Right of Thirst (24 page)

At one end of the lobby, just past the bank of elevators, there was a narrow hall, with a half dozen shops on either side. Over the entrance to the hall, a sign, in red cursive script—
Excelsior Bazaar
.

“I need to get a few things,” I said to Elise, thinking of Eric. “Are you going back to your room?”

“I am sure everything will be too expensive here,” she said, but followed me anyway.

There were dusty bottles of French perfume. There were Japanese watches, a few handwoven carpets, fake flintlock pistols with inlaid ivory grips, and photographs of the old city—piles of saffron, piles of almonds and apricots, columns of light in the old bazaar, and a stack of goat heads four feet high, all bulging eyes and bloody protruding tongues. The head at the top of the pile had horns. It was a shocking thing, nightmarish, yet there it didn't attract a second glance.

The shops were empty of customers, and the shopkeepers, undoubtedly hotel employees, sat bored behind the counters. A television was on—a cricket match. For an instant I stopped to watch the bowler, running down in his whites across a perfect sheet of brilliant green grass, straight-arming the ball toward the batsman at the wicket.

We wandered around for a few minutes, then entered the jewelry store, with its glass cases of gold chains and semiprecious stones. There were earrings, also, and elaborate brass plates, inlaid with silver, reflecting. A young man sat behind the counter, talking on a telephone. As we stepped in, a necklace in the center of one of the cases caught my eye.

It was simple, unadorned—four thin gold strands, braided together. The gold had a lustrous, rich look to it, as if it was nearly pure, and that was what caught my attention; everything else had the shine of modern times. The man looked up, then hurriedly hung up the phone and stood.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Welcome.”

“How much is that necklace?” I asked, pointing.

“Yes,” he said, in a practiced way. “That is a very old one. Very pure gold. It is from a burial mound.”

“A burial mound?”

He nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes,” he said. “How old I do not know. But very old, I think. More than one thousand years, perhaps.”

“What kind of burial mound?”

“This I do not know,” he said. “It is from the north.”

“How much is it?”

He made a show of opening a notebook on the glass case, then tapped a few numbers into a pocket calculator.

“I can give this one to you for”—he paused—“nine hundred U.S. Or Euros if you prefer.”

“Can I see it?”

“Of course.” He eased himself out from behind the counter, then opened the case and picked up the necklace with both hands, as if it were an object of reverence. He held it out to me, and I took it.

It was austere and delicate at the same time, and though his
story of the burial mound was no doubt carefully calculated, it seemed that it just might possibly be true. I turned to Elise.

“Will you try it on?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, and began to blush.

“Oh…” she began, uncomfortably, but stopped as I handed her the necklace. She undid the clasp, put it on, and stood there in her dress.

“Yes, yes,” the salesman said. “It is very nice for your daughter.”

I laughed, and Elise flushed some more, and the man looked nervously back and forth between us for a moment.

“I have a mirror,” he said, reaching under the counter, nodding and bobbing. For an instant I thought of Ali again. She took the mirror, and held it up.

“I'll give you three hundred U.S. for it,” I said, looking at him.

He winced, and shook his head.

“No, no,” he said. “I am sorry.”

“All right then,” I said. Elise removed the necklace and handed it to him. He paused, as if he did not want to take it, and so she placed it carefully on the countertop.

“Seven hundred U.S.,” he said, quickly, but I just smiled at him, and shook my head as well.

“I think we should go,” I said to Elise, and she began to turn away with relief.

“Okay, okay,” the man said. “Six hundred U.S.”

“No,” I said. “Three fifty. That's it.”

Elise stood there, mortified, uncertain, and for an instant I regretted ever starting down the path—I should have just paid what he asked, and been done with it. But something stopped me, something quite strong, as if to say, when I am generous, it
will be on my own terms, and not on yours, because you are trying to take from me.

In the end we settled for four hundred and seventy dollars. I put it on my credit card. He coiled the necklace in a small white box, and handed it to me with a smile that told me I hadn't bested him after all. I didn't care; it was the attempt that mattered.

We left the shop, and I kept the necklace tucked in my pocket for a while. Elise tagged along at my side on the way back through the lobby to the elevators, shooting nervous glances at me.

In the privacy of the elevator, rising toward our respective rooms, I handed her the box.

She hesitated, and I was afraid she wasn't going to accept it.

“It is too much,” she said. “You know?”

“I do know,” I said. “But I think it's beautiful, and I hope that you'll take it.”

She took the box, holding it between her palms as if coming to a decision. I wished I hadn't done all that bargaining in front of her—it was no way to give a gift. I should have left, I knew, and come back for it. But it had happened so quickly, I'd had no time to plan, and there are so many things one can never take back, after all, so many choices and moments in this life that require resurrection.

“I knew I wanted to get it for you the moment I saw it,” I said to her. “And I didn't care how much it cost. But I couldn't let that man cheat us, either. I had to make him work a little.”

An odd sentiment, I suppose. It was only a necklace.

Finally she opened the box, and looked down at the necklace within it.

