He found her crying that day, in his office. The door was closed when Aravindan came to it, though not locked. His hand on the knob, he heard her crying, just the way he had known that white women must cry, full-throated sobs. He knew her hair would be disheveled, her eyes puffy and red, that Carol would be gasping for breath. Ugly, surely, no temptation. So he opened the door, went in, closed it behind him. Miss Sawyer? And yes, she was ugly, with tears leaking from her eyes, and fluids dripping from her nose, rising to her feet, still sobbing, saying sorry sorry sorry professor. Her father had died, suddenly. She had known for days, had kept working steadily, but while she had sat in his office, waiting for their meeting, the knowledge had risen up and overwhelmed her, dragging her out to drown in a sea of untouched grief. Aravindan took her in his arms, a brotherly, fatherly embrace. He held her as he had not held Mala, as he had held Shanthi, though he could not comfort his wife. He held this girl, and she was comforted. She raised up her head to his, after a time, and kissed his thin lips, his pointed chin. She whispered his name, Aravindan. He felt the bird fluttering inside his bound ribs, the sudden lift and dip of it. How many years had it been, since his wife had said his name with love, with desire? He kissed Carol’s rich lips, the tip of her tongue darting into the gap between his upper front teeth, startling him so that he almost, almost pulled away.
It ended a few months later, unexpectedly. They had not quite locked the door; they had gotten careless. Anyone could have come in—a secretary, a colleague, a student. It might have been a scandal; it might have been hushed up. But instead, it was his daughter, Leilani, eight years old, who stumbled in the office door. A cut on her head, blood dripping down her face in a thin line. She had been running again, heedless, the way she always would, impatient with any fatherly cautions to slow down, be careful. His eyes recorded her image; long after she fled down the hall he could pull the picture up, run it like a movie in his mind. The shocked wide eyes, the thin line of red. They were only kissing, only pressing Aravindan’s dark lips against Carol’s pink ones. The child might not have understood—but she had run away, instead of seeking comfort in his arms. She had always been his favorite.
So many years ago, and still he could not talk to her. When he looked at Leilani’s face, at ten, twelve, fourteen—the recorded image intervened, the taste of Carol on his lips. A rock sat in his stomach, heavy and unmoving. His throat so tight that not a word escaped it.
And now—a job in California, another chance. He’d been asking around, quietly, and this possibility had emerged. A small step down in prestige, but a new department, with fresh new faces, new energy. Aravindan was growing stale, he could feel it. So little new work in the past few years. He had become instead a good teacher—one of the best. Carol was only one of a string of bright young students coming through his office, the only one he’d kissed, but not the only one he’d taught, and helped, and cared for. One of them was bound to be more than just brilliant. One of them would change the shape of the world, would unlock its deepest secrets. Or it might, just possibly, be him—Aravindan could take this job, drag his family up from their roots, leave his wife’s garden behind and take them to a new city, a new world. A new life.
Only just last year, the curry plants had finally gotten sturdy enough that Shanthi felt safe cutting and pruning them, using their leaves to delicately flavor crab curries, uppuma, his favorite fried garlic-ginger chicken. Her roses had climbed up and over the kitchen window; they had bloomed all summer in rich crimson profusion. Roses the exact same shade as his wife’s wedding sari, just as startling against the white-painted wood as she had been, standing in the tall, cold English church, smiling up at him, her face as bright as Jaffna sunshine.
Acts of Faith
Chicago, 1963
NALAN REMEMBERS WHEN HE FIRST HEARD HER NAME, AS HER PARTICULAR NAME—SINGLY, COMPELLING ATTENTION, RATHER THAN AS one of a set of children, of sisters. A start-of-semester party in Eckhart, professors and their wives, their children, swirling through the tea room and the halls, the cold building filled with unaccustomed laughter. He was the only English professor in the room—he’d only come by to see if Aravindan Kandiah had heard any news from Ceylon over the summer. The man’s mother could usually be relied on to write pages-long letters, full of news; Nalan’s own mother had passed away a few years ago. His quest for news had led him straight into chaos, a frenzy of noise that almost turned him right around, sent him scurrying back to the haven of his tiny office on the top floor of Gates-Blake.
