by Pia Padukone
But there he is, Nico’s Estonian exchange partner, stepping into the hall with the same look upon his face that he wore when he waited in the baggage hall at Brandenburg Airport, unsure which boy had been assigned to him. Nico waits for the current of alumni to bring Paavo toward him. Sabine is nowhere in sight, and Nico is both frustrated and grateful for her absence.
They can reach to touch one another now, initiate an awkward handshake, even grapple if one of them is quick enough to take the other down to the floor in an unexpected hold. Nico smiles and Paavo nods back, though it’s not an unfriendly gesture. Paavo has reticence in every movement, hesitance in every gesture. Nico removes the paper from his pocket and hands it to him before either of them has the chance to say anything.
Dear Paavo,
Technically, I am stronger. I’ve worked out for years. I’ve bench-pressed and pulled deadweights and squat-thrusted and run for miles. I can do a hundred push-ups and twenty-five pull-ups in a row without breaking a sweat. At least, I used to be able to do that.
But today you have to be stronger than me. You have to go beyond my foibles. You have to embrace the insecurities that I have hidden behind for years. It’ll be a more difficult task than any opponent I’ve ever wrestled or any weight I’ve ever lifted. I know that you’re a bigger person than me, because I don’t know that I could forgive myself had the situation been reversed. And I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness, but on some level, I have nothing else left to rely upon.
Just because I was strong didn’t mean I was confident. My experience with Hallström gave me a whole new kind of strength. My semester in Estonia made me feel infallible, and I wanted to help people the way that I hoped I helped you. But it also made me think that I could get what I wanted, that I could attain a level of superiority that no one should be allowed.
But my actions resulted in hurting you, in changing Mari’s life, in potentially estranging her from Estonia—though, in honesty, that was something she wanted long before I ever entered the picture. Regardless, it made her life a lot harder and she shouldn’t have had to shoulder the burden alone.
Please understand that I never meant to hurt you, or Mari. I was young, but youth shouldn’t be an excuse or an alibi. I take full responsibility for my actions. After all, if I remember anything from junior year physics, it’s that every action has a reaction.
So, I hope you’ll be kind enough to bestow the answer to this riddle upon me now:
It may only be given, not taken or bought. What the sinner desires, but the saint does not.
Paavo blinks, and looks down at the ground. He folds the paper back along the same lines and puts it in his pocket. His face breaks into a smile, the likes of which Nico has never seen on him before. When he looks up, his mouth is pursed, as though he has already uttered the word. But Nico has to lean in to hear him speak.
PAAVO
New York City
February 2014
“Forgiveness.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from WHERE EARTH MEETS WATER by Pia Padukone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
They say that the second child is much easier than the first; I wish it were true of the second book. I couldn’t have written this without:
Dear friends and family who nurtured, bolstered and elevated me throughout: Maya Frank-Levine, Shabnam Salehezadeh, Adele Kudish, Manil Suri, Prajwal Parajuly, Nikhil Mitter, Bindu and Joyshil Mitter, Marcia Riklis, Daniella Hirschfeld, Kean O’Brien, Vibhuti Patel, Ed Adams and the 115th Street New York Public Library, and the gracious folks at Harlem Mist.
Joska, Gabi, Gery and Zsofi Molnar in Budapest: once strangers, now family. There would be no story without your unharnessed ability to love.
Ed Dadey at ArtFarm Nebraska, for the invaluable time and space to clear my head, leave it all behind, and just write.
Priya Doraswamy for believing from the very beginning.
My awe-inspiring MIRA team, including Emer Flounders, whose sunny attitude makes anything seem possible. Erika Imranyi, whose keen literary instincts make everything better.
New friends in Estonia, a tiny country with a large heart: Liina Normet, Scott Diel, Mahesh Ramani, Taivo Lints.
Kamala Nair, your unwavering friendship and conscientious advice have buoyed me from the very first page.
Jennifer Field, I can’t imagine life without the levity of your humor, your infallible encouragement, your steadfast support.
Nalini Nadkarni, for your incessant, fierce love: of me, of books, of words.
Maitreya Padukone, for more than just happening to be there; for truly being there.
Rohit Mitter, for supporting me: intimately, inexorably, ineffably.
Neil Padukone, for a whole lot more than you will allow me to publish; for reinforcing me in far more ways than I can begin to express.
Nina Padukone, you are the strongest person I know. Thank you for championing and pushing me every single time I wanted to give up, and inciting an insatiable, fiery ambition deep within the recesses of my soul.
Salma Padukone-Mitter: I wrote much of this book while I was expecting you. I cannot thank you enough for being a gentle, serene tenant on the inside and for inspiring me to be the best version of myself every single day since you emerged. I can’t wait to see how your story unfolds.
“[Padukone] writes with grace and wit.”
—Booklist on Where Earth Meets Water
If you loved The Faces of Strangers by Pia Padukone, then you won’t want to miss her poignant and breathtaking debut—a story of grief in the wake of tragedy, strength in the face of adversity and the redemptive power of love:
Where Earth Meets Water
“Smart and insightful. A worthy addition to the burgeoning field of new Indian literature.”
