Prem unfolded the note, which turned out to be in Leena’s handwriting:
I have given Papa the idea of taking some paying guests. He will post the ad in the store tomorrow only.
Prem did not immediately grasp the life-changing, prayer-answering nature of this message. He tucked it into his pocket and scratched his head. On more than one occasion during his childhood, Prem had been called “tube light,” commonly used to describe someone who is slow on the uptake, who takes a few minutes to light up, like the fluorescent lamps found in many Indian kitchens and American basements and garage workshops, which flicker and fuss before they glow. He walked around the Exxon lot twice before he understood that his beloved had devised a solution to their problem.
The next day, he was the first to approach Hemant. Though the rent was higher than at Iqbal and Amarleen’s and it was unclear what the meal situation would be, Prem secured a spot on the floor of the Engineers’ apartment. Soon he would take up residence on a mattress even more unsubstantial than the last, wedged in among too many decorative whatnots, where his head would be situated under a swing—an improvement from the onions, to be sure—just a thin wall between himself and Leena.
9
When Prem broke the news to Iqbal and Amarleen and his roommates back at the apartment, Amarleen threw a potato at a wall and began to wail.
“Looks like Prem is a gone case,” Mohan said from a reclined position on his mattress.
“Gone case? Why?” a short man whom Prem had never seen before said.
“Because he will do anything to be near to that Leena Engineer,” Mohan said. “Even share the bathroom with her hairy dad.”
Amarleen let out an even bigger howl and ran to her room. Prem stepped into the bathroom and came out clutching his toothbrush. “It’s not true,” he said, trying to be casual, but appearing desperately uncasual. “I’m not, you know, I don’t even, the reason I am shifting there is for more room on the floor.”
“Who is Leena?” the short man said.
“The girl of Petrol’s dreams,” Lucky said.
“A masala bombshell.”
“A firecracker with nice hair.”
“Sridevi and Sharmila Tagore, mixed.”
“Stop it, just stop,” Prem said, waving his toothbrush in the air.
“Gone case,” Mohan said.
Prem didn’t care that everyone knew; he was going to live with Leena, sort of, and see her every day and smell her nice hair as much as he wanted. It was the single greatest piece of luck he had ever had.
“Is okay,” Iqbal said to Prem. “I will tell Harbhajan to bring some new person from the airport.”
“Why, Lord, why?” came a cry from Amarleen in the bedroom.
“Is maybe best for everyone,” Iqbal said.
That evening, Gopal, Lucky, Deepak, and Mohan came home with a bottle of scotch. Because alcohol was not permitted in the Singh household, they kept it in its Quicker Liquor brown paper bag and gave Prem just a glimpse. “For tonight,” Deepak whispered. Prem was moved. In India, he had never thought twice about the price of a bottle of anything, but here he was acutely aware of how much things cost and how hard people worked to pay for them. He imagined his four roommates bumbling around the liquor-store aisles searching for Johnnie Walker—the Indian gentleman’s drink of choice—and then debating which color level to purchase. Prem decided in that moment that he wanted to be one of those people who never forgot a kindness, and indeed, he would always remember the gesture of his roommates wanting to make his last night with them a memorable one, though, it would turn out, he wouldn’t remember much else.
Gopal would recall that the evening started off tame, with boozing outside on the steps, brown liquor in steel glasses. Mohan would remember an escalation in the drinking after the sun went down. Prem thought maybe Tony had joined them briefly, bearing a mysterious clear alcohol he had concocted at home. Deepak would vaguely recollect trying to talk to a cat, while Lucky seemed to remember amorously hugging a streetlamp. Apparently, Mohan argued with a tree, though he didn’t remember it himself. They all agreed it was Lucky’s suggestion for Prem to serenade Leena from under her balcony like an Indian Romeo. Prem had a murky recollection of this happening, and then Beena and Shanta tackling him to the ground and dragging him away. Later, Deepak would recall that he did not try to talk to a cat but rather tried to eat it. The night ended back on the steps where Gopal declared his love for Prem. “We will miss you too too much, yaar,” Lucky added. “He is just moving two buildings down, he is not dying,” Mohan said. But later, after they all wished Prem luck in winning the girl, Mohan said, “I am happy you are not dying, yaar.” They slept in various incorrect places that night: under Shanta’s dining table, on Beena’s plastic couch, beneath the Ferrari poster at Tony’s place. In the morning, no one could remember how they’d each ended up where they did, but they walked home, got dressed, and went to work.
