Traveling with Spirits

by Miner, Valerie

  “Do you have a question for me?” the old woman inquires feebly.

  “Yes,” Sudha’s face lights up. “Will a professor come to visit my friend?”

  “Oh, no, no,” Monica cringes.

  “Your hand,” the woman urges.

  She extends her left palm. What if Sister Catherine or Father Freitas wanders through the mela now?

  “You must relax,” the psychic instructs.

  She inhales slowly. The woman doesn’t examine her palm. Rather she holds her wrist and resumes humming. Of course, how could a nearly blind person read palms?

  The woman’s voice is hoarse, low. “I see a man from Delhi, running for a train.”

  Sudha elbows Monica on her right arm.

  “Yes, he is catching it. Heading to the mountains. And…” She raises her venerable head, sighing and staring past her into the middle distance.

  “And?” Sudha implores.

  “No, that’s it.” She purses her lips. “That’s all I see.”

  “Thanks.” Relieved, Monica slips a coin into the chipped blue bowl.

  “And now your friend?”

  Sudha speaks up quickly. “Will we find a benefactor to fix the windows at the school?” She presents the woman with her right wrist.

  Once again the psychic shuts her eyes and hums. Then halts. A frown crosses her forehead. “Would you repeat the question? Slowly? I must hear your voice again.”

  Puzzled, Sudha repeats her query about the windows.

  The old woman hums, squeezing Sudha’s wrist tighter, her weird noises resonating louder. She releases the wrist saying, “Unexpected benefactors will appear.”

  Sudha grins, and drops ten rupees in the bowl. “Thank you.” She turns to go.

  “Before you leave,” the fortune teller sing-songs, seeming to recover her sight so thoroughly she can see through them. “You are friends?”

  “Yes,” Sudha says.

  Monica wants to escape, to ride the roller coaster, to eat lunch, to take a nap.

  “Come, then—one hand in each other’s.”

  Sudha sits again, eagerly extending her wrist.

  Monica complies stiffly.

  The woman grips their wrists for a long time, so long, Monica thinks her arm will go to sleep.

  “Please close your eyes, both of you.”

  Really! Monica fidgets on the bench. As a child she learned clairvoyants were like ministers and rabbis, people to be avoided lest she contravene the First Commandment about false religions. Still, this is a simple game to humor Sudha.

  “Please quiet your minds.”

  The woman begins to hum again.

  A vibration travels up Monica’s arm from the shoulder. This is just too silly.

  More purring.

  “I see,” she manages breathily. “One of you will rest in a high place.” Gradually, she releases their wrists.

  “What high place?” demands Sudha. “What do you mean, rest?”

  The woman shakes her head. “That is all.”

  Sudha puts ten more rupees in the bowl.

  “But which one of us?” Sudha demands.

  “I have nothing more.”

  Sudha reaches for the money, but the woman deftly slips the coins into a purse.

  “Al Vidah!” their fortune teller calls after them.

  *****

  The waiter brings a bottle of mineral water and two glasses.

  “You were right,” Sudha says crossly. “Silly superstition. A waste of money.”

  “Maybe she was predicting one of us will go to Heaven,” Monica jokes.

  “OK,” she says. “Clearly it’s you. I don’t believe in the place. You’re going to Heaven. Advance congratulations.”

  “I could have told you that.” Monica smiles. “On a more serious note, you do have the wrong impression about Ashok and me. We’re just friends. We share an interest in each other’s country.”

  “Of course.”

  “Really. Sometimes I think he’ll return to the U.S. He loved grad school there.”

  “That’s not the only American thing he loves.”

  “Sudha, you’re incorrigible.”

  “Since she’s obviously right about you going to Heaven, I guess I can count on my benefactor and on the chance to meet Ashok and evaluate this relationship for myself. You heard her. He’ll catch that train.”

  Monica sips her water, examining the menu.

  THIRTEEN

  January, 1995, Minnesota

  Monica tucks herself at a corner table, looking out the restaurant window at buses trundling down snowy Hennepin Avenue and studying the white flakes landing in the dark night on vehicles, on heavy coated people hidden in caps, gloves and boots. The way these street lamps momentarily light up the flakes makes her nostalgic for a childhood which, if it wasn’t blissful, was relatively safe and comfortable.

  *****

  Dad used to drive these buses. Maybe she expects a bus door to yawn open at the restaurant stop. To see his mop of blond hair, finely featured face, blue eyes igniting.

  “Step on little lady,” Tim Murphy would say. “Do your parents know you’re traveling alone on a bus?”

  She’d perch on a forward bench, kitty-corner to her father as he adroitly steered the huge vehicle in and out of lanes, rolling past Lagoon and Lake and 31st Streets, turning a careful left at the cemetery and then a quick right on Dupont. When a regular passenger boarded, he’d introduce his “beautiful daughter,” bragging about her school grades.

  She loved the winter smell of wet wool, the parade of colorful coats and jackets.

  He was host to all those traveling spirits. She assisted in the hospitality. Tim Murphy’s bright and beautiful older daughter.

