The World We Found (14 page)

She struggled to respond but found it hard to concentrate on what Diane was saying. Because she’d suddenly realized why it was so important to her to see the others again. It was because of Diane. They were the heirloom she would pass on to Diane. They would help explain her to her daughter.

She needed to be alone for a few minutes, needed some time to think. “Listen,” she said. “You know what I have a real taste for? Some rum-and-raisin ice cream. But the only place around here that sells it is the market off Emory. You wouldn’t want to go get some, would you?”

As she had predicted, Diane rose immediately. “For you, my dahling, anything.” She blew her mother an exaggerated kiss. “Be back in a jiffy.”

“Take your time.”

It was a rare pleasure to have the house to herself. Ever since she’d received the diagnosis, Richard had practically moved back in, and Diane hovered and fussed over her more than her own mother ever had. Armaiti knew she should be grateful, but sometimes she forgot to be. They were making her feel more and more of an invalid with each passing day, and where they left off, her own stupid, unreliable body took over.

She sat luxuriating in the solitude for a few moments and then rose slowly to her feet and made her way to her bedroom. Cotton was sleeping on the bed and greeted Armaiti with a yawn and one outstretched paw. She patted his bony head absently as she moved toward the closet. Standing on her toes, she reached toward the stack of photo albums balanced precariously on the top shelf. But she misjudged the distance and her hand hit the bottom album so that three of the books fell down. She moved out of their way just in time. “Shit,” she said out loud. “I’ve become a total klutz.”

The cat cocked one ear back and remained motionless. But he got up to rub his face on the books as soon as Armaiti put them on the bed. “Move, Cotton,” she said, pushing him away. “You’re gonna get hair all over my wedding album.”

Her wedding album. The first year after the divorce, she had caught Diane thumbing through its pages. How inconsolable the girl had been then. And now, a few years later, how hard she was trying to be the responsible one, making sure that Armaiti ate her meals on time, helping her with the yard work.

Her daughter would be home soon. Using her good hand to steer the other, Armaiti flipped through the album, past the pictures of Richard and her. She lingered a few times when she came across a picture of her mother at the wedding reception in Bombay. She peered closely, scanning her mother’s face for any sign of the cancer that would eat at her body a few years later. But the older woman looked uncharacteristically happy in the picture, beaming as she looked up adoringly at her tall, handsome American son-in-law. “Probably was glad I didn’t marry a black man,” Armaiti muttered to herself, and then giggled at the thought of Diane’s face if she’d said that out loud. Diane wouldn’t know how to deal with the obsession that Indians had with skin color.

She had to focus while thumbing through the pages of the book, had to compensate for that fractional disconnect between the true position of things and what her brain told her. But at last she came across the photograph she was looking for, toward the middle of the album. A large picture of the four of them. Nishta, Kavita, Laleh, and her, at her wedding reception in Bombay. All of them dressed in expensive saris, all of them looking more grown-up and glamorous than she ever remembered them being. No one was being a cutup in the picture, no one was crossing her eyes or making a face. Just four young women staring straight into the camera’s eye, their postures erect, their faces composed and steady.

They were beautiful, Armaiti realized. Even she, although she had always felt mousey compared to the three of them. Kavita was probably the least conventionally beautiful one among all of them, but Armaiti noticed the warm brown eyes under the bob cut, the even, white teeth, the slender waist. Kavita was standing with her arm around Laleh’s shoulder. Laleh’s thick, long hair framed her face, and Armaiti took in the straight, patrician nose, the arched eyebrows, and the thin, sensitive lips. Laleh wore a look of ironic bemusement that Armaiti recognized immediately, as if she were enjoying some private joke. Beside her stood a radiant-looking Nishta, her hair tied up on her head, her lips parted in a big smile, so that Armaiti could see the gap in between her teeth. Armaiti caught her breath. She had forgotten how gorgeous Nishta was.

She looked at herself, standing next to Nishta, ready to criticize her own appearance. But her two years in America must’ve agreed with her. Or maybe it was being in love with Richard. Or perhaps simply being back with the others. Whatever the reason, she looked good.

