The River Beneath the River

by Susan Tabin

  “The first time I had sex was during my summer on Crete. A student from Tanganyika, a young black man.”

  “Trying to shock me, are you?”

  “For that I would tell you I had made love to my brother.”

  “With Olivia’s ex-husband, Michael?”

  “I didn’t know he was my brother at the time.”

  “But Olivia was your friend.”

  “My good friend. She left, she was out of both of our lives. They split up. Their marriage was annulled. Maybe in some unconscious way it was the antidote for her leaving. I was lonely. We were both available.”

  Kevin took my hand and spoke slowly in a calm tone. “It must have been difficult when you found out.”

  “I was devastated. It was only Ere Zeta’s wisdom that brought me back. He recommended that I love myself through it all, that I find the gratitude in the situation. It took me a while but I did.” With childhood images forming on the lens of my mind I paused to catch my breath. “When I was a girl playing in my grandparent’s basement I came upon a photo of my father with his first wife and their child. I wondered about that child. Where he was, how he was. I was wounded by the discovery that somewhere I had a brother. It was never spoken about in my family. Despite the circumstances I became grateful to have found my brother. What happened to your marriage?”

  “It didn’t last the year. I didn’t love her… was a long time ago, some fifteen years.” Kevin shifted to face me fully and said, “But I know I love you. I want to share my life with you.”

  This wasn’t completely unexpected, but I was still taken aback. “With all you know about me?”

  “Darci, you’re a courageous, spiritual woman. I’ve just learned more from you about acceptance and living life as it comes than I could ever have imagined.”

  He paid the driver; we stepped out of the taxi. We were standing in front of the Eiffel Tower—it’s woven steel graceful as Chantilly lace. Red neon light streaked across the sky. We were shivering in the sunset. Kevin held me close and whispered, “Marry me, be my wife.”

  Twenty-One

  On July 6, 1973, two years after I first met Kevin, we were married on the cool lower slopes of the Himalayas in northern India. Garlands of red ginger and white orchids hanging from nine brass poles, representing the nine planets, encircled us. A red and gold veil covering my head and shoulders flowed loosely over my red sari. The Hindu priest, a small man dressed in white, chanted hymns and sat crosslegged on a large pillow. Using perfumed water and flame he invoked many forms of God to witness our union. We were barefoot, seated in low, red velvet, throne-like chairs with ornately carved arms and legs that resembled lion’s paws. I sat to Kevin’s left.

  We fed each other a morsel of rice to symbolize our mutual affection. We offered rice to the brass pot of fire set on the low table before us. The priest explained that this was done to invite a blessing on the union of our hearts. He told us that we were like birds without wings, that the Vedic wedding sacraments would attach our wings; and that in partnership life’s journey would be easier.

  The priest stood and had us both rise from our low chairs. We looked up at the noon sun as a declaration that our devotion and love be as steadfast as the sun. Kevin looked at me, his gentle brown eyes moist with tenderness, and said, “I hold your heart. You are joined to me by the Lord of all creatures.” Then Kevin walked behind me, placed his hand over my left shoulder and touched my heart. His slim body appeared fuller in the loose-fitting collarless beige linen shirt and trousers. He removed the mala of red ginger and white orchids from around his neck. I took off my long floral necklace and we exchanged malas.

  “May my body be free from disease and defect and may I ever enjoy the blessing of your companionship,” I said to my groom.

  The priest chants om shanti shanti, takes a length of bright yellow cloth, raises one end of my floor-length veil; ties the two fabrics together in a knot and wraps the yellow cloth around Kevin’s waist several times. Fastened to each other and barefoot, we walk around the fire. Sweet perfumed water is poured into our cupped hands. We sign the marriage contract promising our lifelong commitment. Om shanti shanti.

  Legions of young Indian women have signed similar contracts, their marriages arranged while they were still infants, never given the opportunity to choose their own partners. I wonder if Kevin and I have chosen each other or if life has chosen us for each other. Om shanti shanti.

