As Mohan Lal heated up their dinner — rajma, bharta, chicken, and paneer — Ms. Farber set the table and plied Arjun with questions about Michigan. He told her that balancing his part-time job with schoolwork was challenging but doable. In May, he had moved into a co-op, where everyone shared the household chores and threw parties together. He explained that over the summer, he had been taking an intensive Hindi course.
Mohan Lal started coughing. “Hindi? You should be focusing on your premed.”
“Oh, Mo,” said Ms. Farber, “you should be proud. Gents, how about a little wine?”
“I’d love a glass,” said Arjun.
“Wine?” said Mohan Lal. “He’s only nineteen.”
Arjun laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. “If I’m old enough to pay the rent, I think I can have a little wine.”
“Come on, Mo,” said Ms. Farber, “one glass isn’t gonna hurt.”
“Wait,” said Marc, “if he gets to break the law, then I’m gonna too.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Siddharth.
When they were all seated at the kitchen table, Mohan Lal uncorked a bottle of red wine and poured out three glasses. “To what shall we toast?”
“Hang on.” Arjun got two small brandy glasses from the dining room cabinet and poured out a little wine for Siddharth and Marc. “In France, kids drink wine all the time. The Europeans have a much healthier relationship with alcohol.”
“Let’s move to France,” said Marc.
Siddharth chuckled. “Yeah, I wanna live in France.”
“How about we toast us?” said Ms. Farber. “To new beginnings — to the five of us finally being together.”
“To us,” said Mohan Lal.
Looking around the table, Siddharth felt a surge of contentment. This was his new family, and they were finally all together.
* * *
Later that night, when Mohan Lal and Ms. Farber were in bed and Marc was watching a repeat of The Tonight Show, Siddharth knocked on the door of the guest room.
“Come in,” said Arjun.
He entered.
Arjun was reading a book. “Give me a sec,” he said. “I gotta finish my page.”
His brother was reading yet another book about India. It was written by someone named Romila, an ugly name. It reminded him of Attila, or Brunehilda. Siddharth sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his brother. Arjun had on boxer shorts with little sailboats, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The downy hair on his belly had gotten thicker, and so had the tuft at the center of his chest. As usual, Arjun had on the gold chain that he’d worn every day for the last five years, but he’d taken off the gold King George coin that their grandfather had given them. Siddharth wondered why Arjun had removed it. Had he sold it for drugs?
Eventually, Arjun rested the paperback on his chest. “What’s up?”
“Why are you reading that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re American. Why don’t you read about America?”
“Jesus,” said Arjun, “I gotta get you out of here.”
Siddharth lay down, leaning his back against the wall. He placed his left leg across his brother’s waist. Arjun was staring at something, and Siddharth followed his gaze to the far corner of the room, to the family portrait above a dingy love seat. The picture was held in an intricately carved Indian frame. He must have been around four, and he was wearing a red sweater that had been a birthday gift.
Arjun rested his wrists on Siddharth’s leg. “I can remember the day it was taken,” he said. “Mom had one of her migraines. I think she even puked.”
“So why did we go then?”
“Go where?” asked Arjun.
“To get the picture taken. Why did we go if she was sick?”
“She probably didn’t want to piss off Dad. Everybody lived in perpetual fear of pissing him off — everybody except for you.”
Arjun got up and went to the bathroom, and Siddharth lay there thinking about their mother. Arjun had so many memories of her, which was good, but also a reminder of all that Siddharth would never know. He looked around the guest room and noticed how cluttered it had gotten. Discarded luggage and old furniture lined every wall, and the dressing table was crammed with all kinds of knickknacks. He spotted the brass fisherman they had bought on a family trip to Maine. When you wound him up, he started to spin, and a little music box played “Moon River.” Mohan Lal had invented his own nonsensical Hindi lyrics to go along with the tune. Siddharth couldn’t imagine him doing something like that anymore.
He started thumbing through the pages of Arjun’s book, and a photo fell out. He grasped it by the edges, just as his mother had taught him. The picture was of a girl, about nineteen or twenty years old. She was standing in a room with white marble floors, bending forward and blowing a kiss. She was trying to look glamorous but was clearly also kidding around. Siddharth’s breathing quickened. He had suspected that Arjun had a secret love life for some time now. A few months earlier, he had phoned his brother’s room, and Arjun’s roommate answered. The roommate said that Arjun was out with his girlfriend. When Siddharth later followed up with his brother, Arjun said that his roommate was crazy, then quickly changed the subject to college basketball.
Now he knew why Arjun had been so sketchy. The girl in the photo — his girlfriend — had hips that were too wide. Her hair was floppy and short, and a portion of her bangs were painted pink. But none of that was a big deal. The real problem was that she had a nose ring. The real problem was that she had brown skin. The real problem was that Arjun’s girlfriend was Indian.
Hearing a noise, Siddharth placed the photo back inside the book and quickly closed it.
Arjun walked in and gave him a curious look. “What are you up to?”
“What does it look like?”
“I dunno, but I can tell you’re up to something.”
Siddharth needed to change the subject. “So?”
“So what?”
“So what do you think of her?”
Arjun reached his arms up to the ceiling and then bent down to touch his toes. “You mean Ms. Farber?” He took a few deep breaths while his fingers hovered over the blue carpet, then stood upright again. “To be honest, I like her. She’s a little naive — a little conservative. But who isn’t around here? And she’s attractive — for her age, I mean. And ambitious. Dad needs that. I just hope he doesn’t fuck it up.”
4. The Conditioning of White Girls
Ms. Farber cooked everyone breakfast the next morning, and then Arjun drove Siddharth to the Blue Trail in Woodford, where they hiked to some waterfalls. Despite the savage mosquitoes and his itchy eyes, he was happy to have his brother all to himself. He wished he could ask Arjun about his Indian girlfriend, or tell him about the freakish parts of Ms. Farber’s personality, but he knew that this was all sensitive terrain. He knew that like Mohan Lal, Arjun could be explosive.
Later, as they were driving to Post Road to do some shopping, he told Arjun how much Barry Uncle had been around lately. Arjun told him that Barry Uncle was tasteless and uncouth — that it was inappropriate of him to try to convince Mohan Lal to sue the truck driver who had rear-ended their mother. As Siddharth listened to his brother talk about their mother’s death, he again felt claustrophobic. Arjun spoke about her so openly — so calmly — as if he were referring to some random thing that had happened to a stranger, as if he were recapping highlights from the evening news. How could he be so cold? Didn’t he care about them?