After our honeymoon ended, we traveled to our new home, New York City.
Just the name conjured up a wild mix of excitement and anticipation.
The Big Apple! City that never sle eps! If you can make it there, you can
make it anywhere — right?
I’d spent a summer here in high school, attending a photography
workshop at NYU, and the city had delivered — big - time. The towering
skyscrapers, the crazy mix of people, the dizzying sense of possibility. My
first delirious, sticky kiss with a fellow student had happened on a bench in
Washington Square Park.
And now I was back here.
Not as an unknown but as an honorary Khan — and the doors to the city
were open to me. Wide - open. I prided myself on being a savvy big - city kid,
but suddenly I found myself overwhelmed by possibilities: What could I do
here? Anything! Open an art gallery. Start up my own photography
business! How about making indie films? I called my mother and blurted
out several ideas a day. Ma was very supportive but also gently told me to
take it easy. “Moving to America is a hard transition,” she said. “It will take
a while to find your sea legs.”
That was the first phase: wild enthusiasm.
The second was not as pleasant.
Two weeks after we returned, I woke up one morning into bright sunlight.
As usual, Maryam was long gone. Ever since that first time in Seville,
we continued to have sex at night — always in the dark — and afterward
Maryam would rush to the bathroom and shower, though, thankfully, there
was no more crying. After these vigorous bouts of lovemaking, I’d fall
de eply asle ep. The next day, Maryam would leave for the hospital at dawn,
and I’d wake up many hours later to an empty bed.
That particular morning, I realized I’d been dreaming about Mumbai —
and I strained my ears to hear the morning noises to which I was
accustomed: crows cawing, traffic rumbling, and from far below, a man
hammering. Back home, there was always a man hammering.
Instead there was an absolute hush. I lay in the vast, unfamiliar bed, and
a wave of queasy homesickness engulfed me. Mumbai was gone. I now
lived permanently in New York. What had I done? I’d married a woman who
alternated between nighttime passion and days of chilly distraction. Was
Maryam mentally unstable? No, that was impossible; she was a doctor, a
psychiatrist.
I thought of Farhan downtown in her tiny apartment in Chinatown. She
would be home at this time and answer the phone in her warm, intimate
voice — but I had not seen her since the wedding, and I’d resolved not to
d epend on her anymore.
Air, I told myself. Some fresh air will help.
I stumbled to one of the double - glazed windows, fumbled with the latch,
and pushed it open. The warm, overused S eptember air leaked in,
accompanied by furious honking from a traffic jam on Broadway. Ah, much
better, but I could not actually see the city. Our apartment at the Apthorp — a
grand old Upper West Side apartment building — faced inward, and our view
was of the expansive inner courtyard, and the units across from us.
I stood there in my boxers — disheveled, bare chested — and felt eyes on
me. Across the courtyard, a gray - haired, uniformed maid was standing at a
window, and I waved at her to make a joke of it. In Mumbai, I would have
gotten a shy smile — maybe even a wave back — but here, in New York, the
woman averted her gaze and moved out of sight, into the d epths of the
apartment.
What was wrong with these Americans? What was wrong with Maryam?
My homesickness was overpowering. I wanted to climb back into bed
and cover my head. Calm down, I told myself. A shower will help. And
some food. And then a plan for the day.
Breakfast — fried eggs and toast with strawberry jam and cheese — was
served in the large formal dining room by Miss Ritu, the short, round
Punjabi houseke eper. She k ept apologizing in a soft, ingratiating voice that
she didn’t have the exact brand of sharp cheddar I liked, and I assured her it
was fine — to me, cheese was cheese — but she wouldn’t stop. Then Miss
Ritu disappeared into the vast kitchen next door, and I could hear her
yelling in harsh Hindi at the other maids, two tiny nervous N epali women.
They hardly appeared in public, but if I left a newspaper half - read, a glass
of water on the table, or a towel on the floor — even for a minute — I’d return
to find the newspaper folded, a coaster set under the glass, the towel hung
up neatly.
Don’t get me wrong. I had grown up in Mumbai like a little prince, and I
was accustomed to servants — especially Indian servants — but back home,
our old family retainers had known me since I was a child and would pinch
my cheeks and tease me. Here, even though all the Khan family servants
were South Asian — Abbas insisted on bringing them over — they followed a
feudal model and seemed terrified in my presence.
