Honor: A Novel(4)
Smita Agarwal looked out of the car window onto the streets of a city she had once loved, a city she’d spent the last twenty years trying to forget.
Chapter Two
Smita woke up early the next morning and for a moment, as she lay in an unknown bed, she thought she was still at the Sun Aqua Resort in the Maldives. She heard the sound of the waves lapping against the shore and felt her body sinking into sand the color of sugar. But then she remembered where she was, and her body tensed.
She rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom. When she returned, she made her way to the window and pulled open the heavy drapes to the brightness of the day, the sun alive on the dull, perennially brown waters of the sea. She remembered the first time she saw the Atlantic Ocean, how its pristine blue had astounded her, used as she was to the murky waters of the Arabian Sea. She remembered how Papa used to yell at the servants of the denizens in the buildings around the seaside when they flung bags of trash into the water and at the young men who urinated in the sea at Juhu or Chowpatty Beach. Poor Papa. How much he’d loved this city that, ultimately, didn’t love him back.
She looked toward the Gateway of India, the beautiful yellow basalt monument, with its four turrets and arch, that sat across the street from her hotel window. How solid and rooted it was, much like her childhood in India had once appeared to be. When she had played under its arch, had she ever imagined that she would someday be staying at this iconic grand hotel, one of the most opulent hotels in the world? Hell, everyone from George Harrison to President Obama had stayed there. She and her parents had celebrated birthdays and other happy occasions at the Taj’s many restaurants, of course. But staying at the Taj was a different matter.
She glanced at her watch and saw that it was 8:00 a.m. Should she phone Shannon? Or would she still be sleeping? Just then, her stomach growled, and she realized she had not eaten since the afternoon the day before, her nervousness stronger than her appetite. She decided to get breakfast.
Half an hour later, she was at the Sea Lounge. The restaurant was fairly crowded even at this hour. The young hostess, radiant in a blue sari, approached her. “How many people in your party, ma’am?” she asked and, when Smita held up her index finger, led her to a small table by a window. Smita looked around the room, remembering its understated elegance from her childhood visits there with her parents, the hushed, impeccable service, the large windows overlooking the sea. She was pleased to see that the beauty of the restaurant remained unchanged. She caught the eye of the man at the next table, his face broiled red by the Mumbai sun. He gave her a crooked smile that she pretended not to notice. Instead, she looked out the window, blinking away the tears that filled her eyes. It was hard to be at the Sea Lounge and not think of her soft-spoken, genteel mother. Smita had been in Portugal covering a women’s conference at the time of Mummy’s death, and when Rohit, her older brother, had called to give her the news, she had yelled and sworn at him, made him a target for her wild grief. But sitting in her mother’s favorite restaurant, Smita was warmed by memories of going to the Sea Lounge on Saturday afternoons, her mother ordering her favorite chicken club sandwich while her father sipped his Kingfisher beer.
She half wished she could order a club sandwich at this hour, in memory of Mummy. Instead, she ordered coffee and a spinach omelet. The waiter set the plate down in front of her with the care and precision of a mechanic setting down an engine part. “Can I get you anything else, ma’am?” he asked in a respectful voice. He was probably just a year or two older than her, but his obsequious manner, so typical of how working-class Indians addressed the rich, made her grit her teeth. But then, a quick look around this beautiful room told her that nobody else—not the many Germans and Brits in the room, nor the paunchy Indian businessmen out with their clients—seemed to mind the sycophantic manner of the members of the waitstaff; in fact, they seemed to expect and demand it. She had already noticed the snapping of fingers for service and the dismissive tone with which the other diners spoke to the servers.
“No, thank you,” she said. “This looks delicious.”
Her reward was a sincere, delighted smile. “Enjoy, ma’am,” he said, and edged away, silent as a ghost.
She took a sip of the coffee and then licked the froth from her upper lip. She had tasted coffee all around the world, but God, how wonderful this cup of Nescafé tasted. She knew it would be an object of derision back home—“It’s instant coffee, for Christ’s sake, Smita,” she could hear Jenna trill as they ate brunch at the Rose Water café in Park Slope—but what could she say? It was only in the last year of her time in India that her parents had allowed her to drink coffee, and that, too, just a few sips from her father’s cup as he sat grading papers. One taste and she was transported to their large, sunlit apartment in Colaba, a short walk from the Taj, and to Sunday mornings as her parents bickered good-naturedly about whether to play his Bach and Beethoven CDs or her mother’s ghazals on the living room stereo. Rohit would be in his room, still in bed as he listened to Green Day or U2 on his Walkman. Their cook, Reshma, would be making the South Indian medhu vadas and upma that was their Sunday morning breakfast treat.
Where was Reshma now? Surely, she was still living in this city of twenty million, working for another family? Smita would like to find her during this trip, but how, she hadn’t a clue. Had Mummy stayed in touch with Reshma after they’d left? She didn’t know. They had all worked so hard to forget what they’d left behind and to build a new life in America. Maybe it was just as well that she didn’t know their old cook’s whereabouts.