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he drove home. It perplexed him, how Laleh could go from seeming like a soul mate to a stranger in the course of a single day. Several times he opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind, not wanting to disturb the silence. He pulled the car into their building’s underground garage and then turned toward his wife. “Let me tell you something, Laleh,” he began. “I know you’re embarrassed by the life we live. I know you’re even embarrassed by me—”
    “That’s not true,” she interrupted.
    “Don’t lie. You are. But I want to say this—I’m not. I don’t apologize for what I have, Lal. You would’ve been happy marrying some milquetoast social worker with ice water in his veins and TB in his lungs. Well, that’s not me. I’m proud to provide my family with a good life. And we can do more to help others now than we ever could if we were piss-poor ourselves.”
    “You sound more and more like my father as you get older. This is exactly what he would’ve said.”
    “So? Your dad was a great man.”
    “That’s not what I meant.”
    “You don’t even know what you’re saying.”
    “I’m saying that I’m not willing to throw in the towel, okay? I refuse to believe that what we once stood for was just wishful thinking, and that people like Girish were the smart ones all along.”
    Adish made an exasperated sound. “Why do you have to be so damn dramatic, Laleh? Why can’t it be what it was—a moment in history? And then history changed and the moment passed.” Absently, he flicked a piece of lint off his jacket. “Do you remember the day the Soviets invaded Afghanistan?” he asked abruptly.
    “Of course I do. We were sitting in Kavita’s living room when the news came over the radio.”
    “And do you remember what we all said? That the days of the American Empire were over, that the Soviet Union was the new imperial power.” Adish’s lips twisted into a smile. “Do you realize how wrong we all were? A few years later, the Soviet Union breaks into a thousand pieces, disappears like a child’s dream. Just like that.”
    “So we were wrong. What does that prove?”
    “You’re right. In itself, it proves nothing. But, Lal, we also thought that liberalizing the economy would destroy India. Instead, look at what has happened. The economy is booming. Shit, there’s so much construction going on in Bombay itself, my firm can’t keep up with it.”
    “And in the meantime, farmers are killing themselves in record numbers,” she snapped. “And there are food riots breaking out in the countryside.”
    “Laleh. It’s a huge country. It will take time. But in the meantime, look at our own Farhad. Look at the pride he feels in his country. I asked him just last week if he wanted to go abroad to study. He said, ‘Papa, why should I when I have so many opportunities here?’ Now, isn’t that a huge difference?”
    “So what’s the big deal? We could’ve all gone. We chose not to.”
    “True. But, Lal, we didn’t go because of some twisted, misguided sense of loyalty to India. That’s not why Farhad doesn’t want to leave. He wants to stay—for his own sake. We stayed—for the sake of India. There’s a difference.”
    I t’s no use, Adish now thought, flicking the strands of his kusti with more vigor than usual. She will never change. Laleh was the most exasperating, infuriating woman he knew. But she was also the most loyal, passionate, and fair. And he could not imagine his life without her. There you had it—a conundrum. When she smiled at him in that coy, flirty way of hers, his heart still flipped like a trained whale. After all these years.
    He moved to the section with the burning oil lamps and decided to light one for Armaiti. She had always been kind to him in college, sticking up for him, protecting him from the lash of Laleh’s sarcasm and advising him on how to win her affection. “Listen,” she’d once told him. “I’ve known Laleh since the fourth standard.