“Stay away from my granddaughter,” thundered the old man, though the voice seemed to come from the house.
“Fuck you,” said Senthil, as the umbrella scraped against his spinal column. He woke up when the bus hit a pothole and snapped his head against the window. A thin film of dust had coated his mouth. In his hand was a note:
Only God says jump
So I’ll set the time
We should have bought a bottle of water
When the bus stopped
Goodbye.
“You slept with your mouth open,” said Amala. “You should never do that on a bus.”
•
The ancestral home looked weary and abandoned, in spite of the people that kept shuffling between the slivers of sunlight leaking through the ceiling. On arrival, Senthil was given a tumbler of warm buttermilk that was so sour it made his eyes water. They left their bags in a room that was stacked with broken wooden beds. Then Amala took him to see what was left of the property.
“Some Dalits want to build a school here,” she said. “They even asked if we were willing to sell. My grandfather doesn’t know about it though.”
“Why?”
“Are you kidding? Dalits are worse than Nadars. If he hears they want to buy this place, he’ll have a heart attack. His head will explode.”
There was a car shed with no car, stables filled with rusted bicycles and a field that was overflowing with holes and lumps of clay. Amala showed him everything like she was displaying someone else’s scars. Lastly, she took him to a large, abandoned well—the pottakennar.
“There’s still water in it,” said Senthil as he leaned over and peered inside. Puffs of warm, putrid air gently clung to his mouth and hair.
“All the soil sinks in whenever they try to fill it,” said Amala. “Six people have died in there. All women.”
“Wow.”
“The ladies in my family like to jump in wells. The men like to hang themselves.”
“Is it haunted?”
“I like to think so.”
They spent the rest of the day sitting on the only unbroken bed in their room. Senthil found an old radio and began fiddling with it while Amala sorted through newspapers, trying to find something to read. She finally gave up and rummaged through her handbag for a paper and pencil. After staring out the window for a few seconds, she scribbled something down and stuck the note in Senthil’s pocket.
There’s something I’ve learned
That you feel it
When they take it away
All these broken beds
Are bringing me down.
Goodbye.
“We could leave if you want,” said Senthil as he folded the note into four.
“No,” said Amala. “It’s just the beds. I wish we could burn them and go home.”
Senthil found a Sri Lankan radio station playing old Tamil movie songs. The announcer read a long list of dedications that had three Senthils, one Senthilmurthy, one Senthilnathan and no Amalas.
“I love the way they talk, don’t you?” said Amala.
“Who?”
“Sri Lankan Tamils. It’s like they’re trying to sing but their voice never quite takes off.”
They listened to songs about how the heart was like an unanchored boat, how the future was filled with promise but the past was filled with tears. Voices kept weaving in and out of thick clouds of static until the entire station disappeared completely in the middle of a song about the moon.
“Stupid Sri Lankan stations,” mumbled Amala as Senthil switched off the radio. In the evening, a plump, sad woman brought them half a cup of tea each and apologized that there was nothing to eat with it.
“But we’ve got some nice fish for the night,” she said, “Unless you’ve become vegetarian. In which case—”
The plump woman shrugged and smiled sadly. Senthil wanted to assure her that he wasn’t vegetarian but she left before he could say anything.
Dinner was a silent and scattered affair. Everyone else in the house seemed to prefer eating in the kitchen and Senthil could hear the soft murmurs of their conversation humming around the kitchen door. Senthil, Amala and a small girl were the only ones in the dining room. The fish was soft and reeked of decay, even though it was drowned in a fierce and pungent gravy. Senthil decided to have rice with curd instead, though there was no pickle to go with it. The small girl sat on the opposite side of the table, gazing intently at Senthil with large, mournful eyes.
“Your niece?” asked Senthil.
“Who knows?” shrugged Amala. “What’s your name?”
The girl shifted her mournful stare to Amala.
“Tell me your name,” said Amala as she sucked on a fish bone, “or I’ll toss you into the pottakennar.”
The girl quietly got up and left. She seemed to teeter from side to side, as if she was still learning how to bend her knees.
“I think there’s something wrong with her,” said Senthil.
“She’s probably drunk,” said Amala. “Either that or she has polio.”
•
The next day, Amala took Senthil to see her grandfather. He was asleep, breathing noisily through his mouth.
“We tried to give him a bath once,” said Amala, “You know, just to see if it would tire him out so he would die? But he didn’t—it’s like he’s staying alive to annoy everybody.”
Amala poked the old man in the shoulder.
“Thatha?” she said loudly. “Thatha this is Senthil. You don’t have to talk to him, just look at him.”
They waited a few seconds. Then she lifted the old man’s withered, yellow hand and pressed it into Senthil’s face.
“What are you doing?” said Senthil.
“Let him feel your face.”
“Why?”
“Just—”
The old man’s hand dropped to the bed and Amala rolled her eyes.
