The Leaving of Things

by Antani, Jay

  * *

  When the train arrived at the station platform, Kamala Auntie was sniffing back tears. Hemant Uncle stood, his hands in his pockets, composed enough for both of them. I touched his feet then Kamala Auntie’s, hugged them both.

  “Vikram bhai,” Anjali said, pushing in between Kamala Auntie and Hemant Uncle, “send me all pictures, okay?” Her tone was as direct and authoritative as ever. “I am curious to see how you’re doing.”

  “You got it,” I said.

  “And what else?” Kamala Auntie said as if prodding her.

  Anjali turned away, her eyes on the floor. In a hushed voice, she muttered something, stopped, tried again. Finally, she gave up, came forward and threw her arms around me. No one had ever hugged me like that before—doing away with words because the act of embracing meant so much more.

  I pressed her close and told her we would see each other again soon. She nodded and wiped at her eyes.

  “And I don’t hate it here at all,” I told her. “How else would I have met you?”

  27

  The monsoon winds had swept away the remaining days of summer break. Classes had started up again at Xavier’s, and I was a couple of weeks away from leaving. Letters from Karl arrived, ecstatic about my return. He offered the spare bedroom at his parents’ place on the west side of town till he and I found a place on campus later that summer. I promptly accepted. Nate wrote too, a rambling and profane recap of his past year. He said he needed to buckle down this sophomore year and really hit the books. With the letter, he sent along two short comedy scripts that he and Karl had managed to crank out for shooting that summer, said he was glad I’d be home soon to join their collaborations. Nate also mentioned he’d begun fooling around with his roommate’s girlfriend, Debra, and couldn’t decide what to do about it. He felt awful, he said, just awful: he liked his roommate just that much. But Debra was game and far too cute to turn down. What to do? It seemed an appropriate predicament for Nate.

  That week, through a colleague at work, my father tracked down a lab in Bombay that could process the 16mm film rolls. We booked a train ticket for two days in advance of my flight so I could get them processed and avoid the risk of the airport’s X-ray scanners ruining undeveloped film.

  * *

  “You’re all set then,” Anand said, home from his first day back to school and seeing the pair of suitcases lying open on the cot. He set his backpack on the desk and slung his water flask behind the chair.

  “How was ninth standard?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Both Mayank and Joyti are in my class, so that’s something.” His eyes scanned the contents of the suitcases.

  My mother came in, arms loaded with blankets and a full-to-bursting plastic shopping bag. She set everything down on the suitcase. The bag’s contents—metal canisters—all tumbled onto the bed.

  “Not all that stuff,” I said. “That’s way too much.”

  “Just snacks,” she said, pointing out the canisters one by one. “I have chakris in one, ladoos, and few burfis in this, and in this, I have khari puris. You like those. Have with yogurt.”

  I argued with her that I was running out of room, but she said she wouldn’t stand for my not having a few Indian snacks with me.

  “And this,” I said, lifting a light, paisley-patterned blanket and another of coarse, dark-brown wool off the suitcase. “I can’t weigh my stuff down with blankets.”

  My mother became solemn. “This wool blanket kept us warm our first winters in New York, remember? They were a gift from your grandfather. So we thought you should have now.” It felt thick and heavy in my arms, and a memory flickered back: that first year in America, when we all slept together in the big bed with this wool blanket spread out over us. “And this thin one,” she said, drawing the paisley-patterned blanket from my arms, “I bought when you were few years old. I put you to sleep on it.” She shrugged. “It was only sentiment, anyway. It’s okay. You can leave it.”

  “No way,” I said. “It’s going. It’s all going.”

  I began reshuffling my clothes and shoes to make room for the new items.

  “Hey,” Anand said, sounding tentative, “since you’ll be able to get all the R.E.M. and U2 and Police records over there, you think I could, you know, hold on to a few tapes?”

  From the desk drawer, I pulled out the shoebox in which I stored all my music—a few dozen or so cassettes, all the U2, Police, and R.E.M., plus the bootlegs, along with my Camper Van Beethoven, Midnight Oil, The Clash and music that Karl or Nate or Shannon had dubbed for me at one time or another. The music had been a good companion this year. I passed the box to Anand.

  “I can keep all these?” he asked, brightening.

  “I might take two or three to keep me company, but the rest are yours. And I’ll send you more stuff as I get it.” I nodded toward the canisters of chakris and khari puris and Indian sweets bulging out of the plastic bag, “Besides, I couldn’t fit in one more thing even if I wanted to.”

  * *

  Dear Vikram,

  I got your address in Ahmedabad from Pradeep. He tells me you’re heading for the States soon, so I wanted to be sure to get this to you before you left. As you can tell from my address on the envelope, I’m far away from you right now but apparently not for long.

  As you probably know, things didn’t go quite as planned last New Year’s with the proposed wedding and all. My father wasn’t happy, of course, and I don’t think he’s a hundred percent over it. A part of him, I’m sure, still thinks I’ll “wise up” and marry this glorified stockbroker he arranged for me. Apparently, he talked the guy into holding out a bit longer.

