by Diksha Basu
“I’m not feeling too well,” Mrs. Jha said before dinner. “Will you manage dinner yourself? I think I’m just going to have a slice of toast and read in bed.”
“Are you feeling unwell? Should I sleep in the guest room? No sense both of us falling ill,” Mr. Jha said.
“I’m not falling ill, Anil. I’m worried. And you should be too,” Mrs. Jha said. “About our son. And his life.”
“Bindu, these things happen,” Mr. Jha said. “What’s done is done. Now we will simply figure out the best way forward.”
“What if you had never sold your website, Anil?” Mrs. Jha said.
“What are you talking about? What if we still lived in Mayur Palli with the neighbors interfering in our lives and bathrooms that are too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter? That’s what you’re talking about? What if we lived with seepage on our walls and electricity outages every other day? What if you still had to use a kitchen in which you felt suffocated by the smell of haldi and chili? What if we lived with no full-length mirrors? Why stop there? Let’s go back to the days before we could even afford air conditioners, let alone business class travel to America.”
“That’s enough; I’m going upstairs,” Mrs. Jha said.
“We have an upstairs to go to,” Mr. Jha said.
She went up the stairs to the bedroom and shut the door. She sat on the edge of the bed and picked the cordless phone up off the bedside table to call Mrs. Ray.
“Bindu?” Mrs. Ray said. “How nice to hear from you. Oh, Bindu, I’m so glad you called. I’ve been meaning to call you but I just haven’t had time. I just got home—it’s nearly eleven! Imagine. I had gone to a dance recital with Upen. Bindu, he’s wonderful.”
Mrs. Jha pictured Mrs. Ray sitting in her living room, talking on the phone. If her curtains were open, the light from the neighboring apartments would be visible. Not here in Gurgaon, though—the windows were wide open and nothing was visible. She interrupted Mrs. Ray and said, “Reema. Do you mind if I interrupt you? Just for one second. It’s about Rupak.”
Mrs. Jha had to say the words to make them feel more real. She needed someone other than her husband to know. So it all came tumbling out to Mrs. Ray—about Rupak, about Serena, about their trip to America, and about her husband’s strange behavior. She needed to tell someone she was lonely and that living in this huge house made her feel smaller than she ever had in Mayur Palli.
“I just don’t know who he is anymore,” Mrs. Jha said. “I’m worried he doesn’t even know who he is. I want him to stand for something.”
“He’s figuring that out, Reema,” Mrs. Ray said when Mrs. Jha stopped. “And he’s made a mistake. And you will forgive him and you will love him and you will support him because you have him and you have Anil and even if they drive you up the wall, you have them. You don’t have to forgive him right away—for now you just have to figure out how to interact with him. The rest will follow.”
“You’re right. I know you’re right,” Mrs. Jha said. “Tell me good things instead—tell me more about Upen.”
“No, that can wait, but Bindu, it’s connected in a way. Upen has made me realize how nice it is to have people around. I thought I was fine alone, and I was, but it’s nice to have someone. And you have that. Even when it gets difficult.”
“You sound like you’ve been reading self-help books,” Mrs. Jha said with a smile. It was nice talking to Mrs. Ray, but clearly they were in different mental states at the moment.
“I could write a self-help book right now,” Mrs. Ray said. “But you know it’ll be fine—he’s a wonderful boy. I’m surprised by this as well, Bindu, but you’ve all been going through such a change. Things will settle.”
Mrs. Jha nodded and thanked Mrs. Ray for calming her down even though she wasn’t feeling any calmer.
Downstairs, after he had eaten and Mrs. Jha was still upstairs, still hardly speaking, Mr. Jha gingerly sat on the sofa with a cup of tea and stared up at the crystal chandelier. The house was silent. He had to admit that Mrs. Jha was correct. It was too silent. You could not hear traffic, you could not hear the clanking of dishes from neighbors’ kitchens, you could not even hear your own wife upstairs. He listened for Mrs. Jha. Nothing. In Mayur Palli, Shatrugan would walk around every night lazily hitting his stick on the ground to keep away thieves and stray dogs. From midnight to five a.m., Mr. Jha used to sleep deeply knowing that life was right outside his window. In Gurgaon, life was far away. He would try desperately to listen for sounds of Balwinder, but even he could hardly be heard late at night. Even the big malls on MG Road were kept secure by computers and cameras instead of humans. This was his world now. It was much too easy to think.
