by Ranjini Iyer
“Not bad,” Max said, not wanting to get into it. “How are things here?”
“Excellent. We are good for this week’s lunches, but I hope you’re working on menus to email out. And we also need to prepare for the Jewish Students Awareness Association presentation.”
“Great,” Max said, trying to work up some enthusiasm.
“Sounds like you’re jet-lagged. How about this? I went berry picking this weekend, and guess what, I have a ton of blueberries I’m going to drop off at your place. That should cheer you up.”
Max smiled. “I’ll make Mama’s blueberry pie, and maybe a compote for next week’s lunches. A blueberry gelato maybe! Can we deliver gelato?”
With a laugh, Kim promised to have the blueberries delivered to Max’s front desk by one of their delivery interns.
Two hours later, Max was scrambling to find her mother’s blueberry pie recipe. She knew she had it written somewhere. She was pretty sure about the proportions and method, but Mama had a few hints that Max didn’t always remember. The recipe wasn’t in any of her myriad notebooks, not even with her precious cuttings.
When she couldn’t find it in the usual places, she opened her mother’s journal. Mama had mentioned the pie there as something she made on special occasions. Maybe she had written the recipe, too.
She carefully began going over every entry.
The entries began to get less and less legible as Mama’s illness grew worse. Max squinted, unable to make out many of the words. She turned to the last entry, planning to work her way backwards. She glanced over it, then turned to the previous one.
Wait a minute, something wasn’t right. She flipped back to the last entry in the book. It was dated November 1982.
How could that be? Mama passed away in September. Max started reading the notes her mother had written that day. There was a list of hospital expenses. Large bills will follow when I’m gone. Is that all I will leave my family with? it said in bold letters.
The next line said, Enjoyed watching Sneakers with Max today.
Max smiled. Sneakers was one of her favorite films. How delicious was Robert Redford in it? She tried to recall the day she and Mama had seen the movie. But it just wouldn’t come to mind. She could remember them watching My Fair Lady together. Tons of times. It was their favorite film to watch. But Sneakers she had always associated with her father. They had watched it a few times after Mama died.
Hmmm.
Max shook her head. Was she looking for mysteries where none existed? This whole business with Lars and Papa’s research had done her in. A seemingly innocuous—albeit odd—entry in her mother’s book of accounts was sending her into a tizzy for no reason.
Still.
She turned on her computer.
There was that new movie database. What was it? Oh yes, imdb.com. She checked when Sneakers was released.
1992.
But that was impossible.
Mama had been gone for ten years by 1992! Was there another famous movie by that name? There wasn’t.
She looked through the other entries in Mama’s book. Nothing stood out. They were all correctly dated and had no noteworthy information. All except this last one. Dated wrongly and with an impossible movie reference.
Max went to her movie collection and pulled out the VHS tape of Sneakers. It had been a while since she had seen the movie. At worst, she’d enjoy watching it again. At best, well, maybe it would mean something.
She turned it on and found herself getting lost in the adventures of Robert Redford as Marty Bishop and his motley crew.
The credits started to roll. Usually she never watched the credits of familiar films. This time she did, her heart beating hard, not knowing what to expect, but expecting something anyway.
In the middle of the music acknowledgements, the tape became fuzzy and her father’s face came on screen.
“I knew it!” Max exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air. She leaned forward.
“Hey there, Max,” her father said, looking animated and handsome in jeans and a purple rugby T-shirt. He was sitting where she was on the couch. “Looks like you found the entry in your mother’s diary. If I am around, talk to me when you find this. But there’s a chance I may not be. If I’m not, honey, I want you to know that I love you. I also want you to do something for me.”
Max felt her throat grow thick and her eyes sting.
“Tell Ernst that I love him,” her father was saying, his face beaming, his large eyes dark and alert. “And his matzo ball soup. It was awful, but I loved it. And if you see Kevin, ask him if he still likes pea soup. Despite everything, I miss the chap. He meant well. I know this now.”
