The Story Hour

by Thrity Umrigar

  “In my village, many birds. All different-different color. But crow come and . . .”

  “Lakshmi. Not today. Today we need to talk about the reason—” Maggie stopped midsentence, struck by a thought. “Is that why you did it? Because you are homesick? For your village?”

  Lakshmi shook her head briefly. “My home here, with my husband. I married woman.”

  “Then why?”

  Again silence. Lakshmi turned back to the window and stared out. Maggie followed her gaze out of the dark room and into the golden June afternoon. Lakshmi had not left this room from the day she’d arrived six days ago. The realization nauseated Maggie. Of course. That was what Lakshmi had been trying to tell her with the stories about the greenness of her village and its many birds.

  Maggie got up from her chair. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going for a walk.” The startled smile on Lakshmi’s face confirmed the rightness of her call.

  Patty, the head nurse, called out to them as they walked past the nurses’ station. “Dr. Bose?” she said. “I don’t think the patient is allowed to . . .”

  Maggie waved her away. “It’s okay, Patty,” she said. “I’ll sign her out.”

  They rode down the seven floors in silence, but Maggie was aware that Lakshmi was looking at her out of the corner of her eye. For the first time since she’d started working with her, Maggie felt in control. It was a good feeling. Over the years, she’d developed a reputation for being slightly unconventional in her treatments. The hospital staff had looked askance in the beginning, but there was no doubting her ability to work with the difficult cases, and in time, they had learned to trust her judgment. And private practice had taught her the value of flexibility: She had shut the blinds to her office to accommodate a patient who was talking about childhood incest for the first time; she had gone driving on several occasions with a male client who was afraid to drive over bridges; she had kept her eyes closed during an entire session as a patient slowly, hesitantly confessed to having had an affair with her husband’s brother; she had allowed a patient to arrive each week with a boom box because Mozart helped her relax. Whatever it took. She did whatever it took to help clients share their secrets with her.

  And if that meant walking around the hospital grounds with Lakshmi on a sunny afternoon, that was what they’d do. She already knew that the woman had a hard time maintaining eye contact. This way, Lakshmi didn’t have to look at her. And there was something conducive about talking as one walked, the rhythm of the feet allowing the tongue to move also.

  “Is it nice to be outside?” Maggie asked. “Get some fresh air?”

  “Madam, it so nice. I feels clean, like taking shower in sunshine.”

  Maggie smiled. “I thought you would like it.” She paused for effect and then started walking again, pulling on her lower lip in an exaggerated gesture. “You know, I just thought of something. Most people try suicide in the winter months. Around the holidays, that kind of thing. Unusual to have someone as young as you attempt it at such a lovely time of the year.”

  As she had anticipated, the younger woman’s eyes filled with tears. “I not doing on purpose, madam. I not thinking. I . . . I just feeling so sadly that day. Husband not home, also. I not thinking.”

  “You mean you hadn’t planned it for weeks?”

  “No, madam, I swears.” Lakshmi pulled at the skin near her Adam’s apple for emphasis. “God-swear, madam. That day only, I decide.”

  Maggie felt something relax within her. So the attempt had been an impulsive gesture. Good. Good. It meant Lakshmi probably would not repeat it.

  Still, she frowned as if puzzled. “I don’t understand. What happened on that particular day to make you feel so sad? Did you have a fight with your husband?”

  “No, no, madam. Not husband fault. I wicked woman. I do wicked thought.”

  It hit Maggie. Of course. There was someone else. Why hadn’t she picked up on it sooner?

  They were now about forty yards away from the path that led to the woods behind the hospital, and Maggie decided to walk into the dense grove of trees. Here, on the back lawn, Lakshmi would feel exposed, naked, in the glare of the sunlit afternoon. But the light would be weak in the woods, and if there was one thing that Maggie had learned in her years as a therapist, it was that shame required darkness.

