Jeff had a way of listening without interruption or advice that Cameron appreciated. As they sat on the balcony of Jeff’s apartment with steaming mugs of coffee, he found himself telling Jeff things he hadn’t shared with anyone. He went backward, beginning with his current job. He was the head security guard for a large bank building downtown, but each day the gun he carried at his hip seemed heavier. He lived in a tiny one-room place in a too-expensive neighborhood so that from his window he would be able to see the ocean. Every morning he tucked his inhaler into a pocket and went for a run. With the wind whistling in his ears, he could forget the decisions he regretted. He had to take pills at night to sleep. He hated insomnia but feared sleep because of the nightmares. None of his activities since he left the army—helping at the hospice, serving food in soup kitchens, donating money to organizations that rescued abused children—had stopped the nightmares. The worst was that of a tiny child afloat in an oval room. The boy would open his black eyes and look at Cameron without reproach, and that was the hardest thing.
Cameron told Jeff about his deployment to hot, mosquito-infested countries supposedly threatened by Communism, where he had been feared and detested because of his uniform. He described the men he had killed—sometimes apathetically, because their lives hadn’t seemed as real as his own. Jeff grew white around the mouth, but he put a hand on Cameron’s shoulder and left it there.
When Cameron had told Jeff everything he could remember, all the way back to his parents’ death in a car crash when he was twelve, he asked about Imani’s curse. Jeff didn’t believe in curses, but he did believe in consequences. He felt that Cameron had done what he could to expiate his wartime acts, but the abortion was unfinished business.
Cameron knew he couldn’t go looking for Imani to ask forgiveness. She was probably married; his reappearance would cause more harm than good. He was too old and set in his ways to adopt a child and become a full-time parent. Then Jeff recalled that the monks had spoken of orphanages in the hills of India. What if Cameron contacted one and sponsored a boy? When the time was right, he could visit him. Perhaps when Cameron saw this child in person, when he caught hold of his hand and felt the metta that upholds the universe flowing between them, he would be healed.
Buoyed by new hope, Cameron contacted the orphanage. They were slow to respond; he had to stop himself from sending reminders, from taking a plane to the nearest city and hiking up to the gates. To succeed, his offer must appear to be a casual act of philanthropy, not a desperate yearning. (The authorities were cautious; Jeff had told him stories about foreigners and child trafficking that explained why.) Finally the orphanage sent a photograph, along with details. Not a boy, as Cameron had requested, but a scrawny girl left outside their gates a few years back. It did not matter. As soon as he saw the blurry black-and-white picture in which she wore a too-large frock and squinted into sunlight, he knew she was the one.
He sent in the necessary money to become her sponsor and requested permission for a visit. But the orphanage informed him that they did not want to rush things. People sometimes tired of their charity, and if the children had had contact with them, they felt additionally rejected. Cameron could write letters to Seva—that was the girl’s name. They would be translated and read to her. In a year or two, when she learned to write, she would send him notes in Hindi. Meanwhile, could he fill out the enclosed forms for a background check and have recommendation letters sent directly to the orphanage?
Impatience—and that old anger—had boiled up in Cameron, but he followed the instructions. Each month he wrote to Seva. Each year, the orphanage sent him two photos of her, taken at activities such as lunch or games, which he pored over hungrily. Since last year, he had begun to receive, at random intervals, lined sheets filled with a child’s scrawlings that the owner of his neighborhood Indian grocery deciphered for him. Cameron could tell that Seva had a mind of her own. In addition to the requisite sentences thanking him and wishing him good health, she informed him of various occurrences in her life: the orphanage cat’s newborn babies had been eaten in the night, by a coyote, the cook said; her friend Bijli had ventured into the bushes at the edge of the playing field in spite of being warned and now had a terrible itch; she had done well in most of her exams except math, which was very difficult for her to understand; Anil had pushed her into the mud when they were marching during P.T. class, so she had pushed him down, too, and the P.T. teacher, Mr. Ahuja, had made them stand out in the yard all afternoon as punishment; Mr. Ahuja had a big mole with hairs sticking out of it on his left cheek.
