The Caretaker Page 4

  He told her how the Sikhs had suffered terrible persecution and developed their own martial ways to survive. It was the duty of each Sikh man to keep his hair long, to wear a special metal bracelet, and to carry a sword. With their distinctive turbans and beards, Sikhs went forth into the world as the embodiment of their religion, ready, if necessary, to fight and die for their beliefs.

  He talked, squinting into the bright sunlight, and Anna listened quietly.

  “So there is no heaven and no hell in your religion?” she asked. “No original sin?”

  “No, there are only the endless cycles of life, which are maya, illusion. With enlightenment, one simply breaks free of them.”

  “You sound like a Buddhist,” she said, smiling, and dimples appeared in her cheeks. “Except your people know how to fight.”

  “After our last Emperor, Ranjit Singh, died, the British conquered us. Ever since then, we Sikhs have been in the army. The rigor, the discipline, suits us.”

  “You were in the army too?”

  “Oh, that was a long time ago,” he replied and stared off into the distance.

  Anna left that day, but returned the next, and they settled into an afternoon routine of iced tea and conversation. Finding out that he had a daughter, she became very quiet. “You must bring Shanti to visit me,” she said. “She sounds like such a remarkable little girl.”

  When he brought Shanti over, toward the end of the summer, Anna made a huge fuss over the little girl and showed her the cabinet of dolls. Anna explained that they came from Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Denmark, and were now prized antiques, each with its maker’s mark. Slipping the dress off one pearl-white doll, she pointed out a blue design of crossed swords on its shoulder, the mark of the German Meissen factory, from the 1840s.

  “These belonged to my great-grandmother,” Anna said. “She found most of them at auctions in Boston and collected them her whole life. My grandmother added to the collection, too. But now they’re so rare, I’ve only been able to find two more.”

  Shanti listened, entranced, and wanted to return, but Ranjit was terrified that she would drop a doll and shatter it. He promised Anna that he would bring Shanti back, but he never did.

  The summer days passed quickly, and he worked longer and longer hours, having badly underestimated the amount of work that the stairs required. Each day he cut a few more steps into the cliff face, laid gravel, tamped it down, measured and cut stone. He worked with care, pushing dirt between the stones so that the new stairs looked as though they’d been there forever.

  That final afternoon in mid-September was a blazing hot day. Anna wore a fresh white tank top and a short orange skirt and was silent as she handed him a cold glass of tea. There was something expectant about her, and he could sense a strange electricity between them …

  “Papaji. Are we home yet?”

  Ranjit starts. Shanti has awoken, her face reddened with sleep. He is suddenly conscious of the dark road outside and his daughter looking wide-eyed up at him.

  “We’re almost there, beti.”

  “I’m starving. Can we get pizza for dinner?”

  He remembers that there is no cash in his wallet. “Not tonight, beti. Maybe later this week.”

  “Okay. Don’t forget about my new jacket, okay?”

  Shanti and her one-track mind. Swearing that he won’t forget, he drives through Vineyard Haven, recrosses the drawbridge, and enters Oak Bluffs.

  Chapter Three

  As Ranjit turns onto Masonic Avenue, the truck’s headlights sweep across their house, its white window frames flaking, its gray cedar shingles falling off in patches and revealing the dark wood cladding underneath.

  He shuts off the engine and the night is silent.

  Just around the corner are the painted cottages of Oak Bluffs, with their fussy wooden fretwork, but on this tiny stub of a street there is only their house with its sagging porch and crabgrass lawn. Across the street is Mike’s Tow Yard, a greasy cinder-block garage with an apartment above it, its yard cluttered with rusting, disemboweled cars. Mike’s Tow has been bought by a Brazilian brother and sister; Jõao fixes the cars but doesn’t speak a word of English, and his sister, Celia, answers the phones.

  “Hey there! Ranjit!”

  Celia gestures to him from her front steps, the red glow of a cigarette illuminating her platinum blond hair.

  “What, you’re back already?” Ranjit gets out of the truck, looking confused. Celia was supposed to drive Preetam to the sewing group at the church tonight.

