I am floating between dream and wakefulness in my cozy treehouse nestled high in the canopy of a misty rain forest when he murmurs, “You’re so beautiful with your hair over your face.”
I smile and bid him a Guten morgen. Ulrich—I like the full feel of that German name in my mouth, the melodious lilt, and I definitely appreciate the warm masculine body, its sculpted hardness visible beneath the sheets. He stretches an arm toward me, as if about to say or do something intimate, then closes his eyes and allows his arm to drop. I snuggle up against him, savoring the musky sweet skin, on a morning so different from others. Usually I rise at dawn, slip into my greenhouse, and appraise the overnight progress of the seedlings.
If my mother were to peek in at this instant, she would draw a corner of her sari over her mouth to stifle a scream.
“Sin!” she’d say. “My twenty-five-year-old unmarried girl is living in sin!”
Fortunately, she’s half a world away in India.
And I’m not in my treehouse, but rather in the bedroom of my bungalow in Wallingford, a.k.a. the Garden District of Seattle.
Next door the Labrador retriever barks. Never before have I invited a man home on the first encounter and I’m unnerved by my daring. If my friends could see me now, they’d exclaim in disbelief, A shy thing like you?
The silky, iris-patterned linen sheets are bunched up. He sleeps more messily than I, but for some reason I like the rumpled look. Last night’s coupling, with its wild tumbling and thrusting—I wouldn’t exactly call it lovemaking—has put me into deep communion with my body, and also taken me a bit out of my zone. My lips are dry and puffy from a surfeit of kissing.
The man beneath the blanket turns his blond head, nuzzles the pillow, regards me with his green eyes, then looks at the clock on the lamp stand. “Eight-thirty?” He throws the blanket aside and bolts from the bed. “Ach, I’m supposed to be at work by 7.”
An engineer by training, he works in construction, a choice he’s made to get away from “wallowing in my head.” So, he happily hammers nails all day, fixing roofs, patios, kitchens, and basements. Siegfried, his German shepherd, always goes along.
I point out the bathroom across the hallway. He scrambles in that direction, mumbling to himself in his native tongue. A sliver of sun is visible through a crack in the window draperies. I can tell from its position that the morning has passed its infancy, the galaxy has inched on to a new position, and I’ve already missed a thing or two.
I hoist myself up from my nest. My toes curl in protest at the first touch of the cold hardwood floor. I stoop to retrieve a pair of soft-soled wool slippers from under the nightstand.
Then I look for my clothes. The long-sleeved print dress I wore last evening—a tantrum of wildflowers—lies on the floor, all tangled up with my bra and panties and Ulrich’s charcoal jeans. Crossing the room, I rummage around in the closet, grab a pewter-gray bathrobe, and wrap it around me.
As I fluff the pillows, I hear the sounds of water splashing in the sink, and snatches of a German song. A peek through the draperies reveals a quick change of weather—a bruised, swollen April sky.
The jangling of the telephone startles me. Not fair, this intrusion. If it’s Kareena on the line, I’ll whisper: Met a cool Deutsche last night . . . We’re just out of bed. I know, I know, but this one is . . . Look, I’ll call you back later, okay?
Tangles of long hair drown my vision; I reach for the receiver. This is what a plant must feel like when it’s uprooted.
“Palette of Color. Mitra Basu speaking, how can I help you?” Plants are my refuge, my salvation and, fortuitously, my vocation.
“Veen here.” The downturn in her voice doesn’t escape me. Vivacious and well-connected, architect by profession, Veenati is an important part of my social circle. “Have you heard from Kareena recently?”
“Not in a week or so. Why? Has something happened to her?”
“She didn’t show up for coffee this morning. I called her home. Adi said she’s missing.”
“Missing? Since when?”
“Since the night before last. I was just checking to see if she’d contacted you. I’m late for work. Let’s talk in about an hour.”
“Wait—”
Click. Veen has hung up. This is like a dreadful preview of a hyperkinetic action flick. How could Kareena be missing? She’s a people person, well respected in our community for her work with abused women. Although we’re not related, Kareena is my only “family” in this area, not to mention the closest confidante I’ve had since leaving home. A word from my youth, shoee, friends of the heart, hums inside me. I’m badly in need of explanation to keep my imagination from roaring out of control.
A vase of dried eucalyptus sits on the accent table. Kareena had once admired that fragrant arrangement—she adores all objects of beauty. Now she, a beautiful soul, has been reported missing. Wish I’d pressed her to take the risks of her profession more seriously. Don’t use your last name. Take a different route home every day. Always let somebody know where you are.
