“No, no, no.” And then I was saying it over and over—I did it—almost becoming addicted to the sound of the sentence, but then I stopped, lest it become itself a kind of absolution, like the rhythm of a bodily penance. “I did it, and I just live with that. Always.”
Chidi bowed his head. He waited for me to catch my breath.
“If you insist on carrying that around,” he said, “find a way to make it make you better.”
We talked still later into the night, and eventually reached the matter of the bridal jewelry and Anita’s mother, the suspected affair, and Lakshmi Joshi’s inkling that wedding gold could contain the particular energy Anjali Auntie needed to get back on her feet.
“It sounds risky,” he said. He was rubbing his palms together with glee. Chidi considered himself antiestablishment. He was all free information this and end copyrights that; during his youth he’d even once tried to release monkeys from a Berkeley primate lab. He was better suited for outlaw life than I. “Is it all planned out?”
“Actually, I could use your help. Could you still print good imitation gold?”
“Ohhh. To replace the shit? I’d need photographs.”
“Anita could do that . . . take pictures of a few vendors’ stock for, say, an ad brochure.”
He nodded. “I could manage. Nothing fantastic, but convincing at a glance.”
“Fuck,” I said. “I mean. That’d be amazing—I could—would you want some? Lemonade, I mean? In exchange?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. Judith and I are moving in together.”
I stared around our apartment, thinking how it would never be able to contain three bodies comfortably—and then I realized.
“You want to leave.” I managed not to say the full sentence: you want to leave me.
“Yeah,” he said. “So I don’t really want the knockoff version of this happy-home-happy-life-happy-wife shit. But you’re not seriously going to start all that all over again, are you?” He glanced around the room awkwardly. “I wasn’t expecting to come back from summer to find so much of my coke gone. Were you partying that much?”
“I’ll pay you back. And I’ve switched back to Adderall,” I said. “Better for endurance.”
“I just . . . I get your thing with substances a little better now.”
“You love drugs, Chidi.”
“I do them no more than once a week, as a strict rule.”
“Do you have it on your calendar or something?”
“My point is, Neil, that you’ve got this relationship now. Something that means something. I mean, do you see it with her?”
“It being . . .”
“You know what I mean. I saw it with Judith, really fast.”
“You wouldn’t want security? To have something to fall back on if it didn’t work out?”
“What does ‘work out’ mean? Living together for a hundred years? At least we could say we’d been something to each other for a while. Maybe Anita doesn’t have to be, like, the start of your nuclear family. I mean, why do you devote your life to these institutions we invented for different times—universities, marriage?” He was back to the push-ups now, which made everything he said come out in a rapid, sweaty pant. “The fun of California, I mean, the whole point of this place, is that there are other ways to be. Be fucking polyamorous. Be an entrepreneur. Live some other way than what they sold you on.”
Chidi had grown up with difference more readily at hand—his family did not ask him to be something specific; he was a programmer with sellable skills . . . there was no shortage of objections I could raise. But also, I didn’t want to start a fight, not when I’d just revealed so much about myself for the first time.
I talked over him: “I can’t let you do this without giving you something. It seems unfair.”
He dropped from the plank he’d been holding and raised his index finger in a little Eureka flourish. “I want to meet Anita’s mother or grandmother.”
“What? Why?”
“You said they’ve been studying the properties of gold for years.”
“Yes.” I rubbed my forehead.
“You’ve lived with me how long, and you can’t guess what I want from them?” Chidi went into the kitchen and poured from a cloudy brown growler of Judith’s homemade kombucha.
“That stuff is alive,” I said. “It grosses me out.”
“You drink gold, man.”
I laughed—actually laughed. A millimeter of this secret’s power had loosened.
Chidi was rolling on. “Those women, Lakshmi and Anjali? They must know a thing or two about alchemy.”
“Alchemy? You want to talk to them about pseudoscience?”
