Chitra Divakaruni - One Amazing Thing

When I confided my fears for the salon, Lola waved a dismissive hand. “Mrs. Balan won’t dare do anything to me. I have too many influential clients, and I know too many indiscreet things that she’s said in here. If I decided to open my mouth, she wouldn’t be invited to another party as long as she lived. Besides, she needs me. Without me, within a month, she’d look fifteen years older.

“I had to fire you, of course. I had no choice. Though I hate to lose you-you have the instincts of a true beautician. But you must leave Coimbatore right away. It isn’t safe here for you anymore. Mrs. Balan can’t harm me, but you’re a different matter. She could easily hire a goonda and have him throw acid in your face-”

I panicked. “Where will I go?”

Lola dug into the pocket of her smock and took out an envelope and a pouch. It struck me that she had known, before I knew it myself, that I would come to see her. “Here’s a letter of introduction to my nephew who works in Hyderabad. I spoke to him about you, and he said that he would help. He told me some of the Indian consulates abroad are looking for employees. One of the hiring officers is an old classmate of his. But the employees have to know English.” She handed me the pouch. “Take this money. My nephew and his wife have agreed to rent out a room in their house to you. He’ll find you an English teacher. And when your English is good enough, he’ll take you for an interview.”

I didn’t have the words to thank her, so I hugged her instead. She patted me awkwardly on the back. She was uncomfortable with displays. “Just keep your temper, the next place you go,” she said. “And when you’ve saved enough dollars, come back and open a salon in a better city.” She looked as though she might say something more, but then she didn’t.

At the end of the alleyway, I turned to wave, but she had gone inside. She was a practical woman, with a roomful of clients waiting.

After Malathi finished her story, Uma didn’t want to return to the present. It was so pleasant in Lola’s pink salon, moist and cool, with its herbal shampoos, sandalwood paste, and the calm, ministering hands of Lola’s girls. Even the heat that ambushed you when you emerged from air-conditioning onto the noisy street was a gift. She wanted to know what it was that Lola had almost said to Malathi at the end.

The others were discussing Malathi’s characters with vigor. Mrs. Pritchett puzzled over Mrs. Balan’s Machiavellian tactics. How could one woman be so cruel to another? Jiang said Mrs. Balan really couldn’t feel for Nirmala because she had been brought up to dismiss a servant as a lesser being. Lily thought Lola was cool, and she, too, would have liked to work at Lovely Ladies and listen in on high-society scandals. The beauty shop that Lily’s mother frequented on Van Ness was run by a mousy Taiwanese woman with braces. The one time her mother had forced Lily to get her eyebrows done there before a school musical performance, Lily had almost died from boredom. All the aunties talked about was how well their children were doing in school, and who had won which award. Did Malathi remember any of the tricks she had learned at the salon? Malathi’s teeth glimmered in the beam from Cameron’s flashlight. (Had he changed the batteries? Uma wondered. She tried to recall how many batteries had been in the bag, but she couldn’t remember that far back, and trying made her head hurt.) Malathi promised Lily that if they ever got out of here, she would give her a hibiscus oil head massage that would make her feel like a princess.

No one spoke of the two people who were most on their minds until Tariq, in his blunt way, said, “Why would Nirmala do something so stupid, give up Ravi for a creep like Gopalan?”

“Maybe he offered luxury that a girl like her, brought up in a shack, just couldn’t turn down,” Mrs. Pritchett said. “You can’t blame her.”

“That night at Gopalan’s house, she must have realized that Mrs. Balan would not let her son marry a servant,” Jiang said. “Perhaps she thought, if I do not take this offer, next thing, my body will be in a ditch somewhere.”

“Maybe she couldn’t imagine refusing a man as powerful as Gopalan,” Uma said. She wondered if Gopalan had raped Nirmala. Coming from a background where virginity was the paramount virtue for women, Nirmala would have had no option after that.

“But what about Ravi?” Mrs. Pritchett said, with some force.

“I don’t think Ravi was in love with Nirmala,” Lily said. “It was probably infatuation because she was so different from the girls he knew. Maybe he was secretly relieved because she went with Gopalan-like when you have a boyfriend you don’t really like anymore, but you can’t tell them, and then they start going out with someone else.”

Malathi said, “I suspect Ravi saw Nirmala with Gopalan and felt she was spoiled for him. He didn’t want her anymore. But his ego was hurt that she was with someone else. So he picked the first girl his mother sent near him.”

“Could be Ravi ’s heart was broken,” Mangalam said. Uma heard a snort from Malathi, but Mangalam continued. “Could be he felt betrayed by Nirmala after he had taken such a risk for her, going against his parents. That must have been hard for him, being the only child and knowing they had all their hopes pinned on him. I think he chose that other woman because he was hurting.”

Malathi drew herself up, ready to debate the issue. But just then Cameron said, “Hush. Listen.” In the silence carved out by his imperative, they heard a creaking, yawing sound-like an abandoned ship rolling back and forth on a misty sea, Uma thought. The sound filled her with an eerie melancholy.

“What is it?” Mr. Pritchett asked, his voice sharp with distrust.

“The ceiling on the other side of the room; you can’t see it because of the partition,” Cameron said. “A part of it-hopefully not a very big one-is getting ready to come down. Don’t panic-the portion above our heads”-here he swung the flashlight up-“seems stable enough. But we must have a plan ready in case that ceiling, too, starts breaking apart. Under normal circumstances, I would tell you to get under the tables-not that we’d all fit. But the water’s risen too high. It’ll soak your clothes. It’s too cold in here to remain in wet clothes.”

He pointed down with the flashlight and Uma saw that the water had reached halfway up the first drawer. It was very dark. Looking at it made her shiver. And Cameron was right-it had grown very cold in the room.

Cameron said, “Keep your pants rolled up and your skirts tucked high, so you can jump down at a moment’s notice. Our best bet is to stand in the doorways. We can’t use the door leading into the passage-it’s too close to the damaged ceiling. That leaves us the two doorways into Mangalam’s office and the bathroom entrance. We should be able to squeeze everyone into them. But there’s no point sitting here waiting for that to happen. Let’s listen to our next story.”

Mr. Pritchett had not taken part in the discussion about Ravi and Nirmala. When he had finished telling his tale, a great lightness had taken over his being. But that high had faded. Now he felt more depressed than ever. He had been hoping for a comment from his wife, a validation for the suffering of the boy he had been. She had said nothing. Disappointment increased his craving for a cigarette. Within his body, things were beginning to shake. Soon they might start coming apart. He was almost certain there weren’t any broken gas lines nearby. A few puffs, with the bathroom door tightly shut, couldn’t harm anyone. He would spray the bathroom with the deodorizer afterward. No one would even know. As soon as this tiresome discussion ended, he was going to head for the bathroom.