Ulrich is back. “Everything okay?”
“A friend is missing.” I make the statement official-sounding, while glancing at the window, and hope he won’t probe further. I’m of the opinion that intimacy has its limits. In the cold clarity of the morning, it discomfits me that I, a private person, have already shared this much with him.
Standing so close to me that I can smell the sweat of the night on his skin, he dresses hurriedly. I linger on his muscles. His large fingers fumble with the buttons of his muted blue shirt and a thin lower lip pouts when he struggles to insert a recalcitrant button in its hole. He wiggles into his jeans and throws on his herringbone jacket. Then he draws me closer with an eager expression and cups my face in his hands. I grow as still as I’ve ever been. He gives me a short warm kiss which softens my entire midsection. The hum in the air is like static electricity crackling.
Will I ever see him again? Coming from nowhere, the morbid thought slaps me on the forehead, but I recover quickly and my attention stretches back to Kareena. She could have gone somewhere for a breather from the daily battles she fights on her clients’ behalf.
“I want to stay here with you,” Ulrich says, “but…”
Modulated by his accent, the word want, or vant, hints at delicious possibilities for another time. I look up at his pale-skinned round face, and I really do have to look up, for he’s a good nine inches taller. I struggle with words to convey my feelings, to put a lid on my concerns about Kareena, but stay mute.
“Catch you this evening,” he murmurs.
As we walk to the doorway, our arms around each other, a yen to entice him to stay steals into my consciousness. I smother the impulse. Self-mastery is a trait I’ve inherited from my mother. (She denies herself pleasure of all sorts, refusing chai on a long train journey, and even returns bonus coupons to stores.)
Ulrich gives me one last look followed by another kiss, sustaining the connection, that of a conjurer to a captive audience. As he descends the front steps, his face turns toward my budding tulip patch—an exuberant yellow salutation to the coming spring—and he holds it in sight till the last second. Yellow is Kareena’s color and I am growing these tulips for her. She’ll shout in pleasure when she sees how gorgeous they are.
A Siamese cat from down the block watches from its customary perch atop a low brick wall as Ulrich lopes toward a steel-gray Saab parked across the street.
I shut the door, pace back to the living room, open the draperies. Ulrich’s car is gone. Feeling a nip in the air, I cinch the belt of my bathrobe. Kareena and I bought identical robes at a Nordstrom sale. Despite different sizes—hers a misses medium and mine a petite small—we’re like twins or, at least, sisters.
As I look down at my slippers, they too remind me of Kareena. A domestic violence counselor, she’d bought this pair from the boutique of a client who was a victim of spousal abuse. While I function in a universe of color, bounty, growth, and optimism, Kareena deals with “family disturbances.” Hers is a world of purple bruises, bloodshot gazes, and shattered hearts huddling in a public shelter.
I look out at the long line of windows across the street. A blue-black Volvo SUV speeds by, marring the symmetry and reminding me of Kareena’s husband Adi; a real prize, he is.
I met both Adi (short for Aditya, pronounced Aditta) and Kareena for the first time at a party they hosted. Before long, we began discussing where we were each from. Kareena had been raised in Mumbai and New Delhi, whereas Adi, like me, hailed from the state of West Bengal in Eastern India. Even as I greeted him, “Parichay korte bhalo laglo” (“How nice to meet you,” in our shared Bengali tongue), Adi’s name somehow brought to mind another word, dhurta: crook. The two words sort of rhyme in Bengali. That little fact I suppressed, but I couldn’t ignore the insouciance with which he flicked on his gold cigarette lighter, the jaunty angle of the Marlboro between his lips, the disdainful way he regarded the other guests.
At just over six feet, he looked as out of place in that crowded room as a skyscraper in a valley of mud huts. He obviously believed that the shadow he cast was longer than anyone else’s. He informed me in the first ten minutes that his start-up, Guha Software Services, was in the black; that his ancestors had established major manufacturing plants in India; that he’d recently purchased a deluxe beach cottage on the Olympic Peninsula. Then he walked away without even giving me a chance to say what I did for a living.
A chill has hung between us ever since. “Two strong personalities,” Kareena has maintained over the years, but there’s more to it. I don’t know if Adi has a heart, and if he does, whether Kareena is in it. His smirk says he knows I think he’s not good enough for her, but that he could care less. And, to be honest, they have interests in common. Both have an abiding love for Indian ghazal songs; both excel in table tennis when they can manage the time; both detest green bell pepper in any form. They make what one might call a perfect married couple—young, handsome, successful, socially adept, and with cosmopolitan panache. They look happy together, or, rather, he does. His attention to her is total, as though she’s an objet d’art that has cost him no small sum. He professes to be “furiously, stormily, achingly” in love with her. Every millisecond, I dream of you and you only, he gushed in a birthday card I once saw pinned on a memo board in their kitchen.
