Mandarin Patisserie
Nancy Wdowicki
Published by Nancy Wdowicki at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Nancy Wdowicki
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Mandarin Patisserie
Vivek Alvares's intellect wouldn't allow the sweetness of this rare luxury to pass without his attempting to crystallize the moment in a sort of mental haiku. He cozied into the brushed corduroy security of the driver’s seat of his rented Honda Accord and closed the door on all chaos with a comforting shump. He turned the ignition gently, blasted the AC, and ogled the gas needle as it moved to full. His eyes lifted and lit through the windshield on a blue plastic bag drifting across the empty parking lot. It flittered beyond the light of a nearby street lamp and up into the black.
He closed his eyes, bit his lip and filled his lungs. His brow creased as he felt the pressure of his damp palm wrapped around Amanda’s wad of cash as he held it against the steering wheel. Panicked that the procurement might slip when he’d back out, he leaned back, straightened his legs, and stuffed it into his trouser pocket.
He wouldn’t play that tiring mind-game with himself – pretending that he felt ashamed of the way he’d acquired it. Hell, he’d left more cloying guilts behind long ago. Nor would he kid himself that just for a magical moment he might miraculously be given a damn minute’s rest from thinking over and over about the myriad useless details featured among the worst experiences he’d ever had in his life – all of which occurred in this desert of dreams – that led him to avail himself of that little punk’s tuition money in the first place.
He sniffed as he raised his right elbow over the back of the seat to look over his shoulder. His mouth scrunched into a frown and he shook his head as he turned to see where he was going.
‘Sorting this shit out has gotten a whole lot easier,’ he said, backing out.
‘Fuck it.’
He drove forward, and as he pulled onto Sheikh Zayed Road, lamplight frothing from the tea-bag stained towers on his right shone dimly through a haze built up from exhaust of vehicles and that churned from the aluminum and desalination plants situated on the bay to his left. A few kilometers ahead, a fingernail moon made a dainty cap over the spire of the world’s tallest dust-catcher. An arresting sight, he thought. ‘And how fucking prophetic,’ he commented, that ‘both should be shimmering, but can't.'
Two years ago, Vivek arrived in Dubai carrying the strongest faith and clearest evidence, buttressed by his having seen encouraging media images of thousands of construction cranes stacking steel girders upon sand, that in Dubai he would quickly earn a fantastic living in any of its alluring realms of finance, technology, media, property or even the arts.
So again tonight, he lathered himself with broken bits of Imperial Leather dreams. He dragged his forearm across his eyes. Even if he could square all of his debts and would be forgiven by everyone whose lives he’d messed up because of what he owed, Vivek knew he would never feel redeemed.
Still, he’d reached the point where he couldn’t hold all their dreadful problems in his head. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to take a step forward; standing still was deadly.
In analyzing his new reptilian coldness, he wouldn’t say that a hard selfishness had come to rule his emotions. It was just that, at this point, he couldn’t let himself collapse into a bundle of vibrating nerves in some corner.
But one painful facet of remorse stayed with him. He would never be able to bear the shame brought on by what he surmised must be that emotion’s origin, the unheeded dictate of an Indian mother. When he told his that he’d be moving to Dubai, she simply said ‘Don’t go.’
1
Just exactly the same as God only knew how many of the eight-hundred-and-some odd sheeple that an article in today’s Emirates Sun said finalized deals with the devil every day and allowed themselves to be hijacked by hype to Dubai – well, the town’s number-one hammour-wrap didn’t frame the situation quite like that – Vivek no longer felt special about what he had thought was his shrewd decision to move there.
And he'd feel lucky if he could regard himself as just an ordinary sap who’d merely been swept into Dubai’s dust cloud of thousands of equally miserably unhappy expats. Like too many of them, after a good amount of time, he’d never landed gainful employment there. He’d become grateful if coins jingled in his pocket. And he felt the relief of someone who’d come eye to eye with a lion and avoided attack when he made it past green-dungareed police who seemed to be everywhere these days. So, just like others in a similar situation were doing during the same sunset that Thursday afternoon in August of two-thousand and seven, he made private acknowledgement of the fact by smoking.
He took a last deep drag and flicked the butt of his Marlboro Red down to the ruddy unnamed street below, in Satwa. His bare thigh pressed against the sooty railing on the second-story balcony of a faded pink concrete walk-up that he shared with nine other bachelors.
Radiohead blared badly You do it to yourself from a cheap set of speakers inside. The corner of his mouth turned up when he recalled that Madam Damn Mad, Amanda, had introduced him to that group as part of her normalization effort. He was so ‘out of it,’ she always said.
Clad in madras boxers and a wife-beater saturated with sweat, Vivek clasped his hands round the railing and leaned forward to peer at the chink of orange from the setting sun as it squeezed between two dust-covered green and gold mirror-clad buildings standing across the street. This was as full a view of the massive orb he would get as it fell into the Arabian Sea, but even this limited view gave Vivek pause for gratitude; he’d have been able to see it in full glory had he lived on The Palm, but at least he wasn’t stuck trying to sell a ‘signature’ villa on one of the sinking fronds, on its stagnant waters.
His attention was drawn to the squeak, squeak, squeak of a rickety bicycle as a Pakistani delivery man pedaled back and forth from the Bait Al Salam Bakery to various apartment buildings.
Presently the rider arrived at the site of his employer and was loading up with more clear plastic bags stuffed with flatbreads.
Vivek could easily see the tiny bakery’s tidy operation through its front window. A third of the shop held a large tandoori oven. Not much more room than that was required for the four-man chamber ensemble working rhythmically together inside.
The player at the furthest end of the building reached into a large white muslin sack. He tore off pieces of sticky dough from the slab held inside, then rolled them into tennis-ball shaped lumps that he rapidly and precisely tossed onto a flour-covered table into neat rows. As quickly as a lump landed, his accompaniest picked up, patted and slapped these into flat rounds that were thrown onto their own small patch of space on the counter. At the same time, the third member of the quartet grabbed these.
