I touch the scar. It’s six months old now. And, for a minute, I imagine telling Yael about it. It would infuriate her if she knew what I said to the skinheads to take their attention off the girls and onto me. A one four six oh three—the identification number the Nazis tattooed on Saba’s wrist—but at least I would get a reaction.
But I don’t tell Yael. This goes way beyond small talk. It goes to painful things we never mention: Saba. The war. Yael’s mother. Yael’s entire childhood. I touch the scar. It feels hot, as if merely thinking about that day has inflamed it. “It’s not that fresh,” I tell her. “It’s just not healing right.”
“I can mix you up something for that.” Yael brushes the scar. Her fingers are rough and callused. Workers’ hands, Bram used to say, though he was the one who should’ve had the rougher hands. I realize then we haven’t embraced or kissed or done any of the things one might expect for a reunion.
Still, when she takes her hand away, I wish she hadn’t. And when she starts packing up with promises of things we will do when she has a day off, I’m wishing I had told her about the skinheads, about Paris, about Lulu. Except even if I’d tried, I wouldn’t have known how. My mother and I, we both speak Dutch and English. But we never could speak the same language.
Twenty-two
I am awoken by the ringing of a phone. I reach for my mobile, remember it doesn’t work here. The phone keeps ringing. It’s the house line. It doesn’t stop. Finally, I pick it up.
“Willem saab. Chaudhary here.” He clears his throat. “On the line for you, Prateek Sanu,” he continues formally. “Would you like me to ask the nature of his business?”
“No, that’s okay. You can put him through.”
“One moment.” There is a series of clicks. Then Prateek’s voice echoing hellos, interrupted by Chaudhary, declaring. “Prateek Sanu calling for Willem Shiloh.”
It’s funny to be called by Yael and Saba’s surname. I don’t correct him. After a moment of silence, Chaudhary clicks off.
“Willem!” Prateek booms, as if it’s been months, not hours, since we last spoke. “How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“And what do you think of the Maximum City?”
“I haven’t seen much of it,” I admit. “I’ve been asleep.”
“You are awake now. What are your plans?”
“Haven’t worked that out yet.”
“Let me make a proposal: Pay a visit to me at Crawford Market.”
“Sounds good.”
Prateek gives me instructions. After a cold shower, I head outside, Chaudhary trailing behind me with dire warnings of “pickpockets, thieves, prostitutes, and roving gangs.” He ticks off the threats on his thick fingers. “They will accost you.”
I assure him I can take it, and in any case the only people to accost me are begging mothers, who congregate in the grassy medians in the center of the shady streets, asking for money to buy formula for the sleeping babies in their arms.
This part of Mumbai reminds me a bit of London with its decaying colonial buildings, except it’s supersaturated with color: the women’s saris, the marigold-festooned temples, the crazily painted buses. It’s like everything absorbs and reflects the bright sun.
From the outside, Crawford Market seems like another building plucked out of old England, but inside it is all India: bustling commerce and yet more surreally bright colors. I walk around the fruit stalls, the clothing stalls, making my way toward the electronics stalls where Prateek told me to find him. I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Lost?” Prateek asks, a grin splitting his face.
“Not in a bad way.”
He frowns at that, confounded. “I was worried,” he says. “I wanted to call you but I don’t have your mobile.”
“My mobile doesn’t work here.”
The smile returns. “As it happens, we have many mobile phones at my uncle’s electronics stall.”
“So that’s why you lured me here?” I tease.
Prateek looks insulted. “Of course not. How did I know you lacked a phone?” He gestures to the stalls around us. “You can buy from another stall.”
“I’m joking, Prateek.”