The Golden Son

  Mina closed her eyes and bowed her head toward the ground, as far as her joints would allow. Her husband was the most decent man she’d known in her life, including her own dear father and her respected guru. It was one thing for a man to behave in a holy way in an ashram; it was quite another to maintain that spirit in the real world. If what Anil said was true . . . An involuntary image came to her, flames rising around a sari, licking their way up a leg.

  Mina hadn’t seen her husband make such an error in judgment since his early days as an arbiter. Jayant’s father had pushed him into the role too early, forcing him to bear the responsibility before he was ready. It was the one thing Jayant had resolved not to impose on his own son. He’d encouraged Anil to study, move away, pursue his own education and career in the way he wanted. Jayant’s deepest hope was for Anil to return to Panchanagar one day, but he would not force him to do so. A tear escaped Mina’s eye, and she allowed it to run all the way down her cheek without wiping it away. God rest his soul, she prayed to the picture of her husband. What would he do now?

  Mina rose from the floor and reached for the large ring of keys she kept tucked into her waistband. She unlocked the metal cupboard next to Jayant’s portrait and retrieved the slim journal in which he’d recorded the names, dates, and amounts of various loans he’d made through the years. Then she opened the lockbox in which she kept the cash and counted out fifty thousand rupees.

  30

  ANIL AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING UNDER THE SHADOW OF Nirmala Auntie’s fury. The revelation that Papa had met that boy’s family—entertained them, been charmed, perhaps even coerced by them—it was almost too much to bear. Such a terrible course of events had been set into motion by a single bad judgment of his father’s.

  On his dresser, next to the chessboard, Anil spotted a notebook that hadn’t been there the night before. Its lined pages were filled with Papa’s handwriting. Anil turned to an envelope tucked into a back page, where the names of Leena’s parents were listed at the top, with a tally of numbers below. Their account took up several pages, and at the end was written a single figure: 50,000. The number of rupees, paid in full.

  Inside the envelope were fifty bills, each in the denomination of one thousand. A thin sheaf of folded paper slipped out of the notebook and onto the floor. Anil sat down at his desk and unfolded it.

  Dear son,

  I will not hide the truth from you. This is not an easy job. You will be asked to make judgments without having all the information, without knowing how people will take your counsel or what will happen in the future. You will never be able to please everyone, and you will make mistakes. Often, you will feel you are not equipped to bear such a heavy burden. Do not let this prevent you from acting. It is important for people in our village to know someone will hear them and consider their problems. But this does not mean you must always substitute your judgment for theirs. Often, if you ask the right questions and listen very carefully, people will lead you to the answer. You are already smart, like the mathematician who created the game of chess so many centuries ago—you can outwit others if you want. Now you must also learn from the king, and do not squander what you have.

  I know your mother can be challenging, but she possesses wisdom too. She helped me with many of the disputes I faced in the beginning. As a woman, she knows and understands things differently, and I found her counsel to be invaluable. You and your siblings are young and have new ways of thinking, and that too is valuable. There is wisdom in both approaches, and I have often thought, if we could merge the old and the young into one person, that wisdom would multiply.

  All this is to say, don’t be afraid to look everywhere for the wisdom you will need. This role is difficult, but it is important. It has been a privilege for me, and I have done my best. I know you will do yours.

  Papa

  ANIL BRUSHED a tear from his cheek. He read the letter three times before tucking it into his backpack. The house was unusually quiet as he emerged from his bedroom. Down the hallway, Piya’s room was empty. His mother’s bedroom looked as it always did, its uncreased batik bedspread betraying no signs of a sleepless night. Through the window, he could see Kiran working in the fields.

  Anil climbed down the stairs and followed his mother’s voice into the kitchen, where she was chiding a servant for allowing moisture to accumulate in the potato bin. Anil watched her issue instructions for lunch preparations, ever detailed in her requirements of how the vegetables were to be diced. When Ma looked up, she caught him smiling. They held each other’s gaze for a moment; he could detect a softness in her eyes, a wordless apology. Then she turned to the cook. “Don’t you see Anil Sahib has come? Quickly, make him a fresh cup of chai.”