“Thank you,” she said, softly, before closing the box again. “I think it is beautiful also.”

“You're welcome,” I said.

The bell rang, the doors opened, and we stepped out into the carpeted hall. She gave me a small uneasy smile, and then turned away.

There was an English-language paper hanging limply over the edge of the executive desk in my room. I was surprised to find it there, with my pressed clean clothes, folded in the precise center of the bed.

I sat down in the chair, and looked out past the open curtains at the rooftops. I thought of her smile, and felt the sting of my awkwardness. I shook my head, and picked up the paper.

The prime minister had hosted a conference on regional autonomy. There was a picture of him, at a podium. A school had been opened for underprivileged boys. Ruffians had clashed with police over the closing of a local mosque to make way for a road construction project. The army had committed more resources to earthquake relief. New Block D fighter aircraft were being procured after prolonged debate in Parliament, with considerable improvements in avionics and engines over the Block C export versions that had been promised some years before but never delivered. But there was not the slightest reference to the shelling, or to the soldiers, or to the corpses on the mountainside. It was as if it had never happened at all. I'd expected something, if only a cryptic reference to increased tensions along the border. But I was also entirely unsurprised.

Back in my room, with some time to kill, reading the newspaper, leaning back in the chair—all this might have made the events of the past few weeks seem far away, unreal, dreamlike. But the opposite was true. It was the hotel that seemed dreamlike and unreal. The valley did not seem far away at all. I could see it, in my scuffed boots, in the stained pack lying collapsed upon itself in the corner, even in my maid-folded clothes, which
soon I'd change into again. I had no desire to go out into the city, to shop in the market stalls or what passed for bazaars. I had no interest whatsoever in the leftover forts, or the botanical gardens, or the grandeur of the financial district, home of many international banks and corporations. None of the Places of Beauty and Interest—this was the title of the brochure on the desk—tempted me in any way.

The air-conditioner clicked on and off. I lost interest in the newspaper, and put it aside, and then, almost without thinking, turned to the pages of hotel stationery tucked in one corner of the green blotter on the desk. I picked up the complimentary pen, and sat there for a while, trying to gather my thoughts, before I began.

When I was done, I looked over what I'd written and knew it was something I could not send. I wanted so much to give him what I could, to steel him for the disappointments I imagined would be his, as they had been mine. But how limited my words seemed, as I read them again, how cynical and dispiriting.
I was one of a million distant fathers, and if my strengths did not distinguish me, neither did my weaknesses. I saw it clearly. I was guilty of the commonest of American failings, a modestly successful man, and no more, and there was so much I could not grasp, and did not understand, and I was old enough to know that I never would. If that was the best I could manage, I thought, it wasn't good enough, because surely there was more. Surely mine was not the only story to be told.

When the time came to meet Rai in the lobby, Elise knocked on my door. She had changed out of her dress, and wore newly washed khaki-colored cargo pants, a freshly ironed T-shirt, and the open-toed rubber sandals of the casual Western tourist. Her small, orange, and very European-looking day pack hung over her shoulder. Her sunglasses hung from her neck on a cord. She had remade herself again, deliberately. I noticed it, of course, but as we rode down together in the elevator I said nothing.

The doors slid open, and there was Rai, standing by the leather couches, watching the elevators. I suspected that he had been there for some time. He wore what passed for a Western suit—pressed dark pants, a white collared shirt, a jacket, but no tie. I realized that I'd never seen him in anything but his green military sweater, his khaki pants, and scuffed black boots. He seemed distinctly reduced, in his civilian clothes, standing there by the couches as the waiters passed. When he saw us step out of the elevator together he offered a nervous half wave, which more than anything else revealed his unease. In the valley, we'd been close enough to one another, but now, in just an instant, the gulf between us had revealed itself again, and I could see it with absolute clarity before a word was spoken.

Up close, he looked tired. And his clothes were not good—his
shirt was new, pressed, and clean, but his jacket looked cheap and thin. I had a sudden image of him, fingering the racks in an open-air market on the street. From a distance, in passing, he might have been mistaken, despite his young age, for one of the men on the terrace. But up close he would not have been—in truth, he looked more like one of the hotel's many employees.

“Sanjit,” I said, and offered him my hand, which he shook firmly. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course,” he replied, looking out over the lobby, with its gold-plated luggage carts, the bellman in his plumage by the revolving doors. The place looked increasingly ridiculous to me, garish and off. It had taken more than a day for my eye to regain itself, and see it. But for others, for Ali and his kind, no doubt it was as splendid and luminous as a medieval cathedral.

Rai, I think, was uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable as to be fully impressed. He cast a contemptuous eye at the staff, and let his gaze drift around the lobby even as he spoke. He seemed elsewhere, distant and preoccupied, as if his mind were on other things, which no doubt it was.

There was an awkward pause.

“Would you like some tea?” I found myself saying. “Have you eaten?”

“I have eaten, thank you,” he said. “But we can have some tea if you wish.”

