Habitations, page 13
She passed the landmarks Naomi had given her: a restaurant called Puerto Viejo, a laundromat, and a tiny red church. Naomi lived on the first floor of a brownstone, and Vega pressed the buzzer and waited. Moments later, she pressed it again, then knocked on the door and listened for any sound of movement from the other side. When Naomi still didn’t answer, she circled the block, catching a glimpse of herself in the window of the laundromat, her shoulders hunched under the weight of her weekend bag. She came back and knocked, then buzzed again. But there was nothing.
She took the train back to Manhattan and settled at the library to check her email. There was nothing from Naomi. I went to your apartment, Vega wrote. Did I have the wrong address? A few minutes later, she followed with another message. I need to see you before I go back home. Next to her, a woman was bent over her course reader, applying her highlighter with so much force it squeaked. Vega sat numbly, determined to wait just an hour. But an hour passed, and she waited another.
At six o’clock, she made her way to Halima’s apartment. “She isn’t home,” Caitlin said. “She’s staying in Queens or whatever for the night.” Vega slept on the couch, trying to ignore the angry clamor of Caitlin unpacking her suitcases. The room was unbearably hot. When Caitlin finally closed the door and turned off her lights, Vega kicked off the sheets. She punched the cushion until her knuckles were raw.
* * *
Her summer classes were winding down, and there was no practical reason to stay in the city. She spent her days in White Plains, mindlessly boxing her clothes for her return home, then realizing a particular bra or T-shirt had been packed and upending the entire thing. She checked her email obsessively, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night and tiptoeing into Rakesh’s study. In her last message to Naomi, she had written, I’m terrified I will never see you again. Naomi had ignored Vega’s previous apologies, but this was so desperate that she was certain Naomi would respond, though she never did.
In the evenings, Anjali was withdrawn and moody, but Maya clung to Vega, wanting to play endless rounds of Memory and perform the song she was rehearsing at camp. It was a production of Fiddler on the Roof. “I can’t believe you won’t be there to see it,” Maya said, laying out the cards. On the couch, Anjali rolled her eyes for no apparent reason.
“She’s pulling away because she’s going to miss you,” Sudha said. “We all are. I cannot imagine how the house is going to feel next week.”
“She should come to Madras,” Vega said. “I’ll show her the city.” But she knew the plan was unlikely. She had seen American families on their visits to India—the novelty of the rickshaws and cows quickly giving way to boredom, dull visits with one distant relative after another, and occasionally a trip to a jewelry shop. She had no foreign cousins of her own, but she recalled a set of Gayatri’s who would come every few years and spend afternoons lying on the floor, listening to their Walkmans, responding to every question with a grunt or single-word answer.
“That’s a lovely idea,” Sudha said.
* * *
The family took her out for a farewell dinner at a Thai restaurant in a strip mall, and she tried to push thoughts of Naomi to the corner of her mind. She had emailed her so many times that the messages felt free of meaning or consequence, like a letter bottled and tossed into the ocean. It would never get anywhere.
“What’s the plan when you return to India?” Sudha asked.
“I’ll apply for doctoral programs in the fall. In the meantime, I’d like to gain some NGO experience.” She held on to the fading hope that Naomi had meant to meet her at the apartment, but that some emergency had arisen, so she hadn’t wavered from her earlier plan. She would apply to schools in Philadelphia and New York. She and Naomi would see each other back in the States. The NGO plan was something she had been loosely considering, but now, saying it aloud, it sounded concrete and steady. “I worked at an orphanage for a bit, sometime back. I could volunteer temporarily while I find something longer term.”
“Like in Annie,” Maya said.
“After that?” Rakesh asked.
“Eventually, I’d like to work with an NGO that is engaged in structural change. Something that is performing charitable work, but also influencing policy.”
“That’s all well and good,” Rakesh said, “but I have friends in these sectors. Corporate social responsibility and whatnot. They will be the first to tell you that when NGOs rely on foreign donors, there is a certain financial precarity.”
Sudha put her hand on Rakesh’s wrist to hush him. Even Anjali was listening. Vega watched Maya work her chopsticks, held together with a green, plastic band.
“Well, there is a growing investment in women’s health. In the past, we considered economic empowerment and health to be separate areas of focus. But now, there are microcredit programs.” This wasn’t fresh information. It was the type of thing people talked about even during her undergraduate years at Sri Vidya. But she was surprised by how easy it was to inject the conversation with language from her classrooms at Columbia and make her plans sound radical, a worthy culmination of two years of graduate study. “Many of these programs, in preparing women to be the breadwinners of their family, are tackling both women’s rights and poverty.”
“So multifaceted,” Sudha said. Even Rakesh nodded. Anjali asked, “Like how?”
“When women are able to earn, they can have a voice in their families and communities. But they can also contribute to the well-being of the NGO. Making it self-sufficient.”
“That’s what I like to see,” Rakesh said. “Private-public partnerships.”
Maya picked up a clump of pad Thai with her chopsticks and shouted, “Ta-da!”
