One Amazing Thing (14 page)

“I had to fire you, of course. I had no choice. Though I hate to lose you—you have the instincts of a true beautician. But you must leave Coimbatore right away. It isn’t safe here for you anymore. Mrs. Balan can’t harm me, but you’re a different matter. She could easily hire a goonda and have him throw acid in your face—”

I panicked. “Where will I go?”

Lola dug into the pocket of her smock and took out an envelope and a pouch. It struck me that she had known, before I knew it myself, that I would come to see her. “Here’s a letter of introduction to my nephew who works in Hyderabad. I spoke to him about you, and he said that he would help. He told me some of the Indian consulates abroad are looking for employees. One of the hiring officers is an old classmate of his. But the employees have to know English.” She handed me the pouch. “Take this money. My nephew and his wife have agreed to rent out a room in their house to you. He’ll find you an English teacher. And when your English is good enough, he’ll take you for an interview.”

I didn’t have the words to thank her, so I hugged her instead.
She patted me awkwardly on the back. She was uncomfortable with displays. “Just keep your temper, the next place you go,” she said. “And when you’ve saved enough dollars, come back and open a salon in a better city.” She looked as though she might say something more, but then she didn’t.

At the end of the alleyway, I turned to wave, but she had gone inside. She was a practical woman, with a roomful of clients waiting.

A
fter Malathi finished her story, Uma didn’t want to return to the present. It was so pleasant in Lola’s pink salon, moist and cool, with its herbal shampoos, sandalwood paste, and the calm, ministering hands of Lola’s girls. Even the heat that ambushed you when you emerged from air-conditioning onto the noisy street was a gift. She wanted to know what it was that Lola had almost said to Malathi at the end.

The others were discussing Malathi’s characters with vigor. Mrs. Pritchett puzzled over Mrs. Balan’s Machiavellian tactics. How could one woman be so cruel to another? Jiang said Mrs. Balan really couldn’t feel for Nirmala because she had been brought up to dismiss a servant as a lesser being. Lily thought Lola was cool, and she, too, would have liked to work at Lovely Ladies and listen in on high-society scandals. The beauty shop that Lily’s mother frequented on Van Ness was run by a mousy Taiwanese woman with braces. The one time her mother had forced Lily to get her eyebrows done there before a school musical performance, Lily had almost died from boredom. All the aunties talked about was how well their children were doing in school, and who had won which award. Did Malathi remember any of the tricks she had learned at
the salon? Malathi’s teeth glimmered in the beam from Cameron’s flashlight. (Had he changed the batteries? Uma wondered. She tried to recall how many batteries had been in the bag, but she couldn’t remember that far back, and trying made her head hurt.) Malathi promised Lily that if they ever got out of here, she would give her a hibiscus oil head massage that would make her feel like a princess.

No one spoke of the two people who were most on their minds until Tariq, in his blunt way, said, “Why would Nirmala do something so stupid, give up Ravi for a creep like Gopalan?”

“Maybe he offered luxury that a girl like her, brought up in a shack, just couldn’t turn down,” Mrs. Pritchett said. “You can’t blame her.”

“That night at Gopalan’s house, she must have realized that Mrs. Balan would not let her son marry a servant,” Jiang said. “Perhaps she thought, if I do not take this offer, next thing, my body will be in a ditch somewhere.”

“Maybe she couldn’t imagine refusing a man as powerful as Gopalan,” Uma said. She wondered if Gopalan had raped Nirmala. Coming from a background where virginity was the paramount virtue for women, Nirmala would have had no option after that.

“But what about Ravi?” Mrs. Pritchett said, with some force.

“I don’t think Ravi was in love with Nirmala,” Lily said. “It was probably infatuation because she was so different from the girls he knew. Maybe he was secretly relieved because she went with Gopalan—like when you have a boyfriend you don’t really like anymore, but you can’t tell them, and then they start going out with someone else.”

Malathi said, “I suspect Ravi saw Nirmala with Gopalan and felt she was spoiled for him. He didn’t want her anymore. But his
ego was hurt that she was with someone else. So he picked the first girl his mother sent near him.”

“Could be Ravi’s heart was broken,” Mangalam said. Uma heard a snort from Malathi, but Mangalam continued. “Could be he felt betrayed by Nirmala after he had taken such a risk for her, going against his parents. That must have been hard for him, being the only child and knowing they had all their hopes pinned on him. I think he chose that other woman because he was hurting.”

