Tulip Season Page 11

  Mother spilled out the rest of the tale. After the actress had divorced Mitra's father, she'd married three more times. Finally, she bowed out of films. She had her hands full with the offspring of her failed marriages—one girl and four boys. The children took her maiden name, Sinha.

  “I got all this from movie magazines,” Mother said. “Your father wouldn't tell me much. He held it all inside. Part of the reason he neglected us was he could never let go of his memory of his first love. That bitch. She's my shatru.” Enemy.

  Mitra kept quiet so Mother would say more.

  “You came into this world a sweet innocent child, content with what little came your way. We ruined your perfection. Your big eyes searched for love. You didn't get it. Your father couldn't afford toys, clothes, or vacation. Feeling like a failure, he turned to gambling and spent his time and money on betting on horses. He failed in that, too. Yes, my dear, your father cheated you out of a happy childhood. If you ask me, it doesn't take only ability to raise a child, it takes sacrifice, and he just wouldn't make the necessary sacrifices. And, I didn't do much better.”

  “Ma, you tried.”

  “You never demanded much from me. You went your own way. After your father died, I was no better than a walking skeleton. I had no life in me, no appetite for food or living. I was of no use to myself. But I stayed alive for you.”

  Listening to the melody seeping through her walls from a neighbor's house, Mitra accepted what she believed was an apology from Mother. She rose from the sofa. Aunt Saroja's death had uncovered a truth: why Mother had neglected her so much. She was scarred in her marriage, scarred again as a widow. Mitra reminded her too much of a difficult past.

  “No apology is necessary,” Mitra said. “I love you and appreciate having you as my mother.”

  “Saroja loved you very much. She also said, ‘Celebrate the people in your life who are still alive.’ A wise woman. She'd have wanted us to enjoy this day.”

  They said goodbye. Putting the phone back, Mitra felt as though she'd traveled through a turbulent weather zone and been ravaged by it. Her aunt's death coupled with Mother's grief about the past weighed on her. Worse yet, Kareena now appeared in their family album, Mitra's chief ally, half-sister, and the daughter of Mother's worst shatru.

  TWENTY-TWO

  WITH AUNT SAROJA'S DEATH, bereavement had settled into Mitra's chest. The next morning, she turned the soil in a corner of her south yard, removed weeds, rocks, and twigs, and planted an already blooming lavender bush. This sweet smelling plant, with its silvery gray leaves and purple blossoms, would be just the right memorial for Aunt Saroja. Mitra took time to mulch the bush. Branches of a neighbor's apple tree formed an irregular lattice above her head. In the months to come, the plant would grow full, dense, and tall. Aunt Saroja would have swooned over its whirl of color.

  A few drops of rain fell. Mitra went back inside and booted up her computer, then sat staring at her screen. The Auto Reminder feature flashed the image of a huge green thumb and a warning that her gardening column was due tomorrow. She checked her year-at a-glance calendar on the wall. Although it wasn't quite May yet, she was reminded of a most ceremonious event—Mother's Day. Not a topic she embraced, now that she feared Mother's reaction about Kareena.

  Her gaze wandered to the window. She craned her neck to peer at the newly planted lavender and flashed on Aunt Saroja's face. Next her eyes traveled to a delphinium patch that hugged the side of the house. And now Glow glided through her mind. Grandmother appreciated it when Mitra opened the car door for her or poured her tangerine juice, but she smiled the brightest when Mitra walked in with a spray of flowers on her arms.

  The delphiniums, already blooming, oscillated in the wind, raising a question for Mitra: shouldn't there be a day to celebrate grandmothers?

  This must be the right topic, for suddenly she could type again.

  My Grandmother's Garden

  “The flower is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.”

  Jean Giradoux

  Mitra kept herself occupied for the next few hours, each tap on the keyboard a sweet affirmation of her regard for both Aunt Saroja and Grandmother. Once finished, she squinted out the window. The patter of rain had abated. The sun had cracked the sky open.

