Incense and Sensibility

by Sonali Dev

  Their cheerful conversation dropped into silence as Yash emerged from the wide ornate staircase. He hadn’t raced up two steps at a time as he usually did, because he’d been preoccupied with contemplating another, narrower staircase suffused with the smell of incense and a warm glowing energy. Craving for it sat like a giant starved vacuum inside him.

  Faces that were his life stared at him over delicate teacups suspended in midair. Unfamiliar awkwardness suffused the room.

  Of all people, Esha stood and came to him and gave him a hug. He wrapped his arms around her gingerly and rested his chin on her head. She was tiny. The oldest Raje cousin was the tiniest in stature. Barely five feet and possibly ninety pounds soaking wet.

  Holding her made him feel better. He tried not to think about how much she would love India and how well the two of them would get on. Something about them was the same, an ethereal quality woven together with strength.

  Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?

  Esha looked up at him, the curiosity in her eyes probing at him, then turning to terrible sadness. But she said nothing and let him go.

  He did the rounds. Leaning over to drop kisses on his mother’s and sisters’ cheeks, shaking Dad’s hand, and then dropping down at his grandmother’s feet and leaning back into her lap as she dropped a kiss on his head.

  “I’m very angry with you, Yashu,” she said, not sounding angry at all.

  “I’m sorry, Aji.”

  “It’s been two weeks.” She stroked his hair. “How can you do this to your grandmother?”

  It had been ten days. But their grandmother always started all conversations with how long it had been since she’d seen them last. He didn’t argue with her. Who in their right might would?

  “I called you every day.” He’d been on the road, but that didn’t mean he forgot to call his grandmother.

  He also understood counting the days since you’d seen someone better than he ever had. It had been four weeks since he’d seen India.

  “That you did,” Aji said. “That’s why I’m going to forgive you. And, well, I know you’ve been busy,” she added, with enough mischief in her voice that he knew she wasn’t talking about the campaign.

  The way they were all staring at him, amusement writ large on their faces, reinforced that conclusion.

  He looked at Ashna and Nisha, who were both studying him with enough curiosity that if he didn’t know them he’d have checked if something was stuck between his teeth.

  “Tea?” His mother handed him a cup. What he needed was a damn tumbler of Philz’s darkest roast, but he took the tea with a “Thanks, Ma.”

  Esha dropped down into the couch next to Aji. She was the only one in the room who wasn’t looking like a cat with a cream mustache. “You look exhausted. You’re not taking care of yourself.”

  “He looks like he’s been working hard. It’s a look of a man who’s going to win an election.” Dad, naturally. In all his HRH glory.

  “Well, good thing he doesn’t have to take care of himself by himself any longer.” This from Ma, who was usually pretty rational. “Having someone living with him will help with that.”

  He threw Nisha a look. What are they talking about?

  She gave him nothing, just raised a finger and pointed at Aji, who had a significant-moment-incoming look.

  “It’s about time. I’ve been holding on to my ring for far too long.” She looked at Ma, and Ma made a production of walking to Aji’s room and coming back with a silk pouch and handing it to Aji.

  “The Kohlis want to do a little ceremony. Just a small puja and dinner for the families. They know this isn’t the time for a big flashy engagement party, but we have to think—”

  “Ma. What are you talking about?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Ma said. “Now that Naina and you have decided to make it official, we can’t fault her family for wanting to mark it with some sort of ceremony. It’s taken you ten years to decide to put a ring on her finger, God knows how much longer it will take for you to make it to the altar.”

  His grandmother was still stroking his hair. As gently as he could, he removed her hand, squeezing it before he put it back on her lap. Then he stood, an odd ringing between his ears.

  Before he could say anything, Aji extracted a small velvet box from the pouch and thrust it into his hand. “Your grandfather gave me this when we got engaged,” she said, eyes going dreamy with memory. “I’ve been waiting to give it to you so you can finally give it to Naina.”