He was the virtuoso of the group. Holding one patty-cake in the open palm of his left hand, he reached artfully into the man-hole sized opening at the top of the oven, and gently placed it on the inside of the oven’s rough clay wall.
Vivek noted that as often as he’d seen this symphony performed at similar venues in different parts of the world, he’d never once seen a flat-bread fall into the bottom of a tandoori oven, and burn.
Imperceptibly, as soon as the virtuoso retracted his placing hand, his right hand went in to grasp and remove the swollen golden puffs that were done.
After a stack deflated on the counter in front of the shop window, an apprentice quickly slipped ten into plastic bags that he knotted at the ends.
Presently, the delivery man was hooking several of these onto the handlebars of his bike. As soon as he got on and began riding, the bags swung back and forth and tapped against the guy’s knees as he pedaled. Smack, smack, smack.
Vivek half-watched in the hope that the guy's billowing dingy white salwar trousers might get caught in the chain of his bicycle. But he was denied such divertissement.
But nothing was new on this score. Among Vivek’s greatest frustrations living in Dubai was the fact that he was continuously denied good old-fashioned slapstick-style merriment. It wasn’t the sort of place where the humor of the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges would be understood, much less welcome. People were not of a certain humanizing playful spirit. They’d never get the nuance of the classic thrown cream pie or slippery banana peel. Instead, people raced in cars to get to malls to shop, and to clubs to drink. Wide-eyed and desperate, they’d readily unsheathe their latest credit cards to pay good money for entire sets of flimsy furniture that they believed they needed, immediately, to impress potential guests – they’d never really have. Or they’d purchase rounds of venomous Bullfrogs that only left them and their non-friends buzzed and confused. When they weren’t behind the wheel, their parallel ilk slogged along sidewalks going nowhere.
No mildly rambunctious teen ever went up to a billboard to spray-paint a mustache on the giant face of a glamorous raven-haired model whose wide eyes glared down in mockery of the struggling hoardes below who couldn’t afford the jewelry she was promoting. Neither did any group of pranksters ever surreptitiously dump a box of laundry detergent into the iconic water fountains of the Clock Tower or Emirates Towers. Such acts would have been considered hilarious by folks that Vivek had lived among in Goa, the U.K. or the U.S. But the stuff of simple nonsense was conspicuously absent here, making the place feel further off-key.
From the small tulsi plant that rested crookedly in a pot on a dust-covered chair beside him Vivek, cracked off a yellowing leaf. He crushed it and held the moist bits to his nose. The aroma from something that had cellular activity and that retained a bit of lifewas momentarily soothing and vaguely sustaining. But Vivek’s mind could only be diverted from money- and family-related woes for such mere seconds, mere breaths.
He rubbed the leaf until it was dry and formed tiny pieces, then sprinkled them across the dry soil in the pot. He looked back at the orange slice of sunset. Through smells, sights, and sounds, ultimately only one thing was on Vivek’s mind and that was the social construct for acquiring goods and services, money. And in the mental anxiety that built from his frustrated attempts to get it, he began to mumble out loud, as had become his habit, of late.
‘If you have money you have your shit together, but if you don’t you’re broke. But the mere lack of money – can’t break a person, can it? Why do we use the word broke in reference to lacking money? And why do people tie this mere contrivance to a level of anxiety akin to a life or death matter?’
Noticing the white handprints he'd left behind on the rail as he let go of it, Vivek looked at his filthy hands. He reached up and snatched a shabby T-shirt hanging on the make-shift laundry line above his head, and rubbed and rubbed his hands in it. They wouldn’t come clean.
Vivek was tired. Using the T-shirt, he brushed off the chair and sat down. He closed his eyes and remembered how easily he used to fall into blissful sleep and wake up cheerfully back home in Goa, in Boston, and London. He used to look forward to meeting the ordinary challenges that an ordinary day could bring.
Now ordinary meant twisted. What did they call it on Dr. Phil? Oh yes, a new normal. Maybe that was what he needed to accept – a new normal.
Never.
Vivek managed a wry smile thinking that if the shredded Carole-King tapestry of his life were re-woven right now it'd form the design of a one-million dirham note because that’s what he owed. Then the fucking black hole in the tapestry of his life would be repaired and he could get on with carrying out whatever good deeds he was put on earth to do.
Hundreds of thousands were owed to different people all over the place. With various interest rates heaped on original amounts due, Vivek was fast losing track of the to-whoms and the for-whats and wearied of keeping it all straight.
He wiped the sweat collecting in the creases of his eyelids with the back of a hairy wrist. He then lifted a brown envelope from the table beside him. He read the front: ‘Bur Dubai Police Station Detention Centre – Ladies Section.’
‘Broke. Ha.’ He set the envelope back down, and lit another cigarette. ‘Okay, so broke’s not a fair way of putting it. Who cares? What difference do silly things like semantics make now? Only one thing matters in this place. Only one thing.’
He knew. And, ‘Oh Christ, so did Astrid. My darling pecan-kringle-baking Astrid.’ He picked it up again. He slid his thumb against the flap, opened it, and held the long thin folded cardboard it contained over the street so that he could read the cramped, tiny print on it by the last glimmer of sunlight.
He took a drag, tossed the butt from the balcony, and began.
With God as my witness Vivek, I will never, ever forgive you for the terrible nightmare you’ve put me in. How can you even call yourself a man?! A ‘man’ in his full stereotypical capacity should PROTECT a woman! All you did was clutch your nuts while gathering up your skirt like a frightened school girl and abandon me! To what? To my great fucking new life on the Planet of the Apes!
