Balance of Fragile Things

by Olivia Chadha

  “What would you like to plant, then? We can plant almost anything here. Za soil is rich. When it’s normal.”

  “Anything? Huh. I guess it would be nice to have some flowers. Something bright and humungous.”

  “Za dahlias. They would be nice. We can plant them in za summer. They will grow taller and taller until their flowers, like suns of red and purple, reach za sky, neh?”

  “If it ever stops raining,” Isabella said.

  “We had everything in mine garden in Latvia. Za tomatoes tasted like springtime, and za lettuce vas a rich purple.”

  “Purple lettuce?”

  “And za cucumbers and squash would feed a whole family. That is, unless za birds and animals ate them before we did.”

  Isabella finished her soup and nibbled on a lemon cookie. She felt full and brave and thought about the contents in the box. “Oma? What was Opa like?”

  Oma’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, Izjah, you never got za chance to meet him, neh? He vas tall and good-looking, when he smiled, you know.”

  Isabella knew the man in the photo had to be him. Was it his star as well? She lacked the courage to ask. “Do you miss Latvia?’

  Oma didn’t answer and instead cleaned the plates and poured two cups of tea without responding. When she returned to the dining table, she said, “Have I told you za story about za animals and za girl?”

  Isabella shook her head no.

  “Zoh, it vas a long, long time ago. I don’t even know vie long. Mine little country is four thousand years old. Latvia vas made mit these tribal people, neh? And there vas always big war. They were too small to defend themselves. Invaders came always and slaved us. Then, one day za Germans came and took our land away and made us work in big farms. They owned za land, they stole za earth, za trees, za branches on za ground.” Oma sipped her tea. “Zoh, there vas a girl whose father married a bad woman who already had her own daughter. Firewood vas scarce because za Germans took everything, neh? Za evil mother blew out all za fire in za house and sent za stepdaughter to za ogre’s castle to get fire.”

  “So she sent her to die,” Isabella said.

  Oma nodded.

  “On za way, za girl passed a cow that asked her, ‘Oh, please will you milk me? Mine udders are zoh full.’ So za girl milked za cow and went on her way. Then she came upon a sheep, whose hair vas to za ground. It said, ‘Oh, pretty girl, won’t you shear me? I am so hot.’ So, za girl sheared za sheep. Then she found a horse tied too tight to za fence, neh? And za horse said, ‘My owner tied me too tight; won’t you un-tether me?’ So she did.”

  “What a nice girl.”

  “Yes. Zoh, in za ogre’s castle, za girl meets za ogre who licks his lips to eat her, when a mouse comes from za wall and says, ‘Oh, girl, take this gold, neh? And run as fast as you can.’ So she goes back through za forest. Za ogre was on her heels but za cow, horse, and sheep all told za ogre to go in different directions, so she got away.”

  “Phew.” Isabella sighed.

  Oma took a sip of tea and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief. “Well, za ugly stepmother thought dis was a good deal mit za gold, so she sent her real daughter to get more gold from za ogre za next night. She also met za cow, horse and sheep, but she did not help them. When she got to za castle, za ogre went to eat her and za mouse gave her za gold and told her to run. She ran as fast as she could, but za cow, sheep and horse told za ogre where to find her and—he ate her.”

  “Eww. That’s terrible.”

  “Neh, za second real daughter deserved it. Nature is brutal. She will help when we help her. Well, sometimes, you know.”

  “What happened to the first girl?”

  “She married a prince.”

  “Of course she did.”

  “Yes, he saw vie beautiful and kind and smart she vas, zoh he said, ‘Now that is who I should marry,’ neh?”

  Isabella smiled at Oma and thought about the cautionary tale about the balance between nature and humankind. She looked outside and saw that the rain was clearing a bit; she could see the water running from the gutters toward the trees and bushes that were drowning.

  “We won’t be able to plant anything here for a while. The trees, the soil—it’s all too wet.” Isabella sighed.

  “Okay, when you finish your cookie, help me mit something in za backyard, neh?”

