I open my textbook and direct all my attention to it, walking nimbly, so as not to catch his eyes. I don’t want a tour of his memories today.
“How’s the book coming along? The book about Prophet Muhammad?” Mr. Ram calls out as the elevator doors open and I’m about to sneak in. I stop in the doorframe and let the sensorless doors slam hard into my shoulders. Why is he asking about that now? He’s Hindu, so why does he even care about my seerah book? It’s not the Mahabharata.
I retrace my steps, walking backward. I don’t want to talk to him, but I just can’t let the elevator doors close on his stiff and proud back. I’ll have to see him when I take him out tomorrow, and ignoring him now would mean a double dose of those pursed lips and teepee fingers later on. Maybe like a kid he’d even tell his son about my rudeness, and I’d lose my first job ever. I stop and sit on the ledge that keeps all the fake plants at bay, beside his wheelchair, refusing to look at his face. I’m not in the mood to act nice.
“Mr. Ram, I don’t want to work on it. That’s the truth,” I say, staring at his plaid sleeve. “I’m not going to finish it.”
“Why?”
“I’m not that person anymore. I’m old, not the little kid I was when I started it,” I say. Why is he wearing a lumberjack flannel shirt with pearly snap buttons tucked severely into high-waisted dress pants today? And a plaid scarf (that doesn’t match the shirt) around his neck? His inner temperature monitor must be way off, because the lobby is stifling hot. People at school who groan on seeing my summer look would positively melt on seeing Mr. Ram.
“You’re old?” Mr. Ram laughs. “Miss Janna, do you know how old I am?”
He leans forward and lifts a shaky hand to his heart.
“Seventy?” I lie. I really think he’s ninety-six, but I don’t want to hurt his ego. I don’t know if it still hurts people’s feelings at that age to be thought of as older, but it’s better to err on the side of caution.
He laughs again, this time doing his Belly-Laugh smile. At least one of us is having a good day.
“Ninety? Ninety-one? Ninety-six? Ninety-nine?” I say, looking right into his eyes, which are tearing up because he’s having so much fun. I can’t stop myself from smiling on seeing his face. It’s like a baby’s, his mouth slack and loopy like he can’t fully control his smile.
“No, no, slow down.” He puts his hand out to my arm, patting it to stop me. “I am at the great age of ninety-three.”
He stops smiling and places his hand back on his wheelchair armrest. “What do you think of that?”
“Um, I think that’s old but not too old?” I say.
“Yes, exactly that.” Mr. Ram beams at me. “You’re a smart girl; that is what I always tell my son. That is why I told him you have to be the only one to walk me—you know that.”
I nod. He always tells me that. Only I’m allowed to walk him, he tells his son, nobody else. He makes it seem like there’s a lineup of people waiting to do my job.
“I’m not too old. That is exactly what I am. I grow in years, but some things, they stay the same,” he says. “Who I am inside this body, what I know to be true, that all stays the same. My kernel is me all the time. I let no one change that, Miss Janna.”
“Okay.” I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“You don’t remember the day you showed me that book you made about your prophet? After I showed you the Mahabharata? You liked it so much; you were so proud of yourself.”
Then he just looks out the window again. And doesn’t speak anymore. Am I supposed to go now? He’s acting really strange today, like he’s on slow mode.
“Mr. Ram, why are you here alone?”
“My son left me here. He takes me with him to pick up Ravi from school every day. I told him to go by himself today. I’m tired, so he’ll be tired pushing me.”
“Mr. Ram? I have to study. I have exams.” I hold up my textbook as testimony and get off the ledge.
“Yes.” He nods at the window. “But you didn’t get a poem from me yet.”
“Oh.” I sit back down, suppressing a huge sigh of impatience. Mr. Ram used to recite things to me when he was in a good mood as though he was giving me gifts. When I was eleven, it was okay because I excitedly called myself a poem collector and wrote down his words as though they were precious. I was really into tongue twisters and funny Shel Silverstein stuff back then, and I loved reciprocal reciting, surprising him with things he’d never heard. But now? Now I want to curl up in bed in mortification, imagining Jeremy’s face as I slunk away from gym.
“This one is by Rabindranath Tagore. It is about the birth of my country.”
I nod, glancing at the elevators. The good one is making its way down again. I hope the poem is only three floors long.
Mr. Ram straightens his already erect back, fixes his eyes on me, and begins, his words precise and loud, like he memorized them for school in India.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
He closes his eyes on finishing.
I pat his arm and whisper thank you, infusing it with as much authenticity as I can. Then I speed-walk to greet the elevator that’s lumbering open.
? ? ?
I open the dashboard on Amu’s website. There must be someone else out there with the same problem as me. Someone must have asked a question about this.
Non-Muslim love, I type into the search field. It pops up immediately.