  Celia comes clattering across the road in her lacquered red high heels, her lit cigarette in her hand. Her white-blond hair comes out of a bottle, but her smooth tan is real. She’s probably in her late forties now, but twenty years ago in Rio she must have been a knockout, and still carries herself like one, wearing skintight jeans and high heels, no matter the weather.

  “Ranjit, what can I tell you? We went there for an hour, but then Preetam wanted to come back, so I drove her home.”

  “Why, did something happen?” Ranjit knows that his wife is conscious of her accented English and hates leaving the house.

  “She wouldn’t say. You know how she is, so polite, so formal. It’s hard to tell.”

  “Well, thanks for taking her, anyway. I’d better go in and check.” He looks worriedly at the house, noticing that the lights are on in the kitchen.

  Celia puffs at her cigarette. “Hey, did you hear about the guy who owns the Hibiscus Gallery?” She pauses dramatically. “He’s left his wife, run off with a waitress from the Artcliff Diner, the grumpy one with the nose ring. Can you believe it?”

  This island is so small, and everyone knows each other’s business. “Incredible. Now, Celia, I really must—”

  “So how’s that piece of junk doing? When are you going to get a real truck?”

  Ranjit can’t help smiling. Every time they meet, Celia teases him about the truck he’d bought from her brother for four hundred dollars. Jõao rebuilt the 1985 Ford using the chassis from one wreck, the engine from another. The flatbed Ranjit made himself, hammering together a wooden box that has since splintered.

  “It’s running fine. Starter is giving a little trouble, though.”

  “Ranjit, Ranjit.” Celia squints through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “You work all the time, never go out for a drink, but you still haven’t saved enough money for a new truck? A handsome man like you should not drive an old, old thing like that…”

  Shanti jumps down from the truck and regards Celia with bleary eyes.

  “Aiee, quao bonita. Shanti, you are getting more and more beautiful. Listen, if you want me to take Preetam to the sewing group next week, I can.” Waving at them, she sashays back across the road.

  He grabs Shanti’s hand and they climb the creaky steps onto the porch, passing coils of rope, ladders, and a broken velvet La-Z-Boy chair left by a previous inhabitant. As he pushes open the front door, he’s anticipating the cozy warmth of the house, but the living room is freezing cold and empty.

  He can hear the rapid swishing of a mop in the kitchen, interspersed with ragged breathing.

  “Shanti, why don’t you go and wash up?” he says, and after she goes into the bathroom, he walks into the kitchen.

  Preetam is in a far corner, her cheeks flushed, mopping the splintered wooden floor with long, wet strokes. She is wearing an old pink salwar kameez, her hair is coming loose from her long plait, and her gold bangles clink as she pushes the mop back and forth. He has told her many times that she shouldn’t be using water on wood, but he bites his tongue.

  “Hello. Doing some cleaning?”

  She looks up, her eyes bright with manic energy. “Ranjit, this place is a mess. I’ve already cleaned the bedroom, but really, this kitchen—” She gestures at the turmeric-stained wooden table and the rows of dented pots hanging from hooks.

  “You’ve done a good job. It’s looking great.” He pauses. “So what happened at the sewing group? Celia said you wanted
to come home.”

  “Nothing. Nothing happened.” She pushes a strand of hair out of her eyes and continues mopping the floor.

  “Preetam, please, talk to me.” Taking the mop gently from her hands, he puts it down and hugs her, feeling the hammering of her heart, like a bird fluttering in a too-small cage.

  “It’s just … It’s just that those women, they all look at me as if I’m so strange. Everybody there was wearing pants and sweaters, and I was wearing this—” She gestures at her salwar kameez. “And they don’t know anything about India. One woman asked me when I learned to speak English. I told her that I grew up speaking English, that I went to a convent school, but she acted like she didn’t believe me, and…” She is crying now, her face buried in his chest, and he hugs her tighter.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay. I know it’s hard for you. Those women are nice people, it will take some time to get to know them. You should give it a chance.” She continues to cry, and he tries again. “Hey listen, I got a good job today. There’s going to be more money coming in.”

