Charmed Particles Read online

  PRAISE FOR CHARMED PARTICLES

  “Part immigration story, part Midwestern pastoral, Kolaya’s charming debut maps the schisms of a small Illinois town that’s divided over a proposal to build a Superconducting Super Collider at the local research lab…. The book is at its best and most nuanced when Kolaya turns her attention to the personal: Abhijat and Sarala’s marriage, Lily and Meena’s increasingly difficult friendship, and—above all—Abhijat’s internal struggle to come to terms with the reality of his career.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This is such an accomplished debut novel…. Kolaya handles an intriguing and sympathetic cast of characters with aplomb—it’s a brainy, witty page-turner, and marks the start of what I hope will be a long career for Kolaya as a novelist.”

  —Newcity Lit

  “Charmed Particles is inspired by very real stories straight from today’s headlines, yet managed to mesmerize me in the way of an intoxicating fairytale. Kolaya’s characters are flawed, though sympathetic citizens, gazing suspiciously at one another across great chasms of misunderstanding—passionately divided. Yet in her alchemical hands we’re shown what is possible when we have the courage to venture deep within our wounded hearts: sweet magic.”

  —Susan Power, author of The Grass Dancer

  “Charmed Particles is a deftly constructed fable of modernity told in elegant, pellucid prose. Kolaya draws her characters with affectionate acuity and the whole reminds me—in its depiction of childhood precocity and earnest adult eccentricity—of one of Wes Anderson’s wry wonders.”

  —Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl

  “Unfolding gently through the evolving stories of two young families, [Charmed Particles] builds to a moment of colliding perspectives over pioneering progress in physics versus historical physical preservation and ultimately reveals the shared aspirations of both. You will enjoy this tender, timely, and thought-provoking first novel by Chrissy Kolaya.”

  —Adrienne Kolb, co-author of

  Tunnel Visions: The Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider

  “A wonderfully impish satire, Chrissy Kolaya’s Charmed Particles is all about various cross-cultural, cross-temporal, and cross-spatial explorations as charged with mystery, magic, and possibility as the high-energy particle physics conducted at the National Accelerator Research Lab that forms the novel’s literal and metaphoric heart. What a sparkling debut.”

  —Lance Olsen, author of Theories of Forgetting

  “Chrissy Kolaya writes from a place of deep intelligence, humor, and sympathy about a cast of varied, marvelously drawn characters…an extremely accomplished and affecting story about family, ambition, the immigrant experience, and the inexorable forward movement of Time and its much-admired handmaiden Progress. Truly wonderful.”

  —Christine Sneed, author of Little Known Facts

  and Paris, He Said

  CHARMED PARTICLES

  CHARMED PARTICLES

  CHRISSY KOLAYA

  5220 Dexter Ann Arbor Rd.

  Ann Arbor, MI 48103

  www.dzancbooks.org

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  CHARMED PARTICLES. Copyright © 2015, text by Chrissy Kolaya. All rights reserved, except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Dzanc Books, 5220 Dexter Ann Arbor Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48103.

  Designed by Steven Seighman

  Excerpts of this book appeared, sometimes in slightly different form, in the following publications: “Unveiling the Wild: Being the Account of the Expeditions of Randolph Winchester, the Last Great Gentleman Explorer,” Chariton Review; and “The Search for Charmed Particles,” Crab Orchard Review.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kolaya, Chrissy.

  Charmed particles / Chrissy Kolaya.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-1-938103-17-9

  I. Title. PS3611.O5824C48 2015

  813’.6—dc23

  2015008017

  First U.S. Edition: November 2015

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  In memory of Helen Calvert Bergman wise reader, dear friend, dream-come-true mother-in-law.

  CHARMED PARTICLES

  CHAPTER 1

  Charmed Particles

  Particles containing a charm quark…have only a fleeting existence before decaying into more conventional particles.

  —FREDERICK A. HARRIS

  1972

  ABHIJAT MITAL ACCEPTED THE POSITION AT THE NATIONAL Accelerator Research Lab with great pride. The offer itself was the realization of his greatest dream, now made concrete by the desk he would sit behind, the nameplate on his door, the drive every morning through the gates, where he would present his pass to the security guard who would, after a matter of weeks, begin to wave him through, recognizing Abhijat as one among the parade of scientists he’d been waving through those gates for years, and on that day, Abhijat would feel, at last, like he belonged.

  He had written Sarala with the news that he’d accepted a position at the premier particle accelerator and research facility in the U.S., some argued in the world. The job would begin at the end of the semester, after he had fulfilled his academic commitments to the university.

  In the evenings, he took the short, quiet walk from his office on campus to the small set of rooms he rented in the house of an emeritus professor of philosophy, with whom he sometimes enjoyed an evening game of chess before returning to his desk to pore over his work. As he walked, snow falling quietly around him as was common on those dark midwinter nights, he often caught himself peering into the lit-up windows of the houses he passed, imagining the life he and Sarala would make for themselves.

