The Golden Son

  They arrived at the house with marigolds out front nearly two hours later, and a tiny old woman opened the door, her body frame shrunken to the size of a child. She wore wire-rimmed glasses on a perfectly round face, and her white hair was pulled back into a small, tight bun. Without a word, she stepped back to let them enter and nodded toward Leena, asleep on a bedroll on the floor.

  At the sight of her daughter, Nirmala began to cry. Leena was wearing an unfamiliar sari made of unadorned white cotton, the kind worn by widows. Her feet and calves were wrapped with strips of the same white cloth. Nirmala pictured the old woman with a cupboard full of plain white saris, having given away the colorful ones when her husband died.

  “She is a brave girl,” said the old woman. “She did not cry once when I cleaned her wounds. Your daughter has endured a great deal.”

  Tears poured liberally down Nirmala’s face, dripping off her chin and running down beneath her blouse. She took a few steps toward Leena and knelt down several feet away, reluctant to disturb her. The deep golden color of her daughter’s skin attested to her time in the sun; the slight protrusion of her upper lip concealed where her teeth parted underneath. Nirmala’s eyes traveled from the familiarity of Leena’s face to her bare arms, which appeared to belong to someone else, covered as they were with scabs and bruises. The skin under one wrist was crinkled red from burn. Nirmala drew in her breath.

  “I treated the wounds, but she will need a doctor,” the old woman said. “The burns are . . . severe.”

  Nirmala stood up. “Thank you for your kindness.” She pressed her hands together and bowed her head to the old woman. Filled with gratitude for this stranger, Nirmala felt cries rise in her throat. Her shoulders trembled as she wept silently, then dropped to the ground to touch the old woman’s feet. A hand on her shoulder beckoned her to stand again.

  “There is no time for your pain, child,” the old woman said. “You must focus on hers.”

  Oh, how Nirmala longed for her own mother. She wiped her face with the loose end of her sari and looked around the room, which contained two chairs and a small table. The old woman lived modestly, yet she had given Leena one of her saris and torn up another to dress her wounds. Nirmala dug out her coin purse, but the old woman pushed her hand away so firmly she did not try again.

  Nirmala didn’t want to impose on the woman any longer, but she couldn’t bear to awaken Leena. She realized Pradip was no longer in the room, and through the open door she could see him pacing in front of the house. He was a small man, but he could have an outsized temper. He was probably thinking of confronting Leena’s in-laws, whose home was a couple of kilometers down the road. Nirmala would have to convince him to put his anger aside. Just like her pain, it would have to wait until after they brought their daughter home to recover.

  Pradip did not speak when Nirmala came outside, nor on the long and slow drive back, throughout which Leena moaned from the pain. He would not say anything after they returned home, although Nirmala begged him to, sensing the tempest brewing inside him. Was it sorrow he felt for Leena, or anger toward her husband’s family? Did he feel shamed about the failure of her marriage or guilty about his role in the arrangement of it? Nirmala didn’t know the particular nature of the emotional turmoil Pradip suffered, but in the following days, even as Leena’s physical wounds slowly began to heal, her husband grew more and more distant.

  For the first few days, Nirmala nursed Leena as if she were a child. She helped her sit up in bed, fed her grains of rice with her fingers, held a small cup of water to her lips. She waited by her daughter’s bedside until Leena fell into a restless sleep, listened for her cries during the night, and checked on her upon rising in the morning.

  When Leena was well enough to speak again, Nirmala asked her what had happened. Darkness clouded her daughter’s sweet face as she described having done the work of two servants at her husband’s home. “I tried my best, Mama—I sweetened the rice with ghee like you taught me. I scrubbed the clothes in the hottest water.” Leena held up her chapped, blistered palms in a helpless gesture. When she tried to explain what finally drove her to leave, about the burns covering her legs, Leena could not finish the story before being wracked with sobs, and Nirmala held her close until she could breathe evenly again.

  After Leena fell asleep that evening, Nirmala went to Pradip and told him everything. Waiting for his response, she grew anxious. “We have to go to the police, no? Tell them what happened?”