* * *
She went back to New York two days before her flight, to see Zemadi, who was flying back to Nairobi that night. They had planned on lunch, but Zemadi’s day was hectic, and they met instead at the CVS near campus, where Zemadi was making a last round of purchases: lipstick for her cousins and copies of People and Essence. She had applied for doctoral programs in the UK and was still waiting to hear about program funding. Vega pictured her in a dim hostel room, maybe at the London School of Economics, working her way through leather-bound sociology journals, the rain falling outside. Standing on the curb with Zemadi as she waited for a taxi, Vega said, “This is only going to sink in after a few days. When I dial your number, and nobody answers.”
Zemadi hugged her tightly. “Do you remember when Halima was telling us about the Brown Muslim Student Association? But you didn’t know she was referring to the university, so you said, ‘They don’t allow Black Muslims?’ ”
“I do remember that.” It had been a fairly inconsequential joke at the time, but thinking of it now made Vega’s throat tighten and her eyes burn.
Her plans with Halima didn’t materialize either. They talked briefly on the phone that evening when Vega was back in White Plains.
“It all happened so quickly,” Halima said. “I thought two years would last longer.” Her voice shook. There was the sound of running water in the background, then the flick of the stove. She was making tea. It seemed impossible that they would never again have one of their evenings together, lying on the floor and eating parathas. Watching The X-Files. Vega already missed the smell of their apartment.
“We’ll have a reunion before you know it,” Vega said. “All of us.” She assured Halima that she would see her at the wedding, though they both knew this would be impossible. Vega would never get a visa to visit Pakistan, just as Halima would never get one to come to India.
Part 2
13
After the joy of home faded, Vega realized she was as annoyed by her parents’ old habits as she was by their new ones. Her father still circled articles in the day’s Hindu he wanted her to read—dry, economics pieces on demonetization, or grisly accounts of drought and farmer suicide. There was a new homeopathic doctor in their lives, a specialist on poststroke health, who called every other morning. Her mother spoke to him with a hushed reverence, scribbling notes. Vasanti’s meals, once the high points of Vega’s day, were now soft and flavorless: millet, yogurt, and a single vegetable.
“It’s healthy for all of us,” Rukmini said. “For our prevention and for his healing.”
Vega pretended to be engrossed in the articles as they ate. Her father chewed slowly and audibly, and her mother sat beside him, refilling his water glass and wiping the specks of food he spat onto the table.
She made a list of twelve NGOs and called the numbers listed on their websites. None answered. She began to send emails, several of which bounced back. She began to look forward to the quiet moment in the afternoon when the power shut off. She would lie on her bed, in her hot room, and feel the pressure of her job search temporarily lifted. But it was then, when she was no longer gripped by existential questions—where she was supposed to live, what she was supposed to do with her life—that she was most aware of the low, simmering sadness of losing Naomi. It seemed futile to imagine a future with her, but she had nothing to replace that fantasy with. Nothing else she was looking forward to.
“Nobody finds a job by emailing,” Gayatri said. “You need to network.”
Aside from her parents, Gayatri was the only person she had wanted to talk with during her time away, but their schedules now proved hard to coordinate. Gayatri had taken a job in petrochemicals and was working long hours. The thought was depressing. Gayatri, a girl who had once read everything she could find about Vandana Shiva and Jane Goodall, was now involved in something called mud drilling.
“Jaganath’s having a party,” Gayatri said. “He isn’t the most interesting of characters, I realize. But everyone will be there.”
“Not everyone will be there,” Vega said. She had been curious to see Guru, another Rhodes classmate who had, according to Gayatri, asked about Vega over the years. But he had apparently moved to Calcutta and was engaged to a Bengali girl. “She’s also a chemical engineer,” Gayatri said.
* * *
Jaganath held court in the middle of the circle, dressed in a tight black T-shirt and black jeans. It was a look that Vega’s teenage self would have found attractive, and she was grateful those moments hadn’t lined up in their lives—her then and his now.
“If you do go abroad, you can’t do it the way the previous generation did it. Going to work for somebody else, saying, Oh, thank you, boss sahib, for your paycheck. You should go on your own terms, or not go at all.”
Vega had never liked Jaganath. He was what her father would call thutchan, calculating. Now, she found herself nodding with the same reflexive loyalty he had always generated among her classmates. He had been the first in the group to travel abroad, and throughout their childhood brought back meaningless tokens from Switzerland that they rushed upon—francs in their smallest denominations, blurry Alpine photographs, train ticket stubs.
“I have no interest in going abroad,” their friend Aarti said, stretching her legs out on the grass. “Moving to New York or Los Angeles. Living with ten other flatmates.” She was wearing high-waisted jeans and a black tank top. Vega had been the one to teach Aarti how to thread her upper lip, buff the calluses from her feet, and paint her nails. Now the sight of the jeans irritated her, as though Aarti had taken Vega’s guidance and outpaced her.