“Hello, Nalan! Good to see you!” The man was shaking his hand too hard—a habit, he’d always thought, of nervous, overambitious men. “You know my daughter, Harini? Starting here this year. She’ll be taking your class soon—be good to her!” Kandiah was pushing forward a shy girl, head tilted forward, hair falling to shield her face.
“Of course, of course.” Nalan couldn’t actually tell any of the man’s six daughters apart, but he was glad they were in the room nonetheless; he enjoyed their slender sari-clad bodies, reminding him of his own sunny college days, fifteen years past in Colombo. Fifteen long, cold years, here in Chicago. Sometimes he couldn’t remember why he’d ever come. Shakespeare was probably to blame. Nalan smiled gently at the girl, who might be pretty under that veil of hair—it was impossible to tell. “I remember when you barely came up to my knee; it’s hard to believe you’re starting college already.”
That was the right tone, cheerful and avuncular. Not a role he’d had much practice with, but he could remember it from his youth—the uncles who had patted his head, surreptitiously passed him sweets he hadn’t needed and, later, prophylactics he had needed even less. Nalan had been a chubby boy, terrified of girls, grateful for the refuge he’d found in English books. He’d grown into a plump, intellectual man. If he’d stayed in Ceylon, he’d undoubtedly have been married off regardless of his fears. Perhaps that would have been better, though he’d gotten used to his solitary existence, the company of great minds, long since dust. If occasionally Nalan wished for some experience of those emotions he’d read of, the passions of a Romeo, or even the jealous rages of an Othello, for the most part he was reconciled to a quiet life and grateful for the peace of it.
“She’s not the only one,” her father said, beaming. “Leilani starts this year, and Mayil too! Come here, little prodigy!” Reaching down the long table piled high with cookies and teacups, calling one more girl out of the group surrounding his rather round wife. One of the girls headed toward them, her hair pulled neatly back into a long braid, her eyes bright. Her sari-wrapped hips swayed gently as she walked, and Nalan felt a sudden unwelcome throb in his pants—this wasn’t the time, the place, or the girl. Besides, she couldn’t possibly be old enough to go to college…
“She can’t be more than fifteen,” he protested, feeling particularly old and creaky in response.
“Mayil is sixteen, and smart as a whip! Tell Nalan Uncle your SAT scores, Mayil.” The other girl had disappeared into the crowd, leaving Mayil now alone with the two men, uncomfortably close. Nalan fought the urge to take an uneasy, obvious step backward. She didn’t say a word, just looked at him, with unusual poise.
“She’s shy—but we’ll soon cure her of that, won’t we?” Kandiah clapped his colleague on the arm, hard enough to bruise. “Seven-eighty English and a perfect eight hundred math! Shanthi didn’t think it was a good idea to let her skip grades in grammar school, but the girl was the one who wanted it, and it hasn’t hurt her, has it? Mayil’s always known her own mind, this one—and what a mind it is!”
“That’s certainly very impressive,” Nalan agreed, though he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to let children skip ahead. In his experience, they tended to either get conceited or socially inept, or, in the worst cases, both. He wondered which category this girl fell into—conceited was his bet. Mayil was overly restrained for a child; she seemed arrogant, in a way that Nalan found irritating. She wasn’t pretty enough to justify her coldness; a plain girl
who should have been more accommodating.
“I can’t cook,” she offered up, without any hint of apology—or explanation, for that matter. Nalan couldn’t see why the girl thought it might matter to him whether she could cook or not.
Her father laughed. “No man will care, my rasathi, not with such a brilliant wife. Not that I’ll let you go to just any man—the one who takes you away will have to be quite a catch himself. My clever daughters deserve the best—don’t you agree, Nalan?” He pulled Mayil close, squeezed her shoulders affectionately. She turned and smiled up at her father, a smile of such unexpected sweetness that Nalan had to catch his breath.
