The World We Found

by Thrity Umrigar

  Laleh shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

  He couldn’t say what irritated him more—the indifference or the defeat that he heard in her voice. But whatever it was, it made him grind his teeth. “Okay,” he said shortly. “See you.”

  It took all the self-control he had to not slam the front door behind him. He walked to the elevator and punched the down button. He waited a few seconds and then jabbed at the button again. He glanced at the apartment door, afraid that Laleh would come out and coax him back in the house. He needed air, needed to walk, time to clear his head. Don’t let Laleh open that door, he prayed to himself. But as soon as he got into the elevator and began his descent, another, contradictory, feeling came over him: disappointment that Laleh had not come out and apologized and led him back in.

  The lift reached the ground-floor lobby and Adish lingered for a moment, trying to decide whether he wanted to walk or drive. Stepping out of the building with his head hung low, he didn’t see Farhad coming toward him until he heard, “Hi, Papa.”

  He looked up and smiled involuntarily. “Hi, boss,” he said. “How was your workout?”

  Farhad shrugged. “Fine.” He looked curiously at his dad. “Where’re you going?”

  “I’m not sure. For a walk, maybe.”

  “Yeah, right,” Farhad drawled. “When’s the last time you walked?”

  Adish smacked his son lightly on the head. “Chup re, saala. Don’t give your old man a hard time. Just remember, I may have put on a few kilos but I can still beat you at wrestling. And chess,” he added.

  Farhad grinned happily. He fell in step beside his father, walking in that loping, ungainly manner that warmed Adish’s heart. “I’ll go with you.”

  Adish stopped. “Actually, boss, I wanted to be alone for a little while.” He hesitated, unsure of how much to say to Farhad. “I have a . . . business problem . . . that I need to solve.”

  Farhad reached into his jeans, took out a piece of gum, and popped it in his mouth. “Okay,” he said simply. “When will you be home?”

  “Are you allowed to chew gum with those braces on?” Adish asked.

  Farhad grinned. “As long as Mom doesn’t know, it won’t hurt anything,” he said.

  The boy looked so much like a tall, gangly animal in his ridiculously large shoes and his baggy shirt, that Adish felt a gust of love sweep through him. He reached up and squeezed his son in a bear hug. “I won’t be gone long,” he said.

  “Papa.” Farhad sounded shocked. “What’re you doing? My friends will see.”

  Adish wanted to hold his son forever. But Farhad was right. He forced himself to slacken his grip.

  “Okay, bye,” Farhad said.

  “Farhad,” Adish said. “Go upstairs directly, okay? No stopping for table tennis or anything. Mummy’s really upset about Armaiti auntie.”

  Farhad stood blinking, and Adish could tell the boy was trying to decide whether to pretend to be blasé and indifferent or give in to his true, kindly nature. How hard we men make our own lives, Adish thought to himself. He put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Beta,” he said. “No stupid jokes, okay?”

  The boy nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said, and suddenly Adish was not worried.

  Now if only the rest of his family was as simple as Farhad, he thought, as he left the gates of the apartment complex and turned left onto the street.

  Chapter 5

  Yesterday’s quarrel with Adish was fresh in Laleh’s mind as the cab wound its way down the choking streets. She had apologized to him soon after he’d returned home, and he had accepted, but he had looked at her with guarded, cautious eyes this morning as he left for work, and Laleh knew that she’d scared Adish badly with her meltdown yesterday. She vowed to do better. Adish was a gem and deserved better than a wife who came unhinged because of a phone call from the past.

  “I can’t believe they live in this neighborhood,” Kavita said, rolling up the window to keep out the stench. “Maybe Nishta was sending her mother a fake address.”

  “That makes no sense, Ka.”

  Years ago, Laleh had been envious of Nishta for marrying a Muslim, had seen her interfaith marriage as a badge of honor, and her estrangement from her parents as a heroic act. She’d said as much to Adish during their courtship. “I never thought I’d be dating a Parsi,” she’d once told him, with her usual blend of irony and seriousness. “I’d always thought I’d be like Nishta—if I ever marry, that is.”