I ate faster, wanting to break free of Miss Ritu’s orbit.
After breakfast I wandered into the living room, wondering how to spend
my day.
On a glass coffee table were two albums bound in Moroccan leather. The
first one contained our wedding photographs — perfectly fine, but of course
I would have done a much better job. I flipped idly through the glossy,
overly bright, color - corrected images. Both our families were d epicted in
endless staged tableaux, smiling fixedly, and everyone seemed painfully
false — exc ept for Farhan, who had a wicked grin on her face.
The other leather - bound album was full of press clippings about our
wedding. The New York Times had done a short piece about us, titled
“Matchmaking for the Modern Age.” They’d soft - pedaled the arranged
marriage aspect and emphasized how Maryam and I shared so many
interests: Apparently, we were both art lovers. New York magazine had also
run a profile of us as art collectors and photographed us in this apartment,
staring at a Picasso print of a bullfight, which implied Maryam and I had
chosen it. Had Abbas instructed the PR d epartment at Tiger Corp to add this
spin? If so, they had done an excellent job.
The truth was that I would never have purchased such expensive pieces,
and Maryam didn’t give a fig about art. Abbas had an art adviser, and the
apartment came furnished with signed prints by Picasso and Matisse, a large
abstract canvas by Miro, and a genuine Rothko. Along one hallway hung
original Atget silver albumen photographs of fin de siècle Paris. Jesus.
Atget! I had casually mentioned to Abbas that I admired his work, and when
I arrived at the apartment, there they were, an entire series.
A lot of art was strewn across the apartment because it was actually two
apartments: Abbas had bought them cheaply back when the Apthorp was
being converted into a condominium and combined them. From the grand
oval - shaped entry lobby, a lengthy corridor led to five bedrooms at the
back, and along the way were an oak - paneled library, a vast dining room
with a chandelier, and two living rooms. The architect had retained all the
original fir eplaces and ornate plaster molding and carefully matched the
original parquet floors, so it was impossible to tell what was new.
A Scandinavian designer had decorated the whole place in a palette of
soft grays, rusty oranges, and cream tones, combining streamlined midcentury modern
furniture with sensuous new curved couches. The designer
had even chosen knickknacks for the shelves: little silver abstract
sculptures, wood carvings, and ivory figurines. The library featured floorto - ceiling
shelves of leather - bound antique tomes, first editions of novels,
and glossy contemporary art books. All the decor cunningly fabricated an
underlying history: Generations of a family with impeccable taste seemed
to have lived in this apartment, accumulating these heirlooms.
I found it disconcerting. I’d mentioned to Maryam that it would have
been nice to start with an empty apartment and furnish it together, but she
just laughed and said she didn’t have the time to deal with a space of this
size. I learned that the Khans had many residences — Abbas’s chalet in
Huntington, the summer house in Southampton, an apartment at the Time
Warner Center, pieds - à - terre in Santa Fe, Dubai, Milan, and London — and
they were all furnished by the same Scandinavian designer. It turned out
Maryam didn’t even shop for her own clothes: A personal shopper styled
her for each season. It was strange to see Maryam in an ordinary - looking
white T - shirt, gray sweatpants, and a plain gray hoodie and to realize these
all came from some exclusive Japanese designer and probably cost a
fortune.
Initially, I chalked up all this outsourcing to the habits of the superrich.
Looking back, I realized it was the merging of the personal and the
corporate that bothered me: I liked clear boundaries — and for Maryam,
there were none between her, Abbas, and the family real estate business.
Tiger Corp architects and designers had renovated our apartment, and much
later, when I understood these things, I learned our apartment was owned by
the Khan family trust and leased back to us.
We hardly saw Coco — she spent months at a time at a Zen Buddhist
monastery on a mountain top in the Hudson Valley — but Abbas had his own
key to our place. He’d let himself in, unannounced, and I’d find him
standing in the living room, head freshly shaved, always in a crisp dark
business suit. Looking satisfied, he’d turn to me, flick a fingernail at the
windows, and say, perfectly pleasantly, “Swiss, exact historical r eplicas,
two layers of double - glazed glass, thermally broken, of course.” Or,
pointing at the oak paneling, he’d say, “Look at that patina. Bought it from
a country house in Surrey.”
Irritated by Abbas’s proprietary tone, I once casually said the apartment
was way too big for Maryam and me, and perhaps we’d be better off in a
smaller place. A twinkle appeared in Abbas’s eyes, and he said, “Nonsense.
