We Are Not in Pakistan (28 page)

The passengers have alighted. One girl — woman — remains. She walks toward him immediately. He crumples the paper — he always forgets how much his turban stands out in a crowd.

Not obese like Rita. Not thin, either. Proportionate. Tall, well-endowed as any Punjabi girl. Shoulder-length dark hair — did he expect she'd have hip-length hair like his own? Caramel colouring. A pink camisole baring an expanse of skin that makes Karan wince. White Capri pants. Sunflower sandals — retro fashion from the seventies.

Oh, she is his all right. No paternity test required. Those are his mother's dreamy eyes, the set of his father's chin. The slightly pouted lips — those are Rita's. And between her lower lip and chin is a round stud of polished steel.

Not a nose ring — a stud.

He approaches her, extends his hand. Suddenly wishes he had thought of bringing flowers. “Uma? Karanbir Singh.” It comes out as if he's at a wine and cheese gathering.

Dark eyes spark. A quick tug at his hand. Hers is cooler.

“Hi. Uh, hi.”

He reaches for embrace. She doesn't, so he stops. His voice wobbles forward again, stalls, balks.

She gives a faint smile; that's something.

Her tapestry bag has wheels but he carries it out of the station.

Welcome to Santa Barbara. How was the train ride? Good. Had a good time in LA? Sure. Did you go to Disneyland? Oh, yeah. And the beach? No, didn't have time. Well, then, we must
visit a beach in Santa Barbara. Can't go back to Detroit without experiencing the ocean!

Thank god for ritual small talk.

In the car, Uma puts on a pair of boxy sunglasses and flicks a lighter without asking permission, takes a deep drag on a cigarette.

Karan debates reproving her, but it's minutes since he met her, and she is — no question — his daughter. His only daughter. Maybe she doesn't care that smoking is against his religion. No, she just doesn't know anything about Sikhism. And she's from Detroit, where they don't frown on smoking as much as Californians.

Karan starts the car. A cell phone appears; Uma calls someone.

“You okay?”

Someone she cares about, she doesn't say who.

At least she can care — many of his students don't seem to care about anyone but themselves.

State Street. Left or right? Karan's interior compass oscillates. As usual, the earth's magnetic field refuses to attract his directional core.

Vaheguruji!

He turns right.

“Later!” she says, and hangs up.

Despite invoking the Name, Karan finds what must be the longest route home. Along the way, he points out the towering Santa Ynez mountains, the impressive Spanish-era courthouse and its clock tower, the Santa Barbara Mission. He drives her past the golf club on Las Positas because it's beautiful, not because he plays. He shows her the red tile roofs, the arched facades, the wrought-iron gates of houses. He's comparing Santa Barbara's cleanliness and spacious boulevards to Delhi, of course. He compares everything to Delhi. Is she comparing Santa Barbara to Detroit or LA or Madison or — where? He can't stop his tour patter long enough to ask.

On Cliff Road, he grips the steering wheel tight. The car could veer off, take both of them over and down. Is she enjoying the ride? She nods, but the sunglasses guard her expression.

She's over twenty-one; he is not responsible for her. His sperm was merely a catalyst between Rita and her child. Maybe Uma thinks he's rich. How much will she ask for silence?

Behind her sunglasses, Uma wishes she hadn't come. After she calls Ashley to check on her, she rolls down her window so the smoke has someplace to go. She takes a last drag and flicks the butt out.

In Ma's stories, her pa — Karan — looked like an actor called Omar Sharif, so she married him. “So I could have you, baby,” she'd say. “Only an immigrant woulda married a woman the size of your ma.” And she'd laugh and laugh as if that was funny.

Karan isn't as tall as Uma expected. The turban, the moustache. Jeez, a Toyota. Pretty uncool. Were all Indian men so dark? She hadn't met any Indians up close in Detroit. Only seen bright fluttery figures entering a Hindu temple. When she was little, she never told Ma how she punched the kid who asked, “What's a Hindu?” and the one who answered, “Lays eggs.” She figured her dad was Hindu — which was why she'd tried to read that Bhagavad-Gita thing — but last year Ma told her he was a Sikh. So Uma found reams of stuff about Sikhism on the web and printed out pages and pages. From what she read, it wasn't anything like being Hindu. But Ma got worse right after, and what with work and hospitals and the funeral, pretty soon nothing Uma read seemed to stick in her head.

Karan is going on and on about the scenery. Lecturing like she had to taste it, eat it. Hasn't mentioned Ma once. Ma, who can't
see this, can't hear, taste, touch or smell anymore. Who does he think was with Ma till the end? Who drove Ma to dialysis appointments three times a week, kept her pill schedule, cooked her special food? Uma rolls her left shoulder, then her right — taut muscles from lifting Ma.

Shouldn't have come. Seemed like a good idea a couple of weeks ago when Ashley invited her to cheer up and visit Disneyland and sent her a frequent flyer ticket. Uma was functioning semiokay after the week-long rummage sale of Ma's belongings. She still had two kidneys. Goddamn genes from the guy at the wheel here had made hers useless — “incompatible” they said — for a transplant.

But … think about Disneyland.

The day at Disneyland was the only one that seemed real all week. On Saturday morning when she arrived on the red-eye, Ashley met her at the baggage claim at LAX and said she was scheduled for a “birth prevention” on Tuesday morning after the long weekend. “Two months. Didn't want to tell you on the phone — you wouldn't have come. Can't be pregnant right now — my agent says I've got a chance for this great part in a Spielberg blockbuster. You're the only one who can help me through it.”

