The World We Found (6 page)

“What’s wrong?”

“He lost his job, deekra. Was working as an accountant for Kitar Enterprises. But business is bad, so they let him go. He has a wife and three children. Can’t find a new job. I try to help, but on my pension, not much I can do.”

Adish was relieved to be confronted by a solvable problem. Unlike the situation with Armaiti, this he could help with. “Do one thing, Maneckshaw,” he said, as he dug through his shirt pocket for a business card. “Have your son call this number on Monday and speak to Ashok, my head accountant. I’m sure we can find a position for him in my company.”

Maneck stared at him open-mouthed. “What are you saying, deekra?”

Adish laughed. “I’m saying that I will try to hire your son.”

The old man gripped Adish’s hand in both of his. “This is the miracle of this holy site,” he said. “When I approached you, I had no idea. Many blessings on you, beta.”

“Good,” Adish said lightly. “I need all the blessings I can get.” He extracted his hand from Maneck’s trembling ones. “Good day, Maneckshaw. See you soon.”

S
he had not showered. It was the first thing Adish noticed as he entered the apartment and walked into the bedroom. In all the years that they had been married he had never known Lal to wait this late in the day to shower. He found her sitting in the middle of the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking slightly. Her thick, dark hair had come loose, and when she looked up at Adish, her face was smudged, her eyes red and puffy.

And just like that, the residual anger over the incident from last night disappeared. “Oh, Lal,” he breathed, making his way to her.

He forced himself to ignore the fact that she stiffened imperceptibly when he sat on the bed and put his arm around her. For a second he wondered if Laleh was still smarting from their argument from last night. “What’s wrong, darling?” he asked.

“Armaiti called,” she said. “It’s the middle of the night there but she couldn’t sleep.” She twisted her head to face him. “Armaiti’s dying. My oldest friend in the world is dying.”

“I know. It’s very sad.” He bit down on the urge to point out that she and Armaiti had not been in close touch for years.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lal said, as if she was replying to his unspoken thought. “It doesn’t matter that we didn’t talk to each other a whole lot or stay in touch. Armaiti was—is—an aspect of me. The best, purest part of me.”

Before he stubbed it out, Adish was singed by a jealousy that had its origins in an older time—the college years, when Laleh had seemed so attuned to Armaiti and so disinterested in him. “Love doesn’t die when people do, janu,” he said to her. “What you and Armaiti shared will always be alive.”

It was the wrong thing to say. The look on Laleh’s face told him this. “Don’t try and pacify me with your spiritual mumbo-jumbo, Adish,” Lal said. “It may work for you but it doesn’t work for me. The fact is that Armaiti is dying and I’ve been a lousy friend to her. Nothing changes that.”

He felt his face redden. “I—I was only trying to help,” he said.

“You can’t help, Adish. No one can. We both know why Armaiti is sick.”

He looked at her blankly. “Because she has a brain tumor?” he said at last.

Laleh made a growling sound. “And what caused the brain tumor, stupid?” she said. “Why does a healthy woman who is not even fifty suddenly get a tumor?”

A bell was clanging inside Adish’s head, and it was getting louder and louder. It was beginning to dawn on him what Laleh was talking about, but the thought was so preposterous, so far-fetched, that he let the clanging of the bell drown it out. He opened his mouth to speak but could only shake his head.

Laleh had an expression on her face that reminded him of another day from long ago. But he couldn’t think of that now, because he was confused. And distracted. Because despite the disheveled hair, the eyes swollen with tears, the chewed-on lower lip, Laleh looked beautiful. Adish’s eyes wandered to the spot where her long, dark neck met with the collar of a white shirt, worn over the black pants that she’d bought during their last trip to Thailand. The stone in Laleh’s ring caught a flash of the sun and cast a fleeting rainbow on the wall. “Lal—” he ventured.

“It’s happened, Adish,” she said fiercely. “It took years and years to catch up with me, but it did. You know what I’m talking about. You were there.”