“Alchemy was about the pursuit of longer life. Lon-gev-i-ty! People across tons of cultures thought drinking or making gold might help prolong the human life span, you know?”
I remembered, then, Anjali Auntie talking about things like this here and there, on those afternoons while she cooked and made up lemonade batches, as I snacked greedily.
“Wait. Right,” I said, recalling a spare detail from long ago. “It came from China?”
Chidi shrugged. “China, maybe—I think it started there and traveled to India, and the Europeans got ahold of it at some point. But see—thousands of years ago these alchemists were looking into the same thing I’m studying now. Everyone wants more time, Neil. For so many reasons. So they don’t have regrets. So they can just go on a few more hikes, or meet a few more grandchildren or great-grandchildren, or see the world change. We all just want time. And soon, we’ll actually be able to give it to them.” I nodded and sighed audibly, so Chidi would remember how many times I’d heard this spiel.
“Come on,” I said. “There’s magic, and then there’s nonsense.”
10.
His name, I found out later, was Mukund Jhaveri, though he preferred Minkus. This was a sobriquet of his own choosing, because the other option, first floated in second grade by an unoriginal bully, was Monkey. Minkus had purchased his first gun ten years earlier and taken his first shots eight years before that.
Anita had invited the Decatur, Georgia–based Jhaveri Bazaar Jewelers to the Santa Clara expo along with many other renowned gold dealers nationwide. Jhaveri was one of those Atlanta shops whose wares Anjali Auntie had always praised—high quality, intentionally designed, “as good as what Kaveri Padmanaban brings back from Tanishq.” Anita had not expected Mr. Jhaveri to accept a cross-country summons. It was merely good practice to get the expo’s name out there for future events. But the elder Jhaveri had given her an eager call back, saying his son was opening a new branch in Fremont—“Same-caliber pieces, I assure”—and could use the exposure.
When Anita met Minkus at the new store, he looked everywhere but at her. His eyes remained on his phone, and she thought she heard pornographic grunts streaming from it when she returned from the bathroom. Distractible, perfect, she thought. He was large, though not intimidating. She shook his hand and told him his wares would be most welcome at the expo.
She did not know then that Minkus was the proud owner of a Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter, or that he possessed a concealed-carry permit in Georgia, though not yet in California. Minkus’s love affair with guns had begun in part because Jhaveri Bazaar Jewelers had been the target of an armed robbery when Minkus was ten. He was doing his homework in the back room. The sun was setting, the whole strip mall closing up. Gopi D-Lites Idli Shop and Kulkarni Sweets and Merchant Grocers were lowering their metal grates for the night. The elder Jhaveri was puttering around, slow in closing, flimsy in a way his son, who was coming to believe in manhood as an essential concept, loathed. When the men in balaclavas, burly and big-voiced, kicked open the door and waved their pistols, the father put one hand on his son’s head and said, “Down, beta.”
Ineradicable was the feeling of h
is father’s hand bowing him before the men, who took some forty thousand dollars’ worth of gold and cash that night. He remembered it when his neighbors said he could come deer hunting with them anytime he liked. He remembered it when his father said he didn’t think going and shooting-shmooting things was such a nice hobby. He remembered it when he returned home from hunting, suffused with the splendid smell and smoke of the reeling weapon.
Minkus Jhaveri, the unlikely violent offender arrested at the Santa Clara bridal expo on October 22, 2016, told the India Abroad reporter who came to visit him in jail that one of the things that most disgusted him about the modern Indian American identity was just how weak we as a people had turned out to be. “The guys I grew up around,” he said—and here the reporter rather dramatically described him as leaning forward with panther-like eyes—“they knew. They knew the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And I keep telling everyone who asks, I was right about that little fucker. He was a bad guy.”
* * *
• • •
The convention center looked like a spaceship, its body outfitted with high white sails peacocking at you. Gaggles of desi women poured out of Hondas and Toyotas, eyes ablaze with the reflected red text of the conference center Jumbotron—dulhania bridal expo 2016: try on your future.
