Temporary People

by Deepak Unnikrishnan

  CHABTER EIGHT

  IVDAY (HERE). AVDAY (THERE).

  IVDAY, AMMA SAYS, IT’S getting cooler, relentless rains. The dog’s taking the move badly, barely eats, sleeps all day, barks all night. The neighbors have complained. Avday?

  Ivday, I say into my phone, nippy, snow is expected again. My boots have salt crusts, the radiator in the bathroom is useless, my trousers are tearing at the crotch. It has been busy, life. There is paperwork to procure, $7,565 in cash to buy a cheap American bride (a money-up-front, take-it-or-leave-it deal), and full-time employment to be found. Tell me again how you make your fish, I say.

  Avday, is the fish good? Amma wonders. What do you know about fish? Where you find time to cook fish? Come home, my boy. Ivday, Acchan will buy fish. Then eat as much fish as you want. Avday, I know, Americans prefer the bland stuff. Only salt and pepper for them. Or they make fish sticks. Avday, you get only sushi.

  Ivday, I’m fine, I say. Amma isn’t convinced. I left home eight years ago for the Midwest. A boy bound for college. I haven’t returned since, undocumented for the past three. So Amma assumes things. That ivday, I miss avday. Sometimes that’s true. I miss Acchan’s habit of watching my face for signs of stress. Don’t worry, don’t you worry, he’d say, everything will be OK. There is a sister somewhere, my baby sister—a young woman now. Ivday, I begin, then stop. Amma waits for me to finish. She senses I have something on my mind. Do I need jaggery for fish or am I confusing it with tamarind? is what I wish to ask, but I’ve forgotten the word for jaggery. I’m embarrassed. I panic. Ivday, I’ve been buying spices and tinned food from the Arabs, I say instead, partly in English. I buy cheap produce from the Mexicans, I continue. The shrimp is on sale every Sunday.

  Avday, what is the weather now? Acchan wants to know. Amma has put him on the phone. Don’t you worry, OK, he says, wear your winter coat, OK? Stay there, OK? Make money, OK? And don’t go out in the snow without gloves, son, he says, before putting Amma back on the phone. Avday, Amma begins, is everything OK, son?

  All’s good ivday, Amma, I say, A-OK. I am near my kitchen window. There is little afternoon light. In a few hours, it will snow. Avday, in a few days, it will rain. A dog will have made peace with his new surroundings. By then, I will remember. Among my people, the word for jaggery is sharkara.

  CHABTER NINE

  BAITH

  “ACCHAN’S ORGANS ARE FAILING,” my sister confirmed. “He’s loaded up on morphine. Taking him off the ventilator if there’s no improvement. Amma hasn’t left his side.”

  What would you do?

  At JFK, as I waited for my plane, word got around that immigration had apprehended a human-trafficking kingpin. A Bangladeshi national, I heard someone whisper. At baggage claim, a canine circled him twice, then barked. Suspicious, obese TSA agents held the Bangladeshi by his feet and shook him. Then they stripped him down to his boxer shorts and seated him on a chair. Their leader, wide as a bear, a bit taller than a gnome, walked over, stood on the Bangladeshi’s knees, and forced open the man’s mouth. He then asked for a Molotov cocktail, which he tossed in. Then they waited. Soon they heard a soft boom. Before frantic knocking was heard from the man’s belly. Using a crowbar, they opened him up and out emerged the man’s mother wrapped in cellophane and wearing an oxygen tank. “Trafficker,” the men radioed.

  “Granny porn, methinks,” someone said.

  “Nay,” corrected the startled son. “Don’t cuff her! Hands off... MAA!”

  This delayed my flight for three hours. But at Frankfurt, in the transit lounge, I am body searched. It is my first time. A German officer smaller than a pony puts his fingers so far up my ass he discovers my wonderland, which he wishes to examine, so helpful colleagues push all of him into me. He seems to like it there, because he refuses to leave. His colleagues don’t seem too alarmed, walking away to perform more-pressing airport chores. Other passengers pretend not to have seen a thing, so I am forced to take the little German with me, which puts a dent in my plans. I am trying to get to my father. I am trying to get arrested by passport control at Abu Dhabi International (AUH). I haven’t told Amma. Acchan would’ve understood. I have instructed a lawyer friend to mail a sealed note to my sister if something happens to me. “Like what?” he asked.

  “Every day one bird hits one plane,” I replied. Before my plane takes off from Frankfurt, my sister calls me.

