by Katy Yocom
The floorboards creaked as they moved from the kitchen into the bedroom. The bedsprings squeaked beneath the weight of their bodies. She clamped her fingers tight in his hair, the night breeze slipping over their bodies, the thump, thump of wooden bedframe bumping plaster wall, the sweat between their torsos suctioning their bodies together, her palm against his back, and then a creak of bedsprings beneath them, and now she couldn’t contain a single soft gasp, and then another and another, soft as she could, her gasps rising and peaking and falling, and Sanjay’s groan singular and guttural, grief mixed with joy.
And William downstairs. Maybe listening. Maybe hearing everything.
Quinn
The bank statement arrived.
“I’ve had some unexpected expenses,” Mother said when Quinn called. A hint of ice in her voice, as if Quinn had no right to ask. “I’ll have it next month.”
Quinn squeezed her eyes shut. “Can you pay back some of it before then?”
“Look, I’ll cover the interest.”
“It’s not that.” The twins had started back to school and were doing second-grade homework in the kitchen. She went into the bathroom, shut the door, rested her hips against the sink and lowered her voice. “I didn’t tell Pete about it.”
“Oh, honey.” The news took the edge out of Mother’s voice. “I’m sorry. I just don’t have it. I don’t know what to tell you.” Her tone held warmth and regret. Now they were on the same side. God, Mother confused Quinn.
Afterward, she checked on the kids. Nick’s color looked iffy, but his peak flow meter numbers looked fine. She noted it on her calendar. “Healthy as a horse,” she said, falsely hearty. Nick ignored her.
She found Pete in his office upstairs, working on a database. “I need to tell you something,” she said.
He turned away from his computer and looked at her expectantly. She felt sick. Pete would want her to see the loan as a terrible decision. He would accuse her of considering them rich. In a way, he was right. She knew they had plenty, even though they didn’t drive expensive cars or take extravagant vacations. In Pete’s mind, those facts made them financially ordinary. Which meant they didn’t agree on the basic nature of their reality. In India, farmers sometimes committed suicide because they owed a couple hundred dollars to a seed company and couldn’t find a way to repay it.
Pete would also see the loan as a personal weakness, a failure to stand up to Mother. It was harder to argue with that.
Her phone rang. “It’s Sarah,” she said, relieved. “I’d better take this.” He nodded, and she walked out of his office and answered the call. “Hey, you. It’s awfully early there, isn’t it?”
“Middle of the night.” Sarah’s voice sounded off. A little scratchy, a little subdued. “I’ve just got a couple things on my mind. Is this a good time?”
“Sure.” Quinn slid open the door to the patio and settled on an Adirondack chair. The late-afternoon sun dappled through the leaves of the big walnut. With luck, Pete and the kids would give her a half hour.
“So I’ve been thinking lately about why I’m here instead of in Louisville. And why I couldn’t stay married and be in one place and be happy, when you make all of that look so easy.”
Quinn flinched.
“Do you ever wonder what Marcus would be like if he’d lived?” Sarah asked.
Now there was a question. She didn’t, really. She saw him as a blond blur of a boy, slipping out the door. “I think about him the way he was. Maybe because my kids are that age.”
“I picture him sometimes as an adult,” Sarah said. “Sitting around at dinner with all of us, teasing your kids. Talking politics. Maybe we’d all live in Louisville and hang out together and, I don’t know, have cookouts and stuff.”
“Or maybe we’d all still live in India.”
Sarah seemed to consider that. “No. Mother had had it with India. And with Daddy. But the reason I called … I wanted to tell you that when I left home, it wasn’t that I thought Louisville wasn’t good enough for me. Or that by staying, you were settling.” She paused. “I talked with Mother the other night, and she alluded to some stuff from when we were teenagers. Apparently some things went on that I never knew about.”
“You were three years younger than me. Of course stuff happened you didn’t know about.”
“She said you were lucky you didn’t kill yourself.” A silence, freighted with questions.
Quinn glanced into the house. The kids still sat at the table, doing homework. Pete crouched between them. “I’ll tell you about that sometime.”
“Do you have to go?”
“I have a few more minutes.”
“Good. I have to tell you two more things.”
“Is one of them about your new lover?”
“Sanjay,” Sarah said.
Quinn smiled. “I wondered if it was Sanjay. You said male and human. That narrowed it down.”
“He’s like no one I’ve met before. He’s completely grounded at Ranthambore, and he’s on fire for this work, and it’s sexy as hell. There are complications, though.”
“Wait. Is he married?”
“Kind of.”
“Sarah.” Quinn groaned. “Be smart.”
“It’s not what it sounds like. He’s separated. Anyway, we’re keeping it quiet. But I wanted to tell you about him, and … ”
“And?”
“I may have found Ayah.”
“What?” Quinn felt the news as a pain beneath her ribs, sharp enough to make her gasp.
