She turned to face Laleh and Kavita, who were exchanging bemused smiles. “My other favorite author is Norman Vincent Peale,” she declared. “I believe in the power of positive thinking.”
Book Two
Chapter 21
One o’clock in the morning and sleep had disappeared, much as she hoped to disappear from home three days from now. Nishta lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the city at night—the firecracker-like phat-phat sound of motorbike engines, the occasional howling of a nearby dog, answered by another stray down the street, the drift of voices as small groups of young men walked down the street, making no allowances for the sleeping world, the dry heaves of the old trucks grinding their way down the road. She remembered with a sharp longing her bedroom in her parents’ large, beautiful flat. How muffled the sounds of the night had seemed in that bedroom. But then she recalled how she had tossed and turned in her single bed, her body aching for the man who now slept beside her, and she smiled mirthlessly at the irony. What was that wonderful quote by Truman Capote? More tears have been shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.
Iqbal mumbled something in his sleep and she turned her head slightly to look at him. He was lying on his side, and the light from the fluorescent streetlamp allowed her to study his features. As she had a million times, she took in the beautiful, delicate face—the long eyelashes, the thin, curved lips above the bearded chin. As Nishta watched, Iqbal’s hand twitched, and she fought the urge to cover it with hers. He was frowning now and she strained to hear what he was muttering. Pity swept over Nishta. The agitation that filled Iqbal’s days also dominated his nights. Iqbal deserved better, she suddenly thought. Maybe her foreignness, her Hinduness, had prevented her from recognizing or taking seriously the grievances that stuck to him like postage stamps. Maybe, as he had recently admitted, he had died a million deaths trying to shelter her against the everyday bigotries and discrimination that he had faced because of their marriage. Maybe when they counted the casualties and death toll from the 1993 riots, they should’ve counted men like Iqbal also, good, openhearted men who died a spiritual death in those riots, men whose lives were spared but whose spirits burned along with those who were set on fire in their homes or out on the streets, whom the mad mobs consecrated with gasoline and then set aflame. Men who learned the wrong lessons from those riots, who came to believe that all that stood between them and the fire next time was the strength that came from numbers, who moved into dense, overcrowded bastis to live among their own kind, who subjected themselves to living with people with whom they shared a religion and not much else.
Nishta’s throat ached with sorrow. Despite all that had happened between them, she loved the man sleeping next to her. Felt protective of him. Because despite the sober attire and attitude, his humorless demeanor, the bearded visage, the religious garb, the twinkle-eyed college boy he had once been occasionally shone through. She saw it in his wide smile sometimes when he wasn’t being guarded, or when his eyes grew misty when an old song from a 1950s Hindi film came on the radio, or when he came home drenched from a downpour and grinning like a schoolboy.
She realized with a pang of regret that she had conveyed a one-dimensional portrayal of Iqbal to Laleh and Kavita. She had fed them an easy caricature—young Socialist grows up to become a conservative Muslim—and although shocked and disappointed, they had accepted her version. But she remembered now how beside himself Iqbal had been when he’d heard about the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhist statues. “Savages,” he’d sworn, his eyes blazing. “Barbarians. No right they are having. Those statues belong to the world.” She remembered how upset he’d been after the planes had brought down the towers, how he’d looked at her with tears in his eyes and said, “Today is the worst day of my life. These people make me ashamed of my faith.”
“Iqbal,” she heard herself say. “Are you sleeping?”
He opened one eye and said, “Not anymore.” But there was a smile in his voice and she was encouraged.
“Sorry. I can’t sleep.”
He leaned on his elbow and raised his head, stifling a yawn. “You’re sick?”
“No, not sick. Just sad.”
He was immediately alert. “Why, my bibi? Why sad?”
“I keep thinking about Armaiti.” Even as she said these words, she came to a conclusion: Iqbal’s reaction would determine whether she would leave or stay. Yes, three days before she was to leave for the airport, she was still ready to shut that door, to live out the rest of her days in this bed, with this man. But she had to believe that there was a reason to stay.
