“Okay,” Nandita said. “Enough of this depressing talk.” She got up and headed for the fridge. “What has that Prakash cooked? I’m starving.”
Ellie leapt to her feet. “Would you like a chicken roll? Prakash just made some more of his mayonnaise.”
They assembled the sandwich together. Nandita reached on top of the fridge for a bag of potato chips. She took a big bite of the roll and spoke with her mouth full. “Why the long face, darling? Are you feeling down?”
Ellie nodded. “I think I am.”
“Well, the best antidote to depression is activity,” Nandita said. “You need to be engaged in the world again.”
Ellie smiled ruefully. “That’s exactly what I would’ve said to a client.” She cocked her head as she looked at the woman sitting across from her. “Are you sure you’re not really a therapist?”
“Oh, God, I don’t have the temperament to sit still and listen to the miseries of the bourgeoisie. I’d be bored out of my mind.” Nandita laughed. “No, you know what I am—a muck-raking, no-good journalist before I became a”—here Nandita made a doleful face—“a hausfrau.”
Despite her light tone, Ellie could hear the regret in Nandita’s voice. Armed with a master’s in journalism from Columbia University, Nandita had returned to Bombay and taken the world of journalism by storm, with numerous exposés of political corruption and police brutality and bribery scandals. Although she was fêted by human rights groups and some Bollywood movie stars, she began to acquire a list of powerful enemies. Drummed-up charges by her opponents had landed her in jail for three months before all accusations were dropped. She had walked out of jail triumphant, but the damage was done—she suffered a breakdown a few months later. She had known Shashi, the only son of a man who had made his fortune making ball bearings, for many years but had never taken seriously his occasional marriage proposals. For many years she teased him for being the Son of Mr. Ball Bearings, conferred upon him the mocking nickname Balls. She teased him for being wealthy, for being a businessman, for having no social conscience. But while she was recovering from the breakdown, it was Shashi more than any of her other, progressive friends who stood by her. The next time he proposed, she said yes. And seven years ago, when he and his partners decided to build the Hotel Shalimar on the shores of the Arabian Sea, she did not hesitate when he asked whether she would consider relocating from Bombay to the small, sleepy village of Kanbar. Now she divided her time between working at the clinic and school she had built in Girbaug and helping her husband manage the forty-five-room resort.
Ellie leaned forward. “Can I ask you something, Nan? Are you happy with Shashi? Are you still in love with him?”
Nandita clicked her tongue dismissively. “Shashi? Who knows? Who cares? You Americans expect so much more from your romantic relationships, Ellie. All this talk of soul mates and all that bullshit.” Seeing the look on Ellie’s face, she laughed. “Oh, God. Forgive the blasphemy. You look, like, totally scandalized. No, but seriously? I’m happy with Shashi. He’s an honorable man. I respect him, and I guess, in my own fashion, I love him. But am I head-over-heels with him? I’m not sure.”
“Were you ever madly in love with him? Or with anyone?”
For a second, something flickered in Nandita’s eyes. Then she looked away. “I’m not sure. It wasn’t the way one was raised, with these fairy-tale notions of Prince Charmings and knights in shining armor. Anyway, one marries for companionship and, in the case of most people, for children, right? And if one decides not to have any children, then—”
Ellie had noticed this verbal tic before, how Nandita switched to the third person anytime she talked about something personal or emotionally difficult. If Nandita had been one of her clients, she would’ve called her on it. But some instinct told her not to push that hard, told her that Nandita was like one of those puffed, deep-fried baturas that deflated the instant you pierced the oily wheat exterior with your thumb.
“What about you? Are you still in love with Frank?”
“Yes.” Her answer was so instantaneous it surprised even her. “I mean, we’ve been together since our twenties. And the relationship has certainly—sustained some blows. But even today, he’s the only man who can make my stomach flip just by walking into the room.”
“Wow,” Nandita said. There was no envy in her voice, just interest. “Maybe it has something to do with meeting the other person when you’re so young. Like what you hear about those birds—cranes, maybe?—who consider the first person they see to be their mothers. Imprinting, it’s called, I believe.”
