The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,79
quietly. Today he would hear his fate. He had left copies of the Landbroker’s papers with the lawyers. Rural land records were notorious for their dubious provenance. If the papers were dubious; if the titles were not clear; if there could be multiple confusing ownership histories; if the deal smelled even the slightest like fraud, Anand would learn of it today.
At some point in the past, someone in the law firm had made a redecorating effort with heavy wood and potted plants, but like the junior lawyers and clerks bustling by, the plants looked tired and gray, as though they too were fed on half-emptied, cold cups of tea. At last, a clerk summoned him into the air-conditioned inner office.
The senior lawyer, despite his reputation for real estate prowess, was dressed in a badly fitted suit and glasses that slipped down his nose and framed an overgrowth of nostril hair. He sat behind his desk, imprisoned by stacks of files. “Come, come, sir, sit,” he said to Anand, while simultaneously dictating to a clerk in a corner. “Vere-to-four—and he-yur-under—the vendaar—shall be—required … Please sit, sir…. Required! Fool!”
Anand sat.
• • •
THE LANDBROKER WAS WAITING by his car. “Well, saar?” he said and smiled, seeing Anand’s expression. He removed the gold-edged glasses and flung them on the car seat beside him.
Anand laughed in response. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll organize the money as you require.”
He gripped the Landbroker’s hand. When he turned away, the scent of soil, of that rich, magnificent piece of land seemed to linger on his skin.
HIS RELIEF WAS ENORMOUS; in the car, flush from the Landbroker’s success, he telephoned Harry Chinappa.
“Ah, Anand,” said his father-in-law. “So glad you called. Now, about Sankleshwar … I have been in touch, things were a little slow because of the Diwali holidays but should get moving now. I don’t want you worrying.”
“No. That’s okay,” said Anand. “Actually there is something else that has worked out, so there is no need for me to proceed with Sankleshwar. Thank you,” he added as an afterthought.
“Something else?” said Harry Chinappa. “What do you mean, something else?”
“Twelve acres,” said Anand. “Remember that Landbroker I was telling you about?”
“What? That Vinayak Agarwal’s fellow? I thought we had decided that he was entirely unsuitable, most unreliable….”
“He seems reliable. I have just received the lawyer’s opinion on the title papers.”
Harry Chinappa was silent. “I see,” he said, finally. “One rather wishes”—and Anand could hear the wind that presaged the storm—“that you could have told me a little earlier that you were dealing with that fellow.”
“I did,” said Anand, and he was surprised when Harry Chinappa said no more.
Anand asked: “Shall I speak to Mr. Sankleshwar? About this?”
“Good lord, no,” said Harry Chinappa. “I’ll tell him myself. I’m meeting him next week for my own development work. I don’t want you saying something to mess that up.”
“Okay,” said Anand. “Excellent. Please tell him thank you.” He felt a ridiculous sense of freedom, like a schoolchild who learns that dreaded exams have been canceled. Around him, the traffic seemed to toot and whistle in happy celebration.
*
HIS MOTHER TELEPHONED ON a Sunday morning as Anand and his daughter grappled with geometry, Anand applying a varied and pungent vocabulary to a cylinder that defied the normal rules of existence and presented a new surface area with every calculation. Anand turned to the phone thankfully—his mother’s plumbing problems were surely easier to solve.
His mother was not calling about plumbing. He listened to her, sat in silent thought, and then went in search of Vidya, finally running her down in the bathroom where she was applying hot oil to her hair.
He tried to keep the momentousness of his announcement out of his voice; the doubt that had flooded his system when he listened to his mother, the sense of awkwardness that still would not fade, even half an hour afterward.
“My father,” he said, “is coming on a visit.”
Vidya’s eyes widened in the mirror; she continued to massage her scalp. “Oh.” Hot oil in the spoon, onto her palm, into her hair. “After all these years? Wow.”
Fingers on the scalp, running down her hair. “When’s he coming?” she asked. “God, yaar, what will he eat? He’s very strict veg, no? Remember that fuss he made at that hotel? We’ll have to not cook any meat in the house. Is he just dropping in, or will he actually spend a night?”
Actually, said Anand, I think he is coming to stay for a while. A few weeks.