Silence and the Word

by MaryAnne Mohanraj

  There were tears in her eyes, but her arms stayed perfectly still at her sides. I smiled down at her.

  “Do you want to go back to your husband now?” The water was gone.

  “I’m burning, Medha. I’m burning up.”

  My heart thumped. I lay down beside her, moved my head to her breast and took the fire into my mouth. I have never been able to eat very hot food. I swirled the chili paste on my tongue; I savored the burning flavor of it, mixed with her sweat. My tongue had been stabbed by millions of tiny pins. I wanted to suffer for her.

  I suckled at her right breast, feeling her body shifting against mine, hearing her whimpers. I was afraid we would be heard. I moved to the left breast, and her hand came up to tangle in my hair, to keep me there. Her leg slid between mine, and I began to suckle again, rocking our bodies together as I did. Her breath left her in a tiny sigh, and at the sound, my chest exploded.

  I went to bed that night knowing that small traces of oil undoubtedly lingered on her body, that she lay beside Suneel still burning for me.

  One more night.

  They planned to leave the next morning. I had been thinking all day, and when she came to me that night, I was ready with my arguments.

  I took her hands in mine, caressing her soft skin under my rough fingers. When she smiled, I spoke. “Come away with me.”

  “What?” Sushila tried to pull away, but I held on tight. Her eyes were suddenly wide and frightened, and I held her fingers as tight as I could, trying to reassure her.

  “Come away. Take the tickets; we can trade them for another day and then leave together. We can go to the city; I can find work.” I was whispering, but I willed her to hear how much I meant what I was saying.

  Her mouth twisted in a way I had never seen before. “Work? Doing what? What can we do?” Her voice was low as well, but scornful. “Should we end up washing someone’s filthy clothes? Lose caste, lose family — lose the future?” She did pull away then, sharply.

  I wrapped my arms tightly around my body, trying to slow my thumping heart.

  “You are my future!” I wanted to shout the words, and keeping them quiet was almost more than I could stand. “It doesn’t matter what we do to survive. Nothing matters but that you come away with me. I’m burning, Sushila.”

  “You’re being foolish.” Her eyes were disgusted, and my chest hurt. “I can’t leave Suneel — you have nothing and I have nothing. I have the jewelry your family gave me; would you have me sell that so that we can buy rice and lentils?”

  “Yes!” I was passionate; I was convinced. “It’s not fair that we should be separated. It’s not right, Sushila!” I reached for her hand, but she pulled away. She walked to the window and stared out as she spoke. Her voice had grown so soft that I could barely hear her.

  “It’s not right to leave, Medha. The jewelry, even my saris, belong to him, not to me. I belong to him. Would you have me abandon Suneel, leave him alone and shamed, without wife or the hope of children? Does he deserve that? Is that fair? It’s not right to leave him. I have to go with Suneel.”

  What had happened to my Sushila, who had burned for me last night? She sounded so calm, so cold.

  “It doesn’t matter what’s right or wrong. What’s really wrong is that you should leave with him, that you should leave me here, alone.” I didn’t know if I was making any sense — I just knew that I was desperate to say something, anything that would keep her. But she wasn’t listening to me.

  Sushila turned back to face me. “It won’t work. I’m sorry.” She sounded like the statue I had once thought her, as if she was built of stone.

  “But I love you! I love you!” My heart was breaking. It had broken and she was crushing the pieces under her heel. “Don’t you care for me at all?”

  Sushila’s voice gentled, a little. “I do care for you. But if they found us, they’d drag us back in shame. They might do worse. I had a friend — her husband died and they said she’d poisoned him with bad cooking…they burned her. They burned her alive.”

  I sucked in my breath, shocked that she would think… . “My family wouldn’t… .” She cut me off before I could finish.

  “No, you’re probably right. They probably wouldn’t. But Medha, it won’t work. You know it won’t. My place is with Suneel. There’s no place for us out there. Just here, in the kitchen, without words. Just for these six nights. Just you, and me, and the cup full of water.” Her voice had turned soft, persuasive, but I would not be persuaded. I wanted to surrender to her, but there was no time for that now.

