Quarantine: Stories (21 page)

Sanj looked around. Without realizing it, he’d wandered over to Bryant Park, where he’d often spent time when he was pretending to be at work. Over the summer, several days in a row, Sanj had noticed a South Asian homeless man, which shocked and surprised him. He was more accustomed to the Indians in their mansions in Mulberry Hills. Several times Sanj tried approaching the homeless man, often with his handheld tape recorder, but the man always retreated. Sanj wanted to ask him what it was like for him. “How do you survive?” Now the man was nowhere to be found. Summer was over. It was fall, the first in seventeen years when Sanj wasn’t preparing to go back to school.

He sat down by the statue of Gertrude Stein. He’d admired her work when he’d read it in college in a twentieth-century literature class. The statue’s artist had rendered Stein round and sage as a Buddha, her eyes cast downward. Sanj remembered a quote, which he now imagined Stein leaning over and whispering to him: “A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself.” When he’d read the quote in class, he’d instantly felt a connection, and had scribbled it on the cover of his lit notebook; it seemed appropriate, since, though he wasn’t quite failing the class, he wasn’t doing particularly well, either. Still, Sanj wasn’t quite sure what the quote meant.

First L.A., now New York: Sanj’s attempts at carving out a life for himself had been failures. He thought of his father. He had come to a new world and built a life in the unlikeliest of places. He’d constructed a mansion, erected a fountain, encircled it with scenes from his life. Sanj couldn’t even manage to keep an unpaid internship.

“A better life,” his father had said. When Sanj pressed him about what that meant, Bipin said, “More opportunities for myself and for your mother. But mostly for you, my darling son.” He had held out his hands, as if offering a gift. “It’s all for you.”

I
t was eight by the time Sanj returned to Long Island. The house seemed particularly quiet. He could hear clattering dishes from the dining room. He found the family there—Lala, Chandu, The Jasmines—along with Sylvie, eating dinner. Sanj sat down. Lala had already set his place, even piling the plate with food. Little was said at dinner, but Sanj couldn’t help feeling that he was being stared at. The Jasmines shot him harsh glances, narrowing their eyes. Had Sylvie told them? Had they told Chandu Uncle? Lala Auntie?

After dinner, Sanj found Sylvie in Meghana’s bedroom. She was sitting alone on the large, queen-size bed, curled up on top of the pink duvet, reading. She looked up from her book for a moment, but then went back to reading.

“I’m so,
so
sorry,” Sanj said. He realized how insincere it must have sounded. It seemed to have become a mantra in their relationship, Sanj saying over and over to Sylvie
sorry, sorry, sorry
.

He noticed that she had packed her suitcase. “Are you leaving?”

Sylvie didn’t answer. He couldn’t believe the horrible things he’d said to her. He wondered if his father and Chandu Uncle had ever fought those first years in America. Surely, they must have. Had they hurt one another? How had they mended it?

“Please stay,” Sanj said. As he formed the words, he realized how desperately he meant it—not for Sylvie’s sake, but for his own. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”

He said, “Or maybe, if you’re going back to West Virginia, I’ll come with you.”

Sylvie put down her book. “No,” she said. “You can’t.”

Sanj stood in the doorway, blinking. He understood.

Downstairs, Lala was sitting in the living room, reading a Gujarati-language newspaper. Sanj sat down next to her. They were silent. They had nothing to say to each other, no common language to speak.

At first, Lala didn’t look at him. Sanj sat quietly for a minute or two, and then found himself, almost without knowing it, scooting a little closer to her. Sanj felt his eyes well up with tears. Lala put her newspaper down, and looked at him. Her eyes were soft. She lowered her lids slightly. She opened up her right arm, and Sanj slid in, eventually resting his head on her shoulder. She held him.

He knew he would have to call his father and tell him everything. Safe in Lala’s arms, he imagined it now. He would say, “Dad, I need to talk to you.” His father would be in the enormous living room, which was a sunken room, two steps down from the rest of the level, making the already high ceilings even higher. He and Sanj’s mother would be sitting on the sofa—a divan, really, with red brocade. They’d be watching a Bollywood movie, as they often did in the evenings, the videocassettes shipped to them from the Indian grocery store in Columbus. So many of the Bollywood films Sanj had seen had the same plot—a boy falls in love with a girl, but his parents have already fixed up an engagement to someone else, have already planned out another life for him—and this one would be no different. Bipin would pause the movie and say, “Tell us. We’re listening.” Sanj would be on speakerphone, and he would try his best to make his voice heard, to not let the cavernous house swallow him.

I
am full of gratitude for the many,
many
people who have provided encouragement and support over the years and who have had faith in me even when I didn’t. A complete list would rival in length the short story collection itself. But I would like especially to thank the following:

My agent, Nat Jacks, for finding me, for being patient with me, and for believing in me.

My editor, Rakesh Satyal, for his generous and incisive readings of my work and for his unflagging enthusiasm (no one could ask for a better editor); his assistant, Rob Crawford; Katie Salisbury; Joseph Papa; and all the other wonderful folks at HarperCollins.

The tremendous team that launched my book in India: Chiki Sarkar, Rachel Tanzer, and Sohini Bhattacharya.

All the editors who have published stories from the collection: Diane Williams at
NOON
; David Lynn at
The Kenyon Review
; the editors at
Fourteen Hill
; Colleen Donfield, Andrew Snee, and Sy Safransky at
The Sun
; Michael Koch at
Epoch
; Rajni George at
The Caravan
; and Kathy Pories and Madison Smartt Bell, for selecting my work for the anthology
New Stories from the South
.

The students, faculty, and staff in the Syracuse University Creative Writing Program for sharing their tremendous talents with me, particularly my classmates Stephanie Carpenter, Phil LaMarche, Monique Schmidt, Nina Shope, Christian TeBordo, and Erin Brooks Worley; my teachers Bob O’Connor, Arthur Flowers, Brian Evenson, and Mary Karr; and my amazing,
amazing
thesis adviser and hero, George Saunders.

All the additional readers whose feedback helped shape this manuscript, especially Anne Coon, Gail Hosking, and Susan Morehouse.

John Laprade and Kate Hawes, for somehow managing to make me look, in my author photos, a little less like the total dork that I am.

Erin Brooks Worley, whom I’ve already thanked, but must thank again (and again and again and again . . .) for invaluable critiques and for the birds.

My family, both immediate and extended, in the U.S. and in India, especially my parents, Kunj and Nalini Mehta, and my brother, Nimish Mehta, for support beyond anything anyone could ever expect; my uncle and aunt, Shirish and Nita Parikh, for generously providing time and space for me to complete this collection; and my cousin, Sodhan Parikh, for the New Year’s Day phone call that did more for me than he could know.

And, of course, my partner, Robert Bingham: exacting editor, astute critic, and love of my life.

RAHUL MEHTA
received his MFA from Syracuse University, where he was the Cornelia Carhart Ward Fellow. Portions of
Quarantine
have appeared in
New Stories from the South
,
The Kenyon Review
,
The Sun
,
Epoch
,
Noon
, and
Fourteen Hills
. Mehta lives with his partner in Alfred, New York, and teaches at Alfred University.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

QUARANTINE.
Copyright © 2011 by Rahul Mehta. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-06-202045-1

11  12  13  14  15  
OV/RRD
  10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780062091741