Invisible Lives (18 page)

O
n the way home, there’s a lump in my throat, and when I finally speak, my voice comes out hoarse. “You were very good with Mrs. Tarun.”

“Everyone has grandparents,” Nick says.

“But not everyone carries them to the window.”

“She couldn’t get there herself.”

“She wouldn’t tell me the story of the ring,” I say. “Why do you think that is?”

“I think you already know the story,” Nick says. “Your intuition is always with you. What does it tell you now?”

“The ring made her sad. She knew my father. She came to see my mother. They haven’t seen each other in years. They fought.”

Nick drums his fingers on the steering wheel at the stoplight. Then I hear the cell phone ring in his pocket. He flips open the phone. “Liz—yeah, dinner. I’ll pick you up at seven.” He hangs up and tucks the phone into his pocket as the light changes to green.

My heart falls into my sandals. “Liz? You’re seeing her.”

“On and off.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Boy, you move quickly.”

“So do you, Ms. Indian princess. I’m not the one engaged.”

“Touché. So…do you tell her that it’s love at first sight, because—”

“No.”

“I know. It’s none of my business—”

“Lakshmi, you’re engaged.”

When he stops in front of my house, my legs feel leaden, but Nick’s already out, opening my door.

“Good-bye, Lakshmi,” he says, and leaves.

The tears press at the backs of my eyes. I take a deep breath, preparing to talk to my mother.

When I tell her where I’ve been, Ma’s face goes pale. She’s on the couch, a catalog open on her lap. Only upon second look, I see it’s not a catalog but a travel brochure, showing pictures of mountains.

“Baba loved another woman when he married you.” My voice wavers on a high wire.

“Your Baba loved me dearly,” she says.

I pace. “I know he did, Ma. But he was in love with Jamila, wasn’t he?”

Ma startles, just the tiniest tremor of her fingertips. “Young men do silly things.”

“She came here to find him, didn’t she?” My voice is a helium balloon rising into the atmosphere.

Ma doesn’t reply, her tremor of sadness a black thread.

“Did they have an affair, Ma?”

Her gaze shifts to me again, and she gives me a weak smile. “Only before we were married, Bibu. When Jamila came to the shop looking for him, he was already gone.”

I deflate on the couch. My eyelids feel heavy. “And that’s why she was sad? Because she came looking for him and discovered that he was already…dead?”

Ma nods, sadness falling into her shoulders. “You see, Bibu, your father gave her the ring before he married me. And then…his parents introduced us, and we were married.”

“You didn’t marry for love.” But I knew that.

Did he love Jamila for the rest of his life?

“Ah, Bibu, these things are better left unspoken.”

“Why, Ma? Why not talk about them? Did Baba ever love you?” Everything I believed, all my quaint thoughts about my childhood, begin to crumble.

“Of course he loved me,” she says. “And he loved you too.”

“But he was in love with Jamila. When he went to India, did he see her?” My voice is thin and tight.

“I don’t know.” Ma looks down at her hands. We may never know, I realize.

“And do you love Mr. Basu?”

Ma gives me a sharp look. “What are you saying?”

“I thought maybe he was taking advantage of you, but—”

“He is not taking advantage,” she says quietly.

“Ma—why didn’t you tell me?”

She closes the travel brochure. Himalayas, it reads. “I did not want to trouble you. I thought that perhaps, with your increased sensitivity, you might draw your own conclusions.”

“I didn’t understand about you and Mr. Basu, not at first.”

“Perhaps you see what you want to see sometimes, Bibu.”

“Still, you didn’t have to hide—”

“What would people have said? You were not yet matched—”

“What does my match matter, Ma? Why Mr. Basu?”

“He is kind, and attentive to me. We have fun together. He takes good care of me. He may not look it, but he’s a considerate man.”

“Have you been seeing him a long time? I thought that one time—”

“What time?”

“I thought that one weekend you spent with him—”

“There were many weekends, Bibu. You’ve always been so stuck on Baba. Damaged by his death. You were so young. I did not want to hurt you.”

“Damaged? What do you mean, damaged?”

“Let your Baba go, Lakshmi.”

Me, let him go? She’s the one who needs to let him go!

Always take care of your mother.

I stomp off to my room, and that night, my father returns to my dreams. We’re standing in a misted forest, the air cool and refreshing. He’s wearing a woolen coat, perhaps the one he wore to Darjeeling. His face remains obscured in shadow. He shoves his hands into his pockets, hunches against the cold. His breath comes out in puffs of steam. “My dearest child,” he says. “You know I have always loved you.”

A lump comes up in my throat. Then why did you leave? I want to say, but I’m speechless.

“I didn’t leave you purposely,” he says. “These things happen. Planes crash, trains derail. Flesh and blood can’t fight these twists of fate.”

I know this is true, that accidents and tsunamis and earthquakes happen, that the planets move in mysterious ways. “But aren’t Ravi and I lucky to have found each other?” I ask in desperation.

My father paces, leans his shoulder against a tree. The mist is a living thing, creeping in around our feet. “Not a coincidence. Your mother knew where to find him. She was just waiting for the right time.”

“I think I knew that, Baba. But still—”

“There are other things in life that happen by accident. Someone walks in front of you, smiles at you in the street. Serendipity.”

“Baba—what are you trying to say?”

Now he steps into the light, and his face is young but distant, washed in sepia, shaded by age and regret. A face kept young for too long. “I am trying to say that it happened to me.”

“Someone walked in front of you, smiled at you in the street?”

“Before I knew your mother.”

Words strangled in my throat. “You loved Ma, didn’t you?”

