by Jenny Feldon
My phone rang again. Subu, a second time. This couldn’t be good. I held up an un-manicured index finger and answered. Carole sighed heavily and tipped the remaining Sula down her throat.
“Ma’am! Ma’am! The dog is out,” Subu shrieked.
Oh. My. God. My blood ran cold. I couldn’t breathe. All I could picture was Tucker running away, scared, looking for me.
“GET HIM BACK, SUBU!” I screamed into the phone. Panicked, I hung up.
Fighting back sobs, I called Jay at work.
“I’m on my way.”
I said a silent, fervent prayer. India wasn’t making me any more sophisticated, but it sure was making me religious. Please God, let Tucker be OK. Let him still be in the building and not out on the street. Please let Jay get there in time. I pictured the starving, feral dogs. The ten people camped outside Matwala Shayar who seemed just as hungry. Suddenly, the idea of dogs getting eaten in India didn’t seem so far-fetched after all.
I tossed a handful of sweaty rupees on the table in front of Carole. She stared at me, lipsticked mouth agape.
“I need to go. It’s an emergency. My dog is in trouble.”
“You have an emergency…with your dog?”
“Thank you so much, this was lovely, so sorry to leave this way!” I called over my shoulder as I raced out of the restaurant. I wasn’t actually all that sorry. Venkat, idling in the Scorpio outside, saw me coming and revved the engine. He could tell by my face we needed to leave in a hurry.
“Matwala Shayar fast, please, Venkat. It’s the dog. The dog is out. I need to get home.” Venkat nodded and gunned the engine.
I called Jay again, my panic level escalating with each passing minute of uncertainty. “We need an interpreter, someone who can get the whole story out of Subu! Can you have Anish try?” Anish was Jay’s most trusted colleague in Region 10. He’d been the de facto head of BKC’s forensic practice while the team awaited Jay’s arrival. Now Anish was Jay’s right-hand man. Without Anish to show him the ropes and pave the way, Jay’s transition to the India office would have been almost impossible. Now, I was hoping Anish could save the day on the home front too.
Anish called back a few minutes later. Ah, the language barrier.
It seemed that by “the dog is out,” Subu meant “at large in the apartment,” rather than locked in the bedroom where I’d left him. When Subu and the cleaning woman came to the apartment, Tucker erupted into a frenzy of ferocious barking and they were too scared to open the door.
“He seems really frightened of the dog,” Anish informed me.
“I know. I don’t get it.” I collapsed across the backseat, limp with gratitude.
Anish laughed. “Don’t take it personally. He’s a good dog. They just don’t understand him.”
I told Venkat he could slow down. The emergency was over.
When we finally made it home, Tucker was lounging serenely in his bed, which he’d pushed back into the living room where it belonged. He was curled around Bear and munching on a plastic bottle cap. He’d eaten all his dog food and finished his water and knocked both dishes over, his signal for wanting more.
His tail wagged with pride as I showered relieved, grateful kisses on his furry little face.
Good boy, Tucker.
They probably weren’t going to eat you…but good job scaring them off. Just in case.
Chapter 8
Jay walked through the door one afternoon holding an enormous, filthy cardboard box with wires sticking out of the top. I should have known right then something was suspicious.
I was working at the computer. So far, instead of posting cool photographs and telling exotic travel stories on my blog, I’d been ranting about dirt, germs, and Subu—if I bothered to write at all. Creatively, I felt stuck. India was supposed to be making the writer in me come alive. Instead, I was forgetting why I’d ever thought I could be one in the first place.
“Oh good, you’re writing,” Jay said, letting the box slide to the floor with a loud crash.
“Just on the blog. Trying to get caught up while the wireless is working.” I got up and kissed him, keeping one suspicious eye on the mystery box. I made a move toward it, but Jay put his hands on my shoulders and steered me back to the table.
“Go finish your post. I have a few things to do with Venkat anyway.”
“What things? And what’s in that box?”
“You’ll see. We found an awesome way to blow off some steam. I’ll be back in an hour or so for dinner. Alexis and Peter are coming too.”
