by Mahesh Rao
She rode through the village, left the bike leaning against a tree, and walked through the cemetery. It was empty. Wilted marigolds lay near some of the graves; an ancient hearse stood under a portico, its iron wheels stippled with rust. There was no sign of Kamya, no indication that any secret rendezvous had taken place. She looked at some of the names on the tombstones: Eleutheiro Saldanha, Teodoline da Gama, Petornila Lobo. This was not a place that seemed to have any connection with the present.
She walked toward the church, its white façade shimmering in the heat. It had been a mistake to venture out at this time. The expanse of red earth in front of the church was baked hard; there wasn’t a sliver of shade. Her sundress clung to her thighs. Two dogs lay, as though in complete surrender to the heat, not caring if they were charred into brittle remains.
In a corner, the statue of Saint Cajetan roasted on a plinth. On a previous visit, Dev had pointed out a man crouched at its foot, frantically kissing each card in a pack and laying them on the ground.
“Saint Cajetan is the patron saint of gamblers,” Dev had told her.
The man had replaced the cards reverentially in their pack and then prostrated himself at the base of the plinth. Saint Cajetan stared at the rocky hill in the distance, his loose fist raised in wonder.
Today, there were neither gamblers nor lovers. The sun was at its zenith over the barren patch of land. The whole scene felt like madness, sin, despair. The figure of the saint continued to stare at the rocky hill in the distance, his loose fist still raised in wonder.
She cycled back to the villa, her head pounding, sweat stinging her eyes. The cool of the house sent a light shiver over her body. Sitting on the verandah, Kamya was dressed in one of her fancier printed outfits, picking at her toes.
“Oh, hello,” said Ania, “were you out somewhere?”
“Me? No. Was just doing a few laps and then had a shower.”
Ania went into the bathroom and splashed cool water over her face and arms. She sat on the edge of the bath without drying herself, letting the water drip onto her dress and the floor. As she stood to leave, she noticed Kamya’s bikini hanging on a rail. She knew she was acting like a fool but it still gave her a dart of pleasure, the comfort of vindication, to touch the bikini and find that it was bone dry.
* * *
—
THAT EVENING FLAVIA came to Ania’s rescue again. As a local dignitary, she had been asked to judge the dance competition at the boys’ seminary in the village, and she had accepted with great enthusiasm. Ania was delighted to be able to accompany her, especially once Kamya refused, saying that she had plans.
“Flavia, I feel I shouldn’t ask, but are you a good dancer?” asked Ania.
“Please,” said Flavia, stretching her leg and rotating her foot, “just look at that line. Also, I couldn’t possibly say no. Father Brian regularly sends me pumpkins from their vegetable patch.”
In front of the seminary, the statue of the Virgin was bathed in a clear blue light. With great ceremony, Father Brian showed them through a series of dimly lit passages to the central courtyard, where a judging table and rows of seats had been arranged opposite a dais. The vines on the walls gleamed under the full moon, and clumps of crossandra flamed around the edge of the archways. All around the building were boys and young men in shorts and T-shirts, cricket jerseys and hoodies, standing under archways, taking their places on the courtyard seats, fiddling with a laptop and speakers near the dais.
Father Brian was the first to speak but certainly not the last. The speeches and felicitations unspooled under the blue gaze of the Virgin. The young men listened with their heads bowed, as though they were in church. A row of trophies for the winners in each category stood on the judge’s table, to be supplemented by generous checks from Flavia. Eventually, piercing shrieks of feedback from the mic forced the last priest to cut his speech short, and the competition began.
A sharp charge shot through the dancers lined up next to the dais. The audience felt it too: a reprieve, an unfastening as bodies stepped onstage. And the boys took a deep breath, one after the other, as they stepped into their performance: a salsa-inflected hustle, full of sass and brio; popping and locking through the whumps and glitches of a hip-hop track; a pelvic-thrusting number to a Hindi film song that dripped with innuendo; a jive that snapped and clicked and seemed to make the courtyard whirl; flips, jumps, and splits; the yearning sequences of a mujra; an undulating belly dance that ended in a heroic backbend.
Ania leaned across to Flavia and said: “It’s like this is their real religion.”
“Divinity does something to people’s bodies. Music, singing, warm blood, and God,” said Flavia.
At the end of the competition, Flavia jammed her reading glasses farther up her nose and diligently revisited the notes she had scribbled down. Ania walked around the courtyard, pretending not to notice the stares from the young men. She sat down on a stone ledge next to a boy who gave her a broad smile. He said his name was Moses, and he had been at the seminary for four years.
“Don’t you miss your family or your other friends when you’re here?” asked Ania.
“I do, ma’am, especially at night. We have entertainment like this but not very often. Usually it’s prayers in the chapel, then dinner, and then an hour’s study time. But after that, it’s very quiet. For me.”
He paused and glanced up at the sky, streaked now with midnight blue.
He spoke in a lower tone. “When we are all supposed to be in bed I come back to the corridor that leads to the dining room. Did you go there? Did you see the portrait of Christ there?”
