Johnny tooled the car into the drive with a generous sweep. One hand expertly maneuvered the wheel and the other rested on the leather behind Claire’s head. Here they were. Owners of not just a home, but what would be, when they got finished with it, the veritable seat of charm. They were parents, and both of them simultaneously shook heads fondly at the thought of their own precious child. And now, wonder of wonders, they were owners of a racehorse. And this racehorse had won. The future stretched before them in one golden, assured ray of light. They sighed together. Butter would not melt in their mouths. For once and at long last, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Perhaps they would buy more horses. Johnny obviously had the knack. One day they might buy some property out on the North Fork and, hell, breed and raise them. Johnny pulled the key out of the ignition and the car backfired. His brows knit imperceptibly together. One shutter, Claire noticed, hung embarrassingly shanty-like from their palace. They clicked their tongues in consecutive annoyance but smiled affectionately across at each other nonetheless. This was a day to remember. This, they both realized, was the day that their luck had changed. This was it. Their struggles were over.
“They’re home!” came a whoop from inside. Floozie tore through the newly installed doggy door, a convenient flap Johnny had put right in the door for her. She headed for Claire, who couldn’t help feeling singled out and special. And as teensy as Floozie was, she took such astonishing helicopter leaps that all you had to do was extend your elbow and there she was, perched in your crook. Anthony slammed out the back door barefoot. “Mommy, Daddy, guess what?”
“Where are your shoes?”
Anthony stopped, looked suddenly thoughtful, placed the tips of his fingers together and addressed his parents. “It is disrespectful to wear shoes in the home.”
“Sheesh,” Johnny said.
“Very true.” Claire put Floozie down, picked Anthony up and held him to her. “What a clever big fellow you are to know that! Although, that theory usually works out better when the ceilings are not twelve feet high and there’s something besides bare parquet on the floor.” She put him down gently, then looked at Johnny. “Wouldn’t it be great if we won enough money to buy a really excellent rug? Like a Hindu Kush. Or a Mazar-i-Sharif.” Her eyes glowed, imagining. “Meanwhile,” she looked around, “we’ve got bupkis.”
“Not to worry.” Anthony gave his head a rubbery wiggle, in exact imitation of Swamiji at his wisest. “It is in this way that an idea becomes a thought, a thought becomes a, becomes, uh—” “A word,” supplied Swamiji, padding to the door with a pile of folded towels in his arms. He put the tower of towels away one by one in the open linen closet across from the pantry, smoothing the neatly cornered top towel fondly. “… A word becomes an act.” “And,” Anthony finished, “an act becomes a habit.”
Claire and Johnny exchanged astonished looks. Neither of them had ever been able to convey the shortest memorized message to Anthony.
“How did you do that?” Johnny sat down at the kitchen table.
“Quite simple, really,” Swamiji confided. “I imitated the colorful, hyperactive information-center methods of the television adverts.” He held his breath for a moment and pulled the air into his face. Bright red, he now jutted his arms to and fro his little brown frame in a strobelike repetition. In a loud TV advertising voice, with a flat, nasal, Midwestern accent, Swamiji proceeded to campaign for a toy that not only demolished, destroyed, devastated, and dumped toxic waste upon its enemy, but exploded and put itself back together as well.
Everyone stared at him with glazed-over eyes.
“You must admit,” Swamiji relinquished his beet color and returned to his more characteristic brown. “The sentiments which I’ve conveyed to him are admirable.”
“Maybe I could get you down to the precinct in Brooklyn province.” Johnny wiggled his head, too. “We could put you to work on the perps.”
Misunderstanding Johnny’s sarcasm, Swamiji basked in his words. “I would be honored.” His head bobbed back, to and fro.
“And Ma,” Anthony was out of breath with excitement, “you should see what he can do with his stomach!”
Claire remembered very well Swamiji’s uncanny yogic practices.
“And you know what, Dad? Dad, listen!” He tugged on Johnny’s sleeve. “He can disappear! Really!”
“He can? Boy, now, I’ll really have to bring him down to meet the undercovers. They could always use a couple of pointers like that, eh?”
“A mere illusion caused by disillusion,” Swamiji admitted humbly.