She waited. For him to respond. For the course of her destiny to be decided by what he said.
“No use thinking about sad things, Zoha,” he finally said and she felt disappointment fall and settle like soot on her skin.
“How come you never slip and call me Nishta?” she said inanely, to prevent him from hearing what her body was screaming—You failed. I gave you a chance and you failed.
“We’re going to talk about your name in the middle of the night?” he asked mildly, and when she didn’t respond, he added, “I have to work tomorrow. Try to sleep.”
Her mouth puckered, as if she’d tasted something sour. She blinked back her tears as she realized that Iqbal was settling back into sleep, unaware of the agitation she was feeling. She waited long enough to steady her voice, and then she said, “Don’t you care about Armaiti at all? Do you never think about the old days?”
He let out an exasperated hiss. “Woman. You don’t have to get up each morning and take two trains just to reach work. So you can lie in bed and indulge in nostalgia. But some of us have mouths to feed. Now, what is it you want me to say?”
Was that suspicion she heard in his voice? Had she given something away? “Nothing,” she said hastily. “Nothing I want you to say. It’s just that—”
“You want me to say that I’m sorry about Armaiti? Someone I haven’t talked to in donkey’s years? Someone who moved to America and married a rich, fat American? Who has had a nice, cushy life and has never had to get up early and catch two trains to get to work? Let me tell you something, Zoha. If I’m to shed a tear, it won’t be for people like Armaiti. If I’m going to cry, I’ll cry for Umar. You remember Umar? Attends our mosque, works at the post office. Lung cancer at thirty-four. And still he delivers the post, walking around the streets of this filthy, polluted city. Why? Because his salary supports seven people. I’ll cry for him before I’ll cry for Armaiti.”
Nishta trembled from the bitterness she heard in Iqbal’s voice. “But she’s our friend,” she cried. “You yourself used to say that Armaiti was the sweetest person in college. Remember how she used to—?”
“This world is full of kind people, Zoha,” Iqbal said. “But kind people didn’t stop me from losing my job at the bank. Kind people didn’t stop the genocide in Gujarat. And they won’t keep Umar alive. And I must say, I’m surprised at your definition of friend. Someone who didn’t care to contact you for over twenty-five years, who suddenly decides she must see you again before she passes away—that’s a friend?”
“That’s unfair.” Nishta dug her fingernails into her hand to focus her anger. “We are the ones who pulled away from them. You began to act so peculiarly around our friends that it was easier for me to stay away rather than to make excuses for you all the time.”
Iqbal was silent for so long that she wondered if she’d gone too far, but when he spoke his voice was distant and mild. “You’ve let one visit from the past turn your head, Zoha. You’re still a child, beguiled by candy at the fair. These rich people, they’re like cotton candy—sweet, but spun out of air.” He yawned and turned on his side. “Your place is here, Zoha—with your husband and your in-laws. Now go to bed and let me sleep for a few hours in peace. Please.”
He rolled on his side, his back to her and she listened in astonishment as Iqbal fell into his regular breathing in just a few moments. His hous
e is on fire, his wife is burning next to him and he sleeps, she thought with wonder. Because his pitiless words had singed her, had made the last of her illusions go up in smoke. She wondered now why she had felt so tenderly toward him just a few moments ago, what had made her give him another chance. This emotional seesawing is the reason why you’ve spent all these years in hell, she scolded herself. You’re like a dog that whimpers when kicked and then wags his tail each time his master pets him absentmindedly.
She turned her face on the pillow to look at Iqbal’s bare back. She had an urge to run her fingernails down that smooth back, to draw blood, to shock him out of the mask of complacency that he wore. And then she thought: He’s no longer my responsibility, my work-in-progress. For the first time, she saw Iqbal as separate from her, unlinked, unrelated, an individual whose smiles, frowns, moodiness, laughter, sexual urges, illnesses, religious beliefs, were none of her business. She blinked her eyes in surprise at the revelation, and as she did, she felt Iqbal receding from her, saw the distance between their two bodies grow.
