* * *
Siddharth had never been to a place like Paulie’s before. It was a squat wooden building that looked more like a cabin than a restaurant. Stepping inside, he found no neon signs, no milkshake machines. He saw no pictures of the toys that could accompany your food for an extra charge.
“Get stoked,” said Marc. “This is the best shit you’re ever gonna eat.”
The place was dimly lit and contained lots of wood. The wooden tables and chairs were oddly shaped and built directly into the walls, and long wooden beams lined the ceiling. Thousands of customers had chiseled their names into every square inch of this wood. Some had even made declarations of love. Marc pointed out a spot below a fire extinguisher where his father had carved the name of the family business, State Street Scrap. “That’s where I’m gonna work someday,” he declared. “Not in some pussy-ass law firm.”
Siddharth laughed. He noticed a pair of cops sitting on barstools in front of a wooden counter, on the other side of which was the place’s rustic kitchen. Standing in the kitchen was a young man with a red mustache and a grease-stained apron. His bright green eyes were focused on a tiny TV mounted above the entrance.
One of the cops, a short, squat guy, addressed the redhead: “What do you think, Ronny? How’s about I put a bill on Philly?”
Ronny squeezed his temples. “There’s fifteen minutes left in the game, Sam. It’s not a bet if you already know what’s gonna happen.” He extracted a metal cage filled with glistening hamburger patties from an upright iron oven. Actual flames were flickering. This oven seemed strange. Ancient. For some reason, it reminded Siddharth of India.
Ronny served the cops their hamburgers, which came on toast, and the second cop, a tall guy with a shaved head, complained that his was too bloody. Ronny pointed to a sign above the cash register. This isn’t Burger King. We don’t do it your way, and we take our time. Then the redhead finally turned to Marc. “Long time no see, kid.” He wiped a hand on his apron and extended it. “Where’s the old man?”
Marc shook Ronny’s hand. “Somebody’s gotta pay the bills.”
Ronny nodded at Ms. Farber, who flashed a perfunctory smile and put a hand on Marc’s back. Marc ordered a cream soda and a burger, and then Ronny turned to Siddharth. “What about you, kid?”
Siddharth had no idea what to order here, but Marc stepped in and saved him: “Same again for him, Ronny.”
Mohan Lal approached the counter and asked for a cheese toast.
“A what?” said Ronny.
“A grilled cheese,” explained Siddharth.
“Sorry, sir, we got hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chips, and blueberry pie. Oh, and Monday through Wednesday there’s Mother’s potato salad.”
“You’re kidding,” said Ms. Farber with a scowl. “People get grilled cheese all the time.”
Mohan Lal clasped her elbow. “I think chips would be fine.”
Siddharth bent down and peeled a candy wrapper from the bottom of his loafers. He wished his father would just have a burger. But then he remembered what the doctor had said about his cholesterol.
“Junior!” a voice called from behind the kitchen. A few seconds later, an old man walked into the dining area carrying a box of onions. He dropped it on the counter, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Junior, I don’t see a big crowd here. We don’t have a rush. Would you please give this gentleman what he wants?”
The old man was wearing thick glasses and a plaid flannel shirt. Siddharth wasn’t accustomed to the elderly looking so robust. His father’s mother had always been shrouded in white and liked to complain a lot. His mother’s father had worn a three-piece suit every day, and he was so skinny and old that it looked like the wind might blow him away.
“Welcome, folks,” said the old man. “Is it your first time?”
“Me?” said Marc. “I’ve been here like a hundred times.”
The old man squinted at Marc and nodded. “That’s right. I know your father—knew your grandfather too.”
Mohan Lal took off his blazer and sat on a bench. “Sir, are you Paulie?”
“Me? No. Paulie was my grandfather. Moved here from Ireland and worked the gun factories. Started this place up back in 1892—exactly a hundred years ago.” He winked at Siddharth. “So where you folks from?”
Siddharth’s pulse quickened; he hated that question.
Ms. Farber sat down next to Mohan Lal. “Oh, we’re from the area.”
