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

5

They awoke to dampness, the carpet smelling like a dog caught in rain. Everyone could see that the water was rising. And although it was happening very slowly, there was something about the slurping sound the carpet made as they stepped on it that caused panic to swirl in their stomachs. The phones were still dead. No one had tried to rescue them yet, which probably meant that the earthquake had done a huge amount of damage and the authorities were overwhelmed. The time had come to open the door. Cameron felt as though his lungs were filling with ice. He was not a praying man, but he closed his eyes and took a shallow breath (that’s all he could manage) and tried to feel his center, as the holy man had taught him. Then he told them.

When he heard the African American’s announcement, which was an admission that he had been right all this time, Tariq’s heart leaped in vindication. But he conducted himself with admirable restraint, giving only a small, righteous sniff before he pushed past the others and laid a proprietary hand on the doorknob. He had scoured the entire area and found no other avenue of escape, but now they would get out, he was sure of it. He beckoned to Mr. Pritchett and Mangalam to hurry up and join him. They took turns pulling at the door, then tried it together. But the door was stuck fast. Tariq kicked at it-which, Mr. Pritchett pointed out, did not improve matters. The two men glowered at each other.

Cameron walked to the back with Mangalam to see if he could unearth any tools. He knew he should hurry, but a strange lethargy had taken him over. The squelch of his shoes on the wet carpet reminded him of a summer he’d spent with cousins out on a farm in East Texas, where his aunt had sent him to get him away from bad influences. That part hadn’t worked. He’d found trouble there, too. He was a trouble magnet, as his aunt liked to say. Today, though, he didn’t recall the problems. What he remembered was the rain coming down in silver sheets on the barn roof, the oaks draped in gray-green moss, the red mud in which you could sink up to your ankles if you weren’t careful, the expanse of endless washed sky from the porch that made a strange hurt in your chest. He would stand on the porch for hours at a time. His cousins laughed at him, called him that daft city boy. He didn’t care. It was the first time in his life that he was aware of nature as a seductive force.

But he couldn’t afford the luxury of reminiscing. He wrenched his mind back to the task at hand, rummaging around on the shelves while Mangalam held the flashlight. Mangalam reeked of mouthwash. It was as though the man hadn’t just swirled it around in his mouth but had splashed some on, like cologne. Oh well. People responded to stress in strange ways. More significant was the fact that they hadn’t found a single strong tool, only another butter knife and a cake server.

What he wouldn’t give for a crowbar, Cameron thought as he walked back. And as though the thought had split him in two, a voice inside his head said, Would you give up Seva?

He was familiar with the tricks of this voice, which had started speaking to him when he was in the war.

No, he said to it.

Not even if you were going to die? the voice persisted. Not even if you knew everyone was going to die because of your decision?

The second question gave him more pause than the first. No, he said finally. And then, I’m not going to answer any more questions.

How about your life? The voice continued, undeterred. Would you give up your life for the lives of all these people?

“Do you think it would help if we removed the doorknob?” Cameron asked Mangalam. He knew he was speaking too loudly. “We could take the screws out with the butter knife. Maybe we’d get a better grip if the hole is opened up-”

The voice grinned. Later, it said, before submerging itself.

Mangalam looked startled at having his opinion solicited, but after a moment he said, “I don’t think that would help.” Hesitantly, he added, “But maybe if everyone who wasn’t hurt held on to one another, and we all pulled together, like when you play tug-of-war-”

That’s what they did. Everyone except Jiang, Lily’s grandmother, and Uma formed a line behind Tariq, who clasped the knob with both hands. Mrs. Pritchett tried to help, but Mr. Pritchett told her, curtly, to please sit down. Each person held the waist of the person in front. When Cameron gave the signal, they pulled as hard as they could. On the third pull, the doorknob broke off, so Cameron took off the screws with the butter knife and Tariq grasped with both hands the edges of the hole that was opened up. On the next pull, the door came unstuck all of a sudden; some people fell down and others fell on top of them. But a cautious cheer went up as soon as they had regained their breath, because the L-shaped bit of corridor that could be seen from the doorway was clear. Tariq gave a triumphant shout and ran out into the passage.

