Out of Order (8 page)

And he still didn’t know where to find Sriram’s mother or what he would say when he handed her the gold-embroidered, blood-red sari.

A sari with a pattern he knew he had seen somewhere before.

A pattern that Rachel seemed to recognize as well, as she had folded the makeshift blanket early that morning.

Chapter Nine

With his spiral-bound notebook atop his carryall, M.V. Dharmadeep, Ph.D., rushed his hand along the page, documenting the conversation before it slipped from his memory. His penmanship was neat and tight and, although the train rocked heavily on this stretch of track, the notes on this page were as precise as those he had written yesterday in his university office, a skill acquired from decades of travel on India Railways.

When he had finished he reread his notes, placing a small star by the most salient passages. It was, as his students were wont to say, good stuff. Of course there was no place for anecdotal evidence in his monograph, but the interview was filled with the kind of trivial quotes that the general public lapped up, too undisciplined to understand that the truth was to be found not in the individual, but rather in the statistical collective. The kind of quotes that would help fill out that fluff piece he was ghostwriting for
The Express
.

He had spotted the couple before they had boarded the train, the man tall and proportionally built, his wife shorter, that silly cap making her look like the sport-mad co-eds he had seen around the university. She was attractive, yes, but her beauty was hidden by her slovenly appearance. He had planned to speak to them as soon as the train was underway, but, in typical liberated, western-feminist fashion, the woman was wandering about the train on her own, eventually opening one of the car’s side doors to stand in the doorway for all the world to see. It wasn’t till some time after noon that she settled back in her seat, and he had used that opportunity to introduce himself and conduct his research. He flipped back to the first page of his notes and read them through a third time.

Question: Is your marriage an arranged marriage or a love marriage?

Answer: (wife) It was definitely a love marriage. More like a love at first sight marriage.

Dr. Dharmadeep shook his head as he reread the line. They had seemed like such a nice couple.

He had been quite up front with them, explaining that he was the chair of the sociology department at the university in New Delhi, his specialization the statistical analysis of marital systems, specifically the inherent instability of love marriages, and yet, without hesitation, the wife proudly declared theirs to have been the worst kind of love marriage possible. His files were chock full of data that foretold the sad and predictable end of their relationship. A sixty-seven point nine two percent failure rate for love marriages in general, even higher when their youth and their self-described “love at first sight” foundation were factored in.

Question: Did you ask your mother for her assistance in finding a husband?

Answer: (wife) You’re kidding, right?

Each semester, Dr. Dharmadeep found himself having to defend the institution of arranged marriage, the students too easily seduced by the west’s deceptive liberalism. They would bring up the same threadbare arguments—free-will, independence, human rights—the brighter among them quoting Shakespeare and that Friedan woman, the others spouting pop-culture clichés, some finding a way to twist Gandhi around to their side. But it made no difference. He had the statistical proof to dismantle each argument, the weight of tradition and common sense on his side. And, despite what they said in class, when the time came for marriage, ninety-five percent of his students would rely on their families to make the arrangements.

Question: Did you ask your father’s permission to marry?

Answer: (husband) You mean ask her father?

Note—question was rephrased and repeated.

Answer: (laughing) My father would be shocked to hear I was married.

Marriage is not a union of two individuals, he would lecture his students, but rather a union of two entire families. Who loves you more than your family, who knows you better than the people who raised you? Finding a perfect match for one’s child is the single most important task a parent must face. The process is not entered into lightly, the selection not the result of some chance encounter, some drunken meeting at a discothèque. An arranged marriage is a true marriage of love—the pure love of a parent for an offspring. This is why, he liked to point out, India enjoys a divorce rate of less than two percent, noting that that number included all the Indians living in the west, implying skewed results.

Question: How long have you been married?

Answer: (husband
did not know
and deferred to wife) Eighteen months.

Question: How does it feel to know that, statistically, your marriage has less than one year before it fails?

Answer: (husband—surprised) It seems like we just got married yesterday.

