In the past, this particular talent of Mangalam’s had enabled him to enjoy moments of forbidden pleasure without worrying about consequences. Today it was bolstered by a bottle of Wild Turkey that had miraculously escaped the wrath of nature and was safely hidden inside his file cabinet. Over the last several hours, he had been making surreptitious pilgrimages to it, followed by guilt-ridden mouthwash sprees in the bathroom. The guilt was two-pronged. First, he had been brought up in a strict Hindu household on scriptural verses that declared that the consumption of alcohol was a primary symptom of the depraved age of Kali. And second, though it didn’t exactly fall under the category of food, he felt that he should have turned the bottle in to the soldier.
Under normal circumstances, Mangalam was not a drinker. He had the bottle in his office only because he had received it last week, a gift from a grateful client whose visa he had expedited through a less-than-legal shortcut. He had planned to take it back to India, where the price of Wild Turkey was astronomical. He hadn’t yet decided whether he would sell it or re-gift it to someone important who might extend his overseas assignment. But now India had receded from his life, and the best he could hope for was that an aftershock would not shatter the bottle before he had the chance to empty it.
Mangalam hauled off beams that had splintered like the neem sticks his parents had used as toothbrushes, yanked at metal rods twisted into skewers, and spat out with Zen dignity pieces of plaster that had found their way into his mouth. As he did so, he wished that Mrs. Mangalam, who used to denounce his ability to compartmentalize as callous and cowardly, could observe him now. Since that was not about to happen, it wasn’t unreasonable of him (was it?) to hope that Malathi would notice his single-minded, stoic demeanor. Although when he thought of her, the drawers in his mind shrank. He could not fit her into any of them. He thought of how he had kissed her, her soft mouth opening under his, her tongue tasting of fennel seed, which she must have chewed after lunch. Later, he had gripped her by the forearms and shaken her. He remembered how her head had snapped forward and back, how astonished she’d looked before hatred had heavied her features. He wished he could tell her that he was sorry. But even if the perfect opportunity for it arose, he would never take it. Apologize to a woman and she would gain the upper hand. Mangalam knew better than to let that happen.
IT TOOK THEM THREE HOURS TO MAKE THEIR WAY TO TARIQ and dig him out. Throughout, Lily stayed with them in the passage. When Cameron told her she was taking an unnecessary risk, distressing her grandmother, she put on her sullen teen face. Once they uncovered Tariq’s hand, she clutched it as though it rightfully belonged to her. She had to let go when the men made their way, carrying him single file, through the tunnel they’d dug in the Lilliputian mountain, but as soon as they were on the other side, she grasped it again.
Back in the room, Tariq said nothing. Though he was conscious, he kept his eyes shut and refused to answer the questions Cameron asked him in order to figure out if he had a concussion. By now, the floor of the visa office was too wet to lay him down, so they seated him in a chair. Lily held his hand, which she patted from time to time. Malathi propped him up while Mrs. Pritchett cleaned him off with a wet piece of what had once been a blue sari. But they were both distracted.
“Why isn’t anyone trying to get us out?” Malathi whispered to Mrs. Pritchett. “Do you think they’ve forgotten us? Do you think we’re going to die down here?”
Mrs. Pritchett wiped cursorily at Tariq’s face, missing a large patch of grime on his cheek where his skin had been scraped raw. “God hasn’t forgotten us,” she said, staring into the distance with concentration, as though attempting to read a billboard that wasn’t adequately lighted. “He knows our entire histories, past and future both, and gives us what we deserve.”
If the words had been meant to comfort, they failed. Malathi gave a moan and backed away. Tariq began to slide sideways. He might have slipped off the chair if Lily hadn’t grabbed a fistful of his shirt. She gave the two women her best evil-eye look, but they didn’t seem to notice.
