Fortunately, the vigorous creaking of the baseboards forced him to open his eyes.
He floated between sleep and wakefulness for a few moments, indulging one of his favorite fantasies. His dream had been so real and yet ended up being fake, which meant everything else—last night and also the past twenty-one months—could have been fiction too. The sight of a breathing body on his brother’s bed seemed to confirm this suspicion. Arjun. Maybe he hadn’t even left for college yet. The sleeping body kicked off its covers, exposing New York Giants boxers and pale legs covered in hair. But it wasn’t ugly hair. It wasn’t the Indian kind. These legs belonged to Marc.
Having indulged such delusions before, Siddharth knew what came next. His stomach would buzz and churn, and the only way to feel better would be to watch a movie or some television.
“Marc,” said Siddharth.
Marc groaned, placing a pillow over his head.
Siddharth smiled. Marc Kaufman had slept over at his house. Siddharth propped himself up and noticed that his stomach felt fine. He eyed his friend’s boxers, which were so much cooler than his own tight white underwear. Marc’s back was a little pudgy, but his shoulders were broad and strong. Strands of stringy hair sprouted from the crevices under his shoulders. Siddharth fingered his own armpit. It was totally smooth, the armpit of a child.
He got out of bed and raised one of his curtains. It was sunny out, but the rhododendron bush was buckling under eight inches of snow. He didn’t even need to turn on the radio; school would definitely be cancelled. He felt relieved, like he was filled with helium and could float. He put on his Michigan sweatshirt and headed to Mohan Lal’s room, but the door was completely shut. Normally, Siddharth would have barged in. But something inside him told him to knock. He got no response and began to worry. Turning the knob, he peeked inside and couldn’t believe what he saw. It had just turned eight, and Mohan Lal’s bed was already made. He gripped the back of his neck. It felt thick and numb—foreign, as if it were somebody else’s.
He headed to his father’s bathroom, where he half-expected to find him sprawled on the vinyl floor. When Siddharth had traveled to Delhi the summer after his mother’s death, Mohan Lal tripped while stepping off the plane onto the runway, briefly losing consciousness. Siddharth had been so scared he vomited on the drive to his uncle’s home in Greater Kailash 1.
The bathroom was empty and, strangely, Siddharth felt disappointed. He had prepared himself to find his father strewn across the floor—to make the call to 911. If people could read his mind, they would think he was crazy. He stared out the bathroom window. The backyard was an unblemished blanket of white except for some deer tracks. They began at the woods and stopped below the sagging maple, right underneath the rusting, empty bird feeder. His mother used to fill the feeder at least once a week, even during winter. When the temperature fell below zero, she would put out leftovers for the deer and turkey. One time, Mohan Lal had told her to stop, saying that she was interfering with the laws of Darwin. She told him that he was cruel, that she considered herself a part of the animals’ evolution.
Siddharth headed to the hallway, passing his mother’s framed oil paintings of boats and fruit bowls. She’d won various ribbons for these at the South Haven County Fair. He passed the framed certificate of appreciation from the nurses at the VA hospital, where she’d worked as an attending anesthesiologist for twelve years. He glanced at the black-and-white photo from his parents’ wedding, in which his mother was wearing an ugly sari and his father a silly turban, like a real sand nigger. Siddharth didn’t know much about their pasts, but he knew the story of their courtship by heart.
After nine years in Manhattan, Mohan Lal had finally returned to India. He spotted Siddharth’s mother at a friend’s party and immediately knew she was the one. He spent the next two months convincing her to marry him, buying her flowers and taking her out for secret coffee dates on a motorcycle. Mohan Lal had to provide her father letters of recommendation to prove the strength of his character.
Siddharth shook his head and kept walking. As he reached the heart of the house, he could hear Ms. Farber’s voice coming from the kitchen. He paused in the family room, turning his attention to the coffee table, where a half-empty jug of Canei wine towered over the usual bills and legal pads. Next to it was a bowl of pink pistachio shells. Taking a few steps into the room, he couldn’t see them yet, but he could hear every word they were saying. She was talking about something called a kibbutz until Mohan Lal interrupted her. “You know,” he said, “I once managed a farm—in Kashipur, one of the most beautiful places. Let me tell you, the life of a rancher is a good one.” Siddharth had heard his father speak about such things before. When his parents used to fight, Mohan Lal would say he was going to run away to this Kashipur.
