Amreesh Mathur was a short dark man from India who lived in Pittsburgh. He went to the diner and he ate well. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Jello. Chocolate cake.

Five days a week he went to work. Two nights a week he went to a class in Intermediate Accounting (he wanted to improve himself). One night a week (on Friday night) he went downtown to The Grog Shop. It was a bar with live music. They gave you beer and peanuts. You got thirsty, you drank beer. You ate peanuts, you got thirsty again and ordered more beer.

He liked going to The Grog Shop. “I need the change,” he said.

He wandered the streets of the city. The bars, the shops, the railroad tracks. What place was there to which he did not go?

“Go to the west hills,” someone said.

“What is there?”

“The Nuclear Power Division.”

They were talking about The Westinghouse Electric Corporation and the Nuclear Power Division that they had there. He got in his car, a used 1970 Ford Maverick—sometimes he took a bus—and he went.

We worked with him and we admired his curiosity. We admired his enthusiasm. Life was big, full—it stretched on and on. He must live in it, participate in it. If he did not live in it, how could he dare to understand it?

One day he went to the mall in Monroeville and bought a navy blazer. How proud he was of it, too. He began to pay by check and they asked to see some identification. He reached for his wallet.

“Do you work?” they said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Where do you work?”

He told them.

They were impressed, suitably so. Pittsburgh was mostly a three-employer town: Gulf Oil, U.S. Steel, Westinghouse. The man worked at Westinghouse: he was decent, reliable. What more could they ask for?

He had taken out his wallet and begun to remove his driver’s license.

They smiled, waved him off. “No need,” they said.

No need. The man was young, aspiring. Who could ask for more? He worked as a professional for Westinghouse. Was that not the key as well?

*

Amreesh Mathur kept himself busy. One day we saw him at the shopping mall. One day in the parking lot. One day at the corporate headquarters on the thirteenth floor, talking to someone in the Treasury Department.

Especially we saw him at the diners, eating his American food. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Jello. Chocolate cake. He did not eat this food at home, or seldom so. And besides, he wanted to fit into America. What better way to do so?

When he was at the diner, sometimes he sat at the counter, sometimes at the small rectangular tables in the middle of the diner. But especially he liked sitting at the booths along the edges. The tables at the booths were clean and shiny. Others might have laughed at them: “Formica,” they said. “Cheap. Ordinary.” But for Amreesh Mathur they were not that way at all. They were new, clean.

He liked sitting at the booths, the parking lot outside, all the cars that came and went. He saw the hills in the distance. The hills were brown, not green, perhaps from a lack of rain, perhaps from a lack of sun. But what did that matter? Sometimes, on a cool night, you could even see the moon in the distance. A full moon, a crescent moon, a sliver of a moon. And how soft the moon was. You cried and the moon cried with you. You were afraid and the moon comforted you.

“Chandar Mama,” they called the moon in India. Uncle Moon, but not just any uncle, but the maternal uncle, the mother’s brother. Just like the mother: soft, comforting.

*

Sometimes Amreesh Mathur went for a drive and saw the hills all around him. He had never seen hills before—at least not while driving. He went through a tunnel. He panicked: how long was the tunnel? Did it ever end?

He drove, he drove. At last he came to a place called Brentwood. There were other cars there, other people, and he felt reassured. He went inside and used the bathroom. He saw snack machines—machines with potato chips and peanuts and candy. This was the America he knew. Again he felt reassured.

One day one of his coworkers had a barbecue and he went to it. Another day someone had a party; he went to that. Burgers and coleslaw, Danish pastry and black coffee, he did not mind. He wanted to see America, you see, to understand it—to be a part of it.

Sometimes others laughed at him. Let them laugh. “He tries too hard,” they said. “He will never fit in.”

“But his intentions are good,” even they had to acknowledge. And was that so bad?

One day he went to the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. He went to the fireplace in the lobby and leaned against the mantelpiece. Something was missing: he put a pipe in the corner of his mouth. Then he crossed his legs and rested his elbow on the mantelpiece. Was this the right pose? The pose of the successful, the debonair, man?