  Yash popped the box open. Nestled in aged white satin sat a deep green emerald surrounded by diamonds so brilliant he blinked.

  “Thank God whatever newfangled thing you two were doing is over. What’s the point of a relationship if she can’t be here for you?” Dad said.

  Mom clapped. “We can do a celebration at Curried Dreams when it reopens next month. It will be great publicity for Ashi too!”

  Nisha said something about ordering clothes.

  All Yash could manage was to open and shut his mouth a few times, but no one was paying him any attention, so taken up were they with his imaginary engagement. The ringing swallowed up their excited chatter.

  “I’m in the middle of a campaign,” he said finally.

  No one heard him.

  “I’m in the middle of a damn campaign,” he shouted far too loudly, and they all went silent and gaped at him as though he were the one who’d lost his mind. Which was all sorts of backward.

  “Then why did you decide to announce on network television that you were getting engaged in the middle of a campaign?” Ma said.

  “I did nothing of the sort.”

  Nisha started punching at her phone.

  “Nisha, do not pull that interview up, or help me God . . .” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I know what was said. It was twisted completely out of context. What is wrong with you?”

  Nisha glared at him, but she stopped trying to pull up the blasted interview on her phone.

  “I don’t understand,” Ma said. “Why on earth wouldn’t you just get married if you love each other and if you’ve been together for ten years? It makes no sense.”

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  After the interview, Naina, true to form, had taken off for L.A. to meet Mehta’s partners and Yash had been in the Apple Valley campaigning. Probably why the family had waited until now for this ambush.

  “Someone needs to tell him,” Ashna said, after being mostly quiet through this circus.

  That sounded terribly ominous. “Tell me what?”

  Ma glared at Ashna. Something Ma almost never did to her nieces. She saved her glarings for her biological children. Possibly the only way in which she ever discriminated among them.

  “What now?” he asked.

  HRH stood. “What is that supposed to mean? We’re all here bending over backwards trying to honor your wishes. Instead of thanking us, you’re acting like we’re the ones being unreasonable. When did you turn into such an ungrateful person?”

  “He’s not ungrateful,” Ashna, Nisha, and Esha all said.

  “Thanks,” he said to them. Then, “I need a minute.” With that, he headed for the stairs.

  “Yash, wait. Don’t leave like this. At least hear us out,” Nisha said.

  There was nothing more he could stand to hear and he really needed a moment to clear his head, so he ran down the stairs as though he hadn’t heard her.

  Just as he got to the bottom, the doorbell rang and J-Auntie rushed to answer.

  Nisha was right behind him. Grabbing him by the arm, she pulled him across the hall and into the den. “You need to collect yourself before you see Naina’s parents.” Just as she said the words, Dr. Kohli’s booming voice rang through the entrance foyer. Yash squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for patience.

  “What’s going on, Yash?” his sister said, and pushed the door shut behind them.

  “You first. What the hell is going on, Nisha? Couldn’t yo
u have warned me? You fucking work for me.”

  “I’m going to let that go because you look entirely too miserable. Did you and Naina have a fight?”

  He turned to her. He wished he could tell her. He wished he knew what he wanted to tell her.

  Who was he kidding? He wanted to tell her—tell everyone—that he did want to spend the rest of his life with someone, but it wasn’t Naina.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  He dropped into a chair.

  “Yash.” Nisha squatted in front of him and took his hands. “You are doing spectacularly well. You’re working so hard. I know you’re hurting about Abdul. I know you’re worried about him. But you have the right to be happy. You have the right to be with someone you love, have a family.”

  Yash dropped his head back, his shoulders shaking with laughter, the kind of laughter that you couldn’t separate from frustration, no matter how hard you tried.

  “Are you crying?” Nisha sounded horrified.

  Yash stood and helped her up. “You shouldn’t be squatting.” He pushed her into the chair and started pacing.