He snapped back into attention when he heard a loud rapping on his front door. Who would be knocking this late at night, he wondered? This was exactly why they needed a guard. He looked through the peephole and saw Mr. Chopra standing and waving a piece of paper around. He opened the door.
“Is everything okay?” Mr. Jha said. “It’s nearing eleven o’clock.”
“Oh, Anil, what to tell you. I came over to have a good laugh with you because you will understand this. My son is so useless, I just don’t know what to do. Listen to this poem he has written.
I have heard the pigeons of Defence Colony
Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees
“What is this nonsense he is writing? About pigeons? Dirty birds. You know they are called the rats of the skies? Here, listen, Johnny goes on:
Hum in the neem tree flowers; and put away
The unavailable—sorry, what does this say?—unavailing
“He must mean unavailable. In any case, it goes on and on like this—utterly meaningless. He calls this poetry. It doesn’t even make any sense.”
Mr. Chopra dropped the piece of paper onto Mr. Jha’s coffee table, laughed heartily, and took a sip of Mr. Jha’s tea.
“See? I’m telling you, my Johnny has no talent. I found this on his desk. Of course now he’s out partying and God knows what time he will come home.”
“That poem is not so bad, Mr. Chopra,” Mr. Jha said.
“Nonsense. He is useless. Unlike Rupak. I hope he can talk some sense into Johnny. Filmmaking is a good industry.”
“Oh, it is,” Mr. Jha said. “For talented people. But Rupak has no talent. Only dreams. What can one do?”
Both the men laughed, each trying to be slightly louder than the other.
“You know,” Mr. Jha said. “That poem is quite good. I have a friend who works with Penguin Books. Maybe I can set up a meeting with him and Johnny. I think Johnny could be a real success. I’m telling you his poetry reminds me of something. Some poet. Johnny can go far. Writers get a lot of respect these days.”
“This poem? No, no. It is too bad. Johnny has no talent. Maybe he would if he didn’t waste his time with all those pretty young girls all day. I really think he should be more like Rupak—studious, hardworking. Not writing garbage about pigeons,” Mr. Chopra said.
“No, no. Please don’t encourage him to be like Rupak. He is too bad. Who takes a break in the middle of his MBA? Your son should focus on his poetry and talent. At least he is trying to make something of his life.”
Mr. Chopra finished Mr. Jha’s tea, put the cup down on the table, and said, “Well, I should get going. But my wife wanted me to ask Mrs. Jha if she would like to go shopping with her sometime. Maybe buy some new saris. Let her know. I can send one of our cars.”
With that, Mr. Chopra picked up Johnny’s poem and was gone. He was hurrying down Mr. Jha’s driveway toward his own home. He rushed through the Sistine Chapel–inspired dome and into his study. He turned on his laptop and typed in the first line of Johnny’s poem and was amazed to find that the whole poem had already been written by someone named William Butler Yeats. Johnny had plagiarized! Well, not completely—he had made the poem about Delhi. The original said something about the pigeons of Seven Woods, wherever that might be, and Johnny had ma
de it about Defence Colony so really he was quite intelligent but it was still plagiarism. Mr. Chopra called Mr. Jha immediately.
“Oh, Anil. You were correct,” Mr. Chopra said, laughing. “Johnny’s poetry does sound like something you’ve heard before! That good-for-nothing son of mine has plagiarized the whole poem. Some fellow named William Yeats has written this. I should have known. Johnny is not intelligent enough to write so beautifully about a subject so dirty. It takes talent to make pigeons sound beautiful and romantic and Johnny has no talent. Thank God we can take care of him.”
Mr. Jha had no response. It was his own fault. He should never have said anything about Johnny’s poetry reminding him of something. He should have just quietly worked hard to help get Johnny a meeting with the people at Penguin.
“You fool,” Elizabeth said as she walked in the door. “Why would you buy weed in a public parking lot in the middle of the day? You should have just waited until I could get you some. I haven’t heard from you in nearly two months, and then this is the text I get?”
Rupak was putting his books into a large brown box.
“Do you want any of this stuff? My TV, my microwave? Speakers, the toaster—you can take whatever you want from here.”
