by Diksha Basu
She texted Sid. This party is dull. What are you doing?
She received a reply within seconds. Thinking about how much I enjoyed seeing you again. Bunk the party. Run away. Come find me.
Tina looked up at the people, all the beautiful people in their beautiful clothes and thought, Marianne was right—they could be anywhere in the world tonight. She wanted to be in India.
Where does one find you at this hour? she texted back.
Sid gave her cryptic instructions to the middle of a flyover near the Red Fort and told her to find him there on the side of the road in thirty minutes.
Tell your driver to just drop you off and that you’ll call him when you’re ready to be picked up. He won’t have anywhere he can wait on the flyover.
“Where are you going, Cinderella?” Rocco caught her near the exit.
“Jet lag,” she said. “I’m going to go sleep.”
“I’ll walk you, I need a cigarette,” Rocco said.
Tina let Rocco walk along with her as she headed toward the car park. He didn’t seem to register that she wasn’t going in the direction of the cottages.
She took his cigarette from him and took a drag. She coughed and handed it back, “Nope, I can’t do it. I don’t know how I even pretended to enjoy the occasional one in college.”
“Why are we going to the car park?” Rocco stopped and looked around. The dim fairy lights that were scattered through all the trees made Rocco’s eyes glisten blue. No wonder she had run around London with him that night.
“I’m going to meet someone,” Tina said. She pulled out her phone and called Sunil and told him to pull up.
“Lucky guy,” Rocco said. “You look beautiful.”
“Thanks,” Tina said. “But it’s not romantic.”
“Good,” Rocco said. “Go, go. Disappear into the night and do your thing. You’re on holiday.”
He grabbed her hand and kissed it.
MIDNIGHT
Somewhere in New Delhi: Tina’s Not Really Sure—Is This Even Safe? Probably Not
“THERE,” TINA SAID TO SUNIL. She could see Sid on the side of the overbridge, the headlights catching him standing on the edge of the narrow pavement leaning on his elbows and looking out over the railing. Cars and trucks rattled past, lighting up his frame. “Stop right over there.”
“Ma’am,” Sunil said. “This is not a suitable place for you.”
Tina met his eyes in the rearview mirror and said, “I’ll call you when I need you, Sunil. Thank you.”
She had seen the way Shefali communicated with her staff and tried to channel the same sense of authority. Shefali always said, “Remember, if you treat your staff like family, they’ll treat you like family, and more family is the last thing you need.”
Tina wrapped her shawl tightly around her to hide her bare midriff and pulled off her diamond earrings and dropped them into her purse.
She walked up to Sid and saw what he was looking at. Laal Qila, the Red Fort, rising up above the city, the view unobstructed from this point on the overbridge. Below them, cars, trucks, bikes, autos, and even a bullock cart went by. Behind them, more vehicles. But if they ignored all that, in front of them was the majestic fort and above it, the moon. Tina stood next to Sid in silence. He turned to face her, smiled, and looked back at the fort with reverence, the rest of him still. The sound of the traffic fell away, the chaos of Delhi was silent. Too silent. The darkness and the beauty in front of them were making Tina uncomfortable so she said, “How did you discover this?”
“The World Wide Web, Tina,” he said, smiling. “I looked up things to do in Delhi.”
“So did I, but I got a list of designer shops to visit in Shahpur Jat. What did you google?”
“Ah, even our search terms are from different worlds,” Sid said. “Now, stop worrying and enjoy. Who cares how I found it?”
From there Tina followed Sid along the narrow sidewalk to the bottom of the bridge. The traffic was less there, and they managed to walk side by side. Tina had only ever seen this side of Delhi from inside an air-conditioned car and she had always been a little scared of it. But now it didn’t seem so terrifying. They stepped past two men sleeping on the sidewalk, wrapped up in dirty shawls, their chappals under their heads as makeshift pillows. The men were curled into tight balls to protect against the cold and the world. Sid was talking about one of his training clients who had flown him to Goa and then not exercised once while they were there.
