Drinks are served, pleasantries exchanged, platters of appetizers passed around by Pushpa. Bhattacharya walks up and down the living room, glass in hand, as though the place belongs to him.
“Ah, there’s that superb Jamini Roy mother-and-child I never tire of looking at,” he exclaims, walking over to the painting. He admires the precise two-dimensionalism the artist is famed for and waxes eloquent on Roy’s vision, at once magical and modern, sophisticated and innocent. Mrs. Bose feels a smile—her first genuine one since the Bhattacharyas arrived—taking over her face. Whatever his shortcomings, the man understands and loves art.
“Let me know if you ever plan to sell this one.”
Mrs. Bose’s smile slips. The Roy is her most prized possession. By amazing luck, Mr. Bose had discovered it in the back of a godown when an old estate was being liquidated. He had bargained shrewdly and bought it secretly, without her knowledge. She had found it waiting in their bed, wrapped in silk. That was the night, she believes, that Pia was conceived.
Fortunately, Mr. Bose comes to her rescue—as he always does—responding with utmost politeness that should such a situation arise, Bhattacharya would be the first to be informed.
“And what’s this?” Bhattacharya is pointing to the framed engagement photograph hanging beside the Roy.
Mrs. Bose curses herself. She should have put away that photo before the Bhattacharyas came, so that there wouldn’t be questions that led to other questions: where is Korobi now, what she is up to. She must do it as soon as her guests leave, so this never happens again.
“It’s a photo of my brother’s engagement,” Pia says, eyes sparkling at having had her creation noticed, for once, instead of being upstaged by that stupid Jamini Roy.
“Lovely!” Bhattacharya says. But he’s looking at Pia instead of the photo. “I can tell the photographer has a real eye for composition, the way the subjects have been placed within the frame.”
Mrs. Bose’s heart begins a heavy, arrhythmic beat.
“I arranged them,” Pia says, delighted. “It took forever. Everyone complained.”
“You did absolutely the right thing. Why don’t you come here and explain who’s who to me.”
“Sure!”
Pia jumps up, but before she can move, Mrs. Bose cries, her voice too loud to her ears, “Here’s one of the subjects in the flesh!”
She knows she’s overreacting; Bhattacharya wouldn’t really do anything; but even the thought of his fleshy hand on her daughter’s shoulder is unbearable. She pulls Sarojini forward with a wide, fake smile.
“This is Korobi’s grandmother. She lives in the ancestral mansion of the Roys, the one you wanted to see, with the historic Durga temple.”
For a moment, annoyance at the interruption darkens Bhattacharya’s face—he’s aware, Mrs. Bose suspects, of her ploy. But the lure of the temple wins him over. He turns to Sarojini, asking if it’s true that Netaji Subhash visited the temple for blessings.
“That’s what my father-in-law always said,” Sarojini replies. If she’s aware of the underlying tension in the room and its cause, she gives no indication of it. She launches into a dramatic description of Netaji’s visit to the temple before he left India for Japan, hoping for military aid. It gives Mrs. Bose a chance to whisper to Pia to go do her homework.
Sarojini ends by inviting Bhattacharya to the temple.
“Come on the next no-moon night, when we have a special puja for the goddess. It is supposed to bring the attendees great good luck.”
Bhattacharya’s eyes light up and his face takes on a boyish anticipation that surprises Mrs. Bose. “A wonderful idea,” he says. “I’ll do it even if I have to cancel a couple of appointments.”
Mrs. Bhattacharya, who has been scrutinizing the photo with a sour expression, asks Sarojini, “And where’s the bride-to-be tonight? Why isn’t she with you? Have the lovebirds”—here she throws a sly glance at Rajat—“had a tiff?”
Mrs. Bose stiffens again. But Sarojini, bless her, has learned from her lawyer husband how to deal with malicious queries.
“Nothing like that, my dear! The children get along beautifully. But poor Korobi has taken her grandfather’s death very hard, so I’ve sent her for a month to America, to spend some time with family friends.”
Mrs. Bhattacharya seems deflated by this firm, no-nonsense explanation, but Mr. Bhattacharya wrinkles his brow. “With all due respect,” he tells Sarojini, “it’s a bad idea to send an unmarried girl abroad by herself. In fact it’s downright dangerous. Who knows what temptations might come her way?”