  Pradip shook his head. “We can’t. We are just as guilty.” He explained that the law clearly stated that, in dowry cases, both sides must be prosecuted: both the givers and the takers of the dowry. The Indian government had taken a hard line in their attempts to ban the practice. If they reported the groom’s family, he explained to Nirmala, they too would be punished. He would certainly go to jail, perhaps Nirmala as well. They couldn’t take the risk of leaving Leena alone after what she’d already endured.

  AFTER RETURNING to Panchanagar, Leena stayed in her small room, grateful to be back in the shelter of her parents’ home and the care of her mother. She saw and spoke to no one else, until the day Piya stopped by the house. From her bedroom, Leena heard her mother’s voice thanking Piya for the bag of ripe oranges she had brought from the Patels’ abundant supply.

  Yearning for her old friend, Leena ignored all caution and rose from her bed, then hopped tenderly out to the front room. She was surprised to see that her mother had not even invited Piya into the house and was already closing the front door on her.

  “Wait, Mama,” Leena called out. “Piya, is that you?” Leena caught a flare of anger on her mother’s face as she hobbled over to the front door and opened it again to reveal Piya halfway down the steps. She watched as her friend’s expression cycled through surprise, then joy, and finally sorrow when she took in the gown shorn at Leena’s knee, her leg wrapped in bandages. Leena was filled with shame at showing herself this way, but in the next moment, Piya rushed to her side.

  Her mother had already turned away and retreated to the kitchen. Piya helped Leena back to her room, where they sat together on the bed. Piya gripped Leena’s hand and her eyes swelled with tears as Leena explained what she had endured over the past year at her husband’s home. “I never knew it was possible for people to be so unkind. To treat me as they did. I tried so hard . . . and still . . .” Leena’s body trembled as tears streamed down her face. “I let everybody down. My parents, my husband, my in-laws. How will I ever show my face again? What will people think of me?”

  “Leena.” Piya held both her hands and looked directly into her eyes. “You had no choice, you had to leave. What kind of a life was that for you? Living like a second-class citizen, like a servant?” Piya shook her head and squeezed Leena’s hands. “It’s over now, behind you. No one needs to know. I won’t tell anybody, and neither should you.”

  Leena nodded, still unsure of herself but longing to believe Piya. The prospect of returning to that house terrified her, but even if she stayed with her parents, her life would not be the same as the one she’d been sad to leave. Abandoning a marriage was shameful, regardless of the circumstances. Once people in the village learned she had run away from her husband, from her new home and family, Leena would be shunned. The reasons for her leaving did not matter. She would be blamed for it, and marked by it, for the rest of her life.

  “Please. Not even your family, Piya,” Leena said. “Not . . . not even Anil.” A forgotten memory from childhood flashed through her mind: the look of disappointment on his face when she’d scored poorly on her math test after weeks of his help. She couldn’t bear his pity now.

  “No one,” Piya agreed. “Listen to me,” she said, gently touching Leena’s wrapped leg. “The only thing you need to worry about is getting better.”

  DILIP THE LOYAL SERVANT

  ANIL SAT AT HIS DESK AT THE DAY AND TIME PREARRANGED with his mother, waiting for the call from Panchanagar. When the phone rang, he answered while doodling
in his notebook.

  “Anil,” his sister whispered through the line.

  “Piya.” Anil was pleased to hear her voice. “How are you?”

  “Listen, Ma will be here in a minute, but I have to ask you a question first.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “What’s the best way to treat a burn?”

  Anil put down his pencil. “Burn? What happened?”

  “Nothing, never mind. Just tell me—I’ve read about applying turmeric powder and mustard oil. Does that help?”

  “Piya, did you get hurt? You should see a doctor.”

  “No, no. I’m fine.”

  “Who then?” Silence on the line. Anil rolled the pencil between his fingers. “Okay, then. How bad is it? Superficial? Redness or swelling? Any blisters?”

  “Blisters, yes.” Piya hesitated before adding, “And some of the skin is black.”