“It was my first time on an airplane,” he said. “I loved it so much. I didn’t expect it to be quite so magnificent. My client was flying in business class and he apologized to me about economy class. But I saw his seat and it was much farther away from a window than mine was. If anything, I was the one who should have been apologizing to him.”
Sid had stopped walking and pulled out his wallet. He took two hundred-rupee notes and secured one near each sleeping man.
“Merry Christmas,” he said and kept walking. The thought hadn’t even crossed Tina’s mind and she was sure she had much more money in her purse. But if she added to it now it would look offensive so instead she said, “And a happy New Year,” and they kept walking in the darkness of the November night.
“And a happy Valentine’s Day,” Sid added with a smile.
“And a blessed Republic Day,” Tina added.
“And a prosperous Holi,” Sid said.
A man sat in a wheelchair, a dirty turban wrapped around his head. He looked at Tina and Sid walking past. In front of him, a woman squatted on the ground reading from a newspaper.
“Look at these two wandering around looking for drugs,” the husband said, pointing his chin toward Sid and Tina, who were outside hearing range. Tina caught his eye and smiled at him.
“Chalo, okay, let’s do it, it’s been a while,” the man said to his wife in a mix of Hindi, English, and Punjabi.
The wife got up, looked over at Tina and Sid, and screamed at the man in Punjabi, pushed him over, covered her face with the pallu of her sari, and walked away in the opposite direction. She hid behind a pillar and watched. Her husband looked over at her and stood, shaking, both hands grasping the sides of his wheelchair, and fell to the ground clutching his turban and saying, “Oh heavens, oh lord, oh dear, my legs.”
Tina and Sid ran over to the man and helped him up. The man looked at the concern in Tina’s eyes and almost felt guilty but then he saw a stone sparkle on the ground. Something had fallen out of the woman’s purse. Something shiny and probably expensive. As they settled him back into his chair, he used his foot to kick the bauble under the chair where she wouldn’t notice it.
“Is there anything we can do for you?” Tina asked.
“Nothing, nothing at all. You’ve already helped,” he said. “Go on your way, enjoy your evening. God bless you both.”
Behind the pillar his wife laughed and laughed. Her husband would have been a brilliant actor if he’d been given the opportunity.
The man watched Tina and Sid disappear. When they were out of sight, he bent down, picked up the earring, ran to find his wife behind the pillar, and opened his hand to reveal the glistening earring.
The wife picked it up and smiled at her husband.
“I’ve never owned a diamond before,” she said.
“I told you this wheelchair would bring us luck,” he said. “And you should have seen the girl’s face—so proud of herself. Bless her.”
“You still really shouldn’t steal wheelchairs,” she said, giving him a kiss on his cheek and walking back over to their belongings to find something to thread the earring to in order to wear as a necklace.
A few yards ahead, under the bridge, Tina and Sid approached what looked like a family gathered around a small pushcart. The father was lying on a mat holding up a small transistor radio to his ear, listening to a cricket match. Two
small children were squatting beside him stacking rocks on top of one another. The mother, a worn shawl covering her head, stood at the pushcart cooking corn over hot coals. Tina pulled her shawl tighter.
“Are you cold?” Sid asked. “Bombay doesn’t have seasons. Not like this, anyway. In Bombay we have hot, hotter, and wet.”
“I wouldn’t miss the New York winter,” Tina said. “But other than that, I love seasons.”
“I don’t think I could handle seasons every year,” Sid said. “It would make me too aware of the passage of time. Bhutta?”
Tina looked at the woman making the corn. It was filthy all around her, actual heaps of garbage lying near the roadside. The children weren’t wearing pants and one of them had snot running out of his nose.