Who was he now? Was he Cary Grant? Gregory Peck? They were the leading men of the world, the heroes. Perhaps he was just like them.

One day he walked around the city in his dark suit with a matching Borsalino hat. (He wore a Panama hat or a cotton cap in the summer, a wide-brimmed Borsalino in the winter.) He carried a long umbrella by his side. It was completely sunny outside, but leading men in the movies often carried long umbrellas with them. They used them for support—ah, the aura of it!—and tapped them lightly on the ground as they walked. Should he not do the same?

A few weeks passed. One day I sat with Amreesh Mathur in the company cafeteria. He was eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes. One day again I joined him for lunch. He was eating spaghetti and meat balls.

“A big change today,” I said.

He smiled at me.

One day again I sat with him. He was eating carrot cake. I greeted him. He ignored me—or at least he seemed to do so.

I called his name again. Still no answer.

A third time I called.

“A man is eating,” he said amiably. “A good meal, an important meal. Should he not be allowed to continue with this meal?”

One day he went to The Grog Shop and sat in the corner. A girl came, sat at the table beside him. One thing led to another, they began to talk. He said that he liked baseball; she said that she liked it as well. They spoke about their favorite players: Roberto Clemente (now dead), Willie Stargell. They spoke for some time. There was beer in front of them and they drank the beer. There were peanuts in front of them; they ate the peanuts.

When it was time to leave, they exchanged phone numbers and promised to meet again.

Amreesh Mathur waited four days, five—he did not want to seem too anxious. On the sixth day he called the girl’s number. A woman—middle-aged by her voice—picked up the phone.

“Is Darlene there?” he said.

“There is no Darlene here.”

He repeated the name.

“I told you there is no Darlene here.”

“Is this —–?” he said, beginning to recite the digits of the phone number.

The woman slammed the receiver on him.

Amreesh Mathur was a fighter (“resilient,” some said), he did not give up. Five days passed and again he called the number.

A woman picked up the phone.

“Is Darlene there?” he said.

“There is no Darlene here.”

The woman slammed the receiver on him.

This went on for some time. But Amreesh Mathur still did not give up. He called again. The same woman always picked up the phone. The same sequence was repeated.

One day Amreesh Mathur called and did not try to verify the phone number. Instead he began to tell his story. “I met this girl Darlene, you see. She was a nice and pretty girl. We met at The Grog Shop.”

“Grog Shop? You think I care about these things?”

“A fine girl, you see, a special girl. We talked about baseball. I like baseball; she likes baseball as well.”

The woman was not interested. But Amreesh Mathur went on and on. He spoke about the beer that they had drunk, the peanuts that they had eaten. He spoke about the baseball teams they had discussed: the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Cincinnati Reds. In the other league, the champions, the Oakland A’s. Perhaps the woman grew tired of him. Perhaps she took pity on him.

“There is a church in Squirrel Hill,” she said.

“A church?”

“There is a sermon on Sunday. I want you to come.”

A church? A sermon? What was all this strange talk? But Amreesh Mathur took a pencil and wrote down the information.

“A church is a good place,” said the woman. “Don’t knock it. I want you to come.”

That Sunday morning Amreesh Mathur rose early and brushed his teeth. He took a shower and combed his hair. And then he went.

He was not comfortable, not really. But he got in his car and he drove. It took him twenty minutes to get there, almost twenty-five.

What a strange place the church was. It was a spare church with no pictures or statues of Jesus Christ, just a small cross on the wall. There were well-dressed men and women, a few children. Amreesh Mathur lingered in the lobby outside, not sure what to do next. The woman—the middle-aged woman—was to meet him there. How old was she? What did she look like?

Amreesh Mathur paused, looking at the people around him. They were pretty people, handsome. His own suit jacket was too tight, just under the armpits, and he wanted to take it off. But this was a respectable place and how could he do that? His shoes, shiny and black, squeaked on the floor beneath him. They were the same shoes he wore to work but for some reason they seemed especially out of place here.

