When it was over, Jupiter Dodd drove her home. Her mother slept peacefully on the sofa. Pretty drunk, Claire went upstairs and found Dharma in bed, safe and warm, between Anthony and Floozie. She staggered down the stairs and flung open the refrigerator. There was an awful lot going on in there. Too much, she knew. These days, she found herself preparing meals for her family that she would hitherto not even have sat down to. Pork chops. Nathan’s vacuum-packaged hot dogs. Anthony loved them. She did, too. She, great former staunch vegetarian. She tried to remember if she’d bought any of those nice Martin’s potato rolls? The whiter the bread, the sooner you’re dead, her inner voice told her while her less-evolved libido licked its lips.
The telephone rang. She picked it up before the first ring left off. Her mother slept on, snoring reassuringly inside on the sofa. She was sure it would be Carmela, wanting to dish her guests.
It was Swamiji, just arrived from Delhi, here now at Kennedy, wasn’t it exciting? “I am on my way to the land of Berkeley at last, at last. Oh yes.” Claire could just see his head wobbling elastically. “I am veddy veddy weary indeed.”
“My God!” she shouted, then whispered, “I can’t believe it! Where are you now? Just stay right there! Don’t move from that spot! I’m coming to pick you up. No, you don’t go anywhere, you don’t check in, you just stay there exactly where you’re standing and I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Ten minutes.”
“Oh, no, I must protest,” came a not-very-convincingly disputing voice, a voice veddy weary indeed.
“This is me, Swamiji,” she informed him, using the sassy Brooklyn out-and-out intimidating tone that Johnny used so successfully on her. “Just hold onto your hat.”
Claire lurched across the room. Good thing her keys were in her hand already or she never would have found them. It was a little bit like going to pick up Gandhi himself. Swamiji even looked like the old boy, wiry and swaddled in homespun. She turned the radio on as she careened along the Van Wyck, then the freshly paved new airport road, empty at this off hour. Claire made for the international arrivals building, drove right up alongside the privileged cavalcade of taxis, put the gear in park and scanned the near deserted walkways. Her heart filled up and choked when she spotted him. She abandoned her treasured, illegally parked car to the gods and leapt screwily over the hood. Claire covered Swamiji’s nut-brown chilly arms with a tarpaulin of imaginary warmth. He was just as she had left him. Her guardianship.
What she was not prepared for was the sight of Narayan as well, literally looming over frail Swamiji, although why she was surprised she couldn’t imagine—the idea of Swamiji traveling alone was incomprehensible, he would give his ticket to the first down-and-out who hit on him—so there then was Narayan, the hope of modern India cast in basic bronze, only this Narayan seemed a different fellow altogether. Gone was the shallow, hopeful, extroverted expression of solicitousness he’d worn when she’d known him, the whimsical, silk-shirted, guitar-strumming, well-born, gangly boy whose despairing family had had no other choice than to send him to Swamiji to try and find the sense in him. (It had been that or let him marry that horrifying Vaisya merchant’s daughter.)
He was a foot taller, for one thing, and broad. That was her first thought. Her second was, where would she find the sheets? Then she remembered. She could put them on the rug. Freddy’s old Dhera Gaz. Floozie wouldn’t mind. And there were plenty of old quilts.
She could tell Swamiji was overwhelmed at the sight of her.
“By golly,” he said, acting big, “there’s a nip to the air.”
“Hop in.” She threw open the door. “Mr. Kinkaid’s gonna really love you.”
When they got back to the house, Zinnie was up, searching the front and back lawns with a flashlight for some sign of Claire’s body. “Oh, hi,” Claire called. “Wait till you see who I’ve brought.”
“Just like that,” Zinnie glared. “You know what time it is? It’s three-a-fucking clock in the morning!”
Claire didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the sight of Zinnie’s snarling, pale white face. What she didn’t see was the way Narayan set mesmerized eyes upon Zinnie. And what would have surprised her even more were the bold, unflinching eyes that Zinnie set right back on him.