“Wait,” Cameron cried, making a grab for the younger man, but Tariq had already sprinted up the dark corridor. Others tried to follow, but Cameron blocked the doorway with outstretched arms.

“Folks! We’ve got to wait a few minutes to make sure the door wasn’t holding up anything major, something that’s shifting right now and might collapse on us,” he said. They pushed against him. Mangalam was at the front of the crowd with the flashlight. The beam blinded Cameron. He could hear mutinous whispers, someone panting, impatience building like steam inside a cooker. There was a strong possibility that at any moment they would rebel against his cautiousness and trample him in order to follow Tariq. He braced himself for it.

Then they heard the rumble from down the corridor, and Tariq’s cut-off cry.

IT WAS CLEAR TO EVERYONE, EVEN TO HER GRANDMOTHER, WHO was absolutely against it and clutched her tightly to make sure that everyone knew how she felt, that Lily was the only possible choice. She was the smallest and lightest; she might be able to crawl onto the pile of rubble that was now blocking the width of the corridor without starting a landslide and bringing down more of the ceiling. She could peer through the gap of about a foot and a half on top of the rubble and see what lay beyond. Cameron was hoping she would be able to glimpse Tariq, who he suspected was buried under the portion of the ceiling that had collapsed farther down the passage. He wasn’t certain, though, because when he had cautiously called the young man’s name, there had been no answer except for a warning drizzle of plaster from the hole above. Lily gently pried her grandmother’s fingers from her shoulder and gave her a kiss, and nudged her back into the visa office, where Cameron wanted every one to wait in case of further problems. She was surprised at the feel of her grandmother’s cheek, so much more wrinkly than she remembered it, possibly because she hadn’t kissed it in a while. She noticed with a thrum of worry that her grandmother’s hurt arm felt hot. She would have to tell Cameron about it after she returned. She took the pencil flashlight from Cameron, who gripped her elbow.

“Climb only as far as you need to in order to look over the pile,” he whispered. He had explained that out in the passage they must speak very quietly, if at all. Loud sounds could multiply through echoes and cause an avalanche. “If you don’t see him, come back right away. Are you sure you want to try?”

She gave a small, stiff nod, though she was not sure at all. Her heart felt as though it was too big to fit in her chest. She could feel it beating up in her throat.

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s very-”

She didn’t wait for him to finish, because then she would be too scared to do it. She pointed the thin, shaky beam of light at the jumble of Sheetrock, rods, and plaster ahead of her and took small, definite steps. She tried not to look at the gaping tear in the ceiling from which the debris had come-and from which more could drop at any moment-but it pulled at her eyes like a giant magnet. It was darker than anywhere else and huge, a black hole that could suck in entire solar systems. And was that something red shining deep inside it, like eyes? When she reached the pile, she started climbing, feeling carefully with her fingers because Cameron had warned her to watch for nails, some of which might be rusty. The pile shifted. She stiffened. Stopped. When it appeared to be holding, she went on. By the time she reached the top, she was sweating, but she had developed a rhythm of sorts, an understanding of the nature of debris.

She could feel the impatient anxiety of the group, as tangible on her back as heat from a blaze. There had never been a time when so many adults had depended on her for something crucial, something they could not do. It made her feel taller. Without turning her head, she whispered that she could see another pile. It wasn’t very far, maybe three feet ahead. Something dark was sticking out of it. She thought it was a shoe. She would need to get closer to make sure.

“I’m going to climb down to the other side,” she said.

“No.” Cameron spoke with soft urgency. “Come back. Now that we know he’s there, we’ll clear this pile.” When he realized that she wasn’t going to listen, he said, “Be careful. Hold on to the light. If you start to fall, curl into a ball and remain still.”

