Vikram, My Friend

This story is dedicated to my friend Vikram, whom I most likely will never see or speak with again; whom I am certain will not read it-- but I wrote it for him just the same. This is the story of our friendship, and the way we lost it, which is one of my few regrets in life.

    It was a week after the tragedy of September 11^th 2001, and newly into an apartment after being homeless for some time, I walked the business district near my apartment looking for work. The only job I could find was at a deli that was inside a liquor store run by a family from India. I was the sole operator: opening, cooking, selling, cleaning, and closing. I made a whopping $20 a day, paying myself from the register before closing. This was less than minimum, but business was slow, and I was promised more if I could bring in more customers somehow. I had a few ideas on how to do so, and was sure I'd be getting paid at least minimum wage in no time. 

    One day while working, a new face gawked back at me from the liquor counter, directly across a narrow aisle from my own. He was rather short, it appeared, with a stubbly beard and very thick lips, and a heavier accent than the owner's, when he spoke with a customer. He stared at me, and I at him, and I had this strange feeling I had never had before. My thoughts were saying, "there is my old friend!" -- and my heart felt some excitement at this thought. I had never met this little Indian before in my life. I wondered at my own thought. We did start conversing as any two old friends right away, and it made work such an pleasurable place to be. When there were no customers, it was just he and I, chatting away and chuckling together. His name was Vikram. I called him Vik.

    Meanwhile, I had found my method of attracting customers. Several workmen from a nearby factory filed in to cash checks and buy liquor quite often and I noticed that if I just smiled coquettishly and flirted a bit I got them to purchase food as well. Before long I was making more than minimum. Vikram watched with amazement at the way I made the deli business boom. We discussed the use of sensuality by women to sell goods, one scorching summer day, sitting on the concrete curb outside the store during my cigarette break. Vikram turned to me and pondered, "You are nice to me because you want something?" I didn't know what to say.

    For lack of anything better to respond with, I told the truth. I told him about my feeling that he was my old friend when we met, and not altogether surprisingly, Vik intimated that he felt the same. The difference between our cultures often got in the way of proper communication, as it did at that moment. "My faith (Sikhism) tells us not to form an attachment to people who are not our parents, but I am growing very much attached to you, Connie," he said. I thought over that for a moment, and decided he was talking about care for a friend. I don't think he had ever had a female friend before.

    We began spending time together outside of work, talking as he drove me home instead of my walking, visits to my apartment, where he always chided me gently for not having it clean enough, but he kept visiting anyway. He was honest to a fault, much like I am. We enjoyed one another's company and spent as much time together as work and circumstances allowed. I grew to love the music he listened to, the rhythm of the sitar and the soulful voices singing in Punjabi that I longed to understand. He tried to teach me a little: hello, goodbye, how are you. (I will not even attempt to spell those words, but I remember them.)

    Vik was 32 and unmarried. His parents wanted to choose a bride for him, but he had to go back to India to meet a choice, and each time he had an excuse for not going. When I asked him about it once, he said that he did not really want to marry, if he did not love. This was against his faith and his culture, and he lacked the bravery to go against these things, so he had instead remained unwed. I recall one afternoon when he drove me home, and we talked again about his failure to marry a bride his parents had recently suggested. He showed me a picture, and she was breath-takingly beautiful.

    I told him "Vik, you are lucky. Here I am, 23 years old, and I have been mistreated and cheated on by several men trying to find love, so that I can marry a good man. Here your parents have found you a beautiful woman, who is no doubt kind as well if your parents would choose her for their son. It is much easier the way your culture does it. We Americans search endlessly for love that never turns out right, most often. You should change your mind, go to India, and marry that girl. You can build a love and a life together." I wanted my friend to be loved and happy, because I cared for him, and I thought at the time that this was the best advice.

    Vik said nothing more than, "I hope you will be finding a true love very soon to make you the happy wife. No, it should not be me." He had a shyness and a reserve about him, yet often said the oddest, most personal things at times.