Cameron was concerned when he heard of the punishment, but Jeff consulted the monks and assured Cameron that this discipline was fairly mild compared to what was customary at many such schools. Still, Cameron thought it was time he went and saw Seva. Perhaps he would have a little discussion with Mr. Ahuja while he was there. He wrote a stern letter to the orphanage, hinting that he might switch his support to a more forthcoming organization. The orphanage sent a speedy reply: Mr. Grant was of course welcome to visit. When Cameron informed Seva, he was coming, he received an ecstatic note listing all the things she would take him to see once he arrived. He carried it around in his wallet. He applied for an indefinite leave from work and for a one-year visa from the Indian government. He suspected that, as a single male, and an African American at that, he would never be given custody of Seva. But as he scoured Toys “R” Us, filling his suitcase with gifts he thought an eight-year-old would like, he wondered if he might just stay on in the hills. Perhaps he could persuade the orphanage to fire Mr. Ahuja and take him on as the P.T. teacher?
Then the earthquake struck and—
16
It was as though the giant in the earth had heard Cameron speak his name. Before he could complete his sentence, before his listeners could compare his story to theirs, before they could feel admiration or sorrow or thankfulness, the building shuddered and groaned. Something crashed upstairs, and above their heads a ripple went through the ceiling as though it were made of paper.
“Aftershock!” a voice yelled. Someone started to scream. Someone else was crying. One man began a cryptic prayer, “God, let it end, let it just end fast!” As she plunged through water, making for a doorway, Uma wondered, What did the praying man want finished—the earthquake, this imprisonment, or their lives? Wait a minute, she wanted to protest. I haven’t told my story yet.
In her doorway, there was only one other person: Mr. Pritchett, who had abandoned the shawl Tariq had loaned him and was shivering in his underwear. Stripped, he was a lot smaller than Uma had taken him to be. He held on to both doorjambs with outstretched arms, his limbs thin and ropy like those of aged Christian martyrs in medieval paintings. Uma had to duck under his armpit to find shelter. The water came halfway up their thighs, and as soon as that the building stopped shaking, Uma became aware that her legs were growing numb from the cold water, though her arm still throbbed. She considered submerging it in the water. Then it struck her that there should have been another person in her doorway. Peering through the gloom, she knew who it was and called his name. Cameron! Cameron!
Cameron lay curled on the table, fetal position. Uma thought he looked like the unborn child he had dreamed of. When he heard her calling his name, he opened his eyes and gave her the same, reproachless, infant look. He had been holding on to the flashlight, which contained their last batteries, and he raised his fist slightly, as if to say he would keep it safe until he could hand it to her. Though chunks of plaster covered the table and dotted his face and arms, he appeared unhurt.
Uma waded back to the table through the black water, their own Mnemosyne, pool of memory, drawing their dearest secrets out of them. The ceiling looked as if it was holding, but even if it wasn’t, she couldn’t bear to leave Cameron by himself. They were all going to die anyway, unless a miracle happened soon. When she put an arm around him, Cameron’s body felt colder than normal—but what was normal anymore? His heart fluttered like a snar
ed bird. She could hear wheezing with each breath he drew. He gave her a small, blanched smile. Against his silence, the comments about hope and forgiveness that she had planned to offer seemed platitudinous. Who was she to speak, anyway? Hadn’t she wronged the people closest to her: Ramon because she had not cherished him as he cherished her; her mother because she wouldn’t listen to the cautionary lessons she tried to teach Uma; her father because when he needed someone to talk to, she had turned away. Forgive me, she said to them in her head. But it did not provide her with the same satisfaction as hugging a plump maternal body, or rubbing her palm along a jaw sexily stubbled with a night’s growth of beard, or leaning against a nolonger-muscular chest and breathing in the distinctive smell, familiar from childhood, of Old Spice cologne.
