And Laughter Fell From the Sky (12 page)

She turned her back to her mother. “Only if you leave me completely alone today.”

“Okay,” he agreed. Anything to see her again.

Rasika turned away from Abhay and was walking back to her table when Kanchan Uncle appeared next to her. Her heart was pounding as a result of what Abhay had said. She forced herself to smile at Kanchan Uncle as they walked.

“I know what you were doing at the hotel with Abhay,” he said quietly.

She stopped in her tracks. What was he implying?

“I saw you come out of the elevator with him, and with your suitcase,” he continued. “Your hair was wet. I know what you were doing.”

She stared.

“I want to make a suggestion.” He was smiling slightly, balancing his plate piled high with a stack of pooris, mounds of rice and curries, and a large papadum crowning the whole thing. He kept his distance from her, as though they were just having a polite conversation. Other guests walked around them on their way to and from the buffet table.

“I want you to meet me at the hotel tomorrow,” he said. “My family will be out visiting some friends. I will tell them I am not feeling well. You come and visit me.”

Rasika was shocked. She’d never thought an Indian uncle was capable of making any kind of proposition like this. She furrowed her brow and glanced around her.

“I am going away on Tuesday,” he said. “No one will know. I will be completely silent.”

She laughed, as though she were finally getting the joke. “Very funny.” She started walking away. He followed.

“I will tell Mita what I saw,” he said, catching up to her. “And you know she cannot resist spreading good gossip.”

“Go ahead and tell,” Rasika said. “As if I care.” She reached their empty table, settled into her seat, and spread her napkin over her lap.

In a moment everyone else returned to the table, and Kanchan Uncle paid no further attention to her. He sat on the other side of the table, showing his camera to her father. It was a big, black thing with a cylindrical protruding lens. It looked heavy. Appa’s face seemed its usual mask of worry, with two dents above his eyebrows and his squinting blinks as he took the camera into his own hands and examined it. “We should get a digital camera like this one,” Appa shouted across the table to Amma. “Single lens reflex. You can change lenses, so you can take a panorama, or a close-up from far away.” He spoke half in English and half in Tamil. He held the camera up to his eye and aimed it at Rasika.

“This camera will produce a much higher quality image than the one you have.” Kanchan waved his hand at the flat little silver box next to Rasika’s father’s plate. “I should have taken a picture with this when I saw Rasika at the hotel the other day.” Kanchan winked at her.

Rasika had the urge to duck under the table. What would Appa do if he were to find out the truth about her? Rasika felt sick thinking about her father’s distress and her mother’s disappointment.

“Best Buy is having a sale,” Amma said. “You go and look there.”

“Kanchan says we will get the best price online. He is giving me Web site.”

Kanchan scribbled something on a paper napkin. “And this comes with optical zoom.”

“Kanchan loves to shop online,” Mita Auntie shouted. “These days he will never enter any stores.”

Rasika wondered if Abhay was right—that the United States was merely a place for her family to buy stuff. She looked around the windowless room. She recalled being in a very similar room a few years ago, when they went to North Carolina to visit Ahalya Auntie and their family. They had tagged along to someone’s wedding reception, and although it had been in a different part of the country, with different people, it was much the same: a bland room with decorations brought from India, or made to look like something people remembered from India. The people in this room were perched here as if they had just landed temporarily. Everyone knew that their real home was India.

After lunch a DJ played cheesy Bollywood songs, American oldies, and top-forty hits, and the younger generation—those raised in the United States—danced lazily. The older women congregated at one another’s tables. Everyone else at Rasika’s table had wandered off, but Rasika thought she’d have better luck avoiding everyone if she just stayed put.

Subhash appeared at Rasika’s side. “May I sit here?” he asked softly, putting a hand on the back of the chair next to hers. He wore a large white jubba over dress pants. There was a wet spot next to the buttons of his shirt, as though he’d spilled something on himself and then wiped it off with a wet napkin.

She pushed away her untouched kulfi. She’d never liked that extra-rich Indian ice cream. “Sure.” It would be better to be seen talking to Subhash than to Abhay.

He sat awkwardly on the edge of his chair, leaning his arms on the table and drumming his fingers lightly. Finally he said, without looking at her, “You look really beautiful today.” Although he had a fairly heavy Indian accent, he tried hard not to roll his r’s.

