The Girl in the Road Read Free Page B

flex my torso to make sure it’ll stay in place.
    I come out and look in the mirror. I’m still wearing what I put on in our bedroom in Thrissur this morning. I feel the need to alter my appearance. I take my jacket off, then, and stuff it in my satchel. I roll up the sleeves of my kurta past my elbows and undo three more buttons. I can do nothing radical with my jeans or boots. So I start unbraiding my hair. There’s something about dressing my own wounds and fixing my own hair that makes me feel invincible. Look on my works, ye Mighty: I both heal and adorn my own body. In fact I could go for a drink, now.
    Here is my new strategy: act normal.
    When I come out into the club there’s a people-scape of black silhouettes against violet light. A Meshell Ndegeocello bhangra remix is making the floorboards shake. The bartender looks like an old Bollywood hero with shaved and pregnant biceps. He’s wearing a threadbare T-shirt with holes along the seams, carefully placed, Dalit chic, not authentic. His eyes flicker up around my head and, seeing nothing, look back down at me.
    â€œWhat can I get you, madam?”
    â€œJameson’s.”
    He takes a second look at me. “Malayalee?” he says.
    How’d you guess, chutiya?
    â€œNominally,” I say. “My family’s lived in Mumbai since the Raj.” Lying is so easy and useful, I don’t know why I ever stopped.
    â€œIsn’t it Onam?”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œNot much one for tradition, huh?”
    â€œNot really.” This bartender talks too goddamn much. And I’m a quiet person. Talking takes energy and anyway, nothing I want to say comes out right. I use my body to talk, when I can, but that’s not an option here, so I say, “We live in Santa Cruz East. Haven’t been down much lately. What’s going on around here?”
    â€œOh, bombs on Azad Maidan, the usual.” He concentrates on pouring my drink, looks angry.
    â€œIt’s probably Semena Werk,” I say. It’s prejudicial speech that Mohini would warn me against. Given the snake. Given the barefoot girl. Given Family History. “They can’t be reasonable.”
    â€œSo they bomb their own people?”
    â€œThey don’t think of them as their own people. They think of them as traitors.”
    â€œTrue.” The bartender pushes the glass of whiskey to me. I take a sip and, as soon as the sting reaches my stomach, start to unkink. I hadn’t realized how nonlinear the day has been. Now things feel like they’re proceeding in order.
    â€œLooked like you needed that.”
    â€œI did.”
    â€œGlad I could oblige.”
    I’m beginning to feel comfortable. This may be the end of the mania. Or it may be a new phase of the mania.
    â€œSo what else is going on downtown?” I ask.
    â€œLots of foreigners moving in, especially because of Energy Park.”
    â€œWhich is—?”
    â€œIt’s the cluster of towers at the end of Nariman Shallows, the one that looks like Oz. You should go see it if you haven’t. They have a new museum in the HydraCorp building.”
    â€œA museum of what?”
    â€œEnergy.”
    â€œThat could mean a lot of things.” HydraCorp is one of the biggest multinational energy conglomerates. They’re also the hippest because they invest five percent of all profits in developing weird new energy sources. I read about a device to power a Gandhian cotton wheel with human shit. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
    â€œHave you heard of the Trail?” he asks.
    I pause. Mohini and I saw an episode of Extreme Weather! about the Trail a few years ago. The bartender sees I know what he’s talking about and says, “At the museum, they give you the corporate version, but it’s still worth seeing.”
    Now memories come back, shook loose by whiskey. The Trail seemed unreal: a floating pontoon bridge moored just offshore