What was this obsession with love in a marriage? He had spent a lifetime studying marriage and was no closer to understanding why, from culture to culture, people assumed that love was the sign of a “successful” marriage. No one spoke of responsibility or obligation, a few mentioned respect but seemed to equate the word with equality. His parents had raised nine children—
nine
—and he never heard the word used. And hadn’t he himself been married for thirty years now, raising two sons, both engineers, and a daughter, happily married to a barrister, all without once telling his wife he loved her?

Although it was too late for them, he had taken a half hour to explain the superiority of the arranged marriage system, the husband interrupting with objections, the wife telling him to be quiet, her feminine nature sensing the truth.

The chai vendor made his way through the car and Dr. Dharmadeep waved him over with a five-rupee note. He sipped the steaming tea as the boy fished in his pockets for change, recalling the intent look in the young woman’s eyes as she absorbed everything he said, nodding as she realized the logic of his arguments. In a way he felt sorry for her, forced by her culture into a marriage that she now saw for what it was—convenience and hormones, an exercise in myth-driven egocentrism.

Maybe there was hope after all, he thought as he read over the last page of his notes. Not for her, of course but for her children or her grandchildren. He put a large star next to the woman’s final comment. He would use it in the article, a western woman admitting that arranged marriages were indeed best.

It was exactly what he had wanted to hear.

***

“Hold on to this and don’t run off,” Rachel said, holding her backpack out by one of its straps. “I want to get a shot of this train coming into the station.”

“Won’t it look just like the last train?” Jason asked, surprised at the heavy weight of her bag, wondering what she could be hauling around India.

“It’s an express,” she said, pointing at the fast approaching headlight down the tracks. “It doesn’t stop. I want to get an action shot.” She turned and he watched her as she walked down the platform, her low-slung khakis and her short shirt framing every move of her tight hips, the tattoo peeking over her waistband. He wondered if she knew what a great shot she was missing.

Their train from Delhi had stopped just long enough for them to climb off, pulling out of the station five minutes later and right on schedule, taking with it the bustle its arrival had caused. The few passengers who had gotten off had dragged their luggage through the turnstile and out into the late afternoon sun of Ahmadabad, leaving only transfer passengers and railway employees on the platform. The chai vendors had stopped shouting, the red-jacketed porters had slid back down against the station wall, and the shoeshine boys, spotting Jason’s Nikes, had wandered off in search of more fashionable prospects. Down the platform Rachel was adjusting her camera, attracting the attention of a mangy puppy that sniffed at her feet. Other than the distant sounds of a hectic city, it was quiet and he was glad for the few seconds alone. He didn’t notice the man behind him until he spoke.

“Mr. Jason Talley?” the high-pitched voice said, cracking.

Jason sighed and closed his eyes, fighting the urge to ignore yet another Indian welcome his email message had caused. He forced on a smile and turned to meet his new friend. “Yes, I’m Jason Talley.”

The knife was a blur in the man’s hand as it swung up at his neck and Jason’s back arched as his reflexes took control. The tip of the knife clipped his chin, splattering his attacker’s shirt with bright red spots, the man shouting in Hindi as his arm swept past, paused, and came back again. Jason stumbled, his feet tangled in backpack straps, watching as his left arm shot up to block the blade. He saw the knife slow as it cut through his forearm, the blade pulling free and scratching the face of his watch, saw the stream of blood that trailed after the knife as the attacker’s arm flew by, and watched as the man, wild-eyed, shifted the blade in his hand and charged.

Jason tumbled backwards, the packs skidding along the dusty concrete, his arms flailing to keep his balance, thick drops of blood forming curved patterns that seemed to hang in the air. The man leapt towards him, stabbing out with the knife as he came, forcing Jason to step back, his heel catching the edge of the platform.

The tin-roofed terminal shook as the express train roared into the station, horn blasting. In a frozen moment Jason could see the yellow and red engine closing, the conductor leaning out of the window, frantic, waving them away from the tracks, could see Rachel looking his way through the viewfinder of her camera while a wall of porters sprinted towards him, armed with brooms and handcarts, and could see the man, his shirt covered with Jason’s blood, lunging, his shouts lost in the engine’s diesel roar.

