The Abundance: A Novel Read online

  The calls take hours, as I predicted. I had put off this strange obligation for as long as possible. I am a shy person, and there is nothing so public and look-at-me as spilling one’s mortality in a living room three thousand miles away. The closest relatives in India suggest flying over to help. They are well-off, but they are not rich; two families have daughters with weddings coming up, and I do not want them tapping into their savings. I claim I will ask if I need them to come. I point out how Mala stayed the week with me, and how both families are visiting next month. I am taken care of here, I tell my brother. It makes me feel very proud to say that. I get to show them all: Look, here in America our children are close to us, too. I raised them right. They are caring for me in my time of need.

  I dread telling the cruise-loving Nainas of our circle most of all. I fear my chitchat-and-potluck relationships will break under the weight of my news. I don’t want their awkwardness, their visits, their feelings of obligation. But everyone, including Naina herself, reacts as I imagine myself reacting to a similar phone call. Their shock and grief are genuine and full of urgency. The wives offer to bring meals. Calls come in over the rest of the day as word spreads locally. Abhi has trouble remembering which family he has promised which evening, so he starts a database on a scratchpad, the days of the coming weeks listed in columns. Soon each day has a dash and a name.

  They offer to drive me to appointments any time I need. They offer this sincerely, but who would take up such an offer? The meal is different. It can be made and dropped off at their leisure. But a ride I don’t want. My friend’s day would have to be built around my two hours. I would bring my odor of mortality into her car, her mind, her morning.

  The visits begin the day after the phone calls. They all want to help, my book club friends, my dinner-party doctors’ wives, my house-key and houseplant neighbors two blocks over—and they all want to know. Has it spread? When could I first tell that something was wrong? What was the first thing I felt? (Prompting, I am sure, the inevitable thought: I have an ache there, too, sometimes…) What did the doctors say? How are they treating it? And then the question never verbalized but ever-present, the one they ask every time their eyes flick over my wasting body. How long?

  Sometimes people write these things in a book. I have so much trouble answering the questions I am asked, maybe I should write a book. That would give me distance. Everyone’s eyes would be on the words, not on me. I could hand over a copy and say, “It’s all in there. Read it later. Talk to me about something else for a while.”

  I would still hold some things back: how many injections, how many pills. The brooch and earrings on the oncologist’s nurse practitioner, her face smeared flawless with foundation that contrasts with the aged, big-ringed hands that take down my answers. The oncologist showing me and Abhi the scrolling images of an abdomen scan, pointing out exactly what is new and what has grown.

  Whoever read it would think, in frustration, where is it? Where has it spread? How long do you have?

  I would have my answer ready, if I chose to answer. This is not a book about dying. This is a book about life.

  Milind Shah used to invite us to the karaoke parties at his house. I was no singer, and no amount of polite clamor could stir me from the couch. I would sip Diet Sprite and eat salted cashews from the crystal bowl. Couple after couple would insert their CDs and present what they had rehearsed. Abhi had a good singing voice—Milind and the other couples would never accept a no from him. Besides, it was proper for at least one member of a couple to perform.

  Abhi hated these parties, but Milind—Mel—ranked extremely high in the hospital administration. (Back then he was chief medical officer; recently he has risen even higher.) We had to go. Abhi never attended things he didn’t want to attend, except these karaoke parties. On the drive there, I would try to console him. “There’s actually no audience at all,” I said, “except me, because I’m not there to sing. Everyone else is a singer, which means they are either nervous about their performance, or they’re up there, singing. Or they’re wondering how they just sounded. Really, you could be singing in the shower.”

  This didn’t keep Abhi from his ice-cube-crunching irritation—interrupted, I confess to my amusement, when he had to get up and sing some benign old Mukesh song. Abhi’s voice sounded best when he sang Mukesh.

  Kal khel mein

  Hum ho na ho

  Gardish mein taare

  Rahenge sadaa

  “Tomorrow I may or may not still be in the game, but the stars in the heavens will remain forever…” Abhi’s resentment would fixate on Milind-Mel, who enjoyed his karaoke parties immensely and expressed his good mood with lively, crowd-pleasing Kishore Kumar songs. At the end of each evening he would turn serious and sing a long, classical geet, during which he would roll his head wildly to match the intensity of his alaaps.

