by Katy Yocom
She smiled. “So is yours.”
“Sarah. We can’t—”
She held up her hand. “We’ll talk about that later,” she whispered. “Go. Before William sees you.”
Quinn
Tiger Woman Takes a Lover. The headline glared at Quinn from her laptop. She dialed Sarah’s number.
“It says what?” Sarah said.
Quinn repeated the headline.
“What else does it say?”
Quinn settled onto the sofa with her laptop and read the story aloud. A tiger. It said Sarah was having a love affair with a tiger.
“Akbar,” Sarah said.
“They don’t know Akbar exists.”
“Where do they get this stuff?”
“I hate to disillusion you, but they make it up.”
Quinn could hear Sarah thinking on the other end of the line. “It’s true, he does seem to come to me,” she said. “Male tigers aren’t supposed to be so visible. Females, yes. They keep to a smaller territory. Males are supposed to be elusive and aggressive. But not Akbar.”
“Aww. He likes you.”
“I haven’t heard any rumors at all around Sawai,” Sarah said. “Does Mother know?”
“I don’t know if she’s seen this one. She hasn’t seemed too bothered by the others. Although she did buy a new car.”
“Uh-oh,” Sarah said. “Are you worried?”
“A little. She’s been spending a lot lately. Every time I bring it up, she tells me how anxious she is about you being in India.”
Sarah’s sigh came down the line. “So if she goes bankrupt again, it’s my fault.”
And if she went bankrupt again, Pete and Quinn were out two months’ mortgage payments, only Pete didn’t know about it yet. “I guess we each get our turn at being the bad kid.”
“Marcus didn’t.”
Quinn didn’t know how to respond to that. “Sarah?” she asked. “Why did you go back to India?”
A pause, weighted. “That’s a complicated question, oh sister of mine. But you want to know something funny? That article got it right. I have taken a lover.”
Quinn slapped the corner of her laptop. “What! Who?”
She could hear Sarah’s smile. “That’s a story for another day. But I promise, he’s human.” Her tone turned serious. “So, listen. Geeta and William are going to Delhi on Tuesday to talk to one of our major funders. Project Tiger is about to tell us how much support they’re giving us for next year, and my job depends on what they decide. By this time next week, I should know whether I get to stay or not.”
“This is awkward timing, then. I sent you some sample purses.”
Sarah laughed and groaned. “Oh, Quinnie. Why is life never straightforward?”
“You mean, like, why have you gotten involved with somebody when you might be leaving India any minute?”
“Yeah. Exactly like that.”
“Because you’re a commitment-phobe?”
“Maybe.” Her voice trailed off.
“Okay, what gives?” Quinn asked.
“Nothing! Nothing gives.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Sarah laughed. “Listen, send me all the good energy you can. I’m going to need it.”
They said their goodbyes. Quinn stood staring at nothing, her phone in her hand. Sarah had never let Quinn so close. Not since they were children. Not since Marcus died.
Marcus. She had actually said his name.
Sarah
She didn’t see Sanjay the day after their encounter. On the second day, they found themselves alone in the Tiger Survival office after William and Geeta left for a lunch meeting. He pulled her into the back room.
“You are luminous,” he said. “A person would have to be blind not to see the difference in you.”
“I could say the same for you, Sanjay Prakash.”
“Are you okay?” He kept his voice low even though they were alone. They stood close to each other in the crowded office. She kept one eye on the front door.
“I think so,” she said. “Kind of reeling. I didn’t … ” She let the sentence trail off. They had spent the whole night touching each other, each moment its own universe of fingertips and mouths on skin.
“You understand I’m not free,” he said.
She folded her arms across her chest. “Really? Because you sure behaved that way two nights ago. I know you’re married, Sanjay, but you’re not with her.”
“You can’t think of it that way. India is not the West.”
She wanted to argue the point, but he was right. Instead she said, “When I first came here, you seemed so familiar to me.”
“Maybe we’ve known each other before,” he said. “I do feel there’s some sort of connection between us. I know it sounds strange. It feels strange. Even though we didn’t … in the technical sense.”
She nodded, watching his face.
“But I have a duty to her. The fact that we’re separated doesn’t change anything.”
“A financial duty. Which you fulfill.”
“It’s more than that.”
She took his hand, and there was his skin, so delicious. “So no Indian woman would have you. I’m not Indian. And you don’t owe it to anyone to spend your life dying of loneliness.”
He flinched a little, as if she’d named a truth he would rather not acknowledge. “All these years I thought the way I felt was what it felt like to be alive. But now I think I was asleep,” he said. “You woke me up.”
She took in his face: his eyes, his skin. The absence of lines she had thought were permanent. “Don’t go back to sleep,” she said. “You should see what you look like now that you’re awake.”
.
William walked past her in the office the next morning on his way to the electric teakettle. “Good morning,” he said. “You’re looking well loved.”
She whipped around. “Excuse me?”
He gave her a strange look. “I said you’re looking well.”
Of course. William would never. Her mind was playing tricks.
