The Meagre Tarmac (12 page)

Rebecca carries plates out to waiting customers. When she returns, she unties her ponytail and leads him to the table nearest the kitchen doors. Was this restaurant here yesterday? Will it be here tomorrow?

The nicotine patch, it too is gone. The camisole strap hides the tattoo. “How do you know these people?” he asks. He means: who are they? Or he really means, Who are you? Even more, he wonders: is this really happening?

“I used to work here. I still help out once a week. At least the customers here aren't always hitting on me.”

“I hope you don't think — ” Chutt starts.

“I picked
you
up. There's a difference.” Mrs. Joshi brings a carafe of wine. Chutt is resigned to vegetarian, but for him they have made a special beef dhansak.

“I called ahead.”

Such planning, such conspiring.

“I'm a good Indian cook, Chutt.”

He's not much of a drinker, especially after three narrow flutes of beer, but raises his glass in a toast.

“To Romesh Kumar!” she offers. “The very late Romesh Kumar!” They get into the inevitable. Her story: “My grandfather had a cigar shop — Adam Newman's on Centre Avenue. I loved the smell of cigars and cigarettes. My
zeyde
gave me cigarettes so I started smoking when I was twelve. He's still going strong at ninety-two. For that matter, I started everything when I was twelve. And as for names, we're like Parsis ourselves. I have a made-up name. My grandfather had a big long name back in Latvia, but he spent the whole time on the boat studying English and when he landed in New York he said, ‘My name is New Man.' He actually named himself Adam Newman, just like Paul and Alfred E.”

Chutt doesn't recognize her references. He wonders suddenly, what do you say to an ape that types everything correctly, five perfect acts, but gets the title wrong? Knig Lear. Or types
t'is
instead of
'tis
in the fourth act? Do you pat him on his balding head and say
good enough,
or say
sorry,
and have him go back and type two hundred pages of gibberish?

A far greater tragedy than Shakespeare ever conceived. ‘

“As for men, let's say I'm a little easy. Actually, I'd call myself a regular Sally Sleep-Around. This is your chance to run away. You work in a bar, you get off at two in the morning ... at least I get to choose. It's hard to lead a Sex in the City life in Pittsburgh but people say if I blonded up I'd look a lot like Sarah Jessica Parker.”

“I'm sorry, I don't rec ...”

She waves it off. “I think I'll go ahead. Forever Blonde!”

He's fascinated by the row of tiny perforations just above her eyebrow. Her brow looks vulnerable, detachable like a postage stamp. Does the body have the capacity to restore flesh, to forgive trauma? Can a woman who has been possessed by so many men be loving and faithful? How is it that a woman who has been used by so many remains so fresh, so pure? And the pure girls of Bombay seem so stale and lifeless?

“I have an apartment up on Mt. Washington, two blocks from the incline. I can see Aliquippa out one window and Homestead out the other. Straight down, I've got the Point at my feet.”

“I've got a view of Temple Beth Emmanuel,” says Chutt.

“No shit — my old shul! We've got a bench inside!”

And then it's his turn. The unmarried sisters and himself, and his father's vow to go to Africa and redeem a continent for his failure. There had been a woman at Wharton, an American of Indian origin who slept with him, praised his projects and professed a great if sentimental love for India, then stole all his research notes and passed them off as her own. She had an American boyfriend who threatened to kill him if he protested.

“Cheating in business school? I thought you guys got points for that.”

In retrospect, the proudest act of his life was admitting the sex before an ethics panel, naming the girl and her boyfriend, acknowledging his poor judgment and a certain susceptibility to high-risk behavior. All the Indian students shunned him, except for Romesh Kumar. The girl was expelled; he received a reprimand and was exiled to Pittsburgh. The story of his shame would spread and grow with every retelling, and he would never be hired in India.

“Wharton,” she says. “Makes us sort of ‘Love Story,' doesn't it?”

Before he can raise his hand in cultural surrender, she seizes it. “Just look at those fingers!” she says. “And that long, long nose! A girl notices things like that!”

“Things like what?”

“Sometimes those stubby-fingered guys surprise you, but you're no surprise, Mr. Chutneywala. I'll bet you could perch three barn owls on your thing.”

Is this what she expects? “A sparrow,” he says. “Two if very young.” To himself he thinks of the pain of supporting a vulture. Then she giggles. “I'm
kidding
! You look so tight and worried. Have your dhansak. Have more wine. Think of Mt. Washington. Let's drink to inclines — sorry, you're such a sweetie! Smile! Laugh!”