  ~

  I had come to India to study the Hindu and Islamic practices of decorating their houses of worship. Unlike the stories of Hindu gods told through sculpture, Muslims were forbidden by their religion to carve the human figure. Kevin joined me for my summer research project. While we rode on the train through teakwood forests filled with towering trees that bore enormous leaves, and through tea plantations up the steep incline to the northeast city of Darjeeling, my mind traveled back to how my parents had given me a D name after a cup of Darjeeling tea they had fallen in love over. Now, thirty-one years later, my life had brought me to this city surrounded by hillside plantations where the exotic black tea grew. I thought about the unknown and the unknowable and how we really can’t know what’s coming next in our lives.

  ~

  Smeeta was my research assistant, my interpreter, my guide and my friend. Together we waded through a green sea, submerged to our thighs in tea plants. Heads wrapped open turban style in white cotton, tea pluckers were bobbing around us like small sailboats. Smeeta ran her brown hand across the top of the evergreens and I did the same.

  “Here in the north,” she said, “the plants grow slowly because of high altitude and cool air.”

  I nodded in understanding.

  Smeeta said, “Professor DeMornay, slow growing tea has more flavor. Darjeeling is the finest.”

  I thought about Darjeeling tea all summer long. For me, India was about sacred cows, Hindu holy men and Darjeeling tea. India was noisy open-air market places, monsoons bringing relentless rain and Darjeeling tea. The highlights of my stay in India were the holy Ganges River with its beginning in an ice cave high in the Himalayan house of snow, the white marble Islamic tomb at Agra known as the Taj Mahal, and the Darjeeling tea.

  Summer in India transitioned easily to fall and to my renewed life in New York. My career had exposed me to a plethora of cultures, religions and ideologies. I was no longer anti-ritual. In fact I regarded many rituals as benevolent and worthy of respect. Some I held in high esteem. At Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, where years before in my agony I had questioned whether the Light and God had forsaken me, I took the sacrament of communion. At his last Passover supper, Jesus Christ blessed the matzoh and wine and said to his disciples, “Take, eat. This is my body, this is my blood. This do in remembrance of me.” And so I did in remembrance of him.

  I was no longer anti-New York. I was enjoying New York this second time around. I had come to know from my spiritual studies and my travels that wherever I go I take myself. I was determined not to set up patterns of defeat in my life and not to be a loser in my own fantasies.

  ~

  “You changed your name?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “To Darjeeling?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “What, they brainwashed you in India?”

  “It’s more like my heart was washed.”

  “If it’s all right with you, I’m still gonna call you Darci.”

  “Sure, Dad.”

  Most people accepted the name change with ease. Some, like my cousin May, just called me Dar. Kevin loved the conversion. He looked at me with those gentle eyes and in his Kentucky drawl said, “Darjeeling DeMornay—sounds smooth as warm butter spread with a hot knife.”

  And like drawn butter I melted into my husband’s strong arms.

  Twenty-Two

  On a lazy Sunday morning while we loafed in bed reading the New York Times, Kevin stretched his long body like a cat and announced, “Darjeeling, we ought to celebrate your thirty-fifth with a
photo safari. No research projects, no art trips, just a summer off to cut loose.”

  I took a sip of coffee from the cracked mug with the hand-painted sunflower I’d shipped back from Spain, ran my free hand through my husband’s uncombed curly hair and beamed like a kid. Kevin took his reading glasses off, pushed the newspapers to the floor, reached over, cuffed my wrist with his large hand and drew me on top of him. Sixteen floors above Central Park, in our cavernous apartment filled with books, art and travel photos, as we had done on so many Sunday mornings before, we made love.

