Akhil Sharma - An Obedient Father

"I don't have them anymore." Anita waved a hand in the air.

"None of them?"

"Thank you. Thank you," Anita said, and laughed. "I want some thank yous also. At least twelve. I want thank yous for living this life while you lived yours."

Kusum watched Anita and wondered why she had believed kindness could matter to Anita.

"You're whining, Kusum," Ben said.

"Whining," Kusum repeated.

"Whining like a baby," Anita said.

"You don't care about saris," Ben added. Kusum looked at Ben and thought he did not love her. She wanted to cry but decided she would not.

Ben was packing a nylon duffel bag with what they might need for the trip to the Taj Mahal. They were going to stay overnight in Agra and then return to a hotel in Delhi. Kusum was sitting on a chair in the front bedroom watching Ben.

Anita hurried between them down the aisle to the gallery She had a plastic bag full of trash in one hand. She went down the gallery to the courtyard.

"I love you," Kusum said, wanting him to tell her he loved her and wondering whether she would believe him if he did.

"We have so many years to lean against. A fight doesn't matter," Ben said.

"We're rich so we can waste."

"I love you." He smiled and kept packing.

The words were not enough. Her world was a joke to him.

A few minutes later Anita returned, closed the door, and went to the kitchen.

"Am I wonderful?" Kusum asked.

"Perfect."

"I need specifics." Kusum looked at Ben and wondered how long it would take for the fear she was feeling to dissipate.

"Your shoulders are especially nice."

"So I can carry heavy things. I need more."

"No matter how much love you need, I can love you more."

Kusum did not believe him. Her world was ridiculous and abject, and if he could love anyone, why love someone like her?

The doorbell rang, and Kusum stood and opened the door. The garbage woman was standing there. She looked surprised to see Ben. "You live here?" she asked Kusum.

"I'm visiting."

The garbage woman, tiny, with hands so rough they appeared yellow, stinking of rot, regarded them suspiciously. "Who lives here?"

"Why?"

"First, you answer my question."

"Anita," Kusum shouted, and Anita instantly appeared.

The garbage woman opened her fist and a ShopRite plastic bag dangled forth. "This is yours?" she asked Anita, using the informal you.

"No."

"Whitey didn't bring it?"

"No."

"Whore." The garbage woman turned to Ben and held up the ShopRite bag. She pointed at him and then at the bag.

Ben asked Kusum to explain what was happening. The garbage

woman must have guessed the meaning of the exchange, because she said, "This woman doesn't want to pay me to take out the garbage and so throws it in my wheelbarrow when I'm not looking."

"Every two months she raises the prices," Anita said. "This is extortion."

Kusum explained the accusations to Ben, and he started laughing. He laughed so much he sat down on the bed.

The garbage woman appeared amazed at the sight of a white man laughing.

Ben picked up his camera from the bed and said, "Let's take a photo of her hitting Anita."

The garbage woman had straightened her back as soon as the camera was lifted.

"Ask her," Ben said.

Kusum did, and the garbage woman smiled and held up a fist. Ben took a picture of her shaking the ShopRite bag. Kusum was astonished. Anita laughed.

Carolyn and Asha wandered in from the roof, where they had been watching kites being flown. Ben introduced Carolyn to the garbage woman. "You look alike," the garbage woman said politely, though all she probably meant, Kusum knew, was that both Carolyn and he were fair-skinned. Carolyn leaned against her father's leg and his hand dropped to her head.

Kusum watched this and thought that she would like Carolyn to have Ben's capacity to move through worlds, carrying jokes and kindness and possibility with her. Then she felt Ben's love. She felt this and then, for the first time, felt the sharp shape of her guilt at having lived her life while Anita lived hers.

K sha stared out the airplane window. Kusum sat beside her.

/X^Kusum and her family had flown back to America after agreeing to adopt Asha. Kusum had returned to India a week ago to finish the adoption paperwork.

Asha had known for four months that she was leaving India. But

in the last few weeks she had been inconsolable, had begun to walk and talk in her sleep. At the Indira Gandhi Airport, she kept saying, "I was lying. I don't want to go." When the plane rose over the dust of Delhi, Asha pulled the red airplane blanket over her head and wept till they were over the ocean, at which point she fell asleep.

Now the Air India flight had just left Heathrow.

"Are we over a park?" Asha asked, turning to look at Kusum.

Kusum leaned over Asha's shoulder. The land was a perfect green, carefully divided by broad black lines. "Those are paths?"

"Highways." Kusum stared past Asha at the landscape tilting beneath them until it righted itself and disappeared from view.