“Thank you.” She looked past him to the dance floor, and at the other tables. She didn’t see Abhay anywhere.

“I am sorry to hear that things did not work out with Viraj,” he continued. Rasika noticed sweat shining on his broad face. He had always been a serious, somewhat nervous boy. “Rasika, since we are cousins, I hope I can speak freely.”

She looked at him in alarm. What was he going to bring up? They’d never “spoken freely” before in all the years she’d known him. In fact, they had hardly spoken at all. Mostly, when the families ate dinner together, Subhash ended up in front of the TV, clicking through channels, watching sports and news and sitcoms without showing any sign of emotional involvement with any of it.

Now he sat on the edge of his chair and slapped the stubby forefinger of his right hand onto the palm of his left hand. “Many men might be timid in a situation like this,” he said. “They may wait for their parents to arrange things. My parents are reluctant to speak to your father, because of everything your father has done for us. They don’t want to ask for more.”

He was speaking to her knee. The forefinger moved up and down forcefully with each point. Rasika realized it looked like a machine—a typewriter spelling out the words, as though he had programmed himself to say what he was typing.

“Subhash. Let’s not talk about this right—”

“But I have a different view,” he continued, as though he hadn’t even heard her. “In my business, I have learned the power of making a request.”

His hands were still poised in the air. She leaned back, resigning herself to hearing him out.

“I am confident that I can offer you a very good life.” The finger started pumping away again. “I know you must marry soon. I am also aware that people have been talking about you. This is very bad for a woman’s reputation. I have heard from Viraj what happened. I have seen myself that you were with Abhay in Kent.”

Rasika flinched inwardly every time his finger slammed down. She kept her face immobile, however.

“I cannot think you mean anything by it,” he continued. “You were raised in this country, so you are not so familiar with Indian modesty. You do not realize that an unmarried girl should not be seen wandering about with men. Therefore, I am willing and able to offer you a good, safe life. Since I am just starting out at this new location, I can offer you a partnership. As my wife, you will be a full partner. You were raised in this country. You have an American accent. You are good with people. I think you will attract a wide range of customers.” One last time, he dropped the rod of his forefinger into the claws of the other hand. Then he lowered his hands to his lap and looked down at them.

“I already have a job,” she reminded him.

The hands were raised again. “You will be a full partner in the business,” he repeated, talking to the table. “You will be an owner. This is better for you than working at a job where you can be let go at any moment.”

She sat back to observe him. Was he really in love with her and didn’t know how to express it? Or did he just think she’d be good for business?

“You see, I may not be able to offer this later,” he said. “If too many rumors start about you, I will not be able to make this same proposal. But if you come in with me now, on the ground floor, and help me to build the business, then of course I would—”

“Subhash.” She put both her hands over his hands, to stop his anxious movements.

He made eye contact, finally. His eyes were wide and his eyebrows were slightly raised. He looked scared—terrified, even. She realized this was more for him than a business proposition. Perhaps he was even in love with her. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

She took her hands away from his. “I think we should let the elders deal with this,” she suggested gently. “That’s the Indian way, after all.”

He bundled his hands together into one large fist between his knees. “I think my mother spoke with your mother. But my father is reluctant, as I said.”

“My mother mentioned your interest, but my father is hesitant. He thinks we’re too closely related. Maybe we should heed their wisdom.”

Subhash sighed heavily. His broad shoulders seemed to deflate as he hunched over.

Rasika stood up. “Your offer is very sweet. But I don’t think it’s the right thing for me.”

He looked up at her with his scared eyes. “Rasika, I do like you. I think you are very pretty. We are adults. We don’t have to do just what our parents tell us.”

“I’m not the right wife for you, Subhash,” she said.

“Why not?” He was still looking up at her, and he seemed bewildered.

“For one thing, I’m not looking for a safe life.”

His eyebrows knitted. He didn’t seem to know what to say to this. She surprised herself by what she had said. She glanced around the room for a way to escape this conversation. “My parents are looking for a boy for me, and my marriage should be fixed quite soon.”

“If you—if nothing works out for you, then—my offer still stands.”