I parked . . . aisle C, row 32, memorize it . . . All around me were brides and their mothers and their cousins and their friends. “Mehendi, you do, I’ll talk to caterers . . .” “Why does he want a horse like some flashy-splashy Punjabi?” “Ankit did his baraat in one Rolls-Royce; these days everything is very post-horse.”
I located Prachi in the doorway. Around her neck hung a hot pink lanyard and a laminated card announcing kiss me, i’m a bride! She twirled it so I could see the back. Fat green bubble letters stacked to form the shape of a wedding cake: prizes prizes prizes! win free trip to india. win couples cruise to bahama’s.
“I can’t believe Anita works here,” my sister said.
“She doesn’t work here. She’s just doing some freelance stuff between jobs. But we should find her at some point.”
We passed through the metal detectors. A single chubby guard was half-heartedly scanning women whose jewelry, belts, shoes, and multiple electronic devices kept setting off the alarms. “Keep it moving, keep it moving,” he intoned, unconcerned.
I took out my phone, seeing that I had few bars and shoddy 4G once inside. I assumed Anita’s Wi-Fi interferers were already at work. Chidi had helped us choose and test them at our house, and once briefly as we did a lap around the future crime scene. The melee would also serve as neat cover. This place was (ironically, despite the demography of the expo) not equipped for tech support. A failure would be difficult to amend.
“I’m surprised you wanted to come, little brother.” Prachi pulled me in for a hug.
I flushed, afraid that when she released me she might see my shadow of shame. I looked away from her, over at a cluster of flat-chested prepubescent girls practicing a sangeet-ready Bollywood routine, bony hips popping. “Don’t go shimmying the booty on ‘Sheila ki Jawani,’” one scolded. “It’s on ‘I’m too sexy for you!’”
We wandered for the first thirty minutes, gazing upon the carnival, Prachi with wide eyes that were somehow moved. I recalled that she’d believed in the promise of the Miss Teen India crown, too, believed that a room full of desis fetishizing a culturally commodified India together could access some truth about what it meant to be both Indian and, like, American.
“Wouldn’t you groomsmen look wonderful in that pistachio color? Oh, yuck, look, up close it’s sort of more vomit-green . . . Neil, duck, that’s Gayathri, Renuka Auntie’s daughter, and we didn’t send them a save-the-date. . . .” Someone in full whiteface sobbed at a makeover counter. “All the foundations, they’re making me look like a freaking ghost.”
A food court on the second floor gave brides the opportunity to sample the samosas and paneer that would inevitably end up on their wedding menus. (Prachi: “Hey, do you think someone would do collard green pakoras?”) A runway show was scheduled on the third floor at noon. (Prachi: “You’re kidding me—Bubu Mirani? Manish Motilal? Monika Dongre?”) A fashion show, followed by a raffle—the raffle—at four. (Prachi, unbidden, pulling a ticket from a dispenser: “Let’s not miss that!”)
In the mix was a DJ booth manned each hour by a new spinner; notepads were extracted from purses and people listened, seeking the right mix of Pitbull and Pritam. We stopped so Prachi could swoon at one bearded artiste—DJ Jai Zee—wearing dark gas-station-quality sunglasses and beating an enormous dhol.
I was finding it hard to breathe. The smell of baby powder and rose-water perfumes mingled with something deep-frying in the food court. Above us, the sun peeked through, throwing rhomboid patches of light on an Indian flag dangling from one of the beams.
I had the last of my summer’s coke supply in my pocket. I hadn’t touched the stuff since before things had begun with Anita, and I hadn’t made up my mind about whether I wanted to make use of it today. But I was weighing what that bump or two could bring me. I shoved my hand in my pocket. Help was just a trip to the bathroom away.