THE AFTERSHOCK SEEMED OVER. OTHERS VENTURED OUT OF their doorways and checked for damage, looking up worriedly at the ceiling. Jiang, whose face was flushed and feverish, told Uma they should make Cameron sit upright; it might improve his breathing. Lily helped them prop him up. The smell of gas was distinctly stronger, but no one commented on that. They climbed back onto their tables, drawing their knees up and trying to dry their legs with the rags that had once been a sari colored by hope. Mangalam examined the water level and said that at this rate, the water would reach the level of the tables in an hour; they would then have to collect chairs from the other side of the room, place them on top of the tables, and sit on those. These tables could accommodate only two chairs each. Three people would have to take their chairs into Mangalam’s office, where the table was larger. But there was time for the last story before the group split up.
“I DID NOT MISS MY PARENTS AT ALL,” UMA BEGAN. “WHEN I went away to college, I guess you could say I was heartless and self-centered, like many young people. My mother took it hard, but my father—”
Before she could continue the chronicle of her filial perfidies, there were noises above. Everyone cringed, but these were not the rumbles of an earthquake. There was a tapping and banging, a crash like furniture toppling over. They thought they heard engines revving, a door slammed shut.
“It’s people!” Tariq said. “Rescuers!” Everyone looked up, elation battling disbelief on their faces. They gripped one another’s arms. Mrs. Pritchett and Lily cupped their hands and yelled for help, and the others joined in. But there was no answer from above. The clangings grew quieter, as though receding. When a large chunk of plaster fell into the water, it scared them and they stopped shouting.
Tariq stood on the table, craning his neck. He wanted to see through the hole in the ceiling. But the angle wasn’t right. “I’m going to go to the other side of the partition,” he said, “climb on a chair or something, and figure out what’s going on.” He jumped down, splashing water in every direction.
“I’ll come with you,” Mangalam said, taking the flashlight. “We can tie a strip of cloth on a post and wave it through the hole.”
Mr. Pritchett, who had struggled into his pants, hurried after them. Uma, too, longed to follow, but Cameron was propped up against her good arm, and she didn’t want to move him.
“Warn them,” Cameron whispered. “There’s a dead body in the water—fell from upstairs when the ceiling collapsed.” She peered at him in shock. Until this moment, in accepting that she might perish, she had thought she understood what death meant, but it had only been an abstraction. This body, within fifty inescapable feet of where she was now, bloated and rubbery and beginning to decay, made death a touchable horror.
Cameron nudged her. “Don’t shout—people might panic. Go after them. I’ll be okay.”
“Go, I’ll watch him,” Malathi said from Cameron’s other side. Uma felt Malathi’s firm, bangled arm come around Cameron’s torso. She was humbled by Malathi’s calmness in the face of what they had just heard.
The thought of stepping into the water where the dead man lay filled Uma with revulsion, but Cameron was waiting. She climbed down gingerly but couldn’t stop herself from shuddering. She walked around the partition and stopped at the edge of the room. Mr. Pritchett was bent over, clearing debris from an area that lay directly under the gash of the collapsed ceiling. That, she guessed, would be where the dead man fell. She imagined the heavy drop. She hoped he had died before falling, that he didn’t have to drown in liquid blackness. Tariq and Mangalam were dragging a sofa through the water. They meant to stand it on its side. One of them would climb on it while the others steadied him.
“After I make some space here, we’ll need to find a rod to tie a cloth to,” Mr. Pritchett said. “Can you give me a hand?” He reached into the water.
“Stop!” Uma snapped. “Move away!” But it was too late. In the beam of the flashlight Mangalam aimed at her, she saw the shock on Mr. Pritchett’s face. The dark water splashed up as he let something heavy fall and backed away. She heard him retch and stumble in the dark. There was another splash. She gritted her teeth and hurried past the corpse toward him.
“I touched it,” Mr. Pritchett said to Uma, between heaves, as she tried to pull him up.