—New York Times bestselling author Gary Shteyngart
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Where Earth Meets Water
by Pia Padukone
Karom
From the first morning that Karom awakes in Gita’s grandmother’s house, he can tell that their time in Delhi is going to be different from the rest of their trip. They arrive late at night from Agra, and as they drag their suitcases up to the second floor, Gita caresses the nameplate outside Ammama’s apartment lightly, leaving a small wake in the dust with her fingers. “Huh,” she says. “That’s new.” Kamini Pai, it reads. Before Karom has a chance to ask what she means, they are tumbling into the small flat, sandy from road silt and Indian rail travel, blinking under the fat fluorescent tube lights like a pair of bears emerging from a long winter’s hibernation. After formal introductions and sleepy smiles, they fall into bed, Karom in the living room, Gita in her grandmother’s room, surrendering to sleep miles away from any nettlesome insect buzzing or monotonous calls to prayer that echo through the compound. The night passes swiftly, gathering snatches of reality and combining them with fancy, translating and then siphoning them into their ears so that they dream vividly, solidly.
But then, in the early morning, in fact for each of the mornings for the six days they stay with Ammama in her small flat, a gong rings somewhere outside that sounds like a frying pan being hit with a metal spoon. Karom cautiously opens one eye to peer at his vintage Rolex, perched carefully on the chair he is using as a bedside table. Five forty-five. This is when Ammama pads into the sitting room, where Karom sleeps on the hard wooden pallet, his legs tangled in the threadbare sheets, his skin cool and clammy from nightly sweat
s. She presses a damp cloth on his forehead and he feigns sleep, unsure of how to react, rigidly aware of Gita asleep in the next room. She lowers herself onto the slate floor beside him with a towel under her knees. She swipes a line of vermilion across the hollow in her throat, directly in the center of her clavicle and, depending on how Karom is situated, mirrors the gesture on him. She closes her eyes, reopens them immediately to ensure that Karom is still sleeping, sucks in her breath and lets out a slew of Sanskrit. Karom yearns for the sweet, strong cold coffee that she places inches away from him—he can smell the chicory as the fan gathers the scent into the air—but is afraid that Ammama will see him awake and either make him participate in her ritual or scurry away in embarrassment.
He is touched that she has remembered his love for cold coffee, that it is a sacred thing in India. Back home in New York City, there is only iced coffee: simply ice dumped on top of coffee that becomes immediately diluted and insipid. Cold coffee is creamy, strong and pure. He waits until she finishes mumbling her indecipherable words, heaves herself to her feet and leaves the room. It is only once he hears the crescendo of the bucket being filled for her bath that he dares to reach for the drink, beads of sweat gathered around the base of the brass tumbler.
On their third day in Delhi, he tells Gita as they step out into the street and the blinding light of the premonsoon summer.
“She comes into my room in the mornings,” he says. “With a tray of perfectly ripe bananas, a glass of cold coffee and a cold compress that she puts on my forehead. She kneels down next to my bed and mutters under her voice. It’s hard to tell with the whirring of the fan, but I’m pretty sure she’s praying.”
“Get out,” Gita says, hitting him playfully on the chest, smiling broadly. “What do you do?”
“Nothing,” Karom says, stepping over an open sewage grate. “I pretend to sleep. What else am I supposed to do?”
Gita chuckles.
“It’s not funny,” he says. “She’s so sweet, but the whole thing is incredibly awkward.”
“It’s only for three more days,” Gita says. “Hang in there. She’s a sweet old lady who’s attached to her rituals. I’m sure she’s only doing it out of love.”
The perfectly ripe bananas don’t escape Gita. She won’t eat a banana with even a spot of brown on it, and Ammama presumes this condition extends to Karom. But it irks Gita that each day, the only bananas that remain on the breakfast table are either the ones from the day before, which Ammama will eventually turn into halwa, or those that are still green and will leave a film on Gita’s tongue and a waxy taste in her mouth long after she’s eaten one.
“You’re not going to say anything to her?” Karom asks.
“What could I possibly say to her, Karom?” Gita responds. She is still thinking about the new nameplate outside the door. It’s the first time during all her years of traveling to India that she has seen her grandmother’s name proudly proclaiming her ownership of the apartment; previously it held her grandfather’s name, a grandfather she’s never met.
Karom knows there are some skeletons in Ammama’s dusty closet, unopened for years. Gita has danced around the details of Ammama’s past, but Karom understands that there is more to the old lady than even Gita is aware of. This became apparent when they originally discussed visiting India months before their trip.
“Visiting India,” Gita had said at brunch in New York, “involves seeing my family. There’s no way I could avoid it.”
“And I’m thrilled about it,” Karom had replied. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“It’s not that easy. Visiting together, like this, for the first time...” Gita struggled for words as her eyes flitted over Karom’s plate. “You know how people think over there.”