  Sarala had pointed out that he neglected to respond to the questions in her letters, and so, in the next letter he posted, he included the following chart:

  Letter Number

  Question

  Answer

  3

  Are you making progress with your research?

  Yes.

  4

  Are the Americans friendly?

  Not overmuch.

  5

  Do you think I will like it there, in the United States with you?

  I am unable to answer this. Any response would be pure speculation, an area I prefer to avoid.

  To which Sarala replied:

  Yes, but if I understand your work, you are doing precisely this—speculating—in making predictions about the possible existence of new particles before they have been detected.

  To which Abhijat responded (keeping to himself his delight at Sarala’s pluck, as well as her surprisingly accurate grasp of his research project):

  You are correct. I will here attempt a prediction. I believe it is likely that you will be happy here and with me, but that you will at times experience some degree of homesickness, as I have.

  Abhijat had been working at a university in the U.S. since leaving Cambridge, where he had done his training and emerged from the group of young theoretical physicists as a quiet, serious student, one his professors had decided possessed a great deal of promise. And all that time, back in Bombay, his mother had been on the hunt for a suitable wife. Sarala had emerged as the foremost contender. The wedding had taken place on his last trip home, and soon Sarala would join him in the States to begin their new life together.

  After the wedding, Sarala had gone to Abhijat’s mother’s home, a custom they kept despite Abhijat’s absence. He had needed to return to the universit
y to finish the academic year, and so the months between Sarala’s wedding and her arrival in the U.S. were spent in close companionship with her new mother-in-law, who, she was surprised to find, she liked a great deal.

  “You must help Abhijat find some happiness in the world,” her new mother-in-law said to Sarala one night as they shared their evening meal. “Since he was a boy, he has always grasped for something just out of reach, never happy with what he has accomplished.

  “You will be good for him,” she added. “As for a wife, he gave no thought to it. ‘Abhijat,’ I told him, ‘now is the time.’ ‘Yes, Ma,’ he said, but I wonder, had I not spoken, how long he would have remained with eyes only for his articles and equations.”

  Sarala had studied business administration at university. The majority of her knowledge of American history had been gleaned from a castoff sixth-grade textbook entitled Our Colonial Forefathers, which Abhijat’s mother had found in an English-language bookstore in Bombay, and which she had bought and presented to Sarala, hoping to help smooth the way for her new daughter-in-law in this land of foreigners.

  Though Sarala had not yet realized it, her own mother had slipped a gift for her daughter’s new life in with the things that were to be shipped to her new home: a small wooden box of recipes written in her own hand on square pieces of blue paper—what she imagined Sarala would need to know for a happy union and a marriage that would grow into love.

  For After an Argument:

  Below that, her mother’s recipe for pav bhaji.

  On the Days When You Have Been Short-Tempered:

  Followed by her careful instruction on how to prepare aloo gobi.

  When You Wish to Call into Your Life a Child:

  Here, the steps for making rajma chawal, one of Sarala’s favorites.

  And so on.

  Sarala occupied herself on the long series of plane rides by immersing herself in her copy of Our Colonial Forefathers. In it, she found a map illustrating the thirteen colonies and the westward expansion of settlers during the period. The land where she and Abhijat would live—Illinois—was marked out on the map as a vast, unexplored territory, wilderness—unknown, untamed, and uncharted terrain.

  When, near the end of her last flight, the pilot came over the loudspeaker to announce that they would now begin their descent into Chicago, Sarala peered out the window through the clouds, watching for her new home to materialize. The plane circled over a wide blue body of water—Lake Michigan, she guessed—and made its way inland down a tiny grid of geometrically arranged streets, the roofs of small houses, outlines of yards, and then tiny cars becoming visible as they descended. When the wheels touched down, Sarala felt herself pulled forward in her seat, then back as the plane strained to a stop.

  They rolled slowly toward the gate where Abhijat would meet her. As they approached, she looked out toward the large-paned window of the terminal, wondering if she could make him out, if he could find her face framed in the tiny round window of the plane.

  Abhijat greeted her with a bright, warm smile as she stepped into the waiting area of the terminal, and she was reminded of their wedding ceremony months earlier. Their embrace was again like their first, and Sarala hoped they would soon grow to feel comfortable and at ease with one another.

  Abhijat carried her bags and led her out to the parking garage to the beige sedan he had recently purchased. Though tired from her long hours of travel, Sarala peered out the windows as they drove, here and there Abhijat pointing out places of interest, Sarala taking in her new home—first the bright, busy maze of highways and billboards near the airport, and off in the distance the skyscrapers of the city.

  As they drove west, the buildings grew low to the ground and thinned out into farmland. Sarala’s eyes traced the great metal towers strung with wires that stretched across the highway, cutting a swath through the farmland, so that this new land appeared to Sarala to be all cornfields and infrastructure.

