by Ann Hood
The phone rang. April was closest, so she got up.
“No. He’s not here. DON’T YOU KNOW HE’S BEEN MISSING FOR ALMOST A MONTH?”
“Wow,” said Sussannah. “Sri’s TA again? He hasn’t seen one of those Missing signs?”
The phone rang again. April swiped it up.
“NO. SRI HAS NOT BEEN SEEN FOR OVER A MONTH. HE IS NOT HERE. NOT HERE!”
Again.
“NO, HE IS NOT HERE. NO, THERE IS NO ONE TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT . . . OH YEAH? THEN GO TALK TO THE FEDS.”
“What the—?” said Brent.
The phone rang and rang. Like it was broken, stuck on ring. Like it would never stop ringing unless they took it outside and killed it. Sussannah ran upstairs and grabbed the other extension. “Hello,” she said, her voice overlaying April’s. “WHAT NOW? WHO ARE YOU?”
“This is the Associated Press calling. Is this the residence of Sri Patil?”
“Yes,” Sussannah said automatically. Speechless, she listened. After three minutes, April started yelling again—Sussannah could hear her through both the receiver and her free ear. She hung up the phone, her face pale.
Brent’s eyes widened when he saw her. He looked sick. “Did they find Sri?”
She shook her head. How to choke this out?
“What?” said Brent. “Then what?”
“They think he’s involved in the Boston bombing.”
“What?” Brent’s mouth popped open.
“Because he disappeared, because . . . They’re saying he probably went underground and was plotting all this time, that his whole coming to Brown was just a cover and that—” Sussannah couldn’t think. The media was hinting Sri was Muslim. She was pretty sure he wasn’t. But what if he was? Should that matter?
April was hauling the phone over to Brent, handing him the receiver. “This one’s for you.” Brent’s mouth was still open in shock. When he took the phone, he gargled out, “Hello?” Glancing through the window, Sussannah saw the first news van slide into the parking spot in front of the house, its conical satellite tipped to the air like they would be transmitting to some far-off solar system. She shut the curtain, which April had made out of recycled rice bags.
“Yes . . . um . . . yes, well . . . Um, sure, okay . . . Where? Should I— Oh, okay. Yes, I will.” Brent looked like he might cry.
Now the police wanted to question them.
* * *
They questioned Sri’s family first. Sussannah learned this on TV. Sri’s parents looked like normal American parents. His dad, partial to golf shirts. His mother, pretty with long black hair and wearing a burnt-orange sari. But if she didn’t know them as Sri’s parents, Sussannah wondered if she’d think, Of course his mommy thinks he’s not a terrorist! In these situations, it was standard journalistic practice to find a neighbor to say, “Gee, he was a quiet guy, but I never would have thought that he would . . .”
She noticed, too, they broadcasted a lot more pictures of his mom wearing the sari than his dad in the golf shirt, and they’d also dug up some photo of Sri in traditional garb at a cousin’s wedding in India. He looked so handsome, a garland of flowers around his neck.
Sussannah wanted to scream. There was no way Sri could do something like this. They made it sound like he was some bored Ivy League kid who’d gone underground, become radicalized, and started to kill. How insane was that?
“How can you be so sure?” Sussannah’s mother said. “He’s just a boy in your house.”
He was much more than just a boy in Environmental House.
* * *
“This is doubly insane,” she complained to Brent. “Did you know that Sri’s family is Hindu? Not only vegetarian, they practice ahimsa, respect to all living beings, that’s why Sri can’t even bring himself to kill a bug, much less—”
“Sussannah,” Brent interrupted. “So what’s up?”
“What do you mean, what’s up?”
“You know something, don’t you? About Sri . . .”
She could feel her eyes flashing. “Why would I know something and not tell you, or the police, or anyone? No one wants to find him more than I do.”
“I know. That’s what I’m curious about.”
“There’s nothing to be curious about,” she said.