I expect the pitter - patter of feet in record time. Is your technique up to par?”
He brought it up, again and again, his expectation of grandchildren. Less
than a month into our marriage, I began to feel like I was not just married to
Maryam but part of a much larger plan. I couldn’t help thinking of my elder
brother’s sneering comments: “You’re nothing to the Khans but a lightskinned stud.
Otherwise, why the hell would they pick a loser like you?”
At the time, I’d brushed off Hassan’s jibes. Now I realized that Abbas
projected an air of bene volent ownership when he spoke to me. In addition
to the queries about procreation, he k ept asking, “What are your plans, son?
We’d be very glad to have you on board. In any capacity.” By “on board,” I
knew he wanted me to work for him at Tiger Corp. I k ept changing the
topic — I still remembered Abbas’s violent outburst in Mumbai — but I was
running out of time. I had to find something to do.
I’d hardly taken any pictures in Spain, but now I reminded myself I was
a photographer — a good one. And from what I remembered — during that
long - ago summer I’d spent at NYU — New York City was a freak show.
People here openly displayed the strangest fashion sense and proclivities.
Yes: I’d grab my old Leica and do some street photography, get my hand
back in. And later, I would email my acquaintances in New York with links
to my wedding photography and see what kind of gigs I could get.
I wanted to be my own man. Surely Abbas would respect that, wouldn’t
he?
An hour later I sat on a bench in Central Park.
Sweat pooled under my eyes. I was footsore and overheated, but it
wasn’t the muggy S eptember heat that had undone me. What the hell had
happened to New York?
I hadn’t taken a single photograph.
First, I’d walked down Broadway from the Apthorp and encountered
endless blocks lined with permutations of the same sterile businesses —
Chase Bank, TJ Maxx, Duane Reade, Target, Pottery Barn, Zara, Apple.
What had happened to the Korean mom - and - pop bodegas, the Greek greasy
spoon diners, the sidewalk vendors selling African face masks? Had only
the Upper West Side changed or the whole city?
At Columbus Circle, I’d ducked into the Time Warner Center — the
transparent glass behemoth that had transformed the previously blighted
area — and found essentially an upscale shopping mall. I tried to photograph
a group of matrons dressed head - to - toe in Chanel, but a beefy security
guard approached me, palm out, yelling, “No pictures.” I could have told
him my father - in - law had developed the whole damn place, but what was
the point?
At least Central Park was shadier and ten degrees cooler.
I found an empty bench along the pathway and positioned the Leica
unobtrusively in my lap. I waited, remembering the varieties of humanity
I’d seen back as a teenager, parading through the park: gay couples with
handlebar mustaches doing elaborate rollerblading turns; scowling punks
with pink - and - blue mohawks; crazy old men with pigeons perched on their
shoulders; kids in shiny oversized shorts dribbling basketballs.
I waited, poised to take a photo, but the endless stream of people was
sleek and corporate. Intent runners in expensive athleisure streaked by. A
schlumpy group of tourists in bright T - shirts whipped out their cell phone
cameras to photograph a ragged squirrel nibbling at a nut.
People were taking pictures of people taking pictures — but the real New
York, the one I remembered so vividly, had vanished.
I’d heard about this transformation of New York from my friends who’d
returned to Mumbai saying, “Yaar, NYC is so dull these days; Shanghai is
much cooler, or Dubai,” but I had just smiled inwardly and considered them
philistines. Forget about those newspaper articles about thousands of luxury
apartments lying empty, investment opportunities for Russian oligarchs and
Indonesian billionaires; NYC would always be the center of the world for
me.
Yet it was true: The city had been cleaned up, brightened, emptied out. It
had lost its gritty soul.
And then a shadow fell over me. A literal shadow.
One minute I was in bright sunlight, and the next minute the light turned
dull and granular. Along the southern edge of the park was a row of
supertall, skinny skyscrapers, and one of them was casting a long, thin
shadow across the park — and right across me. The skyscraper was a dark
silhouette, backlit by harsh sunlight, but even without seeing any details I
could tell it was just a banal, extruded rectangle, driven by economics.
And worse, it might be the new supertall building Abbas Khan had just
finished constructing, the one being advertised as the “Palace in the Sky.” It
was as if the old man had read my disloyal thoughts and pointed a finger at
me, saying, I see you. I know what you are thinking.