Lily lay flat on top of the debris for a moment, left hand fisted around the pencil light. She’d have to swing her legs over to the other side before she climbed down, and she wasn’t sure what that would do to the pile. I’m Gulliver, she told herself. This is a mountain in Lilliput. Making it into a fantasy helped a little. She turned her body cautiously and inched her legs across until they hung down. Almost immediately, she began to slip. Her feet couldn’t find a hold. She grasped a piece of wood with her free hand, but it came with her. The entire pile teetered. She felt herself sliding down in a noisy rush of plaster. It’s a small mountain, she kept saying. It’s a small mountain. Then she hit the floor, the blessed, solid floor, with a thump, a fog of dust rising around her. Amazingly, the rest of the pile held. She clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her coughs and dragged herself into the small clearing between the piles.

“Tell Grandma I’m okay,” she whispered as soon as she could speak. She could hear the chain of whispers on the other side, people relaying her message back into the visa office. She crawled forward until she reached the blob-it was a shoe-and grasped it. Carefully, she inched her fingers up over its edge, and sucked in her breath when she felt an ankle. Was it her first dead man she was touching? The thought jerked her hand back even though she hadn’t intended to.

“He’s here,” she whispered.

“Ask him to move his foot,” Cameron said.

She did. There was no response.

It hit her that she was stuck here in the passage with a corpse, that she had gone through all this for nothing. Now she couldn’t stop the hiccuping sobs. Knowing how dangerous they were just made her cry harder.

“It’s okay,” Cameron said. “You did really well. Better than any of us could have. Try one more time, then come back.”

She made herself touch the dead foot. She shook it, feeling the bile rise in her mouth. Just when she thought she would throw up, the heel turned a little.

“Tariq,” she cried, forgetting to be quiet. “I’m here.”

There it was again, the tiniest swivel of the heel, as though he had heard what she was saying.

“Brave girl!” Cameron said. “Come back now so we can start clearing the debris.”

Lily imagined herself buried under that pile, wood and metal and pieces of glass pressing against her backbone, her mouth stuffed with dirt. She imagined feeling a hand around her foot, and then that hand going away. “I’ll wait here,” she said. It wasn’t heroism. When she thought of her journey in reverse, slats of wood coming loose again in her fingers, that uncontrolled sliding, it made her body heavy with terror.

Cameron didn’t waste time trying to persuade her. She could hear him whispering instructions. She removed a little debris from the side of the pile under which Tariq was buried but stopped when a chunk of Sheetrock slid menacingly toward her. Instead, she thought about Beethoven. When deafness began to descend on him, it must have been like being buried under auditory darkness. But somehow he found a spark, the music sounding inside his head. As she waited for Cameron to arrive, Lily tapped out the rhythm to the Danse Villageoise on Tariq’s heel.

MANGALAM WAS NOT AFRAID AS HE HELPED CAMERON AND MR. Pritchett clear the passage. He did not look up at the hole from which grainy dust drizzled intermittently. He did not wonder what might happen if they pulled the wrong piece of wreckage from the pile that teetered in front of them like a crazy giant’s Jenga tower. (Mangalam loved American games and had bought several since he arrived here. If they required more than one player, he played against himself.) Right now, his brain was a file cabinet where he had shut all the drawers except one. The open drawer held a single folder, titled What the Soldier Says to Do, and that was what he focused on.

In the past, this particular talent of Mangalam’s had enabled him to enjoy moments of forbidden pleasure without worrying about consequences. Today it was bolstered by a bottle of Wild Turkey that had miraculously escaped the wrath of nature and was safely hidden inside his file cabinet. Over the last several hours, he had been making surreptitious pilgrimages to it, followed by guilt-ridden mouthwash sprees in the bathroom. The guilt was two-pronged. First, he had been brought up in a strict Hindu household on scriptural verses that declared that the consumption of alcohol was a primary symptom of the depraved age of Kali. And second, though it didn’t exactly fall under the category of food, he felt that he should have turned the bottle in to the soldier.

