Bombay. Mumbai. Maharasthtra. Konkan Coastline. The Arabian Sea. The Indian Ocean. Char writes in her journal to make this visit more real. Then the details. Palm trees. Hot, sweaty air. The astonishingly sucessful choreography as crowds throng from one side of the street to another. Ocean breezes. Hot spices. Namaste. Friendly faces.

“Mario,” Char whispers to her old friend. “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Manhattan anymore.”

Across the rattan table, gobbling a samosa and sipping a fresh lime soda, Mario is as focused as any starving man.

She can’t help it, these lines from Oz. “People come and go so quickly here!”

“You do a decent Garland,” Mario offers a crooked grin. “SNL material. But I bet you’ll channel one of your own past lives here. I’m sure you were a Mumbaikar in some century. White girls just can’t paint our textiles like you do.”

His boyfriend John is, as usual, busy with the BlackBerry. Since landing in India yesterday, Mario has delighted in the food, and John in his excellent internet connection. “What time did you say your friend would pick us up?” John asks distractedly.

Mario finishes the samosa, mournfully regarding his empty plate. “Well, they taste better in Goa. Much better. Wait until you eat my mother’s chamuças.”

“Sweets,” John says, “I know I’m a little obsessive about time, but when is he coming?”

“OK, Johnny Fusspot, Nanshar said he’d arrive about four.”

John pecks Mario’s cheek.

“Maybe I should let you two guys go to the party by yourselves and have a romantic New Year’s Eve,” Char wipes the sweat from her neck. “I hate being a third wheel.”

Mario fans her with his menu. “Darling Char, without you, Johnny and I would be the lone queers at the gala. Nanshar’s wife has invited a bunch of neighbors and couples from her university. Nice people, but s-t-r-a-i-g-h-t. Actually, she especially wanted one of the guests to meet you, Radha, an art historian, theorist—something—who studies Indian motifs in Western art.”

John pockets his BlackBerry and stares at her with mock sternness. “Babe, this could be your Warhol. The door to discovery by a billion people.”

“Besides, it’ll be fun,” Mario cajoles. “Better to boogie with us under the stars than sulk around the West End Hotel brooding about your ex. Better than wondering what Wretched Wendy and that vampy witch from MOMA are doing in Chelsea tonight.”

Char shrugs. She’s been a consummate mope since her partner split.

She returns to the present. Ah! back in India, her first trip since that grad school fellowship. What a wonderful gift from John and Mario. She has longed to return, but Wendy was always more interested in Europe or Mexico. And the flight was so expensive. Perhaps in some way she’s feared India would change too much and her connection would be broken.

John teases, “And with that hot new coiffure, you’ll break the heart of at least one Bombay lady.”

Char fingers her blonde bangs; her hair feels too short and prickly. Wendy loved her long, dark curls. Untwisting the strap of her sun dress, she thinks back to when she met Wendy in painting class at Berkeley thirty years before. “Well, I better go upstairs to dress. Listen,” she reaches for and squeezes their warm hands. “I want to repeat how grateful I am to you guys for bringing me here—John for treating me to this trip and you, Mario, for introducing me to your friends and family.”

“Wait till you meet my family; maybe you’re a hostage! Besides, John has zillions of airline miles. He could have brought the whole apartment building.”

“No, no, you’re both so generous. True friends.”

“I’ll cop to that,” Mario kisses her hand.

At 4:15, Nanshar pulls up in a battered black Toyota.

Mario calls out, “Hey man, a miracle of punctuality in this wild traffic. How did you manage?”

Char hears Mario’s Goan lilt return, watches his face fill with joy.

“Brother, you’ve been away too long,” Nanshar shouts. Fit and handsome in his gray T-shirt and black jeans, he jumps out of the car and embraces Mario.

“It’s so nice of you to let us crash your party.” John shakes his hand, “But are you sure you want us to stay the night? I mean, we could take a taxi back to the hotel.”

“From Bandra to Colaba? On New Year’s Eve, man? No way. You’d be lucky to arrive back tomorrow afternoon.”

“More likely midnight,” Mario laughs.

Char shrugs, “I always bow to local authority.”

“Besides,” Nanshar grins, “you’ll be the hit of the whole party—three famous Americans, two big time artists and a New York district attorney!”

As they ride along sunny Marine Drive lined with palms, Nanshar shows them Nariman Point, Babulnath, and Malabar Hill.

“Wow, look at those art deco buildings,” murmurs Char. “House after house.”

