Mr. Connor adjusts his big steel glasses. Wipes his hands on his fraying jean shorts and takes a bite out of his sandwich. Says, Sit tight—your brother will be here soon. And don’t worry. If he’s late, we’ll take you to church today.
Mrs. Connor bounces a hand off her red curly hair. Shoots her husband a look.
Siddharth definitely doesn’t want to go with them to church today. Wonders what that look was all about. Wonders if they’re acting weird. Yes, they’ve been strange all day. Quiet. And nice. They haven’t yelled at Eric and Timmy even once. Usually they’re always hollering at them. About their chores. About making their beds and not drinking too much Coke. Siddharth gets to drink as much Coke as he wants at his own home. He wishes he could be on one of his new leather sofas right now, drinking a cold glass of Coke.
Mr. Connor shrugs his shoulders. Says, with his mouth full, What? It might do some good, Rita. Relax.
Mrs. Connor says, Siddharth, honey, how about some ice cream for dessert?
Ice cream? says Siddharth. He puts down his sandwich. Something is definitely awry. The Connor boys are only allowed ice cream on very special occasions. He wonders what has happened. Has something happened to his mother? No, that isn’t possible. It isn’t possible, because he has just considered the possibility of it happening. When he imagines something bad occurring, he knows he is negating the possibility of it ever actually taking place. He tells himself that the Connor boys must be in trouble. Maybe they’ve found out that Eric has a girlfriend and has gotten really far with her. The Connors go to church a lot, and they probably wouldn’t like that. Siddharth’s mother doesn’t go to church, but she wouldn’t like that either. When Arjun said he wanted to start dating, she was the one who got angry. The one who said he was way too young.
His train of thought is disrupted by the sound of the doorbell. It rings three times, in the way that Arjun rings doorbells. He is relieved. Wishes he hadn’t eaten so much Hamburger Helper. He could have waited and had lunch with his own family.
* * *
He and Arjun walk silently down the Connors’ driveway, which they get repaved every year, so it’s always smooth and shiny. Unlike the Aroras’ cracked driveway, which, as Timmy Connor frequently points out, hasn’t been repaved in ages. Since before the Aroras moved into the house.
He says, Arjun, we’re taking the long way home.
So? says Arjun.
So, why? Why are we taking the long way home?
Arjun doesn’t respond, just places a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. At first this squeeze feels nice. A love squeeze. But Arjun presses down harder. Much harder.
Ow, he says. Quit it.
Mr. Iverson is in front of his mud-colored raised ranch home, washing down the fanged wheels of his yellow bulldozer with a garden hose. Mr. Iverson drives a Harley-Davidson on weekends. He used to have a ponytail and a beard, but he chopped off his hair and now just has a mustache. He waves. Says, Kiddo, tell your dad I got his part for him. I’ll bring it over in the morning. Arjun waves back. Says, Sure, no problem. Siddharth tells himself that everything is okay. Mr. Iverson will bring over a part tomorrow morning, so everything must be fine.
They pass the ever-present puddle in front of his bus stop, which he and the Connors use as a skating rink in winter. Pass Mr. Hines’s Mercedes, which is parked on the street for some reason, with a green cloth draped over it. Siddharth loves that car, the only nice car in the neighborhood. Wishes his father would spend less money on books—and that his mother wouldn’t make them go to India—so that the family could be seen in such a car. The sight of the cream-colored vehicle peeking from under a corner of the cover makes him forget about Arjun’s heavy hand.
There are way too many cars parked in front of his own driveway. There’s a car he doesn’t recognize, a long Lincoln, and there’s Barry Uncle’s Accord, even though he’s supposed to be in New Jersey on business. But his mother’s LeBaron isn’t there. Maybe’s she’s sick, he thinks. Maybe her shitty boss made her work again, even though she’s supposed to have the day off after being on call.
When they get to their mailbox, Arjun pauses. Siddharth doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t want to hear whatever Arjun is about to explain. He stares at the daffodils and crocuses sprouting at the base of the mailbox. His mother planted these bulbs several weeks ago, and he’d grudgingly agreed to help her. The flowers look pretty now, and he might like to paint them. He wants to charge toward the house, break into a run, like he always does upon reaching the mailbox. But Arjun’s hand squeezes him again. Hard.