“Those are details,” Jaganath said. “I’m talking about bigger things. This is the time to enter the capital markets. Evaluations are inflated everywhere.”
A man named Murthy shook his head. “It’s bullshit. This dot-com nonsense, that any fool can show up in the States and attract investors.” Vega recalled that Jaganath would sit behind Murthy in Hindi class and knock his pen to the floor repeatedly, a strange and mundane cruelty none of them had thought to question. Now they sat next to each other, drinking imported beer as though the intervening years had absolved Jaganath and smoothed all the creases and tensions of childhood.
“It isn’t bullshit,” Jaganath said. “And half of these venture capitalist types are Indians. Looking for some fellow from home to give money to. Go to San Francisco. Seattle. They’re all there. Deep pockets, man.”
Vega wandered off to find the bathroom. The main house was locked, and Jaganath had pointed them towards a small building beside the garden. “The annex,” he had called it. When Vega came out, Murthy was standing by the door.
“Toilet is in here,” she said.
“I know. Just escaping the crowd for a bit.”
He was thin, with an uneven stubble and a vaguely Gandhian look—khadi kurta, jeans, brown sandals. Vega wasn’t attracted to him, but he looked like pleasant-enough company. In the distance, Jaganath had changed the music from Nirvana to something more buoyant. Hindi club music. She could see the others starting to dance. She sat down on the bench and Murthy joined her.
“You just came back from the States?”
“Two-year master’s program.”
“I’m thinking of applying for something similar.”
“You did something in the sciences, no? I remember it wasn’t engineering. I filed you under non-engineers.”
“Geologist. There’s a doctoral program in Berkeley I’m considering. Did you ever visit California?”
“No, but I hear there is an abundance of venture capitalist types.”
He laughed. “Just looking for a place to put their money.”
“Precisely.”
After a few quiet moments, he said, “I suppose we should make our way back to the group.”
Only a few people were dancing. Jaganath was still holding court. He raised his eyebrows when Vega and Murthy approached. “Gone for a while.” To Murthy, he said, “I didn’t think you were man enough.” There it was. The adult cruelty. Vega picked up a Carlsberg and retreated to the edge of the circle.
In the rickshaw, Gayatri said, “That was a bore. I feel badly for dragging you.”
“It was fine. More importantly, I didn’t sneak off with Murthy. I hardly know him. He had some questions about the States. We talked. Nothing more.”
“I wouldn’t care in the least if you did. But you remember him, no? Murthy?”
“Of course. Vaguely, I mean. We were all at Rhodes together.”
“His father was killed in the scooter crash. It happened just here. In Adyar. His brother was thrown from it too. You must remember that. The brother is paralyzed from the waist down.”
“I remember the accident. I didn’t make the connection with Murthy, though.” There had been some mournful whispers for a while, and some cautionary lectures from parents about scooter riding. Eventually, everybody stopped discussing it. The way, she assumed, they no longer discussed Ashwini’s death.
“He has a good job here. He also has a boyfriend. Australian fellow. Met him while traveling.”
It would be such a relief, Vega thought, to tell Gayatri about Naomi. There would be no judgment. Gayatri would squeeze her hand, help her sort through all of it. Instead, she asked, “How do you know all of this?”
Gayatri shrugged. “We’ve talked a few times. The point is, he has a professional future here, and loads of family obligations, but no real future in any other way. It just seems worth pointing out. You may not be happy here. And you may not even be happy in the States. But at least you have the option of either place.”
* * *
The Mukti Foundation operated out of a rental flat, housed in a building between a Shiva Temple and an Indian Overseas Bank. The director, Gowri, had been a Rhodes graduate. She wore a stiff-looking cotton sari, and tucked a pen behind her ear.
“Our number one priority is nutritional assistance for underprivileged mothers.” She showed Vega a brochure. On the cover, a circle of women sat around a lectern, leaning forward attentively. Some had children on their laps. “Our efforts are three-pronged.” Gowri set down the brochure and held up three fingers. Vega looked past her, through the window that overlooked the building’s courtyard. There was a group of interns—two German women, and an Indian American girl named Sandhya. Vega imagined Gowri sitting with them in the weeks prior, delivering the same lecture.
“One is direct assistance. We build trust through distribution of foods. Two is women’s education. We deliver guidance on nutritional practices through lectures and pamphlets. And three is community education. We organize street theater performances in our target slums to show people the importance of nutritional access. You’ll work with my niece, Charanya, who is in charge of all field visits. She isn’t in the office today.” She nodded toward the window. “The interns are here through a Microsoft grant. They provide computer training three days each week to local children. The other days, they accompany you and Charanya to the slums.”
She showed Vega the open document on her computer. “We are currently updating to a new spreadsheet. Microsoft has also given us a new computer, but it is not compatible with our previous program. For today, you can update our donor information and our expenses.” She stood up. “I’m meeting today with our donors. In the morning, I will introduce you to Charanya. There are two toilets. Eastern commode next to the entrance. Western commode down the hall, across from the grant office.”