Do the purplish contusions I saw on Kareena’s arm attest to Adi’s undying affection? I grit my teeth now as I did then.
Adi doesn’t answer my phone call. I think about ringing another friend, but a peek at the red-eyed digits of the mantle clock stops my hand. Better to postpone the call and shower instead. Better to gauge what actually happened before I get everybody upset.
My nerves are so scrambled that the shower is no more than a surface balm. I towel myself but don’t waste time blow-drying my shoulder-length hair.
In the mirror, my bushy eyebrows stand out against my olive skin. My nose is tiny, like an afterthought. Although I’m fit, healthy, and rosy-cheeked and my hair is long and lustrous, I’m not beautiful by either Indian or American standards. Friends say I have kind eyes. It has never occurred to me to hide the cut mark under my left eye caused by a childhood brush with a low-hanging tree branch. I don’t like to fuss with makeup.
Dressed in a blue terry knit jacket, matching pants, and sneakers, I drift into the kitchen. Breakfast consists of a tall cool glass of water from the filter tap. I slip into my greenhouse and inhale its forest fragrance. The sun sparkles through the barn-style roof and the glass-paneled walls. I hope the fear signals inside me are wrong.
The plants are screaming for moisture. I pick up a sprayer and mist the trays, dispensing life-giving moisture to the germinating seeds and fragile sprouts poking up through the soil. A honeybee hums over a seed flat.
All around me, the life force is triumphant: surely that’ll happen with Kareena too. Whatever the cause, her disappearance will be temporary, explainable, and reversible.
An hour later I call Veen. “According to Adi, Kareena was last seen with a stranger,” she says. “They were at Toute La Soirée around 11 a.m. on Friday. A waitress who’d seen them together reported so to the police. I find it odd that Adi sounded a little jealous but not terribly worried over the news about this strange man.”
I’ve been to that café many times. Kareena, who had no special fidelity to any one place, somehow took a fancy to rendezvousing there with me. Could that man have blindfolded Kareena, put a hand over her mouth, and dragged her into a car?
No, on second thought, that’s impossible. A spirited person like her couldn’t be held captive. Could she have run away with that man because of Adi’s abuse? That’s more likely. I ask Veen what the man looks like.
“Dark, average height, handsome, and well-dressed. He carried a jute bag on his shoulder.”
“Oh, a jhola.” In India some years back, jholas were the fashion among male intellectuals. My scrawny next-door neighbor, who considered himself a man of letters but was actually a film buff, toted books in his jhola. He could often be seen running for the bus with the hefty bag dangling from one shoulder and bumping against his hip. Tagore novels? Chekov’s story collection? Shelley’s poems? The only thing I ever saw him fishing out of the bag was a white box of colorful pastries when he thought no one was looking.
“But 11 is too early for lunch,” I say, “and Kareena never takes a mid-morning break. Why would she be there at such an hour?”
“Don’t know. And what do you make of this? I was passing by Umberto’s last night and spotted Adi with a blonde. They were drinking wine and talking.”
“He seems to be taking this awfully easy.” I remind Veen that Adi has the typical Asian man’s fixation on blond hair. According to Kareena, Adi’s assistant is a neatly put-together blonde stationed at a cubicle outside his office. Veen and I discuss if Adi might be having an affair, but don’t come to any conclusion.
As I hang up, my glance falls on my cell phone, the mute little accessory on the coffee table in front of the couch. Kareena and I get together most Fridays after work, and she often calls me at the last minute. No cause for concern, I assured myself when I left a message on Kareena’s voice mail a few days ago and didn’t hear back.
Silently, I replay my last face-to-face with Kareena at Toute La Soirée. On that afternoon two weeks ago, I was waiting for her at a corner table, perusing the Seattle Globe and reveling in the aromas of lime, ginger, and mint. It filled me with fury to read a half-page story about a woman in India blamed for her village’s crop failures and hunted down as a witch. I would have to share this story with Kareena.
