One Amazing Thing (16 page)

Monday morning I knew that if I had to sit through a day of meaningless chatter in class, it would drive me nuts, and I would do something everyone involved would regret. So I took my backpack and hurried like I was late for the school bus, but once I was out of Gramma’s sight, I went to the park. I’d packed Mark’s old flute, and I sat on my favorite bench behind the overgrown bottlebrushes and played the Moonlight Sonata and some nocturnes that seemed to suit my melancholy mood. When I got hungry, I ate the sandwiches I’d packed. Then I took a nap. When I woke up, I played my own melodies, closing my eyes and making things up as I went along.

I don’t know how long I played—my lips were hurting, but in a good way—when I felt hands on my face. I must have jumped a mile high and yelled loud enough to be heard across the park. When I opened my eyes, there was no one. I remembered Gramma’s stories about the spirits of the dead, and my hands started shaking. What if
Mark had killed himself and his spirit had come to say good-bye? Then I saw the boy, hiding behind a bush. He must have run back there when I started screeching like a pterodactyl. I beckoned to him to come out, and when he did, I realized that he had Down syndrome. I’d seen Downies at the park a couple times, holding hands and walking, with an adult on either end. Maybe they came from a special school nearby. The boy—he was about ten years old—must have gotten separated from the group. He came up to me a bit nervously, but when I said I was sorry for scaring him, but he’d scared me, too, he told me he liked my music. I asked if he wanted to hear some more. He nodded and settled himself on the grass near my feet.

I started playing something sad that I’d heard in my head as I walked along the beach after my conversation with Mark. But as I made my way through it, I found out that it wasn’t sad all the way through. It had leaps and trills and a ribbon of joy that kept looping back. After a while, the other boys heard the music and wandered over and sat down, too. My boy (that’s how I thought of him) might have felt proprietary, because he scooted up and put his hand on my knee. He smelled like strawberry jam. I played the melody for a long time, discovering something new with each pass-through, and then it was time for us to go home.

UMA THOUGHT HER BRAIN WAS SLOWING FROM A LACK OF FRESH
air. After Lily finished, she found herself thinking of her father—but shouldn’t she have remembered him right after Tariq talked about his Abbajan? Shouldn’t she now be considering how she had always wanted a sibling, and how for years she had held a grudge against her parents for having deprived her of a ready entertainment that all her friends possessed?

During his college days in India, her father had played guitar. He fancied Elvis and was considered by his classmates to be quite a singer. He had told Uma this when she was about twelve, and she had collapsed in giggles, unable to imagine him as a slick-haired performer. Incensed, he had enlisted her mother’s aid. She had corroborated his story, telling Uma that was one of the reasons why, when the matchmaker had come with a proposal from his family, she had agreed to see him.

“Your mother, now, she was very fashionable as a college student,” Uma’s dad had said, sneaking a hand around her mother’s ample waist as he spoke. “She wore go-go glasses and stiletto heels and sleeveless sari blouses, and sometimes she skipped class and went with her friends to Metro Cinema to see American movies. The day I came to see her, she had painted her nails deep pink to match her sari. If I hadn’t had that guitar, you’d still be a speck in God’s eye.”

Uma had been intrigued by the images. They seemed equally fantastic: herself floating around in God’s eye and her pink-nailed mother floating around Calcutta in go-go goggles, discarding suitors at will. She had watched her parents, him balding, her plump and matronly, dressed in department-store clothing, leaning into each other with satisfied expressions, and felt a sorrow for the glamorous young selves they had discarded.

Her parents, however, still had a few surprises up their polyester sleeves, one of which her father would reveal during her first semester of college.

THE NINE SURVIVORS ATE THE LAST OF THEIR FOOD AS SLOWLY
as they could, hunched against the dropping temperature. The hole in the ceiling was making the room even colder. They held their
chewy bars and apple slivers close to their mouths as though they were afraid the morsels might disappear along the way. Cameron didn’t distribute the food this time. From where he sat, his spine wilting against Uma’s good arm, he raised an eyebrow in query at Malathi and Mangalam, and they cut things into the right number of pieces and gave them out. Uma noted that there were more snacks now than she had originally counted. People must have taken things out of their secret stashes and put them in the pile when no one was watching. There were a small bag of carrot sticks, one whole-wheat roll, and three small white-chocolate truffles, quite delicious, that Mangalam dissected with extra care. But all was gone in a few mouthfuls.

