Aerogrammes and Other Stories - By Tania James Page 0,29

on the armrests.

Minutes later, he returned with a map, which he unfolded on her bed. He pointed out the sliver of land called Kerala, barely the size of a nail clipping. They spoke Malayalam, he said, like him. Cricket was a more sophisticated form of baseball, with slimmer players in prim sweater vests. In Bombay, the boy most likely swam in the sea, not a swimming pool.

“But isn’t the water polluted?” she asked.

He rolled up the map like a sacred scroll. “Our people have excellent immune systems.”

•

May began a habit of stopping by Mr. Panicker’s room before every meal and accompanying him to the cafeteria, where they sat with people she knew. Mr. Panicker tried to engage in small talk, though his attention often swayed to the window, where mango-colored leaves were beginning to shiver against their branches. Mealtime provided him with some daily distraction, but still there was the grit he could not ignore, the dusty blinds like lengths of bone-gray ribs, the potent smell of detergent in the pillowcases.

Before his mind could wander too far, May would guide him back into the conversation with a question. He was grateful to her because he had never excelled at making his presence known among groups of people. Sometimes the accumulation of his silence seemed to heap upon him, as slowly as snow, until he felt he could no longer be seen.

Mr. Panicker was far more at ease when they were alone. She had consulted him for her response to the first aerogramme, and on his recommendation, she had asked Satyanand what he thought of the cricket star Sachin Tendulkar. When Satyanand’s second aerogramme arrived, she brought it directly to Mr. Panicker.

Dear Miss Daly,

Thank you so much for your twenty dollar donation. With this money, I was able to buy chappals for school and plenty of rice for my family to last the month.

“What’s a chappal?” May asked.

“A kind of sandal. Or flip-flops.”

In response to your question, though I like to play cricket, I am not familiar with players as I do not have a television or a radio.

“Maybe you should stop this Street Angel business,” said Mr. Panicker. “It could be a trick.”

She held the letter to her chest. “Where did you get that idea?”

“What kind of Indian boy doesn’t know Tendulkar?”

Her eyes flitted over the letter with affection. “My boy.”

Watching her, Mr. Panicker remained silent. It didn’t seem so wrong at the time, the way her fingers were breezing back and forth across the writing. She deserved that moment of peace, and he wanted to preserve it for her, if he could, in return for all the small ways she had thus far preserved him.

By the end of the month, Sunit began calling Mr. Panicker again, bearing better, if not good, news. Mr. Panicker could hear the fraying hope in Sunit’s voice as he explained how his manager was passing the script to someone else and then someone else; it was widely described as “hot.”

“Sounds like a game of Hot Potato,” said Mr. Panicker.

Sunit paused, then forced a chuckle. “Yeah, it’s good to keep a sense of humor about these things in case, well …” He paused. “So anyway, if you really can’t handle it at Renaissance Gardens, then we’ll move you up to New York, I guess. Once I get this thing sold.”

“But don’t sign a lease or anything, not until I get there. It should be a place big enough for both of us. I have my savings, so we can manage it.”

“We, like you and me? Roommates?”

“Who else would I mean?”

“I was thinking of two separate apartments. Maybe in the same neighborhood or something. I need some space, Dad.”

“Space is overrated in this country.”

“We’ll see, okay? Let’s just cross that bridge later.”

“Oh, whatever,” Mr. Panicker said, angry that he could not say what plagued him: that he would die soon. This he knew, just as he’d known it at the top of the basement stairs with that one light-headed step, the ground he had walked for seventy-six years disappearing from under his feet.

May read aloud the next two aerogrammes as Mr. Panicker sat in the rocking chair, poised like a director with his hands in steepled prayer, his ankle perched on his knee. Each letter contained a troubling inconsistency. Satyanand Satyanarayana had no opinions on Bollywood stars; twice he referred to Shah Rukh Khan as a “she.”

Despite his doubts, Mr. Panicker delighted in elaborating upon every letter May received. He described Satyanand’s possible route to school,