Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri [16]
She pulled into the parking lot where the swimming pool was. Inside the building, she told her father to wait on the benches where they could watch the class through a window, while she went into the locker room to change Akash into his bathing suit. When she joined her father he was busy with his camera, putting in a new tape and adjusting the settings. “There’s Akash,” she said, pointing to where he sat, wrapped in a towel, waiting for the class to begin. She had thought Akash was too young to go into the pool without her, that they would have to take the earlier class, in which parents went into the water as well. But there were no spots in that class, and from the very beginning Akash had separated from her willingly, leaping into the arms of the instructor, an auburn-haired teenage girl.
For the next thirty minutes her father taped Akash continuously: having the flotation device strapped on his back, jumping into the pool, blowing bubbles and practicing kicks. Her father stood up from the bench where Ruma sat, the lens of the video camera nearly touching the window. He had not paid this sort of attention when Ruma and Romi were growing up. Back then it was their mother who sat watching their swimming lessons, who held her breath, terrified, as they climbed the ladder and waved at her, then plunged off the high diving board. Her father had not taught Romi to throw a baseball, and he had not taken them to learn to skate on the pond, a short walk through the woods behind their neighborhood, that froze every winter.
In the car on the way home, her father brought up the topic of her career again. “Work is important, Ruma. Not only for financial stability. For mental stability. All my life, since I was sixteen, I have been working.”
“You’re retired.”
“But I cannot stay unoccupied. That is why I am traveling so much. It is an extravagance, but I don’t need all the money I’ve saved up.
“Self-reliance is important, Ruma,” he continued. “Life is full of surprises. Today, you can depend on Adam, on Adam’s job. Tomorrow, who knows.”
For a split second she took her eyes off the road, turning to him. “What are you suggesting? What are you saying?”
“Nothing. Only, perhaps, that it makes me nervous that you are not employed. It is not for my sake, you understand. My concern is for you. I have more than enough money to last until I am dead.”
“Who else is dead?” Akash called out from the backseat.
“No one. We are only talking silly things. Oh dear, what a nice train you have, has it left the station?” her father inquired, turning back to Akash.
That night after dinner he showed his videos. First, to Akash’s delight, they watched the footage of the swimming class, and then he showed videos of Europe: frescoes in churches, pigeons flying, the backs of people’s heads. Most of the images were captured through the window of the tour bus, as a guide explained things about the monuments they were passing. He had always been careful to keep Mrs. Bagchi out of the frame, but as he watched the video enlarged on his daughter’s television, he realized there were traces throughout—there was Mrs. Bagchi’s arm resting on the open window of the bus, there was her blue leather handbag on a bench.
“That’s Luigi,” he said, as the camera focused briefly on their Italian guide.
“Who goes on these tours with you?” Ruma asked.
“They are mostly people like me, retired or otherwise idle,” he said. “A lot of Japanese. It is a different group in each country.”
“Have you made any friends?”
“We are all friendly with one another.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Perhaps eighteen or twenty.”
“And are you stuck with them all day, or do you have time on your own?”
“An hour here and there.”
“Who’s that?” she asked suddenly.
He stared, horrified, at the television screen, where for a few seconds Mrs. Bagchi choppily appeared, sitting at a small table at a café, stirring sugar with a tiny spoon into a tiny cup. And then he remembered offering to let Mr. Yamata, one of his Japanese companions, look through the lens. Without his realizing,