In the night she says, “This is the only time I miss a cigarette. God do I miss a cigarette! I took off my patch — you noticed? I did it for you.”

He doesn't quite know how to respond. No one has ever treated him to such a gift, or such a sign of respect and devotion. He strokes her hair, notices with some satisfaction the human sweat, like his.

“You know what I get off on? It's when the man collapses inside me, when he deflates, and I'm there to catch him. If he doesn't collapse, I can't catch him.”

Chutt knows he collapsed. There is no more of him to deflate, he has told her everything, shown her all there is, all he has ever been, all he can be. He has spoken even of his deepest shame, a blasphemous fear of vultures. He has never confessed it — who would listen, who would care? He suspects that he is the only Parsi in the world with this particular phobia. He would rather have his body buried in Pittsburgh than torn to shreds in Bombay. In most settings, even on a pleasant Pittsburgh evening, he can summon the sweet, high summer, midday stench of rotting flesh.

But not tonight as they stand naked above the city, taking in the promised vision: the sweep of the rivers and the orange running lights of barges heading down the Ohio, the lighted arches of a dozen bridges over the Allegheny and Monongahela, the fluorescence of the Point, lights so close he could reach down and touch them, from a place so quiet he can hear their hum and sizzle. He is certain that none of her men have rocked her in their arms like this, as barge lights disappear behind the headlands.

POTSY AND PANSY

1.

ON CHUTT'S BLOCK
in Squirrel Hill — a “mature” neighborhood, the real estate agent had called it — twelve houses with generous yards huddled modestly under ancient oaks (“hence the squirrels,” she'd said). Each house had at least five bedrooms (“big families in those days”), remodeled kitchens, dark floors, built-in bookcases with beveled glass doors and mezuzot on the doorjambs. (“Culture and religion,” she said, “very big in Squirrel Hill”). Squirrel Hill was, or had been, Pittsburgh's traditional Jewish neighborhood. According to Chutt's counting, ten of his block's twelve houses were now owned by recent South-or-East Asian immigrants, nearly all of them em-ployed in the higher reaches of Western Pennsylvania Hospital. His girlfriend, Becka Newman, was a Squirrel Hill girl. Her late father — before abandoning his family and joining a commune in California — had been a violinist in the Pittsburgh Symphony, under Steinberg. Her immigrant grandfather, Adam Newman the Cigar King — who'd taught her to smoke while sitting on his lap — had endowed a bench in the synagogue-community center across the street. Every Sabbath an aged congregation filled the parking lot and shuffled to the synagogue's open door, carrying religious apparel in small purple pillows. Chutt would settle back in bed, reveling in the Saturday morning prospect of a little more sleep, a late morning visit to the farmer's market, and a bistro lunch.

Becka, by night a waitress and bartender at Warhol Square, had discovered the ultimate niche profession. At the request of her new neighbors, she removed painted-over mezuzot. Asians didn't want to slight any god, and so had hesitated to touch the odd little symbols without making a propitiating gesture, or snatch of a prayer, neither of which they knew. “It's a little strange,” Dr. (Mrs.) Swaminathan had said. “Even with all my own gods around, I feel someone's still watching us.” And so Becka would say a prayer, apply paint remover to the doorjambs, pry out the old ceramic or metal casings, then sand, fill and repaint or re-stain where the mezzuzah had been nailed. She turned her small fee over to the community centre's smoking-cessation program.

Just as his romantic life seemed to be on track and a third plaque in three years confirmed his status as Pittsburgh's leading “under- 35” banker, the weight of the world came crashing down on his frail and hairy shoulders, like the nightmare vultures of his childhood, circling the Towers of Silence in Bombay.

The news appeared one morning on an internal email:
Mr. Milton Beloff has submitted his resignation, effective immediately. He will be missed for his long years of dedicated service
.

Like hell, thought Chutt.

Happily, an outstanding replacement has been found within our ranks. The appointment of H. S. Mehta (current director
A&M
, Boston), as
CEO
of the expanded Pittsburgh-based Section Two financial services takes effect immediately.

The white Americans went to the man they called Chuck with simple questions. Medwick of Currency Exchange asked, “Mehta — that's an Indian name, right? Like the music guy?” Yes, said Chutt, like Zubin Mehta. But he didn't add,
Mehtas can be Hindu, Parsi, Sikh or Muslim. It's a slippery name. Zubin Mehta is Parsi, like me,
but Medwick wouldn't know the difference, or care.

“Great,” said Medwick. “Those guys are really smart. If anyone can move us along, it's an Indian.”

