He shook his head. “There aren’t any Indian restaurants where I live. I buy something called hot-pepper sauce in the American supermarkets. I pour it on hamburgers, pizza, steak…everything.”
Their egg rolls and soup arrived, interrupting him briefly. He sniffed the appetizing aromas and grinned with delight, showing a row of clean white teeth.
He was clearly a nonsmoker, decided Vinita, mentally adding one more check mark in the plus column.
“Smells fantastic,” he declared. “Can you tell I’m a typical bachelor who eats all the wrong things?”
“I live with my brother and we don’t cook much at home, either.” She smiled. “Why do you think I like all that street food?”
He looked at her in a measured fashion. Was he sizing her up as a potential wife, an Indian woman who openly admitted she didn’t cook? She felt the warm blood rush to her face under his prolonged scrutiny. She could see him mentally grading her as a failure in the column for cooking.
Probably sensing her discomfort, he pulled his soup bowl closer, blew on a spoonful of steaming liquid and tasted it. “Umm! Good choice of restaurants, Vinita. I haven’t had this variety of soup in a long time.” Putting his spoon down after a couple of mouthfuls, he switched topics. “Tell me, do you like sports?”
She swallowed some of her soup, giving herself a second to prepare an adequate answer. She had deliberately stayed away from cricket commentaries and anything remotely connected to sports in the past few years. “I’m not all that interested in sports.”
“Not even cricket?”
Especially cricket. But she merely shook her head. And thank goodness he didn’t push her for an answer. She wasn’t quite ready to confess yet. But soon she’d tell him everything. Meanwhile, she wanted to savor her first wine-drinking and toasting experience, her first conversation alone with an intelligent, well-informed man, and then enjoy her delicious Chinese dinner. It was a treat for her. Vishal wasn’t very fond of Chinese food, so they hardly ever ate it.
She had to admit the wine was making her feel relaxed and warm. She no longer felt tense and fidgety. In fact, she was pleasantly light-headed, like her feet were not quite on the ground.
“I love tennis myself,” he said, reclaiming her attention. “I used to play regularly when I had all my fingers.” He flexed his damaged hand. “Now I can’t wield a racket anymore.” He examined his hand briefly.
She maintained her silence and nibbled on her egg roll, pretending not to notice his hand.
Finishing up the last of his soup, he gave her a candid look. “I’m sure you’re curious about my hand, Vinita.”
He’d caught her staring at it the previous evening. I’m dying of curiosity. But she couldn’t admit it. What did one say about a delicate matter like that? She cast a fleeting glance at his hand.
“You have a right to know,” he said, reading her mind. “It was an accident involving a hedge trimmer a few years back. I used to work as a mechanical engineer at a manufacturing company. I lectured my staff on the safe use of industrial equipment. I helped write the company’s safety manual. But you know what?” he said with a sardonic grunt. “I was too stupid to follow my own safety rules at home.”
He stopped for a moment, as if to gather his thoughts. “I lost my fingers from pure carelessness,” he said with a rueful sigh, and spread out his hand on the center of the table.
“I’m sorry.” She winced at the thought of all that agony. The emotional trauma had likely been devastating to an otherwise healthy man.
But he clearly wanted her to see his deformity, to see that he was not ashamed of it. So she forced herself to look at the hand resting on the table. Both fingers were cut off just above the middle joint. The machine had severed them at an angle.
The unharmed fingers were thick and long, with square fingernails cut short. It probably had been a strong hand at one time—a hand that played tennis, worked with industrial equipment, trimmed hedges. She still couldn’t bring herself to stare too long. Slowly she lifted her gaze to meet his across the table. “It must have been awful for you.”
“It was,” he admitted. “They couldn’t reattach them because the nerves were badly damaged.” He adjusted his eyeglasses with his good hand. “You know, one doesn’t realize how important each little digit is…until one doesn’t have it anymore.”
“Did it take very long to heal?”
“Months and months. But the real healing took much longer. I spent a year in therapy to learn to reuse my hand with sufficient motor control.” He folded his arms over the table. “Meanwhile I lost my job because of the accident. My employer couldn’t hold my job forever.”
“Oh no!”
“And my marriage went straight to hell right after that.”
She couldn’t help her shocked gasp. It was all beginning to make sense now: the defective hand, the stress in the marriage, the divorce. They were all connected. “Your…wife. What happened?” Too late Vinita realized she was prying into his personal life. Now he’d give her a failing grade for tactfulness, too. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“That’s all right.” He gave her a wry smile. “Nadine’s a good woman, but I believe she had difficulty adjusting to being married to a deformed man. I can’t blame her for that. And then I lost my job, and things between us just sort of…fell apart.”
“I’m so sorry,” was all Vinita could say, and kept nibbling on her egg roll to give herself something to concentrate on. She didn’t know this man, and yet she felt genuine sympathy for him. To lose one’s fingers and then one’s job—and as if that weren’t enough, to lose one’s spouse, too. How much more painful could it get? And she’d thought she was the only one who’d had her heart broken. He’d had it much worse. At least she had all her fingers. “So Nadine…just left you?”