Amreesh Mathur had been born in India. How far away this India was. He had flown kites in India, he had walked barefoot on the ground in the hot June and July sun. Sometimes, in the heat, he had made moaning sounds, walking on his heels and not on his toes (it was a little less painful). But a man adjusts—he learns to do so. This was not India, this was America. This was ten thousand miles away. But if a man has adjusted once, can he not do it again?

A woman stood in the corner of the lobby, looking at him. She was a woman of medium height with pale skin and short blonde hair. She was wearing a black dress that came to an inch above her knees. Was this the mystery woman—the one with the middle-aged voice? The woman smiled briefly. Just a small smile, at the corner of her lips.

He returned the smile and the woman approached him.

The woman introduced herself and they talked briefly. They went inside and found some seats, some eight rows from the front and at the very end of the pew.

They listened to the sermon (it was about God’s mercy, His beneficence). They sat, unmoving. The sermon went on for fifty minutes, almost fifty-five. Amreesh Mathur began to fidget and then controlled himself.

At last the sermon was over. They rose and walked again towards the lobby. The woman left him and went to speak to a few people she recognized. She came back, left again. She came back a third time.

“Let us go,” she said.

“Go?”

“Let us go.”

This was the beginning, then, and why drag it out? Amreesh Mathur saw the woman many times. The other girl—the one he had met in The Grog Shop—must have written down the wrong phone number. On purpose or by accident, who can say. But that was in the past now (was it not?). Now there was not a girl but a woman in front of him. Her name was Gretchen Brewer. She worked as a senior secretary for a local bank. The new couple met at the church, they met at the bakery. They met at the diner on Maple Street.

One day, after eating at the diner, Amreesh Mathur and the woman went to her house. It was a nice house—not really hers but something she had inherited from her parents. He sat on the living room sofa (the one with the colorless plastic cover) and she came out a few minutes later in her bathing suit. “I need to catch some rays,” she said.

They went to the yard in the back with the two lawn chairs there. She looked comfortable and relaxed in her bathing suit. He was still in his black suit, the one with the tight jacket, and his squeaking shoes. The zipper to her bathing suit was stuck. She walked up towards him.

“Would you be a dear?” she said.

He stood behind her and tugged at the zipper. He looked at her pale back, dotted with brown freckles, looked away. Again he looked; again he looked away. At last he managed with the zipper.

“Thanks,” she said, and walked to one of the chairs.

The sun was now directly above them. Gretchen Brewer stretched herself out on the long folding lawn chair and put a brown bottle of tanning lotion on the green grass beside her. She took some of the lotion and poured it onto her pale hands. She rubbed her hands together and then rubbed them on her arms and legs. Then she turned over onto her stomach.

“Please,” she said.

Again Amreesh Mathur understood. He took his chair and carried it to the grass beside her. He sat there in his black suit and rubbed the lotion on her back. He saw her pale legs—he rubbed the lotion on the legs as well.

*

The weeks passed. Some people said that Amreesh Mathur was now happy. And was he? He still kept to his routine. He went to the diners and he had his usual meal: meatloaf and mashed potatoes. He had the same dessert: Jello, chocolate cake. Five days a week he still went to work. Two days a week he still went to his Accounting class. One day a week (on Friday night) he went to The Grog Shop. But he had a friend now, a “girlfriend.” And, no, things were not exactly the same.

Amreesh Mathur thought about his friend many times. She was not the usual kind of person, was she? She went to church regularly, yes. But she also liked sitting in the sun in her bathing suit. Was there an inconsistency between the two? Perhaps not. Amreesh Mathur was new to America, he was young. There were many things that he did not understand.

The couple saw each other at least once a week, sometimes twice. They went to dinner, they went to a movie. Once in a while, if the Pittsburgh Pirates were at home, they went to see them as well.

The Pirates played in a stadium near the three rivers. The team was good but not many people came to the stadium. The couple sat in the distant right field lower deck, stretching out their feet on the seats in front of them. A foul ball came: Amreesh Mathur went running after it. The hot dog vendor came: he bought hot dogs. The beer vendor came: “You drink the beer,” she said. (She was not like Darlene, was she?) “I’m just happy to sit here and catch some rays.”

