The World We Found (30 page)

A
rmaiti noticed Devdas’s eyes widen as she entered his grocery store in her wheelchair. She had not been in here since her diagnosis, she realized. Her heart sank at the thought of explaining her condition to the genial, talkative owner of India Food Emporium.

“Arre, Armaitiji, kya hua?” he asked, his middle-aged brow creasing with concern. “Accident or what?”

She flashed a warning look at Diane before she turned to him with a smile. “Just not feeling well,” she said evasively.

“Arre, Ram,” he breathed. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

She was about to open her mouth to reassure him when she heard Diane say, “Nothing serious. Just cancer.”

She turned slowly to face her daughter—any sudden movement made her head spin—and saw that Diane was staring defiantly at her. Please don’t make a scene, Armaiti pleaded silently with her eyes. Even though she had very few ties with India, some ancient sense of propriety made her close-mouthed around people from the home country. Especially Indians who looked at her with creased brows and inquisitive eyes, as Mr. Devdas was doing right now.

“Cancer?” Devdas flinched involuntarily. “No, no, no. Impossible. Not to someone as sweet and kind as you, madam.”

Armaiti emitted a low growl of frustration that was audible only to Diane, who pulled the shopping list out of her mother’s hand. “I’ll pick up what you need, Mom,” she said hastily and Armaiti saw that she was avoiding eye contact with her.

Armaiti spent an excruciating ten minutes listening to Devdas tell her story after story of people he’d known—well, actually, heard about, he allowed—who had beaten cancer. He also suggested a myriad of cures—urine therapy, a mixture made from goat’s milk and six cloves of garlic, a paste made from turmeric, tamarind, and crushed red brick, a massage oil made from tiger’s meat. Yes, tiger’s meat, he repeated sagely, as if it were a common item he sold in his store. Or, if madam was interested, he would phone his uncle’s cousin, who was a faith healer in Milwaukee. Very powerful, faith healing, hadn’t she heard? Armaiti felt her life trickling away as she sat in her wheelchair, unable to get away from the man. A customer entered the store, picked out some Indian snacks, and waited to pay at the counter but Devdas ignored him. Armaiti pointed out the waiting customer but it was useless—Devdas gesticulated wildly, his manner got more and more agitated and persistent, his brow more furrowed. He railed against the dangers of chemotherapy—Armaiti didn’t have the heart or the energy to tell him she wasn’t using it—the perils of vaccines, antibiotics, and Western medicine in general; made wild and dubious claims about the low rates of cancer in countries like India; tried to extract a promise from her to immediately stop eating corn, sweet peas, and chicken, all of which apparently corrupted a person’s aura and caused cancer. “If you eat meat, madam, eat goat. Very, very safe.”

After ten minutes of this, Armaiti had had enough. Politeness be damned, she thought. Surely dying had a few advantages and the abandonment of good manners was one of them. She spun her wheelchair around in the middle of Devdas’s sentence. “Excuse me,” she said abruptly. “I must find my daughter.”

She found Diane on her haunches, picking out the cans of sliced mangoes from the bottom shelf. “Sorry,” the girl said preemptively.

Armaiti was not appeased. “We’ll talk in the car,” she said in the clipped manner she slipped into whenever she was angry. “I’ll wait for you outside. Use the credit card to pay for everything.”

Devdas insisted on helping Diane load the groceries in the car and then watched with much shaking of his head as Diane helped her mother in. Every few seconds he struck his forehead with his palm, as if swatting invisible flies. It was, Armaiti knew, both a gesture of disbelief and an expression of sympathy. It grated on her enough that she did not respond when Devdas yelled, “Good luck, madam!”

“What a stupid man,” Diane said as soon as they’d pulled out of the parking space. “He kept trying to tell me what cures you should try while bagging my groceries.”

“Yeah, I heard them all, thanks to you.” Armaiti was furious and she saw no reason to disguise the fact. She turned to face Diane. “What made you do it, Di?” she asked. “Don’t you think it’s my business to tell whoever I want to?”