  Suddenly, after years of contented Saturday afternoons—their special time together with the guests—different adventures beckoned: homework, shopping and girl gossip. When she caught the bus—once a month at most—he seemed happy to see her. Yet, he was growing distracted, too.

  Then one day the gallant chauffeur disappeared. Vanished.

  Leaving Mom.

  Abandoning Jeanne and Monica, too. Journeyed out to the Lady Rancher in Wyoming. An exotic, improbable, excruciating ending.

  *****

  Tonight, the buses barrel by without halting. Years ago, they shifted the stop one street south. The busy Bijou Café is reflected back to her in the front window—tables of people chatting, eating, laughing, sipping wine. As the tiny candles flicker, faces move in and out of focus. Black-clad waiters balance impossibly heavy trays. The server, Martin, delivers a generous glass of sauvignon blanc. Beata is always a few minutes late.

  *****

  Late, that’s what Monica and Jeanne imagined when Dad didn’t show up for dinner that Friday night. Mom told them he had a union meeting. The next morning, they found her sobbing. Shaking, she handed over the farewell note. Farewell, as if he’d been a visitor all their lives. Passenger rather than driver.

  As years passed, Marie Murphy rued that Wyoming vacation. She’d had a premonition, had campaigned for Colorado. But no, Tim Murphy heard about this Dude Ranch in the Big Horn Mountains. Jeanne and Monica could ride horses and milk cows. Really, his wife said, you just have a big fantasy about the West. Monica doubted either of them fantasized Dorothea, the handsome brunette with the smoky voice. Who would have predicted Tim Murphy would run away from home at age 47?

  *****

  A long sip of wine and she feels the welt of Mom’s grief in her throat. Monica’s parents never claimed, or even imagined, the perfect marriage. They bickered about house expenses, church attendance. But the young immigrants had fun too; genuinely seemed to
respect each other.

  Mom had married for eternity, had followed Dad in his daft plans for a better existence on this side of the ocean. Sure, they made more money here, from his driving and her typing, but was that a fair exchange for leaving their brothers and sisters back in Ireland? Monica knew Dad was happy to escape his parents. Mom’s parents, both sets of siblings, the parish, Kildare, the whole bloody country. Then after years creating a new life with Mom, Jeanne and herself in frigid Minnesota, Dad simply rode into the sunset.

  Monica thinks now how for years neither Jeanne nor she could forgive the bastard. She still wonders why she sent him a card last Christmas. (Well, he’s the only father she’ll ever have.) Since then, each of their three short phone calls has been less strained than the previous one. It’s not time to tell Mom or Jeanne about the tentative rapprochement, not yet.

  Monica senses Beata’s arrival before seeing her. Weather in the café has shifted. The other diners stare, catch their breaths, fantasize about this tall, willowy black woman in the stylish fake leopard coat. Movie star? International diplomat? Dancer? She’d guessed dancer when they met years ago at the Y.

  “Catch you in a trance, again?” Beata laughs throatily, bends down for a half-hug.

  “Brief winter meditation.” Monica hugs her back, inhaling the Rive Gauche and the frost smell of her hair. “So good to see you. It’s been a week. How are you?”

  “Cold,” Beata shivers as she slips off the leopard and zips her cardigan.

  “Cold?” she teases. “It’s been above zero for seven days. Weren’t you born in Minneapolis?”

  “Not my choice.” Beata scans the wine list, beckons the waiter.

  Immediately enamored, Martin grins.

  “A glass of Sangiovese please.”

  They clink goblets.

  “Here’s to an early spring!” Beata sighs.

  “Come on, winter is the ultimate season here. Water crystals dangling gracefully from roofs. Tree shadows on snowy lawns. The luscious quiet of night when snow absorbs voices and traffic noises.”

  “OK for you, Ms. Poetic Minnesota, but my people and my genes came from Louisiana. I’ve always pestered Dad about choosing the U of M for law school. We’re Louisiana folk! And before that, we hailed from an even warmer country. Somewhere.”

  “I know you love the sweaty heat of August while I long for the crisp dry cold of February. It’s a wonder we ever became friends.”

  Martin serves Beata’s vegetarian tower. Even her food is elegant. Much classier looking than Monica’s roast pork and potatoes.

  She reminds herself not to eat too fast. She does that when she’s tired and tonight she’s exhausted from clinic frenzy and the weird animosity between Louise and Alonso.

  Voices swell around them in the crowded bistro. She concentrates on the scents of garlic, butter, wine, basil. She’s glad she nabbed this corner table so far from the smokers in the bar.

  “How are things at the Center?”

  “Just fine, I guess.” Beata taps her fork pensively against the flowered ceramic plate. “It was one of those fundraiser days when you felt more like the chatelaine of a country estate than the director of a top treatment facility. Of course that means interrupting in the counseling schedule, the administrative calendar. Who do they think does the work while we’re all sipping tea together?”

  “I bet it’s galling to perform for some of these donors.”

  “Lord, yes. Still, private facilities depend on these rich philanthropists who live in Never-Never Land.”

  Monica thinks back to her own tedious hours with insurance forms. “Money, if we didn’t need money, we could concentrate on the work.”

  “So how’s Lake Clinic?”

  “You read my mind.”