Sensing a rustle in the atmosphere, I looked up. Standing just inside the door, Kareena peered out over the crowd, spotted me, and flashed a smile. She looked casually chic in a maroon pantsuit (maple foliage shade in my vocabulary, Bordeaux in hers) that we’d shopped for together at Nordstrom. Arms swaying long and loose, she weaved her way among the tables. Her left wrist sported a pearl-studded bracelet-cum-watch.
As she drew closer, a woman in chartreuse seated across the aisle from me called out to her. Kareena paused and they exchanged pleasantries. The woman glanced in my direction and asked, “Is that your sister?”
Kareena winked at me. We’d been subjected to the same question countless times, uttered in a similar tone of expectation. Did we really look alike, or had we picked up each other’s mannerisms from spending so much time together? At 5'1", I am shorter than her by three inches, and thinner. Our styles of dressing fall at opposite ends of the fashion spectrum. I glanced down at my powder-blue workaday jumper, a practical watch with a black resin band, and walking flats. My attire didn’t follow current fashion dictates, but it was low-key and comfy, just right for an outdoors person. Fortunately, Seattle accommodated both our styles.
“Kemon acho?” Kareena greeted me with a Bengali pleasantry I’d taught her. “Sorry I’m late. First, I had a gynecologist appointment, then a difficult DV case to wrap up.”
I pushed the newspaper to the far side of the table. DV—domestic violence—is an abbreviation that sounds to me more like a fearsome disease, less like a social thorn. Kareena likes to help women who are in abusive relationships and, as yet, unaware of their legal rights. She was named the top DV counselor in her office and has received recognition for her efforts.
“I really think you’re overworking.” I touched her hand. “Do you really need the money? Do you need to shop so much?”
She ran her fingers over her bracelet. “You don’t resent my spending, do you?”
I shook my head, then stopped to ruminate. Well, in truth, there have been times. She likes to shop at Nordstrom, Restoration Hardware, and Williams-Sonoma, places that are beyond my means, but she insists on having my company. I have an eye for quality and she values that.
I got back to the subject at hand. “Was today’s case one from our community, another hush-hush?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” She mimicked a British accent: “A ‘family matter, a kitchen accident.’” She paused. The waiter was hovering by her shoulder. We placed our orders.
Not for the first time, I agonized over the threats Kareena faces due to the nature of her job. Signs have been plentiful.
She is frequently called a man hater and, at least once in the last month, has been followed home from work. The spouse of one client even went so far as to publicly question her sexual orientation.
“You’re the only one I trust enough to talk about this case,” Kareena continued. “She’s an H-4 visa holder, so scared that she couldn’t even string together a few coherent sentences. I spoke a little Punjabi with her, which loosened her up. Still, it took awhile to draw out her story. Her husband beats her regularly.”
I appraised Kareena’s face. How she could absorb the despair of so many traumatized souls? Listen to songs that don’t finish playing? Lately, her lipstick color had gone from her standard safe pink to a risky red. Brown circles under her eyes spoke of fatigue or, perhaps, stress, and I suspected the brighter lip color was intended to redirect a viewer’s attention.
“Did you see bruises on her?” I asked and watched her carefully.
It was still so vivid in my mind, Kareena’s last cocktail party a few weeks before and the freshly swollen blue-black marks on her upper arm. In an unguarded moment, her paisley Kashmiri shawl had slid off her shoulders. Through the billowy sheer sleeves of her tan silk top, I glimpsed dark blue, almost black finger marks on an otherwise smooth arm. The swelling extended over a large area, causing me to nearly shriek. Adi must have attacked her. Upon realizing that I’d noticed, she glanced down and repositioned the shawl. Just then, a male friend approached, asked her to dance, took her arm, and they floated away.
“Yes, I did see bruises on her forehead,” now Kareena replied. “She’d be in worse trouble if her husband suspected she was out looking for help.”
“The law is on her side, isn’t it?” I allowed a pause. “You don’t have problems at home, by any chance, do you?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Well, I happened to notice bruises on your arm at your last party. Who was it?”
I noticed the mauve of shame spreading on her face. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
“Sorry to barge into your private matters, but if you ever feel like talking—”
Our orders came. Mine was a ginger iced tea and hers an elixir of coconut juice and almond milk. She raised her chin and lifted her glass to clink with mine, her way of accepting my apology.
I took a sip from my beverage; she drained hers with such hurried gulps that I doubted she fully appreciated the flavors. Typical Kareena; appearances must be maintained. Both of us looked out through the window and took in the sky-colored Ship Canal where a fishing vessel was working its way to the dry docks that lined the north shore of Lake Union. Sooner or later, I thought, I’d have to find out the truth about those bruises.