“Actually,” said Mohan Lal, “before Connecticut I was a New Yorker.”
The old man rolled down his sleeves and buttoned them. “Ah, the melting pot.” He sat on the only empty barstool, patting the tall cop on the back. “Used to deliver groceries for my uncle in the Bronx. But where are you from—I mean your people.”
Ms. Farber placed a hand on Mohan Lal’s knee. Siddharth wished she wouldn’t touch him like that in front of strangers.
“Me?” said Mohan Lal, pointing at himself. “By birth I am an Indian.”
“Thought so.” The old man snapped his fingers. His smile widened, revealing a silver-capped incisor. “I spent more than a year of my life in your country. Was stationed in Karachi during the war, and once it was all over, I traveled around with my buddies—some of the best months of my life.”
Ms. Farber tilted her head. “You mean World War II? My father—”
“What a country! You’ve got everything over there. Deserts, mountains. And those cities—they’re something else.” The old man spread his arms to convey the grandness of these things, winking at Siddharth again.
Mohan Lal was grinning. “Why, thank you.”
Siddharth sipped his cream soda, wishing the old guy would leave them alone. He was glad Marc was watching the game, not listening.
“Kashmir,” said the man. “That place had the most beautiful ladies. Bet you a hamburger that’s where your people are.”
“I had some family there.” Mohan Lal loosened his tie. “But you could call us Punjabis.”
The man shook his finger at Mohan Lal. “My second guess. I swear it was gonna be my second guess. The Punjab—Golden Temple—Amritsar. I bet that’s your city.”
“Actually, I’m from a small place near a city called Peshawar.”
Siddharth was confused; these places were totally unfamiliar to him.
“Which town?” asked the man.
“Abbottabad.”
The man snapped his fingers a second time. “Oh, I’ve been there. Been everywhere in Pakistan.” He cocked his head to one side. “Muslim?”
“I’m a Hindu—from a Hindu family, that is.”
“So you were a refugee?”
Mohan Lal stroked the stubble that had started to shadow his cheeks. “Yes, we had to move.”
The old man puffed up his cheeks and sighed. “It’s just awful what they did to each other. Saw the photographs in Time magazine. So much bloodshed in such a holy place. I tell you—brought tears to my eyes.”
Mohan Lal shook his head. “Well, the Britishers, they threw stones at a hornet’s nest. It was a deviant course of action.”
“But they left you with so much. That railroad—it’s just spectacular. And your army? One of the largest in the world.”
“Sir, your sense of history is most impressive,” said Mohan Lal.
The old man chuckled. “Well, they actually used to teach you something back when I was a kid.” He got up abruptly and disappeared back behind the kitchen.
Ronny handed the boys their sandwiches atop tiny paper plates. Siddharth grasped his burger. It didn’t look like much; it had no lettuce or mayo, and there were no pickles or onions. He squeezed the patty, and the toast it was served on turned purple.
“Mine’s all dry,” said Marc. “I wanted you to have the good one.”
Siddharth brought the burger to his mouth. He took a deep breath, then bit down. The meat was moist, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the source of this moisture. It was blood from an actual living thing, an animal with parent
s and children. He could see his own mother’s blood splattered across the vinyl seats of her Chrysler LeBaron. As he suffered his meat in silence, the old man returned and started sorting through bags of plastic cutlery. After completing this task, he walked over to Mohan Lal and placed a mole-ridden hand on his shoulder. Siddharth clenched his teeth. He wanted this guy to leave them alone. He wanted to eat in peace.
The old man said, “Can I show you something?”
Mohan Lal was finishing up his grilled cheese. “Please.”
Siddharth followed the man’s fingers, which were pointing toward a spot close to the ceiling, one of the only brick-laden sections of the restaurant. Amid these bricks were several pieces of stone. Some of the stones were green, and two of them were blue. Only one was white, and the man was pointing at the white one. “Guess where it’s from.”
“No idea,” said Mohan Lal.
