by A. X. Ahmad
Right in front of Ranjit a busty redhead is trying on a new pink silk blouse over her white one. She looks up at Ranjit and glares. Clearly, the women’s department does not welcome men in construction boots and stained mechanic’s jackets. He walks on, eager not to lose Anna.
The subterranean basement is vast, with exits to the street and to the department store above. He remembers coming here with Preetam, and how she was confused and stepped onto the escalator to the main department store above. He remembers that the store detective had treated her like a criminal, his flat Bostonian voice rising to a shout.
Ahead of him, Anna walks unhurriedly. She fingers a thin dress of orange silk as bright as a flame, then runs her hands across a pile of pink cashmere sweaters. Her desultory progress allows him to move closer, and he sees a dreamy, unfocused look on her face. Seeing her like this, a strange feeling comes over him, a sense that something is not right.
She soon reaches the back of the store and stops by large wooden bins piled with mismatched luggage. Pulling a red Samsonite suitcase from the pile, she rights it, and rolls it back and forth.
He feels a rush of relief. She came here to get a cheap suitcase, that’s all; even a senator’s wife likes a bargain. He rehearses the words he is going to say, and is striding toward her when there is a blur in his periphery. A white-blond head moves down a side aisle, heading toward her.
The blond man steps into view, walking fast, his face flushed. His brown tweed coat is draped over his shoulders, and under it his right arm is in a bulky sling. In the name of the Guru, what is he doing here?
The man stops a few feet behind Anna and looks around. She is still rolling the red suitcase back and forth, a pensive expression on her face. She must sense something, because she turns, and when she sees the man her eyes widen, and her mouth opens as though to say something.
Ranjit ducks down behind a shelf of cashmere sweaters. He crouches there, his face half pressed into the soft wool, listening to the murmur of their voices.
“What happened to you?” Anna asks. “Your arm looks bad.”
“Oh, a car accident, nothing serious. The whiplash messed up my shoulder.”
Ranjit risks a glance, seeing that Anna is listening intently, her dark eyes shining with some peculiar emotion; fear, he thinks, from the way she grips the suitcase handle.
The man holds Anna by the elbow and moves her farther away, and their conversation is reduced to a murmur.
Ranjit crouches behind the shelf of sweaters, straining to hear, but it is no use. He hears footsteps behind him and sees a woman in a short dress glancing through a rack of spangled cocktail frocks.
Any second now she will notice him, and he can’t remain crouched here. There is a cash register, at the back of the store, closer to where Anna is. Straightening up, he throws a sweater over his arm and walks quickly over to the register, manned by a plump, gum-chewing woman, her thick arms resting on the counter.
“Could you tell me how much this is?” He gestures at the label, a mess of colored markdown stickers.
The woman scowls, pulls on reading glasses, and mutters to herself as she peers at the label, as though interpreting divine scripture.
“Nineteen ninety-five,” she says definitively. “Ya want it?”
Behind Ranjit, the blond man is still talking. He leans closer, still holding Anna’s arm, and murmurs. If only Ranjit could hear what they were saying …
“Hey, it’s a good price for cashmere. Ya want it or not?”
Ranjit turns his attention back to the register. “Um, I don’t know … Pink? What do you think?”
The woman stares at him disbelievingly. “You know that it’s a woman’s sweater, right? Right?”
Anna and the blond man are walking slowly toward the cash register. In a few seconds, they will see him.
Ranjit shakes his head, No, thrusts the sweater at the woman, and walks on toward the entrance, hearing the woman snort loudly behind him.
He has no time to see if they are behind him. Heading through the turnstiles, he boards the first train he sees, a Red Line train to Ashmont. The doors slam shut, and he ducks into a corner just as Anna emerges alone onto the platform.
The train speeds out of the station and a voice intones the stops: South Station, Broadway, Andrew, UMass, Savin Hill, Fields Corner …
Ranjit breathes hard. Stupid. He could have been caught. He replays the image of Anna talking to the blond man, trying to place the expression on her face; it was a mixture of fear and something else, something he can’t pinpoint. If the blond man is watching Anna, it will be hard to get to her. He sits in the rocking train, trying to figure out what to do.