  “Add that to the list of what’s wrong with me,” he had grinned. “The fact that I’m a Parsi. And that your parents approve of me.”

  She’d smiled. “Too bad you’re so good-looking. It would be so much easier to dump you if you weren’t.”

  “Too bad you’re so cute,” he’d responded. “Otherwise, I’d have dumped you for being such a bitch.”

  They had laughed at the time. But now, looking out from the cab window, Laleh realized how immature she had been in her envy of Nishta. If her marriage had brought Nishta to this squalid neighborhood, she had paid a steep price. A lifelong Bombayite, Laleh had thought that she knew the city well, from its slums to its five-star hotels. But she had never been to this part of the city—this all-Muslim neighborhood—before.

  The cab came to a halt and the driver turned around. “Too much crowding, ladies,” he said. “Vegetable market starts here, you know. No place for my taxi to even turn around. You walk it up, please.”

  “Will you at least wait for us, bhaiya? We’ll pay return fare plus extra.”

  The man tugged at his beard. “Arre, memsahib, where I’m going to wait? There’s no room for an ant, let alone a taxi.” He pointed out the window. “There’s a taxi stand on the other side of the market. You walk there when you’re done with your business here.” He lowered his voice. “This is all-Muslim area, memsahib. Be careful.”

  “What does that have to do with anything, bhai?” Laleh felt compelled to say.

  The old man looked at her as if they were sharing a secret. “Can’t trust these beef-eaters, memsahib.”

  They paid the man and exited the cab hastily. Laleh shook her head. “A country of bigots. That’s what we are,” she said.

  Kavita nodded. “Indeed.”

  The sidewalks were so crowded they were forced to walk on the street, dodging bicycles and cars. “Laleh,” Kavita gasped after a few minutes. “Why on earth would they have moved into this area? I mean, I know their old flat was tiny, but surely it was better than living here?” She spread one hand out, and the gesture encompassed the street teeming with people and flies, the cubbyhole-sized shops that lined the road, the stench of the rotting vegetables and fish from the open-air market.

  Laleh shrugged. “God knows. Maybe their place is really nice. After all these years of working at the bank, Iqbal must be drawing a good salary by now, no?”

  Kavita looked dubious but remained silent. Spotting a young woman walking in their direction—one of the few women who wasn’t wearing either a burkha or a head scarf—she stopped her. “Excuse me,” she said. “Do you know where Mahani Manzil is?”

  The woman frowned. “Mahani Manzil? That’s a long ways down. There’s a stationery shop opposite it.”

  They resumed walking. Laleh grimaced as her foot accidentally touched an overripe pumpkin that had been discarded on the road. “Shit.” She looked around, ignoring the cries of the vendors squatting on the street.

  “Is it my imagination or are we getting hostile looks?” Kavita murmured.

  “I don’t know about hostile. But we’re definitely being stared at.”

  “Probably because we’re the only women in slacks.”

  “And no head gear.”

  “Well, it can’t be too far away now.”

  They stopped a young man who professed to know exactly where Mahani Manzil was and insisted on walking them to it. They were both aware of the fact that the young man was getting off on the fact that he was escorting two women dressed in Western clothes down the stree
t. He strutted a bit; he solemnly told them to ignore the catcalls and wolf whistles coming from the other young men lounging on the street. But his dancing eyes gave away his pride and excitement.

  At the entrance of the building, he stopped and reached over to pull the envelope out of Kavita’s hands. “Who are you looking for?” he asked.

  But Kavita held on to the piece of paper. “Thanks for your help,” she said firmly. And when he didn’t move, “Khuda Hafiz.”

  The boy’s eyes widened at her easy use of the Muslim expression. “Khuda Hafiz,” he responded. And then, in English, “Goodbye.”

  The building they entered was dark, damp, and moldy. A single bare lightbulb illuminated the stairwell, the walls of which were covered with paan stains. Laleh reached out to grab the dusty handrail on the old wooden stairs but then thought better of it. As they climbed the uneven, creaking, rickety stairs, she was genuinely afraid. The whole building looked like it could collapse under their weight. “Ka,” she gasped. “This is a chawl. Surely there’s some mistake. Nishta couldn’t be living here.”

