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It would be six hours before Karom logged on to his computer, searching for answers, looking up death tolls on the Indian Red Cross website, manning live streams for four different news sites at once, cross-referencing emails and then seeing his parents’ names in ghostly letters upon a list of those found fatally wounded or dead. And then his grandparents. All four of them. And then a whole column, a page of his surname over and over:
Rana Seth.
Mohan Seth.
Akansha Seth.
Preeti Seth.
Madhu Seth.
Shankar Seth.
Seth.
Seth.
Seth.
Seth.
It was another two hours before he remembered the word: orphan. Thereafter, until Lloyd and the other students returned to campus, everything was broken up into increments of time: sixteen hours before Kishan called to confirm that everyone at the reunion was reported officially missing. Dead. Twenty-two hours before Karom dry-heaved repeatedly from hunger. Thirty-six hours before his contact lenses automatically peeled themselves away from his pupils—raw from the dry, airless room—and curled up on the desk where he sat staring at his laptop, his only beacon and companion, which rang in the New Year in front of him. Ninety-six hours before he methodically and carefully deleted all the emails from friends inquiring if his family was okay and saying that they were praying for them and was there anything anyone could do and please don’t hesitate to ask. Three months before a courier rapped on his door with a delivery from Kishan wrapped in brown paper and padded with cotton wads.
A gold Rolex with a black alligator band sat nestled within the padding. The face was weathered and scratched just to the right of the crown and there were a few bits of sand wedged between the glass face and the golden hinges. A small note accompanied it.
Karom—
This was among the belongings in the safe in Naana and Naani’s room. There wasn’t much else—their passports and some bundles of rupees. Your parents’ room held their passports and some money, as well. The passports and money are being held for administrative and tracking purposes. I’ll make sure to have them sent to you as soon as possible. I wanted you to have something of meaning, and as you know, this was the watch that your naani gave your naana on their wedding night. I hope it serves as something—a memory, a wish, a light.
All my best,
Kishan Uncle
Together we learn there’s nothing like time. Karom was sure that it was the first of Naani’s many gestures to her new husband that everything would be okay, that even if nothing made sense in their early days as strangers to one another, the years would prove themselves stronger than unfamiliarity, that they would take this journey together, learning about one another and stumbling and catching one another and learning every step of the way. Naani was always the reassuring one; her husband would flurry about worrying if the plane would lose their luggage, or whether they would run out of vegetarian meals, or if they hadn’t packed enough warm clothing for the beach.
Karom had put the watch on immediately, and unless he was bathing or sleeping or going through the security line at the airport, he never took it off. He would wear it as a constant reminder of all that he had lost, his whole family all at once, wham bam, in an instant, like the second hand that ticked on his wrist.
* * *
On the morning of their departure from Delhi, Ammama tiptoes into the sitting room, where Karom is holding his watch between his fingers, studying its slightly scarred face. Ammama stops and smiles shyly, looking down at the tray as if to show Karom what she has brought him. He motions to her to sit down next to him.
“Come,” he whispers. She sits awkwardly on the bed next to him, pulling her tiny feet underneath her and adjusting her sari. The tray of bananas and cold coffee sits between them, but on this morning, there is also a thick book. Karom peels a banana and hands it to her. She shakes her head shyly. Karom urges, “Please.” She nibbles at the tiny fruit and Karom peels another for himself. So much sweeter than the huge bland ones we get back home, Karom thinks.
“What do you say to me?” he asks. “Are you praying?” Ammama colors and looks down at the floor.
“I thought you were asleep,” she says.
“I’m an early riser,” Karom says. “Please tell me.”
“It’s nothing, really. Just an old lady’s superstitions.”
“Please.” He takes her banana peel and places it with his alongside the book on the tray. He turns to face her. Ammama looks at him and purses her mouth.
“You mustn’t be cross with Gita for telling me. She tells me that you like to tempt fate. That you call it your game. Is that right?” Karom looks down, embarrassed. “Fate isn’t an easy thing to play with. Once it decides to shift in one direction, the gusts keep on blowing, and it’s out of your hands. You have to take care of one another, don’t you?” He nods. “But I know there is something over you. An omen.”