Zinnie, without waiting to be introduced, stalked haughtily off.
“Gee,” said Claire in the doorway, waiting for the two of them to take it all in. On the table, there was a letter addressed to her between the stack of bills. She picked it up. It was, she already knew, from Tree.
CHAPTER 5
Carmela walked into Claire’s Sunday-morning kitchen. The smells of garlic and oregano and fresh basil held up her head and made her have to sniff in. “I’ve got to hand it to you,” she said, “marrying an Italian is going to insure us all full stomachs on weekends.” And, she thought, bad breath on Monday.
“Isn’t it marvelous! Could you hand me that ginger there? I’ve got to make bean curd for Swamiji, and I don’t want to have to save that till later.”
“Swamiji?” Had Claire gone and invited those horrid neighbors? Was there no end to her ridiculous communal guilt?
Claire beamed above her bowl of masala and dahl. “I have company. Special visitors from India.”
“Oh good.” Carmela frowned.
“Try not to sound so thrilled, please.”
“All right.” She sat down, away from the hubbub of cutlery and chopping blocks. One wouldn’t want to be mistakenly recruited.
“I see you shined up those copper pots and molds I gave you.”
Claire clicked her tongue. “You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to polish them up. I almost hate them. Really. I hope they stay polished for a good long while because I wouldn’t want to go through that again in a hurry.”
I should have kept them, thought Carmela. I could have had one of Stefan’s Polish lackeys do them. They sat and did nothing but drink vodka, they might as well sit and drink vodka and be useful. His Polish mafia. More like his Polish welfare system. No wonder they couldn’t afford to have the first floor repainted.
“What’s that?” Claire nudged her chin in the direction of Carmela’s package.
“What, this? Oh, nothing. Just a copy of the play.”
“The play?! What do you mean, nothing? Can’t I have a look?”
“I sort of thought we could run through it.”
Claire wiped her hands on a red-and-white checkered dish-towel and sat down across from Carmela. There was no question of continuing stand-up preparation for the meal. She must give her entire attention to Carmela, or one day it would all be her fault should this play fail. But she really was interested. She couldn’t deny that. There would always be the thrill of privilege when the grand big sister deigned to take the younger sibling seriously. She knew Carmela didn’t really want to discuss her play, she just needed someone to talk out loud to, someone unimportant who wouldn’t say much. One thing she could do now, though, was roll up her ground meat with ice slivers and Locatelli cheese, some breadcrumbs, and an egg.
“What are the little bits of ice for?” Carmela demanded, curious despite herself.
“Keeps the meatball moist while it fries,” she said, throwing chopped garlic and basil into the enormous flat bowl.
While Carmela read, Claire rolled. She made little tiny meatballs. Johnny loved them that way and could never get enough. Big fellow that he was, he enjoyed small portions. Lots of small portions. When he discovered two Indians sleeping their transatlantic flights off on the dining room floor, well, here was where she was going to let go and let God. Anyway, hadn’t he always said she should invite her friends from overseas to stay? What would he do, leave her? He was certainly going to make a lot of noise. These meatballs would plug him up, and then she could bring up the horse. Although she had considered holding onto this until she absolutely could use it to her advantage, not just as justification for what was her prerogative by right. After all.
“Mom?”
“
Yes, Anthony?”
“There are men in the dining room. Dead.”
“No, dear, they’re sleeping. They’re friends of Mommy’s.”
“I don’t think so, Mommy.”
“Yes, dear. They are. That’s Swamiji, I’ve always told you about.”
“Swamiji?” Anthony turned and went back inside to have another look. What a terrible disappointment! Mommy had always told him about the Indians! Indians wore paint and feathers and carried tomahawks. These fellows here smelled very curious and they looked like every new storeowner along Jamaica Avenue. These could not be the Indians she’d been talking about! Floozie left his arms and walked carefully over to the two of them. He hoped she would bite them. Instead, she sniffed the narrow, older one and cuddled into the crook of his arm and went back to sleep. Uh! Disgusted, Anthony went back up the stairs to wake up Michaelaen. He had seen Dharma in his sleeping bag as he’d gotten out of bed, but he didn’t want to wake her up. He sighed. Even he didn’t have the answers to what was going on with Dharma.