  “It’s done,” she tells me.

  “All right,” I say.

  “When it’s close, I shall call you. Talk to him, OK? Say goodbye.”

  “OK,” I say. I don’t inform her where I am. I don’t want her to worry.

  Normally (until Frankfurt!), immigration, whether it’s at JFK or Schiphol, barely engages me in conversation. I look benign, therefore I’m convinced I won’t be encountering any trouble at JFK, or in transit at Frankfurt. In fact, at JFK, I fool the lady at the ticket counter into letting me board by showing her a scanned print out of an Emirati tourist visa from a year ago, explaining that the originals are waiting for me at AUH. I gamble she won’t check the dates. She doesn’t, only asking to see my passport. At AUH, I am hoping for a different reaction. At AUH, I want to draw attention to myself—but only at AUH. Until I get there, I need to bypass security. To tilt the AUH scales in my favor, I take a risk, traveling home—normally a biannual affair—with a plastic screwdriver, pliers, flint, and a biscuit tin full of TNT discretely hidden in my backpack. I also take my prayer beads because counting them relaxes me. Otherwise I sweat profusely. If everything works out, the rest, I tell myself, should be easy. It is not a sophisticated plan, which is why I am convinced I might succeed. Over Emirati airspace, when the seatbelt sign pings red to indicate landing in half an hour, I will call a stewardess over and ask her to inform the captain that I am traveling with explosives, which I promise not to use as long as someone important—I wouldn’t say who, assuming the right man will be found—meets me on the tarmac. “Then tell them,” I tell this stewardess, “that if I die, if the timer goes off, I blow.” I expect to be apprehended as soon as we land, not before I insist I be cuffed to the head negotiator, before being escorted by armed guards with spotless shoes to a soundproof interrogation chamber, as laborers waiting near passport control, many with rust-colored hair, some on their haunches, pretend not to stare, as they wait for their sponsors to arrive with work visas—originals, and not the photocopies they brought with them. In that room, the man still cuffed to me, I will ask for hospital-bound transportation. Otherwise, I bluff, I have enough on me to make a mess. The little German was a rude interruption, but perhaps I should be grateful; my capture couldn’t have gone any better given the circumstances, but to fail like this! I should explain.

  Because I have a little man in my ass, I am a nervy passenger and do not call for the stewardess once we enter Emirati airspace. Even when the plane deploys its landing gear, I stay put. I count my prayer beads, I drink the rest of my apple juice, I curse Frankfurt, I think about brushing my teeth, and I hope, I hope, I hope, Acchan holds on. However, at AUH passport control, an officer with Popeye arms, roaming the premises like a curious stray, takes an interest in me. I have almost sweated through my shirt. As Popeye inspects me, the German man finds it amusing to ask me riddles in English, providing me answers in German. It has unnerved me and my plan has gone off course, my mind empty. Popeye asks me about my flight, then politely requests I spread my legs and arms. The metal detector beeps because the German man has fillings in his teeth as well as a work-issued Mauser. Guns are drawn. Popeye takes my backpack, orders me to follow him. We do not pass rust-colored hair. We only pass toilet cleaners who smell like hospital floors. Fellow passengers scrutinize me discretely. Many shake their heads. In less than ten minutes, I am sitting naked in a room where there are three ACs, three mustachioed men who do not smile, and a young man everybody in the room calls Rookie. And Popeye. My check-in baggage has arrived before me and lies open like a Nile croc’s jaws on a stainless steel table, with little o
n it except three dog-eared issues of Top Gear. The room is otherwise very spare, except for one more item, a humongous glass cookie jar filled to the brim with sesame cookies. “Sesame cookies taste like mud,” Acchan liked to complain. Popeye expects an explanation. I have anticipated this moment, but not like this. I do not want the German’s story to overshadow mine. All I want is for these men to take me to the hospital so I can sit next to Acchan, waiting with the rest of my family as he passes. Before the German’s intrusion, I’d planned to threaten to detonate the homemade explosives if the man at the tarmac didn’t hear me out, or didn’t submit to being cuffed to me, but sense would prevail and I would be rushed to the hospital. But then Frankfurt happened, Popeye happened, and I now have a man in my body and feel oddly responsible for his safety even though he asks me curious riddles. “Why did the elephant paint his toenails green?” I try to keep calm because I think I know what to do, perhaps even play the situation to my advantage. I recall the TSA’s handling of the Bangladeshi incident.

