The World We Found (9 page)

“No thanks,” Armaiti replied as she came up behind her daughter.

Diane turned around. “How about I make you a waffle?”

“I already ate. Hours ago.”

Diane’s blue eyes settled on Armaiti’s face. “What did you eat?”

Armaiti looked away, flustered. The truth was she had not eaten a thing since she’d had some pasta last night. “What is this? An interrogation?”

“Damn straight.” Diane’s brow furrowed. “Mom, you gotta eat. You can’t lose weight when—”

Armaiti smiled. She caught the indignant look on her daughter’s face and tried to stop.

“What? You think everything is funny?”

“I’m sorry, darling,” Armaiti said. “It’s just that you sounded so much like I used to when you were a child that I’m—I guess I’m just laughing at the role reversal. You know what I mean?”

“What are you talking about? I never gave you a hard time about food.”

“Are you kidding me? Do you know what you ate for dinner from the time you were two until you were four? A boiled egg. Every single night, I swear. I got to the point where just looking at a boiled egg made me sick. I couldn’t even participate in those elaborate Easter egg hunts your dad used to plan each year.”

Diane grinned. “Remember the time he accidentally hid a raw egg inside one of your shoes?”

“Do I remember? He had to take me shopping the very next day.”

“Good old dad.”

There was a sudden silence in the kitchen. Armaiti had heard the wistfulness in her daughter’s voice and knew that Diane was thinking back to the years before the divorce. As far as she knew, Diane had never found out about Blossom.

The waffles popped up in the toaster and Diane moved to get them out. “Can you pass the butter?” she said, gesturing toward where the tub of Earth Balance sat on the kitchen counter.

“Sure,” Armaiti said as she reached for the plastic pot. Her fingers missed the container. Mortification made her face flush as she tried a second time, focusing as hard as she could to pick up the box before her daughter noticed that anything was amiss.

Diane was staring at her with her mouth open. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

Armaiti tried to keep her voice light. “Who the hell knows? I’m just clumsy this morning, I think.”

Diane didn’t bother to keep the panic out of her voice. “You can’t pick that thing up?”

“Sure I can. Watch.” And guiding her right hand with the other, Armaiti gripped the container. “Here. Butter your waffles before they get cold.”

“What is going on, Mom?”

Armaiti eyed Diane’s plate. “Your food is getting cold, honey,” she repeated.

“I don’t believe this. I don’t believe you’re talking to me about my waffles when you’re—you’re . . .”

“Diane. Calm yourself. I don’t know what’s wrong, okay? Chances are it’s nothing, just, y’know, like a tic or something. Let’s just wait and watch.”

“Wait and watch?” Diane sounded incredulous. “You can’t use your right hand and you’re telling me to be calm?” The young face grew teary. “What’s wrong, Mom? Don’t you care about anything? I feel like you’ve just given up or something. It’s hard enough that you’re refusing treatment, but why do you have to be so—so—
cavalier
about this? Can’t you see what this is doing to Dad and me?”

Armaiti took the two steps that separated her from Diane and put her arms around her daughter. Diane made to pull away but Armaiti merely tightened her grip until the girl relaxed. “I’m sorry, my darling,” she murmured. “I know you don’t understand my decision. I can’t even explain it to you except to say I must live on my own terms. I must. As for this thing, it just happened, you know? I haven’t even had a chance to figure it out. I’m scared, too. But I’m hoping it’s temporary, you know?”

“Let me call Dr. Cassidy’s office.”

She was about to refuse when she saw the pleading look on her daughter’s face. “Okay,” she said wearily. “If you like.”

Chapter 8

Y
ou’re doing this for Laleh’s sake, Adish reminded himself as he pulled into a parking space. And Armaiti’s. But his movements were sluggish as he reached into his leather briefcase and fished around for the business card Laleh had pressed into his hand this morning. After he found it, he sat studying it for a moment, adjusting the visor to keep the sun out of his eyes. Ahmed Electronics. Adish thought he knew the narrow little gully the store was located in.

