The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,99

but so unapproachable, his eyes, sorrowful, tear-reddened. Kamala remained in the shadows, feeling like she had intruded upon a moment not meant for her to witness.

KAMALA WALKED HOME SLOWLY, her mood tinged with failure. The bright streets of her employment yielded, at the corner tea shop, to the dull lighting of her own neighborhood. Without warning, the whole area was plunged into darkness from an unscheduled power cut.

Kamala stood still, waiting for her eyes to adjust; stepping inside the gutter would not aid matters. Behind her, in the distance, she could hear the sounds of private generators gunning and starting, harnessed to the electrical systems of large bungalows. Ahead, the tea shop owner lit a kerosene lamp; the light guided her forward.

A group of males, an undifferentiated, dark mass barely illumined by the kerosene lamp, were gathered near the tea shop. Something about them made her watchful. Even in the dark, it was easy to distinguish between men relaxing after a long day of honorable work and the malignant attitudes of those who spent their hours in less constructive ways. They were smoking, for one, a habit she despised. The intermittent glow of a puffed cigarette was succeeded by a golden arc as it was thrown into the gutter.

A woman walking alone past such a group was an invitation for trouble. Kamala slowed her steps. She could feel them watching her. One of the group disengaged and moved toward her. She tensed as he approached.

He seemed smaller than the rest. In a flash, she realized: the disquieting group by the tea shop was Raghavan and his friends; the slender figure approaching was her son.

“Amma,” he said happily, taking her small bag. She accompanied him silently, her mind burning. When had he started seeing that good-for-nothing Raghavan again? One of the benefits of the new school was that, in its strict attention to matters of attendance and homework, many of Narayan’s old, worrying ways and companions, including these loafers, seemed to have fallen away. When had he started seeing them again? Narayan spoke before she could. “Mother, listen…. I have been thinking about our troubles, and, well, I have spoken with that Raghavan—you remember him?—and from the things he said …” he rushed his words past his mother’s defenses, “there might be other methods of earning money. Quickly. Enough money.”

The bile rose sharply in Kamala’s mouth; she spat into the drain that ran alongside, her spittle landing sharply on the dark earth below. “No.” As though he might not have heard, she repeated: “No.”

Never. For her son to throw away all his chances, his future, to engage in whatever lawbreaking ventures that Raghavan amused himself with. No. A secondary fear arose: that Narayan, with his independent mind, would not listen to her, would be tempted by notions of quick, easy money earned through disreputable means. She forced herself to smile reassuringly, as though she were a film star with an innate ability for lying drama, and patted his back. “I have a plan myself,” she said. “You don’t worry.”

“Really?” he said, doubtfully.

“Really,” she said. “You do not worry. Just concentrate on your work and make sure Anand-saar gets good reports about you from the school. That is the only thing for you to think about. Have you done your homework?”

The question distracted him. She observed the lightening of worry in his eyes, his guileless trust in her words.

At home, she prepared a meal, supervised and scolded him through his homework, and when finally he lay asleep, hunted through her belongings for a recent letter from her sister-in-law in the village.

The landlord’s mother could be right: perhaps there was such a thing as too much pride.

twenty-three

TWO MONTHS OF MONSOON RAIN and the approach of winter had tempered the blazing heat of summer. RAINFALL LOW, the headlines had screamed in June, DROUGHT A POSSIBILITY, before abandoning that viewpoint a few weeks later and rushing to other extremes. FLOODS, they shrieked. But despite the coolness of the day, despite the air-conditioning that further cooled Anand’s office, the Landbroker seemed to be feeling the heat.

“It has never happened before to me, saar,” he said.

Anand absorbed the misery on the Landbroker’s face and knew that, whatever was going on, the Landbroker was not complicit in it. “Tell me again,” he said. “Tell me again.” He calmed his own breathing and kept his voice soft, his eyes on the agitated rise and fall of the Landbroker’s shirt and the nervous vibration of his fingers on his knees.