Nalan, who had learned to be quite a good cook in twenty years of lonely bachelorhood, could only nod and silently agree.
The clock slowly ticked its way from two to three, from three to four. The man sat in the chair, very still, waiting with his hands in his lap. Outwardly he seemed the picture of calm, but if you walked up to him, if you laid your fingers on his upturned wrist, you would feel a pulse leaping wildly.
HE DIDN’T SEE MAYIL AGAIN FOR TWO YEARS, THOUGH HE RAN INTO her father fairly often, and one of her sisters did take his Renaissance Drama class, what he privately thought of as “Marlowe, et cetera,” that spring. Harini was competent enough, but no more so than any of his other students, and he wasn’t surprised when she confided in office hours that she planned to become an engineer. Nalan was sure she’d be a good one, inheriting her father’s science skills. When he did finally see Mayil again, it was in the fall of 1965. He walked into his Survey of English Drama class and there she was, in the front row.
After class, she came up to the front, after the other students had left.
“So, did you like it?” he asked, strangely anxious, desiring her approval.
“Very much,” Mayil said, smiling.
“I’m afraid my class wasn’t so much to your sister’s taste. I thought you might feel similarly.” Mayil could easily still drop the course—so many students did in the first few weeks. In fact, he wished some of them would; the class was fuller than he liked. But he’d rather she stayed.
“I’m not a science person—I’m more interested in learning about people.” Was it his imagination, or did she give that last word a lingering, sensual stress? Nalan knew that few of his students made it through college with virginity intact; he wondered what exactly this girl had learned about people so far. Mayil went on to say, “I’m going to be a historian, and history is all about what particular people did. That’s all it is, really.”
“You can’t know for sure what you’ll be doing—you must be, what, starting your third year now?” Mayil had been sixteen when they’d met—she’d be eighteen now. A rather beddable eighteen, with wide hips encased in a flowing grass-green skirt, curves of breasts quite visible under a peasant-style white shirt. In a Shakespearean play, she’d be ready to be tumbled, in a field of daffydowndillies, under the warm summer sun. Or so he imagined. “You’ll have just finished your core requirements…you’re only now starting on your specialty.”
Mayil smiled. “You have a good memory, Professor,” she said, her head tilted up inquisitively.
“Please, call me Nalan.” That sounded much too intimate, inappropriate, and he hurried to explain, “I don’t like formality with my students—I find it interferes with the learning process. I’m supposed to be teaching them to think for themselves, and they have such sheeplike tendencies already…” He’d rambled on too long, now she’d think he was insulting her. Nalan didn’t know what it was about this girl that made him stumble so, made him feel twenty again. Her self-possession, perhaps.
“Nalan,” she said. “You’re quite right that I would normally have two more years—but I’ve been quite sure what I wanted to study for some time, and I’ve been able to double up some classes. I’ll be graduating in the spring, and I was actually hoping you might be able to help me? I’d like some advice on which grad schools I should apply to, if I want to do interdepartmental work in Renaissance history and literature.”
“I’d be pleased to advise you, of course.” So that was why she had come to talk to him, a perfectly innocent, sensible reason—Nalan felt relieved, and disappointed.
Mayil smiled. That smile once again took her rather plain face and lent it undeniable charm. The girl wasn’t beautiful, but when she smiled, he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. She said, “If you’re free this period, let me buy you a cup of coffee at the Reynolds Club, please.”
There was nothing objectionable in that—they’d be in full view of many students, some professors. But it would be more appropriate to meet in his office, with the door open. He hesitated a long moment, and then leaped.
“That sounds very nice.” Nalan’s heart beat faster, as he gathered up his papers and followed her out the door.
“Sir?”
“Is there any word?”
“No, not yet. We just need you to fill out this form…”
“Of course.”
