The Most Precious Substance on Earth

by Shashi Bhat

  The French girl and I could find no common ground. But Savithri is alternate-reality me. Me if my parents hadn’t immigrated to Canada. Me if I’d embraced religion. Me with more expressive eyes. Me if I dedicated myself to something. Me if I could stand on one bent leg with the sole of my other foot tucked into the crook of my knee, arms in a diamond above my head, and never, never lose balance.

  * * *

  I flew back to Halifax late last night. Savithri had been staying in my room, but as soon as I got home, she insisted on moving into the guest room, which has a window so small it could be a porthole. “I’m only in town for a few more weeks,” she said, and I realized my parents had told her I’m here indefinitely. I’m not going back to Baltimore.

  I feel guilty that she had to stay in my room, still painted black. She seems like someone who’d prefer mauve. She also had to find space in my closet to hang her clothes among my old junk. The shelf at the top dips under the weight of binders and yearbooks. On the floor is a giant Rubbermaid container, a mass grave of stuffed animals.

  I pull my Grade 12 yearbook down from the shelf and turn to my grad profile at the back. In Grade 12 you’re given space to write personal statements that will sound foolishly outdated only six years later. The yearbook staff provided our class with forms to fill out, with headings like Pet Peeve, Claim to Fame, Favourite Teacher, and Words to Live By. Amy and I had spent four years planning what we would write in ours. Pet Peeve—Trumpet players. Favourite Teacher—Bill Nye the Science Guy. We combed through Sloan lyrics for the ones that would make us seem profound. In the end, she didn’t graduate, and I left mine blank. Not even a favourite quote.

  Next, I flip to the section that features people “Most likely to…” These have to be suggested by your peers. I’m not listed. None of my peers cared what I would do after high school. Here’s what I did: I got an English degree. After that, overwhelmed by the options outside the snow globe of academia and buoyed by my university friends who had no intention of staying in the city, I stumbled into a creative writing program in the U.S., where they had better funding. One of my professors had advised me not to get an M.F.A. if I had to pay for it. “It’s not a job-producing degree,” he’d said, wryly. I liked the sound of Baltimore—literally the sound of the word, like rolling gumballs in your mouth. It occurred to me only later that it rhymes with Voldemort. And I didn’t know that Edgar Allan Poe had died there, that his last words in the hospital, after they found him slumped in the street, were “Lord help my poor soul.”

  * * *

  My first week home, I discover that I got along better with my parents when I was farther away. While I was living in another city, they assumed I was spending my time being productive and achieving life goals, when instead I was caught in a mindless loop of online Boggle.

  We fall into a routine. I choreograph ways to avoid them in the small house. This is easy enough, because they rise at dawn. My dad has staked a claim on the bathroom that used to be mine, so there’s steam on the mirror when I go to brush my teeth. They’re off to work and Savithri is off to her training before I come downstairs. Once they’re gone, I emerge to eat Pop-Tarts on the sofa, my laptop on a tray table in front of me. I click through rentals I can’t afford, extending the search in a wider and wider radius around downtown Halifax. When my parents are home, I stay in my room, sifting through the papers in my closet and doubting that historians will ever need them for archival purposes.

  Before dinner on Friday night, I’m feeling a bit fatalistic, so I wander into the kitchen thinking I’ll help my mom—but she and Savithri are already standing there at the counter. My mom is peeling garlic, smashing cloves with the side of a chef’s knife and slipping them out of their skins. Beside her, Savithri expertly deseeds a bell pepper. Perhaps they will open a restaurant together. They are humming a song I don’t know, lightly tipping their heads from side to side with the fluctuating melody. As I listen, the humming grows into singing. There are no harmonies in Carnatic music—no chords, really, just a single vocal line that they sing at the same pitch. The two of them seem so close, working there calmly and in unison. I don’t understand when they formed this connection, and how it happened so quickly, when I have had my whole life.