Cameron was whispering instructions in Uma’s ear. She announced that they could use the facilities one last time. The water would have risen almost to the lip of the toilet bowl by now. (What would they use for a bathroom after this? she wondered.) Since the bathroom door could no longer be pushed shut, people would have to wait outside Mangalam’s office to allow the user privacy.

A few people struggled into their wet shoes and climbed off the table gingerly. Mr. Pritchett, Uma noticed, stood at the end of the line. Hadn’t he just gone? But he was so proper that maybe the possibility of having to pee into a pitcher—or whatever it was that they would be reduced to doing next—made him nervous.

Alongside her, Cameron had stiffened. He, too, was watching Mr. Pritchett. When he whispered to Uma, she held up her broken arm and called out, “Mr. Pritchett, please, could you come here for a moment?” How could she have forgotten those cigarette breaks?

Mr. Pritchett looked irritated, but he could hardly refuse a cripple, could he? When he came near them, Cameron stretched out his hand and said, “Your cigarettes and lighter.”

“You don’t trust me?” Mr. Pritchett said, his shoulders belliger
ent. “You think I’d be stupid enough to light up and endanger all of us?” Uma was about to call Tariq, who was dozing on the adjacent desk, but Mr. Pritchett said, “You’re wrong, you suspicious bastard!” and threw a gold lighter and a crushed pack of Dunhills down onto the desk. He marched (as much as one can march in freezing, calf-high water) back to the bathroom line.

AS SHE WAITED IN LINE FOR THE BATHROOM, MRS. PRITCHETT
was trying to remember something. Lily’s passion had touched her and drawn a memory almost to the surface. Something about her mother’s kitchen. But the cold water clutched at her legs with icy fingers, making her joints ache. The last few times, it had been hard to climb on and off the desk—her arthritis was acting up—but she hadn’t wanted to ask for help, hadn’t wanted anyone to know her body was betraying her. Dusty air coated her tongue, and a nagging smell she couldn’t quite place distracted her.

Mr. Pritchett distracted her, too. She could feel him at the rear of the line, emitting negative energy. She’d followed, out of the corner of her eye, the exchange between him and Cameron, the flinging down of the cigarettes and lighter. A great sympathy had risen up in her. She knew addiction, the way every brain cell focused on the forbidden substance, the way the nerves started to vibrate, guitar strings resonating to unheard music. She was planning to take a pill—maybe two—as soon as she was in the bathroom, so that when her turn to tell the story arrived, she would be at her best. She wished she could have shared the pills with Mr. Pritchett, but of course she couldn’t. She couldn’t even tell him how she felt about the kitten. There were people standing in line between them, and it would have embarrassed him.

The memory she’d been groping for came to her: she was sitting
at that sunshine-yellow linoleum kitchen counter with her best friend, Debbie, each with a piece of celebratory peach pie in front of them. Mrs. Pritchett—Vivienne—had baked the pie. She had loved baking. The feel of warm risen dough against her palm. The joy of apples sliced for a pie, so thin that you could see through them. She had been good at it, too. Good enough for Debbie and her to plot all of senior year about running Debbie’s dad’s bakery once they graduated.

“Viv,” Debbie said, “I’ve got great news!”

“Don’t tell me—you’re getting married,” Vivienne said. It had been their standard response since ninth grade.

Debbie rolled her eyes. “Stupid! Dad said yes! He’ll let us run the bakery, on a trial basis, for six months.”

Why was Vivienne’s smile less dazzling than it should have been?

An excited Debbie didn’t notice. “We’ll be in charge,” she said. “Managing the employees, deciding the menu, buying the supplies, fixing prices—everything! Dad will teach me how to do the books. Mr. Parma will stay on and bake the bread, but you can make all the specialty items. If we do well, after some time Dad will let us buy the business from him. We won’t have to put any money down. We’ll pay him each month from the profits. What do you think?”

