I shuffled for the tape recorder Ms. Rabinowitz had sent home with each of us. “We’re supposed to use these instead of note-taking so we can be present.”
Anjali Auntie raised her eyebrows and glanced at the splay of criminal activity laid out before us as if to say, you want this on the record?
“I mean, I’m the only one who’s going to listen to it,” I hastened.
She lifted a plastic jar full of a clear liquid—flux—to remove impurities. The jar still wore its original label, shree basmati rice. Nearby lay a few other bottles with liquids whose names I never learned; “untranslatable,” Anjali Auntie always said. Everything with the feel of a moonshine job. The flux, poured over the bangles, splashing against the sides of the stone basin. The liquid taking to the gold, like watching that old mingling of sugar and lemon, the lick of liquid on solid, the solid yielding to its touch.
I turned to Ms. Rabinowitz’s questions. “Would your life today surprise your ancestors in another part of the world?” I read. “If interviewee is immigrant him/herself, can ask: ‘Would your life today surprise your prior self, if so, how?’”
“Hm,” she said. “Well, sure, my life might surprise a younger me. I have my own business. And I have a daughter who I get along with, or who doesn’t hate me, which is more than I can say for most of the other immigrant mothers around here, isn’t it?”
I drummed my fingers on the table.
“Oh, Neil, I didn’t mean—I’m sure Prachi doesn’t hate your mother—”
“She likes them. They love her. More than me.”
“They love you, too, Neil. I don’t mean to belittle any disagreements you have with your parents, but let me tell you, you would know if they didn’t love you. It would hurt. A lot.”
I shrugged and continued. “Can you please tell me a story about something ancient from our-slash-your heritage that still has meaning to you today?”
“This is the class that’s supposed to introduce you to the finer aspects of humanity?” Anjali Auntie tugged on thick industrial gloves and adjusted goggles on her head. “Tie my apron, will you?” Hands unsteady, I did as she asked, pulling the bow tight against her lower back. “Hm, ancient, huh?” she went on, now adjusting the blowtorch to initiate the smelting. “I heard something the other day. About the Saraswati River.”
“Where is that?”
She shook her head. “It’s a mythical river. We don’t know if it was ever really real. But they say it was lined with placer gold, and whoever drank from it would become immortal.”
“Who’s they? Ms. Rabinowitz says we have to try to chart the way, um . . .” I double-checked her phrasing. “The way stories get inherited.”
“Ancient history-mystery whatnot.” Anjali Auntie waved her free hand impatiently.
“Did you study it or something?”
“No. No, I just have an interest.” Her shoulders softened, even as she gripped the blowtorch by its neck. “I have a friend—a catering client—who studies all these things.”
“Okay. Okay, so, the mythical river. Gold’s supposed to make you immortal?” I glanced meaningfully at what we had laid out on the table, though kept mum for the sake of the recorder.
Anjali Auntie lowered her voice. “Not this type.” Then she spoke in a more normal tone. “Only pure gold, they say, straight from the earth. Gold that runs in rivers and in soil, et cetera. All other gold that’s been made or owned by humans”—she mimicked my glance at the table—“contains human desire or ambition. But with pure gold, well, then you can live forever. Oh, don’t use this, Neil. I’ll think of some other ancient story for you. Something from the Ramayana, maybe. Can you turn that off a moment?”
I shut off the recorder and helped lift the blowtorch. Over the low roar, she recited something foreign, hoarse, and musical: Asya swarnasya kantihi . . . The blue flames overtook the basin until the fire quelled. Left over: the low gleam of the smelted gold, gurgling thickly, being born. An espresso cup’s worth of the stuff.
“Is that a prayer?” I asked when she was done. I’d been working up the courage to further inquire into the specifics of the ritual.
“Not to God, really,” she said. “More to the balance of forces, time, the elements—we’re asking for a certain power of the gold’s to be surfaced. In this case, the ambition it contains.”
“Can I ask something dumb?”
“Not if it’s something else off that sheet of yours.”
“What is it, really? Gold. What’s the big deal about it?”
“It’s old as the stars. Literally, some of it comes from neutron-star collisions.”
“Really?”
“Some of it. Gold’s old as you can imagine—older than your mind can comprehend. It exists deep in the planet’s core, and some of it came to earth when asteroids struck. Chemically, it’s unique—resistant to most acids. Stuff that would break down even silver won’t harm gold. That’s why it’s been so valuable.”
“And you can’t make more of it.”
“That’s what they say. Too expensive.” She was making her way to the fridge, where the pitcher of lemonade waited. Together, we poured the gold in. Before the lemonade, the broken-down gold smells intense and acrid, nauseating. But when that enchanted gold hits the perfect brew of lemonade, everything changes. There comes the ached-for plonk of something thick and heavy into liquid. The hiss as it diffuses into long dancing columns. The supernatural carbonation igniting the cravings. I still miss it sometimes.
In the weeks after that, Anjali Auntie regaled me with more history of the strange discipline we were practicing. Anita didn’t take much interest in these tales. “Practical to a fault, that girl; doesn’t think much about what goes into anything she’s given,” Anjali Auntie often said. I was a better audience, for I am impractical to a fault. We discussed the strange universality of gold as a cultural fixation—alchemy came to India by way of China and made it as far as Europe—and the persistent Indian obsession with it.
She loved the Western stories, too, like the one about the greedy