He got out of the air-conditioned car with a sigh. The things a man does for love, he thought, smiling to himself. But then he remembered how Laleh had grown more agitated with each passing day that she had been unable to reach Nishta, and the smile turned into a grimace. Truth be told, he, too, was worried about the fact that Nishta had never answered her phone since the day of Laleh’s visit. And there was that weird incident from last night. After dinner, Laleh had dialed Nishta’s cell phone as she’d taken to doing several times a day. But this time, instead of a recording stating that the phone was turned off, a man had answered. “Please don’t call this number again. Nishta isn’t here anymore,” he had said after Laleh had identified herself. It was Iqbal who had answered, Laleh surmised. She had spent the next two hours pacing the apartment, her face tight with worry as she parsed his words. “What does he mean she’s not here?” she’d said. “Has he killed her or something?”

“Lal. Get a grip. You’re not making sense,” Adish had said.

But her agitation had not diminished. “Why won’t he let her come to the phone? What is he afraid of? And why does she allow him to treat her like this?”

“I don’t know,” he’d said, putting his arm around her. “But if we’re to get any sleep, you have to calm down, okay?”

He was aware of how she tossed in bed and muttered to herself all night long. So he wasn’t too surprised when she placed the card in his hand the next morning with a request. “Go talk to him, janu. If anyone can knock some sense into Iqbal’s head, it’s you.”

“Laleh, I can’t,” he’d protested. “I can’t just barge into his life after all these years.”

“If you don’t go, I will.”

“Don’t you dare. In any case, Sarosh is expecting you in his office in two hours. You’re getting the permanent crown put on the tooth today, remember?”

“I don’t care about the bloody crown. . . .” Laleh snapped.

He was about to respond sharply when he stopped himself. Things had been so tense between them of late. First, the scene at Girish’s party and then Laleh’s ridiculous accusation that they, somehow, were responsible for Armaiti’s illness. Maybe his meeting with Iqbal would appease her.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll go see him later today. Satisfied?”

She eyed him suspiciously, not trusting his sudden capitulation. “You promise?”

He sighed. “Yes, dear. I promise.”

And maybe he owed Laleh this much, Adish thought, as he sat sipping his tea, while Laleh bustled around in the kitchen making him breakfast. To make up for that day from his youth, when he had cracked under pressure from Rumi Madan, Laleh’s imposing, patrician father. A day he had believed they had tucked away, like an old letter in a shoe box, until Laleh had dug it out again.

T
he morning of the march, Laleh had phoned him from Kavita’s home and requested him to stop by her house on his way to the demonstration and pick up her migraine medicine. Adish had readily agreed. He was waiting in the living room for Laleh’s mother to return with the pills when a glowering Rumi had strode in, waving a crumpled, discarded, hand-drawn map of Bombay University, and demanding to know what trouble his idiotic daughter was getting into now. “I know you youngsters are up to something,” Rumi had thundered. “I won’t rest until you tell me what you’re plotting.” Under Rumi’s relentless questioning, Adish had revealed their plan—a march followed by a forced occupation of the university chancellor’s office. He and the others had spent so much time perfecting their plan that it had lost its novelty. And so Adish was unprepared for the older man’s reaction—Rumi’s face had turned beet red, his eyes had bulged, and in the booming voice that had struck fear in many a criminal in the courtroom he had delivered his ultimatum—that Adish deliver Laleh safely home within the hour or accept the fact that he would never see her again. Adish went to the march, sick with worry at what he was about to do. But a small part of him was also relieved that Rumi uncle had given him an out. Two days earlier, Laleh had sheepishly admitted to him her terror of spending a night in jail, and this knowledge had haunted him, aroused his desire to protect her. Now he could.