It’s perfect,
Mrs. Pritchett wanted to say, trying to forestall her younger self.
Let’s go for it!
But in the memory, Vivienne raised her face, flushed with happiness and guilt, and Mrs. Pritchett knew with a sinking of the heart that she was going to turn her best friend down.

A LITTLE WHILE AGO, MRS. PRITCHETT HAD BEEN DISTRAUGHT
because time was running out. What if she died before she got to
tell her story? Now, having taken her pills, those small, round blessings, those miracles of science, in the privacy of the bathroom, she was equanimous and expansive. At the hospital, before leaving, the night nurse had said to her,
If not in this life, then the next
. Mrs. Pritchett repeated the statement to herself like a mantra. Even Mr. Pritchett’s announcement that he had constipation and would require more time in the bathroom, so could they please go back to their seats and give him some space, had failed to embarrass her.

But as she waded back to her desk, several realizations struck her. First, Mr. Pritchett never had constipation. Second, the door to the bathroom was being pushed shut, gradually and with great effort. Third, the odor that had been tugging at her subconscious was gas. Fourth, when Cameron had demanded Mr. Pritchett’s smoking supplies, Mr. Pritchett hadn’t been surprised. He had acted angry, but it hadn’t been the real thing.

She grabbed the arm of the person closest to her, who happened to be Mr. Mangalam. “I think Mr. Pritchett’s planning to smoke in there,” she whispered (she couldn’t bear to betray her husband to the whole company). “You’ve got to stop him—I smell gas.”

Mr. Mangalam sloshed through the water, as swiftly and gracefully as anyone could, and threw himself at the half-shut door. Mrs. Pritchett’s stomach knotted with dread as the door resisted. But finally it swung in with reluctance, bumping Mr. Pritchett, catching him in the act of lighting a cigarette. He staggered sideways, cigarette and matchbox flying from his hand and into the water. Mr. Mangalam landed on top of Mr. Pritchett. Both were soaked through immediately. Mrs. Pritchett saw Mr. Pritchett swing a fist at Mr. Mangalam’s head, but his heart must not have been in it; Mr. Mangalam avoided it easily. Mrs. Pritchett was afraid Mr. Mangalam might hit back, but he pulled himself up heavily, using the sink as
support, and then helped Mr. Pritchett to his feet.

The men made their dripping, shivering way back to the desks. Mr. Mangalam mumbled something about having tripped in the dark. Mrs. Pritchett saw disbelieving looks, but no one wanted to pursue the matter. His voice an amphibian croak, Cameron instructed the two men to get out of their wet clothes. People gave them the blue rags to wipe themselves down, then handed over all the disposable tablecloths and any clothing they could spare. Cameron and Tariq took off their undershirts. Mrs. Pritchett insisted on giving Mr. Pritchett her sweater, and Tariq fetched the prayer shawl he had in his briefcase: he had put it up on the counter a long time back, Alhamdulillah, without thinking about it. He put the shawl into Mangalam’s hands. Everyone looked away as the men changed into their motley wear and spread their wet clothes over the file cabinets—a futile act. Nothing would dry in this damp mausoleum.

The thin ray of light from the hole in the ceiling was fading. Uma asked Cameron if he wanted to tell the next story. She was afraid he might not have the strength to do it later. But Cameron pointed to Mangalam. Mangalam’s teeth were still chattering. He would need a few minutes. Mrs. Pritchett searched in her purse and came up with a travel-size bottle of lotion, which she rubbed as vigorously as she could into both men’s hands. At first Mr. Pritchett made as though to pull away, but then he allowed his wife to chafe some heat into his palms. A faint smell of lavender spread through the room, reminding Uma that it had been her mother’s favorite scent. Before her mother’s birthday, Uma and her father would go to a specialty store downtown and get her a big bottle of lavender water from France. She remembered the heft of the bottle, its elongated, dark blue neck. Somehow, when she was in high school, the tradition had foundered. Uma couldn’t remember why.