“Not quite,” he explained. “We tried to work it out, but I was bitter and difficult to live with at the time.”
“Not entirely your fault, was it?”
“Sadly, much of it was my fault,” he said, unafraid to admit the truth. “We constantly bickered. I could see I was making her unhappy, so we eventually made a mutual decision to file for divorce.”
“You…um…didn’t have any children?” Vishal had told her there were no children, but she wanted to confirm it.
He shook his head. “Nadine was afraid children might ruin her figure and her career, so we decided to wait a few years before starting a family.”
“What a shame.” Maybe Vinita was being naïve, but children could hardly be categorized as figure busters.
“Nadine worked as a buyer for an upscale department store chain. Appearance and fashion were important to her career, so I understood.” He paused. “Besides, just when we thought we were ready to start a family, my accident and everything else happened.” He toyed with his spoon. “But…a child would have been nice, I suppose.”
“I’m sorry,” Vinita said once again. She was beginning to sound like a country bumpkin with a limited vocabulary. Not a good way to impress an educated man.
“Don’t be,” he advised her. “Children would have meant more complications.”
“I know.” She bit her tongue the moment she realized what she’d said.
But he didn’t seem to notice. He smiled instead. “I do have a decent job now, in case you’re wondering.”
Oh yes, she had been wondering. “Where do you work?”
“In New Jersey.” He finished the last of his egg roll before he spoke again. “I work for a company that makes surgical instruments.”
“You like what you do?”
“Very much,” he answered, with such enthusiasm that Vinita had no doubt he loved his job. “I work with a very talented group of folks. It’s a good place to work.”
“You’re lucky, then.”
“Enough about me,” he said abruptly, and pushed aside his empty blue and white ceramic soup bowl with its matching spoon. “Look, you seem like a nice girl from a well-re
spected family. So I honestly don’t know why your family introduced you to a guy like me.”
Vinita watched the waiter deliver their main course and take away the empty soup bowls and appetizer plates. She appreciated Girish Patil’s honesty. He had essentially told her everything of importance in his life—his deformity, his divorce, and his present career.
“Why not a guy like you?” she asked.
He gestured to her to help herself to the prawns and vegetables coated with a thick brown sauce that smelled like garlic and ginger. “I’m not like the other Indian-American bachelors, Vinita, the young single guys who come bride hunting to India. I’m thirty-five years old, married once, and divorced.” He chuckled.
She couldn’t say if his snicker was from humor or bitterness or both. Amongst all the men she’d met so far, and that included Som Kori, Girish Patil came across as the most decent. He was also fun to talk to. However, she’d spent less than two hours with him so far. She’d have to hold her judgment a bit longer.
He was waiting for her reaction, so she said, “I’m not like the other young Indian women, either. I’m almost twenty-five and I…uh…I’m a cancer survivor.” Oh dear. It slid off her tongue before she knew what she was saying. She had planned to tell him the truth. But that was before she’d had the wine, and much before she’d heard his life story.
His hand stopped in midair, holding a speared prawn at the end of his fork. “Is that right?” He seemed astonished.
“You didn’t know?” She’d assumed he had been told about her condition.
He placed the fork back on his plate. “No.”
She could tell from his expression that he was slowly beginning to comprehend why she’d been introduced to him. He kept staring at something or someone beyond her shoulder before he recovered sufficiently and resumed eating. “I’m sorry—about the cancer, I mean.”
She shrugged. They were more or less even now. She hadn’t been told about his fingers, either. Someone had deliberately kept them both in the dark. She knew who it was, too. “I’m cured for all practical purposes,” she informed him.
“What kind of cancer, if I may ask? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“Abdominal,” she replied. That was another question no one had asked her. But then again, none of those other men had bothered to talk to her privately. “It was a…malignant tumor. They removed it before it could spread. I’m in total remission.”
“Glad to hear that.” He seemed genuinely relieved. “I wish you a long and healthy life.” He lifted his wine glass, which was now almost empty, in a salute.
It sounded like a very polite good-bye and good luck, so she merely smiled and accepted his good wishes. Vishal and her mother would be thoroughly disappointed to learn that he’d rejected her despite not knowing her shameful secret. Well, at least she was spared the embarrassment of telling him the truth. She could keep her dignity intact. Her nice, single Marathi girl image could remain untarnished.
So he stunned her when he finished the last of his meal and said, “This was very nice. I really enjoyed the evening.”
“Thank you.” It was indeed nice.
“Vinita, would you go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?”
She blinked. “Y-you want to go out with me again—in spite of what I told you?”
“Sure, unless of course you can’t stand my company or can’t accept me as I am.” He narrowed his eyes at her once again. “Cancer’s not something to be ashamed of, young lady.”
“What about meeting other eligible girls? Didn’t your sister arrange more for you?” It was standard practice for Indian men to meet several eligible girls lined up by their respective families before making their choice of a future bride—like going to a shoe store and trying out the inventory for appearance, fit, and potential wear and tear.
“I didn’t come to India to seek a new wife,” he explained. “I came to visit my family. They were worried about me. They hadn’t seen me after my accident and divorce. So I wanted them to see that I’ve recovered from both, and I’m not bitter or unhappy anymore.”
