An Excerpt from Ghost Chilli
Muskan met her family outside a three-Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant in the Meatpacking District to celebrate Amrita’s new job title. The hostess asked if she could take their coats and handed Muskan’s father a mottled black stone with the number six on it. ‘It’s volcanic rock straight from Mount Fuji,’ she said. (‘What does she mean by straight?’ Muskan’s mother whispered. ‘Like it just flew into the restaurant?’) The hostess walked them past a large, glittering wall and explained it was made from 17,400 plastic bottles that were found in the Pacific Ocean.
‘Why are they putting rubbish in the middle of the room at such a nice hotel?’ Muskan’s father said once the hostess was out of earshot.
Muskan wondered how long it took people who moved away from India to stop calling restaurants ‘hotels’. And why her parents couldn’t just sit down and enjoy dinner without questioning everything.
Amrita turned to her and said: ‘Muskan, Seema is visiting on the weekend of the seventeenth, and staying at my place. The same weekend as Nupur’s bachelorette.’
‘She’ll stay for the week after as well,’ Muskan’s mother added. ‘In Jersey, with us.’
‘Oh,’ Muskan said. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘So I’m telling you,’ Amrita said.
‘Will Radha Aunty come too?’ Muskan asked.
‘No,’ her mother said.
Muskan nodded. If Radha Aunty was coming, Muskan definitely would have known earlier. Radha Aunty would have sent her a message, because she made no secret of how Muskan was her favourite. When Muskan visited India, Radha Aunty ignored her daughter Seema and poured all her affection into Muskan. She’d make Seema sleep in the smaller, less comfortable guest room so Muskan could take her bedroom, and forced Seema to let Muskan tag along to plans she’d made with her friends. Muskan felt guilty for her role in this, but never stood up for Seema; she enjoyed Radha Aunty’s doting too much. Still, Seema had always been kind. She made a point to take Muskan to the beachside eateries and mall food courts that Muskan’s mother forbade her from entering. But there must have been some lingering resentment, otherwise she would have told Muskan she was visiting.
‘Anyway,’ Amrita said, ‘keep that weekend free. I need help setting up the bachelorette. You can come, obviously. It will be fun.’
‘I can’t do that weekend.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s my college reunion.’
‘Muskan, seriously?’ Amrita asked. ‘How often do you see Seema?’
‘The five-year reunion is a big—’
‘Can’t you go on the Friday and come back Saturday?’
‘But I want—’
‘Muskan,’ her mother cut in, ‘you see your friends all the time. Seema would be so happy to see you. Just do both. Borrow my car, so you can come back early.’
And that was that. The menus arrived, and the waiter asked if they wanted him to walk them through the concept of omakase.
‘No,’ her mother said. ‘We’ll just order à la carte. Dad won’t like the fugu,’ she said in a performative whisper, hand by her mouth. ‘It’s pufferfish,’ she said to Muskan’s father after the waiter left. They talked about how, in Japan, only the most skilled chefs were given a licence by the government to serve fugu. The fish’s ovaries, livers, intestines, eyes, skin – all close to its edible flesh – were 200 times more deadly than cyanide.
‘Why don’t we get it?’ her father said.
‘It’s hundreds of dollars.’
‘But we’re celebrating.’
‘Don’t alangify just because it’s expensive,’ Muskan’s mother said.
‘I don’t want to die before my promotion, Dad,’ Amrita said.
‘What an embarrassing obituary,’ Muskan said. ‘“Entire family killed by one pufferfish.”’
‘Muskan,’ her father said, not remotely amused, ‘don’t joke about such things.’
‘I wish Rahul was here,’ her mother said. ‘He would love the Wagyu beef.’
‘Should we call him?’
‘No, it’s Saturday night, he’ll be at a party.’
They called him anyway. He didn’t pick up.
‘He must be working so hard,’ her mother said. ‘Let him take a night off. Laveena Aunty was saying how Stanford’s is now ranked even better than Harvard.’ She added some water to her cocktail to dilute it. ‘Harvard is the past. Stanford’s is the future. But you know, Muskan, I’m so happy you didn’t go there. You’re such a soft soul. You would have been lost among all those competitive people. A small liberal arts school was perfect for you. They really nurtured you.’
‘Soft soul’ had made its first appearance the previous weekend, which Muskan had spent with her parents in New Jersey. While they were alone, Muskan had gifted her mother a navy blue cashmere sweater for her birthday. It looked exactly like a vintage piece her mother had lost a few years ago. When her mother tried it on she looked at Muskan and said: ‘You’re so sweet, Muskan?’ Her voice peaked slightly, so it sounded like a question. ‘You’re such a soft soul?’ She looked at Muskan, confused, and a little disappointed, as if all her efforts to teach Muskan how to be thicker-skinned had failed, but she simply had to make peace with it. She walked out of the room, the sweater still over her head, slung through just one arm.
Muskan tuned back into the conversation at the dinner table. Amrita was talking about a friend of a friend’s father, an obscenely wealthy man responsible for exporting Pringles throughout the African continent. Muskan tuned back out. She wished she could just spend the whole weekend at her college reunion. She, Pinky, Leisel and Jo had organised it so they’d drive up from New York and return together, stopping at Storm King Art Center on the way back. She’d already paid for the car rental and both nights of boarding at the four-bed dorm they’d be sleeping in.
The courses arrived at the table one by one. Rock shrimp tempura, which Muskan was careful not to let her mother catch her eating one too many of, and yellowtail fanned out on a plate of ponzu sauce, each piece crowned with sliced jalapeño. Amrita was quick to call anything she tasted ‘unreal’, and her mother told her to find a different adjective. (‘Everything can’t be unreal. Especially when you are really here, eating it.’) The waiter stopped to ask if they were enjoying the meal and her mother said, ‘Very good, thank you.’
While sharing a salad with papaya leaves and kabuso vinaigrette, her mother said: ‘They say raw papaya is a natural abortive, did you know that? How sad it must be in the villages, women eating papaya after papaya, in hopes they won’t have another mouth to feed.’
‘Does it work?’ Amrita asked.
‘Definitely not,’ her mother said. ‘I tried with Muskan.’ She lifted a piece of yellowtail with her chopsticks and chewed it. ‘Oh, don’t make that face. You know I don’t regret it. You have to understand: giving birth to Amrita was horrible. I was in the hospital for days. The doctors didn’t think either of us would survive. So when I got pregnant with you I thought: Do I really want to go through all of this again? For another girl? I thought and I thought. And I decided yes. And I’m so happy I did, because you were so easy. Twenty minutes it must have been. Right, Vinod?’
‘Very easy,’ her father agreed. ‘You didn’t even cry.’
‘That’s insane,’ Amrita said. ‘She must have cried.’
‘Never. I’m telling you.’
‘We thought there was something wrong with you.’
‘For years you didn’t talk. Then you suddenly said the word “fridge”.’
‘Always thinking about food.’
‘And then you never shut up after that. Just talked and talked everybody’s head off.’
This is an excerpt of the novel Ghost Chilli by Nikkitha Bakshani, published by Fleet/Hachette UK.