  On one side of the highway rose a great green sign: NICOLET, NEXT 3 EXITS. Abhijat pointed out the landfill just off the highway, the strange glow of a flame burning off methane. Then, a little further on, the place where he had been staying—executive housing, they called it. The outside of the building looked like a hotel, but inside, the rooms included small kitchenettes that looked out over neatly made double beds.

  Before bed, Sarala undid her long, dark rope of a braid, brushing it smooth. Abhijat watched as the hair fell around her like a veil. That night they slept side by side for only the second time.

  In the morning, Sarala arranged herself on the room’s foamy couch, which gave the sensation of being at once both soft and hard, and read carefully through the brochures and orientation packet the Lab had provided for Abhijat, and which he had presented to her. They were so glossy and pristine that she wondered whether he had even opened them before handing them to her.

  In the photos, the Lab’s facilities were green and sunlit. The cover featured a tall building that rose up over the flat expanse of grass. She peered at a photo of a white-coated man standing inside a large room: The Collision Hall, the caption read.

  The Lab sat on a piece of fertile land which had once been farmland, and which had, before that, been undisturbed prairie. Now the Lab’s expansive campus was ringed with a series of tunnels that made up the particle accelerator, in which cutting-edge experiments in high-energy particle physics were being conducted.

  Abhijat and the other theoretical physicists had offices on the nineteenth floor of the twenty-story Research Tower, which looked out over the Illinois landscape, the tallest building for miles. Sarala looked at the image of the Research Tower and tried to imagine what Abhijat’s office might be like.

  In the center of the brochure was a section titled “Living and Working at the Lab,” which included tips on opening a bank account in the U.S., how to obtain a driver’s license, and an overview of common laws and regulations. There were language classes for the spouses of foreign scientists, but her English was good. What Sarala studied most carefully was the list of the Lab’s social activities and organizations:

  Automobile Club Dancing Club

  Badminton Club Fitness Club

  Lab Choir Jazz Club

  Martial Arts Club Amateur Radio Club

  Photo Club Model Airplane Club

  Squash Club Gardening Club

  With a pen, she carefully underlined Dancing Club, Photo Club, Lab Choir, imagining that together, she and Abhijat might fill their evenings with new hobbies and new friends.

  Sarala spent her first week acclimating to the time change and taking in everything she could. In the small space of the hotel room, she and Abhijat learned each other’s daily routines and habits: that Sarala liked first to carefully make the bed before preparing their morning tea; that each morning, Abhijat emerged from the bathroom freshly showered and fully dressed, his dark hair combed along a strict and unwavering part. This close intimacy of preparing to build a life together was their honeymoon.

  Once Abhijat left for work, Sarala had the day to herself. In the small room, she busied herself with washing, drying, and putting away the breakfast dishes in the kitchenette and then with tidying their things, gathering the materials Abhijat had brought her from the Lab—brochures from the Nicolet Chamber of Commerce, a helpful booklet prepared by the Lab indicating where new residents might find doctors, dentists, childcare, cultural activities, etc. These Sarala gathered into a neat pile on the end table next to her side of the bed, leaving the desk uncluttered should Abhijat need it. She opened the drapes and stood before the window, which looked out over the grey pavement of the hotel parking lot. She gathered their clothes in the small plastic laundry basket she found in the closet and made her way down the long hallway to the laundry facilities.

  The hallway was silent, every door closed, and Sarala wondered about the other people living behind those closed doors. “Divorce apartments,” she had heard the clerk at the front desk call them. The few times she
’d encountered other guests in the elevator or lobby, they had all been men. She’d thus far met no women, no children.

  Still, in the halls she’d now and then caught a familiar smell. Ginger and garlic one night, coming from room 219. Green chilies and coriander, she guessed, the next evening, from 256. But overwhelmingly, the smell of America, she had decided, was the smell of nothing—carpet, cardboard, wallpaper, framed paintings of lakes and animals, bedspreads with bright floral patterns. Even the small slivers of soap wrapped in paper in the bathroom seemed to be entirely without a scent, Sarala thought, peeling open the wrapping and holding the small white rectangle up to her nose.

  She prided herself on being adaptable, one of the many qualities she felt was necessary in a good wife, and so did not allow room for the question of whether she was or was not homesick.

  When the laundry was dry, Sarala loaded it back into the small basket and returned to their rooms. Since her arrival, she’d grown familiar with the plotlines of a number of the soap operas that aired during the long, quiet afternoons while Abhijat was away. Her favorite was Search for Tomorrow, and she watched as she folded, anxious to find out whether Joanne would regain her sight in time to identify her captors.

  The realtor had arranged to pick them up at the hotel to begin house hunting, as she called it when Abhijat phoned to make an appointment. Her car was a plush, champagne-colored Cadillac. Abhijat sat in the front seat, and Sarala, in the back, leaned forward to hear them speaking.

  “Whatever neighborhood you settle on, the schools will be great,” the realtor said. “District 220 schools are all top of the line. Some of the best in the state.”