Читать книгу My Last Love Story - Falguni Kothari - Страница 11
ОглавлениеWe got home earlier than expected. The guys’ intense exchange hadn’t ruined our dinner—we’d managed to slide the conversation back to a glossy, innuendo-filled level again—but it’d left us not quite in the jolly mood to go clubbing, like we’d originally planned.
I tucked the groceries away and then headed for the bathroom for a much-needed soak in the tub and some much-desired time alone. As my body relaxed in the warm pool of foamy water, I tried to do the same with my mind, immersing it in the historical thriller I’d downloaded on my e-reader. Every so often, I was jarred away from the intrigues of Napoleon’s court by the sounds of laser guns and bombs exploding beyond the powder blue walls of the bathroom.
The guys were trying to obliterate each other via their gaming avatars. I winced at a particularly loud bomb blast, followed by a string of clipped curses and a bout of heated argument about the best way to circumvent land mines and storm alien territory without getting blown to bits. Whoever had penned the phrase “boys and their toys” had known the male yins of the universe well. I remembered my mother muttering something to the effect in reference to my father and brothers pretty much every day.
I had a pair of them—brothers, I meant. Surin and Sarvar were both much older than me, and ever since the fatality that had taken our parents, they’d become more parents than siblings to me. I’d had a third brother, a sickly boy named Sam, who hadn’t survived his first year in this world. I had him to thank for my existence. If Sam hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have been born, as my parents had wanted no more than three children.
When I was little, my brothers would tease me about being a replacement, the spare wheel, the girl who’d destroyed the manly kingdom of the three Batliwala brothers. I’d scream for them to take their hideous words back, sob as if my heart was breaking, until the day my mother had sat me down and opened my eyes to the bullshit that was the male psyche.
Mean to begin with or not, Sarvar had become the kind of brother every sister should have. He didn’t hover or smother, but he was always there when I needed to pour my heart out. Sarvar was my anchor in the ocean of life, a safe harbor for tempestuous times. Lucky for me, he lived in San Jose, close enough to meet when we wished.
I have the Desais to thank for it. Ever generous and helpful, they’d somehow convinced Sarvar to move to the States right after my marriage. They’d sponsored his legalization documents and whatnot. They’d even offered him a managerial job at one of their motels, but he hadn’t taken them up on it. These last six years, Sarvar had expanded our family’s plastic business across the Americas, and so far, both my brothers seemed satisfied with the results. It’d been my father’s dream to expand Batliwala Plastics outside of India, and I felt incredibly proud that my brothers had made it come true. I liked to believe, in a small way, I’d had a hand in it, too.
Surin, seven years my elder, still lived in Surat, close to the factory we’d almost lost right after our parents’ deaths. The Desais hadn’t been able to convince him to immigrate to California. To leave India would mean selling Batliwala Plastics or trusting someone else to run it, and Surin would cut off his right arm before he did that. He’d fought so hard to keep the factory, sustain it and make it prosper. He’d shed sweat, blood and youth for it. He’d never leave it in someone else’s care. He couldn’t even bring himself to take a decent holiday with his wife and kids for fear the factory would collapse in his absence.
I hadn’t seen Surin in over three years because of that. He wouldn’t come to California unless there was an emergency, and I couldn’t go to India until...Nirvaan let me.
At times, I missed Surin as violently as I missed my parents. And then there were days when he’d cease to exist in my American reality. As if being out of sight, out of tangible reach, he’d become a ghost in my mind.
I stared at the words I held between my hands, unable to decipher them, as my mind slowly clouded with memories. My parents. My brothers. Surat. My life there. All I’d lost. All I’d gained. Nirvaan. Zayaan. My life here.
I leaned over the edge of the cast-iron tub and set the e-reader on the closed toilet seat. My movements upset the cooling water, and waves splashed against my breasts and back in protest. I pulled the plug, watched the water spool into the sieve and gurgle down the drain. If only I could rid myself of ghosts so easily.
