Polar Vortex

by Shani Mootoo

  There was a slight tremor in his voice as he said, “You know, the plane we got on was totally packed. Not a seat was empty. Men, women, children. Babies, old people. I can see their faces. If I saw any of them today I would recognize them, as aged as they would be. As the plane filled up with passengers, no one uttered a single word. There was only the sound of people’s clothing brushing against the seats in the aisles, filing into their seats, the clicks of seat belts. You know, it was quiet, it was a kind of silence, yet I still hear it, very clearly. We imagined that at any minute soldiers could enter the cabin and remove any number of us off the flight. My father, for one. It seemed to take forever for us to leave the ground. When the plane finally lifted into the air, still no one spoke. For an entire hour no one seemed to breathe. All you heard was the hum and drone of the plane’s engines and of the air-conditioning system inside. Then the public address system crackled and the pilot’s voice, faint but clear, announced that we had just crossed the Ugandan border and were now in Sudanese airspace. It took us a few seconds to believe what he’d said, and suddenly a loud cheer erupted. People burst into tears and began finally to speak, everyone, all at once. So yes, I was frightened, but I didn’t know it until that moment, until we were properly out of Uganda.”

  Some kind of response was needed to break the silence in the kitchen that followed. But what does one say to a man like him? Well, I’m glad you made it out? So sorry you experienced this? Wow, were you ever brave?

  I hesitantly offered, “At university I knew an Asian man from Uganda. He’d come as a refugee, too. His name was Karim. He was on the students’ committee with me. He was a real playboy. Once we asked him what he missed most about Uganda. He said, his ball boy.”

  The two of them looked puzzled, and Prakash said, “Ball boy?”

  “He played tennis,” I explained. “The person who fetched the balls around the court.”

  Prakash said, “Ah, one of those. Well, there you go. No one was spared.”

  Priya caught my eye and I could see her displeasure with my story. Before she could finish the disapproving twisting of her mouth at me, I turned away, not appreciating being policed. With my story I’d intended to hear from Prakash more about the fact that no one, meaning not even those with money to employ ball boys, was spared. His personal story was interesting, yes, but I wanted us to talk, too, about the larger situation. Priya’s censure made the room feel small and tight and provincial.

  Prakash jumped off his seat and excused himself to go to — as he called it while winking at me — the little boys’ room. Priya pointed in the direction of the washroom.

  In a quick conciliatory gesture, I whispered to Priya, “I guess we’ve lived a happily boring existence, eh?”

  She didn’t answer. I added that he was interesting but I seemed not to have made an impression on him. “He tells a good story, but he isn’t even curious about me,” I said. “He hasn’t asked me a single question about myself. He’s not even curious about how you and I met. And he isn’t interested in the larger picture.”

  She asked what I meant by this last. I whispered, “The situation in Uganda back then affected every person there; it is interesting along political lines, and geographically and racially, and it would have been interesting to have had — after he’d finished with his own story, of course — some conversation that included us all. Don’t you think? It is not as if you and I know nothing of Uganda.”

  “But the story wasn’t academic. It was real, personal, and traumatic,” she said. “You veered off into the topic of class.”

  She was right, of course, but I responded, “Nevertheless, he’s in my house, he could at least have asked me something about myself, or engaged with an angle I took up.” I spoke in what I hoped was a measured tone, but I surprised myself. I’m not the type to be affected by something like this. And in all truth I had been finding him fairly tolerable, yet suddenly, in talking to Priya I was being critical of him. I couldn’t stop myself. “You’d think he’d show some interest. Does he know I’m a writer? Did you tell him?”

  She said no, she hadn’t, and reminded me that she hadn’t had any real conversations with him before he arrived. There was no point asking if I was to believe this, as I’d have had to reveal that I knew she had invited him here, and that they had perhaps met with each other after she and I got together. There was no time for such a conversation. Then she said, “But you’re taking it way too personally. It’s not that he’s not interested in you — he doesn’t like prying. He’s always been like that. But I know it comes across as if he’s not interested in anyone but himself.”

