The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai [62]
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When they would finally attempt to rise from those indolent afternoons they spent together, Gyan and Sai would have melted into each other like pats of butter—how difficult it was to cool and compose themselves back into their individual beings.
“Pakistan! There is the problem,” said Mrs. Sen, jumping to one of her favorite topics, her thoughts and opinions ready-made, polished over the years, rolled out wherever they might be stuffed somehow into a conversation. “First heart attack to our country, no, that has never been healed—”
Lola: “It’s an issue of a porous border is what. You can’t tell one from the other, Indian Nepali from Nepali Nepali. And then, baba, the way these Neps multiply.”
Mrs. Sen: “Like Muslims.”
Lola: “Not the Muslims here.”
Mrs. Sen: “No self-control, those people. Disgusting.”
Noni: “Everyone is multiplying. Everywhere. You cannot blame one group over another.”
Lola: “Lepchas are not multiplying, they are disappearing. In fact, they have the first right to this land and nobody is even mentioning them.” Then, reconsidering her support for Lepchas, she said, “Not that they are so wonderful either, of course. Look at those government loans to Lepchas to start piggeries—”Traditional Occupation Resurrection Plan”—and not a single piggery to be seen, although, of course, they all handed in beautifully written petitions, showing trough measurements and the cost of pig feed and antibiotics—collected the money all right, smart and prompt….”
Mrs. Sen: “More Muslims in India than in Pakistan. They prefer to multiply over here. You know, that Jinnah, he ate bacon and eggs for breakfast every morning and drank whiskey every evening. What sort of Muslim nation they have? And five times a day bums up to God. Mind you,” she put her sticky ringer in her mouth and then pulled it out with a pop, “With that Koran, who can be surprised? They have no option but to be two-faced.”
The reasoning, they all knew from having heard this before, formed a central pillar of Hindu belief and it went like this: so strict was the Koran that its teachings were beyond human capability. Therefore Muslims were forced to pretend one thing, do another; they drank, smoked, ate pork, visited prostitutes, and then denied it.
Unlike Hindus, who needn’t deny.
Lola was uneasy and drank her tea too hot. This complaining about Muslim birth rates was vulgar and incorrect among the class that reads Jane Austen, and she sensed Mrs. Sen’s talk revealed her own position on Nepalis, where there was not so easy a stereotype, to be not so very different a prejudice.
“It’s quite another matter with Muslims,” she said stiffly. “They were already here. The Nepalis have come and taken over and it’s not a religious issue.”
Mrs. Sen: “Same thing with the Muslim cultural issue…. They also came from somewhere else, Babar and all…. And stayed here to breed. Not that it’s the fault of the women—poor things—it’s the men—marrying three, four wives—no shame.” She began to giggle. “They have nothing better to do, you know. Without TV and electricity, there will always be this problem—”
Lola: “Oh, Mrs. Sen, again you are derailing the conversation. We aren’t talking about that!”
Mrs. Sen: “Ah-hah-ha,” she sang airily, putting another cream horn on her plate with a flourish.
Noni: “How is Mun Mun?” But as soon as she said it, she wished she hadn’t, for this would rile Lola and she would have to spend all evening undoing the harm.
Mrs. Sen: “Oh, they keep begging her and begging her to take a green card. She says, ‘No, no.’ I told her, ‘Don’t be silly, take it, what harm is there? If they’re offering it, pushing it on you….’ How many people would kill for one…. Silly goose, isn’t it so? What a bee-oo-tee-ful country and so well organized.”
The sisters had always looked down on Mrs. Sen as a low-caliber person. Her inferiority was clear to them long before her daughter settled in a country where the jam said Smuckers instead of “By appointment to Her Majesty the queen,” and before she got a job