Anthony, proprietor, elbows out, trudged sturdily along the bannistered hallway, went up the narrow third-floor stairs and was stopped by the sound of Aunt Zinnie singing to Michaelaen in their big room. The both of them were holed up in the closet and the door was shut. Michaelaen sometimes spent the whole night long in there. Anthony sat down on the window seat and waited and listened. Aunt Zinnie was singing “You Don’t Know Me.” When she sang the words “I never knew the art of making love, though my heart burned with love for you,” her voice did not crack or falter, but it reached so sad a sound that Anthony put his fists in both his eyes, disenchanted but still listening, for another little while, and he stayed still.
Downstairs, Claire and Carmela had stopped talking as well. Zinnie’s voice, even when she held onto it, traveled far and wide and went into the very you of you. Claire held her mortar and pestle, cut gentle roses on her listening hands, and Carmela turned her head so Claire wouldn’t see the depth of her renowned to be forgotten, but still very human emotion.
Swamiji stood, little fellow, stock-still at the tall pantry door. Claire was delighted to see him. She restrained herself from jumping up and throwing her arms around him. She pressed her fingertips against themselves and put her face behind them. He did, too. Then he came, smiling, into the room. “Jesus!” Carmela shouted, jumping out of her chair in fright. Claire put one hand on her shoulder in a calming, threatening gesture. “Carmela, this is my dear friend, Swami Brahmananda. Swamiji, my sister, Carmela Stefanovitch.”
Unperturbed by Carmela’s reaction, Swamiji calmly greeted them, then passed them, covered his body with his dark cashmere shawl which, when opened, turned into a cozy burnoose. He went into the back yard and took up the lotus position in a shaft of warm sunlight on a table underneath the grapevine.
His eyeballs went up into his head and he stared at the women with the whites of his eyes. Carmela, still grasping her chest, shuddered. “You’re not going to let him stay there like that!” she whispered shrilly.
“Are you kidding? I wish he would stay here forever. He’s filling our home with good karma.”
“Does Mommy know?”
Claire stood and busied herself with sudsing a board in the sink. “What does that mean, ‘Does Mommy know’? As if we were going to get in trouble like little kids or something. For bringing something forbidden into the house. This is my home, after all. And Mommy would welcome any of my guests as I would hers.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” said Carmela. “Has she seen his royal nakedness, there?”
“Carmela! He’s not naked. He wears his little loin cloth thing.”
They both laughed.
“Actually,” Claire said, sitting back down, “I think she missed him. She runs out of here like a bat out of hell when she wakes up. On go the slippers and her trench coat and she flies home to get breakfast ready for Daddy. If she had seen him, she would have come to wake me up. Or at least called the police.”
“And who, pray tell,” Carmela did her Our Miss Brooks impression, “is this?”
“Ah, Narayan,” Claire said, “come in, come in. Meet Carmela.” Narayan, educated in the ways of the world, auspiciously kissed Carmela’s hand. Carmela wore a Girard Perregaux watch, which didn’t escape Narayan. He might have changed a lot, but Claire remembered still the skinny boy who plied her for information, any information at all, if you please, concerning the who’s-who and what-fors of the West. Claire looked down at her own big-faced old Croton. It was a man’s watch, from the thirties, sensible and plain, with a brown pigskin band. She held it fondly to her ear. You could pay your great fortune for your watch, as Carmela’s husband had undoubtedly done, but there was no sound on Earth quite as fine as the intricate, rich hurry-hurry of an old wind-up Swiss. She smiled at Narayan. “Swamiji is ‘sitting’ out in the yard. Will you join him or have breakfast first?”