  Under my breath I said, “You can be so naive,” and began clearing the dishes.

  She ignored that and said, “But seriously, that was quite an experience, don’t you think? Can’t you be a little more compassionate?”

  I walked back to her and said harshly, “Priya, all that happened over forty years ago. He’s been in Canada ever since. It was a terrible thing he went through, and he took on more than a young boy should have had to. I’m not at all unsympathetic, but it’s not the first or the second or the third time he’s told that story. It was in perfect chronological order. He may not know he’s doing it, but this is how he gets attention.”

  “He has earned the right to tell such a story as many times as he likes,” she said sharply.

  She intended to say more, but I cut her off. “Look, he just told us a story of very difficult events; there was no affect, it’s as if it were just a story. He hasn’t mentioned a thing about how he or his parents fared since. Does he even know how he feels? Being a refugee is no reason for thoughtlessness.”

  An odd smile pulled at Priya’s lips. She shook her head at me and said, “I can’t believe this is your response. You can be so cold sometimes. You’re the one being selfish. You just want him to have paid you attention.”

  “And what’s wrong with that? As I said, he’s in my house,” I responded coldly. We were fighting.

  “It’s my house, too. He’s a guest in my house, too, and I’ll ask you to please be a little kinder,” she snapped.

  Every interaction, no matter how unrelated, was an opportunity to underline how things were falling apart between us. I cleared the counter and put things away in the fridge. My harshness was not meant for him. I wasn’t being selfish, not entirely. I could see a closeness between her and this man, and it felt like a slap to my face. If she was capable of such closeness, why had she not been so with me? I thought of the envelope of photos of the two of them. I was seeing, and feeling, an intensity between them that predated my appearance in her life. Irrationally, I wanted to blame her, and him, for all that had gone wrong between us.

  When he returned, Priya said it was time they headed out to see some of the area, but he’d just received a text about a work project, he said, and needed to go online for a few minutes. I gave him the password for the internet, and he went up to the guest room.

  She asked me to come into our bedroom and speak with her. They were going to leave soon, so I knew this would be short, and I followed her.

  She slipped off her shoes and lay on her back on her side of the bed. She patted my side for me to join her. I lay down. She said nothing, and I wondered why she’d asked me in. Then she reached over and took my hand. For a few minutes we lay awkwardly like that.

  “I want to apologize,” she whispered.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For everything. I’m sorry I let him come here.”

  “Don’t be. He’s not the problem.”

  She turned and looked at me. “What is?”

  The guest room is above our room, and although we don’t hear our guests conversing, nor have any said they hear us from up there, we continued to whisper.

  I shook my head to say that I didn’t know. Or that I couldn’t say. Or that it was way too much to elaborate with a gues
t in the house. I eventually said, “I am sorry, too. I’m really sorry, Priya.”

  She squeezed my hand and said, “It’s okay. It’ll all be okay. We’ll get through this.”

  I lost my breath. I didn’t let her see, but I’d begun to cry, albeit without sound.

  “He seems happier than I’ve ever known him to be,” she said.

  Some moments passed before I could ask, “Are you pleased he’s here?”

  “I’ve known him for such a long time. Forever, actually. It’s good to see him. But we don’t really have much in common, do we?”

  “Doesn’t seem so. But he’s an okay person.”

  “He’s very ordinary, I know. But he’s also extraordinary. He’s known that I’m lesbian for decades. He’s a straight, conventional, Indian family man. And yet we’ve remained friends. He’s never abandoned me. Yes, I can use that word, abandon. He’s never abandoned me.”

  “We’re all victims of our pasts, aren’t we?” I said.