The subway car has emptied out by the time it rumbles aboveground in Dorchester. Outside, impoverished neighborhoods flash by, the wooden triple-decker houses crowded close to the tracks, their yards piled high with snow. A yellow dog on a back porch barks as the train goes by. White sheets hung out to dry are frozen solid, hanging in a line like distress flags.
At the next stop the doors slide open and a breeze flutters the discarded newspapers that litter the floor. The newspaper from this morning, he thinks. The one with the Senator’s picture on it.
He searches for the front page of the Globe and finds it, rereading the headline he’d seen earlier this morning: SENATOR NEALS SPEAKS AT HARVARD TODAY: HOW TO DEAL WITH A DANGEROUS WORLD.
The Senator is giving a speech at Harvard tonight. He will be talking to a group of African-American students at the Barker Center about American foreign policy, and given his hero status, it will be very well attended. If the speech is as important as the newspaper says, surely Anna will accompany him.
With all the attention focused on the Senator, it might be easier to get to her. It is always easier to hide in a crowd.
* * *
The elevator at the Garibaldi Hotel is broken again. Ranjit climbs the stairs, breathing in the now-familiar smell of Lysol, and the dank odor of men living together at close quarters. Reaching his floor, he sees that the door to James’s room is open. Lit only by a bar of fluorescent light, the tiny space seems frozen in time, like a waiting lounge at an airport.
James looks up from the book in his lap and gestures Ranjit in. He is freshly bathed and wears a new white T-shirt, his long gray hair wet and combed straight back.
“Come in, come in. Tell me about the world.” He is sipping from a cup of dark tea and the steam fogs his glasses.
Ranjit closes the door and turns to him. “I found out what that microfilm is for. It’s a missile. Part of one, anyway. I don’t know what the hell it was doing in the doll—”
James motions Ranjit to sit and wheels his chair closer. Still clutching the day’s newspaper, Ranjit tells him about his theory: that the Senator was giving the North Koreans the microfilm in exchange for the hostage.
“It makes perfect sense.” Ranjit pauses. “Look at the timing. People were saying that he wouldn’t be reelected. So he goes to North Korea, does something that even the President couldn’t do, and comes back a hero. He must really want this microfilm, right? I’ve got to find a way to approach him, trade it for my family—”
“Hold it right there.” James frowns. “You’re just going to give this scumbag the microfilm? What happens if those North Korean bastards build a missile? World War Three, man. Go to the newspapers. Blow this thing wide open.”
“Who is going to believe me?” Ranjit spreads his arms wide. “I’m an illegal. I can’t even talk to the Indian Embassy. As soon as they dig up my record, I’ll have no credibility. I’m on my own, James. No one can help me get my family back.”
James is silent for a moment. “You got a copy of the aperture card?”
“My nephew scanned it, so he has a copy on his computer.”
“Okay. When your family is safe, you give me the copy. I’ll take it to the Times, the Globe, the Post, whatever.”
Ranjit can’t see the mainstream media believing a paraplegic veteran, but he
humors the man. “Okay, James, if that’s what you want to do.”
“Damn straight. I hate these fucking politicians.” James nods in satisfaction.
“So, look. I know the Senator’s wife, I did some work for her last summer. I might be able to get to the Senator through her…”
Ranjit tells James about his plan to approach Anna at Harvard tonight, and when he is done, James is silent.
“It’s risky to approach the wife in public,” he finally says. “It’s risky, but I see how it could work. Good tactical move.” He points at Ranjit’s blue jacket. “But if you’re going to Hah-vahd, you gotta get some new clothes. Get rid of that crap.”
Ranjit looks down at his stained blue jacket, his jeans and cracked brown boots.
“That’s how it is, man. Ya leave the army, but ya just keep on wearing the uniform. Army kills the need to wear clothes. Look in there.” James waves at the wardrobe in the corner, but Ranjit hesitates.
“Go on, look inside it. Nothing’s going to jump out and bite you.”
