by Ali Sethi
Winter came and the water from Daadi’s shower was still cold. I brought a plumber from Canal Park who claimed to know all about bathrooms. He fixed the shower in a few minutes but embarked on a lengthy inspection of the toilet and the drain. He rolled up his sleeves and rummaged in dark holes, groaning and muttering when he found things, groaning and muttering when he didn’t. In the end he demanded more than the promised amount, and Daadi parted grudgingly with the money. But in the morning it emerged that he had solved one problem and created another: the drain was clogged. Daadi’s bathroom was a swamp after she showered and it took the whole day to dry up.
I offered to fetch the plumber.
“No!” said Daadi. “That’s just what he wants!”
One evening, while she was conducting the ablutions that preceded her ishaa prayers, she slipped on a wet patch and fell on her hip. She cried for help but no one came; her shouts were swallowed by the deaf hollows of the veranda. She sent up a hand, managed to clutch the rim of the sink and raised herself with a limping effort. And that night she made the announcement: I was to move in with her, because if tomorrow she died . . .
“O God,” said my mother.
“At my age . . .” said Daadi.
And so, after years of denial and disuse, the room next to Daadi’s was reopened, aired and fumed. A group of professional cleaners came to the house and swept through the downy cobwebs. The bed was taken out into the driveway and left to sit under the sun. A patch of dust, exactly the size of the bed, was discovered underneath, and also a cardboard box, sagging at the top as if from the weight of an invisible burden. It contained one or two magazines, three videotapes of Jane Fonda’s Complete Workout and a picture frame comprised of two small hearts that touched when they folded.
I sealed the box with masking tape and left it under the bed.
And the next day I moved in with my things, aware of the intrusion, the presence of ghosts, but determined not to disturb the ether in which they roamed.
The guidance and counseling department advised me to apply to a liberal arts college in America. There were some that gave financial aid to international students.
“I don’t see why not,” said my mother. She appeared to be thinking it through. “But the cost, Zaki . . .”
“They give financial aid.”
My mother was looking at Daadi.
“Too far,” said Daadi.
I said, “It’s not.”
“Apply,” said my mother.
“And what if I get in?”
“Then we’ll see,” she said.
I arranged the computer in a corner of the room. The desk was black and shiny, wood that didn’t feel like wood, and came with two drawers that I resolved to devote to the application materials. At night I sat before the glowing screen, looking into a world of white yards and black trees that twisted like arteries. The state was called Massachusetts, which sounded like twigs snapping. Indiana Jones and the Curse of Massachusetts. The picture showed a white girl, a black boy, a Chinese girl and another boy who was brown but appeared to be a foreigner. They were struggling and squealing, engulfed in the raptures of a snow fight.
I clicked on the link for prospective students.
Write an essay about a person who changed your life.
I read the topic a few times and looked at the walls of the room in which I sat.
Samar Api and I grew up together in the house.
I spent my afternoons at the tuition center, three hours of books and murmurs, the hum of the air conditioner, an immersion in the slowly clearing mist of test-taking techniques and strategies. After class I went with a boy called Amaan in his car. Amaan had withdrawn from his school earlier in the year because he had failed the half-yearly exams, and claimed with casual contempt that it was the system’s fault and not his. For him everything was a part of the system. The practice tests were designed by the system; the system would bar us entry into good universities; the broken roads of Johar Town that caused Amaan’s haunchy Volkswagen to bump and shudder were the proof of the presence of the system. He was a buggish boy with large, lidless eyes, and in the morning his porcupine hair was sharp. In the evenings Amaan and I went to the grounds at FC College, where boys from other schools (and some who went to no schools) gathered to play fierce rounds of football. The teams changed only when a member withdrew, and Amaan and I resolved to play together. But Amaan was a chain-smoker and had no stamina, and after the first few rounds he announced that he was going to umpire the matches. Thereafter he jogged alongside the players with a whistle hanging from a string around his neck, his body only mildly exerted and his face contorted with involvement. And in the car he gave critiques of my performance, and said one day that I had the speed but not the flair that was necessary for greatness.
I was home in time for dinner, which still came in soft cardboard boxes on a home-delivery motorbike. I entered Daadi’s room one night and found the unopened boxes waiting on the table. Daadi and my mother were sitting before the TV. An American newsreader was frowning into her microphone, her shoulders sagging, her hair stirring in a dusty breeze. Behind her was a thick cloud of smoke. And then came the image of two tall buildings, sparkling in daylight until they were hit, one after the other, by apparently blind airplanes.
“Sit,” said Daadi.
I sat.
My mother looked at me.
Daadi placed a hand on mine and said, “You are not going to that country.”
My mother’s editorial that week was titled “The Blowback.” It was passionate and complicated, and exceeded the usual length. And the talk at the tuition center was grim. Amaan said there was no point applying now to American universities because no one would get in. “The system,” he said, tapping his temple, and nodded gravely.
It came on a Tuesday morning in April. One new e-mail. Admissions Decision.
I watched it briefly, the fresh, suspenseful blue. Admissions Decision. The title said no more.
I waited for the page to load.
Dear Zaki, The admissions committee is pleased to tell you . . .