  “I guess it’s the excuse for our present selves. But you’re right. He isn’t a bad person,” she said wearily. “He’s not cruel or mean or malicious. I’ve never known him to hurt anyone. I told you that people at the university used to tease him about how he pronounced English words, interchanging v’s for w’s and vice versa. But I was ashamed to tell you that Fiona and I — his closest friends — also teased him mercilessly. In those days, no one thought that imitating someone’s accent or teasing them about it was a form of racism. We thought we were being funny and affectionate. It never occurred to us to consider how he might have felt about it. He always laughed and played along. What else was he to do? I wouldn’t tease him anymore about that sort of thing, of course. But have you noticed: he no longer mixes up his v’s and w’s. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  The conversation was revealing — she clearly had affection, and even admiration, for him. “He’s very straight,” I said.

  There was quiet upstairs. I wondered what he was doing. I didn’t want this conversation with Priya to end. It had been a while since there had been any connection between us. I felt grateful, and at the same time terribly sad. If I could have right then, I would have put my face in her chest and bawled.

  “Are you being a bigot?” she responded, and chuckled softly at her own words. “But so what? We have tons of straight friends. How different is he from any of them?”

  “Come on, you know what I mean. I don’t mean heterosexual. I mean he’s ordinary, a member of the card-carrying mainstream. Years ago, I knew a guy, Rao, a Brahmin from Calcutta,” I told her, whispering. “He grew up here in Canada. He was studying English — a theory guy. He once told me he tried living with what he called women like me — intellectual, opinionated — and he’d had one long relationship with such a woman but they fought a lot, and when they broke up he agreed to a marriage arranged by family members to a nice woman from India who was not likely to challenge him. I guess that’s what he wanted in the end. Did Prakash ever really imagine he could be with a woman like you?”

  “Like me? What am I like?”

  We heard him come down the stairs, and Priya got up.

  She stood and came to my side of the bed and looked at me for some long seconds, waiting perhaps for an answer. I said nothing. Then she asked, tenderly, if I wanted to come with them.

  For the first time, I think she really did want me to come. “No. We’re already on a path here. You go. In any case, I’m a third wheel.”

  “It’s inevitable with old friendships,” she said.

  I asked what time she thought they’d be back.

  “We’ll be a few hours, but definitely in time for dinner,” she said, adding with a soft, heartbreaking smile, “I can’t wait to eat a meal prepared by you.”

  I told her I was going to rest in bed for a while, and to tell him goodbye for me. She stood at the door watching me. I couldn’t read her mind. Then she briskly walked back, bent down, and kissed me on my lips. The scent of his cologne was still on her.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  “Handsome. As usual,” I answered.

  She rolled her eyes and, smiling, said, “I don’t look like a flaming lesbian, do I?”

  “Not ‘flaming,’” I said. “But you can’t hide what you are. Why do you care, anyway?”

  “I just don’t want to be flaming.”

  I did not say anything about dinner. “Take your time. Be careful.” I reached my hand out to brush her as she walked away.

  When the door to the bedroom shut behind her, the tears came. I couldn’t stop crying. I heard them walk to the back of the house. Their voices faded, and then several minutes later they returned and I listened to them put on coats and boots. They were taking their time, Priya pointing out the paintings she’d made. I waited until I heard the main door close behind them. Then the screen door. Then the car doors. I got up from the bed and looked through the blinds on the bedroom window and saw the car pull out.

  I went into the living room and sat on the sofa. I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually I called Skye. Her answering message came on. I left a message telling her I was alone and she could call as soon as she liked.

  4

  A Drive in the Country

  · · ·

  * * *

  She’s gone in for a rest, I tell him, and prefers to stay to work on her book. In any case, I say, he and I need time to catch up, and there are things I want to speak with him about. He doesn’t ask what those might be, he just says, “Uh-huh. I know.”

  As I walk past the mirror in the dining room, I check myself. Not flaming, but definitely not straight.

  I go into the kitchen to make sure the stove is off and the fridge door properly closed, then into the storage room behind the kitchen to fetch two bottles of water. He follows me into the room. He’s blocking the door, and stands there as I face him on the way out. I can feel the heat off his body. He holds me by my shoulders and says, “Come on. Give me a proper hug.”