He flinched, as if she had slapped him. He stared at her, at a loss for what to say. Despite her occasional penchant for drama, Laleh was the most pragmatic person he knew. Over the years he had learned to count on the coolness of her judgment on almost everything, from choosing the color of the upholstery to helping him decide to quit his job and start his own business. She had a way of clarifying the world, of reducing problems to their most basic roots, and then solving them, that he had always envied. He suspected it was one of the reasons she had always resisted the allures of the religious faith that he had found more and more compelling as he grew older—she was afraid that it would cloud the clear-eyed way in which she saw the world.

And now his wife was sitting on her bed telling him tearfully that she was responsible for Armaiti’s fatal illness. He saw now that what he’d thought was grief and shock at hearing the devastating news was really guilt. The past coming back to haunt them. The past, which he had believed they had beaten down, like cotton stuffed inside a mattress.

“Laleh,” he said. “You’re not making any sense.”

Her eyes were big and round. “It was the blow from the laathi, Adish,” she whispered. “You remember when she was in the hospital? The bastard police officer had hit her right in the head. Don’t you remember her amnesia?”

“It was thirty years ago.” His voice was louder than he’d intended, and for a second he wondered where the children were. Then he remembered. Ferzin was at a friend’s house. Farhad was at the gym. “And it was just a concussion. The amnesia was temporary.”

“That’s what Kavita said also. But I still remember how black-and-blue her forehead was. She probably bled internally. And there was probably scar-tissue buildup over the years. And that . . .”

He grabbed her wrist. “Laleh. Shut up. Shut up and listen to me. You’re not making sense. You’re not a doctor. This is just a coincidence—a very sad coincidence. You have to stop torturing yourself like this.”

She said it so softly, he almost didn’t hear her. “So is this how we absolve ourselves?”

He shot up from the edge of the bed and stood, towering over her. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” And then, with a defiant look in her eyes, she repeated what she’d said, louder this time.

Adish shook his head. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let you drag me into whatever bullshit’s swirling around in your head.”

“That’s up to you. You have to face your own conscience. I know that I made a Faustian bargain. And that I’m paying for it now.”

He held back the tears that were lining his eyes. “So what are you saying? That you regret our life together?” His hand swept around the room and the life that they’d built. “That none of this matters?”

She pulled back, as if to see him fully, and then released her words, gently, languidly, like an archer knowing he was about to score a kill. “On the contrary, dear Adish. I’m saying that it all matters. Everything matters. Our virtues
and
our sins.”

He was grateful for the out that she had given him. “Sins?” he yelled. “The woman who a few minutes ago gave me shit for my religious mumbo-jumbo is now talking about sin? What the hell, Lal? Suddenly you’re a damn missionary? We were not even twenty years old, Lal. Younger than our Ferzin. There was no sin. Unless you’re going to sit there and tell me that my loving you was a sin. And if you do, I swear I’ll knock your teeth out. I’ll lose you first before I’ll have you call what I felt for you a sin.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Laleh suddenly exhaled and looked deflated, like a sack emptied of its cargo. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore,” she mumbled. “I’m—I’m tired.” She looked up. “I’m not trying to hurt you, Adish.”

He stood looking at her, moving his weight from foot to foot, feeling the blood throbbing in his head. “Listen,” he said finally. “I—I need to go to the office for a couple of hours. Catch up on some work. Okay?”

Laleh shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

He couldn’t say what irritated him more—the indifference or the defeat that he heard in her voice. But whatever it was, it made him grind his teeth. “Okay,” he said shortly. “See you.”

It took all the self-control he had to not slam the front door behind him. He walked to the elevator and punched the down button. He waited a few seconds and then jabbed at the button again. He glanced at the apartment door, afraid that Laleh would come out and coax him back in the house. He needed air, needed to walk, time to clear his head. Don’t let Laleh open that door, he prayed to himself. But as soon as he got into the elevator and began his descent, another, contradictory, feeling came over him: disappointment that Laleh had not come out and apologized and led him back in.