Unbelievable. I should have moved across the pathway and onto a
sunnier bench, but I remained where I was, and darkness crowded my mind.
I’d tried to stay upbeat all morning, but right then, my sense of dislocation
was complete.
I dialed a familiar number, and Ma picked up instantly. In the
background, I heard Mumbai — be eping horns, the wail of Hindi music, the
clinking of a spoon on porcelain as Ma stirred her tea — and there it was
again, my homesickness. I wanted my old, aimless life back, my motorcycle
and wedding photography gigs. I even craved the smoggy, polluted air of
Mumbai. Without preamble, I launched into my litany of complaints:
“Maryam is so strange. I’ve made a huge mistake. I want to come home.”
Much to my surprise, Ma did not trot out her usual aphorisms about
arranged marriages. Instead, she started we eping, and my world instantly
fell apart. Ma was an OG, an original gangster, and she never, ever cried.
“Are you sick? Heart stuff? Is Papa unwell? What?”
“No, we are all in good health.” She caught her breath. “It’s Azeem and
Sons.”
Ma talked on, and I learned my father — my practical, hardheaded father
— had, in order to cover business losses, made risky investments in the
stock exchange — and lost most of our wealth. Azeem & Sons was declaring
bankruptcy, and my parents would have to sell our apartment and move to a
smaller one. Of course, Hassan would help out — he was a good son — and
somehow they would manage.
“Oh my God,” I said, trying to sound like an adult. “I’ll pitch in, too.
Abbas wants me to join Tiger Corp, and I’m sure he’ll pay me well.”
“Son.” My mother could pack so much tenderness and suffering into one
word. “You’re not cut out for corporate life. And you have no head for
numbers.”
“Yeah, well. Remember when I wanted to be an architect? Well, Tiger
Corp constructs buildings. There has to be something I can do.”
“Don’t sacrifice your life for us. Do what your heart desires.”
I did my best to console Ma, and it was a strange reversal. For the first
time I realized my parents needed me.
When I hung up, the bench was still in shadow.
A million thoughts flooded through my mind: The most direct course of
action would be to tell Maryam what had happened. She was sure to
sympathize and would, I was certain, immediately send my parents a
considerable sum of money. Yet I balked at this option. I did not want the
Khans to think I was a gold digger, and I did not want my parents to be on
the receiving end of charity — it would destroy their dignity. I might be
married to the daughter of Abbas Khan — and technically as rich as Midas —
but I would take care of this problem myself. Quietly and privately, with my
own money.
Which meant I needed a high - paying job.
I could always ask Abbas for an executive position at Tiger Corp — but
then I would lose all autonomy and be beholden to a man with a mercurial
temper. I needed unvarnished, honest advice, and it was no point talking to
Maryam — she idolized her father. I thought of another phone number stored
on my phone and had the impulse to call it.
Don’t call. It’s not right. You’re married to Maryam now.
It was no good. There was no one else I could talk to. I dialed the phone
number, and it rang and rang. I waited, sitting on my darkened park bench,
and the blinding sunlight was just a few feet away.
The shadow was shifting quickly.
Farhan answered the door wearing a man’s oversized blue button - down
shirt, her legs bare, holding a bottle of nail polish. Her toenails were a liquid
red, the color of ripe cherries, and the polish smelled tart, alcoholic.
“It’s you,” she said, ushering me into her tiny living room. “I was
beginning to think you were avoiding me.”
“We got back from Spain two weeks ago. Maryam’s back at work.”
“She’s off curing the ills of the world and left you alone? Poor boy. Want
some water?”
Farhan turned to the sink and handed me a glass of t epid water, but I did
not drink it.
I set down the glass and walked into her arms. I kissed her, and she
kissed me back.
Farhan’s mouth tasted of the lychees she had been eating, half - peeled in
a bowl, and her body was soft and curvy, so familiar that I could cry with
relief. Instead I made a choked noise, and she took my hand and led me into
the back of that dark apartment in Chinatown, so familiar from our video
chats.