When the silver waves died down in the canal, Kareena spoke again: “But enough of this depressing stuff! How did things go for you today?”
I filled her in on the most interesting part of my day: consulting with a paraplegic homeowner. “Believe it or not,” I said, “the guy wants to do all the weeding and watering himself. It’ll be a challenge, but I’ll design a garden to suit his requirements.”
“You live such a sane life and you have such a healthy glow on your face. Just listening to you, I seem to siphon off some of it. ” She gave me a smile. “Come on, Mitra. Let me buy you another drink.”
She signaled the waiter. The room was emptier now, the sounds hushed, and a genial breeze blew through a half-open window. We ordered a second round.
“Before the alarm went off this morning,” she said after a while, “I got a call from my nephew in New Delhi. He’s seven.”
“Does he want you to visit him?”
She nodded and mashed her napkin into a ball. I guessed she was undergoing one of those periodic episodes of homesickness for India, the country we’d both left behind. I, too, experience the same longing to visit people missing from my life. Whereas she can afford to go back every year, I can’t.
I digressed from this aching topic to a lighter one by pointing out a cartoon clip peeking out from under the glass cover of our table. A tiny boy, craning his neck up, is saying to his glowering father, Do I dare ask you what day of the week it is before you’ve had your double tall skinny?
That got a spontaneous laugh from Kareena which, in turn, raised my spirits. I didn’t have a chance to discuss the newspaper story with her. Well, the next time.
I go back to my living room. The airy tranquility has been transformed into a murky emptiness, as though a huge piece of familiar furniture has been cleared out but not replaced. I have an urge to confide in someone, but who could that be? The only person I can think of is the one who’s gone away.
I wander into the kitchen, open and close the cupboard, rearrange items in the refrigerator, and fill the tea kettle with water. With a cup of Assam tea and a slice of multigrain toast, I sit at the round table. Bananas protrude from a sunny ceramic bowl within arm’s reach. I fiddle with my iPod.
The tea tempers to lukewarm, the toast becomes dense, and the bananas remain untouched. It’s difficult for me to stomach much food in the morning, and this news has squelched whatever hunger I might otherwise have. I stare at the Trees Are Not Trivial poster on the sea-blue wall. Even the cushioned chair doesn’t feel cozy. I itch all over.
Could someone have murdered her?
I peer out through the western window. The Olympic Mountains appear stable, blue, and timeless. Somehow I doubt that Kareena could be the victim of a lethal crime.
How can I help find her? My career focus in art and landscape design—the study of the physiology of new growth, awareness of color and light, and harmony of arrangements—hasn’t prepared me to deal with a situation like this.
I walk over to my side yard. Blue bells are pushing up from the winter-hardened ground. I notice a slug, pick it up with a leaf, and deposit it on a safe spot. Once again, spring season is in the balmy air. I look up to the sky, out of a gardener’s propensity to check the weather. It helps me see beyond the immediate.
Back to the living room, I sit at my desk, grab a notepad, and begin listing friends and acquaintances who I can call upon. The page fills speedily. The Indian population in the Puget Sound area, described recently by the Seattle Globe in a feature story as a “model” community, is some twenty-five thousand strong. The community’s academic and professional accomplishments are “as lofty as Mount Rainier,” the same article proclaimed. I’m troubled by such laudatory phrases, aware that we have our fair share of warts and blemishes. According to Kareena, the rate of domestic violence among our dignified doctors, elite engineers, and high-powered fund-raisers equals, perhaps even exceeds, the national average.
I consult my watch. It is 10 o’clock, an hour when everyone’s up and about, when the disappointments of the day haven’t dulled one’s spirits. This’ll be a good time to ring Adi and draw him out. He loves to talk about himself in his Oxford-accented, popcorn-popping speech, which will give me a chance to tease information out of him, however distasteful the process might be, however potentially dangerous. Kareena is my best friend. When we’re together, I’m fully present and my voice is at its freest. Day turns into twilight as we relax over drinks, gabbing, laughing, and trading opinions, oblivious to the time. We don’t parse our friendship. It just is. We scatter the gems of our hours freely, then retrieve them richer in value.
* * *
With the phone to my ear, I pace back and forth in front of my living room window. Adi, at the other end, is ignoring the ringing.
The Emperor comes to focus in my mind—an impeccable suit, sockless feet (part of his fashion statement), and eyes red-rimmed with exasperation at some luckless underling behind on a project or the changeable Seattle sky. Adi takes any potential irritant personally. He snatches a ringing phone from its cradle at the last possible moment. The world can wait. It always does for Adi Guha.