Those guys? What about me? Chutt wondered. Despite a thousand years on the job, I'm still not quite Indian? Not quite anything. What message are they sending, those big-time, Section One directors strung along the east coast from Boston to Charlotte, importing this unknown H. S. Mehta from Mergers and Acquisitions in Boston when they had Cyrus Chutneywala, three-time Pittsburgh Man of the Year already in place? Something they know? Something about me is just a little unsavory?

On the flimsy authority of other managers, he was informed that Indians are conservative but flexible and as fast as cobras on a heating pad. Good family men and corporately loyal. They mind their business and are great at numbers. Under Beloff, bonuses had withered. With this Mehta guy, big bonuses are here again. This Mehta guy (“Meetah? Maytah?”), opined Commercial Mortgages McAfee, must be really good if they're moving him up from a single branch in
M&A
all the way to
CFO
of Section Two with its sixty branches between Pittsburgh and Chicago and complete banking services in five states.

Chutt smiled, and held his tongue. He'd known many Indiaborn dolts with the reaction time of cobras on an ice floe. He knew them to be endlessly inquisitive about everyone's business, a nosiness covered up by flowery greetings at birthday times. Who but an Indian would learn his employees' birthdays? Why not ask instead:
What does it mean, getting a new boss from Mergers and Acquisitions? What's his slant? Do we want to work for an
M&A
bubblehead? I thought they were clearing those clowns out of the banking business.
M&A
s damned near ruined the whole economy, and now we're — what? — slip-sliding back into the mergers business?

The India-born managers had a different take. From Jerry Gupta in Commercial Loans: I like working with Indians. I just don't like working
for
an Indian. That's why I came to America. “H. S. Mehta?” wondered Tony Madhuvan of Currencies. “What's the big secret? Harish? Harbins? Haris?” Javy Qureishi in Residential Loans said he could be one of ours, a Muslim. But the smart money, from Chutt on down, was on a Sikh. “H. Mehta” could be anything, but the “
S
” signaled a Singh somewhere in the name; hence a Sikh: beard and turban, big and hairy.

Becka, who could be counted on to clear the air of ambiguities charged, “That is so fucking Indian of you, Chutt. You wonder what
community
this Magic Mehta comes from? Like if he's Muslim he's going to fire all the Hindus? As if you even care — Parsis are loved. Parsis are always safe. And tell me this:
why
do you assume Magic Mehta is even a man? Did it say
Mister
Mehta?”

The possibility of a woman had never occurred to him. For all the years he'd been in America, he hadn't made the most fundamental leap to American thinking. Thank God he had Becka to uproot his assumptions. She was a formidable woman. To please him, she had slowly divested herself of the full-metal jacket, removing the facial shrapnel, the nose, lip, tongue and unmentionable rings, the eyebrow clips and half-dozen ear-studs. The nicotine patch had done its work. Even now, without her decorative armor, he deferred to her suspicions.

“So, what kind of a she do you think she is, if she's a she?”

“Who cares? Maybe even a Christian or something.”

And then he went up to the study to open his private email. There was the near-daily message from his mother in Bombay. He had told her about Becka. He'd reminded her that they'd sent him to a historically Jewish school, the Sassoon Trust in Bombay, remember? And that Jews and Parsis held analogous positions in their respective societies. Few in numbers, huge in consequence. Buying a house in Squirrel Hill with painted-over mezuzot on the doorjambs and inviting a Jewish girl to live with him was practically preordained. He'd sent that note two weeks ago. Now:

Dearest Chuttu: What do I know of this thing you call love? You love too easily and too often. I pay no mind to your living arrangements. In my day, you got married when your father found you the right girl or boy, and that's the way our little community prospered down the centuries. Your father has worn out shoe-leather interviewing parents with suitable daughters from Baroda and Ahmedabad to Bombay and even down to Bangalore. He has studied hundreds of photographs till he says people will think he is dirty-minded. He has rejected every girl that is not up to your so-called standards of beauty and liberation.

I can now report that he has found a match. She comes from an outstanding family. Her father is Darius Batliwala, who endowed Dadaji Bottlewala Gardens in Bombay and is involved in many charities and trusts. Batliwala Ltd. still bottles water and soft drinks, so the family fortune remains intact. Her late mother was Nazreen Cowasjee, from a respectable family in Pune that endowed the Poona Pediatric Hospital. The girl has appeared in several movies and television shows in England and Canada. Her good name, not her screen name, is Pansy Batliwala, but if you look her up on Google, the name is Darya D'Aquino. She also has a Face Book page you should not be missing (follow this link). She was married briefly, under a year, to a Canadian but is divorced with no children.