Siddharth warmed his feet on the family room’s thin burgundy carpeting, peering through the sliding glass doors into the porch. It was messy, filled with rickety cane furniture, discarded tools, and deflated balls. His father was dicing tomatoes at the counter. He had on his bulky wire-framed glasses, and his unshaven face was covered with tiny dots of gray.
Ms. Farber told Mohan Lal he had very unconventional perspectives. “Is that why you left India?” she asked. “A man like you—you couldn’t have had an easy time in a place that’s so traditional.”
Mohan Lal cracked a smile. “You could say that.” He came down hard on an onion and proceeded to chop it fast, as if he were a machine. “Yes, such a backward place can be stifling.”
“For me it was a little different,” said Ms. Farber. “I left home to—”
“But ask me why I chose to live here,” Mohan Lal interrupted.
“Uh, okay. Why here?”
She sounded annoyed, and Siddharth hoped his father hadn’t offended her.
“I stayed because this is a great country. Or should I say, it was a great country.” Mohan Lal turned toward Ms. Farber, and his face hardened as he glimpsed Siddharth. “Son?”
Siddharth stared down at the holes in his tube socks.
“Morning, son. Come here.” Mohan Lal sounded very formal, like a stranger.
He entered the kitchen, and Ms. Farber asked him how he’d slept. Her voice was weird too, a little too sweet for his liking.
“Fine,” he said. He stared at the white brooch that was pinned below her collar. It depicted two masks, one smiling and the other frowning.
Ms. Farber got up and filled the kettle at the sink, her free hand hovering behind Mohan Lal’s back without actually touching it. “Instant coffee takes me back,” she said. “My parents—they used to drink it every single morning.” Returning to her seat, she paused in front of Siddharth and smiled. Her teeth seemed particularly yellow today. Tiny wrinkles engulfed her honey-colored eyes. The mole on her cheek didn’t look like a mole this morning—it looked like a small mountain. “You were fabulous yesterday,” she said.
“Yeah, thanks,” Siddharth replied. “Dad, I’m gonna watch TV.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” said Mohan Lal.
“Forgetting something?”
“Sunday morning rules. Pour yourself some milk and take a seat.”
“Sunday morning rules?” He had no idea what his father was talking about. But something odd was in the air, so he sat down.
Ms. Farber stared at the photographs and magazine cutouts on the fridge, which had been up there for ages. “So you were saying?”
“Pardon me?” said Mohan Lal.
“This country used to be great? If it used to be great, then why stay? It’s not like you don’t have other options.”
Mohan Lal beat some eggs with an electric mixer. He said, “Siddharth, please tell me—what is the definition of wealth?”
“Dad, come on—I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”
“Just say it,” said Mohan Lal.
Siddharth explained that a wealthy country was one that had the ability to manufacture, a phrase his father had uttered thousands of times.
“Very impressive,” said Ms. Farber.
“You see, Rachel, when I came to this country in 1959, the Eastern seaboard was the manufacturing capital of the world. They made clocks and tools—such products of high quality, I tell you. Right here in Connecticut, the ball-bearing industry was the greatest in the world.”
“So what happened?”
“Greed—greedy politicians and greedy businessmen.” Mohan Lal launched into an explanation of how American ball-bearing manufacturers started helping the Japanese set up more cost-effective factories. “Yes, a few barons got rich. But the country—the people? No. They lost a genuine source of wealth.”
“But that’s capitalism,” said Ms. Farber. “Show me a better system and I’ll give you a million bucks.”
“True, there is no better system than capitalism. But what I have described isn’t capitalism. Tell me, where’s your free market if the Japanese government is subsidizing production? And what about our own government? It must provide conditions in which business can prosper.”