  The last time she'd watered her plants, Ulrich was there with her. She hadn't seen him in the last two days. It was quite unusual for him not to call or come by. Mitra felt that familiar ache for him. She grabbed the cellphone and left him a message.

  Less than a minute later, a call came in from Detective Yoshihama. He must be responding to a message she'd left earlier asking how the investigation was proceeding.

  “We're working as many avenues as we can,” Yoshihama said, “checking phone transcripts and the contacts and the like.”

  “And the ransom note?”

  “Did Mr. Guha tell you he's received a second ransom letter? He's negotiating with them.”

  “Couldn't you override Adi's opposition, given that it's a matter of life-or-death for Kareena? Do they have a release strategy worked out for her?”

  “Release strategy? I don't believe so.” Silence for a moment. “Actually, I called you about another matter. It's a bit personal and I hope you don't mind my asking. Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Mitra startled. Did the detective want to ask her out? He cheered up when he spoke with her. Then again, she couldn't be sure. He was rather formal and still called her Ms. Basu. “I'm seeing someone, although we're not serious.”

  “I'm concerned about you.” He paused. Mitra held her breath. The pause seemed too long. “Do you know Ulrich Schultheiss?” he asked. “Are you seeing him?”

  The mention of the name hit Mitra like a closed door in the dark. “Yes, why?”

  “This is only for your safety. And please keep this information to yourself. Recently, Ulrich Schultheiss was picked up on charges of assaulting a colleague, released from jail after 72 hours. You might want to consider staying away from him.”

  Mitra's pulse raced. “Might it be a case of mistaken identity? I can't imagine him being involved in a crime. And how did you know we were connected?”

  “An officer found your card in his wallet.”

  “I gave it to him when we first met. He's not in any trouble, is he?”

  “No. I'd still watch my back, Ms. Basu, if I were you.”

  For several moments after disconnecting the call, Mitra couldn't shake the icy grip at her throat.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ON THURSDAY, Mitra removed the Seattle Chronicle from its plastic casing. The day's paper should contain her column “Come Smell the Daisies.” She opened the newspaper to Page D3, looking past the results of the U.S. Lawn Mower Association's race toward the top right. There, under her byline, was her tribute to all grandmothers. Glow didn't wake up till nine, so Mitra folded the daily away and planned to make a call later. It was childish to seek approval of your elders, but Mitra couldn't help it. Especially now. Her own investigations with Kareena had stalled due to the lack of any new leads. And Ulrich—she hadn't seen him in the last few days. The reason for his absence, as revealed by Detective Yoshiihama, scoured her internally.

  The phone sang. She ran for it. It was Robert on the line.

  “I've already got some enthusiastic e-mail responses to your column. I'll forward them so you could add them to your fan-mail collection.” Then he said that he was cleaning out his “cube.” He wanted to get rid of review copies of gardening books littering his office floor. “Want to come over and have a look?”

  How could Mitra let this opportunity slip through her fingers? Robert's office also happened to be on the way to a client's home in West Seattle. “That's the best offer I've had in a week,” she said. “I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

  On the way to the newspaper office, Mitra took side streets due to a traffic jam on Interstate 5, and that afforded her time to ruminate about her side career as a columnist.

  For the bet
ter part of a year, it had frustrated Mitra that the Seattle Chronicle, the town's daily with the second-highest circulation, should have such a mediocre gardening page. “The Garden Path” was cold, impersonal, and dull, filled with articles on arcane subjects such as bee keeping and bonsai pruning, nothing that typical subscribers—sixty-hour-a-week urban dwellers—could apply in their modest plots.

  “Why don't you do something about it?” Kareena suggested one day, no doubt fed up with Mitra's constant griping. She'd heard from someone that Chronicle was looking for a gardening columnist. “You should apply.”

  And so, six months ago, Mitra had made an appointment with Robert Anderson-Haas, Chronicle's Gardening Editor. Getting a face-to-face interview with an editor was no easy task and she took it as a good omen. Dressed in a lightweight wool gabardine suit, and carrying a leather-frame purse, the sort of outfit she imagined columnists wore, she made her way through the newspaper office. She reached a dead-end cubicle which faced tall steel shelves, expecting to meet someone who, if not young, at least was genial. Gardeners, Mitra believed, were a happy gregarious bunch; they loved to compare notes.