Under normal circumstances, Mangalam was not a drinker. He had the bottle in his office only because he had received it last week, a gift from a grateful client whose visa he had expedited through a less-than-legal shortcut. He had planned to take it back to India, where the price of Wild Turkey was astronomical. He hadn’t yet decided whether he would sell it or re-gift it to someone important who might extend his overseas assignment. But now India had receded from his life, and the best he could hope for was that an aftershock would not shatter the bottle before he had the chance to empty it.

Mangalam hauled off beams that had splintered like the neem sticks his parents had used as toothbrushes, yanked at metal rods twisted into skewers, and spat out with Zen dignity pieces of plaster that had found their way into his mouth. As he did so, he wished that Mrs. Mangalam, who used to denounce his ability to compartmentalize as callous and cowardly, could observe him now. Since that was not about to happen, it wasn’t unreasonable of him (was it?) to hope that Malathi would notice his single-minded, stoic demeanor. Although when he thought of her, the drawers in his mind shrank. He ould not fit her into any of them. He thought of how he had kissed her, her soft mouth opening under his, her tongue tasting of fennel seed, which she must have chewed after lunch. Later, he had gripped her by the forearms and shaken her. He remembered how her head had snapped forward and back, how astonished she’d looked before hatred had heavied her features. He wished he could tell her that he was sorry. But even if the perfect opportunity for it arose, he would never take it. Apologize to a woman and she would gain the upper hand. Mangalam knew better than to let that happen.

IT TOOK THEM THREE HOURS TO MAKE THEIR WAY TO TARIQ and dig him out. Throughout, Lily stayed with them in the passage. When Cameron told her she was taking an unnecessary risk, distressing her grandmother, she put on her sullen teen face. Once they uncovered Tariq’s hand, she clutched it as though it rightfully belonged to her. She had to let go when the men made their way, carrying him single file, through the tunnel they’d dug in the Lilliputian mountain, but as soon as they were on the other side, she grasped it again.

Back in the room, Tariq said nothing. Though he was conscious, he kept his eyes shut and refused to answer the questions Cameron asked him in order to figure out if he had a concussion. By now, the floor of the visa office was too wet to lay him down, so they seated him in a chair. Lily held his hand, which she patted from time to time. Malathi propped him up while Mrs. Pritchett cleaned him off with a wet piece of what had once been a blue sari. But they were both distracted.

“Why isn’t anyone trying to get us out?” Malathi whispered to Mrs. Pritchett. “Do you think they’ve forgotten us? Do you think we’re going to die down here?”

Mrs. Pritchett wiped cursorily at Tariq’s face, missing a large patch of grime on his cheek where his skin had been scraped raw. “God hasn’t forgotten us,” she said, staring into the distance with concentration, as though attempting to read a billboard that wasn’t adequately lighted. “He knows our entire histories, past and future both, and gives us what we deserve.”

If the words had been meant to comfort, they failed. Malathi gave a moan and backed away. Tariq began to slide sideways. He might have slipped off the chair if Lily hadn’t grabbed a fistful of his shirt. She gave the two women her best evil-eye look, but they didn’t seem to notice.

The sudden movement had jolted Tariq into a more alert state. When Cameron came back with some ointment, he strained away until the other man threw down the tube with an expletive. It was Lily who rubbed the salve into Tariq’s face and forearms and bandaged him the best she could, admonishing him for his misbehavior. Afterward, she delved in her backpack and found a pink comb and smoothed down his hair. Her own once-spiky hair had wilted, falling over her forehead, making her look waiflike. She asked if she could get him anything else, and bent close to his mouth to listen. When, eyes still shut, he whispered something, she found his briefcase and put his Quran in his hands. She made him drink some water and recommended that he open his eyes. “No need to feel embarrassed. We’d probably all have done the same thing and rushed out.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Jeez! Quit behaving like a baby. No one’s looking at you.”