The stand-up calendar on the mantel nags me about tomorrow’s deadline for a newspaper gardening column. Yet, as I pace the cold floor once again, the phone glued to my ear, it becomes clear that such an assignment is no longer a high priority for me. My missing friend is my main focus now. All else has faded into the background.
Adi comes on the line, gasps when he recognizes my voice. I mention Veen’s call, then get straight to the point. “What time did you get home that night?”
“Your core competency is gardening, Mitra. I’m not saying it’s menial labor, but neither is it nuclear physics or private investigation. Go back to your garden and leave this situation in more competent hands, like mine.”
I ignore the insult. “Do the police have any clues? Did they come to the house?”
“I gave them a photo which they looked at, then began to pepper me with questions. They gave me a song and dance about how many people disappear daily from the city. They assigned a laid-back cop, the only one they could spare. It’s obvious they’re not interested unless it’s a blond heiress and television cameras are everywhere.”
“What about the stranger she met at Soirée?”
“I’m not worried about that. She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
“Have you talked to her gynecologist?”
Adi mumbles a no.
“Do you think she needed a break and decided to sneak away for a few days? There have been times, like at your birthday party, when she looked like she could use a break.”
“Everything is fine between us, Mitra, just fine.”
Everything’s fine? What a laugh. About a year ago, Kareena and I were spending an evening at Soirée when a hugely pregnant woman waddled past our table. I shifted my chair to let her pass. Kareena put her fork down and gazed at the woman.
In a teasing tone I asked, “Could that be you?”
“Adi doesn’t want kids.” She returned to her voluptuous plum-almond tart.
Now I hear a staccato rumbling in the background, a car cruising. Adi has nerve telling me everything was fine with Kareena. Kareena’s everything and Adi’s everything are obviously not the same.
“Did you check her closet?” I now ask.
“Looks like her clothes are all there.”
Would he even recognize her alligator handbag, jeweled mules, flowing shawls she favored over the structured feel of a coat, or the new Camellia scarf? Would he be able to detect the nuance of her perfume? I believe he only remembers the superficial facts of her presence.
“Did you go to the safety deposit box to see if her passport is there?”
“No, yesterday I had to chair a three-hour offsite meeting. The market isn’t as calm as it was last year. We need to get our cash-burn rate under control. It may be necessary to dehire some people.”
I almost choke at the expression he uses for firing an employee. Then he begins to ramble on about market share, competitive disadvantage, and going public to raise new capital. In short order, his business-speak begins to grate on me.
I interrupt him by saying, “This is a life-and-death situation, Adi.”
“It sure is,” he replies. “This morning around 5 I got a call from the police. They asked me to go see a body at the morgue.”
My vision blurs. “What?”
“A woman’s body was found in Lake Washington. It wasn’t her.”
“Oh my God!” I shake my head. “Must have been difficult for you. I don’t know what I’d do if…” I get a grip on myself. “Could we meet this morning? Put our heads together? The earlier the better. We need to mobilize our community. I’ll be happy to drop by your office.”
“Hold on now, Mitra. I don’t want even my friends to get wind of this, never mind the whole community. You, of all people, should know how things get blown out of proportion when the rumor mill cranks up.”
I sag on the couch. Losing face with his Indian peers is more important to him than seeking help in finding his wife. In a way, I get it. Our community is small. We have at most two degrees of separation between people, instead of the hypothetical six nationwide. Word spreads quickly and rumor insinuates itself in every chit-chat. Still, how silly, how counterproductive Adi’s pride seems in this dark situation.
And that makes him more of a suspect.
There are times when I think Adi is still a misbehaving adolescent who needs his behind kicked. According to Ka-reena, he was an only son. Growing up, he had intelligence, if not good behavior, and bagged many academic honors. His mother spoiled him. Even on the day he punched a sickly classmate at school, she treated him to homemade besan laddoos.
Finally, Adi suggests meeting at Soirée at 7 p.m.
How empty the place will seem if I go back there without Kareena. But I don’t want to risk a change with Adi. It’ll give him an excuse to weasel out of our meeting.
I ponder why he’s so difficult. Rumor has it that his family in New Delhi disowned him when he married Kareena against their wishes. Not only that, his uncle sabotaged his effort to obtain a coveted position with an electronics firm by taking the job himself. Adi endured that type of humiliation for a year before giving up. Eight years ago, he and his new bride left India and flew to the opposite side of the world, as far away from his family as he could possibly go.
