She hung up and threw the phone on the seat. She knew Peter well enough to know how prickly he could be, how easily his ego could be bruised. Peter, she suspected, didn’t pursue women past a certain point. Also, he would know that she had deliberately chosen to call when he’d be away from home, and that, perhaps more than her words, would keep him away.
So. It was done. She had done it, proved to herself that she was different from her father, that Wallace had not corrupted her down to the core. Peter would be leaving the university at the end of the semester anyway. She had simply expedited their inevitable parting. Now she could focus on the rest of her life with Sudhir. And if she occasionally felt that something was missing, that Peter had brought out a side of her—a sexually alive, unpredictable, exuberant side—that she’d never know again, if she ever found herself comparing her husband unfavorably against Peter’s ambition and worldliness, she would tell herself that it was the less flamboyant qualities of trust, reliability, dependability that made for a good marriage.
Maggie gathered up her hungry heart and drove home.
25
I’S TIRED TONIGHT. When I finish cleaning MaryJo’s house today, her friend Gina stop by with request: She having the party tomorrow and her maid is calling sick. Could I please to clean her house next? She pay extra.
I wanting to say no but I not knowing how. I also remindering what MaryJo tell me recently—Gina find out she has special type of the ’rthritis called rummytoy ’rthritis. Gina’s hands not twisting like Ma’s, but still, how to say no to someone who sick? So I say yes. I calls husband to say please to eat something for dinner, as I coming home late. He do his usual fuss on the phone but I just listen and then say bye.
Later, husband look up when I walks into the apartment. My feets hurting so hard, I walking like—how you say in English? I don’t know the wording—like langdi.
In the husband’s face, there is no kindness. “This is result of your greed,” he say, pointing to my feets. “Bas, one-two jobs you get and you’ve become money-greedy. Now you thank your Maggie for this.”
My temper chili-hot these days. “Why for khali-pili you drag Maggie into this? What Maggie ever steal from you? Has she eaten even one grain of salt that belong to you? If anything, you is in her debt.”
“I in her debt?” Husband voice loud as mine. “I? What that darkie do for me? She filling my wife’s head with big-fancy thought. She trying to break my—”
The pain from my feets now enter my head. This man give me headache. “Don’t call her darkie. That—that insult. Your own skin more dark than Maggie. Her name—call her proper. ‘African-American’ is proper way.”
Husband look at me with his mouth open. “Wah, wah, Lakshmi,” he say. “You think because you have some few housecleaning job, because you driving car and listening to those stupid tapes to learn the proper English, you now Am’rican membsahib? Who can now teach her husband how to talk?”
I so tired, I only wants to sit on sofa and listen to my Manna Dey CD. Why this man chose this time to start fight with me? I remember what Sudhir babu say to me other day. He say since I am U.S. citizen, I have exact same rights as everyone, even the president. I am same as everyone, even white people, Sudhir babu say. I wants to tell the husband this, but I not a fighter-cock like him. So I keeps shut.
Thanks God, he shut up also. He go back to watching his Bollywood TV channel, and after few minute, I go and sit next to him on sofa. It is old Raj Kapoor movie and we watch quiet for few minute. I put one feets on the sofa and massage it. One time when I cleaning Maggie’s house, I go into her living room and she lying down on couch and Sudhir babu massage her feets. I feels so many things then—embarrass, as if I watching them naked, but also the sweet pain in my heart, like when Raj Kapoor never get to marry the heroine. I think, Why my husband never show kindness for me?
“You see this movie when you young boy?” I ask, and husband nod yes.
“Of course. It was top hit. Play in the cinema in my village for more than one year, solid.”
I smile. Talking about Hindi films, husband’s favorite subject. He know all songs, who star in what picture. Because I thirteen years younger than husband, I not knowing all same movie he knowing.
“So what happen in the end?” I ask.
Husband laugh and tap my hand two times. “Woman,” he say. “You so impatient you cannot wait until end?”
“I have to get up to warm up food for me. I’s starving. So I will miss ending.”
Something happen then. Husband give big sigh and get up from couch. “You sit,” he say. “I go heat your dinner. I seen this movie hazaar times.” My mouth become so open, the husband laughing. “Close your mouth,” he say, “before the fly get in.”