This was true. Cameron had just informed the group that beyond the pile that had trapped Tariq, the stairwell was blocked, floor to ceiling, by chunks of debris too large to be moved without the help of machines. He had reminded them not to talk or move about too much. He wasn’t sure how good the air was down here. How much oxygen they had left. People were trying to deal with the fact that their greatest hope-that the door, if only they could open it, would lead them to safety and sunlight-had evaporated. Until now death had been a cloud on a distant horizon, colored like trouble but manageably sized. Suddenly it loomed overhead, blotting out possibility. Panic darkened each mind, and Malathi’s questions-Have they forgotten us? Will we die trapped down here?-beat inside each chest.

Tariq heard Lily, but he kept his eyes shut. He was mortified by having caused more trouble, by having required rescuing-by the African American, no less-when he’d hoped to lead their band to safety. That’s why, although he wanted to, he wasn’t able to tell Lily how grateful he was for what she had done for him out in the passage, when terror had spread through him like squid ink. She had been brave, far more than he. He had sniveled and sobbed under the weight of darkness and debris. Even if no one else found this out, he knew it.

Holding the Quran in his lap, he tried to pray. God was the only one he could bear to connect with, because surely over the ages He’d seen more contemptible behavior than Tariq’s and forgiven it. But Tariq couldn’t recall any of the traditional words. He would have to make up his own prayer. He couldn’t remember the last time he had undertaken that. Removed from the elegant choreography of the chants he depended on, he was stumped. What did people say to their Maker, anyway? In which tone did they register their complaints or pleas? How did they (not that it appeared that Tariq would have a reason to do this anytime soon) offer their thanks? Allah, he tried tentatively. But even inside his head his voice sounded querulous, and he fell silent.

WHEN MRS. PRITCHETT HEARD ABOUT THE BLOCKED PASSAGE, she backed away from the group until her shoulders came up against a wall. How could this be? She was meant to go to India. She had felt intimations stirring within her since the time the night nurse had appeared in her hospital room. They had coalesced into certainty when Mr. Pritchett, who disliked travel because it was messy and uncertain, had held out that magazine, offering her a palace. But now unsureness stirred within her, muddying things, and she collapsed into a chair. With no way out but the imagination, she closed her eyes and let a memory take her over. In it she sat at her mother’s yellow Formica kitchen counter with her best friend, Debbie. They were both eighteen; they had just graduated from high school; they each had in front of them a piece of peach pie that Mrs. Pritchett (except she wasn’t Mrs. Pritchett yet) had baked from a recipe she had created herself.

The peach pie was excellent, with a light, flaky crust and the golden taste you get only when you combine fresh peaches of just the right ripeness with a cook who has that special touch. But the girls had barely taken a bite. They were too excited. Each of them had a secret, and the telling of that secret would change their futures.

How tangible and powerful hope had been in that kitchen, like freshly grated lemon zest on her tongue. Every dream that came to her in those days was possible-no, more than possible. Even dreams she had been unable to imagine yet waited like low-hanging fruit for her grasp. What happened then? How did she get from there to here, waiting against a wall like a deer dazed by headlights? If she took birth again (she had been thinking about reincarnation a great deal since her time in the hospital), would she regain her early ebullience? Would she know not to let it slip through her hands this time?

Yes, I would, Mrs. Pritchett told herself. She visualized, once again, the palace bedroom, its plush pillows fit for the gods. It gave her new strength, though she did not particularly wish to visit a palace once she reached India. She had other plans. Still, the image reminded her that all she had to do was remain happy and calm, and rescue would arrive.

She made her way to the counter, where water twinkled on and off in a hundred bon voyage! bowls, depending on the direction in which Cameron’s flashlight was pointing. She chose a bowl and walked to a chair located as far from the others as possible. Even so, she could feel the desolation they emitted as they milled around Cameron, demanding to know what would happen next. So much agitation. And for what? All that negative energy only attracted bad luck into your life. But she knew better than to try to explain. They would learn when they’d been through the fire themselves.

She placed the bowl on the ground, arranged the pleats of her skirt daintily from old habit, and shook out a couple of Xanax tablets from the bottle in her pocket. Three fell out on her palm. Four. She didn’t put them back. The universe wanted her to have them. The pills would allow her to be hopeful. And the power of that hope would draw the rescuers to them.