  Oma put on her yellow rain clothes and went outside. When she was finished eating, Isabella dressed warmly and followed. Oma was at the side of the house lifting small but hefty bags of sand. She’d built a row that was working hard to keep out the few inches of water that had built up and headed toward the backyard. Without asking, Isabella lifted a small bag and helped Oma complete the row.

  “Now, maybe we can keep za ground healthy.”

  “Oma? Where did those bags come from?”

  “I don’t know, darlink. They were next to the garage. Maybe yours father brought them?”

  Isabella wondered why her father would have bought sand bags but not place them properly. He seemed even more frazzled than usual lately. Earlier that day, she’d heard in a weather report that Cobalt and the tri-city area was set for a long ride with the storm and suggested blocking low-lying areas and keeping gutters clear.

  “However they came, it’s good they’re here now.”

  Vic

  Vic decided to use his illness vacation to conduct a sleep deprivation test; he wanted to see if he could transform into a nocturnal creature. The first night was the most difficult because, as he saw it, he went about it the wrong way: He began at a disadvantage, as his body was still healing from the trauma of the flu.

  Vic truly missed the daylight as he sat alone on the couch, watching re-runs of The Golden Girls. In the shadow-filled room, he felt lonely as he winced at each punch line about Blanche’s boyfriends and Rose’s stupidity. It would have been easier if everyone else was nocturnal as well. He turned off the television and rested on the floor. He’d lost a bit of weight because of the flu, but he hoped to keep the muscle memory from all of his recent exercises. Yet he could only do ten sit-ups before collapsing, sleepy.

  Vic went to the kitchen and drank a pot of old coffee and a flat cola he found in the rear of the refrigerator. He felt a surge of energy and did thirty push-ups and an eye test in which he used a cup to cover one eye, then tried to read Time magazine in the dark. He couldn’t read very much at first, but then some words became clearer. Soon afterward, he vomited all of the caffeinated beverages and made a mental note to not drink so much coffee on an empty stomach. When the pink morning light shone through the curtains in the living room, Vic curled up with a multicolored blanket that Oma had knitted and watched the sunrise. The clouds had parted after the night’s rain, and he decided that the reddish sky was the most brilliant thing he’d seen in weeks.

  Vic made notes about his inability to fully transform into a nocturnal creature. He wrote that it was most likely due to the fact that the system in which he existed—with Oma’s baking, Mama’s cooking, Papa’s bossing around—basically was filled with day life and therefore, it would be nearly impossible to change on his own. It was the system that gave the guidelines for such things, he thought, and no one walks alone.

  Vic continued to test whether he could become a nocturnal creature over the next two days, but after exhaustion took him, he gave up and turned his attention back to the Karner Blue. It still seemed odd to Vic that he may have found a dead Karner, gynandromorph or not, in an environment that was not a suitable feeding ground, and so late in the season. Most guidebooks stated that the Karner flew from April through July, or September at the latest. Butterflies were insects that thrived on schedule and habit. They depended upon the environment to provide their eggs with a sturdy leaf on which to grow, a food source for the caterpillar once it hatched, and flowers or puddles in which they could feed once they were in flight. Alterations would occur when, say, the weather was extremely cold, which would signal a longer hibernation period for the butterfly in its pupa o
r adult state. Everything else in nature was on a schedule. What would need to happen in order for the Karner to appear so late in the year, in a habitat not useful for its feeding? The dead forest in which he’d found the butterfly was far from any legume or aster or clover or lupine, the Karner’s favorite flowers. He’d read a little about a butterfly, the Xerces Blue, that sounded quite similar to his butterfly, but it was extinct.

  He remembered an insect book he’d had when he was a boy, and he thought it might be in the garage, where all the other lost and in limbo items ended up. He went out to the garage and tiptoed around until he found a box with children’s books. Memories washed over him in waves as he flipped through different books from his youth, like Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Wind in the Willows, and The Boxcar Children. He found the insect book, and it was more detailed than he’d remembered. When Vic turned to leave the garage, he spied his father’s collection of maps and charts.

