The sign hung between the pair of jacarandas that flanked the lower part of his sister’s driveway. Edward stopped his car in front of the valet service and studied its bright pastels, its Indian flourish. Maddy had clearly spared no expense for this party. She’d mentioned a theme but hadn’t told him it would be an Indian theme. He reminded himself that she was a smart woman, an artistically talented woman, and she would exercise good judgment and taste. But then why was he suddenly so nervous? The couple ahead of him stepped out of their shiny black Mercedes, then locked arms under the sign, which clearly tickled them pink. They turned together to the next in line, Edward, in his aging, once silver, now gray Honda Civic, perhaps wanting to share in the sheer joy of it, the cleverness, but something about his car distracted them—or was that embarrassment for his sake? They looked away and carried on. He took a moment to consider the pulsing bass line he heard coming from the house. All this for a nine-year-old? It was already hopping and sounded more like a club on the Sunset Strip than a child’s birthday party. Edward had arrived later than he’d wanted to. Jane and he were finally separating their lives on paper, and it had taken longer than expected. There was still more to do, but he didn’t want to miss another minute of his nephew’s birthday. She saw this and told him to go.
A week had passed since they’d all gathered for the funeral. Today they came together again to celebrate a young life, forging his way into the future, a life that had already known such hardship and loss. But Birendra was doing remarkably well, adjusting to his new life, and he brought so much to their own lives. They had a good deal to celebrate.
Edward reached for the present in the passenger seat. He had only wrapped volume 1 of the set. The rest, all twenty-one volumes, were in a box he could barely get to the car. He handed the valet five dollars and asked if he wouldn’t mind carrying the box up the driveway and setting it next to the door. There Edward discovered a stunning young woman who greeted him from behind a kind of hostess stand with her hands together in prayer. He approached and said hello, feeling single, yes, for the first time ever. She was extraordinarily thin and very tall, wearing an intricately wrapped head scarf, black eyeliner thick and long, peacock-feather earrings, a purple glass-bead necklace wrapped around her neck in four loose loops, and a dazzling cluster of jewels that sparkled between her eyebrows. She looked like a younger, more exotic Barbara Eden, from I Dream of Jeannie, if she’d just stepped off a catwalk. She reached into the hostess stand to retrieve a slim stack of items.
“Your kurta and slippers,” she said.
Edward was so distracted, first by this beautiful woman, then by the noise and movement down the hall, that he didn’t immediately accept the items: a pair of pointy melon-colored slippers, intricately decorated with copper spirals and other beads, and a matching embroidered shirt, neatly folded to frame an ornate neckline. What an interesting party gift, he thought. On his way to the guest room, a flash of teal caught his eye as a man walked past him on his way to the bathroom. He was wearing the same long, collarless shirt in a different shade. It fell to mid-thigh on him, over his jeans, and his matching slippers made a light tapping sound on the blond wood floors, a kind of emphasis of joy and acceptance. There was a shoe rack he’d never seen in the hall. It was half full. Edward suppressed a groan, realizing he was going to have to put these things on. Hollywood, he reminded himself. Go with it. Make-believe. Jane would never have approved of any of this.
He followed the man down the hall, stopping at the guest room, where he’d slept on Christmas Eve. He closed the door and changed into the shirt and slippers, then stared at his colorful reflection. He looked ridiculous and almost forgot the present as he left the room. Tap. Tap. His footwear sang and sparkled below.
Maddy’s living room, normally so precisely appointed, had been cleared of all furniture. The ceiling was draped with long, billowing sheets of satin in the same pastel shades as the men’s kurtas. At the front of the room, a woman wearing a kind of half saree, half aerobics outfit that artfully exposed her midsection was counting down from five into a headset. She held one hand on her hip while the other twirled toward the ceiling. Several women guests, all white and all dressed in sarees, stood behind her and tried to follow but were mostly preoccupied with keeping their own wraps from unraveling. The music came from a DJ station that had been installed beside the sliding doors that led to the backyard, where he hoped to find his nephew.