  “God, Piya.” Anil exhaled, scanning the shelf of textbooks over his desk. “Those are second- and third-degree burns. You really need to consult a doctor.”

  “I thought that’s what I was doing,” she snapped.

  “Okay, okay,” Anil said. “Wrap the skin in clean, dry cloth. Change the dressing once a day, and clean the wound with a salt-water solution. Don’t apply anything else, no other ointments or creams, until the blisters have healed and there’s no risk of infection—”

  “Ma’s here,” Piya interrupted. “She’s going to tear the phone from my hand. Thanks, brother.”

  When Ma came on the line, she explained there were three disputes to be presented that day. First were parents who disagreed on a name for their newborn daughter. The girl’s mother wanted to follow the advice of the village astrologer, who had prescribed not only the first sound but also the ending sound and the number of syllables the name should include. They could find only one name within such strict constraints, which also happened to be the name of a certain Bollywood star known for her sultry roles and loose hips. The father objected to this name, believing it would harm his daughter’s reputation when it came time to marry.

  Anil had little patience for navigating between one set of superstitions and another, but he was able to convince the astrologer to relax one of his three requirements for the name without marring the child’s destiny. With the help of the chorus gathered at the Big House, a new name was soon found, acceptable to both the parents and the Vedic charts.

  The next dispute featured a young boy who’d been caught stealing dried areca nuts from his father’s supply. It was a common practice for villagers, particularly men, to chew on the stone-hard nuts, thinly sliced and wrapped in betel leaves. The paan acted as a mild stimulant and left a telltale reddish stain on the lips and teeth, which is how the seven-year-old had been caught. In Ahmadabad, Anil had seen all the fanciful forms paan could take—it was sold prepackaged with crushed tobacco leaves at street stalls, wrapped into triangles with sweeteners and coconut, even rolled into large cones and frozen into ice paan. At medical college, he had witnessed the damage this habit wreaked: mouth ulcers; gum deterioration; cancer of the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, and stomach; exacerbation of asthma; increased risk of diabetes. But it was not the health dangers or the addictive properties of areca nuts that concerned the boy’s father. It was that the boy had stolen from his personal stash, and he wanted Anil to choose an appropriate punishment.

  Anil knew it was futile to warn those listening in Panchanagar about the risks of the centuries-old practice. They might trust him to be their arbiter, but they would never believe an ingredient used in ayurvedic remedies and religious ceremonies was harmful. As a penalty, Anil recommended that, for the next month, the boy spend an extra hour each day working the fields instead of playing cricket. He would’ve liked to admonish the boy’s father for his ruinous personal habit but chose to reserve his energy for the last dispute.

  The final arbitration of the day promised to be the most difficult, not only because it was a sensitive issue but also because it was between his own brothers: Nikhil, who’d been carrying on the business of the farm after Papa’s death, and Chandu, who’d just finished school and joined his older brothers in the family farm operations. Anil had noticed on his last trip home that his youngest brother, Chandu, had grown into the most sociable of them, staying up late every night to play cards with the children of the field servants. There was usually a clear delineation between the Patel family and the servants, most of whom were of the untouchable caste. The household servants used a separate entrance at the back of the house, and ate their meals on the porch outside. The field hands used the water pump outside to drink from and wash themselves. Anil had always been polite to the servants, and played with some of the children when he was young, but that came to an end when he started school and they joined their parents in the fields.

  “Anil bhai, you remember Dilip?” Chandu asked.

  “Yes, of course.” Anil pictured the field hand, a small, wiry man with dark skin, weathered like the husk of a palm tree. “He’s still there?”

  “Yes, but he’s getting quite old. Before he can’t work in the fields at all, I think we should give him some land, a small piece of land for him and his family. He’s worked hard on our land for thirty, maybe forty years, but he owns nothing. He has nothing to pass on to his three children. It’s a small gesture for a loyal servant.”