* * *
• • •
Prachi and I disembarked from the escalator on the third floor to find Anita power-stomping through a swarm of photographers. Girls posed in front of white backdrops. (“Toss your dupatta, now, it’s your wedding day, best damn day of your life, that’s it.”) Wearing a black pencil skirt and blazer and a black almost-pleather top, Anita looked like a candle wax, whip-wielding dominatrix. I was not opposed to the sartorial choices. She waved a walkie-talkie.
“Guess who demanded a location switch-up at the last second,” she said through clenched teeth. “The photographers wanted to be near the retail people, so girls could have their ‘pics snapped.’” (Air quotes, demarcating the fobby phrasing.) “Oh gosh, hi, Prachi.”
The former pageant rivals hugged.
Prachi glanced curiously at a square-jawed photographer cleaning his lens in front of a banner reading raja rani photos: be royalty on your special day. Behind him, so many people’s special days collaged on top of one another. Dark brown eyes and richly hennaed hands stroking bearded jawlines.
“Ooh, I’d love a photo.” My sister pointed.
Something sputtered on Anita’s walkie-talkie.
“Linda?” Anita pressed her lips to the speaker. “All good?”
“Ooh, honey!” came the voice. “Just playing around! These are so new . . .”
Anita lowered the device and rolled her eyes. “This event liaison I have to coordinate with from the convention center is a moron; anyway, I tried to leave her with the interns . . .”
“The raffle?” I reminded Prachi.
“Yes, have you got your ticket?” Anita said. “You don’t want to miss that.”
“I think so . . .” Prachi dug in her purse, then pulled out the ticket with her left hand, which allowed Anita to squeal: “Oh, my god—can I see the ring?” She gripped my sister’s palm gleefully, staring at the ticket rather than the conflict-free diamond, memorizing the fated-to-win numbers. “It’s elegant; he did well, your man. Hey. I’ll catch you guys in a little, yeah?”
The play, beginning. I had hoped that at this moment my mind would go suddenly clear, my stomach would stop flipping, and I would automatically slide into the script, which we had so carefully written, edited, and rehearsed. But instead, I felt myself rapidly reduced to some liquid approximation of myself. I was going to fuck it up if I didn’t do something—
“Prachi,” I said. “Can I leave you here for your photo?”
I veered away and met Anita in front of the black curtain cordoning off a temporary office for her on the margins of the event. She pulled me through the drapery and reached under the metal folding table she’d set up as a desk, extracting a tote bag fi
lled with several jewelry-crammed Ziplocs. Chidi’s forgeries, which he’d dropped at her apartment en route to an investor meeting that morning.
“Divided by vendor, right?” I pulled one up. It was labeled in Sharpie with a private code in Anita’s bubble handwriting.
Several camera lenses fell on us: beady eyes where the walls met the ceilings. Black ringed by flashing dark blue, a cop car’s lights at night.
“The Wi-Fi interferer’s working already,” Anita said softly. “I had to bring it in before they turned on the metal detectors. And the security booth guy is a nonissue. I brought him a tray full of free chai and spilled it all over the controller.” I realized her corsety top was streaked with dark stains. She pressed the tote to my chest. Her eyes were wide and her limbs trembling. I kissed her dryly on her forehead and stuffed the tote into my messenger bag.
“Let’s go,” I said. “And congrats—this is a total shitshow. I never imagined you’d be able to plan something so disorganized.”
“Thanks,” she said. She sniffed. “It ought to keep the interns busy. But I’m not sure . . .” She seemed to be gripped by an atmospheric agitation. “I just need to know,” she said in a brittle voice. “Like, you’re okay here, right? You’re in control?”
“What does that mean?”
“Don’t get pissed. I just need to know,” she stammered, “that you remember why we’re doing this. That it’s for my mother, first and foremost. And we can talk about whether it’s a good idea for you to have some later, but my mom—”
The walkie-talkie on her desk crackled.
Gold Diggers Page 24