  “Oh God,” Nisha said, and Yash stopped to catch her horrified expression. “Why didn’t you say something? You’re having cold feet. Yash, listen, I know exactly how you’re feeling.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Haven’t you noticed how similar our situations are? Neel and me, and Naina and you? Family friends, best friends since childhood.” She didn’t mention that Neel had dated someone else for seven years before he’d found his way back to Nisha. Or that once they’d gotten together they’d never left each other’s side if they could help it. They hadn’t lived continents apart for over a decade. “I know exactly what you’re feeling.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do. It’s terrifying when something is so right. I think I finally understand why you’ve both stayed away for so long.”

  “We’ve stayed away because we’ve both loved our careers too much.” And because being able to stay apart was the point of us getting together. Because he’d needed control over his feelings, and with Naina there were none.

  “That’s the conscious reason. The subconscious reason is that you’re too afraid that your perfect relationship is too good to be true.”

  Yash groaned.

  “Did you know that I had serious cold feet before my wedding? I almost didn’t go through with it. In fact . . . Never mind.” Standing up, she faced him, the look in her eyes so filled with understanding, for a moment he thought she knew the truth about Naina and him. “You know how I know how much you love Naina?”

  Well, there went that theory. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  She grabbed his arm and looked at him the way people did when they wanted you to know that they knew a secret you thought you’d hidden well. “I saw you. I saw you when you first realized you were in love. You remember the night before my wedding?”

  Yash’s heart started to thud like a military parade.

  “The night of my mehendi, I saw you in the gazebo with Naina.”

  “With Naina?”

  “Yes, I remember the look on your face to this day. I’d never seen you look like that. You looked so totally smitten, like you’d been hit on the head with something, like you’d found your purpose in life. That’s why when everyone else was shocked when you and Naina sprang your relationship on us, I knew you knew what you were doing. If you’re scared, just remind yourself of that time, of how that felt. You’ll find your way back to it. I promise. It’s what I do with Neel.”

  Stepping away from her, he squeezed his temples. His head felt like a million little explosions were going off in it.

  Nisha shook his shoulder. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

  What she’d said . . . she might as well have driven a car into him. Before he could tell her that Naina wasn’t who she’d seen in the gazebo with him that night, the door flew open after a cursory knock.

  “Hai hai, Yash, beta, badhaiyaan badhaiyaan!” Naina’s mother was an intimidatingly tall woman with a personality entirely at odds with her strapping physical appearance. She flew into the room, then stopped with her odd mix of anxiety and effusiveness.

  Naina followed her in, her expression as tortured as it always was when she was in the presence of her parents. Behind her was the venerable and portly Dr. Kohli, who walked straight at Yash and grabbed him in a hug.

  “Finally I am to have a son.”

  Naina’s mother looked like she’d been kicked. She hung her head and smiled, even as her eyes teared up. This was in line with every interaction Yash had ever seen between Naina’s parents.

  Naina looked like she’d like to kick her father. Instead she put an arm around her mother.

  Yash was sure today was the day he would explode, just blast out of his skin and splatter on the walls.

  Nisha’s hand stroked his back.

  Behind the Kohlis marched in the Rajes, Mina leading the parade and welcoming the guests, even as she studied Yash the way she’d done when he was a boy trying to get away with something.

  You’re thirty-eight. You’re a thirty-eight-year-old former state senator, former U.S. attorney, who’s going to be the governor of California. What the hell is wrong with you?

  “You okay?” Ashna came up to him. She, too, studied him like a particularly challenging chai blend she was trying to decode.

  Would they stop asking him that question when they really didn’t want an answer? If they kept at it, he was going to tell them the truth. How couldn’t they see that there was something grotesquely wrong with him? Had he suddenly turned invisible? He was as far from okay as he could imagine being.

  HRH and Dr. Kohli gave each other the kind of self-congratulatory hand pumps that made Yash contemplate several things, all of them violent. Yash was not a violent person, warrior ancestors notwithstanding.

  J-Auntie brought in a silver tray filled with mithai, and Naina’s mother made a squealing sound, all hurt forgotten at the sight of the sweets.