  Also, rest assured it wasn’t because of you, or what happened between us, that made me break my engagement. I know my father just wanted the best for me, and it’s true it would’ve been a perfectly comfortable life with this man who was smart, successful, and, okay, even handsome. But two nights before the wedding, I guess I snapped! I couldn’t go through with it and ditched the engagement dinner. It wasn’t easy, not easy to run out on everyone like that, especially after all the expense and the trouble my whole family had made to be there (yeah, even my cousins in Boston). But I think, finally, I was more afraid of what my life would become if I let this happen. How long do you let other people, no matter who they are or how much they love you, live your life? I was afraid it would start being one regret piled on top of another. Anyway, it was really difficult for a few weeks, and I just couldn’t be there anymore, in that house.

  I left India, and it hasn’t been easy being so far from my sister, my mom, and, yeah, even my dad (who thinks this is just an extended holiday for me, before I come to my senses… He’ll come around. He’ll have to). So, Vik, I’ve made good on my American passport—as you hinted I should all along—and I’m staying at my cousins’ place outside Boston for now. So it was a rough last few months, but I’m glad to put it behind me and make plans for myself. I’m moving to NYC in August. I start up at Hunter College in the fall.

  I am so, so excited for you. Pradeep wrote that you even got a scholarship and everything. Congratulations! Write me and give me your new address after you land.

  Can’t wait to hear from you. Here’s hoping our paths cross again …

  Priya

  * *

  The driver of my father’s company Ambassador insisted on loading the suitcases into the car himself. As thin as he was, he handled the bags so adroitly, it amazed me. He shut the trunk, took his seat again behind the wheel and waited. Anand came downstairs, carrying a gold plate. In the center of the plate sat a tiny copper diya in which a cotton wick daubed with ghee produced a flickering flame.

  “Okay,” my mother said, coming forward in a crisp blue sari, holding two copper bowls in her hands. With a tiny spoon, she scooped out a dollop of yogurt from the first bowl, emptied it into my palm, and from the second bowl, came a spoonful of sugar grains. She sprinkled the sugar over the yogurt, and I tipped the confection into my m
outh. She turned to Anand and took the plate from him. In front of the glowing diya was a tiny gold Ganesha and, at its feet, a coin-sized mound of vermillion powder and a scattering of rice grains. Looking closer, I saw engravings along the rim of the plate, interwoven strands with figurative leaves. She must’ve sensed my curiosity about it.

  “This was marriage gift,” she told me. “From my mother.”

  She took a pinch of vermillion from the plate and daubed my forehead with it to make a thin streak between my eyebrows. She picked up a few rice grains from the plate and sprinkled them over my head. Then she held the plate before me and made three circles with it, chanting a few Sanskrit words under her breath. “Good,” she said, “you are free to go.”

  I touched her feet and hugged her. Tears appeared in her eyes, and she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. I knew that if I thought too much about what was happening, I would break down into a heap of sobbing myself. It was important now to stay on task. Get in the car, I thought to myself, get on the train, and you’ll be all right.

  “I will see you in two days,” my father told my mother. They spoke together closely, and I walked over to Anand, standing against the doorframe, and gave him a hug.

  “I’ll see you …” he began. “I don’t know …”

  “Soon,” I said. “Before that, you’ll be in a new house. And a whole new life.”

  Anand took a deep breath. “I thought we’d all go back together,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to say. Neither of us spoke for a few seconds before Anand added, “We’re all breaking apart.”

  That moment, I felt horrible for making Anand feel that way. Since I was seven and Anand was two, the world had been pulling us in every direction, year after year. Yet we’d remained whole, always together. Now I was going away. Were we really breaking apart?

  I looked at my parents, still in conversation.

  “You know what’s weird?” I said, turning to Anand. “All that time we were moving around, different schools every year, I felt alone. Like it was me against the world. You remember.”

  Anand nodded thoughtfully and took a deep breath.

  “But this doesn’t feel the same. I’m leaving, and I’ll be thousands of miles away. But I feel closer to this family than ever.”

  Anand turned his eyes toward me. “Think I’ll be okay?”

  “I know you will.” I told him to write me often, about anything and everything, and I would do the same.

  My mother approached with the plate in her hands. I asked her if she had a Ganesha I could take with me. Her jaw fell open, and she looked at me in shock. “You want to take Ganesh with you? I never would have thought.”

  “Are you kidding? The Remover of Obstacles. I could use all the help I can get.”

  She gave me the Ganesha idol from the plate. It was about as big as my thumb, its gold enameling scuffed here and there over the years. “Keep Ganapati close to you at all times,” she said, “and say your Gayatri Mantra everyday.”

  “Promise,” I said. The Ganesha and the Gayatri Mantra were the assurances I needed, the tethering to my history, to what I was and to the people who would keep me strong.