Her bedroom looked out onto a tiny light shaft and a rusted fire es cape,
and from somewhere came the tinny wail of Chinese — or was it Korean? —
pop music, but even that faded away, because we were kissing again, and
then she st epped back and unbuttoned her shirt, and I lifted up my arms,
and she slid my T - shirt over my head, easy and practiced, and then we were
skin on skin, as we had been so many times before in Mumbai. No words
were needed, just this, her mouth pressing into mine, my hands on the soft
flesh of her hips. The smell of her was salty, intoxicating; her hair, up in a
messy bun, exposed her neck, the skin there even more fragrant. I could not
stop inhaling her with all my senses.
Her. Farhan.
Yes.
At this point in my story, I must tell the whole truth: For the past few
months I had engaged in a dangerous, irrational affair with my wife - to - be’s
older sister right under the noses of both our families.
I had k ept my secret locked away in the furthermost recesses of my
mind and told myself that our affair did not matter — it was a mere
distraction, a footnote. Once I married Maryam, I would stop. No one
would ever know what Farhan and I had done during our furtive late - night
meetings in Mumbai. Over time, these memories would lose their emotional
charge and be reduced to a few s epia images: Farhan lying naked beneath
me, fists clenched, urging me on; Farhan sitting by the window and
brushing her hair; Farhan leaning back into me as we showered together. In
the future, I would retrieve these images during private moments, as though
admiring an artwork, glance at them, then put them away.
There was another aspect to our affair: Even as it was taking place, it
had a retrospective quality, and that allowed me to s eparate it from reality —
and to ke ep on functioning as the good son, the prospective groom. By
nature, I am not duplicitous, but Farhan helped me to live this lie: She
never, ever, talked about a future or indicated that our time together was
anything more than just a wonderful, unexpected romp. In fact, the wedding
set an end date for our affair and gave our limited time together its highoctane charge.
But I cannot blame Farhan for what happened. Looking back now — not
hiding behind fuzzy sentiments, taking a good, hard look at Ali Azeem,
aged twenty - eight — I realize that one hidden emotion was fueling my
reckless behavior:
Anger.
At whom and why? Back in Mumbai, I was an art - school dropout living
in luxury with my parents. My laundry was washed and ironed and put in a
neat pile on my bed. I drove my motorcycle around town and ran a
successful business. I did not have a care in the world — yes, all that was
true. But there was also that constant subtle pressure: Sure, I was free
(whatever that meant), but at the end of the road was an arranged marriage
— and then I would have to “knuckle under and face reality,” as my dear
father put it.
All those girls I picked up and bedded at photography gigs — where was
the pleasure in the furtive, hurried sex? Self - hatred always came afterward,
and yet I persisted, playing it fast and loose, telling myself I was a rebel, an
outlaw. All the while I knew de ep down that I did not have the courage to
walk away from my family, to embrace poverty and suffer for my freedom.
No, at the end of the day, I would “knuckle under” and enter whatever
golden cage they demanded.
I hated them all — my well - meaning, insistent parents; my paunchy,
successful, canny brother — but I hated myself the most. Sure, I played the
affable younger son, the laid - back ne’er - do - well, but underneath it all, there
was a need to act out.
So, yes, anger.
When Farhan appeared, I grabbed her like a lifeline. Sure, I was
agreeing to marry Maryam, but — ha ha, the joke’s on you — I’m also
screwing her sister. Ergo, fuck you all. I’m still free.
That’s the simple explanation.
Also, we clicked, Farhan and I. After all the horrible things she has done
to me, I still maintain Farhan has the mind of an artist: fertile, inchoate,
thick with hidden undercurrents. People who do terrible things are often
stifled artists whose creativity goes underground and expresses itself in
perverted ways.
Besides, Farhan was my type. Those toned women with flat abs and
organized personal calendars? Don’t like them. Give me a messy woman
with a great laugh, the kind of woman who orders dessert and, if angered,
will not drown in silence but will throw things at me. A woman with
appetite.
Still, back in Mumbai, I didn’t respond immediately when Farhan texted
— ‘Can you meet tomorrow evening, 11 p. m.? Lobby of Taj Palace Hotel?’
No, I vacillated, driven half - mad with fear and desire. Then Farhan sent me,
late that night, a photograph she had taken: a row of faded pastel art deco
apartment buildings on Marine Drive, as sleek as ocean liners, the sun
setting behind them, a lone red kite rising into the sky. The image was a
knife in my heart. At the time I could not explain it, but much later a
Japanese friend told me that the photo was awash in setsunai, a word that
contains both melancholy and joy.