The Cincinnati Reds were in town and all their famous players were there: Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez. Johnny Bench, George Foster. The Pirates were bound to lose—they often did to the Reds—but still it was nice to be in the stadium. Gretchen Brewer did not know much about the Pirates, but still she sat at the game. The green grass was there (artificial, but so what?); the blue sky was there. In the distance, over the wall in the outfield, there was even the river. Center field was enclosed and you could not see the river from your seat, but you could imagine it. And not just one river, but three rivers: the confluence of the rivers.

One afternoon the baseball game was over and the couple made their way home. They talked about stopping at a diner, but then they changed their minds. They talked about stopping at a bakery, but then they changed their minds. They talked about stopping at The Grog Shop but then they changed their minds about that as well. They went home to their respective places.

Some months passed. Sometimes the couple went to other baseball games, sometimes they went to the movies. Sometimes they went to church. After church Gretchen Brewer often told Amreesh Mathur about her life. She spoke about her childhood in Pittsburgh: the apartment houses and the schools “not far from here.” She spoke about her favorite bakeries: not just the one on Maple Street but others as well. She spoke about her friends who worked for travel agencies. They went on cruises or on vacations and “traveled all around the world.”

Mostly she spoke about Jesus Christ. She had “found” Christ, she said. Christ had “saved” her, she said. Amreesh Mathur did not understand her words. But she was twelve years older than him and she was much wiser. He listened to her words—with interest he listened.

*

More months passed. Amreesh Mathur went to his work every day. He worked for the Finance group at Westinghouse and the group was always busy. Trial balance, general ledgers, every so often the One-Year Profit Plan and the Five-Year Strategic Plan. Two nights a week, he went to his class in Intermediate Accounting—now not Part I but Part II. But whenever they could, the couple got together. They went to the movies, they went to the diners. There were lakes nearby. Sometimes they drove to these lakes and sat by the banks. There were hills and there were the Allegheny Mountains. Sometimes they drove to these and sat on the ground or on some rock.

Again Gretchen Brewer told Amreesh Mathur about Jesus Christ. Amreesh Mathur was a Hindu, not a Christian. But he listened to her words with interest. At home Amreesh Mathur even began to read the Bible himself—more and more he read it. He read the opening chapters of the Old Testament. He read almost all of the New Testament. He read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. He read the Epistle to the Hebrews and also the Epistle to the Corinthians. He was looking for something—what was it? Was it calm? Was it peace?

One day they were sitting on the sofa in her living room (the one with the colorless plastic cover) and Gretchen Brewer looked at him—very seriously she looked. Her voice dropped—it dropped almost to a whisper.

“Do you want to be saved?” she said.

“What is this?” he said.

“To become a Christian?”

Amreesh Mathur was not sure what Gretchen Brewer was saying, or why she was saying it.

“Give it a bit more time,” she said. “You’ll know when you are ready.”

You’ll know when you are ready.  Amreesh Mathur was silent—and at a loss. He said that he would give it some thought.

One day Amreesh Mathur was in his small apartment reading the Bible. He seemed to grow tired from reading the black book, and perhaps even restless. He rose from his desk and ventured into the city—the big city—outside. He wandered the streets aimlessly. Sometimes he drove in his 1970 Ford Maverick; sometimes he got out of the car and walked. On one of the streets some people came in their big yellow trucks and lay tar on top. The street turned black and there was this pungent smell. Amreesh Mathur stood there staring, lost in thought. At last the smell seemed to overcome him, even began to give him a headache. He rose from his stupor and he left.

One evening the couple went to a movie. After the movie, Amreesh Mathur left Gretchen Brewer at her house and made his way home. It was late at night but he did not want to go home—not yet. He went to McDonald’s, had a small meal. He was still restless. He went to Taco Bell, ordered a cup of coffee. He sat at the booth near the window, looking at the darkness outside (and also at his reflection in the window). Where did the darkness lead, what did it mean?