    Several weeks later, Vik told me at work that he needed to come to my house to talk that evening. When he arrived, he took my hand and sat with me on my sofa. He was trembling. He smelled of exotic spices, curry and cardamom, perhaps, as always.

    "My brother, he have problem. In India it very dangerous now the fighting with Moslem and Hindu and we Sikhs in the North. Many of our friends killed. My brother is computer programmer, and he like to come to live here. I ask you favor. It will not change any thing between you and I whether you do the favor or no. I ask you will you marry my brother so he can come US to live. Again not change anything between you and me."

    I sat stunned by his request, agape, but only for a moment. I asked how it could be done.

    "We would have to go to India for one month with me to make the arrangements, then after that, 6 months you divorce and he will be able to stay here."

    I had long dreamed of going to India. I had never been one to shun an adventure…

    My fascination with India-- its cultures, traditions, and people�"began around the seventh grade, when I read a short biography about the wise and heroic Gandhi, who freed a nation from oppression without a war. His ability to gather his countrymen to "passively resist" British rule and actually win inspired me, as did his life and teachings. It began a soul-searching journey through Eastern literature, from the Bhagavad-Gita to the Quran, to the Tao Te Ching . To me, India signified an enlightened land with a very rich culture, and it topped my list of places I intended to visit as soon as I could afford to. To be able to go there for free, and spend enough time there to learn the Punjabi language, live amongst the people, would be a dream come true. Not to mention that in the process, I would be helping my best friend. How could I have said no?

    With much excitement, I immediately agreed to help Vik, and we discussed a time schedule for our visit to Amritsar, the Northern Indian city he hailed from. We intended to depart in five months, and in the meantime we would be getting together passports, and preparing in other ways for the journey.

    Otherwise, our friendship continued as usual�"laughing, sharing, teaching our cultures and languages to one another. My time with him was always productively spent. He was the most fascinating and caring friend to me.

    One day while working in the deli, I received a visit from my boss, a chubby restaurateur who rented the deli space from Vik's brother in Law, who owned the liquor store. He told me point blank that his son would be taking over the deli business, and that starting the next day, his son's wife would be taking over my position. There had been no warning, no severance pay, just the axe, though I had done my job so well that business had tripled. I showed no emotion, until Vik and I were alone in the store. Vik comforted me as best as he could, telling me how unfair it was, holding my hand while I stood there and wept. It had been hard to find a job here. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to find another, terrified of being homeless yet again. Vik told me not to worry, and promised to help.

    The very next morning, his Sikh friends who owned a Subway restaurant called me and asked if I could start that afternoon. Vik had insisted that I was the best employee they would ever have, and they let a teenage employee go in order to hire me.

    I did well at my new job, and it paid better than the deli job had, though the work was more physical. I became the fastest Sandwich Artist in the business. I missed working with Vik, though. His company was the best, and since we didn't work together any more, I missed him.

     Within a month of starting work at Subway, I met an illegal Mexican immigrant named Ricardo. I fell in lust with Ricardo at first sight, and started to spend my evenings with him, telling Vik I was busy when he called. I knew that Ricardo would be jealous of Vik and my friendship with him, so for two months I told neither of them about the other.

    Oh, but there was a problem. I could not just run off to India and marry my friend's brother now. I knew that Ricardo would not understand this. So I called Vik and asked him to visit me, and told him we needed to talk.


    Vikram looked me right in the eyes as I explained to him that I could no longer go with him to India, could no longer help his brother, because I had fallen in love with a man I knew I would one day marry, for love. He looked at the ground for a moment, then laughed out loud, and grabbed me up in our first physical embrace. He whispered into my ear " I am so happy for you Connie, you have no idea. So glad you get to be happy wife to a good man." He truly was happy for me, and I could see this in his face. What a gift is was to have a friend who truly felt happy when I did.