“Let them think,” Karom said, spearing a large bite of stuffed French toast onto his fork and holding it out to Gita. He knew that she would take it without a fight, that it was a naughty departure from the egg-white omelet that sat in front of her. He knew it would keep her quiet while she chewed, giving him time to take control of the conversation. But it was she who managed to reveal a new side of her family.
Karom cut up another square of his French toast as Gita was chewing, layering it onto his fork into levels until he could no longer see the tines. He held it dangerously close to Gita’s mouth, the cream cheese touching her lip. She looked at him and then the food, back and forth like a cross-eyed little girl.
“You’re such a tease,” she said, before taking the bread in one bite. “Ammama won’t judge us, though. She’s safe.”
“Safe?”
“Life was hard in India over there back then,” Gita proclaimed matter-of-factly, forking the remainder of his French toast onto her own plate, cutting and chewing between sentences.
“How do you mean?”
“Ammama is living proof of a marriage gone wrong. She’s lived alone most of her adult life. She’s what the rest of my family calls ‘a freethinker.’”
* * *
En route to Ammama’s house, they’d stopped at the Taj Mahal. Karom had wanted to spend the whole day at the mausoleum, watching the arc of the sun travel over the domed eggshell marble. He’d read a National Geographic article about how the sun changes the color of the marble depending on its angle throughout the day. The photos displayed the dome over twenty-four hours: pink, prenatal and shy in the dawn hours, citrine-yellow at midmorning, blinding white at high noon. It appeared as a completely different structure each moment, and Karom loved the unpredictability of it. The same ubiquitous structure that the world knew so intimately displayed so many different personalities. Had Shah Jahan meant to capture his beloved wife’s multifaceted character? Her casual morning softness, her dour depression at having lost seven of her children, while constantly displaying the fierce, unfailing love she had for her husband? What made the Taj so emotional, changing over the course of the day depending on its mood? How had this feat been accomplished so many hundreds of years ago, when just the building of an edifice of this size had seemed impossible? Karom couldn’t wait to watch its metamorphosis right before his very eyes.
But the train to Agra hadn’t shown, and the Jaipur station from which they were departing had been overflowing with passengers, occupying all the benches or peering uselessly into the distance over the tracks. Karom watched Gita approach a tour guide who was playing games on his cell phone. She smoothed her hair behind her ears and spoke to him for a few minutes before she returned to Karom and told him about the strike.
“I saw an STD booth over there,” he said. “I’m going to call Lloyd. I’d forgotten that he’s leaving for his bachelor party one of these days. I hope I can catch him.” She watched him lope off toward the dusty shack set back from the railroad platform, where he opened a glass door and slid inside.
* * *
When he returned, the two of them sat on the platform, leaning their backs against one another for support, summoning the strength for the wait that loomed ahead. Karom unhooked his watch and reread the inscription on the underside of the face. It felt like a brand-new gift each time.
Together we learn there’s nothing like time.
The strength he drew from this little mantra had made it possible to get through grueling days of struggling with the right word for a headline at the advertising agency where he worked, made it a little easier to stomach shelling out three figures for underwhelming plays and frustrating tiffs that he and Gita always managed to spark just before bedtime. The words rolled over in his mind and across his tongue when he needed something to concentrate on, while he was training for his first road race, and then a 10K, and then a full marathon. And during those moments, when he had to stop and check his patient pulse, when he could feel it bleating slowly but capably under the thin skin of his under-wrist, he repeated these words to himself.
Karom looked down a
t the platform beneath him, spackled red with paan spit. He traced one of the spatters with the toe of his sandal. Animals on safari, he thought. There’s the elephant trunk, holding on to a hippo’s tail, an alligator? No, a gecko, one of the household varieties that Gita screamed at until I chased it out of our tent in Jaisalmer.
Back home, in the subways of New York City, Karom liked to peer over the edge of the platform into the depths of the tunnels, waiting diligently for that crescent of light to appear reflected on the sheen of the tracks, holding until the headlights finally appeared and the silver cars careened into the station. At times, when the tunnel was long without any hidden curves, he could see the train’s headlights a full station away. He could watch it amble down the stretch toward him, teasing him with its proximity. But most of the time, the delightful snatch of light wouldn’t give itself away until the last minute, when it came peeking around the bend. Karom loved this dance with the train but simultaneously worried himself over how long it would take to appear. Most nights, when service was delayed or curtailed, he paced back and forth, his ears perking up at the faintest of rumblings, which sent him scurrying to perch his toes over the perimeter of yellow paint that warned passengers not to cross this line.
Once, the transit police who were loitering up and down the platform had approached him as he peered down the tunnel. “Sir,” the officer had said. “I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the platform edge. It’s for your own safety.”
When they’d first taken the subway together years before, Karom’s platform behavior had made Gita nervous.
“You stand so close to the edge,” she’d said, tugging at his hand. “Please come back.”
“It’s just a game,” Karom had said. “I lean over until I have to lean back.”