Ranjit opens the wardrobe doors and the sharp smell of mothballs brings tears to his eyes. He blinks, seeing a row of clothes hanging inside, all neatly encased in plastic: starched cotton shirts, jackets with silk linings, heavy wool topcoats.
“Take what you want. I don’t wear any of it. Couldn’t bear to part with them when my wife—ex-wife, now—kicked me out of the house.”
Ranjit fingers a thick black wool overcoat.
“They should fit you. Believe it or not, I used to be your height. I got no ties to give you, those got left behind. Go to the Salvation Army and get yourself some nice silk ones. A man in a suit without a tie is like a rooster without…”
Ranjit hesitates, then chooses a cream-colored shirt, a dark blue suit, and the black overcoat. He turns to James.
“Thank you. I wish I could pay you, but I don’t have much money right now—”
“I don’t want your money, Captain.” James looks away as he talks. “Foolish to keep those clothes. Pride is the last thing to go, you know. When I kick, they’ll end up in a Dumpster, anyway.”
The clothes are bundled over Ranjit’s arms. “James, don’t talk like that. I saw you doing fifty pull-ups—”
James smiles. “It’s okay, Captain. Dying doesn’t bother me. Over in ’Nam, they’re all Buddhists, they say that death is a release from the endless suffering of life. I’ve done bad things in my life, but now I pray and meditate.” He gestures at the gold Buddha sitting on his dresser. “My soul is prepared. It’s the body that I’m worried about. The cancer is in my lungs now, and it’s spreading.”
“Surely you can do something? Chemo?”
“I don’t believe in that crap. I have my Chinese herbal teas, and when the pain gets bad, I get some acupuncture … it’s just that I worry about dying in this goddamn room, stinking up the place. No dignity in that.” He stops and looks away.
The clothes are heavy in Ranjit’s arms. “What can I do to help?”
“I’ve paid for the cremation. I just need someone to take my ashes to the ocean. Put me in there. I don’t really care where, just so long as it’s the open ocean. Not a lake or a pond. I hate still water.”
Ranjit thinks of South Beach in the Vineyard, the way the waves roar in, landing on the sand with a crash. He thinks of ashes mixing with the water and instantly dispersing, sinking down into the green-gray depths.
“You’re going to live for a while. But if that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”
Holding the bundle of clothes, he thanks James again. As he gently closes the door, he hears the click of a lighter and smells again the sweetness of incense. He leaves James murmuring to his Buddha.
Life is suffering. Anna had said the same thing.
* * *
He drapes the clothes over his dresser and, heaving hard, he opens the window to air them out.
A few hours later, his room is freezing, but at least the smell of mothballs has faded from the clothes. He tries on the cream shirt with the dark blue suit. The shirt is hand-stitched, the lining of the jacket a deep maroon silk. The pants are a little loose, but otherwise, the clothes fit surprisingly well.
Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, a distant memory tugs at him. Then he realizes that the suit resembles his officer’s uniform, and turns away from the mirror.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It is four o’clock and already dark as Ranjit walks through the snow-covered quadrangle of Harvard Yard, looking for the Barker Center. I have to talk to Anna tonight, he tells himself. Preetam and Shanti have been locked up for three days now.
From his own experience, he knows that seventy-two hours in jail is a long time. The empty days and nights blur, and there is nothing but the moans and shouts of other people. Shanti might do better, able to retreat into her own fantasy world, but confinement will destroy Preetam’s already fragile sense of self.
He’s so deep in his thoughts that it takes him a few minutes to realize that he’s lost. Glancing at his watch, he realizes that the Senator’s speech starts in fifteen minutes.
Redbrick dormitories surround all four sides of Harvard Yard, their windows glowing with light. As he walks past an arched entry, a door opens and a shaggy-haired student emerges, wearing a hoodie and headphones, his head bopping to music. Ranjit wants to ask the boy where the Barker Center is, but something stops him.
When he worked at Lallu’s store, one subway stop away, some of the Harvard kids would come in, pile their shopping baskets full of spicy snacks, and ignore Ranjit completely as he swiped their gold and platinum credit cards. Now he is afraid that this boy will just stare right through him.
