Balance of Fragile Things (16 page)

P
apaji received his package amid a thunderstorm. The mail carrier, covered in a plastic rain tarp that matched her dark-blue uniform, ducked into their cul-de-sac a half hour later than usual and gloomily placed a large pile of mail in the box. When Papaji saw the package the size of a check box, wrapped in several layers of brown paper and twine, an orb of stress in the guise of acid dissipated in his gut. He opened the box, called to his family, and lifted the stack of money from the wrappings like a treasure.

The proud grandfather smacked his son on the back and smiled. “You have a good doctor for me? One you would trust with your father's limb?”

“Yes, Papaji, we have a good medical group,” Paul answered.

Papaji listened nervously from the doorway while Paul arranged his appointment. He heard his son offer Dr. Bhalla, the podiatrist, a discount on his gas for the entire year if it got him an appointment sooner. Paul handed the Kwicki Fill receipt to Papaji that read:
Dr. Bhalla's gasoline discount, 20% off, one entire year
. The doctor was Indian, probably Hindu, but the same subcontinent nonetheless. Papaji couldn't ask for more.

When they arrived at Dr. Bhalla's office, during a respite from the rain, the parking lot was flooded, so Paul dropped Papaji off near the entrance to the medical arts building. He waited for his son under the overhang and thought about how he still hadn't had the chance to wander around town or look for monkeys in the forest.

Papaji's romantic impression of the rain was dying, and a severe dislike for the wet stuff had begun to sprout. He was, however, enjoying spending time with his son at the station. To make amends for nature's cruel deluge, Paul had set up a sturdy chair and side table outside the convenience store as Papaji's lookout. He spent a great deal of time there in his white
kurta pajama
, with his red turban and long white beard, peering curiously at passersby and examining the construction site on Main Street. He knew his posture was powerful; knees spread, he held his cane between them among the layers of white cotton fabric. People slowed their walking or driving to stare back at him, and he'd smile and wave, sometimes with his cane in his hand, sometimes just with his large outstretched palm.

Though the rains forced the construction workers to stop digging, some workers came during those brief hours of hazy sun to drain the water from the hole or check on their abandoned equipment. Papaji befriended the men who were dressed in their orange vests and hard hats. He'd bring them sodas from the station.

Draining,
achchhá? he'd say.

The men would nod and then drop a hose into the hole.

What's going on down there th
at's so special?
He'd practiced this question many times before asking it. But he'd grown used to the answer.

Dunno, just following orders. They tell us to dig, and we dig. 'S not my job to know why.

To distract him, the men would sometimes let him direct traffic. There were plenty of pylons to force the cars around their huge mess, but if two cars attempted to pass at the same time, the STOP sign would be necessary to notify which could go first. Papaji loved spinning the sign and holding it up high and proud to cars. He'd even hold it up to Paul, in the store, who'd cover his eyes with his hands and shake his head. He'd sometimes get the idea behind the STOP sign confused with the come hither wave, and he'd end up asking a car to both stop and go, which would end in screeching brakes and him handing back the sign to Charlie and returning to his station. But he loved those moments when he could control his surroundings with a flick of his wrist.

His son would ask if he'd found anything out about what they were doing and why, but he never learned a thing. He'd looked deep into the hole many times, and the layers of asphalt and concrete and brick surprised him the most. Brick under all that garbage? Knowing there was something aesthetically pleasing under the asphalt made the hole in the ground even more of a puzzling eyesore. Maybe once his foot was fixed and he could walk with confidence, he could take a better look at the dig and its surrounding area.

They'd been waiting in the doctor's office for fifteen minutes before he heard, “Mr. Harbans Singh? The doctor will see you now.”

“Yes, yes, coming.” Paul helped him from the chair.

Papaji had been looking forward to this appointment. He'd been haunted by his foot pain for decades. The throbbing nerves almost defined him: He was the man with the cane. As he walked into the doctor's exam room, his heart took a fearful leap into his throat. He rested calmly onto the cold, crunchy paper that Isabella had warned him about.