  * * *

  The next morning, just to get out of the house, I decide I’ll visit the main library. “Where are you off to?” my mom asks as I’m leaving. I give only a vague answer, resisting sharing my exact whereabouts to preserve the facade of independence.

  My parents need their cars for errands, so I decide to take the bus. I don’t think you can really know a city until you’ve mastered its public transit, until you’ve coursed through its bloodstream like a virus. Once I’m outside, the early December air wakes me up. Out the bus window, winter in Halifax looks the same as it always does—a white sky, a snowy mountain at each curb, and brown slush filling the road, every parked car transformed into a snow beast. There’s enough snow for sledding down the hill in Gorsebrook Park; dots of colour whoosh down the slope and trudge back up again. In their puffy black coats, all the people on the street look like henchmen.

  It snowed only once during my time in Baltimore. I walked to campus, and nobody was there except me and a guy from Minnesota. We didn’t fall in love. Apparently, the school had called a snow day. In Halifax, a snow day is merely a day, even if you have to excavate a tunnel of ice to reach sunlight.

  In Baltimore there were three competing transit systems that didn’t properly converge. Halifax transit is more straightforward and familiar, but still my anger brews at the slightest hiccup. On my way back from the library, my tote bag is heavy with magazines. There’s a snowbank blocking the bus shelter, and as I try to climb over, my foot sinks into it. Slush comes rushing into a boot that is supposed to be waterproof. I slide forward, my tote bag flying, and as I grab it to keep the magazines from getting wet, I fall over completely. Come on, I say in my head, which sounds mild but it’s pure rage, and then the bus is late and I want to kick the bus shelter, kick the snow, kick the idiot person standing next to me, who seems to be in no hurry at all. My foot is numb and then it’s a sharp icicle. I read that your threshold for pain increases if you swear. You can even hold your hand in ice water for longer. Fuck fuck fuck damnit, I chant in my head, but still, nothing feels easier; nothing feels warm enough.

  * * *

  That weekend, my dad calls us to the living room for a brainstorming meeting. He hauls out his stand of chart paper, dragging it in front of the fireplace, then spends ten minutes hunting for a marker, until my mom goes into the kitchen and plucks one from the second drawer. She sits cross-legged on the floor, leaning back against the base of the couch. Savithri peers into the room and then goes to join my mother. They’re seated identically, feet tucked under knees as they face me, in the armchair by the TV. Is it preference or martyrdom, I wonder, that neither of them chooses to sit on the couch.

  My dad reminds us that there’s a holiday talent night coming up at the temple. I can’t keep track of the dozens of temple events, including the Bhagavad Gita Recitation Competition (in which children memorize passages and then forget them in front of an audience), the God Drawing Contest (in which children draw gods, with much debate over whether tracing is allowed), Folk Dancing with the Stars (in which there are no stars—they just liked the name), and the newly introduced Top Chef Challenge (in which the temple blows its annual food budget on supplies, the temple chef is infuriated that others are meddling in his kitchen, and aunties pick team leaders, resulting in lingering resentment).

  “Okay, now, one question I have,” begins my dad, gesturing at his chart paper, where he has written the word Plagues, “is what to write on the plaques for participants. Simply their name? Should it say Participant? Or the full temple name plus Holiday Talent Show…” He writes these possibilities down in his shapely print.

  “I think you spelled Plaques wrong.” I point at the paper. �
�Also, don’t engravers charge by the letter?”

  “Or would trophies be better?” he inquires, crossing out the g in Plagues and changing it to a q.

  “How many plaques do we need?” my mom asks. “There’s no more room on the fireplace.” It’s true, the mantel above the fireplace is three layers deep with plaques and trophies from participation in community events.

  “There’s room in the fireplace,” I tell them.

  “Ha ha ha.” My dad feigns an angry face and shakes his clenched fist in my direction.

  “Trophies always end up in the garage sale,” says my mom. “Now, who is going to organize the garage sale?”

  “Who buys a trophy with someone else’s name on it at a garage sale?” I ask.

  “You’re right,” she responds. “Only your dad would do such a thing.”