The sudden movement had jolted Tariq into a more alert state. When Cameron came back with some ointment, he strained away until the other man threw down the tube with an expletive. It was Lily who rubbed the salve into Tariq’s face and forearms and bandaged him the best she could, admonishing him for his misbehavior. Afterward, she delved in her backpack and found a pink comb and smoothed down his hair. Her own once-spiky hair had wilted, falling over her forehead, making her look waiflike. She asked if she could get him anything else, and bent close to his mouth to listen. When, eyes still shut, he whispered something, she found his briefcase and put his Quran in his hands. She made him drink some water and recommended that he open his eyes. “No need to feel embarrassed. We’d probably all have done the same thing and rushed out.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Jeez! Quit behaving like a baby. No one’s looking at you.”
This was true. Cameron had just informed the group that beyond the pile that had trapped Tariq, the stairwell was blocked, floor to ceiling, by chunks of debris too large to be moved without the help of machines. He had reminded them not to talk or move about too much. He wasn’t sure how good the air was down here. How much oxygen they had left. People were trying to deal with the fact that their greatest hope—that the door, if only they could open it, would lead them to safety and sunlight—had evaporated. Until now death had been a cloud on a distant horizon, colored like trouble but manageably sized. Suddenly it loomed overhead, blotting out possibility. Panic darkened each mind, and Malathi’s questions—Have they forgotten us? Will we die trapped down here?—beat inside each chest.
Tariq heard Lily, but he kept his eyes shut. He was mortified by having caused more trouble, by having required rescuing—by the African American, no less—when he’d hoped to lead their band to safety. That’s why, although he wanted to, he wasn’t able to tell Lily how grateful he was for what she had done for him out in the passage, when terror had spread through him like squid ink. She had been brave, far more than he. He had sniveled and sobbed under the weight of darkness and debris. Even if no one else found this out, he knew it.
Holding the Quran in his lap, he tried to pray. God was the only one he could bear to connect with, because surely over the ages He’d seen more contemptible behavior than Tariq’s and forgiven it. But Tariq couldn’t recall any of the traditional words. He would have to make up his own prayer. He couldn’t remember the last time he had undertaken that. Removed from the elegant choreography of the chants he depended on, he was stumped. What did people say to their Maker, anyway? In which tone did they register their complaints or pleas? How did they (not that it appeared that Tariq would have a reason to do this anytime soon) offer their thanks? Allah, he tried tentatively. But even inside his head his voice sounded querulous, and he fell silent.
WHEN MRS. PRITCHETT HEARD ABOUT THE BLOCKED PASSAGE, she backed away from the group until her shoulders came up against a wall. How could this be? She was meant to go to India. She had felt intimations stirring within her since the time the night nurse had appeared in her hospital room. They had coalesced into certainty when Mr. Pritchett, who disliked travel because it was messy and uncertain, had held out that magazine, offering her a palace. But now unsureness stirred within her, muddying things, and she collapsed into a chair. With no way out but the imagination, she closed her eyes and let a memory take her over. In it she sat at her mother’s yellow Formica kitchen counter with her best friend, Debbie. They were both eighteen; they had just graduated from high school; they each had in front of them a piece of peach pie that Mrs. Pritchett (except she wasn’t Mrs. Pritchett yet) had baked from a recipe she had created herself.
The peach pie was excellent, with a light, flaky crust and the golden taste you get only when you combine fresh peaches of just the right ripeness with a cook who has that special touch. But the girls had barely taken a bite. They were too excited. Each of them had a secret, and the telling of that
secret would change their futures.
How tangible and powerful hope had been in that kitchen, like freshly grated lemon zest on her tongue. Every dream that came to her in those days was possible—no, more than possible. Even dreams she had been unable to imagine yet waited like low-hanging fruit for her grasp. What happened then? How did she get from there to here, waiting against a wall like a deer dazed by headlights? If she took birth again (she had been thinking about reincarnation a great deal since her time in the hospital), would she regain her early ebullience? Would she know not to let it slip through her hands this time?
Yes, I would, Mrs. Pritchett told herself. She visualized, once again, the palace bedroom, its plush pillows fit for the gods. It gave her new strength, though she did not particularly wish to visit a palace once she reached India. She had other plans. Still, the image reminded her that all she had to do was remain happy and calm, and rescue would arrive.
