The Two Krishnas (5 page)

Tonight, his mind traveled back to when it all began, just a couple of days short of Pooja’s thirty-ninth birthday. The irony was that she had inadvertently created the circumstances for them to meet. The warm wind blew through his thick dark hair as he leaned against his hand, his elbow resting on the open window, instantly wafting him back to Elton’s Bookstore in Brentwood.

Rahul had ventured into the independent bookstore at Pooja’s request, to buy a costly compendium of world cuisine books, an accompaniment to the bottle of Chanel No. 5 for her birthday present. Pooja, as was typical of her, was always rooting for the underdog, and in this case preferred spending her money at smaller privately-owned businesses that she was sure were struggling against corporations. The formidably large cook book which he knew Pooja neither needed nor would use (she cooked more from instinct than recipes) incorporated global award-winning recipes by notable chefs who he was biased to think couldn’t awaken half the taste buds Pooja’s cooking could.

They had been married for nineteen years and had been living chastely for at least the last seven. Rahul was aware that this abstinence was not by Pooja’s preference but his own lack of sexual desire for her. On the rare occasions that she was able to overcome the awkwardness and tried to initiate any intimacy between them, Rahul tactfully dodged it. The fires of sexual desire get doused; a marriage inevitably turns more fraternal in the end, he tried to reason to himself.

Rahul found the bookstore, laid out in a series of wings named after literary geniuses, each intended to house a set of subject matters. But despite its best efforts, Elton’s was a jumble, a dusty amalgam of tables, shelves and piles of books. So Napoleon could easily be found wedged between travel guides on Egypt, and a French cookbook simmered under a pile of Marianne Williamson’s teachings on miraculous shifts of perception. None of this, however, could override the immense passion for books that was apparent in the conversation among the booksellers and tea-sipping customers at Elton’s.

He took advantage of the coffee bar hissing away frothy coffee concoctions and grabbed a strong espresso that he loaded with sugar. He made his way through the maze and found himself in the courtyard, under a fecund tree that was being decorated with lights for some kind of literary event.

“Cookbooks?” He looked up and asked the worker who had climbed up the tree and was garlanding its branches with lights. “For my wife. Which building?”

The teenage boy, clad only in jeans and a flimsy t-shirt, pointed to Shakespeare’s home in the west wing. Once inside and closed in by books, Rahul looked around for a trash can but couldn’t find one. He felt the urge to leave the cup on a pile of books but carried it to the counter. Save for the one lady who was perusing an oversized Taschen, Shakespeare’s domain remained empty.
Nobody reads anymore,
he thought, remembering back to when he himself preferred to dive into non-fiction or a Henry Miller novel rather than HBO. Reading, like fine dining had become the casualty in a city that demanded astounding commutes. Nobody had patience to spare once the city was done with you.

Albinoni’s “Adagio in G Minor,” one of the few classical pieces that Rahul recognized and which, from then on, he would forever associate with Atif, hung in the air. He approached the counter where a Goth salesgirl was talking intensely on the phone. She had short and spiky ink-black hair, pencil brows, a silver stud under her bottom lip. Seeing Rahul, she reluctantly ended her conversation.

Rahul told her what he was looking for and almost immediately spotted the set of pricey editions locked up in the display case behind her but the salesgirl, still in the grips of whatever conversation she was having, was unable to find the keys. He pictured someone like his own son at the other end of that call, remembering the time some American girl had shown up at his doorstep in tears over Ajay. His son had become quite the playboy and in a typically macho way this infused him with as much pride as it filled Pooja with disappointment.

She let out an unguarded expletive as she rummaged around the counter, in the process knocking over her cup. They both jumped back from the counter, Rahul still clutching his empty cup, the coffee splattering over the glass counter and soaking the fliers and magazines. He dabbed himself with the white monogrammed handkerchief that Pooja had given him and which he found stuffy but continued to carry in the inside pocket of his jacket to please her. The phone, which the salesgirl had probably kept blocked for hours, started ringing again. She ignored it, frantically throwing the soiled stuff off the counter.