  Savithri raises her hand. “Aunty, Uncle, may I make a suggestion? How about magnets?”

  “Magnets?” My dad is agape.

  “Yes, we did this for a function back home. You can even make them look like small certificates—fancy border and all.” She brings up a photo on her phone.

  My dad squints at the screen. “Huh, now that’s quite practical.”

  “Waah, what a great idea,” my mom concurs, making an appreciative clucking sound.

  “Why do we need to give them anything? Shouldn’t participation itself be the reward?” I ask.

  “Yeah, right.” My mom glances at me. “I’ll forward the complaint emails on to you.”

  “I know a printer in India—we can order in bulk,” says Savithri.

  It’s decided: fridge magnets are the best reward for participation. My dad writes Magnets! on the chart paper and underlines it twice. Savithri is me if I had bright ideas and contacts at a bulk magnet printer in Bangalore.

  Next, we review the dinner menu, decorations, and volunteer assignments that my parents will take to the rest of the temple organizing committee.

  “What about the performances?” I ask.

  “Oh, that all has been arranged quite a while ago,” my mom informs me.

  “Your mom and Savithri are planning a collaboration,” my dad adds.

  My mother rests a hand on Savithri’s shoulder. “I will be doing the vocals and Savithri will be dancing.”

  It turns out they’ve been practising for weeks. That’s probably what I heard them singing in the kitchen the other day, with their Stepford wives unity. I push my jealousy way down, waiting for it to pass like a kidney stone.

  My dad thinks for a moment. “There is one spot open. One team had to cancel because that organizing aunty couldn’t renew her work visa. But usually the program goes too long anyway, so we don’t need—”

  “Nina, why don’t you put something together?” suggests Savithri.

  Though I know this isn’t what she means, I see this flash of myself in a Bharatanatyam costume, knees folded in purple silk pleats. I did take lessons for about six sad months as a kid, and classical Carnatic vocal lessons, too, until I faked enough sore throats and menstruation for my parents to realize their money was better spent on home upgrades.

  “Umm…oh, no, that’s okay.”

  My dad taps his skull thoughtfully with the marker. “We can call that group of kids from the cancelled item—you can organize something for them. How about a Christmas theme?”

  “You realize I have no relevant training,” I protest, though I know the performers are mostly just interested community members. The same people often appear in three program items, adopting different roles like the cast of SNL, since there still aren’t that many Indians in Halifax. In fact, one time they performed their own take on the sketch that inspired A Night at the Roxbury, though the timing was off and the audience didn’t seem to get the reference. Other highlights: couples in a fashion show of Indian historical figures; a ten-year-old doing stand-up; an uncle delivering a monologue from Hamlet.

  “You’ll be great,” declares Savithri.

  “What are you doing at home anyway?” my mom asks, her tone suddenly sharp. “So far I just see you eating.”

  Savithri averts her eyes.

  Nothing, I think. I’m doing nothing at all.

  * * *

  At the start of our first rehearsal, children come screaming through the door all at once, as though simultaneously released from the same minivan. There are eight of them, ages ranging from four to nine. Women are supposed to like children, but honestly I’m indifferent. I can’t recall ever interacting with a child. These ones are accompanied by moms carrying babies and/or snacks. My mom helps everyone unpack their winter gear, and they leave uneven rows of slushy boots by the door. There aren’t enough coat hangers, so the kids shove their woolly hats and mittens into the sleeves of their coats, and then we pile them on the living room sofa.

  I spent the past few days working out a routine to the version of “Jingle Bells” sung by Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters. I explain the concept. “So, you folks are reindeer,” I tell the kids. “We’ll have to choose a Santa…” I stand them in a line on our basement carpet and show them one step at a time, a hand on one hip and the other pointing forward and back, then I do a twirl. But this routine is too complicated for the youngest children—the music bops along faster than they do. Jjjingle bells, jjj jjj jjj jingle bells…jingle all the waa-ayyy. They keep forgetting what comes next and bumping into each other, clumping together at one end when the tiny girl in front pauses to examine her fingernails. With less than three weeks left before the talent show, we’ll have to rehearse at least twice a week to figure this out. I have no idea what I’m doing, but the kids don’t seem to mind. They’re barefoot on the beige carpet, thumping around and waving and linking their arms like a barrel of monkeys. Nobody seems to wonder why we’d perform a Christmas dance skit at the Hindu temple.