  “The cup! Is that what matters to you? The cup is nothing, Sushila. The cup is just a game, it’s your game. It doesn’t matter. You just want to play your game and then go off, safe in the arms of your husband, leaving me here.” Leaving me alone.

  “Safe? You think I’m safe with Suneel?” Passion was finally in her voice — but not the kind I’d wanted.

  “He’d never hurt you.” I was sure of that, at least.

  She closed her eyes, squeezed them tight for a long moment, then opened them again. “Oh no. He’s sweet, and gentle, and kind. He will try to be a good husband to me, and I will try to be a good wife to him. We will have children, if the gods are kind.” There was the pain I felt, there in her voice. But it wasn’t for me. “And after ten or twenty or thirty years of that, I will have all the juices sucked out of me; I will be dry as dust. I will die of my thirst and blow away on the wind. And that’s the way it is; that’s the way it always is. You’re the lucky one, Medha.” Sushila meant it, I could hear it, but I didn’t know why.

  “Lucky?” I didn’t understand her, didn’t know her. Who was this woman with flat eyes, speaking of dust?

  “At least you are still free, for a little longer. Take what pleasure you can of it. That’s all we can do, Medha. Take a little pleasure when we can.”

  Sushila fell silent, and I did too, still thinking that there must be some other argument, some persuasion I could offer. I didn’t believe what she was saying — I couldn’t believe that was all there was for us. But I thought for too long.

  “Come,” she said softly, “take up the cup.” It waited, full, on the table. I knew that she was trying to save what she could; it was our last night, the very last. But I couldn’t do it. I grabbed the cup, held it in my shaking hands.

  Then I turned it over, spilling every drop of water to the floor.

  I didn’t know what she’d do, if she’d rage and shout, if she’d drag me to the ground. But Sushila just turned, and walked away.

  I let her go, let her walk down the hall and disappear into his room. I had lost her entirely, and lost our last night too. I had wasted a cup of water, for nothing.

  I slept like the dead that night. Perhaps I didn’t want to face the morning, hoped that she would just slip away without my having to face her again. My mother shook me awake.

  “What, are you sick too? Get up, Medha — I need your help. Sushila’s sick and they can’t leave today. I need you to take care of her today.”

  I dressed quickly. Not gone yet! Not leaving today! I rushed to Suneel’s room, to find him standing over his wife, his cheeks pulled in. Sushila’s eyes were closed, and she did look pale.

  “Medha, she’s nauseated. She’s been throwing up all morning. Stay with her, will you? I need to go change our tickets.”

  I nodded, and he bent to give her a kiss and then left the room. Once he’d gone, her eyes opened, and she motioned for me to bend down. I did, and she whispered in my ear, “I made myself throw up. I decided to give you one more chance.” When I pulled back, Sushila was smiling, and I was too. Perhaps I looked too happy, because all too soon she was saying, “Just one more night. Suneel and I will leave tomorrow.”

  “But… .” I had visions of persuading her, if only she would stay a few more nights, a week, two… . .

  “No, Medha. It’s too dangerous.”

  My eyes were stinging, but I knew she was right. Each night we’d gone further, eac
h night we’d taken more risks. If we kept this up, we would be caught, and if she wouldn’t leave with me…then it was this, or nothing. I finally nodded agreement. Just tonight.

  I stayed with her through the day; we didn’t touch. We could perhaps have held hands, or stolen a few kisses…but that would have been going outside the game, and the game had kept us safe so far.

  It was an eternity until nightfall.

  When I arrived in the kitchen, she was waiting. Something was different. The tin cup sat on the table, and the pitcher, but something else as well — a stone. It was my mother’s sharpening stone that she used for her knives.