“Where’s Zinnie?” Claire asked him.
“Ah. Narayan has taken her to the new-moon ceremony at the home of Ragu Panchyli. A goodly woman who works with a green card at the Key Food. She cash registers the money,” he added, impressed, adding: “Sit down. I have prepared your supper.”
Claire looked with trepidation at Johnny. He had set himself comfortably in and flicked the blue cloth napkin, which Swamiji had so nicely washed and ironed, onto his lap. Apparently, all this was less jarring for him than she had anticipated. And why not? He no doubt thought such service was his due: a chef de cuisine and manservant to go with his successful new career as bon vivant horseman.
“Where are Michaelaen and Dharma?” she asked.
“Oh, they’re practicing full lotus,” Anthony supplied.
“In front of the television,” Swamiji said.
“Except the television’s not on.” Anthony watched his parents’ reactions with dazzled eyes. “Mom,” he said and sat down at his place without even being asked—“can I bring Swamiji to pre-K? Like to show my teacher?”
“We’ll see, we’ll see,” Swamiji answered for her, and went humming to the stove. He returned with an iron wok full of simmering spicy vegetable biryani and a side dish of tandoori. He held this tantalizingly underneath Johnny’s nose.
“Smells great.” Johnny clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “So, who wants to hear our news? Anybody interested in whose horse came in first at Belmont this afternoon?”
Michaelaen and Dharma entered just then, both of them uncharacteristically subdued. They quietly took seats at the table and listened while Johnny told of his and Claire’s adventure at the track. Swamiji interrupted him once to ask everyone to close their eyes for a moment and give thanks to the one true God. This, to Claire’s astonishment, they did.
Look at this, Claire marveled, watching Vegetable Enemy Number One Johnny tear into the aromatic piazi, which was no more than glorified onion with chick peas. Her child, Mr. Don’t-give-me-anything-but-macaroni-and-butter-or-Froot-Loops, sat contentedly munching nourishing kobi alu motor. Dharma ate. Michaelaen scarfed down everything in sight, even the spicy alu bengan, a mixture of eggplant and potatoes, two things he had always loudly proclaimed to detest.
Claire offered to fetch something, anything, but it was all done, thank you very much; she should relax. And so she did, a guest in her own kitchen, eating with relish and planning a luxurious afternoon developing film in the lab. The radio was on, and it was playing something delightfully Vivaldi. Floozie, contentedly kaput beside her curry dish, picked her head up and gave a slight growl. Claire looked out the window and noticed the top of Mr. Kinkaid’s head skulking hurriedly away. He must have peeked in and seen Swamiji. She smiled to herself. Some days were indeed better than others.
She gave a great languid stretch and thought fleetingly of good Sister Rosaria from back in grammar school, who had warned, “When things are going too good, that’s when I always know I’d better watch out.” Claire shrugged and took a great mouthful of delectable piazi, then Claire looked into Dharma’s drowsy eyes. The child looked back, and somewhere nearby the inelegant boip-boip-boip-boip of a new car alarm butted in.
“Ah, yes,” Swamiji put down his spoon. “And your sister Carmela telephoned just before you came in.”
“Oh?”
He rolled his eyeballs up inside his head to remember. “You must call her back a
t once. Mrs. um, Dixon has escaped from Deauville.”
CHAPTER 7
“Okay, okay, okay, so who’s the guy with all the arms and legs?” Zinnie groped her way down the coat-pocked hallway of the unfamiliar Panchyli house. Pairs of shoes lined the wall from the front door straight down the dimly lit hallway all the way to the back of the house, one of those mean, narrow buildings south of Jamaica Avenue. The homes to the left and right of this one had FOR SALE signs out front, symbolizing their occupants’ indignation toward their new neighbors—never mind that this house sported newly installed windows and aluminum siding while theirs had peeling paint and rotting window sashes.
“Shiva, Zinnie. That’s a statue representing Shiva.”
“Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, right?”
Narayan’s beautiful dark face lit up with delight. “You have been studying?”
“Hell, no. Their names are on the holy picture on the front door.”
“Of course. Give me your shoes, please.”
“What are you going to do with them?” She handed over her heels warily.