  “That? That’s just amateur humming,” he would say afterward, collecting the compliments. “By the way, Kishore Kumar wasn’t classically trained either, you know. Manna Dey, Yesudas, the other classical singers—they looked down on him. But he had a natural command of the ragas. It was in his blood.”

  Over dinner, when Milind presided, the men’s conversation would turn to investments, the market, bonds, Treasury bills, inflation rates, what the Fed was going to do. They asked Abhi’s opinion. With Ronak working in Manhattan, Abhi must have some kind of insider knowledge, yes? Abhi always disappointed them. They could not believe his utter disinterest. They thought he must be holding back the tips he got from Ronak and secretly making a killing in the market.

  How alike they all looked, sitting under the chandelier. Balding, prosperous Indian physicians in late middle age, polo shirts, khaki shorts, the children grown and off living distant lives. Identical. No indication, on the surface, of Abhi’s secret life, of his abstract breathtaking inner world, where mathematics had the same relationship to money as poetry did to news.

  Abhi ran into Milind in the doctor’s lounge the day he heard about my diagnosis. Milind expressed his shock and such while continuing to smear cream cheese on his bagel. While Abhi gave him the details—when we found out, what the prognosis was, what the scans were showing—Milind bit into his bagel and kept nodding with cream cheese at the corners of his mouth. “He must have been catching a quick breakfast, Abhi,” I said in Milind’s defense. “He must have had patients to see.”

  But Abhi was full of indignation he hadn’t been able to express at the time. He described in detail Milind’s breakfast. “Then Mel asks me whether there are any clinical trials. And right away looks down to choose a banana. I am still answering, and he starts peeling it.”

  “Don’t be so sensitive, Abhi. If you approach people like this, no one will be able to say anything right.”

  “He is completely…” Abhi put two fingers to each temple and crushed his eyes in frustration. “Completely inside his own head.”

  I nodded. “Some people are like that. They have trouble imagining how other people see things.”

  “That’s what it takes to get ahead in politics the way that man has. You have to have a big ego.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “That he and Kamala want to pay a visit.”

  “Oh,” I said, looking around uneasily. The mess had quickened as I slowed down. Rice Krispies were crushed into the tablecloth. The hand towels stank of sour damp. Ants had formed a long thread stretching across the kitchen floor to an ancient sticky patch of maple syrup. Paid and unpaid bills littered the counter as well as a sloppy stack of junk mail I had not yet trashed. Abhi offered often enough to hire a maid service. Sometime soon, I knew, it would be inevitable. But not yet. I could do it, but I needed time. I started calculating how quickly I could get the house clean or at least tidy. “Did he say when?”

  “He’s going to call.”

  We heard nothing from Milind for a week.

  * * *

  It is Saturday. He calls. Are we at home? They want to
come over to give me a gift.

  He is only a few minutes away. This could mean anything from five minutes to twenty-five minutes, but in any case, it’s not enough time to make the house clean. I am on the couch, propped on my three throw pillows. A book sits on the floor. I have not read more than five pages. Occasional sweeps of nausea make me feel like I’m reading in a car. My hands rest on the blanket. The knuckles look very bony. I hide them. It’s not as though they are going to shake my hand. I hear the doorbell. Abhi’s welcome is muted, no pleasantries, no rise of voices in hello. There is disease in this house, and disease has its decorum.

  Milind’s wife, Kamala-Kim, comes in first. She bends low over the couch to put her hands on my shoulders, a symbolic substitute for an embrace. The purse on her shoulder falls forward and rests on my chest. It is small and lightweight. I am surprised. My purse grew full during motherhood, a kind of separate pregnancy, and never wholly lost the weight. Milind joins his hands, as if the occasion is religious, and keeps his distance. His face is serious—in its classical-geet mode. The murmurs begin. Kamala kneels beside my couch, her penned eyebrows high. They both have a Hello My Name Is sticker on their chests.