EVERYTHING WENT VERY QUICKLY AFTER THAT—EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE physical consummation he woke up from dreaming about, with sheets embarrassingly wet. Mayil never said anything, but somehow she let him know that sex wasn’t actually an option—and it was for the best, of course. She was his student, he was her teacher, and even after the course finished, and the grades were handed out (hers one of only two As), she was still a student, still barely eighteen, and he was almost forty. Nalan was somewhat relieved.
While he wouldn’t have wanted to admit it, as a liberal professor of English literature, a literature that sometimes seemed to be entirely about sex, it would have disturbed him if Mayil had wanted to make love. If an eighteen-year-old girl were willing to have sex with a man twice her age, it would imply, wouldn’t it, that this wasn’t an activity entirely new to her? Nalan was already jealous enough of the slender, pale boys in class who sat near her, who leaned too close to borrow a pen or paper—he couldn’t believe that she might actually prefer him, pudgy and dark as he was. Othello’s emotions were becoming entirely too real. And, of course, it would be humiliating if she found him less experienced than herself. Better by far to learn together—eventually. Someday. Mayil didn’t want to have sex, but she did make it utterly clear that she wanted to spend time with him, wanted to talk to him, listen to him. Perhaps, morally speaking, Nalan should have dismissed it all as a schoolgirl crush, gently steered her away. He did try once.
They were walking on the Fifty-seventh Street beach, late at night. It was February, the middle of winter term, and the wind was still brutally cold. The beach was deserted—even the street people had found better shelter that night.
“Your father will not be pleased with this.” Nalan wasn’t even sure what “this” was, but whatever it was, her father would not be happy, that was certain.
Mayil paced alongside him, her body painfully near, her eyes gazing out into the darkness of the water, the few far lights. “We’ll have to wait until I graduate. If Northwestern takes me for grad school with a fellowship, Appa won’t be able to say a word.”
Nalan asked, “Wait for…?” His heart was thumping, most distracting.
“If you don’t ask me to marry you the day I graduate, I shall be very disappointed.” Mayil still wasn’t looking at him, but her hand slid into his, interlacing their fingers. It was one of the few times she’d touched him, and the fragility of her slender hand made his throat feel tight. He felt a simultaneous desire to protect her and to shake her—didn’t she know how ridiculous this was? How people would laugh? There were so many cruel things they could say. Nalan felt a sharp pang at the thought of putting her through that kind of gauntlet.
He was quiet for a long time, walking slowly down the beach, her hand in his. Then, “Maybe someone your own age…,” he offered.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said sharply, squeezing his hand and digging in her nails. “I’ve known since the day I met you.”
She was so sure of herself, so c
ertain. Mayil never seemed to have any doubts, about anything, and somehow, she made it all happen, despite inexperience, despite youth. She made it happen by sheer intelligence and force of will. “All right, then.” He put himself into her hands.
He remembered how she’d looked yesterday, boiling water for spaghetti at the stove, hands resting on her hips, leaning back. She couldn’t stand curry when she was pregnant—the onions were too much for her. So she made spaghetti while his sauce simmered; she never had learned to cook. Soon it would be ready, and then she’d shake crushed red pepper into the lush red sauce, shake over and over, angrily waiting for the day when all of this would be over and she could eat properly again. He was waiting for that day too, when he could make her the most delicate of chicken kormas, with toasted almonds scattered across the top. Until then, he ate crushed pepper with her, his tongue burning, and waited.
NALAN CAME TO HER FATHER’S HOUSE THE EVENING AFTER THE morning when he’d gotten down on one knee, in his office, and asked Mayil to marry him. She’d gone ahead to prepare the way, his ring heavy on her finger. He was calm on the outside, but his stomach was doing acrobatics; he had to pause before ringing their doorbell, swallowing hard to keep from vomiting in the profusion of rosebushes. When he finally pushed the buzzer, no one answered at first. He pushed it again, and again, wondering if he’d simply been banned from the house. Finally the door flung open, and there was her father, his face flushed deep red, his fist clenched.
Bodies in Motion Page 7