Diane swallowed hard. “It is. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know why I blurted it out. It’s just that . . .” She shook her head. “No. I won’t make excuses. I don’t know why I did it.”

Armaiti felt the anger leaving her, like a bird flying off her windowsill. “Okay,” she said. “Let it go.” She put her hand on her daughter’s knee. “Shall we stop at Aslaam’s to pick up the lamb? It’s on our way. That way, we can go home and I can rest for a bit before we start working.”

Diane looked at her immediately. “You’re tired, Mom?”

Would Diane ever speak to her again without that clutch of anxiety in her voice? She supposed not. It was just one more thing she’d lost along the way—the simple casualness of her interactions with her daughter. What a difference it made to know—to really
know
—that life was finite. “Just a bit, honey. Nothing that a long nap won’t fix.”

“S
hit. We’re going to be late picking up Kavita,” Adish said. “I hadn’t counted on this bastard wedding procession holding up traffic.”

“Mommy told you not to stop for the sweetmeats,” Farhad said languidly.

Adish glanced back at him. “Chup re, chumcha. Remember, you’re stuck with me at home for three weeks.”

“As if I don’t know,” Farhad said, and Adish and Laleh both burst out laughing at his aggrieved tone.

“It’s not a punishment living with your father, you know, sonny,” Laleh said as the car inched forward.

Farhad stretched his long frame in the back of the SUV. “He’s a bloody tyrant, yaar,” he complained to his mother. “He gets grumpy when you’re not home.”

Laleh smiled to herself. There were worse things in life than her son being aware of how much his parents missed each other when they were apart. “I’ll be back soon,” she said.

“Okay, listen,” Adish said to his son as he entered the lane where Kavita’s apartment building was located. “You jump out when we get there and help Kavita auntie with her luggage, okay? Think you can manage all the suitcases?”

“Why can’t you come with me?”

Adish pretended to be affronted. “What am I paying your gym fees for, you useless bugger?” He pulled inside the gate and eased into a parking space. “Now go.”

“Janu, careful how you talk to him,” Laleh said gently, after Farhad had exited the car. “Sometimes you are a little rough.”

Adish looked at her with pity in his eyes. “Lal. Please. This is between us men. I know how to handle that boy. Give me some credit.” He paused. “Besides, that little swine knows how much he means to me. He knows I would give my life for him.”

Laleh felt an exquisite sweetness pierce her heart. They had built something together, she and Adish. Not a brave new world, perhaps, but—a world. A life. A family. “Thanks,” she said.

“What for?”

“For everything. For putting up with me. For being in my life.”

He put his arm around her, pulled her toward him, and squeezed her tight.

“You just come back to me, safe and sound,” he said gruffly.

T
hey had picked Zenobia up from her class and dropped her off at her grandmother’s flat an hour ago. And now, Nishta waited in her apartment for Mumtaz to return from saying goodbye to Ammi.

There was one more thing she had to do before she left this place forever. Nishta picked up Mumtaz’s cell phone and dialed the phone number that she had never forgotten, the number that, as far as she knew, had not changed since her childhood. Please let Mama answer, she prayed. Please let her pick up.

“Yes?” It was a male voice, old, tentative, but unmistakably her father’s. Nishta’s hand shook. Her mind went blank. She had not considered the possibility of her father answering the phone. Would he stay on the line long enough for her to tell him that she was leaving India? Would he convey the news to her mother? Or, praise God, would he relent and let her speak to her mother, one last time?

The voice, more impatient now, said, “Yes? Hello?”

“Daddy.”

The silence on the other end was different now, heavier, more textured. And then, before her heart could either be despondent or rejoice at the fact that her father was holding on, she glanced at her phone and saw that the call had ended. He had hung up on her.

For a second her anger was so blinding, she couldn’t see. Hideously proud, bigoted old man. Monster. Keeping her away from her own mother. And then the anger dulled into the usual acceptance, a grudging forgiveness. They had been right, in the end, hadn’t they? Marrying Iqbal had been a bad idea.

She would write to her mother from America. Tell her everything. Ask for forgiveness—and also offer some. Most likely Mama would return it unread, as she often did. But maybe she’d open it, once she saw the foreign postmark.