I imagined Farhan frowning, leaning out of the car window, her hair a
fluttering halo, and taking that picture. She had seen my photographs of the
old mansions — and was now looking at Mumbai through my eyes.
How could I resist a woman like that?
I instantly texted her back. We met the next night outside the Taj Palace
Hotel. She settled onto the back of my motorcycle and wrapped her warm
arms around my waist as if she had done this a thousand times before.
The motorcycle accelerated, and the city blurred around us, creating an
intimate bubble. We had begun, Farhan and I — and the momentum was
impossible to stop.
The first night, I took her to an old Irani bar in Colaba, and we talked
through five rum - and - cokes. When the bar closed, past two in the morning,
Farhan said, “Now we go back to the hotel and we fuck — but let’s not get
confused. You marry my sister. I’m not the marrying kind.”
The third time we had sex, she said, “I have the feeling you’re going to
say something serious and soulful. Don’t. We stick to the plan: You have to
marry Maryam.”
We even had sex during my wedding rec eption. I sneaked away from the
dais and met up with Farhan in the small room at the back of the hotel. I
scarfed down a burger and then she shocked me by locking the door and
saying, “Come on, we have a few minutes.” After we were done, she stuck
her hand down under her skirt, held her fingers up to my nose, and said,
“You’re not going to forget this day, are you?” And when I looked stunned,
she laughed and said, “Oh come on, don’t be a prude. This is every boy’s
wet dream.”
Back then it was easy. I had never kissed Maryam, never touched her,
never spent the night with her. I told myself this crazy affair with Farhan
was temporary: It didn’t count. I would stop as soon as I got married to
Maryam.
All that time, I didn’t realize that I was developing a dangerous
addiction.
Reunited that afternoon in her hot, stuffy apartment in Chinatown, we
devoured each other.
Afterward, we lay tangled on her mattress, and Farhan propped herself
up on her elbows, stared solemnly at me, and said, “What’s on your mind?
You’re worrying about something, right?”
I quickly r eplied that I was fine, just hungry. Farhan hunted around in
her refrigerator in the next room — the apartment was tiny, only these two
rooms — and returned with the remaining half of an enormous sandwich,
some kind of stacked pink meat, which she deconstructed, giving us each a
piece of bread and dividing the meat.
She bit into hers and wiped yellow mustard from her lips. “Good, right?”
I nodded. The sweetness of the bread, the p eppery, thinly sliced meat,
the tang of mustard: It was delicious.
“Pastrami. The only place to get it is Katz’s Delicatessen.”
We devoured our sandwiches in silence. Farhan chewed her last
mouthful and peered into my face. “Nope. Not just hunger. What’s really on
your mind? Spill the beans, buddy.”
It was too embarrassing to launch into my family’s woefully reduced
state. Instead, I got up and prowled about the living/dining room next door.
Farhan had fitted so much into such a small space: A thick - trunked jade
plant by the front window. A big scarred dining table pushed against the
wall, with bench seating, leaving just enough room for a couch, which she’d
upholstered in cream corduroy and decorated with elaborate colored ink
drawings of tigers hunting deer through a lush, Rousseau - like jungle.
“I know you said it’s chic to live here, but this place is a dump,” I said.
“Are you trying to make a statement?”
“It’s real. Where am I supposed to live, one of those big corporate
apartments — like you and my sister? No thank you. I like it here.” She lay
back against a pile of pillows and yawned. “Stop walking around. What’s
bothering you?”
I decided to give Farhan the edited version.
“I’m feeling lost — I need something to do. And this photography
thing ... it seems too hard. I was thinking ... I mean, what do you think?
Maybe, while I’m figuring it all out, I work part - time at Tiger Corp?”
“No. No. No.” Farhan sat bolt upright. The sheet slipped off, and her
heavy, bare breasts stared at me. “Papa is toxic. You have no idea what evil
that man is capable of. Do you hear me?”
The vehemence of Farhan’s r eply shocked me, and I tried to make light
of it. “Evil? Seriously? Sure, your dad is a businessman; he’s Type A. Are
you just pissed at Abbas because he’s uptight, and — ”
“You need to fucking listen to me. Papa can turn on the charm, but he’s
completely immoral. Haven’t you heard the rumors? Apparently, he has a
mistress installed in a little love nest out in Queens.”
I shook my head no.