And Uma did — sucker! What else was she to do? Tell a friend she'd been with from kindergarten through high school that she wouldn't drive her to the doctor, wouldn't wait for her, drive her home, clean up, cook lunch and watch her in case she began hemorrhaging?

No, that wouldn't be her. Even though she'd decide differently than Ashley in the same circumstances. And even though it meant she never got to see Universal Studios. But the Ashley thing made her almost forget she'd written to Karan on Friday night before leaving Detroit. She hadn't expected a reply to her Shock and Awe bombshell — Hey, Pa! Here I come, fully grown, and you didn't even know. Or the invitation to stay at his home. He probably
guessed there was no way she could afford a Santa Barbara hotel — that was kinda nice of him, yeah.

But she could have said forget it after the week with Ashley and headed home — now why didn't she? Freakin' geography and curiosity, that's why. Kill two birds … oh, that's real funny. Especially when you're driving along a cliff and you're a turn of the steering wheel from one helluva drop to the ocean below.

Ma is dead. Dead. Dead. And Uma's going to carry that loss forever. But she did her best. No guilt. Because Ma said, “You blame yourself when I'm gone and I'm sure as hell gonna come back to haunt you.”

Look, Ma, I'm blaming myself — just come haunt me. Show up already!

Karan yields his right-of-way to let a car pull into his lane. The other driver doesn't signal thanks.

A few minutes later, an SUV cuts in front. Passenger yells, “Fuckin' Ay-rab!” and gives Karan the finger. Fucking idiot — her dad is
not
an Ay-rab.

Karan didn't react; it's just road rage. Californians!

It's fine. Everything will be fine.

Ma always said, Expect nothing and you won't be disappointed. No use. Uma can't stop expecting. Not from Karan, but from herself. Where is the warmth? She should feel it rise spontaneously for the father who went missing, the dad she always wanted. But this guy. He doesn't look like her — or rather, she doesn't look like him.

Ma, couldn't you have shown me pictures of him — something?

Karan swings into a neighbourhood of neat houses. Homes — each is different. Definite curb appeal. People who don't mow their own lawns live here. No apartment buildings in sight. Up a gravel driveway to a tiny red-roofed house set against a backdrop
of trees. The car rocks Uma to a halt before a garage door freshly painted rust red. Sprawling letters of underlying graffiti. Readable if she narrows her eyes: “How to stop wars — kill the ragheads.”

“Oh, that. A gang of kids, about three weeks ago,” he says. “Needs another coat of paint.” And he gets out of the car.

“Awful mean,” she says.

If this white-turbaned guy carrying her bag across the lawn and into his home is her closest relative, Uma better get to know him and his life this weekend. She won't make enough money bartending to get out here again any time soon.

Look, Ma, your baby made it all the way to California. And
I
can't even send you a wish-you-were-here postcard cause you went and left me, didn't ya?

Okay, be honest now, Ma, listen up. Is this visit gonna heal me or kill me?

It takes Karan only a few minutes to show Uma around. Cardboard boxes stacked in each room. Accumulation of his years in four different countries, different cities. He still isn't sure what should be tossed out, what he needs to keep. Now that he's no longer renting, he tells her, he might decorate typically American, say, Posturepedics instead of the old futons in the two bedrooms. And a curio cabinet to display the trophies from his field hockey days. He'll add Indian touches, of course — mirrorwork cushions, some big brass planters, wool durries — and maybe, someday, Kashmiri carpets.

He pours Uma a glass of orange juice while she freshens up, then leads her into the green glow of the one room he's carved off for living, the screened veranda. She calls it a patio, as Rita would
have. No boxes here. Just bookcases across two walls, his reading chair and footstool, two wicker chairs angled on the tile floor to face a small TV, and a collapsible coffee table of painted wood. He watches approvingly as Uma examines the books spread face down on his two-drawer steel file cabinet in the corner — books are his true community, beyond religion or time.

Karan sweeps file folders off a chair and into the cabinet.

“My taxes.” He laughs ruefully. He used to have his taxes completed by January, when paying them was a privilege, the price he paid for smooth roads, clean water, future Social Security. But he's been procrastinating since he began paying for two wars, torture and detention. Still, he pays. Because he's one of the good kind, the hard-working white collar immigrant — so he told his interviewers.

The veranda, surrounded by lush foliage, is dark and cool, but from this angle, the rest of the house looks half-built or half-ruined.

“Had a break-in a few days ago,” he tells Uma. “Kids, I'm sure … can't prove that, unfortunately. Took a couple of boxes. They didn't need the stuff — tossed it down the hillside.”

He doesn't believe himself. It had to be Homeland Security. Those chaps don't need warrants now and don't have to know or tell you what they are searching for. He inserts a CD — Vikram Seth's selection for
An Equal Music.
A violin launches into Bach's Partita in E major.

Uma takes a sip of orange juice and makes a face. “Got a beer?”

“Kingfisher — an Indian beer. Want to try it?”

She looks dubious.

“Or a very elegant fumé blanc.”

“I get sleepy from wine.”

Tipsy, is what he would have said. A word that no longer belongs anywhere.

“You don't have much of an accent,” she says, obviously intending a compliment.

“Everyone has an accent of some kind.” He smiles. He is always conscious of lilting phonemes long excised, accents on the wrong syllable.