Exasperated, Rahul abandoned his cup on a pile of books behind him, and inspecting his overcoat to make sure it was spared from coffee, turned around to walk away. That’s when he heard that voice, gravelly like someone who had just awoken. Rahul turned around. A young Indian man was answering the phone while dispersing paper towels to clean the mess. He was so engrossed that he barely noticed Rahul, but Rahul, somewhat surprised at his timely appearance and finding strange comfort in the presence of another Indian, remained. He picked up his coffee cup again, barely looking at it, and exchanged his first glance with the man who seemed vaguely familiar.

Atif looked like he was in his twenties, athletic, and with a goatee which, in the political climate roused by September eleventh, was definitely unwise. In many parts of the country, patriotism had taken a violent expression so that anyone who looked even remotely Middle Eastern was at risk. Many didn’t know the difference between Hindu and Sikh or Muslim. Only last week Rahul had seen on CNN that a Sikh convenience store owner had been attacked because he had been mistaken for Muslim, and Rahul knew at least one Muslim co-worker who had shaved off his beard for fear of being targeted.

On Atif’s upper left lip was a noticeable scar.
An accident? A fight?
Rahul wondered. Although he had never been to Elton’s and had no recollection of ever meeting him, Rahul couldn’t shake off the gnawing feeling that they knew each other.
Could he be one of Ajay’s friends? A bank customer?
Rahul didn’t even realize that he had been staring at him until Atif caught his gaze. Rahul turned away uncomfortably, deciding he would pay no further attention to him.

By the time Atif had replaced the phone, he had already covered the counter with yards of paper towels that had blotted up the coffee. The salesgirl, looking utterly helpless and confused, continued agonizing over the missing key. Atif, a bit embarrassed, smiled apologetically at Rahul and dived under the counter to look for it. When he came up again, he was holding the little silver key in his hand. The girl sighed theatrically.

“Why don’t you to take a break, Becca?” Atif said to her. “I’m here now.”

She thanked him with a hug and walked out, cell phone in tow, and Atif motioned for Rahul to give him the empty coffee cup, which he tossed in the waste paper basket behind him. “I’m really sorry about all this,” he said, and then looking at the key he was holding between his fingers, “You were looking for…”

* * *

When Ajay walked into the house and found Pooja hunched over in tears, he pulled out the iPod headphones from his ears and rushed to her side. Under normal circumstances, Pooja would have rallied to pull herself together but this time she found herself unable to summon the strength that she had been able to depend on in far more turbulent occasions.

Ajay had never seen his mother so distraught. He huddled at her feet like he had when he was a child fishing for the toys she had playfully hidden within the folds of her sari. He looked up at her flushed face, the large, adoring eyes now smudged with kohl and swimming in tears and asked, “Mom, what happened?”

But his concern made her cry harder and she laid her face on his strong shoulder, finding it easier to let everything wash through her. In her son’s distress, she found her own seeping away because finally someone was taking notice. She held on to him tightly, remembering the baby whose lower lip she tickled with her nipple to get his mouth to open wide, the little boy who nestled his head in her bosom before he could fall sound asleep. She longed to give herself to him in the same way again but of course, now he was a grown man and his need for her had changed.

“Mom, what happened? Speak to me. Why are you crying?”

Pooja shook her head, wiped her tears with her
chunni.
“I don’t know. It’s nothing.”

“You don’t know? Tell me,” he implored, pushing the disheveled hair back from her face.

“Nothing. Nothing,” she said.

In the background, the carousel shuffled to another CD and an incongruous
masala
song started playing. Good old Asha Bhonsle made the whole situation feel quite ludicrous with her lustful
“Ye Hai Reshmi Zulfo Ka Andhera”
so that suddenly Pooja started to feel foolish. Moments of sentimentality, she realized, don’t always find an appropriate score in real life. “I don’t know what came over me,
beta
,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Bas,
let it go. It’s nothing.” She grabbed the remote control and pointing it at the stereo killed off the siren.