“I heard from someone claiming to be her nephew.” Quinn knew the next words before Sarah said them. “You should come over here.”
She couldn’t manage to speak.
“I’ve been a lousy sister to you, Quinn.”
They had never talked like this. “No lousier than I’ve been to you,” Quinn said.
“But I was always the one who left. Anyway. It’s time things changed, you know? I want to make things different. Come to India.”
“Can you hear yourself? You should come back here.”
“But Ayah’s in Delhi.”
“According to some con man.”
“We won’t know till we make contact.”
Damn it. Quinn glanced inside. The kids were up out of their chairs now, wandering the house like hungry ghosts. “I don’t know, Sarah. We’ll talk.”
After they hung up, she hunched forward. “Shit.” She covered her head with her hands. “Shit.” Then she wiped her hand across her face and got up to fix dinner. Soy burgers were on the menu. The kids had decided they didn’t want anyone killing animals, legally or otherwise, on their behalf.
Pete walked into the kitchen. “You okay?”
She sighed. “Sarah’s taking stock of her life and throwing everything up in the air. It’s just got me a little rattled.”
“What was it you wanted to tell me?”
She managed a smile. “Nothing, hon.”
Sarah
When he entered her, everything hit her at once. The way he slid inside her like that was where he belonged. The heat of him. What happened to his face: the relief and—what was it?—gratitude that relaxed his features, as if he could finally let go of something he’d been carrying for far too long.
The way she felt like she had finally come home.
She looked down into his face, his head tipped back against the pillow, and she thought his expression must mirror her own. A little incredulous, as if they both were asking, What is this? They gripped each other’s hands on the mattress on either side of his head, fingers intertwined, neither of them moving much. That part could wait. Instead they let themselves sink deep into this moment when they were naked to each other, hips on hips, and he was inside her body, and forget about motion, forget about friction, right now what was washing over them was the simple fact that the
y were connected, at the root, at the fingers and palms, at the eyes, and the connection slammed with electricity.
“Do you feel that?” he whispered. She was certain that if he looked in a mirror he wouldn’t recognize his own face, it was so alive. He never looked like this except when he was inside her. Maybe her own face was the same.
“I think so,” she breathed. “What do you feel?” Like they were discovering something that had never been done before.
“Awake,” he whispered.
“Exactly.” Energy surged through their bodies, and what she couldn’t understand was how she could feel it all the way through the circuit, all the way through both of them. “Something really strange is going on here,” she whispered.
He nodded and shifted his hips experimentally, and there went another surge, high up and deep inside, and their eyes widened in the same instant as if they shared a nervous system, and without meaning to, she said, “Wow,” and then, “Damn, Sanjay,” and then, “Plug in and hold on,” and he threw his head back against the mattress and laughed silently. He pulled her down to him and kissed her mouth, still laughing, and she dived into that kiss, the happiest kiss she had ever known. And she thought: Oh, hell yes. I want this. I want my life.
.
Water everywhere. The streets of Sawai ran with it. Water falling straight over the edges of flat rooftops, no rain gutters to catch it. The whole world had turned liquid.
Always, they came together after dark and parted before sunrise. Their sleep suffered, but the touch made up for it. They looked into each other’s eyes for hours at a time, studied each other’s bodies inch by inch. They spent whole nights whispering, lips next to ears, words against skin on currents of breath. During the day Sarah took pleasure in Sanjay’s full-throated voice, in the resonance of his laughter, but at night she gorged on his whispers, fluid and rippling. The sound of his hushed voice in her ear sent a sweet electrical surge through her body.
“My God, woman,” Sanjay murmured one midnight as they lay on floor cushions in his flat. He held her foot in his hand, examining it. “Where did you get these monstrosities?”
“From my father.” She pointed her foot, admiring it. “His were just like them.”
“That gap between your first and second toes! What a pugmark you must leave. I’d be able to track you anywhere.”
“You don’t have to track me,” she said. “I’m not going to try to lose you.”
“Are you sure?”
She gave him a look both chastising and tender. “You can spot a pugmark in the dirt from a moving vehicle, but you can’t see how hard I’ve fallen for you.”
“Fallen for me?”
“For everything about you.”
“You’re quite a one for falling, Sarah DeVaughan.” With his thumb he traced the thin pink whisker-scars on her cheek. “You fell right into the water for that cub. And look what it got you.”
“I’d do it again.” She pushed her head into his hand.
“Are you scent-marking me?” he teased.
“‘For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.’” She kissed his jaw. “‘For he is of the Tribe of Tiger.’ Do you know this poem? It’s one of my favorites.” She propped her head on her hand. “‘For the cherub cat is a term of the angel tiger. For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery. For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest. For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.’”
“That’s true.”
“‘For he can spraggle upon waggle.’”
“What does that mean?”
She rolled onto her hands and knees and demonstrated. He laughed and took her around the waist and pulled her on top of him.