“I am going to eat them, what do you think? Here. I put them safely here behind the umbrella stand. You can remember?”
“Tch. I’ll do my level best. What’s that singing in there? They all sing? I thought this was a serious thing. Isn’t Shiva the god of destruction? Are we sure we want to be here?”
“Destruction of evil is necessary, is it not? Destruction of war, destruction of fear?”
“Makes sense. Say. You really believe all this stuff? This reincarnation stuff?”
“This ‘stuff’ is my religion. And yes, I do believe in reincarnation.”
“So what do you think you’ll come back as? I mean, next time?”
“Be quiet. Or part of me shall come back as an octopus. And strangle you.”
“Okay by me.” She winked and turned and tiptoed carefully over the floorboards toward the back of the house. Narayan stood with open mouth and watched her delicate frame sway determinedly away from him. He cradled her shoes, in a swoon, to his heart. What was happening? He, the most desired of all the young men from abroad, went panting, open-mouthed, behind a half-pint, tough-lady American constable. It was inconceivable. Ludicrous, really. Where was his mind? In his pants, where his pocket was, that was where.
Oh, Narayan knew he was shallow. He had grown up with those brassy words in his pretty ears. His sisters, social-function martyrs all, had taunted him with it, his father, the magnanimous Solomon of the community, had sighed resignedly about it. His mother, goodly, indomitable charity-ball matriarch that she was, had thrown up her portly arms and collapsed, out of breath, onto her buttress of Salome pillows. They were all in agreement about Narayan. When Swamiji had accepted him as a student and assistant, the family had practically hurled poor Narayan north towards Rishikesh. Good riddance and respectability all at once. What could be better? Who was to know he would wind up catapulting west to join the respectability-hungry, well-off Hindu families of Trinidad and Guyana in Queens? Ironically, it was Swamiji who had helped him come to terms with the inevitability of his shallowness, helped him recognize and acknowledge it until he was so comfortable that it no longer hurt him, cut him to the quick the way it once did.
So, he was shallow. He wasn’t a thief. He wasn’t a murderer. He simply liked shiny, pretty things. He indulged himself lavishly. So had Krishna. So had Buddha, for that matter, before his renouncement. Zinnie here was not simply shiny, she was gold, gold of the purest sort. He followed her down the hallway with foolish yearning. Foolish, because this attraction had the poignant impossibility they were both capable of acknowledging. Her family would see him as an interloper, an abomination, a black man. His family would see her only as a white woman. Where his family lived, the only white women they were unfortunate enough to have to tolerate were those repulsive blueish English women with red veiny noses and inclinations toward gin and tonic when it was still daylight. Or the other, still worse, sort, the missionary ilk, sprouting sturdy chin whiskers, their puny hair yanked back off their foreheads and their unadorned, unvarnished, uncared-for feet and toes—unconscious horrendous bulk kerplunked into delicate sandals as if to say, well, what of it? It was too monstrous. What, then, would his family think of Zinnie? A meat eater. Yes, she was delicately pink, they would reluctantly admit, but she would redden as she aged. And anyway—he could just see his sisters and his mother throw back their haughty heads and leave the room with a tinkle of their bells and bangles—it was unthinkable. They would never accept her. It didn’t matter that she had completed university despite limited funds. They would never find that admirable. All they would see were those limited funds, a girl with a night job; they would shudder.
Zinnie, at the end of the hall, turned her head around to look for him, to wait for him. She would not enter that room without a backup. He saw her adjust her shoulder holster under her silk man-tailored jacket and rushed up to her, horrified.
“What is that? A gun? Zinnie, how could you?”
“What are you talking about? I always carry. I’m not allowed not to. I’m a cop, remember? Why do you think I always wear two shirts? Otherwise I look like the friggin’ Frito Bandito. It’s bad enough when I go for my lipstick, I pull out my rounds.” She hoisted herself this way and that, adjusting her piece. “Most of the guys wear it on the waist with a pancake holster. I always take my off-duty. Personally, I like my service revolver ’cause it’s big, intimidating when you see it.” She stopped fiddling and looked up at him. “And it can’t jam.”