“I might take your juicer,” Elizabeth said. She walked around his living room, which was full of boxes, piles of books and clothes, and open suitcases with things spilling out. She sat down on the floor near the window.
“You’re really leaving.”
Rupak placed a pile of management textbooks into a box and nodded.
“Do you want a cup of coffee?” he said. “Or a beer or something?”
“Are you okay?” Elizabeth asked.
“I think I also have half a bottle of wine.”
“Sure, I’ll have a glass of wine,” Elizabeth said.
Rupak went to the fridge and split the remaining wine between two coffee cups. He used to own two wineglasses but he had taken those, along with two other boxes of kitchenware, to the Goodwill shop the previous day. When he came back to the living room, Elizabeth was standing up near his almost-empty shelf and looking at the framed picture of him in his school uniform. He handed her the cup of wine.
“We used to be poor,” Rupak said. “Well, not poor but not rich. That picture is of me in my uniform from my first day of school. My father was so excited that I was going to go to a rich kids’ school.”
He sat down on the floor across the room from her and leaned against the wall.
“I had the opposite. We used to be rich. Actually rich-rich,” Elizabeth said. “Can I have this picture?”
“You were?”
“Well, not like we’re poor now. But yeah, my father made some bad investments, I guess. I don’t really know details. I just know that we changed neighborhoods and homes when I was in the seventh grade and nobody was really allowed to talk about it,” Elizabeth said.
“I never knew that about you.”
“I think there’s a lot we didn’t know about each other. I certainly didn’t know you looked so handsome in your uniform. Anyway, I don’t talk about it because I know how spoiled it sounds—it’s not like we were ever homeless. It took some adjusting but I don’t feel scarred, you know. The only thing that stands out in my mind is when I overheard my parents fighting one night about whether to keep giving ten percent of their income to the church. My father was really adamant about it, but my mother thought we could use that money more. I could hear the whole fight—it started there and then it just spiraled. My father eventually stormed out and said he was going to spend the night in his office.”
“Who won? Did they keep giving money?” Rupak asked.
“Yes. My father won. He always does.”
“Mine tends to too,” Rupak said.
They both fell silent for a while. Rupak looked around his apartment. He was going to miss it. He was going to miss Ithaca, he was going to miss America, and he was going to miss Elizabeth. He had just assumed he was going to have a life here, but now it seemed impossible. He had an Indian passport, which meant the only way he could live here was either by studying or getting a job that would sponsor his visa, and he knew that the latter was next to impossible these days anyway, and would be completely impossible without a proper degree. Or he could get married to an American.
“Why didn’t you ever tell them about me?” Elizabeth broke the silence.
Rupak leaned his head back against the wall.
“Because I’m an idiot,” Rupak said, and got up and went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge. There was a single Corona. On top of the fridge was a bottle of Maker’s Mark that was not yet empty. He took both and went back to the living room and sat down next to Elizabeth on the floor. He opened the Corona and placed it on the floor in between them and poured Maker’s Mark into both of their empty cups.
“Because I was a fucking idiot, Elizabeth. And I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I just hope I hurt myself more than I hurt you,” Rupak said.
Elizabeth took a sip.
“That’s an easy way to avoid feeling bad, isn’t it?” Elizabeth said. “I have to say it helps, though. I don’t feel angry toward you anymore. I guess I’m being petty too.”
“I’m going to try to find a way back,” Rupak said. “Don’t be surprised if I show up on your doorstep in Florida to fight to get you back, okay?”
“That’s a nice sentiment, Rupak, but I wouldn’t bother. I’m not saying that angrily, I promise. I just—I’m not one for dramatic gestures.”
Elizabeth moved the bottle of beer and leaned her weight against his. He pressed his face to the top of her head. He wondered why he had never bothered asking her much about her life before. He had been so swept up in the idea of her because of what she looked like that he hadn’t bothered with any of the details—he just filled in the gaps himself and created the perfect American sitcom character. In the perfect American sitcom, they would sleep together tonight. And when he woke up in the morning, she would be gone, the sun streaming down on the pillow she had used. And perhaps there would be a note left on his table. But there was none of that.