On the day of her final rabies shot, clouds scudded high overhead. Sanjay picked her up on his motorbike. She came to him at the gate, and they looked warily at each other. Anyone could be watching. She put on the helmet and threw a leg over the seat behind him, placing her hands gingerly on his waist. She didn’t know what this touch would do to either of them.
At the hospital, the familiar routine saved them. Before Sarah’s nausea had quite passed, Nurse Puja bustled them off to see a small grassy courtyard where two old men in robes sat at a picnic table, playing cards. Nuri perched on the end of the bench, embroidering as she often did, and Sarah sat with her for a few minutes. They spoke together haltingly in a combination of Hindi and pantomime. Sarah told Nuri how she had called a goat a dog on one of her first trips to Vinyal, and Nuri bent her head down shyly, laughing.
Then they were through. Nurse Puja gave Sarah a bow of farewell. Sarah pressed her palms together and thanked the nurse for her kindness. Then she and Sanjay walked away beneath high clouds fraying in the wind.
“I’ll miss these sessions,” Sanjay said. They stood next to the motorbike, bodies separated by inches. “I wonder if you’d like to come back to my flat to wait for news.” William and Geeta would be returning that evening after meeting with Project Tiger.
“Take me by the post office first?”
Twenty-four letters this time. She sighed and tucked them into her messenger bag.
The moment they stepped through his blue-painted door, the fact of their night together returned to Sarah like a presence in the room. Sanjay went to the kitchen and brought out two shallow dishes of cubed mangoes. Sarah nearly laughed: He might as well have been handing her a bowl of sex. They sat next to each other on the fl
oor and ate the sticky-sweet flesh, and she kept that observation to herself. By the next morning, depending on the news from Delhi, they could all be out of work. Until then, they were in limbo, and why not kiss him again, feel his body rise against her? But the decision had to be his.
He seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “These past few years,” he said, “self-control has become my forte.”
Outside, daylight was falling away. The frogs were already singing. “It’s okay, you know,” she said. “That you can’t be with me. It doesn’t change what I feel, or what you felt when we touched. It doesn’t make it any less real.”
He nodded but said nothing. Maybe this would be their last evening like this, alone together with the memory of his skin still humming in her fingertips. He had trusted her with his story. She felt she should return the favor.
She told him about Marcus, their childhood together, his death, as the air outside deepened to a smoky purple. He listened, not saying much. The intimacy of talking about it flooded her veins. Maybe it was a reckless act when the future was so uncertain. Or maybe that was exactly what made it the right thing to do.
“I haven’t told many people that story,” she said. “I also haven’t told anyone I’m looking for our ayah. That’s what all these letters are about.”
“You should open them.” He got up, rummaged through a drawer, and brought her a letter opener. “What will you do if you find her?”
“I don’t know.” She opened an envelope, scanned the letter, set it aside, and reached for the next one. Another saga of family tragedy. “Some of these are awful. And some are funny.” She opened another. “And some are just bizarre. This one says that he’s had a vision that I’m going to be the next incarnation of the Lord Krishna. He doesn’t even know who I am. Just a name in a classified ad.”
“He knows you’re white. Some men are very attracted by that.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Look who’s talking.”
“I’m only with you because Indian women find me unacceptable.”
She cuffed him on the shoulder. “Jerk.”
“It’s true,” he said, laughing. “There are too many of us miserable men in this country and not enough women. All the eligible women can find a man who’s not been married before.”
“That’s a shame,” she said. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
She went back to slicing envelopes. The next letter made her sit up straight. She couldn’t speak except to read the letter aloud. “‘My auntie was ayah to three American children in the 1970s named DeVaughan. There were two girls and a boy. The boy died. I believe you are Sarah DeVaughan, the woman on the television talking about tigers.’” She looked up at Sanjay. “He wants money in exchange for connecting me with Ayah.”
“Oh, be careful. There are cheats out there.”
“I know.” They stared at each other. “I think I need to call my mother.”
“Call her. William won’t be here for a bit longer.” He stood. “I’ll be in the back room catching up on email.”
She dug her phone out of her messenger bag.
The conversation lurched at first. It had been too long since Sarah’s last call, and she had to stumble her way through Mother’s stiff reserve. “I hear you’re a celebrity,” Mother said.
“Not really. I’ve been on a few shows, talking about tigers.”
“I want you to be careful over there, Sarah.”
She let the comment go by. “Mother? Did you ever talk to Ayah, after we left India?”
“Why would I? What would there have been to say?”
Sarah shifted on the cushion. “Don’t you think she wondered how we were? Quinn and I?”
“She was probably glad to see the last of us, after everything that happened.”
“She loved us.”
“Oh, Christ. You and your sister. You thought the sun rose and set on Ayah, but if you could have seen things from my perspective … ”
“Why? Did she lie? Did she steal?”
“Just leave it, Sarah.”
She shifted the phone to her other hand. “What was her name?”
“Manjuli. Why?”
As soon as Mother said it, Sarah recognized it: Manjuli, Ayah, smiling as she tugged down the hem of Sarah’s shirt. “Manjuli what?”
“What’s this about, Sarah DeVaughan? Are you planning to contact her?”
“Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”
“Why do you want to stir things up? It was twenty-five years ago. We went through the worst thing that can happen to a family. Leave it alone.”
“We left it alone. And look what good that did us.”
“What are you talking about? We’re fine.”
I hear you got a new car, Sarah didn’t say. She glanced down the hallway and lowered her voice. “We weren’t fine. Do you remember all that stuff Quinn went through?”
“Of course I remember. She’s lucky she didn’t kill herself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look, you girls both suffered after your brother died. We all suffered.” She sighed. “And look at you. You ended up back in India in spite of everything I did to try to keep you safe.”
“I just want to do some good in the world.”
“Oh, honey. You’re your father’s daughter.”
Sarah didn’t know whether to read regret or tenderness in Mother’s voice. Maybe both. “I met someone,” Sarah said.
She heard her mother’s smile. “Is he nice?”
“Very. He’s smart and kind and … he’s good at his work. Handsome, too.”
“Does he treat you well?”
“It’s not like that,” Sarah said. “I don’t think this can go anywhere.”
“Why not? He’s not married, is he? Stay away from married men, Sarah.”
“I will,” she said, not really meaning to lie. “I have to go.”
They exchanged pro forma I-love-yous and hung up. Sanjay emerged from the hallway just as Sarah heard footsteps on gravel. A quiet knock, and Sanjay opened the blue-painted door.
William entered and lowered himself to the floor before speaking. “It’s good news,” he said. “Full funding.”
“Oh, thank God,” Sarah breathed.
William recounted the scene. Gopalan had delivered the news with maximum self-righteousness, glaring at Geeta over his glasses. “In a very short time, Ms. DeVaughan has become an important resource for conservation efforts and ecotourism,” he’d said. “I find it disturbing, Ms. Banerjee, to consider the damage you could single-handedly inflict on these positive trends by dismissing her.”
Sanjay grinned at Sarah. “So there it is. You’re safe.”
“I wish Gopalan hadn’t used me as a cudgel against Geeta Ma’am, though. That’s going to make things a little awkward.”
“Not at all,” William said. “Geeta’s a bigger person than that. And by the time the grant cycle comes round next year, what happened with the cub will be long forgotten.”
They celebrated at a little restaurant down the street, telling stories and laughing. Since the park had closed for the monsoon, it had been weeks since they’d spent much time together. “Too long,” William said. “Though you two have had plenty of opportunities, thanks to Sarah’s rabies shots.”
“Not my favorite circumstances,” Sarah said.
Sanjay grinned. “The Tiger Woman is not so fearless when it comes to hypodermic needles. A couple of times on the ride home, I thought she might vomit down the back of my shirt.”
Sarah gave him a mock-outraged look, and they both laughed, and she noticed William watching this exchange closely. She wondered if he could see it.
After dinner, she returned to Sanjay’s to pick up the letters she’d left there, and the ease of the dinner party seeped away. Sh
e felt suddenly shy. They’d revealed so much to each other, shared their bodies, but now what? He drove her home on the back of his motorcycle, and she tried not to touch him more than necessary and dismounted quickly when they pulled up outside her gate. He got off, too, and propped the bike on its kickstand, catching her by surprise.
The air had cooled dramatically since sundown, and they stood facing each other outside the gate, each resting a hand on an ironwork finial. The light was on in William’s flat, and she felt acutely aware of his presence. She wondered if he was watching them.
“Well, thanks for the ride,” she said lamely. “I should go inside.”
“Let me come with you.”
It took her aback. “You’re the one who told me you’re not free, remember?”
“I don’t know how to think about it,” he admitted. “But you’re right about all this loneliness. What good is it doing?”
She studied his face. “Don’t play with my emotions, Sanjay. You know how I feel. You have to make up your mind.”
“I know.” He studied her face for a moment, and then he reached for her hand.
She took a half-step back. “Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“Okay, then,” she said.
She unlocked the gate, and he wheeled his motorbike inside, tires hushing faintly over the gravel, and parked it around the corner with a soft clatter against the wall. “Quiet,” she whispered. “William.” They trod the stairs lightly, but she was aware of every creak and groan, of the heavy double click of her key in the door directly above William’s own.
They took off their shoes, and he stepped toward her and touched her waist. Her fingers slipped through his hair, and his hand rose to her collarbone, pushing the soft white fabric back to expose the curve of her shoulder, pausing to undo one button just below the hollow at the base of her throat, another between her breasts, and on down, a quick upward pull to loosen the fabric from her jeans, his knuckles brushing the denim just over her pubic bone.
Kitchen sounds from William’s flat. Cutlery, a teakettle, a crash as something fell to the floor. Sarah ran her fingertips like raindrops over the curve of Sanjay’s chest and down to the metal button of his trousers, closed her fingers over the waistband while his mouth found the hollow of her neck, found the long diagonal muscle rivering down the side of her throat and traced it with his lips from its hidden source beneath her ear to the wide, slow delta at the base of her neck, over the shoal of her collarbone and into the mounting swell of her breast, his mouth riding the rise and fall while the surf of her heartbeat rushed against his lips.
