The truth of what was occurring was settling in for Prem, and it was the culmination of everything he had ever feared. He had not succeeded in the world, had no talent, nothing to show for himself, and it was causing him to lose what he loved most. Panic began to take hold and he felt short of breath and dizzy. He clutched the arm of the couch and steadied himself. “Your father is right,” Prem said. “I am a failure in life. How can he just give you to a failure? I have to prove I am worth something.”
“No one is giving me to anyone,” Leena said. She looked back and forth between them. “Who do you both think you are?” she said. “I can’t look at either of you. You, make your money, and you, wait for your money. But I won’t grow old waiting.” With that she went to her room, slamming the door behind her just as the tea boiled over, creating a milky mess.
Prem and Hemant looked at the door and then at each other. “My family has money,” Prem said.
Hemant did not respond or appear to have even heard what Prem said. Instead, he echoed the dreaded pronouncement of Hindi movie patriarchs down through the ages, who for one reason or another disapprove of their daughters’ boyfriends. “Maine keh diya,” he said. I have spoken, the final word of the father.
* * *
It rained the rest of that day and into the evening. Prem quietly packed up his few belongings and slipped out. Beena Joshi was working at Drug Fair until late, so he dropped his bag at her doorstep and wandered around in the cold drizzle for hours. The ugly scene in the Engineers’ apartment played over and over in his head, and the unanswerable questions kept coming: What could he have done differently? Should he have revealed that he came from a wealthy family? What should he do now? Could he make the money? Did it even matter?
In classic Hindi films, at dramatic junctures such as this, often a fakir or sadhu or some such wise and spiritual man appears and offers profound guidance that leads the hero out of darkness. Prem rested on the stoop of Building 8 and prayed for such a man to appear. Fat bulbs of water plopped down on his head periodically from the eaves. At three o’clock, the young man from the Oak Wood Church passed by carrying an umbrella. “Hey, man,” he said, “you’re getting wet.”
After sitting there a while more, Prem decided to walk back to Beena’s building and wait for her inside. He could have knocked on any number of doors and been welcomed in, but he did not want to have to explain his situation to anyone else. He could barely explain it to himself. “One million and one?” he could imagine them saying. “Is he crazy?” Prem wished he had not been in such a rush to approach Hemant. He wished they could just go back to how they had been before. If he could just talk to Leena, maybe they could rewind the tape back to where they had been. The rain was coming down harder now, and a fork of lightning flashed in the distance. He wished she would appear suddenly before him.
And then, there she was.
She shouted at him from across the yard. “You didn’t ask what I wanted.”
It took a moment for Prem to comprehend that she was really standing there, dripping wet and shivering in the flickering light of a nearby bulb. “I was respecting your father’s wishes,” he said.
“What about my wishes?” There was no anger in her words or in her eyes. Just anguish, which it pained him to see.
“Would you really go against your father?” Prem said as gently as he could from that distance in the rain.
“But you didn’t have to agree like that,” she replied, “about the plan to buy me like a cow.”
“It is not buying, and why cow?”
“There is a middle road,” she continued. “We can talk to him about our future plans, make him feel comfortable.”
“What future plans? Your father is right, Leena. I am nothing. I don’t want to ruin your life.”
From a second-floor window of Building 7, a woman yelled, “Ya, definitely he will ruin your life, Leena!”
They ignored this and moved on, Leena’s tone belying her mounting frustration. “This isn’t a movie, we don’t have to run away or sacrifice our lives.”
“Are you talking about Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak or Bobby?”
“Ek Duuje Ke Liye.”
“Got it.” Prem cleared his throat and spoke louder now, the rain having been joined by a harsh wind. “It’s true,” he said. “What do I have to show for myself?”
“Don’t say that,” Leena said.
“People will laugh at you for marrying me.”
“Ya, hundred percent!” a family of six yelled from a balcony.
“You are young, you can do whatever you want in this life still,” Leena said.
“It’s cold, Leena, go in. You’ll get sick.”
“I want to be with you just how you are.”
“But how I am is not very good.”
“Why won’t you talk about this with me even? Just, let’s talk.” She moved toward him, her expression softening.
Prem stepped back.
Leena stood silent, the rain tapping a rhythm on a wooden cricket bat abandoned in the grass. At last, she said, “Then go. Make your money, find some confidence. But don’t think I’ll be standing here waiting. I won’t be.”
Prem moved back toward her now and grasped her by the shoulders. “Listen to me. You don’t understand, you don’t know how the world is.”
“And you do?” She pushed him away. “You know what? I think you are not even capable of making one million dollars.”
“He is not!” a few people from different buildings yelled.
“You are right,” she said. “You are a failure. You are nothing. I don’t need you.” She stopped struggling then and looked at him. In that moment, he recognized, he was the most adult he’d ever been, the most serious he’d ever made himself be. It was a role that didn’t suit him and for which he should never have been cast.
“I’m sorry, Leena,” he said.
She looked suddenly exhausted. “Don’t think you are doing something great for me,” she said. “You are not. You are ruining me.” The flickering bulb above the nearby door sputtered and went dark. She began to walk away, but turned and looked back at him again. Prem imbued that tiny instant—despite all the words that had just passed between them—with an incalculable, improbable hope for their immediate reconciliation. Instead, she said, “If you see me in the yard or at the store, don’t try to talk to me. If you make your million dollars, don’t tell me. I won’t care.”
12
For days, Leena did not talk to her father. She continued to make his food and manage the apartment and work at the store but did not speak a word to him. This did not stop him, however, from speaking to her. “You see, it is entirely imprudent to marry for love,” he explained one morning while taking his tea. He went on to lay out the particulars behind this line of reasoning, but Leena appeared to pay no attention and went about her kitchen work. Another day, while Leena was on hold with the dosa-batter distributor, Hemant tried to talk to her about the American dream, the land of opportunity, the drive and passion of Thomas Edison, and the words of the Founding Fathers, who declared, “We are a nation of self-made men.” He concluded, “Immigration is about struggle and achievement, not love affairs.”