What the hell! says Siddharth.
I need to talk to you, says Arjun.
He stares at their single-story home. Thinks, Eric Connor is right. The wooden exterior looks shitty, and they should get aluminum siding. Arjun kneels down, so that he is eye level with him. Siddharth notices that his brother’s glasses are smudged and stained. That his brother’s eyes are red. That his brother’s breath reeks like he hasn’t brushed his teeth in several days. Siddharth wants to cover his ears. To place his hand over Arjun’s mouth. To run back to the Connors’. But he stands frozen. And Arjun tells him.
Upon hearing the news, he feels like spitting at his brother for playing such a cruel joke. But knows that Arjun will hit him hard, so hard that he’d cry. And he doesn’t want to cry. The last thing he wants to do right now is cry. He says, Fuck you, Arjun. He has never said fuck in front of his brother before, let alone to him. It makes him feel better.
Arjun’s face scrunches up. He begins to sob. Pulls him into his chest. Siddharth stays there for a minute, breathing in his brother’s sweat and tears. Then can’t take it anymore. He pushes Arjun away and charges toward the house. So that he can tell on Arjun. So that he can find out what’s really going on. So that he can tell his brother that he’s an asshole. A baby.
He sees Barry Uncle on the sofa, and as soon as he walks in, Barry Uncle looks away. There’s an Indian woman there, and he knows her, and there’s a white man with a big belly, and he knows him too. But he can’t locate their names anywhere inside his brain. He sees his father in the kitchen, pouring hot water from a kettle into mugs. Mohan Lal, who wears sweatpants and the same collared polo all summer, has on a thick gray suit. He’s wearing a thick, gray suit even though he doesn’t have to go back to work until September.
Mohan Lal puts down the kettle and smiles a faint smile.
Siddharth steps toward him. Thinks, If he’s making tea, then everything must be okay.
Mohan Lal says, Come here, son.
Where’s Mom? asks Siddharth.
Come here, give your father a hug.
He obeys. Thinks, If she were really dead, Dad wouldn’t be smiling.
Mohan Lal puts his arms around him. Siddharth squirms. He doesn’t like the scratchy feel of wool on his face. And his father smells bad. Like mothballs.
Mohan Lal says, Arjun has told you?
Arjun says, I told him.
Mohan Lal says, Look at this. No tears from my brave son. What a brave young son I have. The bravest boy in the world.
Siddharth lets go of his father and turns to Arjun, who is standing in the doorway that leads to the family room. Tears are pouring out of his brother’s eyes, and he isn’t wiping them away. Siddharth thinks, I’m the brave one. I have to be the brave one. In that moment, the fact that he is the brave one makes it all feel okay.
PART I
1
Heavy Sleeper
He missed his mother. He ached for her while he watched television during the month of June. He got to watch a lot of television that month, as Mohan Lal had allowed him to miss his final weeks of classes at Robert Treat Elementary School. The pain didn’t go away in July, during his hellish trip to Delhi. He felt an especially acute longing as he knelt on the cool marble of his uncle’s hot bathroom, puking his guts out into the narrow, too-tall toilet bowl. He had made the mistake of having a Nirula’s pizza and milkshake with one of his cousins, things his mother would have
counseled him against eating. His father stood over him in that sour, steamy bathroom and said, “Be brave, son,” occasionally rubbing Siddharth’s back, which made him feel even worse. Afterward, Mohan Lal didn’t put a cold cloth on his forehead, like his mother would have done. His father didn’t pat his head in just the right way, somewhere between gentle and firm. When Siddharth whined about the pain in his stomach, Mohan Lal said, “You made a choice to have that pizza. Now live with the consequences.”
In August, he still longed for his mother. He wished for her to magically reappear while he was brushing his teeth or pouring gasoline into the lawnmower. But he devoted much more of his mental energy to his father, for Mohan Lal was doing so many baffling things. He was drinking. Not like in the movies, but more than before. He drank two or three whiskeys every night, and when he kissed Siddharth goodnight, the bitter odor of alcohol lingered over the bed once he’d left the room. When Mohan Lal kissed Siddharth goodnight, he sometimes said nice things like, “I’m a lucky man to have such good sons,” or, “You’re a wise boy. A sensitive boy—like your mother.” But the things Mohan Lal said could be scary. Once, he said, “Siddharth, my only reason for living is you two. If it weren’t for you boys, it might also be my time to leave this earth.” The night he said that, Siddharth lay awake tossing and turning. Each time the house creaked, or the rhododendron bush outside his window quivered in the wind, he mistook these noises for the sound of his father committing suicide.