Sarojini murmurs politely about her being in good hands, but Mrs. Bose notices Rajat’s flushed face, his pained expression. Has Bhattacharya hit upon something? Is there a problem with Korobi that she doesn’t know of? She feels a constriction in her chest. Oh, it’s hard to accept that children come with their own fates. That a parent can do only so much to make them happy.
“Dinner is ready,” she announces brightly. Thank God, the distraction works.
The meal proceeds excellently. Mr. Bhattacharya takes seconds of everything and praises Mrs. Bose. Beauty, business acumen, and now this—the ability to produce a gourmet dinner while looking as though she hasn’t even stepped into the kitchen! Mrs. Bose inclines her head in modest acceptance, sending Mr. Bose a tiny, private smile. Bhattacharya drinks several glasses of chardonnay. His wife puts a restraining hand on his arm, but he shakes it off with a quelling frown and she doesn’t do it again.
The tiramisu is served and complimented. Pia takes Sarojini off to her room. Pushpa brings coffee. It is time.
“Mr. Bhattacharya, shall we look at the partnership documents I’ve drawn up, based on our earlier discussion?” Mr. Bose asks.
Mrs. Bose holds her breath. They have decided that Mr. Bose will lead this conversation while Mrs. Bose gives him the necessary input through minute gestures they have perfected over years.
“We can look,” Bhattacharya says, “but we’ll have to change some of the clauses. I made some recent inquiries and found that your business isn’t doing as well as I had thought. You’re okay in India, thanks mostly to the Park Street gallery and your orders from the hotel chains, but you’re losing a lot of money in America. And now I hear you have troubles at your warehouse.”
Mrs. Bose curses inwardly. Bhattacharya must have a formidable network of informers. Thinking about the warehouse makes her feel ill. Last night, Mr. Bose and she had discussed the situation in the privacy of their bedroom. They agreed that Rajat had been too harsh. Alauddin, who had used the box cutter, shouldn’t have been fired. Now he was stirring up the Muslim union members. The Hindu members were currently undecided, but in Bengal the ties of class were often stronger than religion. Unless the Boses took care of the problem rapidly, there might well be a labor strike. Shipments would get delayed, orders canceled, one mishap setting off another like a chain of firecrackers. Mrs. Bose’s head spun just to think of them.
But what should they do? Mr. Bose wanted to compensate the injured Hindu worker and hire Alauddin back, thus appeasing the union. The workstations would be put back where they had been. When Mrs. Bose said that would undercut Rajat’s authority, Mr. Bose suggested that they could move him away from the warehouse. He could help in the Park Street gallery and focus on putting together that website he was so excited about. They could make it seem like a promotion. Mrs. Bose wasn’t convinced that would work. Hadn’t they been delighted when Rajat had decided to finally settle down, after years of wildness, and help with the family business? Could they deny that he was working hard and doing well, except for this one error? If they moved him away, everyone would recognize it as a slap in the face, no matter what the Boses said. The workers wouldn’t respect Rajat after that, and he would never forgive his parents.
They had talked late into the night but failed to come to a conclusion.
Lost in her worries, Mrs. Bose has missed part of the conversation at the table. She hears Bhattacharya say,
“Mr. Bose, I’m willing to become a partner—but in light of the recent developments, you’ll have to make some additional concessions. I want fifty percent ownership of the Park Street gallery and a hand in its operations.”
“That’s a significant change,” Mr. Bose replies in his calm voice. But Mrs. Bose can see a telltale pulsing at his temple. “You’ll have to give us a little time to discuss this.”
“Take all the time you want.” Bhattacharya smiles expansively. “I’m in no hurry, though I do believe you might be.”
The phone rings, making Mrs. Bose jump. The shrill sound is like the cry of a cicada, amplified. Only Sonia ever calls at this hour. The family stares at each other, uncertain about how to handle this situation. “Well, aren’t you going to answer it?” Bhattacharya asks.
