Antiman

by Rajiv Mohabir

  “We will pay them,” Zane said, though he never gave them any money for all the shopping they did for him in India. I paid them back. Zane and I were not sharing accounts because as he said his “investment” was elsewhere—not in this relationship. He didn’t want to be put on the lease just in case his ex-wife could claim my income as her own.

  We spent that fall in a string of clubs—Zane drinking and screaming at me in the street, me drinking and crying, heaped in the corner. One night Zane left after screaming at me—a loud FUCK YOU in my face. I figured he went back to Elmont to fix up his house for his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. After nine days, Valentine’s Day came in like a lion. I never cared about Valentine’s Day, but Zane did. He wanted roses, gold, and expected sex.

  He called me to see what I had been doing. When I told him that I was writing poetry, furiously arranging my manuscript, he hung up on me. An hour later he texted, “I will pick you up for Valentine’s day.” I could feel my ears redden and my face flush.

  Zane picked me up in his 2001 Mazda. I watched the city fade into a cloudy background as he drove me back to Long Island. Rain formed bubbles on the window like some kind of disease whose scars linger. Hard water, I thought.

  Once in his house Zane sat down on his bed and pulled out a box.

  “What did you get me for Valentine’s?” he asked, his voice unnaturally shrill.

  “Zane,” I said, “you’re lucky I’m even here after the way you left.”

  “This whole time you’ve had to yourself you didn’t buy me a gift?”

  “You know the kinds of gifts I give are not for things like Valentine’s. You left so quickly and so angrily that I didn’t feel generous. I don’t feel like I need to buy you anything on command. You have been a total ass to me, why would I spend my time buying things for you with money I don’t even have?”

  Zane was stunned. “You’ve been writing this whole time?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I’d been glad to have time to myself. I could write. I could revise. I could read. No one was yelling at me to do this or to stop talking on the phone.

  Zane bared his teeth and spat, “I guess it’s over,” and threw down the box. Inside was a gold ring that looked like a Guyanese bangle. “I’m going to pick up my things when I drive you home.”

  The car ride was quick. Zane sped his way down the Long Island Expressway despite the rain. We rode the elevator silently. Inside, the prewar elevator looked as if it was lined in tinfoil. I could feel Zane’s anger like heat. Zane stormed into the apartment and shoved his clothes into trash bags. Saris, lehengas, dresses, mirrored skirts, khakis, jeans, T-shirts, shoes all in one junk pile.

  “Don’t forget your jewelry,” I said, pointing to the bedside table. Over a year and eight months I’d spent over a grand in costume jewelry for Zane.

  Zane slammed his bag to the ground. “You only think of yourself,” he screamed as he grabbed the bangle rack that held the rainbow churiyaan. “Go to fucking hell,” he yelled as he threw twenty-five pounds of blown glass bangles at my head. I ducked and it smashed against the wall. There was a rainbow rain. Glass shards everywhere. On the bedclothes. On the couch. On the bedside table. On and inside the open drawers of the dresser. In my eyebrows.

  He stormed out with two bags of his clothes and didn’t turn back. I followed him to bolt the door behind him. My feet bled from the glass shards.

  The door slammed and finally there was peace.

  I had to make up with the people I’d dropped. First would be Sef, then Zeke, then Jegga.

  Sef picked up the phone and replied with short, huffy thunder. “What do you want?” he rolled.

  “Sef, what I did was cruel, and I’m sorry,” I groveled, swallowing my own hurt. I did not want to be alone. He was silent for a minute. He came over that night.

  “No, this is for you,” he said when I reached for him. I laid back thinking of all the things that I wanted to say to Sef. When we finished, he said, “It’s good to see you. I’ve missed you. But I’m not sure this can continue.”

  He insisted the television remain on, playing Sangam in the background. Gopal shoots himself to prove his love and loyalty to both Radha and Sundar. I wanted to change the ending. I wanted them to all live together and fuck and love, all three of them happy and complicated with indistinguishable waters. I wanted to take back refusing to answer Sef’s calls. I wanted Pakistan and India and Bangladesh and Nepal and China to erase their borders. I wanted to be a river with him so swollen and tangled that the thought of us as separate would be mythological.

  Sef kissed me. His plump lower lip tasted like sweat and chocolate. He put on his shirt and walked out my door. I never heard from him again. Was he only dating women now, or did he find another man to sing Bollywood songs to? I tried contacting him, writing him poetry—a love letter that I never signed, pieced together from Gopal’s letter to Radha.