“Well then look at him Thatha,” snapped Amala. “Just open your eyes for a second.”
“What’s the point in doing this when he’s sleeping?”
“He’s not sleeping. He’s just being difficult.”
The old man’s breath rattled lightly and then settled. Senthil caught a muted, stale perfume coming from the old man’s clothes.
“He smells like lavender,” whispered Senthil.
“He’s very fond of Yardley. Come on, we’ll try again tomorrow.”
“An old brown man who smells like an old white woman,” murmured Senthil.
“What?”
“Nothing. I was thinking that Polio Girl must be his great-granddaughter. It’s a shame you don’t know who she is.”
“I don’t think anybody knows who she is,” said Amala as she got up.
•
The next day the old man looked remarkably the same, breathing loudly through his mouth while a dying smudge of lavender hung over the bed. The Polio Girl was sitting in the doorway, scribbling on the floor with a piece of green chalk.
“Shouldn’t you be in school or something?” asked Senthil as they passed her. He tried to ruffle her hair but it stuck to his fingers like clumps of damp feathers.
“Maybe it’s not polio,” said Amala. “Maybe she’s retarded.”
This time, they each held one of the old man’s hands. Amala told her grandfather about how she had met Senthil, how he slept with his mouth open on the bus. Senthil noticed the old man’s hands were warm and surprisingly soft.
“Thatha!” snapped Amala. “Either you open your eyes or I’ll… I’ll...”
“She’ll throw you in the pottakennar,” whispered Senthil. Amala turned and stared at him.
“What?” said Senthil.
“Why would you say something like that?”
“It was a joke. You said it to the Polio Girl.”
“Does my grandfather look like the Polio Girl to you?”
Senthil got up and made his way to the door.
“I’ll just leave him a note, how about that,” he sa
id over his shoulder. “I’m the one fucking your granddaughter. Best regards—”
Senthil tripped over the Polio Girl in the doorway and fell, smashing his mouth against the dusty, tiled floor. He felt a trickle of blood collect on his tongue—his teeth seemed to be humming softly, like they had been electrocuted. He wiped his mouth and looked up.
“I’m alright,” he said. “I think I chipped my tooth though.”
“Well get up then, you’re stepping all over the Polio Girl, for God’s sake,” said Amala.
•
Amala spent the rest of the day talking to her grandfather. Senthil watched her from the doorway; sometimes she walked around the room, speaking in English and touching the backs of chairs. Sometimes she would sit beside her grandfather, rocking back and forth, murmuring in Tamil. Senthil thought she looked very small and far away, like he was seeing her through the wrong end of a telescope.
“Well?” said Amala. “Are you coming in?”
“You look like you’re at the bottom of a well,” said Senthil.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“No.”
“Will you come in later?”
“I’ll come in when he’s awake.”
“But he is awake. He’s just being difficult.”
“I’ll come in when he’s not being difficult then.” Senthil spent the rest of the day wandering the grounds. He tried to pull a bicycle free from the rusty snarl in the stables but gave up when a wheel fell off and rolled away. He ended up at the pottakennar, dropping in leaves and watching them disappear into the dark water. Nothing floated—not even a scrap of cigarette foil. Senthil decided this was due to some complicated form of underwater physics which he couldn’t understand. When he ran out of things to throw, he opened his wallet and sifted through the worn sheets of paper inside:
I wonder
Why everything’s the same as it was
Why life goes on the way it does
Maybe one day you’ll wish you had given me
Your black t-shirt when I asked for it.
Goodbye.
_____
The light is swiftly fading
Angels wait to take me home
Even though Angels don’t like
Hindu girls
Goodbye.
Senthil decided to write Amala a note. He would stick it on her forehead when she was sleeping. She would read it over and over again; whenever she saw him, the words would run across her eyes like subtitles. Dear Amala, Senthil thought to himself. Or no, Just Amala.
Amala.
What I want to say is
I’m being chased by insects.
I want to eat my cigarettes.
Senthil decided to write the note later, when he had something else to say.
•
That evening he ate his dinner with the Polio Girl. Her little metal plate held a handful of watery rice and a single, bright red chili.
“That’s it?” said Senthil, looking at her plate.
“It’s the only thing she’ll eat,” said the plump, sad woman. She dropped a teaspoon of salt into the Polio Girl’s plate and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Well no wonder you can’t walk properly,” said Senthil. The girl dipped the chili in salt, bit the end and crammed a handful of rice into her mouth. Senthil began fishing out the chilies from his karakozhumbu and rice.
“Here,” he said, placing them on the Polio Girl’s plate. “I’m sorry I tripped over you.”
After dinner he fiddled with the radio, listened to patriotic songs in Hindi and a play about dowry harassment. When he went to bed, he noticed a folded piece of paper under his pillow.
My grandfather woke up after you left.
He thinks it’s 1964
And that I’m my mother.
He thought about finding her and asking her to come to bed. But he ended up falling asleep instead.