She heard Diane’s car in the driveway as she pulled the picture out of the album. She flipped through the album faster, wanting to find a few more pictures of the others before she put it away. The side door slammed and she heard Diane come in. “Mom?” Diane yelled. “I’m back.”

“Hi, darling. I’m up in my room,” she yelled back.

“Be up in a minute.”

“Put the ice cream in the freezer first.”

She came across a picture of herself, with Richard and Kavita on either side of her. She peered closely at Kavita’s face. It was as blank and expressionless as a winter sky. She felt a pang in her heart. How hard it must’ve been for Kavita to meet Richard. “I’m sorry, Ka,” she whispered, running a finger across Kavita’s face. She wondered whether to pull that one out of the album but decided against it.

She had shoved the wedding album under the bed—she’d get it out later, no point in risking upsetting Diane—and had fanned out the four pictures she’d pulled out onto the bedspread when Diane entered the room. “Hi, Mom,” she said. “Whatcha doin’?” She noticed the photographs. “What’s this?”

Armaiti picked up the one that had the four of them in it. As she lifted it gently, careful not to get her fingerprints on the photograph, and passed it on to Diane, she was aware of handing something precious to her daughter. She thought of the gold jewelry, family heirlooms, that her own mother had given to her at her wedding. She had protested, refused to accept it. But her mother had insisted. “This never belonged to me,” she had whispered as she’d kissed Armaiti’s bent head. “I was only holding it for you. Just as you will hold it for your daughter, until her wedding day.”

She wouldn’t be alive to see Diane married. Just last week she’d considered passing her mother’s jewelry on to Diane. Now, while she was alive. But she’d decided against it, knowing how much it would upset her daughter. And Diane was a flower child, more interested in bead necklaces and costume jewelry. Despite their beautiful craftsmanship, the gold bracelets and ruby rings would not impress her, would never have the emotional weight of family history that they still had for Armaiti, no matter how much she chided herself for being so hopelessly bourgeois. So she had decided to leave her mother’s things with Richard, with instructions to give them to Diane when the time came.

Diane’s hair fell across her face as she studied the picture. “These are your friends? At your wedding?”

“Yes.”

“They’re so good-looking.” She perched on the bed next to her mother and took Armaiti’s hand in hers. “Of course you’re the loveliest of them all.”

“Isn’t it pretty to think so.” She made a face. “I was the ugly duckling of the group, I’m afraid.”

“Are you kidding me? My God, Mom, you’re beautiful. Jeez, have you seen how Dad looks at you, still? Like he—like he could just inhale you or something.” Diane sucked her cheeks in.

Armaiti squeezed her daughter’s hand. “You’re funny. Anyway, it doesn’t matter who was pretty and who wasn’t. What matters is”—and here she hesitated, wanting to get it right the first time—“that . . . that these three women gave me something. A sense of belonging in the world, but more than that. A sense that the world belonged to me. Do you understand? A belief that it was my world—our world. To shape it as we wanted. That we never had to settle for things as they were, you know?”

Diane was looking at her intently, her big eyes searching her face, and Armaiti saw how perilously young her daughter still was. Something about that look broke her heart. “You still believe that, Mom? About changing the world?” Diane asked.

How simple, how lovely, it would be to answer with a direct, honest yes. But Diane was looking at her with such trust, looking at her with the same hungry eyes as she used to when Armaiti was breast-feeding her a lifetime ago. She hesitated. “I—I don’t know.” She looked around the room, trying to find the right words. “I don’t know if the world we dreamed of is an illusion, a ‘children’s palace,’ as Laleh’s father used to call it.” She looked at Diane sharply as a thought hit her. “But I do know this—that my desire for that world was true. It was the truest thing I’ve ever felt, as true as my love for you. And—and I’d like to believe that that means something. You know?”

Diane nodded. “I think so.” She stared at the picture she was still cradling in her hand. “When are they coming?”