  Kavita held the envelope up to her face. “This is definitely the right address,” she said.

  They were gasping for breath by the time they reached the fourth floor. “I have become so spoiled,” Laleh said. “I haven’t climbed stairs in God knows how long.” She turned to Kavita. “What’s the apartment number?”

  “It doesn’t say. We’ll have to ask.”

  A common balcony overlooking an inner courtyard ran around the building, which was laid out in a square. As they walked along the balcony, they could hear the shrieks of children playing in the courtyard. Many of the doors of the apartments they passed were open, so that they felt like voyeurs each time they accidentally peered in. They were debating whether to poke their heads inside one of the doors and ask for directions to Iqbal’s apartment when they saw a woman walking toward them. “We’ll ask her,” Kavita said, gesturing toward the woman, who was wearing a light-blue burkha. Her face was covered and Laleh wondered how she could make her way in the dark.

  The woman nodded at them in the dimly lit hallway and then brushed past them. “Excuse me,” Laleh called. “Can you help us? We are looking for a Nishta Ibrahim?”

  The woman stopped. There was a long pause. “Nobody here by that name,” she said finally.

  “Are you sure?” Kavita asked, even as Laleh turned to her and said, “See? I told you. I knew there was something wrong. They wouldn’t be living here.”

  “But we have the address. . . .” Kavita said.

  “So? She lied to her mother. Or her mother lied to us.”

  The woman in the long robe was still waiting. “Do you know an Iqbal?” Kavita said. “Iqbal Ibrahim?”

  There was another pause, and then the woman said, “Yes. He is my husband.”

  They heard the smile in her voice before they recognized the voice itself. Laleh spoke first. “Nishta?” she said cautiously, cursing the dimness of the hallway.

  The woman flipped up the hood of her burkha long enough for them to see her face. “No. I told you. Nishta is gone. I’m Zoha.”

  Chapter 6

  Kavita sat in Nishta’s living room and wanted never to leave. Despite the dizzying revelations of the past hour—the fact that Nishta had converted to Islam, that Iqbal had insisted she adopt a Muslim name, that she was living in circumstances that were drastically different from the affluent life she had once known, that the Nishta who sat across from her was a plump, severe-looking, middle-aged woman, so different from the laughing, zestful, beautiful girl they used to know—being in this sparse, austere room made Kavita feel comfortable. She felt almost drowsy in her comfort, heavy-lidded and limpid. Happy.

  They had found her. They had reunited with her. And she was happy to see them. The awkward stiffness of the last few times they’d seen her, was gone. Despite her ridiculous garb, the thick reading glasses, the lines on her face, this was Nishta restored.

  “Look at her,” she heard Laleh say. “She’s grinning like an ass.” She looked up to see the other two smiling at her, heard the pleasure in Laleh’s voice. As if her joy gave Laleh joy.

  “I can’t help it,” Kavita said. “This is so . . .” She groped for the right word and then she thought, but this is just it. I don’t have to find the right word. They know what I mean, unspoken. “You know what I mean,” she finished lamely.

  Nishta—Zoha—nodded. “I know. I feel like all my prayers have been answered in one afternoon.” She looked from one to the other. “When I sent Mummy those birthday cards—all these years, I never forgot her birthday once. Not once. Never knew whether she got them or not, whether she ever opened them. So many were sent back to me. But still, something made me. But never did I think I was sending myself a gift all these years. That the cards would lead the two of you to me. Funny, hah?”

  They nodded. “So how is she?” Nishta asked. “My mummy?”

  Kavita glanced quickly at Laleh, who was staring impassively ahead of her. “She seemed fine,” she said. “We didn’t really stay long. We wanted to come find you and—”

  “I tried calling her a few times,” Nishta interrupted. “During my first year of marriage. She would stay on the phone as long as I talked. But she never said a word. My father didn’t want her to, you know. Finally, I gave up. For her sake. Wasn’t fair, to keep calling.”

  Kavita swallowed and stared at the floor. When she finally forced herself to look up, she saw that Laleh’s nose was dark as rust—a sure sign that she was fighting her tears.

