Umrigar The Museum of Failures

Your Next Powerful Book Club Read
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-80075-372-3
Verlag: Swift Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 356 Seiten

A riveting story about uncovering family secrets and the power of forgiveness, set in India and the United States, from the bestselling author of Reese's Book Club pick Honor 'A heart-warming tale of love and friendship, redemption and forgiveness' Mail on Sunday Remy Wadia left India for the United States long ago, carrying his resentment of his mother with him. He has now returned to Bombay for the first time in several years to adopt a baby. Discovering that his elderly mother is in the hospital and seems to have given up on life, he is struck with guilt over his long absence. As Remy's mother begins communicating and family secrets unravel, Remy is forced to re-evaluate everything he has known ... 'A compassionate and insightful exploration of judgement, forgiveness and understanding' Lisa Ko

Thrity Umrigar is the bestselling author of The Space Between Us, which was a finalist for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award, as well as ten other novels, a memoir, and three picture books. Her books have been translated into several languages and published in over fifteen countries. She is the winner of a Lambda Literary Award and the Seth Rosenberg Prize and is a Distinguished Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Umrigar, Thrity

Leseproben

Chapter Two

Remy felt numb as he listened to Jango and Shenaz berating the girl, who had folded upon herself. Of all the scenarios he had imagined, he had not entertained the possibility of the girl changing her mind. I’ve never seen Jango lose his temper like this, he thought with an odd detachment. Shenaz was crying, accusing her niece of embarrassing her in front of her husband’s oldest friend.

“Do you think Remy just strolled in here from Juhu Beach or something?” Shenaz said. “This poor man left his wife and his business in America to fly here to meet you.”

“I had said all along that I would have to meet him first before I agreed,” Monaz replied sullenly.

“What?” For a second, Shenaz faltered. “Yes, that’s true. But we—we thought it was as good as done.” She looked angry again. “Do you think you can ever find a better home for your son than what Remy and Kathy can provide? You remember what I told you about them? They are model people. A model couple.”

“Shenaz, please,” Remy said, emerging from his fog. “Let’s all take a deep breath.” They all turned to him, looking to him for guidance, but he fell silent. His head felt woolly, as if fatigue and disappointment had formed cobwebs in his brain.

“Shame on you for cutting my nose like this,” Shenaz resumed. “Who are we going to find that’s better than Remy?”

“There’s no need to find anyone else.” Monaz’s voice had grown louder, more strident. “I’m trying to tell you that, only. I am going to keep my baby. Gaurav and I are getting married.”

There was a stunned silence. Three pairs of eyes stared at the girl, who sat there shaking but defiant.

“Chokri,” Shenaz said at last, “have you gone mad? Do you think your father will allow you to marry a non-Parsi?”

“I’m nineteen. I don’t need his permission.”

“Last week, you told us this Gaurav person didn’t want anything to do with you,” Jango said. “And now you’re going to marry him?”

Monaz opened her mouth to explain, but Remy had heard enough. He didn’t need to know any more of her personal business. His best chance to adopt a child from India had evaporated, and he felt foolish for having rushed here, for having put all his eggs in one basket. A private adoption had seemed like such an elegant solution.

“Excuse me,” he said, standing up. “I—I need to call Kathy.” His stomach heaved at the thought of his wife’s disappointment. Adopting an Indian child had been her idea. “The child should look like at least one of us, honey,” Kathy had said. “And getting a… a white kid is going to be hard.” He had tensed at the thought of yet another link tying him to a country he had been determined to leave behind. But Kathy had seemed so convinced that he’d acquiesced.

“Remy, wait,” Shenaz cried. “I’m sure I can knock some sense into this girl.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said. He forced himself to meet Monaz’s eye and smile. “Good luck with everything.”

“I’m so sorry, uncle,” she said, wiping tears away. “I didn’t do this on purpose, I swear.”

“I know,” he said, feeling a trickle of sympathy. “It’s okay. Congratulations to you.”

“She what?” Kathy said.

“She changed her mind. She’s keeping the baby,” Remy repeated.

“What?”

He fell silent, knowing that Kathy needed a few minutes to absorb the news. “I’m sorry, honey,” he said at last.

“I don’t believe it. I mean, how could she? What gives her the right?”

He didn’t state the obvious: that they had no signed agreement with Monaz, and even if they had, they were not the kind of people who would force a mother to give up a child against her wishes.

“I knew I should’ve come with you. Maybe if she’d met me also.”

His heart twisted at how crushed Kathy sounded. “How could you have? You have that big conference coming up.”

