The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,88
choosing bloody prawns from some chuthiya catering menu.
“What? I told you. This will not work. I am buying something else.”
“My boy, what are you saying? You’re backing out completely? Don’t be foolish. You cannot seriously be thinking of doing business with that other fellow? Mark my words—you’ll get into trouble with him. What do you even know of him? Don’t be stupid now. This is ridiculous! We’ve got an excellent deal here. Besides, we can’t back out now. I’ve spent hours with Sankleshwar on this. I’ve agreed to all this. I’ve given him my word. We can’t back out. That’s impossible.”
“Excuse me,” Anand said. “But I have not agreed to anything. I have not given my word. And you had no business doing so. On what basis did you agree? I told you no. This is not,” he said, “some matter of some stupid prawns for some fucking party. This is a matter of my company, and here you will not interfere…. I will talk how I like! I will use what words I like! … Yes, I know very well who I am talking to…. You please do what you like with the family but you please keep your distance from my work.”
And with the weight of his words pressing down like death in the silence of that marble-encased room, Sankleshwar’s comely secretary spoke, with a cheerful, astounding normalcy: “Sir? Will you both go in? Thank you.”
Anand did not even glance at her. He glared at his father-in-law—and turned and walked out of that room. Harry Chinappa could shovel his own shit. Anand was not going to be a part of his explanations.
He drove straight home. His father was seated on the verandah with his newspapers.
“Have you eaten, Appa?” Anand asked, forcing himself to a dutiful courtesy. His father usually consumed his main meal of the day at 9:30 in the morning, in a strict schedule that followed his morning walk, bath, and worship.
“No,” said his father. “Your wife is cooking pig flesh in the kitchen; the smell is upsetting my stomach—so I have decided to go on fast. A banana and one glass of milk—later, when the smell has died down—will be sufficient. A fast,” he said, “is good for the digestion, very cleansing, though the subsequent bowel movements take a day or so to settle down. Are you not going for your bath?”
“Later,” said Anand. “I have to finish some work in the study.”
“When I used to return home from outside, I would first head straight for the bath before saying even one word to anybody. But those are the old ways, is it not?”
“Is Vidya upstairs?” asked Anand.
“I believe not. I believe not. The servant,” his father said, “told me she has gone out.”
Anand headed to the study, his father’s voice following him: “… and by raising rail prices, the blighters will raise the prices of onions also. This country,” his father said, resorting to the expression he had employed as long as Anand could remember, “is going to the dogs.”
He heard Vidya enter the house and walked out of the study. He could see from her grim face that she had heard from her father. Thankfully, the children were at school. She addressed her father-in-law: “So I have bought some bananas for you. Will you eat them right away?”
“A little later,” Anand’s father said. “After the smell has died down. No, no, nothing else. A glass of milk and a banana will be more than sufficient.”
She followed Anand into the study and shut the door. He said, still seething: “Listen. I don’t want you discussing my work ever again with your father. Okay? After what happened today, I don’t want him involved. At all. Understand?”
“Understand? Do you think,” she said, “he would want to be involved after what you did?”
“What I did? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ey, my father told me everything. Okay?” she said. “You ask him for help—he runs around for weeks organizing things for you, and then you coolly just turn and walk away. He told me. You shouted at him and abused him and used all kinds of foul language. He is really shocked, Anand. So am I. He has never been spoken to like that in his life. I was so shocked, I began to cry. How could you do this to him?” She sat down on the sofa.
“He had no goddamned business doing what he did. He had no business agreeing to anything.”