  So.

  I request matches, a fistful of TNT. I swallow. Nothing happens. The little German is TNT-resistant. I think I hear him humming. I request some more TNT, which I swallow along with two more lit matches. Then, as an afterthought, I light another match, and drop that in along with the whole matchbox. This does the trick. There is an audible boom. There is a man’s cry, more heat than I am used to in my tummy. But no knocking. I stay Zen. I ask for access to my screwdriver, and then request help being taken apart. Piecemeal. So I am dismantled. My brain pulled out, my blood poured into buckets, my limbs put in a tub, alongside my organs. My skin is then hung on a coatrack and my bones collected in trash bags.

  In the process, they find the bothersome German, but there is bad news. Apparently, I used too much TNT. His last words, a laborious effort, were “Greet. . .ings—from Deutschland!” It was an end as dramatic as a Wagner opera, but he had enough time to scribble a note on the back of a random business card he probably pulled from his wallet. It is in German and a translator is required.

  As we wait for the translator, Rookie puts me back together, but there is some blood and three pieces of bone left over, and an organ none of us can identify; these are all put in a chilled plastic bucket I hold. Then the translator arrives, a woman so large I need to look up, and then look up some more. What a head! It could’ve covered the sky. Rookie gives the large woman the partially singed paper and she pores over it with a magnifying lens and forceps. “Hmm,” she says. “Hmm,” she says again. Her routine annoys everyone.

  “Could you please hurry up and tell us what he wrote, Madam?” Popeye fumes, as the mustachioed men look on. I would like to know, too, and I attempt to nod my head in agreement, but I can’t; Rookie screwed it on too tight and I am unable to look left or right.

  The large woman makes a sound, and, looking directly at me, says, “He wrote, ‘Help! Fire!’ ”

  In an instant, I have become a murderer, and the mustachioed men, I notice, are seething. The German consulate will not be pleased.

  “Explain yourself!” I am commanded by the man with a mustache so fat and lively it would be coveted by Rajputs.

  This is my moment. I fidget. I ponder hard. I start my confession.

  “My name is ,” I begin, “I used to live here.” Popeye leans against the table, stroking his chin.

  “Go on,” he prompts, “about the man you killed—”

  “My sister’s name is . She was born here.”

  By now, even the translator has seated her robust bottom in a chair, listening, biting into a cookie. Popeye raises his brow.

  “My father’s name is . My mother’s name is . When they first arrived in this city, Edward Heath was Britain’s prime minister. Heath died in 2005, my father should die before the end of the day.”

  Someone lights a cigarette. Another dials the German consulate.

  “My grandfather’s name is ,” I continue. “He died here, too.”

  I stop talking. Popeye walks over, hands me a glass of water.

  “I visit every two years,” I tell the room. “I am studying pathology.”

  Popeye watches me for a while, adjusts the knob on his walkie-talkie, motions his subordinate to hand him another cookie. “And the purpose of your visit?”

  “Family,” I say, “family.”

  “Family expecting you?” Popeye asks. “Father expecting you?”

  “My father is on life support, or he was—I am not sure anymore,” I explain.

  “What happened?” he asks, munching his cookie.

  “Someone beat him with a pipe three days ago, put him in a coma,” I share.

  Popeye and the others process this information. Someone’s checking if the recorder is working. Men have come with a stretcher and a body bag. Popeye is told something. He looks at me, looks at the messenger, nods.

  “I phoned the consulate in D.C.,” I continue. “I live in Oklahoma, and I told the consulate man, ‘Father’s on a ventilator, possibly brain-dead, organ failure, life support could be switched off any time—’ ”

  “Sir—” Popeye interrupts.

  I don’t stop. “The consulate man asks about my nationality. I tell him. He says, ‘Tourist Visa, three to four days.’ ‘I don’t understand,’ I tell him. ‘I was raised in Abu Dhabi, it’s home, my father’s on his deathbed.’ ‘Sorry,’ the man tells me. ‘Three to four days—’ ”

  Popeye tries to get a word in. “The dead—”

  I ignore him once more. “I beg him, ‘Make an exception, please! There must be loopholes. My—’ ”

  “SIR!” Popeye interjects with authority. “Explain the dead man, please.”

  I am livid. I don’t care what Popeye wants. “If he dies before I get to him, his body won’t be immediately released to my family. Mandatory postmortem. Murder case. Let me see him before that. Before they tear him up, it’s important I see him. Please, please!”

