The City Son by Samrat Upadhyay Read Free Book Online Page A

comic book. Amit is in the corner watching Tarun and Didi. These days he watches the two quite a bit. Tarun follows Didi into the kitchen. She doesn’t turn to him, but her voice is pleasing enough when she asks him, “And what would my son like to eat?”
    “French toast,” he says. He wishes she’d turn to him and embrace him. But she is busy rinsing dishes at the sink. “ Pauroti ta chha tara anda chaina . Amit, run to the store and bring an egg for your brother.”
    Amit doesn’t move. Didi raises her voice. “Didn’t you hear? I need an egg to make French toast for your brother.” She says frentos in her village woman’s pronunciation. She learned how to make it after she came to knowthat Apsara made it regularly for him. Didi’s French toast is thicker, more succulent than his mother’s.
    Amit stands and leans against the wall, his arms crossed. “Why only for him? Why not Sumit and me also?”
    “Didn’t you and Sumit have a boiled egg each this morning? And now your brother, who visits once a week, wants some French toast, you get huffy?”
    “But we only had a boiled egg, not French toast. We’d also like French toast. We’re also hungry.”
    “Okay, I can’t win with you. Get three eggs then.”
    Amit mutters and leaves. Didi turns to Tarun and says, “Now that you’ve moved to a big man’s house, you’re going to forget about us all, aren’t you? You’re going to forget about me.”
    He moves to her and embraces her. In her left hand she has a towel and in her right a plate, and she doesn’t put them down, like she usually does, so she can hug him. His face is buried in her stomach; he’s trying not to show that he’s teary eyed. He looks up to see that the Masterji is watching them and that Sumit is happy with something he sees in his comic book. Tarun feels a dark twisting inside his stomach: Didi is withholding her affection. She is not going to hug or embrace him nor acknowledge his tears. He’s on his own now. Amit enters with the eggs in his hands, and upon seeing Tarun with his arms around his mother, he rolls his eyes in exasperation. “One minute I’m away,” he says. He makes the gesture of hurling the eggs toward them, one by one. Didi doesn’t see him, butthe Masterji does, and Tarun observes him shaking his head at Amit.
    Didi serves French toast to the three boys, but she is grim, and Tarun anxiously searches her face to see if she’ll smile at him, ruffle his hair, caress him, call him “my son” in a voice meant only for him, a voice that emerges from the depths of her throat and enters his ears, then goes down and vibrates in his belly, where it stays, warm and alive, for days. Without it today his stomach is already hollow. The French toast tastes dry and leathery. After several unpleasant bites, he says, “Bathroom janu paryo,” and he runs to the toilet. He retches. As he sits on his haunches on the toilet, small globules of blood drip down from his anus and scatter on the porcelain. He grunts, tears falling, and after a few more drops the bleeding stops. I’ll go to her and tell her about the blood, he thinks, but then he pictures her face, the eyes that are impassive, unresponsive, and he knows that if she doesn’t show concern he won’t be able to take it. So after he washes himself and gets out of the bathroom, he heads straight for the door.
    “ Kahaan jaana la? ” his father asks.
    “I’m not feeling well. I’m going to go home.”
    “Your new home, da ?” Sumit asks. “When are you going to invite us?”
    Amit punches him on the shoulder.
    Didi is watching him, but she’s not smiling.
    “What about your French toast?” the Masterji asks.
    “My stomach is hurting.”
    He wants Didi to come to him, ask him solicitously where it hurts, then take him to bed and gently knead his stomach. But she doesn’t.

CHAPTER NINE

    T ARUN CAN’T SLEEP . The newness of Mahesh Uncle’s house, which excited him at first, now makes him feel like a