The Two Krishnas (8 page)

Hiten burned quickly. Spending his entire tuition on partying, drugs and blonde, blue-eyed escorts, he eventually dropped out of college. His parents cut off his allowance and Hiten found it beneath him to find a regular job to support his lifestyle. So he returned to Mumbai to flaunt his sexuality and hang out with connected, closeted gays in Bollywood and the fashion industry. It was nothing new. Hiten’s parents blamed Atif for “making him gay.” Atif knew Hiten’s parents had to find a culprit because those who love us find it easier to impute our vices to others, preferably someone unrelated so that it doesn’t seem remotely atavistic.

Talk spread like wildfire. Everywhere the Khannas went they were either questioned about their scandalous son, now a staple of the “Page Three” culture, or found the need to proffer an explanation, and Atif became the culprit. “That Rahman boy, he’s the one! He’s responsible for infecting our poor little son,” Sheila Khanna dispensed promptly from the vault of tears she carried around. “He made him gay. But god is just and will take care of that wretched Muslim boy when the time is right. Pray for our Hiten, won’t you? Please pray for Hiten. Oh, those Muslims!”

Atif received a phone call in the middle of the night.

“Ask him! Ask him if this disgusting thing is the true!” his father hollered in the background. “Only Allah knows where your son got this from! Ask him!”

“Atif,
beta
, what is all this we are hearing? It’s all lies,
nah?
Kehdo yeh sab jhoot hai.”

At this point, it would have been easy for Atif to deny the whole thing. To sling the blame back at the Khannas and reassure his parents of his intention to marry, give them grandchildren. They were too far away to verify the truth. Even if they were suspicious, his vehement denial was expected and welcomed. The benefit of living at such a distance from your family, after all, was that you could maintain a lifestyle of choice while keeping their illusions alive. He already knew that he was never going back and in time, if he had not secured his rights, would join the millions of illegals who had become the fabric of California. By now he had tampered with his Social Security card, whiting out the ‘Not Permitted for Employment’ above the crested logo of the red bird in flight and making copies which he had used to get a job. Why break hearts only to unburden himself?

But when Atif opened his mouth to allay their fears, to accuse the Khannas of spreading malicious lies, the words got stuck in his throat. He realized in that moment, just like the time when he had fallen short of money and had been unable to ask them for more, that he had outgrown that phase. Something in him had evolved so that acquiescing to such things made him feel shameful, no matter what the consequences. Slowly, he was becoming a man.

“Beta?
Are you there? Say something, please.”

“Ma,” he said slowly, “would it be so wrong if I was?”

She was silent and he could hear only her shaky breath. He could see her. Around his father, Atif’s mother had always looked extinguished, her eyes nervous, her color changed, her openness gone. Pretending she hadn’t heard him, she pressed on like before. “Allah help them,” she cried. “They are rich so they think they can treat us this way. But money doesn’t make them right. They are vicious, vicious liars. I know you are not like that,
beta.
You are not like that boy.”

“But Ma, I am,” he said.

“Yes, yes, I know they are lying. Leave them alone, who cares? Let them say whatever they want. Allah will show them. We don’t have to—”

“Ma, please. Listen to me. What difference does it make? I’m still me. I’m still the same Atif.”

“Oh, I don’t know why they would say such things.”

“Ma, listen!”

“I am listening. I am listening. What are you saying,
beta?”

“I’m saying, Ma, that I had nothing to do with Hiten being that way. I didn’t do anything to him. But I am that way, Ma. I don’t want to lie anymore, please. Not to you.”

Abdul Rahman snatched the phone away from Khadija’s trembling hands. “Deny it! Deny it now!” he roared.

“Papa, I—” Atif broke down. For a few seconds, the gap between them, of continents and emotions, filled up with Atif’s sobbing. They could feel the landmass between them increase, pushing them further apart. “I don’t want to lie to you, Papa.”

“Enough. Enough you’ve said. You shame us,” he said. “This is why we struggled to send you over there? So you could turn into a sinner, rub our noses in the dirt? Better we are dead—dead—than to hear this. Better you had died than to become like this.”

