Jhumpa Lahiri - Unaccustomed Earth

"But I've ended it," she said, matter-of-factly. "You know, there was a point when I actually believed he couldn't live without me. That's what he does to women. He depends on them. He asks them to do a hundred things, makes them believe his life won't function without them. That was him this afternoon when you called, still wanting to see me, still wanting to keep me on the side. He doesn't have any friends, you see. Only lovers. I think he needs them, the way other people need a family or friends." She sounded reasonable and reflective now, as if she were describing an affair she'd had years before. Sang's eyes were closed and she was shaking her head slowly from side to side. The dog was barking.

"That's my dog," Deirdre said. "He's always hated Freddy. He's the size of a football, but every time Freddy comes over he makes me put a guardrail across the stairs."

Sang inhaled sharply. She put the receiver down quietly on the table, then she picked it up again.

"I should go," Paul said.

"Me, too," Deirdre agreed. "I think you need to tell her now."

He was startled, afraid Deirdre had discovered his trick, that she knew that Sang was listening in. "Tell her what?"

"Tell her about me and Farouk. She deserves to know. It sounds like you're a good friend of hers."

Deirdre hung up, and for a long time Paul and Sang sat there, listening to the silence. He had cleared himself with Sang, and yet he felt no relief, no vindication. Eventually, Sang hung up her phone and stood up, slowly, but made no further movements. She looked sealed off from things, holding herself as if she still needed to be perfectly stealthy, as if the slightest sound or gesture would betray her presence.

"I'm sorry," Paul said finally.

She nodded and went to her room, shutting the door. After a while he followed her, stood outside. "Sang? Do you need anything?"

He remained there, waiting for her to reply. He heard her moving around the room. When the door opened, he saw that she had changed, into a black top with long tight-fitting sleeves. Her pink raincoat was draped over her arm, her purse hanging over her shoulder. "I need a ride."

In the car, she directed him, saying what to do and where to turn only at the last possible minute. They drove through All-ston and down Storrow Drive. "There," she said, pointing. It was an ugly high-rise, bereft of charm and yet clearly exclusive, on the Cambridge side of the river. She got out of the car and started walking.

Paul followed her. "What are you doing?"

She speeded up. "I need to talk to him." She spoke in a monotone.

"I don't know, Sang."

She walked even faster, her shoes clicking on the pavement.

The lobby was filled with beige sofas and potted trees. There was an African doorman sitting at the desk who smiled at them, recognizing Sang. He was listening to a radio tuned to the news in French.

"Evening, Miss."

"Hello, Raymond."

"Getting cold again, Miss. Maybe rain later."

"Maybe."

She kept her finger pressed on the elevator button until it came, while she fixed her hair in the mirror opposite. On the tenth floor, they stopped, then walked to the end of the hallway. The doors were dark brown, thickly varnished. She tapped the door knocker, which was like a small brass picture frame hinged to the surface. Inside, there was the sound of a television. Then there was silence.

"It's me," she said.

She tapped it again. Five consecutive taps. Ten. She pressed the top of her head against the door. "I heard her, Farouk. I heard Deirdre. She called Paul, and I heard her." Sang's voice was quavering.

"Please open the door." She tried the knob, a strong metal knob, which would not budge.

There were footsteps, a chain being undone. Farouk opened the door, a day's stubble on his face. He wore a flecked fisherman's sweater, corduroy pants, black espadrilles on bare feet. He looked nothing like a philanderer, just bookish and slight. "I did not invite you here," he said acidly when he saw Paul.

In spite of all he knew, Paul was stung by the words, unable to speak in his own defense.

"Please leave," Farouk said. "Please, for once, try to respect our privacy."

"She asked me," Paul said.

Farouk lurched forward, arms extended rigidly in front of him, pushing Paul away as if he were a large piece of furniture.

Paul took a step back, then resisted, grabbing Farouk's wrists. The two men fell to the floor of the hallway, Paul's glasses flying onto the carpet. It was easy for Paul to pin Farouk to the ground, to dig his fingers into his shoulders. Paul squeezed them tightly, through the thick wool of the sweater, feeling the give of the tendons, aware that Farouk was no longer resisting. For a moment, Paul lay on top of him fully, subduing him like a lover. He looked up, searching for Sang, but she was nowhere. He looked back at the man beneath him, a man he barely knew, a man he hated. "All she wants is for you to admit it," Paul said. "I think you owe her that."

Farouk spat at Paul's face, a cold spray that made Paul recoil. Farouk pushed him off, went into his apartment, and slammed the door. Other doors along the hallway began to open. Paul could hear Farouk fastening the chain. He found his glasses and stood up, pressed his ear to the varnished wood. He heard crying, then a series of objects falling. At one point he could hear Farouk saying, "Stop it, please, please, it's not as bad as you think." And then Sang saying, "How many times? How many times did you do it? Did you do it here on the bed?"

A minute later, the elevator opened and a man walked toward Farouk's apartment. He was a lean man with gray hair and a big bunch of keys in his hand. "I'm the super in this building. Who are you?" he asked Paul.

"I live with the woman inside," he said, pointing at Farouk's door.

"You her husband?" "No."

The super knocked on the door, saying neighbors had complained. He continued to knock, rapping the wood with his knuckles until the door opened.

Inside was a hallway illuminated by track lights. Paul glimpsed a bright white kitchen without windows, a stack of cookbooks on the counter. To the right was a dining room, painted the same sage-green as Sang's room. Paul followed the super into the living room. There was an off-white sofa, a coffee table, a sliding glass door that led to a balcony. In the distance was a view of the Citgo sign, draining and filling with color. There was a bookcase along one wall which had fallen to the floor, its books in a heap. The receiver of a telephone on a side table hung from a cord, beeping faintly, repeatedly. In spite of these things, the room had a barren quality, as if someone were in the process of moving out of it.

Sang was kneeling on an Oriental carpet, picking up the pieces of what appeared to have been a clear glass vase. She was shivering. Her hair was undone, hanging toward the floor, partly shielding her face. There was water everywhere, and the ruins of a bouquet of flowers, irises and tiger lilies and daffodils. She worked carefully with the glass, creating a pile of shards on the coffee table. There were petals in her hair and stuck to her face and neck, and plastered to the skin exposed above her black scoop-necked top, as if she had smeared them on herself like a cream. There were welts emerging above her neckline, fresh and bright.

The men stood there, looking at her, none of them saying anything. A policeman arrived, his black boots and his gun and his radio filling up the room, static from his radio replacing the silence. Someone in the building had called the station to complain, he said. He asked Sang, who was still on the floor, if Farouk had struck her. Sang shook her head.

"Do you live here?" he asked.

"I painted the walls," Sang said, as if that would explain everything. Paul remembered her painting her own room, barefoot, listening to Billie Holiday.