“This is a largely Parsi neighborhood,” Nanshar explains, studying her excited face in the rearview mirror.

Mario pivots to John and Char in the back seat. “At night this drive is called the Queen’s necklace because the streetlights gleam like pearls.”

John whispers, “Yeah, I know my own queen looks adorable in pearls.”

Char closes her eyes. She thinks about the Arabian Sea. About being so blessedly far from the Hudson. About being back in here after dreaming and drawing and painting Indian motifs for decades.

Sadika waves from a second-floor balcony. This gorgeous, graceful woman appears the proper chatelaine of this chic white stucco house with its bright red tiled roof and tasteful garden.

As Char takes in the freshly mown lawn and pots of golden flowers, she’s tugged by nostalgia for her childhood California. And for the sense of possibility and ever after that she shared with Wendy at Berkeley.

Before Nanshar has parked the car, Sadika floats out the front door in a gossamer green and purple salwar kameez.

Char feels like a uniformed New Yorker in her black silk slacks and blouse. She thinks back to her college roommate Minissha, whose gorgeous saris and shawls first kindled her infatuation with Indian textiles. She wishes she and Mini hadn’t lost touch in the whirlwind of life between Berkeley and New York. Char sometimes imagines Minissha will show up at one of her openings. But the last word was that Mini had settled down with a Cuban she met on a Venceremos Brigade. Gradually she’s learned to be more conscientious in her friendships, all her relationships. Wendy used to say, “Forgive yourself for being young.” Perhaps it’s the fate of her generation to find home elsewhere.

“Welcome! Welcome everyone,” Sadika hugs Mario. “You’ve stayed away too long, my dear. But you’ve made up for it by bringing your friends.” She extends a manicured hand. “John, we’ve heard so much about you.”

John shakes hands, then fingers the BlackBerry in his pocket.

Char notices dark rings under his eyes. Clearly the pressures of the DA’s office are nothing to being vetted by Mario’s friends and family. She resolves to be more sensitive to her intense friend.

“And Clara?” She shakes her guest’s hand firmly. “Welcome to you as well.”

“Char,” Mario whispers. Then louder, “For Charlene, a diminutive of Charles. You know how these Euro names are so male dominated.”

Sadika wags her finger at Mario.

“Come. Come in,” Sadika says, “Let’s have a drink. We get three hours to ourselves before the guests arrive.”

After shedding sandals in the vestibule, they pad over the cool tiles into the living room and relax on overstuffed white couches. Giant red and green pillows are scattered on the vivid rugs. A fresh breeze parts the upper curtains. Below are picture window views of the sea.

Nanshar fills their drink orders.

“What a stunning house,” Char says. “And so comfortable.” She misses California’s benign weather, coastal vistas, swaying palms. But it’s been twenty-five years since she followed Wendy to their dingy small apartment in New York where they prospered—a hip queer couple—gifted painter and edgy critic.

“Look at the space,” John can’t contain his amazement. “Tell me again, Mario, why are we crammed into that flat on West Nineteenth?”

Mario grins, taking in his two worlds. “Well, the location is good. And perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I’m a starving artist and Nanshar runs a big investment firm. You nabbed the wrong husband, I guess.”

John demurs. “You’re a fabulous painter. You and Char are my entrée to the best parties. You have pieces in top galleries . . .”

“Yes, yes,” Mario interrupts. “No advertising necessary here.”

“Now he’s brought you to the best party in Bombay,” Sadika trills and takes John’s hand. “We’ll have a light dinner on the veranda. But first, let me show you the house.”

The other guests start to appear around 9 pm.

Anita. A water rights activist.

Ashok and Brinda. Psychiatrist and dancer.

Dhruv. Filmmaker.

Anjolie and Irfan. Physicist and . . . Char is losing track. Maybe it’s the jet lag.

Nanita.

Gopal.

Urvashi and Kanwahar.

Smita.

Nice smile, that Smita.

How will she remember their names and jobs and interests? Relax, she reminds herself; she’s on holiday, not running for office. “All is good,” as the porter at the West End Hotel had reminded her when she mispronounced thank you. “Dhanyavad,” he had corrected gently. “Everything is forgiven. You are a foreigner.”

John takes a step back from Gopal, who is avidly quizzing him on “Law and Order.” “I do miss Jack McCoy. And your own impression? Truly I value your opinion, for I’ve never met a genuine New York DA before. What luck.”

