ATLAS of UNKNOWNS

by Tania James

  “You loved me?” she asked.

  “Well, yes. And I thought you could have chosen someone much better, much wealthier, like Abraham Chandy.” She seemed to flinch at the mention of Abraham, but he went on. “But you didn’t because you … because I had made some impression on you.”

  “When? What impression?”

  “At the show. When we spoke. In the audience.”

  “You thought I loved you?” she asked. “Because we had a chat?”

  “Why did you think I wanted to marry you?”

  “For the same reason that other men did. My father, our house, our money, our name—”

  “No, that was not it! Those were not the reasons at all! I loved you. And I thought I could save you from that violent father of yours—”

  “Violent?”

  “That bruise. On the corner of your eye. I remember it still, that color, how you tried to cover it with paint. I married you so I could save you, so you would never have bruises like that again.”

  His outburst left her without words.

  “You didn’t give me an answer,” Melvin said. “Why did you marry me?”

  Her face was full of a pity he had never seen across her features. This was worse than the slow head shake. He felt like a child, her secrets held in fists behind her back.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “My father struck me only once. The day your mother called to say that your family was interested in me. At first I refused to meet you no matter how my mother pleaded. My father listened very quietly, he didn’t say a word.”

  “Excuse my stupidity, but I am asking why you married me….” And then the answer hit him in the chest, stealing him of every sure breath. Looking at her, he wanted her to stop, but it was too late, her lips were parting with the truth he had demanded, assuming that the truth would repair every wrong.

  “And then came the bruise,” she said softly. “I married you because of it. If I kept saying no, I didn’t know what would come next.”

  FOR TWO DAYS, Melvin feigned sickness so that he could stay away from as many people as possible. He wanted to speak to no one. He slept in the sitting room. His strategy worked so well that Ammachi was constantly following him around with a bowl of broken rice gruel, and when he wasn’t looking, sprinkling his scalp with rasmadthi powder.

  He could not meet Gracie’s eyes. In her face was the life he had wanted, but what did his face hold for her? Stupid, misguided gallantry. He had never wondered why she had the bruise but was convinced that he would save her from receiving any more. He had recalled his aunt, whose husband obeyed no rationale as to why or when he dealt his blows.

  And Gracie had never loved him. Theirs was not, after all, a love marriage. He tried not to be too sentimental about this discovery, but he felt a fool in front of the one person whose intelligence had both humbled and pleased him. No matter how long he pondered the question, he would never figure out why her parents had forced her to marry him, the fool, the son of a lorry driver, the hotel clerk with no name.

  ON THE MORNING before their return to Bombay, while Gracie was running errands, he found a pale blue aerogramme on top of the dresser, sealed and addressed to Bird. Without another thought, he held it up to the lamp to try and decipher the writing, but three layers of translucent Malayalam made an impenetrable wall. He thought how easy it would be to steam the thing open over the stove. Immoral, yes, but who was this Bird to weasel her way into their life, to widen the cracks that already existed in their marriage?

  What were they conspiring?

  And here he stopped. He left the letter alone. For him, truth was not freedom. Truth bound you up in shame.

  Later in the day, while Melvin folded his shirts for packing, Gracie attempted a cheery babble in his direction. “… and did you know the price of an egg has gone up by fifty paisa? But I know how your mother likes mota curry, so I bought a half dozen.” She paused, noticing the aerogramme on the dresser. “My letter. I forgot to send it.”

  He glanced at the letter and went back to folding. She was staring at him.

  “Did you read it?” she asked.

  “It is not addressed to me, so no.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed, next to his shirts.

  “Have you packed?” he asked. “We should take an early train tomorrow.”

  “I could tell you what I wrote.” She picked a stray hair from one of the shirts. He continued folding to demonstrate his new philosophy: coming clean only made you dirty. He had no interest in it. “I said that we won’t be coming to U.S. anytime soon.”

  He folded a bit faster, hoping to finish before a fight began.

  “I said that Kumarakom is not as small as I thought, and I have friends here and there. And I’ll never find a ponman in New York.” Gracie leaned in and searched his face. “I said I choose this life.”

  At last, he sat on the edge of the bed, a stack of shirts between them.

