by Antani, Jay
The course ended with an exam, which I passed, and on my way out, I picked up my certificate from the instructor. She was still sweet and pleasant but looked worn-out after almost two months of vocabulary drills, conversation exercises, pop quizzes.
I asked her if she planned to keep teaching at the Alliance. “No, this was it,” she said with a warm, pert smile. “I’m getting married in the winter, and he is French.” She and her fiancé had met while she was living in Paris the previous year.
“Congratulations,” I said. A chorus of congratulations and surprised “wows” erupted among the few others lingering in the classroom.
“So,” she took a deep breath, “I’ll wrap up here. Visit my family in Delhi for a few weeks. Then push off.” She smiled modestly, casting her eyes about the room, lost in thought. She handed out the certificates, exchanging goodbyes with her students, calm and cordial, but I could tell there was an eagerness in her heart, a happiness radiating from her center, just waiting to burst. I basked in it and could feel her joy for days afterward.
* *
Letters from Nate and Karl arrived. They were indeed, as Shannon reported, working on a script—a spy comedy. Karl was quite serious about it, but for Nate, it was a lark. Otherwise, he was spending his summer the way he’d spent his past several summers—painting houses. He planned to rake in as much cash as possible before moving into his dorm in August.
Madison was roasting through a drought, Nate wrote. “I don’t think we’ve had weather like this since the dustbowl days, and it’s making the housepainting a real bitch!” Nate mentioned his fathers’ yellowing lawn, the withering golf courses, and the refuge of the swimming pool and the multiplex. With the letter, he sent a clipping from Rolling Stone about R.E.M.’s next record, coming out on Election Day in November, and an article about Michelle Pfeiffer from The New York Times (Nate was a fan of hers and thought I was too). “I hope you’re hanging in there, Vik,” he wrote, “We could use some of that rain you’re getting! Take comfort: new R.E.M. in only three months! Oh, I ran into Shannon on campus a couple of times now. I think she really misses you.”
I folded the letter away and, except for the news about a new R.E.M. record, felt only emptiness, a sense that the letter was a friendly but ultimately perfunctory gesture. It shocked me how little Nate’s words resonated with me. I remembered high-school lunch hours and weekend movies, an inside gag between us, a joke, the butt of which always happened to be the person tagging along with us (Karl, usually). Raucous and innocent times whose end had come too early. I felt I wanted to share in the summer with him, share in whatever bounty the summer reaped. Yet I felt no kinship in these lines. Is this what distance felt like?
Karl’s letter was typed and mentioned various writing projects besides the script—including a play and a novel—that he was taking stabs at. (“Since your leaving, Vik, I’m feeling less confident, less inspired, and it doesn’t help that Nate doesn’t feel as committed about the script as I do. I’d hate for the summer to end without finishing something.”) He tentatively mentioned a girl, Bridget, whom he had met just before high-school graduation: “We saw the new Louis Malle at the Majestic and some Buster Keaton shorts at the Civic Center the same week” and so forth. They had joined the programming committee of the campus film society together. He was expressing what I thought was a crush, though Karl would never admit to such vulnerability. He was never much for girlfriends. But then he admitted it. “I really like her. I don’t know how else to put it. I mean, romantically,” followed by his characteristic back-pedaling: “It’s too early for words like ‘romance,’ and I would never presume.”
Then he said:
I’ll be honest: I don’t know how to approach this subject of your life in India. It’s beyond me. You’re going through changes I can’t imagine. I’ll need your help. Tell me how I can help you, Vik. We never got a chance to have a heart-to-heart before you left; that’s fine, I know you wanted to spend as much time as you could with Shannon. Maybe these letters will help patch up the lost time.
People will tell you that they care about you, and they want to hear from you. But people go on with their lives and just as soon forget. Know one thing: I’m not going anywhere.
I took the letter out to the balcony, the rain now settling, running off the eaves from the gutters, splattering onto the muddy drive. I read the letter over again. For the first time since I left, I felt the possibility of connection.
I’m not going anywhere.
It brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t help it.