“Well, we were both grad students. So we weren’t quite that young,” Ellie laughed. “But God, Nan. You should’ve seen us then. We were inseparable. Our first year together, it snowed like crazy on Thanksgiving. Frank was visiting some friends in Grand Rapids. I had planned to cook us dinner, but one look out the window that morning and I knew there was no way he’d make it back to Ann Arbor. But at seven that evening, the doorbell rings, and there’s Frank. He said he couldn’t bear the thought of us being apart for our first Thanksgiving. It took him ten hours to make a trip that would’ve normally taken less than three.”
“Yah, there’s something wonderful about that kind of young love—” Nandita said.
“But here’s the thing,” Ellie interrupted. “Even today I know he’s the one person in the world I can count on to stand at my front door during a snowstorm. Isn’t that something?”
“It is.”
They smiled at each other shyly and then looked away. “Nan,” Ellie said. “I don’t know if I ever told you this but I’m so grateful for your friendship. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since—”
Nandita waved her hand to cover up her embarrassment. “Yah, and you think living for seven years in this godforsaken place without a single intelligent person to talk to was a picnic for me? Shashi always says that I would’ve divorced him if you hadn’t showed up in the nick of time.”
Ellie laughed. “Speaking of Shashi, how’s he doing?”
“Find out for yourself,” Nandita said promptly. “Why don’t you and Frank come over for dinner tonight? I’ll throw something together.”
Ellie considered. “Frank’ll probably be too tired to want to go out again tonight. Maybe another night would be better.”
Nandita gestured toward the phone. “Why don’t you call him? That way, if someone is refusing my kind invitation, it’s Frank. And not his know-it-all wife.”
“You’re a bully, you know that?” Ellie grumbled as she got up. “God, you remind me so much of my older sister, Anne, I can’t tell you.” She dialed Frank’s number.
Frank answered on the third ring. And to Ellie’s surprise, said yes immediately. “It will be nice to get out of Girbaug for a few hours,” he said, and Ellie could hear the fatigue in his voice. He’s under more pressure than I know, she thought. “Did something happen at work today, hon?” she asked cautiously.
“Just more of the same labor shit. How anybody does business in this country, I don’t know. Now the rumor is, they’re planning a go-slow. I’ll explain what that is when I get home,” he added.
Nandita was gesturing toward her, asking for the phone. When Ellie handed it to her, she spoke briskly, without preamble. “Frank? Nandita. I have an idea. How about if I take Ellie home with me? And you have your driver bring you to our house directly from work? That way, we can eat as soon as you get there. I’m sure you’re not getting much time for lunch these days.” Her voice was even, without a trace of sympathy or judgment.
They spoke for a few more minutes and then Nandita hung up without giving the phone back to Ellie. “That’s settled, then,” she said. “You’re coming home with me.”
“Hello?” Ellie said. “Am I not to be consulted at all? Who’s the know-it-all now? And what if I had some other plans?”
“You have no other plans,” Nandita said flatly. “Anyway, Frank thought it was a good idea.”
“Oh, I
see. Frank thought it was a good idea. And what am I? Chopped liver?”
“Ellie.” Nandita fixed her a baleful look. “I must say, that is the most disgusting of all American expressions. Now, do you want to get changed or are you ready to go?”
“I swear, you are such a control freak,” Ellie laughed. “Man, if you were one of my clients I’d—”
“Which, thankfully, I’m not,” Nandita said, as she linked her arm into Ellie’s. “Another disgusting American habit—therapy.”
Nandita was true to her word. Dinner was a simple meal—daal with mustard seeds and an eggplant cooked in a spicy tomato sauce. Plain yogurt and white basmati rice topped off the meal. Frank wanted to learn how to eat with his fingers, and Shashi tried to teach him, but he gave up soon after the other three picked up their forks. “This is harder than chopsticks,” he declared.
