The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai [11]
“Oi, koi hai? Khansama? Uth. Koi hai? Uth. Khansama?”
Kanchenjunga glowed macabre, trees stretched away on either side, trunks pale, leaves black, and beyond, between the pillars of the trees, a path led to the house.
It seemed a long while before they heard a whistle blowing and saw a lantern approaching, and there had come the cook, bandy-legged up the path, looking as leather-visaged, as weathered and soiled, as he did now, and as he would ten years later. A poverty stricken man growing into an ancient at fast-forward. Compressed childhood, lingering old age. A generation between him and the judge, but you wouldn’t know it to look at them. There was age in his temperament, his kettle, his clothes, his kitchen, his voice, his face, in the undisturbed dirt, the undisturbed settled smell of a lifetime of cooking, smoke, and kerosene.
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“How dare they behave this way to you,” said Sai, trying to overcome the gap between them as they stood together surveying the mess the police had left in his hut.
“But what kind of investigation would it be, then?” the cook reasoned.
In their attempt to console his dignity in two different ways, they had merely highlighted its ruin.
They bent to collect his belongings, the cook careful to place the pages of the letters in the correct envelopes. One day he’d return them to Biju so his son would have a record of his journey and feel a sense of pride and achievement.
Five
Biju at the Baby Bistro.
Above, the restaurant was French, but below in the kitchen it was Mexican and Indian. And, when a Paki was hired, it was Mexican, Indian, Pakistani.
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Biju at Le Colonial for the authentic colonial experience.
On top, rich colonial, and down below, poor native. Colombian, Tunisian, Ecuadorian, Gambian.
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On to the Stars and Stripes Diner. All American flag on top, all Guatemalan flag below.
Plus one Indian flag when Biju arrived.
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“Where is Guatemala?” he had to ask.
“Where is Guam?”
“Where is Madagascar?”
“Where is Guyana?”
“Don’t you know?” the Guyanese man said. “Indians everywhere in Guyana, man.”
“Indians in Guam. Everywhere you look, practically, Indians.”
“Trinidad?”
“Trinidad full of Indians!! Saying—can you believe it?—‘Open a caan of saalmon, maaan.’”
Madagascar—Indians Indians.
Chile—in the Zona Rosa duty-free of Tierra del Fuego, Indians, whiskey, electronics. Bitterness at the thought of Pakistanis up in the Areca used-car business. “Ah… forget it… let those bhenchoots make their quarter percent….”
Kenya. South Africa. Saudi Arabia. Fiji. New Zealand. Surinam.
In Canada, a group of Sikhs came long ago; they went to remote areas and the women took off their salwars and wore their kurtas like dresses.
Indians, yes, in Alaska; a desi owned the last general store in the last town before the North Pole, canned foods mostly, fishing tackle, bags of salt, and shovels; his wife stayed back in Karnal with the children, where they could, on account of the husband’s sacrifice, afford Little Angels Kindergarten.
On the Black Sea, yes, Indians, running a spice business.
Hong Kong. Singapore.
How had he learned nothing growing up? England he knew, and America, Dubai, Kuwait, but not much else.
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There was a whole world in the basement kitchens of New York, but Biju was ill-equipped for it and almost relieved when the Pakistani arrived. At least he knew what to do. He wrote and told his father.
The cook was alarmed. What kind of place was he working in? He knew it was a country where people from everywhere journeyed to work, but oh, surely not Pakistanis! Surely they would not be hired. Surely Indians were better liked—
“Beware,” the cook wrote to his son. “Beware. Beware. Keep away. Distrust.”
His son had already