I stood up and stepped out of the tub. Naked and shivering, I walked across the beige-tiled floor into the shower. Under a pounding hot spray, I soaped and loofahed my body. I can’t pinpoint when I started crying or if I cried at all. When my eyes stung, I convinced myself it was the soap. My breath hiccuped, and my skin puckered, but I stayed under the shower until the Antarctic threatened to melt through it. I got out then and wrapped myself in a towel. I didn’t look in the mirror, not even when I brushed my teeth and my hair. I refused to give my weakness a form, an image, another ghost to remember.
I slipped on a nightshirt and went straight to bed. I didn’t wish the guys good-night. I couldn’t. Nirvaan would know I’d cried, and it would upset him, make him feel guilty and sad, maybe even mad. He would leave his game and his buddy to comfort me. He would try to bring me solace with gentle words and lust-filled kisses. He might even succeed. He’d assure me that everything would be fine, convince me that I was stronger than this.
Maybe I was. My therapist certainly believed so. But I didn’t want to be strong. I wanted to run and hide, escape my reality, banish all feeling. I wanted to smash open the translucent perfection of my snow-globe world and simply walk away.
But I couldn’t do that. Not tonight. Not ever, if Nirvaan got his way and I had his baby.
So I lay in bed, stiff under the gray-and-yellow summer quilt, and wished for things I’d never had—like a normal life.
* * *
Sleep was a chameleon tonight. Sly and still, it kept changing color and time to hide from me. I counted sheep, but my mind kept drifting toward warmer shores, black-sand beaches and home.
My fifteenth birthday had dawned hot and oppressive over Surat, and it had remained so until its phantasmagorical end.
Summers were murder in Gujarat—arid, dusty and energy draining. But I hadn’t complained about the weather that year. That last of May’s days, my first birthday without my parents, I’d had many other concerns besides harping over a bit of sweat and grime.
Like the home I hadn’t allowed myself to like.
We’d lived in a four-bedroom flat on the tenth floor of a high-rise complex erected along the Tapi River. In addition to being the diamond and textile capital of the world, Surat had just been declared the cleanest and fastest-growing metropolis in India. As a testament to my father’s success, my family had, only recently, moved into the new cosmopolitan digs from a demographically Parsi neighborhood across town. We’d just begun the process of getting to know our neighbors when tragedy had struck.
With my parents gone, and both my brothers still earning their college degrees and living away from home—Surin had boarded with our father’s brother in Mumbai and Sarvar had lived in a boy’s hostel in Ahmedabad—my maternal aunt and uncle had imposed themselves in our home. My brothers were deemed too young and foolish to shoulder the responsibility of raising a young girl, so Uncle Farooq and Auntie Jai had thought it best to supervise my guardianship.
But that was only a pretense, we’d eventually realize. The real reason for the sudden familial love was my father’s business, which Uncle Farooq wanted to usurp.
Barely twenty-two, naturally, Surin was confused. He didn’t know whether to finish his studies or take over the business. He wasn’t ready to be the head of the family. Relatives from all over the world advised him in various capacities, but finally, any decision that impacted the three of us was on him. For six months, he’d tried to make sense of our father’s affairs, and from what I overheard him tell Sarvar late one night on the weekend before my birthday, he was afraid the business was crumbling about his ears. The factory workers, suppliers and clients who’d had implicit faith in my father’s business acumen had none in a mere boy’s, and orders had begun to drop like overripe fruit from trees. He’d decided not to go back to college by then.
Surin was overwhelmed by his responsibilities. Sarvar was worried about our future. So, I worried, too.
I didn’t like my uncle and aunt. I’d never liked them, but I didn’t tell my brothers that. I had no wish to add to their burdens. My mother had never spoken against her older sister, but I knew they hadn’t gotten along, either. I didn’t like how Uncle Farooq spoke to Surin, as if he were an idiot. I didn’t like how nosy my aunt was about my parents’ life insurance policies and our material holdings.
If Surin didn’t ask them to leave soon, I planned to run away. Where? How? When? The logistics didn’t matter. I felt trapped in my aunt’s presence. I wanted things to go back to how they’d been. I missed my mother terribly.
I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday that year. Friends from my old neighborhood offered to treat me to lunch, but I refused.
“I am in mourning,” I told them.
The truth was, it pained me to see them. They reminded me of my old life, of my parents and happy days, and I couldn’t bear it.