  If you read this, don’t get angry

  that I’ve understood myself to be Ganga

  and you Jamuna. I once thought

  us close as this. One day

  we will see this and laugh.

  And silence—

  Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Ave/74th St (Transfer Here for the F, M, R, 7)

  Zane came inside that first night we met. Webster Hall pulsated until four in the morning.

  We kissed and something grew inside of me. I had been waiting for a moment like this—I was young, brown, and queer in New York City, ready for a first, real boyfriend, ready for something that would last. I swore that I would never date another white man, and here was this Guyanese guy from a town just outside of where my mother’s family was from. Our ancestors may have even been contracted and bound to the same sugar plantation of Lusignan.

  My phone rang. I looked down and silenced it. It was Sef. I could call him back later.

  “Bai, you does like fe tek plenty man,” he said playfully.

  “Me one real antiman,” I joked.

  “I am so glad I found you,” someone says—it could have been either of us. For this moment, in the beginning, everything was perfect.

  Ganga and the Snake: A Fauxtale

  Ganga aur Saamp

  agar raga punnagavarali raat ke samay accha se gawe ho ta ii gaana naag ke bulawai jai. uu tohar sange naache khatir aaibe. uuhi dudhwa je tu chardhawe uu saamp piye khatir aaibe. saamp jekar aakhiya malin hoyke chamrdi nikale samay ke kabhi nahin maare. ham puraan bhasa ke kenchul ke chamakaaye baki ham ii bhasa na bol sake hai. lagela ke ham dur se aaili.

  The raga Punnagavarali, if performed correctly at dusk, draws out snakes. Hey will come and dance with you. Hey come to drink the milk you offer them. You must never kill a snake whose eyes grow milky before shedding scales. I polish the scales of the erased Tamil, the oldest language in the world that’s still spoken, native to my mouth country but a visitor from diaspora.

  tambe se lotwa ban jaila. lotwa kasti ba. kasti ke matlab jahaaj bhi hai. ganga khet mein janam le leis, muluk chhorde samay chinidad jaye khatir uu betiya indrani aur seegopal ke nahin bhail. chinidad mein bahut ganna rahe. jab ganga ke chaar saal ke rahe uukar patiya-bibah bhail.

  The lota of copper sheets pound into a vessel. A vessel is a jug. A vessel is also a ship. Ganga, a plantation baby, was not yet born to Indrani and Seegopal when they left India for Chinidad. It get plenty cane in Chinidad. As a patiya, Ganga married when she was four.

  jab terah saal bhail ganga sasural chalal gayal. ganga ke mai ke ordhniya bidesiya geet se bhig gayal. uu tambe ke lota aapan kamar par rakhke chale lagal. okar payaliya ke jhankar sunyai del, ekgo tara jaise chamakela. nathiya, mangal sutra, gale haar, aur kangan—uukar var ke pahiya—jangal mein jaila raga punnagawarali bajawat. nadiya kinare jaye paani laaye khatir ekgo tarah ke sangeet ba.

  At thirteen she lives with her groom’s parents, her mother’s ordhni wet with bidesiya songs. She grabs the copper pot with a pinched neck and bares it away on her hip. Her anklets tinkling the way a star would sound, no
se ring, mangalsutra, necklaces, and bangles—the reigns of her husband—playing raga Punnagavarali as she disappears into the forest line. When she walks to bring water from the river, it is a type of music.

  gulbul gulbul, paani lotwa mein bharat bole. raja dasrath ke smaran karela—uu jab sarawan paani piyat piyat ke baan se marela. kitne nariya nadi ke kinare se gayab bhaila? jab uu kinare paar kharde hoi gagariya uthaike, aapan ordhniya paani mein girela. nadiya ke darpan mein ganga aapan muh ke dekhila aur aapan chunariya naagin ke sir jaise phailela. manasa devi ke jaise. aapan tambe ke lota paani se bharal.

  Gulbul gulbul de guglet deh in de wata. She thinks of Raja Dasarath shooting the innocent Srawan as the river water rushes to fill the cavern in lumping bubbles. How many women have gone missing from this very bank, their ghaghriya hiked to their thighs, their orhnis falling into the water? Ganga looks at her face in the river and holds out her veil like a cobra. Like Manasa Devi, the snake goddess. Her copper lota is filled with water.

  nariyal ke perd ke niche, nadi ke kinare par, khardela ganga.