“You wouldn’t happen to have your flute, would you?” Tariq asked Lily.

“I do,” she said. She felt around in her backpack, which she had placed behind her, and took out the slender silver instrument.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “It’ll use up oxygen.”

Tariq urged her on with a small jerk of his chin, and no one objected. She played a melody, short and serene, and the light fell through the ruins above them and shone on her for a few seconds before it died away.

I
was born into a poor family in a small South Indian town, the first son after three daughters. Upon examining my birth stars, the astrologer told my parents that I would rise high in the world, and that my face would be my fortune. Interpreting this to mean that they would rise with me, my delighted parents made sure I received the best of everything as I was growing up—from extra helpings of food to new clothes on Pongal to fees for the best school in the area—even if it meant that my sisters had to do without. As you might imagine, I grew up spoiled, believing that I deserved everything my parents scraped together for me. In my defense, however, I should inform you that I was the sharpest child in my school and possibly the most handsome. And though I could have done well in class without expending much effort, I pushed myself to excel because I took seriously my role as savior of my family.

My hard work paid off: I received a generous scholarship to one of the leading universities located in faraway Delhi. I began my college career by studying assiduously and ranking high in exams, but I quickly realized that academic achievements were not enough to open the door to true success. The offices of the city were filled with brilliant men rotting in mediocre positions. I was determined
not to become one of them. I could not afford to. Although the family never brought up the matter, I knew they were waiting for the long investment they had made in me to pay off. Two of my sisters were still unmarried, and with every passing year their chances of finding a husband shrank—unless we could dangle a substantial dowry as bait. My grandmother suffered from a kidney problem that would soon require expensive treatment. The old family home was falling apart. My father patched the roof each monsoon season and waited stoically for the day of my graduation. The only person who didn’t seem to want something from me was my mother. Maybe because of that, I wanted to give her something. I settled on a pair of gold bangles. (She had sold hers to buy me clothes for college.) On my way back from classes, I often paused outside the local jeweler’s window, evaluating patterns, imagining the look on her face when I presented her with the velvet box.

BUT FIRST I HAD TO FIND THE RIGHT KIND OF JOB. TO DO THAT,
I needed to know—and know intimately—people in high places. I researched where such people were to be found. Several of the venues, such as the Tennis Club or the Polo Club, required expensive skills that I lacked. Finally, I discovered the Film Club.

At the Film Club the children of the rich—some of whom had aspirations toward stardom and others who fancied themselves future directors and critics—congregated twice a month to watch and discuss foreign movies that the father of one of the members procured through his connections. I made it a point to read up on the movies ahead of time so that I could make intelligent and occasionally provocative comments about them. (In the course of this activity, I discovered, to my surprise, that I enjoyed reading.) In a short while, I was considered an expert in many fields, and Film Club
members sought my opinion on various issues. People liked my looks, too—my fresh countenance and my athletic physique, which I maintained through a careful exercise regimen.

After the film, it was customary for members to go out for dinner to the posh Imperial Hotel, where they took turns paying for the group’s dinner. Soon I began to join them. The hotel’s restaurant was sinfully expensive. But I saved money for a month, eating only rice and sambar, which I cooked on a kerosene stove in the secrecy of my room, and at the planned moment I casually plucked the bill out of the waiter’s hands and said, “Folks—my treat today.”

It was at one of these dinners that I met Naina, the only daughter of a high-level government official. I wooed her cleverly, presenting her with love poems—signed with my name—that I copied from anthologies I knew she would never read, and exerting just the right amount of pressure on her hand during our evening walks in the Lodhi Gardens. I hope you will not think too badly of me. My heart beat hard when I did these things, and I thought that was a sign of love. But perhaps it was desperation—I was six months away from graduating and my grandmother had been hospitalized. Finally, on an excursion to the Taj Mahal—timed so that we would be there under the hypnotic glow of a full moon—I confessed my feelings for her, insisting immediately afterward that she forget me. My origins were too humble. She would never be able to persuade her father to accept me.