“Great. Q-Mart had tortilla chips, and I dug out this random block of cheddar from the bottom of one of the coolers. I’m making nachos. We still have that bottle of Old El Paso from last time.”
“Peter said he was bringing some stuff over. He’s going to grill on the balcony.”
“Grill? Like, as in BBQ? I didn’t know they had that here.”
“He said he has a system. He uses Indian coal.”
“Yikes.”
“See you later, Wife,” Jay called from the driveway. The Scorpio door slammed.
***
Peter walked in with a Weber camping grill under one arm and a Costco-sized package of Hebrew National hot dogs under the other. “Dinner’s here,” he said with a grin.
Behind him, Alexis held a bag of something black and sooty and a loaf of white bread.
“We got the last bag of kolya they had,” she said. “You would die if you saw this place. I think I have post-traumatic stress. It’s next to a halal butcher and it was lamb slaughter day. Blood was literally gushing down the street. I couldn’t even get out of the car. We made Younus get it.”
“Kolya? What’s that?”
“Indian charcoal. It’s like little sticks of burned wood. You can’t get the regular kind here.”
“I didn’t think you could get hot dogs, either,” I said, drooling a little at the sight of the familiar red-and-yellow package.
“You can’t,” Peter said with pride. “Or salami or hamburgers or carne asada. That’s why I became a meat smuggler. It’s the only way to survive.”
“A meat smuggler? Isn’t that, like, illegal?”
Alexis rolled her eyes. “Don’t get him started. He’ll talk all night and we’ll never eat. Do you have a blow-dryer?”
“This I need to see,” Jay said.
Peter built a small pyramid of kolya on a piece of aluminum foil, then carried it to the stove and placed it carefully on a burner. I retreated to the living room. The Indian stove, with its external gas tank and manual starter, terrified me. After a few minutes, I braved a peek. Curls of smoke swirled up from the center of the pile.
“Get the blow-dryer!” Peter called to Alexis, rushing out to the balcony. He held the smoking foil between two pairs of tongs. Alexis produced an extension cord from her purse and handed him our new Q-mart blow-dryer. Peter squatted over the low camping grill. Ignoring a swarm of mosquitoes that circled hungrily, he aimed the hot stream of air directly onto the coal pile. The flames surged upward.
Alexis and I retreated to the kitchen.
“Does he do this a lot?”
“All the time. I try to cook Indian food when I can, but Peter can’t live without his meat. Subu thinks we’re totally insane. We had to ask him for a second freezer. And if he knew the extra freezer was stuffed full of cow, he’d probably freak out.”
“Hot dogs smell good though,” I said, sniffing the air.
“It’s the little things that get you through in ’Bad,” Alexis said sagely, cutting cucumbers for a salad.
***
The boxes contained explosives. Commercial grade fireworks, to be specific, the size and scale of which you’d find at Disneyland or the Boston Pops Independence Day Spectacular, properly packaged and set off by a team of trained professionals. Not sticking out of cardboard b
oxes in a complex tangle of stripped wires and sketchy-looking fuses, about to be ignited in an empty Indian field by two clueless corporate guys wearing homemade earplugs.
Like I didn’t have enough problems. Now Jay was going to blow himself to kingdom come with a Bic lighter and some sticks of dynamite, all in the name of “needing to blow off some steam.” True, his work was stressful. He deserved a break. I’d been thinking of ways to surprise him—a massage, a weekend trip to Goa. Staying home while he ran around like a ten-year-old with flammable objects (or “inflammable,” as they said in India) wasn’t at all what I’d had I mind.
“You and Jenny don’t have to come. In fact, it’s probably safer if you don’t. We’ll go, get set up, and then…POW!” Peter and Jay slapped each other five. “Remember how sad we were when there was no celebration for the Fourth of July? This is totally going to make up for it. Just stand on the balcony and we’ll send you a text when it’s time to look west.” Peter giggled and leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers together like Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.
“I can’t believe you guys are even considering doing something this dumb. Or this dangerous.” Despite Alexis’s cheerful front, there was tension in the air between her and Peter. I wondered if something was going on.
