The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai [12]
Desis against Pakis.
Ah, old war, best war—
Where else did the words flow with an ease that came from centuries of practice? How else would the spirit of your father, your grandfather, rise from the dead?
Here in America, where every nationality confirmed its stereotype—
Biju felt he was entering a warm amniotic bath.
But then it grew cold. This war was not, after all, satisfying; it could never go deep enough, the crick was never cracked, the itch was never scratched; the irritation built on itself, and the combatants itched all the more.
“Pigs pigs, sons of pigs, sooar ka baccha” Biju shouted.
“Uloo ka patha, son of an owl, low-down son-of-a-bitch Indian.”
They drew the lines at crucial junctures. They threw cannonball cabbages at each other.
______
“***!!!!”said the Frenchman.
It sounded to their ears like an angry dandelion puff, but what he said was that they were a troublesome pair. The sound of their fight had traveled up the flight of steps and struck a clunky note, and they might upset the balance, perfectly first-world on top, perfectly third-world twenty-two steps below. Mix it up in a heap and then who would patronize his restaurant, hm? With its coquilles Saint-Jacques à la vapeur for $27.50 and the blanquette de veau for $23, and a duck that made an overture to the colonies, sitting like a pasha on a cushion of its own fat, exuding the scent of saffron.
What were they thinking? Do restaurants in Paris have cellars full of Mexicans, desis, and Pakis?
No, they do not. What are you thinking?
They have cellars full of Algerians, Senegalese, Moroccans….
Good-bye, Baby Bistro. “Use the time off to take a bath,” said the owner. He had been kind enough to hire Biju although he found him smelly.
Paki one way, Biju the other way. Rounding the corner, meeting each other again, turning away again.
Six
So, as Sai waited at the gate, the cook had come bandy-legged up the path with a lantern in his hand, blowing on a whistle to warn away jackals, the two cobras, and the local thief, Gobbo, who robbed all the residents of Kalimpong in rotation and had a brother in the police to protect him.
“Have you come from England?” the cook asked Sai, unlocking the gate with its fat lock and chain, although anyone could easily climb over the bank or come up the ravine.
She shook her head.
“America? No problem there with water or electricity,” he said. Awe swelled his words, made them tick smug and fat as first-world money.
“No,” she said.
“No? No? His disappointment was severe. “From Foreign.” No question mark. Reiterating basic unquestionable fact. Nodding his head as if she’d said it, not he.
“No. From Dehra Dun.”
“Dehra Dun!” Devastated, “Kamaal hai,” said the cook. “Here we have made so much fuss, thought you’re coming from far away, and you’ve been in Dehra Dun all along. Why didn’t you come before?
“Well,” said the cook when she did not answer, “Where are your parents?”
“They’re dead,” she said.
“Dead.” He dropped the lantern and the flame went out. “Baap re! I’m never told anything. What will happen to you, poor child?” he said with pity and hopelessness. “Where did they die?” With the lantern flame out, the scene became suffused with mysterious moonlight.
“Russia.”
“Russia! But there aren’t any jobs there.” Words again became deflated currency, third-world, bad-luck money. “What were they doing?”
“My father was a space pilot.”
“Space pilot, never heard of such a thing….” He looked at her suspiciously. There was something wrong with this girl, he could tell, but here she was. “Just have to stay now,” he mulled. “Nothing else for you… so sad… too bad….” Children often made up stories or were told them so as to mask a terrible truth.
The cook and the driver struggled with the trunk as the driveway was too overgrown with weeds to accommodate a car; just a slim path had been stamped through.
The cook turned back: “How did they die?”
Somewhere above, there was