“The way one grows to love one’s home.” His voice drips with sadness.

“Like a rug or a sagging armchair?” I shout. “Or like true love?”

“I loved—
love
you more than anything,” he says. “My Bibu.”

“Baba—you didn’t answer my question.” But already I know the answer.

I run toward him, but with every step, he moves farther away. The mist fades, and then I’m awake, in the world of the living.

T
he next morning, I corner Mr. Basu in the office before anyone else arrives. He’s got a pile of new saris around him.

“Do you love my mother?” I ask him, hands on my hips.

“What?” He glances up at me, the two hairs standing straight up on his head. But his face looks different today, not quite as round. He’s drinking a double-tall mocha. I didn’t know he drank coffee.

“You’ve been sleeping with my mother. Do you love her?”

He stands, and suddenly he looks taller than usual. “Do you love Ravi Ganguli?”

I sputter, no words coming out.

“Lakshmi,” he says quietly. “I wondered when you would come to talk to me.”

“What do you mean, when?”

“You are always trying so hard to take care of your mother.”

“What do you mean, trying so hard? What do you know?”

“Your ma and I are very happy. You can let go.”

“Let go of what? I’m not holding onto anything!”

He takes a long sip of his mocha. “I knew your ma in India, before I lost my hair. Before I had this paunch.” He pats his belly, which doesn’t look quite as big today. “You are probably wondering how she could love a man like me.”

“No, that’s not what I meant—”

“Perhaps she loved me long ago, Lakshmi. Before she met your father. Your ma and I, we laughed together, we hiked, we went to the cinema.”

“Mr. Basu—”

“When she sees me now, she doesn’t see my paunch. She sees me the way I was. I am still a young man in here.” He points to his bald temple. I catch a glimpse of him as a young man, slim and—handsome! “But you don’t see, Lakshmi. You see what you want to see.”

“I see perfectly well!”

Mr. Basu comes up to me and searches my eyes. So close, I’m surprised to find that he’s actually a little taller than me. “Find your happiness, Lakshmi. Your mother has found hers. Let us be together. You must trust. I will take care of her.”

I squeeze Mr. Basu’s hands. I can hardly speak for the catch in my throat. “You’d better be good to her.”

And then Ma and Pooja arrive, and we’re lost in the bustle of morning activity. Just before noon, a gangly boy comes into the shop and walks around, looking embarrassed. He’s familiar to me—oh! He’s Anu, the boy who came to buy a sari for his mother, the first time I met Nick. When the
knowing
disappeared.

This teenager must be here to tell me I ruined his relationship with his mother. The
knowing
slipped away, and he took home a blue sari that made her look frumpy. She must’ve thrown the sari out in the street.

Anu spots me, waves, and rushes over. “Ms. Lakshmi,” he says in a serious voice.

There’s no escape. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me that day. If you need to return the sari, please do—”

“No, no! The sari was perfect!”

“What do you mean, perfect?”

“When I gave it to Ma, she cried. She said she had been looking for a midnight blue sari all her life. The way the colors changed in the light, she said, was a dream!”

“A dream?”

“She said it was as if you had reached into her head and pulled out all her thoughts and wishes.”

But the
knowing
was gone. Nick had taken it away.

Just then a beautiful woman glides into the shop. She’s tall, angular, her skin smooth and milky, only the hint of creases around her eyes belying her age. She’s wearing the midnight blue sari, a matching blouse, and holding the pallu over her arm in an elegant style. “This sari has brought me great happiness, and I must thank you myself,” she says. “My son and I will come in here more often now.”

“Of course, I can help you!” I spend the next half hour picking out sari after sari. After Anu and his mother leave, I escape to the office to catch my breath. I picked the right sari while the bubbles hovered around my head. A glimpse of the
knowing
must’ve peered through.

Intuition,
Nick said.
You always have it.

I think of him carrying Mrs. Tarun to the window, his tenderness.
Do you believe in love at first sight?

You two make a lovely couple,
Mrs. Tarun said.

Did she love my father all her life? She said the chiffon sari saved her life. She found the man she would marry, but did she love him? Was she happy? Did she compromise?

Did Ma always love Mr. Basu?

You must trust. I will take care of her.

Baba—maybe Mr. Basu is right. Maybe I can let go.

Ma comes rushing through the store, carrying a taped package from India. “I ordered this some time ago, Lakshmi, and it has finally arrived! Heavy red silk inlaid with gold! Your wedding sari!”

I
take the sari home. In my room, I change into a petticoat and red blouse and stand in front of the full-length mirror. I’m nearly fully clothed, but in India, I would feel naked without the sari.

I hold the wedding sari up to my chest. A concentrated inner light shimmers from the red silk. The fabric breathes, as if the fibers are alive. A faint, indefinable scent rises from the intricate gold weave—a mixture of newness and ancient India. In the folds, I see the future of a family, a bride smiling through a translucent pallu. The sari changes texture and color to become all the saris she will ever own—soft cottons, georgette, silk, chiffon. She uses the sari to dab the sweat from her brow, to shield her head in the sun, to wipe her daughter’s tears. A small boy grips his mother’s pallu, takes his first tentative steps. Her husband will slowly unravel the sari in a soft dance of foreplay. She will cover her mouth in a coy gesture as she runs from him. Will the sari get caught in a door, accidentally fall off at an embarrassing moment?

I have to try on this wedding sari, but my fingers won’t move. The garment grows heavy in my hands, and when I unfold the fabric, it slips through my fingers. It’s worth several thousand rupees, one of a kind, handwoven in a natural, heavy silk with the finest embroidery, and yet I can’t put it on. I just stand there looking at it.