"One Amazing Thing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Divakaruni Chitra Banerjee)

4

Cameron portioned out the perishables: a turkey sandwich; three hard-boiled eggs, accompanied by salt in a little twist of paper; and most of a salad that Mrs. Pritchett had left uneaten. He set out nine napkins (bon voyage! they proclaimed cruelly) and placed a few spinach leaves on each. He cut the eggs into nine pieces with a butter knife, trying hard to make the pieces the same size. He arranged them over the spinach, and sprinkled them with salt. He cut up the sandwich, too, but set it to the side because he wasn’t sure if everyone ate meat. His movements were meticulous and gentle, as though that might make a difference.

Malathi had emerged from Mr. Mangalam’s office after Lily, whose help Cameron had enlisted in this matter, had knocked on the door (but carefully, so she wouldn’t jar any fragile structures). “Get over it and come eat!” she had said sternly. Perhaps being rebuked by a teenager had made Malathi rethink her conduct. Or perhaps she did not trust Cameron to save her share of the food. She maintained a sulky countenance and kept her arms crossed over the go bears! sweatshirt she was wearing. Cameron, who had been reading up on India in preparation for his trip, understood that she felt embarrassed. It was ironic; the sweatshirt covered far more of her body than the midriff-baring blouse and thin sari had. But the ways in which cultural habits operated were mysterious.

Malathi’s petticoat, pale blue and edged with ruffles, looked rather elegant. She had lost her red bindi-it must have been a stick-on-and that, along with the stray hairs that had escaped from her bun to curl around her face, made her seem younger. Though she was still not speaking to Cameron, she had provided him-without being asked-with the napkins and the knife.

Cameron asked Lily to hand out the food-partly to keep her occupied. She had been unusually calm through events that must have been terrifying for a young person. Her hand, holding the flashlight as he bandaged her bleeding grandmother and set Uma’s broken bone, had been steady. She had asked only once if the old woman would be okay. But he felt a restlessness stirring under her skin, feelings she had tamped down. Some of the younger soldiers had been the same way. It was imperative to keep them occupied, to make them feel that they were central to the operation. Otherwise they could come unglued.

He’d put Lily in charge mostly because of Tariq’s accusations. He had felt a bitter laugh spiraling inside as he listened to him. So the boy thought he was the Establishment, trying to take over! He wanted to hold his arm up against Tariq’s, his far darker skin. He wanted to tell Tariq how it had been growing up with no money and skin that color in inner-city Los Angeles. Still, the accusations had cut into him.

Why did he feel guilty? Was it for having knocked Tariq out? For using violence when he should have found what the holy man called a better way? The word ahimsa rose in his mind because he had been studying Gandhi. He moved the thought aside apologetically. This was not the time for philosophy. Tariq could have killed them all if he had managed to wrench open the door. But the mind, the treacherous mind. It reminded him that he had killed far more people in his lifetime than Tariq ever would.

To keep the memories away, Cameron checked the water supply: four pint-size bottles, none of them full. If he gave everyone a half cup-and how could he give less?-it would be gone.

Mr. Mangalam was taking tiny bites of his egg with his eyes closed, savoring every morsel. Cameron asked him if there was anything else to drink. Maybe something they had overlooked? A gallon jug in the back? Some leftover tea? Mr. Mangalam opened his eyes reluctantly and shook his head.

Then Malathi said, “There is a bathroom.” In the pencil light, her eyes gleamed, chips of unforgiving, as she pointed at Mangalam. “His.”

THOUGH PEOPLE IMMEDIATELY SUSPECTED MANGALAM OF HAVING suppressed this crucial bit of information on purpose, it was not so. The earthquake and its aftermath had driven the presence of the bathroom from his mind. Very possibly, in a few hours, feeling natural urges, he would have recalled it and told Cameron. But perhaps there was something Freudian behind his forgetting, because the bathroom had always been his jealously guarded domain.

This bathroom, an anomaly of construction to which the only access was through Mr. Mangalam’s office, was something Malathi’s coworkers discussed often, usually as they made their way during their break down the long corridor to the women’s restroom, which was drafty and smelled of mildew. Because none of them had seen Mangalam’s bathroom, in their minds it assumed mythic proportions, filled with items culled from the pages of the glossies they bought, secondhand, from the newspaper stall near the subway. Floor-length mirrors, silken towels, perfumed liquid soap in elegant crystal dispensers, a braided ficus tree that reached all the way to the ceiling, a Jacuzzi tub-even a bidet. They spoke of these things with envy but not bitterness; in the universe they inhabited, it was expected that the boss would have a bathroom to himself while the underlings trekked to the other side of the building.

