Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 01 - Wild Nights

by Mary Ellen Courtney

  He had his arm around me when I woke up the next morning. I’d had a nightmare about Aunt Judith. She’d been a black snake trying to bite off my legs while my mother stood by. I rolled over to face Jon; he was awake looking at me.

  “You okay?” he asked. “You were really tossing and kicking.”

  “I’m fine. I had a nightmare. I guess just seeing my aunt call is enough.”

  I slid out of bed and started coffee, then got back in beside him.

  “Do your parents fight?” I asked.

  “Hmm, I don’t think I’ve ever heard them fight.”

  “Are they nice to each other.”

  “They are, very. They’ve been married a long time. They seem happier now. She is for sure, happier than when we were growing up.”

  “Were you brats?”

  He smiled. “We were boys. But it didn’t have anything to do with us, though we didn’t know that at the time. I think it took her a lot of years to even out after the accident. She was always afraid something would happen to us. I think it was harder for her than most parents. She was always screaming and chasing us around the block trying to swat us with a broom. She had quite a reputation in the neighborhood.”

  “She was in the car?”

  “Yeah, her father died immediately. I guess her mother lived for a while at least. She’s never talked about it. What we know, we know from our dad.”

  “I can’t imagine that, or maybe I can. Do you worry about Chana, besides the boyfriend?”

  “All the time. I never got out the broom. She might not agree. I have a habit of showing up unexpectedly when I’m worried. She hates it. I worry about you all the time. If we have children, I’ll worry about them all the time. It’s the family disease.”

  “It sounds like you’ve been to therapy,” I said.

  “I probably should have. But I only caught it after Chana was born.”

  “So much death to get over.”

  “In direct proportion to life to live.”

  “Oh boy. Are you going all ying/yang?”

  “I’m going basic addition and subtraction, but it’s actually a variation on something my father used to say to my mother. To remind her she had two sons to love.”

  “What about parallel universes?”

  “That could throw off the calculations. I’ll have to think about it.”

  I got cups of coffee and got back into bed.

  “So did your parents fight?” he asked.

  “Not that I was aware of, but I was so young when he died. They must have, he had the affair. I just remember them being happy together. It’s a good memory. They had fun. Did you and your wife fight?”

  “She threw a lot of stuff, which was stupid. It wasn’t like we could afford to buy new dishes every day. And I got in her face a few times just to make it stop. But we never solved anything with it. We didn’t know what we were doing, we didn’t know yet there was nothing to solve. How about you?”

  “No. I don’t like to fight. He did a lot of throwing and wall bashing. I just seized up. Jon, we shouldn’t talk about having children before we talk about getting married.”

  “Then let’s talk about getting married.”

  “That’s so romantic.”

  “I love you, Hannah. It’s real simple and it’s real complex. I plan to marry you as soon as you get back.”

  “I feel the same way. I plan to marry you as soon as I get back.”

  “Was that romantic enough? If you need me on one knee, you’ll have to wait until I put on some pants.”

  “Skip the pants.”

  “I thought about a ring, but figured you’d pick your own, if you want one.”

  “I just want a band. You?”

  “Yep, I want the whole thing, in front of everybody.

  “So it’s wide open?”

  “Within reason. I’m not sharing you with Mike if that’s something you have in mind.”

  “No sharing. God, no sharing. And no sharing god either.”

  “My mother is going to give everyone in your family a needlepoint pillow with their initials.”

  “That’s so old-fashioned.”

  “That’s what happens when your grandparents raise you. She needlepoints on the beach between games. She’ll do one with our initials and wedding date. The sand will fall out all over the place for months.”

  “Do you think your family will like me?”

  “They already do. Chana’s been shooting her mouth off ever since I told her you were coming. I keep expecting my phone to overheat and explode from all the texts. If they knew our location they’d be milling around outside the door.”

  “It’s that clear?”

  “Crystal. Chana sent them pictures from the waterfall day.”

