Choice, page 6
Opie and Ayush get down into the weeds about the sequential order the stories should follow in Yes, The World. This, more than any other among their numerous exchanges, gives Ayush palpable pleasure, something he experiences, almost physically, as an expansion in his chest. In an industry that secretly hated books and writers, for its captains to describe themselves regularly, and with defiant pride, as ‘not an intellectual’, or as ‘a tart, deeply shallow’, Ayush feels that he, like a few others, a very few, has to hide his passion for that unspeakably embarrassing thing, literature, to put a lid on arguments based on literary criticism, not commerce. Economics is life, life is economics. But no more, at least not in this instance. Opie’s range is daunting: he – he? – begins the discussion on sequentiality with references ranging from Spenser’s Amoretti and Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella to Claire-Louise Bennett’s Pond. How does arrangement confer meaning?
– Can one leave the different strands that constitute a story or a novel seemingly unknit and hope – trust – readers to bring them together into meaning?
– Why not knit them for the reader? But Ayush deletes the question.
At the end of the editorial process, just before the proofs are ready, Ayush sends a note requesting a meeting: It has been such a wonderful conversation, a rare one, that it would be a great pleasure and privilege to meet you, etc. A curt reply, I would much rather not, if you don’t mind. Ayush is a little wounded – after all the back-and-forth, from formalistics, the idea of coherence and collocation, to a comma shifted or deleted, and the querying of certain points in Caribbean English, the conversation lasting months and constituting a kind of romance, the best sort, this brush-off? At least a few more words could have been expended to soften the blow, some explanation, however fictitious, offered? He sulks for a few days, then gets the publicist to write. The reply is prompt: Thank you very much for your email. I’m afraid that, for various reasons beyond my control, I shall have to decline doing any publicity-related activity, except for the odd Q & A conducted over email. I hope that this does not cause you any inconvenience. With apologies, etc. There is nothing that they can do after this. In fact, it’s an undisguised blessing for publicity: it saves resources and allows them to move on to the next thing, of which there are several, with a clean conscience.
Two weeks after a PDF of the page proofs is emailed to Opie, Ayush receives it as an attachment with all the corrections taken care of, but the body of the e-mail is empty.
Nineteen months after the meeting in which Ayush acquired Yes, The World, the book is published. It gets one review, in a round-up of five new releases in The Times. The reviewer has nothing to say except how some of the stories are too long to fall under the category of short stories. It does not even get the usual ‘darkly comic and sharply intelligent’ treatment, nor the sentence-fetishizers’ obligatory para of picking out holes and infelicities in the prose that they think passes for book-reviewing. Nothing. The publicists say that they didn’t have a ‘hook’ – no author bio, no photo, nothing to pitch to the media, no help from the author, no endorsements from other writers, nothing.
What the publicists do not know because Ayush has not told them is that he had written to M.N. Opie to ask his writer friends, if he had any, to provide a few words of praise to put on the cover. Three days later, an email reply had arrived:
Mercilessly brilliant and life-changing – Philip Roth.
Reading it is like feeling new life being breathed into you – Toni Morrison.
A book that is alive, changing and growing as you read it, and changing you too in the process – James Baldwin.
It had taken Ayush a few seconds to work out, after which he had felt winded with . . . with what exactly? Was Opie taking the piss? My god, the cheek. But after the shock had subsided, the understanding had come to him in a sudden revelation, while he was dissecting the episode in his head during a spell of insomnia. Yes, of course, the action was of a piece with what Opie stood for. And, as always, Ayush, breaking all norms, norms that mean nothing to him, can only be on Opie’s side.
So here they are, Ayush, the publicists, the eminences at the morning meetings to discuss figs, looking at yet another book they have to write off.
9
‘Can you help Daddy make dinner?’
The children nod in unison.