“I’m in I’m in!”
My mother came into the room. “O God, he’s in!”
Daadi went to the mantelpiece and called her daughters. She told Suri, she told Hukmi, she hung up the phone and dialed again.
“Zaki has got in,” said Daadi. She listened. She said, “You should come, just for a day you should, these children, you know how it is, they go and then they are gone, if only for a few hours you should come.”
And Chhoti said that she would.
She came alone. She was frail, a small woman made smaller and weaker. Her eyes were enlarged in their sockets, and had welts underneath that seemed to have been pressed in by hard fingers. She brought a crate of mangoes that her driver carried into the kitchen.
The conversation was cordial. She didn’t mention her husband, or his sisters, or his new wife. And she didn’t mention her daughter. She said that in Barampur the heat of summer had begun to take its toll.
Daadi said, “You are looking weak.”
“The heat,” said Chhoti.
“You should stay—” began Daadi.
But Chhoti said, “I can’t. I must return by tonight. You know how it is over there.”
18
Zacky Shirazzy?”
An officer in a dark blue uniform inclined his head. His golden hair was short, recently shaved, and had grown back like grass. He led me into a room that had two chairs, a desk and a computer.
“Okay,” he said, and settled into his chair. It gave a hingey caw. He flipped through the rigid pages of my passport and tapped the keyboard. “Come on . . .”
It came on.
He raised the passport, turned to the first page and typed PAKISTAN into the machine.
“Put your right index finger on the red screen, please?”
I placed my finger on the small box he had indicated. The screen was red with laser.
“Left index
finger?”
I placed it on the box.
“Look into the camera.”
A robotic snake with a slim, flexible neck appeared. Its one blind eye was also red.
I looked into it and smiled.
“Stay still . . .”
I did.
“All set,” said the officer. He stamped and stapled my passport and held it out like a gift. “Welcome to the United States,” he said, addressing the wall behind me.
My room was on the fourth floor. Climbing the stairs with my suitcase was difficult, and I paused at the landings. Finally I reached the door. It said E52 on a rectangular white card.
I knocked.
“Hey!”
It was a boy in a T-shirt. And he was Chinese. The letter had said his name was Benny.
I said, “Benny?”
He nodded and said, “You got it.”
“Hi. Zaki.” I offered him my hand.
He smacked it with his and pointed to my suitcase. “Need help with that?”
“It’s fine,” I said, and carried it into the room.
“So,” said Benny, holding his hips and scanning the room as if for flaws, “this is the common room. This is your desk. That’s mine there. Yeah, I went ahead and threw my stuff on it. Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“You don’t care?”
“About what?”
“The desks.”
I said, “Oh! No, it’s not a problem, it’s not a problem.”
We laughed.
“Oh, and the bathroom?” he said, leading me to it. “It’s pretty big, so like, we’re all set.”
“Great!”
“You wanna see the room?”
I followed him past the bathroom, into a dark, dusty space with just a window and a bunk bed.
“Top, bottom, whatever,” said Benny, “your call.”
Our proctor’s name was Peggy. She lived with her partner, Jo, in a two-bedroom suite at the foot of the stairs. Peggy and Jo were hosting the first house meeting in an hour. I showered using Benny’s toiletries (he owned a bottle of shampoo and a bar of unscented soap), changed into the suit I had brought with me and sprayed cologne around its lapels. Benny said he wasn’t going to change his clothes. He was typing very quickly at his computer. When it was time to go downstairs he got up from his desk and put on a pair of rubber sandals.
I said, “You ready?”
“I guess,” he said.
A woman opened the door. She was small, wore black clothes and no makeup, and had very black eyebrows. Her smile was toothy and expectant. “Zaaki!” she said, pointing to me, and shifted the finger of identification to my companion. “And . . . Benny!”
We nodded.
“You must be Peggy,” I said.
“Oh no!”—a hand went to her throat—“I’m Jo. That’s Peggy there.” She pointed behind her to a tall blond woman who was talking with emphatic movements of her hand to a circle of nodding students.
“Come on in!” cried Jo, frowning in humorous annoyance.
We sat on the carpet with our backs against the walls. The small square table in the corner was stacked with cans of Coke, Diet Coke and Cherry Coke, nachos and salsa, white plastic plates and red plastic cups with white rims. Peggy sat cross-legged in the center, her feet joined at the soles and her hands around her ankles. (Jo had fled to some undisclosed destination.)
“Well?” said Peggy, surveying the room with a stable smile. “Welcome! Let me say, before we start: this is your first time, I know, you’re all nervous, but let me tell ya”—here she made a frazzled face—“you’ll be doing this a lot. Name, hometown, interests, all of that stuff”—she waved it aside—“it’s gonna get boring pretty soon. So don’t be shy. Okay?”
There were nods and blinks.
“Okay,” said Peggy, and placed her honest palms on the floor, “we’ll start with me.”
