The World We Found
Read The World We Found Online
Authors: Thrity Umrigar
The World We Found
a novel
Thrity Umrigar
for
gulshan
hutokshi
perveen
always
“Suppose the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?”
—
G
EORGE
B
ERNARD
S
HAW
Contents
T
he tooth broke three days after she received the awful news. There was no blood. No pain, even. For three days she had believed that it was her heart that had broken into tiny fragments, but turned out it was another part of her body that decided to mourn the news. No pain, no blood. Just a moment of puzzlement as she bit into the soft French toast she made for breakfast this morning and felt something hard and brittle in her mouth. She spat out two small pieces into her cupped hand. Adish stared at her for a stunned second and then said, “Oh, no. What happened?”
She stared back at him, unable to reply, transfixed by the rightness and wrongness of the broken tooth. On the one hand, she was not yet fifty and in the pink of health, as her mother would have said. Much too young to be losing teeth at breakfast. On the other hand, the evidence before her was appropriate, an outward manifestation of the brokenness she’d felt ever since the phone call from Armaiti. An uncharacteristic acceptance descended upon Laleh, in contrast to the denial she had felt since Armaiti called with news about her cancer. Then, she’d felt like a wild animal, lassoed by the tyranny of the telephone cord. No, no, no, she’d shaken her head as she got off the phone.
She rose from the table and headed into the bathroom. She rinsed her mouth with cold water, and only then did she look up into the mirror. It was a side tooth and a stubble was still attached to her gums, and yet, how irrevocably it altered her appearance. For some absurd reason, it reminded Laleh of the New York skyline after the towers went missing, a gap that drew attention to what was absent. Until now, her teeth had been as sturdy and even as piano keys; but then, until now her oldest friend in the world had not been dying. It was right somehow, in this week of reminders of mortality, that she sacrifice something, too.
Still, she regretted the timing. She and Kavita were meeting in a few hours—not enough time to phone the dentist and get an emergency appointment—to go to Mrs. Lokhanwala’s old address. They had not seen the woman in almost thirty years, and given the crucial nature of their mission, Laleh would’ve preferred looking her best. The broken tooth was already making her self-conscious. Laleh usually prided herself on not being vain, though the truth was, being beautiful, she could afford to give up on vanity. But now, she promised herself that she would simply not smile during her visit to Mrs. Lokhanwala’s. If the woman—who would be, what? seventy-five? eighty?—was still alive, that is. She didn’t allow herself to think of what they’d do if Nishta’s mother had died or moved.
She heard Adish enter the bedroom and the next second he stood before her, leaning into the doorframe of the bathroom and gazing quizzically at her. “You okay, janu?”
She nodded, smiling with her mouth closed. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you don’t want me to go with you today? I could leave work for a few—”
“No need to. We’ll manage. I’ll call you if there’s anything.”
He ran his index finger gently over her lips. “Shall I call Sarosh to see if he can fit you in later this afternoon?”
“That would be great.”
“Because you remember the party tonight, yes? I’m sure Sarosh can make you a temporary crown.”
“Oh, shit. I totally forgot.” She made a pleading face. “Can’t you just go without me?”
In reply, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Bye. Let me know what happens.”
She grumbled lightly to herself as she got her things ready for her bath. Adish knew how much she hated his work parties, how lonely the empty prattle—the fake heartiness and fake humility—made her feel. They almost always fought on the way home from one of these affairs. And yet he persisted in asking her to go. Last week, after Kavita got held up at work, she had dragged Adish to a play, and in exchange he had extracted a promise to accompany him to Girish Chandani’s party tonight.
Ah well, Laleh thought as she entered the shower. There were more important things to think about this morning. Nishta, for instance. They had to find Nishta. To relay to her Armaiti’s final wish. Even though there had been years of silence between Armaiti and her. Even though such a wish may mean nothing to Nishta. Even though she had disappeared from all their lives, leaving only still air in her wake.
K
avita was driving, and, watching her steady, competent hands on the wheel, Laleh smiled to herself. She remembered Kavita as she’d been in college, a shy, dreamy girl who carried her guitar around everywhere. Hard to believe that that poetic, pensive girl was now one of the top architects in the city. Laleh sank into the leather seat and sighed inaudibly, feeling a lifetime removed from the young, impetuous, idealistic woman she’d been. From the time when Kavita-Armaiti-Nishta had been one word in her book, one beating heart. Where were they all now? One dying in America, one missing, and only Kavita still in her life.
“What?” said Kavita, ever attuned to Laleh’s moods.
Laleh shook her head, unable to speak, her mind snagging on the memory of a certain golden afternoon. They had gotten together at Nishta’s house to study, but what Laleh remembered now was the four of them lying on their backs on Nishta’s bed, their knees bent at its edge, so that their feet touched the floor. “Those Were the Days” blasted on the stereo and they sang along lustily and loudly. “
La la la la, la la
,” they sang at the top of their lungs, kicking their legs in time to the music. And suddenly, Armaiti had leapt out of bed and began to dance, dance with such loose, comic abandon—her hair flying about, tossing her head back and forth, flaying her rubber-jointed arms and legs—that the others rose to their feet and joined her. By the time the song ended, they were all laughing and sweating and exhausted. And then, as if she’d not been the agent of all this happy chaos, Armaiti said critically, “What a morbid song, yaar.”
“What’re you thinking?” Kavita asked.
“Nothing. Everything. About how young we were once.”
Kavita looked rueful. “Know what’s really sad? I used to think that everybody had that much fun in their teens. That everyone had the kind of friendships we did, felt as much passion and joy.”
“I didn’t,” Laleh said promptly. “I always knew what we had was rare. Always. Even then. My own children don’t have it, Ka. They have lots of friends, don’t get me wrong. But it feels superficial to me. All they talk about are iPhones and designer jeans. And they want nothing to do with politics. It’s crazy.”
“It’s a different time, Lal. They’re growing up in a different India.”
“Bull. That’s what Adish says, also. But what’s changed, Kavita? All the old struggles are still there, no? So they build a few dozen new malls for people like us. What does that change?”
How her father used to scoff at her and Armaiti when they would talk about building a better country. “A new India?” Rumi Madan would thunder at the dinner table after listening to the two teenagers talk matter-of-factly about the imminent revolution. “What do you girls think this is, a school play? What ‘new India’ are you two going to build? Darlings, if there is to be a new India, it will be built by the politicians and the businessmen. Above all, the businessmen. Not by a couple of little girls pretending to be revolutionaries.”
Laleh blinked back the tears that rose unexpectedly. Ever since the phone call from Armaiti, the past had become more vivid than the present. She had sleepwalked through the past few days, unable to focus on anything.