Papa held up his hands in a peace sign and said, “I’ll love you Max, forever in time.” He leaned forward and switched off the camera.
The tape became fuzzy again, and the credits continued.
How very odd, Max thought, wiping away her tears.
But instead of being overcome by gloom, Max felt recharged. If she had found this tape before she met Lars, she’d have thought nothing of it. Well, she’d have cried an ocean of tears, but other than that, nothing. She’d have definitely told Uncle Ernst that Papa had loved his matzo ball soup. Uncle Ernst always lamented that he could never make it good enough for Papa.
She dialed his number.
“Uncle Ernst,” she said when he answered. “I just found the strangest tape made by Papa. He asked me to tell you that he loved your matzo ball soup. Do you think it means something other than that? It’s such an ordinary thing to say, but given all that has happened…”
Uncle Ernst let out a gasp. “Oh Max, Max!” he cried. Remember I told you Hiram was supposed to give me a copy of his research in case something happened to him? He told me that this would be his code word if you ever needed it! That he liked matzo ball soup.” He started murmuring something unintelligible.
“Wait a minute, you were supposed to have a copy of the research?”
“Yes, which is why I was surprised that Lars Lindstrom had it. I told you that, didn’t I?” His voice had started shaking.
“I guess you did. I didn’t mean to upset you. Should I come downstairs?”
“No, no, I’ll be fine. I was just going to the library and later to the store to pick up some fruit. Now, about Hiram, what were you saying?”
“Its all right, dear. You go do what you need to. I’ll call you later.” Max hung up.
She went back to the tape, rewound it, and watched her father’s message once more.
Kevin Forsyth. Pea soup.
Max called her father’s lawyer and got a number for Kevin Forsyth from him.
She dialed. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered to herself.
“Hello,” a female voice said, “Allied Research partners. How may I direct your call?”
“I…well, I need to speak to Kevin Forsyth.”
“He is in India, I’m afraid.”
“It’s urgent; I need to speak to him immediately. My father Hiram Rosen used to be his business partner. Could I call him in India?”
“Please hold for a minute.” Muzak poured into Max’s ears.
Max waited for several minutes with the phone held away from her ear, her excitement growing with every second.
The woman came back on. “I have a cell phone number. He can take your call in India if you call right away.”
Max hung up, suddenly realizing that she had used her home phone to make the call. Could the Berliner people still be listening?
Damn. Uncle Ernst’s phone might be tapped, too.
What a pain.
She made her way to the main apartment office on the third floor. The building manager was a nice enough guy. He might let her use his phone.
Thankfully, he was in. Max told him her phone wasn’t working and that she needed to call someone urgently in India.
He graciously agreed and left her alone.
Max dialed Kevin’s cell. Voice mail. She hesitated. Should she h
ang up? Quickly she said, “Mr. Forsyth. This is Max, Hiram Rosen’s daughter. He asked me to call and ask you if you still like pea soup. I have a feeling this might be important.” She hung up. There, that was enough information but not too much.
Now what? She returned home and tried to work on her menus but just couldn’t. She watched her father’s video message a few more times.
The ending was odd. The peace sign. Papa was not the sort to do that at all. The various movements of the sixties and seventies had escaped him completely, he had often said proudly. And “forever in time.” He would never say something soppy like that.
Max picked up a pen and paper.
She wrote down mother’s diary and matzo ball soup and made check marks by them. Next she wrote pea soup and peace. Finally, she wrote forever in time. Her mother’s diary had done its bit, Max suspected. Matzo ball soup had been addressed. And pea soup. Well, when Kevin called, that would be taken care of.
Peace.
With a loud whoop, Max jumped up. She rushed to her desk and picked up her copy of the Gita. Of course. Peace had been underlined and Papa had said he hoped she would never have to find out why.
