The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,63
hadn’t been able to tell if that was good or bad. Next to his wife, he had looked plain. Now, he suddenly wondered: was everything Vidya routinely implied about him, in fact, true? He felt it might be; he felt awkward, boring, dull.
The heat rose within him, he was enveloped in hot glue. The tide and tug of the crowd pushed him this way and that; he smiled perfunctorily at random faces. He had an overwhelming desire to leave immediately, to go home, instantly followed by the despair of knowing he was home; he could not leave. He went to the bartender and collected a glass of beer, watching the foam slip down the sides of the glass, settle, and slowly disappear into the pale yellow liquid. The puppets danced above his head in the wind, laughing at him.
• • •
LATE THAT NIGHT, HARRY Chinappa, flushed with the success of the evening, placed his arm around Anand’s shoulders. “Good job, my boy,” he said generously, as though the party was entirely Anand’s doing. “Those tiger prawns … Excellent idea, if I say so myself…. Vidya, did you see how happy Vijayan was? Excellent evening …”
Vidya, stretched out in exhaustion on the sofa, with her feet up and her hand wrapped around a glass of water, looked at the strange tableau of Anand and her father in silent astonishment. “My father seems happy with you,” she said later, and there was as much doubt as surprise in her voice.
fifteen
THE LANDLORD’S MOTHER WAS UNRELENTING. She waved a gleaming sewing needle threateningly in the noonday sun. “Well, boy,” she said to Narayan, “are you going to tell me, or do I have to beat it out of you? You little rascal, keeping me twitching with impatience, like a mustard seed dancing in hot oil!”
“Amma should be here shortly,” said Narayan, grinning and sidling out of the courtyard. “She will tell you everything.”
But it was a good hour more before Kamala entered the courtyard; she barely had time to remove her slippers and splash cold water over her feet and face before she was seized by the landlord’s mother.
“Come and sit,” the old lady said. “You must be very tired. Your son is a monkey and wants a beating. His speech is like this year’s rain—ceaseless when you least require it and a drought of silence when you do. No, he has said nothing, nothing! But what little he saw fit to drop before me, thrown like crumbs to a passing crow, almost made me faint. So we have been waiting for you! Sit, sit. You must be tired, have some coffee.”
But grimy fatigue chased Kamala first to the bathroom for a cold bath, and it was a good half hour more before she settled down in the courtyard with a sigh of relief, a clean saree draped about her and her washed hair loosed from its customary knot at the base of her neck and spread open and wet across her back. She felt pleasantly light-headed and loose-bodied—like a wet rag squeezed dry and left to hang in the sun. She could relax into speech, knowing that the afternoon held nothing more than the indulgence of a delicious sleep.
The landlord’s mother and wife fluttered about until they settled down beside her (having pressed a glass of hot coffee into her hand), with their hands full of work, mending, dinner preparations, baby.
“So,” said Kamala.
“So, sister, what was he like?” said the landlord’s wife eagerly, her knee gently rocking the baby on her lap to sleep.
“Oh, oh,” said her mother-in-law, her hands busy peeling potatoes. “Slow down, Daughter! Let her tell the story as she pleases…. But Kamala-child, before this impatient one explodes … what was he like?”
Kamala could not help laughing. “Very handsome,” she said. “Even more so than he is on the screen. And also very polite.”
The landlord’s mother and wife sighed in appreciation.
Vidya-ma’s father had inspected the Diwali party preparations and had duly chastised the household servants and Vidya-ma—but he had also, unwittingly, given them an unexpected reward. His special guest of the evening was some politician full of trumpeting newspaper pride and noise. But, traveling in the politician’s uninspiring wake—like the glowing evening star to his dull new moon—was the truly famous film star.
“Yes,” said Kamala. “When I served him a snack, he did not just take it, as the other guests might. He made it a point to smile and say thank you.”