Atif wept, unable to utter a word. Seeing his father’s hurt, bitter face in his mind’s eye, the same father that had carried him on his aching back through the crowds at Jama Masjid, who had tutored him sternly in Islam, helped him fly a kite on the roof of their building and recite the Koran, he began to doubt whether he had done the right thing. Perhaps he should have spared them from it. Lied. But deep inside, he knew he had been right. Isn’t that what we owed those we loved? The truth?

There was so much more Atif wanted to say; things that may have helped his parents understand, which may have shifted the blame somewhere else, but he knew that this would not change anything. It would only create more pain. His parents were like the branches of a tree, still ignorant of the decaying roots.

“You are dead for us,” his father said as Khadija wailed. “Don’t ever call here again. Forget you have a mother and father. Unless you can change, unless you can repent in front of Allah, do not bother to come back.”

For what seemed like an eternity, he had sat in a corner on the floor, letting the tears wash through him. When his head began to pound and he grew short of breath, he began to call several of his friends, all of whom, as luck would have it, were unavailable and not responding even to their cell phones. He tried to convince himself that his father’s anger would abate in time; that in a matter of days, his mother would call and even though his father would hesitate to come on the phone, a kind of tentative peace would be reached. It would never happen.

It was at that moment, more than seven years ago, that the neighbor he knew only from their shared wall, appeared at his door to find out if he’d be interested in buying a plush, red velvet sofa she owned. Nona Nguyen had stared at Atif’s devastated appearance for a few seconds while he politely declined the sale and then said, “Well, that’s too bad because I’m feeling really generous right now and I want to give someone a really good deal,” and then, without pause, “I’m sorry, but did somebody die or something?”

Atif sputtered into tears again, at which point Nona marched into his apartment without being invited in, and let him unburden himself while she listened patiently. Then she treated him to a steak and chicken combo at a local Sizzler. She had coupons.

“Family should be unconditional, I know, but, you know, it doesn’t always work that way,” she said between mouthfuls of steak soaked in sauce. “I mean, the very fact that they didn’t get to pick you makes them feel screwed if they got stuck with a rotten apple. But friends, now that’s a different story, you know what I mean? We choose our friends, and continue to be with them knowing well and good what they’re about, how they piss us off, how they add to our lives. So sometimes they become more family than any blood relative, know what I mean?”

It was clear to Atif that Nona Nguyen had also dealt with her own demons and had decided to substitute a group of close friends for her parents. He wanted to say something stupid and insensitive like, “But you don’t know my parents. They’re different. They love me,” but he clamped up, realizing that his situation bore witness to the error of his logic. Instead he said, “Your parents are here. At least you see them, talk to them.”

“Yeah, twice a year,” she grunted, looking away. “Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m telling you, those holidays were invented so we could be punished on an annual basis.” She began peppering her steak excessively. “Actually, I think my father just wanted a son. My brother’s the apple of his eye.” Then she quickly changed the subject, pointing at a couple of attractive men who had just walked in.

Slowly, Atif grew accustomed to his exile. The pain, which was sharp and exacting, became dull and submerged by time. The hateful words of his father, the pleas of his powerless mother, all turned into distant echoes, much like the memories of their love for him. But every once in a while, out of nowhere, a dream, a smell, an expression he caught in someone else’s face, the breadth of space left by Rahul’s untimely departure, would remind him of them and the urge to pick up the phone would seize him. This now was one of those moments. As his mind filtered all sorts of assurances—
yes, yes, they must have forgiven you by now, they can’t possibly stay angry with you after all these years
—he had to remind himself that they had not called him.

I’m not going to do this,
he said to himself like a mantra
. I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to do this. I don’t need you. I don’t need any of you anymore. I have him now. He is everything to me.
And he shook his head determinedly, taking deep breaths, squeezing his eyes shut, banishing them as they had banished him.

* * *

On the day Rahul met Atif, the skies wept.

