South Haven

by Hirsh Sawhney

  “What?”

  Mohan Lal glared at Siddharth. “I ask you people one goddamned thing—to turn on the outside lights when I’m gone. But you’re useless.”

  “Mo, it was my fault,” said Ms. Farber, flashing Siddharth a crooked smile.

  He couldn’t tell if she was trying to make him feel better or express her irritation. Assuming it was the latter, he responded with a glare, then looked down at the old, cracked stones of the corridor floor.

  “Thanks,” said Mohan Lal. “Your forgetfulness will cost me a thousand dollars.”

  “So I’ll pay for it,” she said.

  Mohan Lal placed his hat on the closet’s messy tool shelf. Siddharth thought that the furry, elliptical hat made him resemble the worst kind of person: a cross between an Arab and a commie. Mohan Lal stormed toward the dining room, Ms. Farber and Siddharth in tow. He took out his most expensive bottle of whiskey, the blue one he only opened on special occasions, finishing half of a tall drink in a single gulp. Siddharth knew it was something serious. Either something had happened to Arjun or his father had cancer.

  “Mo, what’s wrong?” asked Ms. Farber. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.”

  Pulling a handkerchief from his blazer pocket, Mohan Lal wiped the back of his neck. “Rachel, I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “Dad, what the hell is going on?”

  Mohan Lal’s lips formed a tight, bitter smile. “Son, your father has some news.”

  “What?” said Siddharth, swallowing hard.

  “That bastard did it.”

  “Did what?” asked Ms. Farber.

  “The dean,” said Mohan Lal. “He has denied my tenure.”

  “What—why?” said Siddharth.

  Mohan Lal finished his drink without responding.

  Ms. Farber placed her hand on Mohan Lal’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Mo. But you gotta talk about—”

  “Talk, talk, talk!” Mohan Lal raised his palms in the air and stomped off to the family room, seating himself on the armchair and turning on the news. Siddharth sat down on the love seat and placed a hand on his father’s knee. Ms. Farber walked in a little while later carrying a glass of her pink wine. She stood beside the television, partially blocking the screen.

  Mohan Lal said, “You weren’t made in a glass factory.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t see!”

  She stepped toward him. “I’m your friend, Mo.”

  “Everyone’s your friend in times of bounty. Drought is a different story altogether.”

  She took a sip of wine. “Mo, it’s hard to see sometimes, but trust me, this is still gonna be our year.” She combed his stray gray hairs with her fingers. “This tenure thing, you can appeal it.”

  He shifted, evading her hands. “Believe me, there is no future for me at Elm City College.”

  “Mo, it’s that pessimism that’s holding you back. I know it feels really bad right now, but it’s not gonna feel that way tomorrow.”

  Siddharth thought about telling her to shut up, but he just said, “Jeez, let him feel bad if he wants to.”

  “No, they will never offer me tenure, Rachel.” Mohan Lal stood up and tossed the remote control at the large sofa. It bounced off the leather and landed on the carpet.

  “And why’s that?” she asked.

  “Because I’ve left them. I’ve quit my job.”

  Siddharth gasped. “You’re joking.”

  Ms. Farber stared up at the skylight. Siddharth could tell she was really pissed because of the way her nostrils were flaring. After a moment, she said, “I don’t know what to tell you, Mo. You didn’t wanna discuss this first?”

  “So I needed your approval?” Mohan Lal had a fiendish grin on his face. “Shall I ask your permission before taking a shower?” He stormed off to his bedroom, his dress shoes clomping loudly on the corridor floor.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Siddharth tried to open his father’s door, but it was still locked. “Dad!” he called out, banging on the door and rattling the knob.

  “Go away,” said Mohan Lal.

  He kept knocking. “Open up, Dad. We need to talk.”

  “Are you deaf? Leave me alone.”

  Siddharth rested his forehead on the door. A few moments later, he felt her thin, cold fingers on his shoulder. She gave him a pat and tried to nudge him away. But he wouldn’t budge. He said, “My dad doesn’t wanna talk right now.”

  She flashed a fake smile, then tapped on the door.

  “Jesus, Siddharth!” said Mohan Lal, furious now. “Don’t you listen?”