“Hush. It’s all right,” Uma said. She rubbed his back.
“What’s wrong?” Tariq called from the other end of the room. When she told him, he dropped his end of the sofa and cursed.
Among them, Mangalam seemed the least affected. He seemed calmer, if anything. Cameron’s decline had forced him to take up the responsibility that should have been his in the first place. “We can avoid that area,” he said. “Let’s set up the sofa here. It won’t give us as good a visibility, but it’ll do. We have to hurry. If someone’s up there, they’ll move away unless we let them know we’re trapped here. Mr. Pritchett, we need you to hold one side of the sofa. Uma, fetch that rod from near the wall.”
Thus rallied, they did what Mangalam said. Uma found that she was able to function if she kept her mind on the task at hand and didn’t think of the water flowing from the corpse toward her, contaminating her with deadness. In a few minutes, they upended the sofa. Tariq climbed on, lifted the rod as high as he could through the hole, and waved the makeshift flag vigorously. Uma trained the flashlight on the blue rag. When they shouted for help, the group in the other room joined them, like a Stygian chorus. Plaster fell again, but they continued. What did they have left to lose? There was a loud noise upstairs like an explosion. Then silence. When their throats grew raw and they were sure there were no further noises above, they gave up, one at a time. Some of them sobbed for a bit. Some sat wordlessly, devastated. To have been extended those minutes of hope only to have them snatched away was the cruelest cosmic joke, the final insult.
The batteries were dying. In the dimming glow of the flashlight, Uma saw her companions crumpled into themselves, avoiding one another’s eyes, hands balled by their sides or covering their faces. Mangalam brought forth a bottle with bourbon still in it and passed it around. A couple of people took desultory sips, but even such a conjuration didn’t perk them up much. It was getting harder to breathe. Uma remembered an old science lesson from middle school. Gas killed people by displacing oxygen, which was lighter. When enough gas settled in the basement, they would suffocate.
Too many problems, all beyond her solving. There was nothing to do but go on with her story.
WHEN IT WAS TIME FOR ME TO GO TO COLLEGE, I CHOSE A PLACE far from home, although I knew my parents would have preferred it otherwise. It wasn’t that I had a bad relationship with them, or that they were tyrannical, in the way Indian immigrant parents sometimes are. I was just eager to strike out on my own, without their protective presence. It never struck me that my presence might have been protective for them, too. The college I picked was in Texas: expensive and private, with a reputation that a parent could brag about. Still, the key lure for me was its distance from home.
My mother took my absence hard. Though she was a successful manager, fairly high up in her company, she defined herself mostly as a mother and homemaker and took more pride in a made-from-scratch Indian dinner than
in acquiring a new customer. My first month of college, whenever my mother and I spoke on the phone, she would dissolve into tears while insisting I describe every detail of my day. My father admonished her to pull herself together. He kept his questions brief and basic—how was my health, was I able to keep up with the workload, did I need money—and he was satisfied with monosyllabic answers. He always ended his conversation with a joke about prospective boyfriends—mostly the same joke—while my mother remonstrated on the other line. I was thankful that my father was handling my departure so well. I admired his suavity. Up until this time I had been closer to my mother, but now I felt a subtle shift in allegiance.
The student population at the college was different from my high school but not drastically so. I loved the lush campus with its tropical foliage and old Southern elegance; the single dorm room that I could decorate as I wanted; the small literature symposiums where famous professors treated me as an adult, which, deep down, I wasn’t certain I was; the coffeehouses that remained open until two a.m. and where students held heated intellectual discussions; and the partying, which was available in hot, medium, or mild. My mother’s cautions must have rubbed off on me; the pleasures I chose were innocuous ones.
One evening, a couple of months into the semester, my father phoned me. This was unusual on several counts, though I didn’t think about that until afterward. Our family calls usually occurred over the weekend, when cell phone minutes were free. Generally my mother initiated them. And it was barely five p.m. in California, which meant that my father, who worked late, was calling from his office.