Vivek stared down at the endless parade of walking dead. It was a sad spectacle, a leaden march of flesh – all in poor posture – in the form of Indians, Chinese, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Somalis, Ethiopians, Philippinos, Russians, and locals. As cars were parked on the sidewalks, the plebian pedestrians ambled dully up and down the center of the street. No pep, vigor or determination was discernible in their attitudes, as is generally the case in other parts of the world – in places where you felt like getting somewhere quickly in order to successfully accomplish the simplest of tasks. ‘Ha! Finishing a task in Dubai?’ The thought was laughable.
Yeah, that’s right. The apes are running the zoo here, Vivek. I am in a cage, sleeping on a floor, sharing filthy mattresses and unwashed blankets with normal people while brutes hold us inside sans paper, pens or books! I’m only writing this – on the inside of an empty juice box – because one girl managed to smuggle a pen in and keep it under her mattress. I’m going to pass this to a friend who will try sneaking it to her visitor on visit day when she gives her a hug and tucks it into the over-sized pocket of her friend’s coat! All of this kind of sneaky stuff has to be carefully planned! I’m afraid I’m going to waste her precious ink on YOU! NO 5-minute phone calls this week! Why? Because two Bengali VICTIMS OF HUMAN-TRAFFICKING who are unable to speak English (advocate for themselves) or afford lawyers OR BE GIVEN GOVERNMENT-APPOINTED ATTORNEYS, were laughing too loudly in the ‘take-food’ line.
A local lady in an abaya dragged her skinny little son along by his delicate wrist. The tot's two elder tween sisters clad in tight jeans and tops but with their hair carefully wrapped in colorful skeins of fabric, ran ahead shouting and laughing at their mother, staying just out of reach of a firm swat, it seemed to Vivek. The mother raised her free arm and pointed at them, scolding, but the girls just kept laughing.
A lime-green sari-ed south Indian mother held up her swaths of silk and Vivek noticed her elephantine ankles and massive sagging belly She plodded behind her crisply pressed slender-belted husband who was holding the hands of their two frail little daughters. The girls were dressed in frilly yellow and pink party dresses. Apart from the fact that the girls had dark skin and straight black bobs, Vivek thought they looked like they'd just walked off the set of a 1950s American TV show. He was at least certain that such was the intended effect of their parents. He appreciated the absurdity.
And get this. Last night a hospital car brought to this dump a Filipina mother of three WITH HER NEWBORN PREEMIE because that preemie – was delivered in the back of an ambulance and she was accused of attempting to commit an abortion! Hospital administrators told her they were certain that she’d attempted to abort it, so they were obligated to bring her to the police station detention center! My God! What is this? She asked them, well, if that were true, then why was it the case then that she bothered phoning an ambulance as she began to deliver?! Wouldn’t it have been more the abortion style to deal with it in her bathtub??? But they told her they could ‘just tell’! I don’t have time to go on and on about all the garbage and crap that I’m witnessing here, Vivek, but where? To whom am I to go with all these stories?
Where was everyone going? To the corner grocer’s to buy little cartons of strawberry milk and KitKats, sure. Vivek found it intriguing that every breed of human in the check-out line at the corner grocery bought these same colorful, crappy combinations. Pringles, Koka, and mango mazza were other popular must-haves.
The really hungry set pulled their cars up to the only available parking space in front of Abu’s Jerusalem of the Gold to pick up take-away tinfoil trays stuffed to their cardboard tops with chicken or mutton biriyani.
A taxi brought a drunken tourist here! A taxi! The cab driver was a CID (criminal investigation department) informer! She said the driver picked her up from the Crown Star - a 5-star hotel - where she’d been out at a bar with friends, and then stepped outside to catch a cab to go home. It’s the right thing to do, as we all know, to grab a cab after drinking – but as it’s against the law to BECOME DRUNK, she was brought in! She said she was just happy! Not fighting, not beating up guests in the hotel lobby – just happy and laughing with friends! She didn’t even know where she’d been brought, as this dump’s not well marked from the streets. I asked her why she didn’t just run away once she got here, but she said that by the time she realized she was in a police station parking lot, the taxi was suddenly surrounded by cops! One of them hand-cuffed her and dragged her in for a blood test. They even had the nerve to ask her if she was a prostitute! Now her only hope of getting out of here is to get a MAN to voluntarily submit his passport to the court as a surety that she'll stick around before and during the months of court proceedings due to follow.
Middle-aged British women wearing frumpy skirts that exposed and heels that drew attention to their heavy legs stomped from fabric to fabric shop. They by-passed bolts of lime green swirling with red and orange spattered with pink, and black and white flecked with yellow to find something Laura Ashley, and cheap.
Outside one shop, three Philippino guys were draping thin sheets of barely transparent and barely legal black plastic across the insides of car windows.
Great! Sure, as she’s a tourist, she doesn’t actually KNOW anybody to even make such a request. She’s going up to everyone in the jail asking if they know anyone who might put up a passport with the court on her behalf. Of course, no one will. It’s crazy here, Vivek. But I think I’m on to something. There is NO help given to detainees so they can GET OUT – like rarely a phone call and then only after business hours. No access to phone numbers in our mobiles – because they immediately confiscate them as soon as anyone’s hauled in.
Children darted everywhere. Two were standing between cars parked on the sidewalks and three were kicking a ball in an alley. It always surprised Vivek that despite the dire economics of the area, Muslims and Hindus – who comprised eighty-percent of the UAE's population – insisted on having large families, indeed, insisted on having children, at all.
Who would win this baby race – this unspoken quest to dominate the earth? Looking at the spindly calves and protruding clavicles of the teenaged boys scraping a cricket game together on the side of the street, Vivek felt that the joy of having a child couldn’t possibly have been the primary emotion sustained during their conception.
Those who manage to round up a lawyer, are not able to meet frequently or in private with those lawyers. What could be the possible benefit for keeping people in and for as long as possible? What is Dubai all about? MONEY. Somebody has to keep all these stupid jail people employed or they’ll be out on the streets making the most trouble! Right? Because nothing is more dangerous than ignorance and poverty. BUT dammit I don’t want to talk about other social evils or other people’s problems! As you well know I’ve got ENOUGH OF MY FUCKING own problems now don’t I, Vivek? GET ME OUT OF HERE!