She had never understood the custom of a Muslim man being able to divorce his wife by merely repeating the word “talaq” three times:Talaq, talaq, talaq. I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you. It had always appeared too simple, too easy, like a child’s recitation of a magical incantation. Now she understood something: that the words were merely an outward expression, a delayed airing of an emotional process that had already taken place. That indifference was the true divorce. After that, it was just words. After that, it was merely action.
So she didn’t bother saying those severing words to her husband’s sleeping back. Mumtaz was right. The departure for America had already happened. Now, Inshallah, there only remained the task of getting her corporeal body there.
Two o’clock and here he was, at the window seat in their living room, staring out at the dark waters of the sea and the blinking neon lights in the distance. He’d gotten out of bed a half hour ago, afraid of waking Laleh up because of his restless tossing and turning. The house was peaceful at this hour, the children safe in their bedrooms, his wife sleeping silently in theirs. Everything I love in this world is here, within my reach, Adish thought, and a soft joy came over him. But the next second, the dread that had woken him out of a deep sleep punctured his contentment.
He had woken up a half hour ago thinking about the hours and days after Nishta would leave on a plane with his wife and Kavita. Was there a way to keep Iqbal from ever finding out their involvement in getting Nishta out of the house? Probably not. So he had to figure out what Iqbal’s reaction would be when he found out that he had betrayed him. Broken a promise he had made, after having looked him straight in the eye when he made it. What would Iqbal do? How far would he go to restore his sense of honor, to avenge the betrayal? That was the question he needed to answer: How far would Iqbal go? Adish thought over the possibilities. A cursory Internet search by Iqbal would reveal the name and location of Adish’s business. A look in the phone book would yield his home address. What if Iqbal showed up here? On an evening when he was not home? When perhaps the children were home alone? What would he do? What if, dear God, what if Ferzin was alone at home?
Adish felt his heart pounding and forced himself to take some deep breaths. He tried to remember all the details of his lunch with Iqbal, sifted through the memory of his talk with Iqbal for any clues that could predict his future behavior. He recalled that Iqbal had done nothing to the pervert who had molested Mumtaz. In the face of that grave an injury, he had kept quiet, been passive, had instead scuttled out of the neighborhood like a bloody mouse. Iqbal had always been a milquetoast, Adish thought, and the white beard couldn’t cover the fact that he had a wobbly, weak chin.
Adish laughed as he realized what he was doing: reducing the threat of Iqbal by emasculating him. Who the hell was brave in the days following the 1993 riots? he asked himself. When all it took was one wrong move, a wrong look or word—hell, if you cleared your throat wrong you could end up dead. And suddenly Adish’s cheeks burned with embarrassment at the rise of a long-buried memory.
South Bombay, where he lived, worked, and played had been mostly immune to the savage hatreds that had gripped much of the city, but upon Lal’s insistence, he had stayed home from work for a few days. But on the fourth day, restless and bored, he had announced that he was going for a short walk. He had left his compound and headed toward the sea, which meant walking past the small slum on the way to the water. As he approached the slum he heard yelling and came upon a group of six men who were beating and kicking a young man who lay writhing in the dirt. He stopped, stunned. The first thing he realized was that the crowd of onlookers who usually congregated during any street fight was missing. In fact, the street was preternaturally calm and empty. Adish recognized a couple of the men, ne’er-do-wells who hung around the neighborhood and ran the occasional errand for him. “Ae!” he shouted out, all the authority of his class in his voice. “Stop. What the hell are you doing?”
They turned at the sound of his voice but their feet kept up their deadly dance. The man on the ground screamed in pain. Adish saw something gleam in the hands of one of the men. It was a knife. Adish saw something glint in all their eyes. It was malice and a kind of insolence he had never seen before. He shivered.
One of the men reluctantly tore himself out of the group and walked up to Adish. “What are you doing here, seth?” he asked dully. “No place for you to be.”