He watched her, stunned, his hands helpless at his sides. This whole thing was more absurd than even he had imagined. He would speak to Swamiji about cutting their visit still shorter. They must move along now and be on their way. Their business with herbs was only on the verge of an upswing as it was. If they waited too long to bypass the Tibetans from the monastery and do business with the laboratory in Berkeley, the lab might lose interest. Already timorous business people, they might decide to buy their herbs elsewhere. They might simply decide to produce their own. Contribute to the “made in America” movement. Oregon. He could just see it: They would pick his and Swamiji’s brains and go from there. “Grown without pesticides in our own clean and mighty Northwest.” Not a bad idea, he mulled. Perhaps he would one day integrate it into his own scheme. But for now, he and Swamiji had planned to head straightaway cross country and be home well before harvest. The postponement of that plan had never bothered him because he’d hoped for an opportunity to investigate his feelings for Zinnie. But really, he realized as she rearranged her weapon intimately near to her brassiere, there was no way these twain would ever meet. One hand upon his hip, one finger pressed between dry lips, he continued to watch her in the dim hallway there. Her eyes were bright with discomfort, her creamy throat blotchy with nerves. She took out a brush and brushed her hair. Such an impropriety. And on and on she brushed. She was used to men watching her, confined to close quarters with them for long periods of time on stakeouts, in and about locker rooms. He felt himself stiffen.
Zinnie yanked her hair up into a bun and twirled it around her head. She stuck a comb in to anchor it and turned to witness his approval. The curry from the kitchen and the incense from the ceremony mingled in her nostrils and for just a moment, pushed between him and the wall by two stout ladies in saris butting by, she thought she would pass out. The door at the end of the hall snapped back and forth and the chanting of the pandit carried loud and soft, loud and soft. Zinnie and Narayan felt each other’s breath on their soft cheeks. She looked into his eyes and he, into hers. For one long moment they just stood there. They didn’t kiss. They just stood against each other, holding up the green malfunctioning wall.
“Ah, there you are,” the lady of the house barged through. “At last! We are all waiting for you!” Her eyes searched the hallway behind them.
Narayan went immediately up to her. “Swamiji could not come,” was all he said, deciding correctl
y that the true whereabouts of Swamiji (babysitting three American children) might not go over well.
The lady tilted her head congenially, as if to say, who cares? What matter that I have organized my home for almost one hundred fifty souls of the community just so they might get a glimpse of him? To her credit, she never faltered, just threw her pink harney over one indignant, slightly elevated shoulder. “Oh,” she beamed, “I just see you’ve honored us with a visitor as well.” This was insult to injury, she thought. Inside waited no less than fourteen single Hindu girls, any one of them a respectable, prime candidate for Narayan, this enormous catch. All of them had taken off work for the occasion.
Mrs. Panchyli bustled them through. There was nothing to be done. Mrs. Panchyli had not come this far in the American community without accepting compromise. Going with the flow, as it were, as the security guard informed her often enough at the Key Food Store. And it wasn’t as if this white girl wore his ring. She moved with authority, though, the girl. Perhaps she was a journalist? Was that one of those spy cameras she had hidden? It all just might turn around to my advantage, Mrs. Panchyli calculated. She must remember to make sure the girl sampled her luscious rice pudding. Who knew? They might all turn up on the front page of the color section of the Sunday News. Successful immigrants celebrating the holidays. She touched her perfect imitation Movado museum-piece watch for good luck.
Zinnie followed Narayan into the crowded room of chanting people. Besides the mob on the floor, there were plenty of them propped upright, sardine style, against the wall. The pandit sat on a series of clean white sheets on the floor. The amply endowed Mrs. Panchyli pushed her way past this multitude and bullied a prime space up front for Narayan and Zinnie. Incense fumed and smoked. On the sheets before the pandit, the family of the house sat solemnly; before them were paper plates laden and leaking with any number of Eastern fruits and cuisine, all offerings to Brahma. It was beautiful and impressive. The women were dressed and perfumed and garlanded with flowers. There was no furniture at all. If there was any, it had been removed, who knew to where. The grand Sony television remained, though, witness to prosperity. On the wall, brass-framed identical Kodak posters of long-haired white show cats posed imperiously on their valentine Cadillacs.
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