  ~

  Four months later we set out for the Massai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya. It had been ten years since I last corresponded with Africa. He wrote back that his wife, Aisha, knew only of our friendship as co-workers at the dig on Crete. In my follow-up letter I assured him it would remain that way. He was pleased to hear from me and once I convinced him that our past involvement in no way troubled my husband, he was of great assistance to Kevin in planning our trip. So after ten adventurous days in Kenya, I was looking forward to crossing into Tanzania—the country once called Tanganyika I’d heard so much about from my old friend. But nothing was easy on this continent and only months before, Tanzania had closed its borders to Kenya.

  We awoke in the colorless pre-dawn mist. Kevin asked me to wear my hair back.

  “How come? You never tell me how to wear my hair.”

  “So it doesn’t blow into the flames.”

  “Into the flames—what are you talking about?”

  “You’ll see, just get dressed.”

  I knew Africa had arranged for us to take part in a game drive and that I would see him later in the day. But I didn’t expect the experience that was to follow. While we drove to meet the sunrise, the stillness metamorphosed into hues of deep purple. What looked like a swollen mud village from afar turned out to be an enormous balloon.

  Brown, our driver, explained, “not to frighten the animals.”

  One of the crew shouted to Kevin, “We’re on. We expect the weather window to hold.” Then to me, “Ma’m, you might want to wear your hat, the overhead burners are very warm.”

  “Happy birthday, Darjeeling.”

  “Kevin, you’re a man after my own heart.”

  “And you, Darjeeling DeMornay, are following after a sheep, duck and I think a rooster.”

  “Uh huh, are you insinuating now that I’m thirty-five I’m old enough to have been around when the first balloon went up with that menagerie?”

  Kevin looked at me again and clucked his tongue.

  The crew loosened the ropes attached to the basket. We were launched, rising like hot air above the glorious Serengetti Plain. We were barely below the equator and I could see snow on the volcanic peaks of Kilimanjaro. We drifted above thousands and thousands of migrating wildebeests. Their exaggeratedly long faces, beards and humped backs made them look sorrowful. Perhaps they are…. This scourge they endure year after year. The drought with its parched land forcing them to move in search of green Savannah grass, predators at their hoofs, wide rivers that claim the old and weak, white-backed vultures wheeling above. This spectacle extended beyond the vista of our eyes. Kevin pointed out giraffe grazing on the thorny flat-topped acacia trees. We spotted zebra, impalas, elephants and hippos in the Seronera Valley.

  I was still in a euphoric state when we landed and I caught a glimpse of Africa, his long legs, approaching. As he moved closer, his brilliant smile and twinkling eyes were unmistakable even though he had a mustache tracing his full upper lip and a goatee sprinkled with prematurely gray hair.

  “America, it has been seventeen years!” he said with a look of astonishment coming onto his face.

  We hugged close and long. Memories of the whitewashed guesthouse, my roommate Denmark, the wild fig trees and the beach flooded my consciousness. The lasting bond I had with my old friend went far deeper than the physical level. That hug and his body redolent with the scent of clove brought me back to my summer in the Greek islands.

  Africa looked over my shoulder and said to Kevin, “I’m back on Crete at the dig.”

  “She’s told me about Denmark, Mykonos, Dr. Evans and his perennial cigarette.”

  “Puffing on one coffin nail after another, that would be Dr. Evans.”

  Kevin smiled generously and shook his head lovingly. He and Africa took to each other with the traditional palm, thumb, palm handshake. I was with two extraordinary human beings—both, great men in their own right.

  Twenty-Three

  The next days were spent meeting Africa’s delightful wife Aisha, five lively children and the extended Mbingo family. We were treated to delicious thick plantain porridge, sweet potato loaves, dramatic African tales and a trip southeast of the Serengetti Plain to the fossil beds of Olduvai Gorge where archaeologists Louis and Mary Leaky had unearthed evidence that the earliest human existence probably began in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa.