Ania shook her head.
“I stand in front of the portrait and look. Every night. His face looks a little different. The eyes and the forehead. And the smile. It’s amazing. But I promise you there is a small change every night. Then I come here into the courtyard and sit under that guava tree. The lights all go out, but there is one light that stays on up there, on the third floor. The small window at the end. I have tried to go into the room, but when I’m inside I can’t find any small room with a window on that part of the floor. It’s strange. So I just stay here and watch the light in the room. And when I can barely keep my eyes open, I quietly go back to bed.”
He stopped speaking and looked at her, as though wanting to make sure she had understood.
She had.
“I think I’d come and sit here under the tree too,” she said.
Ania shook his hand and returned to the judge’s table. As she sat down she glanced back: he was still sitting on the ledge, looking up at the window on the third floor.
The prize announcements were made to a barrage of cheers and hoots, and the music started up again, boys rushing to the floor, returning to their earlier swing and swagger. Flavia shouted encouragement as she walked around the courtyard, a little shake of her hip, a fluttering of her hands. Father Brian leaned against a pillar, his eyes closed, a smile forming on his tired face.
Soon it was the last song of the evening, a slow Brazilian number, the man’s voice trembling with a fragile beauty, gliding above the backing sounds of the orchestra, seeming to hesitate before disappearing through the archways and down the passages of the seminary. The young men paired off and danced with a complete lack of self-consciousness; in a few minutes it would all be over, their bodies seemed to say; where was the time to be bashful? They were too shy to ask Flavia and Ania to dance, so the two danced with each other, Ania towering above Flavia by a few inches, Flavia fluttering her eyelashes.
When Flavia dropped her off at the villa, Ania saw that Dev had finally arrived.
“You took your bloody time,” said Ania as they hugged.
“Please don’t say anything now,” he murmured into her ear.
Kamya had returned too, and for the first time seemed ill at ease and irritable. She monopolized Dev for a while, asking
him for insider updates about media interest in the story. When he had little to provide, she completely ignored him. She said she was going to bed and then rejoined them ten minutes later. She slapped at her arms, complaining about the mosquitoes.
“I still can’t believe Flavia’s idea of entertainment was to take you to a dance at a seminary. What did you do there? Try to make them break their vows?” asked Dev.
“Was that a dig at me?” asked Kamya. “The slutty seductress in town? I told you I wasn’t there.”
“I’m sorry; no, it was a joke,” said Dev, his face creasing in confusion.
“A joke. I see. Of course it was,” she said.
She went back into the house.
The kitchen lights were on, and they watched her move past the windows, linger at the table for a few seconds, her head lowered, and then disappear out of view.
“It was honestly only a joke,” he said.
“She’s just unbelievable. She’s in your house. Ignore her, she’s been really strange all day. Being snappy with me and Flavia, rushing out of the room to take calls. And then apparently she was with some guy at the cemetery.”
“What guy?”
“I don’t know. Even if there was nothing with that film director, there’s definitely some kind of strange drama going on. She’s been acting like a cat that got caught in the rain.”
A warm breeze brought a waft from the night-blooming jasmine. Ania had found the same Brazilian song on the laptop at the house, and the voice of the singer from Bahia joined them for a reprise.
“The party with the young priests was wonderful. I wish you’d been able to see it.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No, you idiot.”
“What was so wonderful?”
“They had such absolute faith in their calling, even though they’re so young. And when it came to letting loose for an evening, they had absolute faith in that too. It made me want to believe.”
“In God?”
“In something. It’s the way they all just let themselves go as they danced, like nothing else mattered. Dev, this music, it’s just too beautiful. Come on, we’re going to dance too.”
“No way. You know how terrible I am.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll lead.”
She put her arms around him, and they faltered around the lounger and onto the path that led to the house. He clasped her arms and then her shoulders and then her arms again.
“You see?” he said.
“Shut up and keep going.”
Ribbons of light wavered across the pool. There was a glow on the white bougainvillea that foamed over the wall and the pale paving stones that led to the house. She felt a safety in his presence, that under the leaves and vines, they would find a soft trail along which to move, with a grace that they would eventually earn.
Debris was already strewn around their feet: the bunch of carnations that Father Brian had given Ania, a pack of cigarettes and a brass lighter, a glass tumbler with a fingerbreadth of melted ice, her wrap that lay on the grass like gossamer. By the time they woke the next morning, someone would have restored this world to order.
The music died down as the singer held a long note, and then it swelled again to meet his words of loneliness and yearning, which sounded so much more luxuriant and meaningful in Portuguese. Foliage moved above their heads, and there was a tiny shift in the shadows. They shuffled around on the grass for the rest of the song, Dev’s hands finally resting on her hips, until the voice and the strings faded into nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
NIKHIL HAD LEFT the door open and Nina lay in bed, listening to the water beat down in the shower. Her neck and cheeks still felt raw and flushed, and she ran her hand over the place that he had vacated. When he turned the water off, she settled herself once again on her side of the bed. On her bedside table, along with the rings she had taken off, his watch glinted. He walked back into her bedroom naked, toweling his hair, clouds of steam drifting in behind him.