“I know,” she said miserably. “But this was more important.”

“Listen,” he said, forcing a lightness into his voice. “We’re in our midthirties. We’ll… As soon as I come home, we’ll start the process in the US, okay? I’d much rather adopt in America anyway.”

Kathy sighed. “This was my stupid idea. I just… I thought it would mean something to you. To have a child who came from the same part of the world as you.”

He felt a gust of love for Kathy. But he couldn’t explain to her that the last thing he wanted was to continue an attachment with the country of his birth. Once Mummy was gone, even his periodic visits to India would end. His wife knew about his fraught history with his mother, but she had grown up in a close-knit Irish Catholic family less than ten miles from where they now lived, and couldn’t understand the complexity of his feelings—the fact that he had come to America precisely to get away from home, his childhood memories colored by the strange dynamic between him and his mother and tarnished by the gloom of his parents’ marriage.

“Remy?” Kathy said. “You still there?”

“I’m here,” he said. Although at that moment, he’d have given anything to be lying next to her in their bed.

“What’re you gonna do now?”

“I guess I’ll stick to the rest of the plan. I’ll go over to my mom’s flat this afternoon. Surprise her.” He felt his body tense at the prospect.

“Will you still stay the full ten days then?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll play it by ear. Would you mind if I did?”

“You do what you need to.” Kathy paused. “You don’t think she—Monaz—will change her mind?”

He hated the tenuous hope in her voice, blamed himself for it. “I don’t think so, honey,” he said. “Apparently, she and the baby’s father are thinking of getting married.”

There was a sudden silence, Monaz’s reversal a brick wall they couldn’t scale.

“Well,” Kathy said at long last, “I’d better go. It’s late.”

He knew she’d lie awake in bed, flooded with disappointment, and the fact that he was more than eight thousand miles away, unable to hold her in his arms, made him furious at the thoughtless girl in the next room, who had dashed their hopes so cavalierly. He shouldn’t have called Kathy at this hour, should’ve allowed her a peaceful sleep.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Remy said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is. I don’t know… I should have known better.”

“Remy,” Kathy said. “Don’t be silly. There’s no way you could’ve predicted this.”

Except there was, he thought after they’d hung up. This is why he had flinched inwardly when Kathy had first proposed adopting from India. Why hadn’t he spoken up then? Why hadn’t he told her the truth? India always disappointed. He had often thought of Bombay as the museum of failures, an exhibit hall filled with thwarted dreams and broken promises. The reels of red tape themselves were worthy of their own display room. What on earth had made him imagine that adopting a child here would go smoothly?

Remy remembered a summer’s afternoon lying on the hammock in their backyard in Columbus. He and Kathy had been married five years by then. “What was the happiest day of your life?” Kathy had asked.

He knew that she expected him to pick their wedding day. Or perhaps the day he’d met her at the party at Ralph Addington’s house during Remy’s second month in America. But he’d told her the truth: it was the day he’d received the letter admitting him to the MFA program at Ohio State. That letter had been his ticket out of the museum of failures and into a new world of possibility. And it had all paid off beyond his wildest dreams.

I’ll cut short my trip, Remy now thought. I’ll spend a few days with Mummy and then return home. After his father’s death, he’d entrusted his mother’s care to his cousin Pervez and his wife, Roshan, who now lived two floors below his mother’s apartment. He would meet with them and with the family lawyer, tweak the arrangements for Shirin’s care, and then he’d leave. There was really nothing else in Bombay to hold him.

He paced around the bedroom, debating whether to join the other three in the living room. As if in answer to his question, Monaz herself appeared at his door.

“Hi?” he said.

Without asking for permission, she walked into the room. “I wanted to see you for a minute,” the girl said. “Privately.” Her face crumpled. “To tell you I’m not a bad person. To explain what—”

“It’s okay,” Remy said. “It’s none of my business.”

“But I want to. Remy Uncle, when I found out I was pregnant, Gaurav was the first person I told. I was petrified. I mean, you know what the attitudes are like in India towards unwed mothers. And of course, Gaurav knows all this, but he—he was really mean to me. He said there was no way he could be a father, that he was planning to go to law school after he graduated from college. In any case, he had another girlfriend, he said. He wouldn’t even talk to me after that. That’s when I came to Shenazfui for help.”

And that’s the guy you’re going to marry? Remy thought.

His incredulity must’ve shown on his face, because Monaz said, “I know what you’re thinking. But Remy Uncle, Gaurav has changed....