“Spare me!” Dinesh said, holding up his hand, just as I finally found the switch. In the sudden flood of harsh yellow light, his expression was so forbiddingly adult, so like his father’s, that it hit me harder than any physical blow. I stood in silence and watched my son walk away from me until the bedroom door shut behind him with a final, decisive click.
Rummaging through my closet, I tried to figure out what to wear. In two hours I was supposed to meet Mrinal for dinner on the top floor of the Hyatt in San Francisco, (“my treat,” she had insisted, fortunately) and nothing I owned seemed right. In the afternoon sun that slatted through the blinds, the silk saris seemed either garish or old-fashioned. The kurtas looked drab. I didn’t have any fancy western clothes because Mahesh had never liked how they looked on me. I wished I could ask Dinesh for advice, but since the night of the kachuris we hadn’t spoken to each other.
It had been a summer day just like this one when Mahesh told me he was leaving. I’d been sifting through clothes, trying to decide what to wear to the Kapoors’ twenty-fifth anniversary celebration that night, while he sat on the bed, looking out the window.
“Which do you like better?” I’d asked, holding up a cream-and-orange sari and a blue kurta with silver flowers. Mahesh liked to choose my outfits when we went out. He knew exactly what made me look my best.
But on this day he kept staring at the lawn as though he hadn’t heard me. He’d been this way a lot lately, preoccupied. Worrying about work, I thought. But when I’d ask him if everything was OK at the office, he always said yes.
I asked him again which outfit he wanted me to wear.
“I don’t care,” he replied in a voice that didn’t sound like his. “I can’t take this anymore, Asha.”
All his life, he told me then, he’d been doing what other people wanted, being a dutiful son, then a responsible husband and father. Now he’d finally found someone who made him feel alive, happy. He wanted the chance to really live his life before it was too late.
I remembered how calm I’d felt as I listened to him. Calm and mildly curious. Because of course this wasn’t really happening to me. Besides, I had a host of pictures inside my head to prove him wrong—Mahesh smiling into my eyes on our honeymoon in Kashmir, the night water shimmering beyond our houseboat on Dal Lake; Mahesh and I looking down at the tiny scrunched-up face of our new baby, then catching each other’s eye and breaking into the tremulous laughter of disbelief; all of us crowded into our bed Saturday morning, watching Bugs Bunny. And just the other day we had gone to buy a brand-new red Mazda Miata, father and son assuring me that a two-seater was not impractical, Dinesh excited, laughing, asking, Can I drive this as soon as I get my license?
“Haven’t you been happy with us, ever?” I’d asked, my voice even.
“I thought I had,” Mahesh had said. “I hadn’t known what real happiness was then.”
Now, as I noted how the dust motes hung in the sunlit air exactly like on that day, how the jasmines outside smelled the same, I feared that Mrinal would be wearing the latest fashions. Even when we’d been dependent on the meager pocket money our parents doled out, she’d had a flair for colors and styles. She’d go down to Maidan market and buy remnants from the wholesalers that sat outside with their bales of tie-dye cottons and silks, and then she’d create the most clever designs around the scraps she’d bought. And now that she was a top-level executive, she took good care of her self, as I could tell from the photos she sent me infrequently but regularly along with hastily scribbled notes that said she was thinking of me. The photos were of vacations in choice spots such as the Ooty hills or the beach at Kanyakumari where the three oceans meet. They hinted at glamour and allurement. In the latest one, sent a year ago, Mrinal was wearing a midnight-blue silk kameez with a daring scooped neck and golden chappals on her feet. She was leaning lightly against a good-looking man. The marble domes of the Taj Mahal shimmered in the background.
Sometimes, privately, I wondered how Mrinal felt about not being married. Surely she experienced some regret at family gatherings when sisters and cousins paraded their offspring and boasted about their husbands? But when I reexamined the photos where she posed against a fresco in the Ajanta caves or waved elegantly from the deck of a cruise ship with her direct, open smile, my doubts faded. She has the perfect existence—money, freedom, admiration, I would say to myself enviously, suddenly wanting it for myself, and she doesn’t have to worry about pleasing anyone. Underneath my envy, though, I was happy for her. Whenever my own life depressed me with its clutter and its ordinariness, I took a strange solace in thinking of Mrinal’s, which seemed to me to be fashioned with the same clean, confident strokes with which she had once designed her clothes.