I hear the ting-tong of stainless steel pots as husband takes out food on a plate to heat. I look around this room for the angel who is hiding here. What other reason why husband preparing my plate? Maybe he wanting the sex tonight? But for that, he not needing to heat my food.
And then I listen: The voice of Mukesh is singing one of Raj Kapoor’s most top-hit song. So sad, so beautiful, the song sound, like the first drop of rain after the earth is old from waiting. I remembers one night when Shilpa still a baby and she cry and cry because she hungry. Shilpa born during year of worst drought, and we having so little to eat that Ma get weak and not able to make enough milk for baby. So she always hungry and Dada go mad because crying baby and starving wife make him feel so bad. The night that Shilpa cry till one o’clock, he get up and turn radio loud, so he not hear baby crying, and this same Mukesh song play on radio. And what you think? Little Shilpa get all chup. And two minute later, she falling to sleep.
Angel name Mukesh is in my house right now. Music is how angel talk. Everybody know that. It is Mukesh that turn my husband’s heart soft. Music make people want to be good. It make him bring hot-hot plate of food to me, while I sits on the couch like a maharani.
Husband put the food on coffee table. “Eat,” he say, but I wait, embarrass to eat while he standing in front of me. His face frown when he see my feets. They is swolled from standing all day. He say something under his breath and then says again, “Eat. Food getting cold.”
When he leaf the room, I begin to eat but I also feels alonely. Why he leaf? Does my feets look so ugly it make him sick? I hears water running in the kitchen. Is he washing the dishes? If so, Mukesh not only angel, he saint. I knows I should helping him but it first time all day I’s eating and the food is hot and tasty. Why I say no when MaryJo offer me the sandwich earlier today?
I finish eating and puts the plate on table. I fighting with my eyes, because I wants them to stay open to watch ending of film and they wanting to be shut. For one minute, I let them win, and bas, I am sleeping sitting on sofa.
“Lakshmi.” Husband voice sound angry. “Wake up.”
“I’s awake,” I say, rubbing my eyes, swallow my yawn. And then my eyes really open big.
Husband has put a towel on floor near me. On the towel is the pink plastic basin. Inside basin is steamy hot water. And also on towel is box of Epsom salts. “Here,” he say. “Put the feets inside this. It take down the swelling.”
But now it is my eyes who is swolled. With tears. “You make this for me?”
He give a short smile. “Who else?” he say, like he irritate, but I hears the pride in his voice.
Maybe angel not in this room. Maybe I dead and I in heaven. “Many thanks.”
“Mention not. Now, woman, you going to sit there and let water get cold?”
“No,” I say, slowly putting one feets in and then the next one. Within one-two minute, I feel the tired leaving my body.
Husband come sit next to me. “How it feel?” he ask.
“Like Taj Mahal and Las Vegas combo,” I say. “Tops.”
He look surprise and then he laugh. Pranab, one of his cardplayer friend, saying this every time he get good cards. “Lakshmi,” he say when he stop laughing. “You getting smart
in your old age.”
The words slips from my mouth, as easy as a letter slip into a postbox. “Maybe if I get smart, you begin to love me.”
Hard to say who more shock, him or me. The words come out of my mouth but they not dead. They fly around in the room like pigeons and we too embarrass to look at them. “I just—” I begins, but he break in my words.
“Who say I don’t love you?” he say in joking voice. “Woman, why you being stupid again?”
I know he trying to free me, to make me not feel embarrass. But now I wants to talk, to break this hard coconut shell we have lived inside for six years. I remembers how Maggie hold Sudhir babu’s hand when he come home from work, and before I can stops myself, I pick up the husband’s hand. But once I holding it, I not knowing what to do next. Keep it on his leg? Move it to mine? Hold it in air? He help me by putting both our hand on his knee. “Ji, I wants to say something,” I says. “I wants to say, I so sorry for what happened before. I knows you not loving me. It’s okay. I knows you are a good man. You kind and honest. You deserve good wife. I sorry for how I destroy your life. If I return to earth in ten lives, I still not deserve your forgiveness. I’s sorry.”