  “Have you packed?” he asked in a tired voice.

  “No,” she said.

  “Are you going to?”

  “No.”

  The next day, as Gracie suggested, he boarded the train to Bombay alone. He would work two more weeks to earn his last paycheck, pay the remainder of the monthly rent, and then pack up everything valuable for home. In total, they owned very little, enough for a man to handle by himself.

  On the platform, they stood: Melvin, Linno, and Anju in Gracie’s arms. Linno wore a red headband that kept sliding down her forehead, and Anju’s eyes were in constant wonder of her surroundings. These were his children, from whom he had never parted. He kissed their cheeks. He found that it hurt to step away from them.

  “Eat before it gets cold,” Gracie said, jutting her chin at the tiffin in his hand. Inside were a few idli and a sambar that Ammachi made almost unbearably spicy, a final combat against Melvin’s sickness that would, instead, afflict him with diarrhea a few hours after eating.

  People began to board the train. Melvin did not know how to say the words so near to his heart, so unfamiliar to his tongue. Instead he said everything else, each sentence wrapped in the warmth of her silences.

  “Don’t forget to lock the door.”

  Good-bye.

  “That lower lock too.”

  I’m sorry I stopped talking to you.

  “Of course the dog is there, so you don’t have to be afraid.”

  I will miss you.

  “I will call when I get there.”

  Soon it will be better.

  “Go on, then,” Gracie said with a smile. “At this rate, you’ll be sitting in the luggage rack.”

  Once aboard, he could not get a good view of the window, squished as he was next to a man of considerable girth. He did not have to see Gracie to know her face, her posture, one arm holding Anju, the other hand in Linno’s. Perhaps within that upright frame, behind her bright, wifely optimism, all her hopes had frayed to regrets. He would never ask or know. It was the last time he would see her.

  10.

  WEEK AFTER the first email from Sonia Solanki, Linno learns that Mrs. Solanki did not receive the “green light” for her proposal.

  Mrs. Solanki calls Linno at the office. “That idiot Priddy thinks I should stick to the special interest bits, all things related to cooking, even though obviously I can only conduct so many segments on seitan vindaloo!”

  “This means we will not apply for visa?” Linno asks.

  “I’m so sorry. You see, Jeff’s main concern is this: If we don’t have Anju, then where is the story? Without a reunion, there’s no ending and the audience would feel … unfulfilled. Unsatisfied.”

  Unsatisfaction and unfulfillment—but this is exactly Linno’s problem, just as it has always been. Were she satisfied and fulfilled, she would be someone else. But perhaps this is Mr. Priddy’s point: audiences want to hear from Someone Else, a person whose story can be smoothly digested from beginning to end.

  “Linno? Are you still there?”

&
nbsp; “Yes.”

  “Listen, do you think Anju reads Me & You magazine?”

  “Sorry? What is it?”

  “It’s a magazine with more readers than my show has viewers. They usually publish fluffy things about famous people, who is carrying what purse and so on. But I play tennis with the features editor, and she’s been looking for more special interest stories, pieces about ordinary people who are sort of … extraordinary in their own way. Anyway, I have been trying to think creatively about this, and I think I can pull some strings.”

  UNTIL RECENT TIMES, the most famous member of the Vallara family—though ancestral—was P. C. Mappilla, whose portrait still features prominently in the sitting room. Since then, heroes have grown few, and Linno knows even less of family heroines. If anyone, Linno thought that Anju might earn a spot on the wall next to Mappilla someday.

  So when Mrs. Solanki says that Me & You magazine wants to feature Linno as a special interest story, her first thought is that Mrs. Solanki has her confused with Anju. Mrs. Solanki explains how the piece will feature two other people as well—one of them missing a foot and the other missing an arm. The piece will be called “Miracle Workers.”

  Linno’s response: “They couldn’t find anyone missing a head?” She and Alice are pasting yellow rhinestones to floral envelopes. “I’m going to tell Mrs. Solanki to find another miracle.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her on the phone, an hour ago?”

  “She kept talking and talking, that woman! She said, ‘This will be great for your business, get your name out, publicize your website …’”

  “Maybe somehow reach Anju.”