  “Why the waterfall day?”

  “She had fun with us.”

  “Are we going to start wearing matching shoes? Hey, Chana knows where we are.”

  “She won’t tell. I threatened her, said I wouldn’t pay her tuition. I explained about massive student loan debt.”

  “Is that good parenting?”

  “I don’t see a downside. If she spills, I’ll retire and travel with you. If she doesn’t, I’ll be broke, but she can support us in our old age.”

  “Has she narrowed her choices?”

  “She’s on Cal Poly now, I think that’s it. She’ll be close to my parents. My mother can worry up close. I told her she can drag it out as long as she wants, the first four years are on me.”

  “Oh brother, you are such a dad!”

  “I’m just going on instincts at this point. Realistically I think we’re looking at grad school too.”

  “Will her mother help?”

  “They’ll kick in half, that’s never been a problem.”

  “You all sound so civilized.”

  “Now,” he said. “The lawyers made some money.”

  He slid me down next to him, “I don’t want to pressure you. I know you might not consider me suitable for the purpose of reproduction, but let’s get in some more practice just in case it goes that way.”

  “The way we practice we could end up with a baseball team.”

  Our lovemaking wasn’t laughing and playful and covered with whipped cream. We were groaning and whimpering. Our teeth hit. We were quiet and watching. We memorized each other. We struggled, trying to imprint enough of ourselves in the other to carry us over. It was like trying to climb inside each other. His face had the strained look I’d seen when he thought I might die.

  “What did you mean about matching shoes?” he asked.

  “I noticed all the intense couples in the airport wore matching all-terrain sandals. It doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “I hope not, I don’t love you that much.”

  “You do too.”

  “Don’t test that theorem.”

  We made love again, without all the sadness and struggling.

  “I can’t go yet,” I said. “I need more time like this.”

  “You need to go so you can come back.”

  “Did it feel like I was a screaming woman chasing you with a broom?”

  He smiled. “A little. You can really get going.”

  “It felt like I found you and then you vanished. I didn’t think I’d find that again.”

  “I’ll be right here when you get back.”

  “Worrying?”

  “Every second. I’ll survive.”

  I pulled the black dress out of my suitcase and dangled it at him.

  “Maybe I’ll get married in this,” I said.

  He nodded, “You should leave that with me.”

  I handed it to him and we headed to the airport.

  FIFTEEN

  Except for a tiny man in a purple turban and gold curled-toe mojari shoes who kept calling for “whiskey, whiskey”, then hocking up and spitting in the aisle before he finally passed out, the flight to Delhi was uneventful. On our final approach, the Indian woman next to me asked if I could smell it. S
he could smell her country already. I couldn’t.

  We were let loose into a cavernous room with a row of visa entry desks lined up at one end. It was worn and utilitarian, all scratched metal, chipped tile, and echoes under fluorescent light. The turbaned agent eyeballed back and forth between my passport and the real thing. He stamped it and pointed toward another big hall. I became part of a crowd that was funneled into an exit chute lined with chain link fencing. A mob of people was pressing in on both sides. They shouted names and craned for glimpses of their beloveds. I couldn’t focus. The chute opened into another big room where drivers were holding signs for pick-ups and people were falling on their loved ones to make physical connection. It was not New York. New York feels like a monastery compared to the chaos that engulfed me. I could see past the exit doors to what looked like yellow fog. It was nighttime, I guessed.

  “Hannah!” was shouted over the pandemonium.

  I tried to focus on the direction the sound had come from. A familiar looking arm waved above the heads; it was Margaret. Ed was standing next to her. He was almost a foot taller and smiling. I pushed my way to where they were, and they caught me in a three-way hug.

  “This is insane!” I said.

  “You’ll get used to it,” she said. “You just need a few days rest. Let’s go find your bags.”

