Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss

How dare… How dare you not…?

Why shouldn’t I have…?… How dare… I deserve… Her small greedy soul… Her tantrums and fits… Her mean tears… Her crying, enough for all the sadness in the world, was only for herself. Life wasn’t single in its purpose… or even in its direction… The simplicity of what she’d been taught wouldn’t hold. Never again could she think there was but one narrative and that this narrative belonged only to herself, that she might create her own tiny happiness and live safely within it.

But what would happen at Cho Oyu?

The cook would hobble back to his quarter -

The judge would return to his room -

All night it would rain. It would continue, off and on, on and off, with a savagery matched only by the ferocity with which the earth responded to the onslaught. Uncivilized voluptuous green would be unleashed; the town would slide down the hill. Slowly, painstakingly, like ants, men would make their paths and civilization and their wars once again, only to have it wash away again…

The new morning would hatch, black or blue, clear or smothered. Breakfast, lunch. The judge would sit at his chessboard, and at 4:30, without thinking, from mere habit, he would open his mouth and say, as he always said, "Panna Lal, bring the tea."

And always there would have to be something sweet and something salty -

Sai stood there -

She thought of her father and the space program. She thought of all the National Geographics, and books she had read. Of the judge’s journey, of the cook’s journey, of Biju’s. Of the globe twirling on its axis.

And she felt a glimmer of strength. Of resolve. She must leave.

The congress of hopeful frogs continued to sing, even as a weak whiskey light showed in the east as the rain slowed.

Behind Sai, Cho Oyu was still full of shadow. She could no longer hear the men inside. The judge lay exhausted in his bed. The cook sat hunched in the kitchen, his face still in the grip of a nightmare.

Sai, dizzy from lack of sleep, turned to go inside. But then, just as she did, she became conscious of a tiny dot of a figure laboring up the slope through the clouds that were still sunk in the valley. She stopped to look. The dot vanished into the trees, reappeared, vanished again, came around the bend in the mountain. It made a pink and yellow patch of color slowly growing bigger – striving through bushy detonations of wild cardamom -

Gyan? she thought with a burst of hope. A message: I will love you after all.

Someone who had found Mutt? Right here… She’s right here, alive and well! Plumper than ever!

The figure persisted. Someone else. A bent-over woman dragging one leg onerously. She must be on her way elsewhere.

Sai went inside to the kitchen. "I’ll make you tea," she told the cook, who was covered in slipper marks.

She put on the kettle, struggled with a soggy match. Finally it flared and she lit the balled newspaper under the sticks.

Then they heard the gate being rattled. Oh dear, thought Sai with dread, perhaps it was the same begging woman again, the one whose husband had been blinded.

Again the gate rattled.

"I’ll go," said the cook and he got up slowly, dusted himself off.

He walked through the drenched weeds to the gate.

At the gate, peeping through the black lace wrought iron, between the mossy canonballs, was the figure in a nightgown.

" Pitaji? " said the figure, all ruffles and colors.

Kanchenjunga appeared above the parting clouds, as it did only very early in the morning during this season.

"Biju?" whispered the cook -

" Biju! " yelled, demented -

Sai looked out and saw two figures leaping at each other as the gate swung open.

The five peaks of Kanchenjunga turned golden with the kind of luminous light that made you feel, if briefly, that truth was apparent.

All you needed to do was to reach out and pluck it.

To my editor, Joan Bingham, and my agent, Michael Carlisle, for their unstinting enthusiasm and generosity regarding everything to do with The Inheritance of Loss. Also, to Rose Marie Morse, David Davidar, and David Godwin. To Adelaide Docx for additional editing help.

To the Santa Maddalena Foundation, the Eastern Frontier Society, to Bunny Gupta and Doma Rai of Sukhtara, each for a desk with a view during three vital stages in the writing of this book.