  “It’s me, Mo,” said Ms. Farber. “Come on, love. Let’s sort this out.”

  Siddharth heard the sound of footsteps. Then the door cracked open. Ms. Farber slipped inside, locking it behind her.

  Siddharth bounded to the main bathroom and sealed himself inside it, then punched the bathroom door. His knuckles struck an old nailhead, and one of them started bleeding. He sucked on his wound, soothed by the sour red trickle. He then went to his room and dove onto his bed.

  Marc was lying down, listening to his Discman and staring into space. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit,” said Marc. He removed his headphones and walked over to Siddharth, giving him a light smack on the leg. “Don’t be a bitch. What’s wrong?”

  “Everything’s fine. Actually, everything’s fucking great.”

  Marc shook his head. “Yeah, everything’s fucking great. Sure. Your mom’s dead, and your dad’s fucking a crazy Jewish lady. I can tell you feel great about that.”

  “Leave me alone,” said Siddharth.

  “You sure know how to open up about your feelings. It’s a real talent, Sidney.” Marc left the room.

  Siddharth tried to close his eyes and empty his mind, but his body was pulsing with nervous energy. He got out of bed and paced around in circles. He picked up one of Arjun’s baseball trophies, then hurled it at the floor. He eyed his old Call of the Wild report, which was thumbtacked to the bulletin board on the backside of the door. The dog’s eyes had once seemed so perfect, but they now looked like the work of a toddler. He ripped the report down and tore it in two, then walked over to Marc’s nightstand and picked up the cordless phone. Underneath it was a copy of GQ and a brochure for a teen tour to Jerusalem. Marc had never said anything about going to Jerusalem. Siddharth punched in Luca’s number, and his friend answered after three rings.

  “Hey, kid,” said Siddharth.

  “Yo, I was about to call you,” said Luca. “You’re not gonna believe what Jeanette just said.”

  “Man, I got some news.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s my dad,” said Siddharth. “He got laid off.”

  “Shit, kid, that really sucks. You know I know how bad that sucks.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m telling you.”

  “Look on the bright side,” said Luca. “My mother—she got another job in, like, three or four months.”

  “Totally.” Siddharth wished he hadn’t said anything at all. He didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about his father. “Hey, what happened with Jeanette?”

  “Yo, that bitch is off the hook.”

  After listening to the story of Luca’s latest fight with his girlfriend, Siddharth felt calmer. He buried his face in his pillow and decided to wait for someone to come check on him. If Ms. Farber came knocking, he would forgive her. If she didn’t, he would show her. He would show both of them. He would tell his brother how freakish they’d become.

  Twenty minutes later, the sound of footsteps made him hopeful, but there was no ensuing knock. If Arjun were still home, he definitely would have knocked by now. His mother would definitely have knocked.

  He wondered if Arjun and his girlfriend were having sex, or if she’d ever given him a blow job. No, probably not. She was a Pakistani, and though Pakistanis were the archenemies of Indians, they were probably just as pru
de. He wondered how it must feel to eat dinner with a girl after she’d sucked your dick. Was it strange to see her lips on a piece of pizza knowing where they’d been?

  He thought about his brother. Mohan Lal’s news would definitely anger Arjun, who would probably get into a fight with their father, or at least say something mean to him. A couple of years ago, Arjun had predicted that this would happen. Maybe he had been right about other things too. Maybe their father was a closed-minded bigot. Selfish. After all, he had quit his job without even considering his sons. He was choosing to remain with a fool like Ms. Farber.

  It was as if Mohan Lal was afraid of her. He let her decide what they watched and what they ate. He listened to each word of her advice about his manuscript, even though she didn’t have the slightest clue about India. And she was making him get a five-hundred-dollar suit for Atlantic City, something the old Mohan Lal would have thought was ridiculous. Even Marc had commented on Mohan Lal’s sheepishness. He said that Mohan Lal needed to grow a pair—that Rachel needed a man who knew how to handle her.

