by Akhil Sharma
“At your birthday, when she sang, I said, ‘If you sing like that for me every day, I will love you forever.’ ”
“She loves you. She worries about you.”
“That’s not the same. When I tell Asha this, she tells me I’m sentimental. Ratha loved me once. But she cannot forgive. What happened so long ago, she cannot forgive.” He was blinking rapidly, preparing to cry. “But that is a lie. She does not love me because”—and he began crying without making a sound—“I did not love her for so long.”
“Shhh. She loves you. She was just saying, ‘Oh, I love him so. I hope he gets better, for I love him so.’ ”
“Ratha could have loved me a little. She could have loved me twenty for my eleven.” He was sobbing.
“Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.” I wanted to run away, far away, and be someone else.
THE SLEEP THAT AFTERNOON was like falling. I lay down, closed my eyes, and plummeted. I woke as suddenly, without any half memories of dreams, into a silence that meant that the power was gone, and the ceiling fan was still, and the fridge was slowly warming,
It was cool, I noticed, unsurprised by the monsoon’s approach—for I was in love. The window curtains stirred, revealing TV antennas and distant gray clouds and a few sparrows wheeling in the air. The sheet lay bunched at my feet. I felt gigantic. My legs stretched thousands of miles; my head rested in the Himalayas and my breath brought the world rain. If I stood up, I would scrape against the sky. But I was small and compact and distilled, too. I am in love, I thought, and a raspy voice echoed the words in my head, causing me to panic and lose my sense of omnipotence for a moment. I will love Rajinder slowly and carefully and cunningly, I thought, and suddenly felt peaceful again, as if I were a lake and the world could only form ripples on my surface, while the calm beneath continued in solitude. Time seemed endless, and I would surely have the minutes and seconds needed to plan a method of preserving this love, like the feeling in your stomach when you are in a car going swiftly down a hill. Don’t worry, I thought, and I no longer did. My mind obeyed me limply, as if a terrible exhaustion had worn away all rebellion.
I got up and swung my legs off the bed. I was surprised that my love was not disturbed by my physical movements. I walked out onto the roof. The wind ruffled the treetops and small, gray clouds slid across the cool, pale sky. On the street, eight or nine young boys played cricket. The school year had just started, and the children played desperately, as if they must run faster, leap higher, to recapture the hours spent indoors.
Tell me your stories, I would ask him. Pour them into me, so that I know everything you have ever loved or been scared of or laughed at. But thinking this, I became uneasy and feared that when I actually saw him, my love would fade and I would find my tongue thick and unresponsive. What should I say? I woke this afternoon in love with you. I love you too, he would answer. No, no, you see, I really love you. I love you so much that I think anything is possible, that I will live forever. Oh, he would say, and I would feel my love rush out of me.
I must say nothing at first, I decided. Slowly I will win his love. I will spoil him, and he will fall in love with me. And as long as he loves me, I will be able to love him. I will love him like a camera that closes at too much light and opens at too little, so his blemishes will never mar my love.
I watched the cricket game to the end. I felt very happy standing there, as if I had just discovered some profound secret. When the children dispersed, around five, I knew Rajinder would be home soon.
I bathed and changed into new clothes. I stood before the small mirror in the armoire as I dressed. Uneven brown aureoles, a flat stomach, the veins in my feet like pen marks. Will this be enough? I wondered. Once he loves me, I told myself. I lifted my arms and tried to smell the plantlike odor of my perspiration. I wore a bright-red cotton sari. What will I say first? Namaste—How was your day? With the informal “you.” How was your day? The words felt strange, for I had never before used the informal with him. I had, as a show of modesty, never even used his name, except on the night before my wedding, when I said it over and over to myself to see how it felt—like nothing. Now when I said “Rajinder,” the three syllables had too many edges, and again I doubted that he would love me. “Rajinder, Rajinder,” I said rapidly several times, until it no longer felt strange. He will love me because to do otherwise would be too lonely, because I will love him so. I heard a scooter stopping outside the building and knew that he had come home.