‘Will you spin the salad leaves and dry them for Daddy?’ Luke knows they love doing this; the excitement of pressing down on the knob on the spinner lid and setting off the whirring below never seems to fade. Sometimes the twins have a competition to see who can make the container spin faster. Luke calls it incentivization. He has even fine-tuned this incentivization by explaining to them that the faster one can get the contraption to spin, the drier the leaves inside get. A nice, clean triangulation of competition, incentives, and efficiency, Luke had once boasted. Watching the children activate that hamster wheel again, in all innocence, makes Ayush’s mouth feel ashy.
‘Could we not bring them up without all these terrible wirings – greed, competition, consumption, incentives?’ he had once asked Luke, to which Luke had replied, ‘How? Relocate to Mars?’
‘You think these things are inherent to humans and their functioning?’ Ayush had said. ‘Are they like the laws of nature, like gravity, or time?’
‘You want a long answer or a short answer?’
‘Short, please.’
‘Yes, they are like the laws of physics. We don’t make these laws, we study and try to understand them.’
‘You don’t make these laws? You seriously believe that, that your theories don’t make the world as it is?’
Luke had sighed – a clear indication that he did not want to get embroiled in another ‘Econ 101’ war with Ayush – and said, almost in resignation, ‘You want them to live in the greater world, don’t you, not be like hermits or holy fools or children forever? They must know the ways of the world.’
And here they are, learning, unbeknown to themselves, that economics is life, life is economics. Ayush decides to concentrate on every ticking second of doing the washing-up – this is his version of meditation, an almost Zen-like space he enters by throwing himself into the task at hand in all its particulars so that his mind is drained of everything except the minute acts of pouring washing-up liquid on the sponge, sudsing, scrubbing, rinsing, turning a pot this way and that, turning on the hot water tap, the cold water tap, getting the temperature just right, a second scrub after the first rinse to get everything sparkling clean. It does not work now. He is aware of what Luke is doing (peeling and deseeding butternut squash, chopping garlic, mincing sage, preheating the oven). He can sense Spencer feeling happy; his entire pack is here. He cannot decide between sitting in one place, basking in the company, or getting up, grinning, tongue hanging out, tail thumping and waving, moving from one human to another, just to acknowledge their presence, his presence, all bound up together. Ayush can hear the children.
‘I push stronger than you,’ Sasha says.
‘No, no, me, me. Look, I show you,’ Masha counters.
‘When I press, it moves very fast. When you press, it moves slow.’ The slightest hint of italics in the personal pronouns.
‘No. I’m faster. Give it to me, I’ll show you.’
Ayush has his back to the kitchen table, where they are seated, so he cannot say what exactly makes the salad spinner, which is supposed to have a non-slip base, fly off the table, dispersing the washed lettuce leaves all over the floor in the children’s corner of the kitchen. Spencer immediately obliges by sniffing and nuzzling and even licking some of them. Ayush has wheeled around and taken in the stricken look on the children’s faces, Spencer’s snuffling, felt Luke’s steadying hand on his back – just the briefest of touches – before he sublimates everything inside him to ‘Spencer, no, NO!’ in a whipcrack tone that makes the dog look up, puzzled, hurt: he has never heard this kind of a sound from Ayush; all this in a second or two. Luke bends down to pick up the leaves, keeping up a patter of, ‘Wow, wheeee, they all went flying, didn’t they? Wheee! Don’t worry, don’t worry, we’ll wash them, and you can spin them again . . . Now, Spencer, Spencer, naughty doggy-woggy-woggy, off, off, shoo, off you go. Don’t worry, nothing to worry about, guys, nothing.’ Ayush turns back to the sink and tries to focus again on the washing-up. Luke places the salad spinner with the leaves next to the sink and continues in an unbroken thread, ‘I can do it if you move for one second, just one sec, no problem at all, I can do it.’ Ayush looks at the soapy wine glasses and thinks of breaking one under the surface of the water in the sink with the force of his hand, just pressing on the glass balloon very hard so that the shards can dig into his palm. Without waiting for Ayush to move away to make space, Luke turns on the cold water tap, swishes the leaves in the spinner, empties it, repeats everything and hands the twins the job again. The children’s temporary phase of feeling subdued begins to lift: as soon as Luke says, ‘Oh, yikes, the dog hasn’t been fed,’ both of them sing out, ‘I’ll feed him, Daddy, I’ll feed him.’ ‘OK, only the kibble, you know where it is. Only half a scoop, all right? Both of you do it, no fighting, both of you,’ Luke says and turns to check the progress of the butternut squash in the oven. Ayush has barely rinsed the big yellow Le Creuset pot and turned sideways to put it on the draining rack before he simultaneously hears, and sees in his peripheral vision, the sound and sight of a ten-kilo bag of kibble spilling onto the floor as both children, trying to lift it up to pour into the dog’s bowl, cannot manoeuvre that huge weight and control the stream of dry dog food as physics and the unmanageable sack get the better of them. Spencer is so beside himself that he doesn’t know whether to guzzle it all up or wait to work out what is happening, if today this bounty has been spread out for him to eat unrestrainedly. He tries to make his way over to his bowl, now with a brown, granular mound in it, over the patchy rug of spilled kibble on the kitchen floor tiles. Ayush, uncontrollably, lets out a cackle that sounds like a staccato yowl: seriously, if this had been happening in one of his authors’ books, he would have written ‘RE, take one out, you can’t have both, esp. so close together’ in the margin with his blue pencil – ‘RE’ is ‘Repeated Example’ – but this is not a book and reality does not have to satisfy certain conditions of realism, which is, after all, a highly artificial model of the mess that is life. All this goes through his head as Luke rushes over to the children, pulls them into his arms and says in his tenderest voice, ‘Oh, sweethearts, you were trying to help, weren’t you? You were trying to help, my loves,’ as he strokes their heads, kisses their cheeks, and placates their tremulous lips and red faces. Ayush is suddenly held in the beam of an illumination: is this, then, what it takes to grow up comfortable in your own skin, comfortable and at ease with the world, the knowledge that there are no negative consequences, however trivial, that you are entitled to kindness and forgiveness and love regardless of what you do? The understanding in which he is held leaves him, like the beam of a lighthouse, and he is left looking at the detritus which is everyday life.
‘Will you come with me? Just this once?’ Luke asks Ayush. He can tell Luke is nervous, that it has taken a lot for him to get to this point of posing and articulating this question.
‘I know you dislike us, our tribe, I mean, but it’d mean a lot to me if you could be there,’ Luke rushes on. ‘Just for an hour. Just come and smile and make small talk, which you’re so good at, then we’ll leave, and I’ll take you out for dinner to the Delauney, or wherever you want to go. Please?’
Ayush feels the inside of his chest being wrung: it has cost Luke so much to say this to the man he is married to? What does Ayush see in the mirror that Luke has just held up to him? Ayush averts his face, as if from the imagined reflection, and says, ‘Yes, of course, I’ll come. Happily.’ Radiating relief, Luke almost leaps to kiss Ayush on the mouth, but his burning face is still averted.
The Xanax Ayush takes half an hour before he and Luke make their entrance at the donor-schmoozing party in a private room in Gymkhana is working like a dream. After several minutes of smiling, saying hello, shaking hands, sipping bubbly, Ayush feels Luke’s mouth at his ear, whispering, ‘I have to go talk shop. You want to mingle or come with me?’
‘I’ll be all right. You go do what you have to do. Come find me when you’re done.’
