Tania James - Atlas of Unknowns

“But since we’re on the topic …” He picks up his camera, adjusts the focus ring, and scoots a candelabra closer to his father’s plate. “This footage will be kind of underexposed, but whatever; I’ll deal with it in post.”

Rohit clears his throat. “Mom and Dad, I have something to tell you.”

Mr. Solanki presses both hands to the table, his head slightly bowed, ready to receive the weight of this news. From beneath his well-plucked brows, he looks at his son with something between fear and stern courage.

“Guys,” Rohit says. “I’m not going to be a doctor. I’m going to be a filmmaker.”

Anju can hear the breath drawing in and out of Mr. Solanki’s nose, shuddering the candle flame near his plate.

“That’s it?” Mr. Solanki says.

Rohit says that’s it.

Mr. Solanki looks at Mrs. Solanki. “I thought he was going to say that he’s a gay.”

“I thought so too.” Glancing at the camera, Mrs. Solanki adds: “It’s gay , Varun. Not a gay.”

“Wait, wait.” Rohit seems incapable of deciding which parent to focus on. “You thought I was gay? Why? I mean, what would make you think that?”

“Don’t be angry,” Mr. Solanki says.

“I’m not; I just find it a little shocking, or weird, that my own father doesn’t know me.”

“Your mother too. And we didn’t even discuss it!” Mr. Solanki looks at Mrs. Solanki with amused wonder.

By this point, Rohit is scowling at his father, the camera listing to one side.

Mrs. Solanki squeezes her son’s shoulder. “Oh Rohit, it’s just that you said you had this big announcement, and you are a young single man, always talking about self-discovery and exploration and slim-fitting pants….”

“Can you guys just respond to what I said? That I’m going to be a filmmaker?”

“I work in television, darling,” Mrs. Solanki says. “I have been in the entertainment industry for fifteen years. If you wanted to rebel, you should’ve become a doctor.”

“So is that what you want?”

Mr. Solanki refreshes his glass of wine and looks at Rohit, who is looking into the camera. “Gay director, straight director, direct traffic for all I care. This is not a revolution, Rohit, what you are doing. Why don’t you finish this film? Or finish a degree? Finish anything. That would be a revolution.”

Rohit’s expression seems to gather in turmoil, his forehead wrinkling as he squints into the camera, the storm of his thoughts gathering up until he cries out, “Oh man, I fucked up the focus! It’s on auto. Wait, Dad, can you say that again? That was a great line, that thing about revolution.”

THE DINNER NEVER QUITE recovers its pleasant veneer, as both Mr. and Mrs. Solanki withdraw into lengthy silences and one-word answers to Rohit’s questions. Darting looks around the dinner table, Anju presses the tines of her fork into a pillow of spinach ravioli. She is relieved when Rohit, with a sigh of surrender, finally turns the camera off.

There is no discussion that this family will not touch, no question unposed, no secret kept. Yet for all their honesty, all these freedoms of speech, neither Rohit nor his parents seem to know what to make of one another. They eat like strangers on a plane, eyes fastened to their plates.

Whether this is better or worse than her own family, Anju cannot tell. Among her family, the subject of Romantic Love, for example, is never addressed, like a god who could cause retinal damage if stared at directly. Best to observe R.L. indirectly, as depicted in films or television shows. Still it would be nice, Anju thinks, to confide certain thrills and anxieties in one’s own sister. Even if they were on speaking terms, Anju would never tell Linno that someone had penned her a poem, nor that this same someone will be waiting by her locker tomorrow, expecting an answer.

MONDAY MORNING, Anju steps delicately from class to class. She watches herself cycle through the functions of daily life while harboring epic feelings, as expressed in centuries of poetry and painting. In love, she swabs her throat with Obsession. In love, she drinks from the water fountain. In love, she puckers her Vaselined lips at the spotty bathroom mirror where in the corner someone has written in red lipstick: this is what a feminist looks like. She admires the fiery hue of the lipstick, wishes she had some of her own. Her ponytail droops and her breasts are lopsided from the cutlets, but she is loved for the sum of her imperfect parts.

By the middle of the day, she still has not seen Fish.

In math class, while proving the congruency of vertical angles, she deduces that shyness and sensitivity must be vital to poets. Men who regularly capture hearts have no need of writing down their intentions; they simply act on them. But men who pen poems do so to test the water, to work up a lather of emotion where there might not be any.

She only wishes that Fish could retire his sensitivity at will and show up at her locker with an aggressive stride, a gleam of want in his eye. Though having little to no other experience with being pursued, Anju does recall that when her father wanted a job, he wooed the employer with charm, ambition, punctuality, and a freshly pressed shirt. Sometimes none of these worked, but at least he failed heroically.

ON HER WAY TO LUNCH, Anju finds Fish in the Fine Arts Wing, staring at Linno’s paintings. His arms are crossed, and when he turns to her, his expression is much calmer than expected.

He says hey.

She says hey.

He asks her what is on the cafeteria menu, a question that, Anju has learned, is the student equivalent to asking about the weather, a query posed merely to fill the time. Pork fried egg rolls. Strawberry fro yo.

She thought that she would begin the conversation by talking about his poem. She planned to explain how stunned she was by his honesty, offered undistilled to a roomful of strangers and friends, and the way his eyes, after Mrs. Loignon finished reading, hid nothing. Even in dreams, she was never so brave.

But he heads her off. An edge to his voice, he says: “Well, Saturday night sucked.”

And then, to her dismay, he launches into a tirade against his mother, how she showed up at Solomon’s Porch and went sniffing around for a spliff from which Fish had partaken, sure, but did not possess, and all because of this, his mother dragged him out like the goddamn SWAT team. Not only this, but the bouncer confiscated his ID. Racism at work, Fish says, or if not racism, then ageism. He is already penning a poem called “Schisms.” Nodding, nodding, she feels her epic moment sliding away from her, the window of confession growing narrow, the clock run down by his aggressive babble. Not once does he glance at her propped-up bust or take a whiff of her Obsession. It is possible, she supposes, for a heroine to wrest control of her love scene, but she does not know the right words, at least none that belong in this era. All the words she knows belong to Marvell or Herrick or Roget’s Thesaurus , all florid declarations and complex phonetics. What she wants is a quick route to intimacy, a few seismic words to close the gap between them, to make him know her completely. Her insides are coiled with the potential energy of revelation, which is why, when he sighs and glances at the paintings, when he says that by the way he likes her work, she says:

“They are not mine.”

He looks at her, then squints at the card below the paintings. “Is there another Anju Melvin?”

This is not the conversation for which she planned. She surprises herself with the words she utters. “I have to tell you something.”

Such intimacy in the lowered voice. Fish leans in.

“I have an older sister. When she was small, she had an accident.”