My stomach was small and hard as I walked onto the roof. The dark clouds made it appear as if it were seven instead of five thirty. I saw him roll the scooter into the courtyard and I felt happy. He parked the scooter and took off his gray helmet. He combed his hair carefully to hide the growing bald spot. The deliberateness of the way he tucked the comb into his back pocket overwhelmed me with tenderness. We will love each other gently and carefully, I thought.
I waited for him to rise out of the stairwell. The wind made my petticoat, drying on the clothesline, go clap, clap. I was smiling rigidly. How was your day? How was your day? Was your day good? Don’t be so afraid, I told myself. What does it matter how you say hello? Tomorrow will come, and the day after, and the day after that.
His steps sounded like a shuffle. Leather rubbing against stone. Something forlorn and steady in the sound made me feel as if I were twenty years older and this were a game I should stop or I might get hurt. Rajinder, Rajinder, Rajinder, how are you?
First the head: oval, high forehead, handsome eyebrows. Then the not so broad but not so narrow shoulders. The top two buttons of the cream shirt were opened, revealing an undershirt and some hair. The two weeks had not changed him, yet seeing him, I felt as if he were somehow different, denser.
“How was your day?” I asked him, while he was still in the stairwell.
“All right,” he said, stepping onto the balcony. He smiled, and I felt happy. His helmet was in his left hand and he had a plastic bag of mangoes in his right. “When did you get home?” The “you” was informal, and I felt a surge of relief. He will not resist, I thought.
“A little after three.”
I followed him into the bedroom. He placed the helmet on the windowsill and the mangoes in the refrigerator. His careful way of folding the plastic bag before placing it in the basket on top of the refrigerator moved me.
“Your father is fine?”
I did not say anything.
Rajinder walked to the sink on the outside bathroom wall.
I stood in the bedroom doorway and watched him wash his hands and face with soap. Before putting the chunk of soap down, he rinsed it of foam, and only then did he pour water on himself. He used a thin washcloth hanging on a nearby hook for drying.
“Yes,” I finally answered.
“What did the doctor say?” he asked, turning toward me.
He is like a black diamond, I thought.
She said, I love you. “She said he must lose weight and watch what he eats. Nothing fattening. That he should rest at first and then start exercising. Walking would be best.”
I watched Rajinder hang his shirt by the collar tips on the clothesline, and suddenly felt sad at the rigorous attention to detail necessary to preserve love. Perhaps love is different in other countries, I thought, where the climate is cooler, where a woman can say her husband’s name, where the power does not go out every day, where not every clerk demands a bribe. That must be a different type of love, I thought, where one can be careless.
“It will rain tonight,” he said, looking at the sky.
The eucalyptus trees shook their heads side to side. “The rain always makes me feel as if I am waiting for someone,” I said, and then regretted saying it, for Rajinder was not paying attention, and perhaps it could have been said better. “Why don’t you sit on the balcony, and I will make sherbet to drink?”
He took a chair and the newspaper with him. The fridge water was warm, and I felt sad again at the need for constant vigilance. I made the drink and gave him
his glass. I placed mine on the floor and went to get a chair. A fruit seller passed by, calling out in a reedy voice, “Sweet, sweet mangoes. Sweeter than first love.” On the roof directly across, a boy seven or eight years old was trying to fly a large purple kite. I sat down beside Rajinder and waited for him to look up so that I could interrupt his reading. When Rajinder looked away from the paper to take a sip of sherbet, I asked, “Did you fly kites?”
“A little,” he answered, looking at the boy. “Ashok bought some with the money he earned, and he would let me fly them sometimes.” The fact that his father had died when he was young made me hopeful, for I thought that one must suffer and be lonely before one can love.
“Do you like Ashok?”
“He is my brother,” he answered, shrugging and looking at the newspaper. He took a sip of the sherbet. I felt hurt, as if he had reprimanded me.