Throughout the autumn of his fifth grade year, his father was having trouble waking up in the morning. In fact, Mohan Lal didn’t get out of bed at all on his first day of fifth grade, fifth grade at a brand-new elementary school, so Siddharth had to get ready all by himself. At least Arjun had left out some clothes for him, a pair of corduroys that were too tight now, a striped red T-shirt that was beginning to fray around the collar.
A few weeks later, there was a rainstorm one morning. He tried to wake his father up, so that Mohan Lal could drive him to school. But the man wouldn’t budge. Siddharth kept on shaking him, and his father kept on asking for five more minutes. Eventually, Mohan Lal got out of bed, and father and son went out to the driveway. Siddharth made his way to the backseat of their rust-colored Dodge Omni, where he liked to sit in the mornings. He’d always had trouble opening the Omni’s doors, but now he was older and could do it all by himself. He lifted the tricky handle, up first and then out. The door opened, but then it quickly slammed shut. Mohan Lal revved the engine, and Siddharth looked on in shock as his father sped down the driveway and up Hilltop Drive. Fortunately, the cleaning woman was there to let him back into the house. He sat in the formal living room with his head pressed into the window, wondering if his father would ever return.
Eleven minutes later, Mohan Lal pulled back into the driveway. He hugged Siddharth tightly and kissed him numerous times. He said, “Don’t ever do that again.”
“I won’t,” said Siddharth.
He made sure not to cry, so that his father wouldn’t worry about him. He never told Arjun what had happened that morning, because the last thing his brother needed was another reason to hate their father.
The autumn after Siddharth’s mother died, Arjun was always angry with Mohan Lal. When Mohan Lal instructed the boys to tell the people who called for him that he wasn’t home, Arjun scoffed at him. He said that Mohan Lal needed to stop avoiding people who were trying to help him. When his mother’s friends dropped in with CorningWare dishes full of rajma or tuna casserole, Mohan Lal greeted them at the door and said he was running late for a meeting, so that he wouldn’t have to invite them in. One time, Mustafa, the manager of Mohan Lal’s favorite Italian restaurant, came over with a tray of eggplant parmigiana. As Mustafa stood on the front steps ringing the doorbell, Mohan Lal switched off the television and shushed Siddharth with his finger. Mustafa simply left the food outside the door and drove away. Soon all of these people stopped coming over altogether, and Arjun wasn’t happy about it. He told Mohan Lal that he needed to set a better example for Siddharth. Mohan Lal said, “Mind your own business, Arjun. Remember, I’m your father.”
A part of Siddharth felt good when he saw his brother taking charge. But he also understood his father’s behavior. He could relate to Mohan Lal’s need for privacy. The Connor boys kept on calling him to see if he could come over, but he always said no, that he had too much homework. Sometimes they would come by after school and ring the doorbell, and Siddharth would hide in his bedroom closet until they went away. He didn’t want to hang out with them anymore and swore that he would never return to their house. Their house was his least favorite place in the entire world.
Though Siddharth understood his father’s need for isolation, what worried him was Mohan Lal’s temper: The man’s fights with Arjun were getting worse and worse. Each day, Mohan Lal returned home from Elm City College with news of another fight with his dean. He was even fighting with Barry Uncle, his distant cousin and best friend. His first fight with Barry Uncle had occurred the day before the funeral. Barry Uncle had been going on about the need for a pandit to preside over some rituals—to say something spiritual for the sake of Siddharth’s mother. When two of Siddharth’s aunts who had flown in from India agreed, Mohan Lal lost it. His face went red and he started trembling. He said, “Jesus fucking Christ, Barry. Keep your Brahmin charlatans away from my family. Take your fucking Hinduism and shove it up your ass.” Siddharth had never heard his father say fuck before. Hearing this made him seem like a stranger, like some sort of child abuser. In such moments, Siddharth couldn’t help but think that his only real parent was his mother.
