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By Root 867 0

Bridge, Museum of Immigration; no bialy at Barney Greengrass, soupy dumpling at Jimmy’s Shanghai, no gospel churches of Harlem tour. He returned over the lonely ocean and he thought that this kind of perspective could only make you sad. Now, he promised himself, he would forget the insight, begin anew. He would buy a taxi. His savings were small, collected in his shoe, his sock, his underwear, through all these years, but he thought he could manage it. He’d drive up and down the mountainside on market days, gold tinsel, gods above the dashboard, a comical horn, PAW pum POM paw or TWEE-deee-deee DEE-TWEE-deee-deee. And he’d build a house with solid walls, a roof that wouldn’t fly off every monsoon season. Biju played the scene of meeting his father again and again like a movie in his head, wept a bit at the thought of so much happiness and emotion. They’d sit out in the evenings, drink chhang, tell jokes of the kind he had overheard on the plane being exchanged by drunk men:

So one day Santa Singh and Banta Singh are doing nothing, passing the time, staring at the sky, and all of a sudden an airforce plane flies by, men parachute out of it, get into military jeeps waiting for them in the fields, and go home. ‘Arre, sala, this is the life,’ says Santa to Banta, ‘what a way to make your money.’ So off they go to the recruitment agency and a few months later, there they are in the plane. ‘Wahe Guruji Ka Khaha, Wahe Guruji Ki Fateh,’ says Santa and jumps. ‘Wahe Guruji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guruji Ki Fateh,’ says Banta and jumps.

“‘Arre, Banta,’ says Santa, a second later, ‘this sala parachute is not opening.’

“‘Ai Santa,” says Banta, “neither does mine. Typical government intezaam, just you wait and see, when we get to the bottom, the bhenchoot jeep won’t be there.’”

Forty-six

Sai looked out of her window and couldn’t tell what all the noise was about.

The judge was shouting: “Mutt, Mutt.” It was her stew time and the cook had boiled soy Nutrinuggets with pumpkin and a Maggi soup cube. It worried the judge that she should have to eat like this, but she’d already had the last of the meat; the judge had barred himself and Sai from it, and the cook, of course, never had the luxury of eating meat in the first place. There was still some peanut butter, though, for Mutt’s chapatis, and powdered milk.

But Mutt wouldn’t answer.

“Mutty, Mutt, stew….” The judge walked around the garden, out of the gate, and walked up and down the road.

“Stew stew—

“Mutty Mutt? MUTT?” His voice became anxious.

The afternoon turned into evening, the mist swept down, but Mutt didn’t appear.

He remembered the boys in their guerilla outfits arriving for the guns. Mutt had barked, the boys had screamed like a bunch of schoolgirls, retreated down the steps to cower behind the bushes. But Mutt had been scared, too; she wasn’t the brave dog they imagined.

“MUTT-MUTT MUTTY-MUTTMUTTYMUTTMUTT?!”

She hadn’t arrived by the time darkness settled in.

He felt more keenly than ever that at nightfall in Kalimpong, there was a real ceding of power. You couldn’t rise against such a powerful dark, so enormous, without a chink. He went out with the biggest flashlight they had, shone it uselessly into the jungle; listened for jackals; waited on the veranda all night; watched the invisible mountainsides opposite as the falling lanterns of drunks plummeted like shooting stars. By the time dawn showed, he was frantic. He ventured to the small busti houses to ask if they had seen her; he asked the milkman and the baker, who was now at home with his battered tin trunk, which contained the khari biscuits and milk rusks Mutt so enjoyed.

“No, have not seen the kutti.”

The judge was angry at hearing her referred to as a “Kutti” but restrained himself because he couldn’t afford to shout at those whose help he might now need.

He asked the plumber, the electrician. Uselessly, he gestured at the deaf tailors who had made Mutt a winter coat out of a blanket, with a buckle at the belly.

He received blank faces, some angry laughter. “Saala Machoot… what does he think? We