  Eventually, Siddharth fell into a deep sleep, and when he next glanced at his clock, it was 3:14 a.m. To his left lay Marc, under the covers and snoring. Siddharth had fallen asleep in his cargo pants, and he was still wearing socks. No one had woken him up or wondered if he was hungry. What a skank, he thought. She’s a skank, and he’s a fucking asshole.

  He fell asleep again and had strange, vivid dreams.

  He dreamed that he was riding his bicycle through the streets of South Haven. It was an old bike from when he was six, with only a single training wheel. He was trying to get to the hospital to see his father but kept getting lost. He was on a street that resembled Boston Post Road, but among the strip malls and chain restaurants were Indian men hawking vegetables, yelling that they had the greenest peas in town. He overtook a dirty Indian beggar, who had no legs and was navigating the road in a tiny wooden cart, like the one Eddie Murphy uses at the beginning of Trading Places. A car pulled up beside Siddharth. It was Mrs. Peroti; she asked where he was going.

  “To the hospital,” he said.

  “The BJP hospital?”

  He nodded.

  She told him to put his bike in the back. “We can take 95,” she said. “I’ll get you there in a jiffy.”

  7

  February Vacation

  The first weekend of February vacation was boring. Marc was around since his father had gone to Syracuse, where his girlfriend would have their baby, but Marc remained holed up in Siddharth’s bedroom most of the time, talking on the phone. Sometimes he read a Polish Holocaust novel or listened to hip-hop, but he didn’t utter more than twenty words. Siddharth didn’t care anymore. He no longer needed Marc. His real brother was finally coming home.

  This year, Arjun’s break coincided with Siddharth’s February vacation, and Arjun planned on borrowing a car from a friend and driving all the way from Michigan. He would leave Ann Arbor early Monday morning and drop off his housemate in Pennsylvania. He planned on making it to South Haven by dinnertime. The five of them would spend the next few days together, and on Friday, Mohan Lal and Ms. Farber would leave for Atlantic City. They would return home on Sunday night, and Arjun would set out for Michigan the following morning.

  The night before Arjun’s scheduled arrival, Siddharth lay awake making plans for his visit. They would see movies together; they would go to the mall or just drive around. He had a feeling that this time Arjun would finally see the truth about Ms. Farber—that she was totally fucked up. She was constantly nagging her son and putting him down. She had even hit Marc, which meant that one day she would probably hit Siddharth.

  And look what she had done to their father: Mohan Lal had fallen apart in her company. Just the other day, Siddharth woke up and found his father asleep at the kitchen table. His head was resting on his hairy arms, and his India manuscript was beside him, marked up with zillions of red squiggles. He hadn’t dyed his hair in a while, which made him look particularly old, as did the uneven patches of gray stubble sprouting from his cheeks. He woke up with a start, then declared that he needed to say something.

  “I’m late,” said Siddharth.

  “Just listen a second,” said Mohan Lal.

  “I’m listening.”

  Mohan Lal sighed. “Son, listen up carefully. Do whatever you want in life. Become a lawyer, a banker, a doctor. But whatever you choose, don’t turn out like your old man.”

  Siddharth knew what his father wanted him to say—that Mohan Lal was brilliant, the greatest father in the world. This was their old song and dance. But he left the house without uttering a word.

  Arjun would know how to handle their father. He would tell him to get more sleep, to apologize to the dean and get his job back. Since Mohan Lal had quit, Siddharth had begun to worry about the family’s financial situation. If they ran out of money, he feared, they would have to move to a poorer town, or a city like New Haven. He imagined them living in a scruffy Victorian with old-fashioned radiators, or worse still, a grimy, multistoried apartment complex. He would have to go to some inner-city school where the students were crack babies or gave birth to crack babies—a school where the kids’ parents collected welfare and carjacked Yalies.

  He comforted himself with the knowledge that Ms. Farber had a big empty house in which all of them could comfortably fit. But if they moved in with her, she would have won. Other times, he imagined the riches that would pour in from his father’s book. Authors like John Grisham made tons of money. Maybe once Mohan Lal got published, they would be set for life. That’s what Barry Uncle thought; Ms. Farber thought so too.