He landed in Seattle, where he found a plethora of opportunities and no one to thwart his monstrous ambitions. Before long, he formed his own software outfit. There was a price to be paid: long hours, constant travel, and a scarred heart. In spite of this, he persisted and ultimately succeeded. These days he flies frequently to India on business, and rings his family from his hotel room, but his mother will not take his call.
What is Adi doing to locate the woman on whose behalf he sacrificed the love of his family?
Would he really show up at Soirée this evening?
I walk over to my home office and dial Kareena’s office number. Once transferred to the private line of the agency director, I leave her a message to get back to me a.s.a.p.
Then I wander into the bedroom where I confront the unmade bed, sheets wavy like desire building to a crescendo. Herr Ulrich floats in my mind, a man who appears so strong and unyielding, but who turns out to be tender and pliant. Right now, his taut body is pushing, lifting, and stooping in the brown-gray jumble of a construction site, the angles of his face accentuated by the strain. Did he stop for a split second, stare out into the distance, and reexperience my lips, my skin, my being?
It’s a little too soon to get moony about a man, friends would surely advise me.
Just picturing Ulrich, however, warms my body. Not just the electric tingling of sex, but a kind of communion.
Muted piano music floats from the Tudor across the street. As I reach for the phone with an eager hand, my gaze falls on the bedside table. The pad of Post-it notes is undisturbed. Ulrich hasn’t jotted down his phone number or his last name. He promised he would, but he didn’t.
My dreamy interlude is sharply broken. With a drab taste in my mouth, I realize that a promise is an illusion and so is “next time.” It’s similar to hoping that your parents will never die, your friends will forever be around you, and your tulips will always sprout back the next year. This morning I’ve learned how untrue my assumptions can be.
These days I feel like I’m living in a ghost town. I don’t know where to go, who to see, what to do next, or even what to believe. The last five days have coalesced into an endless dreary road. I’ve reached an impasse in my search for Kareena. Adi cancelled our meeting at Soirée at the last minute. From my repeated phone calls to him, I’ve gathered that Kareena’s passport is missing, an indication she’s left deliberately. It strikes me as odd that Adi seems so blithe about her being gone for so long. He even had the nerve to joke about it.
“You know what? I think she’s flown somewhere for an impromptu vacation. She’s punishing me for not taking her to Acapulco last February. Don’t worry. She’ll get a big scolding from me when she gets back.”
Where might she have gone?
I’ve contacted the police and given them an account of the bruises I saw on Kareena’s arm. Detective Yoshihama assured me he’d do what was necessary and gave me his cell phone number. This morning, I buzz him again, but he doesn’t return my call. How high is this case on his priority list? To him, Kareena is no more than a computer profile of another lost soul, yet another Have you seen me? poster to be printed, whereas to me and our mutual friends she’s a person of importance.
I’m not ready to give up. I call the Washington State Patrol’s Missing Persons Unit, but am advised to wait thirty days.
I miss Ulrich too, even though he’s practically a stranger. Everywhere I go, I see his broad face, neat haircut, wary green eyes. He appeared in my life about the time Kareena went missing. I haven’t heard from him since he left my bed that fateful morning.
I have no choice but to get on with my life, except that the daily duties I took on happily before have become meaningless. I put off grocery shopping, misplace my car keys, and ignore e-mails from the library warning that three books are overdue.
Late this morning, I check the tulip patch. The buds are still closed and a trifle wan, despite the fact that the soil, sun, and temperature are just ideal for them to bloom, and there are still dewdrops hanging from them. Whatever the connection might be, I can’t help but think about Kareena. Why didn’t she confide in me?
What concerns me most is the nothingness, the no-answer bit, the feeling that the answer is beyond my reach.
I decide to make a trip to Toute La Soirée this evening. A voice inside has been nagging me to do just that, not to mention I have a taste for their kefir-berry cocktail. Kareena confided not long ago that she was saving the pricey Riesling for the next special occasion. Will her wish ever be fulfilled?
The café is located on busy 34th Street. To my surprise, I find a parking place only a block away. The air is humid as I walk up to the entrance. The stars are all out. I check my watch. Despite the popular spot’s catchy name—meaning “all evening”—it closes at 9 p.m., less than an hour from now.
Inside, the café pulses with upbeat, after-work chumminess. It is nearly full. A middle-aged man fixes me with an appraising look over a foamy pint of ale. I ignore him and survey the interior. The décor has changed since my last visit. The smart black walls sport a collection of hand fans. Made of lace and bamboo, they’re exquisitely pleated. The new ambience also includes a wooden rack glittering with slick magazines and jute bags of coffee beans propped against a wall. I don’t find this makeover comforting.
