The Journey Prize Stories 28 (15 page)

“Swami-ji,” Sapna said, “everything you have done for us, you don't know how much it has meant, how much more peacefully I am able to sleep at night. Shukriya. And please, accept this for the temple, as thanks from us.” She handed him a thick envelope.

On the drive home, I fixed my thoughts on the traffic lights and turn signals and road signs. The roadways here were better controlled than they had been in Delhi. The rules were accessible and easy to learn, and drivers followed them for the most part. The system worked because of a combination of cooperation and accountability. That was what allowed all of us to make our way to various destinations safely. Evidence of clear thinking and reliable procedures: this is what I was after, too, in the work I did.

I had managed to forget Sapna was even present, sitting beside me in silence, when my mind alighted on how Sapna had thanked the pundit—
shukriya. Shukriya
was not shuddha Hindi, a pure form of the language.
Shukriya
was an Urdu word, of Arabic and Persian origin. The two languages had muddied together and nowadays the words were used interchangeably.

“You should have said
dhanyavad,”
I said.

“What?”

“Shukriya
is Arabic.
Dhanyavad
is Hindi.”

I looked over and saw that she was puzzled but still smiling.

“I would think that would matter with things like these. Isn't that what these rituals are all about? Being as pure as possible, connecting to your so-called Bhagvan?”

“I know
dhanyavad
is Hindi,” she said, then paused. “Why do you talk about God like you have all the answers?”

“It doesn't take much to accept God, it seems. It's harder to speak in your mother tongue.”

“God brought us together today. Everyone came out to support us. That's what God does. Thanks to their prayers, everything will turn out all right. Without God, how could we believe that?”

I was careful to keep my tone even. “It worries me that you believe this. That you think like this. It worries me that you will be passing on this kind of nonsense to our baby.”

She answered just as calmly. “It worries me that my daughter's father is the kind of man who has no culture, no belief, no principles to live by. You might be a big scientist type, but as a man, you are empty.”

I gripped the steering wheel, rubbing the soft insides of my hand into it. I lowered my voice. “Next time you take out that much money, you ask me first.”

“This from the man who says I don't have to ask him for anything.”

We didn't speak again until I pulled the car into the garage. “I am going to the lab,” I said. For the first time in our marriage, I was the one who was refusing to speak to her.

I spent most of my hours in the months before I became a father in the laboratory. I watched the fish devour their unborn, and I wondered why I had married Sapna. I wondered what mistake in thinking led me to trust that our families would know that we would be a good match. It was true that the sense behind the arrangement of marriages had appealed to me, but if I had thought about it carefully, I would have discovered the bedrock of ignorance it was built on.

I first met Sapna in the lobby of a hotel, selected by her parents for its neutrality. She entered through the doors like Parvati dancing for Vishnu, rolling her hips and breasts, trying to stoke fire. It wouldn't have mattered if it had been her, or another woman my parents had selected. All I cared about was the permission that marriage would give me: to touch her, to witness her nudity, to insert myself inside her. And now, what it had left me with: to endure her. In the end, my own bestiality was to blame.

I often worked alone at the lab, the only sound the gurgling tanks. My research team, comprised of graduate and postdoctoral students and peers, was in and out, and though we exchanged notes and ideas, I perceived that, to them, my presence was strictly ornamental. I didn't know how many had knowledge of what had transpired at the temple, of my medical condition, or that I had relied on prayer to defeat genetics. That was how it would seem to them, no matter the truth. I knew what I would be thinking, were it someone else: typical Indian. I began to wonder if my team's reticence with me had always been present, or if it was something I was just becoming aware of. It was hard to be sure if my inability to form a relationship with them was a result of their suspicions about
my scientific integrity or if it was simply my failure as a team leader to integrate us. It had never bothered me before, but now I felt outcast when the members of the team went to lunch together and no one asked me to join.

In my isolation, I prepared what I would say if someone brought up my status as a carrier, so that I would not be caught by surprise. It would be my opportunity to educate, demonstrate my knowledge, and remove any suspicions about the soundness of my science. It was possible, I would inform them, to prevent the spread of Thalassemia. If two carriers did not reproduce, then Thalassemia major would not occur; if a carrier did reproduce with a non-carrier, which is what had happened to me and what might happen to an offspring of mine, then the likelihood of Thalassemia minor would continue to exist, but the risk would be decreased.

I would cite the authors Verma
et al.
, who said it well in their 2011 study:
“If the policy of premarital screening were to be successful, control of thalassaemia in India should have been achieved a long time ago, because this course of action has been available for decades. For the reasons given above the policy of identifying carriers and advising carriers not to marry carriers is not likely to be successful, given the current state of knowledge of the general public about science and genetics.”

The reality is that India is a country that manages marriages with an eye toward economic and social shrewdness, not medical common sense. Ergo, my wife knew more about the affairs of imaginary gods than she did about blood, and the way blood keeps us chained from one generation to the next. This was why, after I moved to this country, I did an inventory of all religious iconography I possessed and threw
it away. My disease was not a matter of chance, God's will, or karma, whatever Sapna might think. It was the result of poorly made decisions, specifically my grandfather refusing to have my mother tested as a carrier, despite obvious indicators, because he was afraid the knowledge would make her undesirable as a marital partner. The unfortunate situation was that this was true. Even without an official assessment from a doctor, my grandfather had to increase the dowry for my mother, to compensate for her tendency toward illness.

Armed with these facts, I felt ready for any confrontation. Even so, sometimes I had thoughts that were not suitable for a scientific mind. Sometimes I wished to return to the time when the gene first appeared. I longed to snatch it from history like snatching a pearl from an oyster, killing the host and crushing the stone into sand.

My daughter arrived in the world two weeks before her due date, but I didn't know she existed outside her mother's womb until it was already done. My lead assistant, Dr. Barry Leeds, was in my office with the initial results of the experiment. “I have unhappy news,” he said. Perhaps I misunderstood his expression, but he appeared satisfied, even smug. The results disproved the hypothesis: the fish, regardless of their social standing, targeted the foreign offspring first. It seemed the fish gave preferential treatment to their own genes.

The phone rang as I reviewed the data. I recognized the number and picked up the call after the first ring. “Dr. Santosh Mistry,” I said. Dr. Leeds mouthed, “I gotta go.” I nodded.

Sapna's mother, Kalpana, didn't bother with a greeting, her style with me in general. She had arrived a week ago and filled my absence at home completely. “Your daughter is born,” she said. “You might want to come.” She spoke as if I had refused to.

I asked her to tell me more, but she cut in.
“Someone
needs to be with Sapna,” she said. “She is alone.”