Six years these words living inside me, moving from my heart to my mouth, back into my heart. Why I not say them before? Maybe because I ascare, like I is right now. Without turning my head, I look at the husband. He not looking at me. One minute, two minute pass. I hears tick-tick of clock on the wall. Then he say, “No sense talking about past, Lakshmi. It was our destiny, bas. God’s decision.”
We both looking at Raj Kapoor film still, but so many tears in my eyes, Raj Kapoor look like I seeing him from my windshield on a rainy day. What the right word? Blurty? Blurry. After a minute, husband get up from the sofa. “I need to tally day’s receipts on the computer,” he say, but I know he making excuse to go leaf me. What I say upset him also.
I stay on sofa after he go into bedroom. Slowly, the water in the basin get cold, just like the cold that entering my heart.
26
MAGGIE LOOKED AT Lakshmi curiously, wondering if she’d ever seen the younger woman this upset or agitated. Lakshmi had called early this morning and asked whether she could come. “It is a Urgency,” she’d said. “If you have one hour, please to fit me in.”
Today was Maggie’s day off from the hospital. She had planned on running errands this morning, before her first patient came in at two, but that would obviously have to wait. Unlike some of her patients, Lakshmi would not have called unless it was truly a crisis. “Yes, of course,” Maggie said. “Can you be here by ten?”
A brief pause and then Lakshmi said, “Yes. I suppose to help Rekha today, but she can manage alone.”
Now that Lakshmi was sitting on the leather chair in front of Maggie, she was strangely tongue-tied. She would start a sentence, stop, let it fade away. Begin again and then shake her head furiously, as if to deny the tears that kept filling her eyes.
“What is it?” Maggie asked again. “What’s wrong? You said it was an emergency.”
“I . . . It is, Maggie. But not like that. What I saying is . . . It from before. Last night . . .”
“I don’t under—”
“Maggie. I have to tell. A secret. Something bad I do.”
“Whatever it is—”
“But I cannot tell. Like this. I feeling your eyes on me. Please, can we go for short walk? Please.”
It was the end of February. There was no snow on the ground but it was still only thirty-eight degrees. Maggie’s knee gave an involuntary stab at the thought of walking in the cold. But Lakshmi looked like she was going to collapse in the office if Maggie refused. “Okay,” she said shortly. “Let me go get my coat.”
At least the wind was low and the sun was out. Maggie crossed to the sunny side of the street, Lakshmi following closely. “Okay,” Maggie said. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Tomato, the orange tabby from a few houses down, came down the driveway to rub against them, and Lakshmi bent to stroke him. When she got up, Maggie saw that her nose was red, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or if Lakshmi was crying. She decided to wait.
“Maggie. If I tell you a secret, do you promise not to bump me?”
“Bump you? What do you mean?”
Lakshmi looked impatient. “You know, bump me. Stop being my friend.”
Maggie bit down on her lip to suppress her laughter. “Oh. You mean dump you. Not bump.”
“Okay. But you promise?”
“What a ridiculous question, Lakshmi. Of course I won’t stop being your friend. Or your therapist,” she added.
Lakshmi turned her head and stared at Maggie as they walked, looked at her for a long time as if gauging her, trying to decide something. Suppressing a sigh, Maggie put her hand on Lakshmi’s shoulder. “My dear, whatever it is, you’ll feel better after you tell me. Now, what is it?”
For the first time that morning, Lakshmi smiled. “Shilpa and I use to walk like this, with her hand on my shoulder. Ravi chaccha, who is oldest man in our village, use to bless us when we walk past his house. ‘May you two sisters always be this close, not only in this janam but the next life also.’ And Maggie, I always use to think, Of course we be this close forever. We sisters, no? I never think day can come when I don’t know if my Shilpa is dead or alive.”
“Is this—secret—about Shilpa?” Maggie asked softly.
“Yes. No. Yes. Maggie. Belief me when I say everything is about Shilpa. Even when I makes this big sin, it about Shilpa.” The tears rolled down Lakshmi’s face. “Although to save my Shilpa, I kill someone else.”
