Later that week, they were going over their first reading assignment in English class, Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” which Siddharth hadn’t liked as much as Call of the Wild. He stared out the window during the classroom discussion, and Mrs. Wadsworth slammed her book on her table to get his attention. She demanded that he tell her about the story’s principle theme. Siddharth said, “The theme? I dunno—like, winter sucks.” Various students snickered, which made him feel good, but when he saw Sharon covering her mouth and grinning, he felt a real rush. He didn’t know why, but he liked making her laugh. He wanted to make her laugh even harder.
Another time, they were reading a short story by Kipling, and Mrs. Wadsworth singled him out to ask if the story rang true. He said, “Ring true? I don’t even know what that means.”
“What I mean is, does this story’s description of India seem authentic to you?”
“Authentic? How am I supposed to know?”
“I’m quite certain you’ve been to India before. At least your brother was a well-traveled young man.”
He turned to Sharon, who was smirking, which made his chest tingle. Sharon’s smile made him feel gutsy. Strong. “If this was really India,” he said, “then the characters would be complaining about how bad it smells. They’d probably say something about their stomach hurting, because if you eat anything there, you get really bad diarrhea.” He turned to Sharon, who was laughing so hard that she snorted. He felt like he had won some sort of victory.
The pair also had fifth-period science together, and during the second week of school, when their teacher, Mr. Polanski, told the students to pick a permanent lab partner, Sharon asked him to work with her. He didn’t really know anybody else in the class and said yes. By the end of the month, they were speaking on the phone at least once a week to complete their lab reports.
At first he dreaded these phone conversations, fearing that she would bring up what had happened between them. But Sharon never mentioned their fight. She didn’t mention Luca Peroti, and talking on the phone with her—an actual girl—began to make him feel good, even if she was still a pariah who had lugged around that stupid trumpet case. In some ways, Sharon had changed a lot since sixth grade. The most noticeable thing was that she was quieter now—more serious. She never wore skirts or dresses anymore, just black jeans or black tights, and baggy sweatshirts that fell below her waist. But he could tell that her breasts had gotten bigger, and he liked the way she decorated her eyes. They were always outlined in black, and her eyelashes seemed longer. They seemed wetter than everyone else’s. He occasionally wondered if she’d be more game to put out for him than the popular girls, but he always repented this line of thinking. Luca wouldn’t let him live it down if he hooked up with a freak like Sharon Nagorski.
During their phone conversations, he and Sharon soon began talking about topics unrelated to English or earth science. At first, he preferred to keep focused on simple things, like their teachers, music, or the latest season of Beverly Hills 90210, a program Arjun said was indicative of America’s postwar decline. But Sharon, just as before, liked to get more personal. She told him about her weekends, which were surprisingly exciting. He had imagined that she sat in her bedroom alone on weekends playing trumpet and reading, but she usually hung out with her older brother’s friends, some of whom had dropped out of high school. These kids were often at Sharon’s house, drinking beer and playing bumper pool while her mother was at work. Sharon said she didn’t like booze, but she smoked cigarettes, one a day and more on weekends. She said, “Drinking’s lame. It turns people into jerks. Cigarettes are different though. They help you think more. They make all the annoying shit in life a little bit better.”
He told her about his weekends, though he was careful to censor these conversations and leave out any details involving Luca. He also avoided mentioning Mohan Lal and Ms. Farber. But as the weeks passed, he found himself opening up about other parts of his life; Sharon was the only person he told about Arjun’s Pakistani girlfriend.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”
He tried to explain that Pakistanis were bad people.
“But why?” she asked. “What did they ever do to you?”
“It’s complicated. They’ve just always been cruel to Indians, for like thousands of years. And if my dad finds out, he’ll go ape shit.”
“I think it’s romantic,” said Sharon. “Very Romeo and Juliet.”
“That’s Shakespeare, isn’t it?”
“Duh.”
“Shakespeare fucking sucks.”