  Lakshmi relaxed visibly as soon as they entered the woods. Maggie saw that it was more than the anonymity provided by the shade. For the first time, Lakshmi looked at home, in her element: She plucked a leaf off a tree, crushed it in her hand, inhaled its smell, and then said its name in her language; she got down on her haunches to examine a mushroom growing at the base of a trunk; she turned her radiant face up to gaze at the sliver of sky that showed through the leaves. Despite the awareness that they were wasting time, despite the realization that they didn’t have much of a window before her next appointment, Maggie was transfixed. She felt as if these woods were magical, and that they had transformed the sullen, crushed woman into a pixie.

  She knew that the pixie would disappear with the next question, but she had no choice. “What was the wicked thought? That made you attempt it, I mean.”

  Lakshmi, who had been running her hand across the soft spindles of a pine tree, stopped. Slowly, she turned to face Maggie, who held her gaze. Come on, she willed her silently. Tell me, so I can make a judgment about whether it’s safe to release you. She saw a cluster of emotions cross Lakshmi’s face before it went slack.

  “This customer, he came to restaurant every Thursday,” she said. “So nice he was, madam. Always saying please-thank-you to me. Always, without fail. He my only friend, madam. And he smell”—Lakshmi looked around them—“he smell like this place. Clean.” She plucked a pine needle off the tree and held it to her nose.

  Here it was, Maggie thought. She’d slept with this guy and was terrified her husband would find out. After having met the husband, a mountain of a man, Maggie couldn’t blame her. He would probably kill her if he knew.

  She opened her mouth, but just then, Lakshmi began to sob. The hair on Maggie’s arms stood up. In her practice, she’d heard lots of people cry—it was one of those sounds you had to steel yourself to—but she had never heard a sound like this. It’s cultural, she told herself, but she knew that wasn’t it. She’d attended Sudhir’s grandfather’s funeral, where his widow had wailed and beaten her chest; she’d seen videos of Middle Eastern women keening during mass funerals; what she was hearing now was unlike anything she’d ever heard. In Lakshmi’s crying was the sound you’d make if you were the last person left alive on the entire planet.

  A shiver ran through Maggie. For a second her mind played tricks on her—I’ll have to describe this to Peter and ask if he’s ever heard this sound during his travels, she thought—before she remembered her resolution not to see Peter again. She looked around, not knowing how to interrupt Lakshmi’s crying, angry with herself for having brought her to this place. So she was going to coax a cheap little confession out of the poor woman. So what? She would soon be releasing her to the same shitty little life that had made her have the affair in the first place.

  She forced herself to speak. “Did he—did this man love you back?” she asked. And knew immediately from Lakshmi’s shocked expression that she had made a mistake. At least it had stopped Lakshmi’s sobbing.

  “No, madam. I told you. I married woman. I’s from good family. I never tell Bobby. I just sad because he leaf for the California.” The sobbing had ceased, but Lakshmi was looking at her with a wounded expression that made Maggie’s toes curl with mortification. What the hell is the matter with you? she scolded herself. Imagining that an immigrant Indian woman would blithely have an affair? Just because you are an adulteress doesn’t mean that everyone else is. She caught herself. Adulteress? Where the hell did that archaic word come from? Was that how she saw herself? And why was she projecting her guilt about Peter onto her client? How lame was that?

  “He moved to California
?” Maggie said. “Forever?”

  For a moment she thought the awful sobbing was going to start up again, but Lakshmi merely nodded wordlessly. Above them, the trees rustled and the sun filtered in through the thick leaves.

  “And that’s why you—? Over a customer?”

  Lakshmi nodded again, completely missing the irony. And, Maggie thought, there is no irony, dammit. The fact is that this woman is so completely isolated, so bereft, that the departure of a man she was fond of was enough to make her try to take her own life. A cold wind blew through Maggie at the thought. It was unimaginable, that degree of loneliness, of loss. A protective feeling came over her as she watched the sallow face that was gazing at her with such hunger, ready to accept her condemnation, hoping to gain her understanding.

  Maggie was about to suggest that they head back to the hospital when she decided to take a calculated risk. “What did you lov—like—about Bobby?” she asked, knowing that she was pushing open another door that they would walk through, knowing that she was continuing her association with Lakshmi, that their relationship would not end after her discharge.