* * *
The Boston surveillance cameras had picked up images of two young men placing duffle bags on the sidewalk, right where the blasts went off. Sri didn’t wear track suits or baseball caps, a fact the media ignored. But Brent did. And suddenly he became the “second dark-skinned accomplice.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” he said. “My late-spring olive complexion.” On the news, the reporters pronounced his name, the Portuguese Du-ART, as Doo-ar-TAY, as if making him sound Mexican would make him more suspicious.
Sussannah was surprised the phone’s bell hadn’t given out: ring, ring, ring. They couldn’t unplug it, of course, just in case. “Yes, I was in Boston that day,” she heard Brent say on the phone. “I got as far as Wellesley, to pick up my friend—” Sussannah, scribbling on a piece of paper, reminded him that they’d been advised by the Brown lawyers to speak to no one. “Also, I don’t look like the guy in the picture at all—I never wear white sneakers, what is this, the ’90s? Jeesh! And lastly, it’s Patil not Patel. P-A-T-I-L . . .”
Given the resurgence in interest, the Facebook page sprang back to life. There were some terrible trolls making terrible comments, but Sussannah took charge, deleting things before Sri’s parents would see. No new leads, but at least people were thinking about Sri again. They even had a one-inch article in the New York Times.
* * *
“Yes, he did own a cell phone,” she told the detective. She, Marla, and Brent had agreed to be questioned together. The detective assured Brent he was no longer a “person of interest.”
“That day he disappeared,” said Brent, “you’ll note that while we texted him, we also texted Marla in order to actually deliver the message—we didn’t assume he had his phone. And he didn’t.”
“He hated cell phones, thought they irradiated you or something. He would have never spent hours tinkering on some bomb,” added Marla.
“Maybe he wasn’t worried about long-term health consequences anymore,” said the detective, his hair close-cut like the bristles of a brush, like the stereotype of a hard-boiled detective or a slightly cleaned-up Boston cop. Sussannah realized that pretty much anything they said could be twisted around to make Sri sound guilty. The cop probably felt that in their vigorous, clamorous defense of Sri, they must be covering something up.
“Moving on, he spent a lot of time in the Sciences Library,” said the man. “Even though he was an English major.”
“Not English, he was a Literary Arts concentrator—that’s creative writing,” Marla corrected, as if the guy would know, or care. “Really—our friend is missing. You guys should be helping us look for him, not give us the third degree.”
The cop had probably not gone to college, or maybe not a college where you all live together like they did; could he understand the incredible closeness that developed between people like them? The three years they’d spent together—morning, noon, and night—added up to several lifetimes stitched together.
“So he’s a writing major or whatnot, but the interesting thing is he’s in the Sciences Library all the time. And according to this log, in December he spent almost five hours at one stretch, didn’t check out a single book.” Sussannah almost expected him to end with, So whaddaya think of that, huh? Sound like an innocent man to you? Sam Spade style.
“People study in the library too,” said Marla, with enormous reserves of patience. “The SciLi is very quiet and has the best views in town.”
Sussannah remembered, also: “In December, I bet it was because Sri was helping his engineering friends set up their Tetris game.” Using colored Christmas lights, the students had made the grid of windows of the SciLi’s south face into a gigantic Tetris game that you played from the
ground. What did they use as a controller? she wondered. Cell phone? She then decided the Brown lawyers were right: speaking less would be better.
“On the night before he disappeared, he signed in to the Sciences Library at 10:15, left the library at 10:56,” the detective said. “No ID, he signed in manually.” He showed them a slide with Sri’s recognizably teeny writing, Sri Patil 10:15, done in the special pen that could write from any angle, in any weather.
Sri was casual about his ID. Some people bought special holders to carry them around their necks via lanyard. He found that so sheeplike and summer-campish. At best, he put his in his pocket and forgot to take it out of the wash, or he just left it behind and signed in everywhere.
“Again, he didn’t check out any books. And it didn’t correlate with anything else.”
Sussannah stared at him. What was he implying?
“The only thing it even vaguely correlates with is Miss Park.”
She was startled to hear her name.