Astrid - 'DISASTER' (Remember?)
Vivek knew that he had never been among a more dour collection of miserable ex-pat mugs that comprised the ugly face of Dubai.
Vivek heaved from the table and held up to the last vestige of sunset a bottle of Black Label. He unscrewed its cap and in a mock toast announced, ‘Here’s to you, Astrid. Sorry there’s not a damn thing I can do for you at the moment, kid.’ He took a swig, closed his eyes and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He took another gulp and then crushed the letter, packing into a tight ball. He set down the bottle, took aim and whipped the missile as hard as he could at the back of the head of the cycling bread guy. At the sound of the smack, Vivek grinned and ducked before the guy could turn around and peg him as the culprit who’d thrown it. When he was sure from the fading squeak that the coast was clear, he stood up and banged his head on the air conditioner unit jutting out from the balcony wall.
‘Fucking hell!’ Vivek pounded his fist on the hunk of metal.
In a series of jerking and lifting motions, he opened the patio door just wide enough to wedge himself inside, and went to his room, to bed.
2
‘Vivekkk!’ his mother had whispered in his ear.
It was during the farewell, bon voyage brunch that she and his father had thrown for him in the main hall of their resort in Goa.
Two years had passed since that afternoon. She had been seated to his left at his place at the head of the table of a dozen or so jocular friends and relatives who’d gathered to wish him well on the simultaneous occasions of his twenty-fifth birthday and impending departure to the magical Emirate.
‘That part of the world has not yet fully evolved! It is wrong for you to believe that you will progress there or find success, as you call it.’
In his attempt to empty his mind in order to relax and get badly needed sleep, Vivek winced at the intrusion of this unhelpful memory. He lay on his back and draped a forearm across his eyes as he recalled having felt quite smart when he volleyed back with the old expression patent nonsense.
Rolling onto his stomach, Vivek wondered what use it was to suddenly vividly remember that or even the other meaningless bits from that night, like how the left front leg of his chair was shorter than the others, causing him to plant his feet uncomfortably firmly to prevent anyone at the restaurant noticing his rocking.
And his cousin Manjula, ensconced in that elaborate gold sari while tramping about in those ridiculous rhinestone-studded sandals. What was she trying to prove? And wasn’t it odd that since she had gone to that level of garishness, that she hadn’t bothered, like most women would have, to wear earrings?
‘Who cares?’ he said into his pillow. What difference did it make that when he chanced to look up at the ceiling while sipping feni, that he’d detected a large water stain there?
‘God stop this useless, endless stream of rubbish, already!’
‘What is it Vivek?’ his flatmate asked.
‘Sorry Rajesh. Don’t mind me.’
‘You okay?’
‘Raj, I just pray that at the end, God will be kind enough to at least make my final thoughts on this earth less meaningless than the the ones I’m having right now.’ He clutched the upper corners of his mattress and stretched the length of his body and whispered ‘Good Lord!’
Interwoven with Vivek’s random disjointed memories of the event threaded vague hopes that, as hopeless and frightening as his life had since become, it still held a multitude of opportunities. It had to be possible that he could amass anew, pleasant experiences that later would become the happy memories that would override the mundane likes of these.
But throughout this mental game spun dark concerns that never failed to snarl up on Vivek’s sharp regret that he hadn’t tried harder to understand what his mother was trying to say that night. He might have listened to her more carefully or at least looked more deeply into her eyes to grasp and accordingly properly react to the pure raw wisdom that underlay all she’d been trying to convey.
Then again, he thought, as he opened his eyes and stared vacantly up in the dark at the scabby ceiling, his failure to fully get it might not have been entirely his fault. Perhaps she had been intentionally unclear. Sure, it was possible. Why not look at it that way and let yourself off the hook, Vivek? He asked himself. If she had really wanted him to understand and to do her bidding, she would have backed up her comments with concrete examples. Otherwise, why did she tell him in less than certain terms to not come to this God-forsaken place?
Of course, during that farewell brunch they were duty-bound to give primary attention to their guests. They could hardly have engaged in an even moderately thorough discussion about anything personal, much less that of what Vivek believed she’d always attributed her cautions to – ancient teachings of gurus.
Give me a break, he’d think, whenever she said it. Even now, lying there, he sighed and shook his head as he thought of it.
Considering the unfavorable timing of her tirade, he was at an even greater disadvantage than usual.
The gathering was held at The Ambrosia, in the main club house of the Vasco de Gama Hotel & Resort, that his family had owned in Goa, for donkey’s years. His father’s golden rule for the family whenever they milled about anywhere on its ‘serene grounds’ was to always appear delighted and be delightful. In any case, Vivek always knew that there was never a good time to launch into what he knew would become an un-winnable argument with his mother, as long as she cleaved to her singular perspective on cultural history.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Vivek’s uncle Pravin drew everyone’s attention, providing the celebrant with a welcome distraction.
His mother’s elder brother stepped to Vivek’s right. He placed his left hand on Vivek’s shoulder and with the other raised a crystal flute filled with the cashew liquer. ‘On this auspicious occasion, I would like to propose a toast to our fine young man.’
‘Hear, hear!’ cheered the colorful group of his other uncles, aunties, cousins, and friends.
Compared to them, Pravin held the most commanding presence if only because of his distinguished look. His light wool charcoal suit, heavy-framed bi-focals, and balding pate feathered with white contrasted with the colorful satin frocks donned by the ladies, khaki and linen suits worn by the men, and the glossy amla oil-treated ink black hair of all – even if dyed that way – Vivek thought.
That Pravin had paved his own way toward becoming a prominent diamond manufacturer lent additional gravitas to the affair.
