Where Earth Meets Water. Pia Padukone
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in ghostly letters upon a list of those found fatally wounded or dead. And then his grandparents. All four of them. And then a whole column, a page of his surname over and over:
Rana Seth.
Mohan Seth.
Akansha Seth.
Preeti Seth.
Madhu Seth.
Shankar Seth.
Seth.
Seth.
Seth.
Seth.
It was another two hours before he remembered the word: orphan. Thereafter, until Lloyd and the other students returned to campus, everything was broken up into increments of time: sixteen hours before Kishan called to confirm that everyone at the reunion was reported officially missing. Dead. Twenty-two hours before Karom dry-heaved repeatedly from hunger. Thirty-six hours before his contact lenses automatically peeled themselves away from his pupils—raw from the dry, airless room—and curled up on the desk where he sat staring at his laptop, his only beacon and companion, which rang in the New Year in front of him. Ninety-six hours before he methodically and carefully deleted all the emails from friends inquiring if his family was okay and saying that they were praying for them and was there anything anyone could do and please don’t hesitate to ask. Three months before a courier rapped on his door with a delivery from Kishan wrapped in brown paper and padded with cotton wads.
A gold Rolex with a black alligator band sat nestled within the padding. The face was weathered and scratched just to the right of the crown and there were a few bits of sand wedged between the glass face and the golden hinges. A small note accompanied it.
Karom—
This was among the belongings in the safe in Naana and Naani’s room. There wasn’t much else—their passports and some bundles of rupees. Your parents’ room held their passports and some money, as well. The passports and money are being held for administrative and tracking purposes. I’ll make sure to have them sent to you as soon as possible. I wanted you to have something of meaning, and as you know, this was the watch that your naani gave your naana on their wedding night. I hope it serves as something—a memory, a wish, a light.
All my best,
Kishan Uncle
Together we learn there’s nothing like time. Karom was sure that it was the first of Naani’s many gestures to her new husband that everything would be okay, that even if nothing made sense in their early days as strangers to one another, the years would prove themselves stronger than unfamiliarity, that they would take this journey together, learning about one another and stumbling and catching one another and learning every step of the way. Naani was always the reassuring one; her husband would flurry about worrying if the plane would lose their luggage, or whether they would run out of vegetarian meals, or if they hadn’t packed enough warm clothing for the beach.
Karom had put the watch on immediately, and unless he was bathing or sleeping or going through the security line at the airport, he never took it off. He would wear it as a constant reminder of all that he had lost, his whole family all at once, wham bam, in an instant, like the second hand that ticked on his wrist.
* * *
On the morning of their departure from Delhi, Ammama tiptoes into the sitting room, where Karom is holding his watch between his fingers, studying its slightly scarred face. Ammama stops and smiles shyly, looking down at the tray as if to show Karom what she has brought him. He motions to her to sit down next to him.
“Come,” he whispers. She sits awkwardly on the bed next to him, pulling her tiny feet underneath her and adjusting her sari. The tray of bananas and cold coffee sits between them, but on this morning, there is also a thick book. Karom peels a banana and hands it to her. She shakes her head shyly. Karom urges, “Please.” She nibbles at the tiny fruit and Karom peels another for himself. So much sweeter than the huge bland ones we get back home, Karom thinks.
“What do you say to me?” he asks. “Are you praying?” Ammama colors and looks down at the floor.
“I thought you were asleep,” she says.
“I’m an early riser,” Karom says. “Please tell me.”
“It’s nothing, really. Just an old lady’s superstitions.”
“Please.” He takes her banana peel and places it with his alongside the book on the tray. He turns to face her. Ammama looks at him and purses her mouth.
“You mustn’t be cross with Gita for telling me. She tells me that you like to tempt fate. That you call it your game. Is that right?” Karom looks down, embarrassed. “Fate isn’t an easy thing to play with. Once it decides to shift in one direction, the gusts keep on blowing, and it’s out of your hands. You have to take care of one another, don’t you?” He nods. “But I know there is something over you. An omen.”
“An omen?”
Ammama nods solemnly.
“What kind of omen? Because I’ve been pretty lucky.” He tells her about Acadia and the tidal wave that he and Gita narrowly missed. He tells her about 9/11, how he’d feigned illness on the morning that his class was to visit a news studio in Tower 1 because he hadn’t finished a paper on Howards End, how instead he’d stayed home watching the news, stricken, while the first tower came crumbling down like a stale cracker.
“Do you think so? Then what is this game nonsense?”
It’s Karom’s turn to color. “It’s just my way of feeling alive. I can’t— I don’t have an explanation. It’s how I’ve conditioned myself, I suppose. To understand why I’m still...why I don’t...why I can’t...what’s keeping me from...” He trails off and looks down at his hands sitting uselessly in his lap. “But what do you see? How can you tell?”
“I suppose the same way, I can’t explain the feeling I had about you from the moment you walked through the door. But I knew it was there the moment I heard you whimpering and tossing about at night.”
“I’m still doing that, huh?” Karom bites his lip. “Is this something that will hurt me? Omens don’t have to be bad, you know. Are you praying to get rid of the omen?”
“I suppose I am. I am praying for you to win the game. I want you to win. Just like Gita, I want the game to end.”
Karom looks down sheepishly.
She reaches for the tray and picks up the book, weighing it carefully between her two hands.
“This is mine. I want you to have it.” Karom looks at the cover, his eyes wide with surprise.
“You—you wrote this?”
“It’s being released this Friday. Read it, and let me know what you think. I suppose it’s my form of sealing fate away in a place it can’t hurt me.”
Karom’s eyebrows knit together.
Ammama smiles. “You’ll see. I have only two copies, and I will give the other one to Gita before you leave.”
“Thank you,” he whispers. “I didn’t even know you were a writer. Gita didn’t mention...” He looks at the book again before slipping it into his backpack. “I’m honored.”
Gita appears now around the corner of the living room, wearing rumpled boxer shorts and a tank top. Even in the cloistered morning air, her nipples stand at attention and Karom looks down, embarrassed. She is wearing the neckpiece Ammama has given her and she pulls her hair out from where it is tucked under her camisole strap and braids it to the side.
“What are you guys doing?” She yawns, leaning against the doorway.
“You didn’t sleep with that on, did you?” Karom asks.
“Of course not. I just felt like wearing it now,” Gita says, twirling one of the fat golden ropes around her finger.
“It’s