Malathi drew herself up, ready to debate the issue. But just then Cameron said, “Hush. Listen.” In the silence carved out by his imperative, they heard a creaking, yawing sound—like an abandoned ship rolling back and forth on a misty sea, Uma thought. The sound filled her with an eerie melancholy.

“What is it?” Mr. Pritchett asked, his voice sharp with distrust.

“The ceiling on the other side of the room; you can’t see it because of the partition,” Cameron said. “A part of it—hopefully not a very big one—is getting ready to come down. Don’t panic—the portion above our heads”—here he swung the flashlight up—“seems stable enough. But we must have a plan ready in case that ceiling, too, starts breaking apart. Under normal circumstances, I would tell you to get under the tables—not that we’d all fit. But the water’s risen too high. It’ll soak your clothes. It’s too cold in here to remain in wet clothes.”

He pointed down with the flashlight and Uma saw that the water had reached halfway up the first drawer. It was very dark. Looking at it made her shiver. And Cameron was right—it had grown very cold in the room.

Cameron said, “Keep your pants rolled up and your skirts tucked high, so you can jump down at a moment’s notice. Our best bet is to stand in the doorways. We can’t use the door leading into the
passage—it’s too close to the damaged ceiling. That leaves us the two doorways into Mangalam’s office and the bathroom entrance. We should be able to squeeze everyone into them. But there’s no point sitting here waiting for that to happen. Let’s listen to our next story.”

Mr. Pritchett had not taken part in the discussion about Ravi and Nirmala. When he had finished telling his tale, a great lightness had taken over his being. But that high had faded. Now he felt more depressed than ever. He had been hoping for a comment from his wife, a validation for the suffering of the boy he had been. She had said nothing. Disappointment increased his craving for a cigarette. Within his body, things were beginning to shake. Soon they might start coming apart. He was almost certain there weren’t any broken gas lines nearby. A few puffs, with the bathroom door tightly shut, couldn’t harm anyone. He would spray the bathroom with the deodorizer afterward. No one would even know. As soon as this tiresome discussion ended, he was going to head for the bathroom.

“Tell us why you picked this story,” Uma said.

“It was the only time in my life I did something brave,” Malathi said, “even though it was a big cost for me. I don’t think I can do that again. I am too selfish. So it is special to me.”

At the mention of selfishness, Mangalam’s head jerked up as though he had not expected her to confess to such a vice.

“Does anyone need a bathroom break?” Cameron asked. People looked down at the water, weighing their need against its darkness. Mr. Pritchett waited, trying not to fidget. He didn’t want to go if there were other trekkers to the bathroom. There was only one flashlight allowed for such errands, and they would have to wait around to walk back together. They might smell the smoke.

“Well, then,” Cameron said, “let’s start a story.”

“I want Tariq to be next,” Lily said. Tariq looked startled and
not particularly pleased. Uma was sure he would say no. But he nodded at Lily and cleared his throat.

“Excuse me,” Mr. Pritchett said, jumping down before Tariq could begin. “Back in a moment.” He took the pencil light—very dim by now—that Cameron handed him. He was glad he hadn’t had to tell a lie about the purpose of his trip. He did not like lying. He sensed Mrs. Pritchett’s eyes on his back as he made his way through the icy water. Did she guess? When he thought he was out of the range of Cameron’s big flashlight, he put his hand into his pants pocket and caressed his lighter. He had almost reached the door to Mangalam’s office when he heard a splash. He turned and saw that Mangalam, too, had climbed down. “Wait for me,” he called as he hurried toward Mr. Pritchett.

Mr. Pritchett felt a futile fury surge through him. He rubbed his thumb against the serrated wheel of the lighter as though it were a magic lamp and tried to come up with another plan. Failing, he offered the pencil light to Mangalam. “You go first.”

But Mangalam, who had plans of his own, gestured solicitously and said, “No, no. After you, please.”

Mr. Pritchett walked into the bathroom and pushed the door through the water until it closed. He had to use all his self-control to keep from slamming a fist into the wall. He grabbed the edge of the sink in both his hands and held it tightly, trying to decide what to do. Could he take the chance that Mangalam wouldn’t smell his cigarette when he walked in here? No. No amount of deodorizing spray could disguise the odor of burned tobacco that quickly. Would Mangalam report him to Cameron? Very possibly. The visa officer seemed to hold the sergeant in some awe. What could the sergeant do to him, though? What could any of them do?

Nothing,
Mr. Pritchett said to his sallow reflection. At most, they would confiscate his cigarettes, but he had already hidden a
few. If they took the lighter, he could sneak a book of matches. He took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips, his hands trembling from anticipation. He could already taste the smoke.