“I don’t want to interrupt the meal—or your conversation,” Mrs. Bose says, stretching her lips with effort in the approximation of a smile. “The caller can leave a message.” She is counting on how, whenever the answering machine clicks on, Sonia hangs up. She doesn’t want Sarojini to think Rajat might be involved with another woman while Korobi is away. And if Bhattacharya knew that Rajat was being stalked—no other word for it—by an ex-girlfriend, that this possible scandal, too, loomed on the family’s horizon, he’d surely drive a harder bargain.
“I’m done with conversing.” Bhattacharya nods at Rajat. “Why don’t you take care of the call, young man, while your mother gives me one last tiny piece of that sinfully delicious dessert.”
Rajat has no choice but to pick up the phone. The caller says something brief and crackly. Mrs. Bose listens as hard as she can, but fortunately no words can be deciphered. Why won’t Sonia leave her son alone? They’d been very much in love, Mrs. Bose had seen that, but it was over now. Rajat was engaged. Though used to getting her way (a trait Mrs. Bose understood well), Sonia needed to realize that it was time to move on. Or had Rajat been encouraging her in some way? Mrs. Bose decides she will have a talk with Rajat about it. In the past, he’s shied away from such conversations, but this time she’ll insist. In the kitchen doorway, Pushpa stands gawking. Mrs. Bose must chide her as soon as the guests leave. Servants! Sometimes they’re enough to drive you crazy.
“Wrong number,” Rajat says, replacing the receiver. His face is flushed again.
Bhattacharya raises an eyebrow but concentrates on the piece of tiramisu Mrs. Bose has managed to cut into a perfect square and serve him.
Finally, finally, the Bhattacharyas leave. Sarojini says she, too, must go. Mrs. Bose would like to tell her how much she appreciates her help with Bhattacharya, but that would entail long and complicated explanations. Instead, she gives Sarojini a hug, holding her an extra moment. The old woman must understand something because she whispers, “I’ll pray for your family’s peace of mind.”
Once Pushpa, sulky from having been admonished, has cleaned up and left, Mr. and Mrs. Bose say good-night to their children and retire to bed. Though it is a warm night, Mrs. Bose feels chilled. Even her favorite silk Jaipuri bedspread, pulled up to her chin, doesn’t help. In the dark, she clutches Mr. Bose’s nightshirt lapels and cries fiercely that the thought of Bhattacharya owning part of her beloved gallery, showing up whenever he wants with that proprietorial attitude, makes her feel physically ill.
“Then we won’t do it, dearest. We’ll find another way.”
“But how?” Her voice spirals up in desperation. “We’ve been unable to find anyone else willing to invest in art. The banks won’t loan us more money—”
“Hush, Joyu.” He holds her close. “Remember the time I caught dengue fever out near Bankura District, in that remote village where there was no phone line to call you?”
“Shanto, this is no time to—”
“Remember?”
“Yes,” she whispers, giving in. It’s her favorite story, one they’ve told each other many times. She loops an arm around his neck. “I sensed you were in trouble. I left baby Rajat with Ma. I had to travel alone all the way on a bullock cart. I was so scared. I wasn’t even sure I was going to the right place. There were no guesthouses out there. I had no idea where you were staying.”
“But you found me. You nursed me until I could be moved and brought me back on that rickety bullock cart. I was so weak, I had to stay in bed for a month. We had no money. The landlord was determined to evict us.”
She gives a little chuckle. “But I managed to persuade him to give us a month’s grace. I even talked him into buying something from the store for his wife’s birthday—embroidered pillowcases, I think it was.”
“If we could make it through that, we can get through this, too.”
“Yes,” she says, though her voice is tinged with doubt.
“We’ll think about it in the morning. We’ll figure something out.”
He holds her, running his fingers in soothing circles on her back until she relaxes into his chest, into sleep.
On the way to Boston, Vic makes me practice my lies. Along the freeway bordered by chain stores whose names appear again and again as though I’m caught in a looping dream, I tell him how excited I am to be in America, where my wonderful new husband has promised to build me the house of my dreams. We pass gas stations that sell slushy coffee and empty fields patched with tired gray snow. I make shapes in the air describing the L-shaped family room that needs to open to the dining area because I plan to throw lots of parties, the inner courtyard I want to fill with oleanders. I know I need to focus on this, but from time to time, my errant thoughts flit back to our time together yesterday.