They had arrived at the park at the bottom of the street, and Maggie gestured toward the lagoon. Apart from six or seven Canada geese, there was no one else there. “Want to walk around the lake?” she asked.
Lakshmi nodded. Because of the cold, they walked briskly, and by the time Lakshmi was done with her story, they were both a little out of breath.
27
IT WAS THE third and final day of the mela, and Lakshmi, Shilpa, and three of their friends were eating their second plate of pyali, the spicy concoction of chickpeas, onion, and boiled potatoes that all the girls loved. Flush with the monthly wages she’d just received from her bookkeeping job, Lakshmi was treating the other four. “Didi,” Shilpa gasped. “Can we have some sugarcane juice next? This is burning my mouth.”
“Arre, peanut.” Lakshmi laughed. “At least finish one thing before asking for something else.” She laughed again because it was a beautiful warm night, because the rain had held off, because there were three hours before the annual fair closed for the season, because she was here with her sister and her friends, and because she had money in her pocket. She tossed her head back at the inky night sky, whose stars had been overshadowed by the lights of the mela, but then her laugh caught in her throat and she frowned. Standing less than ten feet away from the group of girls was a man, a tall, dark-skinned, middle-aged man with scanty hair that he had combed forward onto his forehead. Even a quick glance told Lakshmi that there was something different about this man, something foreign, the cut of his blue shirt a little more stylish than that of the other men milling around, the cut of his hair a little less severe than the local people’s. A foreigner in their midst. What made the laugh die in her throat was the intensity with which he was staring at them. Lakshmi turned her head involuntarily, to follow his line of vision, and realized with a start of outrage that he was staring at Shilpa, her baby sister, who was totally oblivious to his gaze, who was licking the last of the chickpeas off her lips in a manner that Lakshmi knew was innocent but also, she could see, could be mistaken for seductive. She felt a flash of anger toward the stranger, who was, she knew for sure, misreading her sister’s innocent gesture, and who was staring at her with a boldness she found shocking. She moved her body a few inches, positioning herself between Shilpa and the man, blocking his view of her, and was rewarded by a glare. She glared back and the
man looked startled, as if he’d just realized that she had caught him looking. He turned away hastily, and Lakshmi was about to turn away herself when she saw him talking to a man whom Lakshmi vaguely recognized.
She’d had enough. “Come on,” she said roughly, tugging at the sleeve of Shilpa’s kurta. “Put that empty bowl down.”
“But Didi—”
“Didn’t you hear? Let’s go.”
Ignoring the complaints of their other friends, she hurried Shilpa along. “Where are we going? What’s the rush?” Shilpa grumbled, but as always, she allowed herself to be led by her older sister.
“You said you wanted ganna juice, correct?” Lakshmi said, and knew she’d said the right thing when she heard Shilpa’s squeal: “Yes.”
But when they got to the sugarcane juice stall, the man and his friend were there. Lakshmi felt a pinprick of apprehension. Did the man know them? Why was he following them? Why was he looking at them so boldly? What gave him the right? She wished her dada were here, but after accompanying them to the mela on the opening day, Dada had refused to go with them the next two nights. “You foolish girls, go,” he said. “I see everything there is to see first day only. Why for I want to go again?”
They had looked at their father in puzzlement, unable to explain the obvious—they wanted to go again and again because they’d had a great time on the first day and wanted to relive their pleasure: to eat more bhelpuri and other snacks, to ride on the Giant Wheel until it made them dizzy, to watch the actors in their makeup and costumes reenact parts of the Mahabharata, even though by the second day, they knew most of the dialogue by heart. It was the annual mela! It came only once a year. And it took them out of the sleepiness and hardship of their daily lives and jolted them awake with fun, music, games, excitement, lights, color, made them hear the buzzing of their youth, awakened their Bollywood dreams and made them seem possible. It connected them to the wider world because people from the surrounding villages also attended the mela, so in three days, they saw more people than they did in the rest of the year. Of course they would go back to the mela, squeezing from it every drop of color and excitement, so that their normal black-and-white lives came alive in reds and blues and greens for those three days.
The Story Hour Page 16