“Thank you, Subhash.” Rasika didn’t know what else to say to him. She fixed her eyes at a point across the room, smiled, and waved at an imaginary friend. “Excuse me.” She made her way to the knot of women around Amisha Menon, and spent the rest of the reception with them, admiring Amisha’s clothes, her accomplishments, and her job. In this way she managed to stay out of the way of Subhash, Abhay, Kanchan Uncle, and her mother.

At the end of the reception, while guests were milling around Amisha and her husband to congratulate them one last time, several girls took up a position near the doorway with baskets of favors. Rasika remained with Amisha until she saw both Abhay’s family and Subhash’s family leave. Mita Auntie and Kanchan Uncle were still talking to her parents. It appeared that the families would be walking out together.

Rasika drew near her mother, and away from Kanchan Uncle, as she walked toward the door. On the sidewalk in front of the party hall, in the darkness lit by car headlights and streetlights, she felt someone brush past her and press a piece of paper into her hand. As she glanced up, she saw Kanchan Uncle walking away from her. She crushed the paper in her fist and kept it hidden during the car ride home.

When she was safe in her bedroom, sitting on her bed in her Indian finery, she smoothed out the paper and read a time, 6
P.M.
, and a room number. Nothing else.

Chapter 7

R
aindrops pelted her windshield as Rasika drove to work the next morning. She flipped on her wipers. The sky was a heavy gray around her, and the familiar scenery outside dripped and smeared through her windows.

When she was growing up, all the Indian uncles—who weren’t really her uncles, just her parents’ friends—were men to be looked up to, intelligent men who’d graduated at the tops of their classes and who were thus able to attend graduate school or get medical training in the United States, and find jobs. Every once in a while, she’d hear a story about some uncle, not a close friend, who left his wife for someone else, or who verbally abused his children. Kanchan Uncle was within their own circle of friends. True, he’d moved away. Still, the idea of who he really was, what he had proposed . . . she felt dizzy and sick to her stomach, as though she had spun too fast in an amusement park ride.

Her office reflected the outside gloom. The windows and white walls all looked gray. As she stowed her purse in one of her drawers, her phone trilled. She didn’t recognize the caller ID number on the display, so she let it go to voice mail.

The phone stopped. She realized she’d been holding her breath and let it out. Her heart was fluttering in her throat, and she still felt sick. She sat at her desk and opened a folder full of information about McMillan and Associates, a real estate development firm they were scheduled to meet with that afternoon. Kanchan Uncle would go back to Chicago tomorrow, and the whole thing would blow over. She flipped through the glossy brochures. The company was in the business of developing “a lifestyle of service, luxury, and convenience.” She liked the photos: upscale brick apartment buildings with lots of windows. If she didn’t live with her parents, she’d like to live in a building like that. She didn’t pay much attention to the printouts of the financial data. Her role would be to charm the folks at McMillan and Associates into using her company’s financial services.

The rain continued. She couldn’t concentrate on work. She wandered into the kitchen for some coffee. Estelle, the grandmotherly receptionist, was rinsing out the coffeepot in the sink. She asked, “Did you get your message, honey?”

“No.” Rasika decided not to wait for the coffee. She flipped the lever of the water dispenser, and water glugged into her mug.

“It sounded important.” Estelle ripped open a package of coffee. Her upper-arm fat jiggled. “I put him through to your voice mail.”

At her desk, she picked up the phone receiver and pushed the voice mail button. “Rasika,” she heard, in a slow, cultured Indian accent. “Kanchan here. I have found out where you work. I am expecting you here at six. You will not want to disappoint me.”

All morning Rasika told herself she could ignore Kanchan Uncle without any repercussions. And she wasn’t going to meet Abhay at the Fox and Hound either. She’d go straight home and stay out of trouble.

At lunchtime she darted out in her car, picked up a salad and a cup of soup from a nearby restaurant, and ate at her desk. What if Kanchan Uncle spread scandalous stories about her, and what if her father became ill, or had a heart attack, as a result?

Late in the afternoon, after she’d assured the men of McMillan and Associates that her company would provide excellent service, she decided she’d better meet Kanchan Uncle for a short while. She’d be charming and chat with him, maybe have a drink, and pacify him enough to smooth things over. That’s all he wanted—to spend a little time with a beautiful woman, since he was saddled for life with dumpy Mita Auntie. She was reading far more into this than was warranted.