  “Well, it may be a nice gesture, but it’s a bad idea.” Nikhil’s voice came through the line. “Listen, Anil bhai, you know the way things work here. Our family owns the land, the servants work for us. We treat our servants fairly—we pay them a good wage, we give them one day every week to rest, we feed them, we give them a place to sleep, a special meal on Diwali. That’s more than many other landowners do for their workers. Papa was always very clear on that, treating the lower castes with dignity.”

  “Dignity?” Chandu spoke up. Anil pictured them struggling over the single phone receiver in the Big House. Or was Ma holding it between them? Were others still present, or had the crowd dwindled, since the quarrel was limited to the Patel family? The thought of Ma watching his brothers argue compelled Anil to bring about a resolution as quickly as possible.

  Chandu continued, “Dilip bhai has worked for our family his whole life, and what does he have to show for it? He lives in a home owned by us. He has no property, no savings—what can he leave his children? Nothing.”

  “He doesn’t need to leave anything to his children,” Nikhil said. “His children work for us. We give jobs to all our servants’ families, even the weak and stupid ones.”

  “That’s your problem, Nikhil.” Chandu’s voice grew louder. “You think untouchables are all stupid.”

  “No, not all, brother,” Nikhil said, “but some are. Just like some landowners are stupid, as seen in our own family.”

  Anil covered his mouth to stifle a laugh.

  “Listen, Anil, you understand,” Nikhil said. “This is not the way things work. If we give a piece of land to Dilip, why not to someone else? We have two dozen field hands—are we going to give them all a piece of land? Then who will be left to work our land? The system is based on everybody filling certain roles. If we don’t follow the rules, it falls apart. Our land is valuable only if we have people to farm it.”

  “So we should keep everybody in their places forever? That’s what you believe, Nikhil? Dilip bhai’s family is destined to be servants through every generation? His sons, and their sons, none of them will ever have any opportunity to make progress? They should accept their lot in life, down on their hands and knees in those fields all day, working under the hot sun, slaving away for you?”

  “Not for me, Chandu, for us. All of us. That’s how this works. Maybe if you’d spent more time with Papa instead of playing cards, you’d have learned some things.”

  Anil took off his specs and placed them on the desk. He rubbed his eyes. “Chandu, how did this all come about? Was this your idea, or did Dilip ask you for the land?”

  “Bh
ai, what difference does it make?” Chandu said. “The question is whether we want to sentence this man to a lifetime of servitude because of his caste. How would you feel, Anil, if you knew you had to perform the same drudgery every single day for the rest of your life, with no hope for anything better?”

  It was a question Anil had struggled with many times since coming to Parkview. Quite often, the only source of light through the darkness of his residency had been the certainty it would come to an end. When day after day was filled with anxiety, pressure, and fatigue, at least he could keep crossing off those days on his calendar.

  “Yes, Chandu, I see your point,” Anil said. “So tell me, if you had your way, where would we take the land from? Out of whose share should this gift come? Would you be willing to take it from your share?” Papa had left most of the land to his four sons—Anil, Nikhil, Kiran, and Chandu—in equal measure, as was traditional in property rights. Less customary was the fact that Papa had also designated a smaller plot for Piya’s future wedding dowry.

  Anil scribbled around Dilip’s name in his notebook as he waited for a response. Had they lost the phone connection?

  “I don’t think of it that way, bhai,” Chandu finally said. “Everything here belongs to all of us. Dilip works for all of us, like Nikhil said. We don’t make those kinds of divisions.”

  Anil stopped doodling and laid down his pencil. He took in a slow, deep breath. His little brother was right, of course. Anil closed his eyes, the unswallowed pill of regret settling in his throat. He recalled the time a teenaged Kiran had charged through the Big House looking for a music tape. “Where is my Rangeela cassette? Has somebody taken it?” Kiran had asked, disturbing the books and papers on the table.

  Papa had put down his newspaper and cleared his throat. “Son, in this house there is no such thing as ‘your cassette’ or ‘my cassette.’ Everything belongs to everyone. There is no place for ‘yours’ or ‘mine’ in this family, understand?” It was his younger brother who’d been chastised that day, but they had all grasped the message. Only Anil had forgotten.