“I think it’s true. My parents haven’t had sex in years. Coco will do
anything to es cape my dad. She ke eps running away to this Buddhist
monastery in the Hudson Valley, spends months up there with a bunch of
woo - woo wackos chanting, taking cold showers, chopping wood. Now she
wants to become an ordained monk and live there forever. You think that’s
normal?”
Mistress? Love nest? I thought about Abbas’s frank appraisal of the
young, pretty waitress in Mumbai — and then his violent outburst. And how
uncomfortable our maids were around him. It sounded like Abbas wasn’t
just an impatient, spoiled tycoon — he was much worse. I’d have to find
another way to make some money.
Farhan’s face was flushed. “Don’t let Papa suck you into his world.
Now, enough talking. Come over here.” She patted the mattress beside her.
“You look like you need some more attention.”
My mind was still reeling from what I’d heard about Abbas. I hesitated
for a moment, and then Farhan held out her arms to me. This time, her
breath was scented with p eppery pastrami, but I didn’t mind.
We went slower this time. When we were done, I lay with my head on
Farhan’s chest. A scar ran vertically across her left breast — right over her
heart, a jagged, long scar, crudely sutured — but for me, it only added to her
allure. I’d been meaning to ask her about it but had never worked up the
nerve. I traced the raised tissue with my fingertips and looked up
questioningly at her.
“Heart surgery,” she r eplied quickly “They had to correct something.”
I paused, then decided to speak my mind. “Look, that’s bullshit. My
mom had heart surgery a few years ago. No surgeon would make a scar like
this.”
She pushed my head off her chest. “Fine. It was an accident, okay?
Something stupid. I don’t want to talk about it.”
I put my mouth to the scar and kissed it. “Well, it’s a part of you. And I
like everything about you.”
“You’re sweet.” Oddly, Farhan’s eyes teared up. “You’re very sweet.”
She paused and then ran her fingers through my hair. “This is nice. Isn’t it?
Didn’t you miss me? Why were you staying away?”
Of course I had missed her. But everything had changed. Maryam was
now my wife. Farhan completely ignored that fact, but I couldn’t. It was too
dangerous — if Abbas found out, he would make mincemeat out of me.
“Yes, I missed you, but we can’t go on like this. I don’t know how to
have an affair. I’m not a liar by nature...” And then I burst out with the real
reason. “Look — I think Maryam suspects something about us. We had sex
during the honeymoon, and she cried afterward. And she’s been weird ever
since then.”
“Duh.” Farhan smiled easily. “David Weissberg.”
“What? Sorry?”
“Weissberg. A Jewish guy she met at the hospital, a brilliant surgeon.
Maryam dated him for three, four years, but she thinks no one knows. She
broke up with Weissberg a month before we went to Mumbai.”
“Oh.” The relief was immediate. My wife was mourning the lover she
was forced to give up. Then came the next, obvious question. “Is she still in
love with this guy?”
Farhan paused for a second. “I don’t know. Maybe. It doesn’t matter.”
“If she’s still in love with him, of course it matters.”
“Oh, Ali.” Farhan regarded me with narrowed, affectionate eyes. “You
really don’t know how Maryam works, do you?” She spoke slowly, as if
explaining something simple to a child. “She would do anything to please
Papa. Did you know she desperately wanted to be a surgeon, but Papa said
that surgery would interfere with her being a good wife and mother? That’s
why she changed to psychiatry. As for Weissberg: He must have known
from the start that there was no future for them because Maryam would
never be able to defy Papa and marry an outsider.”
Farhan reached out and took my hand. “Look, the thing you have to
remember about Maryam is that she’s totally conflict - averse. She sees what
she wants to see — and you can use it to your advantage. We can go on
meeting like this. As long as you’re home every evening for dinner,
Maryam will be fine. The only crime is not being discreet.”
I heard what Farhan was saying, but I didn’t believe her. Yes, Maryam
had a polished, social facade, but she was no fool. Farhan seemed to have a
vested interest in presenting her sister as a spineless, pathetic pleaser; de ep
down, she loathed Maryam, and it went much further than sibling rivalry.
Farhan must have sensed my reservations, because she pressed my hand
tighter and continued, her eyes shining. “Listen. Maryam worships the
ground Papa walks on. She believes in the way he presents himself — art
lover, cultivated gentleman — but I’ve experienced the reality. Back when
we lived in Queens, he’d come home in a foul mood, and if something
displeased him — if I didn’t get his slippers fast enough — he’d slap me hard
across the face. If Mama intervened, he’d scream at her that she was
spoiling me. Oh, believe me, Papa is a monster, but Maryam refuses to see
that. She thinks I’m being dramatic and overreacting.”