Maybe the Barker Center is on the east side of the yard. He walks past the wide steps of Widener Library and crosses a narrow road, and just as he reaches the other side, a Harvard police car drifts past him. It stops and backs up.
The window of the car rolls down and a voice drifts out, polite and low-pitched. “Looking for something, sir?”
Ranjit feels his throat constrict with panic. He speaks slowly, making his voice a little absentminded. “Ah, yes, Senator Neals’s talk at the Barker Center. I seem to be a little lost.”
“You’re in the right place, sir. It’s right over there, next to the Faculty Club. You can’t miss it.”
Ranjit thanks the cop, who raises a hand in salutation and drives off.
He takes a deep breath. If he’d still worn a turban, he’s sure that the cop’s voice would have been steely, with an implicit undertone of threat. But the short hair and dark suit seem to be working, along with the silk paisley tie and black Oxford shoes that he bought from the Salvation Army.
Walking through a low gate, he sees the tall white portico of the Barker Center right ahead. A stream of well-dressed people is making its way up the stairs, and just inside the doors a harassed-looking security guard is checking ID cards.
He merges with a group of elderly African-Americans, the men wearing double-breasted suits, the women in pearls and embroidered shawls. Going up the stairs, he is shoulder-to-shoulder with a white-haired lady whose high heels suddenly slip on the icy stairs. Without thinking he reaches out and holds her elbow, steadying her.
“Oh, why thank you. Really, the facilities people should do a better job. And you are?” She peers at him over the rim of her stylish red-framed glasses.
“I’m just visiting from India,” he says as he guides her up the stairs.
“India is a fascinating country. Are you with the Scholars at Risk program? What is your area of expertise?”
“I’m a historian. Military history, mostly.”
The security guard at the top of the stairs recognizes the small group and smiles as he waves them in. The old lady lets go of Ranjit’s arm and unwraps her embroidered silk shawl, emitting a cloud of lavender perfume.
“Another historian, how fortuitous. My husband, Alfred, will be fascinated to meet you. He’s Professor Emeritus of history. Do you know people
here? No? Then you must sit with us, we have reserved seats.”
They pass through a tall atrium lit by a giant chandelier made of stag horns, each upturned point bearing a glittering burst of light. The lecture is in a wood-paneled room next door, one wall dominated by a huge stone fireplace, the others lined with marble busts of philosophers. A podium has been set up at one end, with sofas pulled to face it, and beyond are rows of folding chairs, already full, the few empty seats reserved with piles of coats.
The crowd is mainly African-American, some students with high Afros and ragged army-surplus jackets, but many others in blazers and ties. More faculty pour in, the men gravelly-voiced and assured, the women in twinsets and pearls, patting their straightened hair. There is the strong sense of these people owning this room and its history.
For two years Ranjit had labored in the basement of Lallu’s store, and never guessed that a world like this existed.
The old lady gestures him to one of the sofas, and he finds himself seated next to a tall, hawk-nosed man with bushy eyebrows. With his pale skin, the man could have easily passed as Italian, but the rich cadences of his speech are those of Dr. King.
“Ah,” the old man says. “You’re from India. I used to study Gandhi and nonviolence and all that. Now tell me, why is your country hell-bent on starting a nuclear war?”
“The usual reasons.” Ranjit thinks of General Handa at his court-martial, his thick shoulders hunched, eyes glittering with anger. “Pride, honor, arrogance. Here we are, a continent of people, and the Pakistanis sit in their narrow little country hurling insults at us. They’re arming militants in Kashmir, backing the terrorists who shot up half of Mumbai. But mainly it’s because we have nuclear capability and we’re itching to try it out.” He’s listening to his voice as he speaks, authoritative and strong after so long.
“Ah. Human beings, eh? Hubris and ego—” The old man stops in mid-sentence, noticing a stir in the audience.
Senator Neals has just entered the room, wearing a dark suit and tie, a small American flag glistening in his lapel. Gone is the fatigued, slightly drunk man whom Ranjit had met. The Senator’s smile is high-wattage as he shakes hands and banters with the students.