  When we take a break, I discover the moms have a snack rivalry. One elegant mom has brought a cheese ball, which she places proudly on the ping-pong table for the kids to smush into with Breton vegetable crackers. There’s a chocolate sheet cake that the tiniest girl eats with her hands. Another mom has brought spicy roasted chickpeas—“They’re very simple to make,” she informs us, before going on to describe a two-day, ten-step recipe. A mom with red fake fingernails struggles to open a family-sized bag of Cheezies. These are moms with no food restrictions besides meat. Their kids eat sugar and potato chips and chocolates with alcohol fillings. They drink Pepsi poured from two-litre bottles into Styrofoam cups. Nobody cares about their health or the environment or about making a mess. It’s like we’re in the eighties again. Some kid has already spilled their Pepsi on the carpet. When I run upstairs to the kitchen to find paper towels, the music from the Bounty commercial pops into my head. What have I become?

  The moms sit at the side of the room and watch, which sounds intimidating, but they’re buoyant and easygoing, munching on cake and cheese and chickpeas and Cheezies, yapping at their kids to pay attention. I realize it was the parents I was afraid of, and these ones are as forgiving as Pillsbury dough. They seem to trust me. The tiny girl is not accompanied by a mom, but by an older brother who must have recently learned how to drive and so has now been given chauffeur responsibilities. The too-cool teen has claimed a chair among the moms and is eating a malodorous tuna sandwich he brought with him in his pocket, peeling back the plastic wrap a centimetre at a time. I wonder if eating fish is his method of rebelling against his vegetarian upbringing. He’s wearing a jersey and slouching in this calculated, casual way.

  One creative girl with two tight pigtails invents a new move, so we incorporate it into the routine—the eight reindeer put their hands on their waists and do the twist, and the moms clap in encouragement. We crown the girl “Rudolph.”

  “Will I get to have a red nose?” she inquires, nose wriggling.

  “Obviously,” I tell her. “You’re Rudolph.”


  All the other kids congratulate her. Nobody is even jealous. I imagine myself having eight children and living in a shoe.

  “Which reindeer am I?” asks a speedy little boy, so I name him Dasher. Then they all want names, so I tap their heads like I’m the queen of Duck, Duck, Goose and list the reindeer names, which I somehow still remember: “Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid…”

  “Vixen?” The mom with the red nails widens her eyes and points one long finger at the imp whose head I’ve just tapped. The chickpea mom slaps her on the back as the other moms cackle like Statler and Waldorf. Even the tuna sandwich teen cracks a smile.

  * * *

  At our next rehearsal, we’re trying to decide who’ll play Santa. There are only eight children, whom I’ve already given reindeer names, and I haven’t thought this far ahead. Proportionally it wouldn’t make sense—these skinny, long-limbed, brown kids work perfectly as reindeer, but Santa?

  “You could be Santa!” suggests Rudolph. The kids cheer.

  “Nope, not happening,” I tell them.

  I review my mental Rolodex of uncles for one who might fit the part. In the meantime, we run through the next section of the routine until the kids are fidgety, and then we break for the mom-provided repast. While they’re feasting, I go upstairs to my parents’ walk-in closet to hunt for my dad’s old Santa outfit. It’s there among the costumes and props of shows past: peasant skirts and Yakshagana wigs and an enormous homemade wheel from the time they acted out Wheel of Fortune.

  I bring the costume back downstairs and gather everyone for the second half of practice. To the tuna sandwich teen, whose name is Anurag, I say, “Anurag, you will have the great honour of playing Santa.”