My brothers overruled my wish not to celebrate. They even brought home a birthday cake, as if we were a normal family. We went out for dinner, and I got money as presents, no other gifts. No one knew what to buy for me. It was always my mother who’d bought the gifts in our family even if the name tag on the gifts stated otherwise.
That night, Smriti invited me to a beach party. Smriti was a neighbor of similar age who I’d interacted with off and on since our arrival in the building complex. Before I could think of an excuse, Sarvar urged me to go and have fun. Surin frowned, clearly unsure of whether to allow poor hysterical me out of his sight since I’d spent the day locked in my room, weeping. But much to my disgust, he, too, nodded and smiled in encouragement. It was the one and only time I wished my aunt would butt in and barricade me in my room. But, nope, she didn’t.
Unbeknownst to me, Surin had already asked my aunt and uncle to leave our home. Within a month, they’d be gone for good.
I squeezed into the back seat prison of a silver-colored Maruti, jammed from door to door with five other girls.
“Whose party?” I belatedly asked.
“Nirvaan from C building,” replied Smriti, the designated driver.
Smriti and I resided in Ram Bhuvan B, and besides her and a few of her friends, I knew no one.
“He moved to California two years ago and comes down every summer to meet his grandparents. He throws the best parties. They’re wild and...” Smriti paused to grin at me through the rearview mirror. “There will be lots and lots of booze. Imported.”
All the girls in the car giggled at the revelation, except me.
“I know what you’re thinking. Gujarat is a dry state, so no boozing. But who follows rules these days, na?” Smriti said when I remained silent and slightly horrified by her disclosure.
“Even government officials don’t follow rules,” added a pigtailed girl, riding shotgun, in a patronizing tone.
“And Nirvaan has connections. I mean, his father has connections and a green card, so he’s allowed,” Smriti said smugly.
Connections or not, dry state or not, fifteen-year-olds should not be boozing.
What if we got arrested? Would the American boy’s father bail us out? I wondered if Smriti had thought this through.
Too late, it occurred to me, if she was my age, she wasn’t old enough to drive.
Crap.
What was I doing here? Why had Sarvar pushed me out the door? Couldn’t he stand my company for even one evening?
I wasn’t an adventurous soul. I was wary of crowds, basically a homebody. That wasn’t to say I was timid or obedient. I wasn’t. But my bratty nature had been blown to bits, along with my sense of security, the night the police had called and informed us about the accident. A drunk driver had rammed his truck into my parents’ car, killing them on the spot. The accident had happened on the highway near Udvada as my parents drove back from a visit to the fire temple that housed the world’s oldest Atash Behram, the sacred fire Zoroastrians paid homage to. The irony of my parents coming to mortal harm while on a holy pilgrimage wasn’t lost on me. I’d lost my faith in Ahura Mazda that night.
So, that was how I knew if we got into trouble, neither God nor a green-card holder would come to our aid.
I stayed quiet on the drive while the other girls laughed and yakked around me. When we hurtled down the highway past Dumas Road, I was startled out of my silence.
“Arre! Kya jai che, Smriti? Where are you going? You missed the turn for Dumas Beach.”
“We’re going to Dandi,” said Riddhi, the girl squashed against me. “Dumas is overcrowded, yaar. No privacy at all. Dandi is our go-to place for these types of parties.”
What in Khodai’s name did she mean by “these types of parties”?
It struck me that I was way out of my comfort zone here, and for the rest of the hour-long drive to Dandi, I alternated between cursing my luck and crossing my fingers. I also begged my parents to watch over me as my brothers clearly were doing an awful job of it.
The car bumped along Dandi road until the concrete disintegrated into sand. We drove past a massive black granite plaque jutting out of the ground with Dandi March and a long commemoration carved on its face. This was where Mahatma Gandhi had led thousands of protesters on April 6, 1930—including my freedom-fighting grandfather, Rustum Batliwala—in the Salt Satyagraha in defiance of the British Raj and their overbearing tax laws on Indians. It was a historical landmark, but contrary to its fame, it was not very touristy.
Smriti parked the Maruti next to a jumble of cars. Remixed pop pumped out of a massive music system from the roof of a van. Bunches of girls and boys flooded around an enormous beach bonfire. Half of the girls from my group had already disappeared into the throng.