Peggy Grant was from Delaware, Ohio. One of three siblings (a younger brother and sister, both still in Ohio), Peggy moved here for college in the late sixties, studied psychology, which was the major back then, oh yeah, everybody was into psychoanalysis, a crazy time, and hey, fun too (one word: Wood-stock), and she did fun things, wacky things, but then she went home for a while, to figure things out, she worked there in a library, four years of her life, when she realized that her heart was still in Massachusetts. So she returned to the best state in the country (“Go Red Sox!”) and started teaching at a school. Twelve years ago she met Jo, and that changed her life, and they’d been living together since, first in a run-down apartment in Somerville, and now here, on campus, where Peggy was currently pursuing a master’s in education while Jo worked as a chef in a restaurant that specialized in fusion vegan. “I’m biased, I know,” said Peggy, raising one confessional palm, “but I gotta say: the food is great.”
Hooting and clapping.
“Now,” said Peggy, searching the room, “I’m gonna pick a random person . . . You!”
A fragile, sun-browned girl with gleaming legs had been identified. She pointed a finger to her collarbones.
“Ahaan,” said Peggy, firm with her grin.
The girl swallowed, sat up, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her name was Alexandra but she went by Alex; she was from San Diego, California; she was interested in history but also in culture (a dilemma she enacted through a seesawing motion of her hands) and was thinking about a double major, maybe, she wasn’t sure yet, for now she was really happy that she had an awesome roommate.
“Aww . . .” said the roommate, a much larger girl with glasses and a shy voice.
“Good!” said Peggy. “Next person.”
Sebastian said he was from New Jersey.
“Whereabouts?” said a hoarse little girl from across the room.
“Hoboken?” said Sebastian, whose limbs were very long.
“Ho-Ho-Kus,” said the girl.
“Cool,” said Sebastian, and puckered his mouth into a silent whistle of consideration.
Peggy said, “And what do you do, Sebastian?”
“Ah . . .” said Sebastian, and rammed a fist into the palm of his other hand, “let’s see: basketball, basketball and basketball.”
There was won-over laughter at this.
“Will you be playing for us?” asked Peggy.
“Most certainly will,” answered Sebastian.
“Great! Next person?”
In this way we went around the room. Names and places emerged, spun their arcs of particularity and dissolved into the soupy atlas that was now in motion: Dallas, Kansas, Pittsburgh, two Mikes, three Jennifers, Mary from Manila (the only other international student), a Kevin from Columbus-Ohio, who shared brief notes with Peggy. Benny, my roommate, was from Bethesda-Maryland, and had one older sister who had also attended this college, class of ’98. And then it was my turn.
“So!” said Peggy with a startled smile.
“Hi. I’m Zaki. From Lahore, Pakistan . . .” I was aware of the suit and the cologne.
Peggy said, “You know we had someone from India last year . . .”
“Oh?”
“Yeah!”
“Wow!”
“Mmm . . .”
Silence.
“Interests?” offered Peggy.
“Oh, ya . . . well, lots of stuff . . .”
Peggy saw and said, “What do your folks do?”
(Someone opened a can of Coke with a pssst-crock!)
“My mother’s a journalist,” I said.
“Oh, very nice!” said Peggy. “And your dad?”
“He’s dead.”
Peggy nodded. “Siblings?”
“None,” I said, and sealed it with a quick smile.
I bought a phone card from a twenty-four-hour pharmacy that sat just behind the dormitories and was the first in a long row of shops, most of them now closed for the night. I asked to borrow Benny’s mobile phone, and added quickly that it wouldn’t cost him because I had a card.
> “Chill out, man,” said Benny.
I took the phone into the hallway. It was a toll-free number. I entered the pin, dialed the country code, the city code, the area code and then the number.
You have! Two! Hundred! Minutes! To-make-this-call!
I waited.
“Hullo?” It was Daadi.
I told her I was speaking from America.
“Zaki! It’s Zaki!” cried Daadi.
My mother took the phone. “Have you reached?”
“Yes.”
Daadi said, “Is everything all right?”
I said it was.
“Have you eaten?”
“We had this meeting,” I said, “and they had snacks—”
“He hasn’t eaten,” said Daadi.
Again my mother came to the phone and said, “Zaki? Zaki, why aren’t you eating?”
“I’m eating, I’m eating.”
“What have you eaten?”
“Pizza.”
“Pizza,” she said, and away from the phone. “They are giving them pizza.”
“Zaki?” Daadi again. “Zaki, is it cold over there?”
I said, “No, it’s warm.”
“You have bedsheets?”
“Yes. You packed them into the suitcase.”
“Have you taken them out?”
“O God. Yes.”
There was a pause. Daadi said, “Was the flight all right?”
“It was fine.”
“He says it was fine . . .”
My mother took the phone. “How is the college?”
“It’s very nice. My roommate is very nice. This is his phone I’m using.”
“Good. Good.”
“And you?” I said. “Everything is fine?”
“Yes, yes,” said my mother, and I could tell she was looking around the room, “we are fine.”
In the common room Benny was decorating his desk. He had some books, a coffee mug with pens and pencils, a planner with the college insignia on its cover and a framed photograph of his family. Benny’s mother and sister were seated. His sister wore a white dress and held a bouquet of white roses. His mother sat next to her, less luminous, her worn hands folded demurely in her lap. Benny and his father stood behind them in black tuxedos. Everyone was smiling.