“An omen?”
Ammama nods solemnly.
“What kind of omen? Because I’ve been pretty lucky.” He tells her about Acadia and the tidal wave that he and Gita narrowly missed. He tells her about 9/11, how he’d feigned illness on the morning that his class was to visit a news studio in Tower 1 because he hadn’t finished a paper on Howards End, how instead he’d stayed home watching the news, stricken, while the first tower came crumbling down like a stale cracker.
“Do you think so? Then what is this game nonsense?”
It’s Karom’s turn to color. “It’s just my way of feeling alive. I can’t— I don’t have an explanation. It’s how I’ve conditioned myself, I suppose. To understand why I’m still...why I don’t...why I can’t...what’s keeping me from...” He trails off and looks down at his hands sitting uselessly in his lap. “But what do you see? How can you tell?”
“I suppose the same way, I can’t explain the feeling I had about you from the moment you walked through the door. But I knew it was there the moment I heard you whimpering and tossing about at night.”
“I’m still doing that, huh?” Karom bites his lip. “Is this something that will hurt me? Omens don’t have to be bad, you know. Are you praying to get rid of the omen?”
“I suppose I am. I am praying for you to win the game. I want you to win. Just like Gita, I want the game to end.”
Karom looks down sheepishly.
She reaches for the tray and picks up the book, weighing it carefully between her two hands.
“This is mine. I want you to have it.” Karom looks at the cover, his eyes wide with surprise.
“You—you wrote this?”
“It’s being released this Friday. Read it, and let me know what you think. I suppose it’s my form of sealing fate away in a place it can’t hurt me.”
Karom’s eyebrows knit together.
Ammama smiles. “You’ll see. I have only two copies, and I will give the other one to Gita before you leave.”
“Thank you,” he whispers. “I didn’t even know you were a writer. Gita didn’t mention...” He looks at the book again before slipping it into his backpack. “I’m honored.”
Gita appears now around the corner of the living room, wearing rumpled boxer shorts and a tank top. Even in the cloistered morning air, her nipples stand at attention and Karom looks down, embarrassed. She is wearing the neckpiece Ammama has given her and she pulls her hair out from where it is tucked under her camisole strap and braids it to the side.
“What are you guys doing?” She yawns, leaning against the doorway.
“You didn’t sleep with that on, did you?” Karom asks.
“Of course not. I just felt like wearing it now,” Gita says, twirling one of the fat golden ropes around her finger.
“It’s rather special to be wearing around the house,” Karom says. “Put it away. It’s delicate.”
“I’ll get breakfast started. You’ll have to leave for the airport shortly after your baths,” Ammama says, getting up.
“How much do you think this is worth?” Gita asks when Karom is alone with her in the living room.
“I have no idea. But aside from the price of the stones and the gold itself, I’m sure the antique design and the craftsmanship are worth a lot.”
“I was thinking about selling it,” Gita whispers, her eyes shining in the morning light. “It’s gotta be worth hundreds, maybe even a thousand. And then we can go to Argentina over Christmas.”
“Are you insane?” Karom nearly shouts. His anger seems to reflect off the walls of the small apartment. He feels his temple pulsing, though in the rest of his body, it feels as if his blood has actually run cold and stopped midcourse in his veins. “Gita, that’s your grandmother’s wedding necklace. She would never have gifted it to you if she knew you were going to sell it. It has to remain in the family.”
“Well, too bad you’re not in mine. ’Cause then you could save it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.” Gita sticks her chin out in a manner that would normally have made Karom tackle her onto the bed and initiate hours of intimacy, had they been in his bedroom back in New York, but now it just provokes him. “Besides, Karom, we can’t all hold on to the past like a narcotic. There are things that link us to our dark memories and don’t let us move on. This necklace is a prime example. It’s tainted.”
“Tainted,” Karom repeats.
Gita grits her teeth as she leans in, whispering toward him. “Yes, tainted. It’s my grandmother’s wedding jewelry. The groom fled this ship thirty years ago and treated her like dirt while he was here. Yes, let’s hold on to this blissful symbol of their awful marriage forever.”