After work she drove through the rain to the Renaissance Hotel. Her heart was beating in her throat. She kept reminding herself, “Don’t worry. It’s not what you think. He’s an Indian uncle, after all. Indian uncles never do bad things.” She gave her keys to the valet parking guy and ducked into the lobby. The glare of the lights hurt her eyes, and the noises—clicking of heels and rumbling of suitcase wheels on the hard floor—seemed too loud. A man in a gray jacket mopped rainwater off the floor. As the elevator car zoomed upward her heart plummeted. Her legs trembled. She wished she had worn a longer skirt today. This one just reached her knees. She pulled her jacket close around her. The elevator door slid open, and she strode down the thick carpeting. She’d considered asking him to meet her downstairs for a drink but thought it would be better if no one saw them together. She’d just chat with him up here for a short while, and then go home. It would be fine.

She knocked. The door opened immediately.

“Welcome,” he whispered. He wore a long silk robe.

She didn’t move. “I can’t stay long.” She clutched her purse to her chest. “My mother is expecting me home.”

“Come in.”

She thought about turning and running toward the elevator, but he took her by the hand and pulled her in. His touch was damp, and she wiped the back of her hand on her jacket. The door shut with a loud click. She was standing in the living area of a suite. She was aware of a dimly lit bedroom opening to her left.

“Make yourself comfortable.” He ushered her to a sofa at the far end of the room. She sat on the edge of a cushion and studied the window, looking for an escape route. The curtains were closed. They were on the twelfth floor.

He handed her a glass of red wine. She set it on the table. Uncle sat down with his own glass of wine, and the silk robe flapped open, revealing white and black chest hairs. “Why don’t you put your purse down and relax?”

She heard her phone ringing in her purse, and she clutched it tighter to her chest. It was probably her mother. What if Amma found out about this? She might think this was all Rasika’s fault for agreeing to meet a man in his hotel room.

“Uncle.” She stood up. “I really can’t stay. I just came to talk to you for a minute.” She took a step back.

He put his glass on the table carefully, and stood. Even though she was wearing heels, he was several inches taller than she was. He put his hand on her purse. She clutched it even tighter. He lowered his hand. “Come on.” His voice was low and rumbly. “Relax. You don’t have to worry about anything. We’ll have a little fun, and then I’ll go away. You’ll never hear from me again. And your secret”— he looked pointedly at her—“will be completely safe.”

Rasika turned and moved toward the door. Two hands gripped her shoulders. Without thinking, she screamed and kicked back at his legs with her heel. She rushed for the door and pulled the handle. It stopped. The safety latch was in place. Uncle was clenching her arm. She kicked him again, and he turned her and shoved her against the door. She aimed her nails at his eyes. He grabbed her wrist, dragged her into the bedroom, and pushed her down onto the bed.

“If you cooperated, I would not have to do this.” His face was hard, his voice steely.

She couldn’t believe what was happening. This scene was not supposed to be part of her life. She screamed and flailed at him with her nails and heels. His hands pressed down on her shoulders, and his knee was on her stomach. He had thrown her purse somewhere, and his damp hands were clutching at her blouse, trying to rip it open.

Suddenly, there was banging at the door. “What’s going on in there?” someone shouted.

Kanchan put his hand over her mouth while she continued trying to kick him. The banging persisted. He leaped up and disappeared into the bathroom. She ran to the door, fumbled for the lock, and opened it to see a large black man in the gray jacket and cap of a bellhop. Rasika reached for him. “Get me out of here!” she screamed.

The bellman helped her find her purse. “Would you like to call the police, ma’am?” he asked.

“No.” Rasika smoothed her hair and skirt with a shaking hand. “Thank you. I just need to go home.”

Downstairs the bellhop called for her car, and Rasika hurried out to it. She was surprised she was able to drive home so competently—that she even remembered how to drive. She felt like she was in a flat movie background and would soon burst through to the other side, to her real life.

At home, her parents were finishing dinner. The air-conditioning chilled her.

“Come and eat, Rasika,” Amma said. “Balu Uncle and Deepti Auntie are here. And Subhash. They are waiting to see you.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Rasika, just sit with us then,” Deepti Auntie called to her. “We never see you.”