Malathi, too, had subscribed to this worldview until Mr. Mangalam began to single her out. As his attentions grew, an illicit hope blossomed in her breast. She found herself thinking, If he really cares for me… She changed her break times to match his, though she knew that people would gossip. Several times a day she went into his office to ask what to do with applications she knew perfectly well how to handle. Waiting for his response, she leaned against the closed bathroom door in a casual pose that showed off her curves. These strategies led to the gift of chocolate and to today’s kiss, but not to the words she most wanted to hear: an invitation to use his bathroom, which would have countered the smug smile on the wife’s face and proved to Malathi that Mangalam did not consider her just another time-pass girl.

Barricaded in his office today, Malathi had realized that this was her chance to explore it; once her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, she went through it systematically. She discovered that the bathroom was nothing like the girls’ fantasies. It was a tiny rectangle into which a sink and a toilet had been crowded. Like the rest of the building, it was old and dispirited. The mirror’s edges felt uneven and worn under her fingers, and the toilet-paper holder wobbled. The only personal items in the bathroom were an air-freshening spray that smelled of chemicals and a bottle of mouthwash. Malathi had used it, swirling generous amounts around in her mouth. It was the least Mangalam and the universe owed her. The mouthwash tasted minty and bitter. Like love, she thought. Then she clicked her tongue, annoyed at having come up with a cliché like that. Finally, she had dipped into his file cabinets, not really expecting to find anything. But her fingers had closed around an item that made her grin fiercely in the dark. For now, she would keep that discovery to herself.

When Malathi led him into this sagging, cramped space, Cameron couldn’t have been more delighted if he’d been ushered into a spa suite at a resort hotel. He checked the faucet to make sure that the water was running clean and asked if there were any containers that could be filled. There were. The party supplies for the consulate were housed, in spite of several memos of protest from Mangalam to the people upstairs, in a cabinet in the back of the visa office. Foraging, they discovered two fake-crystal punch bowls complete with ladles, a large saucepan for boiling tea and another for coffee (God forbid the flavors should be mixed), and one hundred bon voyage! bowls purchased for the farewell party thrown for Mangalam’s predecessor. There were also several matchboxes from Madras Mahal and sixteen packets of blue cake candles, which got everyone excited until Cameron pointed out that lighting any kind of fire was out of the question in case a gas line had ruptured somewhere.

Still, people felt better than they had in a long time, chatting as they lined up in front of the bathroom. Soon the countertop was lined with filled bowls. They shimmered like fairy pools when Cameron passed his flashlight over them, giving the room an unexpected festive aura. Cameron gave each person a bon voyage! bowl that they could fill from the bathroom faucet any time they felt thirsty. This way, he said, the water in the containers could be saved for the future, though probably they would be rescued before they needed it.

Uma could tell Cameron was thankful that he could say something everyone wanted to hear. There were other words he was holding back. She heard them faintly in the back of her head. Thetap water might run out. There’s food for only one more meal. She was glad he did not say those things, allowing everyone happiness for the moment.

When it was her turn to use the bathroom, Uma looked at herself in the mirror in the pencil light, which Cameron had given her. (The bigger flashlight was to be used only for communal activities, such as handing out food, or in case of danger.) In its narrow, angled ray her face was gaunt and more interesting than it had ever been. She touched her cheekbones, which had taken on a sharp, tragic definition, and wondered what had gone through the minds of the others as they examined their reflections. She drank three cups of water and splashed water on her neck, amazed at how normal this simple action made her feel. The pain in her wrist was still there, but like a nagging old relative to whose complaints she had grown accustomed. With the ebbing of pain, her natural curiosity resurfaced; she found herself imagining the lives of her companions, their secret reasons for going to India.

Cameron suggested that people get some rest. If the phone lines were still down when they awoke, they would have to try to open the door. A murmur swirled through the room. Uma felt a prickle at the back of her neck, half anticipation, half dread. Then her mind moved on to the untold stories that lay around her, just out of reach. Would she get a chance to discover some of them before they made it out of here? The possibility invigorated her.