  He’d known his father was up to something, but until that moment he wasn’t sure what, exactly. As he looked at the maps, he found one map in particular that was very interesting. It illustrated the entire PMI campus when it had first been constructed: a sprawling creature that sucked up most of the natural space in Cobalt. Since the map had been printed, several buildings had closed and been leveled, and the beast’s size had become a collection of empty streets and dead-end buildings.

  Vic followed the map along Peregrine Court to Main Street, then along to his land. PMI had covered a great deal of the area. Even the inadequately small park, The Commons, had once been a paved part of PMI; the alterations had happened long before he’d been born. The place where he’d found the blue had once been PMI’s. After PMI closed many arms of its company, they’d attempted to reconstruct the area to appear as though nothing industrial had happened before. Now the land comprised a sad forest and their neighborhood. Vic marveled at PMI’s handiwork, how they must’ve boasted about their reintroduction of habitat that they’d previously bulldozed. What would cause a company to simply give up their land and buildings amid a boom? This was long before any corporation could receive a tax break for “green” purposes. What was below his neighborhood? What had made PMI run away from Cobalt? He wondered about his mine and whether the hollowed earth could hold the weight of the structures above. Perhaps, he thought, the mine was an even larger piece of the puzzle than he’d originally imagined. As he drifted to sleep, with the morning light peeking through a gap in the curtains, he dreamed of a butterfly caught in an underground maze being chased by the Minotaur.

  Papaji

  Papaji held one end of the navy fabric between his teeth and finished wrapping the rest around his head. He had tied his turban the same way his entire life. He’d wash the five yards of fabric, gauzy and light, then hang it between two trees. When it was dry, and slightly taut from starch, Anjana or Kamal would hold one end and he the other while he folded the fabric over and over again until it was only a few inches wide. He’d comb his long, wavy hair and twist it into a loose knot on the top of his head, then tie a fiftee around his head like a band to keep the hair in place. He’d wrap the fabric in artful layers, careful to overlap the seams just so, and use a thin piece of wood, like a pencil, to tuck in the loose edges of fabric. His father had taught him, and he’d taught Kamal. But he’d never taught Paul. Who had? he wondered. Paul’s turbans looked just like his: Punjabi Sikh style, perfectly curved, not too big, not too short, in black, navy, or maroon. As Papaji tended to his long beard with beard fixer and comb, he acknowledged just how absent he’d been in his son’s life. He wanted desperately to make up for the lost time. He felt deep in his gut that there was something Paul was keeping from him.

  One of the clues he had was Paul’s desk in the garage, which was in disarray. Piles of papers, sticky notes, and notebooks filled with abandoned and scratched-out drawings littered the place. More filtered water surrounded the area, as Paul had recently made it clear that his family would only drink bottled water as well as use it to prepare tea and meals. Papaji had grown used to bottled water because India’s water was not reliable as far as bacterial overgrowth was concerned. But he’d always thought American water would be fine to drink, as it claimed to be from wells or aquifers or some pastoral spring somewhere never too far away.

  With his new turban tied, the old man went to Paul’s office. He opened drawers, shuffled through papers, and sorted piles. After a few paper cuts and one nasty puncture wound from a tack, he found a piece of paper with letterhead from Creative Laboratories.

  Paul had received the results and lied.

  The lab’s 8260 test for petroleum found lighter hydrocarbons, and this report included the results on a full-chain 8270 for semi-volatiles: It wasn’t petroleum from the station leaking into the ground. The rest of the results were unfamiliar to Papaji, but Paul’s notes on the page were written in Punjabi, which made very clear what they said. It must have taken his son hours to interpret the acronyms: TCE, VOC, ATSDR, EPA, CPF, and CREG, which in his notes read trichloroethylene, volatile organic compound, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Environmental Protection Agency, Cancer Potency Factor, Cancer Risk Evaluation Guide. Even as a civilian, without a chemical engineering background or scientific training, Papaji knew these words added up to something bad. The information sat heavy on his chest. He had to do something. For once, he had to help his son, who couldn’t handle the situation on his own.