“I see.” The situation was a little clearer to her now.
“But then my parents heard about you and suggested I meet you while I visited Rohini and Kishore in Bombay. Meeting you was a decision I made only a couple of days ago.”
“You mean the proverbial killing of two birds with one stone?” At least Mummy and Vishal hadn’t been lying about the bride viewing coming up at the last minute. It was a relief to know.
“Something like that,” he allowed, eyeing her again with that assessing look that made her palms turn damp. “I’m beginning to think it was a good decision.”
She clasped and unclasped her hands under the table. He was an unusual man. And so candid. “Okay, then.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll go out with you tomorrow night.”
“Excellent. Tonight we ate what I like.” He leaned across the table to look into her eyes. “Tomorrow we eat what you like. How about going to Chowpatty Beach for some spicy street food?”
“I’d like that.” Excitement tugged at her brain. Another date.
“Now, would you like some dessert…coffee?”
She shook her head. She’d heard about coffee after a meal in America and tea in England, but she knew no one who drank caffeine after dinner. Why would anyone want to deliberately deprive themselves of sleep?
He signaled the waiter to bring their check.
Tomorrow, she reminded herself as they walked out of the restaurant a few minutes later, her feet still feeling like they weren’t quite touching the footpath. The wine was still swirling in her bloodstream, making her giddy. Or was it the man who’d bought it for her? Or could it be because he wanted to take her out again?
But tomorrow she would tell him the truth. And then he’d be gone forever.
The next day came, and two more days after that. Girish took her out to a different place for dinner each evening. He always wore quality slacks and starched shirts. It was almost like he was courting her. For a woman who’d been used as a pawn in a mindless and egotistic game, this was a novel experience. He was a pleasant man besides being bright, and it was easy to talk to him about most any subject.
He genuinely seemed to like her company, too. He asked her educated questions about her dancing. Most men knew nothing about Bharat Natyam, but he seemed to be knowledgeable about concepts like taal, mudra, and abhinaya. Rhythm, hand movements, and facial expressions. Had he read up on such things just to impress her? If so, she was touched by the gesture. Like people who prepared themselves for a job interview, it showed diligence, and respect for the other party.
With each day she liked him a little bit more. When he took her hand in his hard, flawed one so they wouldn’t lose each other in the beach crowd the third evening, she felt no more than the rough warmth and strength of it. Surprisingly the missing fingers were not an issue. She tried to imagine that hand touching her, caressing her—and she was convinced it would still feel all right. It was the man that mattered, not his hands.
She was amazed at how normal he was, despite the accident and divorce. He came across as a fighter, and he hadn’t allowed his hardships to beat him down, to make him permanently bitter and resentful. His sense of dignity, integrity, and humor appeared to be untouched—a respectable man in every sense. But she wasn’t quite convinced that she could trust him yet.
On their third date, he talked about his college years and his early student days in the United States, his old job and new job, and everything in between. He even told her more about his failed marriage to Nadine—some painful details he said he’d never revealed to anyone else.
“You have no hard feelings toward Nadine?” she asked him.
“What’s the point in holding a grudge?” he replied.
“Hmm.” She wondered how a person could be so forgiving. By comparison, her own festering sentiments for Som seemed petty and vindictive
.
Girish showed her photographs of his house in New Jersey. “I know it’s modest, small…only three bedrooms,” he said. “After Nadine and I split our assets, this was all I could afford to buy right away.”
“Doesn’t look modest at all,” she assured him. She found it charming, actually, with its exterior of brick and white siding, and a variety of shrubs planted under the two front windows, which were flanked by black shutters. The house even had two floors, with the bedrooms located upstairs. It didn’t look small, either. “Two bathrooms in one house is sheer luxury by Palgaum standards, and an extravagance when compared to Bombay’s cramped flats.”
Photos of the backyard showed some giant trees with dense foliage. “They’re maples and oaks,” he explained to her. “Unlike most trees in India, these turn to shades of yellow and red and orange, and they shed their leaves by late fall. They become totally bare. Then they grow the leaves back every spring.”
“Is it exciting to see the change in the seasons?” she asked him.
“Yes. It’s like watching a miracle unfolding—nature at its most engaging.”
She tried to imagine trees covered in shades she’d never seen on leaves. She’d read all about it in books, even seen pictures in magazines of how extreme cold could cause dramatic changes in flora.
He let her gaze at the photographs for a minute. “Do you think you’d like to live in a house like that?”
She blinked at him. She wasn’t sure what he was leading up to, but her pulse wobbled a bit. “I don’t know,” she replied with a shrug.
On the fourth night, after a simple meal of fried fish on the beach, he asked her if she’d consider marrying him. It wasn’t a huge surprise; the hints had been building up little by little. It was a humble proposal, almost Victorian in its chasteness and propriety.
“I’m not a good-looking man and I’m several years your senior,” he said. “But I can afford to give my future wife and children a decent living. If I’m lucky enough to have children.” He took her hand and enclosed it in both of his. They were warm and they trembled a little. “Vinita, would you consider marrying me?”
The Unexpected Son Page 13