10
Anand’s school, the Gujarat Law Society Secondary, was just a couple of miles farther down the road from St. Xavier’s. He asked if I could pick him up after school so he wouldn’t have to sit through the long rickshaw ride and wait as the driver dropped off students ahead of him on the route. I didn’t mind doing it; it gave me extra time to tool around, to be on my own before setting off for home, and to see another stretch of the neighborhood.
So after finishing up my classes, I swung by on the Luna to pick him up. The road took me past the newer apartment high-rises. Their ground floors were taken up with shopping complexes—Xerox stores, photomats, medical clinics, and video stores. Each had a small plot of paved space where scooters huddled together. It was a far cry from the anarchic dilapidation I saw elsewhere in Ahmedabad and refreshing whenever I would see a sign, the faintest glimmer, of urban planning in this chaotic place.
I pulled up alongside a row of rickshaws and cars waiting in front of the school—a whitewashed cement monolith of a structure. Seconds after the bell, a flood of uniformed students poured out of every door, rushing toward the gates. Almost simultaneously, every vehicle outside the school building roared to life.
Out of the swirling sea of black hair, white shirts, and canvas book bags, Anand emerged, gabbing with classmates. He proceeded from the gate and waved good-bye to two boys—one a thin, large-browed specimen with buckteeth, the other a thatch-haired roly-poly—who both climbed aboard a rickshaw.
“Mayank’s dad’s getting him a Nintendo,” Anand informed me glumly. “Lucky duck.”
“That the fat kid or the skinny one?”
“The skinny one.”
I cranked the pedal of the Luna, got its motor revved up, and climbed on. Anand propped himself on the seat behind me—the Luna had a banana seat with room for two small-to-average humans—and I pulled away into the dusty crosscurrents of students and vehicles.
“Want to stop by the paan shop and rent a video?” I asked.
Anand mentioned that his (fat) friend Jyoti really enjoyed the last Schwarzenegger movie.
“Red Heat?” I scowled. “But that just came out in theaters.”
“They got it on video here already,” Anand said.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m going to pass.”
Indeed, Red Heat was the last movie I had seen in America. Nate had suggested it, a week before my move date, insisting we would get a kick out it. So, off we went—Nate, Karl, and I—in Nate’s beat-up VW Rabbit in search of entertainment and air-conditioning, to an afternoon show at Point Cinema.
It was a waste of two hours. Two hours gouged clean from my last days in America. As we staggered out into the stun of daylight, I worried it would be the last Hollywood movie I would see for a long, indefinitely long time.
We returned to the car, pissed off at Nate, Nate pissed off at himself, and all three of us confused as to how best to redeem our time. So we went to Vitense on Whitney Way and played its rinky-dink nine-hole course. We rented irons and putters, no bags, and smacked beat-up golf balls along the drought-ridden fairways. We played dismally, but we didn’t care; mostly, we made jokes about people we knew in school and mocked Nate as he hacked at the ball, digging ruts in the earth.
As we finished up our game, Nate and Karl began discussing their fall plans. Karl was considering a production assistant job at the public TV station that had its studio in the university’s fi
lm department.
“I hear they’re looking for more hands,” he said. “So, who knows, it could lead to something. It’ll be good to get some production experience.”
“I prefer to work tax-free,” Nate said and spoke excitedly of how much money he would be raking in before the semester began.
“I’ve got seven painting gigs lined up between now and August,” he said. “Drought season is bad for the golf business but great for the housepainting business.”
We left Vitense and got back into Nate’s car. Karl complained, as always, about the legroom. He felt—and looked—like a human accordion, there in the front seat.
“I should be flush by the time summer’s over,” Nate said. “After that,” he held out his palm for emphasis, “don’t talk to me about work.”
“What about you, Vik?” Karl asked. “You got any idea where you’ll be going to school out there?”
“Yeah, what’s the deal, Vik? You haven’t said anything.”
I hated answering questions about India. I kept myself in the dark about the details, half out of anger, half out of fear.
“Every place has a college, right? There’s got to be like a … a … Calcutta Tech or something,” Nate said.