“Siddharth, you sound stupid when you say things like that. You sound like such a typical guy.”
“What’s wrong with that? I am a typical guy.”
“No you’re not.”
Sharon told him about her parents’ legal battles over alimony and their fight over their large collection of LPs. Her father now lived on a lake in North Carolina and sometimes played harmonica in a band. She hadn’t yet visited his new house, as he was usually driving his truck, moving freight between Florida and Kentucky. Her mother worked the night shift at the phone company, and on Fridays as a waitress at a Tex-Mex restaurant; she spent Saturday evenings with her new boyfriend, who Sharon said was dopey but fine. On the phone one night, Siddharth asked her if her mother was going to marry him.
“I hope not,” she said. “What about your dad?”
“What about my dad?”
“Him and Ms. Farber—are they gonna tie the knot?”
“What are you even talking about?”
“Come on, Sid. Don’t be so immature.”
“I’m not being immature.”
“So answer my question. How serious are they?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?”
“You’re not stupid,” said Sharon. “I mean, they’re sleeping together—right?”
“Gross. No way.” He needed to change the subject. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Have you ever done it?”
“I just turned thirteen, for Christ’s sake.”
“Well, how far have you gotten?”
“Siddharth, what I do with my boyfriend is none of your business.”
“Boyfriend? You have a boyfriend?”
“It’s no big deal. He’s just a friend of my brother’s.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not lying. He’s from East Haven.”
“Sharon, I can tell when people are lying.”
“Don’t believe me. What do I care?”
2
Some Sort of Zionist
Whenever Arjun called to check on Siddharth during the first days of September, he refused to say hello to Mohan Lal. Arjun said he didn’t have time to rehash a bunch of bullshit with a closed-minded bigot. The situation frustrated Siddharth, especially because his mother would have wanted him to fix it. He pleaded with Arjun to make up with their father, and Arjun eventually relented.
By the first week of October, Arjun and Mohan Lal were talking once a week. This truce pleased Siddharth, at least at first. But soon they were speaking several times a week, causing him to feel pangs of jealousy. He began listening in on their calls, to find out if they were exchanging declarations of love or secrets about his progress at school. He needed to know if Mohan Lal was telling Arjun about a covert plan to marry Ms. Farber.
Each time he eavesdropped, he was relieved—and also annoyed—to discover that they were just going on about India. Mohan Lal called Gandhi a “traitorous homo,” a stooge who had “let the British chop India in two,” whereas Arjun said that “the Mahatma altered the course of modern politics.” Arjun said, “Don’t you get it? If you fight force with force, then the violence never ends.” When he called the Indian Congress Party a “truly progressive political party,” Mohan Lal said, “Bullshit. It’s a criminal organization. How can a party be progressive when it murders innocent Sikhs?”
“So it�
�s okay to kill Muslims?”
“Did I say that?” asked Mohan Lal.
“It’s what you’re implying, Dad. You’re starting to sound like some sort of Zionist.”
“What’s wrong with that? Son, the Israelis have done quite well for themselves. Thanks to the Jews, an impoverished desert is now a blooming civilization.”
“I’d talk to a couple of Palestinians about that. I’d look up the word oppression in the dictionary.”
Many of their debates led back to Israel, and Siddharth couldn’t fathom why his brother had such a problem with that country. Andy Wurtzel had gone there the previous summer, and he got to drink in bars and go spelunking. Andy had also reported that Israeli girls gave good blow jobs. When Siddharth tried to ask his father about Israel, Mohan Lal was dismissive. He said, “For now, just focus on your studies. One leftist son is enough.”
Mohan Lal was in his own world as summer faded into fall. He was always working on his new India book, or reading some paperback or magazine from India. He had taken to pacing around the house with an old tape recorder, sometimes listening to cassettes of motivational speakers provided to him by Ms. Farber, but usually studying recorded political speeches in Hindi. Barry Uncle acquired these for him on his frequent business trips to Delhi.
