Interpreter of Maladies

the same dark circles under her eyes. A rust-colored coat hung heavy on her shoulders. Her black hair, with a few strands of gray at the temples, was pulled back like a ballerina's. "You ask him a country and he tells you the capital."
    "You should have heard him in the car," Laxmi said. "He's already memorized all of Europe."
    "It's not a game," Rohin said. "I'm having a competition with a boy at school. We're competing to memorize all the capitals. I'm going to beat him." Miranda nodded. "Okay. What's the capital of India?"
    "That's no good." He marched away, his arms swinging like a toy soldier. Then he marched back to Laxmi's cousin and tugged at a pocket of her overcoat, "Ask me a hard one."
    "Senegal," she said. 
    "Dakar!" Rohin exclaimed triumphantly, and began running in larger and larger circles. Eventually he ran into the kitchen. Miranda could hear him opening and closing the fridge. 
    "Rohin, don't touch without asking," Laxmi's cousin called out wearily. She managed a smile for Miranda. "Don't worry, he'll fall asleep in a few hours. And thanks for watching him."
    "Back at three," Laxmi said, disappearing with her cousin down the hallway, "We're double-parked." 
    Miranda fastened the chain on the door. She went to the kitchen to find Rohin, but he was now in the living room, at the dining table, kneeling on one of the director's chairs. He unzipped his knapsack, pushed Miranda's basket of manicure supplies to one side of the table, and spread his crayons over the surface. Miranda stood over his shoulder. She watched as he gripped a blue crayon and drew the outline of an airplane. 
    "It's lovely," she said. When he didn't reply, she went to the kitchen to pour herself more coffee. 
    "Some for me, please," Rohin called out. 
    She returned to the living room. "Some what?"
    "Some coffee. There's enough in the pot. I saw." 
    She walked over to the table and sat opposite him. At times he nearly stood up to reach for a new crayon. He barely made a dent in the director's chair. 
    "You're too young for coffee." 
    Rohin leaned over the sketch pad, so that his tiny chest and shoulders almost touched it, his head tilted to one side. "The stewardess let me have coffee." he said. "She made it with milk and lots of sugar." He straightened, revealing a woman's face beside the plane, with long wavy hair and eyes like asterisks, "Her hair was more shiny," he decided, adding, "My father met a pretty woman on a plane, too." He looked at Miranda. His face darkened as he watched her sip. "Can't I have just a little coffee? Please?" 
    She wondered, in spite of his composed, brooding expression, if he were the type to throw a tantrum. She imagined his kicking her with his leather shoes, screaming for coffee, screaming and crying until his mother and Laxmi came back to fetch him. She went to the kitchen and prepared a cup for him as he'd requested. She selected a mug she didn't care for, in case he dropped it. 
    "Thank you," he said when she put it on the table. He took short sips, holding the mug securely with both hands. 
    Miranda sat with him while he drew, but when she attempted to put a coat of clear polish on her nails he protested. Instead he pulled out a paperback world almanac from his knapsack and asked her to quiz him. The countries were arranged by continent, six to a page, with the capitals in boldface, followed by a short entry on the population, government, and other statistics. Miranda turned to a page in the Africa section and went down the list. 
    "Mali," she asked him. "
    Bamako," he replied instantly.
     "Malawi."
    "Lilongwe." 
    She remembered looking at Africa in the Mapparium. She remembered the fat part of it was green.
     "Go on," Rohin said. 
    "Mauritania."
    "Nouakchott."
    "Mauritius." 
    He paused, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them, defeated. "I can't remember."
    "Port Louis," she told him. 
    "Port Louis." He began to say it again and again, like a chant under his breath. 
    When they reached the last of the countries in Africa, Rohin said he wanted to watch cartoons, telling Miranda to watch them with him. When the cartoons ended, he followed her to the kitchen, and stood by her side as she made more coffee. He didn't follow her when she went to the bathroom a few minutes later, but when she opened the door she was startled to find him standing outside. 
    "Do you need to go?" 
    He shook his head but walked into the bathroom anyway. He put the cover of the toilet down, climbed