They kissed. They kissed for about an hour, but all their clothes stayed on. He tried once to reach under her shirt, but she pulled back and he let it be. Just kissing her was nice; he hadn’t realized that before. And he didn’t have the energy to try anything more tonight.
“Why don’t we meet out somewhere for dinner?” Mrs. Ray said. She was standing in front of her bathroom mirror combing her hair and smiling to herself. She put the comb down on the edge of the sink and scraped at a small stain of dried toothpaste on the mirror with her thumbnail.
“We’ve already been all over Delhi. It’ll be nicer to eat at home. I want to see where you live,” Upen said. “I’ll come around eight. You don’t have to cook. I can bring food, or we can order in?”
“No, of course not,” Mrs. Ray said. He was right—since their day at Dilli Haat, they had been out for two more dinners, one midafternoon session of drinks in Hauz Khas Village, and a bharatanatyam dance performance. Each time he had asked to come over, and each time she had come up with an excuse not to let him. “I’d love to cook for you. I just—well, I haven’t entertained in a while.”
“I’m sure you make a wonderful host,” Upen said. “Tell me what I can bring, and I’ll come at eight.”
“You don’t need to bring anything. I’ll see you this evening.”
Mrs. Ray put the phone down, grateful for once that Ganga was still in Siliguri, with still no concrete plans to return anytime soon. She did not want Ganga fluttering around and interfering when she was enjoying her evening with Upen. At first her home felt empty without Ganga, but she found she soon got used to it. Even though she had often been lonely, she realized that she had really never been alone her whole life. She had always been scared of being alone, but, and she knew she was probably thinking this way because of Upen, being alone was proving to be quite easy.
She had hardly even ent
ered her kitchen while Ganga was here, but now she was planning to use some of her savings to have the kitchen redone. If the Jhas could move to Gurgaon, she could get a new refrigerator and microwave put in. Mrs. Ray was tired of falling into the role of widow that others were placing on her.
In any case, she could worry about all that later. For now, she had to worry about only one thing—Upen. He was coming over at eight and Shatrugan downstairs was quite a gossip. He did it in a harmless way, thinking he was just being a part of all their lives here, but he still did it. And Mrs. Ray knew that if Upen stopped at the front gate and asked how to reach her apartment, Shatrugan would ask him a dozen questions and then repeat the information to everyone. She pulled a shawl over her shoulders and went downstairs to talk to him. She found him sitting on his haunches near the main gate flipping through a tattered copy of Stardust magazine. He was wearing sandals despite the chill in the air.
“Shatrugan, come tomorrow morning and see me—I have an old pair of Mr. Ray’s shoes that I’ll give you. It’s too cold for sandals.”
“Madam, you are too kind. It was not nice of Ganga to leave you. These days, maids have no sense of duty. I will be here guarding all of you till the day I die.”
“Shatrugan, my accountant will be coming around eight this evening. You make sure you let him in and show him where my apartment is. And don’t start chatting his ear off.”
“Madam, your accountant makes house calls on a Sunday?” Shatrugan asked. “That is very decent of him. Madam, you know last week a woman died in the Leela Housing Complex? Her husband is still living, I have heard.”
“So?” Mrs. Ray asked.
“Just letting you know, madam,” Shatrugan said, wobbling his head from side to side.
“Just please let my accountant in when he comes,” Mrs. Ray said, and walked back up to her apartment.
Back at home, Mrs. Ray tied her hair into a bun and went to her cupboard and took out a gray silk sari and black blouse with long sleeves. She changed into the sari and looked in the full-length mirror that was attached to the back of her bedroom door. This was silly, she thought. Why was she putting on such a formal outfit for tonight? The whole point of having dinner at home was to be more casual. She undraped the sari and stood for a moment in front of her mirror in just her petticoat and blouse. She tugged at the sides of her stomach and pulled it back. Her skin was getting a little loose in parts but she was not fat. Even though she was home alone, Mrs. Ray closed and locked her bedroom door and removed her blouse. She wore a cream-colored bra. A dull cream-colored bra that had three hooks at the back and, despite looking industrial, allowed her breasts to sag and fall on two sides of her chest. She had no time today, but tomorrow she would go to a mall and buy some new bras. She was older now but not dead, and underwear these days was made to let women like her be sexual. She did not have to change into a thong and a push-up bra, but something with a bit of underwire would not hurt.
