Sitting up straight, Sunil inhaled sharply. Looking around the bar, he spotted Liza, with whom he worked at the bookstore. Committed lefty, funny, smart, and not unattractive. He waved her over and introduced her to his friend, saying, “I think you two might like each other. Erik is from a socialist country. He also likes Fitzgerald.” And Sunil slipped away.
The sky was black and blue and, above the clot of city lights, abundant with stars. Sunil found the moon and followed it all the way home.
The next week, as his momentum snowballed, Sunil increased his trips to Dunkin’ Donuts to twice, sometimes three times a day. He took time to look around him while he walked: signs in Spanish, the salsa music bursting from bodegas as early as seven in the morning, the lingering aroma of fried rice, the passed-out drunks using their arms for pillows. Sunil thought coffee would help his constipation, which had been plaguing him like a terrible metaphor come to life. Because although he was producing more and more pages, he was running headlong into fierce objections—many of them in the work of his advisers. Though he knew one standardly “killed one’s fathers” in a dissertation, it felt disloyal and awkward and like biting off the hand that fed him. He drank the supersized cups greedily. For a couple of days he was high enough to overcome this new angst. Aside from morning bagels, he did not need food; hunger helped push him through from morning until night. He thought of Double-D Berman. Of Bimal selling plastic parts to businessmen around the world. He loved his brother, but such could not be his life. He wanted something that had sprung from his own mind.
On the third day he felt weak and dizzy, but he charged on. Ignored all but the words. On the evening of the fourth day, he kneeled on the floor and vomited a thin stream of bile into the toilet. He splashed his face with water, pulled the towel rack down on his head. What seemed like hours later, he found himself in bed, strapped down by a nightmare. There was blood, but from where? Shots rang out continuously, almost musically, and the maggots of his dreams feasted on mounting corpses. He was beaten to a pulp by a stick-wielding Maasai.
When he woke up, he called Lieberman’s office. No answer. A glass of water later, back on his butt on the floor, he tried again, and she picked up.
“It’s Sunil,” he managed to say. “I’m just wondering, did you get the pages I sent you?”
“Yes. Why? My father was ill. I had to fly to Tel Aviv to nurse him.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. He’s declining.” After a pause, in mock corporatese, she said, “How may I help you?”
“I really want to know what you think of those pages.”
“When can you come in to talk?”
He put a hand on his belly, which rumbled, then to his temples, which throbbed. “Um, good question.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Not sure.”
“Sunil, are you all right? You sound sick. Out of it.”
“You could say that.” He was beginning to regret calling, feeling uncomfortable with the intimacy of the telephone, her voice so close.
There was silence, and he hard her slow breathing. “Where do you live?” she finally said.
He told her.
“Fine. It’s on my way home.”
She showed up an hour later with a ramen cup of soup. “It was all I had in the office.” She looked around his dingy apartment and took a tentative seat in one of the hardbacked kitchen chairs. “I read your pages on the plane ride home. They’re excellent. The only reason I’m here is because you sounded in danger of giving up, and that would be a tragedy. Now,” she said and put her elbows on the table, leaning forward, “the problem you lay out for the realist, your demonstration that whichever way he turns, he is faced with an implausible conclusion, this is exactly right.”
She smiled, yet her eyes were serious, a contrast that made him smile; and she took this as encouragement, perhaps a compliment, maybe even a flicker of interest, of desire, and smiled back even more widely and invitingly. In this moment, he thought her beautiful. She readily understood the challenges he posed to the moral realist, and why they made him queasy. Why not knowing if objective moral truths existed would turn his world upside down. She didn’t know how important it had been to him, in particular, to believe in a morally correct course—he had not told her anything about his upbringing, about his mother—but she was sympathetic to his crisis of belief.
She told him now, as Erik had, and as she had once before, when she had warned him about anarchy, to ignore the qualms about how he lived. But she said it in the forceful Israeli voice he associated with her seminar, and not in the irritatingly sensible and passionless Norwegian way Erik had of putting things. He had to try to blinker himself to anxieties—to any thoughts at all—about his life. When he voiced his worries about potential objections in the literature, she said emphatically, “Those are not insurmountable.” And he believed her.
Then she did something even more suprising than coming to his apartment in the first place. She sent him to his computer. “A thousand words. Just to get you going. Then you take a shower and we go for a walk.” To show she didn’t mind waiting, she pulled papers out of her sleek leather satchel.
As he sat at the desk in his bedroom, his whole body was aware of her presence, just as the back of his neck and the tips of his ears had always known what Amy was up to—and if he’d not known for sure, he’d called out to her. It was sexist and said something weird and terrible about his independence, but he felt relieved to have Rivka in the apartment.
When he was finished, they headed out his front door and into the warm evening. Exhilarated, he told her what he had written, and she nodded vigorously, interposing suggestions as he outlined further how the realist was boxed in at every turn.
