The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai [95]
He paused to wave at some foreigners. “Going for sightseeing. Yes? At one time all the rajas came to Darjeeling, the Cooch Behar raja, the raja of Burdwan, the Purnia raja…. Don’t miss the Ghoom Monastery….”
“You must get money from these tourists?”
The Gymkhana had begun to rent out rooms to keep the club going.
“Hah! What money? They are so scared they’ll get taken advantage of because of their wealth, they try and bargain down on the cheapest room…. And yet, just see.” He showed them a postcard the couple had left for the front desk to post: “Had a great dinner for $4.50. We can’t believe how cheap this country is!!! We’re having a great time, but we’ll be glad to get home, where, let’s be honest (sorry, we’ve never been the PC types!) there is widespread availability of deodorant….”
“And these are the last of the tourists. We’re lucky to have them. This political trouble will drive them away.”
Thirty-two
In this Gymkhana dining hall, in one of the corners slung about with antlers and moth eaten hides, hovered the ghost of the last conversation between the judge and his only friend, Bose.
It had been the last time they ever met. The last time the judge had ever driven his car out of the Cho Oyu gates.
They had not seen each other in thirty-three years.
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Bose lifted his glass. “To old times,” he had said, and drank. “Ahhh. Mother’s milk.”
He had brought a bottle of Talisker for them to share, and it was he, as was expected, who had instigated this meeting. It was a month before Sai had arrived in Kalimpong. He had written to the judge that he would stay at the Gymkhana. Why did the judge go? Out of some vain hope of putting his memories to sleep? Out of curiosity? He told himself he went because if he did not go to the Gymkhana, Bose would come to Cho Oyu instead.
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“You have to say we have the best mountains in the world,” said Bose. “Have you ever trekked up Sandak Fu? That Micky went—remember him? Stupid fellow? Wore new shoes and by the time he arrived at the base, he had developed such blisters he had to sit at the bottom, and his wife Mithu—remember her? lot of spirit? great girl?—she ran all the way to the top in her Hawaii chappals.
“Remember Dickie, that one with a tweed coat and cherry pipe pretending to be an English lord, saying things like, ‘Look upon this hoary… hoary… winter’s… light… et cetera?’ Had a retarded child and couldn’t take it… he killed himself.
“Remember Subramanium? Wife, a dumpy woman, four feet by four feet? Cheered himself up with the Anglo secretary, but that wife of his, she booted him out of the house and took all the money… and once the money vanished so did the Anglo. Found some other bugger….”
Bose threw back his head to laugh and his dentures came gnashing down. He hurriedly lowered his head and gobbled them up again. The judge was pained by the scene of them before they’d even properly embarked on the evening—two white-haired Fitzbillies in the corner of the club, water-stained durries, the grimacing head of a stuffed bear slipping low, half the stuffing fallen out. Wasps lived in the creature’s teeth, and moths lived in its fur, which also fooled some ticks that had burrowed in, confident of finding blood, and died of hunger. Above the fireplace, where a portrait of the king and queen of England in coronation attire had once hung, there was now one of Gandhi, thin and with ribs showing. Hardly conducive to appetite or comfort in a club, the judge thought.
Still, you could imagine what it must have been like, planters in boiled shirts riding for miles through the mist, coattails in their pockets to meet for tomato soup. Had the contrast excited them, the playing of tiny tunes with fork and spoon, the dancing against a backdrop that celebrated blood-sports and brutality? In the guest registers, the volumes of which were kept in the library, massacres were recorded in handwriting that had a feminine delicacy and perfect balance, seeming to convey sensitivity