The kettle whistled, and Ms. Farber got up to finish making her coffee. Mohan Lal started sautéing some spices, and Siddharth cringed as the odor of Indian food filled the kitchen.
“That smells wonderful,” said Ms. Farber. “I’d love to learn a few dishes.”
“Anytime,” said Mohan Lal, dumping the onions into his wok. “Siddharth, set the table and put in some English muffins.”
Siddharth begrudgingly got four white plates out of the cabinet, and then some forks and knives. Ms. Farber was back at the table, pressing her mug against her cheek and staring out the window.
“Rachel?” said Mohan Lal.
She didn’t respond. Siddharth had seen her look this way before. Her mind was in some far-off place now.
“Rachel?” Mohan Lal repeated.
Siddharth glared at him.
She shuddered, then faked a smile. “I’m so sorry. I’m used to a little more sleep, I guess.”
Mohan Lal turned down the burner and dumped in the tomatoes. “I hope I haven’t offended you.”
“Offended me?”
“Dad,” said Siddharth, “how many muffins do you want?”
Mohan Lal ignored him. “If you were a jingo, my words may have been offensive.”
Ms. Farber laughed, then grasped her mug with her long, bony fingers. “No, not at all. I was just thinking about my father. He had a factory in New Jersey. They made some sort of widget that went into fluorescent lightbulbs. He was always complaining about Japan—Japan, Taiwan, and, of course, the Germans.” She paused and shook her head. “To be honest, I always thought it was all a bunch of excuses.”
“Dad?” said Siddharth. “Hello? I asked you a question.”
“Put in three,” said Mohan Lal. “We’ll make a fresh one for Marc when he wakes up.” He poured in the eggs. “Let me tell you, this country’s greatest asset was its entrepreneurs—amazing men who we took for granted.”
“Amazing?” said Ms. Farber. “I would have settled for functional.” She arched her eyebrows. “My mother, she died a few weeks after my sixteenth birthday. Dad—he wasn’t like you. He fell apart, into a million little pieces.”
PART II
1
Pond Hockey and Other Tuesday-Thursday Affairs
In the spring semester, Mohan Lal taught late classes on both Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Ms. Farber picked Siddharth up from school so that he could continue with karate. He loved these afternoons. All the other kids had to remain in their seats until their buses got called over the loudspeaker, but he enjoyed a solitary stroll down the corridor at 3:13, two minutes before dismissal. Marc was often waiting for him outside. He’d be leaning against the pay phone and listening to his Walkman, his lower lip puffy with tobacco, the asphalt around him splotched with tiny pools of brown. The boys would slap hands and walk over to Ms. Farber’s ailing Saab, Marc spitting out his pouch before they got there. Siddharth knew people stared at them—the gym teacher, the bus drivers, the principal—but for once he didn’t mind the attention. He would look straight ahead, not down at the laces of his imitation Keds, which he had bought because Marc had gotten a pair of real ones. He was still a faggot according to Luca Peroti, still the ex-friend of slutty Sharon Nagorski. But that didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter that he spent recess alone and ate lunch with Bobby Meyers.
It was a cold month, with carrot-shaped icicles dangling from the roofs and drainpipes. The boys spent a lot of time indoors. Marc’s father bought him a new video game every weekend, and Marc wouldn’t relinquish the controller until he’d conquered it, which usually took forty-eight hours. Siddharth preferred it when they watched movies. Marc continued introducing him to the world of pornography, and he in turn introduced Marc to the joy of seeing a single film multiple times. They watched these films in Ms. Farber’s basement, where they’d been spending much more time because the guest room had been turned into her home office.
Marc said that building an office was easy when someone else was footing the bill.
“What do you mean?” asked Siddharth.
“Who do you think paid for this shit? Shelly did. My dad’s busting his ass so Rachel can play doctor.”
“Fucking ridiculous,” said Siddharth. But he didn’t actually think it was ridiculous. He’d met Marc’s father two times, and the man was grumpy. Too quiet. Marc sometimes said that he wished he could go live with his father full-time, but Siddharth didn’t think that would be a wise idea.