A man in a turban passed with a tray of colorful cocktails. Edward chose the orange one and took a large gulp. It was sweet with the slight bite of vodka. He turned and almost fell over; there was a painted elephant walking his way. When he was certain he was not hallucinating—surely it was something mechanical—he moved closer. The elephant was flesh and blood and walking right in front of him on a path flanked by two parallel plastic rails that formed a guided track. The elephant was only slightly taller than Edward, and its rotund body was covered with floral motifs that had been drawn in pastel chalks. The chalk was wet and muted at the elephant’s center, where the man riding it had spilled his drink. An elephant, no less! And Edward himself stood there in a kurta and pointy bejeweled slippers. He looked around at the other costumed men, like pastel eggs scattered about the yard at Easter. By the pool, he found a fair amount of glistening skin. Finally, in the water, he saw some children his nephew’s age, but Birendra was not among them. There was a young man in a turban handing a drink to a woman who looked an awful lot like Pamela Anderson hiding behind a pair of oversize sunglasses. And a second woman, dressed in a saree, was seated at the other end of the busty blonde’s lounge chair, applying a henna tattoo to the tops of her sun-kissed feet. Edward had to hand it to Maddy. She had created another world for anyone willing to enter. But where was she in all this? And the birthday boy? He spun in a circle but couldn’t find either of them—or anyone he knew, actually. He took another turn, this time looking for anything that would indicate he was at a nine-year-old’s birthday party: a cake, a stack of presents, other nine-year-olds. One of the men in a turban walked up to him with a tray of bite-size samosas. When he got closer, Edward saw he was not Indian and accepted the snack, much relieved that his sister hadn’t felt the need to complete the aesthetic on that front. A second server appeared in his field of vision, carrying delicate wafers of papadum topped with a red mousse. Edward took two, suddenly aware of his hunger. As the server left him, Edward did a double take, then looked around the yard at the other men with trays, all of them in turbans, all of them Hispanic.
Behind the pool area, a decorative gazebo came into view. It was designed, it seemed, as an homage in miniature to the Taj Mahal. He’d noticed only the colorful sheer drapes before, but now he saw beyond them to the place where two ornate thrones were perched, along with Maddy and Birendra. At their feet were several floor pillows in vibrant pinks and blues, and there was a pile of presents to one side. From this distance his sister looked like a madam running a harem. Birendra was in a turban, though his was not white like those of the servers; it was purple and gold, with a peacock feather at its center. Edward finished his drink and grabbed another on his way over, passing an area on the grass to his right that had been sectioned off by a knee-high picket fence. A few babies and toddlers played inside under the supervision of yet another costumed woman, hired for the occasion. A second sign read:
Edward froze on the first step of the gazebo. Maddy was silently communicating a greeting to someone on the other side, through the drapes, with her glass raised high in the air, a rock-and-roll curl of the lip, and the kick of a sequined platform shoe. Jane would have died at the sight. Edward was doing his best to reserve judgment. He caught Birendra’s eye over Maddy’s raised foot and searched the boy’s face for an indication of how he might be reacting to his own party. He lit up when he saw Edward and slid off of his throne. Maddy caught him by the shoulder, pulled him close, and whispered into his ear. Over his nephew’s head, Edward could only make out Maddy’s eyes, which seemed to be glowering at him. Maybe it was just the makeup. When she released Birendra, Edward could see she was smiling at him, but it was not a smile that made him any more at ease. She was drunk. He stepped up and through the gap in the hanging fabrics, entering their chambers.
“Hi, Uncle Eddie!”
Edward got down on one knee to admire the fake sword attached to Birendra’s side. Then he handed Birendra his present, the heavy book sinking nearly to the ground in his hands before he adjusted for its unexpected weight.
“Who are you supposed to be?” asked Edward.
“I’m a Sikh warrior,” he said, ripping open the wrapping paper.
“It’s twenty-two volumes. The rest are inside.”
Birendra looked as though Edward had just handed him a puppy. He held the book up for Maddy to see, but she was still talking to her friend.
“This is so awesome, Uncle Eddie,” he said, then set the book down so he could hug Edward.