One day Amreesh Mathur went for a walk and saw black people lingering on the sidewalk. They all looked tall, menacing. He was afraid of these people and crossed the street. He came to a street called “Mill Street.” Perhaps steel mills used to be there in the old days; or perhaps the people who worked in the mills lived there. Small row houses stood on each side, a small pavement outside them and the road in between them narrow, no more than twelve feet wide. How cramped it all felt.

Some railroad tracks ran nearby and you could hear the train as it went past. The train was loud and sometimes it seemed to be right above you. When the train went by, the streets and the small houses shook. From a distance a train is a wonderful thing—the sound of the horn romantic and soothing. But close up a train can be different. Not at all the same.

*

Amreesh Mathur went to Westinghouse—he continued to go. Then he went to his class and often he went to the diners. But something was missing from his life. What was it? He would find this thing—one day he would.

One night Amreesh Mathur emerged from his Intermediate Accounting class. It was late at night and he saw an open diner. He was hungry and went inside. A teenage boy with pimples was there, a long mop in his hand and scrubbing the floor of one part of the restaurant with the mop. The boy looked sleepy and bored. A lone customer sat in a booth in the corner. The booth was like so many booths that Amreesh Mathur had seen before: white plastic benches with screwed-in Formica tables in front of them. The sight had pleased him so many times before. And now?

The other booths were empty but Amreesh Mathur went and sat at the counter. He ordered meatloaf and mashed potatoes, he ordered corn on the side. The waitress asked him if he wanted a drink.

“No,” he said. And then: “Jello for dessert.” And then: “Please, chocolate cake as well.”

A man does not want a drink—is that not his own business? He wants two desserts, not one. Is that not his own business as well?

Amreesh Mathur sat at the counter and saw the waitresses in their green uniforms, bustling about. He saw, through the open area, the kitchen in the back. He saw a short woman in the kitchen, with a net in her hair. He saw a tall man with a white cap on his head. He saw a tall black man standing near some dishwasher—the water steaming and the dishes rattling all around him.

Amreesh Mathur marveled at this scene all around him. All this busyness, all this excitement. The scene should have pleased him—it was not like the emptiness of the area where the boy was mopping the floor. But did it please him? Was it enough?

The next day Amreesh Mathur arrived at work in the early morning. He worked, he worked; his mind wandered. He worked, he worked; still his mind wandered.

The day passed slowly and at last it was time for him to leave. As he came to the thick glass door at the front, some of his coworkers stopped him. “Pittsburgh is a great place,” they said.

He did not disagree.

“It is our home,” they said.

He did not disagree.

“We have found happiness,” they said. “We have found it at last.”

Amreesh Mathur listened to the people—he listened in silence. Did he listen in awe as well?

In the distance the sun began to set behind the brown hills. The people walked through the turnstiles of Three Rivers Stadium. Other people—young, old—walked through the doors of The Grog Shop. Pittsburgh was a busy town, an important town. Was it Amreesh Mathur’s town as well? He had lived in Pittsburgh for two years now—almost three.

That Saturday morning Amreesh Mathur put on his Panama hat and he went to see Gretchen Brewer. She opened the door and let him in. They went to the back yard and she sat on the long folding chair, a brown bottle of tanning lotion on the green grass beside her. She took some of the lotion and poured it onto her pale hands. She rubbed the hands together and rubbed the lotion on her arms and legs. Then she turned over onto her stomach.

“Please,” she said.

Amreesh Mathur understood—of course he did. He took his chair and carried it to the grass beside her. He sat there in his black pants and his white shirt and he rubbed the lotion on her back. He saw her pale legs—he rubbed the lotion on the legs as well.

Five minutes passed, perhaps ten. “I am ready,” said Amreesh Mathur at last.

“Ready?”

“I am ready to be saved.”

They were strong words, of course they were, but Gretchen Brewer had been expecting them. The Indian was so much younger—a student of hers in a way, a protégé. She was quite pleased.

“You have reached the right decision,” she said.

He did not answer her.

“You will be happy,” she said.

He did not answer her.

“You will fit right in now,” she said.

Amreesh Mathur was silent. Ten seconds passed, almost twenty. And then softly, very softly (perhaps he did not want the world to hear): “Will I really fit right in now?” he said. “Will I really fit right in?”

*