  Anil was sitting outside on the porch chair with his tea when Piya ran up the front steps, panting. “Anil, come quickly!” Damp strands of hair were matted to her forehead.

  “What, where?” Anil asked, rising slowly from his chair, but she’d already run off. He followed her, running all the way down the lane, past Nikhil and the field hands, past Chandu and the outer reaches of the rice paddies. When Piya turned toward Leena’s house, Anil’s heart began pounding in his chest and ears. He followed Piya up the terrace steps, through the front door, and into one of the bedrooms, where he saw Leena kneeling on the floor next to the bed. On the bed lay a young girl, about eleven or twelve years old. She was motionless, except for the labored breath with which her chest rose and fell. Her eyes were closed, and one of them was badly swollen. A deep aubergine bruise radiated out from that eye and disappeared under her hairline. Blood was crusted at her nostrils.

  Leena stood up and touched his elbow. Anil was conscious of her fingers against his bare skin. “She showed up here this morning,” Leena whispered. “She must have slept outside last night, or longer.”

  Anil now noticed the rest of the young girl’s body. Her skirt was caked with dirt and dried grass; the hem was torn apart. On the front of her blouse was a large stain from what appeared to be dried blood. The same rusty color was streaked down her bare forearm and the back of her hand. “She just showed up on your doorstep?” Anil asked. “You don’t know her?”

  Leena did not take her eyes off the girl. “I do know her,” she said. “It’s Ritu. My niece.”

  Anil turned to Leena. “Your . . . ?” He lowered his voice. “What is she doing here?”

  Leena explained how, earlier that morning, Ritu had knocked on the door and collapsed into her arms. “I didn’t recognize her at first. Her hair used to be much longer, and her cheeks were rounder. I thought she might be a beggar, but then I saw her clothes were too fine.” Leena touched the edge of the girl’s skirt, the tiny mirrored jewels stitched into the forest-green cloth. When she spoke again, her voice came out in a whisper. “She was crying. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but then I heard her call me didi. And I knew. It was her.” Leena knelt down again and stroked the girl’s forehead. “Poor, sweet Ritu. What happened to you?”

  She looked up at Anil. “I don’t know how she got here, but she could hardly stand up, so I brought her in here to lie down. She was so dirty, covered with blood. I wanted to clean her, but she wouldn’t let me touch her. I went to get a glass of water and when I came back, she was asleep, just like this. She hasn’t moved in over an hour. I’m worried, Anil. Can you check if she’s okay?”

  “Yes, but I’ll have to touch her to examine her,” Anil said. Piya offered to run back to the Big House to retrieve the medical bag he’d left from his last visit.

  Leena nodded. “Should we wake her?”

  “Yes, I think so. From that contusion, it looks like she’s had a serious head injury. She could have a concussion or internal bleeding. She might need to go to the hospital.”

  “Can’t you just help her here?” Leena’s voice quickened.

  “I’ll try,” he said. “I’ll do my best.”

  LEENA WOKE Ritu, but even after she introduced Anil as a friend and a doctor, the girl would
not allow him to touch her. She drew back when Anil tried to look at her injured face, so Leena served as his hands during the examination. She held open Ritu’s eyelids while Anil shone a light to inspect her pupils. It was Leena who slipped the stethoscope under the girl’s blouse and held it, first to her back and then to her chest, moving it according to Anil’s direction while he listened to her heartbeat and breath. Together, like two halves of the same person, Anil and Leena moved quietly and deliberately through each step of the physical examination. They spoke little, communicating mainly through their eyes and gestures. He’d never worked with someone with whom he fit together so easily.

  Leena held the girl’s hand as Anil asked questions to test for memory loss or mental impairment, but Ritu would not respond to him. So Leena repeated Anil’s questions to Ritu and relayed her answers back to him. Anil recognized that the girl’s skittish behavior could be a sign of physical abuse.

  Leena’s tenderness helped to calm not only Ritu but Anil as well. He worried that Ritu’s family, the very people who had beaten and burned Leena, could show up at any moment, demanding money or revenge. His anxiety rose at the prospect of confrontation or violence. A sense of helplessness engulfed him, the same sense he’d felt when watching those men attack Baldev.

