Page 140 - DENG201_ENGLISH_II

English - II

Notes One day I had the urge to throw everything I own out the window, the television, the children,
everything. Don’t you think it’s unhealthy?”
He was silent. “Mr. Kapasi, don’t you have anything to say? I thought that was your job.” “My job is
to give tours, Mrs. Das.”
“Not that. Your other job. As an interpreter.” “But we do not face a language barrier. What need is
there for an interpreter?”
“That’s not what I mean. I would never have told you otherwise. Don’t you realize what it means for
me to tell you?”
“What does it mean?”
“It means that I’m tired of feeling so terrible all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I’ve been in pain
eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better, say the right thing. Suggest some kind of
remedy.” He looked at her, in her red plaid skirt and strawberry T-shirt, a woman not yet thirty, who
loved neither her husband nor her children, who had already fallen out of love with life. Her confession
depressed him, depressed him all the more when he thought of Mr. Das at the top of the path, Tina
clinging to his shoulders, taking pictures of ancient monastic cells cut into the hills to show his students
in America, unsuspecting and unaware that one of his sons was not his own. Mr. Kapasi felt insulted
that Mrs. Das should ask him to interpret her common, trivial little secret. She did not resemble the
patients in the doctor’s office, those who came glassy-eyed and desperate, unable to sleep or breathe
or urinate with ease, unable, above all, to give words to their pains. Still, Mr. Kapasi believed it was
his duty to assist Mrs. Das. Perhaps he ought to tell her to confess the truth to Mr. Das. He would
explain that honesty was the best policy. Honesty, surely, would help her feel better, as she’d put it.
Perhaps he would offer to preside over the discussion, as a mediator. He decided to begin with the
most obvious question, to get to the heart of the matter, and so he asked, “Is it really pain you feel,
Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?” She turned to him and glared, mustard oil thick on her frosty pink lips. She
opened her mouth to say something, but as she glared at Mr. Kapasi some certain knowledge seemed
to pass before her eyes, and she stopped. It crushed him; he knew at that moment that he was not
even important enough to be properly insulted.
She opened the car door and began walking up the path, wobbling a little on her square wooden
heels, reaching into her straw bag to eat handfuls of puffed rice. It fell through her fingers, leaving a
zigzagging trail, causing a monkey to leap down from a tree and devour the little white grains. In
search of more, the monkey began to follow Mrs. Das. Others joined him, so that she was soon being
followed by about half a dozen of them, their velvety tails dragging behind.
Mr. Kapasi stepped out of the car. He wanted to holler, to alert her in some way, but he worried that
if she knew they were behind her, she would grow nervous. Perhaps she would lose her balance.
Perhaps they would pull at her bag or her hair. He began to jog up the path, taking a fallen branch in
his hand to scare away the monkeys. Mrs. Das continued walking, oblivious, trailing grains of puffed
rice. Near the top of the incline, before a group of cells fronted by a row of squat stone pillars, Mr. Das
was kneeling on the ground, focusing the lens of his camera. The children stood under the arcade,
now hiding, now emerging from view.
“Wait for me,” Mrs. Das called out. “I’m coming.”
“Great,” Mr. Das said without looking up. “Just in time. We’ll get Mr. Kapasi to take a picture of the
five of us.” Mr. Kapasi quickened his pace, waving his branch so that the monkeys scampered away,
distracted, in another direction. “Where’s Bobby?” Mrs. Das asked when she stopped. Mr. Das looked
up from the camera. “I don’t know. Ronny, where’s Bobby?”
“Where is he?” Mrs. Das repeated sharply. “What’s wrong with all of you?”
They began calling his name, wandering up and down the path a bit. Because they were calling they
did not initially hear the boy’s screams. When they found him, a little farther down the path under a
tree, he was surrounded by a group of monkeys, over a dozen of them, pulling at his T-shirt with
their long black fingers. The puffed rice Mrs. Das had spilled was scattered at his feet, raked over by

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