eyes red-rimmed with exasperation at some luckless underling behind on a project or the changeable Seattle sky. Adi takes any potential irritant personally. He snatches a ringing phone from its cradle at the last possible moment. The world can wait. It always does for Adi Guha.
The stand-up calendar on the mantel nags me about tomorrow’s deadline for a newspaper gardening column. Yet, as I pace the cold floor once again, the phone glued to my ear, it becomes clear that such an assignment is no longer a high priority for me. My missing friend is my main focus now. All else has faded into the background.
Adi comes on the line, gasps when he recognizes my voice. I mention Veen’s call, then get straight to the point. “What time did you get home that night?”
“Your core competency is gardening, Mitra. I’m not saying it’s menial labor, but neither is it nuclear physics or private investigation. Go back to your garden and leave this situation in more competent hands, like mine.”
I ignore the insult. “Do the police have any clues? Did they come to the house?”
“I gave them a photo which they looked at, then began to pepper me with questions. They gave me a song and dance about how many people disappear daily from the city. They assigned a laid-back cop, the only one they could spare. It’s obvious they’re not interested unless it’s a blond heiress and television cameras are everywhere.”
“What about the stranger she met at Soiree?”
“I’m not worried about that. She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
“Have you talked to her gynecologist?”
Adi mumbles a no.
“Do you think she needed a break and decided to sneak away for a few days? There have been times, like at your birthday party, when she looked like she could use a break.”
“Everything is fine between us, Mitra, just fine.”
Everything’s fine? What a laugh. About a year ago, Kareena and I were spending an evening at Soiree when a hugely pregnant woman waddled past our table. I shifted my chair to let her pass. Kareena put her fork down and gazed at the woman.
In a teasing tone I asked, “Could that be you?”
“Adi doesn’t want kids.” She returned to her voluptuous plum-almond tart.
Now I hear a staccato rumbling in the background, a car cruising. Adi has nerve telling me everything was fine with Kareena. Kareena’s everything and Adi’s everything are obviously not the same.
“Did you check her closet?” I now ask.
“Looks like her clothes are all there.”
Would he even recognize her alligator handbag, jeweled mules, flowing shawls she favored over the structured feel of a coat, or the new Camellia scarf? Would he be able to detect the nuance of her perfume? I believe he only remembers the superficial facts of her presence.
“Did you go to the safety deposit box to see if her passport is there?”
“No, yesterday I had to chair a three-hour offsite meeting. The market isn’t as calm as it was last year. We need to get our cash-burn rate under control. It may be necessary to dehire some people.”
I almost choke at the expression he uses for firing an employee. Then he begins to ramble on about market share, competitive disadvantage, and going public to raise new capital. In short order, his business-speak begins to grate on me.
I interrupt him by saying, “This is a life-and-death situation, Adi.”
“It sure is,” he replies. “This morning around 5 I got a call from the police. They asked me to go see a body at the morgue.”
My vision blurs. “What?”
“A woman’s body was found in Lake Washington. It wasn’t her.”
“Oh my God!” I shake my head. “Must have been difficult for you. I don’t know what I’d do if…” I get a grip on myself. “Could we meet this morning? Put our heads together? The earlier the better. We need to mobilize our community. I’ll be happy to drop by your office.”
“Hold on now, Mitra. I
I sag on the couch. Losing face with his Indian peers is more important to him than seeking help in finding his wife. In a way, I get it. Our community is small. We have at most two degrees of separation between people, instead of the hypothetical six nationwide. Word spreads quickly and rumor insinuates itself in every chit-chat. Still, how silly, how counterproductive Adi’s pride seems in this dark situation.
And that makes him more of a suspect.
There are times when I think Adi is still a misbehaving adolescent who needs his behind kicked. According to Ka-reena, he was an only son. Growing up, he had intelligence, if not good behavior, and bagged many academic honors. His mother spoiled him. Even on the day he punched a sickly classmate at school, she treated him to homemade
Finally, Adi suggests meeting at Soiree at 7 p.m.
How empty the place will seem if I go back there without Kareena. But I don’t want to risk a change with Adi. It’ll give him an excuse to weasel out of our meeting.
I ponder why he’s so difficult. Rumor has it that his family in New Delhi disowned him when he married Kareena against their wishes. Not only that, his uncle sabotaged his effort to obtain a coveted position with an electronics firm by taking the job himself. Adi endured that type of humiliation for a year before giving up. Eight years ago, he and his new bride left India and flew to the opposite side of the world, as far away from his family as he could possibly go.
He landed in Seattle, where he found a plethora of opportunities and no one to thwart his monstrous ambitions. Before long, he formed his own software outfit. There was a price to be paid: long hours, constant travel, and a scarred heart. In spite of this, he persisted and ultimately succeeded. These days he flies frequently to India on business, and rings his family from his hotel room, but his mother will not take his call.
What is Adi doing to locate the woman on whose behalf he sacrificed the love of his family?
Would he really show up at Soiree this evening?
I walk over to my home office and dial Kareena’s office number. Once transferred to the private line of the agency director, I leave her a message to get back to me a.s.a.p.
Then I wander into the bedroom where I confront the unmade bed, sheets wavy like desire building to a crescendo. Herr Ulrich floats in my mind, a man who appears so strong and unyielding, but who turns out to be tender and pliant. Right now, his taut body is pushing, lifting, and stooping in the brown-gray jumble of a construction site, the angles of his face accentuated by the strain. Did he stop for a split second, stare out into the distance, and reexperience my lips, my skin, my being?
It’s a little too soon to get moony about a man, friends would surely advise me.
Just picturing Ulrich, however, warms my body. Not just the electric tingling of sex, but a kind of communion.
Muted piano music floats from the Tudor across the street. As I reach for the phone with an eager hand, my gaze falls on the bedside table. The pad of Post-it notes is undisturbed. Ulrich hasn’t jotted down his phone number or his last name. He promised he would, but he didn’t.
My dreamy interlude is sharply broken. With a drab taste in my mouth, I realize that a promise is an illusion and so is “next time.” It’s similar to hoping that your parents will never die, your friends will forever be around you, and your tulips will always sprout back the next year. This morning I’ve learned how untrue my assumptions can be.
These days I feel like I’m living in a ghost town. I don’t know where to go, who to see, what to do next, or even what to believe. The last five days have coalesced into an endless dreary road. I’ve reached an impasse in my search for Kareena. Adi cancelled our meeting at Soiree at the last minute. From my repeated phone calls to him, I’ve gathered that Kareena’s passport is missing, an indication she’s left deliberately. It strikes me as odd that Adi seems so blithe about her being gone for so long. He even had the nerve to joke about it.
“You know what? I think she’s flown somewhere for an impromptu vacation. She’s punishing me for not taking her to Acapulco last February. Don’t worry. She’ll get a big scolding from me when she gets back.”
Where might she have gone?
I’ve contacted the police and given them an account of the bruises I saw on Kareena’s arm. Detective