I’d been hard put to match Mrinal’s photos, but I’d done my best with pictures of the Yosemite falls and the Golden Gate Bridge. I, too, accompanied my photos with hastily scribbled notes, though I could easily have found the time to write a letter. But somehow that would have been like admitting that my life, less busy than hers, was also less successful. After I received the Taj Mahal picture, I’d asked a friend to come over and take a picture of the three of us in our new Mazda. I still had a copy of that photo, Mahesh and myself sitting in front with the top down while Dinesh leaned against a car door, elegant as any model. I remember looking at the photo and thinking how much I loved father and son. How they seemed as much a part of me as my own body, so that I couldn’t imagine a life, ever, without either of them. Wish you could come see us, I had written gaily, unthinkingly, across the back of the copy I’d had enlarged for Mrinal before I slipped it into the envelope.
I’d fought the divorce every way I knew—reasoned, pleaded, tried the silent treatment, cooked Mahesh’s favorite meals. I’d even bought myself a gauzy black negligee from Victoria’s Secret. I’d taken a long time in the bathroom that night, brushing my hair till it shone down my back, rubbing lavender oil on my wrists and throat, trying different lipsticks. When I stepped out, Mahesh had looked up from the journal he’d been reading in bed. He’d taken off his glasses and rubbed tiredly at the corners of his eyes.
“Don’t do this to yourself, Asha,” he had said. The sadness in his voice had been worse than anger, or even contempt.
That was the night he had moved out.
Now, as I dressed myself slowly in a raw-silk salwaar-kameez that I hoped looked smart without being gaudy, I tried to figure out what I was going to tell Mrinal tonight. But all I could think about were the dark circles under my eyes that my makeup didn’t quite hide, the telltale streaks of recent gray in my hair.
“This way, please.”
The maître d’, a tall man in an intimidating black-and-white tuxedo, wove his way smoothly through the crowded restaurant. My legs trembled a little as I followed him. I was still tense from the drive. I wasn’t used to negotiating city traffic, and the ten-year-old Chevy that I drove (Mahesh had taken the Miata when he left) hadn’t helped matters. The plush burgundy carpet into which my feet sank, the tinkle of silverware and sophisticated laughter, the flash of a bracelet or a discreet tie pin, the gleam of a bare shoulder, of a wineglass held up to the light—all increased my discomfort. My experience with restaurants was limited to infrequent visits, when Dinesh was little, to Chuck E. Cheese, where we shouted out our orders to the sweaty, aproned pizza chef over the excited shrieks of children and the clang of pinball machines. Or, as he grew older, to the neighborhood Shanghai Eat-Here-or-Take-Out, where the sticky odor of chili-sesame oil hovered over orange Formica tables. As I awkwardly followed the maître d’ I knew I didn’t belong here, and that every person in the room, without needing to look at me, knew it too.
Then I saw her. She was sitting at a window table, facing away from me. I stopped, in spite of the maître d’s questioning look. I wanted a moment to compose myself, to observe her before she knew I was there. Perhaps I was hoping to learn, from her unguarded posture, something that would give me an advantage in our coming meeting.
Outside, the Bay Bridge strung itself over the water, a glimmering necklace of light. The evening was so clear that one could see all the way across to where the bell tower of Berkeley pierced the dark like an illuminated needle. But Mrinal wasn’t looking at the view. Instead she stared down at her hands. I tried to read the slope of her shoulders, the curve of her cheek. I wanted—I admit it—to discover a secret sorrow, perhaps a weariness with life. But all I could see was the easy grace with which she held her body, like always.
She must have sensed my presence, because she turned. When she saw me, a smile of such pleasure crossed her face that I felt ashamed of having spied on her.