  In the coconut grove by the beach Ganga stands on the sand in wait.

  ragwa bhi kasti ba. nila saamp lotela bhura nadiya ke chamariya ke niche. jab bulawe ta khoon aaila. ii badan ke andar ekgo nadi ke tarah jaal hai je saamp ke tan se banayal ba. chinidad mein nadiya samundar tak jaila. muluk mein ganga samundar jaila. chinidad mein samundar ke kinare ke ganga ghat bulawe hai.

  The vein, too, is a vessel. An indigo serpent under the river of brown skin. When invoked, the blood rises. The body is a lattice of rivers snaking under the skin. In Chinidad the rivers flow to the sea. In India the Ganga is a seabound river. In Chinidad all the sea is the Ganga.

  aapan sir par ganga paani se bharal lota rakhela aur maurela hiya se chute khatir. sanjh bhail aur okar jehewar ke sona-chandi sangeet suru lagela dubara. uu gaana gaaila. nadiya aapan sir uthaiyela aur ruh ba ruh ganga ke dekhila. nadiya ke aakhiya kanga daant jaise hai aur uu nadiya aapan jubaan ke ghumayela, jaise kahin se adi taal bajayal jaila. ganga saamp ke dekhila. uu nariyal ke perdwa ke barabar lamba ba lekin okar wajan tani kam. ganga aapan lota jamin par rakhela aur saamp ke sange jhum uthela.

  As Ganga places the lota of water on her head she turns to leave. It’s dusk and her music of gold and silver begins again. She sings. The river raises its head and faces her as a large snake with its eyes like fangs and its tongue lolling and twisting to the beat of the raga. Ganga sees this snake. He is as large as a coconut tree and is light as a puffed puri. She puts down her burden of copper and water and sways with the serpent.

  ganga ke kenchul nilam mani jaise chandani mein chamkela. roshan ke jhalak ke jhalak.

  Her scales all sapphires and emeralds in the moonlight. A reflection of a reflection of light.

  saamp aapan muh kholela aur sab daant dikhayi deila je chawar jaise masurde se ughela. ganga aapan jok chordke saamp-nadiya ke kholal muh mein chalela. phir oije and-herwa. phir oije naksatrwa. phir oije akaas ganga.

  The serpent opens his mouth to reveal his rows of teeth erupting from pink gums like monoliths of rice. She leaves her yoke and walks into the river-snake’s widened jaws. Then dark. Then constellations.

  simone aapan khisa pura karela: chinidad chute se pahile britis wale sipahiya red river mein ekgo barka saamp payal. uu saamp ekgo narke aadhi raat jab pesaab karat kate ke kosis karis. jab sipahiya uu saamp ke maarke aur okar pet khol del, uu pachaas kilo sona aur chandi ke jehewariya payal: payaliya, kanganwa, nathiya, mangalsutra, aur jhumke.

  Before de English lef’ Chinidad, some soldier find an ole ole anaconda in the Red River. It attack one man who get up middle-night to piss into the stream whe’ they camped. When dey tore into the body of the great snake dey find fifty kilo gold and silver anklets, bangles, nose rings, mangalsutras, and earrings.

  … pajire se kara kara bhaile dupahariya

  kholo bahini baja rakhe ho

  tohare bhaujiya toke pahur petaile ho

  kholo bahini baja rakhe ho

  kaise ke kholo bhaiya baja rakhewariya ho

  bhaujiya hamar orahan petai ho

  pajire se kara kara bhaile dupahariya

  kholo bahini baja rakhe ho

  ultan sultan howe dono bhai ho

  ultan sultan tare ho

  Da bright bright mahning a-tun black black night,

  sistah, keep a-doh hopem.

  A-you sistah-in-law send chowr an’ daal,

  hopem a-door na sistah.

  Me na go hopem a-doh,

  me sistah-in-law go send complaint.

  Sa bright bright mahning a-tun black black night,

  sistah, keep a-doh hopem.

  A buddy-sistah been de,

  dem been nast like a-star.

  … Early morning, midday, the sky blackens.

  Open the door, sister.

  Your sister-in-law has sent rice and daal.

  Open the door, sister.

  How can I open wide the door, brother,

  my sister-in-law will send a complaint.

  Early morning, midday, the sky blackens.

  Open the door, sister.