‘As you are all mightily aware, this fine day marks not only Vivek’s twenty-seventh birthday, which means that he is on the cusp of a bright future that through hard work, strong will, enduring patience, and a good heart will undoubtedly bring pride to his parents and all others who love him as much as we do, including those who could not be here with us today.’ As Pravin looked up to the heavens, the rest of the group looked at their empty plates. ‘It also marks the occasion of his impending foray overseas. In this venture, we wish him well and trust that God will continue to watch over him and guide him to make wise decisions that bring him much happiness. Oh! And did I mention prosperity? Yes, money! A lot of money! That would be nice, too! Eh, Vivek?’ Uncle Pravin nudged his nephew and patted him warmly on the back.
All laughed, added another round of ‘hear hear,’ and then whispered among themselves that it was actually Vivek’s twenty-fifth birthday, but it wouldn’t be right to correct Uncle so, never mind.
‘But, in all seriousness,’ his uncle continued, ‘we hope that Vivek experiences continued joy and care such as that which has been lovingly bestowed upon him by having taken birth through his dear parents, my sister Leena and kind and generous brother-in-law … um …’
‘Luis!’ Vivek’s cousin Manjula, seated to Vivek’s right, covered her mouth with her napkin in hand as she reminded her father of the name of his sister’s husband.
‘Luis!’ he loudly added, generating a politely quiet collective sigh of relief. ‘So then, good luck to you Vivek! All the best!’
‘Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray!’ All held up their glasses in a toast and quickly imbibed the nutty concoction.
Manjula leaned behind her father to tug on Vivek’s sleeve to get her cousin’s attention. ‘Sorry about him,’ she whispered. ‘I’m afraid he’s really starting to lose it!’
‘Shh!’ Vivek cautioned. ‘No worries!’
Vivek smiled lightly and looked down as he quickly slid his manicured finger along a permanent crease in the gray table cloth. He straightened his silver silk necktie at the collar of his immaculate white shirt, not so much as a reflection of nervous modesty but out of pure social embarrassment; he’d always found the archaic Colonial-era carryover hip hips to be more tiresome than the hear hears.
Managing a grin, Vivek slid back from his chair, lifted the napkin from his dark trousers, set it on the table and rose, as appropriate, to respond in cornball kind.
‘My dear Uncle Pravin, thank you. Mother, father, treasured relatives, and special guests.’ Vivek bowed, and the group laughed merrily at his affected formality. ‘Your loving, comforting presence here today brings an indescribable peace and sense of gratitude to me and my parents. I want you all to know, from the depth of my heart, that I shall always carry the memory of your smiles and kind wishes while doing my best to achieve all my goals in Dubai – including financial – eh uncle?’ He winked and wrapped an arm round his uncle. With the other he raised his glass. ‘Cheers!’
Amid the laughter, clinking of glasses, and gay banter, strolling Goan musicians played lively Portuguese melodies. As soon as they hit they strummed their first chords, his mother continued her private rant.
‘You must accept, Vivek, that that region of the world itself has always been the most deeply troubled part of the planet and always will be! Forget about all these differences in culture and religion and what-not. No,’ she scolded, ‘this is not the problem with that region. It doesn’t matter who is living there or what they believe. The problem is the vortex! If you go there you’ll be looking for a way out. You’ll be looking for a window, but,’ she waved her finger, ‘you will not find one!’
‘Pictures everyone! Smile Vivek! Say cheeeeese!’
Vivek and his mother huddled together and grinned for his cousin Ruthie.
‘Everybody, come on! Stand up! Over here everyone!’
Amid the classic groaning mixed with laughter in the embarrassment of being photographed, cousins and aunties made way for Vivek and his parents to step forward front and center to stand in front of a peeling muralof a Goa seascape that served as a scenic focal point at the back of the hall.
Returning to the dining table, for the sake of his dear guests, Vivek maintained the charade.
As he cheerfully passed with his right hand a platter of jackfruit and lime sambal, he patted with his left the back of his mother’s soft fleshy right hand, adorned as it had been for as long as he could remember with a gold ring that held a five-carat yellow sapphire. Properties of that particular gem, she believed, enhanced her health and increased her chances for living safely and with general prosperity. ‘You know, mother,’ he said smiling amid the chatter, ‘about that vortex. I certainly will keep it in mind.’ He gave her a peck on the cheek and a quiet reminder: ‘Of course,’ he leaned toward her, whispering into a crescendo, ‘you acknowledge the fact that Uncle Pravin has been living in Dubai and running a successful business there for the past twenty-five years!’
‘Yes, that’s right, Vivek,’ she retorted. ‘But is he happy?’ She peeled and popped into her mouth a tiny golden physalis, ‘No!'
As it had been understood by his courteous guests that Vivek would depart early the next morning, none remained beyond dusk. Besides, he wouldn’t be moving that far away. There was no need for any drama of endless, weepy faretheewells. An hour following the serving of his favorite cake that hinted of ginger and that was slathered with a delicate lime frosting, Vivek warmly embraced and thanked each of them for coming.
Afterward, Vivek stood between and wrapped his arms round his mother and father. They walked slowly together along the winding path of finely crushed coffee bean shells to their white villa that stood nestled in a private area of the charming Portuguese-styled compound. Along the way, they passed the white stucco guest houses sporting arched porticos, past flowering mango trees, softly spreading orange mimosa and sweetly scented pink flowers bursting from the twisting branches of frangipani. Purple sunbirds and green bee eaters darted delicately.
The resort had been established as an escape for visitors to the enchanting historically rich Indian state, by Vivek’s father's father, Aloyisius. Aloyisius had secured a secluded inlet of the oceanfront that, at that moment, commanded them to pause.
Vivek and his parents stepped quietly up onto the wide white veranda of their home. The day’s massive, orange sun was sinking slowly into a slate sea against a sky that seemed washed with the pink and yellow flesh of a fresh plum.
