Akhil Sharma - An Obedient Father

Once Mr. Mittal left, I crossed the road to the shops, looking for a place to eat. I felt ashamed for selling something so valuable for so little. The guilt I felt was not that of being corrupt but that of

waste. There had always been a corruption discount in the loans and licenses I had arranged, but that had been more indirect than this and not as steep. This is what happens in elections, I told myself. I feel this way only because I already feel guilty about Anita. I found a Pizza King. At first as I ate I kept the Blue Label box standing upright like a trophy. But there was no taste to the food. I laid the bottle on its side.

The guilt only got more intense overnight. What can I do? I thought. God will decide everything. I imagined myself as one of the vandals who pried jewels out of ancient statues and sold them to the British.

In the morning, after avoiding talking to Anita, I went to see Mr. Gupta at his house.

The night before, I had left and returned through the squatter colony in case I was being watched. That day, since I assumed Mr. Gupta's home was under surveillance and I would be spotted anyway, I left through the compound's main door. I did not notice whether I was followed.

Mr. Gupta's house was crowded. There was a foreign woman with yellow hair talking to two men in their twenties. A young boy kept wandering around taking tea orders. I passed a heavy old man in a kurta pajama who was dictating something about India's gold reserves to a typist. Seeing this much energy being expended on things I did not know about made me think I could not be blamed for everything in the campaign.

I was led to a room on the second floor. The curtains were drawn, and on a shadowed sofa, speaking under an air conditioner's hum, were Mr. Bajwa, Mr. Gupta, and Ajay Mr. Gupta was in the middle, sitting straight, with Ajay draped backward and Mr. Bajwa leaning toward them, smiling. The way they sat made them appear gossipy I was not surprised at Mr. Bajwa's presence, because I felt that I deserved to lose whatever benefits being Mr. Gupta's moneyman brought.

"We were just talking about you," Ajay said.

I assumed nothing good had been uttered and so replied, "I made at least five lakhs for you last night."

"How is that?" Mr. Gupta asked.

I sat down on a sofa across from them and told him. He listened with attention, and I wondered if he knew how much the school should cost.

After I was done, Ajay asked Mr. Bajwa, "Is that a good price?"

Mr. Bajwa shrugged. This did not make me feel any less cheated. "The price is six, but I have to pay one lakh to Mr. and Mrs. Gaur, who live at the school."

"That's too much," Mr. Bajwa immediately said. "We're not their parents that we have to give them a roof over their heads."

"We needed the money quickly."

Mr. Bajwa glanced at Ajay as if to suggest he could not work with someone as recalcitrant as I was.

"Why is your phone tapped?" Ajay asked.

"Maybe all of ours are," I said.

"We have machines to stop that."

And though I knew nothing about these things, I said, "They have machines for your machines."

"Thank you, Mr. Karan," Mr. Gupta said. "Tell me what you think of this. This is a slogan for vans with loudspeakers. 'If you want to see a movie, go to the hall. If you want to accomplish something, go to the booth and pick Roshan Gupta.'"

"It's too long," Ajay said. "The van will be down the block by the time the slogan finishes." There were other slogans, some based on Rajesh Khanna's movies, such as My Companion, the Elephant. The fact that Mr. Gupta was involved in this level of detail made me think the campaign was not being run well, which led me to believe the money raised from the school would be wasted.

"The BJP's Roshan Gupta. God and Bread," Mr. Bajwa suggested.

"What about saying something good about me?" Mr. Gupta asked.

"My uncle is a kind man," Mr. Bajwa answered, "but would you vote for him if you didn't know anything about him except that he was kind?"

I thought surely I would be punished for all this. Then they began babbling about posters, something none of them knew anything about. I sank into the sofa.

Later Mr. Gupta invited me to a speech he was giving, but I told him I had to go see Mr. Mittal.

The flat was hot and still when I returned home that evening. I heard Asha's voice coming from the roof The kitchen counters were scrubbed clean, which meant that dinner had been cooked, eaten, and the dishes put away. The money Mr. Mittal had given me was in a gray plastic briefcase. Being paid had made me feel worse. I wondered whether I was so confused and unhappy because I was almost not eating. I hid the briefcase beneath some clothes in a trunk in my room and changed into a kurta pajama. After leaving Mr. Mittal, I had gone to Thirty Thousand, where my lawyer has his office, a school desk and two filing cabinets under a tarp next to a wall, and altered my will. Because I knew confession was no way to get Anita to honor her bargain, I had decided to try doing everything she wished.

I killed my hunger with water and went up to join them on the roof

The sun had set and the sky was stacked with colors. There was a deep red at the base along the horizon, a smoky orange above that, then a yellow, and a blue that faded into white. The roof was gray concrete and had several levels because of the uneven heights of the flat's rooms. Cords of tar ran across its surface from where cracks, over the years, had been sealed. Taller than some, lower than others, our roof merged into the roofs next door, which in turn connected to those near them. Asha was on the roof of my room swinging her arms in circles and rotating in place. She was wearing a blue shirt and red shorts. Anita stood below her, at the level of the common

room, arms crossed beneath her breasts, and watched. I had the feeling I had lived this moment before.

Asha stopped turning when she saw me. "I can see America from here," she said. "There are buildings one hundred stories tall, and on the streets all the men wear pants and all the women wear dresses. No woman wears a sari."

"Can you see Kusum?" I asked.

"I'll check," Asha said, and began twirling again.

We watched her for a moment, and then I said, "Here is my new will," and offered Anita the thick manila envelope I had brought with me. "The flat is yours, and everything else is to be divided in half between you and Rajesh."

Anita took it, but there was no expression on her face. "What happens if Kusum challenges it?"

I shrugged. "All daughters have the right to demand an even share of whatever is left when their parents die. But why would she?"

"Kusum Mausiji is driving her car past trees," Asha called out.

Anita took the will out, unfolded it, and, after reading the first page, put it back in the envelope. I wondered if even this was enough to calm her.

"What are you doing for Mr. Gupta?"

"I'm his moneyman."

"What does that mean?"

"I collect money. I arrange cheap loans or property grants for schools. For his election, I am selling property we own."

" 'We' or the municipality?"

When Rajinder was alive, around Diwali, Anita used to give gifts of expensive watches and bolts of cloth which she said Rajinder had received as presents from people who wanted loans from the government. To sell schools was not the same as selling cheap loans; still, the disgust in her voice felt unfair. "Some land is empty. Some schools have maybe forty students. Getting rid of the schools makes the students find better schools."

"It's easy to say that what you are doing is not so bad."

"I am not saying that."

"Do you feel Hke a thief?"

"I feel like that with these schools because I am selling them so cheaply."

"Not real guilt, then?"