She tucked the bottle into her pocket and took a sip of water. And then, just as she was about to release the pills into her mouth, a hand clamped itself around her wrist and jerked them away.

“What are you doing?” said Mr. Pritchett’s low, furious voice.

“Let go of me,” she said, equally furious. He was spoiling everything.

“Why? Don’t we have enough trouble here already, without trying to take care of you on top of that?”

She peered at him through the gloom. People you had once loved knew the best ways to hurt you. “You don’t have to take care of me. I’ve been managing on my own.”

He stared, astonished at her ingratitude. He considered all those precious hours of work he had given up, waiting in her hospital room while she lay in a daze. And later, moping around the house with her, asking which TV show she wanted to watch, fixing lunches that she abandoned half-eaten, offering to pick up books from the library. The time and money he had spent planning this trip to India, the tickets he had booked. Just because her eyes had shone for a moment when she saw that cursed picture. The words were in his mouth: If it weren’t for trying to take care of you, I wouldn’t be stuck down here, about to die. Everything I worked so hard for brought to zero. With an effort that could only be described as heroic (though no one else would know), he held the retort back. If she did something to herself, he didn’t want it on his conscience.

Instead he said, “Haven’t I worked hard all my life to give you everything you wanted, everything-”

“You don’t know the first thing about caring,” she said. “Relationships aren’t businesses that can be made healthy by pouring money into them. As for things-okay, I enjoyed them. But I never wanted them that much. What I wanted-” She shook her head as though he were some kind of moron, incapable of understanding what she was trying to explain. “It doesn’t matter what I wanted,” she said. “All I want now is for you to leave me alone.”

A trembling had started deep in his body. If only he could have a cigarette, he could handle this better. He tried to twist the pills out of her hand, but she made a stubborn fist. “Stop it!” she shouted. Like they were in a scene in a bad movie. “Stop trying to control my life!”

He could see people looking up, distracted from their own troubles by this little marital drama. He hated her for making them stare. He had always disliked attention, and she knew it. Then he saw something that gave him a brilliant idea. He let go of her hand and lunged for the bulge in her sweater pocket. Sure enough, it was her bottle of pills. He held it up like a trophy.

“Give it back!” she cried. This time the panic in her voice was real. She lunged for the bottle, but he raised his arm so that it was eyond her reach. “You can’t take my medication!”

“I’ll give it to you, in the right dosage, when you need it. You just have to ask me.”

He started walking away. He could hear her sobbing behind him, a sound like soft cloth tearing. It almost made him turn around and give the bottle back. But her behavior had just proved she couldn’t be trusted with the pills. For her own good, he had to hold on to them. Didn’t he?

What was that she was saying, between sobs? Now you’ve ruined everything. Next she’d be blaming him for the earthquake.

Preoccupied, he didn’t notice Malathi standing in the half-dark until he was almost upon her. “Sorry,” he said, moving to the side. But she moved with him. “Give her back her medicine,” she said.

He stared at her, taken aback. Except for a few terse instructions when he had approached the counter yesterday, these were the first words she had said to him. As far as he knew, she hadn’t spoken to Mrs. Pritchett at all. Now she blocked his path, her hands on her hips, her hair loose and wild around her face, wearing a ruffled underskirt and a blue-and-gold sweatshirt.

“Give it back,” she said again. “You have no right to treat her like that just because you’re her husband.”

Under different circumstances, he would have told her it was none of her business, but he was weakened by Mrs. Pritchett’s continued weeping. He started to explain that Mrs. Pritchett was a danger to herself, but he was interrupted by Mangalam.

Mangalam had overheard Malathi’s words as he returned from another trek to the bathroom; he pulled at her arm. “Have you gone crazy?” he whispered angrily in Tamil. “This isn’t India. You can’t interfere in people’s lives like this. Leave them alone.”

She shook him off. “You leave me alone,” she said in English.

He reached for her arm again.

“Don’t you touch me,” she said, her voice rising. “Don’t you tell me what to do. What do you men think you are?”