In the afternoon, Prem carried his few belongings across two courtyards and up one flight to apartment 5F. Father and daughter were at the store, but Hemant had given him a key and told him to come in and get settled. Prem had imagined the apartment to look like his previous one—spare with stockpiles of household supplies and a few stray onions—but this one was bursting with decorative items and overrun by a money tree. Widely known to be fiscally auspicious if it remained uncut, it was hanging in the southeast area of the room in a white plastic planter with a hook at its top, its vines thumbtacked in an intricate network across the ceiling so the entire surface was plastered with leaves, creating an unsettling rainforest effect. Baffled by the greenery, Prem found himself ducking his head as he wandered through the rest of the apartment. There were mirrored pillows at every turn and all manner of Hindu knickknacks, most significantly in brass: brass Ganeshas, brass Hanumans, brass Krishnas, brass Radha-Krishnas, brass Krishnas playing a flute, brass baby Krishnas stealing butter. In the hall closet was an altar featuring a large portrait of Laxmi surrounded by smaller portraits of other, less lucrative gods, as well as an old tile depicting a sacred fire—a nod to the Engineers’ Parsi lineage that had taken a Hindu turn somewhere along the way. A garlanded portrait of a woman was displayed high and prominently. In the rows of blue Parachute coconut hair oil bottles lined up in the bathroom and the cassette tapes piled high on the radio, Prem saw the evidence of Leena, and he settled back on the ornate, oversized, carved wooden swing in the drawing room and waited for her.
The days that followed were the best of Prem’s young life, and better than any in the sixteen years that would follow. The proximity to Leena, the thrill of being close to her, the tinkling sound of bangles at her wrists—it was almost too much for him to bear. He was surprised by how daringly she communicated with him right under her father’s nose, which, in turn, made him daring too. He hummed the tunes of all the most romantic love songs when she passed him in the hall. He brought his plate to the sink at the same time she did and brushed her hand under the running water. When she cooked dinner, he stood beside her and stirred her dal.
In his second week there, through Urmila Sahu, who had just returned from Chicago, where she had been visiting her sister who owned a sari shop that was experimenting with carrying Hindi movie videos, he managed to get hold of a pirated copy of the recently released superhit film Mr. India. On the Engineers’ state-of-the-art, two-part, top-loading VCR, the household, along with Leena’s friends Varsha, Falguni, and Snigdha as well as Hemant’s dear friend Sanjay Sapra, watched the movie and then immediately watched all of the songs again. Afterward, they had chai and discussed it all.
“How could he become invisible like that?” Snigdha said, her fluffy boy’s haircut rustling in the slight breeze of the swing on which she was sandwiched with her friends. “It is just not real.”
“I don’t think it matters if it is real,” Varsha said, smacking her gum while assessing a chipped nail. “It is a movie.”
“And if it does not bother you when they show the couple suddenly singing on a mountain in Switzerland or at the pyramids in Egypt, why should this?” Leena said.
“I think in our movies we are meant to feel more and think less,” Hemant said from his spot on the couch next to his dear friend.
“Yes, but come on, guys, he was invisible,” Snigdha said.
“Prem, I hear you are the movie expert,” Sanjay Sapra said, sweeping his silky, side-parted hair to the left.
Prem looked up from his uncomfortable place on a cushion against the wall. He scratched the nape of his neck and shrugged. “Here is the thing,” he began, his chronic social anxiety muted by the prospect of a Hindi movie discussion. “The movie is fantastic. First-class. There is action, there is comedy, patriotism, orphan adoption, invisibility formula, terrifying villain with excellent catchphrase, and superb songs. But really, it should be called ‘Miss India,’ not ‘Mr.’”
“Nonsense. Why?” Hemant said.
“That is stupid,” Snigdha added.
“I do not understand,” Varsha adjoined.
“God, you all, let him explain,” Leena replied.
From his place on the floor, Prem looked up at Leena with love in his eyes, and everything he said next, he said only to her. “Because the heroine is the star. She steals all the scenes and dances in the rain. She mesmerizes. There is a certain quality about her. Who can look away? The silent, invisible hero has no chance. She is the serious reporter, the Charlie Chaplin imitator, the beautiful, the funny, the talented, the dazzling, the everything.”
“Cool,” Falguni said. The most numinous of Leena’s friends, dabbling in astrology and numerology, harboring a firm belief in the power of a good gemstone, Falguni tended to go with the flow.
“Sounds like someone really likes Sridevi,” Sanjay Sapra said. “She is not my type,” he added. “Too funny nose.”