That got Karl laughing.
“I mean you gotta be able to major in, like, snake charming or sitar or whatever.” Nate smiled, unaffected, serene at the wheel, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.
“One thing I hate is an ignorant asshole,” I snapped.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Karl said.
“I didn’t mean anything,” Nate said, laughing under his breath. “Just asking.”
“Yeah, Vik, he was just goofing around.”
I didn’t say anything for a while, just stared out the window. “I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know a fucking thing.”
Silence hung in the car as stifling as the heat. The Rabbit had no air-conditioning. After a minute of nothing but the noise of the hatchback whining along Whitney Way, the sun daggering into our eyes, Nate spoke up.
“Vik,” his tone was solemn now, “do you want me to drop you off at Shannon’s?”
I thought about that, checked my watch. Six p.m. My parents would want me home for dinner and possibly to help with any last-minute packing. I’d been gone all day. Perhaps after I put in my quota of time at the house, I could sneak out and see her. But I doubted it.
“Vik,” I could hear my mother’s voice, “there’s so much to do. You can’t spend one night at home?” And I could see my father rooting about the suitcases in the living room, urgently shouting questions that my mother complained she couldn’t hear, barely bothering to look at me as I walked in. Their disapproval weighed on my chest. And I dreaded entering the house, dreaded that feeling of my heart caving in. Shannon already seemed a universe away.
“Just drop me off at home,” I said.
* *
Anand and I decided to skip renting a video at the paan shop and go straight home. He said he had the tutor that afternoon. Every other day, a language tutor showed up to help Anand out with his Gujarati, Sanskrit, and Hindi lessons.
“How’s that going?” I asked as we sped toward home.
“I already don’t need him,” Anand said, complaining how the tutor was wasting his time with lessons that didn’t challenge him, covering things he’d already gone over on his own weeks ago.
“I’m sure you don’t.” Anand was really fitting in beautifully here, and it made me feel suddenly and momentarily alone.
We pulled through the gate and swung around the path to the front door. The anxiousness always hit me at this point, as I steered the moped toward the door. My eyes not wanting to, but compelled to, check for any sign of an envelope in the mailbox. A hint of an envelope was like discovering treasure.
There it was. A letter. A corner of it visible like a miracle shining through four square inches of clear plastic. It was a substantial envelope. From Shannon. I hadn’t heard from her in weeks. She owed me a letter. No, two letters. I had waited and waited.
I plucked it out of the mailbox and wanted to rush upstairs into our place, into my room, fling my backpack off and float away in the river of her words. But I dared not seem too excited. That would only make me feel vulnerable. Compose yourself, Vikram, and walk quietly upstairs with your brother. Easy does it.
My mother opened the door. She looked tired, her eyes sleepless, told us lunch was ready on the stove, to help ourselves. She said she was going to lie down. Anand began serving himself—the usual rotis, dal, vegetables. I forgot my appetite and tore into the letter instead.
* *
September 3, 1988
Dear Vik,
I could say I’ve been too busy to write the past few weeks, but that wouldn’t be a fair excuse to either of us. I’ve let two of your letters go by unanswered, not because it’s been nuts around here (which it has!), but I’ve been struggling with myself to actually say what I think I need to. In short—you were right. It just took me three months to let it sink in. Life’s just pulling us in crazy new directions—you don’t know where you’re going to be—India, here, wherever, or for how long. Our relationship’s been great, but what we had was also brief and not as intense as it might have gotten had you stayed. Given that, I don’t think it’s right that we emotionally tie each other down. This is not to say I don’t care about you—I really do—or that we shouldn’t keep in touch. I just don’t think it’s fair that we expect anything more from each other than distance would dictate (as harsh as that sounds). So there it is. It hurts to write these words (but you were always one for the direct approach, so I’m following your lead!). (I’m glad my roommate isn’t here right now to see me crying …) I know you’ve been struggling. I can feel it in every line of your letters, and I want us to be there for each other, but as friends. I wanted to clear the air with this letter, take the weight off all that’s been hanging between us since you left. I doubt any of this surprises you, Vik. They’re pretty much the words you said to me the night before you left …
I skimmed the rest of her letter, a long ramble about life at her dormitory, her new classes, her show getting extended another two weeks, how excited she was to be auditioning for more shows in the fall. I folded the letter and tucked it neatly back in the envelope.
