Invisible Armies

Chapter 28

Danielle is accustomed to domestic flights with United or American, on airplanes that smell faintly rancid, staffed by harried stewardesses who charge passengers five dollars for the privilege of headsets so they can listen to bad movies projected onto stained screens. She is a little overwhelmed by JetBlue's leather seats, cheerful staff, and individual TV screens with thirty satellite channels. Danielle finds herself wishing she had never dropped out of her school, had gotten her MBA instead and joined JetBlue when they were young. She could have made herself part of something constructive. Instead of fleeing to Los Angeles to rescue a woman she has never met.

On the flight over she reads The Famished Road, which only accentuates the sense of fatalism that has crept into her since leaving her apartment, a feeling that she has been suddenly swept up into one of the river of time's inexorable rapids, she no longer has anything to do with the determination of her fate. There is no exit, no escape hatch; all she can do is tread water and hope to be carried into calm water again.

The landing proceedings pass in a blur, and then she is outside in Los Angeles' bright summer sunshine. The ellipsis that is LAX is centered around a building that looks like a UFO on stilts. A restaurant, if she recalls correctly. As she waits for the Avis van to arrive, a handsome man with a craggy jaw tries to talk to her. She ignores him, suspicious that he might be assigned to follow her. When they reach Avis, and he rushes to be the first to get a vehicle and drive away, she realizes he was just an actor trying to pick her up. A useful reminder. Even if there is a conspiracy, not everyone is part of it. Just because they're after you doesn't mean you're not paranoid.

***

Los Angeles' Central Public Library is a large, austerely pale building located on the good side of downtown, steeply uphill from Skid Row, easy to find thanks to the landmark pyramid that tops its central tower. Danielle enters twenty minutes before it closes. There are plenty of poor and homeless people in the reading rooms, but only one barefoot Indian woman. She is younger than Danielle expected, early twenties at most. Her skin is very dark, almost black, her features strong and aristocratic, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. Her long hair has clumped into greasy hanks, and her clothes, jeans and a loose black shirt, are stained and thickly wrinkled. Her body language is rigidly composed, almost military. She would be pretty if she were not so gaunt and drained.

"Jayalitha?" Danielle says from behind her.

The Indian woman looks up from her 1999 Fodor's guide to L.A. "Miss Leaf?"

Danielle nods.

"You came," Jayalitha says incredulously. Her smile lights up the room. "Oh my goodness. I did not allow myself to believe you might really come. I scarcely allowed myself to hope. Oh, thank you, Miss Leaf. Thank you so much."

"Call me Danielle. Please. Let's, let's get you some food, okay?"

"Please."

They cross the street to the Westin Bonaventure hotel and its panoply of restaurants. Danielle intends to take her somewhere nice, then realizes Jayalitha's lack of footwear might be a problem. She is saved by Jayalitha's gasp of desire when she sees the Subway logo. One vegetarian sub and large Coke later, the Indian woman is visibly blissful.

"I hardly remember the last time my belly was full," she says. "Shanghai, perhaps. A month ago. There were Subways in Bangalore. There was one on a shopping centre on Brigade Street I frequented whenever I visited the city."

"I used to go there," Danielle said.

"Oh, yes, you lived in Bangalore. I used to go there and try out American foods. I always wanted to go to America. And now," she looks around, "it was an evil road, but somehow, here I am."