This veiled challenge had the desired effect. Naina went to her father and insisted that she would marry no one but me. Her father did not like this. But love for his child was the single chink in his armor. He hired private detectives to research my background. They found nothing objectionable in it other than poverty. Impressed by the ambition that had brought me this far in life, he invited me to his office where, after an hour of grilling, he agreed to
the marriage. He even offered to find me a suitably high position—he thought I would do well in the government’s Protocol Department—and advised me to take the appropriate examinations so that this could be managed. The one thing he expected of me, he said as we shook hands in farewell, was that I keep his daughter happy. Failure to do this, he said, smiling jovially, could be dangerous to my health. I was not sure if this was a threat or a joke. In either case, I did not worry about it. How hard could it be to keep a woman happy? I thought. I did not know that Naina would undergo a Jekyllean transformation soon after our wedding.

THE FIRST SIGNS WERE SMALL: NAINA ASKING ME TO FETCH HER
a drink at a friend’s party, her tone more an order than a request; Naina deciding on deep red as the color theme for the luxurious new flat her father had given us as a wedding gift, even though I preferred something more restrained; Naina flipping through the numerous invitations we received, deciding which ones to accept and which to snub; Naina spending hours shopping for new shoes at a scandalously expensive store and settling on a pair that cost as much as my salary for a week. (When I remarked on this fact, she reminded me that she was paying for it with her own money. This was true. In addition to a trust, she had a hefty allowance out of which she paid all our household expenses so that I was free to use my salary however I desired. She was generous that way.)

I put up with these rumbles. All her life, Naina had been given everything she wanted as soon as she wanted it. I expected that it would take her time to settle into domesticity. Meanwhile, I focused on my job, which was to oversee hospitality for visiting governmental dignitaries. I liked conversing with powerful people from around the world. I liked my office staff, who treated me with
a deference I had never before experienced. Every month, I sent most of my paycheck to my parents, who had by now repaired the roof, paid the most urgent medical bills, and made plans for my middle sister’s wedding. It was a happy time.

A happy time, even though Naina refused to go to my backwater hometown to attend my sister’s wedding. She pointed out that she had already booked tickets for us to attend the Cannes Film Festival. I controlled my temper and requested that she consider coming with me instead, because this was important. She asked if I was crazy. We had our first fight—but those were the early days, and we made it up. Afterward she told me (as part apology) that she would be miserable at the wedding and that would make everyone else miserable, too. So she went to Cannes with her best friend, Rita, and I went home to face my family’s questions.

THE EVENT THAT CAUSED AN IRREPARABLE RIFT IN OUR MARRIAGE
occurred the next year, when my parents wanted to visit. I tried to discourage them, offering to travel home again, but they were longing to see my fancy new flat—and my fancy new wife. When I told Naina, she shrugged and said that they could come if I really wanted it, but she wasn’t going to have them staying with us. I could put them up at a hotel. Not to worry, she would pay for it.

Those of you familiar with Indian traditions will realize what an insult that was to my parents—and to me. But I couldn’t say anything. Naina’s last sentence made me aware of how beholden I was to her. It was her flat I was living in, her food I was eating. Even the job I held was due to her father’s string-pulling. I was ashamed that once I had considered these indications of good fortune.

The next day, I stayed back in my office after work; when the other employees left, I phoned my parents to inform them of what
Naina had decreed. They did not express the hurt they must have felt. They told me not to worry; they would come another year when it was more convenient. But I knew the truth. They were proud people; they would never ask to visit again. My mother added that she had made a box of Maisoorpak, my favorite sweet, and that she would mail it to me. She hoped Naina would like it. After I hung up, I sat with my head in my hands. When I could no longer escape the fact that I had made the biggest mistake of my life by marrying Naina—yes, I confess it—I started to cry.

That was when someone knocked on the door. A hesitant female voice asked if I was okay. It was Latika, our department’s accountant, who had been working late. Passing by my office, she had heard my sobs. Her concern made me break down further. She fetched me water, rummaged through her handbag and found me a handkerchief to wipe my face, and told me things would surely look better in the morning. I told her I didn’t think so. Before I knew it, I began pouring out my marital troubles. She pulled up a chair and listened, not trying to offer any solutions.

