The Two Krishnas (23 page)

“But it’s heavy, Mom.”

“I carried you, didn’t I? And let me tell you, you weren’t very light,
pahelwan
.”

As Pooja hauled the box from the back seat of the car, she noticed that her son drew the curious glances of a group of adolescent girls attracted by the coppery, muscled boy at the wheel of a luxury car, distracting him completely. How he lapped it up. She noted with disdain that none of them were Indian and her first instinct was to drop the box and shoo them away like a pack of stray cats. Nobody could be worthy of her son. But she let them enjoy the drama of youth that she herself had once participated in.

It wasn’t until later, when Pooja had disappeared around the corner with the box wobbling in her struggling arms, the thick gold bangles cutting into the board, that the irony of her feelings about America struck her. More and more she was growing resentful of the country and turning into the very people she thought ungrateful and hypocritical.
It was so easy to be seduced by nostalgia, with the craving for something we were forced to leave behind,
she thought.
But if things had truly been any different back home, would they have come here in the first place?

* * *

If he could only kill the relentless montage of their moments together, block his mind from manufacturing the dreadful possibilities explaining Rahul’s absence, then maybe Atif could have stopped the churning in the pit of his belly and the feeling like his heart was being constricted in his ribcage. But as he walked to the Pacific, bypassing the supermarket on Montana Avenue, he could not keep himself from drowning in gloom. He remembered why it had been so easy to stay uninvolved all these years, stay guarded, unavailable. His loneliness had returned, demanding crushing reparations for his giving in.

He was oblivious to the sanguine people around him—the joggers in their designer sports apparel, shoppers trotting conspicuous name-brand bags and popping in and out of boutiques, beach-and-mall-bound pedestrians and stroller-pushing couples, multi-tasking habitués checking e-mails from their laptops and getting their caffeine fix at sidewalk cafes, organic-obsessed shoppers with burlap and paper bags full of fresh produce from the farmers’ market—all of it happening in a superimposed universe that he could see but not partake in. It was only when he saw the beautiful Indian woman dressed in stunning purple crouched in the middle of the street, gathering the spillage of little containers, that he managed to escape the grip of his thoughts momentarily.

An older, avuncular man was kneeling besides her, carefully placing the containers in the large box. “Why didn’t you just call? I would have come out.”

“Oh, it’s ruined!” she cried. “God, what a day this is turning into!”

“Not at all, love. Nothing’s ruined,” he said in his clipped English.

Atif got nearer, watching her cluck away disapprovingly. “So where is this boy today? It’s not like him not to show up,” and then quickly, as if she could barely believe her own insensitivity, “I mean, he is alright, is he not?”

“Oh, someone rear-ended the poor boy. Look, they’re perfectly alright. Nothing’s broken,” he assured her.

Atif picked up a single container that was in his path, noting that it was
chevda
, a spicy Gujarati trail mix containing rice, peanuts, raisins, cashews, fennel, curry leaf; it had been a staple at Kamal’s home in Bombay, enjoyed with a dollop of plain yogurt, a drizzle of fresh lime juice, some salt and accompanied by a cup of piping masala chai. It had been forever since he had tasted it and seeing the comfort food made him salivate. He resisted the urge to raise the box up to his nose and inhale its familiar spicy aroma, dive into its grainy turmeric dunes. He carried it over to the kneeling couple.

“That’s what happens when these daft people are busy chattering away on their mobile phones instead of looking ahead,” the man was saying. “And what’s the use? The more time we save, the more of it we need.”

They both looked up at Atif as he handed the packet over. She thanked him, smiled with a mixture of embarrassment and gratitude. He caught the sharp scent of her attar, a mélange of musk and roses, and breathed in deeply, reflexively, momentarily transported to the folds of his mother’s chiffon
chunni.

“Would you like to keep it?” she asked.

“Thank you, no,” he said politely and walked away from the fragrance and taste of home.