“You checked into the Sciences Library with him at 10:15 and left at 10:51.”
Sussannah stiffened. She pictured herself swiping with a flourish, maybe giving the attendant a bullish Hello! She’d been so—what?—happy that night. She didn’t look at Brent or Marla. Didn’t want to give anything away. What was there to give away? Was it a crime to go to the SciLi together? No!
“You were the last one to see him, correct?”
“Yes.”
Brent didn’t say anything in front of the detective. She felt grateful for that.
* * *
In fact, Brent didn’t say anything at all after the detective left. Marla did, though.
“Suse, you said dinner was the last time you saw him.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Could she say she’d just somehow spaced on the library meet-up? Or maybe they just happened to go around the same time. One could theoretically be on the stairs (if you walked fast) within sixty seconds. But why spend so much energy making up a lie? What would this new information add? This wasn’t about her—this was about Sri.
“Let me take the fifth—a friend-fifth on that,” she said.
“Self-incrimination,” muttered April. She’d been lurking in the wings the whole time.
* * *
Sri was not the bomber, he was not the bomber. Sussannah tossed and turned. But how well did she know him? she wondered. Could it be possible? Like that guy John Walker Lindh. He was some rich kid from Marin County who could have probably gone to Brown as easily as he’d gone all jihad. Sri did indeed hate the war. Could it be possible that he hated it enough to—
No. Not possible.
* * *
They had only two weeks left of classes. Brent was exhausted by his double concentration in bio and public health. He wanted to be a doctor. “After all, there’s already Dr. in Duarte,” he had joked, back when they used to joke. But he also wondered if he could pursue public health without spending four years and the six figures on an MD. For a few hours a week he shadowed Al, a fourth-year med student who was doing work for immigrants with obesity in North Providence.
Al was sitting at Environmental House’s kitchen table, his short blazer-style Brown University Alpert Medical School white coat flung across a chair, a cold Naragansett beading with condensation in front of him. “Med school is stressful,” he said, nodding toward the beer, his second.
“I promised Al I’d make him Portagee food,” said Brent, covering some pieces of fish in lemon, garlic, and about half a bottle of olive oil. “So you all will get Portagee food as well unless you prefer the Ratty’s Jambalaya-Is-a-Fancy-Word-for-Botulism Nite. Bom apetite!”
Sam brought Vinho Verde, Marla and Sussannah procured a mushroom cloud–shaped sweet bread from the Silver Star. It was like old times, eating, drinking, huddling close, happy just to be with each other. Nothing felt so right, and so forever.
Except. Sussannah could feel them holding back, like someone who never quite draws a full breath. Holding back, saving a little something. Like they’d never laugh as loud and with such abandon as they once did. Like they were each subtracting a little bit of their own life out of respect for Sri.
“April, you want to join us?” Brent did this too, out of respect for Sri. Sri liked everyone, no matter what. Sussannah and Marla tended to be scared of April and impatient in equal measure. But when they were all sitting around the house—eating, drinking, watching TV—if Sri was there, he would invariably reach out to April, with a kindness that made Sussannah’s eyes tear up at the memory.
“Uh, sure,” April said, a bit to their surprise. She paused in front of the table and did her soundless dance, arms akimbo. She backed away two steps, then rushed the table so hard the utensils clattered. She took a bite of food, then pushed away from the table like she was launching a boat (clattering utensils once again) and staggered to her room even though she hadn’t had any Vinho Verde. Within minutes, the sweetish scent of pot wafted out.
“RUE student,” explained Marla to Al. “Although kinda old to be such a pothead. She smokes so much she hallucinates—she’s always going on about the little kids playing in the house.”
“Oh my, I can’t believe it: we just learned about that,” said Al. “And cannabis—ah, that makes sense.”
“About RUE students?”
“No, no. The little kids. And chorea.”
“Korea?” Marla echoed. Sussannah shrugged when everyone looked at her.