The nurse took his blood pressure and left without a word. Paul paced like an animal in the ten-by-ten-foot room. Three jolly knocks on the door preceded Dr. Bhalla's entrance. He was a small man with a wide nose and pleasant grin. His balding head shone beneath the few hairs he'd convinced with hair gel to lay patiently across his forehead.

“
Namast
e,” Dr. Bhalla said with palms pressed. He spoke in Hindi.

“
Sat sri akal
,” Papaji said and bowed back. Though Papaji understood a great deal of English and Hindi, he felt the need to make communication difficult. He wanted to get his money's worth from this expensive visit.

“So, you've come a long way. How can I help you?” The little doctor sat on his stool and sank even further toward the earth.

Papaji spoke in Punjabi to Paul. “Tell him my foot has hurt for fifty-four years. Tell him.”

“That long? You remember exactly when it started?” Paul asked.

“There are some things one cannot forget. Tell him,” Papaji whispered in Punjabi.

“Dr. Bhalla, my father has been experiencing pain in his foot and leg for a very long time.”

Papaji pointed to his foot.

“All right. Let's take a look.” The doctor wheeled closer and asked if he could take off Papaji's sock and slipper. “Everything, please.”

Papaji pretended to not understand and looked to Paul for advice. “Your sock, take it off.”

“Ask him if he's a specialist. Ask.”

“Are you a specialist?”

“Podiatrist, yes, sir.”

The game continued: The doctor would speak to Papaji, Papaji would act as though he couldn't understand a syllable, and then Paul would translate and respond for him. Everyone played his role: aging patient, doctor, and loving son. It was a game of medical badminton; no one was rushed or anxious, simply using the lightest flick of their racket to toss the shuttlecock to the next person. Papaji slowed the whole process down; for him and his foot, this was more than just a checkup—it was an opportunity for liberation, and he wanted everyone to work hard for the payoff.

Dr. Bhalla crouched closer to Papaji's exposed foot and grinned. “The patient's foot is size twelve, maybe thirteen,” he said as though he were making a mental note. He used a metal pointer in the shape of a skeletal foot to manipulate and poke the underside of Papaji's arch, the edges of his littlest toe, the crevasse between his ankle and Achilles. Every once in a while, Papaji grunted to make sure the doctor knew his poking and prodding was very uncomfortable. When the doctor came upon the small swollen bulges attempting to surface from between his third and fourth toe, Papaji made a hissing sound.

“Mr. Singh, we need to get some X-rays, okay?”

“X-ray,
achchhá
?
”

“Okay. Okay.”

“Go downstairs to radiology, and when you return, let my nurse know you are back. It'll only take ten minutes or so.”

“
Hánji
.” Though he responded to the good doctor, he never looked at him, not even during the inspection. It was as though he was exposing something too difficult for Papaji to address.

A while later the three men stood around the X-ray of Papaji's foot. The film, shades of gray and white, floated low against the fluorescent panel. It was strange for Papaji to see inside so deep, as though skin and muscle were meaningless and so easily penetrated. They crouched around the doctor as he traced his metal pointer along the different areas of Papaji's projected foot.

“I believe this is a mass of scar tissue, probably from a traumatic injury. And this here”—his voice was almost too joyful for it to be bad news that he was delivering—“is potentially the largest neuroma I have seen since college. And that one was on a cadaver.” He chuckled.

Paul looked down at Dr. Bhalla and scowled. “What's this neuroma?”

“Two nerves that grow together and make one larger one. Most of the pain is probably from that. But I'm not done. This area of the foot, here, is the flattest arch I have ever seen.”

Both Paul and Papaji looked at the good doctor with their mouths open wide.

“Sir, I think you have several different problems here working together to cause your pain and discomfort. It will be a fairly short procedure with a quick recovery. You can walk with crutches immediately afterward, and then using a cane would be advised.”

“No crutches,” Papaji said in English. “Never crutches.”