  Lakshmi smiled with her eyes. “He so kind, madam,” she said. “He never say I stupid, even when I forgets to bring his Pepsi. He never looks at me with naked eyes, the way the other men customers do.” Her voice lowered. “And he look like . . .” She cast her eyes around the spot where they were standing. “His eyes blue like this sky and his hairs color of gold. And his mouth smiling, smiling all the time.”

  Despite the sadness she felt at Lakshmi’s situation, Maggie was amused. So Lakshmi had gone and fallen for a blond, blue-eyed white boy who was moving to California. He was probably a surfer dude. A picture of Peter sitting naked in bed rose in her mind, but she pushed it away. She was not going to compare her affair with Peter to Lakshmi’s silent crush on Bobby. Her life was light-years removed from Lakshmi’s barren, desolate life. Her marriage to Sudhir couldn’t even be compared to Lakshmi’s joyless marriage to that horrible man. And yet there it was—that pull, that connection. She had felt it from the moment she had entered Lakshmi’s room.

  She gently took hold of the younger woman’s elbow and steered her in the direction of the hospital. They really needed to turn back. As they walked, she casually asked, “You said Bobby never called you stupid. Does your husband call you that?”

  Lakshmi looked at her quickly and then looked away. “Yes, madam,” she mumbled. “It his pet name for me.”

  Maggie felt a rush of anger. “Then you should stop answering to it,” she said. “Until he talks to you nice.” Lakshmi said something that Maggie didn’t hear. “What? I didn’t catch what you said.”

  “I said it not his fault, madam. I am a stupid. Not husband fault he not love me.”

  What was it about this woman that was affecting her so? She had heard stories from clients a thousand times more horrific than Lakshmi’s, and they had not touched her like this. Then again, had she ever had a client who was as vulnerable, as friendless, as the woman who walked next to her, whose fingers were lightly touching each branch and tree trunk they passed, as if she were gathering it all in?

  “Do you love him?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Maggie kicked herself for asking the question. They were near the hospital, she had to get Lakshmi to her unit, and she didn’t have time to explore Lakshmi’s answer. “It’s okay,” she added. “You don’t have to answer that.”

  Lakshmi nodded her assent. They climbed the stone steps that led to the hospital in silence, and then she said, “My ma always say, love come slowly-slowly in the marriage. So I not worry. I do my bed duty with him and I feel nothing. But I no worry. But now it six year past, and I knows the truth—love is not coming for me. I having no feelings for him, madam.” A tear rolled down her cheek and she brushed it off roughly.

  Maggie was about to respond when she saw Richard Cummings, her boss, walking toward them in the hallway. Cummings cocked an eyebrow as he approached, throwing Maggie a half-approving, half-sardonic look. “Hello,” he said. “Enjoying the outdoors a bit?”

  Maggie could tell Richard wanted to chat, but she simply nodded and kept walking.

  As they waited for the elevator, Lakshmi leaned toward her and whispered, “That man come see me the day I come to here. He say something and something, but it all sound like ‘buzbuzbuzbuzbuzbuz’ to me. So I says nothing to him.”

  Lakshmi’s body language was relaxed, her tone confiding, and Maggie felt the thrill of a breakthrough as they got in the elevator. “You should’ve replied to him by saying, ‘Buzbuzbuzbuz,’” she said, trying to imitate the sound Lakshmi had made.

  The younger woman giggled, a soft, tentative sound. For the first time since they’d met, Lakshmi looked her directly in the eye and held the look. The next minute, they were both laughing. Maggie imagined the quizzical look on Richard’s face if he knew they were mocking him, and this made her laugh even more.

  “Well, looks like you had a nice walk,” Patty said as they walked past her.

  Maggie escorted her patient to the room and then lingered for a moment. “Listen,” she said. “I’m going to recommend that we let you out of here tomorrow. But you have to continue with outpatient therapy. Do you understand?”

  Lakshmi looked confused. “What is the there-py?”

  “Therapy. What we’ve been doing here. You know, talking.”

  Lakshmi brightened. “Yes, I see. You means, making the friendship?”

