The Inheritance of Loss

At Cho Oyu Sai describes the Christmas party to Gyan, whose irritation grows as she speaks. He opens the physics textbook, long forgotten by the couple, and Sai comments on his foul mood. Gyan shouts that Sai bores him and criticizes her Christmas celebration as Western pandering. He says, “You are like slaves. [...] It’s because of people like you we never get anywhere” (179).

She protests that she likes Christmas. Gyan calls Sai a fool. He says she is copying the British, and she asks why he can’t find a job. Gyan says it’s because of Indians like Sai. Sai tells Gyan to ask the judge if it’s him or her who is the stupid one.

The judge remembers his return from England to India. As “the first son of the community to join the ICS” (181), he was feted by a brass band and garlands as he exited the train. He saw his wife Nimi, whom he didn’t recognize after five years apart.

Back at her father’s compound, Nimi searched the judge’s toiletry bag and found his powder puff, which she used on her chest and stuck between her breasts like a secret treasure. The judge discovered his missing powder puff and told the family. They searched for the puff and laughed at the judge for using cosmetic powder to lighten his skin.

The judge accused Nimi, who denied stealing the puff, but he spotted it wedged in her bra. He pulled it out and the Patel family, hearing the scuffle, thought the husband and wife were having sex. The judge, incensed, lunged at Nimi and chased her to the locked door. The judge approached again, and Nimi tossed his powder into the air. He wrestled her to the floor and sexually assaulted her. These forced encounters became habit between the two, although “[i]n public, he never spoke to or looked in her direction” (186). Afterward, the judge always washed himself thoroughly.

At the judge’s first post in Bonda, he lived with Nimi in a bungalow and hired an Englishwoman as her companion and tutor. When she refused to learn English, the judge deprived her of food and drink. Nimi wandered about the house while her husband was away on tour three weeks of every month. Every time the judge returned, Nimi’s appearance, from her vacant expression to her bangles, irritated him. When he discovered she squatted on the toilet seat, he plunged her head inside the toilet bowl. Nimi turned sickly and depressed, developing a skin condition that repulsed the judge even further.

Gyan and Sai continue their fight over her Christmas party. Gyan walks away as Sai sobs. He is alarmed by his sudden outburst over the holiday but persists in his hatred nonetheless. He comes back to comfort Sai and apologize. Gyan says he can’t resist her and embraces her, although he regrets succumbing to her moments later. As he travels to the canteen, he decides to give up his romance for the purity of the Gorkha cause. Sai sits at Cho Oyu, boiling with anger and arguing with Gyan in her mind. The cook asks where he is, and she replies that the cook was right to call Nepalis unintelligent.

Gyan tells his friends about his low-paying tutoring job, makes fun of the judge, and describes Cho Oyu, including the hunting rifles on the walls. His friends plan to rob the house. Gyan feels self-righteous that evening but guilty the next morning for betraying Sai.

The cook, preparing stew for Mutt, fears Biju’s death and wonders if it is his wife’s ghost causing trouble. The judge dismisses this as superstition and argues on behalf of their modern way of life at Cho Oyu.

The narrative skips back to years ago, when the cook urged Biju to interview for a job on a cruise ship when recruiters came to Kalimpong. With false recommendations in hand, Biju was hired. He and his father gave an inflated medical report and a bank draft, and Biju traveled to Kathmandu to train for the job. At the address, Biju found a group of men wrangling a goat. The men mocked Biju, telling him he was scammed.

He tried again for America by waiting in a long line for a tourist visa. When the loudspeaker told everyone to form a line, the crowd amassed behind the glass booth, trampling each other. The officers seemed to reject and accept applications on a whim. Biju studied the officers’ behavior and steeled himself to answer questions directly. Those in line traded strategies about how to answer the officers’ questions, but many were turned away. The rich, well-traveled people in line stood out with their cultured speech and appearance.

Biju approached and lied that he had a wife, son, and camera shop to come home to after his trip to America. He showed a false bank statement, claimed he would stay with Nandu, and was granted his visa. A man in line called him “the luckiest boy in the whole world” (204). Biju luxuriated in his luck outside at a park being watered with sewage waste and filled with animals. Biju sent a telegram to his father, and the cook and Sai were both overjoyed at the news.

At the Gandhi Cafe three years later, Biju slips on spinach in the kitchen and breaks his kneecap. Harish-Harry is incensed when Biju asks for a doctor. Biju, emboldened by the pain, says Harish-Harry would have nothing without his underpaid staff and asks why the owner won’t sponsor them for green cards. Harish-Harry protests that his business will be jeopardized if the INS inspects the restaurant; he insists that Biju should be grateful for this job. Harish-Harry’s temper abates, and he gives Biju $50 and permission to return to India to see a doctor and come back for work. Biju considers this thinly veiled manipulation as he rests on a mattress and watches light move along the wall.

Biju heals over the following month. He becomes angry as the cook continues asking him to help young men from the village. Biju bumps into Saeed Saeed again. Biju considers returning to India and stews in self-pity.