  Linno sighed. “She mentioned that.”

  “Well, then?” Alice gently blows on her studded envelope. “Am I using too much glue?”

  “Yes. What is wrong with those Duniya people? Why do you think they aren’t returning my calls?”

  “Because they probably get too many calls. Mrs. Solanki is right. This magazine might get their attention, and it will help with the visa application. Didn’t she say your picture is going to be bigger than all the others, maybe take up the whole first page? You can’t say no.”

  “But I can refuse to answer personal questions.”

  Alice throws up her hands, nearly toppling her plastic bag of rhinestones. “The magazine is called Me & You. If they wanted to know about the invitation business, it would be called Invitation Business. They want to know about you, and what’s wrong with that when you’ve done so well?” Alice picks up another envelope to embellish. “You always think someone is pointing a finger at you. But this is not about your accident. It is about what you did after your accident.”

  Listlessly, Linno sifts a handful of stones through her fingers. She wonders if they will expect her to wear short sleeves. To be proud of her deformity. That kind of thing happens in America all the time it seems, that defiant hubris, that fist-in-the-air mentality. Or stump-in-the-air, as the case may be.

  THE PHOTOGRAPHER, Jade, is a sweaty white woman with a man’s haircut. She wears no jewelry other than the camera hanging around her neck and an ever-present smile, enthralled by the newness of her surroundings. “The colors in this country are fabulous,” Jade says. “I’ve taken three rolls of film just on my way to your shop! You people are really unafraid of bright red.”

  “An auspicious color,” Alice says.

  Jade nods solemnly. “Love it.”

  While Jade sets up her lights, Alice insists that Linno use the lipstick that Alice brought with her, a shade of red auspicious enough for a prostitute. Linno blots most of it onto a handkerchief. Meanwhile, by the window, Jade has arranged such an elegant shrine of custom-made cards that Linno feels like some sort of imperfect offering. She has never seen her cards this way, open all at once—her first butterflies, the pagoda, the Manhattan skyline, the triptych of elephant heads, the triple-tiered birthday cake, a bouquet, a leaping star, a peacock and a sunrise and a lotus all in bloom. Linno sits on a stool in the center of her pantheon, wrists crossed in her lap.

  “Just try to get comfy,” Jade says. When this does not ease Linno’s stiffness, she adds, “Think pleasant thoughts.”

  Linno thinks of the time she taught Anju how to swim by a stone footbridge that spanned a stream. She remembers small silver flecks of poonjan fish and the little boy on the bridge above them, obliviously peeing into the water while Anju clung to Linno, hands fastened about her neck, squealing. Anju’s watery weightlessness, her primal need stripped of pride, these made Linno feel strong and loved in ways she would never admit aloud. “Don’t let go!” Anju begged, fearful on several counts. “Don’t let me go!” And though Linno laughed to reassure her sister, she answered without a trace of teasing to her voice: “No, never.”

  THE NEXT FEW WEEKS are uneventful. Linno dedicates the entire time to a royal blue wedding invitation that opens into a peacock’s tail, scalloped around the edge and studded with faux emeralds. The bride’s father, a hedge fund billionaire, requested an invitation that would acknowledge Indian Independence Day, as it was also the date of his daughter’s wedding, without using the color orange, which the billionaire’s daughter considered “overdone and simply over.” It is Linno’s most involved job, requiring two weeks for completion. During her lunch breaks, she phones Duniya about sponsoring her visa, but no one responds to her messages.

  After finishing the last invitation, she goes to dinner at Alice and Kuku’s house, which has become Kuku and Jincy’s house, as the decor now implies. Portraits of Jincy’s family grace the bookshelves, the walls, and the top of the new television, a gift from Kuku to Jincy, which he learned of upon its delivery. “So far from my family,” Jincy says over dessert. “I need a little entertainment.”

  Kuku notes that her family lives ten minutes away.

  “But still it is a sorrowful moment when the girl leaves her family and joins her husband’s.” Jincy glances at Linno, and finding no empathy there, reaches over and clasps Alice’s hand. “Chachy, you know what I’m talking about.”

