The Abundance: A Novel (11 page)

Inside, leather shoes and worn Nikes and beaded women’s chappals crowd the entryway. Hanuman has already jumped. He is in midair, en route to Lanka. This is the
Sundarakanda
, the part of the
Ramayana
that tells of Hanuman’s journey over the sea to find Sita, his capture, and how he broke loose after the Lankans set his tail on fire. The Kotharis invited some musicians from Detroit. I saw two Toyota minivans outside, the ones with the Michigan
Proud to Be American
license plates,
SNGEET1
and
TAALAM
. The father sings, the two docile white-kameezed sons play tabla and harmonium. I imagine them unloading their instruments, the speakers and mics and cords, the empty SunChips bags and Hardee’s straws and cups from the long drive. They wear saffron turbans pleated and fanned at the front.

By convention, this part of Hanuman’s story is sung for the dead. All those images of breaking free, first from gravity, then from chains. Unless this part is really sung to cheer the mourners with monkey mischief. Every other part of the
Ramayana
is sad: Rama’s exile, Sita’s kidnapping, the war against Ravana, the gossip in Ayodhya after they get back, Sita’s banishment. Even the reunions are ruinous. Rama reproaches Sita when they meet in Lanka. Years later, when their twins are grown boys and the parents meet again in Ayodhya, Sita wills a chasm in the earth to open and throws herself into it. No, only Hanuman’s part would do to send off the dead—a divine monkey jumping off a cliff and soaring.

We have slipped off our shoes. I push them closer together with my bare foot, his and mine, so they huddle like rabbits. A few young children run past us. The men and women are segregated, men left, women right. I will have to sit apart from Abhi. He is waiting, surveying the seated people, some swaying back and forth. The elderly grandmothers roost on folding metal chairs along the periphery. He doesn’t want to be apart from me, either. I touch Abhi’s elbow.

“Everything all right?” he whispers.

I am about to tell him,
These musicians are good, find out how much they charge
. I change my mind. I nod, and we settle on either side of the aisle, far to the back. He sits lotus style and checks his watch. I start looking at people’s faces, the backs of their heads, their clothes. The men’s bald spots vary in size and glisten. The women in front of me have thick braids. I touch my own diminished knot. My hair was always thin and quick to shed, even before. I got that from my mother. I use the comb gingerly now. How hard I always tugged when it caught! Now I extricate the teeth patiently, listening, in the misty bathroom, as my brittle strands break. I fear each day that I will draw the comb through and come away with a whole tuft.

Some women wear punjabis, others, sarees. The one directly in front of me wears a saree. Her blouse is taut, beneath it, her flanks crease from their own weight. Her lower back, bare, shows the faintest black down. The fine hairs mark the course water would take down the skin. The Indian word for
overweight
is
healthy.
It’s still a compliment there, or was, when we last visited. (Things keep changing; it was only after India became American that I started feeling foreign to it.) I am not healthy. I am afraid to go. The relatives would notice and comment right away. There’s no etiquette there in this regard. My saree blouse would be off my shoulders were it not for six strategic safety pins. No matter. It’s not feasible to go, not anymore. Abhi sets up a webchat sometimes. I see our relatives that way—sitting close, shoulders up, constantly glancing at myself in the box. We have nothing to talk about but distance and absence. Yes, we want to make a trip. Yes, it’s been too long. Yes, yes, yes.

Abhi is focused on the singers. He is rocking back and forth. He is really following this. Isn’t his mind wandering? Isn’t everyone’s? I look around. Everyone is focusing. I should focus. What is wrong with me that I’m not focusing? I don’t know where Hanuman is, or even whether he has found Sita yet. I listen to the singsong a while, trying to pick up clues, trying to pick up recognizable words. This is not in Gujarati or even modern Hindi, which I can usually follow. It is Tulsidas’s Hindi, hundreds of years old and rhyming, almost folksy,
kahu, kachu, naahi
. I am thinking about focusing, and this is keeping me from focusing.
You are in a temple. This is being sung for the dead. The gods are watching you right now
.
They know what you are thinking, and they know you aren’t thinking about death.
Must I? I do all the rest of the time. It’s only now, when I am supposed to, that I get some respite.