  She steps back and wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands. “A job? Where? In Boston? Are we going back there?”

  “No, I have a job here, as a caretaker. And I may be able to get more work—”

  “We’re going to stay in this house? The whole winter?” She waves a hand at the freezing kitchen, the bangles on her wrist jangling loudly.

  “I can make good money here. I can pay your uncle back soon, and we can even save some—”

  “Pay him back? How?” Her voice rises. “How? He spent ten thousand dollars to bring us here. And he gave us a place to stay in Boston, he gave you a job at his store—”

  Shanti sticks her head into the kitchen. “Hey, Mama, are you okay?”

  “Shanti, stay in the living room.” She vanishes, and Ranjit takes a deep breath. “Preetam, please try to understand. I’m not a shopkeeper. Standing behind a counter, selling things, that’s no life for me. At least here I have my own business. I know it’s a new place, but Shanti likes it here. No one teases her at school. If only you—”

  “Can we go back to Boston, please? At least I have my family there, some people I can talk to. But here? You’re gone all day, and Shanti is in school. What is there for me here?”

  She stares at him. Clad only in her thin cotton salwar kameez, she is shivering with cold.

  “Can we talk about this later? It’s freezing in here, and you’ll get sick. Did the furnace stop working again? Did you press the reset button, like I showed you?”

  She gestures out of the window at the dark, deserted street. “Do you know, Ranjit, sometimes I sit and just look out of the window. For one hour, two hours, and I don’t see anyone. Not a single person passes by. Not one person.” Her voice cracks. “I’m going crazy here, but what do you care? You always do what suits you.”

  Turning on her heel, she storms into the living room and switches on the television. Soon Ranjit can hear the music from an old black-and-white Hindi film: Chori Chori, a tale of doomed lovers from 1965. Preetam watches it over and over when she’s depressed, her lips moving as she recites the dialogue.

  Sighing, he crouches in front of the silent furnace and presses the reset button. Soon warm air belches through the leaky ducts, smelling strangely smoky; he bends and sniffs around the furnace, but there doesn’t seem to be an oil leak.

  It’s a miracle that the damn heating works at all. This house is usually rented out to migrant summer workers, to men who only come home to drink and sleep. When Ranjit moved in at the beginning of the summer, the toilet was backed up, there were thick spiderwebs in the corners, and pictures of naked Brazilian women covered the living room wall. Ranjit unclogged the toilet and took a broom to the cobwebs; he even tried to scrape the pinups off the wall, then gave up and covered them with a map of the world, though a few brown arms and legs still poke out at the edges.

  He thought of the shack as temporary, but when the landlord offered it to him at a discount for the winter months, he extended the lease, put sheets of plastic over the windows, and patched the leaky heating ducts with tape. Now he prays that the motor on the burner assembly doesn’t burn out.

  Standing up, he surveys the gleaming kitchen: it’s clean, but there is no dinner.

  “Preetam, did you make any food?” he calls out, but there is only the blare of television.

  When there is no answer, he washes out a pot, heats some oil and drops in a cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, cloves, bay leaves, and whole black pepper. As the kitchen fills with the hot scent of spices, he adds a cup of rice and two of pink masoor lentils, frying them with the spices till they are no longer raw. He then adds boiling water, making khitchri, the way they did in the army, a one-pot dish that is hot and nutritious.

  The rice and lentils begin to boil, and he quickly peels and chops potatoes. As his knife slices hard through their crisp flesh, he feels a catch in his throat. Is it his fault that Preetam has become so lonely and bitter? Damn it, how is she going to adjust to this country if she spends all day in the house, watching old Hindi movies and talking on the phone?

  He tosses the cubed potatoes into the pot, adding frozen peas. He throws in a pinch of turmeric, a little salt, and covers the pot with a lid. While the khitchri steams and cooks, he slumps down at the kitchen table.