  She turned to a smiling Indian man. His name was Chahel; it means good cheer. He was assigned to us for the duration. He had a beatific smile as he put his hands together like a prayer, with a slight bow. Our souls were greeting in a pranam. It was real; I was in India.

  “Namaste, Miss Hannah,” he said.

  I gave him my luggage checks.

  “You exhausted?” asked Margaret.

  “You know me.”

  I am the worst when it comes to the first few days of long distance travel. I’m like a zombie. I wander. I’ve gotten into some very strange situations. I could write a book about my misadventures in the surreal world of jet lag.

  “We’ll keep an eye on you,” she said. “We’re going to sleep here tonight, then fly out in the morning.”

  “Is Chahel going to call me Miss Hannah for nine months. It sounds so colonial or slave trady.”

  “No. He’s just being polite. He started out by calling us Mrs. Margaret and Mr. Ed, which just made us think of that old TV show with the talking horse. I don’t think we were ever able to explain the talking horse part to him. Just ask him to call you Hannah. He’s a lovely man and very resourceful.”

  Margaret was dressed in loose purple pants, a loose white tunic top and sandals. A sheer purple and green scarf embroidered with gold thread was draped across her breasts and thrown over her shoulders; a good look with her mix of blonde and gray hair. Ed looked regal in Indian man pajamas and leather sandals.

  A white Ambassador car pulled to the curb. We piled in with me between Margaret and Ed like a little girl. Good thing. We lurched off like we were on a Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I was squeaking and eeking, and saying “Oh Jesus” and “Oh Shit” non-stop. They laughed like we weren’t about to die.

  Our driver was Dilip; he would be with us the whole time too. He beamed at every profanity like I was quoting Emily. He asked me how I liked India. I said I loved it so far. He smiled another beatific smile in the rear view mirror. It would be the most asked question over the next nine months; Indians love their country.

  “Just don’t yell Holy Cow,” said Ed. “It makes Dilip flinch, it could cause an accident.”

  I looked through the dirt clogged window screen in my hotel room and down onto a deserted street. Pale yellow light lit a skinny white cow standing alone on the sidewalk. I was crashing. I was so lonesome for Jon I felt hollow. Like the energy field that bound me was missing. He was too far away. I’d made a choice; it felt like the wrong one. Nine months is a long time. I hoped I’d feel better with some sleep. The bed was more like a pallet with sheets and a folded blanket. The pillows were so flat, one plus one didn’t add up to one. I took a sleeping pill.

  I looked out in the morning to a sea of people. A few cow buddies had joined the first skinny guy. Barefoot people opened and closed around them like water around rocks. Bicycles glided through like fish.

  I met everyone downstairs for breakfast. I felt queasy from the shock of traveling from the first world to the third world in less than twenty-four hours. From the world of the shaka hang loose sign, to the pranam bow for meeting souls; from Aloha to Namaste. That’s the kind of transition better made at mule speed.

  We were flying to Udaipur in a few hours. Margaret and I took a walk and bought clothes in a local stall. My work uniform would be like hers: baggy cotton pants, a tunic blouse, with one scarf draped backwards across my breasts for modesty, and another to pull up over my head. That, plus sunglasses and learning the shorthand namaste, which is just a one-hand brush to the forehead, a little shake of the head and keep moving, would buy me some space in the crush of people.

  “This is going to be so much fun!” said Margaret.

  She loves adventure. She asked about Jon. She looked thoughtful when I told her about the marriage conversation. Her throaty chuckle enjoyed the whipped cream and baying dog stories. I told her I’d left my dress.

  “You’re getting married in black?” she said.

  “With red flowers,” I said. “But he said his mother will probably needlepoint me a dress full of sand while I’m gone.”

  “We better have wardrobe send her a pattern, maintain some kind of control,” she said. “And you better go into training, it’ll weigh a ton.”

  We got back to the hotel where Ed and the guys had the luggage loaded for the trip.