  “Were you attending a conference?” I ask.

  Husband and wife look down at the evidence. “There is a community health fair going on,” says Milind, “over at the recreation center.”

  Kamala nods. “We like to help out. Blood pressure checks, advice about diet and exercise, that sort of thing. Mel gave a talk.”

  “Really? What about?”

  Milind clears his throat. “Basic stuff. It had a clever title, though. ‘These Boots Were Made for Walking: Making Regular Exercise a Part of Your Life.’”

  “Is that a saying?”

  “I think it’s a song, right?” Kamala looks to Milind.

  “Frank Sinatra,” he says. “Tell me. Has music been a comfort to you, in this trying time?”

  “Yes. And reading.”

  “Reading is good. But there is nothing, nothing, like music.”

  I nod.

  “We brought you some CDs.” Milind lifts a small bag with two plastic CD cases in it. “I went through my MP3 collection and burned you all the bhajans. The one I labeled Volume 2 has some gems of Rafi at the end.”

  “Rafi had some beautiful religious songs,” says Kamala. “Like ‘Man Tarapat Hari Darshan ko Aaj.’ Even though he was a Muslim.”

  Milind raises his hand and turns his wrist and closes his eyes, head softly rolling, a face of mystical ecstasy. “Music transcends these divisions. Caste and creed. It transcends them.”

  “It does, it does,” I say, glancing at Abhi, who is sitting on the armrest at the far end of my couch.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” asks Abhi. “Water? Juice?”

  “We had lunch at the health fair,” says Milind. “What have you been listening to? Bhajans?”

  “Yes, among a few other things.”

  “You know, we talk about this and that and science and whatnot, but music heals us at a deeper level. I tell my patients that. It is medicine administered per os—by ear.”

  “Kamala?” Abhi asks. “Water, juice, anything?”

  “Oh no, I’m fine as well.”

  Milind stares at me as if seeing my sunken face for the first time. He purses his lips and nods to himself. “I should come over some time and sing some bhajans for you. Would you like that?”

  “Of course, Milind bhai. But you are so busy…”

  “I am not busy now. And even if I was, this takes priority.” He is kneeling by me. He glances a few degrees to his left and says, to no one in particular, “Is there a chair?”

  Abhi brings over a chair from the dining table. Milind pushes away the coffee table so he has enough room for the chair and his own presence. Kamala sits on the love seat at a right angle to my couch. Her husband has his eyes closed and is readying himself. She looks at her watch.

  Milind begins a low hum. “I have not rehearsed,” he says, “so you must forgive my mistakes.”

  Abhi takes the seat next to Kamala, his body leaning away from her, his head on his fist, his gaze fixed on the far end of the house. Milind begins singing, full-voiced, no adjustment in volume made for the close quarters. He does have talent. Not even Abhi could deny that. The eyes stay shut, meditative. He begins a filmi song from several decades ago, again by Rafi. The lyrics talk about Radha dancing—tirikita toom, tirikita toom, ta, ta—and Krishna playing his flute. The tune is as chipper as classical gets, but the song has Radha and Krishna in it, so maybe it is appropriate. Extempore alaaps add gravity. After Milind finishes, I say, “Thank you so much,” but he is concentrating, as if he has a word on the tip of his tongue.

  Finally he lifts a finger. “And there’s also this, in the same raga…”

  “Mel,” Kamala says. “She must be tired.”

  “This is music,” he answers, irritated. “It is relaxing. It is the opposite of tiring.” He looks at me. “Are you tired?”

  “I am not the one singing, Milind bhai. As long as your throat is—”

  Milind starts a prefatory alaap. This segues into a bhajan. When he is done, he says, “You see how they are identical? You see?” But it sounds nothing like the first song, at least to me.

  I nod. Abhi stands up and says, “Mustn’t overwork your voice, Mel.”

  Milind touches his throat. “I am speaking at a dinner tonight on a new diabetes drug.”

  “Best of luck.”

  “It’s at the Savoy Park Steakhouse.”

  “Mel, Kim, thanks for stopping by. We won’t keep you.”

