Our Country Friends(12)
Senderovsky was satisfied by the finality of the reply. “Good,” he said.
“Okay, bhai, let me wash up and we’ll go say hi to the ladies.”
Senderovsky bowed to him like a majordomo after his master’s return from the capital.
“One tiny thing,” Vinod said. “I feel scared to even ask.”
“I am your faithful slave, as they said in the old days.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘embarrassing’ around here. Skinny-dipping begins on May twentieth, speaking of. That’s when we open up the pool. No excuses.”
Unlike Senderovsky, and despite being swaddled in hair so thick it would give a mare pause, Vinod had never been shy about his body.
“Remember the novel I gave you a million years ago?” he said. “The one that you saved me from sending in to an agent? For which I’m eternally grateful.”
Senderovsky was looking out the bungalow’s single glazed window. Despite its soundproofing he imagined he could hear the resident woodpecker starting up a rare nighttime shift, perhaps confused by all the lights blazing around the property. “I think I remember something,” he said.
“Well, that makes one of us,” Vinod said. “I can’t even think of the title now. I’m sure it was heavy-handed as hell. But I kind of wanted to take a look at it. Not to show it to anyone, but just to remember my state of mind when I wrote it. Now that we’re all here.”
“That sounds kind of valedictory,” Senderovsky said. “You do know you’re going to outlive us all.”
“So, is there any chance you saved the copy I gave you?”
There was more than a chance. Roughly fifty yards from where the friends were speaking, in the extreme northwest corner of the main house’s attic between two other shoeboxes containing yellowed international love letters women had posted Senderovsky during the wild period after the publication of his first book, sat a Teva active sandals shoebox. It contained the two hundred eighty-seven closely typed pages of Vinod’s manuscript, complete with a rigid blue floppy disk, one of the last of its kind.
“I’m not sure,” Senderovsky said. “I think it might be in storage down in the city.”
“Oh.” Vinod sighed. “Well, that makes sense. I’m just surprised you didn’t throw it out.”
“I would never throw out any Vinod Mehta memorabilia. I’ll try to think of where it might be. Now go, go wash up!”
* * *
—
Masha and Karen were both wearing masks at Masha’s request, one at the stove, the other at the farm sink. Vinod did not expect his first sighting of Karen to take in only half her face, but the deep mottled hazel of her eyes and the concentrated sharpness of her gleaming forehead could still do the trick. He let himself float in the happiness, especially as she yelled out “Vinod!” through the muffle of the mask. “Oh, God,” she said, “I want to hug you so bad.”
“The doctor won’t allow it,” Senderovsky mumbled, mostly to himself. He was still lost in thought about that Teva active sandals box, the blue rigid floppy disk with all of Vinod’s careful words.
“The bus ride was pretty safe,” he heard Vinod saying. “Everyone had their own row. There was one person sneezing in the back, but she said she had allergies.”
“We’re going to pamper the shit out of you,” Karen said.
“That’s right,” Masha said. “Vinod gets the best of everything while he’s here.”
“I’m super-duper fine,” Vinod said. “I’ll get through this like a champion. Fuss about me too much, and I might get cross.”
Karen was a visual person, not a great noticer of language. But she remembered now the great sonorous delights of Vinod’s verbiage and accent: Ahmedabad and Bombay filtered through Corona, Queens. The w as a v. The d as a double t. The poetic way he subbed “true” for “through.” “I’ll get true this like a champion.” “Champion,” not the American “champ,” by the way. Denied suburbia, he had spent his childhood among too many aunties and uncles all shouting in tandem about the price of milk and the price of silk. And even to this day, she noticed, his voice still cracked in places where the cement had never been put in and allowed to harden.
Senderovsky realized something. “What the hell is going on?” he said. “Ed and I should be doing all the cooking, the sardines and the vitello tonnato and the sausages and lamb steaks.”
“Ed must be tired after the ninety-minute ride from the city,” Karen said. “You know, the change in time zones.”
Vinod laughed. She was so brutal. Senderovsky smiled at his laughter. Masha commanded herself to feel good about the natural friendship between the three others in the kitchen. Karen had been so kind with Nat, and Vinod was always a darling. And, as her own therapist would bring up, her husband had chosen to spend his life with her. “I’ll go wake Master Kim,” Senderovsky said.
“Don’t bother, we’re almost done with the pasta,” Masha said. “And we have the jamón and olives as a starter. And cheese for dessert.”
“So when is our special guest getting here?” Karen asked.