“I fell because that crazy racist tried to punch you and I pulled you out of the way. I guess you could say I saved you.”
“You should have let him hit me. Then I could have called the police and pressed charges.” His fists were balled in his lap, knuckles white.
“And ruin our perfect outing?” I said, keeping my voice light. “Rashid would never forgive us if we missed the game because of something so minor.”
Beside us my cousin scowled at a call the umpire had made, eyes fixed on the action.
“I don’t care about Rashid’s feelings!” Aydin burst out. “I can’t believe this happened in broad daylight, in the middle of downtown Toronto, and nobody did anything.”
Rashid looked over. “They didn’t want to get involved. I wouldn’t have done anything either, if it had been me.”
I wondered if he was right. If I saw someone being abused and harassed, would I step in and offer to help? Or would I ignore what was happening, thinking that they would be fine, that it was none of my business. “What can we do to stop this hatred?” I asked out loud. I wasn’t sure there was an answer.
Rashid smiled at me, and I was struck once again by his calm. I was putting on a brave face and Aydin was clearly trying to tamp down his anger, but my cousin seemed completely unfazed. For the first time I wondered what his life was like in Delhi. I had thought him a sheltered rich kid who had come to Canada to have an adventure. Instead, his reactions made me want to check out the motherland.
“My father says that trying to stop hate is like trying to stop the tides,” Rashid said. “The best thing you can do is take advantage of it. Don’t stop the tide from flowing. Build a hydroelectric dam and make electricity instead, enough to power ten thousand houses. That’s how you stop hate.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what Rashid’s dad had meant. How could you take advantage of hate without causing more hate?
Aydin stood up. “I’m going to get nachos.”
I stood up, wincing at the spike of pain through my hip. “I’ll come with you,” I said, waving off his protests. He slowed his long strides to match mine, fingers hovering under my elbow.
In the lineup Aydin fidgeted, moving his hands in and out of his pockets, fiddling with his wallet. “I’m sorry. I should have stood in front of you—”
“You did,” I reminded him.
“When I saw you crumpled on the ground, I...” Aydin closed his eyes. “I wanted to kill that man.” Fear and protectiveness wrestled with guilt on his face.
“And then you would have gone to jail and solved all my family’s problems,” I said.
“How can you joke about this?” he asked. Fingers raked his hair and he glared at me.
I smiled back. “What else is there to do but laugh? Did you see how fast Rashid moved? And the way that man’s face smooshed into the concrete when he fell?” I laughed, but my voice was shaky. I remembered also the blind hatred in the face of the man who had swung for Aydin, his glee when he watched me stumble backwards and fall, how happy he had been to see me hurt.
“I hope he broke his nose,” Aydin said, but he sounded less homicidal. “Is your cousin a little...” He trailed off.
“Crazy?”
“I was going to say eccentric.”
“I can’t figure him out. One minute he’s quoting baseball movies and doing a really terrible Apu impersonation, the next he’s fighting bigots and helping me save the restaurant from you and your dad.” I realized what I had let slip and clamped a hand over my mouth.
Aydin sighed. “We can’t be friends because you think I’m trying to destroy your family business, and we can’t fight because I think your cousin might be Machiavelli reincarnated. Where does that leave us?”
I shrugged. “Why do we have to be anything? I barely know you.”
Except that wasn’t entirely true. I knew that he missed his mother and feared his father. I knew he wanted to build something of his own, and had chosen to build it far from where he had grown up, which made me wonder what he was running from. I knew that he cared for me, even though he barely knew me. And that he felt familiar and comfortable, even before I knew any of those other things.
“Why did you come today?” I asked after Aydin paid for his nachos.
He stopped walking, and this time he looked embarrassed. “Because Rashid said you wanted me here.”
I was going to slap my cousin so hard...
He was still standing there, holding the tray of nachos. “Did you?” he asked. He cleared his throat. “Did you want me here today?”
Yes.Why couldn’t I say it? It was the truth. But it would also be an admission, one I wasn’t yet ready to make.