I waited until seven for the power to return; then I gave up and started to prepare dinner in the dark. I sat beside Rajinder until then. I felt happy and excited and frightened being beside him. We spoke about Asha’s going to America, though Rajinder did not want to talk about this. Rajinder had been the most educated member of his and my family and resented the idea that Asha would soon assume that position.
As I cooked in the kitchen, Rajinder sat on the balcony and listened to the radio. “This is Akashwani,” the announcer said, and then music like horses racing played whenever a new program was about to start. It was very hot in the kitchen, and every now and then I stepped onto the roof to look at the curve of Rajinder’s neck and confirm that the tenderness was still there.
We ate in the living room. Rajinder chewed slowly and was mostly silent. Once he complimented me on my cooking. “What are you thinking?” I asked. He appeared not to have heard. Tell me! Tell me! Tell me! I thought, and was shocked by the urgency I felt.
A candle on the television made pillars of shadows rise and collapse on the walls. I searched for something to start a conversation with. “Pitaji began crying when I left.”
“You could have stayed a few more days,” he said.
“I did not want to.” I thought of adding, “I missed you,” but that would have been a lie, and I would have felt embarrassed saying it, when he had not missed me.
Rajinder mixed black pepper with his yogurt. “Did you tell him you would visit soon?”
“No. I think he was crying because he was lonely.”
“He should have more courage.” Rajinder did not like Pitaji, thought him weak-willed, although Rajinder had never told me that. He knew Pitaji drank, but Rajinder never referred to this, for which I was grateful. “He is old and must remember that shadows creep into one’s heart at his age.” The shutter of a bedroom window began slamming, and I got up to latch it shut.
I washed the dishes while Rajinder bathed. When he came out, dressed in his white kurta pajamas, with his hair slicked back, I was standing near the railing at the roof’s edge, looking out beyond the darkness of our neighborhood at a distant ribbon of light. I was tired from the nervousness I had been feeling all evening. Rajinder came up behind me and asked, “Won’t you bathe?” I suddenly doubted my ability to guard my love. Bathe so we can have sex. His words were too deliberately full of the unsaid, and so felt vulgar. I wondered if I had the courage to say no and realized I didn’t. What kind of love can we have? I thought.
I said, “In a little while. Comedy hour is about to start.” We sat down on our chairs with the radio between us and listened to Maurya’s whiny voice. This week he had gotten involved with criminals who wanted to go to jail to collect the reward on themselves. The canned laughter gusted from several flats. When the music of the racing horses marked the close of the show, I felt hopeful again, and thought Rajinder looked very handsome in his kurta pajamas.
I bathed carefully, pouring mug after mug of cold water over myself until my fingertips were wrinkled and my nipples erect. The candlelight made the bathroom orange and my skin copper. I washed my pubis carefully to make sure no smell remained from urinating. Rubbing myself dry, I became aroused. I wore the red sari again, with a new blouse, and no bra, so that my nipples would show.
I came and stood beside Rajinder, my arm brushing against his kurta sleeve. Every now and then a raindrop fell, and I wondered if I were imagining it. On balconies and roofs all around us I could see the dim figures of men, women, and children waiting for the first rain. “You look pretty,” he said. Somewhere Lata Mangeshkar sang with a static-induced huskiness. The street was silent. Even the children were hushed. As the wind picked up, Rajinder said, “Let’s close the windows.”
The wind coursed along the floor, upsetting newspapers and climbing the walls to swing on curtains. A candle stood on the refrigerator. As I leaned over to pull a window shut, Rajinder pressed against me and cupped my right breast. I felt a shock of desire pass through me. As I walked around the rooms shutting windows, he touched my buttocks, pubis, stomach.
When the last window was closed, I waited for a moment before turning around, because I knew he wanted me to turn around quickly. He pulled me close, with his hands on my buttocks. I took his tongue in my mouth. We kissed like this for a long time.
The rain began falling, and we heard a roar from the people on the roofs nearby. “The clothes,” Rajinder said, and pulled away.
