I had a pair of them—brothers, I meant. Surin and Sarvar were both much older than me, and ever since the fatality that had taken our parents, they’d become more parents than siblings to me. I’d had a third brother, a sickly boy named Sam, who hadn’t survived his first year in this world. I had him to thank for my existence. If Sam hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have been born, as my parents had wanted no more than three children.
When I was little, my brothers would tease me about being a replacement, the spare wheel, the girl who’d destroyed the manly kingdom of the three Batliwala brothers. I’d scream for them to take their hideous words back, sob as if my heart was breaking, until the day my mother had sat me down and opened my eyes to the bullshit that was the male psyche.
Mean to begin with or not, Sarvar had become the kind of brother every sister should have. He didn’t hover or smother, but he was always there when I needed to pour my heart out. Sarvar was my anchor in the ocean of life, a safe harbor for tempestuous times. Lucky for me, he lived in San Jose, close enough to meet when we wished.
I have the Desais to thank for it. Ever generous and helpful, they’d somehow convinced Sarvar to move to the States right after my marriage. They’d sponsored his legalization documents and whatnot. They’d even offered him a managerial job at one of their motels, but he hadn’t taken them up on it. These last six years, Sarvar had expanded our family’s plastic business across the Americas, and so far, both my brothers seemed satisfied with the results. It’d been my father’s dream to expand Batliwala Plastics outside of India, and I felt incredibly proud that my brothers had made it come true. I liked to believe, in a small way, I’d had a hand in it, too.
Surin, seven years my elder, still lived in Surat, close to the factory we’d almost lost right after our parents’ deaths. The Desais hadn’t been able to convince him to immigrate to California. To leave India would mean selling Batliwala Plastics or trusting someone else to run it, and Surin would cut off his right arm before he did that. He’d fought so hard to keep the factory, sustain it and make it prosper. He’d shed sweat, blood and youth for it. He’d never leave it in someone else’s care. He couldn’t even bring himself to take a decent holiday with his wife and kids for fear the factory would collapse in his absence.
I hadn’t seen Surin in over three years because of that. He wouldn’t come to California unless there was an emergency, and I couldn’t go to India until...Nirvaan let me.
At times, I missed Surin as violently as I missed my parents. And then there were days when he’d cease to exist in my American reality. As if being out of sight, out of tangible reach, he’d become a ghost in my mind.
I stared at the words I held between my hands, unable to decipher them, as my mind slowly clouded with memories. My parents. My brothers. Surat. My life there. All I’d lost. All I’d gained. Nirvaan. Zayaan. My life here.
I leaned over the edge of the cast-iron tub and set the e-reader on the closed toilet seat. My movements upset the cooling water, and waves splashed against my breasts and back in protest. I pulled the plug, watched the water spool into the sieve and gurgle down the drain. If only I could rid myself of ghosts so easily.
I stood up and stepped out of the tub. Naked and shivering, I walked across the beige-tiled floor into the shower. Under a pounding hot spray, I soaped and loofahed my body. I can’t pinpoint when I started crying or if I cried at all. When my eyes stung, I convinced myself it was the soap. My breath hiccuped, and my skin puckered, but I stayed under the shower until the Antarctic threatened to melt through it. I got out then and wrapped myself in a towel. I didn’t look in the mirror, not even when I brushed my teeth and my hair. I refused to give my weakness a form, an image, another ghost to remember.
I slipped on a nightshirt and went straight to bed. I didn’t wish the guys good-night. I couldn’t. Nirvaan would know I’d cried, and it would upset him, make him feel guilty and sad, maybe even mad. He would leave his game and his buddy to comfort me. He would try to bring me solace with gentle words and lust-filled kisses. He might even succeed. He’d assure me that everything would be fine, convince me that I was stronger than this.
Maybe I was. My therapist certainly believed so. But I didn’t want to be strong. I wanted to run and hide, escape my reality, banish all feeling. I wanted to smash open the translucent perfection of my snow-globe world and simply walk away.
But I couldn’t do that. Not tonight. Not ever, if Nirvaan got his way and I had his baby.
So I lay in bed, stiff under the gray-and-yellow summer quilt, and wished for things I’d never had—like a normal life.
* * *
Sleep was a chameleon tonight. Sly and still, it kept changing color and time to hide from me. I counted sheep, but my mind kept drifting toward warmer shores, black-sand beaches and home.
My fifteenth birthday had dawned hot and oppressive over Surat, and it had remained so until its phantasmagorical end.
Summers were murder in Gujarat—arid, dusty and energy draining. But I hadn’t complained about the weather that year. That last of May’s days, my first birthday without my parents, I’d had many other concerns besides harping over a bit of sweat and grime.
Like the home I hadn’t allowed myself to like.
We’d lived in a four-bedroom flat on the tenth floor of a high-rise complex erected along the Tapi River. In addition to being the diamond and textile capital of the world, Surat had just been declared the cleanest and fastest-growing metropolis in India. As a testament to my father’s success, my family had, only recently, moved into the new cosmopolitan digs from a demographically Parsi neighborhood across town. We’d just begun the process of getting to know our neighbors when tragedy had struck.
With my parents gone, and both my brothers still earning their college degrees and living away from home—Surin had boarded with our father’s brother in Mumbai and Sarvar had lived in a boy’s hostel in Ahmedabad—my maternal aunt and uncle had imposed themselves in our home. My brothers were deemed too young and foolish to shoulder the responsibility of raising a young girl, so Uncle Farooq and Auntie Jai had thought it best to supervise my guardianship.
But that was only a pretense, we’d eventually realize. The real reason for the sudden familial love was my father’s business, which Uncle Farooq wanted to usurp.
Barely twenty-two, naturally, Surin was confused. He didn’t know whether to finish his studies or take over the business. He wasn’t ready to be the head of the family. Relatives from all over the world advised him in various capacities, but finally, any decision that impacted the three of us was on him. For six months, he’d tried to make sense of our father’s affairs, and from what I overheard him tell Sarvar late one night on the weekend before my birthday, he was afraid the business was crumbling about his ears. The factory workers, suppliers and clients who’d had implicit faith in my father’s business acumen had none in a mere boy’s, and orders had begun to drop like overripe fruit from trees. He’d decided not to go back to college by then.
Surin was overwhelmed by his responsibilities. Sarvar was worried about our future. So, I worried, too.
I didn’t like my uncle and aunt. I’d never liked them, but I didn’t tell my brothers that. I had no wish to add to their burdens. My mother had never spoken against her older sister, but I knew they hadn’t gotten along, either. I didn’t like how Uncle Farooq spoke to Surin, as if he were an idiot. I didn’t like how nosy my aunt was about my parents’ life insurance policies and our material holdings.
If Surin didn’t ask them to leave soon, I planned to run away. Where? How? When? The logistics didn’t matter. I felt trapped in my aunt’s presence. I wanted things to go back to how they’d been. I missed my mother terribly.