‘On such a beautiful evening as this, Vivek,’ Vivek’s father always spoke English in a slow and sedate manner that hinted of his Konkani accent, ‘it is my fervent hope that you always count your home and this life we have given you as a blessing. Your grandfather worked hard to build this, this humble empire,’ he laughed. ‘And your mother and I have worked very hard to maintain it all – just for you.’
‘That’s right, Vivek,’ his mother chirped, ‘and someday your children will enjoy it, as well! But, that’s only going to happen if we all work together to keep it this way!’
Vivek set his hand on the gleaming brass handles on the dark wood of the heavy double doors, intricately carved with flowers and fauna.
‘Listen, understand,’ Vivek began, as he pulled them open, ‘it isn’t only this home – it’s, it’s everything that you both have provided. I am incredibly, indescribably grateful for all you've given and I’m thankful to have been brought up here. You know that.’ Anticipating their additional cautions, Vivek took a deep breath, held the door open for his fretful parents and followed them into the marble entryway. ‘And, yes, Mama, certainly, I suppose, somewhere down the line I guess I can imagine a few little ones scampering about this place. You're right, that'd be nice.’
‘Nice?! It would be ideal!’
‘Yes. Agreed. Ideal!’
'But still you can't wait to go to this Dubai!'
‘Mother, you’re nearly spitting your words out! It’s so unlike you!’
'Of course!'
‘We desire paradise and dream of Eden,' she said, 'but stand and see!’
‘Mother?’
‘Dubai.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s a damn desert, and spirits die in it!’
‘Mother!’
‘Spend time in Spain, in Paris! Pander to your spirit, Vivek, and end this idea. It's a spartan spree!’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I don’t know, Vivek. I only know that I have to say these words. That you have to listen to these words.’
‘Vivek,’ his father chimed in.
‘Just to have grown up able to enjoy this, this Goa, a precious bit of a real paradise that's right here – well, only this should you regard as a blessing,’ he added, looking at the sky as he closed the doors. ‘And realize, Vivek, that no mere human can give such a wonderful thing as this to anybody. This is God-given Vivek, and it's yours, now!’
‘Listen, both of you, I think I can’t make myself any more clear. I adore and appreciate the place.’
‘Oh,Vivek.’ His mother patted the side of his face. ‘Appreciation is good, but I’m talking about things far beyond that. You must recognize what lies behind the mysteries of this universe and, I might add miseries that can be presented to us in our lifetimes.’
‘Um, well, okay, Mom. Now things are starting to really get weird. Help me out here, Papa!’
‘Vivek!’ His mother continued. ‘Your father can add nothing to the facts that are already before us! Anyone who has lived a little, knows that no matter how hard one works or how good one is, there are forces at work in this world that can converge to make even the simplest things impossible.’
She held up her palms, and as Vivek had seen and heard countless times before, she closed her eyes and announced ‘Praise God.’
Instinctively, Vivek reached into his coat pocket to remove the day’s accumulated detritus, which today included receipts for his new iPod and CDs of Amr Diab and Nancy Ajram.
Upon purchasing the discs of these immensely popular Middle Eastern recording artists, Vivek was contented believing that he was up on the latest in the Arab pop world.
On the small side table, he set down a few newly collected business cards, including one from his Uncle Pravin. From his trouser pocket he retrieved his Blackberry and set of keys and placed them into a tray set just to the right of his mother’s antique ivory carving of Ganesha. It’d always pained him to look at the elephant’s chipped trunk. He’d accidentally knocked it off the table with his soccer ball, as a child. When it happened, he told his mother and she came to survey the damage. She said nothing, but merely ran her hand across Vivek’s brow. The tiny sculpture’s standing there broken day after day ever since, always reminded him of his mother’s patience and tolerance.
Vivek noticed his mobile, set on silent, was blinking with the announcement of a call, but he chose to ignore it.
Vivek looked up and glanced at his reflection in the woven reed-framed mirror above the table. His brow lifted. He was startled noting how much he’d begun to resemble his father – whose reflection he watched as the old man – as Vivek had long characterized him – locked the door behind them. Vivek and his father shared the same coppery complexion, chiseled cheekbones, dimpled chin, and even brow. But Vivek’s hair wasn’t as tightly curled. His had the softer lilt and sheen of his mother’s mane. Consequently, he noted, he always had to keep it gooped up or continually lift it from his eyes.
He glanced at his mother’s profile as she paid attention to her husband locking the door. Her tiny nose and pursed lips made her appear perpetually like a little girl, but he was never deceived by that illusion. In the stern cast of her brow, the lofty aspect of her intelligence shone through.
To Vivek, the petite, plump woman had always been a force of sorts. Her bright smile was set off by the saffron-colored chiffon scarf of her salwar kameez that brightened their united image in the mirror. ‘My son grows more handsome every day, doesn’t he, Papa?’ she said, grasping Vivek’s arm and pressing the side of her face into his sleeve.
‘Aw, now, Mum,’ Vivek waved a finger in mockery, ‘not even the grandest compliment will deter me, you know.’
She pouted and raised her chin. The simple move caused the lids of her eyes to lower. There was that ruthless little girl again. He decided to recover her fairer humor with a bit of well-intentioned teasing. ‘I mean, good heavens,’ he laughed. ‘Just think about it! Everything that you’ve told me tonight, Mum, is just so much hocus-pocus, balderdash, and outright poppycock!’
‘What are you saying, Vivek?’
‘Well, don’t you think it’s absurd to suggest that any part of the world is in some kind of a warp or something? Because that is precisely what you are suggesting!’
Vivek gently placed a hand against the slightly sloping backs of his parents and began guiding them toward the kitchen where their discussions about the most mundane and substantive matters had taken place through the years. ‘Mum, this sort of supernatural notion you have simply isn’t based on evidence. Besides, come on, everyone’s heard about it in the news, just look at how Dubai itself has evolved.’
‘Oh Vivek, please,’ his father said, ‘let’s give it a rest. Can’t we just enjoy what remains of the evening?’
