“Huh?”
“First you said he was a useless, no-good loafer, and now he is Man of the Match?”
Hemant answered with appropriate defensiveness. “His firm and soothing tone makes me easy.”
Leena was incredulous. “So, you are telling me it is because of his voice?” Her hands were in her hair now as if about to pull it out.
“Look,” Hemant said in a manner signaling he was taking control. “Prem is decent and simple. Works hard, doesn’t spend. Helps the community. He is a good boy.” Leena couldn’t believe the hypocrisy of what her father was saying. Coupled with the overarching fear of losing him, it was almost too much for her to take. She went down to the bakery near the lobby and nibbled on a scone.
It was evening when she returned to her father’s room and again found Prem, who had brought back with him legendary ghazal singer Jagjit Singh, who was eating Jell-O with Hemant and comforting him in his deep, velvety way.
After the shock of Jagjit Singh being there had worn off and she had adequately greeted, praised and thanked him, Leena noticed how frail and weak her father looked in his bed, and it frightened her. Tears welled up in her eyes and she found it hard to breathe. She did not want her father or world-renowned vocalist Jagjit Singh to see, so she excused herself and went in search of soda.
Not entirely by chance, Prem happened upon her assaulting a vending machine, banging its side with an open hand. “Can I help?” he asked.
Leena flipped her hair over one shoulder, startled, her expression one of filial distress mixed with the frustration of everyone who’d ever lost a dollar trying to buy a Coke.
“Leena, look,” Prem began. He hesitated, then held her by the shoulders. “Look at me. He is getting the best care possible. I checked. Dr. B. Sharma. Top of the line. Handsome also.”
Leena sniffled and looked up at Prem. “Why does it matter if the doctor is handsome?”
“I don’t know.”
They both burst out laughing. Prem pulled out a handkerchief from his jacket and handed it to her, then turned his attention to the vending machine.
“Really, he is good?” Leena said, drying her tears.
“World-class,” Prem said, retrieving a Coke from the bin. He twisted off the cap and held the bottle out to her, its soft hiss between them.
Though she still didn’t understand why Prem was there, she also did not want to ask. Because truly, he was a comfort.
39
On the second day of rehab in the basement, Mahesh Bajpai of Building 13 dropped in to visit Hemant and debut his new hennaed hairstyle.
“How old do I look?” he asked father and daughter.
Leena opened her mouth but no words came out. “Orange,” Hemant said. “Very orange.”
“I know!” Mahesh Bajpai said. “No white, no silver, no gray. I can give you the referral if you want. Bharati will give you best price.”
Prem was just returning from the cafeteria with two cups of tea. He stopped short before entering the room upon seeing what was transpiring inside.
“Oh, do you think I should—” Hemant began, cut off by Leena before he could commit to anything.
“Wonderful seeing you, Uncle,” she said, steering him by the elbow to the door, “thank you for coming, visiting hours ending, yes, looking ten years younger, bye!”
Later that day, when Prem and Leena took the elevator down to lunch together, they had an easy topic of conversation teed up for them. “He is married, no? Why didn’t his wife tell him?” Prem asked.
“Maybe she likes it?” Leena offered.
“No, no chance of that.”
“You’re right.”
“Such a tragedy.”
“And he was trying to infect my father too!”
“Why not dark brown hair dye?”
“I’m sad the Indian beauty industrial complex failed him so badly.”
Hemant’s visitors numbered only one or two a day, but it was enough to sustain Prem and Leena’s casual elevator chitchat, which soon bled into other areas of the hospital. In the waiting room, they parsed the various strains of gossip divulged by Nachiket Rao centering mostly on his neighbor’s not-so-innocent divorce. In the hallway, they had a good laugh over Nathan Kothari’s concern that his recently skinny wife was going to run away with Nachiket Rao’s neighbor. When Charlie Patel insisted that Hindus were the ultimate recyclers—millions scheduled for cremation and subsequent reincarnation, he argued—they had to agree, later in the vestibule, that it was an interesting hypothesis.
A new familiarity grew between them, one that Prem did not want to disturb with mention of their shared past or Mikesh. He had, in fact, been leaving the hospital each day at the exact late-afternoon moment Leena’s fiancé visited after his rounds, thus avoiding the fact of his existence. Instead, Prem would take a ride on his bicycle to Dunkin’ Donuts just at the end of James Street or around the corner to Namasté Cafe for some legitimate chai. He would then return to enjoy studying Leena’s intense concentration when speaking with Hemant’s doctors or eating a cup of yogurt.
They settled into a sort of routine, and Leena began working from the hospital, taking calls, doing things on a computer. Prem knew he should have been tending to the Bollywood Gold preparations, but how could he? It was all playing out like a 1990s Hindi movie fantasy, he thought, until his single and available lady friends began showing up at the hospital to visit with assorted friends and family and ruin things for Prem. Statuesque and stunning Bishakha Dey, whom Prem had not seen since the incident with the police, came first, running into Prem and Leena in the hallway on her way to see a friend.
“Can you believe that night we had?” she beamed. “Let’s get together soon.”
Next, Suchitra appeared in the lobby, again with rajma in a Dannon container, this time for her mother on the second floor. “Prem! I was just remembering you when I saw the merry-go-round in the mall. How many years back was that? We must go again sometime.” They bumped into one in the cafeteria, another at the bakery, and still another hovering by a nurses’ station, not visiting anyone, just standing around hoping to meet a doctor. By the time Sayali turned up in the commissary, Prem suspected a conspiracy might be afoot, which, had it been true, would’ve been a huge success. Leena was more entertained by each woman they encountered, shooting Prem a look of amused accusation every time. They never spoke of any of it, underscoring Prem and Leena’s tacit rule of not asking about such things. So when Leena mysteriously left the hospital in the afternoon two days in a row, causing Prem to panic that she had a standing rendezvous with Mikesh for romantic tree circling and spontaneous highly choreographed dancing, there was only one course of action open to him: have his assistant spy on her.
Pankaj, it turned out, was an excellent spy. The next day, he followed Leena’s car out to Westfield and hid in a bus shelter when she entered the Bloom Bloom Room, where she spent over half an hour but emerged with no flowers. The same thing happened at her next stop, Vaccaro’s Bakery, where she stayed even longer but came out with no cookies or cannoli. Pankaj tried to piece together a theory but could only come up with the thought that she was bad at running errands. The next day, she went for a very long drive, and Pankaj wondered if she even knew where she was going. After nearly an hour, she turned into the gravel driveway of a charming and rustic ashram. A white swami in saffron robes greeted her, and together they paced a bucolic little field in back, sometimes pausing to point something out or gesture in a certain direction. Pankaj had guessed the reason Prem had wanted her followed, and it pained him to report back, his monotone voice slightly less monotoned, that she was either becoming an ascetic or planning a wedding.
Though he knew it was not the case, Prem felt deceived. All those recent moments lost their meaning, and he wondered why he had done Hemant’s laundry. He decided he had to see for himself and deliberately stayed when Mikesh came by, silently observing from behind a newspaper at the far end of the room as the dashing endocrinologist checked in with Hemant. On his way out, he said, “See you back home,” and patted Leena roughly on the back as if she weren’t the most perfect, precious thing.
The next day, Prem resumed avoiding Mikesh, taking his usual bike ride down James Street to Dunkin’ Donuts, where Wristwatch was having a cruller.