* * *

On the dining room table, next to the plates of covered food, Rahul found the note Pooja had scribbled for him, indicating that she and Ajay would be right back. Behind him, on the widescreen TV,
Showbiz India
was regaling the country with a current dose of Bollywood cinema and its host, Reshma Dordi, was fulfilling a request for a video of the industry’s reigning king, Shahrukh Khan. Grabbing the wireless and the cold steel cup of salted
lassi
, he went out into the back yard, through the frosted glass paneled doors, where an abundant lemon tree produced the impossibly large fruit that Pooja used for
nimbu pani
.

He walked several feet to the other end of the patio, as far away from the intrusive presence of Sonali’s neighboring house. According to Pooja, after seeing some new racy Bollywood film
,
Sonali had grown obsessed with wind chimes, cramming her house with them to imitate the film’s siren. Now even the slightest breeze set off a pandemonium that drove him insane.

Surrounded by intense white, orange and pink bougainvilleas, the kind that had been everywhere in Mombasa, he chugged down the salty cumin-infused
lassi
, feeling its milky coolness temporarily calming his inner turmoil. He looked at the lemon tree, heavy with offering. When Ajay was about six, they had caught him pissing on it and Pooja had joked, “Just look at the size of these lemons! God knows what special fertilizer our little
pehelwan
has put.” When the gardener had suggested they uproot it, they had protested vehemently, asking him to work around the tree.

He placed the steel glass upon the abandoned outdoor grill. There had been a time when it had roared and spitted, when little Ajay had watched wondrously and dared him to make the flames dance higher and higher while Pooja admonished him about getting too close in her typical overprotective fashion.

He surveyed the sun-dappled patio, artfully decorated by her. Oversized wicker seats and chaises with colorful silk pillows, a stacked foam bed covered with a vibrant pink batik full of elephants invited lounging. A picturesque garden of calla lilies, eternally blooming roses, bougainvillea and jasmine formed a private, abandoned Eden. He leaned up against the lavender pergola, under a trellis dripping with scarlet trumpet vine, and wished he could remain calm. He craved a cigarette. Yearned for the balm of nicotine. He made a mental note to purchase a pack the next time he got the chance.

Above him a squirrel scuttled along the electrical wire against a palette of clear blue sky. When it noticed Rahul, the little creature froze, keeping perfect balance. They assessed each other momentarily and then it went off, apparently reassured of the lack of danger. Rahul looked at the phone in his hand. It was not that he was avoiding calling Atif but that after raising his hopes so high, Rahul didn’t have the heart to crush him. At least that’s what he told himself. His finger still poised upon the buttons that would connect him to where a part of him lived, he processed more of his feelings. How long could Atif and he go on this way? Was he willing to risk everything to be with Atif? What if this was some kind of warning, one last chance to avert a disaster? Then again, was it not too late already?

He remembered Ajay’s words, saw his curled lip, and wondered if Atif could ever understand what he was going through as a father, if not as a husband.

That he couldn’t live without his family, Rahul already knew.

Could he live without Atif?

* * *

Upon calling home, Atif found a message on the answering machine. All Rahul said was that he couldn’t make it, that he would call him again later.

But why would Rahul call him at home instead of on his cell phone? To avoid talking with him?

Why couldn’t he get away?

Why had he sounded so different—quick, vague, nervous?

Having heard his voice, Atif’s desperation escalated and he imagined the most audacious scenarios. He should show up at Rahul’s place, find out for himself what had happened, demand that Rahul keep his promise, threaten to reveal everything to his family unless they could be together. Was this love? Perhaps not, but in the grips of his fear of losing Rahul, suddenly no thought was irrational, unwarranted. It was as if some vital nerve of communication traveling from his head to his heart, the one responsible for ferrying logic, had been rent.

Warm breeze grazed Atif’s face, now streaked with tears. He stood against the concrete railing of the park overlooking the Pacific, barely feeling his feet as pain coursed through him. The sun was burning against his back and sweat dampened his sheer cotton
kurta.
On his left the remodeled pier, thronged with people and loaded with amusements, stretched out grandly but like an incomplete bridge to nowhere. The Ferris wheel revolved languidly. Next to it, a canary yellow roller coaster coursed through its preordained path with serpentine grace.