‘But Pop, I think it best that we clear the air and finish this discussion once and for all, right now. I can’t just leave tomorrow thinking that mother will be here wringing her hands over my decision for days or weeks or months after I’ve gone.’
‘What is it, Vivek?’ his father asked. ‘Why do you want to upset your mother like this, going on and on?’
‘Pop!’ Vivek cried, now laughing with frustration. ‘Help me out here, man! I hardly think that I’m upsetting her. I’m sorry to say that it’s quite the other way round! Mum’s gone off again on her weird mystic meanderings.’
Looking at his father’s long face, Vivek suddenly had a flashback to one of those sad, quiet evenings his father had spent at their kitchen table wondering how he could expand the resort to accommodate more guests, whose cash was required to fund Vivek’s education.
In response to that crisis, his mother came up with an idea that they implemented.
She thought of setting up what she called rough huts. The rough huts could house small groups of friends or families in a dirt-cheap casual atmosphere that would be fun. Vivek’s father went for the idea. Little money was required to build the humble bungalows that provided neither AC nor TV, but that could easily sleep up to a dozen college kids on rollaway beds. Students from all over the world had always adored Goa for its serene beaches, safety, lax laws, and cultural offerings. Those kids didn’t want five-star accommodations with room service, they wanted to toss a Frisbee, drink beer, grill the catch of the day, party, and crash.
So, ten huts were built on their grounds. Vivek recalled that when packs of friends or groups on cultural tours started filling them, it was the first time he heard his father really compliment his mother. The three of them had been standing together outside as together they quietly observed with a shared sense of sweet business-sense success a team of boisterous American skateboarders, who shared one of the huts. The guys ran out to the beach after a steamy afternoon of ‘shredding’ the town’s already worn curbs. ‘Vivek,’ his father said at the time, ‘your mother is a genius!’
The three of them stepped into the kitchen. The room was charming for the small, hand-painted peach and blue floral-patterned tiles set intermittently into its ivory-colored walls. Intricately scrolling black wrought-iron grate work at each window gave a weighty sense of protection. A thick teakwood cross hanged against the apex of an arched passageway leading to the bolted back door. Vivek offered his mother her usual seat at the round tangaloa wood table.
‘You know, Mum, I don’t want to sound like I’m reading from a travel brochure, but I’ve done my research. You already know all of this. We’ve been over and over it. But I will tell you this, within only thirty years, Dubai’s changed from what most would describe as a barbaric nomadic wasteland where, where – well, you know – where people obviously cooked fish by burying them in hot sand. Now it’s a veritable Oz where chefs are flown in from places like Nice to prepare elaborate meals for kings at fabulous five-star hotels visited by the likes of Elton John and Shakira!
‘Sha-who-a?’
‘You know that I don’t mean to be confrontational, but your suggestion that an entire region could suffer from something like, I don’t know, whatever it is you mean – weird vibes, bad energy, or an unfortunate alignment of the stars – is utterly baseless, especially when the world acknowledges that what’s going on in Dubai is phenomenal!’
‘My dear young man, do you believe that only guns, germs, and steel, or climate, greed, love and fear shape our world?’
‘Well …’
‘You are too much a student of the hard sciences.’
‘Yes, to the limited extent that one is merely able to understand natural phemomena and forces.’
‘Do you think you can suspend your need for evidence, to believe that hurricanes exist even where we cannot see them?’
‘Oh! Now we’re delving into koans, is it?’ He laughed. ‘We can’t disprove that a tree doesn’t hear our clapping, right?’
‘How am I to confirm for you,’ she slammed her hand on the table, ‘to get you to acknowledge that the physical representations around us are not all that there is about this life! Not all that is manifested is all that exists!’
‘When people describe the working atmosphere of a place they’re not generally referring to Age-of-Aquarius nonsense about the universe so let’s face facts related to the matter at hand, shall we? People from all over the world are making their way to Dubai to work and they're building productive, interesting lives. I’m sorry, but I cannot believe that however well-intentioned you might be, that you’re going on like this the day before I leave.’
‘Vivek, references to time have no place in our discussion, which is ultimately about your life. Love has no dimension so our love for you has no dimension. What do your father and I care about one day, one hour or one minute? We have and have only ever had your best interests at heart. This is why I am warning you, now!’
‘Well, fine! But about what?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I may not hold a sheepskin, Vivek, but I know something about this world.’
‘Listen, trust me, I take nothing away from your valuable life experiences, Mum, you know that.’
‘Well, thank you for that much, at least. I know this isn’t easy for you, for most, really, to grasp, but you are not among the most, Vivek. You are special. But I must say that I am very sorry that I lack the vocabulary, the mot juste is it, to describe what I desperately wish we had words to convey. The problem is that, in this world, because everybody wants physical evidence to prove this and that about everything, we end up putting great faith into the essentially ineffective words we have that merely describe that which can be recognized as a physical property. So, as a result …’
‘What?’
‘Everybody fools themselves into believing that they are so damn smart.’
‘Well, that’s all we have is the physical on which to base evidence.’
‘How very simplistic of everyone, isn’t it, Vivek? Isn’t that really taking the easiest route?’
‘Easy? Well, observation might be easy, but documenting evidence based on observable facts might take time, and is frequently quite difficult and darn time consuming.’
Vivek eyes widened. He leaned forward and snorted ‘I’ve never heard nor read nor studied anything so preposterous!’
‘Oh Vivek, can’t you just make your mother happy,’ his father added. ‘You know I’m the one who’s going to have to be living with her after you conveniently prance away.’
‘Vivek,’ his mother continued, ‘please accept that just as arise from the convergence of heat and cold, unobservable but dangerous phenomena lurk in the energy surrounding us. Just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.’
‘And just because we don’t hear the energy laughing, doesn’t mean that it isn’t,’ his father added.
The housekeeper entered and served a glass of water to each of them, then quietly left the room.