To Sunil’s relief, the glimmer of attraction that had been sparked by her arrival at his kitchen table gradually faded. When they passed Szechuan Garden, and Sunil mentioned that it was good, better than it looked with its cafeteria bright lights and split-leather seats, she said, “Let’s go in. I’m starving.”
Over burning-hot eggplant and a fiery cumin lamb dish, as well as several beers, they talked not only about Sunil’s dissertation but Rivka’s own new project, which she was just beginning to sketch out. Then she walked him back to his apartment. She looked apprehensively at his front door. “Good night!” she said with awkward brightness, and Sunil was flushed with gratitude. And struck, too, that tomorrow, Saturday, he would have to again face his work alone. He fidgeted with the keys in his pocket.
She eyed him closely. “Tomorrow, should we meet at a café?”
He nodded, relieved.
They met at ten in the morning and worked, separately, through lunch. Sunday they met for dinner to talk about what he’d written. The following afternoon, they went back to his apartment so he could retrieve and reread part of Gibbard’s Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. As he found the right passage, he was again overcome with appreciation for Rivka’s fine balance of intelligent insistence, threats, assurance, and warmth. This feeling kept him going all afternoon, entering a kind of fugue state, while she, sitting with bare feet tucked under her, worked as well. He had never felt so good, so optimistic. He did not fear another overcaffeinated crash once she left—though he did not want her to leave just yet. Every now and then, when he came into the kitchen for more water (he’d learned his lesson about hydration), he caught her looking around nervously, as if someone might be spying on them. But their easy rapport appeared to wash away her concern. In these moments, their arrangement struck him as so necessary as to be natural.
Still he knew that after today she could not come back. Her time with him was indefensible. Many leagues beyond inappropriate. Just as he knew that there was no earthly excuse for him kissing her back when, after a final, parting beer, she packed up her sleek bag and said goodbye, standing in the doorway of his apartment building, half inside, half on the stoop
leading to the street, the pinkish sunset clouds tingeing her hair red.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, pulling away.
She looked startled, distraught, yet somewhat hopeful. About what, he was not sure. Because the way she’d looked behind him then, at something over his shoulder, then turned to the street, to the scattered chip bags and cracked concrete, made him think that she not only understood him but also agreed and was admitting that the force of his gratitude and relief had momentarily overwhelmed her as well. But then she found his eyes and gripped his gaze and told him in a tight voice that he was remarkable. Rather, his project, his work—not him. Right? But then why was she still standing so close?
He’d delayed, irredeemably. He wanted her close. Did not want her to leave. Took unforgivable pleasure in the intensity of her approval. In the still-present feel of their talk. Her dedication to his project, to him, to his fulfilling his requirements—he knew it was not selfless.
His acceptance of it, obviously, had been entirely selfish.
12.
[07 h: 05 m]
Some were surprised by the violence, but not me. This country has always gone through cycles of pain. You know how the sun first parches the land, then the rain clouds drench it? Sometimes there are only shallow puddles to drink, other times we are drowning.
Africans grew bolder and more desperate after Independence. Nairobi burst its seams as people moved in droves from the countryside. And when there are more men than jobs, men with families to feed, ruthlessness takes hold. The education system started off with a bang, free for all, really a thing to be proud of, but then it unraveled. You know, you have seen it. Thievery increased, then the violent crimes and murders. Yes, people to whom we gave opportunities!
When the rage boiled over, you were already teenagers. 1982. You remember? Your mother took you out of the city, to the coast.
The morning of the coup, all of Nairobi woke to a commotion like we had never heard. Your grandmother rushed to the window, and I had to take her to the floor, out of sight. Hold that stubborn woman down by her plait. She thinks she can protect herself, and I have to say, listen, these are soldiers. Soldiers ran through the streets, took over Voice of Kenya, announcing their new government was in charge.
After locking the women inside, I went to the store with some others to protect our goods, and there were soldiers all through the bazaar, running, pulling men out. They stormed into the shop, shouting, guns smacking, arms flying. A young man, a skinny thing, face black as night and eyes wide with power, gripped me by the shoulders and threw me against the wall. Sweat rolled down his head and his teeth shone. Mwizi! He cursed at me, spit in my face. But I saw in his eyes that he was ashamed of what he could not do for his wife and children. While the men with guns pinned us and accused us of national theft, the gang wreaked havoc. Not selecting for items of value, simply to destroy. They looted all over the city, leaving the African shops untouched. The damage was more than five hundred million shillings.
The Africans had been put down for so long that they did not have the proper time to learn to operate democracy. The British had taught nothing but segregation and force. And they were too suspicious to allow Asians, outsiders of any kind, to assist. So they bumbled, reinventing the wheel. Followed tribal divisions the British had enforced because a divided people is easier to rule. Even now their minds are still set in that way, one group pitted against the other. Moi proved to be a decent leader, though. He came down hard on those who revolted—after all, the coup had been against his government, the one he inherited from Kenyatta when the Old Man died. The coup masterminds, some members of the Air Force, were put to death. Moi understood that instability in the economic sector was bad for the country.