Tucker whined and scratched at the sides of the boxes, some doggie sixth sense telling him what was inside. He hated fireworks. Every year on the Fourth of July, I spent hours stroking his fur, trying to calm him down, while his small body shook with fear at the thunder-clap explosions that rang out long into the night.
“Must you do this to Tucker?” I asked. “And what about all the street dogs out there? And the PEOPLE. You don’t know if there are people living in that field. There could be dozens of them, maybe hundreds. You’re going to make them think the world is ending.”
“If they’re sleeping outside, they have worse problems than a couple of fireworks going off,” Jay said. “Besides, the Indians are used to it. They use them for festivals and stuff, and there’s one of those practically every other day. They’ll probably be excited to have their own private show. It’ll be an extra celebration, courtesy of their American neighbors.”
“I really don’t like this. It’s just not safe. If we’re going to continue to be stuck here, I want you all in one piece.”
“Jay, I’ll meet you outside,” Peter said, heading for the door.
Jay pushed back from the table and started collecting dishes. He dumped them in the sink and put a pot on the stove to boil. The sink taps only ran cold water, which, even in conjunction with mountains of dishwashing soap, was not sufficient to kill food bacteria, according to my germaphobe husband. From the louder-than-necessary clank of silverware in the pot, I knew his mind was made up about the fireworks.
Alexis and I settled on the balcony with a bottle of Sula Madera and a box of Oreos I’d scored at Q-Mart for seven dollars. They weren’t the same without a glass of milk.
“Is everything OK?” I asked, pouring more wine for both of us. I felt a pang of guilt for spending so much time sulking by myself instead of being a good friend. I wished her unfailing optimism about India didn’t make me feel even worse about myself.
“Sure,” she said in a way that suggested she was anything but. She swirled the wine in the bottom of her glass, watching the sediment rise in mini tornados. “How did you find the Madera? I thought there was a nationwide shortage.”
“There is. I sent Venkat around to every hotel in Hyderabad to ask if they had any left and made him buy every bottle he could find.”
“Wow. That’s awesome. Did Venkat think you were insane?”
“Doesn’t he always?”
Alexis laughed. “Yeah, Younus too. Nothing we do makes sense to them. It must be like watching aliens from another planet run around all day.”
“Imagine what they go home and tell their families. Madam this, Sir that…we’re like their very own soap opera.”
“Younus saw us fighting today.” Alexis fidgeted in her chair. “He looked totally freaked out, like he wasn’t sure whose side he was supposed to be taking. Peter packed all my suitcases and put them in the hallway. He says he can’t deal with me here anymore.”
“I didn’t know you were having problems.”
“We don’t like to talk about it. Well, Peter doesn’t like me to talk about it. But it’s going to be OK. It’s just hard, you know? Being the ‘accompanying spouse’ is so not what it’s cracked up to be. And I’m not even his wife.” She toyed with a loose piece of rope sticking out from the edge of her chair.
“It doesn’t get any easier when you are,” I said. “Some days I think Jay might be sorry he married me.” I’d never so much as thought those words before, let alone said them out loud, but as they hung in the air between us I realized how true they were, and how sad they made me feel. Part of me was relieved that Peter and Alexis’s life in Hyderabad wasn’t all joy and roses like I’d imagined. I didn’t want them to be unhappy, but knowing I wasn’t alone in my misery was comforting.
A mosquito buzzed near my wrist, sniffing out the best possible spot from which to suck my blood and infect me with something parasitic and incurable. I reached below my wicker chair and grabbed a blue plastic electric tennis racket. Wham.
“What is that?” Alexis asked. “Did you just kill a mosquito with that? Where did you get it?”
I handed her a yellow one. She smacked at a mosquito hovering near her left ankle and hit it on the first try. It sizzled wetly, like bacon on a griddle. “Wow. That’s better than therapy. I already forgot what we were talking about.”