Los Angeles, a desert camouflaged by the indiscernible shift of seasons, canopies of swaying, imported palm trees, and constant blue waters finally heaved a sigh of relief. The earth had burned yearlong, allowing Angelenos to bake on beaches and amble the promenades in their designer tees and Havaianas, but now, as the rain fell torrentially, the earth avenged its deprivation, paralyzing freeways, emptying out car washes and sending everyone to their television sets for up-to-date forecasts.

But Rahul loved the rain, how it quenched the fiery heat of the city; he liked how it dampened the pace, suspended plans and managed to take him out of himself. He knew that soon, everything in the city’s complexion would change for the better: all that was ash and arid would turn green and fecund, naked branches that forked skywards like protesting arms would eventually rustle with growth and vistas that had remained hidden from sight even as the sky had been a confused blue would suddenly appear, snowcapped mountains carving themselves into the sky.

That night, as the rain pelted his windshield, he drove home to Pooja, the set of books lying in the passenger seat of his car, Atif’s business card beating against his chest. After he had purchased the books, Atif had scribbled something on the store’s card and instead of dropping it into the bag, handed it directly to Rahul, gestures pregnant with expectation.

As the single wiper sloshed from side to side, offering intermittent glimpses of clarity into a sea of blinking red lights along San Vicente Boulevard, the radio reported yet another fallout in the peace talks in the Middle East, and Rahul felt himself drift from his surroundings. Even as his eyes carefully monitored the distance from the car in front of him, they were unable to erase Atif.

He changed radio stations, feigned interest in the stores and restaurants that lined the boulevard, but kept coming back to Atif. He beheld again the gentleness of Atif’s demeanor, the planes and curves that formed his face, the kindness in his eyes and the pain that lurked behind them. Though he couldn’t make sense of it, Rahul couldn’t deny that something powerful had transpired. He wondered if perhaps he was not the only one affected. He had experienced, much to his surprise, an inner expansion, a kind of restlessness, a youthful longing after something just beyond his reach; a feeling so vivid, so dormant, that he wanted to stop driving so he could grasp it better, and in the process, end the nervous churning in his belly.

Rahul thought back to the brief sexual encounter with a schoolmate named Hanif in Kenya, lifetimes ago. He had written this off as a rite of passage, something that all young boys went through in a culture where sex with a woman was not readily available. He grew agitated now, wondering if it meant much more.

That evening, the celebration started with Pooja cutting into a pale yellow Dulce de Leche cake adorned with a lavender floral design that Ajay had picked up from Sweet Lady Jane on Melrose. Pooja carved out hulking slices of the caramel dessert for her son and husband, a small wedge for herself. Rahul and Ajay both took turns feeding her a piece of cake as she mock-remonstrated and blushed from the attention. Rahul presented her with the set of books artfully wrapped in lapis blue agate marbled paper, gold ribbon and bow. He placed it in her lap and she marveled at the gift-wrapping before gently pulling on the tails of the oversized bow.

“Oh, just tear it, Mom! It’s not like you’re gonna’ use it again,” said Ajay.

But Pooja took her time, smiling, rolling up the ribbon carefully and placing it aside with the bow, peeling off the flaps one by one, revealing the set as if it were an ancient codex whispering secrets. With every gesture that Pooja used to open her present, Rahul saw pieces of Atif assemble in his mind; when she lifted up the book, he could see Atif as clearly as if he were standing in the room with them. His heart felt heavy with an emotion he could neither contain nor identify and which left him sighing. Rahul leaned over and kissed his wife on the forehead, expelling the phantom presence.

Then Rahul took an elated Pooja and reluctant Ajay to a Bollywood show featuring some of the hottest new film stars and playback singers at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. The rain, which Pooja romantically referred to as Ganga descending into Shiva’s locks, gave no sign of ceasing, but having purchased the special “VVIP” seats for the show, and knowing how much she had been looking forward to it, they stuck to the plan, even though she obligingly suggested they stay in. During the show, when a popular new female artiste hailed as the next Lata Mangeshkar, took to the stage and performed a medley of sentimental
filmi
songs, Pooja held Rahul’s hand on the armrest.