Despite his fear, Adish felt his temper spike. “I’m going to the sea,” he said gesturing. “Is that illegal? Or do you thugs now own the streets, also?”
The man smiled humorlessly. “We own nothing, seth. We poor people. It’s these Muslim dogs who own everything.” He spat on the ground.
Out of the corner of his eye, Adish noticed that the others had stopped beating the man on the ground as they listened to what was transpiring between him and the man who stood in front of him. His hand curled inside his pants pocket to grip his cell phone. Have to phone the police, he thought.
He could tell from the man’s eyes that he had followed the movement of his hand. “Listen,” he began, but the man shook his head.
“No, Parsi seth,” he said. “You listen. This is not your fight. We have nothing against you and your people. You turn around now and go home. Like a good Parsi schoolboy, you go home.”
At this, the rest of the mob began to laugh and jeer. “Go home,” they repeated. “Parsi bawaji,” they teased.
Adish felt his face break out in sweat. Still, he stood his ground, trying to decide what to do next. “Let that man go,” he said feebly, “and I will leave.”
At this his confronter emitted a cry and raised his right hand in a threatening, chopping gesture. “Jao. Get lost. Last chance I’m giving you. Otherwise you will take that insect’s place.”
He had fled. The memory of his retreat made his cheeks burn with shame all these years later. He had not stopped walking until he had reached the safety of his building and then stood leaning against a wall in the lobby until he regained some control over his body. Laleh had looked up with a “Back so soon?” but he had merely shaken his head and muttered an evasive, “Nothing’s stirring, not even a sparrow,” before going into the living room and turning on the television set.
No wonder Iqbal had not confronted Mumtaz’s molester, Adish now thought. That alone predicted nothing. Well, they would just have to be careful for a few days after Nishta left. He’d talk to all the security guards in the building, warn them to screen any man who fit Iqbal’s description. And then, after a few days, he’d pay Iqbal a visit. See if he could reason with him. When Laleh returned without Nishta, they would pretend to be shocked by her perfidy. Later, he could even offer Iqbal a job in one of his many companies, take him into the folds of his business empire. Double his salary. He could help Iqbal, he really could.
As for Nishta, God knows what was going to happen to her. This was something he’d tried to say to Lal
eh—that just because Nishta had decided not to return to India with the other two, didn’t mean that she could stay. Richard had apparently told Armaiti that he would make sure that Nishta was safe, but what the hell did that mean? Armaiti, he had no doubt, would’ve moved heaven and earth to help Nishta. But Armaiti was fighting a monster illness. She would be in no position to help. Which meant they had to believe Richard, and how well did any of them know him?
Adish rubbed his forehead. He tried to calm the machine-gun thoughts firing in his head. He opened the sliding glass window a little bit more and breathed in the warm night air. As he shifted on the marble seat he felt a movement behind him. It was a rumpled-looking Ferzin. “Hi, Dad,” she said. “I got up to get a glass of water. Why are you sitting here in the middle of the night?”
“Couldn’t sleep, beta. Just thinking.”
Ferzin sat down next to him, and he was suddenly very glad for the company. “What about?” she said.
He hesitated, unsure of how much to share with her. The children had been involved in their feverish plans to get Nishta out of the house and to the airport, had overheard many of their phone conversations with Mumtaz. “You know, just about the upcoming trip,” he said vaguely.
Ferzin frowned. “You mean about Nishta auntie?”
“Yes. Among other things.”
“How will Iqbal uncle react when he finds her gone?”
Adish looked at his daughter with relief. At least one other member of his family had the smarts to worry about this. Laleh, he knew, was treating this as some kind of game. No, that wasn’t it exactly; it was that she had been more energized by plotting Nishta’s escape than she had been by anything since their college days. The Laleh of the last two weeks had reminded him of the old Laleh—tireless, indefatigable, driven. Except that instead of planning a student demonstration she was planning the rest of Nishta’s life. And she did not seem to realize how immeasurably higher the stakes were. If she had fretted for a second about Iqbal’s reaction, she had never mentioned it.
The World We Found Page 19