A knocking on the door made him jump. Voices. Mangalam—and someone else. Their words were unclear but insistent. One of them jiggled the handle.

Mr. Pritchett cursed under his breath and stuffed the cigarette back into its packet, hoping he hadn’t injured it. He splashed his face with water, gasping at its coldness, and pulled the door through the water.

Cameron was standing there, his hand on the doorknob. “Are you okay? Mangalam said he called you a couple of times, but you didn’t answer.”

“I’m fine,” Mr. Pritchett said. He knew he sounded snappish, but he couldn’t help it. How much time had he spent in there? Cameron stared at Mr. Pritchett’s dripping face. Mr. Pritchett pushed past the two men into the dark. Behind him, he could hear Cameron telling Mangalam, “We’ll have to insist that people not lock the door when they go to the bathroom.” Hah, thought Mr. Pritchett. Insist away, Sarge. I’ll do what I need to. The smell of bourbon seemed to be all around him. Was nicotine withdrawal messing with his senses? In his hurry he banged his hip into something hard and metallic. Pain shot through him. He stumbled and felt one of the men grab his arm.

“Careful, buddy!” Cameron said. “The world has handed us enough problems already.”

Hadn’t he said almost the same thing to his wife a while ago? Mortified, Mr. Pritchett trudged to his table. But he wasn’t too mortified to decide that while everyone was eating, he would try his luck again.

W
hen Ammi called on my cell phone, I was sitting out on the quad with Ali and Jehangir, watching the girls walk by in skimpy outfits. It was the first warm day in weeks, with the sun out, and the girls were making the most of it. We were, too. Truth to tell, I didn’t enjoy girl-watching as much since Farah and I had become close. But I didn’t say this. Already my buddies teased me about her, though it was gentle compared to the things they would have said if I had been going with a girl who was non-Muslim and non-desi.

Farah? She’s my mother’s best friend’s daughter from India. She spent a semester with us last year. More about her later.

Out on the quad, we were ranking the girls one to ten, with ten for the hottest. For us, “hottest” meant the ones that we thought would end up in the hottest circle of Islamic hell. The things we considered were: how much of their bodies they exposed, how much makeup they wore, how loudly they laughed, and how much public display of affection they allowed. I felt guilty about this, too. If Farah knew what we were doing, she would have been mad. Though she was serious about her religion, she believed in live and let live, and she didn’t appreciate crude comments about women. I consoled
myself with the thought that the white guys I used to party with earlier would have said cruder things.

I’m not sure when I stopped paying attention to the girls and began daydreaming about Farah. We had kept in touch through e-mail since she left last year. She was a good writer, not like me. Her notes brought the smallest aspects of her daily life alive: the posters of Indian art that she had put up on the walls of the bedroom she shared with her sister; the roadside stall in Nizamuddin East that sold the best kebabs in Delhi; the intercollegiate debate where she presented arguments against the Narmada Dam Project and won a trophy; a visit to her grandmother who lived in their ancestral village where you had to hand-pump water. I had to admit that the India of her letters sounded pretty interesting.

Farah’s sister was getting married in a couple of months, and her mother had invited us to come and stay with them for the week of festivities—and for as long afterward as we could spare. Ammi was dying to go. She hadn’t been part of a traditional wedding in years. I agreed to accompany her, though I didn’t let on how excited I was at the thought of being with Farah again (and seeing her wear the zardosi lengha she had already bought for the wedding). Ammi had a tendency to jump to conclusions and then share those conclusions with the world.

Ammi had been trying to persuade Abbajan to go with us, too. His assistant manager, Hanif, she pointed out, was very trustworthy, and anyway, business was really slow. She was right. Jalal’s Janitorial Services, which my father had built from scratch into a flourishing enterprise, had lost many of its biggest customers since 9/11. Though no one came out and said it, people weren’t comfortable having Islamic cleaners going into their offices when they weren’t around. It didn’t matter that the same men had been cleaning those offices for
over a decade. Abba was too proud—or maybe too hurt—to try to persuade his clients to change their minds.

Out on the quad, when the phone rang and I saw that it was Ammi, I didn’t take the call. It was almost time for my Calculus class. The professor took off points for lateness, and I couldn’t afford to lose any points. Ammi called me almost every day, usually to ask me to pick something up from the grocery, and if she got me on the line, she would talk for a long time. She had become used to Farah’s company and was lonely now with no one at home. I figured she could leave me a message with her shopping list.