  Robert hauled himself from his chair, nary a single muscle twitch disturbing his bland facade. He seemed as huge and imposing as Queen Anne Hill, located not too far away. The banks of harsh fluorescent light accentuated his sallow skin and the white specks of dandruff on his scalp. His desk held not a speck of green, nothing alive. Only a color photo of a pit bull was affixed on the cubicle's otherwise-virgin wall. Mitra thrust a firm hand forward, smiling and projecting enthusiasm.

  He addressed Mitra coolly and looked sufficiently peeved, as though she'd spilled coffee on his desk and spoiled his morning. Even though Mitra hadn't knocked anything over or done much of anything except display a too-cheerful smile, he didn't appear to be in a mood to entertain her proposal. She pulled up a chair, took out a folder containing three sample columns and photos of gardens she'd designed, and handed it to Robert. He flipped through the pages with fleshy fingers, a man who seemed depressed, not much interested in anything.

  Piped-in music bristled. Mitra kept her feet from jiggling by conjuring up a shining future in which she'd churn out a column every other week. So it crushed her when Robert set the folder down on the desk and looked up with a frown, as though her essays and the photographs were giving him indigestion.

  “Do you have any questions about my qualifications?” Mitra asked.

  He shook his head, a tiny shake that didn't reveal what he might be thinking.

  “What's your garden like?” Mitra asked, expecting him to open up.

  He mentioned living in an apartment with no gardening facilities. He had resorted to renting a P-Patch in a community garden. “I'm coasting this year.”

  “I know what you mean,” Mitra replied. “I give my beds a rest every so often, too.”

  “I'm just being lazy. My ‘complicata’ rose needs to be controlled. It's gotten up to eight feet. Arugula and parsley are all over the patch—they're worse than weeds.” He heaved himself up from his chair, glancing toward the entranceway. “Come see me Monday, ten o'clock.”

  On Monday at the appointed hour, after some preliminary throat-clearing, Robert announced he'd try her on an “experimental basis” for a few months, the same dark shadow clouding his face. See how “they” responded to her column. “We're sensitive to our subscribers, you know,” he added, as though she'd implied he had been ignoring them.

  “Thank you, Robert.” Mentally, she thrust her fist toward the ceiling in a gesture of victory. She would have given Robert a hug, but that probably would have offended him. “I'm sure we'll work together well.”

  And she meant that. True to her old country roots, she always tried to turn every acquaintance into a friend or relative. Robert proceeded to go over the rules for freelancers—the word count, the salary, and to whom she should e-mail the invoice. He emphasized how strict the deadlines were. Without explaining the reason, he suggested she took a pseudonym.

  Thus Mitra began her career as a columnist for a major metropolitan daily under the assumed name of Ms. Em Bloom.

  That was five months ago. Every other Thursday, her column appeared on the garden page of the Arts & Living Section. The assignment had turned out harder than she expected, much like digging into the area's glaciated soil and having to cart away wheel-barrows of stones and boulders. She had to rack her brain to squeeze the material into the paltry few inches allocated to her. The pay was crummy. Robert had reacted to her piece on wild flowers with the phrase “soporifically mundane.” He'd deemed the column before that, a cheery essay on the delights of browsing through seed catalogs on a gloomy winter evening, as bordering on “fantasy.”

  It bothered Mitra that she and Robert didn't seem to breathe the same air. He seemed so detached and depressed at times. He viewed her as a migraine-inducing freelancer, a thistle in his rose patch, when in fact Mitra was ready to be a friend. So it pleased her, on her way to having a face-to-face with Robert, that he'd offered her some of his gardening books. What if she asked him to lunch and they spent a little time talking shop over a plate of something delicious? Then he might view her in a gentler light and devising a column wouldn't be such a mutual ordeal.