“There’s a bunch of peddler guys selling them at the Jubilee Hills check post. Jay is totally obsessed; he bought two for every room,” I said, waving mine in the air. The size of a ping-pong paddle, the racket had an electric current that took down bugs like nobody’s business with a satisfying ZAP. Before India, I’d never so much as stepped on a spider, preferring to scoop them up with Kleenex and set them free on the balcony. But in Hyderabad, bugs were more than just an inconvenience—they could literally kill you. In the battle for survival, I’d become an insect-murdering machine.
“Oh my GOD. Look!” Alexis scrambled on top of her chair, waving the racket in front of her with frantic horror. I looked. Scuttling near the half-empty bottle of Madera was a cockroach the size of a mouse. Or a mouse wearing a cockroach suit. It was hard to tell which. All I knew was that it was big, it was ugly, and it was headed straight for my flip-flops.
I swatted at the repulsive insect from above, the electricity from the racket sweeping through the air with a deadly crackle. The cockroach looked bored. It changed course and headed for the Oreos.
“Not my Oreos! Those were expensive!” I bent over and swatted again, hitting it this time. The tennis racket zapped. The cockroach didn’t even blink.
“Step on it!” Alexis shouted.
“I can’t, I’ll feel it squish. It’d be like killing a small animal, like a squirrel or something. I’d feel its bones.”
“Cockroaches don’t have bones. They have shells.”
“You come down and crush it then.”
Alexis shuddered. “No way.”
I ran inside and grabbed a plastic takeout container from the kitchen counter. The cockroach, sensing danger, moved with alarming speed, taking cover under the patio table. I circled, trying to scare it out so I could pounce on it from behind.
Alexis reached down and grabbed the cookie box.
“Here, cockroach!” She tossed an Oreo toward the far wall.
The cockroach took the bait, scurrying toward its reward with repulsive verminlike wriggles. I threw the takeout container on top of it. It continued, undeterred, toward the cookie, hidden from view beneath the plastic like something straight out of a Hitchcock movie. Or a Looney Tunes cartoon. When it hit the balcony wall, it stopped, moving in angry circle
s inside the container, spinning it futilely against the concrete.
“That’s so gross,” Alexis said, coming down off her chair and eyeing the bucket. “We are so making the guys deal with that. Assuming they make it home. You know what I want?” She took a deep sip of wine, wincing at the taste. Fortified by the alcohol, she continued. “I want them to do it for a day. Just one day, where they sit here with the power off waiting for us to get home.”
“Go to Q-mart. Argue with Venkat about the radio station. Or Subu about the laundry.”
We laughed. I’d missed her.
“You want to go do something tomorrow? I need to get out of the house more. I’m turning into a hermit. Plus I promised Jay I would stop just sitting around.”
“Have you been out to Golkonda? It’s supposed to be cool, palaces and ruins and stuff. I can have Younus take us. He’s been a bunch of times before. It’s, like, a thousand steps to the top or something.”
“That sounds awful. It’s, like, a hundred degrees out,” I said. But even as the words came out, I could feel my stomach bulging over the top of my jeans, the result of eating too many pizzas, too much time spent pouting on the sofa. “I guess I could use the exercise. Some real sightseeing would be nice too. Jay’s been so busy we’ve barely done any.”
Just then there was a deafening crash. Then another and another. The night sky, pale with smog, lit up red and purple and green. Alexis and I stepped to the edge of the balcony and leaned out as far as we could. Between flashes of color, we could see shadows darting across the field—small ones shaped like dogs and chicken, then larger ones, people, waving their arms over their head and pointing to the sky. I could hear laughter and shrieks, whoops of joy. The field was alive, all those shadows dancing together as the sparks streamed down toward the earth. Smoke curled in long fingers toward the sky.
My phone lit up with a text.
Did you see that, Wife? Crazy!!! Coming home now. Love you
Relief coursed through me. I let out a huge breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I stared at the keypad, trying to compose an appropriately sarcastic response that would both mask how scared I’d been and communicate how stupid I thought he was for going out there in the first place. But in my mind, I kept seeing those flashes of light, the shower of sparks falling from the sky. A celebration of nothing, and everything. Confirmation we were all still here.