Mohan Lal kept listening to one particular politician over and over again, a woman who sounded rather manly. Ms. Farber said the woman sounded so passionate, and Mohan Lal explained that her life was truly inspiring. She had been born a pauper, but thanks to the BJP, she had managed to make a success of herself in one of the most backward places on earth. Siddharth hated these tapes, which he found scratchy and whiney.
Mohan Lal sometimes went to meetings with Barry Uncle and other BJP supporters, and one time, Barry Uncle said it would be a good idea if Siddharth came along. Siddharth protested at first but gave in upon finding out that the meeting was being held in a Fairfield home whose owner possessed an actual Lamborghini. When they finally made it to the place, it turned out the Lamborghini was in the shop, and Siddharth had to spend two hours sitting around while some hairy-eared Indians drank cans of Coors Light and droned on in Hindi about politics. They talked about the same things over and over—Ayodhya and Advani, and Hindus being proud to call themselves Hindus. Once the political discussions were over, they all sang a song in Hindi—or maybe it was a prayer. Siddharth wasn’t sure, but hearing the men sing together made him want to vomit.
On the car ride home, he said, “Dad, this BJP crap is so stupid.”
“Son, this stupid crap just might change the world.”
“I thought Hindus were weak, Dad. I thought Hindus didn’t have backbones.”
“Precisely, son. That’s what I’m trying to change. I am being the change that I want to see.” Upon uttering this sentence, Mohan Lal chuckled to himself.
Siddharth didn’t get what was so funny. All he knew was that his father was a hypocrite.
* * *
When Mohan Lal wasn’t working on his book, he was preoccupied with finishing up his application for tenure at Elm City College. Everything about the application put him in a bad mood, like using a typewriter to fill out countless lengthy forms. The most difficult part of the tenure process was getting original copies of his Indian degrees, which resulted in several calls to Delhi University, and even a phone consultation with an Indian lawyer. After these phone conversations, Mohan Lal snapped at Siddharth about cleaning up his room or doing his homework, about turning down the television so that he could focus on his work. Eventually, Barry Uncle stepped in, placing a call to a politician friend in India. A few days later, Mohan Lal’s degrees arrived via DHL. Siddharth was impressed with Barry Uncle. Yet he was anything but pleased with his father.
Even though Mohan Lal was stressed all the time, staying up late and sleeping in, he still managed to be such a kiss-ass with Ms. Farber. Whenever she cooked something, even if it was horrible—like her salmon cakes—Mohan Lal told her that dinner was delicious before locking himself in his office. Mohan Lal, who hated “brownnosers,” was himself being a brownnoser, and Siddharth knew why: his father was being a brownnoser because he was addicted to Ms. Farber’s pussy.
Siddharth wanted to remind his father that he was more important than a piece of pussy. He tried doing small things to demonstrate that he was the most valuable person in Mohan Lal’s life. But when he offered to type up his dad’s handwritten pages, Ms. Farber said she could type much faster. When he checked Mohan Lal’s manuscript for spelling mistakes, Ms. Farber rechecked the pages afterward, even though he had done a fine job on his own.
Ms. Farber went way too far with her editing. She not only made comments about Mohan Lal’s writing style and vocabulary, she also told him to rearrange sentences about Stafford Cripps and Lord Mountbatten. Siddharth thought this was ridiculous, since she hadn’t even been to India before, but when she made these suggestions, Mohan Lal beamed. He told her that she was a genius. He told her that she should leave psychotherapy and go into publishing. All this gushing nauseated Siddharth.
He started keeping a written tally of the annoying things that she did in one of his old sketchpads that he rarely used for actual drawing anymore. Thanks to Ms. Farber, anyone who entered the house had to remove their shoes in the entranceway. The sandwiches she prepared for his lunch were served on dark-brown bread that tasted like cardboard, and she stuffed them with disgusting things like sprouts and hummus—pussy-ass poser food, according to Marc.