When Cameron said that they needed two people to keep watch, she volunteered.

MR. PRITCHETT, THE OTHER VOLUNTEER, SAT UP STRAIGHT IN his chair and looked out across the room. Though they had turned off the flashlights, he was surprised at how much he could see. Were his eyes growing used to the darkness, like those of deep-sea creatures? Or was he imagining the bodies, some passed out, exhausted with worry, some tossing restively. Wherever possible, they huddled under desks and chairs, forming small, compact mounds. Some slept close to others, taking comfort from proximity. Some had staked out the corners, their limbs splayed out. Ah, the alphabet of limbs. How much it revealed of what people didn’t want to give away.

Mr. Pritchett tried to ascertain which of the bodies was Mrs. Pritchett’s. He had been careful to note where she had been sitting when Cameron turned off the light, but now he could not find her. He scanned the room from one dark edge to the other. Had she moved? He imagined her scuttling crablike through the debris into the far recesses of the office, where she disappeared. Then he was disconcerted at having conjured up such a bizarre image. But that’s how it had been since she had landed in the emergency room: whenever he didn’t know what she was doing, his brain, usually so clear and orderly, ran amuck.

His fingers tightened around the lighter in his pocket. A cigarette-even a few puffs-would have calmed him. An entire pack of Dunhills sat in his other pocket, but smoking was impossible. The African American sergeant was right about the dangers of a broken gas line.

“Mr. Pritchett,” the young woman with the broken arm whispered. She sat on the floor two feet away from him, leaning against the bottom of the customer-service counter. Her arm hung stiffly in a makeshift sling the color of Lake Tahoe on a sunny day. He had visited that lake as a child, the only vacation his mother and he had ever taken.

“Are you all right?” the young woman whispered.

He felt a frisson of irritation. Of course he wasn’t all right.

“Mr. Pritchett?”

He felt at a disadvantage because she remembered his name while he had let hers slip away. But he had to admit that it was kind of her to be concerned for him when she must be in significant pain herself. Hurting made most people selfish. Hadn’t that been the case with Mrs. Pritchett?

“I’m fine,” he said. To indicate appreciation, he added, “Call me Lance.”

If Mrs. Pritchett had been nearby, she would have raised an eyebrow; he was not a man for rapid verbal intimacies. He liked formality. That is why he loved being an accountant. Early in their marriage, Mrs. Pritchett had protested that he wanted even the plants in their garden in neat rows, like entries in a ledger.

“Lance? Like a spear?”

“My full name is Lancelot,” he found himself saying, to his surprise. Throughout his youth, he had insisted-in vain-that people call him Lance. When he moved away to college, he introduced himself only as Lance, and as soon as he was old enough to have his name changed legally, he had done so.

“Lancelot, like from King Arthur’s court?” the young woman asked. She laughed in delight. In the dark, the sound was like a bell or a bird. He wondered that anyone could laugh under conditions like theirs. He surely was incapable of such-what would one call it? Strength? Levity?

“My mother was fond of the Camelot stories,” he offered sheepishly, and this surprised him most of all because he never spoke of his mother.

“I am, too,” the girl said. “I love the old tales-I have one with me right now.” She patted her backpack. “Lancelot was my favorite among the knights, anyway.”

“I’m not like him,” Mr. Pritchett said. He considered romantic excesses undignified. He didn’t like adventures.

“Sometimes we grow into a name,” the girl said. “You might surprise yourself, Sir Knight.”

Maybe she was right. Now that he thought of it, didn’t he love the thrill of manipulating numbers, of balancing on the razor-edge of the law?

“It was embarrassing,” he found himself saying. He wanted to say more. How boys had made fun of his name, how once they had put his head in a toilet. Where did that ancient memory spring from? He couldn’t believe the things he wanted to pour out into this forgiving, pillowy dark!

His fingers twitched without a cigarette to hold. He marveled at the human mind, its tendency to crave what it could not have. Under normal circumstances, he smoked only two cigarettes a day, one after lunch and one while driving home from work. Mrs. Pritchett didn’t like the smell, so on weekends he went out into the yard to smoke.

And she-what had she done in return? Betrayed him by trying to kill herself, that’s what.