“Here’s a story for you,” said the man. “When I was in Karachi, I made good friends with a nawab. He was a captain in the British Indian Army. Well, we cabled him and said we were going to visit the Taj Mahal, and guess what he did?”
Siddharth prayed that his father wouldn’t go off about the Taj Mahal, about how much he hated the Muslims.
“He arranged a special tour,” said the old man. “And you’ll never guess what they did for us . . . They hung thick ropes from the top of one of those pillars—”
“The minarets,” said Mohan Lal.
“That’s the word. They hung rope from the top of a minaret, and we put on harnesses and climbed the thing as if it were a mountain. That rock right there—the white one—I took a chisel and carved it out myself. That building is just gorgeous—makes Lady Liberty look like child’s play.”
Mohan Lal had a wide grin on his lips. “Very true, sir. I couldn’t agree with you more.”
Siddharth didn’t get it. What the hell was his father talking about?
* * *
Back in the car, Ms. Farber told everyone to lock their doors. Siddharth watched her pull a cassette from her purple purse. She inserted it into the minivan’s stereo, and he resisted the urge to say, Hey, you should ask first. The cassette began to play, and an American man started chanting the name Sitaram over and over.
Marc snickered, “Cool music.”
“Dear,” said Ms. Farber, “don’t be such a philistine.”
“I’m serious,” said Marc. “It’s kind of trippy.”
Ms. Farber said, “Marc, you’re too young to know that word.”
Mohan Lal turned up the volume. “Where did you get this, Rachel?”
“You like?”
“It’s wonderful.”
“Mo, let’s plan a trip to India,” she said. “I would love to see the Taj Mahal.”
This nickname—Mo—was new to Siddharth. It wasn’t that bad.
“We can go to many places,” said Mohan Lal. “But not that one.”
“What do you mean?” Ms. Farber turned the music down.
“That’s a conversation for another day.” Mohan Lal turned onto Chapel Street, passing a herd of drunken students. Siddharth spotted a police checkpoint a couple of blocks ahead.
Ms. Farber clicked her tongue. “I mean, is it a special place for you?”
“No,” said Mohan Lal, who was grinning again.
“If it is, that’s okay. We all have our pasts.”
Siddharth could tell she was growing sullen. “Ms. Farber, don’t take it personally. He hates the Taj Mahal.”
“What?” she said. “Why’s that?”
He told her how the building was a symbol of decadence—how it used to be a Hindu temple until the Muslims came and destroyed it.
“Mo,” she asked, “could that really be true?”
“There are grains of truth in every story,” said Mohan Lal.
Ms. Farber sighed. “Well, I wish I could say I was surprised.”
They were getting closer to South Haven, passing through endless streets of old Victorian homes. Siddharth knew that this neighborhood was bad, and yet some of the houses were large and pretty, if a little run-down. He hadn’t realized poor people could live in such nice houses. Mohan Lal slowed down near Saint Rafael’s Hospital, pointing out an old brick building where he’d once had a third-floor apartment.
“You mean you lived there with your wife?” asked Ms. Farber.
Siddharth gritted his teeth. When he had visited her office in school, they sometimes spoke about his mother—but it didn’t seem right anymore.
“That was in my bachelor days,” said Mohan Lal.
“There’s just so much I don’t know about you. I mean, you were born in Pakistan? I should know that.”
“It was India then,” said Mohan Lal.
“Well, I should know that too.”
Marc leaned forward. “Mom, you’re ignorant. I still love you though.”
She placed a hand on Mohan Lal’s thigh. “Mo, why did he call you a refugee?”
“Nothing is to be achieved by dwelling on such things. Aren’t you the one always telling us to be more mindful of the present?”
She started fiddling with her hair. “But I also say that if you’ve experienced something traumatic, you need to tell that story. You need to talk about it.”
“Well, I could say the same thing to you.”
They were back on familiar suburban turf. Siddharth gazed at the ancient Yale Bowl, then the pastoral reservoirs of South Haven. He found himself agreeing with Ms. Farber. His father needed to talk more. About his feelings. His past. Siddharth’s mother used to say the same thing.