A lizard, like an elongated green gummy bear, had attached itself high on the wall. It raised itself on its webbed front feet, darting its head up and down, and a sliver of tongue shot in and out. What a vile creature!
It was true: Shannon was repeating back to me the very words I’d once said to her. It was like hearing radio-wave feedback from outer space, a final signing-off before all was lost to static, silence, a severing before the eternal drift.
I grabbed a rolled-up Times of India off my desk and began thumping it against the wall in an effort to guide the lizard toward the window. It didn’t budge. I fanned at it. No response. Finally, I folded the newspaper up into a sturdy square, got up on the bed, and took a swipe at it. The lizard dropped from the wall, straight onto my head, and scrabbled off of me. I panicked, dropped myself onto the bed, waving madly at the air, before I caught sight of the lizard skittering across the floor, escaping through the slit under the balcony door.
“Damn thing!”
My mother appeared at the door. “My god! Look at you. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I exhaled. “It was nothing.” I patted at my hair, swatted at my shirt, and tried to shake off my jitters. I hated lizards. And snakes. And frogs. And grasshoppers.
“I am leaving,” my mother said. “I have appointment. But I’ll be back before dinner.”
“Are you all right?” I asked vaguely, noticing she was carrying her purse and had her sunglasses pulled over her head.
My mother moved off into the hallway. “Could be too much sun. I’ll be back before your father comes home.” Then I heard the bolt of the front door slide open and, a moment later, the echoing of the door as it shut.
* *
I wrote a short letter back to Shannon saying, of course, I understood everything. She’s got her life. And she should in no way feel “emotionally obligated” to whatever it was we had. No need to and for the very reasons she had cited, etc. And that was it.
Only later that week, while I was at my desk prepping for midterms did I think of her, the losing of her. I felt my chest cave in at the thought of it. Dropping my notes, I went out to the balcony to collect myself. I had tried so hard to keep my feelings to a minimum, telling myself things had ended exactly the way I knew they would and the only way they could.
It was all as I’d predicted. But just because you predicted something would happen didn’t make it any easier when it actually did.
On my way back from posting my letter, I resolved not to write to Shannon anymore. We both needed to move on. But she must’ve been much farther down that road than I was, because I never got a letter from her again.
Still, I couldn’t help stealing a glance in the mailbox whenever I pulled up on the Luna, home after my classes. Now and then, a letter would arrive—from Karl usually, though once or twice from Nate too. But more often than not, my hopes soured instantly because the mailbox would be empty. And my thoughts would darken into bitterness as I stomped up the stairwell, resigned to the long afternoon ahead.
The afternoons themselves blurred into a cloud of doldrums that spread over the rest of the monsoon and into October. I would leave college, pick up Anand, and head home where my mother would have lunch ready. The morning help would have finished the housework by then and be long gone; on the balcony, I would find the laundry drying on the lines, and the floors would always look swept and washed.
Sometimes, Anand and I would walk over to the paan shop tucked into a corner of the dusty shopping plaza across the road from our bungalow. The front of the counter was papered with Hindi movie posters splashed with sweaty and vengeful heroes glowering alongside honey-skinned, almond-eyed heroines whose crimson mouths were always parted in romantic rapture. From the counter, we could scan the shelves that lined three sides of the tiny shop. The labels were in various states of decomposition, and the tapes, some of them in cases, some not, looked in about the same drab shape. If it wasn’t a Hindi movie, it was a pirated Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee or some random Hollywood fare. We had watched The Dirty Dozen, The Untouchables, Where Eagles Dare, and The Great Escape several times each by October out of a craving for American entertainment, a wisp of the culture to breathe in. Mostly, though, with homework and exams, we each retired to our respective corner of the room, our attentions on our books.