We ran out. We could barely see each other. Lightning bursts would illuminate an eye, an arm, some teeth, and then darkness would come again. We jerked the clothes off and let the pins fall to the ground. We deliberately brushed roughly against each other. The raindrops were like thorns, and we began laughing. Rajinder’s shirt had wrapped itself around and around the clothesline. Wiping his face, he knocked his glasses off. As I saw him crouch and fumble around helplessly for them, I felt such tenderness that I knew I would never love him as much as I did at that moment. “The wind in the trees,” I cried out, “it sounds like the sea.”
We slowly wandered back inside, kissing all the while. He entered me like a sigh. He suckled on me and moved back and forth and side to side, and I felt myself growing warm and loose. He sucked on my nipples and held my waist with both hands. We made love gently at first, but as we both neared climax, Rajinder began stabbing me with his penis and I came in waves so strong that I felt myself vanishing. When Rajinder sank on top of me, I kept saying, “I love you. I love you.”
“I love you too,” he answered. Outside, the rain came in sheets and the thunder was like explosions in caverns.
The candle had gone out while we made love, and Rajinder got up to light it. He drank some water and then lay down beside me. I wanted some water too, but did not want to say anything that would make him feel bad about his thoughtlessness. “I’ll be getting promoted soon. Minaji loves me,” Rajinder said. I rolled onto my side to look at him. He had his arms folded across his chest. “Yesterday he said, ‘Come, Rajinderji, let us go write your confidential report.’ ” I put my hand on his stomach, and Rajinder said, “Don’t,” and pushed it away. “I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know whether that would be good, sir.’ ” He laughed and patted me on the back. “What a nincompoop. If it weren’t for the quotas, he would never be manager.” Rajinder chuckled. “I’ll be the youngest bank manager in Delhi.” I felt cold and tugged a sheet over our legs. “In college I had a schedule for where I wanted to be by the time I was thirty. By twenty-two I became an officer; soon I’ll be a manager. I wanted a car, and we’ll have that in a year. I wanted a wife, and I have that.”
“You are so smart.”
“Some people in college were smarter. But I knew exactly what I wanted. A life is like a house. One has to plan carefully where all the furniture will go.”
“Did you plan me as your wife?” I asked, smiling.
“No. I had wanted at least an M.A., and someone who worked, but Mummy didn’t approve of a daughter-in-law who worked. I was willing to change my requirements. Because I believe in moderation, I was successful. Everything in its place. And pay for everyt
hing. Other people got caught up in love and friendship. I’ve always felt that these things only became a big deal because of the movies.”
“What do you mean? You love me and your mother, don’t you?”
“There are so many people in the world that it is hard not to think that there are others you could love more.”
Seeing the shock on my face, he quickly added, “Of course I love you. I just try not to be too emotional about it.”
The candle’s shadows on the wall were like the wavery bands formed by light reflected off water. “We might even be able to get a foreign car.”
The second time he took me that night, it was from behind. He pressed down heavily on my back and grabbed my breasts.
I woke at four or five. The rain scratched against the windows and a light like blue milk shone along the edges of the door. I was cold and tried to wrap myself in the sheet, but it was not large enough.
A LIFE OF ADVENTURE AND DELIGHT
The side door of the police van slid open, rattling, and he was shoved inside. There were seven or eight men already sitting on the floor in the dark, their wrists handcuffed behind them. Nobody said anything. The van started with a jerk, then picked up speed. His legs were stretched out in front of him, and he tried to use his cuffed hands to balance himself, but the plastic cuffs tightened, and he and the other men went rolling across the floor like loose bottles.
This was the first time that Gautama had been arrested. Before calling the prostitute, he had Googled the number in the ad to make sure that it wasn’t being used by the police. In the van, he remembered how, as he was being hurried down the stairs of his building, one of the apartment doors was slightly ajar, a man in an undershirt staring at him as he was led past.
Gautama was twenty-four, tall, slender, with large brown eyes and longish hair that framed his face. He was a Ph.D. student in chemistry at New York University. He had arrived in America a year earlier, and, like many foreign students in America who are living away from home for the first time, he had immediately begun loitering on Craigslist and Backpage.