  “Help me,” she said. She picked up the cup and ran the stone along the jagged edge. I thought at first she was dulling it, making it safer — but after a few strokes, I realized she was making it sharper. Sushila handed it to me, and I stroked it to greater sharpness. We passed the two items back and forth, the cup and stone, sharpening the edge to match that of a blade…and still I didn’t know why. It didn’t matter, though. I trusted her. Finally, she put down the stone and called the cup done. Three-quarters of the rim was still that of a cup, safe and dull. But one quarter had a sheen of sharpness to it, and it seemed more than just a cup.

  “Pull up your sari,” she said. I was startled, but obeyed, pulling it up past my ankle, my calf, my knee until almost all of my thigh was visible — “Stop.” I stopped, obediently, and watched her do the same with her sari. Her legs were so smooth and fragile; for a moment, I felt like a great, hairy cow. But the moment passed. We were past that now.

  “Cut me.” She pointed to her thigh, and, suddenly understanding, I took the cup in my hand. I reached out, pressed it against her soft flesh, bit my lip, and sliced down. A short, sharp cut, barely half the length of my palm. She had exhaled once, sharply, but made no other sound. She took the cup from my hand and, with a swift motion, made an identical cut in my thigh. The beads of blood welled bright, shining in the moonlight, and for a moment I was so dizzy I thought I would faint. But then I steadied, and when she leaned forward and pressed the cuts together, blending our blood, I held firm. She kissed me then, and the world spun around us.

  “Pour the water.” I poured the water into the cup with my left hand, spilling some onto the table. It didn’t matter. I poured until the cup was full. She took it then, and carefully sluiced some onto our joined legs, pulling away as she did. The bright blood ran down, mixing with the water, diluting.

  “Don’t pour it all!” I trusted her, but I couldn’t keep the words from coming out. When the water was finished, so were we… .

  “I haven’t. See?” She showed me the water left in the cup, barely a mouthful.

  “Good.” I looked at our legs, at the cuts that would turn into scars that we would carry forever. Forever! She wouldn’t forget me, and I would never forget her. But we had a problem. “If we let the fabric go, the saris will be stained. People will wonder.”

  She nodded, smiling. “We’d better just take them off, then.”

  It was so risky; it was the last time.

  We carefully removed our clothes, holding them away from the now trickling blood. We piled the fabric on the table and then, carefully, eased to the floor. My leg hurt, but as she bent her head to kiss me, the pain mingled with pleasure.

  My hand found her breast, and hers wrapped around me. We lingered over our pleasure until the sky began to lighten, and then we shared the last mouthful of water. By the time the household wakened I was back in my room, embracing the ache in my leg, trying very hard to remember everything.

  When she left, she reached up to my ear one last time. In full sight of everyone, she whispered, “It’s for the best, Medha. You’ll be married soon, and you must try to be happy. I will always care for you.”

  I didn’t say anything out loud, but I knew that I would never marry, and I swore in my heart that I would never love anyone as I had loved her.

  The scar faded into nothing within a year.

  Rice

  Rain patters against the bamboo walls, and

  I raise my head, hear its thrumming, then bend again,

  creating patterns of rice grains along her thighs;

  every one to be nibbled with my little mouse teeth.

  A Gentle Man

  “Let no one cherish anything, inasmuch as the loss of what is beloved is hard. There are no fetters for him who knows neither pleasure nor pain. From affection arises sorrow; from affection arises fear. To him who is free from affection there is no sorrow. Whence fear?”—Gautama Buddha

  Suneel wakes up hours before his family. This is normal, although today is not normal, today is a special day. Most days he makes tea, reads the paper, eats some toast without butter before going to work at his store. Sushila, his wife, never wakes until after nine. She likes to stay up late, talking on the phone with her friends. When the children were younger, he was the one who woke them, who ironed their Catholic school uniforms and put out milk and cereal. But now the children are able to wake themselves, and only Riddhi, his youngest, still sleeps at home.