I became Smriti’s shadow. I went where she went, drank what she drank and danced when she danced. I talked little and tittered a lot. When you knew no one, it was easy to lose your inhibitions. I didn’t have to make an impression or accept pitiful condolences from strangers. I didn’t have to listen to geriatric aunts compare my looks to my mother’s or my nose to my grandfather’s, the same one who’d fought for India’s freedom. I was no one here, no one important. I could forget my burdens for tonight, forget that I was orphaned.
I finally got why Sarvar had pushed me out the door—not that I forgave him for it, but I understood. There was life beyond death, and it was all around me. I tried to have fun. I tried very hard.
“That’s him!” yelled Smriti, waving her arm in a sort of dance move.
“Who?” I shouted back, squinting in the direction of her wave. “Nirvaan?”
“Yeah. He’s so chikna, na?” She laughed and shimmied to the beats of a pop song.
“I see several chikna-looking boys there.”
There were many, many cuties to wade through. Most of the guys were shirtless. Most of us girls were in cutoffs and thin T-shirts or tank tops. It was nasty hot, even with the tepid sea breeze. The bonfire aggravated the heat, but it was necessary for light and ambience.
My mother had loved dining by candlelight. Firelight is a boon to women, she’d told me once. It erases age and enhances our natural beauty.
She was right. We glowed golden brown.
Black sand sparkled beneath naked feet, mirroring the night sky. Dozens of coolers poked through the sand like half-buried treasure chests, openly displaying their glittering booty of imported beer, sodas and water bottles. The beer, naturally, depleted faster than the rest of the drinks. I’d consumed three cans so far. As most of us were quite buzzed by then, and sweaty and stinky to boot, it was no surprise when some partygoers began to cool off in the water. It was stupid and dangerous to swim in the sea in the middle of the night. But at fifteen, stupid meant cool, and dangerous was even cooler.
Dandi Beach, like many others along Gujarat’s coastline, was endangered land. Due to overdevelopment and deforestation, the unstable coast had succumbed to the Arabian Sea. But I ignored everything my father had cautioned against. I dived into the water, breaking free of all restraint. I didn’t panic when I lost sight of Smriti in the floating crowd. I was a worry-free bird tonight. I didn’t care if Surin found out I’d been boozing. I didn’t care that my father would have disapproved of my midnight swim. He wasn’t there to lambast me, was he? No, he was dead. And Surin...
Surin...with his stupid threats of locking me in my bedroom, of washing his hands of me and leaving me to rot with Auntie Jai. I wished Surin were dead instead of my parents.
My gut heaved like the buoyant waves, making me vomit and cry. I clawed my way to the shore, and after grabbing another beer, I started running down the beach.
Why did you die, Mumsy? How could you die and leave me so alone?
I wanted to curl up in a dark hole and sob my heart out. I ran farther and farther away from the party. Had I been thinking straight, had I not been upset, I would never have set off alone. I ran past cars, kids, desertlike vegetation and the hemline of dilapidated shacks, abandoned and eerie little huts, along the sand. The villagers had been forced to move inland to safer ground. The government had started projects to save the beaches, but it was a long-haul process, and most of the villages had become ghost towns. I knew all this because Daddy had been passionate about saving the environment.
Daddy...oh, my Daddy...
The beach came to an abrupt end on a jut of rocks rising out of the sand. I had found my black hole to sink into.
I began to climb. Please, no snakes, no crabs. I could abide anything but snakes and crabs. I stepped on something squishy—yuckity yuck—and then something poked my sole, and I nearly lost my balance. I was barefoot, my slippers languished in Smriti’s car. I’d thought it sensible to remove them there. I’d stopped feeling sensible the minute I stepped onto the beach.
Tossing away the beer can, I clambered up the rocks on hands and feet. A great sense of accomplishment swept over me when I reached the top. It wasn’t high, just a few feet above sea level, but I felt like I’d climbed a mountain.
I breathed in deep and let it out. I flung my arms out, staring at the limitless horizon. Without the music blaring, I heard the waves whoosh and slap against the rocks. Without the bonfire, the full moon dribbled silver light onto the world.