This meant that the key to decoding the papers must have something to do with the Gita.
Max closed her eyes. She needed lunch.
And she craved Julian.
An hour later, she and Julian were huddled with Max’s Gita on the table between them at a taqueria just outside the University of Chicago campus.
“So,” she said, biting into a savory beef taco, “what do you think? Kevin hasn’t called back, but the word peace must have something to do with this.” She patted the Gita.
“Maybe your father wants us to find a certain chapter and verse,” Julian said. “That may be a clue.”
“But there are so many.” Max put her hands on her cheeks and leaned forward on her elbows.
Julian nodded. “No more clues anywhere?”
“Forever in time,” Max said. “That might mean something.”
Julian checked his watch. “Speaking of time, I need to get back, I’m afraid.”
Max grabbed his wrist. “Time! A specific time, maybe?”
“It’s possible. But what?”
“No idea,” Max said. “Could I wait with you while you finish your work?”
Julian smiled. “That will not do at all. Come on.” He took her arm. “My work can wait.”
They went back to Max’s apartment.
Julian started looking around.
“What are you looking for, Sherlock?” Max chuckled.
“Clues, Watson,” he said. “I have a feeling this is right under your nose and has been for a while.”
Max glanced up as she closed the door to the apartment. Right above her was the cuckoo clock, frozen at 11:32.
“Julian,” she whispered. “11:32 mean anything to you?”
He went to her. “Your father did this?”
Max nodded. “It was his clock.”
“It must mean something.” He opened the Gita.
Max’s phone rang. “Hello?” she said.
“Kevin Forsyth here,” a deep voice said.
“It’s Kevin,” she whispered to Julian.
“Hi. Let me call you right back,” she told Kevin.
“Okay. On my cell please.”
Max and Julian ran down to the building manager’s office and used his phone to dial Kevin. “I’m going to get evicted when he gets the phone bill,” Max said once the building manager left them.
“Mr. Forsyth, Max here. My phone may not be safe, so I needed to find a different line to call from.”
“What’s this about?” he asked politely.
“Did you get my message?”
“Yes.”
“Does it mean anything to you?”
“It might.”
Boy, he was being cagey. Max spent a few minutes telling him about Lars, the papers, and her fruitless trip to London.
Kevin sighed. “Oh dear,” he said, his voice becoming friendlier. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come to India to see me.”
“I can’t do that,” Max said with a laugh. “I’ll just wait until you get back.”
“I’m here for the next six to eight months.”
“You have the papers?” Max said.
“I do.”
“But father didn’t trust you,” she blurted.
“Your father didn’t want to do business with me, Maxine,” Kevin said. “But he trusted me with his life. Hiram was a painfully honest businessman. I, on the other hand, was more grounded.”
“He said you cheated him,” Max said flatly.
“I doubt he used those words,” Kevin said, completely unruffled. “Let me tell you what happened. Our company had run into trouble with clients not paying on time, and we had cash flow issues as a result. I wanted to deal with the problem by greasing a few palms, using tougher collection methods. But Hiram would have none of it. He and I started arguing about it. Finally, Hiram decided he could not stomach the life of a businessman and walked away. That’s it.”
“I see,” Max said acerbically.
“Look, we were both upset. I lashed out at him, accused him of being a naive fool and of leaving me alone in a burning house of cards. But Hiram didn’t yield. He was disillusioned. I was forced to declare bankruptcy. We didn’t speak for a while after that. Some years later, Hiram called on me. He wanted me to have his research. He was able to get me a copy before I left for Kenya, but he didn’t give me the key and pill samples. Things suddenly started getting more difficult for him. Now I was still in Kenya, so I asked him to wait until I returned for him to give them to me, but he said he couldn’t risk waiting that long. He had to send them someplace safe. I gave him the address of my PO box in Manhattan, but the package never reached me. Luckily, the research is still safe with me. Hiram asked that I keep it until you called for it.”