When we were at the Empire State Building, Vic asked, “So, how does Kolkata compare to New York?”
I was silent. I’ve never looked down upon Kolkata from up high, so I had no idea how far the city sprawled, which shape it took. On the ground, I knew its contradictions: lavish wedding halls behind which beggars waited for leftovers; red-bannered, slogan-shouting protesters marching by a house where a musician practiced classical flute. But Kolkata’s spirit, at once vibrant and desperate—I had no words to describe it to someone who has never lived there.
“It’s complicated,” I said finally. “Most Indian cities are. You must have noticed that yourself.”
“I’ve never been to India.”
“Never? Didn’t you want to see where your people came from?”
He shrugged, a bit defensive. “When I was young, we didn’t have the money to go. By the time we could afford it, I was a teenager and refused to waste my summers that way. I guess I really didn’t think of myself as Indian.”
“How did you think of yourself? As American?”
“Yes. Though after 9/11, I had some difficulties with that, too. Anyhow, my mother always asked me to accompany her, but she’d have to end up going alone. And then she died. Maybe one of these days, if I get enough money together, I might go visit her hometown. Might look you up in Kolkata, too. Though you’ll be a rich man’s wife by then and won’t want to see me!”
I had given him a pale smile. He’d hit too close to the truth. Once I was married, Rajat would make sure this chapter of my life was closed for good.
The lanes swell; the Boston skyline with its high-rises looms over us. We skirt the Common, with its statues of men in three-cornered hats. We pass colleges with stained-glass windows that, Vic tells me, are as old as anything white people built in America.
“You went to Berkeley?” I enunciate brightly. “Amazing! So did my mother! Did you happen to know a girl named Anu Roy?”
“Your voice sounds like you murdered someone and hid the body!” Vic tells me. “Say her name again and again until it becomes like any other word. Oh, never mind. Rest for a bit. Otherwise you’ll be worn-out by the time we get to Evanston’s office.”
Gratefully, I turn my face to the window. We pass by a park with its daffodil beds. Yesterday, I asked Vic to take me to where the Towers used to be.
“Not you, too! Why?”
I wasn’t sure. I only knew that it
wasn’t the impulse to gawk at disaster. Perhaps it was a mosaic of desires. To acknowledge tragedy. To pay respect. To understand Mitra’s meltdown. To apologize for Grandfather, who had said that finally America was learning how the rest of the world suffers.
Through the chain-link I saw the piles of rubble still to be cleared, smashed concrete, mangled iron rods. Yellow machines like steel dinosaurs clamped piles of debris in their jaws. I tried to superimpose on the scene what I’d seen in my dream: the buildings collapsing, dust and fire, stampeding crowds, people falling like meteors out of the sky. Nothing matched. A supervisor in a hard hat motioned in annoyance for us to move on.
A part of me is still standing there.
We enter a tunnel, the dark punctuated by yellow globes of light. I can see Vic’s face reflected on my window glass, close to mine. He’s humming to a song on the radio.
“It was a bad time all around,” Vic said when I told him about what happened to Mitra after the Towers fell. “I remember how terrified and furious I felt right after. That’s when my own restaurant business—which had been doing quite well—started going under. People just stopped coming. Nine-eleven injured the people of this city in so many ways—we still haven’t been able to tally up the casualties. We aren’t used to shit like this happening inside our own borders, America the protected. We needed to find an enemy to lash out at. Some people did, and folks like Mitra became the casualties. But there were other kinds of casualties, too. A friend of mine who was in construction was hired to clean up Ground Zero. One night after a few beers, he started describing how it was. Imagine finding bodies everywhere, pieces of people half-cooked by the heat. Sometimes recognizing a friend. You didn’t know when a patch of fire would flare up from below. And the stench. He’d come home exhausted but couldn’t sleep. Started drinking. His marriage broke up soon after.”
The car lurches to a stop. We are at one of the ubiquitous McDonald’s.
“Time to change into your rich-and-fashionable clothes,” Vic says.
When I come out of the women’s restroom dressed in a sleek cream pantsuit, he purses his lips in a soundless whistle. The admiration in his eyes makes my heart lurch guiltily.
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