The lift reached the ground-floor lobby and Adish lingered for a moment, trying to decide whether he wanted to walk or drive. Stepping out of the building with his head hung low, he didn’t see Farhad coming toward him until he heard, “Hi, Papa.”

He looked up and smiled involuntarily. “Hi, boss,” he said. “How was your workout?”

Farhad shrugged. “Fine.” He looked curiously at his dad. “Where’re you going?”

“I’m not sure. For a walk, maybe.”

“Yeah, right,” Farhad drawled. “When’s the last time you walked?”

Adish smacked his son lightly on the head. “Chup re, saala. Don’t give your old man a hard time. Just remember, I may have put on a few kilos but I can still beat you at wrestling. And chess,” he added.

Farhad grinned happily. He fell in step beside his father, walking in that loping, ungainly manner that warmed Adish’s heart. “I’ll go with you.”

Adish stopped. “Actually, boss, I wanted to be alone for a little while.” He hesitated, unsure of how much to say to Farhad. “I have a . . . business problem . . . that I need to solve.”

Farhad reached into his jeans, took out a piece of gum, and popped it in his mouth. “Okay,” he said simply. “When will you be home?”

“Are you allowed to chew gum with those braces on?” Adish asked.

Farhad grinned. “As long as Mom doesn’t know, it won’t hurt anything,” he said.

The boy looked so much like a tall, gangly animal in his ridiculously large shoes and his baggy shirt, that Adish felt a gust of love sweep through him. He reached up and squeezed his son in a bear hug. “I won’t be gone long,” he said.

“Papa.” Farhad sounded shocked. “What’re you doing? My friends will see.”

Adish wanted to hold his son forever. But Farhad was right. He forced himself to slacken his grip.

“Okay, bye,” Farhad said.

“Farhad,” Adish said. “Go upstairs directly, okay? No stopping for table tennis or anything. Mummy’s really upset about Armaiti auntie.”

Farhad stood blinking, and Adish could tell the boy was trying to decide whether to pretend to be blasé and indifferent or give in to his true, kindly nature. How hard we men make our own lives, Adish thought to himself. He put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Beta,” he said. “No stupid jokes, okay?”

The boy nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said, and suddenly Adish was not worried.

Now if only the rest of his family was as simple as Farhad, he thought, as he left the gates of the apartment complex and turned left onto the street.

Chapter 5

Y
esterday’s quarrel with Adish was fresh in Laleh’s mind as the cab wound its way down the choking streets. She had apologized to him soon after he’d returned home, and he had accepted, but he had looked at her with guarded, cautious eyes this morning as he left for work, and Laleh knew that she’d scared Adish badly with her meltdown yesterday. She vowed to do better. Adish was a gem and deserved better than a wife who came unhinged because of a phone call from the past.

“I can’t believe they live in this neighborhood,” Kavita said, rolling up the window to keep out the stench. “Maybe Nishta was sending her mother a fake address.”

“That makes no sense, Ka.”

Years ago, Laleh had been envious of Nishta for marrying a Muslim, had seen her interfaith marriage as a badge of honor, and her estrangement from her parents as a heroic act. She’d said as much to Adish during their courtship. “I never thought I’d be dating a Parsi,” she’d once told him, with her usual blend of irony and seriousness. “I’d always thought I’d be like Nishta—if I ever marry, that is.”

“Add that to the list of what’s wrong with me,” he had grinned. “The fact that I’m a Parsi. And that your parents approve of me.”

She’d smiled. “Too bad you’re so good-looking. It would be so much easier to dump you if you weren’t.”

“Too bad you’re so cute,” he’d responded. “Otherwise, I’d have dumped you for being such a bitch.”

They had laughed at the time. But now, looking out from the cab window, Laleh realized how immature she had been in her envy of Nishta. If her marriage had brought Nishta to this squalid neighborhood, she had paid a steep price. A lifelong Bombayite, Laleh had thought that she knew the city well, from its slums to its five-star hotels. But she had never been to this part of the city—this all-Muslim neighborhood—before.