Mohan Lal sighed. “We’ll be seeing each other in just two days’ time.”
Ms. Farber’s chest was heaving. Her nostrils began to flare. “That’ll be perfect, right? I’ll watch the boys, and you can get down to work. I mean, Mohan, we talked about this. I packed a freaking bag.”
Siddharth groaned, then squeezed his father’s hand. “Dad, my stomach’s killing me.”
* * *
Later that night, after Marc and Ms. Farber were gone, Siddharth lay in bed on the verge of sleep. His stomach felt better now. He was alone in the house with his father, and everything was totally fine. The ringing phone startled him, and he got out of bed and crept down the hallway. He seated himself on the floor, right by the doorway that led to the family room. That way his father wouldn’t see him.
Mohan Lal was on the sofa wearing pink shorts and an untucked striped shirt that had once belonged to Arjun. A glass of whiskey stood on the coffee table, and the receiver was sandwiched between his ear and shoulder. He was frowning silently as somebody spoke on the other end of the line. One of his hands held a slice of mango, and the other wielded the serrated Ginsu knife he had ordered from the television.
Siddharth could almost make out Ms. Farber’s angry words all the way from where he was sitting, but more than a minute passed before he heard his father say anything. When Mohan Lal finally spoke, his mouth was full of mango. “I never said that. Why would I think we’re doing anything wrong?”
Siddharth wished he could hear Ms. Farber’s words.
“Look,” said Mohan Lal, agitated, “it sounds like you’re giving me an ultimatum.”
. .
“Well, to me it sounds like an ultimatum.”
. .
“So you’re the boss then?” said Mohan Lal. “If you think something is right, then that’s the final word?”
. .
“What if I said the same thing about you?”
. .
“I don’t give a damn what you meant.”
. .
“Frankly, I’ve also had more than enough!”
Mohan Lal slammed down the phone and took a long sip of whiskey. Then he used his free hand to suck on the heart of his mango. He devoured it like a savage, like someone who hadn’t eaten in ages.
Siddharth wondered what his father was feeling in that moment. Was he angry? Lonely? Did he miss Ms. Farber? No, Mohan Lal didn’t really care about her. He missed his wife, and she was dead now. Both of them missed the same person, and she was dead. Normally, Siddharth would have gotten up and wrapped his arms around him. But he didn’t feel like it tonight. Tonight he just wanted to go to sleep. As he tiptoed toward his bedroom, a small part of him felt guilty. But mostly he was filled with a deep sense of relief.
6. Buff Blue God
For the next two days, Mohan Lal didn’t let Siddharth answer the phone, instead sending all calls to the new answering machine. Ms. Farber stopped trying after she’d left a few unreturned messages.
Siddharth and Mohan Lal resumed their dinners together in front of the television, laughing along with their favorite sitcoms. Mohan Lal made him turkey burgers and a special vat of rajma, enough to eat all week. He asked Siddharth to check his manuscript for typos and then to read certain chapters out loud. Once or twice, Siddharth even got up in the morning and crawled into his father’s bed like he used to when he was younger. He brushed his teeth in his father’s bathroom while Mohan Lal shaved, the man dumping his mug of murky shaving water out the window for the sake of the septic system.
By the end of the week, however, Mohan Lal started to seem distant and distracted. He stayed in his office straight through dinner and resumed old habits like falling asleep in front of the television or not sleeping at all to work on his book.
Things at school weren’t much better. Even though Luca had invited him to sit at his lunch table and play kickball, he still felt on edge around these kids. One day in the cafeteria, when he was reluctantly eating the brown Indian beans his father had packed for him, Eddie Benson started sniffing the air and grimacing. “Yo,” he said, “your lunch smells like my dirty stinkhole.” For the rest of the afternoon, Eddie and Luca referred to Siddharth as the Prince of Poop.
Without Ms. Farber to collect him from school, he found himself on the bus more often, and these long rides felt quieter and lonelier than he’d remembered. One evening, his father made him come to Elm City College and sit in on his graduate-level management course so that he wouldn’t have to spend the entire evening alone. Mohan Lal showed his students a clip from a movie in which an ape picks up a bone and starts smashing the ground. The scene seemed weird and totally irrelevant, but the students kept raising their hands to make different comments — that the movie was “criticizing the inherent savagery of progress,” or that it “depicted mankind’s innate animalistic nature.”
On the ride home that night, Mohan Lal asked Siddharth what he had thought of his teaching.
“It was fine,” said Siddharth, who had spent much of the class squirming in his seat, embarrassed by his father’s accent and constantly gesticulating hands. To Siddharth, Mohan Lal actually resembled the ape from the movie.
“Just fine?”
He turned to face his father. The man looked particularly exhausted in that moment, vulnerable. Siddharth’s embarrassment and frustration suddenly evaporated. He wondered how Mohan Lal could make it in the world if even his own son were so cruel to him. “Dad, your students totally love you.”
“They do?”
“Come on — you’re one of the greatest teachers in the world.”
Mohan Lal grinned, the glow returning to his tired face.
* * *
After almost a full week without Marc or Ms. Farber, Siddharth felt himself falling into a dark place. Even his favorite movies weren’t distracting him. He needed someone to talk to, but his brother was flaky these days, and also rather annoying. First Arjun had hated Ms. Farber and ranted about their father’s selfishness, and then, out of the blue, he called to say that he thought their relationship was a great idea. “Dad’s finally moving on. You need to be mature and let him.”
Siddharth wished he could talk to Marc. Two days earlier, he’d left a message on his friend’s answering machine, but Marc hadn’t called back. At the time, he told himself it didn’t matter, that he had other friends now and was doing just fine. But he’d come to see how this was bullshit. Maybe Arjun was right. Maybe he needed to stop living in the past. His life would probably be better if his father and Ms. Farber just did whatever they wanted. He felt like an ass for the way he had acted that night — for exaggerating about his stomach.
On Saturday morning — eight days after the adults had fought — he decided to give Marc another try. He took the cordless phone into the bathroom and dialed his number. The machine picked up again, so he called Ms. Farber’s office line. She answered after three rings.
“Hi. May I please speak with Marc?”
“Siddharth? Is everything okay?”
“Can I talk to him, please?”
“He’s out, Siddharth.” Her voice was deeper than usual, and raspy. “He’s been at his father’s for the past few days.”
“Really? Why?” He heard her light a cigarette.
“What do you mean, why? It’s his father.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment. He stared at himself in the mirror and tugged at his bangs, which came down to the middle of his nose. Soon his hair would be long enough to get it cut right — long on top and shaved on the sides.
“Siddharth, is there something you’d like to say?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure? How’s your dad?”