catfish final

8/4/2019 Catfish FINAL

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N a r r a t i v e M a g a z i N e . c o M

M y s e v e n t y - y e a r - o l d f a t h e r called me

late one night from his crumbling apartment

in Calcutta, India. He was supposed to spend

the summer with me in Boston, and I had

already bought the plane tickets.

I dont know if I can come, sweetie, Papa mumbled.

Who will look after my sh?

I imagined him sitting in the dark, his silver hair

immaculately combed, staring at his lit aquarium. He

could watch his sh for hours, mesmerized by the glint-

ing neon tetras, the glistening baby sharks, the thuggish,

whiskered catsh. His pride and joy were the pearly,

translucent angelsh, each as big as a st.

Papa, I said to him, you havent seen me for three

years. Youve never even seen your grandson. You have

to come.

My wife and I were too scared to take our two-year-

old to Calcutta. Germs lurked in the water, the milk, the

very air itself. We decided it would be easier for Papa to

visit us since he was retired and had all the time in the

world. Though what he did all day, nobody knew. But

when asked, Papa retreated, as always. Well, I have to

see a chap about some things, and my blood pressure is

up, and one of my sh is sick.

Years ago I had given up trying to have a real conver-sation with Papa, and I knew little about his life except

Catfsha m e m o i rb y a m i n a h m a d

ami am w b i

Ccu, Ii, u-

c v Cg

MIt. hi i

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icu i g

The Good Men Project:

Real Stories from the

Front Lines of Modern

Manhood. am i i

Wig, dC.


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for a few family stories. He was from the old generation, born while India was still

ruled by the British. In 1947, when India was partitioned, Calcutta was torn apart by

religious riots, and my father, then a little boy, saw one of his favorite uncles hacked

to death by a machete-wielding mob. Later, during the Maoist uprisings of the 1970s,

masked men entered the bank where Papa worked, pointed their machine guns at

him, and made him open the safe. Of all this, he had said not a word to me. But I had

fantasies of Papa coming to Boston and spending time with my round-headed, two-

year-old son, telling him all the stories he had never told me.

On the telephone, I pressed and pressed till Papa agreed to visit.

After much deliberation, he decided that his sixty-three-year-old younger

brother, Zia, would care for the sh. Zia lived in a small apartment on the ground

oor of Papas building and spent all day dozing in his battered leather armchair.

The two brothers looked alike, with the same aristocratic prole and shining gray

hair, but Zias two front teeth had fallen out, and he had developed a round, pendu-

lous belly. He hadnt worked for decades and was completely supported by my father.

It was clear to me that Zia was mentally ill, incapable of working, but my father

would never accept it.

Rubbish, Papa said. Boki is just bone lazy. My fathers nickname for his

younger brother in Bengali meant stupid.

My father locked up his apartment, took two planes, and arrived exhausted inBoston. The rst thing he did was get on the phone and call his brother.

Boki, how are the sh? Papa yelled. He always shouted on long-distance calls,

as though his voice had to travel all the way to India.

Absolutely ne, no problems, not to worry. Dont forget to bring me some

chocolates from America, Zia said.

Now, dont just sit around, Papa exhorted. See if you can nd a decent job soon.

Yes, Bhai, Zia said meekly.

Papa worried about his sh for a few weeks, ignoring my son, who toddled help-lessly around him. It soon became clear that my fantasy of Papa turning into a wise,

indulgent grandfather was just thata fantasy. Left to himself, Papa settled down

to a new project: clipping discount coupons from the newspaper, in search of the

cheapest blood sugarmonitoring machine in the greater Boston area.

Back in Calcutta, each morning Zia struggled out of his armchair and panted up

three ights of stairs to Papas apartment. Entering the darkened living room, he

switched on the aerator, which sent glistening bubbles of oxygen through the aquar-

ium. Following Papas instructions, Zia sat on the sofa and waited for exactly an hour,


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all the while muttering to himself. After switching off the aerator, Zia fed the sh

from a pail of thin, struggling worms, and then he went down again.

Zia did this faithfully every day but grew bored of watching the bubbles. He

noticed that Papas rotary phone, an archaic hunk of black Bakelite, was still plugged

in and working. Anticipating his younger brother, Papa had cut off international

dialing, but the phone could still make local calls. Something about the unmonitored

access to the phone stirred a hidden ambition in Zias murky mind: while Papa was

away, he would nd himself a job.

So Zia started calling. He telephoned acquaintances he hadnt spoken with in

thirty years, he called my fathers friends, he called the surviving members of my

grandfathers generation. Because Indians dont have answering machines, Zia

always reached someone when he dialed.

Hello, hed say. Perhaps you remember me? This is Zia-Uddin Ahmad. I hope

you remember me? I need a favor.

The person at the other end would politely say, Oh, of course we remember

your family. How is your elder brother? Gone to America, has he? Now, what can I

do to help?

Im looking for a job, something in advertising. A senior position, preferably.

I was very high up at Coca-Cola.

The person at the other end would politely inquire about Zias job experience.Well, I havent worked since 1974. Ive been taking a break. But, really, not

my fault at all. The last place I worked, this bitchexcuse my languagesaid, Mr.

Ahmad, were letting you go. Perhaps your talents are required elsewhere. And all

because I kept my own time. I refuse to conform to this petit bourgeois notion of

starting work at nine sharp.

Everywhere he called, Zia was met by evasions and polite refusals. Soon it was

clear that there would be no job for him. His telephone calls became more and more

frantic. He talked to old family friends and begged for money, for free meals. Hecalled to inquire about people who were long dead. In the end there were no people

left to call, and Zia sank into the twilight of a deep depression. If my father had been

there, hed have yelled at his younger brother, Boki! Stop this nonsense! Take a

bath! Shave, damn it! Do something concrete!