“I know about embarrassing,” the young woman said. “My parents named me after a goddess. I’m going to India to see them. Why are you going?”

He could not bring himself to speak in the optimistic present tense. “Mrs. Pritchett wanted to visit India,” he said, though this was not exactly true. “We were going to stay in a palace.”

“Why, that’s wonderful!” she said. “I’m planning to visit the Taj Mahal myself. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

Mr. Pritchett was not sure of any such thing. He wondered what the woman would say if he told her how the idea for this trip came to him.

AFTER MR. PRITCHETT HAD BROUGHT HER HOME FROM THE hospital, Mrs. Pritchett sat on the couch all day, looking at the window. She had always loved the view of the bridge and the sun setting beyond it, the entire vista framed by the camellias she had planted. But now she stared as though there was nothing outside but fog. The pills the psychiatrist had given her put a vacant smile on her face that was worse than out-and-out sadness. Mr. Pritchett was afraid to go to work and leave her, but when he was at home with her all day, that unasked question- why?-hung between them like a sword. He missed the efficient, antiseptic smell of his office, the obedient numbers adding up the way they were supposed to.

Mrs. Pritchett had been a meticulous housekeeper, priding herself on taking care of the big house by herself. But now there were dirty dishes stacked on the sideboards, unread newspapers spilling across the floor, dust bunnies in corners that smelled of despair. The maid who came in once a week didn’t make more than a dent in the disorder.

Tidying up one evening, he had come across an old travel magazine Mrs. Pritchett must have picked up somewhere. There had been an article on old palaces in India being converted to hotels. A photograph of a spacious, marble-floored bedroom: a four-poster piled with red bolsters, a peacock perched on a windowsill, a curtain lifted in a foreign wind. On another day he would have found the room outlandish. This time, on an impulse, he had asked if she would like to go.

Something had stirred in her eyes for the first time since the hospital. “ India?” she had asked. She had stretched out her hand and taken the magazine from him. Now they were trapped beneath several stories of rubble.

It was not Mrs. Pritchett’s fault, but Mr. Pritchett couldn’t stop himself from blaming her. But for her, he could have been in his office right now, its cool, white walls, its spare furnishings, its view of the Bay Bridge, those perfectly proportioned metal girders that he liked to contemplate while mulling over a tricky account.

He said none of this, but it seemed that the young woman sensed something. She fumbled in a pocket and handed him a stick of gum. How could she bear to perform this simple act? Didn’t she realize they might not be rescued in time? He held the gum in his hand. In the dark, someone was sobbing quietly. It sounded like the Chinese teenager. Her grandmother spoke in a soft, cotton-wool voice until she grew quiet.

A lump formed in Mr. Pritchett’s throat-no doubt an aftereffect of shock. He wanted to tell the woman that he was afraid of dying in a slow, drawn-out way, from starvation or maybe lack of oxygen. He didn’t feel too good about the possibility of a fast death, either. An image of himself being crushed under the rubble from an aftershock had flashed in his brain several times already. Instead of speaking, he got off his chair to sit cross-legged beside her, though he could not remember the last time he’d sat on the floor. He was embarrassed at how stiff his leg muscles were, his knees sticking up like little hills. And he so proud of being in good shape, of running on the treadmill for an hour at the gym, keeping up with younger men. Then he realized it did not matter. He opened the wrapper and bit down on the gum. The flavor of Juicy Fruit filled his mouth until his salivary glands ached.

“Feel,” the young woman said. She took his hand in her good one. He mistook her intentions and his heart hammered with shock and contraband excitement. But she merely guided his hand all the way back to the edge of the carpet. His fingers came away wet. Water was seeping in from somewhere.

“Oh God!” he said. “We’re going to drown.” He scrambled to his feet to warn the others, but her hand closed around his ankle.

“Hush,” she said. “The water isn’t coming in that fast. I wasn’t even going to tell you, but it was too frightening, knowing it all by myself.”

In angry panic, he kicked at her hand. Stupid girl. She was going to get them all killed.

“Stop that!” she admonished him. “Let them rest. It’s not like we can do anything about it.”

The truth in her words pulled him down like gravity. When his heartbeat slowed, he could hear the sounds of sleep around him, breath moving in and out like waves in a cove. He felt a curious satisfaction, as though he were watching over fellow knights exhausted by a quest. As though he were responsible for their brief, trustful peace.