“Ashoo dear, how lovely you look!” She rose and hugged me tight to her. “You’re a lot slimmer than in the photo you sent me last year!” I could smell her perfume, something musky and expensive. Behind her shoulder the sparkling skyline of the city changed slowly as the restaurant revolved. Mrinal’s face sparkled too. She had on a glittery foundation and just the right amount of mascara, and she looked a lot younger than her age, which, like mine, was thirty-eight. She was wearing a maroon off-the-shoulder tunic with narrow churidar pants, a chic blend of East and West. It was perfect for her.
“I can’t tell you how much I’ve looked forward to this!” Mrinal laughed out loud. It was a glad, full-throated sound, uncaring of being overheard, just the way I remembered it. “How many years has it been? Almost twenty? There’s so much you can’t write, that you have to share face-to-face….” She held my hands in hers and, looking down, I saw the polished ovals of nails the exact maroon of her outfit. A diamond glittered on her ring finger.
“You look lovely, too,” I said, making an effort to smile back. There was a heaviness in my chest. I couldn’t tell if it was dejection or envy. “Yes! There’s tons of news to catch up on! But first, tell me about that divine ring! Could it be an engagement? Is there a lucky man waiting somewhere?” My voice sounded coy and false even to my ears.
“No,” said Mrinal. A shadow seemed to flit across her face, but perhaps I was only seeing what I wanted to see. “Do you like it? I bought it in London this time. A sort of be-good-to-myself gift.”
I was impressed, more than if a man had given her the ring. Mrinal and I had both been brought up by mothers who believed that women should be happy with whatever their men decided they ought to have. A woman who grasped things for herself, we had heard over and over, was greedy. Selfish. The most expensive thing I’d bought for myself in my entire life had been a bottle of Chantilly perfume, $19.99, at Ross’s Dress for Less. It had taken me twenty minutes of feeling guilty in front of the fragrance counter before I paid for it, and then I’d justified it by reminding myself that Mahesh’s company’s Christmas party, which I was expected to attend, was coming up. I wanted to tell Mrinal that it was great that she had been able to overcome our childhood conditioning, but the waitress was asking us what we would like to drink.
“How about two vodka martinis, shaken not stirred?” Mrinal smiled. “Remember?”
I nodded. We’d been avid James Bond fans all through high school, fascinated by his violent, magical world—so different from ours—of golden guns and intricate machines and bikini-clad beauties. If we ever escaped our conservative, teetotaler parents, we had vowed, if we ever made it to the promised land, England maybe, or America, we would celebrate by drinking Bond’s special drink.
“Do you know, I never did try one all these years,” I said. “Mahesh”—it was not impossible to say his name, after all—“only likes wines.”
The waitress was putting our drinks on the table. She wore a short black skirt and a sequined halter top. Her red hair fell in flipped layers to her shoulders. I tried not to think of Jessica.
“Oh yes,” Mrinal was saying as she raised her drink to her lips. “Mahesh. Tell me all about the mysterious and romantic Mahesh!” She drank deftly, tilting the glass as though the gesture was an old, accustomed one. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am at not meeting him. And your charming son, too.”
The floor tilted and spun. Maybe it was the martini, bitter and burning on my tongue, making me cough. Another disappointment. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. The words poured out, all the right ones. It wasn’t difficult at all.
“You’re so lucky,” Mrinal said when I finished talking. She was pleating and unpleating the edge of her napkin, and this time there really was a shadow in her gaze. It spilled into the hollows underneath her eyes. “You don’t know how lucky you are, Ashoo, to have such a loving, considerate husband, such a good, responsible son.”
“But you’re lucky, too,” I said, a little surprised at her vehemence. “You’re doing so well in your career, traveling whenever you want, moving up in the company, never having to worry about money. You’re so much prettier than me, there must be dozens of men dying to marry you. Sometimes I wish I could change places …” I stopped, unwilling to divulge my fantasies.
Mrinal sat silent for a moment, looking down at her ring, twisting the diamond around to catch the light. Then she said, “You’re right. There’s a lot in my life that I’m proud of. The freedom. The power. Walking into a room full of men knowing none of them can push me around. Seeing the reluctant admiration in their eyes when I close a tough deal.” She spoke slowly, consideringly. “It’s what I always wanted. I’d never give it up to dwindle into a wife, like that woman—what was her name—said in that play we studied in Lit class.”