  Robert did have a caring side and he'd begun showing it. When she needed to interview an expert on fertilizers, he got her in touch with a woman from Urban Horticulture.

  The review date for Mitra's columnist status was fast approaching. Wouldn't it be grand if Robert kept her column beyond the test period? If he went back to his garden? If they became friends? Mitra still hadn't managed to make Robert laugh, though she vowed to get a chuckle out of the old curmudgeon before she was through.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  STILL ON HER WAY to the Seattle Chronicle's offices, taking a detour due to an accident and waiting for the light to change at the intersection of 50th and Roosevelt Way, Mitra noticed a pedestrian who looked familiar. Absent-mindedly, as he crossed the street, with quick intense steps, she examined him closer. It was Adi.

  A flash-chill coursed through her arms. She was still processing the dread of a partially paid ransom and its potential consequences. Clothed in an old blue sweatshirt and jeans, Adi entered Cinema Books, located at the southwest corner of the intersection.

  Wait a minute. Why wasn't he at work? Why wasn't he dressed in his usual business attire? She'd never known him to be a movie buff.

  She made a quick decision, took a right turn, parked in an alley only a block away, and jumped out of her car. After walking up to Roosevelt Way, she hid herself behind a chestnut tree located two doors down from Cinema Books, feeling foolish. Even though she wasn't sure what she'd find, she had to do this silly bit of sleuthing.

  In a few minutes, Adi exited the store, holding a plastic bag loaded with books, and took several quick steps in her direction. She edged her way around the thick trunk of the chestnut tree, trying to avoid his line of sight.

  He looked straight at her. Her breath quickened. She stood immobilized, weighing her options of either running or confronting him. She chose the latter.

  He planted himself boldly in front of her, holding a contemptuous expression on his face. “Hey, Mitra. Isn't it a little early in the year for chestnuts?”

  She caught the irony in his voice. Veen had warned her about Adi. And he might be wondering if she was following him. If he did, that might not go well for her. Regardless, she decided to stay and act casual. In broad daylight, on this major thoroughfare, with pedestrians buzzing about, what could he do to her?

  She smiled. “But apparently not too early for film books.”

  “Why don't you ever give up looking for Kareena?”

  “I simply want to find out what films I should watch,” she said lightly.

  “You have time to watch films? Don't you write that gardening column in the newspaper? Doesn't that occupy you? I read your essay on weeding.”

  She tensed. “Why are you asking me about m
y column when there are so many more important things? Let me ask you this—did you pay the rest of the ransom?”

  “Mitra, can't you just leave the fuck alone? I mean—”

  He stopped speaking, turning his attention toward a bespectacled clerk who had rushed out of Cinema Books and was rapidly approaching him. “A mistake in your credit card transaction, sir,” the clerk said. “If you'd be kind enough to step in—I'd like to run your card through one more time, if you don't mind.”

  Adi looked bewildered, but followed the clerk, turning back once to glare at Mitra.

  She hurried to her car and drove away.

  * * *

  Robert—portly and middle-aged, with a bland façade—stooped over an open cardboard box on the floor and slid a stack of ten or so books across the large metal desk toward her.

  Her mind still agitated from that encounter with Adi, Mitra sorted through the books, sitting cross-legged on the floor. The subjects were varied: Northwest mushrooms, now-fashionable ornamental grass, and boutique dahlias. Perusing these, sifting through fresh ideas and putting them to use, would give her overworked mental faculties a rest.

  She collected a set of four under her arm and stood up. “Thanks, Robert. I'll enjoy reading them and also build muscles carrying them.”

  Robert didn't smile. “Have a chair, Mitra. I just got an e-mail from a subscriber who said your grandmother column was ‘pure crap.’”

  Hmm. Might it be Adi? She dropped on a chair facing Robert's desk, not sure what to expect.

  “His grandmother sleeps seventeen hours a day, complains that he neglects her, and when he brings her presents, grouses about how cheap and tasteless they are,” Robert said in a light tone, as he read from the screen. “What a silly idea to celebrate the cranky old hags of the universe. He asked us to terminate you.”