“I don’t know exactly. I don’t even know if—what shape I’ll be in by the time they come. Kavita can’t leave for a couple of weeks. But Diane, I want you to promise me something. I want you to get to know my friends. I so regret . . . it’s important to me that you know them.”

Diane threw her arms around Armaiti. “Of course, Mom. You don’t have to make it sound like homework. I want to know them.”

Armaiti laid her head on her daughter’s shoulder. It’s going to be okay, she thought. Diane’s going to be okay. The others will make sure she is.

Chapter 12

A
week had gone by since Iqbal had come home early from work with murder and humiliation in his eyes and told her about Adish’s unannounced visit to his store. Murder and humiliation but also something else, a kind of cunning, as if the ultimate triumph had been his.

At that time, she had wondered why Iqbal had told her about the visit. Not in a million years would she have suspected that Adish would call on Iqbal, after the years of silence. But then she’d decided that it actually made perfect sense. If she knew anything at all, she knew how persistent Laleh was. She must’ve hounded poor Adish until he capitulated and agreed to look up Iqbal. But did Adish really make that promise to Iqbal? What could her husband have said, what insult could he have leveled at Adish, to make him say those words?

Nishta was still thinking about this as she finished ladling the last of the daal into the stainless-steel bowl. “Chalo,” she called. “Supper is ready.”

“You’re not eating?” Iqbal asked as soon as he entered the kitchen. He lowered himself onto the wooden chair and pulled the small dining table closer.

“I’m not hungry,” she said shortly. An uneasy silence had risen between them since that afternoon a week ago and she was not anxious to pierce it.

“ ‘I’m not hungry,’ ” he mimicked, a smirk on his face.

She felt distaste rise from her stomach and into her mouth. She struggled to control the urge to take the hot, steaming pot of daal and throw it across his lap. “The bhoot’s still in you, eh, miya?” she said sarcastically, not trying to keep the anger from her eyes.

She saw his face flush before he quickly looked away from her and into his plate. She sat down to his right, sipping from a glass of limewater. “Did you send Ammi her dinner?” he mumbled after a few seconds.

Nishta sighed. “Yes, I did, Iqbal. Just like I have sent your mother dinner every sodden day of my life with you.”

She jumped as Iqbal slammed his fist on the table, spilling some of the white rice. “Your life is that miserable?” he yelled. “I do everything for her but the Hindu princess is still unhappy?”

“Princess?” She snorted. “That’s what you call a woman who you keep a prisoner in her own home? Who is not allowed to talk to her friends? Who cannot make a lousy phone call because her jailer has taken her cell phone? You’re a Fascist, Iqbal. A pucca Fascist.”

Iqbal’s right hand flew up from the table and landed hard across her cheek. The impact of it knocked her into the back of her chair. Her mind went white and blank with shock and it took her a second to realize that Iqbal had struck her for the first time in their marriage. They stared at each other in stunned silence. Then, as the pain burned her face, Nishta’s eyes filled with tears. Iqbal swallowed hard a few times, his eyes looking for a place to focus.

Nishta rubbed her cheek, her eyes still on him. Fear and outrage battled within her, and then the fear settled down into a simmer while the outrage boiled over. “You hit me?” she said. “This is what it’s come to? How low you’ve fallen? You, who used to talk about women’s rights? Have you no shame left, Iqbal?”

“Shut your mouth,” he hissed. “Lower your voice.”

“Why?” she said loudly. “So that the neighbors will think you’re a pious, devout man who goes to masjid six days a week? Who does namaaz five times a day? I’ll tell everyone. When they find out—”

He rose from the table, grabbed it by the edge, and toppled it. The rice flew upward before it descended like thick snowflakes even as the pot of daal erupted in midair before it landed on the tiled floor. A few hot drops of the liquid pricked at Nishta’s bare feet.

She looked at Iqbal in fear. In all these years she had never seen him as out of control as he seemed at this moment. “Iqbal, have you gone mad? What are you doing?”

“You are the one who is responsible for this,” he yelled. “One visit from Laleh and your head got turned with thoughts of going to America. So shallow you are. Here we were, living a simple, happy life, and then they had to come and spoil everything.”