  It is Riddhi’s birthday today. Tonight all of their friends will gather to celebrate his youngest daughter’s seventeenth birthday. She has just finished high school, and plans to start at the local community college in the fall. Not as smart as her older sister, no. His sweet Riddhi will never join Raji at Harvard. Just as well, considering what Raji is doing there, running around in public with white boys. It turns his stomach.

  He drinks his tea, savoring the taste of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, with shreds of ginger so fierce and strong. He’s tasted the tea in American stores—weak, sugary brews. Diluted, adulterated. Pathetic. His wife claims she likes it that way, but she still makes his strong, the way they drink it back home. She knows that his standards haven’t changed, that he still believes in doing things right. When she is with him, she drinks tea the way he does. But when she’s on her own—who knows?

  Sushila is still asleep; she has stayed up late, cooking for the party, making curries that will taste better the second day. She has made beef curries and pork and chicken for their friends, who are all Catholic like her; vegetables for him, the lone Buddhist. He has sometimes been tempted by the smell of her meat curries, but the thought of actually eating meat turns his stomach. He has not had meat since he was twenty, back in 1946. Two years before they married; thirty-four years ago. He has held firm to his convictions. If he ate meat now, it would make him ill.

  He can taste already her brinjal curry, savor the spicy coconut sambol and the pungent pickled limes. His mouth is almost burning, though the fire is wholly imagined, and he takes a long drink of tea to soothe it. He chokes on a piece of ginger, and coughs for a few moments, his whole body shaking. Then it’s gone, swallowed down, and he is at rest again.

  His wife is an excellent cook; none can deny that, at least, though he can guess what else they say about her. She won’t be awake until eleven at least. But there is a lot to do between now and then. He washes the cup, dries it, puts it away.

  He calls the store; no problems. His assistant is a solid man, his cousin’s friend, and reasonably trustworthy, although he wouldn’t give the man access to the store’s bank account. He knows that you can’t really trust anyone here, in America, not the way you could back home, in Ceylon. It’s just not the same; family and friendship don’t mean the same things here that they did back there. He has learned that the hard way. Still, the man works hard, and the store takes a lot of hard work.

  The store has fed and clothed him and his family; in it he sells saris, lengths of shining fabric in silk and chiffon with bright gold threads. Suneel started the shop with money saved up from work in Colombo, the capital, back when they were newlyweds. He had saved enough to bring his wife and young children to America, enough to buy a partnership in a new sari store, one of the first in the country, and then worked hard enough to buy the store outright a few years later. He’s proud of the store, and it’s doing well, but
who knows for how long? When they first arrived, it seemed that their white neighbors shared their values; knew the value of hard work, the importance of family, of decency. He’d thought it a good place to raise children, a place of opportunities. But in recent years, America has changed, changed completely. Nothing here is as it was, nothing lasts. In this country, everything looks bright and beautiful and substantial, but it is so often a sham, with nothing real supporting it. Not like back home.

  Time to start cleaning. Sushila does the light cleaning—she looks lovely wandering around the house in a simple green sari, feather duster in her hand. But ask her to scrub the bathroom tiles, or even move the furniture to vacuum behind it… . But he brought her here, after all; against everyone’s advice. The first man in his village to go so far from home. It was his vision—America, land of opportunity, a shining bright future for his family. How could he have known that in America, you had to be fabulously rich to afford even a single servant? They are not fabulously rich, and his wife prefers not to think about the dirt that gathers in the corners, under the carpet.

  He does not force it on her, though sometimes he is exhausted, coming home from the store only to find the house is so filthy that he cannot stand it. Sometimes he stays up late for nights on end, sweeping and scrubbing and mopping, while she talks on the telephone to her friends. She has so many friends, and they have so much to talk about. Sometimes he wants to take her face and push it down in the bucket of scummy water, just for a moment, just so she knows what she is forcing him to do—but he would never do that. He doesn’t even raise his voice when he asks her what she has been doing all day long; he is not that sort of man. The Buddha counsels calm in the face of the vexatious; restraint when in the presence of troublesome souls. He tries to follow the teaching.