“Actually, I need to get back to the club before anyone realizes I’m gone,” Tina said. But she looked up to find a street name and intersection quickly. Maybe she could come back and film this family. But what would the story be? She couldn’t make an entire show simply documenting filth and poverty. That felt somehow icky, voyeuristic, not hers to tell. But then who could tell it? If Tina didn’t tell their story because it wasn’t hers to tell, wouldn’t the next person in her job do it and work her way up to an Emmy nomination?
Sid smiled a knowing smile and said, “Yeah, you probably wouldn’t want to eat this anyway. Not sure if your stomach could handle it.”
“No, it isn’t that,” Tina said quickly. “It’s not that at all.”
“I shouldn’t be making you wander around Delhi in the middle of the night.”
“No, this is amazing,” Tina said.
“So is that club you’re staying at,” Sid said.
Tina shook her head.
“This is the Delhi I wanted to see, not just the club. But I really do have to go,” she said. “I’ve got a full day tomorrow and I need to sleep.”
She called Sunil and then looked back up to Sid’s face. Even with her in heels, he was quite a few inches taller than her and his height gave him a slight slouch that made him look forever casual. A car drove past, a remixed version of an old Bollywood song she recognized playing loudly.
* * *
—
MR. DAS WAS LISTENING to the same Bollywood song, but it was the original version, not a remix, and he was not under a bridge or in the Goldenrod Garden of Colebrookes, but on Mrs. Sethi’s balcony with the cool Delhi air filtering in as they sat drinking tea and chatting.
“You’re sure you don’t have to go to that cocktail party?” Mrs. Sethi asked.
“They’ve invited a thousand people, they’ll never notice I’m not there,” Mr. Das said. “And there’s nowhere else I want to be right now.”
Mrs. Sethi smiled and Anita came out carrying a tray with a plate of hot, fried vegetable pakoras and two small glasses of sweet port wine.
“Why did I ever leave India?” Mr. Das asked.
“Why did you?”
Mr. Das picked up a spinach pakora and said, “This wasn’t my India. I didn’t know this could be India. This wasn’t my America either. My parents worked and worked and worked and we lived well but they were never that interested in relaxation or pleasure.”
“That word sounds too indulgent,” Mrs. Sethi said. “Pleasure. I don’t see it as that. I see it as appreciation. Of the little things, you know? Appreciating the cool air despite the pollution. Enjoying the pakoras despite how unhealthy they are. Actively seeking out pleasure can feel a bit selfish in this world filled with cruelty.”
“To the art of appreciation, then.” He lifted his glass of port and sipped. “This is delicious.”
“I bought that in Portugal. Minal and I took a holiday there last year. Actually, that was purely for pleasure,” Mrs. Sethi laughed. “Sometimes pure pleasure is hard to resist, indulgent or not.”
“I’m worried Tina also doesn’t know how to enjoy herself,” Mr. Das said. “She lives like me. For work and for others, rarely for herself. Does your daughter have a boyfriend? You’ve never said.”
“A boyfriend, no,” Mrs. Sethi said. “But she has a roommate, as Minal always says, with an emphasis on the word. A female roommate.”
“Roommates are good but not the same as a husband at the end of the day,” Mr. Das said. “What if this roommate goes off and gets married? Then your daughter also will end up alone.”
Mrs. Sethi laughed and said, “Not a roommate, Neel, a girlfriend. My daughter doesn’t use the word yet but she has a girlfriend. She has a roommate, in the same room, in a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. My daughter is gay.”
“Your daughter has a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco?” Mr. Das asked.
“Her roommate runs a tech company. I don’t quite know what she does but it lets them live in a two-bedroom apartment near Dolores Park.”
“Tina also lives in a two-bedroom apartment but with no roommates of any sort. I worry about her,” Mr. Das said.
“That’s our job.”
“And she worries about me. That worries me even more.”
Mr. Das took another sip of his port.
“Can I see you again tomorrow?” Mr. Das asked. “And every single day that I’m here after that?”
“Let’s start with tomorrow,” Mrs. Sethi said. “And take it from there.”
WEDNESDAY MORNING, 7 A.M.