‘You know, it strikes me as odd,’ Vivek said, ‘that neither of you seemed worried when I left for school in Boston. I don’t recall your having expressed the slightest sense of alarm then – and yet, looking back, I think that you would have been well within your right to have done so. Outside of class, I lived in the midst of a rough and rowdy free-for-all, anything-goes zoo, actually. I witnessed a hell of a lot of drinking and fighting and even a gunfight! Yes, I did, I was standing at the counter of a Kwikee Mart buying a one-pound sack of peanut M&Ms to help me get through an all-nighter studying for a physics exam the next day, when suddenly a gunfight broke out right outside the door of the place!’
‘That was different,’ his mother responded, placing a tempering hand against her husband’s. ‘Those were merely life experiences.’
‘Merely?’
‘Yes.’
‘Vivek,’ his father interjected in a grave tone. His khaki slacks and blue shirt gave him a casual air but his wiry salt-and-pepper hair and furrowed brow leant solemnity. He stood up and stepped behind Vivek’s chair. His placed a hand on his son's shoulder. Vivek sat up straight and braced himself for this anticipated rambling harangue. Vivek reached his right hand up, smiled, and placed his hand atop his father’s.
‘Dad?’
‘No matter what your mother or I tell you, Vivek, you are free to do whatever you want, as you are certainly old enough to make your own decisions. Nevertheless, as I have said many times before, I think it would be best, and, quite frankly, I would prefer that you stay here at home.’
‘Pop, we’ve been all over this already.’
‘I know. I know. But just remember, you can always come home to help me run this place. But,’ he continued, ‘if you feel you must leave then you should go. ‘It isn’t always easy for me, but I manage. As long as I remain able-bodied and of sound mind, I suppose that I can wait for your help but …’
As Vivek heard his father drone on and on, he brought his hands to his brow, rubbed his palms against his closed eyes and silently sighed. Vivek was never surprised to hear the old man focus, as usual, only on the impact that Vivek’s decisions would have on the rest of them, especially on the family business.
The mood in the room was stifling. It occurred to Vivek that along with the scent of coconut, ginger, and Burberry’s Woody Amber emanating from his skin, he could also smell his own guilt. In the middle of his father’s oratory, Vivek rose and stepped to one of the windows and opened it. Standing with his back to his parents before the open air he closed his eyes, wondering how many times he had enjoyed the feel of that same soft sea breeze against his forehead, the lids of his eyes, his face. He opened his mouth and let the fresh sea air bathe his throat and deeply enter his lungs.
‘And so,’ his father continued increasingly more loudly, holding firm to the same track, ‘we want you to take this money to use as you see fit.
In the reflection of the window against the dark night sky, Vivek saw his father set a white envelope on the table. His father looked down at the table, his expression drawn and tired.
‘Since you are keen to apply what you learned in school, and you want to experience for yourself the way that large corporations work, then I will take comfort in two things – which brings me back to your mother’s concerns.’
Vivek closed the window and faced him.
‘First,’ his father continued, ‘I have peace of mind knowing that we have taught you to recognize the difference between doing right and wrong, Second, I take comfort knowing that your mother has done her best to make you aware of the forces of good and evil.’
Vivek leaned against the counter and crossed his feet. He pressed together the tips of his fingertips and bent thumbs and framed his eyes through this pretend lens in a fashion that a child might effect.
Viewing his parents through a tunnel brought to mind a flurry of predominant images. Throughout his life he’d recalled the weeping Virgin Mary pasted in the front cover of his Sunday School hymnal, the smooth ivory carving of the suffering Jesus on the cross at Gesu Church, the Siva-Linga at the temple, Saraswahti the goddess of wisdom dressed in a white sari serenely sitting cross-legged in a white lotus in the alcove, Vishnu the multi-armed lord of protection on a bookshelf, and the beautiful Lakshmi, possessor of wealth resting on the TV, came in and out of his consciousness.
‘I give you my every confidence,’ his father continued. ‘I have no doubt that in order to keep yourself safe and well, you will always do the needful.’
With this, what seemed to Vivek to finally be a concluding remark, the room became oppressive. Vivek looked quizzically into their faces. He sensed his release from their cloying oversight and refrained from smiling too broadly.
‘Well! Rightio then! Vivek, clapped his hands together. Having a buoyant sense of freedom in the form of parental approval already began to make his journey that much easier. ‘Thank you, Pop!’ Vivek walked over to, and then wrapped his arms around his father and then his mother. ‘You know, both of you should just take it easy. Honestly, what could possibly go wrong? It’s not like I’m going to end up so desperate that I’ll wind up in prison like Billy Hayes, for crying out loud!’ He laughed.
‘Vivek!’ his mother exclaimed, ‘please do not think or say anything negative! You’ll send out bad energy. This is not the way!’
‘Sorry Mum, really. Pop, I’m sure that I will eventually help with the resort, it’s just that, right now I want to allay mother’s concerns which I think are, well, strange. Honestly, Mum, unless you can give me a clear idea of what you’re talking about – something that I can weigh and consider and wrap my head around, as they say – well, I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m afraid that I’ll be getting on my Emirates flight tomorrow with great enthusiasm and nary a doubt about what I’ll be able to accomplish there.’
‘Hah! That is easy to say, Vivek, but just you remember what happened to poor Vinod!’
She had to spoil his lifted mood by bringing up this nimrod again. Vivek sat down and slumped into his chair resting his head against its back. He folded his hands on the table and crossed his feet at the ankles and waited for her to finish the sad saga of Vinod.
‘You remember! That nice boy was promised a good job doing carpentry with one of those big construction companies, and then? The brokers who promised to arrange his trip took his five-thousand dollars. Then they held his passport until he paid them back! They lied to him, Vivek!’ She slapped her hand down on the table. ‘And it was a good thing that his auntie found a way to bring him back. The smart thing though, was that the minute he got into difficulty he went directly to the consulate and those people called his mother. She told me that ever since he returned, he has never again even thought about returning to that place.’