He didn’t want to waste any time. He had discovered the doll on a Saturday afternoon, and so Sunday morning would be the time for his surprise. Swati did work on Sunday afternoons, babysitting for a nearby trio of kids while their parents attended church.
Their mother normally went to bed early, at around nine o’clock, but Swati usually stayed up late, fascinated by late-night television. She loved to make fun of Conan O’Brien, his long, red-topped form, and many nights found her enjoying a plateful of chaat while giggling at his non sequiturs and flimsy tosses of hair. Harit didn’t have the stamina to remain awake as long as Swati—he marveled at how she could go to bed after one thirty and wake as early she did—but he could usually manage to stay awake until just after midnight. So, to prevent his sister from being suspicious, he went to bed at his usual hour, kissing Swati on the cheek and padding up the stairs. He spent the next few hours listening to her, her giggles and chomps, the rustling of her salwar as she fidgeted comfortably on the couch. Then, the TV clicking off, her wistful ascent of the stairs, the creak as she curled into bed, deciding not to change out of a garment that doubled as sleepwear.
At quarter till five, Harit plucked Barbie from under his bed, then spent an excruciating ten minutes slowly descending the stairs so as not to wake anyone up. Finally, he reached the bottom and placed Barbie on the sill. He had little to do besides this, the light outside striking the window just as he had envisioned and the curtains framing the doll perfectly. Harit tiptoed over to the couch, in the same spot where his sister had been just a few hours ago, and waited.
*
He would hear people’s compassion as anger, feel their pats on the back as if they were slaps on the face, see their drooping gazes as upside-down mockeries of the doll’s eyes.
If his mother’s madness had one upside, it was that it prevented her from looking at him as if he were responsible for Swati’s death. Harit may never know what his mother’s true judgment of the situation was, but his mother would also not know what it felt like to see Swati scurry down the steps—then catch herself midway, shocked by what greeted her below, only to trip and get caught in her own salwar. His mother would not know what this looked like, although perhaps the cause of her hysteria was that she could envision a million ways in which the fall might have occurred. (The medical term for what had actually killed Swati—“an epidural hematoma due to blunt impact to the head”—would forever repeat in Harit’s head like a demonic mantra.)
It was just so vicious—that a life woven of such charm and oddity could be ended in such a ridiculous manner. And of the three of them to go, why Swati? His mother had lived at least six decades; Harit was the quiet standby to Swati’s star. He had needed her. They had needed her.
The family for whom Swati normally babysat called later that afternoon, angry that she hadn’t shown up. Theirs were the first voices that cracked in whimpers as Harit informed them of the accident. He wasn’t sure what slapped him across the face most: the fact that a doll, of all things, had led to her death, or the fact that the first people to hear of his sister’s passing had nothing at all to do with where she had begun her life. It was only then that Harit understood that all of these Indians who had come to the States would end their stories here. For some reason, he had always envisioned their deaths as occurring on Indian soil, their bodies cremated amidst the rustic-commercial swirl of their upbringing. But there was no guarantee that they would make it back to their homeland before they died. Life wasn’t a circle but a line. The blurry opening of the film may have taken place on the subcontinent, but its counterpart, the fading into darkness, was decidedly American.
AFTER HARIT’S STORY, he and Ranjana remained quiet—a space filled by the sonic knickknacks of the café. It seemed odd to hear an assortment of canisters clicking shut and mugs being stacked and coffee beans being packed away, but Ranjana was grateful for these noises. She knew that she could not let this moment hang in the balance for too much longer. She had to offer something to assuage his fear.
“Ji, I am very honored that you have told me about this. I know this could not have been an easy thing for you to do.” This was not as noble-sounding a response as she had hoped to make, but she was distracted by how despondent Harit looked.
He made one simple nod of the head downward—no upward movement to complete it, so that he looked like he was slouching instead of acknowledging her comment. Clearly, recounting the events of his sister’s death had thrust him back into its trauma, but she had to do her best to draw him out of that period and into the present moment.
“I cannot imagine going through what you have gone through.” Equally unimpressive a response, but she had to keep his attention. “This was not your fault, ji. It was an accident. And to think that you’ve been keeping all of this inside you … To me, what you have done is heroic.”
This word changed him immediately. He seemed to be mulling over the magnanimousness of it, its weight and nobility. It was astounding, what he had endured, and he deserved to be exalted. The achievement being, of course, simply being able to put one foot in front of the other, given the circumstances.
Struck by some Edith Whartonian inspiration, the first thing that came to Ranjana’s mind was throwing him a dinner party. Well, a dinner party in the Indian sense, which meant that she and Mohan would throw a regular party but that Harit would be in attendance—a small but still noticeable addition to their social circle. His attendance at temple had already started this process rolling, so it would not be totally out of the ordinary for him to make his way into their home.
She and Mohan were not known for their entertaining; in fact, she knew that compared to the sprawling, buttressed palaces of their friends, their house was rather modest. But Prashant’s recent departure gave them a reason to have a party. They were newly freed parents—their own bosses now—and it was time to be “Ranjanaji and Mohanji” instead of “The Chaudhurys.”