Akhil Sharma - An Obedient Father

For several minutes she did not say anything and just tried to control her breathing. I stared at her. Anita must have seen some-

thing defiant on my face. She shouted through her gasps, "I knew all the time!"

I nodded again.

"When you'd pretend to sleep and put my hand on your penis." The shrill voice made her sound silly. Anita glared. I could tell that my passivity annoyed her. "When you entered me, it hurt so much I thought I would die, that I had to die. How could I not die? And then I bled. After the first night, I was just waiting to die. Every night there was blood, and I kept thinking, I'm going to die. I won't even have seen the Taj Mahal and I'm going to die. I won't have put on perfume and I'm going to die."

Instead of guilt, I felt anxiety for the lines I must speak. No matter how Anita shouted at me, the world would end only after I spoke.

"And you made it seem as if you would kill yourself if I tried to stop you. I used to think. Think seriously! What's better, you die or me? I wanted you to die, but then I thought, What would happen to everyone else, and I was ashamed."

I imagined how my body must have appeared to her when I was on top.

"I look at twelve-year-olds and think, I was like that. Who could do that to a twelve-year-old? You and Ma! Ma! What kind of a mother was she?" Anita stopped suddenly, as if she had just realized something. I had never known Anita was angry at Radha. "I'd kill myself if anything like that happened to Asha."

Anita turned her palms up as if asking for a response. Was she seeking a promise that I would not go near Asha? I nodded. I waited for her to become less angry so I could make that vow out loud. Once she became quiet, I thought, I should say. What I did was astonishingly evil. But I said nothing.

"Remember when I had just got married and you were sick and went to the hospital? That's when I realized how I hated you. I thought about killing you all the time then. . Ma with her guru. You with your drunken crying. . Say something."

Only from her stare did I know I had to open my mouth. I couldn't. "Say something," she repeated. I wanted to turn my head.

look toward anything but Anita. I kept ^2CLm^ at her. "I knew it was your fault but once I started touching you, I was helping you be wrong. I thought I was the worst person in the world."

No, I thought, I am the worst person. I remained silent.

"Say, 'I'm a dog.' Say, 'Forgive me. I am an animal,' and I will forgive you. Say, 'I am a rabid dog that should be beaten to death with bricks.' Admit it and we can go on. Admit it!" I started saying something, but only a hiss came out. "Say, 'I am stinking shit.'" I had never heard Anita curse before and this made her anger mysterious. I kept silent. "Say, 'I know what I did and I should die.'" Anita's pupils were moving wildly. My mouth wouldn't open. She continued speaking this way even after it was obvious I was not able to say anything. When she stopped, she began making the gasping sounds again.

I don't know when Anita started screaming. It might have been two minutes after she stopped speaking or it might have been fifteen minutes. It started as a low note, a stretched sigh. Then it began sharpening, acquiring shape, as it gathered more and more pain to itself I sat there and watched her sitting across from me. Her palms were facing up on her knees, and her mouth was half open. When the scream could rise no further, Anita began slapping her thighs with the backs of her hands. She slapped them quick and hard.

I thought I had to speak. Instead, I stood. Feeling ashamed, dreamy, caught in the inevitability of what felt like a fresh crime, I went and closed the doors to her bedroom and the common room. Then I came back and sat down. A moment later I rose again and shuttered the windows. Then I returned to the love seat. The light in the room was gray now.

"Ohh!" Anita continued. I still couldn't speak.

FIVE

5

everal days after Rajiv Gandhi's death, my office reopened. When I arrived, I found Mr. Bajwa, Mr. Gupta's former moneyman, sitting outside my door on the peon's low stool. He was reading a religious novel about the martyrdom of one of the Sikh saints. I had not seen him for nearly a year and at first did not recognize him. He wore a white kurta pajama, a white turban, and, in a brocaded scabbard at his side, a dagger. His beard hung free. When we worked together, except for his turban, Mr. Bajwa had been one of the least reverent Sikhs I knew Mr. Bajwa came again the next morning because Mr. Gupta had not been at the office during his first visit.

"Sonia Gandhi will have to become Prime Minister," Mr. Bajwa said. He was sitting leaning forward, with his fingertips on my desk, trying to get me to meet his gaze. Mr. Mishra, with whom he was arguing, sat beside him in front of my desk. Mr. Bajwa was at the

office because he wanted Mr. Gupta's reassurance that Rajiv Gandhi's assassination would not stop him from protecting Mr. Bajwa against the corruption charges he faced. I was Mr. Gupta's man and so was receiving the attention he would rather have lavished on Mr. Gupta. I tried to avoid his eyes and kept glancing around the room. All four ceiling fans were spinning. "People, when they think of Congress, think Nehrus. There are only two Nehrus of the right age, Sanjay Gandhi's wife and Rajiv Gandhi's. They can't bring in Maneka Gandhi because she's Sikh, and she got pregnant before she married Sanjay Gandhi. Besides, Sanjay Gandhi was never Prime Minister. Sonia Gandhi is left."

"Better Italian than Sikh?" Mr. Mishra asked.

"She held Indira Gandhi's head in her lap as she died." Mr. Bajwa's voice rose at mentioning the assassination. For me it was hard to think of Indira Gandhi's assassination as separate from government-supported massacres of Sikhs. Buses were stopped during bright day with the military a hundred meters away and Sikh passengers were dragged out and murdered.

The abjectness of Mr. Bajwa identifying so completely with those who had power over him stirred my anxieties. Even with the window behind me shut and the thick curtain drawn, the sun outside was a steady pressure on the back of my head. Ever since I had sensed Radha sitting beside me while I prayed for her, I had found myself automatically mouthing prayers, and now one began passing in fragments through my head.

"Congress might have just won if Rajiv Gandhi were alive, but with him dead, half the reason to vote Congress is gone," Mr. Mishra said softly. "I think Sonia Gandhi is going to be Congress president. I am certain of this." He smiled and nodded, as if sweetening unhappy news. "Congress has to pick a Nehru, and Sonia Gandhi could not say no to such an appeal. But there isn't going to beany pity vote."

Mr. Bajwa lifted himself slightly out of his chair in his eagerness to respond, but he continued looking primarily at me. "Congress is still strong in the villages. The villager knows the Nehrus have

always been there. He knows the other parties are no better. The villager is most of India, no matter what city people think. I know. . I know. . that several village women have hanged themselves in unhappiness over the loss of Rajiv Gandhi." After his claim about the suicides, Mr. Bajwa looked directly at both of us, as if challenging us to doubt him.

"Mr. Bajwa, how many Sikhs did Congress kill after Indira Gandhi's assassination?" Mr. Mishra asked.

"Have I forgotten?" Mr. Bajwa answered, clutching his beard. To me it seemed rude to make the consequences of his position explicit.

Mr. Mishra didn't respond. It appeared as if he finally felt shame at arguing with someone who was nearly crazy.

A peon entered the room with a folded paper in his hand and walked toward me. "Who sent it?" Mr. Bajwa asked.

"For Karanji," the peon said, handing me the note. He was a new man, thin and young, with teeth stained rust from betel leaf