The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,8
paid off a segment of the bank loan that had funded the land and the construction; it would be another five years, he estimated, before the house was theirs. Longer, perhaps, for him to feel entirely at home in it.
All seemed quiet when he entered, the house settled in for the night, but this impression was deceptive. His wife erupted out of the bedroom.
“You’re coming, no?” Vidya said. “Don’t ditch, now!” Her long hair spilled in sheaths down the front of her blouse, its manicured straightness a sign that she had spent the afternoon in the beauty parlor. “Don’t tell me ‘tomorrow is a very important day so you can’t come.’ ”
Anand took refuge in dignity. “I do have an important day tomorrow,” he said, “but I’m coming. Of course I’m not ditching.”
“Then come quickly,” she said. “I’ve been ready for half an hour already.”
Anand could tell, by the way she was inserting large golden hoops into her ears as she walked downstairs, that this was not strictly true. “I won’t be long,” he said. “The children are upstairs?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Valmika has some studying to do. Ey, she got an A on her bio test. Damn good, no? … And, listen, I just settled Pingu down to sleep, so don’t go disturbing him now.”
“I won’t,” he said, running up the stairs.
He went straight to his son’s bedroom. Vyasa was tucked into bed; Valmika, fourteen years old and seven years older than her brother, was seated on a rocking chair by his side, her toe balanced on the edge of the bed, swaying gently to and fro as she read aloud from a storybook. Anand paused a moment in the doorway watching their absorption in the story before they noticed him with matching smiles.
He hugged his daughter. “An A in bio, well done, yaar!”
“Appa!” said his son, impatiently claiming his attention. “I got hurt today. Mama shouted at me, and Akka laughed.”
Anand gave in to temptation. He flopped onto the bed next to Vyasa and arranged his arm about him. “How did you get hurt?” he asked. “And why did Mama shout?”
“I fell down in cricket, and I failed in maths so Mama shouted.”
“Why, what happened?”
“I was running to catch the ball and tripped. Then we had maths. My foot was hurting, and that’s why I forgot to study for the test, Appa.”
“And I laughed,” said his sister, poking at him with her big toe, “because you’re a goose…. You should have studied for it the previous day, nut-mutt.”
Anand quieted his son’s indignation and kissed him good night, fighting the urge to surrender himself to the fatigue of the day, to be lulled into a gentle doze by the ebb and flow of his daughter’s voice as she resumed her storytelling. His children: a powerful joy, so simply achieved—a pleasant, straightforward act, and, nine months later, like magic, an exquisite happiness. He had expected to feel delight at the birth of his first child—for indeed, like everyone else, he had been weaned on ancient Indian tales of parental love on an epic scale: fathers who died when separated from their sons; mothers commanding respect from the strongest of men; daughters swept away by matrimony, carrying with them their fathers’ broken hearts; parents cursing those who harm their children through endless birth cycles—but he had yet been startled by the intensity of emotion that swept through him when his daughter was first placed in his arms. And, once again, two miscarriages and seven years later, at the birth of his son. And startled still further when such intensity didn’t fade with time; when, instead, it continued to manifest itself at odd moments, when he unexpectedly caught a glimpse of his children or heard their voices on the stairs and felt his heart tighten; when he listened to their accomplishments at school with a pleasureful, bashful pride; when he disciplined them for misbehavior and felt himself softening with tenderness even as he lectured them with stern voice.
“Appa,” his daughter hissed. “Mama’s coming.” His wife’s tread sounded on the stairs and Anand ran for the shower, leaving his giggling children behind.
THE DRIVE TO AMIR and Amrita’s house was a relatively short one, twenty minutes rendered unpleasant by the shriek and grind of late evening traffic. Vidya was busy with her cellphone, returning the calls and messages that ran through the social arteries of her life; Anand alternately cursed at the traffic and worried if all was ready for the following day’s presentation.