I couldn’t help noting how different Latika was from Naina. She was no beauty, but in her simple sari and minimal makeup she exuded a glow. If Naina was a flashing disco light, Latika was the moon in a misty sky. Behind her glasses, her eyes were understanding, and I felt that she knew the meaning of struggle. The handkerchief she gave me was frayed at the edges, and I was impressed that she hadn’t minded sharing it with me even though I would see this. The act made her seem at once brave and vulnerable—and real in a way that most of the people I had been mingling with recently were not.

I must have talked to her for half an hour, moving from my anger toward Naina to the subject of my parents and how much they had sacrificed for me. In return Latika told me that her parents
had died in a train accident a couple of years earlier. She still missed them every day. Her only remaining family was her younger brother, whom she was putting through college.

When I apologized for having delayed her and offered her a ride (I drove a BMW that my father-in-law had given me and that—until that day—I had been rather vain about), she refused. The buses were still running, and the bus stop was right across from the ladies’ hostel where she roomed. But I insisted, pointing out that it was raining. We sprinted through the rain across the empty street to the parking garage. We were soaked and laughing by the time we reached the car. An hour back, I wouldn’t have believed that anything could have made me laugh on this day. As I drove Latika to her hostel, I felt that, perhaps to balance out my misfortune, the universe had offered me a friend.

I’m not sure when our friendship metamorphosed into love. Neither of us had intended it. Latika considered the husband of another woman out of bounds. When she figured out what was happening, she tried to push me away in distress. But what had blossomed between us was too strong to resist. Still, our relationship never became physical—Latika insisted on that. We understood the necessity of secrecy. At work we pretended we were no more than colleagues. But each day after work, for one precious hour, we went to movie theaters, that old refuge of sweethearts in crowded Indian cities. We chose buildings with small screens and poor air-conditioning because they would not be as crowded. We went to a different one each day and sat in the back of a darkened hall, holding hands and whispering. As the months passed, we dared to dream of a future together in a city far from this one, a future that would include my parents and her brother.

I went to my boss and, in confidence, requested a transfer to a smaller branch in the south of the country—for family reasons, I
told him. He advised against it, warning me that it was a huge step back from which my career would never recover. I didn’t care. My ambition, once a conflagration, had become a mild hearth fire. The day my transfer was approved, I asked Naina for a divorce. I pointed out that we were incompatible. She loved parties and shopping, holidays in expensive locales, and running the high-end boutique she had opened recently. The things I cared for—my job, my friends, my books, my family—she found dreary. Why not admit we had both made a youthful mistake and go our own ways?

Naina stared at me, eyes wide with shock. For a moment I thought she looked stricken. Then she stalked into her bedroom and slammed the door. In a few seconds I could hear her voice, low and furious, on her phone—probably bad-mouthing me to one of her girlfriends. I didn’t care. I felt a great lightness at having taken this step toward my freedom. I went to my own room—we had started using separate bedrooms some months back, and though we still had physical relations, those times were rare. Using my personal line, I called Latika and told her what had transpired. She was a bit scared but mostly excited—she already knew about my transfer. We decided we would talk more after work.

The next morning I was in my office, fine-tuning details for the visit of a Ghanaian minister, when I heard a commotion. Stepping out, I saw four policemen hurrying Latika down the corridor. Her hair was disheveled and there were streaks of dried tears on her cheeks. She shot me a wounded, accusing look as she passed me. My heart began pounding. I grasped the arm of a policeman and asked him what the problem was; he shook me off, saying he was not at liberty to discuss details. The corridor was filled with employees who stared and whispered, enjoying this bit of drama. I wanted to run after her, but the presence of those staring eyes stopped me. I went back into my office, where I summoned my office boy. From him I
discovered that early that morning the police had arrived with a warrant for Latika. Apparently, a large sum of money was missing from accounts that Latika managed, and she was suspected of having embezzled it. She was being taken to the central police station for questioning.