Dwindle. I tried not to flinch at the word. I remembered the woman who said that, Miramante in Congreve’s Way of the World. We had studied her speech together after class, Mrinal and I, sitting in the back of the college library, underlining our favorite lines and repeating them to each other. Her words had seemed so spirited and clever in that musty hall hung with dim oil paintings of old dead men, founders and principals, who stared down disapprovingly at our excited, laughing faces.
“The truth is not as simple as we thought then,” I said, sighing.
“I know.” Mrinal sighed too. “Some mornings when I wake up I don’t want to open my eyes. I know exactly how everything will be—the color-coordinated bedspread and carpet and curtains and cushions….”
“Mrinal, please,” I interrupted urgently. Somehow it was very important that she not say any more.
But she went on, inexorable. “… the four-foot-high TV, the stereo speakers in the corners, the hanging plants placed just right, the bright light falling on it all …”
She ground her knuckles into her eyes and when she brought them away her mascara was smudged. I stared at her. It was the first time I’d seen Mrinal cry.
“I was going to pretend everything was fine,” she said. “I wanted you to admire me, envy me. That old competition thing. But when I heard you talking about your husband and your son”—her voice faltered on the word—”when I saw the love shining in your face, I couldn’t keep it up.”
The tears made black streaks down her cheeks. She wept like she laughed, unashamedly, without reserve. I wanted to go around to her side of the table and hold her. I wanted to weep like that too, to confess. But it was as though I were trapped deep inside something, a tunnel perhaps, or a well, with all that dark, cold water pressing down on me. So I sat there, silent, while Mrinal wiped her eyes and apologized for creating a scene, saying she didn’t know what got into her. And then it was too late.
“I’m happy for you, Ashoo, I really am,” she said when we kissed each other goodbye. “Take good care of those two wonderful guys that God has given you.”
When I pull into the garage late in the night, I use the remote to shut the garage door behind me as I always do, but I don’t switch the engine off right away. I sit with the window open in the old brown Chevy, picking at the cracked vinyl of the dashboard, listening to the familiar, comforting thrum. The events of the evening replay themselves in my head, over and over. In the back of my mind a small, seductive thought swims in and out of focus: how easy it would be to just sit here until the
fumes fill my lungs. I close my eyes and see the gray, gauze-like smoke drifting gently into the cavities inside me, taking over.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting in the garage. There’s a sweet, heavy smell in the car now. It laps at me, rises past my hips and breasts and mouth to my eyes. And I’m crying—all those tears I didn’t shed when Mahesh left, and when Dinesh turned away from me down that harshly lit night corridor. I’m crying for Mrinal in her spacious bed in her luxury apartment, lying alone for the rest of her life, and for myself, who will probably do the same. But most of all I’m crying because I feel like a child who picks up a fairy doll she’s always admired from afar and discovers that all its magic glitter is really painted clay. Somehow believing in Mrinal’s happiness, thinking that unregretful lives like hers were possible, had made it easier to bear my individual sorrows. What would I live on, now that I knew perfection was only a mirage?
The smell is heavier now. I can feel it in my pores. It begins to layer itself over my skin, thick and glistening as oil. It’s getting harder to think. I need to wait only a little longer for it to cover me completely.
But I know that’s not the answer. Not that I’m sure of what the answer is, of even if there is one. I just know I must turn off the engine before I’m no longer able to. I reach for the key, but I can’t see it. I grope in the dark, viscous swirl that has opened up around the steering wheel, and for a panicked moment I think I’ll never find it. But then it presses its metallic coolness into my palm, precise and reassuringly solid in a world of amorphous shapes. I twist it sharply and stumble from the car toward the switch that will open the garage door. In the new silence my coughs are a sharp, tearing sound, loud enough, I think, to wake the neighbors. When the garage door rumbles open, I am almost surprised to find no one waiting outside, robed and belligerent, armed with questions.