  Siddharth woke up out of pure excitement on Monday morning. He got up and made sure the guest room was ready for his brother, placing back issues of Marc’s music magazines on the nightstand and a clean towel on the dresser. Recently, he had found a three-by-five picture of him and Arjun with their mother’s family, which had been taken outside of their grandfather’s Chandigarh home. Siddharth leaned it against a white bottle of aftershave that had been sitting there for as long as he could remember.

  It started snowing around ten a.m., and two hours later Arjun called to say that the roads were getting dicey. He would spend the night in Pennsylvania and make it to South Haven the next afternoon. Siddharth slammed down the phone, wondering if his brother was lying. He wondered if Arjun was still under the fucking sheets with his Pakistani girlfriend.

  The next morning, four or five inches of fresh powder covered the cars, and a slender crest of ice lined the telephone wires. His brother pulled into the driveway around eleven. By the time Siddharth reached the front door, Arjun was already inside, giving Ms. Farber a tight hug. Arjun said, “Rachel, I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but have you been working out?”

  She smiled. “Actually, I am paying a little more attention to what I put in my body. In fact, Arjun, I’d like to have a word about your diet.”

  Siddharth hadn’t realized that she and Arjun were on a first-name basis. He hated the way she said his brother’s name, as if the j were French, like in Jacques.

  Marc was suddenly lumbering down the hallway. He cut in front of Siddharth and gave Arjun a halfhearted hug and a handshake. “Nice beard,” said Marc. “I bet they’re just lining up to sit next to you at the airport.”

  Marc was right. Arjun’s facial hair was longer, and thicker too. He looked like a real foreigner, like one of the bad guys from Die Hard.

  Arjun finally stepped toward Siddharth and hugged him, but they were interrupted by their father, who appeared in the entryway wearing nothing but a pink towel.

  “That was fast,” said Mohan Lal.

  “You were right. The Tappan Zee was totally empty.”

  Mohan Lal embraced Arjun, then patted him on the cheek. “Son, do me one favor.”

  “What?” asked Arjun.

  Mohan Lal smirked. “Cut your damn beard.”

  “Dad, please,” said Siddharth.

  Ms. Far
ber gripped Mohan Lal’s naked shoulder. “Go put some clothes on, dear.” She turned to Arjun. “Hon, you must be starving.”

  * * *

  Arjun brought gifts for everyone. He gave Siddharth a fitted Michigan baseball cap with Jalen Rose’s number stitched into the back, and handed a Michigan hockey T-shirt to Marc, who said, “Thanks, I guess,” but then immediately put it on. Arjun got Ms. Farber an expensive-looking set of candles and their father a Michigan pen that required special cartridges. Mohan Lal put on his reading glasses to examine it, then uttered a faint thank you.

  “You don’t like it?” said Arjun.

  “Your father loves it,” said Ms. Farber.

  Arjun then presented Mohan Lal with a stack of essays he had written that semester. As Mohan Lal thumbed through them, Siddharth saw him genuinely smile for the first time in days. Siddharth peered over his father’s shoulder and read the strange titles of these papers—Elusive Truths in the Zen Koan, Woodrow Wilson: Liberator or Racist? Not surprisingly, Arjun had gotten As on all of them.

  “Proud of you, son,” said Mohan Lal, grasping Arjun’s shoulder. “Next month, when my book is done, you will lend me your expertise.”

  “Uh-huh, sure,” said Arjun.

  As evening fell, Arjun told them about the treacherous drive on Interstate 80, and how the rural people of Tennessee were poor but inspiring. Ms. Farber and Mohan Lal were hanging on his every word. Siddharth thought about how they barely even listened to what he had to say anymore, but he was ready to drop that for today. It felt good to have Arjun home, and that’s all he wanted to think about.

  Ms. Farber made paneer that night, using tofu instead of actual cheese. Mohan Lal and Arjun were complimentary, but Siddharth stayed quiet. Marc said she should stick to pancakes and leave the curry to the Indians. She quickly changed the subject, bringing up the Honda Civic Arjun had driven home from Michigan. “It’s very generous of your friend to lend out his car like that. It must be a thousand miles here and back.”

  “Fourteen hundred, actually,” said Arjun. “But we don’t really look at things like that.”

  “Like what?” Ms. Farber scrunched up her nose.