She made her way to the counter, where water twinkled on and off in a hundred bon voyage! bowls, depending on the direction in which Cameron’s flashlight was pointing. She chose a bowl and walked to a chair located as far from the others as possible. Even so, she could feel the desolation they emitted as they milled around Cameron, demanding to know what would happen next. So much agitation. And for what? All that negative energy only attracted bad luck into your life. But she knew better than to try to explain. They would learn when they’d been through the fire themselves.
She placed the bowl on the ground, arranged the pleats of her skirt daintily from old habit, and shook out a couple of Xanax tablets from the bottle in her pocket. Three fell out on her palm. Four. She didn’t put them back. The universe wanted her to have them. The pills would allow her to be hopeful. And the power of that hope would draw the rescuers to them.
She tucked the bottle into her pocket and took a sip of water. And then, just as she was about to release the pills into her mouth, a hand clamped itself around her wrist and jerked them away.
“What are you doing?” said Mr. Pritchett’s low, furious voice.
“Let go of me,” she said, equally furious. He was spoiling everything.
“Why? Don’t we have enough trouble here already, without trying to take care of you on top of that?”
She peered at him through the gloom. People you had once loved knew the best ways to hurt you. “You don’t have to take care of me. I’ve been managing on my own.”
He stared, astonished at her ingratitude. He considered all those precious hours of work he had given up, waiting in her hospital room while she lay in a daze. And later, moping around the house with her, asking which TV show she wanted to watch, fixing lunches that she abandoned half-eaten, offering to pick up books from the library. The time and money he had spent planning this trip to India, the tickets he had booked. Just because her eyes had shone for a moment when she saw that cursed picture. The words were in his mouth: If it weren’t for trying to take care of you, I wouldn’t be stuck down here, about to die. Everything I worked so hard for brought to zero. With an effort that could only be described as heroic (though no one else would know), he held the retort back. If she did something to herself, he didn’t want it on his conscience.
Instead he said, “Haven’t I worked hard all my life to give you everything you wanted, everything—”
“You don’t know the first thing about caring,” she said. “Relationships aren’t businesses that can be made healthy by pouring money into them. As for things—okay, I enjoyed them. But I never wanted them that much. What I wanted—” She shook her head as though he were some kind of moron, incapable of understanding what she was trying to explain. “It doesn’t matter what I wanted,” she said. “All I want now is for you to leave me alone.”
A trembling had started deep in his body. If only he could have a cigarette, he could handle this better. He tried to twist the pills out of her hand, but she made a stubborn fist. “Stop it!” she shouted. Like they were in a scene in a bad movie. “Stop trying to control my life!”
He could see people looking up, distracted from their own troubles by this little marital drama. He hated her for making them stare. He had always disliked attention, and she knew it. Then he saw something that gave him a brilliant idea. He let go of her hand and lunged for the bulge in her sweater pocket. Sure enough, it was her bottle of pills. He held it up like a trophy.
“Give it back!” she cried. This time the panic in her voice was real. She lunged for the bottle, but he raised his arm so that it was beyond her reach. “You can’t take my medication!”
“I’ll give it to you, in the right dosage, when you need it. You just have to ask me.”
He started walking away. He could hear her sobbing behind him, a sound like soft cloth tearing. It almost made him turn around and give the bottle back. But her behavior had just proved she couldn’t be trusted with the pills. For her own good, he had to hold on to them. Didn’t he?
What was that she was saying, between sobs? Now you’ve ruined everything. Next she’d be blaming him for the earthquake.
Preoccupied, he didn’t notice Malathi standing in the half-dark until he was almost upon her. “Sorry,” he said, moving to the side. But she moved with him. “Give her back her medicine,” she said.