Our people are understanding, you know. We know what it is like to want but not to have. So we put this incident behind us. In fact, after the coup, Asians began to support the government more strongly than ever, donating to campaigns and showing our faces at rallies. You remember the time I took the grandchildren to hear that speech by President Moi? What was he talking about, something about the Cold War … My mind is so slippery these days.
When twenty-five years of Independence came around, I myself made a donation to show national spirit.
No, I am not finished.
Because there is one thing about that day, August 1, 1982, that you were too young to know at the time, but no one has forgotten. On that day, not only was my own throat squeezed, but many of our women were assaulted. You know what I am saying. In the months after, there were suicides, poor things who could not live with the shame. It is terrible even to mention these and so we do not. But I want you to understand why we give only silence when they say to us, when they clamor, Why do you not marry off your daughters to the Africans and integrate?
13.
Their father had taken a turn for the worse. Three days in hospital, a day home, today back again, trying another antibiotic for the pneumonia. Her sister said, “He waves his fingers in the air as if trying to snatch insects. Other times as if he is swimming with them, or paddling a boat. And yesterday as if shooting a gun. Imagine!”
“Do you think it is the end?” Urmila had called Sarada from the store, after-hours. She was surrounded by clothing drooping like dead leaves, the little animals pretending to keep watch. She used to enjoy the way it looked like a board game in here, a safari fantasyland where exotic adventures could happen. When the light was low, the mall quiet, an earthy scent that reminded her of Kenya’s red clay wafted up from her goods.
“The doctors say he can recover, but, you saw, he is muddleheaded. You know something strange? The other day he was asking for ‘the American’ and I think he meant Sunil.”
“He could have meant anyone. He could have meant me.”
Her sister laughed. “Who thinks of you in that way? Not even you!”
Urmila clamped a hand on the soft flesh over her diaphragm, where once laughter came from.
“It is difficult to see the decline, even though he was so hard on us,” Sarada said. “He wouldn’t let us girls do anything. Even when I was twenty I had to go to the movies with you.”
“Sometimes I would go by myself. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“No!”
“Yes, and take walks in Jeevanjee Gardens before picking you up. I found a private corner where I could enjoy the grass, without shoes.”
“This explains the stains on your socks?”
“Those came out in the wash. I was the one who did the scrubbing anyway.”
“You were not alone with the scrubbing!”
Urmila shrugged, though her sister could not see. She asked about Meena—was she going to marry this boy, the engineer from Kisumu whose parents worked with Ajay? “She would not move out there?”
“He is looking for a position in Nairobi, one of the factories outside the city.”
“She is in love?”
“This is what she says, but who can say, they have hardly spent any time,” her sister said. “And what about you. Are you missing him?”
Urmila had been considering this, and she told her sister that she hated to be alone but her husband had been such poor company, walking around in his own silent world like an astronaut in a bubble suit. Again her sister said Urmila should be living with family; they had a room at the ready. Could she really bear another Columbus winter?
“There is a bus from my new apartment, if I don’t want to drive.”
“Who are you seeing? What friends do you have?”
“I have told you about her before. The one I inspired to the flower business. And there is much more to life than a few friends.” But Urmila knew what her sister was thinking, that Maddy was just an acquaintance, a new one at that, someone who might see the surface but knew nothing of the past. In a way, this was true. But friends came in different kinds, and Urmila had long ago p
roved herself to be self-sustaining, able to carry on with little help from the outside. She would make it through again. There was work. And there was Sunil. She was still a mother, and she thought now, for the first time, with her sister hanging silently on the line, and nothing from Sunil in response to the package, that the way to her son might have to be through his wife.
The quiet was so long, Urmila thought the connection had been lost, and she raised the phone to make sure it was still plugged in.
In a circle of furry dust, she found a scrap of paper with a scrawled phone number and the name Lillian Ross, the old rich woman who had wanted to buy ivory for her husband. Urmila had been looking for this.
“Gopal has told me about your business. He says you cannot sustain, now with Premchand gone.”
It was true that sales were not high enough to keep going. Already she had discounted deeply the pieces that were not moving. Maddy told her she had only a few weeks of savings left to run on. Then a decision would have to be made: either raise more capital, or close up shop.
“Why are you poking and prodding? What help was he ever to me?”
“I don’t care about the love lost, I am talking about the money! Did you forget that you told me about all the financial arrangements? I know you are the elder, but age has no hold on perfection.”
“Never in my life have I said I was perfect.”
Urmila pictured Sarada huffing into the phone, cheeks red, heeled sandals stamping into her servant-swept floor.
“Exactly my point. Let us do what family is meant for.”
The Limits of the World Page 24