He found Laleh in the throng of students beginning to gather for the protest and told her that her mother was ill and was asking for her. Laleh left the march with him. So that she was safe at home when Nishta and Kavita were arrested. And when Armaiti landed in the hospital after receiving a vicious blow on the head from a baton-wielding policeman. Laleh’s outrage when she found out about Adish’s perfidy appeared genuine. But he also sensed that part of her was relieved to have escaped jail. It made him think that he had not imagined the look that had passed between them when he’d told Laleh about her mother being ill, that she had half-known he was lying. It broke his heart to see the great, indomitable Laleh like this, caught between her honor and her fear, because he knew how important it was to Laleh to always do the principled thing. And the fact that she had wavered, just this once, made him love her even more.

W
hat he had not counted on was the fact that after all these years Laleh had not forgiven either herself or him for that one moment of weakness, Adish mused as he handed a twenty-rupee note to the parking attendant. How absurd was that? He should’ve reminded Laleh that the only reason that Armaiti had escaped with just a concussion was because of him. He had returned to the march after taking Laleh home, and when the police had opened their laathi charge, he had fought off the two policemen who were attacking Armaiti. He had been too late to prevent the blow to her head, but he had grabbed Armaiti’s arm and pulled her away from the dangerous, violent streets and toward safety. When they had finally stopped running and Armaiti had not recognized him, he’d assumed that she was joking, and then, when he realized that the amnesia was real, he panicked and called Laleh’s father. Acting on the older man’s advice, he’d taken Armaiti to the hospital. So it was bullshit, really, what Laleh had said a few days ago, about complicity and guilt and sin. And how far-fetched, how unscientific, to think that a blow to the head would flower into a brain tumor thirty years later.

And yet, here he was, walking under a blazing sun, looking for the store where Iqbal worked. Mr. Fixit, charged with a new mission. He had no idea what he would say to Iqbal or how Iqbal would feel about him showing up at his place of work after all these years.

Ahmed Electronics, when he found it, was exactly as he had pictured it—a long, dark, narrow strip of a shop that was crammed fuller than a magpie’s nest. Customers stood on the pavement in front of it and called out their orders. Adish waited as the man ahead of him purchased two AAA batteries and paid for them. He peered inside the shop, searching for someone who looked like Iqbal. The burly, bearded shopkeeper who was handing the customer his change certainly wasn’t him.

Now the shopkeeper was looking at him. “What can I get you, sir?” he asked.

Adish took a step forward. “I’m looking for someone. Iqbal Ibrahim. Is he in?”

“Iqbal? He’s my nephew. A minute ago only he was here.” The man turned around and yelled into the tunnel of the shop. “Iqbal? Hai kya? Someone looking for you.”

A door slammed in the back and a thin, lithe figure dressed in all white shuffled out of the shadows and toward the front of the shop. “Kon hai?” the figure said.

Adish took in the salt-and-pepper hair and the almost-white beard and was disappointed. A part of him had been looking forward to seeing Iqbal after all these years, he realized. “I’m sorry . . .” he began.

The shopkeeper pointed at Adish with his chin. “This gent wanted you,” he said. He looked from one man to the other.

The man in white stared at Adish blankly for a second and then a slow recognition spread across his face. The look was followed immediately by another, as if the man couldn’t decide whether he was happy or angry at the sight of Adish. But it was that first expression of recognition that triggered a reciprocal recognition in Adish. “Iqbal?” he said incredulously. “Saala, is this really you?”

A look of annoyance flitted across Iqbal’s face. “Hello, Adish,” he said. “What brings you here?” He asked the last question as if he already knew the answer.

Iqbal’s uncle was still staring at both men. “Can we go somewhere where we can talk? Maybe for lunch?” Adish asked quietly.

“I don’t take lunch,” Iqbal said. There was a chiding quality in his voice that irritated Adish. He remembered dimly that even in the old days, there had been something about Iqbal, a delicateness, a quality of self-righteousness, that had bugged the shit out of him.

Adish turned to face Iqbal’s uncle, an amiable smile on his face. “What is your capacity?” he asked pleasantly.

“Sir?”

He gestured toward the shop. “Your capacity. Inventory. I’m a real estate contractor, you see. If I placed an order for, say, a thousand sockets, can you provide?”