  “The dead German, sir,” Popeye tries again. “Why kill the man in our presence?”

  I hear nothing. “I used to live here,” I cry. “I used to live here! My father is not breathing by himself, you understand?”

  Popeye’s colleagues restrain me, but I fight. I bite, I claw, I spit. Popeye repeats himself, “The dead man. The dead man?”

  “Is your father alive?” I ask. “Do you people have fathers? Does anyone understand?”

  I finally eat away at Popeye’s patience, as he orders his men to dismantle me once more, which they do, and after the cookies are emptied, my head is placed inside the cookie jar. The rest of me is haphazardly arranged on the table or placed in buckets again.

  “I am sorry about your father,” Popeye tells me before he leaves the room. “But you’ve killed a man in our presence. I cannot let you go. I will, however, inform your sister of your arrival; she may visit.”

  Tamely, I plead. “A son has rights!”

  “I’m sorry,” says Popeye, before sealing the jar, muffling my screams, ordering the mustachioed trio, the lady with the skywide head, and Rookie to follow him out. I wait there in that state for what feels like hours. I fall asleep, my forehead resting against cold glass.

  I am awakened by a ringing mobile, its volume set to high, placed on the table next to my suitcase, next to my limbs. There are cookies on the floor. I recognize the ring tone. It is my sister. I am expected to say goodbye.

  CHABTER TEN

  PRAVASIS=

  THE NAMES

  Stranger/friend/reader, you may not know some/most of these names. Almost all of them have read/heard my work. I have trusted three or four with my mind, and my life. All of them have seen me fail. A handful took time to read the galleys. These names include those who’ve known me through crappy drafts, or before I wrote a bloody thing. These names include English teachers from Abu Dhabi Indian School who permitted me to take my time with English in order to tame it. These names include professors from Fairleigh Dickinson who took me grocery shopping when I was hungry, put money in my wa
llet, fought for more money on my behalf, and apologized when they couldn’t do more. These names include teachers and peers from the Art Institute of Chicago whose work deserves to be read, seen, or heard, who’ve shared their stories with me, and influenced my own writing in ways impossible to articulate. And these names include those I find tough to categorize, people who’ve stumbled into my life for short but important periods, people I’ve lost or left, fought and loved, conversed and walked with, folks who’ve reappeared only to disappear, men and women who’ve gone to bat for me, guided me through quagmires, and asked for nothing in return for what they’ve done. I’ll always be grateful, especially to those I’ve hurt. Then there are those who’ve remained, who continue to share my life. Take away these names, remove their impact, there is no book. And if your name ought to be here, and I’ve forgotten, forgive me. Swing by to yell, then let me make you something to eat.

  Ted (& Yoshimi) Chesler. C. Sharat Chandran. Gayathri Attiken. Grace & Neeta Natrajan. Joxily K. John. Carl Muller. Mahender Reddy. Anirudh Manian. Milena Jankovic. Roberto Palma. Ceridwynne Lake. Patrick Mevs. Elenor Collings. Despina Lamprou. Steven Lawrence. Michal Shapiro. Lorelei Stevens. Halley Margon. Angad Dhawan. Ahmad Makia. Lantian Xie. Raja’a Khalid. Rahel Aima. Vijitha Yapa. Jim Savio. Andrew Bush. Sakar Mohammed. Mohit Mandal. Diana Gluck. Josephine D’Souza. Anita Alex. Rajani Varghese. Jyoti Seshan. Jane “Tinker” Foderaro. Duane Edwards. Bernard F. Dick. Adele Falken. Sara Levine. Janet Desaulniers. Beth Nugent. Todd Hasak-Lowy. Jesse Ball. James McManus. Adam Levin. Beau O’Reilly. Amy England. Mary Cross. Ruth Margraff. Judd Morrissey. Daniel Eisenberg. Leila Wilson. Calvin Forbes. Barbara DeGenevieve. Deb Olin Unferth. Ken Krimstein. Alec Vierbuchen. Heather Lynn Shorey. Cory O’Brien. Doro Boehme. Rachel Wilson. Ryan Wright. Carly Gomez. Suzanne Gold. Bert Marckwardt. Nick Pavlovich. George Tully. Chelsea Fiddyment. Brothers Grimm Revisionists (Spring 2013). DeGenevieve’s Sophomore Seminar Class (Spring 2013). Buskers of New York & Chicago. Music by the Roma, sustenance for anything relevant I’ve done.