“I think we need to see other people,” he had said, after their last time together. Alyona came to Tara’s apartment the next afternoon, demanded hot chai flavored with ginger and cardamom, and sobbed until mascara and eyeliner streaked gray rivers down her cheeks, and the tip of her nose turned red and shiny. Tara’s heart went out to her friend. She didn’t know what she could possibly say to make Alyona feel better. All she could do was sit beside her, gently stroke her hand, rub her back. Poor Alyona. Sanjay could never be so cruel to her, not anymore.
Alyona mourned for a week, then picked herself up and moved on.
Chapter 8
Tara learned about the September 11 attacks from Amma. It started out as just another day. She settled down with her cup of coffee in front of the computer after Sanjay’s hurried exit—he was rushing for an eight o’clock meeting. None of her contacts were on MSN chat, and her inbox was old and clean. With nothing to focus on, she began to notice the little things. The computer had gathered a little dust, especially around the CD-ROM and floppy disk drives. The desk was accumulating a litter of unnecessary things—a planner, notepads, a red diary, sticky notes, two pen holders, a calculator, a candle in a jar. Sanjay liked an immaculate house. She made a mental note to dust and declutter the desk later in the day. She pulled up Indian news websites and scanned the headlines lazily, looking for something interesting to read. Nothing earthshaking had happened that day, so she clicked on the Bollywood news section. Gossip was always interesting.
Then, Amma called, urgency and distress in her voice.
“Tara, turn on the TV, quick!”
“Why? What happened?”
“Quick, watch CNN. I’ll speak to you later.” The line went dead.
Tara ran to the living room and turned on the TV. It took her a few moments to comprehend the scenes that filled the screen. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she watched with horror as the North Tower burned. What was happening? Did people die? Were there people in the airplane?
At 9:03 she watched, paralyzed, as another plane crashed into the World Trade Center’s South Tower. When Amma called her again, the South Tower had collapsed, and Tara was shaking like a leaf, weeping into the phone.
Tara tried to reach Sanjay several times during the day, hoping he’d come back home. Amma had warned her not to step out of the apartment, to be safe, to not call attention to herself. A third hijacked plane had crashed into the Pentagon, a fourth in the fields of Pennsylvania. Alyona and Viktor came over that afternoon, and they huddled together on the sofa, watching CNN, grieving for the thousands who had died a senseless death. Tara was glad for her friend’s company, for some respite from the churning in her gut, for somebody to allay her fears. Where was Sanjay? Was he stuck in traffic? Or in his office?
When Sanjay came home, later than usual, Tara almost broke down again, from relief and the aftershocks of the apprehensions of the day.
“Where were you? I was so worried.”
If he had met her eye, he’d have seen the agitation on her face, in the gray puffs under her eyes. He focused instead on taking his shoes off. “Sorry, I meant to call you, but I got really busy at work.”
“Work? Today? Weren’t all offices closed?”
He ran his hand through his hair. “Terrible thing, the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.” He shook his head.
“I worried about you all day.”
“You shouldn’t have. What was going to happen to me here in Atlanta?”
“You could have called me.”
“I know. I am sorry.” He settled on the recliner and turned on the TV, and that was the end of their conversation.
She tried to snuggle into him that night, seeking comfort in the warmth of his arms, in the familiarity of his chest, but he seemed rigid, aloof.
“What’s wrong, Sanjay?” she asked.
“Go to sleep. I am tired. You must be tired, too.”
“I wasn’t trying to seduce you.”
He grunted, eyes still shut, and stayed immobile until she moved away. What a complex man, she thought. After a year of living together, she still had trouble understanding his many moods. Perhaps, this was his way of grieving?
Six weeks after the day of unforgettable tragedies, Tara received a letter in the mail from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In it was a red, blue, and white card—the ticket to the American dream. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA EMPLOYMENT AUTHORIZATION CARD it declared boldly. She stared at the card long and hard, trying to catch a happy feeling over the din of other thoughts. She was allowed to work. But where? How? She didn’t have a car. She didn’t drive.
Tara preferred words to coding. She had worked for seven years at the news desk of the Morning Herald. A few months before leaving for the US, at Vijay’s insistence, she had trained in computer programming at the Athena Multimedia Institute in Mangalore, barely passing her certification course. Her master’s degree in English literature and work experience with an Indian publication were of no value in America, Vijay had warned her. No media house would want to hire her. They had Americans for those types of jobs. It was the tech jobs that Americans sucked at and needed Indians to fill. But programming had never been her cup of tea. The thought of taking up coding as a real job terrified her.
“I got my work permit yesterday,” she told Alyona the next afternoon. She had not yet told Sanjay, who, in any case, was increasingly busy at work. “It’s a project that is about to go live,” he had explained, of his late nights.
“Yay! Girl, I am so excited!” Alyona high-fived her. “Now you are free. You can buy clothes, makeup, shoes, bags, whatever your heart wants without asking that husband.”
“I don’t know.” Tara studied her hands.
“What, you don’t know?”
“Who will give me a job? I don’t have a car. How will I get to work?”
“I will get you job. You clean houses with my friend Nadya. She has very good cleaning service. She will pay you.”
Tara smiled. Alyona had made cleaning seem like the perfect job. She wondered how her parents might have reacted to Alyona’s suggestion. She thought of her high school years in Falnir, after her family had returned to Mangalore from Dubai. How often had Daddy said in those days, in rage and disappointment each time Tara came home with a poor report card, her math grade circled in red, that she was only suited to wash dishes and clean homes? Amma had, at most such times, cushioned her from Daddy’s ire, promising him that Tara would do better in college, when she didn’t have to study math and science. Amma was right. Tara had done well in college, where she studied English literature, sociology, and psychology. Daddy’s dressing-downs had stopped. Still, it was a lifelong disappointment to him that Tara had not become a doctor or an engineer.
“I have to ask Sanjay,” she said now, not knowing how else to decline her friend’s kind gesture. But Alyona would not take no for an answer. She bustled into Tara’s apartment one afternoon and grabbed hold of her arm.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Nadya is visiting. She is in my apartment.”
Tara’s instincts told her what Nadya’s visit meant.
“No, no, Alyona. I have not discussed the matter with Sanjay yet.”