But Ammi didn’t leave a message. She hung up and called again. This was so unlike her that I answered. She was crying hard; I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Finally, I figured it out. Four men had come into Jalal’s this morning and taken Hanif and Abba. They hadn’t even let them make a call. Musa from the bakery next door had seen the whole thing happen and had phoned Ammi. He told her the men were dressed in suits and drove a black van; two of them were white and two were African American; the whole thing was over quickly. No, he didn’t think to write down the license number. He was too scared. No, they hadn’t hurt Abba or Hanif, not from what he could see, but they had been gripping them firmly by the arm.

I couldn’t afford to panic—Ammi was upset enough—but my insides felt frozen. We’d heard about things like this. Government agents, some said the FBI, would pick up people from our community. Sometimes there was a reason; often there wasn’t—at least not anything that was explained to the detainees. Some were released within a few days. For others, it took much longer. We knew men who had been deported, along with their families.

I told my friends what had happened, and Ali said right away
that he would skip class and come with me. I was in no state to drive. Ali took me home. We picked up Ammi and went on to Jalal’s. Musa was waiting for us, but he didn’t have any new information to give. We went inside the office. Everything was in its place (my father was a tidy man); there was no sign of the upheaval that had turned our lives upside down.

We phoned friends, and friends of friends—anyone we could think of. They were shocked but not of much help. A few, I sensed, were afraid of getting too closely involved, as if our bad luck might be contagious. Finally, someone put us in touch with a lawyer who specialized in such cases. He had a hefty fee, though at this point we didn’t care. Abba still hadn’t phoned us. I gave the lawyer all of Abba’s documents that I could find. One of Ammi’s cousins came to stay with us because Ammi was getting hysterical, banging her head on the floor, calling on Allah to spare her husband, and I didn’t know how to stop her.

Maybe the lawyer had friends in high places, or maybe the men who took him realized that Abba was innocent of whatever they had suspected him of doing, or maybe my mother’s desperate prayers worked. After three days Abba was returned to Jalal’s—with no more explanation than when he had been taken. Musa saw him sitting on the pavement beside the locked door of the office and called us. On Abba’s face was the vacant expression of the men who sleep on the streets. By the time we got there, Musa had taken Abba into the bakery, had helped him wash his face, and had given him a glass of lime water. But Abba just sat holding the glass. I was afraid that Ammi would go to pieces, but although her face got very pale, she drew on reserves of strength that I didn’t know she possessed.

Over the next days, she remained close to Abba. She ran her hands over each part of his body to make sure he hadn’t been injured. She talked to him about old times—their courtship and marriage,
the first house they had lived in, my antics when I was little. She sang children’s lullabies. She assured him that we loved him and would take care of him. She told him he didn’t have to talk about anything he didn’t want to, and if he preferred to forget the last few days, that was all right with her. She would forget them with him. I don’t know what a Western psychologist would have made of her methods, but my father responded to the constant flow of her soft voice. In a few days he was moving around the house, impatiently telling us he didn’t need babysitters. One evening he even helped Ammi roll out chapatis like he used to. We thought the worst was over.

Then he had the stroke.

It happened when he was alone in the family room, watching TV. When Ammi found him, he had slipped to the floor, unconscious. By the time the ambulance arrived, parts of his brain had shorted out. When we brought him home, after a lengthy and expensive hospital stay, he couldn’t move his left arm and leg.

AMMI AND I WENT BACK TO THE LAWYER; HE ADVISED US TO
let things be. There were no signs of physical torture on my father. There weren’t even official records of his having been arrested. Who would we go to, asking for reparation? It was a bad time for Muslims in America. It would be best if we didn’t stir up trouble. Besides, we were better off than many. Take the case of Hanif, who hadn’t been returned at all. No one knew where he was, or if he was alive.

To my mother, he said, “Sister, I tell you this not as a lawyer but as a fellow Muslim. What use is it to say, we are in the right and they are in the wrong? I could take your money and start a case, like I’ve done for several families. But all the cases are dragging on, with no end in sight. Better, if you have friends and family in India, to
take Jalal-Miah—and your son, if he is wise—and retire there. The dollar still goes a long way back home, and you can get servants to help with Miah’s problems. Best of all, among thousands who look like you, you’ll draw no attention. Here, you are on their radar. For all you know”—he looked pointedly at my beard—“they’re watching your son right now.” He shook his head in a way that frightened Ammi.