“I have a headache.” She put her fingertips to her temples and hurried past the dining table. She could feel Subhash’s eyes on her.

In her room, she took off her work clothes and lay in bed, waiting for the shivering to stop. She wished someone were there to comfort her, yet she knew she couldn’t talk about this with anyone.

Then she thought of Abhay waiting for her at the Fox and Hound. He would never behave like Kanchan Uncle. He was a really good guy. Of course she couldn’t marry him, but that didn’t matter now. She just wanted to see him. She’d call him tomorrow and tell him everything. He’d comfort her.

On Monday evening Abhay stood outside the Fox and Hound in a drizzle of rain, waiting for Rasika. There was a disgusting splotch of something—pizza? dried vomit?—on the sidewalk, and he tried not to look at it. At six-fifteen, when Rasika still hadn’t appeared, he went into the restaurant, found a pay phone, and called her cell phone. No answer. He decided to walk home. The rain wasn’t too heavy, and he didn’t mind getting a little wet. He had to forget about Rasika. He had to admit she wasn’t interested in him. He needed to leave this tired town.

He entered his house in a black mood.

“Come and eat, Abhay,” his mother called from the kitchen.

“Yeah, OK.” He walked to his bedroom to dry off and change his clothes.

In the kitchen, his father and sister were in their usual places at the table. They always ate in the kitchen, Mom sitting nearest the stove, Seema next to her, Abhay near the back door, and his father next to him. These were the seats they had occupied as far back as Abhay could remember. When he returned home after a year away, it was apparent no one had thought to change anything.

Abhay took his usual seat and asked, “How is everyone?” Since he’d moved back, he’d been waging a one-man war against the usual silence at the dinner table.

His father grunted. His mother set a jar of spicy pickles on the table and said, “Seema, bring some ice water for Daddy.”

Mom settled into her seat and began serving Dad first: a soft wheat roti, a steaming mound of white rice, ladlefuls of spinach dal and sweet-and-sour radish gojju
,
a spoonful of cucumber and coconut salad, a pile of crispy white sandige. She never served leftovers. Dad had always insisted on a fresh meal every evening.

Abhay was an adult before he realized his father was different from other Indian men. The stereotypical man from India was awkward and physically weak, although perhaps a genius in technical matters. His father, on the other hand, was commanding. He was tall, with a full head of pure white hair (it had turned white quite early in his life). His accent was more British than Indian. His movements were slow and deliberate. He picked up his water glass majestically and swept his eyes over the rest of them at the table.

“Chutney pudi you want?” Mom raised the jar of spice powder. She was much shorter than Dad, with a thin, girlish face and hesitant movements.

Dad drank slowly, put his glass down, and tore off a piece of roti. His nonanswer was taken as a “no,” as it was meant to be. Mom pushed the rice container closer to Seema, who preferred to serve herself.

“So, Seema.” Abhay looked at his skeletal sister mixing her rice with hot pickle. “In a few weeks you’re starting the honors program at Kent State.”

She seemed to flinch a little, as though the words had nicked her face.

“What’re you going to study? Any more thoughts since we talked the other day?”

“Chemical engineering,” she mumbled.

“Really. And how did you decide on that?”

“You can make fifty thousand dollars right out of college.”

“Ah.” He watched her swallowing and almost felt the burning pepper of the pickle make its way down her throat.

“She has done her research,” Dad said. “She will do very well. She can go into biochemical engineering if she wants, and even on to medical school. It is a versatile degree.”

“Abhay is also doing research,” Mom put in. “He will be studying—what is it, Abhay? Environmental something. Good field it is supposed to be.”

Abhay had recently mentioned to his mother that more and more colleges were offering an environmental science major, and Mom had leaped to the conclusion that he was going into this field.

“A good field according to whom?” Dad asked.

No one bothered to answer this, since it wasn’t a question but a way of ending the discussion.

“Seema is the only one here with a head on her shoulders,” Dad said. “Your mother is wasting her time and money on those games. And you, Abhay, are wasting your time chasing after an illusion. Universities should not be allowed to offer majors that lead to nothing. The administrators do not care. As long as they can convince people to pay for the classes, they will offer anything. It is nothing to them if the music majors will be working as cashiers afterward.”

Abhay bit into a sandige and was startled by its loud crunch.