    As he turned to leave, he asked for another hug, admitting, " I was afraid to hug you when you were unattached, like it was improper, but now I need another. I care for you Connie. Very much."

    For a few months after, Vik came by Subway and talked with me occasionally, never staying longer than a few minutes. Eventually, he stopped coming, and I missed him greatly, but I was "in love" and thought of it less due to that fact. Ricardo had asked me to marry him only three months into the relationship. I had told him that if he would wait a year, to make certain, I would marry him then.

    A month after Ricardo's proposal, I discovered that we were pregnant. We moved in together, but I still made him wait for that year to be finished before I would marry him. It was not a happy year. Slowly his affections seemed to fade, and I saw his truer nature. In fact, at times, though I still desired him, I felt that I did not even like him. Our relationship was akin to a slave and master relationship, myself being the slave. And yet, when the year of waiting ended, on Cinco de Mayo 2004 (I didn't want him to forget our anniversary) Ricardo and I trudged up to the courthouse to get married.

 

 

    As we waited in line outside the registrar's office, our then 7-month-old daughter in a stroller beside us, a familiar figure approached.

    I smiled widely at Vikram, my friend. He smiled back almost begrudgingly, eyed Ricardo as though examining him, and then spotted my little girl. Beaming beatifically, he lifted the child from the stroller and held her close, gushing over her vitality and beauty. His lips trembled as he sat her down and asked why we were waiting. He said he was there to obtain a new liquor license for the store. I told him we were waiting for a Justice of the Peace to marry us. Vik muttered a soft "congratulations," and slowly turned away.

    Vik did not go into the license office, as he had mentioned was his intent, but instead turned back toward the courthouse doors, from whence he had come. As he walked out the double doors into the Calfornia sun, I watched his hand clasp his mouth, his shoulders drop.

    Two days after my marriage, I received a call from a friend, who knew Vikram. " I talked to your friend Vik in the store yesterday," she sighed, " he said he saw you at the courthouse."

    "Yes, we saw him. How is he?" I asked.

    "He was crying and I asked him why. He said ' I wanted very much to marry her. I would have made her best husband, but now it is too late for me. I love her but I was not meant to have her love. I had change my mind to take her to India to meet my parents so she could marry me, not my brother, so they would see why I loved her.'" Her answer stunned me. I started to weep before I even hung up the phone.

    My husband was at work, and as I cooked his dinner I cried at least a cup of tears into it. I cried with bitter regret. I had lost a great love that I had never even known I could have had�"the love of a much gentler man than the man I had married. Vikram indeed would have been my best husband; I knew this quite well. Perhaps I had known, deep down all along. Perhaps it had terrified me.

    For all my life I had longed to be loved in the way that Vik loved me. He was not handsome, but he truly did love me, and I loved him as a dear friend as well. I had shunned him, and his love. I had shunned many beautiful months we could have spent in India together. I had broken two hearts I had never desired to break�"Vikram's, and my own as well.


    My marriage crumbled quickly, as I had known it would, deep down, the day that I married. It ended in a night of infidelity, and violence- but that's another story.

 

    After my divorce, I saw Vik once at the grocery store, and he seemed polite, but distracted. It was obvious that he was done with me. Whether his heart still felt that love, I do not know. All I know is that my friend's mind was made up. I was as good as dead to him.

    I miss you Vik, and think about you at least once every day. I pray often that you've found that true love you wanted so badly, and deserved so much.

 

 

Author's Note

Yes, this is a true story. Critical reviews as well as your thoughts are appreciated. ~C

Reviews

[The Rock And Roll Cowbo..]

OMG... after reading that story I don't know what to say, I have a lump in my throat from how much this moved me... it reflects that old saying, "You don't know what you got till it's gone" which we humans all do many times in our life. Thank you for sharing this deeply personal story. I am nearly speechless.

[Samuel Dickens]

I remember reading this story before. In fact, it made enough of an impression on me that I've thought about it from time to time, and have even told others about it. It's a sad tale that makes me reflect on my own life.