Colebrookes, New Delhi: The Chef’s Assistant Just Dropped a Whole Crate of Eggs on the Kitchen Floor and Then the Chef Slipped on It and Fell
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, MR. Das saw his wife walking toward his cottage in her tracksuit and sneakers.
“No David Smith today?” he called out.
“He went out early to see the Qutab Minar,” Radha said.
“And still you’re exercising? So it isn’t all just an act for his sake?” Mr. Das said. “Forget that. Come sit and have a nice milky cup of tea and some buttered toast. No matter how many times I tell them to bring the toast without butter, they don’t listen.”
Radha hesitated for a moment, tried to tell herself she would feel good if she went for a brisk walk but the idea of buttered toast dipped into hot, sweet tea was much more appealing than a long walk. She joined her ex-husband on his porch and said, “I suppose you’re right. That was always my favorite thing when we visited in winter.”
“It was your second-favorite thing,” Mr. Das said. “Your favorite thing was staying in bed under the blanket. I’m impressed that you wake up early and go for walks these days. I should learn from you.”
His Fitbit was attached to his shoelace and he had his legs crossed and was kicking the one with the Fitbit up and down.
“Hitting your ten thousand steps a day?” Radha asked.
“And more,” he said. “It’s quite a challenge doing it without taking too many steps. Isn’t Delhi beautiful this time of year? I think I’ve missed it.”
* * *
—
NEEL AND RADHA HAD not been back in Delhi together since the summer Neel got malaria, since long before their divorce. Radha herself had only been back once since then—alone, to Calcutta, when her mother had died. That trip was when everything fell apart. But only because the marriage was already on the brink and just needed a big bad wolf to blow gently. She had spent a day with another man in Delhi after cremating her mother. Ashok De, her mother’s doctor, the man who had held her outside the crematorium while she waited for the ashes, the man who caused her marriage to fall apart, had flown with her to Delhi to keep her company. Saying he held her was taking it too far actually. He had stood next to her and patted her shoulder. What he didn’t know was that Radha was crying more out of guilt than sadness. Guilt that she was relieved that her mother had died—relatively painlessly, in her sleep, with her beloved maid sleeping on a chataai on the ground next to her, at the appropriate age of ninety-one—and freed Radha from having to con
stantly worry about her and feel bad that she lived so far away.
Who really was to blame for the divorce? Radha had wondered this often herself. For some reason she had always taken the blame on herself but she wasn’t sure it was her fault.
It all fell apart at an IKEA, of all places. Radha had returned to Columbus after cremating her mother, after her near-affair with Ashok De, after being certain that her marriage was not worth fighting for, to Mr. Das standing at the airport holding a flask of her favorite green tea. How silly it seemed to even use the word “affair,” or “near-affair,” when nothing physical had happened, no intimate words had been exchanged, nothing worthy of a confession had actually transpired. But did an affair need any of those traditional markers? Was it not enough that Radha had felt a pull? Would she not be upset if she knew another woman had booked a flight to accompany Mr. Das somewhere for comfort? That felt more like betrayal than the simple, mindless exchange of bodily fluids.
Mr. Das took her luggage from her, handed her the flask, kissed her forehead, and said, “She’s at peace now. And you can be too.”
He said little else as they walked to the car park toward their Honda Accord. In the car he said, “You’ve been wanting a new bed for a while now. Why don’t we get one tomorrow? Remember how much Ma hated American mattresses? Always said Indian coir mattresses were the best for her back.”
“But always complained about backaches,” Radha said, smiling.
“We should buy a new bed and raise a toast to her tomorrow,” Mr. Das said.
Radha was tired from the long flight, the cremation, the electrifying hours spent with Ashok De, but she couldn’t stand the thought of going home now, of needing rest. At the funeral someone had said that the belly button doesn’t burn during cremation, but remains hard and in the same shape as it is on the living person. The idea of sleeping made her feel sad.