  “No, no. It has been my pleasure to share what I can.” He points at the CDs in the bag and nods at me. “You will find great comfort in these CDs. Books are helpful, but music is music. Let that be the one thing I leave you with. Music is music.”

  Kamala rises, then kneels at my hand.

  “It must be so hard,” she says, shaking her head at me, “so lonely. What with your children so far away.” Her eyes fall to the carpet. “I tell Ankur all the time, What if something happens to us? L.A. So far away. It’s just a flight, he says. But still.”

  “The children come very often—Mala, every weekend she has off.”

  “How are Mala and Rahul holding up?”

  I am about to say Ronak, but I stop myself. She is trying. No need to reveal how little we really know each other. “They are both coming over this weekend, actually.”

  “You must be so excited!”

  I smile. Kamala leans forward and makes a kissing sound in the air beside my cheek. “Keep smiling, okay?” she whispers. She stands and tugs her purse back up, onto her shoulder.

  Milind keeps a hand on Abhi’s arm. I can hear the confidential wisdom he imparts.

  “In the beginning,” he is saying, “you take part in life, you laugh and cry. But toward the end, if you are wise, you become a witness. You become detached. You witness your own grief from the sky, you know? Like God.”

  It feels good to say my children are coming to see me. This is what I tell the loneliness when—five hours since Abhi left, five until he gets home—the loneliness asks why the house is so quiet. I answer afterglow or anticipation. Mala comes often enough that I can say that, with or without the grandchildren. After Kamala’s visit the weekend comes quickly. Mala’s minivan is suddenly in our garage, both doors slid back and the rear door high. Abhi pulls in behind her, having fetched Ronak’s family from the airport.

  When everyone is here, it’s the same as if no one is here. I cannot focus. Vivek and Ronak’s three boys play tag, thumping upstairs, thumping downstairs. They dissolve into squeals and laughter at the moment of tag, then go quiet suddenly as the running and chasing starts anew. The hair at their temples slicks down with sweat. During their rare pauses, they throb like space heaters. I feel I could warm my hands at their flushed cheeks. Shivani, still a little shy in big gatherings, stays with her father. Ronak gets her to sit in his lap by showing
her a Pixar movie on his phone. The central conversation is him talking to Mala; Sachin listens closely, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, left foot bobbing, eager to charge into the pauses.

  Amber sits quietly, in a silence without anxiety. She monitors the children and simply says a name if she wishes to stop a behavior. Dev, when he hears “Dev,” stops jumping off the chaise for the rest of the afternoon. I am on that chaise under my blue microfiber throw; he climbs on it and jumps off without seeing me. Amber is the one Abhi talks to when, periodically, he emerges. There are enough people in the house that he can retreat unnoticed. Everyone is distracted. They don’t notice his absence the way they don’t notice my presence.

  Not that I am reproaching them. I like basking in the family noise. I like how the hours go by, how baths get delayed and everyone’s in their pajamas well past eleven in the morning, how lunch is late, how even Amber’s children get their nap times thrown off in the general excitement, how the words ice cream get said instead of spelled aloud and suddenly all the grandchildren are demanding it. I don’t even mind the random tantrum, Mala kneeling and shouting and making it worse, Sachin scooping up Vivek and going upstairs for a time-out. I don’t mind Raj screaming for the small stuffed elephant that’s been in Shivani’s hands all morning. It’s best I am too weak to pick him up and promise to find him an identical one at the toy store; Amber never liked it when I did things like that. She watches him cry for what feels like a long time but probably isn’t.

  This is how she trains them. I remember being in their house when she was teaching Dev to sleep by himself in the crib. She used to watch the clock and go in at intervals, some technique she had read in a book. All three of her children slept wherever she laid them, even with daylight through the blinds. Her husband drank from my breast until he was three years old and slept in my warmth until he was five. He had his own bed, but he never stayed in it past midnight. I remember his skin smelling of Johnson & Johnson’s from the night bath I gave him. I would hover my lips over his hair and savor the tickle. I always slept badly. He would toss and kick. Abhi used to flee for the recliner downstairs. I did not mind.