  After his examination, Anil removed the stethoscope from his neck and gestured for Leena to follow him outside. They joined Piya on the terrace. “She has some infected wounds on her hands and feet, which look like they’ve been festering for a while. I’ll need to drain the abscesses with a scalpel, but it will be painful. I’ll come back tomorrow morning. Can you prepare her?”

  Leena nodded. “I’ll try, but she seems so frightened.” She bit down on a fingernail.

  “I have something else that might work,” Piya offered. “I’ll be back in a little while.” She trotted down the steps, leaving Anil and Leena alone on the terrace.

  “Most of her injuries are superficial,” Anil continued, “but she’s had some blunt force trauma to the frontal lobe.”

  Leena peered at him. “What does that mean?”

  “Something hit her hard, right here.” Anil touched his right eye and forehead to illustrate. “Or she hit something, like a wall or the ground.”

  Leena was nodding almost imperceptibly, as if her head were vibrating with the comprehension of what had happened.

  “She may have suffered a mild concussion at the time of the injury, but there’s no lasting brain trauma, which is good. Her remaining symptoms—the dizziness and nausea—those should disappear on their own over the next couple of weeks. We should keep an eye on her for a day to make sure, but after that, she’ll be fine.” Anil waited for the tension to ease from Leena’s face, but she still looked deep in concentration. “Leena, we need to call the police to come and get her. Soon. Before her family comes looking for her.”

  Leena’s head jolted up. “I can’t send her back there,” she said. “They hit her, you said so yourself.”

  “You’re not sending her back there. The police will make sure she’s safe. They’ll take her to the hospital and get her the medical care she needs.” Anil reached for Leena’s wrist and held it gently. “Leena, her family will be looking for her. If they find her here, you have no idea what they’ll do. Do you really want to get mixed up with them again, after you’ve finally got free?” Leena was pressing down on the terrace with her pointed toes. Her wrist was limp in Anil’s hand. “Have you forgotten, Leena, what they’re capable of? These are dangerous people.”

  Leena slipped her wrist out of his grip and looked Anil directly in the eyes. “Yes, I know, and the police are not so trustworthy either.” Her hand went to her mouth and she nibbled on a fingernail. “How can we be sure what they will and won’t do with a young, helpless girl?”

  Anil shook his head. “You have to alert the authorities. That’s the right thing to do. You’re not equipped to deal with this.” When Leena shot him an angry look, he reached out for her hand again. “You have to think of your own safety, Leena. And your mother’s. Where is she?” He’d been relieved earlier not to see Nirmala Auntie, but now he was worried.

  “She went to the market in town. I stayed back to finish some glazing.”

  “Look, keep an eye on her overnight. Make sure she drinks plenty of water and eats something. I’ll come by in the morning, and we can decide then. I also have another matter to speak to you and your mother about tomorrow, okay? It’s good news.” He embraced her tightly, relishing the feel of her in his arms.

  EARLY THE next morning, Anil left the Big House after a fitful night of dreams about Rudy and Lee, and their swinging six-pack of beer. As he walked down the lane to Leena’s house, he marshaled a list of reasons they had to call the police today. He saw situations like this all the time at Parkview—neglected and abused children. His job was to treat them medically, then alert the proper authorities: that was the right thing to do.

  Nirmala Auntie opened the door, her eyes narrowing when she saw him.

  “Auntie.” Anil bowed his head. “I’m just here for the girl.” He held up his medical bag, and she stepped aside to let him enter.

  He stopped in the doorway of the bedroom. Piya was wiping a dark green paste from the girl’s foot. “Anil, look,” Piya said, nearly breathless. “See how much better it looks.”

  Anil peered over her shoulder and was astonished to see that the abscess was half the size it had been the day before. “What did you do?” he asked. “What is that?”

  “Leaves from the neem tree. I boiled and mashed them into a paste and left it on overnight.” Piya beamed. “Another day or two and these wounds should be all drained.” She stood up and gathered the dirty cloths into a bag. “I’ll come back with another batch.”