  He remembers how excited Preetam had been when they landed in Boston, so eager to experience the glamorous American world she’d seen on television. The third week they were there, they went to Filene’s Basement, and not understanding how a department store worked, she stepped onto the escalator leading out of the store, a sweater clutched in her hands.

  The store detective—a sour, overweight man—accused her of stealing, ignored her pleas, and took her to a small room at the back. When Ranjit found her, twenty minutes later, she was crying hysterically, so frightened that she was shaking. He begged the store detective not to call the cops, so instead the man made Preetam sign a document saying that she would not return.

  After that, she’d refused to go out. Ranjit had seen her sliding into depression, but by then he was working fourteen-hour days at Lallu’s store and had no idea what to do.

  Yes, Preetam’s uncle had lent them the money for the plane tickets and given him a job, but working for that plump, pompous man had been unbearable. All day Ranjit stood behind the counter at Kohinoor Food and Spices in Cambridge, waiting on the college students and the hippies who came in for packets of incense and cheap samosas. The worst were the rich Indians, who treated him like a servant: Yes, madam, he heard himself saying, we have fresher cilantro in the back, let me fetch it for you.

  At the end of each month, Lallu gave Ranjit two hundred dollars, making a big show of it, counting out the notes, then stuffing them into his shirt pocket, as though he was doing them a huge favor. Why couldn’t Preetam understand that he was just cheap labor for her uncle? He was even more helpless than the illegal Mexicans who worked frying samosas, because he was family and had to be grateful.

  The final straw came one Sunday afternoon when a prosperous Sikh family came into the store. The father wore a crisp green turban, his plump wife was dressed in an embroidered salwar kameez, and two teenaged daughters wore T-shirts and low-rise jeans.

  The man, straight-backed, with a military mustache, spotted Ranjit behind the counter and walked slowly up to him.

  “Captain?” the man said. “Is it you, Captain?” and Ranjit recognized a Brigadier from his old battalion.

  Ranjit ducked his head and feigned confusion. The man apologized and laughed embarrassedly, but it was too close, much too close. Boston was a big city, and sooner or later, someone else was going to recognize him.

  A few days later, taking a break in the alley outside, he heard two Brazilian cooks from the restaurant next door discussing summer work on the Vineyard—high wages, they’d said, and no one checked papers there. They put Ranjit in touch with Jõao, who promised to sell him a truck a
nd help him find landscaping work. Lallu’s thick face turned purple with anger when Ranjit packed up his family and left. This is how you pay me back, he bellowed. After I take you in, after I help you? What do you know about America? When you fail, you’ll beg me for your job back!

  The khitchri bubbles on the stove. When Ranjit checks it, the potatoes are soft, the lentils and rice cooked into a thick stew. He puts bowls and spoons on the kitchen table.

  “Shanti! Preetam! Come and eat!” he calls out, but only Shanti arrives.

  “Mama says she’s not hungry,” she says, bending her head to her steaming bowl.

  “Careful, it’s hot,” he says absentmindedly, looking through the doorway at Preetam slumped on the couch. He knows that if he doesn’t intervene, she will eat only when they are asleep, and the next morning he’ll find her crusted plate lying on the table.

  Walking into the living room, he sees the blue light of the television playing across her face. She is lost in the film, and for a second he sees the girl he had fallen in love with, the Colonel’s daughter, with her pale face and beautiful long hair.

  “Preetam, please come and eat. I made khitchri. It’s hot.”

  “I’m not hungry.” She doesn’t take her eyes off the television screen.

  “Come on, please. I know you’re angry with me, and I’m sorry. Look, I’ll find another place for us to live, okay? Someplace nicer.”

  “Really?” She looks up at him, her eyes glistening with television light. “How will we afford it?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll work something out. There are all these empty houses. I should be able to get a cheap rental.” He knows that he is lying through his teeth, but he cannot bear to see her like this. “Now come and eat. Please.”

  When they go back into the kitchen, Shanti looks up from her plate and studies her mother’s face. She instantly figures out the situation and rushes to pile a plate with khitchri for her mother.