She is not unblemished but you turn your nose up at such old-fashioned ideas anyway. She is twenty-five and she exceeds your standards. Her father says she is a clean-living girl and for you to ignore the kind of girls she's forced to play. He says the film-makers see her as “dark and exotic” in Canada, but in India she'd be fair and European. She has only one blemish, the aforementioned marriage/divorce. She lives in Toronto, which I have checked with Mrs. Contractor at the travel agency is less than two hours away from Pittsburgh with no stops,
but you must take your Green Card or proof of legal residence with you.
Driver's licence no longer sufficient. Her father is agreeable to an unchaperoned meeting between you.

“Our little community?” Guilt, guilt, guilt: Ma, why do you do this to me? You mean our little and shrinking community because my sister married a German and got divorced and I've never even involved myself with a Parsi girl and I've turned down every opportunity to marry one because they've been so ... plain, sometimes plain-looking but mostly plain-living, plain-thinking: goody-goody school-teachers, doctors and academics. “High in state bureaucracy with secure income.” Life with any of them would be one long self-sacrificing commitment to social progress.

And then, Baba, how could you, my sober, cost-accounting Parsi-doctor father, have discovered a woman like this Darya D'Aquino whose link he had already opened and whose pulsating sexuality now stared back at him? Why didn't you suppress her picture? You know my weakness.

Darya, Darya, Darya. The Amu Darya is a river running through the deserts of central Asia, near the Parsi homelands. The Greek name was Oxus. Darya is a Persian word, a subtle signal to those of us in the know. A better name than Oxus, or Pansy.

It's always the case with Chutt: he breaks away, he's into the clear, dashing to the goal like Fast Willie Parker — forty, thirty, twenty, ten, five — and the whistle blows and the play is dead. A ten-yard penalty, upfield. The community and its obligations have reeled him back.

He locked the study door. Pages of Darya D'Aquino glossies, movie-stills, tv-promos and modeling shots. Links to dozens of “Where To Find Me.” She was everything his mother had promised, and more, even discounting the possibility of airbrushing.

Magical Mehta was even more than Becka had predicted. Harriet Samuels Mehta was in her early forties, with green eyes and short, blonded hair. On her first day she went to each department manager and discussed his employment history, like a well-prepped schoolteacher on parents' night. To Chutt she said simply, “Mr. Chutney - wala, I'll have a special proposal for you and your partner ... Miss Newman, is it?”

Is nothing private? He'd attended occasional bank social gatherings, always alone. None of his colleagues had met Becka. He liked to think no one could even imagine them together. Maybe he'd entered into a permanent relationship without even realizing it. His parents had talked to him about their own marriage:
it was five years before I realized I loved him
, said Ma.
It was after you were born,
said Baba. That's the Indian ideal: marriage first, then love will usually follow. If not, there's nothing you can do about it.

His parents had been in their early twenties; he was thirty-four. Maybe Becka was It, the end of his quest. Maybe she was his defining moment. But just as he was about to settle in for the long haul, thanks to his parents' meddling, he'd glimpsed an alternate reality.

Every night he slinked into his study and hit the magic keys. “Hello, welcome to my home page.” No accent. “My name is Darya D'Aquino. People ask me where I was born ...” she smiles, with dimples ...”let's just say a little while ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” Clips from a low-budget movie where she pole-danced and seduced the hero; more from a Canadian police drama where she gathered forensic evidence. With her hair down, she was sultry, or was it fiery? With her hair in a bun, with glasses, above a microscope, she was Doctor Miss Science. And Chutt asked himself, what am I doing? This is madness. This is a temptation I'm not disposed to accept.

“Now I'm shooting a feature called
Planet-X
, in French with a little English. If I tried to explain it, it would sound hopelessly complicated. Let's say it's a little bit science-fictiony, but I leave it to your imagination what exactly Planet X might be.”

On Ms. Mehta's second day, she explained to the managers how she'd got her Indian name. Her great-grandfather, Col. Basil Mehta, Indian Army, was an Anglo-Indian who married a Scottish missionary. Their son, her grandfather, married Dolly Samuels, from a Poona Jewish family. She's ninety-one and still tends her garden in Poona. Her father is a retired electronics engineer at the University of Illinois-Urbana. Her late mother was a German-American from Kenosha, Wisconsin.

“For those of you of Indian origin,” she said, “I should warn you that in my backpacking days I did a doctorate at the Delhi School of Economics, and I understand Hindi, Punjabi and Marathi. So if I were to define myself it would be a well-traveled, Indo-European, Judeo-Christian American.”