It is unimaginable to Ayush that British academia has money to burn on an evening like this. Clearly, someone in charge of the purse strings is certain that the gamble is going to pay off, that the donor being courted is going to endow the economics department with millions. In all the years of being with Luke, Ayush hardly knows any of his colleagues. He has heard some recurring names, but apart from one or two, he cannot match them to faces. An eager, bright-faced American man comes up to him, says, ‘Hi, I’m Alex,’ and extends his hand. ‘Are you an economist?’ Ayush feels the handshake loosening as he confesses he is not. The brightness fades a little, or maybe it’s the artful low lighting in the room. Then the forced question, ‘So, what do you do?’; Ayush cannot help feeling that it’s really ‘so what on earth can you do if you’re not an economist’ that Alex is asking. The Xanax insulates Ayush from everything; he feels indifferent, removed from the action. ‘I’m a publisher,’ he says, apologetically. ‘Oh, that’s awesome!’ Alex performs. ‘Amazing. What do you publish?’ ‘Books,’ Ayush says, and is ready to turn away, when an Indian woman comes up to him and says, ‘Luke just pointed you out to me. You’re Ayush. I’ve heard so much about you from him. I’m Ritika, Ritika Santosh.’ Then with a slightly sideways look, ‘Hi, Alex, so nice that you’re here.’
‘You’ve heard about me from Luke? What have you heard?’
She smiles and says, ‘Well, I’ve read some of the books you’ve published. In Other Colours, of course. Also A Question of Honour. Then that book on the history of statistics.’
Ayush feels tempted to say ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing’ too, with sincerity. He smiles – he hopes humbly – and mutters a thank you.
She continues, ‘Luke says you’re not a big fan of us. Of economists.’ There’s a generous, indulgent smile on her face, but no trace of condescension.
Alex is now interested. ‘Oh. Really? Why?’
‘That’s going to be your opening conversation gambit?’ Ayush says to Ritika with the most dazzling smile he can muster. ‘Here, I have a better one: what kind of an economist are you?’
‘A damn good one, I hope,’ she says, laughing.
Ayush feels an immediate connection with her. Is it the Xanax? Or the fact that they’re the only two non-white people in the room, as far as he can tell? Or even that they’re Indians?
‘Of that I’m sure,’ he laughs too, ‘but you know what I mean.’
‘I’m a development economist. I work on poverty.’
‘Say more? It’s a huge subject. The only subject, one might truthfully say.’
‘Here? This is an odd setting to talk about my work, or any work. We’re supposed to mingle and keep our conversations light and fluffy,’ she says. Her eyes are sparkling.
‘But I’m really interested.’
‘OK, let’s make a deal. We go out for drinks one day, and I tell you about my work, and you tell me about your problem with economists. Because, you know, I may not be entirely opposed to your position vis-à-vis us.’
Ayush’s eyes widen. He is now hooked. ‘Done and done,’ he says, in a slight daze.
10
‘Daddy, Spencer’s not coming up to bed,’ Masha complains.
Spencer always looks mournful at the children’s bedtime because he knows that he is going to be without their company until morning. Both Luke and Ayush let the dog come into the bathroom during the twins’ bathtime and sniff around and soak up the human company, as if he needs to store it up for the parched hours of the night. After bathtime, he leaps onto his bed on the landing outside the two bedrooms, the twins’ and Ayush and Luke’s, on the top floor, to wait out the dark hours.
‘Stay guard, doggy-woggy-woggy-woggy,’ Sasha says every night, kissing the dog goodnight.
‘Look after us through the night, O faithful friend,’ Masha always adds. The unchanging routine of secular prayer. Ayush forgets where Masha picked up the vocative address. But tonight, Spencer seems to have forgotten the routine.
‘What do you mean, not coming up?’ Luke says.
‘He’s standing at the bottom of the stairs and not following us up like he does at night.’
Luke comes out to the landing and sees Spencer stationed there, looking up at the staircase then looking away.
‘Spencer, old chap, what’s wrong? Come up, come on up,’ Luke says and climbs down then up a few stairs as if to lead by example.
The dog turns his head away, as if mildly embarrassed.
‘Come on, sweetheart, you’re a big boy, come on. What’s the matter?’
Luke comes down and tries to lift his front paws on to the second step, coaxing him. The children scamper down the side and stand at the mezzanine landing, looking down and urging, ‘Doggy-woggy, come to bed. You have to stand guard while we sleep. Good dog, Spencer, come now.’