  A brother and sister’s bond is backward,

  even the stars are broken.

  Aji Recording: Asirbaad, Blessing

  ja dhire se beta

  toke bhagwaan bhaalaa kare

  jo chahat hai

  aapan kaam sikhke

  lauteke aaja baap ke gaud mein

  bait phir se

  mata pita ke gaud mein

  Go good

  an’ may god bless you

  da wha’sorevah you wan’

  learn you wuk done

  you go back to you papa home

  you go go back again

  to you faddah an’ you muddah

  Go, son,

  and may God put you right

  that what you want

  after learning your work

  you return to your parents’ lap

  to sit once more

  at the feet of your mother and father

  The King and the Koyal: A Fauxtale

  Raja aur Kokila

  bahut pahile ke baat hai. ekgo raja rahe aur ratiya mein oke nindiya nahin awat rahe. raja ke kamra ke baahar ekgo perd rahe. perdwa ke sakha par baitke ekgo kokila raat bhar aapan gaana gawe rahe.

  A long time ago a king was unable to sleep at night. Outside the royal window a koyal bird sat on a tree branch and serenaded the king throughout the night with its song.

  bechara raja—okar jiw jard gayal etna ki raat mein oke kuchu bhi saanti na pa sakal aur uu kokila ke awaaj nahin sahen sakal. uuhi raat se dare lagal. raja ke ghabaraahat ke baujud, rani aaraam se letke jaldi so pard rahe aur ii baat se raja khisiyaial bhail.

  The poor king—he was so disturbed by having no peace at night that he could no longer bear the koyal’s song. From that night he began to fear. Despite the king’s distress the queen was able to fall asleep quickly having lain down, and of this the king was jealous.

  sochal raja, “ham hai raja, sab chijwa jaun ham khoje hai hamke milejai, ii hamaar hak hai. aur ii rani le—uu aapan samne letke so gayal, dust nariya. uu hirwa jaun ham khoje haath mein nahin awe hai.”

  The king thought, I am the king, I get every single thing that I want, by right. And this queen—this evil woman sleeps so peacefully in front of me. The very diamond I desire is beyond my reach.

  phir koyal ke ratiya ke gaana shuru lagal. uu gawat rahe ke asmanwa mein urdat urdat kitne ajaadi aaye ki bata na sake hai. Time se bhi uu alag bhail.

  ke har raat aasmaan samundar ban jaila aur okar pankha nauwa ke lakrdi ban jaila, aur na jane aadhi raat ke laher par baitke kaha tak le pahuchawela.

  Again the koyal began to voice its night song. It sang that aloft in the air it was so free, untethered to time.

  That every night the sky becomes an ocean and his feathers become the boards that make a boat, and having set course on the midnight waves, there was no telling just where it would sail.

  ke ajaadi kitne mitta hai ki
ekgo bar chatke rajkumar aur kisaan sab jingi bhar okar khoj mein aapan sari jiw gawa deila.

  lekin raja koi kokila ke boli ke samajh mein nahin aail. uu khisiyaial hoike baja tak bhagat khol del aur dhyan se sunal baki baja ke khole par kokila ke gaana gaayab bhail.

  raja aapan beswa tordke ii kasam khayal ke, “ekgo din uu julum rakshas-sa kokila ke rahuwa ham pi jaib!”

  That the freedom was so sweet. That having tasted it once, princes and peasants alike waste their whole lives searching for it.

  But the king didn’t understand the ramblings of a koyal bird. Vexed, he ran to the door and threw it open, yet as soon as he opened it the song disappeared.

  The king tore his raiment and swore, “One day I will drink this demonic koyal’s blood!”

  raja bolal:

  uu jaun ii dust kokilwa ke mar dalke hamke dew, uuhike hamaar sare dhanwa mil jai.

  The king spoke:

  “Whoever kills this evil koyal and presents it to my court will receive the entirety of my wealth.”

  dhanurdari aapan cutlish taja karela. uu ganna ke katat katat jab uu rajah ke baat sunal. uu kosis ta karihai baki ii ke matlab hai ke agle janam aacha na hoi.

  okar khet, bacche, stri, mai-baap, bhai-bahin sab gayab hoijai.

  ii kare ke baad ghare nahin laut sakihai.

  uu aapan palwar ke sab naam ke yaad hirday mein rakhal ki naua bacche agar paida hoi ta oisan palwar ke nam debe bacche ke.