•
Senthil was sitting on the front porch of the house. The old man with the moustache was gone but he had left his umbrella inside Senthil’s chest—he could feel it bob up and down each time he took a breath. Beside him sat the Polio Girl, writing something on the steps in green chalk. Amala was standing in front of him, dripping thick black water onto the dusty ground. Tiny silver crabs were swarming around her lips and eyes.
“They wouldn’t let me in,” said Amala, shaking strands of algae from her hands. “My own family!”
“You’re not allowed in the house either? Is it because of me?” asked Senthil.
“Not the house, the pottakennar! I tried to drown myself and I floated!”
“But that’s not right, everyone’s allowed to drown themselves in wells. Even Dalit Christian lesbians who write feminist manifestos are allowed to drown in wells. It’s physics. Or chemistry.”
The Polio Girl suddenly stood up, teetering slightly. Senthil held his hands out to steady her, though he was sure he couldn’t catch her if she fell.
“What does that say? What’s she written?” said Amala, frowning at the green lettering on the steps. Senthil looked down at the words. They seemed to be shimmering, as if they were underwater.
“Suicide letter is the most common form of letter,” read Senthil.
“That’s incorrect on a number of levels,” said Amala. “It makes no sense grammatically, for one thing. Furthermore, a suicide letter is not a thank you note. It’s not a shopping list. There’s nothing common about it at all.”
Amala turned and began to walk down the steps.
“Where are you going?” asked Senthil.
“The pottakennar. I have to try again.”
“Take them some flowers. Tell them I’m a wealthy Brahmin boy working in the States.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Amala as she faded into the distance. “I’ll take them some flowers.”
•
Senthil got up early the next morning and walked to the tea stall for a cup of coffee. The road was dotted with crushed frogs, turtles and scorpions, all glistening mutely in the morning light.
“Would you like a Special Tea instead?” asked the tea stall owner.
“I don’t like tea,” said Senthil.
The tea stall owner grinned at him. Senthil suddenly wished he had said “I don’t drink tea” instead.
“You’re staying at the Big House?” asked the tea stall owner.
“Yes.”
“Come from the city? You’ve come with Aiyya’s granddaughter, right?”
Senthil nodded and looked back at the roadkill. A crow was picking away at the remains of a crushed turtle.
“One Special Tea then?” asked the tea stall owner.
“No tea, coffee. One coffee.”
“The Special Tea is very good.”
“Don’t you have any coffee?”
“No coffee, sorry.”
Senthil made his way back, weaving carefully through the road kill. When he got to the house, he told Amala he was going home. She didn’t try to change his mind—she just stood there, holding his thumb in her fist, nodding steadily.
“Are you coming?” asked Senthil, as he packed his things.
“Not right now,” said Amala. “I still want my grandfather to see you. Have you got a picture of yourself? Even a passport-sized one would be okay.”
“No.”
“You better take some when you get back to the city then. You never know when you’ll need a passport-sized photo of yourself.”
“When are you coming home?”
“Soon.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Probably not tomorrow.”
Amala walked him to the gate but refused to come to the bus stop.
“Well?” said Senthil.
“Well what?”
“Anything you want to give me?”
“I’m not kissing you if that’s what you mean. This isn’t the city you know.”
Senthil nodded and made his way to the bus stop. He watched as crowds swelled and stuffed themselves
into every bus that arrived at the stop across the road. Senthil couldn’t help feeling that he was waiting in the wrong place, for a bus that was going the wrong way. In front of the tea stall, he saw the Polio Girl. She had two grubby green mango slices in her hand, each one doused in deep red chili pepper.
“You keep eating mango slices like that and your stomach will fall off,” said Senthil. She staggered awkwardly towards him and they stood side by side. A large, black thunderhead spread across the sky like an ink stain. For a second, the sun shone brightly on Senthil and the Polio Girl, then disappeared.
“You better go home,” said Senthil. “Before it starts raining.”
Senthil watched the girl as she hobbled away. When his bus finally arrived, it was completely empty. The driver was whistling to himself and the ticket conductor was sleeping on one of the front seats. Senthil sat behind the driver and looked out the window. The Polio Girl was still walking unsteadily home; there was only one mango slice in her hand now. He opened his wallet of suicide notes and pulled one out:
Don’t forget me when I’m gone
Your heart
Will break.
Goodbye.
He thought of holding the notes out the window, then letting them go, one by one. He could already see them flying by his head, fluttering onto the hot, sticky tar like a flock of dying birds.
It is either Sunday night or Monday morning. Moths flutter like disoriented twists of paper as we enter a genuine Indian pocket of red spittle and highway magic. We both carry a reputation for missing the epiphany, for asking for a straw when the whole point is to drink from the bottle. This time we are ready; even if we don’t find a bathroom, we are pretty sure there will be talking scorpions under the tables.
Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings Page 11
