Honor: A Novel(3)

“I’m sorry,” she said, vaguely.

He pulled out of the parking lot, eased the car into the lane, then swore quietly at the bumper-to-bumper traffic heading out of the airport.

“Lots of cars, even at this time,” Smita said.

He made a clucking, exasperated sound. “Don’t ask, yaar. The traffic in this city has gone from bad to worse.” He glanced at her. “But don’t worry. Once we get on the main road, it will get better. I’ll have you at your hotel in no time.”

“Do you live near the Taj?”

“Me? No. I live in Dadar. Closer to the airport than to your hotel.”

“Oh,” she cried. “That’s ridiculous. I . . . I could’ve just taken a cab.”

“No, no. It’s not safe, for a woman to get in a cab at this hour. Besides, this is India. We would never allow a guest to take a taxi from the airport.”

She remembered her parents driving to Columbus Airport through the sleet and storms of Ohio winters, to pick up visitors. Indian hospitality. It was real. “Thank you,” she said.

“No mention.” He fiddled with the dial for the air-conditioning. “Are you comfortable? Hot? Cold?”

“Maybe turn up the air a notch? I can’t believe how hot it is here, even in January.”

Mohan gave her a quick glance. “The joys of global warming. Imported to poor countries like India from rich countries like yours.”

Was he one of those nationalist types, like Papa’s friend Rakesh, a man who railed against the West and had plotted his imminent return to India for the past forty years? And yet, Mohan wasn’t wrong, was he? She had often argued the same point herself. “Yup,” she said, too tired to start a political conversation, her eyelids beginning to get heavy with sleep.

Mohan must have sensed her fatigue. “Take a nap if you like,” he said. “We have at least another thirty minutes.”

“I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head, distracting herself by looking at the long line of shanties built on the sidewalk. Even at this late hour, a few men in shirtsleeves and lungis lounged near the open mouths of the huts, kerosene lamps burning inside some of them. Smita chewed on her lower lip. She was no stranger to third world poverty, but the tableau they were driving past was so unchanged from what she remembered from her childhood. It was if she had passed these very same slums and the same men the last time she and her family had driven to the airport twenty years before, in 1998. So much for the new, globalized India that she kept reading about.

“The government paid these people to vacate and go into government housing,” Mohan was saying. “But they refused.”

“Is that so?”

“So I’ve heard. But in a democratic country, how can you force people to relocate?”

There was a short silence, and Smita had the feeling that simply by staring so openly at the slums they were passing, she had made Mohan feel defensive about his city. She had seen this phenomenon often in her job, how middle-class people in poor countries bristled against the judgment of people in the West. Once, while she was in Haiti, a local official had almost spat in her face and cursed American imperialism when she’d tried questioning him about the corruption in his district. “I suppose you can’t blame them,” she said. “This is their home.”

“Exactly. This is what I try to tell my friends and coworkers. But they don’t understand what took you less than ten minutes to understand.”

Smita felt unexpectedly warmed by Mohan’s words, as if he’d presented her with a small trophy. “Thanks. But I used to live here, you know. So I get it.”

“You lived here? When?”

“When I was young. We left India when I was fourteen.”

“Wah. I had no idea. Even though Shannon told me you were Indian, I just assumed you were born abroad. You sound like a pucca American.”

She shrugged. “Thanks. I guess.”

“And you have family here?”

“Not really.” And before he could ask another question, she said, “And you? What do you do? Are you a journalist, also?”

“Ha. That’s a joke. I could never do what you and Shannon do. I’m not a good writer. No, I’m an IT guy. I work with computers. For Tata Consultancy. Have you heard of the Tatas?”

“Yes, of course. Didn’t they buy Jaguar and Land Rover several years ago?”

“That’s right. Tata makes everything, from cars to soap to power plants.” He rolled down his window a bit. “So, we’re going over the new Sea Link, which connects Bandra to Worli. It wasn’t here when you were living here, obviously. But it will cut down on our driving time a great deal.”

Smita took in the lights of the city as the car climbed up the cable bridge that spanned the dark waters of the Arabian Sea below them. “Wow. Mumbai looks like any other city in the world. We could be in New York or Singapore.” Except, she thought, for the acidic smell of the warm air blowing into the car. She was about to ask Mohan about the smell but thought better of it. She was a guest in his city and the truth was, the knot in her stomach was growing as they got closer to their destination. The truth was, she didn’t want to be in Mumbai. No matter how many beautiful bridges the city threw up, no matter how beguiling its new, bejeweled skyline, she didn’t want to be there. She would spend a few days with Shannon in the hospital, and then, as soon as she could, she would clear out. It would be too late to rejoin the others in the Maldives, of course, but that was okay. It would be nice to return to her brownstone in Brooklyn for the rest of her leave. Maybe take in a movie or two. But there she was, in a car speeding toward her hotel room at the Taj. Speeding toward her old neighborhood.