Jason launched himself forward towards the knife and away from the oncoming train. Startled, the man rose up on the balls of his feet, his momentum carrying him forward. Jason ducked to the side and the man spun to renew his attack, pivoting on his right foot, his left leg thrusting back, off the edge of the platform. Jason saw surprise in the man’s eyes as he tumbled backwards in slow motion, his head catching on the train’s iron bumper, yanking his body forward onto the tracks and under the steel wheels. The engine was fifty yards past the station before the airbrakes hissed, and screaming, the train began to slow.

Jason felt a dozen hands pull him back from the tracks, the train running just inches away, and he noticed that people were talking to him, rapid-fire in a language he didn’t understand. Dark hands wrapped a dirty tee shirt around his left arm, one of the porters holding a damp sweat rag against his chin to stem the flow. They crowded around, grabbing at his clothes, helping to keep him on his feet as his knees buckled.

“What the hell are you doing?” Rachel said, elbowing her way through the knot of porters and train officials, stopping short when she saw all the blood. She looked at Jason, and he saw her lip tremble as her eyes welled up.

“It was an insane assassin,” a portly railway official said, his chubby hands brushing aside the porters. “He tried to slice this man open and deposit him in front of the Avantika Express. We saw it but were unable to get to the poor blighter in time.” He looked over his shoulder to the pool of blood that dripped off the platform and down to the tracks, the open train window above the spot crowded with gawking passengers.

Rachel stepped closer, her hand reaching out for the bloody rag held against his face. “What did you
do
?” she said in a half whisper.

“Me? I didn’t do anything. I was just standing there and then this guy starts swinging a knife at me.”

“The man was most insane,” the official said to Rachel, lifting his eyes heavenward as he spoke, and the porters that had stayed close by nodded in agreement. “Your friend is lucky to be among the living.” The man said something to the porters and, before he could protest, they had lifted Jason off his feet and were carrying him to the stationmaster’s office. Behind them the Avantika Express started back down the track, a squad of railway workers with buckets and hoses, waiting for the train to pass.

It was a large and well-lit office, the air conditioning set so low that Jason shivered from the cold. They hurried him to the back of the room, sticking his bloody arm under the tap on the small sink in the corner, red-tinted water splashing over the side and down onto the concrete floor.

At first Jason watched as the porters took turns holding his arm steady. There were moments when the water flushed the blood away and he could see deep inside the gash, the blood rushing back to fill the gap. He watched until his arm began to shake, recognizing at last whose arm he was looking at. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing and swallowing down the sour taste in his mouth.

The porters pulled him away from the water, wrapping a clean, wet towel around his arm, four hands pressing it tight against his forearm as they led him to a wooden chair in the center of the room. Eyes shut, he heard the railway official reassuring Rachel that things like this just did not happen here at Ahmadabad, maybe in Jodpur or Alwar, yes definitely at Alwar, but not here at his station, and that help was coming in the form of a fully-licensed and board certified doctor from the clinic not two minutes away, and that she had nothing to fear, that she should just relax, asking if she would care for a cup of tea or some chocolate biscuits that were right here on his desk a moment ago.

Jason kept his eyes closed until the doctor arrived.

Groups of men in uniforms began passing through the office, the police officers the best dressed, wearing tailor-made and starched uniforms, their brass buttons and black leather boots gleaming, the clerks and officials of Indian Railways far behind in their company-issued suit coats and ties. The two medics who attended to his cut wore standard white smocks but the doctor, a tall man with a handlebar mustache and tobacco-stained teeth, made do with a nametag clipped to his plaid sport shirt.

“Shouldn’t we get this done in a hospital?” Rachel asked, leaning over a dust-covered computer monitor to watch the doctor stitch the six-inch gash on Jason’s arm. The cut on his chin had already stopped bleeding.

The doctor shook his head, the tails of his mustache bouncing. “At the hospital they would charge you a hundred times as much as they charge the locals,” the doctor said as he worked. “Here I will only charge you ten times as much.” He drew the black suture through a flap of skin, raising the hooked needle up past his shoulder, tugging the string taut before looping back and repeating the move on the other side of the thin, red line. “Bite down,” the doctor said when he had finished, pouring half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on the low ridge of skin and thread, sopping up the foaming runoff with the bloody towel.