Ammama sticks her head in the doorway. “Would you like Indian breakfast today or something light, like toast? Either is perfectly convenient.”
“Toast,” Karom says, just as Gita says, “Dosas.”
“One of each,” Ammama says, turning back toward the kitchen.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Gita says. “I have to finish packing.” She takes the necklace off and returns to the room she has been sharing with her grandmother. Karom has already finished packing. He is a meticulous planner and has learned to pack from a flight-attendant friend who showed him how to roll T-shirts and tuck underwear into his shoes. His toiletries are stowed in the plastic compartment at the top of his bag, the tube of toothpaste curled up evenly like a scorpion’s tail, ensuring that every inch of space is being utilized. His socks are balled into spheres, and his belts snaked around the perimeter, encasing all his clothes in a tight bundle. The hard shell of his maroon suitcase is streaked with dust, the way it always happens only in India. Dust gets in everywhere, no matter that Karom unzips his bag for only a few hurried minutes each day: in the morning before his bath and in the evening before bed. Dust is caked between the grooved wheels, and he wipes the plastic with a wet towel, where it spreads and nestles into the suitcase’s zippered teeth. He can hear Gita’s version of packing in the next room: unfolded clothes tossed into her gaping Tumi—unwashed ones stuffed into a plastic Fabindia bag—and her huffs and squats as she clambers on top to zip it. Karom sits down on what has been his bed for the past four nights. He turns his wrist upside down and examines the fine hairs that grow where the white of the underside of his arm meets the tan line that has grown deeper during their vacation. His watch ticks reassuringly away. If they leave within the hour, they will make their flight with no problems.
Karom takes the watch off now, weighing it in the center of his palm. The skin underneath his watch is white and moist and gives off a peppery odor. The spicy scents of coconut and lentils waft down the corridor. He can hear Gita as she pads into the kitchen and muffled conversation as she sets the table. The watchstrap is fraying, but in a charming antique way. He rotates the dial, watching the hands spin freely. He picks up the flat pillow and the three sheets that are folded on his pallet bed, and for an instant, he considers leaving the watch on top of the pile. Instead he slaps it back onto his wrist and pulls it tight through the loopholes before pulling his sleeve to cover the face. Karom fluffs the pillow and places it on top of the pile before picking up his suitcase and rolling it into the hallway.
Kamini
Kamini has never considered herself religious. Her nieces and lady cousins all behave as though their community spiritual leader were a cult master and they follow him about the country glassy-eyed and full of praise. She has to give the man credit, though; he is learned not only in the heavenly scriptures but is well-read, inhaling everything from Popular Mechanics to New York Times bestsellers. He recently led a lecture on “How the Ethics of The Da Vinci Code Apply to Our Everyday Lives as Hindus.” It also doesn’t hurt that he is ruggedly handsome, with his scruffy beard and soft eyes. But Kamini has never bought it.
It’s not that Kamini is an atheist or even agnostic. She accepts and she believes. Just not the way the rest of the community might prefer. When those buildings were struck at the very point of New York City where the two rivers come together, she lit candles and prayed. When the terrorists attacked all the fancy Bombay hotels where the tourists, the business elite and their mistresses stayed, she did the same. With the tsunami, with her daughter’s first pregnancy—and then her second and then third, all bearing the nascent fruit of long, lean girls with thick glossy black hair. When Sachin Tendulkar played the test match in South Africa. And she prayed the night before the United States announced that they had voted in that president they called “Dub-ya” for the second time.
It isn’t religion. It is ritual. Just as writing has become her religion now in addition to her ritual. Her whole life, she’s always felt as though she is on the brink of something. Nothing has felt settled or fulfilled. There has always been a longing, a waiting, desiring. Nothing has felt as though she were fully in the moment, because she has learned that there is nothing she can get comfortable with. Nothing, that is, until she began to write.