“Wonderful show,” John inches away.

Char admires his tact, recalling evenings they’d watched the series, laughing as John kept a tally of inaccuracies.

“But honestly,” Gopal persists, “do you think Mike Cutter hits the bench mark?”

“Great cast all around.” John reaches for a beer.

Gopal slaps his forehead, “Ah, I should have foreseen—professional discretion.”

Mario tugs Char’s hand. He introduces Radha, the art historian-curator and her husband Sanjay, a dour mathematician.

“Char does dazzling work. She has such an eye for textiles, you want to reach out and touch the saris, dupattas, salwar kameezes, kurtas in her paintings.”

Radha smiles. “Do you have a website?”

Mario pulls one of Char’s cards from his eel skin wallet. He leans toward Char. “Shh, this is what friends do.”

Char smiles shyly at Radha. What’s happened to her Manhattan mojo?

“Sadika tells me you’re in Bombay another week. Perhaps we can meet for tea?”

Sanjay wriggles toward the drinks table.

“Yes, thanks. That would be great.”

A tap on her shoulder.

John rocks back and forth, clapping his hands. “‘Cain’t get no . . . satisfaction. I cain’t get no. Oh, no, no, no . . .’ Come on Char. This is our song.”

Radha laughs. “Do dance. We’ll make our date later.”

They join the swirling saris and gyrating jeans and cotton shirts and khaki pants dancing on the rooftop patio this balmy night. Their hosts have strung blue and white lights around the potted palms.

The Rolling Stones have parched her. The drinks—orange squash, mineral water, Bombay Pale Ale, Johnny Walker Black, Bushmills, Absolut, Bacardi, Nasik wine—are arranged on a brilliant yellow table cloth. She runs her hand over the thick, tightly woven cotton. The menu is equally generous—aloo chaat, aloo tikki, bread, pakora, cheesy pizza, masala dosa, chole bhature. Brie. Camembert, crusty baguettes, namkeen. Char inhales the aromas of coriander and turmeric, feeling grateful she didn’t stay at the West End Hotel tonight staring out at their bleak view of the Bombay Hospital and remembering her own grimy windows in Chelsea.

Sanjay is pouring a neat Bushmills. He proffers the bottle.

“No, thanks. I’ll try one of these ales.”

“Our pale ales are tasty, but nothing compares with a cold Corona and lime.”

“Do they sell Corona here?”

“Not much. No, I drank it as a student at Berkeley.” He starts to walk away.

“I went to Berkeley, too.”

Sanjay studies her closely, then frowns. “Big school,” he sighs, then wanders off.

How did this churlish guy win over vibrant Radha? Still knackered from dancing and jet lag, she drops into a comfortable net chair at the edge of the party. She’s always been a corner booth kind of girl. Tonight’s moon is almost full, but she can still make out Orion. Taking a deep breath, she inhales the sweet mustiness of some tropical flower.

Mario puts his arm around her shoulder. “How’s it going, little Charles?”

“Divine,” she murmurs, “as close to Heaven as I’ll ever get.”

John appears. “I’ve got a bizarre cultural question.”

“Local authority at your service,” Mario grins.

“Well, this music—Stones, Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Elvis, the Beatles. I know Indians are hospitable,” he says, “but are your friends, are they playing this for us?”

Mario laughs so hard his rum and coke splashes onto the shiny blue patio tiles.

Char steadies his glass. “I don’t think so. I mean, we’re all the same generation. Look around.”

“Yeah,” Mario is still laughing. “We all listened to the same music.”

“Right,” John nods.

“Naturally.” She fiddles with her wispy fringe.

Sanjay saunters past, turns to Char. “Kip’s?”

“Pardon?” Char blinks.

“Do you remember Kip’s?” He repeats impatiently. “I used to drink Corona and lime at Kip’s.”

“Oh. Right. I think I remember the juke boxes.”

“Precisely. Such a strange contrast to the People’s Park crowd.”

“Yes,” she says, “So many different worlds in Berkeley then.”

He looks at her long and seriously.

A little unnerved, she asks, “What kind of math do you do?”

“I detect a polite question.” He purses his lips and pushes back thick, dark-rimmed glasses. “It’s complicated—and perhaps boring for you—probability statistics of . . .”

He steps away before finishing the sentence.

“What’s with Mr. Peepers in the Stone Age glasses? Weird guy,” Mario rolls his eyes. “Watch out, girl.”

