Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri [83]
When she wasn’t with Farouk, she did things for him. She read through proofs of an article he’d written, checking it for typos. She scheduled his doctor’s appointments. Once, she spent all morning with the Yellow Pages, pricing tiles; Farouk was thinking of redoing his kitchen.
By the end of September, Paul was aware of a routine: Mondays, which Sang had off from the bookstore, Farouk came for lunch. The two of them would eat in her room; sometimes he heard the sounds of their talking as they ate, or their spoons tapping against soup bowls, or the Nocturnes of Chopin. They were silent lovers—mercifully so, compared with other couples he’d overheard in the house through the years—but their presence soon prompted him to go to the library on Mondays, for he was affected nevertheless, embarrassed by the time her door had been partly open and he’d seen Farouk zipping his jeans. Three years had passed since Theresa, the one girlfriend he’d ever had. He’d dated no one since. Because of Theresa, he’d chosen a graduate school in Boston. For a few months, he had lived with her in her apartment on St. Botolph Street. For Thanksgiving, he’d gone with her to her parents’ house in Deerfield. It was there that it had ended. “I’m sorry, Paul, I can’t help it, I just don’t like the way you kiss me,” she told him once they’d gone to bed. He remembered himself sitting naked on one side of the mattress, in a room he was suddenly aware he was never again to see. He had not argued; in the wake of his shame, he became strangely efficient and agreeable, with her, with everyone.
Late one night, Paul was in bed reading when he heard a car pull up to the house. The clock on his desk said twenty past two. He shut off his lamp and got up to look through the window. It was November. A full moon illuminated the wide, desolate street, lined with trash bags and recycling bins. There was a taxi in front of the house, the engine still running. Sang emerged from it alone. For close to a minute, she stood there on the sidewalk. He waited by the window until she climbed up to the porch, then listened as she climbed the staircase and shut the door to her room. Farouk had picked her up that afternoon; Paul had seen her stepping into his car. He thought perhaps they’d fought, though the next day he detected no signs of discord. He overheard her speaking to Farouk on the phone in good spirits, deciding on a video to rent. But that night, around the same time, the same thing happened. The third night, he stayed awake on purpose, making sure she got in.
The following morning, a Sunday, Paul, Heather, and Sang had pancakes together in the kitchen. Sang was playing Louis Armstrong on the CD player in her room while Paul fried the pancakes in two cast-iron skillets.
“Kevin’s sleeping over tonight,” Heather said. She’d met him recently. He was a physicist at MIT. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Sure thing,” Paul said. He liked Kevin. He had been coming over often for dinner and brought beers and helped with the dishes afterward, talking to Paul as much as he talked to Heather.
“I’m sorry I keep missing him. He seems really nice,” Sang said.
“We’ll see,” Heather said. “Next week is our one-month anniversary.”
Sang smiled, as if this modest commemoration were in fact something of much greater significance. “Congratulations.”
Heather crossed her fingers. “I guess the next stage is when you assume you’re going to spend weekends together.”
Paul glanced at Sang, who said nothing. She got up, returning five minutes later