My name meant silvery light in Persian. I was born on a full-moon night, and so my parents had named me Simeen.
My parents...
I dropped my arms as guilt stabbed at my chest. No! Khodai, please, I don’t want to feel anything anymore. If only I’d gone with my parents instead of arguing.
I have plans for the weekend that don’t involve driving from temple to temple with a couple of old killjoys. I want to hang at the mall with my friends, okay? Why are you forcing me to go and not Surin or Sarvar? I’m almost fifteen. I can stay home alone. I hardly need you to babysit me.
My last words to my parents had been antagonistic, churlish.
If only I’d gone with them.
If only I hadn’t been so selfish.
If only...
I remembered thinking that. I vividly remembered the feeling of sinking breath by breath into the quicksand of despair that night on Dandi Beach. I remembered screaming into the dark, raging at my parents, calling for them, begging them to come back.
Please come back. I need you. I lied. I need you, Daddy, Mumsy.
I pleaded with Ahura Mazda to take me, too, to stop punishing me. I wished the sea would swallow me. I should’ve died with my parents. If I were dead, I’d stop feeling, stop grieving. I didn’t remember leaning over the edge, but I must have because, if only for a second, I was staring at a pile of shiny black rocks before I was yanked back hard.
Someone shouted, but I didn’t know who or why or what. A pair of arms locked tight around me. A hand pressed my face into a wet, warm chest.
He smelled of the sea and tasted of it, the night Zayaan saved me. He let me go, only to push me into Nirvaan’s arms. Hopping from boulder to boulder, Zayaan disappeared behind a large outcropping, only to reappear within seconds in swimming shorts.
With gentle but firm words, they calmed me. They sat me down on the sand and made me drink overly sweet Frooti from a Coke bottle. They petted me like I was a newborn kitten. And I, desperate to confess my sins, spilled my guts.
Only after they’d handed me over to Smriti and I was on my way home with the taste of cake in my mouth, did I wonder how they had known it was my birthday or why I’d sipped Frooti from a Coke bottle. Only then did I recall what my peripheral vision had first registered but hysteria had censored.
Zayaan had been naked, totally completely naagu, when he saved me. And there had been a girl half-hidden between the jut of rocks where he’d come from—a partially naagu horrified-looking girl.
* * *
I grinned in the dark, smearing the tears that had pearled in my eyes with a thumb before they leaked down my cheek. Reliving the Naked Savior incident always lifted my spirits, reminding me that life wasn’t all despair and darkness but could be as sweet as a Frooti and funny, too. I thought of how much I’d laughed that night.
That first volcanic introduction had defined my relationship with the guys. That chance encounter had changed my world again, ripping me out of my shell, out of my grief, making me bold and greedy in a way I’d never been before.
I turned on my side, hugging my pillow. Exhaustion made my eyelids heavy, but I wasn’t anywhere near ready to fall asleep. Stars had popped up in patches in the blue-black sky. The rain clouds had finally been lured away, letting rain fall somewhere else for a change. I breathed in the gentle breeze blowing in through the open windows, fluttering the wind chimes on the deck.
Smells could trigger memories. Carmel’s salty, fishy odor would often take me home to Surat in spirit, reminding me of the beaches in Gujarat, family holidays taken at various beach resorts, and of the hundreds of happy days and nights I’d spent in Dumas and Dandi with the guys. All three of us were beach babies or beach horses or whatever people obsessed with the sun, sand and water were called. We didn’t mind other vacation destinations. We’d taken plenty of holidays where not a single beach had been on the itinerary. But if you asked us where our favorite place to chill was, without a doubt, we’d say the beach.
Maybe it was, in part, because of the way we’d met. That night on Dandi Beach had been a gift none of us had expected, and everything that followed only brought us closer.
The guys had sought me out the morning after the beach party. To check on my health and state of mind, they’d claimed. After confirming I was indeed sound in both, the true reason for their visit was revealed. They’d put me through a subtle interrogation about how much I’d seen and what I’d inferred from it.
“Don’t gossip about us.” Zayaan’s low, hoarse baritone was as potent in daylight as it had been at midnight. “If you do, we won’t keep our mouths shut, either.”