Only the great dignity of his class and the long suffering rigidity of Swamiji’s training kept Narayan from flinging himself across the table first and scarfing everything edible in sight. She saw those hungry eyes. She remembered how, as a boy, he had literally wept at the loss of a pistachio ice cream cone in the dirt. She had loved him for that, she remembered. There was nothing more responsive in Claire than to a man’s great battle with roaring appetite. To this she could relate, having a roaring one herself.
Narayan bowed his head to this strange new matriarch, this former maharani—once stick-thin, her only real possession her precious bag of cameras—with whom he’d joked and sallied. She was quite different now. She must be very rich as well. The size of this house! Narayan opened the back door and saw the great yard bright with yellow sunshine. There were mums in all colors, and fire flowers lined the ivy covered garage. Small trees of roses grew from a bed of Carribbean colored portulaca. A fan of water sprinkled to and fro from a yellow plastic fountain apparatus attached to the hose. Geraniums in red and purple rimmed the long, broad beds of grass. It was the season of marigolds and they were everywhere, small and tall, saffron-bright orange and shimmering in the fresh, clean, start-again light of morning.
The sound of Zinnie’s voice floated over and filled up the yard on the breeze. “… Afraid and shy, I let my chance go by, a chance that you might love me, too.” This, then, was Narayan’s first glimpse of America. He breathed the air. He walked gingerly across the grass to the redwood picnic table upon which Swamiji sat cross-legged under the ceiling of grapes. He joined him there and joined him far away, right there where he truly was.
Carmela watched him through the blinds. “Not bad. Just let them know from the first that you’ll be needing their room vacant by Wednesday. Say you’ve got guests coming from Germany or something. Otherwise, they’ll just stay forever. They’re probably out of money already. Next thing you know they’ll be asking you to sponsor them for green cards.”
“Carmela, it’s not like that. Swamiji is on his way to Berkeley. He’s been invited to speak at some seminar about the value of herbs in medicine today. Narayan is accompanying him. Narayan might appear to be nothing but hunk at first glance, but after his years with Swamiji he went on to university at Oxford, my dea-ah, just like your Stefan. Only I believe he left, unlike Stefan, with a First, returning to India on a fellowship to assist Swamiji.”
“Good God. Not really?”
“Yes, really.”
“I wonder if he’s brought a tux?” She peeked back out through the blinds.
“I don’t think so. At least not from the look of their packs. They’ve come as traditional Indians, it seems.”
“I’ll bet I could get them to speak at Stefan’s ladies’ luncheon next month.”
“That’s quite a change from ‘scoot them out as soon as you can,’” said Claire.
Carmela snorted. “Who knew?”
“Hello, Dharma.” Claire looked up. She stopped herself from taking the child in her arms. She was covered in her rumply curls and Claire couldn’t help knowin
g how her mother must have loved to hold her and smell her and keep her cozy on her lap, the way she did her Anthony. Dharma stood there in her pink nightgown, bewildered.
“Something woke me up,” she accused Claire.
“Yes, well, we’re well into the morning now and people are out and about. Toast? Eggo? Cheerios? Frosted Flakes?”
“Frosted Flakes, please,” Dharma chose, and she sat down at the table.
“Well, I can see we’ll never get to my play,” said Carmela rudely.
“Don’t be silly,” Claire said, shutting the fridge with her toe. “Orange juice or apple juice?”
“Orange.”
“Now. Where were we?”
“Snow White.”
“Yes, and why Snow White again?”
“It’s a myth,” Carmela said. “It didn’t start with Walt Disney, you know.”
“No, I know. ‘Schneewittchen’ has been terrifying German children for ages.” She scratched her head. “And what part are we up to, now?”
“We hadn’t started.”
“Right. Okay … So. What’s the opening scene?”
“The curtain opens on the queen, not a kid, brushing her hair before her Depression-furniture mirror. She’s an aging rock singer.”
“Oh, that’s good. You could use that great old set Mommy’s got in your old room.”
“That’s what I thought. Anyway, she reads a resumé from a new backup singer, some young girl who’s applying for the job.”
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