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?"
She turned to him and glared, mustard oil thick on her frosty
pink lips. She opened her mouth to say something, but as she glared at Mn
Kapasi some certain knowledge seemed to pass before her eyes, and she stopped.
It crushed him; he knew at that moment that he was not even important enough to
be properly insulted. She opened the car door and began walking up the path,
wobbling a little on her square wooden heels, reaching into her straw bag to
eat handfuls of puffed rice. It felt through her fingers, leaving a zigzagging
trail, causing a monkey to leap down from a tree and devour the little white
grains. In search of more, the monkey began to follow Mrs. Das. Others joined
him, so that she was soon being followed by about half a dozen of them, their
velvety tails dragging behind.
Mr. Kapasi stepped out of the car. He wanted to holler, to alert
her in some way, but he worried that if she knew they were behind her, she
would grow nervous. Perhaps she would lose her balance. Perhaps they would pull
at her bag or her hain He began to jog up the path, taking a fallen branch in
his hand to scare away the monkeys. Mrs. Das continued walking, oblivious,
trailing grains of puffed rice. Near the top of the incline, before a group of
cells fronted by a row of squat stone pillars, Mr. Das was kneeling on the
ground, focusing the lens of his camera. The children stood under the arcade,
now hiding, now emerging from view.
"Wait for me," Mrs. Das called out. "I’m
coming."
Tina jumped up and down. "Here comes Mommy!"
"Great," Mr. Das said without looking up. "Just
in time. We’ll get Mr. Kapasi to take a picture of the five of us."
Mr. Kapasi quickened his pace, waving his branch so that the
monkeys scampered away, distracted, in another direction.
"Where’s Bobby?" Mrs. Das asked when she stopped.
Mr. Das looked up from the camera. "I don’t know. Ronny,
where’s Bobby?"
Ronny shrugged. "I thought he was right here."
"Where is he?" Mrs. Das repeated sharply. "What’s
wrong with all of you?"
They began calling his name, wandering up and down the path a
bit. Because they were calling, they did not initially hear the boy’s screams.
When they found him, a little farther down the path under a tree, he was
surrounded by a group of monkeys, over a dozen of them, pulling at his T-shirt
with their long black fingers. The puffed rice Mrs. Das had spilled was
scattered at his feet, raked over by the monkeys’ hands. The boy was silent,
his body frozen, swift tears running down his startled face. His bare legs were
dusty and red with welts from where one of the monkeys struck him repeatedly
with the stick he had given to it earlier:
"Daddy, the monkey’s hurting Bobby," Tina said.
Mr. Das wiped his palms on the front of his shorts. In his
nervousness he accidentally pressed the shutter on his camera; the whirring
noise of the advancing film excited the monkeys, and the one with the stick
began to beat Bobby more intently. "What are we supposed to do? What if
they start attacking?"
"Mr. Kapasi," Mrs. Das shrieked, noticing him standing
to one side. "Do something, for God’s sake, do something!"
Mr. Kapasi took his branch and shooed them away, hissing at the
ones that remained, stomping his feet to scare them. The animals retreated
slowly, with a measured gait, obedient but unintimidated. Mr. Kapasi gathered
Bobby in his arms and brought him back to where his parents and siblings were
standing. As he carried him he was tempted to whisper a secret into the boy’s
ear. But Bobby was stunned, and shivering with fright, his legs bleeding
slightly where the stick had broken the skin. When Mr. Kapasi delivered him to
his parents, Mr. Das brushed some dirt off the boy’s T-shirt and put the visor
on him the right way. Mrs. Das reached into her straw bag to find a bandage
which she taped over the cut on his knee. Ronny offered his brother a fresh
piece of gum. "He’s fine. Just a little scared, right, Bobby?" Mr.
Das said, patting the top of his head.
"God, let’s get out of here," Mrs. Das said. She
folded her arms across the strawberry on her chest. "This place gives me
the creeps."
"Yeah. Back to the hotel, definitely," Mr. Das agreed.
"Poor Bobby," Mrs. Das said. "Come here a second.
Let Mommy fix your hair." Again she reached into her straw bag, this time
for her hairbrush, and began to run it around the edges of the translucent
visor. When she whipped out the hairbrush, the slip of paper with Mr. Kapasi’s
address on it fluttered away in the wind. No one but Mr. Kapasi noticed. He
watched as it rose, carried higher and higher by the breeze, into the trees
where the monkeys now sat, solemnly observing the scene below. Mr. Kapasi
observed it too, knowing that this was the picture of the Das family he would
preserve forever in his mind.
~x~