Discussing Frank earlier in the day had cleansed Ellie’s sour view of him, like an afternoon shower washing the grime off a window. Her heart had leapt as soon as he’d walked in the door, his six-foot frame slightly stooped, his white shirt hanging out at the sides. She noticed that the blond hair was a little overgrown and reminded herself to cut it this weekend, noticed the creases of fatigue near his gray eyes, the light shadow around his chin. Her heart softened with tenderness. So that it took no effort to push herself out of the comfortable couch and fling her arms around him as she kissed his lips. She ignored his look of surprise, ignored Nandita’s bemused, raised eyebrow. She suddenly felt light, deliriously happy, as if Frank’s presence was the perfect way to cap a pleasurable afternoon. In Nandita’s house, away from the claustrophobic insularity of Girbaug, she felt free and safe for the first time in a week. It took her back to her grad student days, to being in someone’s house, with the Rolling Stones or R.E.M. playing on the stereo and the smell of Chinese takeout food, and the sensual anticipation of an evening of booze and food and conversation.
She kissed Frank again, and he returned her kiss, deeply, sincerely. It had been a long time since he had kissed her like this, looked at her with warm eyes, without a trace of the guarded expression he usually wore. It wasn’t a performance for Nandita’s benefit either, Ellie knew. Nanditsa had in fact slipped out of the room after muttering a “Hi, Frank,” and still Frank was looking at her intently, smiling his pleasure, as if he was memorizing her, as if he had forgotten how happy it made him to look at her.
They heard the tinkle of ice in Shashi’s glass before he walked in. “Oh, hello, Frank,” he said, and in her happiness, Ellie imagined that Shashi seemed genuinely pleased to see her husband. “Welcome. What can I get you? I’m having some whisky myself. And the ladies are drinking gin and tonics, I think.”
“Actually, a beer sounds better than anything. It’s damn hot today.” Frank kept his arm around Ellie.
“A Heineken it is,” Shashi said, and Ellie grinned to herself. It was one of Nandita’s pet peeves, how Shashi refused to drink or serve Indian beer at home.
“Dinner will be ready in a half hour, yes?” Nandita said. “Let’s sit and relax until then.” She turned to Frank. “How have you been, stranger?”
He sighed. “Okay, I think. I’m sure you’ve heard about—the situation.” He paused, took a long gulp of his beer. “It’s hard. Everybody’s nerves are shot.” He hesitated and glanced at his hosts, as if he was unsure whether to go on. “I—I’m not really good at reading the labor situation. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more like a clumsy Ugly American than I do these days. The way you—they—do business here is so different than—” He turned to Shashi, making a visible effort to lighten his tone. “So, any words of advice, Shash?”
Ellie felt the muscles in her stomach tighten. Please don’t let Shashi be flippant, or worse, enigmatic, she prayed. Please don’t let him rebuff Frank.
But Shashi’s tone was sympathetic, sincere. “Hard to know what to do, Frank. It’s a bad situation. My best advice would be—settle. Give them a little of what they’re asking for. Make them feel like they won something. A few rupees here and there won’t matter so much to your company. You can recover it somewhere else. But to these people, it will mean a lot.”
Ellie had raised the same point over dinner yesterday, and Frank had bristled, told her she didn’t understand the mindset of the Indian worker. So she was surprised to hear him say, “Not so easy, Shashi. I’d like nothing more than to give in. But there’s so much pressure from headquarters, you have no idea.”
“Bollocks.” It was Nandita. “These people live in wretched conditions—ask your wife, she has seen where and how they live. Tell her to speak to your boss in Ann Arbor about what she sees in the villages. Two less expense-account lunches a month for him will pay for their raises.” Shashi tried to lay a warning hand on her, but she shook it off and turned to face Frank again. “Listen. You’re my friend. So I tell you, settle this. I’m an atheist, you know that. But one thing I believe: one should only pick fights with those who can fight back. And these people can’t, Frank. They’re poor, hungry, weak. But don’t they have the right to eat just like we do? Or any American does? HerbalSolutions makes enough profit here. Shit, you could double their salaries and still make a profit. You know that. It’s obscene to—”
“Nandita,” Shashi said, and they all heard the iron in his voice. She suddenly looked chastised. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, Frank. Sorry, El. You know how I get carried away.”
For a second, it was awkward in the room, with all four of them looking at the floor, but then Frank said, “That’s what we love about you, Nan. You’re a true friend.”
