*
Though in her sixties, Gital Didi was not, in fact, a didi—older sister—but a friend that Harit’s mother had made only weeks before Swati’s death. They had met at a temple gathering for the holiday of Karva Chauth. Gital Didi lived four blocks away, in a small condo into which she had moved after her husband’s death from cancer. She had a son, Kaushal, a medical student in California who rarely came back east to visit. What she was, then, was a woman with plenty of time on her hands, and since the same could be said of Harit’s mother—and be the understatement of the year—the two of them were often together. After Swati’s death, Gital Didi came to their house at least once a day, and although Harit’s mother offered little in the way of conversation—a soft “Yes” here, the occasional thirty-second anecdote about Swati there—Gital Didi did not flag in her commitment.
It was still more conversation than Harit got from his mother.
Gital Didi bathed his mother and fed her, and although Harit had told her that it was his responsibility and that she shouldn’t burden herself, she insisted.
“It is not right for a man to do such things,” she said, time and again.
“But I am her son,” Harit would reply.
“Idli sambar or rajma chawal? I can make either one.”
She insisted on cooking at their house. Harit suggested that she make the food at her condo and bring it over, since their kitchen was so meager, but she refused, saying that the aroma of cooking was “essential to the well-being of a Hindustani home.” Her comment caused Harit some offense, since he cooked in the house, for himself. He knew that the real reason for her persistence was because she wanted to be in their house as much as possible.
Harit was jealous of her. Not because he wanted to do those things for his mother but because he didn’t. He wished that he wanted to, so that he could be a good son. He could rationalize his behavior all he wanted—I am not a very good cook anyway; It is good for Ma to have a friend; I dress in a sari to keep her alive—but Gital Didi did the things that a son was supposed to do for his mother. American children disrespected their mothers all the time. He saw it every day at Harriman’s—young girls contradicting their mothers and scolding them and emphasizing, again and again, how their senses of style were different. Haughty admonitions, annoyed harrumphs, deceptive entreaties—this was what passed for familial devotion in this country. Harit wanted no part of those children’s selfish disrespect. Yet every time Gital Didi ignored his request to do chores for his mother, he joined the ranks of those selfish Americans by feeling relieved.
Perhaps he felt indignant because his mother had changed irreversibly and he did not feel that he really knew this woman, this artifact in an armchair. He realized that he would never taste her cooking again, would never know what it was like to see her laughing with abandon or intent. He would never know again what it felt like to have his mother comfort him. All of that was lost, except to his memory, which was beginning to be washed away by alcohol like a steppe by the swishing waters of a river.
He envied Gital Didi this more than anything—that she seemed to understand the woman in the chair. Since she had known Harit’s mother for only the past year, Gital Didi could enjoy her company without the barrier of previous memories, like having eaten her kadhi in their Delhi kitchen—which always smelled like smoke and coriander—or feeling the roughness of her palms as they washed the back of his neck with milk. Gital Didi did not see in Harit’s mother the aborted joy that Harit saw; she saw a friend who would listen to her talk all day. If only things could have been so easy for him.
*
“Dear, where did you put the register tape?”
Teddy was slapping red markdown stickers onto a stack of waterproof wallets. He was in even higher spirits than usual, which was driving Harit a little crazy. The Harriman’s Halloween Sale was approaching, and this was not the time for unflagging optimism. During big sales, Mr. Harriman did away with all pleasantries and transformed his melodious voice to a bark.
Harit was tagging a batch of gingham Van Heusen dress shirts. He was entranced by gingham patterns because they were something that he had seen rarely in India, these pastel blues and pinks and yellows. He could not remember any time he had worn such bold colors there, aside from when everyone would celebrate Holi and douse each other in magenta dye.
The look of approbation in Mr. Harriman’s eyes as he approached now made it seem as if he had seen right into Harit’s gingham-patterned thoughts.
“Singha, what are you doing?”
“I am tagging these shirts, sir.” The answer sounded so basic that Harit struggled to elaborate. “For the sale, sir.”
“No, noooo,” Mr. Harriman said, rubbing his forehead with one hand. “Those are not the shirts that we need tagged! The Geoffrey Beene shirts are the ones on sale. How many of them have you tagged?”
Harit felt like vomiting. He had already tagged five cases’ worth. “I am so sorry, sir. I will fix the problem.”
“How many cases, Singha?”
“Sir, I will stay late tonight and make sure they are all fixed.”
“Have you gone fucking deaf, Singha? How. Many. Cases?”
Harit would have been paralyzed with fear if he hadn’t been so tremblingly nervous. “Five, sir.”
“Jesus Fucking Christ. And I bet you still haven’t started on the suit markdowns.”
Mr. Harriman was right.
“You know, Singha, this is a real disappointment. If I don’t see all of these shirts tagged right—and displayed—by the end of the shift … you’ll see what’s what.”
Harit did not know what this phrase was supposed to mean—“what’s what”—but it sounded to him like being fired. He felt the blood pumping in his ears. He looked down at the case of shirts that he was tagging and wanted to burst into tears. Then Teddy came to his side.