I didn’t know what to believe. Clearly, the two sisters had experienced
different realities — but in that moment Farhan needed my support. I nodded
vigorously and squeezed her hand.
Farhan seemed relieved, and the mood lightened. She told me stories
about her time interning with a German jewelry designer and had me in
splits with her imitation of the man’s thick accent.
Finally, at five in the evening, I reluctantly pulled on my clothes, kissed
her, and left.
I needed some time to clear my head, so I rode the subway. The
crowded, sweaty Broadway uptown local took me forty minutes — but even
that was not enough time to adjust back to life with Maryam.
At dinner that night, I yelled at Miss Ritu.
I didn’t mean to. It just came out that way.
As soon as I got back to the Apthorp, I’d showered to wash away
Farhan’s musky smell. Maryam returned from the hospital, and we sat down
to the dinner Miss Ritu had pr epared: bland white fish grilled with olive oil
and lime, steamed green beans, and brown rice. I was still stuffed from the
pastrami sandwich, but I told Maryam I’d wandered around the park all day,
taking pictures, and had gotten hungry and stuffed myself with hot dogs.
“They’re so full of nitrates,” Maryam said, laughing. “Really, Ali. You
should eat better.”
She had changed into slacks and a blouse, and for once her hair was not
pulled back severely but fell loose around her face, softening it. She was in
a good mood. She’d diagnosed a difficult case in the hospital that day and
chatted endlessly about it, but I barely listened.
Here I was, eating dinner with an accomplished, disciplined woman who
had given up her long - term lover to marry me. On my way home from
Farhan’s apartment, I’d looked up David Weissberg on my phone and found
a Mount Sinai – trained surgeon, an expert at sewing back amputated fingers
and toes. There was even a video online of him operating: a tall, broadshouldered, fine -
featured man with a receding hairline, concentrating
intently under bright surgical lights, his long fingers wielding a scalpel with
easy expertise.
Maryam had given up this accomplished man for me — an art - school
dropout. Clearly, she was committed to our marriage, and yet I was drawn
uncontrollably to mercurial Farhan, with her scarred chest and her squalid
apartment. Farhan was filled with darkness — that was now amply clear to
me — and desperate for me to view Abbas as an abomination, but could I
trust her version of reality?
Thinking about this in front of Maryam made me tense, but my mind
went right there, and I couldn’t control it. Miss Ritu had fussed over us the
whole meal — asking, in a quivering, servile voice, if the fish was cooked
enough, if the green beans were crunchy. Her tone got on my nerves, but I
tried to hide my irritation.
At the end of dinner, no dessert was served. I had seen a pint of dark
chocolate gelato in the freezer, and I asked Miss Ritu to get it, but instead
she brought me a sugar - free, dairy - free coconut milk bar. I stared at the
damn thing on my plate, and then I started yelling: “Are you deaf? Did you
deliberately not listen to what I said?”
Miss Ritu hurried out, teary - eyed, taking the offending bar. I looked
anxiously at Maryam, but she was busy answering a text from the hospital.
I said, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
Maryam looked up from her phone, vaguely puzzled, and said, “What do
you mean?”
I quickly said, “Nothing, nothing,” and proceeded to open the container
Miss Ritu had finally brought. I ate directly from it, cramming my mouth
with silky dark - chocolate gelato, but Maryam did not seem to notice.
Maybe I could pull this off. Maybe Farhan was right about her sister:
Maryam seemed to only register what she wanted — and edited out all the
unpleasant parts.
And so, during the coming weeks, I continued my afternoon visits to
Farhan. Of course, I was not thinking about who might notice me. I did not
fear her neighbors, a young, hip Chinese couple who saw me coming up the
dark stairs. I did not think Maryam would care where I went during the
daytime.
No, I went willingly to Farhan, believing that I was absolved by her
logic: I could have it all, both sisters, as long as I was discreet. Fool that I
was, I thought I was being clever: Maryam would bear my children and be
my public face, and Farhan would never tire of me and would remain a
dream lover. I never even once asked myself how Farhan got so skilled at
subterfuge.
I began to enjoy adultery. It became a measure of my sophistication, my
cleverness.
That’s how stupid I was.