Char pats her friend’s hand. “At first I found him arrogant. Maybe dismissive of self-indulgent artist types. Now, I think he’s just, well, awkward.”

“You’re a good person, Char Fraser.”

“So are you, Charlie Brown. Wanna dance?”

The Mashed Potato. The Pony. The Locomotion. The Pogo. The Hully Gully. The Swim. Even the Twist.

“Rest stop!” Char pants.

“No, not already!” Mario shakes his head, sweat dripping from rings of black hair.

“I’m six months older than you, remember?” she manages breathlessly. “I think you should check on your boyfriend to make sure he hasn’t found some comely lad with a cozy Bandra condo.”

“First-class paranoid thought!” Mario high fives her.

She finds her half-finished bottle and takes a draught of the pleasantly bitter brew, grateful for the chair, the warm night, the amiable people.

The evening unspools agreeably. She dances, with John, by herself, with Nanshar and Sadika. She chats with Anjolie and Dhruv and Brinda, making mental notes of films to see, books to read. She’s excited, content. In Manhattan, she’s wounded when people at a party don’t recognize her. But tonight she feels happily anonymous. Just a friend of a friend under the twinkling canopy.


 
By 11:15, she’s famished. Flying always does this to her appetite. She puts a fragrant samosa on her plate and looks for a place to sit.

More stars now, shining, winking in and out of the black sky. Who needs Wendy? The grief is turning. Morphing into anger and the tiniest bit of indifference. Before she takes a second bite, she hears a voice.

“What dorm did you live in?” asks Sanjay.

“This is really nostalgia night,” she says softly. “Please,” she gestures to the adjacent chair, “join me if you like.”

She senses something familiar about him. Maybe not—how many dorky, shy boys grown into men has she known in her life?

He repeats, “Which was your dorm?”

“Freeborn. Then an apartment. I spent senior year in I House.”

Startled, he sits straighter.

She looks around, feeling vaguely trapped. “Did you enjoy Berkeley?”

“Absolutely.” He seems distracted, as if by something she’s wearing. He stops staring. “Best years of my life.”

“The place, the time, transformed me.” She finishes the samosa, still hungry. The recent tranquility has evaporated; she’s anxious, irritable. Jet lag, she tells herself again and continues to be cordial. “Berkeley changed everything. I was the first person in my family to finish high school. They thought college was a miracle. To them Berkeley was intergalactic. To me, too, for a while.”

“Intergalactic,” he blinks up at the sky. “I remember watching the planets and stars on spring nights from Heller Patio.”

“So you know International House.”

“I lived there four years.”

Radha appears and places her hands lightly on Sanjay’s shoulders.

Char stands. “Sanjay and I were talking about our college days in Berkeley. It seems we overlapped.”

Radha smiles tightly. “I wondered what was engrossing you both so much. Sanjay, you mustn’t monopolize Char’s time. Everyone will want to meet the American artist. Besides, it’s been years since we danced together to the Beatles. Come. Do come.”

Char pours another ale. Maybe if she uses a mug, she’ll drink more slowly. Truth is, she’d only been to Kip’s once. The kids were loud and the place reeked of pissy Budweiser and Coors. (Did they even sell Corona at Kip’s?) She spent most of college in the library, at the studio or at her work-study job. In her down time, she preferred the Caffé Mediteraneum to beer joints, lingering pensively over a latte on the second-floor balcony. How odd to come to Bombay and find herself wistful for California.

An eruption of shouting. Clapping. Hooting. Red, green lights streaking across the sky.

Char almost misses it.

“Bonne Année! “Naye Varsha Ki Shubhkamanyen!” “Naya Saal Mubbarak Ho!” Happy New Year!”

She raises a sweating mug to the kissing couples and hugging friends. Wendy and her MOMA witch won’t be celebrating for another nine hours. John and Mario lift their glasses to her from the far side of the veranda.

Sadika brings over Smita, a psychologist planning to visit New York in April. Oh, yes, the woman with the million rupee smile. Sadika slips away briefly, returning with a manila file. “I downloaded these yesterday from the website Mario sent me.” She pages through five sheets of color prints with Smita.

Char watches, amazed at Sadika’s attentiveness in the midst of her big party. This would never happen in Manhattan where people are too harassed being their own PR agents to promote anyone else’s work. Oh, she still loves New York, another place, like Berkeley, where she has been able to grow beyond her imagination.

“Aren’t they stunning!” declares Sadika. “I love the purples and violets.”