It was always a wonder to observe—that supreme lack of self-consciousness. She would not have said she was particularly self-conscious either. In her best days she had walked topless along the beach at Juan-les-Pins, with only a thin gold chain resting on her collarbones. But Nikhil’s confidence was of an entirely different constitution. He flung his towel over a chair and, still naked, picked up his phone to scroll through his messages. He grinned and began to tap away, consumed by the cleverness of his response. And then, as if suddenly realizing where he was, he smiled at her and tossed the phone onto the bed. He walked to the window and then back toward the bathroom.
“What did we do with my underwear?” he asked.
He looked around the room as though, having conquered a dominion, he was now seeking the best spot to plant a flag.
He had leaped out of bed and into the shower moments after they had finished, saying he was late for an appointment. The thought struck her that he had felt a sudden revulsion. What was it that he had seen? Or smelled? The stale perspiration of someone trying to cling to their best days; the fusty smell of a dry scalp; the odor of some sour secretion that had leaked out of her body? She pulled the duvet up a little higher.
He was framed perfectly in the dressing table mirror, and she watched him as though a film was about to unfold, the mirror a distancing medium that permitted her intent contemplation. He pulled his boxer shorts up, snapped the waistband, and absently ran his hand over his crotch. He disappeared for a moment as he retrieved his trousers from a chair. There was a quick swish as he stepped into the chinos; he had to jiggle the slider until it moved to the top of the zipper; his tongue pressed against his lower lip as he pushed the prong through the belt notch. With a swift movement he scooped his T-shirt off the floor and shook out the creases. As he pulled it over his head, it began to fill out, the sleeves settling over his biceps, the thin fabric stretching over his chest. He leaned into the mirror and brushed his hair with his fingers, still oblivious of her gaze, eyes locked onto his own.
“Socks, socks,” he muttered, looking under the chair, the desk, the dressing table.
“On this side,” she said.
He scooted around and picked them up. Perching on the edge of the bed, he dusted off the soles of his feet with a balled-up sock and then pulled them both on. He headed to the mirror again and gave his hair one last caress. This time he caught her eye in the reflection and smiled.
“Sorry, it’s not something I can get out of,” he said.
“I love the way you imagine that I have nothing else to do but lie here luxuriating in the sheets,” she said, “with or without you.”
He let out a guffaw.
“This is what I love about you,” he said. “The way you always cut to the chase.”
He tied the laces on his sneakers, patted his pockets, and grabbed his phone.
“Away for the weekend,” he said, planting a kiss on her shoulder. “See you next week?”
“If you’re lucky,” she said.
She waited for him to leave the flat and then turned to look at the watch that still lay on her bedside table. It wasn’t her responsibility to remind him to take all his belongings. After all, she wasn’t his mother.
* * *
—
“I HATE MY name,” Dimple said to Ania.
“Everyone hates their name. It’s like listening to your own voice in an interview and cringing. But things could be so much worse. My poor dental hygienist in New York is called Veraminta. Just imagine. Are you quite satisfied with your name, Dev?”
Dev shrugged and stirred his coffee at the patio table.
“You’re in a mood,” she said. “Don’t worry, Nikhil’s leaving in a few days, and then you won’t have to run into him here.”
“Who said anything about him?”
“It’s bloo
dy obvious. So tell me again, why is it that you find him so unbearable?”
“He’s a fraud, totally bogus. And what’s he still doing here?”
“That’s so not specific. And he’s not been here that long. Four months, it’s a sabbatical or something.”
“Yes, a sabbatical, of course it is. Have you ever tried talking to him about anything serious? About politics, for example?”
“But I don’t talk about politics with anyone. Why would I talk about it with him?”
“I’m sure we’ve talked about politics.”
“Probably very much against my will.”
“Anyway, the point is he displays every ghastly diasporic trait. He thinks he knows India better than any of us. There are endless moronic facts he has learned about the mother country in New Jersey or wherever, and he tries to explain them to me.”
“India-splaining,” said Dimple, looking pleased with her contribution.
“It’s New Hampshire, actually. Look, I’m sorry, I’m not going to agree with you just because you want me to. I’ve never seen that side of him. I’ve come to know him pretty well, and you have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Ania.
Dimple made her excuses, saying she had a meeting, and slipped away.
“You made her feel very uncomfortable with your judgmental haranguing. That’s why she left,” said Ania.
“I made her feel uncomfortable? It’s not me that’s using her for my own purposes, adopting her for some kind of mission civilisatrice.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Look it up.”
“Of course I know what it means. But how dare you imply that I’m trying to civilize her. That’s completely offensive. You are such a pompous, patronizing, unbearable goat.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Oh my God, did you just say ‘takes one to know one’?”
“Well. You’re the one being offensive, trying to stage-manage her life just so that she can fit in with your awful friends.”
