A Woman Like Her

by Levy, Marc

  “I’ve got the paperwork for your American branch. Here, sign these forms. I’ll drop them off on Monday. All we need now is your contribution, and that won’t be a problem, right?”

  While Sam was talking, Sanji had turned to look at two people just entering the restaurant.

  “Are you listening?” Sam tried to get Sanji’s attention. “Stop, you shouldn’t do that!”

  “What shouldn’t I do?”

  “Stare at a woman like her.”

  “A woman like her?”

  “In a wheelchair!”

  “I know her,” Sanji replied nonchalantly, turning back toward Sam. “What were you saying?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Don’t worry, my banker didn’t call me back, but I’ll get hold of him this afternoon, and everything will be taken care of this week.”

  “I don’t care about your banker, I was talking about that woman. You really know her?”

  Sanji didn’t answer. Out of the corner of his eye, he was watching the owner welcoming his guests the way people of the highest castes were treated back home. She said she had been an actress—was she a star? Yet the owner was the only one paying attention to her. In Mumbai, everyone would have rushed over to ask for an autograph, or even a selfie. In any case, she was the one he was staring at, not her wheelchair. And maybe also at the man sitting across from her.

  “This time, you’re the one looking at another table. Do you know those guys?”

  “Not really—well, I know one of them a little bit.”

  “Which one?” the professor asked.

  “The one sitting by the wall,” Chloe replied, grabbing the menu.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “We exchanged a few words in the park. His father was a musician. I’m thinking of eggs Benedict. What about you?”

  “He seems nice.”

  “Or maybe scrambled eggs?”

  “What does he do for a living?” Mr. Bronstein persisted.

  “He’s one of the genius entrepreneurs of the modern world. He came to find investors in New York.”

  “A genius? That’s strong praise!”

  “Well, just brilliant, maybe. Should we order? I’m starving.”

  “Brilliant in what way?”

  “All right, cut it out, what are you implying?”

  “Nothing. It’s just strange that you’re studying a menu you know by heart. I haven’t seen you blush like this in a long time.”

  “I’m not blushing.”

  “Look at yourself in the mirror above my head.”

  “I’m hot, that’s all.”

  “With the AC on full blast?”

  “Okay, can we please change the subject?”

  “How’s our philosopher?” Mr. Bronstein asked innocently.

  “I’ll find out when we have a night elevator operator,” she snapped.

  “I’ve been invited to give a lecture next week,” he continued. “A banking conference, and the pay is pretty good.”

  “Don’t look so down—that’s good news,” Chloe said cheerfully. “The Bronsteins have wind in their sails. I just signed on to do another recording. Now that this whole business of extra charges won’t be happening, the two of us should be able to pay off our debts pretty soon.”

  “Maybe even redo the plumbing in your bathroom.”

  “Should we drink to the faucets, then?” Chloe asked brightly.

  “No, let’s drink to your career!”

  “And to your lecture series!”

  “I’ll have to go to San Francisco. So I’ll be away for a few days. Will you be able to manage—”

  “To get by without you? I do it every day. Plus, I can always count on Deepak if there’s a problem.”

  “Should we ask them to join us?” asked the professor with a twinkle in his eye, looking at the two men sitting across from him.

  “Keep your voice down!”

  Sanji paid the bill. Sam pulled the table toward him so Sanji could get out. Chloe watched their movements in the mirror above her father. Sanji turned back just before leaving the restaurant, and as their eyes met briefly, Chloe looked down at her plate—her father couldn’t help but notice.