Somehow, amid all distractions of raising her daughter in a single-parent household, she’d managed to discover a talent. One that would establish some sort of living for herself and her daughter once it was clear that it would be the two of them from here on out. From the time her daughter, Savita, was born, Kamini had a full stock of stories. She’d heard hundreds over the years, from her aunts and uncles, cousins and family friends. She unearthed the round-robin story hours from her year with her cousins in the small house, where they’d lain in circles passing morsels and beginnings of a story from person to person until a fable was born. She used the foundations of these tales as the source of new ones and changed details so they were unrecognizable from those tales she told with her cousins. The stories served as a source of quiet time for herself and Savita before the door barged open invariably at some witching hour of the morning and Kamini’s husband reentered their lives.
At some point, she began writing them down—those she’d created in her youth and those she spun at Savita’s bedside behests, and at some point, she sent one harmlessly to a children’s magazine. And they sent her back a check. So she sent another. And then suddenly, out of the woodwork, there it was: a living. It wasn’t enough to keep herself and Savita in riches but it afforded their basics and allowed them a meal or two out each month.
It was a strange living, one that she couldn’t admit to her family or friends, because during this time in their lives, in India it was considered uncouth for a woman—an abandoned woman especially—to go out and look for work. Never mind the strange dichotomy in this; if she didn’t earn a living, she and her daughter would starve because no one was offering handouts. Somehow she was just expected to go on with their lives as if her husband, Dev, was still there, bringing in his handsome salary as head of a security unit in Breach Candy. So she wrote. She devised stories of all shapes and forms, testing them out on Savita before she dared to seal the envelope and send them in to the editor. Savita would—true to character—challenge her on several endings.
“Mama, why would the troll so easily give up his control of the land? What does he have to gain from it?”
“Mama, sometimes you write these girls as if they are so stupid. No one would make such empty-headed decisions. Why would Princess Ajanta choose a man with brute strength over a man who can outwit anyone in the kingdom? It just doesn’t make sense.” At this one, Kamini had bristled. When had she ever made a decision in her life? she’d argued. Everything had been decided for her. From the clothes she wore to the schools she attended to the home she lived in to the man she married.
“Maybe I am stupid,” Kamini had spat back for the first time, “so you’ll have to help me guide these girls.”
Together they submitted hundreds of stories to children’s magazines and housewives’ digests, until eventually a magazine editor decided to publish an anthology of her short stories.
Kamini had been jolted into a harsh reality. “You can’t print my name on the cover,” she’d begged over the phone. “It has to be an alias.”
The editor had sighed heavily. “These are your stories, are they not? Come, now, aren’t you proud of your work? You’ve put years into this collection. Stand behind it. You never know what doors it will open for you.”
“As long as I am getting a paycheck, that’s all that matters to me. Please understand, Mr. Devindra.”
And so her collection had been published, with a pale blue hard cover with gold lettering: Tales of Girls and Animals by Shanta Nayak. It was most difficult for Kamini, publishing a book on her own and—save Savita—not being able to tell anyone about it. The book became her friends’ and family’s go-to bedtime bible and she would watch as some of her younger nieces and nephews would tote it about, dog-eared and stained, everywhere they went, hugging it to their chests as they sat meekly on sofas during family visits.
“This Shanta Nayak has really done a number on us all. Now on those long train rides to see my in-laws, the kids just sit and read quietly without chewing my tongue and driving me to pieces. God bless her, truly,” Kamini’s second cousin said.
“She must be from our community itself,” her sister responded. “Nayak is a Konkani name.”
“I hadn’t even thought of it,” the first second cousin said. “She should do a story hour with all the children. They’d love it.” For a moment Kamini’s blood ran cold. She’d be found out. Luckily, the editor wrote back to her cousins that Shanta Nayak was too busy for public appearances, that she was already hard at work on the sequel. And that was how Kamini was coerced into writing a second book. This time with new stories from the crevices of her mind and without the support of Savita, who was enrolled in college in America and had little time to help her mother concoct fairytales. These stories, however, were a little more biting. They were closer to home. Kamini wrote of a man who drank too much potion and tottered around in the background of the heroine’s house uselessly until the girl had to save him from the forest fire that would have otherwise consumed them all. Instead of an evil witch, there was a slave-driving auntie who would whip her young girl workers if they didn’t produce enough golden flax from the magic wheat that grew in their mystical fields.