An especially annoying thing about Ms. Farber was the way she took pleasure in meddling in his personal life. Once, when Siddharth had gotten off the phone with Sharon, Ms. Farber said something about Sharon not being the right type of friend. Siddharth said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Things are pretty complicated for Sharon,” replied Ms. Farber. “I’m not at liberty to divulge the details—just trust me on this. Sharon has a difficult situation.”
“Maybe I’m the one with the problem. Sharon should watch out for me. My home life is pretty damn complicated.” He looked to his father for a reaction, but Mohan Lal was lost in a book, unaware that he was even speaking.
But the single most irritating thing about Ms. Farber was that she made both he and Marc do chores. One week, Siddharth had to do the vacuuming, while Marc had to place the recycling bin at the end of the driveway, and then they switched jobs on the following week. They also had to help with the dishes. On a Wednesday evening, when the four of them were finishing one of Mohan Lal’s Indian meals, Ms. Farber said it was Marc’s turn to help clean up. Marc, who was in the middle of football season, complained that he was tired.
“Don’t worry,” said Mohan Lal, patting him on the shoulder. “Marc, go and rest.”
“Oh no,” said Ms. Farber. “Mo, he’s gotta learn. If he’s gonna reap the benefits of this household, then he’s gotta give something back.”
Marc muttered something under his breath.
“I didn’t hear that, honey,” said Ms. Farber. “If you have something to say, speak up.”
Marc said, “Rachel, can you give a man some peace?”
“Marc, my parents would have whacked me if I spoke that way.”
“So whack me then,” said Marc. “I know you want to.” He was smiling, but his eyes looked deranged. “And for your information, I don’t give a shit about this household.” As he spoke this final word, he flexed his fingers to mime quotation marks. “If it was up to me, I’d be back in my own freaking household.”
She took a long sip of water and then grasped the top of her head. “Jesus, why doesn’t anyone want me to be happy? Nobody has ever wanted me to be happy.”
“Mom, there are these things called psychologists,” said Marc. “Maybe you should go and see one.”
A part of Siddharth enjoyed watching his friend stand up to his mother, but he hated hearing him talk about their life together like that. He wanted Marc to be his second brother. Brothers fought, but at the end of the day
, they were family. They were there when you needed them. In some moments, it was painfully obvious that Marc didn’t feel the same way. He had been distant and cold ever since the August incident with Dinetta. After that night, he’d been grounded for a second time. But this grounding was brief. Now he was free again, and out all the time. When he was home, he watched TV in silence or lay on Arjun’s bed listening to his new Discman, a recent gift from his father. He only seemed to get animated when speaking on the phone, or getting ready for a football game.
Siddharth blamed himself. He should have kicked that rum bottle under the bed. He tried doing things to get Marc to like him again, such as taking an interest in baseball, but Marc would only talk sports with Andy or his father. Siddharth even pilfered some expensive whiskey from Mohan Lal’s dining room stash. The boys drank it down together, but the alcohol didn’t bring them any closer.
* * *
Fights between Marc and Ms. Farber became more frequent, and they gave rise to slightly revised living arrangements. Marc had been spending one night a week at his father’s Hamden condo, but he soon began spending two. And he and Ms. Farber started staying at their own home at least two nights a week, usually without the Aroras. These changes meant even less time with Marc, and Siddharth began to wonder if Marc hated him.
But the new routines had an upside. With Ms. Farber and Marc spending more time at their own house, he had his father all to himself some days. When Ms. Farber wasn’t around, he didn’t have to eat lentils or tofu steaks. He got to order pizzas with extra cheese and pepperoni, and they ate their meals in front of the television for the first time in months. When Ms. Farber wasn’t there, Mohan Lal sometimes asked him to read passages from his manuscript out loud, claiming that hearing the rhythm of the words made his sentences stronger. Even though Siddharth was so sick of Gandhi and all that shit, he showered praise upon his father’s writing. He said that his book would make them rich, but Mohan Lal told him that real intellectuals weren’t in it for the money.
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