It was hot outside by then, in late morning, and so we had our tea in the lobby, on the leather couches. They brought us a tray, and put it on a side table, and each of us sat in the deep, dark leather, awkwardly holding our teacups in our laps. For a few moments we each busied ourselves with milk, and sugar, and tiny silver-plated spoons. When Elise leaned back in the couch, her feet came off the ground like a child's, and so she sat perched on the edge. Rai sat stiffly, holding the saucer on his palm.

“Is it all taken care of?” I asked, finally. “With Ali?”

Rai grimaced. He'd put us in a cab at the airport, as soon as he could, and sent us away.

“They will bury him today,” he said. “They have the body.” He looked down at his tea, then took a deliberate sip.

“Thank you, Doctor,” he said, finally. “For the helicopter.”

I felt my face flush, and I looked away.

“Is there a funeral?” Elise asked. “I think maybe we should go.”

Rai shook his head.

“It is best if you do not,” he said. “They are very poor people. They would not understand why you were there.”

Elise opened her mouth to reply, but then apparently thought better of it. She took a sip of tea, her expression cold.

“So,” Rai said. “You are going home soon, I think?”

“Yes,” I replied, glancing at Elise. “Probably in the next day or two.”

I wanted to ask him a great deal—I wanted to ask about the situation in the valley, the shelling, all of it. I wanted to ask him about the refugees, wherever they were, and what plans were now being made for them, and why I'd seen nothing in the papers, and whether he'd talked to General Said on his return. I wanted to press him about Homa, and the money I had promised her, and Ali's nephew, who no doubt was stumbling down the trail even as we spoke. But sitting there, in that strange place, swallowed in the cool black leather of the couch, I just took another sip of tea.

“I must leave soon,” Rai said then. “I cannot stay this morning. But there is something else also. I would like to invite you to my home for dinner if you have the time.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised.

“Of course, your flights…” Rai began, but I cut him off.

“We haven't booked them yet,” I said, matching his tone. “And we'd be happy to have dinner with you.”

“I will tell my wife,” he said, seriously. “She is not so good at Western food, so you must please forgive her.”

“She should make us what she likes, and what you like,” I said. “That's much better.”

Rai drained his cup, then placed it with its saucer carefully back on the service. I wondered what he wanted.

“Yes,” he said. “I think that is better also. But she is very shy. She does not know Western people.”

“Please tell her not to worry. Is there anything we can bring?”

He looked at me, puzzled.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“It is customary to bring something. Usually it is wine, or sometimes dessert.”

“No, no,” he said. “It is not the same. Please, bring nothing. You are my guests.”

Elise had said nothing, I realized. She had hardly spoken to him since that day in the valley, and she was looking down at her feet, as if considering what to do.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

He looked uneasy.

“I am not a rich man,” he said. “I have only a small house. I will give you the address, and perhaps you can take a taxi.”

“Of course,” I said, realizing in that moment that Rai didn't have a car.

Rai reached into his jacket and withdrew a pen and a small address book. He opened the book, and wrote down his address on one of the pages, then carefully tore the page from the book and handed it to me.

“It is not so far from here,” he said. “Perhaps twenty minutes.”

“When would you like us to come?”

“Tomorrow, if you like. Perhaps at eight.”

“Tomorrow is fine,” I said, glancing at Elise. “Thank you. I'm looking forward to it.”

“I am sorry for what has happened,” he said, looking down. There was a long pained silence, and then he hesitantly cleared his throat.

“There is something else also,” he said, carefully. “I have a message for you. General Said would like to meet with you. Both of you. He will send a car.”

“When?” I asked.

“He asked me to call him after we finished this morning.”

I looked at Elise.

“I do not want to see him,” she said, after a moment. “I have nothing to say to him.”

Rai looked worried, and glanced at me, and suddenly I knew that Said would judge him by this. I turned to Elise.

“We should go,” I said. “I have a lot of questions for him.”

But she shook her head, leaving no doubt.

“You can go if you want,” she said to me. “Maybe that is better. Just tell him that I do what you tell me, that I am a foolish young woman.”

“Why would I say that?”

“Because that is what he thinks. He will ask you to be quiet about what has happened. That is why he wants to see us. He is afraid we will go to the media when we get home and say the army is not helping the refugees.”

“You're probably right,” I said, ignoring Rai, in his discomfort. “But the earthquake is old news now. I'm sure he knows it.”

“Then go, if you want,” she said. “I am going to my room.”

She turned to Rai.

“I will come to your house,” she said, looking at him with sudden intensity. “I do not blame you as much, even though you have done a terrible thing. But I will not see that man again.”

With that she stood, and walked resolutely off toward the elevators.

Rai stood, watching her go. He looked wounded, and anxious, and then, finally, he turned to me.

“Thank you,” he said, simply. “I will tell them to send a car for you.”

“Are you coming?”

“No. The general wants to meet with you in private.” He hesitated. “Please be careful what you say, Doctor. It could have great consequences for me.”

He stood there, as afraid as I'd ever seen him, and waited.

“Don't worry, Sanjit,” I said, finally. “I know what kind of man he is.”