  Sam had a date and said goodbye to Sanji in front of the fence around Washington Square Park. Sanji wandered around the fountain. Watching people and imagining their lives was one of his favorite pastimes. Maybe that was even what had made him design his app. In his youth, he was fascinated by the absurdity of life in big cities, where so many people lived side by side without ever speaking to each other. The loneliness of his childhood also had something to do with it. When he had begun his career as an entrepreneur, his uncles had accused him of dishonoring the family. Men and women were only supposed to meet with the agreement of their families and could only spend time together once their match had been approved. Sanji belonged to a generation that didn’t see life that way. But breaking taboos, shedding traditions, winning one’s freedom, and learning how to use it were not fights that could be won in a single day. Although he didn’t know much about them, he admired the courage Lali and Deepak had shown by leaving everything behind.

  He thought again of how easily Chloe had approached him in the park that day; he probably would never have dared speak to her. His ringtone interrupted his thoughts. It was a call from the Mumbai Palace Hotel.

  Taresh and Vikram, his uncles, told him that they had prevented him from using his shares as security. A clause in the hotel’s articles of incorporation allowed them to. They were revolted by his irresponsible behavior.

  “If you fail,” Taresh argued, “one-third of our palace will fall into foreign hands, you scoundrel!”

  “How can you be so selfish as to risk our life’s work and put your family’s legacy in danger? And for what?” Vikram railed at him.

  “What family are you talking about?” Sanji replied before hanging up on them.

  His uncles wanted war. Furious, he left the fountain to go to another park in the city, where an uncle worthy of the title was playing cricket.

  Chloe entered Washington Square Park and went to sit at one of the tables where seasoned chess players took cocky amateurs to the cleaners. She didn’t spend her Saturday afternoons this way for the handful of bills she pocketed after every game, but for the pleasure of winning. She had been a driven athlete and sometimes regretted getting rid of all her trophies. Her last competition had taken place five years ago, one morning in April.

  Sanji admired the elegant way Deepak handled his bat. Deepak was surrounded by a flock of teenagers from the northern neighborhoods of the city who dreamed of becoming champions.

  “I understand why you fell for him when you saw him in Shivaji Park,” Sanji said.

  “He’s much more handsome now,” Lali replied. “For some people, Deepak is just an elevator operator, but on the cricket field, he’s a true king.”

  “It must not have been easy to leave.”

  “Leaving was the easiest part. One night, when Deepak went out, three thugs jumped him and beat him up. We knew who was behind it, and we got the message my parents were sending us. When I went to visit him in the clinic, he did everything he could to try to end our relationship. He said his love for me would last forever but that we couldn’t plan a future together. He claimed he didn’t have the right to sully the reputation of a family like ours, much less the right to ruin my life. I blamed his momentary confusion on his injuries, and told him this would be the last time I would tolerate someone trying to take control of my life, which I had decided to spend by his side. I would leave home with no regrets. My family didn’t exist anymore—I had nothing in common with people who were capable of such violence. For months, day after day, I stashed my things into a bundle of dirty laundry buried in the back of a wardrobe so that our servants wouldn’t notice anything. Under my bed, I hid the small amount of money that I had managed to pilfer from my mother’s purse and from the pockets of my father’s pants that he left
lying around. I stole from my brothers as well. Deepak came to get me in the middle of the night. He was waiting for me near our house and had told me he would understand if I didn’t show up. I slipped out of the house quietly. You can’t imagine how scared I was as I crept through the hallway while everyone was asleep, then went downstairs and closed the door behind me, never to return. I still have dreams about it sometimes, and I wake up trembling. We fled on foot, and it was a race against time, because we had to get to the port before sunrise. A rickshaw driver took pity on us and agreed to take us. Deepak had paid a fortune for two berths on a cargo ship. We spent forty-two days at sea. I lent a hand in the kitchen, and Deepak helped the crew—he got stuck with the worst jobs. But what a journey! The Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, the Strait of Gibraltar . . . and finally, we truly embraced our freedom.”

  “Why only then, since you’d been at sea for a while?”