  “Yes, well, not quite,” Maggie stammered, not sure what to say. “Look, what time does your husband visit tomorrow? I’ll stop by then. I will have a discharge plan prepared by tomorrow. Okay?”

  She let herself out of the room before Lakshmi could reply.

  9

  MAGGIE WISHED THE man in front of her would stop pacing. “It’s a conditional discharge, Mr. Patil,” Maggie said. “Are you with me?”

  “This Lakshmi’s natak is costing me lots of money,” Adit Patil said. “I needing her in the restaurant.”

  “And you can have her. But she must continue therapy. You understand?”

  Adit scowled. “And where from the money comes? How we pay? My insurance not so good. We poor people. Lakshmi make stupid mistake. But now she okay.”

  Maggie glanced at Lakshmi, who was staring at a spot on the floor, acting for all the world as if this conversation did not involve her. “She’s not okay,” she said quietly. “She just tried killing herself, do you get that? I’m sorry, but I can’t discharge her without follow-up treatment.”

  “This hospital too far from our house. I will take her to family doctor. For checkup.”

  “I realize commuting to the hospital is not realistic. And so I’m going to suggest something. I have a private practice out of my home. It’s a lot closer to you than this place. Lakshmi can come see me there once a week. Would that work? She can take the bus.”

  Adit looked at her incomprehensively, shaking his head. “I not following. What is this private practice mean?”

  Maggie searched to find the right words. “Like a clinic. A doctor’s office. You know? Like your family doctor’s office?”

  Adit swore softly. In Hindi, he said to Lakshmi, “This woman is a crook. She is trying to put extra money in her own pocket. Now I understand her game.”

  Maggie noticed the startled look on Lakshmi’s face and guessed what Adit had said. “Mr. Patil,” she said smoothly. “Before you worry about money, I just want you to know that I will treat your wife gratis—for free. My usual rate is a hundred and thirty dollars an hour.” She noticed with satisfaction the stunned look on the man’s face. “But since you are, as you say, poor people, I’m happy to work with her without a fee.”

  She took in the triumphant look that Lakshmi threw at her husband and knew that she’d guessed correctly what he had muttered. He was staring at Maggie openmouthed, and after a second she said, “Well? Do you agree?”

  Adit glanced quickly at his wife and then l
ooked at Maggie. “Madam,” he said. “I have business to run. I cannot be taxi service for my wife. How I bringing her to you once a week?”

  “As I said earlier, Mr. Patil, she can take the bus.” Maggie dug into the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a schedule. “Here. She can take the bus from Chesterfield to downtown Cedarville and then catch a second one to my home. It won’t be easy, but it’s doable.”

  Adit frowned. “My wife never take the bus,” he said. “Not safe. And she like a child—she will get lost, definitely.”

  Both women spoke simultaneously. “She’s not a child—” Maggie began.

  “I can learn,” Lakshmi said. “In India, I used to take bus—”

  He spun around on his heel and glowered at his wife. “This not India, you stupid woman,” he hissed. “What you going to do if you goes in wrong bus? As it is, you having no common sense.”

  “Mr. Patil,” Maggie spoke sharply. “Please don’t ever call Lakshmi stupid in my presence. Actually, you shouldn’t call her that, period. And like I said, these are the terms of the discharge. Now, if you disagree, we will just keep her here longer.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but Maggie forced herself to stare him down. She was glad that none of the nurses were in the room—they might have felt compelled to inform Mr. Patil that Lakshmi couldn’t be kept any longer against her will. Maggie was counting on the fact that he didn’t know the law and would bend under the pressure of her authority.

  Still locking gazes with him, she turned her body ever so slightly toward the crouching Lakshmi. Say something, she willed her. Help me break this impasse.

  As if she had read her mind, Lakshmi rose slowly from the bed. “I will learn bus route,” she said quietly. “I wanting to go home, ji. I missing my home.”

  Maggie had no idea if Lakshmi had believed the threat or was playing along. But whatever her reason, it had the desired effect on Patil. “Okay,” he mumbled. “Please, you sign the discharge papers. We make arrangement for Lakshmi to come to your clinic.”