  As Papaji sorted through Paul’s notes and papers, he made a short list of the involved parties: the City of Cobalt, Kwicki Fill, the Finch family, and PMI. He crossed off the city because he knew they wouldn’t be forthcoming. He suspected the last two were connected somehow; Paul had explained that the Finch family had been the last to own the land. Papaji looked in the phone book, then picked up the phone in the kitchen. He would get to the bottom of this once and for all.

  “PMI, can I help you?” a woman’s voice said.

  “Hi, yes, I own a gas station in Cobalt. The one on Sycamore.”

  “Uh huh. Our plant closed there years ago, sir. We’re only in Springfield now.”

  “Yes, can I speak to someone in planning or development? Or Mr. Finch?”

  “We don’t have that department here. Mr. Finch no longer works for us.”

  “Someone who has knowledge of the history of the land in Cobalt then?”

  “I suggest you contact your historical society.”

  “Let me talk to the manager.”

  “One moment.” The elevator music began.

  Papaji found it difficult to sort his thoughts with the sound of an emotional clarinet streaming into his ear. What would he say to the manager? What could they do for him? He swallowed hard and reminded himself that he used to solve problems for the village: same problems, different village.

  “Yeah, this is Marv.”

  “Mr. Marv, did you work at the Cobalt plant? See, I am the owner of the Kwicki Fill station on Sycamore, and—”

  “Right next to the old plant? Sure, I remember it.”

  “There’s been a dig here for some time now, right in the middle of Sycamore, and suddenly it stopped. I want to know the cause of the construction.” Marv did not respond, but Papaji could hear a cigarette being lit. He continued, “See, I think PMI is behind the whole matter.”

  “Why would you think that, Mr.—”

  “Singh.”

  “Mr. Singh. We are the largest employer in the area.”

  As soon as the answer to a question sounded arbitrary, Papaji knew they were heading nowhere. “Thank you for your time.” He was now certain that PMI was involved somehow.

  Papaji went to his room and slid his hand under the mattress. He pulled out the bundle in which he’d received his life savings. In the wrapping he located another object, hidden in a different layer of paper and fabric. He delicately unwrapped an ancient kirpan sheathed in bone. This knife had belonged to his great-grandfather, Sardar Ranjit Singh. Every male in his family at some
point or another had held the handle, either wielding it as a weapon or holding it as a keeper of history. The blade was dull and could no longer slice through steel or flesh—or paper, for that matter. He’d given it to Kamal when he was old enough, but after he’d died in the accident, he’d taken it back as a token of his dead son.

  Papaji retrieved his diamond whetstone from his room and opened the door to the backyard. He dusted the water off of a wrought iron chair that had been leaning against the table, in an out-of-service-for-the-season kind of fashion. He sat down, placed the diamond whetstone on the table, and slid the blade against the stone as though he were slicing a piece of the stone. He used even pressure as he slid the blade five times on one side, then five on the other. The vibrations took him back to the Punjab, to the last time he’d used the kirpan. It had been many years ago, when he was a young man during the Partition.

  He’d already sent Anjana and Kamal ahead and was now protecting the gurdwárá in the village with many others. The threat of the attack had come suddenly. The entire village had gathered inside the gurdwárá’s walls. The fire started when a Muslim attacker threw a torch on the roof. Papaji could still taste the bitter air. After that, it was mere moments before the attackers broke windows and began to butcher nearly everyone. Papaji had managed to escape. He’d been one of the fortunate ones—until a gang of men armed with swords and pistols caught up to him along an empty farm road with nothing on it but fields of wheat. Two men aimed knives at him and held him tight. He was glad to see his good friend, Aaqib, in the group.

  Brother, let me go. It’s me.

  Kneel. Accept Islam. Sardarji, this is your life. Just say the words, the leader of the group of goondas said. Aaqib did nothing.

  Papaji was stone. Nothing had prepared him for such an impossible situation. On one hand, there was his life; on the other, death. Attached to his life was submission to a religion and turning his back on his ancestors. He’d grown up learning about the sacrifices that his gurus had made for their religious freedom. Denying these thugs their victory was the only option. He then thought of his wife and son, who were far away from the danger. How would they manage fatherless, widowed, and impoverished?