“Marc’s grandfather,” said Ms. Farber, “he was in the war too.”
“Yes, I know,” said Mohan Lal.
“Did I ever tell you how he met my mother?”
“Which war?” interrupted Siddharth.
“The Second World War,” said Mohan Lal. “Boys, who fought in World War II?”
“We did,” answered Siddharth.
“And on the other side?” asked Mohan Lal.
“The Russians,” said Siddharth.
“You’re retarded,” said Marc. “It was us against Hitler—the Nazis and the Japs.”
“You’re the ’tard,” said Siddharth. “The Russians are the freaking enemy.”
“Oh well,” Ms. Farber sighed, “I guess no one wants to hear my story.”
“I do.” Siddharth reached between the front seats to turn down the volume even more.
* * *
“My parents met in London,” she explained. “It was 1945.”
“Your mother was a Britisher?” said Mohan Lal
“She was born in Germany, but her parents were from Russia. And when the war started, they shipped her off to England. Can you believe it? She was fourteen years old.”
“Too bad her parents didn’t go too,” said Marc. “Then Hitler wouldn’t have gassed ’em.”
“Marc!” snapped Ms. Farber. “Not another word.”
They took a right toward Woodford, and Ms. Farber continued narrating her mother’s story. After arriving in England, she’d studied to become a nurse and got a job in a place called Croydon, and in the hospital there she came upon an American soldier who was totally unconscious. “He’d literally just gotten in from the African front. He was a driver there, and the other troops called him Lucky.”
“Lucky?” said Marc. “That’s not what I heard.”
Ms. Farber shot him a look. Marc drew a finger across his lips to indicate that he was shutting up, then nudged Siddharth and gave her the middle finger behind her seat.
“He was very lucky,” Ms. Farber went on. “Men sitting right next to him got shot. The truck right in front of him would get destroyed by a landmine, but somehow—somehow—he always made it through without a scratch.” She paused to tie back her hair. “But when he was two weeks away from discharge, they put him on a plane out of Egypt. Halfway through the flight, he came down with this crazy fever. They diagnosed him with malaria once he got to London. Wh
en he finally came to, he couldn’t hear anything, but the first face he saw was my mother’s. For some reason, Mom felt something special for him. There was something about his voice. She started bringing him soup from home—she had a room in a boardinghouse—and she gave him sponge baths. She read him books all the time, even when she was off duty.”
“What books?” asked Marc.
“Marc, what did I tell you?”
“Jeez, shoot me for caring.”
“Do these little details really matter, Marc? She read him Kipling—your grandfather loved Rudyard Kipling. Can I move on? . . . So when Dad was strong enough to fly, he went home to New Jersey and wrote the nurse every single week. Then it became every day. Eventually, he proposed to her in one of these letters.”
“And she said yes?” asked Siddharth. He wished his own family had done such interesting things. He wished they’d lived in such interesting places. But the Aroras were boring.
“No, but she did get on a boat and come to America. She moved in with some friends in Brooklyn, other Jews. Mom and Dad dated for two years until she had no choice but to marry him.”
“Immigration?” asked Mohan Lal.
“Nope,” said Ms. Farber, laughing. “She was pregnant with my big brother.”
Mohan Lal held out his hand to her. “You should write this all down and publish it.”
She grazed his hand but then started fixing her hair again. “You’ll love this, Mo. One time, my father actually got to drive Eisenhower.”
“Really?” Mohan turned right onto Ms. Farber’s street. “Ike’s driver—his main driver—was a woman. Kay. They were lovers.” He took a left into her driveway and parked underneath the hoop.
The engine idled, and nobody said anything. Siddharth felt cozy and warm and wished they could just stay right there in the driveway, but Marc shattered the cozy silence: “Listen, story time was great, but I’ve got to excuse myself—unless you want me to take a dump in the backseat.” He stepped out of the van and let himself into the house through the garage.
Ms. Farber took a long, deep breath. “Mohan, this has been . . . Really good. I was thinking . . .” She let out a breathy laugh. “No, forget it.”
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