  But Nishta seemed oblivious to their discomfort. “But you can’t destroy a mother’s love, right?” she said happily. “And so she helped you find me.” She sat back on the couch. “So what made you? Look me up, I mean, after all this time?”

  Kavita looked at Laleh. You tell her, her eyes beseeched.

  Laleh grimaced. “I am an idiot,” she said. “All these years, living in the same city. You think I could’ve done this sooner, Nishta? But I didn’t. What can I say? I guess I just got busy with my own stupid little life, you know?”

  “Well, it’s not as if I made it any easier,” Nishta said. “I know we acted badly. Iqbal and I—well, it was very hard, you know? No support from my parents, and his weren’t thrilled, either, him marrying a Hindu. I don’t know, it just felt easier pulling away, withdrawing into our own world.” She fell silent, twisting her hands in her lap. “I was also jealous, to be honest. I—all of you went on to graduate school. Armaiti making plans to go to America. Whereas me and Iqbal—we had nothing to talk about. I was only in my twenties and I was stuck at home giving French lessons to a handful of children. I felt so deadly dull.”

  Laleh stirred. “What nonsense,” she said. “We used to admire you and Iqbal so much for the odds you overcame.”

  Nishta smiled. “Yeah, we were the model couple, right? Hindu girl marries Muslim boy, pioneers of a brave new world.” She looked around her living room. “This is where the brave new world brought us.”

  “Anyway . . .” Kavita found herself saying. “We have some bad news, I’m afraid. Armaiti is sick. She has a glioblastoma. It’s a kind of brain tumor.” No matter how many times she said the words, they sounded lurid and melodramatic, as if she were reciting a line from a movie.

  They waited for Nishta’s reaction, but other than a muscle twitching in her jaw there was nothing. “She’s very sick,” Kavita repeated.

  Nishta nodded. “I know. One of Iqbal’s uncles was diagnosed with a tumor five years ago.” She snapped her fingers. “Bas, three months and he was dead.”

  Kavita felt a stirring of anger. “Well, Armaiti has more time—has been given more time.” Nishta’s reaction was annoying her. They had just told her that their friend was dying and she was reacting as if she’d been told that Armaiti had a cold. Worse, she was comparing her to some stupid man who had died within three months.

  “It’s always like this,” Nishta said softly.

  “Excus
e me? What is?” Kavita said. She didn’t bother to keep the irritation out of her voice.

  “This. Life. This meeting and parting. This winning and losing. Here I was this morning, barely able to get out of bed. Didn’t have any reason to, you know? And this afternoon, I force myself to leave the house, to buy food for dinner tonight. It seemed like just another ordinary day. The kind that kills you by not killing you. Know what I mean? And then, the two of you walk into my life. Just like that. No warning, nothing. And I feel like someone peeled off twenty-five years of deadness and made me alive again. But then, it’s life, right? So something has to be taken away. So you tell me that Armaiti has a brain tumor. Now, what do I do with this? Where do I place this, Ka? To me, Armaiti is the girl who used to balance on the seawall every time we went to Marine Drive. The girl who once ate nine bananas on a dare. That quiet, serene girl who—” And suddenly Nishta was crying, silently, wordlessly.

  Laleh’s nose was that dangerous rust color again, but Kavita remained dry-eyed. In all the years she’d been friends with the other two, she’d never seen them cry, she realized.

  “She wants us to come see her,” Laleh blurted out. “In America. Before she . . . gets too sick.”

  Nishta looked puzzled. “Wants who?”

  “All of us. All three of us.”

  “But how?” The other two watched as a procession of emotions crossed Nishta’s face. “I wish,” she whispered finally. “But I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Nishta bit her lower lip. “I—we—we can’t afford it, yaar. Iqbal works for his uncle at his electrical shop. We could never afford anything like a trip to America.”

  “He left the bank?” Laleh asked.

  “The bank? Oh God, yes. Years ago.”

  “What if we paid for your ticket?” Kavita said.

  Nishta lowered her eyes. “I couldn’t accept that.”

  “Nishta. This isn’t for you. It would be for Armaiti. To fulfill her wish to have all of us together.”