John Abbott - Scimitar

“Indian,” he said.

“Which tribe?” she asked.

“Not American Indian,” he said. “ Indian Indian. Calcutta, New Delhi, Bombay, like that. My father was Indian.”

This was the lie.

The eternal lie.

“He met my mother in Rajistan. She’s British.”

Embroidering the lie. By rote.

“I thought maybe you were Hispanic,” she said. “From a distance, you and your friend looked Hispanic.”

“My friend, yes,” he said. “Me, no.”

“Why Sonny?” she asked.

“Lots of Indians are called Sonny. I really don’t know why.”

“Lots of Italians are called Sonny, too,” she said. “Didn’t you see The Godfather ?”

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t.”

“Well, Sonny Corleone. He was Italian, you know. Not James Caan, but the character he plays. In the movie. In the book, too. Sonny.”

“Yes,” Sonny said.

“I loved Jewel in the Crown , too,” she said. “Did you see that one?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“On television? You didn’t see it?”

“No.”

“It was all about India!” she said, her eyes widening, her face registering surprise and perhaps outrage that someone of Indian descent had not watched a show that was all about India.

“I don’t watch much television,” he said. “Or see many movies, either. When I’m not at the hospital, I’m home studying.”

“Oh?” she said. Interest flashing in the blue eyes. Was it possible that the handsome Indian was also a med student? Or perhaps even a doctor ? Half the interns in the United States of America were Indian. Press your bedside buzzer at two in the morning, you got a guy in a turban and baggy pants, wearing a little black plastic nameplate with white letters that read Dr. Vishwambhar Prakash. When you were sick, the whole world was Indian.

“I’m a doctor,” he said, ending the intensely suspenseful moment.

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. Dr. Krishnan Hemkar. Sonny Hemkar.”

“Well. I’m pleased to meet you,” she said, and extended her hand. He took it. They shook hands. They held hands briefly. She withdrew her hand. She smiled at him.

“Beefeater’s on the rocks,” the bartender said, “Corona and lime. Pour it?” he asked Corrie.

“Please,” she said. “With a head, please.”

He poured the beer over the squeezed lime.

“Keep the tab running, sir?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” Sonny said.

The bartender went off again. Sonny raised his glass.

“Cheers,” he said.

“Cheers,” she said.

Their eyes met again.

“What’s the Corrie for?” he asked.

“Guess,” she said, and pulled a face. “Corinne. Isn’t that awful ?”

“Actually, I like it,” he said.

Another lie. Minor league, but a lie nonetheless; Corinne was possibly his least favorite name in the entire world.

“It’s a diminutive of Cora,” she said. “Which in Greek means ‘maiden.’ Which in itself is a laugh,” she said, and smiled. Meaning she was not a maiden. As if any woman in her mid-twenties, which is what he guessed she was, could in this day and age be mistaken for a maiden. Nonetheless, she’d informed him. Which was encouraging. He would have to remind her, later, that she’d been the first to bring up sex, however remotely. “So were you born in India?” she asked.

“Yes, but we moved to England when I was very young.”

The lie, the lie.

“How young?” she asked.

“I was eight months old.”

“Then you were just a baby.”

“Yes.”

“Then, actually, you were raised in England.”

“Yes.”

“So really you could call yourself English if you wanted to, couldn’t you? I mean, your mother’s English, isn’t that what you said...?”

“Yes.”

“... and you lived in England from when you — how old were you when you came to America?”

“Eighteen.”

“How old are you now?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“To go to college, or what?”

“Yes, college.”

“Where?”

“Princeton.”

“I went to U-Mich,” she said. “I wanted to be a writer.”

“Do you still write?”

“Yeah, insurance,” she said, and laughed.

“Would you like to sleep with me tonight?” he asked.

She looked at him.

“That was fast,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, smiling, nodding, ducking his head in the Little Boy manner that had worked for him on far too many previous occasions. He had never had trouble bedding any girl or woman he’d wanted. Never. At the same time, he often felt that he was at their mercy, felt that each time a seduction succeeded for him it was contradictorily he himself who’d succumbed to a force beyond his control.

“So?” he said, and smiled boyishly. “What do you say?”

“Why not?” she said.

So much for safe sex, he thought.

Shower at six in the morning, leave the apartment, dash home to douche or whatever it was they did afterward to ward off evil demons and venereal disease. In all fairness, she had asked him for a brief sexual history — he’d made it as brief as possible — and then insisted that he use a rubber, which he’d always felt was tantamount to skiing on grass. The night had been only moderately exciting, and he was not surprised to find her long gone when the alarm went off. He looked at the clock again. He had hit the snooze button at eight; it was now twenty minutes to nine. The sheets smelled of stale sex. He stretched his arms over his head, yawned, and then threw back the covers and got out of bed.

The apartment was insufferably hot.

Something wrong with the air conditioner, he’d been begging his landlady to fix it ever since the heat wave began at the beginning of the month. He went into the bathroom, performed what BJ called The Morning Rites of Passage, and then washed his hands as if he were scrubbing up for brain surgery. There was something wrong with the hot water, too, this damn apartment. He yanked a big white bath towel from the rack and, drying his hands, looked at himself in the mirror over the sink; he did not feel even vaguely positive that he could cope successfully with the day ahead. Wearing only the big towel — white against his dusty skin, the hard flat belly and dancing pecs courtesy of Nautilus three times a week — he came out into the kitchen, put up the coffee, and poured himself a glass of orange juice. The time was 9:06 A.M. by the digital clock on the countertop microwave; it felt like the middle of the night. A note was propped up against the toaster. He picked it up. In a hasty scrawl, she’d written: Adored it, I’ll call you .

Don’t bother, he thought.

The telephone rang.

So soon?

He lifted the receiver from the wall mount.

“Hello?” he said.

“Scott?”

A British accent detectable even in that single word. But...

“Who’s this, please?” he asked.

“Mrs. Jennings,” she said.

Nothing valid yet.

“And the first name?”

“Priscilla.”

“Go ahead, Mother,” he said. “This is Scott.”

There was a slight pause. Then she said, “Are you awake, Scott?”

His heart lurched.

“I’m an early riser,” he said.

The proper response.

“I have good news,” she said.

“Tell me.”

“I think I’ve found an apartment for you.”

“Where?”

The proper words, the proper sequence.

“Here in New York.”

“How did you find it?”

“In The New York Times .”

Essential information.

“How much are they asking?”

“Twenty-five.”