As I thread my way through, a speck of tension building inside me, I overhear snatches of a debate on human cloning. Ordinarily, I would slow down for a little free education, but right now my attention is focused on finding an empty seat.
The table Kareena and I usually try for is taken; how could it be otherwise at this prime hour? I was half hoping for a minor miracle, but finding a parking spot must have filled my evening quota. “Our” table is occupied by a couple whose heads are bent over an outsize slice of strawberry shortcake. Right now, I find even the thought of such sugary excess revolting. And the blood-red strawberry juice frightening.
Something about the couple nudges me and I give them a second look. Oh no, it’s Adi and a blonde. He looks slightly upset. The overhead light shines over his copper complexion. He’s dressed in a crewneck polo shirt in an unflattering rust shade—he doesn’t have Kareena’s color sense. The blonde wears crystal-accented chandelier earrings that graze her shoulders. I wouldn’t bear the weight of such long earrings except on a special occasion. Or is this a special occasion for them?
Their presence so rattles me that I decide to leave. Besides, Adi might notice me and complain I’m spying on him.
On the way to the door, I knock over a chair, which I put back in its place. Then I almost collide head-on with an Indian man who has just entered the shop. Although he’s young, dark, and devastatingly handsome, somehow I know he’s not my type. Clad smartly in a silver woolen vest, this prince heads straight for the take-out counter. His impressive carriage and smoldering eyes have caused a stir among women seated nearby. A redhead tries to catch his glance. He touches the jute bag, an Indian-style jhola, dangling from his shoulder. Even Adi stares at him.
I slip out the door, too drained to absorb anything further, pause on the sidewalk, and take several deep breaths to cleanse my head. Please, Goddess Durga, no more intrigues this evening.
It’s starting to drizzle, but the streets are mercifully clear. Within minutes, I pull into my garage and step out of my Honda. As I close the garage door, I flash on the enchanting prince from the café. Didn’t Veen mention that Kareena was last sighted with a jhola-carrier at that very place?
A jolt of adrenaline skips through my body. Why couldn’t I have been more alert? Stuck around longer to scrutinize another potential suspect and his belongings?
Should I drive back?
I check my watch: 9 p.m. Soirée has just closed.
Filled with nervous excitement, I enter my house. Neither a hot shower nor a mug of holy basil tea tempers the thought racing through my head: what really happened to Kareena?
In a need to restore my spirit, I retire early. As I lie in bed, I can’t help but run through the day’s events, foremost among them being Adi’s public appearance with a blonde. Suspicions about him blow in my mind like a pile of dry leaves in the wind. Eventually, the atmosphere settles; my mind clears.
I’m worrying too much about Kareena. Worry is a sand castle. It has no foundation.
Could my assumptions about Adi be wrong as well?
Assumptions, like appearances, can deceive, I tell myself. Adi’s cheerful façade and his lack of concern about his wife’s unexplained absence just might be more sand-castle building on my part. I’m reading the worst in what might be a perfectly plausible and innocent situation.
You’ve been acting silly, Mitra, pure silly. You have no reason to fret. Pull your covers snug and get yourself a restful sleep. All will be well. The morning will come, the sun will be out, and Kareena will return, her bright smile intact, as surely as the swing of seasons.
I awake refreshed and invigorated. Last night’s drizzle has evaporated, leaving behind a bright morning. The sun streams through a wide gap in the window draperies. A spider is building a nest outside the window, intricate but fragile.
I have the perfect task to usher in this new day. I shall tend to Kareena’s tulip patch. The plants will soon release their full yellow blossoms as emblems of beauty and renewal and she’ll cradle a bunch lovingly in her arm.
I don my gardening clothes—faded jeans and a worn black cardigan—gather my tools, and hurry outside. The morning light shines brilliantly on my front flower patch. An errant branch of camellia needs to be pruned. Its shadow falls over the tulips. I step in closer to inspect, an ache in my belly. All the tulip buds are shriveled and brown, as though singed by blight, their dried stalks drooping over to return to brown earth.
Why are they dying on me so soon? I fall to my knees and caress the tulip plants, lifting them up and squeezing their brittle stalks and wilted leaves. I roll each wizened bud between my fingers, but don’t find a single one with any hope.
Holding a broken stem in my grasp, I think of Kareena, so vibrant, so full of life, and brood about the promise of these tulips.