  * *

  When you leave, you leave everything. Not just your brother, your mother, your father, uncle, aunt, and cousin—you leave everything. You leave the light in your room, you leave the tiles of the floor you walked on from your desk to the balcony. You leave the sound of running water as the cleaning girl washed your clothes. You leave peacocks in the courtyard swaying in the shade, the sandalwood and jasmine and coconut oil anointing the air of the college corridors, the play of wind from summer to monsoon to winter and back to summer. You leave the rain. You leave Pradeep and Devasia, arguments, conversation, notes recorded into a tape recorder. You leave Vinod to his choices, Pradeep to his songs, and Devasia to his sureness of purpose. You leave the hallways of students you avoided out of shyness. You leave the aromas of snacks at a vendor’s stall on C.G. Road, the route you walked to and from the dairy counter, the barbershop while the afternoon sun silenced everything but the caw of blackbirds. You leave the renewing scent of the wash hanging on the line, sunlight slanting through saris and the squares of balusters. You leave the bed where you sought retreat from disaster, the desk where you read and wrote the most important words of your life, and where you listened to the music that set the rhythm for your own dance of negotiation with the bracing, beckoning world.

  How could it ever be that way again? By what trick could I bring it all back? And if I could have it back, it wouldn’t be the same anyway. Because the discoveries would already have been made. What you leave behind had its time and purpose, and, like all of life, goes the way of memory, lessons learned, sentiment, and history.

  I tell myself you had to leave. It could never be again.

  28

  June 30, 1989

  I can’t sleep. The silence in this house is deeper than I’m used to. This room, the spare bedroom at Karl’s parents’ place, smells of paint and furniture finish. There’s a scratched-up walnut dresser in which I’ve put my things, a small color TV with cable on a chrome stand, and the twin bed on which I’ve spread the blankets my mother gave me. This mattress is so soft, it gives under my weight, like I’m on a cloud, and I remember now how soft the beds in America are. My old mattress in India, that was like an army cot compared to this, and this is just a modest, old mattress by American standards. Still, I can’t sleep.

  I miss the nighttime roar and buzz of Navarangpura traffic, out past our balcony doors. I get out of bed and step across the hardwood floor to the window. A streetlamp up on Midvale Boulevard pools light over an empty section of road. So quiet, still, vacant. I can’t believe I’m back. It’s been two days. Already tomorrow afternoon in Ahmedabad: Anand’s back from school, doing his homework now or playing his video games. My mother, what must she be doing? Cooking? The rotis on the teva and vegetables in the wok. I can smell the food. The pillowy rotis on which my mother pours on the ghee with quick, delicate turns of a spoon. Is my father finishing out his day at work? Chatting with a colleague in the corridor about particle theory or the price of land in Gandhinagar?

  From O’Hare, I took the Van Galder back to Madison, a three-hour drive through farm country scoured clean by early summer rains. I kept my headphones on, listening to an R.E.M. mix—the music back on its home ground now—and felt relieved to see the fields thriving again. This summer was spared last summer’s drought. Karl picked me up at the Memorial Union, and we drove here to his parents’ house. His parents welcomed me heartily, with the courtesy and generosity of Old World Wisconsin settlers, and asked how I was, what it was all like, and told me to make myself at home.

  When Karl offered me a glass of water, I noticed how he filled it from the tap—the water flowing clean and clear from the faucet. No boiling, filtering, refrigeration needed. When I drank the water, I felt guilty somehow, and I realized how much I missed India. It was like I’d rejected a poor lover in favor of a wealthier one. I felt sick about it as I drank.

  Karl and I sat around the first afternoon drinking Coca-Colas and watching TV—so many channels, it left me shaking my head, stunned—and we caught up on everything. He made us grilled cheese sandwiches, which I tried to eat, but after twenty-four hours of airline travel, I had no appetite. My gut felt like a cinder block. After a while, I did ask him about Shannon, but Karl said he hadn’t seen her since running into her on campus the previous summer. He heard she transferred to an acting program out East. But he wasn’t sure. I left it at that. He did tell me that the offer of a part-time job at WHA was still on the table if I wanted it and handed me an application.

  Now I stand here in the deep quiet, staring out at Midvale Boulevard, watching the occasional car cruise by. I have a meeting with the director of the art department tomorrow. This afternoon, I called the art department to let them know I was here and to see about setting up my fall schedule, get details about the scholars
hip and all that. They told me they’d been waiting to hear from me and patched me through to the director. Talking to him made me nervous—the image of that haughty, imposing Professor Menon at N.I.D. kept running through my mind. But the director sounded warm and cordial, said to drop by the next day after lunch and to bring the rest of my portfolio of photographs and anything else I’d been working on. I said sure.

  But that’s tomorrow. How do I get through tonight?

  I return to the bed, take up the remote control on the nightstand, and switch on the small TV. The room fills with a sickly cathode glow, and I resign to cycling through the channels, round and round, with the volume turned way down, and just watch the miniature spectacle of sitcoms, sports wrap-ups and late, late talk shows till my eyes droop from fatigue and my brain shuts down, if only for a few hours. I doubt I’ll dream.

  * *

  I put the job application that Karl gave me into my backpack, along with a manila envelope of photographs—a few from Delhi, from the old quarters of Ahmedabad and from Bombay. I also bring the three tin cans of film, each developed back in Bombay, as big around as my hand, none of which I’ve looked at yet. Before meeting the director, I’m having lunch with Nate at the Memorial Union.