When Ammi returned home, she requested her closest friends—a handful of people I had called Uncle and Aunty since childhood—to come over to the house; then she asked them what she should do. My father, who had always been fiercely independent, lay helpless in his bed upstairs. The thought that we were deciding his fate twisted my heart.

At this meeting, there were arguments and raised voices, cursing and tears, and contradictory counsel. But at the end our friends admitted that given my parents’ situation, retiring in India wasn’t a bad option. They didn’t think my mother and I could keep Jalal’s Janitorial going on our own. News of my father’s “arrest” had already caused more customers to cancel their accounts. Abbajan’s medical insurance covered many things, but there were still a lot of expenses that we had to handle. I didn’t have a job—and even when I finished college, it was unlikely that I would get a good one right way. There wasn’t going to be enough money for my parents to keep living here.

“Don’t expect it to be easy,” they warned her. “You enjoyed your visits to India as a rich NRI, with your pockets full of dollars. But living within modest means, with servants who don’t show up in the morning and bribes that have to be paid to the right people in the right manner, is a different matter.”

The uncles and aunties were not sure what I should do. They felt I wouldn’t fit in in India after having been raised here. I had the
same doubts. Apart from lifestyle differences, there was another issue: This was my country. I was an American. The thought of being driven from my home filled me with rage. Then again, if I stayed in India, it would be a great support for my parents. Already Ammi looked at me with longing. Farah would like that, too. Conflicting loyalties warred in my head, keeping me awake at night.

UMA THOUGHT SHE HEARD A SOUND ABOVE, AS WHEN SOMEONE
turns over in an old, creaky bed. She stiffened and looked around, but the others were engrossed in the story.
You’re imagining things,
she told herself sternly. She forced her attention away from the ceiling’s mutterings and to the painful inevitability of Tariq’s tale.

WITHIN THE WEEK, THOUGH I WARNED AMMI NOT TO RUSH
into decisions, she put our house up for sale and asked Farah’s mother to find her a small ground-floor flat not too far from their house. After the phone call, Ammi spent a long time in the bathroom and emerged with red eyes. Hard as it was for me to see the house I had grown up in on the market for uncaring strangers to walk through and comment on, it was harder for Ammi. The daily chore of taking care of my father—of assisting him into bed and out, placing him in his wheelchair, helping him to the toilet—was taking its toll on her body, too. My father didn’t make it easier. Always a sweet-natured man, he now developed a terrible temper. I was having problems of my own: everywhere I went people seemed to stare at me. Once or twice, I thought a black van followed me off the freeway into our neighborhood.

I e-mailed Farah, and she wrote back with concern, urging me to move. She would make sure I settled into India. But her replies
didn’t satisfy me. Living halfway across the world, Farah couldn’t understand my frustration. The only person I could talk to was Ali. Ali listened patiently to my rants. When I broke down and wept, he wasn’t embarrassed. In Eastern culture, he told me, it was okay for men to cry. He told me that to run away to India would be cowardly. I should help my mother with her move, then return to America. Bad things were happening here to our people, and we needed to fight them. He and several other young men rented a house, and they could fit me in, if I didn’t mind sharing a room. He worked part-time at an electronics store. He could talk to his boss and maybe get me a temporary job there. He was more optimistic than the uncles and aunties about finding employment once we graduated. There were important people in the Muslim community, he said. People with pull. People who believed in helping their own.

I liked Ali’s house, though it was in a bad neighborhood. It was an old Victorian with high ceilings and bay windows that looked out on an overgrown garden, very different from the cookie-cutter suburban development I’d lived in all my life. The living room was filled with pamphlets and handmade signs.

TARIQ’S VOICE WAS DROWNED BY A CRACK THAT MADE UMA
jump.

“She’s coming down,” Cameron shouted. “To the doorway!”

There was a panicked milling. Uma realized that Cameron hadn’t planned which doorway each of them would go to; that frightened her almost as much as the disintegrating ceiling. His asthma must have become worse; maybe it was impairing his thinking.

She ended up in the bathroom doorway with Malathi and Tariq. The water licked the tops of her calves and was, if possible, even
colder than before. There was another crack. The walls shook. They were showered with plaster.

“Cover your heads,” Cameron urged. “Don’t breathe through—” His words disintegrated into a fit of coughing, which he tried to contain.

This was it, Uma guessed. She hoped it would be quick. Malathi was gripping Uma’s good hand with both of hers. Uma gripped back. Tariq was praying, his eyes closed, his face unexpectedly serene. Uma wanted to pray, too, but all she could think was that if she had to die, she was glad she had someone’s hand to hold while it happened.