She waited for him, circles under her eyes, at the front of the house and demanded to know why he’d walked out like that, where he’d gone. “Everything is all right,” he said. “It’s just that lately my heart’s been restless.” He went inside and lay on his bed.
She came and set a serving of dal-bhat on the side table, then put her hand on his chest, as if to calm his heart. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is everything all right at work?”
He nodded and closed his eyes. Her hand on his chest felt good, but he feared that if he let it stay there, he would feel even weaker, so he got up and rubbed his eyes. “I’m hungry,” he said and lifted the plate. He ate quickly, and realized only after he’d finished that she was not eating with him.
That night, after he was sure she was asleep, he draped a shawl around his back and moved to the balcony. The big moon hung above the courtyard. There was a light in the bald man’s window, but the curtains were drawn. Ganesh could see a figure, fading and reappearing, and he sat on the cold floor of the balcony. The figure moved about the room, its silhouette becoming clear, then disappearing.
He awoke, just before dawn, with the chirping of birds, to discover that his feet were cold. Shivering, he went back to bed.
In the morning, she asked for some money so that she could go to the market. He reached into his pocket and quietly handed her a fifty-rupee note. She said, “But I also need to buy rice and kerosene.” He pulled out another fifty-rupee note.
That evening, when he came home from work, the stove was empty, and she was nowhere to be found. There was a musty smell in their bedroom, as if someone else had been there. His body grew limp, and he sat on the bed.
Ganesh went to a bar with his friend. They squeezed themselves onto a bench in a corner, ordered rum and spicy minced buff, and talked of work, colleagues, the city, and food. The other conversations in the room buzzed like flies near their ears. Soon, Ganesh’s head started to float.
“So, how is your wife?” the friend asked, chuckling.
“She has a lover,” Ganesh said, attempting to be grave, but somehow laughter rose from his throat. His friend stared at him for a moment; then he, too, broke into a smile. They both fell into a fit, stamping their feet and spilling drinks on the table. And suddenly, as if the laughter had been a necessary prelude, Ganesh found himself crying. The customers stared in his direction, and the owner came over to ask whether he was all right.
Ganesh simply shook his head and repeated, “How could she do this?”
After he calmed down, he and his friend talked about the festival of Dashain, only a few weeks away, when they would slaughter goats as sacrifice to appease the Goddess Durga. “I wonder how many of them I can slaughter,” Ganesh said. “The last time, I killed four before I had enough” The friend called for more drinks.
“I can’t drink anymore,” Ganesh said. His stomach was burning, and the room had become hazy.
“Mama’s boy,” his friend said, laughing. “I thought you were stronger than this.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“What? You’re a mama’s boy.”
“Really?” he said. “You want to see how much I can drink?” He asked the owner to bring another jar of the local liquor, and he drank, his eyes on his friend, who was now having a hard time keeping up with him. “So, who’s a mama’s boy?” he said. “Huh? Tell me, bastard.” His throat and his belly were on fire, but he kept drinking and needling his friend, who finally said, “All right, all right. I take it back.”
The hours passed, and they were the only customers in the bar, so they staggered out, clapping each other’s back and singing songs of friendship. The street lights shone on them, exposing their delirious faces. When they saw a wedding procession on the way home, they joined the crowd, dancing behind the band.
His wife didn’t bring him tea the next morning, and Ganesh staggered to the window. There she was, in the courtyard, talking to the bald man, whose back was turned toward him. Ganesh waited, his head throbbing from last night’s alcohol. The man laughed and his wife followed suit, covering her mouth with her hand. She called to one of the kids playing in the courtyard and pointed at the man, who shook his head vigorously and laughed again. Ganesh retreated. He went to the bedroom, where he found some aspirin, and swallowed them without water.
Later, when she came inside, he was lying on the bed, his face toward the wall. She sang in the kitchen, and he listened, trying to detect a new tone, a foreign melody.
She appeared with a glass of tea. “Isn’t it time to wake up now?” she asked him.
He glanced at his watch; it was nearly time to go to the office.
On the bus his mind kept replaying the courtyard scene, and with each repetition he felt tiny stabs in his stomach. He tried to tell himself that she had merely been talking to the man, but an aura of secrecy, of deceit, surrounded the scene, and he could picture them kissing on the bald man’s bed, her fingers feeling his muscles.
At work his friend approached and said, “It was fun last night, eh? I haven’t drunk like that in a long time, not since last year’s festival.” He paused. “What happened? Was your wife angry?”
Ganesh shrugged his shoulders.
“She’ll be all right,” the friend said. “By the time you get home.”
That evening Ganesh went by the pond on the way home. He shivered; it was hard to believe that he actually dived into that dirty water the other night.
It was dark when he reached his house. Walking through the courtyard, he nearly bumped into someone. It was the bald man, his muscular arms shining in the light coming from one of the windows. Ganesh thought, He’s going to kill me. The man’s voice floated toward him in the dark: “I know your wife.”
Ganesh couldn’t see the man’s face; it was half in shadow. “I saw you together,” Ganesh eventually said. “Laughing.” He walked up the stairs to his apartment.
His wife met him at the door. “Who was that man? Was he drunk?”
He answered, “Your lover.”
“Don’t joke. Who was he?”
“No joke,” he said. “You should have told me.”
She turned and walked to the kitchen, and he followed her. “How long has this been going on?” His breath was stuck high in his throat.
Her back to him, she began slicing tomatoes.