Now Padmini holds Valerie’s gaze and they look deeply into each other’s eyes, eyes flooded with worry. Padmini’s parents relocated to Britain when she two; she was brought up in a very strict household. Their homes, both in Uganda and England, had a small Hindu shrine off the kitchen, where incense burned day and night. When Padmini was fifteen and still at school, her mother “found” her a husband — a very handsome boy two years her senior, the only son of a family that lived next door in Kampala before the mass expulsion; his father owned a chain that distributed newspapers all over Britain. Padmini became distraught at the thought of marrying a man she barely knew. “You don’t know what I am like,” she sobbed to her parents, “and any man who marries me isn’t going to like me when he gets to know the real me.” No one bothered to ask Padmini what she was really like. If they had, would she have dared to give her love a name? Her parents thought she meant to say that she was not going to be a typical Indian wife. They let that match go, but it never crossed their minds that their daughter was partial to women.
She was an outstanding student and represented her comprehensive school in many interschool competitions. It was in the finals of one such competition that she encountered an equally exceptional student, Valerie Wilkinson. Padmini won first prize, and Valerie took second. They began writing letters to each other, and a friendship grew. Both were accepted to the University of East Anglia, where they roomed together and exchanged stories of their crushes and previous amorous encounters. Valerie was keener on boys, while Padmini already knew that she was only attracted to girls. One summer, they traveled together to France because Valerie was majoring in French and Padmini harbored the ambition of one day running a Michelin-starred restaurant.
After completing their studies, they went their separate ways, but they stayed in touch. Valerie was very surprised when Padmini entered into an arranged marriage. Rajiv was okay, but he and Padmini were nothing alike. Meanwhile, Valerie went from boyfriend to boyfriend until she met Aar, her first long-term affair. He was five years her senior and based in Geneva as an employee of the UN. He traveled a lot, which was part of his appeal for Valerie. He would go to London for weekends, where he would share her room at the hotel where she was a deputy manager, mainly in charge of the bars, the restaurants, and the catering service. She spent a wonderful week with him in Senegal in a beach house he borrowed from a colleague who worked with him in Geneva. Back in England, she brought him along to a party at Padmini’s. That night, Valerie became pregnant. When she informed Aar, he sought Bella’s counsel. Bella was not in favor of her brother’s having a child with Valerie, nor of their marrying. She said, “I have a visceral dislike of the woman and would advise against your marrying her.”
But Aar and Valerie were married anyway, in Mali, at a ceremony where the country’s most famous band led by Salif Keita performed. Several local notables had been invited and everyone had a good time, especially the marrying couple. And during the first few years of their marriage, it was universally agreed they were a happy couple. They had Salif, who was named for the bandleader, and then Dahaba.
After that, things seemed to change. Aar was loyal to her, and Valerie was hospitable to their friends, but at home he took more care of the children than she did; she seemed relaxed only in the company of other adults, especially when she and Aar were giving dinners. Aar felt, Bella remembers, that these gatherings gave Valerie’s life purpose. When they were living in Geneva, she set up a catering business for the foreign embassies, consulates, and UN bodies. But she was always fighting with her employees and firing them.
Padmini remained a frequent visitor, staying away from Rajiv for longer and longer spells. During Aar’s protracted absences from home, Padmini and Valerie slept in the same bed; the children, especially Dahaba, were unsettled by this and complained to Aar about it. But because Valerie seemed happy again and complained less, he stayed quiet. By then, Valerie had abandoned all pretense of running the catering business. It was equally obvious that Padmini’s marriage was doomed, but she hadn’t the heart to bring it to an end, reasoning that in her culture such things were not done.
The first time Aar caught Valerie and Padmini in bed was when Valerie fell asleep in Dahaba’s bed after reading her a bedtime story and instead of joining Aar in the conjugal bed, she went to Padmini’s room, sneaking back to Dahaba’s bed before sunrise. Good breeding forbade Aar to speak of what he saw. But when Bella came for a brief visit, he talked about what was going on. To his surprise, Bella refrained from giving him advice. Perhaps, he thought, she’d decided it was too late to give her opinion on Valerie.
And so Aar bided his time until an opportunity presented itself. There was an opening in the Nairobi office. Padmini was on one of her many visits. He told Valerie he had to go to the New York head office for an interview, and by the time he returned, he would know if he had the job in either Vienna or Nairobi, with a possible secondment to Somalia. When he got back, Padmini was there. He told Valerie he had been offered the position in Vienna. Eventually, he said, he hoped to be transferred to somewhere in Africa, preferably closer to home.
Valerie did not appear to be enthusiastic about moving to Vienna with him. Unlike Aar, who had already acquired Italian in Somalia, English in Canada, and French in Geneva, she was not proficient in languages and had no intention of learning German.
Valerie smiled when her eyes met Padmini’s but frowned when her gaze encountered Aar’s knowing grin. He guessed that Valerie and Padmini needed time alone to talk things through. A furtive glance at his wristwatch supplied him with an excuse to depart. “I’ll pick up the children from afterschool,” he said. “Let us talk later after dinner.”
When he returned home with the children, he found a note from Valerie. The note simply said that she and Padmini had gone to the gym for a workout and were not coming home for supper that night. They did not return until about one o’clock in the morning; a light sleeper, Aar woke to the sound of Valerie’s key in the lock and then their footsteps.
A couple of days later, Padmini left, and things seemed normal between Aar and Valerie, even if she didn’t return to the conjugal bed or accept any of his physical approaches. As he was not the type to force a woman to do his bidding, especially his wife, Aar acceded to her request that they remain physically apart.
Aar was not due to begin the job in Vienna until the fall. With the end of the school year approaching, Salif and Dahaba talked of how eager they were to visit a game park in Africa. Aar said, “What a brilliant idea.” He suggested a family trip to Nairobi in a bid to work on the marriage and mend his rapport with Valerie without the presence of Padmini. All four of them had a wonderful time, above all Valerie, who was equally delighted to see wild game galore and sample some of the sixty-four types of meat served at the restaurant Carnivore, which Salif adored and Dahaba, who was in her vegetarian phase, hated. Taking long walks and long drives, staying up late and rising early to watch wild animals in their habitat, everyone enjoyed the visit to the game park. But as the trip progressed, Valerie began to run a high fever, especially in the evenings, apparently because a tick bit her.
When they were back in Geneva and ready to move to Vienna, Valerie’s fever persisted, but she still refused to see a doctor, until she developed massive headaches as well, whereupon Aar insisted she see someone. She was eventually diagnosed as suffering from the aftereffects of a tick bite. Most of her physical symptoms came under control, but others — the obvious volatility to her behavior in particular — persisted.