Char wants to protest that the true colors are only visible on the original paintings, that even the size of the jpegs limits one’s experience of the work. But she’s modest enough to remain silent and feel grateful for Sadika’s generous spirit.

Smita’s patients are mostly coupled young adults, trying to balance their liberated lives with duty to extended family. “I have local patients, but a number who phone or Skype from Boston, London, Dallas. It’s hard to grow up being told you are a citizen of the world and then to be beset with family responsibilities that are totally incompatible with that.”

“I would think so.” Char nods, feeling a complicated relief that she lost her parents twenty years ago.

Across the patio, Brinda is waving good-bye to everyone.

“She has an early morning flight to Sydney,” Smita explains, then checks her watch. “Look at the time! It’s been lovely talking with you, Char.”

“Do call me when you come to that New York conference,” Char hears herself being expansive. She usually discourages visitors.

They’re playing slow songs now. Elvis imploring, Love me tender. Bob Marley crooning, Is this love?

Char perches contently in her corner chair, marveling at the warm night/morning air, intense conversations, joyful dancing. Wendy would have loved this. Before she embarks on that resentful road, Paul McCartney begins Yesterday. The recent Concert in New York version, so much more nuanced and resonant than the original. Age does bear some gifts.

Sanjay materializes, regarding her quizzically.

Maybe Mario’s right about Mr. Peepers being a little off.

Surely he’s not going to ask her to dance. Why would he do that? Three hours ago he found her question too boring to answer.

“Do you ever visit I House?” he asks awkwardly.

“I live in New York.”

“Of course.” He takes off his glasses and wipes them with a party napkin. “Silly question.”

They fall silent.

Keith Richards’s guitar. And Jagger’s sandpaper voice. She tries to recall the title.

“Wild Horses!” Sanjay declares. “Brilliant, brilliant song.”

He’s grinning, for the first time all evening, she thinks.

Two more couples make their farewells to Sadika and Nanshar. Char watches them, looking forward to lying down after everyone has left and they’ve washed the dishes, but that won’t be for a couple of hours.

“Wild horses,” he’s singing, and not badly, “. . . we’ll ride them some day.” His dark eyes glisten. “I have fond memories of I House, you know. In those years everything was promising. I felt I was living in a mansion. The dining room with its big windows; Middle Eastern rugs on the walls; long refectory tables. I guess a college boy concentrates a lot on food.”

She’s trying to keep up. “I loved the auditorium’s ornate ceiling and those glass chandeliers.”

“Do you remember the wide front steps? How many evenings I would come home from the math building and feel at home as soon as I started climbing those steps.”

“Yes,” she warms to the subject. “And studying late at the Coffee Shop.”

“I had a crush on an American girl who studied in the corner booth.”

Time stops. Her mind admits a vague memory. “Did you ever . . . tell her?” Somehow all the nerdy guys were drawn to her. There was an Italian, a guy from Des Moines, and, yes, an Indian. None of them spoke much and she supposed now that they all might have misinterpreted her polite cheerfulness for something else. Wendy kept an eagle eye on these lads; she’d remember Sanjay, if it were Sanjay. Wendy is probably savoring a romantic brunch at the Chelsea Market right now. Her anger is simmering down toward irritation.

“I tried to. One night we were sitting under stars on Heller Patio.”

“Yes, you mentioned those stars before.” She considers his face. He could be the same guy. She didn’t know any of them well. Besides, who can predict how a person wears thirty years? Her own long dark locks have turned a spiky gold.

He looks up at the Indian sky.

She imagines a nervous boy enduring a crush; a middle-aged woman suffering betrayal; and feels her heart open, wide enough to say, “You know, maybe that girl liked you, but as a friend. Maybe she, well, wasn’t into men.”

His eyes brighten. She thinks how handsome he would be without those ancient spectacles.

He smiles, “Oh, you mean, maybe she played for the other team.”

Their eyes catch and they both burst out laughing.

“Ah, here you are,” Radha allows a long sigh to run through her body. “Come Sanjay, we must let Sadika and Nanshar clear up. Their overnight guests look worn-out. Aren’t you jet-lagged, Clara?”

“A little. Kind of you to ask.” Then Char turns to Sanjay, “Thanks for the good memories. It’s been really fun talking to you.”

“My pleasure,” he nods solemnly, adding in a softer voice, “once again.”

She draws a long breath and can almost smell the sea.

With her eyes shut, she sees the moon and stars lighting the night of this entire world.

Then and now.