“Is it gossip if it’s the truth?” I teased with false bravado. Not that I wanted people to think I was some kind of nutcase or suicidal. I wasn’t. Or I was over it by then.
They took me to lunch—a blatant bribe. If I blabbed to anyone about the naked bits, the girl’s reputation would be ruined, and the guys’ wouldn’t fare any better.
What I hadn’t known then was that Zayaan couldn’t afford a tarnished reputation. His father was the administrator, the mukhi saheb, of the local jamaat khana, which was the Khoja community center-cum-mosque. No matter what sort of mischief Zayaan got up to behind closed doors, in front of the world, he had to be the no-nonsense mukhi saheb’s son.
I was super-duper intrigued by the naked naagu bits. I was appalled, at first, but intrigued more. I’d spent the night picturing all kinds of debauchery, and I couldn’t get the image of a girl sandwich out of my head. I felt breathless just thinking about it. To be completely truthful, I felt hideously jealous.
I wanted to be the sandwich filling. I wanted the growly-voiced guy to press my face into his chest while the American-accented guy with the quick hands massaged my back. I’d smooched a couple of boys from my old school. It’d been nothing impressive, just some suction action on the mouth accompanied by a waterfall of slobber. Totally yuck.
I imagined smooching Zayaan and Nirvaan and decided it wouldn’t be yuck at all.
I felt naughty. And for the first time in six months, I felt alive.
I put forth a bold proposition in exchange for my silence. I offered myself up as their secret second helping. Not that Anu, the sandwich girl, was much of a secret. The guys had openly vied for her attention, like Archie and Reggie over Veronica. Other kids in our complex would bet over who’d win a date or a kiss or something much cruder from her. Most would put their money on Nirvaan. He was, after all, a homegrown boy even if he was an expat now.
Zayaan, on the other hand, had moved to Surat only a year ago from Pakistan. Plus, he made the other kids wary with his quietly clever disposition and grown-up manner. He had a job already. Zayaan helped his father run the jamaat khana. He was being groomed to step into his father’s footsteps. He wasn’t overfriendly or spontaneous like Nirvaan. Neither did he throw awesome parties. Money was an issue for him. He never seemed to have any, so Nirvaan would pick up his tab.
Zayaan was night to Nirvaan’s day, yet they shared everything. It was soon apparent that no one but me—and Sandwich Anu—knew the extent of their sharing.
Nirvaan, after a stomach-clutching hooting session, took me up on my offer and allowed me to tag along wherever he went. Zayaan refused to be blackmailed. I’d set myself up as Betty, and in true Archie Comics–style, nothing I did thawed Zayaan.
If I’d known then how sacred a clean reputation was to him, I could’ve forced the issue.
My behavior should’ve embarrassed me. It didn’t at all. I was fed up with being a good girl, and I had come to the conclusion that good things happened to wicked people, and vice versa.
I didn’t seem to threaten Anu darling’s space, either. Naturally not. I was plain faced, where she was gorgeous. Flat and gangly like a ten-year-old boy, where she was voluptuous and sultry. I had short boyish hair. I’d walked into a salon one day and hacked off my locks, unable to care for it without my mother’s guidance. I’d cried for two whole weeks in the aftermath, and nothing my brothers said, complimentary or not, had cheered me up. I sported a tapeli-cut hairdo while Anu’s hair cascaded down her back like a movie star’s. She treated me like the guys’ pesky younger brother instead of the enemy I’d set myself up as.
Pretty soon, the dynamics of our pack began to change and solidify. For every moment the guys and I spent apart, we would spend twice as many together. In keeping with my bold metamorphosis, I kept up with their boisterousness. We raced scooters on highways, played pranks on elderly heart-attack candidates and jumped off walls of our complex into the Tapi River, earning ourselves the Awesome Threesome sobriquet from our peers. We did everything naughty and some things nice.
Sandwich Anu faded into the background within a month. I never heard of her again.
It was serendipity. I believed, with every atom of my being, that my parents were behind my change in fortune. I was convinced the guys were my birthday presents from them.
The day Nirvaan flew back to California, we’d made a pact to keep our threesome awesome and shining forever. For three reckless years, we’d managed.
Then the world had intruded on our idyll.