“Oh, you want to play?” She cuffed him lightly on the head, and he grabbed her wrist and held it. “What shall we play? How about you’re Akbar and I’ll be Machli?”
“Oh my God,” he laughed. “You are scandalous.”
She gave him an arch grin. “You were right, by the way. I was scent-marking you.”
“So you want me for your own. Achchha. Very interesting. I thought you just felt sorry for me.”
She gaped at him. “Sanjay Prakash, you think this is pity sex?”
“Shh!” He pointed to the wall, his landlord’s flat on the other side.
She let herself fall back on the mattress and laughed soundlessly, shoulders shaking.
“You look happy,” he said. “It’s very beautiful.”
They kissed. She pulled away and held his face in her hands. “Listen. I’m not casual about this. And I’m not with you out of pity. I’m falling in love with you, okay? Because you’ve lived here all your life and you’re doing the work that needs to be done. You haven’t let yourself go blind to the problems.”
He pushed her hair back and studied her face. “It seems strange to me. You have these feelings for me for doing only the things I have to do. And Sarah. This is very fast to be falling in love.”
“For doing the things you have to do, and for being the person you are. Why else fall in love with someone? Is there anything else?”
He lay back. “There are so many other things.”
“I’m not talking about your practical marriage rubric.”
“It was never my rubric. And obviously not.” He placed a hand on the dip of her waist and ran his hand over her skin. “This is my portal to the universe. Your waist beneath my fingertips. Your waist! So strange.”
“God’s truth,” she said. “I think most men would find another portal.”
“Naughty girl.”
“Hey, which of the bags do you think will be the first to sell?”
They had spent the day in Vinyal with the women, boxing up the first shipment of bags. They’d wrapped the box in muslin and watched as Anju ceremoniously sewed the fabric shut. Indian shrink wrap, Sanjay had joked. Sarah wasn’t sure if this was a shipping requirement, but Sanjay had deemed it necessary before they took the box to the DHL office and sent it to the States.
“I don’t know what women like to buy in America,” he said. “Maybe one of Anju’s.”
“She does the best work,” Sarah said. “Hey, I was thinking. In a few weeks, they’re going to get their first payment. We need to talk to them about how a bank account works.”
“Budgeting, too.” He paused. “This is important work we’re doing.”
“We’re off to a good start, yeah. But we need to figure out how to expand it. Get more women involved. Start making other products. Eventually I’d like to see something like this happening in every other village around the park.”
He ran his fingers along her skin. “So this is what a love match feels like. I’m not used to so much happiness.”
“You deserve to be this happy all the time.”
He smiled at her. “Sarah,” he said. And the sound of her name in his voice was so sweet that it lit an ache inside her, like a candle.
.
The problem with finding a portal to the universe was that it was impossible not to manifest it in the world. The next time they picked up Nuri at the hospital and drove to the village, the women greeted them with the same rumor Quinn had called her about: that Sarah and Akbar had kindled an affair.
“You saved his cub,” Anju said. “And he fell in love with you in return.”
It did make a certain amount of sense.
Anju told them the rumor. Sanjay did his best to translate, though Anju wouldn’t say the word bagh, tiger, so the conversation was sprinkled with terms like the orange man and the one with stripes, but in the end, Sarah thought she understood that there were different versions of the story. In some versions, Sarah morphed into a tigress for her dalliances with her tiger lover. They took advantage of the monsoon, which had emptied the park. In the rain, she slipped along the streets of Sawai, still in human form. Som
ewhere along Ranthambore Road she began to run, and as she ran she changed from a tall, blond human into a golden-coated tigress. Once in the park, she roared until the male appeared. They settled together into a shaded glen and engaged in round after round of tiger sex. She lay on her stomach while he covered her, his big, shaggy head turned so he could bite the back of her neck. The rumors were very clear that this was how the mating happened.
Evidence for this version: Sarah’s three whisker-scars, proof that her tiger nature could not be contained.
In other versions, the situation reversed itself: The large-hearted gentleman took on human form and visited Sarah at her flat, a tall, handsome man (like Sanjay, Sarah couldn’t help thinking) bearing gifts of incense and perfume. Only his pugmarks gave him away.
“Did Anju call Akbar the large-hearted gentleman?” she asked in English.
“I threw that in,” Sanjay said. “Translator’s discretion.”
“As rumors go, those are pretty good ones.”
“Don’t make light of this, Sarah. It isn’t a joke.”
“Are they scared of me?”
He asked the question to the group.
“We’re not scared,” Rohini said. “You’ll protect us. It’s good to have you on our side.”
It discomfited Sarah to be the cause of so much tiger talk around a woman who had lost her husband to a tiger. When Padma said, quite casually, “If you’d been here earlier, maybe my husband would still be alive,” Sarah felt a stab of guilt, as if she could have saved Sunil. “Just keep my children safe,” Padma added. “That’s enough for me.”
