Illustration by Robin Cameron. Click for larger image.Theo Sophistron was in the sky. He didn’t like it. One thing Theo understood was gravity. Things weighed on him. He feared he was making a mistake leaving Montreal. He knew you couldn’t guess by his name or to look at him, so whenever conversation turned awkwardly to personal roots he joked his Jewish ancestry was most prominent in his temples, dribbling with telltale existential sweat.

He had his mother’s panic attacks. That’s how he explained it to Shaan Rawal — a long-lost friend of Theo’s son Liam — who sat and watched the gnashing and gagging all the way to Vancouver. Last time Theo saw Shaan, the teenager had reminded him of Mickey Mouse, an androgynous punk in the middle of everything, blessed with luck and fragile self-satisfaction, whose friends were all fair-weather dopes and assholes and mooches — Theo’s son, his late son, Liam, biggest quack of the bunch. A decade later Liam was gone, and Shaan had fresh salt in his hair, more load to bear on his hips, and the Vancouver office of AOL under his management. Shaan kindly turned an office purchase of Sophistron Inc.’s software into a perfect excuse to visit Montreal and then drag Theo all the way back across the country to explain time tracking, file sharing, and back-end input fields to helpless employees and interns.

Maybe Shaan felt pity for his old friend’s old dad, or maybe it was the Jameson’s, but for the rest of the flight he confessed to Theo plenty daunting fuck-ups in his own life, including a girl across two bridges raising his three-year-old son. My wife, Fatima, doesn’t know, Shaan said.

Theo didn’t want to know. Theo wasn’t perfect either — buried a son, divorced a wife, never learned to drive, plagued by swivets. By the time they pulled away from the luggage conveyor, he had lost his appetite. Still on the hook to go straight from the airport to Shaan’s house for dinner, though, somewhere deep in the forested West Coast suburbs, be introduced to the family Shaan was deceiving, and, of all things, what finally won Theo over: a chance to taste authentic kosher Jewish–Indian cooking from a woman descended from One of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

Jatiq Kalaa Sima Divekar’s ancestors fled Galilee — the seven Hebrew men and women were shipwrecked off the Konkan peninsula, south of Mumbai. Twenty-one hundred years later, Jatiq washed ashore in Shaan Rawal’s basement. She was best friend to my mom, like an auntie to me, she knows everything, Shaan told Theo. Jatiq’s husband, Avinash, had left her for another woman, a Nobel-winning ethnobotanist, eleven months previously.

When they got to Shaan’s house, Theo was still disoriented from the flight. His eyes felt like the last smoke off two guttered candles. There wasn’t much light in the entrance either, and he put his luggage down on a pet. Theo meant to apologize but instead he said, A spoiled dog never attacks. Shaan laughed good-naturedly and said the remark reminded him of something Liam would say.

Next Shaan introduced his wife Fatima and the woman living in the basement, Jatiq Kalaa Sima Divekar. Her black hair fell in blooms from her narrow face, and two eyes shone out from the shadows like candle flame. Theo said, Y-yes, hi, I was sure —. Shaan wanted to know where his daughter Anu was. Jatiq hurried to fetch her, and Theo, feeling his tie relaxed, noosed himself up, and pursued Jatiq. When he got to the living room, his smile was stiff and his knees were slacking. Shaan told me a-all —. But after disciplining six-year-old Anu, Jatiq hurried back to the kitchen. She was in a hurry, fine. Theo perched himself on the nearest chair and waited. He felt like a gull with a shell in his beak, watching it slip, fall, and vanish back into the ocean. Filmis from Hindi movies played on the flat screen. Shaan and Theo were content with whisky to watch whatever Fatima felt like. Fatima sat on the carpet in front of the sofa where Shaan was stretched out, rubbing his leg so gingerly, as if to remind herself her husband was home.

Fatima wondered if Theo liked the movies. Theo thought every song was more beautiful than the last. But he also realized he wasn’t following along very well. He leaned away from the chair, and gravity did the rest. In the kitchen, Jatiq was busy on every burner, while also mixing fresh herbs into a bowl of fragrant rice. Looks good, is that gefilte? said Theo, startling her. Would you pour me a glass of water, please? She lifted one eye over her shoulder to look at him before going back to her cooking — like a gold moon rising over the mountain of her soft black sweater, the aollogo embroidered over her heart like its reflection on a night lake.

Shaan usually cooks, he prefers his mom’s style, Jatiq said. He called and asked for the Divekar family specialty tonight — malida, special Indian-Jewish prayer meal…in honour of your visit. Jewish rice? said Theo. Malida rice you marinate all night in coconut, ghee, cardamom, onycha, and honey, she said. He watched her dress the steep plate of rice with an apron of fresh produce, plump raisins, almond flakes, sweet dates, rosewater and rose petals, and banana slices, followed by orange and lime wedges and all topped with myrtle leaves, and suddenly his heart jumped like the thought of a hungry bird, and he had to say it, Jatiq, Jatiq, I don’t want to leave tonight and never see you again. I’m in town three days and…I mean, anywhere you want…I think… Jatiq lifted the glass of water he’d poured her and drank all but a drop that ran down her cheek.

You’re more like the kids, she said, you skip straight to the filmi. He fell mute. I shouldn’t see you, it’s not a good idea. Later tonight after you leave, go around back and knock on the glass door, and — she paused, snatched the jewellery from around her neck — hang this in the spruce and go to the gazebo by the far fence and wait. She scooted him out of the kitchen. He pushed the necklace into his pocket and sat for dinner.