The Inheritance of Loss

The Gymkhana dining room saw the judge at his final meeting with Bose, his friend from Cambridge. The judge and Bose met there, not having seen each other for 33 years. Bose recalled a litany of old friends as the judge sat silent and uncomfortable. When Bose referenced the judge’s mishandling of English terms as a young man, the judge became angry. He thought warmly of returning home to Mutt.

The judge recalls his refusal to help Bose when he sued the Indian Civil Service (ICS) for a pension equal to that of English judges. He lost the case after the ICS argued life in India costs less. The judge and Bose argued over the geographic order of colleges within Cambridge. Bose decried white people and was thankful they left India. The judge yelled at Bose and repeatedly called for the waiter. He walked to the empty kitchen and the receptionist desk, where a waiter was dispatched for him.

The food came, and Bose postured by discussing his new, inexperienced cook. He appealed to his long friendship with the judge, but the judge said, “The present changes the past” (227). He kept his dignified silence and refused to open himself to Bose.

Driving home, the judge remembered boys taunting him with racial slurs, as well as observing an Indian man being beaten behind an English pub. At home, Mutt waited at the gate and jumped inside the car. Inside the house the judge found a telegram asking him to take in his granddaughter Sai. He took her in for unpaid help at the house but was surprised to find her “an estranged Indian living in India” (230), just like him.

Six months in the future, the Gorkha National Liberation Front will overtake the Gymkhana Club. They sleep, eat, plan attacks, and stockpile weapons there.

After they are turned away from the Gymkhana dining room, Sai, Noni, Lola, Uncle Potty, and Father Booty decide on their usual restaurant, Glenary’s. Sai jealously watches the school children and families there. They choose inauthentic yet delicious Chinese dishes for lunch.

They leave Glenary’s, and the GNLF rally continues down the street. Sai spots Gyan, and he sees her as well. His eyes narrow, “a warning not to approach” (235). Noni asks if that was her tutor, and Sai says no. Traveling home, she must leave the car to vomit at the roadside. Checkpoint guards inspect a line of vehicles at a bridge ahead. Father Booty takes a photograph of a butterfly, and a guard approaches, saying photography is prohibited. The guard searches his jeep and mistakes the smell of Father Booty’s cheese for that of bomb implements. The guards also rifle through their books, and Lola tells her friends about her enthusiasm for Trollope. The guards collect everyone’s library books and Father Booty’s camera. Lola protests that they are thieves, and Uncle Potty suggests a bribe of his homemade liquor. The guard says, “Even five bottles will not be enough” (239).

Sai is still mulling over Gyan’s appearance at the rally and his words the last time she saw him. She returns home and declines dinner, angering the cook. His banging around in the kitchen irritates the judge, and the cook is jealous that Sai has eaten out.

The police return the library books but take issue with Father Booty’s photograph of the butterfly, which focuses not on the insect but on the checkpoint in the background. They search his house and ask for his papers, only to find the Swiss man’s residence permit expired. He must leave the area in two weeks and reapply in order to return. He requests help from many townspeople but is unsuccessful. A Nepali doctor visits his home and offers to buy it for a tiny sum, hoping to transform the house into a nursing home.

Father Booty, Uncle Potty, and Sai sit on his veranda. Uncle Potty offers to watch Father Booty’s cows, but Father Booty doubts his friend will fulfill his promise. Sai feels angry that Gyan and his fellow insurgents have caused this political climate that would exile Father Booty.

Sai remembers bragging about her grandfather’s hunting days as she showed Gyan his rifles hanging on the wall of Cho Oyu. She wonders if the GNLF will use the judge’s rifles for atrocities that will later be pinned on him. The cook often told Sai inflated stories of the judge’s impressive hunting prowess, killing fearsome predators in former days.

A subdivisional officer (SDO) arrives at Cho Oyu to update the judge on the investigation into the gun robbery. He says the thieves are still at large and tries to gain favor with the judge by referencing his father’s hunting exploits. The SDO complains of the GNLF’s lack of respect and needless agitations. The police arrest an alcoholic man for the gun robbery and beat him, but he protests his innocence. They later release the man, injured and blind.