  “Hardly.” Beata sips the Sangiovese. “Sometimes your face takes on that distinctive ‘yet another day at the clinic’ expression; a cross between rage and anguish.”

  “One of those Dr. Jill days. She’s doing a ‘hot’ radio series this week.”

  “I caught that during breakfast, some new diet for pregnant women?”

  “Who knows?” Monica is abashed by her searing hostility for the prima donna wonder doc who graduated first in her Northwestern Med School class to a national column in Women’s Way to become the Twin Cities celebrity medico. She misses two thirds of clinic meetings and when she does appear, makes suggestions that have already been tried. Louise insists she brings “visibility and cachet” to the clinic. Monica waits for the malpractice suit from neglected patients. Unaccountably, they love her too. Perhaps people like the secondhand glamour. Still, it can’t do much for their strep throats.

  Across the room, an abstract painting with large purple lines catches her attention. There’s something cold, ghoulish, about its blobby texture, intense color. Monica likes almost everything at the Bijou except the thunderously bad art.

  “Girl, you could use some detachment from that woman.”

  “I imagine you’re not advising the kind of detachment that ends in homicide.”

  “Nooo,” Beata takes a bite of her towering vegetables. “St. Olaf’s is sponsoring a serenity retreat up at Lutsen next month.”

  “Thought we had a détente. I don’t make snarky comments about your prodigious designer shoe collection and you don’t hassle me about returning to the Church.”

  “Listen: Lutsen is absolutely your kind of place. Rustic cabins overlooking frozen Lake Superior. Perfect for the winter poet.”

  “I could ice fish while you listened to the padre ramble?” Monica eats the last of her delicious, proletarian pork. “Bizarre that we survived Catholic schools with such opposite reactions. Maybe your nuns were less dogmatic.”

  “Maybe.” Beata grows quiet.

  “Well, compared to my education in blue collar Saint Paul, your Minneapolis classes sounds like Manhattan.”

  Beata examines her newly manicured nails. The deep red matches her lipstick.

  “Sorry about the retreat.” Monica’s heart sinks. “I know St. Olaf’s is important to you. Retreats just aren’t my thing. Truce?”

  “Truce.” Beata takes her hand. “Another glass of wine to celebrate Friday?”

  What would she have done without Beata’s friendship during these stressful years? As Jeanne distanced herself, Beata assuaged the pain and loneliness. She loves her younger sister. But now she’s vanished, like Dad.

  “Earth to Monica. Are you there?”

  Monica glances at the dessert menus and the two fresh glasses of wine. “I was just thinking, ‘Freedom is what Saturdays are all about.’ ”

  “Pardon?”

  “You said that at the Y when we were getting to know one another.”

  “You were pretty tightly wound then. Not that I’d call you loosey goosey now.”

  “Med school does that to a person.”

  “Family does that to a person.” Beata drums her nails on the glass table.

  “Not that you’re a stranger to obsession, ‘Ms. Dedicated to the Cause.’ ”

  She rolls her eyes, pushes aside the menu. “You want dessert?”

  “You’re off topic. Aren’t we both a little fanatical about work?”

  Beata’s face is filled with distress, even repugnance.

  “What are you staring at?”

  “That purple canvas,” Beata laughs dryly. “Do they specialize in bad art here?”

  Monica grimaces, “Not the most relaxing image. But you’re still off topic.”

  “I have lots of interests—Jazz, shopping. The Church. And yes, like you, I take work seriously. That’s one reason we became friends.”

  “We’ve been through a lot together since those early days at the Y.”

/>   “Political campaigns, good movies, bad movies. And a few men,” Beata nods.

  “You have to take credit for the last two jokers.”

  “Moi?” Beata raises her eyebrows, sips the Sangiovese.

  “Absolutely. You dragged me to that lawyers’ party.”

  “Dragged?”

  “Alright, I was curious. Craig was pretty dreamy at first glance. I was as smitten as you were with Al.”

  “Remember that weekend in Chicago?”

  Monica sees that only three groups of people remain in the quieting café. She loves these long, leisurely dinners with Beata. Sometimes she thinks that everything would be solved if they were lesbians and they could forget about men.

  “That trip was fun,” smiles Monica. “At least I enjoyed being with you and Al. Craig spent half of Saturday on the phone to his office. He was married to that job.” The memory makes her crave another glass of wine. She’s walking home tonight. But she has to be alert for the morning clinic. Besides, Jeanne’s drinking is getting out of hand and she doesn’t want to follow.

  “Some might say the same about us.”

  “Speaking of which, mind if I ask for the bill? I’m on Saturday shift.”

  “You’ve worked a lot of Saturdays this winter. You overdoing it?”

  “Not really. People get sick in winter.”

  “Let’s hope you’re not one of them.”

  “Thanks.” This is the kind of friendship she craves with her sister. Concern. Laughter. Jeanne is so cold, complaining, resentful. Their mother tells her not to worry, that her little sister has always been the sensitive one.

  “I’m fine. I did more sit-ups than you in Body Pump class.”

  “Never crossed my mind to check.”

  “Right.”

  They latch arms, walking to the parking lot.