  Leena embraced Piya. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Anil walked his sister to the front door. “I suppose I could learn a few things from you.” He hugged her before she left. When he returned to the bedroom, Leena was sitting on the edge of the bed next to the girl.

  “You left us without saying good-bye, didi,” Ritu said. “You said you wouldn’t leave. You promised.”

  Leena looked up at the ceiling, then down to Ritu’s hand, which she was holding in hers. “I had to. Forgive me.” Her voice cracked with emotion.

  “I know,” Ritu said. “He would have killed you too.”

  Anil heard Leena’s sharp intake of breath. “Ritu, what are you saying?”

  “He would have killed you,” Ritu said. “Like the other woman, before you came to live with us.”

  Leena straightened her back. “Ritu, please, slow down. You’re not making any sense.”

  “One day she was just gone. Dev was too young to remember her, but not me. She took care of me all the time, she gave me handfuls of puffed rice from the cellar.” A small smile pushed at the corners of Ritu’s mouth. “And she wore jasmine flowers in her hair. She always smelled good. Dev was just a baby. She bathed him, she sang to me at night.”

  “I don’t understand,” Leena said. “Girish? My husband?” Anil flinched at the reference. Leena rubbed at her forehead. “There was another woman? He had another . . . wife? Before me? You called her didi too?”

  Ritu shook her head, a look of confusion spreading across her face. “No . . . I don’t remember. It was so long ago . . . even before I started school. I remember the puffed rice. She . . . I think she called me beti . . .” She shook her head again. “One day she was gone. Grandmother told me she went on a long trip. Later she said there was no such person.” Ritu dropped her head. “She told me I had just imagined her. After that, I couldn’t speak about her or I got a spanking. But I never forgot.”

  “God,” Leena whispered. “Oh God. Ritu baby.”

  “When you came, Leena didi, I felt like my prayers had been answered. But then you went away too.” Ritu took in a big gulp of air before continuing. “Grandmother said you ran away, but I didn’t believe her. You promised me you wouldn’t. And Dev was old
enough to remember you too. We asked if we could visit you. After Grandmother died—”

  “Your grandmother died?” Leena said sharply. “Only Rekha is left now?”

  Ritu nodded. “Whenever we asked her about you, she got so angry. One day, she turned around and screamed at us that you were dead.” Ritu dropped her head, choking on her tears.

  “Rekha told you that?” Leena asked.

  Ritu nodded and began sobbing.

  Leena leaned in close to Ritu and stroked her hair. “Shh, baby. Shh.”

  “They told me you were dead, didi.” Ritu sat up in the bed, her arms entwined with Leena’s, her hands clenching Leena’s shoulders. “But that night, after I was supposed to be sleeping, I heard the men talking—they were saying they should have killed you, like the first time. It would have made less trouble afterward.” Ritu wiped her face with both hands. “I knew they were lying about you, didi. I knew you wouldn’t run away. I had to come find you.”

  ANIL WALKED back and forth across the patch of packed dirt in front of Leena’s house. “We have to call the police today, Leena. Now.”

  Leena shook her head slowly, twisting the end of her sari around her palm. “It makes sense now, it does. Rekha was so unfeeling to those children. She had no love for them at all. It made no sense to me, but now it does.” Leena looked up at Anil, her eyes a little wild. “Those children are not Rekha’s. She took them from Girish’s first wife when they were too young to remember. You heard Ritu—that woman called her beti, daughter. It makes sense now.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” Anil said. “I call my little cousin beti sometimes; my grandmother always called Piya beti.”

  Leena continued speaking, faster, her words gathering speed as they came out. “One night, I heard Rekha’s husband, Girish’s elder brother. He was drunk and yelling at her. He called her names, so many terrible names. ‘Whore,’ ‘animal’—” She stopped and turned her piercing eyes on Anil. “‘Barren.’ He called her barren. It made no sense to me because she had two children. But now it does. And no wonder Rekha acted so badly! She was just trying to survive. She was terrified of them, terrified she would be next.” Leena kept moving her head in slow motion. “They are his children too. Girish. That’s why the children were so fond of him. It makes sense.”