“What are these, Kaminiji?” Pinki Devindra had demanded. “These are too bitter for children. I can’t print these.”
“They’re a bit more...realistic. We can’t have our children growing up without realizing the harsh truths of life.” The editor had harrumphed on the other end of the line but eventually printed them as they were, and Shanta Nayak’s True Stories of Make Believe landed on shelves the following month. At first, mothers were shocked at their brusqueness. They didn’t buy the books for their children, but True Stories of Make Believe became somewhat of a cult classic when children discovered it on their own, smuggling copies into their homes as though it were a trashy magazine with naked pictures of women. They read it under their covers and traded the same raggedy book among their friends. Soon parents had to admit that the stories were honest, though brutal, and began purchasing the book themselves.
Now—Kamini can hardly believe it—she has been living off her profits for the past thirty years. The books are still in high demand, and though she is still in her cramped East Delhi apartment, her books feed, clothe and keep her warm at night. She feeds Mr. Devindra—now Pinki to her—a short story from time to time, whenever she can no longer keep his ceaseless nagging for new work at bay. Savita married a man she met in college. They live in a state called Ohio—a place that Kamini thinks sounds constantly surprised to hear its own name. And though she misses her daughter, Kamini finally lives alone: with her routine, with her stories, with her ritual.
Which is why she is annoyed by Pinki’s phone call this morning. He has been hounding her for a few reasons: to purchase a computer, to learn how to use it and to write a third book. He is in his early seventies now but with skin stretched as tight as a young man’s and dark gray eyes that sparkle when he coaxes Kamini to write. He visits her from time to time, sometimes to drop off a packet of fan letters, other times a children’s magazine he thinks she will enjoy. But today he is calling to alert her that a package is on its way to her house by special courier.
“I’m sending you a laptop computer, Kaminiji. It’s one of the ones that folds, so it won’t take up any more room than is necessary in your flat. I’m also sending a boy to teach you to use it. It’s been fifteen years since True Stories of Make Believe. Leave a legacy, Kaminiji. Two books are insufficient. A trilogy is a legacy.” Kamini sighs and shifts her weight as she stands hunched over the phone in the kitchen. She is roasting chilies and the smell is starting to suffocate her. She turns toward the stove, pulling the phone cord with her, and applies a few more drops of oil to the pan, where they sizzle, thin wisps of gray smoke rising from the shiny red shards. She will dry these chilies out to make a pickle, allowing them to marinate properly for six months before her granddaughter Gita visits with her boyfriend in May. Boyfriend, Kamini muses. What an insipid word. It is so wishy-washy, so noncommittal. She has spoken to Gita about her relationship, and while Kamini agrees that there is no need to rush into anything, the word boyfriend makes her grimace.
She steps back and wipes her forehead with the tail of her sari.
“Pinki, my daughter has been out of the house for thirty years, and her children only visit occasionally. I haven’t been around children for such a long time. I don’t know how they act, interact. I don’t know their interests anymore. I’ve nothing to give.”
“Nonsense,” Pinki says, puffing on his pipe, a habit he hasn’t weaned himself off of even with the recent ever-insistent warnings of cancer. “Okay, you’ve been languishing. Maybe you’re a bit rusty. But practice on the laptop—get your fingers and your mind oiled and the words will pour out of you faster than you know it. This way you can send me stories and I can edit them as they come through. We can have a running dialogue. If you’re stuck, we can chat through the computer. It’ll be much better this way.”
Before she knows it, the doorbell is ringing and her chilies are scalding.
“Arey, you sent it now? As we were speaking?” Kamini asks, wiping her hands on a dishrag.
“The boy only left an hour ago. He made good timing. Good luck with it. I’m sure you’ll be a natural. I’ll call you later with details about deadlines, content, etc.”
Kamini hangs up the phone and answers the door. A young man stands behind it, clutching a rectangular satchel.