But I do not. I just sit quietly in the glove-leather seat and watch as the traffic light turns from red to green, and she lets up on the clutch to sling us forward off the line, and we are running, following Route 3A again as the stores and filling stations and kiosks gradually thin out, the horizon coming visible, the golden, burnished woods rushing back, dense and stately in their towering solicitude as we reach the kempt, rolling country of Bedley Run.
Renny Banerjee, perhaps inspired, too, by the glittering canopy, is talking now about this town of ours. We’re gliding on the narrow two-lane road toward the old part of the village, the edifices of the dark brick town fire station and the turreted stone post office (once a mill) nobly guarding the entrance. But he’s going on somewhat bittersweetly, not at all in a way meant to perturb Liv, who everyone knows is the first champion of this place. It seems he’s had a few displeasing experiences around town in the last few weeks, despite the fact that he’s lived here for nearly ten years.
“I don’t know what it is,” he says, pulling himself forward between our seats in front, “but I’ve been getting the most annoying comments lately, around the village. I’m confused. It seems everyone has completely forgotten who I am.”
“Everyone but me,” Liv sighs.
Renny squeezes her shoulder appreciatively. “Really, though. Have you noticed anything odd, Doc?”
“Not myself. At least I don’t think so.”
“I guess not, for someone like you. You’re beloved. But I have. Even at Murasan’s. Not-quite-funny jokes.”
“What do you expect at that awful smoke shop?” Liv cries out. “They’re a bunch of mean old geezers. Sorry, Doc, but it’s true.”
“I suppose they can be a little acid,” I answer. I myself had been cutting back on my visits to the shop in recent months, as I’d decided to curtail my pipe smoking to one bowl a week instead of my longtime three or four; but also, I’ve been finding that the conversation there, which is usually entertaining and vigorous, has been somewhat sodden of late, as the fellows have been preoccupied with perceived “changes” in the character of the town and area, changes that Renny has obviously been compelled to address.
“Last week I’m there to buy cigarettes, just an in-and-out, and old Harris, who’s sitting in his usual spot in the corner, says something about the millions of new smokers in the Third World. I turned around and he just waited. I asked him if he was talking to me and he said he was interested to know what I thought about the situation. I told him I had no opinion and got my change and was about to leave when he said, ‘People don’t even care about their own anymore.’ Then the next day I’m walking by the duck pond in the park when I approach these two mothers with their strollers. One tries to hide, whispering something, and they quickly turn away like I’m about to mug them or steal their babies. Suddenly I don’t know what the hell’s going on around here. I mean, hey, I want to know, since when did I become the randy interloper?”
“It’s because you’re darker during the summer,” Liv says matter-of-factly, evidently bringing up an old topic of discussion. She turns to me, smiling. “It’s a fact.”
“This is different, Liv,” Renny insists. “And for the record, Liv darling, I’m always this dark. You should know. But it never mattered much before. Now people like Harris and Givens are talking about the ‘direction’ of the town. How the shop owners aren’t like they used to be, your average middle-class Italian and Irish folk. I guess except for you, Doc.”
“I guess so, yes.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t really heard a bigoted word from anybody. Just ‘observations.’ There’s every sort of merchant in town, the Viet people who bought the cleaner’s, the French-speaking black couple at the old candy store.”
“So what?” Liv exclaims. “People aren’t allowed to talk about who runs the businesses in their own town? What’s next, Renny? Will I not be able to even say you’re Indian anymore? Or that Doc Hata is a noble Japanese?”
“Of course not,” Renny answers. “But why this should somehow be of the most interest, I don’t know. Most people could say anything they want in this regard, and I wouldn’t blink. You know that’s always been my view. But it seems to me the mood has changed around here. I don’t know if it’s this recession and that people are feeling insecure and threatened. Bedley Run was never an over-friendly place, but at least it wasn’t completely unwelcoming. Now I’m not sure. The worst part is that I’m beginning to think I should have realized this long ago, and that I’ve been living for years inside an ugly cloud.”
“You can be so dramatic, Renny!” Liv says, guiding us into the old village proper, the shops and boutiques lined up in a comely bend of a row, one of those fine doors once mine. “Two little incidents in the same week and all of history has changed. So am I included in all this business, too, retroactively?”
“Of course not. I’m talking about something different. Try to tell her, Doc. I know you’ve always been happy here but at least you can partly understand what I’m describing, yes?”
“I believe I do,” I say to them, though unsure of why, and now sensing, too, how physically close we three are, even in the open car. We finally pass Sunny Medical Supply on the other side of the street, its window hazy and unlighted, with nary a glint of activity. “It’s true that at times I have felt somewhat uneasy in certain situations, though probably it was not anyone’s fault but my own. You may not agree with this, Renny, but I’ve always believed that the predominant burden is mine, if it is a question of feeling at home in a place. Why should it be another’s? How can it? So I do what is necessary in being complimentary, as a citizen and colleague and partner. This is almost never too onerous. If people say things, I try not to listen. In the end, I have learned I must make whatever peace and solace of my own.”
“But is this a situation that’s okay with you, Doc?”
Liv throws up her hands at this, the leather-wound steering wheel for a lengthy moment subtly playing on its own. “Sure it is! Come on, Renny, can we please move on now to other topics?”
“This one is interesting enough.”
“Okay then. Fine. Let’s look at the Doctor’s situation. He’s not in too rough a shape, having lived in this town. Bedley Run, after all, is not Selma. He’s recently had some trouble, but that was just a little fire. Otherwise, he lives in a gorgeous house in the most prestigious neighborhood, and he’s enjoying the high golden hour of a well-deserved retirement, for having been a business and civic elder and leader. This from anybody’s view. I could argue that in fact, Doc Hata is Bedley Run. He is what this place is about. Not the doctors and investment bankers and corporate lawyers who have ample cash and want sudden privacy and the airs that go with it. Though they’re my clients and I love them, I have to say they mostly have it wrong and Doc Hata has it right. You come to a place like this, Renny; you don’t make it yours with money or change it by the virtuous coffee color of your skin or do anything but welcomingly submit and you’re happy to do so. Because look. Take one look at this street. The tumbled sidewalk and shabby-chic shops. It’s all simple and beautiful and proportional. It has just the right amount of history, which, for the record, is welcoming and not. It’s the place you want to arrive at, forever and ever.”
“I once thought forever,” Renny says tightly. “That’s what I thought, and it was probably because you said it just like that.”