Read Online Thirst by Ilia Bera - Free Book Online Page B

go—but he felt it was the right choice for his son, and the future of his family. He was leaving under the impression that he was going to a beautiful new building in a beautiful new city. Andrew’s father showed Vish pictures of Snowbrooke in the summertime—a season that was shorter than a month. He showed Vish pictures of the building’s original listing—from 1972. Vish did not realize that he was agreeing to that property, plus forty years of neglect and decay.
     
    So naturally, after their first Snowbrooke winter, with broken windows, faulty plumbing, mould-covered walls, and a sporadic heating system, Vish and Tarun were resentful. They had been swindled. They gave up their priceless family history and their beautiful hotel for a rotting shack that was not worth a dime.
     
    Tarun could forgive ignorance, but he could not forgive narcissism. As far as he was concerned, Andrew belonged to a family of sociopaths—the kind of people who tore down communities to build shopping centers—the kind of people who set up factories in third world countries to take advantage of legalized slavery—the kind of people who silently bombed small villages in Africa and swept the evidence under the rug, because it made a good place to set up diamond mines. 
     
    “What?” Andrew asked.
     
    “You’re just standing there. You should keep moving, or your joints will freeze.”
     
    “Right,” Andrew said.
     
    “You know—In the two years I’ve lived here, I’ve never really walked around this campus before. Hopefully I’ll get to come here one day,” Tarun said, looking around the dark, snowy campus.
     
    “Hopefully,” Andrew said.
     
    “I hear the physics program isn’t half bad, either.”
     
    “I wouldn’t know,” Andrew said.
     
    “It’s not the best in the country or anything, but they’ve had a number of successful students.”
     
    “Okay. I should be getting home,” Andrew said, turning away from Tarun.
     
    “How’s our hotel?” Tarun asked, walking over to Andrew.
     
    Andrew stopped and turned around. “What hotel?”
     
    Tarun laughed. “What do you mean, what hotel? You know what hotel.”
     
    “Sorry—It’s just that you said it was your hotel, but it’s not your hotel. You sold it.”
     
    “We didn’t sell it—we traded it.”
     
    “In that case, how’s our citizenship?”
     
    Tarun looked unimpressed.
     
    “What did I do to you?” Andrew asked.
     
    “Your family cheated my me... My father—my family.”
     
    “Look—I’m sorry that you don’t like the home that my dad gave to you. But I had nothing to do with it then, and I have nothing to do with it now. I haven’t been back to your hotel since the last time you were there.”
     
    “Home? You call it a home? It’s four walls and a leaking roof. That’s no home. What your family took from us was a home.”
     
    “Okay—Fine. You know what? I agree with you. I agree that my father is a slimy businessman. I agree that the hotel in India was beautiful, and that your place now is a dump. When my dad told you about the place, I would have said something if I knew it was a crap shack. But I didn’t know—It’s not like I was in on it.”
     
    “But you know now, and you don’t even pretend to care.”
     
    “Because there’s nothing I can do! I’ve told my dad about it—he doesn’t care. I’m sorry. On behalf of my family, I am sorry.”
     
    “You can’t apologize on behalf of someone who isn’t sorry.”
     
    “Okay then—I’m sorry on behalf of the fact I can’t do anything to help you.”
     
    Tarun stared at Andrew. He knew that Andrew was telling the truth. He knew that he did not really have any reason to be angry with him. However, he could not help himself knowing that Andrew was about to go home to his beautiful house, with his platinum credit card, his stocked refrigerator, and his state of the art heating system.
     
    Tarun took a breath, composing himself. “Well—How is