  Linno recalls the ceremony performed before Jincy’s wedding wherein she received her mother’s blessings, a symbolic gesture of departing her family. In Jincy’s case, all pathos was drowned by the soggy chorus of sobs, a cued symphony of aunts and sisters, while Jincy and her mother clung to each other. Interlocked like this, the two reminded Linno of a crumpled butterfly unable to rid itself of its cocoon. As Jincy went down the steps amid a decrescendo of noise, her mother wiped her eyes and looked around. “Anyone for tea?”

  Linno rose to leave. “I should go. It’s late.”

  “So soon?” asks Alice.

  “Let me and my driver drop you off,” Kuku says.

  This, Linno was not expecting. Throughout dinner, Kuku hardly directed a word at her, which Linno thought was only appropriate, considering the way their last private discussion ended. But Jincy brightens at the suggestion. “All right, then. Let me pack up some dessert for you to take home. Promise to return my Tupperwares? They were wedding gifts. Not just any old plastic containers.”

  Linno promises.

  “People borrow and borrow the Tupperwares,” Jincy says, shaking her head. “It’s hard to be generous with no more Tupperwares.”

  · · ·

  DUSK HAS SETTLED by the time they climb into the car. Kuku takes the front seat while Linno sits behind the driver, giving her an angle on Kuku’s jaw. He unwraps a peppermint from plastic and pops it in his mouth, and for most of the ride, the only sound is the rumbling engine and the candy clacking against his teeth.

  When they near her home, Linno suggests that they let her out, so she can walk the narrowing road alone. The driver slows to a stop. Suavely, Kuku hands him a rolled bill and suggests that he go buy himself a pack of cigarettes. The stall across the street is closed, but the driver seems to know this is coming and gets out of the car with no questions asked.

  Linno puts her hand on the door handle. “Good-bye, then.”

 
; “Wait.” Kuku raises a hand. “I won’t waste your time. I came along for one reason—to ask you a question.”

  “If this involves a pagoda, I don’t want to be asked.”

  He clicks his tongue as if it is foolish to reference such distant history. “I want to talk about my sister. Alice.”

  Kuku shifts in his seat so that he is nearly facing Linno while she, at a loss, waits for him to continue. He sighs, allowing for a moment of dignified silence, which is broken by the mating croak of a toad.

  “I’m sure you know that Alice and I have had a hard life. Loneliness can make you do strange things, can make you imagine feelings where there were none before.” Almost wistful, Kuku tilts his head. “I know. I was lonely once. Alice looked after me in those times, and now it is my duty to look after her, as well as the reputation of our father’s name. So I have to ask you. What is the nature of your friendship with my sister?”

  “The nature?”

  “You know what I mean,” he says. “Don’t make me say it.”

  “But I have no idea what you mean.”

  Kuku presses his lips together and then finally blurts: “Are you in love with her?”

  Linno stares at him until he repeats himself.

  “I know what you said. Are you mad?”

  “When you refused me that first time, Linno, I accepted it. When you and Alice decided to spend night and day together, I said fine. But I have been hearing things. Not just from anyone, but from a respectable source.”

  Linno fights between two urges—the desire to push her way out of this car and the need to know more. “From who? From who have you been hearing things?”

  “From Abraham Saar.”

  It is as though he has reached into her head and rattled her brain as he would a snow globe, and try as she might to construct a thought, she cannot. Abraham Saar, who absorbs the Sunday sermon with his eyes closed. Abraham Saar, who took them to Kovalam Beach long ago, who spread a large blue sheet over soft sand and staked the corners with stones.

  “Abraham Saar was a great friend of my father,” Kuku continues, “and he invited Jincy and me to his house for dinner. Afterward, he and I were having drinks on the porch and I let it slip that you refused my hand in marriage, which he could hardly believe. But then he told me I should be careful. He said, ‘She might take after her mother.’ He had had several drinks by then. I asked what he meant. And he told me.” Here, Kuku pauses, knowing to step carefully when speaking of mothers, however scandalous the story. “He told me how he was meant to marry your mother. How he found out about the relations she was having with another woman. Some kind of traveling actress in a local drama troupe. He said, ‘Gracie was a headstrong girl, but I would have married her if not for that.’”