In order to take her mind off what had just happened, she picked up the letter on the coffee table, twirling it in her hand. For a moment she was tempted to slit open the envelope and reread the note, which she had written hastily this morning. She had written it as a kindness to Iqbal, to spare him the terrible unknowing, the blind, aimless searching for his missing wife. But now she wondered if she had revealed too much, had tipped her hand too much. She shook her head. By the time Iqbal read the letter, she would be on a plane. Mumtaz was right—worrying had become a bad habit.

She rested the envelope against the brown bowl and bit her fingernails, glancing up at the clock. A moment later, she leapt up from the couch and dialed Adish’s phone. He answered immediately. “We’re about fifteen minutes away,” he said. “That gives you enough time?”

“I’m ready,” she said, willing Mumtaz to make her way down.

“No worries if you’re a few minutes late,” Adish said. “I’ll just circle around. Chalo, we’ll see you.”

“See you,” she repeated, and saying the simple words made her feel better, made what was about to happen seem real. She had expected to be assaulted by a battalion of emotions—sadness, guilt, regret—as she readied to leave, but all she felt was a jittery anticipation. All she wanted to do now was put the simple plan that Mumtaz had devised into action, to slip unseen into the backseat of a car being driven by Adish. She realized that she had exhausted all the other emotions she had expected to feel. The sorrow she had expected to feel at so momentous a step had been used up, had dissipated under the weight of Iqbal’s numerous humiliations. Now there was just the lip-chewing anxiety about avoiding her mother-in-law’s omniscient gaze, and making the drive to the airport uneventfully, and the eagerness to find herself safely ensconced in a plane, strapped in her seat, her best friends on either side of her.

She heard the door open and Mumtaz walked in. “All done,” she grinned. “Zenobia is doing her homework. Ma is enjoying her cup of tea on the balcony.” She pulled off her pink burkha as she spoke. “Did they phone?”

“Yes. Five minutes ago. They will be there soon.”

“Okay.” She tossed the burkha over to Nishta. “Put it on.”

As Nishta made her way into the bedroom, she heard Mumtaz say, “I had one more idea. We can’t take any chances. You know how sharp Ma’s eyes are when you don’t want her to see something.”

“What’s the idea?”

“We’ll exchange handbags. That way Ammi won’t notice the difference.”

Nishta swallowed the quick pang of regret she felt at losing the leather handbag she had owned for over twenty years. Iqbal had bought it for her, at a shop in Colaba. “Okay,” she said. She eyed herself in the bedroom mirror for a quick second, and then, shaking her head at this ridiculous vanity, stepped into the pink burkha.

The contents of Mumtaz’s purse were in a pile on the coffee table when she returned to the living room. “I’ll arrange it later—after you’re gone,” Mumtaz said. “But just check you have everything. Passport? Money?”

“It’s all here,” she said dully. Now that the moment of departure had arrived, her movements were heavy and slow. She stood in front of Mumtaz, taking in the beloved face that so resembled Iqbal’s, her brain struggling to comprehend how to say goodbye to the woman in front of her, who had risked so much, for reasons she still didn’t quite understand. How to say goodbye to this cramped, gloomy apartment that she had despised since her first day here but which was still one of the few things in the world that belonged to her? How to take leave from her life with Iqbal? How to bid farewell to the memory of the young couple who had once believed that the forces that destroyed millions of others—religion, parental opposition, money issues—would not destroy them?

“Bhabi, you must go,” Mumtaz said, giving her a gentle push. “They will be waiting.”

“You will be safe, yes? Promise me you’ll leave before Iqbal comes home?”

“For the millionth time, yes. I will.” Mumtaz gave a sudden grin. “Who knows? Maybe after you return we can tell Iqbal the whole story. About how I helped you, and all.”

“No.” Her voice was sharp. “You must promise never to reveal your role to Iqbal. No matter what. If he asks about the passport, just say I told you I needed it to open an account or something. Make it sound like I tricked you, also. That I casually asked you to look for it in Ammi’s safe when you went to borrow the jewelry.”