A homeless woman trudged past Atif with a cart overflowing with dross. Atif saw her misapplied bright pink lipstick and unruly Afro, and recognized her at once as Dottie, one of the first homeless people he had seen upon moving to L.A. He had been shopping at the neighborhood Vons when he had heard the checkers snickering about her. Right now she was embroiled in a ferocious argument with her demons.

“You better leave me alone, you hear me? Or I’m gonna’ kick yo’ ass!” she threatened, brandishing her fist in the air. People scurried away from her. Atif tried in vain to find some quiet in the pandemonium of life.

As an unspoken rule, he only ever called Rahul on his cellular. But after repeatedly being dumped into his voice mail, on which Rahul announced himself punctiliously as the bank manager, he found himself pressing the button that would connect him to that other realm to which he lost Rahul on a daily basis. His need had finally surpassed his pride.

When Rahul answered, he was struck silent for a moment, stunned, as if he had, after a lifetime of trying, successfully infiltrated the after-life and heard an evidencing voice, found proof of its existence. “Rahul, you’re all right…”

“Yes, I’m all right.”

And suddenly, the proof that nothing had harmed Rahul, that he was alive and breathing was enough to override any anger that Atif should have felt in that moment. Atif thanked God in his mind, breathed a sigh of relief. “I had only two choices,” he said. “To think that you’re an asshole. Or that something terrible had happened to you. I prefer the former.”

“Atif, you’re calling me at home.”

“Yeah, but what did you want me to do, Rahul?” he asked. “I’ve tried calling you on your cell. Have you turned it off?”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve checked with them first. They’d already made some plans,” he said feebly. “I can’t do it.”

But Atif didn’t care. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then whenever. As long as Rahul was still there, as long as they were still together, connected, it didn’t matter and he could endure anything. But something gnawed in Atif, hinting at grave possibilities. Rahul was not just asking for a rain check, the timbre of something more than a postponement in his voice. He had made himself deliberately unreachable until now. Remorse, reluctance, impotence, doubt—they were all there, lumped together like a concrete block tied to the feet of a drowning man.

“You could at least call, Rahul. What’s really going on?”

“I can’t right now.”

“Why? What can’t you do right now?”

“I knew it would be hard,” said Rahul. “But this is…I’m not sure I can do this, Atif. You know my situation.”

“And I’ve dealt with it, haven’t I?” Rahul was silent for only moments but in Atif’s ears they stretched on for eons. Then the wail of an ambulance sawing its way through Ocean Boulevard drowned everything. Although Atif barely glanced at it, he reflexively recited prayers as he did whenever he saw an ambulance, a police car, any augury of tragedy—
Ar-Raoof, Ar-Raoof, Ar-Raoof
(The Compassionate, The Compassionate, The Compassionate)—except this time, he wasn’t sure if he was invoking one of the ninety-nine names of Allah for those out there or for himself. “Rahul?”

“It’s just not going to work out, Atif. I wish I could cut myself into two but…”

He tried to keep afloat, thought of that world from yesterday—one filled with hope and love and laughter. How can you lose all that? It was too precious, too real not to fight for, to hold on to. “You know what? It’s okay, we’ll just make up for it next week,” he tried sounding jovial, to conquer fear with hope. “Maybe we can go to that new restaurant that just opened, you know, the one at Shutters, the one I was telling you about? Or, of course, I can always cook and—”

“I need some time, Atif. Time to think.”

“Think? About what?” Nothing. And even though Atif knew that his persistence might push Rahul further away, he was unable to withstand the pain, to be left in abeyance. “How much time? Rahul?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know…”

He gave a short, sharp laugh and it sounded as if someone had punched him in the stomach. So this was indefinite. He felt like his whole world was caving in. “So this is
that
moment. Commonsense sets in. Suddenly you need a reason for us.”