“No, c-h-o-r-e-a, which means ‘dance’ in Greek. It’s a symptom, along with seeing little kids: a dopamine thing. And lots of people with that self-medicate with cannabis. So, how long have you all known that April has Huntington’s?”
Huntington’s disease! They’d all vaguely heard of it, but not what it did. That it was genetic, degenerative, fatal. And it made you go crazy: the hallucinations were caused by dopamine upregulation problems (same thing happened to Parkinson’s patients), and the jerky movements, the dancing was all neurological. Huntington’s patients could also be very, very violent.
“We’re stuck in the house with a crazy person,” Marla whispered. “Remember? She told us she had a terminal disease—I thought she was just saying one of her crazy things like, Life is a terminal disease or something.”
“I’m a little surprised you didn’t know,” Al said. “But I suppose HIPPA and all that, probably Brown couldn’t tell you.”
“Do you think she’ll kill us?” Sussannah asked, her thoughts turning to Sri.
“I don’t think she’s homicidal,” Al said. “I mean, it’s not that Huntington’s patients haven’t been homicidal, but she doesn’t seem like it. I think.”
But once he left, the three of them looked at each other.
Sri. He was too nice to her.
“She probably lured him out somewhere,” speculated Sussannah.
“Stabbed him and hid the body,” added Marla.
They ran up to the cupola, breaking the yellow Danger No Entry tape, half-expecting to find Sri’s body cut up in little pieces. They did find one of his favorite Pilot pens and a roach clip.
“Um, April’s not in the best physical shape, and Sri’s like six feet tall,” Brent pointed out. “She’d have to kill him without making a mess and then get rid of the body.”
“Maybe if they went to India Point Park, and she stabbed him and pushed him off the pier?” This was Marla.
“Unlikely, but . . .” said Brent.
The three of them spent the night dreaming up ways Sri could have been killed by April: poison, carbon monoxide, car accident, railroad tracks. This made them really start hating April. It was unseasonably warm, and in their un-air-conditioned house (of course) their anger heated it up even more.
Sussannah was also mad at herself for not figuring this April thing out earlier—she was so creepy, how could they have missed it? Marla was mad at Sussannah for lying to them about seeing Sri only at dinner. Brent was mad at her as well, and for not loving him back in that way.
&nb
sp; Sussannah thought back to the night, because it was the last thing she had of Sri.
Yes, they’d gotten a little drunk. Little bottles of booze glug, glug, glugged into those big thirty-two-ounce soda things they had at Metro Mart.
Tipsy but not enough to be detected, they’d sashayed into the SciLi.
“Covered container!” Sri had said, saluting the attendant with his alcohol-laced Big Gulp. The SciLi was where Sri (and most of Brown) procured Ritalin and Concerta so he could stay up all night and write his plays; and he was definitely buying that night, having trouble on his latest, which was due the next day.
“I know what’s good for writer’s block,” she’d said, and given him a smoldering look. They both knew this was going to happen at some point, why not now?
“Fast,” he said, because he’d already purchased and consumed a few Ritalin, washed down with the Big Gulp, and he wouldn’t want to waste the effects.
Any denizen of the SciLi can tell you there’s often no one on the top floor. Especially right after dinner. That night it was the two of them and the twinkling lights of Providence. To preserve the books, the stacks are kept dark, the lights only come on when you press the timer in the one specific row. They sneaked down to the last one, which was “oversized.” No one looked for books in the oversized row, it was all thousand-year-old maps and things. It was also dusty. She sneezed. He laughed. Sri was tall, she wasn’t so tall. Awkward and fast, but done. Even in the dimmest light, his hair gleamed. She was in love with him. She would have to move out of Environmental House. She was okay with this.
“You go,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m going to stay and write.” There was a trace of bitterness in his kiss, from the Ritalin.
* * *
“So, Sussannah,” said Brent, “you lied and said you saw Sri last at dinner, but in reality you were fucking him in the SciLi stacks.”
Sussannah was so shocked, she just looked back at him. His face fell in disappointment. His bluff had worked too well.