  “Because it was on a night in Gibraltar, where the ship stopped, that we made love for the first time. But, as I said, this was the easiest part of our escape. I refused to be an illegal immigrant, and Deepak loved rules too much to endure living here illegally very long. I won’t deny that his excessive honesty has sometimes gotten on my nerves. We went to the immigration office. At that time, the people who governed this nation of immigrants still remembered their ancestors’ stories and where they came from. The fact that our lives had been threatened allowed us to obtain refugee status, and Deepak’s scars were evidence that we were telling the truth. We were given temporary papers and, to our great surprise, a bit of money to take care of our needs and start a new life. Deepak didn’t want to take it.” Lali laughed heartily. “I took it for him.”

  “And then?” Sanji asked.

  Lali was silent. He noticed that she seemed upset and put his arm around her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to stir up painful memories.”

  “I lied to you,” Lali continued in a low voice. “It’s not true that I didn’t lose anything when I left my family’s home. Because I left part of myself there, and despite my pride—which has led me astray a few times—I suffered from it terribly, and I still suffer from it. I once had a privileged, carefree life, and suddenly I found myself moving from one menial job to the next, working up to sixteen hours a day so we wouldn’t go hungry. It was bloody difficult, and while we can’t complain, what we have after all these years is only just enough for us to get by in our old age, provided we don’t live too long. If Deepak had to retire now, I don’t know how we could make ends meet. Okay, enough questions. Tell me about my family and the country that I hate for what it put me through, but still miss desperately.”

  Sanji told her about that country, that it was the biggest democracy in the world, that it still struggled with poverty and a social order maintained by a caste system. But not everything was so dire. Beyond the stereotypical images of India—the sacred cows, the slums, Bollywood, and the generation of computer engineers that he belonged to—there was progress, the cities were modernizing, poverty was decreasing, the country had a free press, and a middle class was emerging.

  Lali interrupted him.

  “I’m not asking you for a lesson in economics or geopolitics. I can get that from my husband who bores me to death reading his newspaper out loud. Tell me about you, tell me what you care about. Do you have a fiancée?”

  Sanji took a deep breath before answering her. He turned toward her slowly and looked her straight in the eye.

  “Aunt Lali, the old, decrepit buildings that your father owned have become a great palace, the most luxurious one in Mumbai. Your brothers hid that from you.”

  Lali held her breath and looked at him, speechless.

  “Why did you bother to come see me play if you chatterboxes are just going to stand there jabbering away?” Deepak groused as he strode over to them. “I hope this conversation was worth missing my splendid throw!”

  The Day I Hit Julius

  The day started with physical therapy. That bastard Gilbert was having a field day. It wasn’t a typical morning, because I was going to take my first steps with my prostheses. I fell down, but that’s not why everything went to hell. The pain probably played a role, but it was something else.

  Before 2:50, Dad traveled a lot, and I spent a lot of time alone at 12 5th Avenue. Julius’s studio is a real turnoff: the yellow stucco walls, the old carpet smell, and the ghastly light from the ceiling fixture make it the least romantic place in the world. Julius isn’t very good at interior design. Plus, the walls are very thin, and the noises from the neighboring apartments make it feel haunted. Plenty of reason for us to make love at my place whenever my dad wasn’t there. But Dad wasn’t traveling anymore.

  Luckily, he taught in the afternoons.

  Julius took me in his arms, laid me down on the bed, and kissed me. He lay on top of me and unbuttoned my dress. When he caressed my breasts, it was the first time I had felt his desire since 2:50. His lips glided across my skin and down to my belly, but when he began to spread my legs apart I saw his face freeze. I slapped him.

  We don’t make love anymore.

  15

  Chloe spent a long time in front of her closet before choosing a long gingham skirt and a white scoop-neck blouse.

  In the early afternoon, Deepak had rung her doorbell to tell her the news. A replacement who met Mr. Groomlat’s requirements had just been hired. The new nighttime operator, experienced and union certified, would begin work at 7:15 p.m. “Well, fairly experienced,” he added in his typical truthful fashion. Chloe was free to come and go as she pleased once again.