“If I didn’t call? What was supposed to happen then?”
“Eventually, I’d have called you. Hiram left that bit to me.”
Max was impressed with Kevin’s no-nonsense manner. It made sense that her idealistic, often emotional father had admired this man for his worldliness. “So, does ‘pea soup’ mean something?” she asked.
“Yes!”
“Is that the key to decode the research?”
“It could be. But I suspect that the key that never reached me may be a different one. Look, I don’t want to discuss this any more over the phone. Maybe I’ll see you in Hyderabad.”
“Hyd—” Max began but Kevin hung up.
She looked at Julian, who had turned pale.
“I know what 11:32 is,” he whispered. “It’s a chapter and verse reference from the Gita. This one.”
“Okay.” Max sat down beside him.
Julian’s face seemed tense with unanswered questions.
“Get your grandfather’s diary. First page.” Julian’s voice turned soft. “It’s the same verse, Max. I’ve been an idiot.”
Max looked at the verse written in her grandfather’s diary.
“This verse has been translated many ways, but given the context, I think this might be the translation we want,” Julian said. “I am become death. Destroyer of worlds,” he read aloud from her Gita. “It’s what J. Robert Oppenheimer said when he witnessed the Trinity nuclear test.”
“That doesn’t sound very promising,” Max said.
“The joint work of the scientists at Los Alamos resulted in the first artificial nuclear explosion near Alamogordo in early 1945, on a site that Oppenheimer codenamed Trinity,” Julian said. “Apparently, Oppenheimer quoted this verse during an interview later on when he spoke of the incident. Point is, he knew he had been responsible for something that could destroy the world.”
Max lifted her tear-filled eyes to the ceiling. “It’s what I suspected.” Julian took her hand. Max went on, “If…if Opa had this verse on the front page of his diary, he must have believed he had done something
really bad. He found heroin instead of aspirin.”
They sat still for several minutes.
“So is this the key to decode the research? The key that Lars never got?” Julian asked.
“Papa sent it to Kevin, too,” Max said. “The key and pill samples. But he didn’t get them, either. Berliner must have stolen his package, too.” She got up, put her hands on her hips, and exhaled deeply. “I have to go to India.”
She looked at Julian. His mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed and darted all over the room. Max could almost hear him thinking hard. About what, she wondered.
He went to her and brought his forehead close to hers. “I guess we both do,” he whispered.
She pulled away and looked at him sharply. “Julian, I need to know something. I couldn’t bring myself to ask before—I was afraid of your answer, but I need to know. Are you seeing someone else? Because if you are, leave now and never see me again.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he looked straight into her eyes. “I’m coming with you,” he said firmly.
Max wondered for a second or two about his hesitation and his oblique response but decided to put it out of her mind. She threw her arms around him and kissed him. “Be careful, Professor McIntosh,” she said. “I’m very fragile right now, and I may be falling in love with you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Rajiv Gandhi International Airport
Hyderabad, India
Aaron stood close to the airport exit and watched Max and Julian climb into the shuttle for the Hyatt Regency Hotel. He had been cooling his heels in Chicago, trying to accept that he may have lost the chance for some big bucks, when he had been asked to make preparations to leave for India. Max was going there. The papers were sure to be there, his employer had said. Double pay, Aaron had repeated to himself like a mantra. He had failed in London, but he was not going to be made a fool of twice.
The German. Aaron hadn’t seen him yet. He looked around, half-expecting him to leap out from behind every potted palm and stone sculpture. Blondie would definitely be here. His employer had told him to expect it.
He stepped out of the airport, his fist wrapped tightly around the strap of his backpack. A gush of hot air hit him and, for a few seconds, half his body was in the cool comfort of the air-conditioned baggage area and the other half engulfed by Hyderabad’s intense heat. He had expected to be greeted by cows and snake charmers. Instead the airport looked like most airports in the States. Globalization, he thought with a grin.