But alone, faced with a dark apartment and a tank full of sh, Zia was com-

pletely lost. He could not sleep at night, and without telling anyone, he doubled his

dose of sedatives. When Zia climbed up each morning to Papas apartment he was

exhausted, his mind numb and rubbery.


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He switched on the aerator, not noticing that the pipe connected to the head

had come loose. Within the aquarium, the motor hummed away, but no bubbles

appeared. The sh, though well fed, were not swimming vigorously. The angelsh,

which were larger and needed more oxygen, drifted through the tank, as dazed as

Zia himself.

In Boston, I was not getting along well with Papa. The initial good feelings had all

faded. I would come home from work, hot and exhausted from a construction job site,

to nd that my father hadnt moved from his chair all day. One evening Papa looked up

from clipping coupons, stared at my hard hat and dirty boots, and sighed deeply.

I dont know why youre an architect, he said. Its not too late to get a business

degree.

I said nothing, but in retaliation, I returned home later and later and ignored his

requests for outings to obscure pharmacies.

Halfway into his stay, Papa told me he was not feeling well. I took him for a

checkup, and the doctors discovered that he had been coughing up blood for a month

and that he had cancer. When I asked Papa why he had hidden this fact, he looked

vague and said that he had not wanted to bother me. There was no choice but to

undergo a major operation. If Papa survived it, he would need to recuperate for two

months before he was well enough to return to Calcutta.

The morning of the operation arrived. I leaned over my sedated father as he layon a gurney, clad only in a paper-thin hospital gown. He had been stripped of his old

Rolex watch, his battered wallet and pocket comb, but the part in his gray hair was

still razor straight.

I love you, Papa, I said.

Well, lets just get this over with, he replied, closing his eyes as they wheeled

him away.

Papa survived the operation, though they cut out a large part of his stomach.

He returned to my apartment, and I overheard him talking to Zia on the phone,hiding the fact that he had been ill. Though Zia sounded quite manic, he seemed to

be managing. Each conversation ended with my father inquiring about his sh and

Zias booming voice reassuring Papa that the sh were absolutely ne, in fact, were

ourishing.

After my father recovered, I did not want him to leave Boston. Who would look

after him in his dusty at in Calcutta? Who would follow up on his doctors visits?

Ill be all right, Papa said curtly. Color had returned to his face, and his hair

had regained its silver luster. And anyway, Zias there, in the downstairs at, in


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case I need any help. Now, before I leave, there are a few things I need to buy for

my sh tank.

I took my father to a pet store, and he amassed all sorts of equipment for his

aquarium, including drops to remove the fungus from the ns of diseased sh. I

spent a small fortune on excess baggage and sent my father home business class. The

entire time in Boston Papa had hardly talked to me, commenting only that my sons

wispy baby hair should be shaved off so that it would grow back thick and strong.

At least hes not going home in a cofn, I thought, as Papa vanished into the maw

of Logan Airport.

When my father landed in Calcutta, eighteen hours later, his younger brother

was there to meet him. Zia was freshly shaved, wore a clean white kurta, and smelled

strongly of aftershave.

Bhai, brother, he said joyfully, so good to see you. Ive taken care of every-

thing. The sh are well fed.

Zia talked nonstop all the way home from the airport. They reached their crum-

bling apartment building, and the power was out, so Papa struggled up the stairs,

pausing on each landing to catch his breath. When he entered his apartment, he

saw that it was spotless. Zia had called in a cleaning woman, and the stone oors

gleamed, the furniture had been dusted, and all the windows were ung open to let

in fresh air. Then, from across the room, Papa saw his beloved aquarium. From thegreen stillness of the water, the way the plants were choking thick, he could tell that

something was wrong.

As Zia sweated and babbled and asked about his chocolates from America, my

father could see a pale gleam in the tank.

The white-bellied angelsh were oating upside down. The other sh had eaten

through the angels long, silken gills before they too died of oxygen deprivation. The

aquarium was full of dead, oating sh.

My father turned to his brother, his mouth moving soundlessly. Then he sankdown onto the couch and just stared at his aquarium.

When I talked to my father a few days later, he didnt mention the dead sh. He

went on and on about the power outages, the rudeness of the customs men at the

airport, the fact that he had mislaid one of his handkerchiefs in Bostoncould I look

for it and bring it when I came?

I called Papa a week later, but he was out and Zia answered the phone. Sleepless

and riddled with guilt, my uncle immediately launched into the story of the dead

sh. I listened to him, and my heart ached when I heard about the fate of my fathers


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beautiful aquarium. And then, perhaps because his mind was so uid, Zia launched

into another story, something involving my father falling out of a mango tree,

which in turn segued seamlessly into a story about my father breaking his wrist

while ghting a pack of boys. I slowly realized that he was talking about events that

happened more than half a century ago.

I listened closely, trying to make sense of the fractured narrative, confused

images of my fathers childhood ashing through my mind. I could have listened all

day, if only my own son hadnt been pulling at my sleeve, pointing across the room at

something he wanted.

When I put down the phone, Zia was still talking, his voice quick with excite-

ment. He seemed to have returned to the sh.

They didnt all die, really, he was shouting. The ones at the bottom were per-

fectly all right. Those whiskery ones.

I knew then that Zia was talking about the catsh, bottom feeders that survived

by eating rot and algae. I imagined them lying in the murky green water all those

months, barely moving, dull and sluggish, but alive. nN

catfish final

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