Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss

"But what kind of investigation would it be, then?" the cook reasoned.

In their attempt to console his dignity in two different ways, they had merely highlighted its ruin.

They bent to collect his belongings, the cook careful to place the pages of the letters in the correct envelopes. One day he’d return them to Biju so his son would have a record of his journey and feel a sense of pride and achievement.

Biju at the Baby Bistro.

Above, the restaurant was French, but below in the kitchen it was Mexican and Indian. And, when a Paki was hired, it was Mexican, Indian, Pakistani.

Biju at Le Colonial for the authentic colonial experience.

On top, rich colonial, and down below, poor native. Colombian, Tunisian, Ecuadorian, Gambian.

On to the Stars and Stripes Diner. All American flag on top, all Guatemalan flag below.

Plus one Indian flag when Biju arrived.

"Where is Guatemala?" he had to ask. "Where is Guam?"

"Where is Madagascar?"

"Where is Guyana?"

"Don’t you know?" the Guyanese man said. "Indians everywhere in Guyana, man."

"Indians in Guam. Everywhere you look, practically, Indians."

"Trinidad?"

"Trinidad full of Indians!! Saying – can you believe it? – ‘Open a caan of saalmon, maaan.’"

Madagascar – Indians Indians.

Chile – in the Zona Rosa duty-free of Tierra del Fuego, Indians, whiskey, electronics. Bitterness at the thought of Pakistanis up in the Areca used-car business. "Ah… forget it… let those bhenchoots make their quarter percent…"

Kenya. South Africa. Saudi Arabia. Fiji. New Zealand. Surinam.

In Canada, a group of Sikhs came long ago; they went to remote areas and the women took off their salwars and wore their kurtas like dresses.

Indians, yes, in Alaska; a desi owned the last general store in the last town before the North Pole, canned foods mostly, fishing tackle, bags of salt, and shovels; his wife stayed back in Karnal with the children, where they could, on account of the husband’s sacrifice, afford Little Angels Kindergarten.

On the Black Sea, yes, Indians, running a spice business.

Hong Kong. Singapore.

How had he learned nothing growing up? England he knew, and America, Dubai, Kuwait, but not much else.

There was a whole world in the basement kitchens of New York, but Biju was ill-equipped for it and almost relieved when the Pakistani arrived. At least he knew what to do. He wrote and told his father.

The cook was alarmed. What kind of place was he working in? He knew it was a country where people from everywhere journeyed to work, but oh, surely not Pakistanis! Surely they would not be hired. Surely Indians were better liked -

"Beware," the cook wrote to his son. "Beware. Beware. Keep away. Distrust."

His son had already done him proud. He found he could not talk straight to the man; every molecule of him felt fake, every hair on him went on alert.

Desis against Pakis.

Ah, old war, best war -

Where else did the words flow with an ease that came from centuries of practice? How else would the spirit of your father, your grandfather, rise from the dead?

Here in America, where every nationality confirmed its stereo-type -

Biju felt he was entering a warm amniotic bath.

But then it grew cold. This war was not, after all, satisfying; it could never go deep enough, the crick was never cracked, the itch was never scratched; the irritation built on itself, and the combatants itched all the more.

"Pigs pigs, sons of pigs, sooar ka baccha, " Biju shouted.

" Uloo ka patha, son of an owl, low-down son-of-a-bitch Indian."

They drew the lines at crucial junctures. They threw cannonball cabbages at each other.

"***!!!!" said the Frenchman.

It sounded to their ears like an angry dandelion puff, but what he said was that they were a troublesome pair. The sound of their fight had traveled up the flight of steps and struck a clunky note, and they might upset the balance, perfectly first-world on top, perfectly third-world twenty-two steps below. Mix it up in a heap and then who would patronize his restaurant, hm? With its coquilles Saint-Jacques à la vapeur for $27.50 and the blanquette de veau for $23, and a duck that made an overture to the colonies, sitting like a pasha on a cushion of its own fat, exuding the scent of saffron.

What were they thinking? Do restaurants in Paris have cellars full of Mexicans, desis, and Pakis?

No, they do not. What are you thinking?

They have cellars full of Algerians, Senegalese, Moroccans…

Good-bye, Baby Bistro. "Use the time off to take a bath," said the owner. He had been kind enough to hire Biju although he found him smelly.

Paki one way, Biju the other way. Rounding the corner, meeting each other again, turning away again.

So, as Sai waited at the gate, the cook had come bandy-legged up the path with a lantern in his hand, blowing on a whistle to warn away jackals, the two cobras, and the local thief, Gobbo, who robbed all the residents of Kalimpong in rotation and had a brother in the police to protect him.

"Have you come from England?" the cook asked Sai, unlocking the gate with its fat lock and chain, although anyone could easily climb over the bank or come up the ravine.

She shook her head.

"America? No problem there with water or electricity," he said. Awe swelled his words, made them tick smug and fat as first-world money.

"No," she said.

"No? No? His disappointment was severe. "From Foreign." No question mark. Reiterating basic unquestionable fact. Nodding his head as if she’d said it, not he.

"No. From Dehra Dun."

"Dehra Dun!" Devastated, " Kamaalhai, "said the cook. "Here we have made so much fuss, thought you’re coming from far away, and you’ve been in Dehra Dun all along. Why didn’t you come before?

"Well," said the cook when she did not answer, "Where are your parents?"

"They’re dead," she said.

"Dead." He dropped the lantern and the flame went out. " Baap re! I’m never told anything. What will happen to you, poor child?" he said with pity and hopelessness. "Where did they die?" With the lantern flame out, the scene became suffused with mysterious moonlight.

"Russia."

"Russia! But there aren’t any jobs there." Words again became deflated currency, third-world, bad-luck money. "What were they doing?"

"My father was a space pilot."

"Space pilot, never heard of such a thing…" He looked at her suspiciously. There was something wrong with this girl, he could tell, but here she was. "Just have to stay now," he mulled. "Nothing else for you… so sad… too bad…" Children often made up stories or were told them so as to mask a terrible truth.

The cook and the driver struggled with the trunk as the driveway was too overgrown with weeds to accommodate a car; just a slim path had been stamped through.

The cook turned back: "How did they die?"

Somewhere above, there was the sound of an alarmed bird, of immense wings starting up like a propeller.

It had been a peaceful afternoon in Moscow, and Mr. and Mrs. Mistry were crossing the square to the Society for Interplanetary Travel. Here, Sai’s father had been resident ever since he’d been picked from the Indian Air Force as a possible candidate for the Intercosmos Program. These were the last days of Indo-USSR romance and already there was a whiff of dried bouquet in the air, in the exchanges between the scientists that segued easily into tears and nostalgia for the red-rose years of courtship between the nations.