Trying to ignore the Indian garb, Edward sensed how much Birendra had already changed from the boy he’d met just over a month ago. Hearing him say “awesome,” with hardly a detectable accent, with mannerisms so sure and at ease—it was all evidence of a transformation. How quickly children adapt to their surroundings, he thought. He supposed this happened whether the surroundings were good or bad. But what did it mean to respect an adopted child’s cultural heritage while at the same time ensuring that he was adjusting to his new environment, comfortable in his new life? It seemed somehow impossible to achieve both. The answer was certainly not an Indian Jane Fonda, an elephant, and Bollywood goes Hollywood. Surely Maddy knew that. But then this was not really his nephew’s party in the end. As much as he loved her, Edward knew his sister well enough, her insecurity, her need for attention. Traits she’d fought against but that she’d learned at their mother’s knee and that she’d never entirely eradicated. As he took in the “Taj Mahal” and its thrones, his nephew’s costume, her own, he had to admit: this was a party Maddy had thrown for herself. To show off the beautiful boy she’d “rescued.”
“Are you having fun, B?” He was admiring his book again. “Careful—there’s a little money in the front.”
Maddy’s cackle drew their attention in her direction. Her head was thrown back again, and the beads and jewels of her headdress flashed around her in the soft light that filtered through the sheer fabric walls of her palace. She said good-bye to her friend and turned her attention to Edward and Birendra.
“Hey, Maddy,” he said.
Her eyes were outlined in thick kohl and swimming under the weight of her false lashes. An ornate composite of jewels, just like the ones her greeter wore, flickered between her eyebrows. She composed herself like a queen addressing her subject.
“Come to pay tribute, dear brother?” Then, animated with the wave of a silk-draped arm, but otherwise more or less herself again, she said, “Did you see my elephant?”
“I did. Amazing. Truly. You’ve outdone yourself.” She nodded in agreement. He turned to his nephew. “Why don’t you show me around, B?”
It was the second time he’d called Birendra B in a matter of minutes. It had not been intentional, but suddenly the nickname, a term of both familiarity and affection, felt just right, and it struck Edward that using it held the additional benefit of not contradicting his sister by calling him Birendra in front of her.
“Do you remember your ninth birthday, Eddie?”
Her excited tone and reference to his youth made him feel like her kid brother again. He softened a little. This was his sister, even under all the garish makeup, the garish costume, the drunken gestures—the elephant!—and he tried to put aside his thoughts of the self-centeredness that lurked just beneath the surface of his sister’s generosity. She might have meant to say his eighth birthday, the last they’d actually spent together. But now she’d brought his ninth birthday to mind.
“I do. You called to wish me a happy birthday from New York,” he said. “Mom was off wherever she went those days. I was so happy to hear from you.”
The look of confusion on her face stopped him from wanting to needle her further. She’d obviously meant his earlier birthday, which they celebrated together in his bedroom.
“Do you maybe mean my eighth birthday?” he asked. “When you brought me a tray of eight Hostess cupcakes you’d bought with your allowance, each with its own candle, and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ all the way from the kitchen?” He could tell by her smile they were now sharing the same memory. “That was really sweet of you, Maddy. In fact, on my ninth birthday, before I went to bed, I put a candle in a Hostess cupcake and wished that I could join you in New York.”
Something cool pressed against his neck. Birendra had stepped forward from his throne and extended his sword. Edward had learned that the name Birendra in Sanskrit means “great warrior.” Had this informed his costume? Had Birendra told Maddy the meaning of his real name? Edward just hoped that it didn’t signify a lifetime of battles awaiting him.
“Yield,” the boy gleefully commanded.
“I yield, great warrior. I yield.”
The pride in his expression moved Edward.
“Do you want to see the elephant I painted?”
“Absolutely. Let’s go.”
Edward took his nephew’s hand. Maddy looked sorry to see them leave. As if she didn’t know what to do with herself. These past weeks, he’d felt close to her in a way he hadn’t in years. He’d long since thought of his sister and himself as casualties of the same war. The battlefield: the home of an emotionally unpredictable mother. This had created its own Cold War between them as adults. Maddy went away to school, and by the time she returned Edward was already gone to college. And he was with Jane. They both had their own lives, perhaps maintaining a safe distance from each other to keep their shared past at bay. He’d watched her become the woman she was today, trying to judge her as little as possible. But he would have to talk to her. He wasn’t sure exactly what needed to be said, but he had to warn her not to screw everything up, as their mother had. It was time to put the past behind them for the future who was right beside him.
