Honor: A Novel(96)
Could this be a way to give the twelve-year-old who had cowered in her apartment in Colaba for three months after the assault a second chance to walk the public streets of Mumbai with her head held high? A chance to realize that the shame she had embraced didn’t belong to her? A chance to remember all that she had loved about India, unsullied by what had followed?
She and Mohan could pour into Abru, a child born out of Meena and Abdul’s improbable love, everything that was good and courageous about themselves.
The four of them could raise this child together.
Smita could try to set aside her own insecurities, her wariness of the old India—and instead believe in Abdul’s brave, idealistic dream of the new India.
Yes, that would be a way to honor the memory of that fine man Abdul. That would be a good way to avenge Meena’s melted face, her one good eye, the bloody pulp of her body.
Smita’s heart beat faster as she realized something: If Abdul and Meena could have foreseen the opportunities she and Mohan could provide for Abru, they would have sacrificed their very lives for their daughter. They would have embraced every moment of misery and suffering for the sake of that happy ending.
She imagined retracing her steps and walking out of the airport to where Mohan stood. She allowed herself to picture the delight spreading on his face as she hurried toward him. But then she thought of all the complications that would ensue, and her heart sank at the bureaucracy and the paperwork and the other hurdles involved: Cliff might refuse her request to be stationed in India; Mohan might prove to be disappointing; Papa might not support her temporary move to India. Humans were not migratory birds, able to fly from one country to another, she reminded herself. Homo sapiens had feet, not wings. Above all, there was the irrefutable fact that she barely knew Mohan, outside of the cauldron they’d found themselves in for the past month.
Oh, Mummy, she thought with a groan. Help me. Tell me what to do.
She turned her eyes upward, to the ceiling, as if she half expected to see her mother float down toward her, like some descending angel. Her eyes fell on a wooden sign that hung on the wall above the sliding doors of the lounge. you are here, the sign read.
Smita blinked. You Are Here. Here, in Mumbai, with only the length of the airport separating her from the man she loved. And half a city away from Abru, a child she could grow to love as dearly as her own.
Abru. If she abandoned Abru, wouldn’t she be proving Sushil right? The man had considered her family subhuman because of its faith, and there she was, acting as if she weren’t human. Because what sentient being could abandon an orphaned child as blithely as she had? She remembered the contempt she’d seen in Zarine Auntie’s eyes and realized that it wasn’t just because she was breaking Mohan’s heart. It was because a person who could abandon a child without so much as a backward glance was in fact beneath contempt.
She thought of Mohan, standing at his lonely post outside the airport until her plane took off. Waiting, along with thousands of others, all of them choosing to do the hard, inconvenient thing. Why? Because that’s what you did for your loved ones. She used to think it quaint that her parents drove to the Columbus airport to pick up their visitors, even though the guests could have taken a taxi. But Mohan was cut from the same cloth as Mummy and Papa. She remembered him heaving the bags of rice and sugar and dal into Ammi’s hut. At every step, Mohan had done the difficult thing, and had done so matter-of-factly, as if there were no other choice. Maybe, in the end, that’s all that love was—doing the hard thing. Not roses and valentines and walks on the beach, but simply being present, day after ordinary day. The extraordinary romanticism of ordinary life.
But what if, in the end, she and Mohan couldn’t make it work? What if her greatest fear came true—that Mohan would prove to be disappointing? The men she’d dated had been smart, talented, hard charging, and high achieving. But after a while, they had become ordinary, too. Their feet stunk when they removed their boots or shoes at the end of the day; they had bad breath in the morning. They told the same damn jokes and stories over and over again. Spinach got stuck between their teeth. They had issues with their fathers. And her unfortunate tendency to focus on the small, irritating things, rather than keeping her eyes on the big picture, eventually made her lose interest.
Smita had never forgotten something Bryan had once said when things were still sweet between them. She’d been at his apartment in Brooklyn, complaining about his couch being covered with cat hair. Bryan had taken her face in his hands and said, “You know what your problem is, Smita? You focus on the cat hair. Try focusing on the cat.”
Perhaps that’s what love was—an embrace of the commonplace? Perhaps that’s where wisdom lay—in recognizing the grandeur of everyday domestic life? If so, she had a lot of learning to do.
Smita dialed Mohan’s number again. Say something, she thought, say something, Mohan, that will help me decide one way or the other. He answered on the fifth ring, sounding breathless, as if he’d been sprinting. “Are you boarding?” he asked.
“What? No. No, I just . . . I just wanted to hear your voice again.”
“Oh, okay.” He was silent for a moment. Then, he said, “Hold on a second. It’s so crowded and noisy here, I can barely hear myself.”
She waited until Mohan came back on the line, but it was obvious that he was distracted by the jostling of the crowd around him. They had a desultory exchange, and then Mohan said, “I’m sorry. I can’t hear a word. Can you call back in a few minutes?”