  “Ed,” said Margaret, “Hannah’s marrying Jon when we get home, in a needlepoint dress full of sand.”

  “That’ll never happen,” he said.

  “Why not?” I said. “He’s the one.”

  “I’m sure he is,” he said. “But we’re in India and I know you. I’d bet my right arm you’ll be in a sari before this is over. I’ll never forget that yodeling outfit, and we were only in Switzerland five weeks.”

  “They were lederhosen,” I said. “The director said he liked them.”

  “He was sixty and they looked like hot pants,” he said. “You were giving all the old guys flashbacks.”

  “Sheesh,” I said looking at Margaret, “someone could have told me.”

  “That was our first job together,” she said. “There was so much to tell you.”

  We flew to Udaipur on an Indian airline. The climb out was through air that looked scratchy on the throat. We broke into clear sky and tracked across a red desert. There was something wrong with our final approach. Instead of what my father used to describe as a gentle ass dragging over the ground, we were diving. Udaipur was a bulls-eye and we were a dart. We were way too close to the ground to have a pilot for whom the word flare was a second language. I started bracing myself and got a death grip on the armrest. Like sitting there braced in seat 10A could help. Margaret asked what was wrong. Ed flashed his eyebrows at me. He’d flown in Viet Nam, he knew too, but he was relaxed. It was out of his hands.

  “This guy doesn’t know how to land,” I said.

  Margaret looked at Ed and he raised his eyebrows at her too. He took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She pried my fingers loose and passed it on. We finally landed, or I should say hit. Everything flew around the cabin. A few overhead bins popped open and carry-ons spilled out into the aisle. We fishtailed down the runway before finally stopping and pulling up to the terminal. A tire was thumping with a flat spot. I was amazed the nose gear was still with us. Nobody applauded. Nobody even seemed to notice; they just went about the business of getting their stuff out of the aisle and off the plane.

  “That’s what happens when they send them to flight school for six weeks,” said Ed, ”then stick them in the left seat with the fancy hat.”

  “I’m going to feel that in my back for a week,” said Margaret.


  My father always said that if you can land, you can fly. Like death, but hopefully not just like it, landing is inescapable. I wish I had Ed’s calm acceptance of that which can’t be changed. It isn’t my nature. I doubted his neck got the same jolt mine had.

  “I’m shocked to be alive,” I said.

  They pulled rolling stairs to the door and we deplaned directly onto the tarmac into clean desert air.

  Chahel was already at baggage claim; Dilip was off getting a car.

  “How’d you like that landing, Chahel?” I asked.

  He did a perfect Indian head bobble and smiled.

  “Neither one of them has ever flown before,” said Ed.

  “Wow,” I said. “Imagine how scary a real landing could be now. It will take forever.”

  “We’re taking the train,” said Margaret.

  “We are?” asked Ed.

  “Don’t you think, Ed?” said Margaret.

  “Probably wise,” he said.

  “I can just see it now,” I said. “Cars piled on top of each other in the dark. Fires and torches. Steam hissing, people screaming. Barefoot people swathed in fabric and topped with turbans, scrambling over massive hot metal screeching cars as they teeter, threatening to squash everyone. Everyone trying to drag their loved ones through shattered windows. It might be worse than a plane crash, it would certainly take longer to die.”

  I looked at them; they were smiling.

  “Sounds fun,” I said.

  Dilip pulled up in another Ambassador. I love those cars, they’re so Casablanca to my Western eye.

  We twisted and turned through streets barely wide enough for a wood-laden donkey. Wild snakes of electrical wires writhed loosely overhead, culminating in massive nests, all held aloft by unsure looking poles. Our new home was at the top of a street and overlooked the lake. There was an elephant standing in front; Lakshmi was her name. She looked like she’d worked hard; her skin had huge blotchy spots. Our luggage was piled in a covered walkway with an intricate mosaic floor. The walls and arches were smooth white India adobe, not mortuary chunk.