“Okay, that would be fine. But you would be advised to stay off of it for at least a week.”

They nodded in unison. The old man's eyes welled with tears, but no drop grew bold enough to exit. Dr. Bhalla gave him a cortisone injection to stop some of the swelling, and a prescription for Vicodin that he could take for pain from the pinched nerves. The shot wasn't so bad because he sprayed liquid nitrogen to freeze the area before the needle went in. They made the appointment to return for the procedure.

V
ic scoured the menu at Friendly's for an appetizing item. He was having a difficult time finding something without meat. The photographs of hamburgers, all of which he'd tried at one time or another, seemed fleshier than usual. He felt nauseous and suddenly claustrophobic in the red vinyl booth that grew subtly a few degrees warmer. The burgundy-checkered tablecloths, busy carpeted floor, and booths lining the restaurant's walls were almost full.

His grandfather, who was sitting beside him, seemed delighted by the brightly colored menu. His joy, Vic assumed, was most likely due to his recent diagnosis and treatment plan. His father, mother, and Isabella sat across from them and were already set with their usual orders. As Vic observed his family, he felt at once close to and far away from them, as though a single pane of glass was between them and he stood on one side, alone. This was his new perspective.

When the waitress came to take their orders, each Singh opted for either a cheeseburger or a hamburger, until they reached Vic. “I'll have the mushroom and Swiss with a veggie patty. I'd like to substitute fries for a side salad, please.”

His words fell like an atom bomb on the entire table.

“He means
ham
-burger,” his father said, as though stretching out the words would make it sound meatier.

“No. Veggie burger. Papa, I know what I mean.”

His father's eyebrows rose, like a drawbridge, as high as they could reach, then slammed down around his eyes, shadowing his cheekbones. “For an appetizer, fine, but for your main dish you will have meat.”

“I won't eat meat even if you make me order it. So, logically, if you want me to eat, you'll let me order what I want.” He turned to the waitress. “Veggie patty, mushroom, Swiss, side salad.” The words were a directive. Energy surged through his body. Was this what being a man was like? he wondered.

“What's this about?” His father appeared to half appreciate and half despise his son's new spirit. Vic took a sip of water and chewed on a pile of ice as if it were jerky. The two were locked in a staring war.

“Vic's gone veggie.” Isabella chuckled, then coughed when their mother delivered a punishing glare. Vic's eyebrows rose, as did his father's.

“You should have meat or else you won't grow, Vic. You'll stay as short as you are today,” his father said.

“I'm only an inch shorter than you, and I still have time to grow.”

“What?”

“I measured. I've grown.”

His father looked at the pile of fries the waitress placed on the table. “You cannot stop eating eggs. That's where the line is drawn.”

The corner of Vic's mouth curved. “If you make it free range eggs, it's a deal.” He sat back in the booth. Paul nodded. The heat disseminated.

“So, Papaji, it went well today?” his mother asked the old man.

“First class. Dr. Bhalla will perform the procedure next week,” he said. “Procedure, not operation. It will be easy to recover that way.”

“Good, good.”

Vic noticed that his mother was relieved—he assumed because the conflict had passed. He saw that she was attempting to diffuse the tension and wondered why she did this so often. She ran from discomfort so fast that half of life could be missed. Discomfort, Vic thought, was a way of understanding your beliefs and philosophies. If you constantly ran, how would you grow? But then Vic remembered that she was different, special, and the life she experienced was through the eyes of a seer. She felt more lives than just her own. He'd never considered this before, because she was just Mama to him, and being Mama came with certain accepted difficulties. She would be the one to do the hard jobs in the house, like take the stray dog Izzy had kept in the garage secretly for a week to the animal hospital to be put down because it had a tumor-ridden belly. Stuff like that.

“Then you'll be running marathons.” His mother smiled.

“
Neyji
, no running for me. I never liked to run. But a good walk will be nice. It's been a long time since I've strolled without a destination.”

“Too bad it's raining. There are some great views from the hills of old Cobalt. I've walked there a few times,” his mother said before eating a fry.