  “Naina, beta, feed your fiyancée some mithai,” she said as though Naina and Yash were a bashful young couple who’d just been set up by their families for an arranged marriage.

  Naina winked at Yash and fished out the biggest ladoo from the tray. “Are you ever going to stop looking quite so tortured?” she said close to his ear as she stuffed the ladoo into his mouth.

  She kept asking him that, but she hadn’t once cared to ask what he was tortured about.

  “We have to talk,” he said. “Right now.”

  Her glance traveled around the room over their celebrating families. “Sure. What is it?”

  “Alone.”

  “Okay, make it happen, then,” she said, the challenge clear in her voice. “I’m right behind you.”

  That was it. He’d had enough of this. “Naina and I have something to discuss. Excuse us,” he said, and led her toward the door.

  “Really, beta? All impatient to get her all to yourself already, haan?” Naina’s mother said, her eyes round with all sorts of insinuations, every one of them causing her great joy, and him nausea.

  The rest of the room looked at him with a combination of alarm and curiosity.

  “I think you’re forgetting something,” Ma said, slipping the velvet box into his hand and giving him an encouraging pat.

  He didn’t say anything more until they were up in his childhood room.

  “Back in the old digs,” Naina said, running a finger across the signed balls crowding shelves from floor to ceiling. Soccer, basketball, baseball, football, mementos from games he’d been to with his dad. “Shree Uncle really spoiled you, didn’t he? Was there a game one of your teams played that he didn’t take you to when you were a boy?”

  She was right. HRH had spoiled him, but her attempt at reminding him how great his parents were and how much they’d done for him, that part was entirely out of line. Had she always manipulated him this
way?

  “Why are you being like this?” he asked, because he had to believe that his friend was in there somewhere. And because if she really had developed feelings for him, he’d have to figure out how not to hurt her.

  “Are you going to say, ‘This wasn’t the deal,’ again?”

  “It wasn’t. We were never supposed to take it this far. Don’t you deserve to find someone you really want to spend your life with?”

  She was toe to toe with him, eye to eye. “I have. You’re that person.”

  “You don’t love me, Nai.”

  She poked him in the chest. “There isn’t anyone in the world I love as much as I love you. Not even my parents.”

  “Don’t do that. You know that’s not what I mean. You deserve to find love.” The kind that hurt in the chest and made it hard to breathe. “The kind that burns in the pit of your stomach.”

  Bunching up his shirt in a fist, she turned suddenly horrified eyes on him. “Holy shit. That’s what this is about? You’re having an affair.”

  He removed her hand from his shirt and held it. “Come on, what’s wrong with you? I wouldn’t do that. Not while we’re still dragging this farce out.”

  Pulling her hand from his, she shoved him. Hard enough that his shoulder hurt. “Farce? Are you fucking kidding me? Who is it?”

  “I’m not going to tell you. Not like this. And it’s not an affair.” Or maybe it was. A promise isn’t what you say. It’s what you do.

  She laughed. “This is unbelievable. Seriously? You fancy yourself in love? Really? Now? What is wrong with you? What are we, sixteen?”

  “I was in a fucking wheelchair when I was sixteen, so I wouldn’t know.”

  “Well, boo-hoo. You got out of the wheelchair and the only girl you ever wanted to hang out with was me. And I was always there for you.”

  “Because you’re my damned best friend.” Although she sure as hell wasn’t acting like it.

  “This is how you treat your friend? I’ve been here for you, Yash, always. I’ve taken care of you. Have you forgotten what happened when you trusted another woman? You ended up drugged and caught on tape fucking an underage intern. Even then I was there for you. I didn’t bat an eyelid. Through all your trust issues I was there making sure you were okay, working around it, tiptoeing around all your physical issues. Making sure all your damned dreams didn’t get shat on, because you have no judgment when it comes to women. Now you’re telling me you’ve found someone else and you want me to be okay with that when we have everything to lose?”