It sounded so much like the old Frank, sincere and guileless, that Ellie felt teary. Despite the few bumps and moments of awkwardness, there was something restorative about this evening, she thought. “This reminds me of grad school,” she heard herself say. “You know, we’d sit up nights arguing and almost coming to blows over all kinds of issues. But we were all as close as this.” She crossed her fingers.
Nandita smiled slyly. “And to complete the grad school fantasy camp, we have some aids,” she said. She disappeared from the room and returned a few minutes later with a carved wooden box and rolling paper. “I just got some real good weed from one of my contacts,” she said proudly. “I thought, maybe after dinner?”
Shashi smiled noncommittally. But both Frank and Ellie said, “Count me in.”
It was dark by the time they were done with dinner. “Just leave the dishes in the sink,” Nandita told Ellie, who was helping her clear the table.
Shashi refreshed their drinks before they moved into the small sitting area off the living room. Unlike the other rooms in the house, it had no furniture, just handwoven rugs and large, cylindrical pillows on the floor, against which one rested one’s back. It was Ellie’s favorite room in the house. She sat crossed-legged against one of the white pillows and pulled Frank down next to her. When he sat down, she heard his left knee crack, the way it did whenever he made a sudden movement. She watched as, with great solemnity, Nandita rolled the joint, inhaled deeply, and then passed it on to her. “Wow, you weren’t kidding. That’s some good stuff,” Ellie said, but Nandita had left the room to go plug in her iPod. Ellie smiled as Simon and Garfunkel’s “Feelin’ Groovy” wafted over to her from the next room. The perfect song for the evening, she thought, and from the way the others were looking at her, realized she’d spoken out loud.
“She’s high already,” Frank laughed. “I can tell.”
“Am not,” she said, grabbing for the joint as it made its way around, afraid that they would cut her off.
“You’re a lightweight, babe,” Frank teased. “Admit it.”
“Well, I wasn’t the one who got drunk the first time we went to a party together,” she said loftily.
“Hey, no fair. There’s got to be a statute of limitations on the dredging up of old stuff.”
“All’s fair in love, sweetheart,” Nandita said. Her dark eyes were bright, sparkling. “Spill
the beans, El.”
Ellie opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue suddenly felt like it was made of cotton wool. It took too much energy to tell a story, she realized. “You tell it,” she told Frank. “Tell on yourself.” The last phrase struck her as hilarious. She giggled and pretty soon, she heard a fellow giggle and, turning her head, realized it was coming from Shashi. That only made her laugh more.
Frank groaned. “Oh, no. There she goes. Once the giggling starts…”
“Tell on yourself, Frank.”
He turned to Nandita. “It’s nothing, really. The first party we went to together—and she’d put me through hell before she even agreed to go out with me, let me tell you—was at the apartment of an ex-boyfriend of hers. Or so I believed, at the time. Turns out he wasn’t her ex, after all. But I didn’t learn that till later.” He shook his head, looked at the lit joint that Ellie had passed him, and then took a deep drag.
“Frank,” Nandita said. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Damned if I know.” He stared at Nandita hard, as if trying to solve a puzzle. “Yeah. Jealousy. That’s what we’re talking about here. Anyway. So naturally, I did what any red-blooded male would do. I got roaring drunk. Every time I caught her talking to old dick-head, I took another swig of my beer. Somehow Ellie managed to get me to her apartment that night. And I passed out on her couch. Imagine. I’d lusted after this woman for weeks, and I’m finally in her apartment and I’m snoring soundly on her couch, like a good altar boy.”
“So now we don’t drink to excess,” Ellie said happily. “Now we just get high to excess. Moral of the story.”
“So,” Frank said. “How did you and Shashi meet?”
Shashi spoke before Nandita could. “I saw her picture in the newspaper once. And fell in love with her. Small black-and-white picture it was.” He turned to Nandita, who was looking at him openmouthed. “I never told you this. Anyway, I made some inquiries. Found out who her friend circle was, wormed my way into it.”
The Weight of Heaven: A Novel Page 6