He stared at her, taken aback. Except for a few terse instructions when he had approached the counter yesterday, these were the first words she had said to him. As far as he knew, she hadn’t spoken to Mrs. Pritchett at all. Now she blocked his path, her hands on her hips, her hair loose and wild around her face, wearing a ruffled underskirt and a blue-and-gold sweatshirt.
“Give it back,” she said again. “You have no right to treat her like that just because you’re her husband.”
Under different circumstances, he would have told her it was none of her business, but he was weakened by Mrs. Pritchett’s continued weeping. He started to explain that Mrs. Pritchett was a danger to herself, but he was interrupted by Mangalam.
Mangalam had overheard Malathi’s words as he returned from another trek to the bathroom; he pulled at her arm. “Have you gone crazy?” he whispered angrily in Tamil. “This isn’t India. You can’t interfere in people’s lives like this. Leave them alone.”
She shook him off. “You leave me alone,” she said in English.
He reached for her arm again.
“Don’t you touch me,” she said, her voice rising. “Don’t you tell me what to do. What do you men think you are?”
Out of the corner of his eye Mangalam saw people watching. The teenager was moving toward them. Her grandmother said something sharp and forbidding in Chinese, but the girl kept coming. Embarrassed, he resorted to officiality. “Malathi Ramaswamy,” he said in the icy voice that had worked so well earlier. “As your superior I am most displeased with your behavior.” He used English: he wanted Mr. Pritchett to understand what he was saying. “Kindly wash your face and compose yourself before you speak with any of our clients again. Mr. Pritchett, please accept my apologies for this woman’s unprofessional conduct.”
Malathi bowed her head—suitably chastened, he thought. Then, as he turned away, she said, “Only just wash my face, sir?” In Tamil she added, “Or shall I take a little whiskey drink also, like you? And what would our clients think if they knew about your professional conduct behind closed doors?”
He was shocked that she had discovered the bourbon. She must have snooped around when she had locked herself in the office. He felt light-headed. His mind hovered over a suspicion: the air was getting harder to breathe. But he was distracted by rage. She was planning to expose him in front of these people whose opinion mattered to him because they were probably the last people he would see before dying. She was going to tell them about his drinking, about the advances he had made. She was going to take their kiss, which in spite of its doubtful ethical nature had been something beautiful, a first kiss freely given between a man and a woman, and make it sordid. That was what made him most angry. His hand, m
oving faster than his brain, swung out and caught her on the side of the face. He felt the flesh give under the impact. She cried out sharply and raised her arm, belatedly, to shield herself. He moved toward her to inspect the damage, queasiness and guilt churning inside him, and as he did so, like echoes, he heard two other cries.
One of them rose from Mrs. Pritchett, somewhere on the floor behind him. The other came from Lily, who was somehow in front of him. She launched herself at him, spitting expletives. Disgraceful, the language a young person used these days. Before he could turn away, her nails raked his cheek, leaving a line of burning. He clapped his hand over it. Would it leave a scar? He had always been so careful with his face. It was the one thing that he had going for him, that had brought him this far. His life was unraveling. His god, his career, his reputation, his looks—they were all deserting him. He pushed Lily from him. She landed on the floor with a thump and a gasp, and then someone else was on him, pummeling furiously. Had everyone gone crazy? Through the rain of fists he saw Tariq’s face, so distorted with rage that Mangalam almost didn’t recognize him.
“Hitting her after she risked her life!” Tariq panted between blows. “Aren’t you ashamed?”
Mangalam wanted to point out that he had just been standing there. Lily was the one who ran up and attacked him. Did a man have no right to self-defense just because he was a man? He wanted to remind Tariq that he, too, had been part of the rescue team that had dug Tariq out. He, too, had—in his own small way—risked his life. But the moment was not suited to logical parley. He punched Tariq back, partly to protect himself and partly because it felt so good to finally do something. Hands were on them both, trying unsuccessfully to pull them apart. The alcohol gave him an exhilarating agility. He skipped from foot to foot and jabbed at Tariq’s face. But then his body betrayed him. He stumbled. Tariq wrestled him to the floor and grabbed his throat.
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