It took Ms. Farber more than a month to complete her home office, and she’d hired a team of three carpenters for the job. First they wrapped up the renovations that had ceased during her divorce, and then they put in a door that led directly from the guest room to the outside world. This door was essential, she claimed, for it would make her clients feel that they were in a real office. It would allow her to maintain healthy boundaries between work and home. Siddharth had watched the builders as they sawed and hammered, and he even helped a worker named Sean sand down some new oak shelving.
Three weeks after the Springfield karate tournament, he and his father went on another outing with Marc and Ms. Farber, this time to get her a new desk. They honed in on a hefty modern one that was on sale at the Post Road furniture warehouse where Siddharth’s parents had done a lot of shopping. But then Ms. Farber fell in love with something called a “secretary’s desk” at an antique shop in Westville, which cost twelve hundred dollars. Mohan Lal said that spending so much on a secondhand piece of furniture didn’t make sense considering the financial strain of starting a new business. But Ms. Farber was adamant. She explained that the antique desk reminded her of one that had belonged to her mother. Her father had left it out on the street when they moved out of their Victorian home and into their horrible apartment.
Marc bargained the antique dealer down to nine fifty, and Siddharth tried to help him load it into the back of his father’s minivan. He wasn’t strong enough, so Mohan Lal stepped in. Siddharth was proud to see his father heaving and lifting. Mohan Lal looked like a real man, not some crazed sand nigger from Indiana Jones. But the way he panted afterward embarrassed Siddharth. It also scared him.
* * *
Ms. Farber started complaining that the boys were spending too much time in front of the television. She gave Siddharth a pair of Marc’s old ice skates and began ferrying them to Foster Pond, which was on the border of Woodford and South Haven. Siddharth had never skated before, so Marc had to teach him.
During their first day on the ice, Marc skated backward and pulled him from one end of the pond to the other with a hockey stick. They did this for twenty minutes, then lit a fire in the woods and shared a cigar. On their second day, Siddharth managed to skate into his turns, crossing one foot over the other. Marc told him he was bending his ankles, and that ankle-benders were girls. By their third day, Siddharth had learned how to skate backward, and Marc clapped for him. “Atta girl,” he said, sticking his fingers into hi
s mouth and whistling.
“Screw you,” said Siddharth, but he was smiling; he knew that Marc wasn’t serious.
Marc was still grounded for what he had done to the mailbox, and he would remain grounded until the summer, so the boys’ Foster Pond trips were often an excuse for him to get around the rules of his punishment and meet up with a Woodford eighth grader named Dinetta Luciani. Dinetta always showed up with her best friend, Liza Kim. The girls wore miniskirts and stockings, even with howling winds and temperatures in the teens. Dinetta’s grandfather owned Luciani Carting, but her father owned a liquor store, and she usually brought a few tiny bottles of vodka or rum. Siddharth only pretended to sip from them. If his father caught him with booze on his breath, his days with Marc would be numbered.
The four kids avoided the main pond, instead heading into the frozen labyrinth of swamps and trees behind it. This area mesmerized Siddharth. It seemed like a portal to a secret world, like the setting of one of his fantasy books. But he knew better than to share such observations out loud. Marc and Dinetta usually seated themselves on a fallen tree trunk and French-kissed the whole time, so Siddharth ended up spending a lot of time with Liza. She told him that junior high was awesome, that even though Marc was only a seventh grader, he was one of the cutest kids in their whole school. She asked Siddharth if he had a girlfriend.
“Used to,” he said. “But we, like, broke up.”
“You’re lying,” said Liza. “I can tell when people are lying.”
“Why would I lie? I even got to first base with her—second, over the shirt.”
“So what was her name then?”
“Sharon,” he said. “Sharon Nagorski.”
Marc later told Siddharth that Liza thought he was cute, but Siddharth said he wasn’t into Orientals.
“Pussy’s pussy,” said Marc. “I’d go for it if I were you.”
“We’ll see,” said Siddharth. He was thrilled that a girl actually liked him, but also petrified. He didn’t know how to kiss. And he would die if she saw his penis, which was probably the smallest dick in the world.
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