“But it can’t be nothing if you’re crying,” he said. “Did something happen with Papa? Where is he?”

Her eyes dropped and for a moment, it looked like she might start crying again. She carefully placed the remote control on the side.

“Mom?”

“Your father’s busy. He’s working. Always working, what else?” she sounded more bitter than she had intended to and it didn’t go unnoticed by him.

He consulted the bulky diver’s watch on his wrist; it was past seven-thirty. “Working at this time?”

“Your father works very hard,” she said, tucking an errant wisp of hair behind her ear and slowly pulling herself together. “How else are we going to put you through college? With my samosas? Besides, you’re one to talk,” and she pinched his ear playfully as he looked away guiltily. “He’s just a workaholic, you know that.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s all he cares about anymore,” he said, some of his own sadness creeping in.

“Well, better workaholic than alcoholic, no?” she joked. Pooja’s thoughts went quickly to Rahul’s jovial father, Ravi Kapoor, who didn’t have any reservations about taking nips of Black Label whiskey in the evenings. It was a wonder that given the liberal environment of his upbringing, Rahul never touched the stuff and had turned out as reserved as his father had been sprightly and expansive. “Thank God all of us have been spared from all those influences.”

“Mom, I’ve never seen you like this.”

What am I supposed to tell you?
she wondered.
That I’m crying because of the phone card? Because Charlie’s theories are coming alive under my own roof? Or because I miss your father?

“It must be—what is it Sonali aunty keeps saying I have? Menopause,” she started laughing. “Crazy woman.” Pooja noticed that she had sullied his neck and t-shirt with her crying and she quickly sprang to her feet, becoming her old self again. “Oh, God. Just look what I’ve done now. Let me get something to wipe—”

“Mom, really, it’s okay. It’s only water. Just sit,” he said, grabbing her hand but it was too late. Pooja had closed up again.

“I won’t be a moment,” she said and disappeared into the kitchen, relieved that the unexpected spasm of emotion had passed and that they wouldn’t have to linger on it any longer. Just the fleeting moment of concern from her son had bolstered her so much that now she felt she could go on forever. “You know what I made today?” she called out from the kitchen. “Your favorite, well, it was your favorite when you were little.
Channa masala
with
parothas
.
”

“Mom, you know I can’t…”

“Yes, yes, I know all about your nutrition nonsense,” she said, returning with a moist hand-towel. He rose to his feet and she smiled when she noticed how he was so much taller than she and that she had to reach up to him. “I miss spending time with you, Ajay. You grew up so fast,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’ll broil some chicken for you, nice and tasteless, just the way you like it,
hanh.”

Two long insistent honks sounded in the driveway, and he glanced out through the living room window. “It’s Nicky,” he said. “But I don’t really have to go.”

She managed a smile. “Nonsense. I’ll be fine.”

“One sec,” he said, squeezing her hand with the towel and went out the door.

Pooja walked over to the window and peeked out discreetly. She saw Ajay leaning into Nicky Cacioppo’s shiny new Jeep. Something in her stomach tightened. Like Ajay, Nicky was nineteen. Tall, imposingly built and covered with tattoos of the Virgin Mary and even the state of California, he was Ajay’s closest friend from high school and gym partner. Although she had met him only a few times, more than once it had been under incriminating circumstances.

Once when another student had been beaten up by Nicky and because Ajay had also been present, the principal, Mr. Flaherty, had demanded to see a parent; and another time, some weeks later when the same principal’s car tires had been slashed and obscenities spray-painted all over it, someone claimed to have witnessed Nicky and “his partner-in-crime” in the act. Although the student had inexplicably changed his story in the end, Pooja had once again been summoned for a visit with Mr. Flaherty. She had kept all this from Rahul. When it came to Ajay, she had found that she was able to handle things best by herself.