“The last walk I ever took was the longest walk of my life. My feet did the best they could. But now it is their time. Imagine, if you can”—he looked Vic—“this change. For no reason that you can see—no earthquake cracked the land, no lightning struck, no flood—but still you are forced to walk hundreds of miles. All of your life—what you called home, job, friends, and family history—all erased.”

The waitress brought the rest of their food. “You know, Kamal went ahead with your mother.” Papaji focused on his son directly.

“
Ji
, please.”

“Memories are important, Paul,” Papaji said.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“It? It? Your brother is not
it
.”

“Enough.” His father put his hands on the table and pushed himself to standing.

“Your brother is dead, but he still deserves to be in our memory. He was a good boy; you were a good boy.” Papaji stood as well, though his body took longer to extend. The two men paused inches away from each other.

Vic observed his father as a scientist might observe his subject. In an attempt to be as unbiased as possible, he pushed away his preconceived notions about his father and studied his appearance, deciding that anyone would assume he was a hardworking and successful man, with his starched shirt, worn soft around the edges of the collar. As his father exchanged words with Papaji, he noticed his father's demeanor had darkened, as if a secret he'd hoped was lost had now surfaced. Whatever it was, he seemed powerless against it.

His father appeared to shrink. “I don't remember.” Then he walked away from the table with Papaji right behind, hobbling with his cane. The pair exited to the parking lot, and Vic followed just far enough back so as to not disturb them. He stood within earshot just outside the Friendly's door, leaning against the wall so they could not see him.

“No? Well, you were young. Kamal's death—”

Vic had never heard anything about an uncle. He leaned forward to look at them.

“It was my fault,
puttar,
” Papaji said.

“Papaji, you came all this way—for what? Why did you come here, of all places?” Vic's father turned toward the old man.

“Son, I am old.”

His father threw his hands in the air. “And what? We are all getting older.”

“Let it go,
puttar,
just let it go.” Vic watched Papaji move close to his father, then pause as though an invisible barrier pushed against him. He frowned, then placed his large hand on his son's shoulder.

“I can't.”

The two men stood still in the middle of the rain-dampened parking lot. Silence held them both. Vic watched Papaji make a motion to speak, but he stopped himself, struggled, inhaled, then seemed to find courage.

“Son, please don't be like me. Don't waste this.”

“Waste what?”

“Your life.”

Vic watched his father pause as though he was caught in a sudden downpour without an umbrella. Papaji looked at his son as though hopeful that his words affected him. But then Vic saw his father turn away. He walked quickly toward Vic, and Papaji followed. Vic ducked back inside, pretending that he'd just emerged from the restroom. Then they all returned to the table.

“So, Isabella, how is the play?” his mother was asking.

Isabella looked at her with disbelief and did not answer. Their mother placed her hand on her husband, who had sat beside her, and he softened. One touch, and she'd quelled the fury that was soaring.

Papaji wiped his eyes with his handkerchief and turned his attention to the burger the waitress had placed in front of him. “Ahh, fit for a king.”

Vic's father turned his eyes toward the floor, and his mother shifted in her seat as though she was struggling. “My mother's coming tomorrow. Oma's coming.”

“What?” his father said.

“Can she stay for a while?” Isabella asked.

“Yes, she will stay with us, for a short time.”

“Why?” His father turned his anger on his wife.

“She needs us now. She is alone in Cleveland, in her small apartment. Her friends have passed away. It's not right. She shouldn't be alone. Family should never be alone.”

“Yes, but we don't have room.”

“I could room with her, you know. I don't mind,” Isabella said.

“And I could stay with Papaji,” Vic offered.

“Not now,” Paul grumbled.

Vic smiled at his mother, though he was certain she did not know why. Amazing, he thought, how you could slot someone into a category and so quickly they could prove you wrong. He was delighted she had made such a large decision for the household without consultation.

“Yes, darling. She's coming tomorrow. Her flight is tomorrow. That's that.”