  If she could have gotten up, she would have hugged him. Deepak must have realized this, because she saw him almost blush. He stepped back into the elevator with a funny bow that confirmed their mutual excitement.

  Since her father was in San Francisco, she suggested to Julius that they go out to dinner. The call went straight to voice mail, so she left him a message with the address of the restaurant where they were to meet at eight.

  She checked her makeup one last time in the mirror, and went through the apartment turning off all the lights except the table lamp in the foyer. Then she picked up her cell phone and called the elevator.

  While the elevator was on its way up, she turned herself around on the landing. The new operator slid open the gate and flattened himself against the handle as Chloe rolled in backward.

  She could only see his back. Mr. Rivera’s uniform was too big for him: the shoulders extended sloppily over his arms, and the sleeves of the coat partially covered his hands.

  “Good evening, miss,” he said in a deferential tone.

  “Good evening, it’s so wonderful to have you . . .”

  She interrupted herself in the middle of her sentence, looking more intently at the back of the operator’s neck.

  “You were saying?” the operator said at the seventh floor.

  Chloe felt her heart beating a mile a minute as they went past the fifth floor.

  “That it would be good manners to turn around and look at the person who’s speaking to you.”

  Sanji did so.

  “So I guess this is your way of telling me that you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “Entrepreneur? Indian Facebook? My ass!”

  “It’s a luxury to have only one job in New York—didn’t you say that yourself?” Sanji replied.

  “And on the weekends, you’re a Bollywood star or a champion paraglider, I suppose?”

  “I’m afraid of heights, and a very bad actor.”

  “Could’ve fooled me!”

  The elevator came to an abrupt halt four inches above the ground floor.

  “I still haven’t totally mastered it. I’ll take us back up to the second floor—you deserve a better landing.”

  “It just gets better and better . . .”

  “I’m doing my best, and you could be a little more patien
t.”

  “You didn’t have a meeting at 28th Street. I saw the cab turn around. It seems you lie all the time.”

  “Here we go, we’re almost level this time, miss. You should be able to get out without any problem. I was advised not to touch your wheelchair. But I will escort you to the sidewalk and hail you a cab, miss.”

  “Stop it with this ‘miss’ stuff!” Chloe snapped. “And don’t you accompany me anywhere,” she said over her shoulder as she passed the desk, where, to her surprise, she saw Deepak.

  “An elevator operator isn’t good enough for you, is that it?” Sanji shouted in reply.

  Deepak hurried to open the door for Chloe and watched as she crossed the street toward Claudette’s.

  “What have I done now?” Sanji asked, irritated, when Deepak returned.

  “I stayed to make sure you were doing okay. You have just three rules, three tiny little rules. Let me repeat them: be courteous; be invisible if no one addresses you; and if someone does speak, listen to the questions you’re asked but never answer them. Is that so difficult?”

  “She didn’t ask me a question, she started a conversation!”

  “Not ‘she’—‘Miss Chloe.’ As you passed the fourth floor, I could already hear you raising your voice. And I’m not even going to mention how you stopped the elevator. I’m grateful for what you’re doing for me, but if you don’t do the job well, it’s not worth the effort. I’m going to see Rivera now, and then go home to bed. I’m entrusting you with my building. I hope to find it in perfect condition tomorrow. Can I count on you? And don’t forget to help Mr. Morrison get into his apartment.”

  Sanji gritted his teeth as his uncle went downstairs to change in the storeroom.

  Chloe came home alone at ten. She didn’t say a word to Sanji in the elevator, just a begrudging “good night” when she reached her floor.

  Without turning on the lights, she rolled her wheelchair over to the window. It was Monday, and the streets were empty, except for a few taxis that sped down 5th Avenue and turned onto 9th Street. Chloe stayed there for a long time, staring into space. Around midnight, she put her hand in her pocket and pressed the button to speed-dial Julius. She had made up her mind. It wasn’t because he had stood her up—he must have had to work late and might not have even gotten her message.