I wish, I do wish I had been pious all my life. Now it is too late. Would the gods even want me if I went to them out of fear? What if I admitted it was fear, would they respect my honesty and forgive me? The slinking, shamefaced motive, last-minute slokas and good-luck Ganeshas. They must be used to it.

I note the nooks for each of the murtis. As I do, I sense a kind of cosmic shaking of the head. Does it matter that I don’t have an aptitude for religion? That I have
always
noticed things and daydreamed most keenly when made to sit still during kathas, bhajans, holy talks? I glance at Abhi again, and he is staring ahead, rocking gently. My eye jumps to a little boy in a kameez: he looks bored, he drapes himself across his mother’s lap for a moment, sits up and stares at the ceiling, pokes, pokes, pokes her arm. She is paying attention, too, and she bats gently at his hand. He dives forward onto her lap.

The singer up front has a tilak on his forehead. Button-down white shirt, slacks, black socks, and a shiny fat-dialed wristwatch that makes him periodically raise and wag his wrist—all this, topped with the holy saffron headpiece. Are his sons really interested in this performance? They don’t seem to be enjoying themselves. One looks sullen, actually. Heels of his small hands on the tablas, fingers curled and twitching by reflex, a clockwork flat-palmed slap … It is their father who is visibly pleased, either with Hanuman’s exploits or with himself. He likes being front and center, doesn’t he? Like those friends of Abhi’s who hold karaoke parties and rehearse their songs for days in advance, CDs of old Kishore Kumar songs, only the background music, done with keyboard and synthesizer. The vanity always comes in, even if the father says—as they all do, these holy artistes—that he’s “offering the music to God.” Does he make his sons play accompaniment? Or are the boys really pious, do they have something in their genes that makes them give up sleeping in on a Saturday morning? And if they have it, why don’t I?

Look at the shameful things you’re thinking. And in a temple. Focus. Focus
.

Abhi finally breaks his concentration and turns to me. He smiles. I smile back, relieved. Now I imagine everyone’s mind wandering, up in the air, a spool of kite string spinning freely from each head, the kites trailing streamers of memories, streamers of wishes.

*   *   *

People enter, leave, reenter during the course of the performance. It is like an Indian wedding ceremony: the gods being invoked up front, several rows of attentive watchers, and a restless periphery.

I think about the reception we are going to skip tonight. The wedding must be going on right now. As with Ronak’s, first there is the church ceremony, then the Hindu one, then the reception. The hotel ballroom must be just about full—the white couples clustered in their suits and dresses, a cashmere throw for rare color; the Indian guests milling about and glittering in the soft lobby light, here a watermelon kameez with gold thread arabesques at the collar and chest, there a
sarara
sewn out of dusk. The little girls, decked out like Bollywood, chase one another with a clinking of bangles. Ronak’s wedding had been the same. I remember looking out at the crowd during one of the pandit’s longer Sanskrit rambles. Sparrows to one side, birds of paradise to the other.

If we stay until the katha is over, we will shake hands, hug, trade pleasantries and low murmurs about the deceased. There are too many people we know here. They will ask if I have been in India these past four months—no reply to the voice messages, and the phone never picked up. I will see even more friends and acquaintances at the reception. Maybe this can be practice. I want to eavesdrop more than anything. Conversations at home—with Abhi or with Mala and Ronak when they call or visit—have a self-conscious quality. The words deal with all the day’s topics and happenings, Nikhil’s first soccer practice, Shivani’s new words, and so on, but the pauses are all about the same thing. Then Abhi looks at me, and his fingertips walk across the carpet. I nod, and he puts his weight on his hand and rises. I hear the crack of his knee. Our shoes at the door have shifted slightly, like feet in the working shallows of the sea.

“Best to get home in time,” he says once we are outside, under a weak spring sun.

We have mastered little dishonesties. That way we don’t have to admit our lives have changed, at least not when we don’t want to do so. Indoors, during the day, we are frank and almost businesslike.
What do you need right now? Get me the Vicodin.
At night in bed, we are pathetic and tearful and stroke the outlines of each other’s faces, temple to cheek to chin to abyss. Outside, though, we pretend, even to each other.

We have to pretend now. In the parking lot, on one foot as she shakes gravel from her sandal, is Naina Doshi. She and her husband, Kalpesh, are sneaking out early, too. She slips the sandal back on and hurries over unsteadily, arms up to embrace me.