  I’ve heard those words before, and wonder if he remembers saying them.

  “It’s been a long while since I’ve seen you,” he says. “I’m glad to be here.”

  We’re not alone in the house, but in the storage room we are. We are enough alone. A warmer hug than when he arrived can’t hurt. I am not averse to it. He has seen my little world and my place in it. He will surely respect this. And so will I. It’s possible, of course, that Alex might come out to tell me something she’s just remembered she needs to say. I wouldn’t want her to see him and me in the storage room like this, let alone embracing. I do the hug-and-release thing, gentle in the hug, insistent in the release. But he continues to stand firm and to pull me toward him. A lime-scented heat rises from his neck and face, I smell him, the scent of his thoughts, the scent of desire. My pelvis suddenly aches, and memories of the morning’s dream wash in waves up and down my body. But this feeling of desire flooding me is not for him. This I know well. Of course it is not. It is purely a trick of a body that’s alive and has feeling. We have been here before, but so very long ago. I take a breath, put my hands to his chest, and push against him slightly. I lean my head back and look at him. “It’s great you’ve come all this way for a visit,” I say. My smile quivers, my body begins to betray me; I need to separate from him immediately. “And in December, too!” I add. “Everything’s closed in the area. Except for Madame Bovary’s. We can have tea or an ice cream. Let’s go.” I push him back and step away, whispering, “But don’t tell Alex. I shouldn’t be eating ice cream.” And I throw in a pretense of complicity, an ounce of mischievousness, to reset things. “She doesn’t stop me, but it’ll weaken my position when I harass her about smoking.”

  He chuckles, but I know that look of his, when he feels slighted but doesn’t want to show it — the sound of laughter, but a smile that is forced, behind it eyes that know better.
He holds his head up high and says brightly, pleasantness still managed in his voice, “Your secret’s safe with me.” I’d wanted to take him to the studio, but I don’t want a repeat of this while alone in there with him. He follows me to the front of the house. He points toward the bedroom and says, “She’s nice.”

  I want to tell him that she’s very smart, but this will sound foolish. Or defensive. I want to say she isn’t always so quiet or reserved or cool and she reveals herself slowly, that he should ask her questions about herself and listen. I love her and she loves me, I want to tell him. I want to announce that she and I irritate the hell out of each other, but in the end we will always love each other. But I stop myself.

  * * *

  He assumes we’ll go in his car, that he’ll drive. I don’t mind. It’s a treat not to have to drive. The car is new, I can tell from the boozy, tobacco-like smell of the leather upholstery. His circumstances have changed. I won’t ask. He’ll tell me, no doubt. I direct him to turn right. I am alone with him in his car. It’s been many years. I’ve changed a great deal in that time, but I feel myself softening, my muscles giving way. It is immediately as it used to be when I was with him in the past — I relax, I let him take charge. I know my hair is short. I whisper every time I go to the hairdresser, Remember, not girlish, nor like a man’s — but a little boyish. And yet I feel as if my hair is parted in the middle and long, down my back.

  I think of my mother, as she would have been at the age I am now, being driven down the road by my father in his car. If Prakash and I had married after university, that’s how we’d be now. Like them. We’d stay at one of the bed and breakfasts, tour this quaint town, me hanging his clothes on the towel rack to air at the end of our drive, finding his toothbrush for him from the little carry-on bag I’d have packed for both of us. I’d smell like him. He’d open the door for me. Put his hand on my back when we stepped through. I am the one who has always held doors open, for girlfriends BA and for Alex, too. I am the one with the hand firm on a woman’s back, gently ushering her forward. It has always been an unspoken expectation of me. How is it that I never expect a woman to reciprocate, that I never mind this one-sidedness, and yet, in Prakash’s presence, I don’t mind being the one catered to? Not only do I not mind it, but I find myself falling into it easily.