Out of the corner of his eye Mangalam saw people watching. The teenager was moving toward them. Her grandmother said something sharp and forbidding in Chinese, but the girl kept coming. Embarrassed, he resorted to officiality. “Malathi Ramaswamy,” he said in the icy voice that had worked so well earlier. “As your superior I am most displeased with your behavior.” He used English: he wanted Mr. Pritchett to understand what he was saying. “Kindly wash your face and compose yourself before you speak with any of our clients again. Mr. Pritchett, please accept my apologies for this woman’s unprofessional conduct.”

Malathi bowed her head-suitably chastened, he thought. Then, as he turned away, she said, “Only just wash my face, sir?” In Tamil she added, “Or shall I take a little whiskey drink also, like you? And what would our clients think if they knew about your professional conduct behind closed doors?”

He was shocked that she had discovered the bourbon. She must have snooped around when she had locked herself in the office. He felt light-headed. His mind hovered over a suspicion: the air was getting harder to breathe. But he was distracted by rage. She was planning to expose him in front of these people whose opinion mattered to him because they were probably the last people he would see before dying. She was going to tell them about his drinking, about the advances he had made. She was going to take their kiss, which in spite of its doubtful ethical nature had been something beautiful, a first kiss freely given between a man and a woman, and make it sordid. That was what made him most angry. His hand, moving faster than his brain, swung out and caught her on the side of the face. He felt the flesh give under the impact. She cried out sharply and raised her arm, belatedly, to shield herself. He moved toward her to inspect the damage, queasiness and guilt churning inside him, and as he did so, like echoes, he heard two other cries.

One of them rose from Mrs. Pritchett, somewhere on the floor behind him. The other came from Lily, who was somehow in front of him. She launched herself at him, spitting expletives. Disgraceful, the language a young person used these days. Before he could turn away, her nails raked his cheek, leaving a line of burning. He clapped his hand over it. Would it leave a scar? He had always been so careful with his face. It was the one thing that he had going for him, that had brought him this far. His life was unraveling. His god, his career, his reputation, his looks-they were all deserting him. He pushed Lily from him. She landed on the floor with a thump and a gasp, and then someone else was on him, pummeling furiously. Had everyone gone crazy? Through the rain of fists he saw Tariq’s face, so distorted with rage that Mangalam almost didn’t recognize him.

“Hitting her after she risked her life!” Tariq panted between blows. “Aren’t you ashamed?”

Mangalam wanted to point out that he had just been standing there. Lily was the one who ran up and attacked him. Did a man have no right to self-defense just because he was a man? He wanted to remind Tariq that he, too, had been part of the rescue team that had dug Tariq out. He, too, had-in his own small way-risked his life. But the moment was not suited to logical parley. He punched Tariq back, partly to protect himself and partly because it felt so good to finally do something. Hands were on them both, trying unsuccessfully to pull them apart. The alcohol gave him an exhilarating agility. He skipped from foot to foot and jabbed at Tariq’s face. But then his body betrayed him. He stumbled. Tariq wrestled him to the floor and grabbed his throat.

“Don’t-ever-hit-her-again!” Tariq gasped.

Bright swatches of color pulsed in and out of Mangalam’s vision. He thought he saw Malathi beating her fists on Tariq’s back, yanking Tariq’s hair, trying to get him off Mangalam. Would the world never cease to surprise him? He heard someone-it was the girl with the broken arm-crying, “Stop! What’s wrong with you? God! You’ve all turned into savages!” Somewhere in the back, the grandmother was keening. He didn’t understand the Chinese words, but he knew it was a chant for the dead. Where was the soldier? What was the soldier’s name? The pressure on his throat made him forget. If Mangalam could only have called his name, the soldier would come. The ancient words fell, covering him, soft (he thought) as snow. When he’d been given this chance to start over in America, he had hoped to see snow, to lift his face to the swirl of flakes as he’d observed people doing in foreign movies. He had been disappointed to learn that snow almost never fell in this part of the country. That was his last thought before the colors pulsing in his eyes were suddenly switched off.