* * *
The big fight with Barry Uncle had occurred in August, after Siddharth’s trip to India with Mohan Lal. Over Little Caesars pizza one night, Barry Uncle said, “Boss, have you thought about the lawsuit?”
“Please, Barry, not now,” said Mohan Lal.
Arjun said, “Dad, she was my mother. I deserve to hear this.”
When Mohan Lal widened his eyes at Arjun, Siddharth cringed. He knew what those eyes meant. They meant that if Arjun said another thing, Mohan Lal was going to go ape shit. He was going to shout, or raise his hand behind his ear—things he had always done, but with much more frequency now.
Siddharth was relieved when Arjun got up and went to their bedroom. Unfortunately, Barry Uncle kept on going: “Listen, Mohan, we’re in America now, and that’s the way things work here. That truck driver, he won’t pay anything. But this guy’s insurance company should pay up.”
Siddharth felt it was his responsibility to step in. He said, “Barry Uncle, trust me, it’s not like we need the money.”
“Boy, your father isn’t exactly M.S. Oberoi. He’s got mortgage payments. You two boys will go to college one day.”
Siddharth wanted Mohan Lal to say something to defend their family’s honor. He wanted him to tell Barry Uncle to mind his own business. Mohan Lal seemed strangely calm though. He ate a couple bites of pizza. He downed his whiskey, then sighed. Siddharth didn’t see what was coming, and he jumped in his chair when Mohan Lal slammed his fist into the table. The plates shook and the glasses jingled.
Mohan Lal stood up. “Barry, you’re an ass,” he said.
“Easy there, boss,” replied Barry Uncle. “Take it easy.”
“Dad!” said Siddharth.
Mohan Lal pointed his finger in the air. “Leave, you bastard. Get out of my house, Barry.”
Barry Uncle stood up and placed his hand on Mohan Lal’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s change the subject.”
Mohan Lal switched into Hindi, or maybe it was Punjabi—Siddharth couldn’t tell the difference. All he knew was that he wished his father would stop shouting at his best friend. But Mohan Lal wouldn’t stop.
Barry Uncle grabbed his briefcase and rushed toward the front door. He said, “I know you’re upset, boss. But you can be a stubborn ass sometimes.” He then got into his Honda Accord and sped down the driveway.
Aft
er the fight, Barry Uncle tried calling a few times. Mohan Lal either hung up on him or told the boys to say he wasn’t home. Soon Barry Uncle stopped calling. One evening Arjun said, “He’s, like, your only friend, Dad. You need to talk to him.” Mohan Lal called Barry Uncle a swine. He said he wouldn’t speak to him for as long as he lived.
Siddharth didn’t know what to make of Barry Uncle. There were little things he liked about him. He let Siddharth change the gears of his car, and he let him take little sips of his whiskey. But Siddharth was well aware of his mother’s feelings for the man, and he began to wonder if Mohan Lal had banished him out of loyalty to her. In that case, he was definitely on his father’s side. He was glad to see the last of Barry Uncle.
2
A Just War
As they drove to Deer Run Elementary School on that chilly February evening, a light snow wetted the windshield of their rust-colored car. His stomach gurgled with dread, which mounted as they approached the town center. Soon they were passing the Carter Family Horse Farm, which was adjacent to South Haven’s public library. Over the past few months, Mohan Lal occasionally picked him up from school, and they would get donuts and eat them in the library parking lot. They parked as close to the horses as possible, and Siddharth got out of the car and laced his fingers through the chain-link fence. One of the ponies, which had a blond mane, sometimes came over and licked his fingers, and they started referring to it as Buddy. Whenever they visited Buddy, Mohan Lal remained in the car, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup and listening to reports about the aftermath of the Gulf War. Siddharth stood outside alone, inhaling the musky air, staring at the desolate fields and graceful horses. He occasionally looked over his shoulder to check on his father, who responded by blowing him a kiss or just smiling. Siddharth felt good in those moments. He hadn’t said a word about them to anyone—not to Arjun, nor to Ms. Farber, his school psychologist. He hadn’t even said anything to his only friend at Deer Run, Sharon Nagorski.
South Haven Page 2