“You look
fit
!” she squeals, aborting her embrace early to take a step, lean back dramatically, and look me over.

I put my hands on my hips and look down at myself. “I don’t know. I’ve been doing what I can.”

“Have you been living at the gym? What’s your
secret
? And Abhishek bhai, look at you, so trim. Still swimming?”

“When I get the chance. You know, busy busy.”

“Are you coming to Neelam’s reception tonight? I am going to watch you both and make sure you eat. Dieting
khattam
. Over.”

Her husband strolls up to us. “There’s Einstein,” he says, grinning at Abhi, hand out to shake. His accent is still detectable, as all of ours are, but he likes more than most to use phrases he’s picked up from his children. He looks at his hand after he and Abhi have shaken. “I swear, my IQ just rose ten points.”

Abhi clears his throat. “Tragic news about Ramesh bhai.”

“Tragic, tragic,” agrees Kalpesh. “He was so young, you know!”

“Just a few years older than us,” Naina mourns. “What was he? Sixty-eight?”

“Sixty-six,” I say.

“So young! We had to come pay our respects, even though we are terribly exhausted.”

“We got in late last night.”

“Costa Rica,” explains Naina. “So amazing, the rain forests, you know.”

“Naina went on that, what is it? With the cable?”

“A canopy tour, Kalpesh.”

“Yes, canopy tour. Where you slide along the treetops. Very high.”

“You have to do it. It’s a must.” She looks at my body again. “And especially now that you’ve got this swimsuit body.”

I want to hide behind Abhi. She is still thinking about my weight. Is she jealous? I feel myself flush. Fortunately there is only a single awkward beat before Abhi speaks. “The wife did it, Kal, and not you?”

Kalpesh frowns. “With my luck? I would break my neck.”

“He got sunburned the day before,” says Naina. “We went snorkeling, you know, and he didn’t use sunscreen properly.”

“Like I said, with my luck. I had to sleep on my stomach.”

“The whole room smelled of that aloe lotion.
Chee!
I had told him to wear a UV shirt. I even bought him one. Long sleeve. Still he goes in a T-shirt.”

“I don’t need that thing sticking to my belly. They’re made of, of, what’s that clingy, tightum-tight…?”

Naina shakes her head. “It blocks ultraviolet light. It’s a special cloth.”

“What is it? You know, bicyclists wear those shorts? That Lance Armstrong? What is that cloth?”

“Spandex?” Abhi guesses.

“See? Einstein. This guy is Einstein. You win any big awards lately? I keep waiting to see your picture in the paper again.”

“It’s not spandex,” says Naina, irritated. “It’s a special cloth.” She looks at me again. “Weren’t you going to Alaska this spring? On that cruise?”

“We canceled it,” I say.

“Oh? Why?”

“Problem with the schedule at work,” says Abhi. “One of my partners had a family emergency. You know how it is.”

“That’s horrible.” Kalpesh’s face goes serious. “Did you get a refund? Was there enough notice?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Full refund?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. Let me tell you: Forget Alaska. There’s enough snow right here in Ohio.”

“Alaska is beautiful,” Naina insists. “And it was a cruise. You know I love cruises.”

“Was it a Desi cruise? Indian buffet, every day?”

“No, it was a regular one.”

Kalpesh looks at me. “You two don’t eat fish, do you?”

“No.”

“Those cruises have a lot of fish in their buffets. I don’t mind. But
her.
”

“Chee,” says Naina again. “Fish is smelly.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not going somewhere to see snow anyway. Never again. Plenty of snow to shovel right here.”

“You don’t shovel snow. You pay a man to come with his truck.”

“That’s why I slave all day. To have some guy shovel my snow, and to take
her
on vacations everywhere.”

Naina looks past me. “Shanu!” she shouts. Another couple is leaving early. We do not know them. Naina sweeps past me on her high heels and embraces the woman. Kalpesh, taking a step in her direction, pats Abhi on the shoulder to break the conversation.

“See you tonight. We’ll drop by, we’ll drop by.” With that, he moves past Abhi. “There he is, there’s Warren Buffett,” he says to Shanu’s husband. They shake hands. It is easy for us to escape. In the car, my hands cover my mouth, and I shake. Abhi, who has pulled out slightly, puts the car into park.