All of a sudden, Ms. Farber sat upright in her chair. She put on her tortoiseshell reading glasses and opened a folder, then asked Siddharth how things were going.
“Fine, I guess,” he said.
She made small talk about school for a minute. Then she asked him if he’d been feeling especially sad lately.
He shrugged.
“His marks have been excellent,” said Mohan Lal. “I’m very proud.”
Siddharth wanted to elbow his father in the gut.
Ms. Farber explained that Mr. Latella was impressed with Siddharth’s intellectual capabilities, but he was concerned about his social situation. He had been a little antisocial lately, and he seemed to be having trouble interacting with boys. As Siddharth absorbed all this bullshit, a bubble of cold air inflated inside his lungs. He decided that Mr. Latella was the biggest bastard in the entire world.
Mohan Lal stared up at the ceiling, then placed his hands underneath his thighs. “Ms. Farber, I don’t know what’s happened. So many kids used to call my son. Boys, girls — everyone.”
She smiled and nodded. “Siddharth has made so much progress over the past year. I’m really quite proud of him. But it’s no surprise that he’s a little isolated after all he’s gone through.” She launched into a speech containing terms like grief and depression, and Siddharth now felt as if someone had him in a chokehold. For the rest of his life, nobody would ever let him just be sad. When he was unhappy, they would always bring it back to his mother.
“Siddharth,” said Ms. Farber, “what about sports?”
“What about sports?” he said.
She explained that Mr. Latella thought it would be a good idea if he got involved with some sort of team or played some kind of sport.
Smiling, Mohan Lal grasped his shoulder. “His older brother is the sporting man. This one is his father’s son.”
Shrugging off his father’s fingers, he recalled what his brother used to say about sports. If Siddharth didn’t play sports, according to Arjun, he would never learn how to be a team player. He would never learn how to be a regular guy and would end up like Mohan Lal.
“What about something else?” said Ms. Farber. “A musical instrument maybe?”
Siddharth needed to defend himself. Music was for losers. Like Sharon. “I like to draw,” he said. “I draw all the time.”
“I know you do, honey, and you’re very good. But tell me, Siddharth, who do you draw with?”
“Nobody, I guess.” He thought he liked Ms. Farber. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Exactly. How about something more active? Something a little more interactive?”
He turned to his father for help, but Mohan Lal’s eyes were fixed on Ms. Farber.
“I know,” she said, thumbing through the pages of her leather planner. “How about karate?”
He wanted to tell her to shut up. But the fact was, karate didn’t sound half bad.
Her face was suddenly beaming. “Why didn’t I think of it earlier? Dr. Arora, the martial arts can be very good for young people. Tae kwon do has had such a positive impact on my own son.”
Mohan Lal said he would have Siddharth search through the yellow pages for a karate class as soon as they got home.
“Oh, we can do better than that,” she said. With a bony finger on her planner, Ms. Farber jotted a number onto a yellow square of paper. Her honey-colored eyes gleamed as she handed it over to Siddharth.
As he grasped the note, he felt the tightness in his lungs begin to slacken.
5. Nice Work, Bodhisattva
Siddharth was too excited to fall asleep the night before his first karate class. Over the past few days, he’d watched The Karate Kid several more times, and as he lay awake in his bedroom, he fantasized about winning a tournament like the one in the movie. A sea of uniformed fighters would carry him on their shoulders. Arjun would finally be proud, and Luca Peroti would be friends with him. He pictured himself kissing a blonde — a real one, not some slut like Sharon Nagorski.
In school the next day, he couldn’t focus on Mr. Latella’s booming voice. He was grateful when the teacher gave the class forty-five minutes for silent reading. He wondered if today was somehow lucky for him. He didn’t have to take the bus home or stay at his fucking after-school program. He fished out his copy of Call of the Wild from his messy desk; Mr. Latella was making him read it for his independent book project. Siddharth predicted the novel would be childish and boring, but after the first couple of pages, he was hooked. He couldn’t believe he was actually enjoying something recommended by a teacher.
This story had him riveted, as if it were a movie, and he felt like he had something in common with Buck, the canine protagonist. Both he and the dog had been separated from the people who made them happy. He sat alone on a swing during recess, reading the novel while Luca and his crew played kickball and Sharon played cards with her new gang of hos and losers. Later, when he told his teacher how many pages he’d read, the man said he was impressed. Mr. Latella gave him a high five for the first time all year, and Siddharth found himself smiling. He wondered if he’d been wrong about the guy. After all, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Latella, Ms. Farber would never have suggested karate.
Mohan Lal was waiting in the parking lot at three fifteen, and as Siddharth buckled himself into their minivan, his father’s appearance squashed some of his cheer and optimism. Mohan Lal was wearing a khaki suit, and Siddharth noticed an ink stain near the lapel. There was a time when his father used to spend half an hour ironing his clothes every night, but today he looked rather wrinkled. His bifocals sat crookedly on his nose, and a few of his wispy gray hairs were sticking straight in the air. He looked old, much older than anyone else’s parents. Old people got things like Alzheimer’s. Mohan Lal kissed him on the head. He hoped for his father to ask him something about his day, but before they’d even cleared the Deer Run parking lot, Mohan Lal was going off about his latest conflict with his boss, the new dean of Elm City College.
For the past year, his father had become embroiled in an all-out war with the dean, who the college had brought in to save it from bankruptcy. Today, Mohan Lal told him how the dean was now claiming that students were dropping his classes because they had a hard time understanding his accent. “Bloody bastard,” said Mohan Lal. “What’s wrong with the way I talk? I speak proper English — not like that corporate stooge.”
As Mohan Lal steered through the wooded suburban streets, he made Siddharth help him with his pronunciation of certain words. Siddharth struggled to get his father to say volatility, not walletility, to insert an r into the third syllable of university. Eventually, he lost his patience, saying, “Jesus, Dad, you’re not even trying to sound American.” As soon as the words came out, a cold guilt took hold of his stomach. He knew that Mohan Lal was a single parent. He knew that he was supposed to make his father’s life easier — not harder. “Anyway,” said Siddharth, “the dean obviously feels threatened. He’s threatened cause you’re smarter.” It was Sharon who had taught him that mean people were actually just insecure or threatened. “Trust me, one day they’ll be sorry they took you for granted.”
Smiling, Mohan Lal squeezed his knee. “Fret not, my son. Those fools will get what’s coming. My book’s gonna fix them good.”
Siddharth turned up the radio now that he had done his duty. He was sick of hearing about the stupid book. Far ahead of the van, the sky was crisp and blue, but charcoal clouds lingered over South Haven’s desolate town green and ancient meetinghouse. He told himself that karate was going to change his life. He’d be cool at karate, not the nobody he’d been during his thirteen-month stint at Deer Run. He glanced at the yellow leaves fluttering on the trees in front of the tiny public library. They glowed like gemstones. Most people thought these trees were birch, but he knew they were aspens. His mother had taught him the names of all the trees in South Haven.