(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
Gogol's father's car, described to him by his mother on the telephone last night, was still parked in the visitors' parking lot.There was no sign of his father in the car, no maps or scraps of paper, all he found in the glove compartment was the registration and owner's manual. He drove the car in silence through the cold, bleak afternoon, following the directions a nurse at the hospital had given him to the apartment where his father had lived.
His father's apartment was part of a complex called Baron's Court. A man outside the first of the buildings nodded to him as he drove past, seeming to recognize the car, mistaken him for his father. All the apartments were so identical the only thing to distinguish each building was a number and a name. He parked in front of his father 's building, thinking of his father living there alone those past three months, he felt the first threat of tears, but he knew that his father didn't mind, that he was not offended by such things. He remained in the car long enough to see an elderly, sprightly couple, emerging with tennis rackets, the residents there, he remembered his telling him as retired or divorced.
His father's apartment was on the second floor. He unlocked the door, and as he entered into, he saw a pair of his father's sneakers, and a pair of flip-flops for wearing around the house. The door opened onto a spacious living room, with a sliding glass door to the right, a kitchen on the left. Against the refrigerator was a picture of himself and his mother and Sonia. They were standing at Fatehpur Sikri for the photograph. He was a freshman in high school, thin and glum, Sonia just a girl, his mother was in a salwar kameeze. He opened the cupboards, found four plates, two mugs, four glasses, one knife and two forks, in one cupboard, and a box of tea bags, a pack of biscuits, a five-pound bag of sugar that had not been poured into bowl, a tin of evaporated milk, in another cupboard.
He walked through the rest of the apartment. "Don't bring anything back," his mother had told him on the phone, "It's not our way." He felt throwing out the food, were it his father in his place, he would have packed the spare rice and tea bags into his suitcase, he had abhorred waste of any kind.
It took much longer time than he expected to empty the apartment, of filling the garbage bags and carrying up and down the stairs he'd to make, left him exhausted. By the time he was finished, it was already beginning to get dark. He'd a list of people to call before the business of day was over : Call rental office. Call university. Cancel utilities. When he finished, he drove through town to the dealer who leased the car to his father, and then he took a cab to Baron's Court. In the lobby he noticed a menu for pizza delivery. He ordered a pizza, called home as he waited for it to arrive. For an hour the line was busy ; by the time he got through, his mother and Sonia were both asleep, a friend of the family informed him. The house was filled with noise, and it was only then that he realized how quiet it was on his end. He considered going to the basement to get the tape player or the television. Instead he called Maxine, describing the details of his day, amazed to think she'd been with him at the beginning of it, that it was in her arms, in her bed, that he'd woken.
"I should have come with you," she said. "I could still make it out there by morning."
"I'm finished. There's nothing else to do. I'm taking the first flight back tomorrow."
"You're not going to spend the night there, are you, Nick ?" she asked him.
"I've to. There're not any other flights tonight."
"In that apartment, I mean."
He felt defensive, after all his efforts, he felt protective of the three empty rooms."I don't know anyone here."
"For God's sake, get out of there. Check yourself into a hotel."
"Okay," he said. He thought of the last time he'd seen his father, three months ago, waving good-bye as he and Maxine pulled out of the doorway on their way to New Hampshire.
"You were with me," he told her.
"What ?"
"The last time I saw my father. You were there."
"I know. I'm so sorry, Nick. Just promise me you'll go to a hotel."
"Yeah. I promise." He didn't want to inhabit an anonymous room. As long as he was there, he didn't want to leave his father's apartment empty. He lied on the couch in the dark, in his clothes, his body covered by his jacket, preferring that to stripped mattress in the bedroom. For hours he lied in the dark, falling in and out of sleep. He thought of his father just yesterday morning. What had he been doing when he'd begun to feel badly ? Was he making tea at the stove ? He imagined his father by the door, bending over to tie his shoe laces for the last time. Putting on his coat and scarf and driving to the hospital, the thought death absent from his mind. Eventually Gogol was aware of bluish light creeping into the room. He felt strangely vigilant, as if, were he to pay close enough attention, some sign of his father might manifest itself, putting a stop to the events of the day. He watched the sky whiten, listened as the perfect silence was replaced by the faintest hum of distant traffic, until suddenly he succumbed, for a few hours, to the deepest sleep possible, his mind blank and undisturbed, his limbs motionless, weighted down.
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