  Then five days by ourselves on Tanzania’s east coast. We drank pumbe, a local beer made from millet. We sunned on white sand beaches ringed with palm trees and we swam in turquoise waters. In the evenings we read, pleasured each other with our bodies, and watched the moon dip into the Indian Ocean.

  ~

  When we came back to see Africa on that last leg of our journey, his

  jubilant demeanor had turned somber, his twinkling eyes flat.

  “America, Kevin…you know this land has a vile underbelly too.”

  “Sure, the poverty, history of slave trade….” Kevin answered.

  “Can I take you somewhere?”

  “Of course,” I said, “we’re yours until we go home.”

  We drove down yet one more long bumpy unpaved dirt road. The faded green structure looked too tired to be standing. A stench of urine and death hung on the building like a mourner’s veil. I glanced at my husband with apprehension. He took my hand in his and squeezed it.

  Africa spoke to us while he led the way. “They’re orphans. The parents are being prepared for burial in this same building.” He opened the ridiculous screen door filled with holes and said, “They crossed over the border searching for food… malaria… bilharzia.” He understood my questioning expression; addressed it at once. “A parasite from contaminated water. Poachers came, killed the ones still alive who probably lay claim to the animals at the very watering hole that sickened them.” He looked away and what he told us next unnerved and sickened me. “Wild hyenas came in the night. For some, only bones remained.”

  The children stared at us with big cow eyes. One little boy and girl were tied together at the wrists with string so it would be known they were brother and sister.

  “Amadou, we can make a donation for food and medicine.”

  “Good, Kevin. I thought you would help out when you saw with your own eyes,” Africa said.

  I think we arrived at about noon. The three of us pitched in doing whatever was called for on a handle-the-most-urgent matters first, you’re on your own, no one is supervising basis. We changed urine-soaked pads that lay atop the twenty or so cots that had been set up for the surviving children. While I sponge bathed scrawny limbed little bodies bloated with hunger, I envisioned each one bathed in healing white Light and I prayed for the Light to be with the children and with their deceased parents for their highest good.

  Hours later, just before the sky began to darken, Africa asked us to wind down, to prepare to leave. “The jeep has been giving me some problems. I don’t want to chance a breakdown, it’s getting late,” he said.

  Four women working in the cornfield next to the dusty road stopped and waved as we drove by. They were all barefoot, tall and thin, in calf-length colorful dresses. Their hair was covered in the same print cloth.

  That night Kevin and I were insomniacs. We hadn’t complained about any of our accommodations, even when we slept in tents at the rugged Kenyan game reserve. Most nights we fell to sleep happily exhausted. Now we tossed and tugged at the blanket. We turned, rolled, p
ushed. We couldn’t fall asleep and we couldn’t console each other. We were haunted by the children—their pathetic eyes followed us into our sleeplessness.

  “Darjeeling, we can do more.”

  “I know… that brother and sister…I can’t get them out of my mind.”

  “God… I was thinking about the same kids.”

  “Kevin, do you ever want….”

  “It would be nice to have a family.”

  “Adopted?”

  “Sure, why bring more kids into the world. What a farce to think we’re born with equal opportunity. Those kids face only the most dismal options…Jesus!”

  “There’s one way. We’re all born with equal opportunity to know our own souls. Would you adopt the brother and sister?” I asked.

  “I would,” he answered.

  I brushed lightly against his bare back. “Let’s take another look—it’s a big step. Our lives’ll never be the same.”

  “And there’s a lot to consider, Darjeeling, not just two sweet kids. Are you prepared to help them through this horrible loss, to raise children to adulthood, to have an interracial family?”

  “Kevin, I learned a long time ago, there’s only one race. It has many colors, but we all share one heart.”

  The hours wore on. When it was light enough, we returned to the fly-infested building. The horrific odors were as suffocating as the day before. One little girl with vacant eyes rocked back and forth, howling. It was explained to us that her brother had died in the night. I could not come to Africa and only delight in its wildlife and remote beauty. Kevin and I were being called to something greater.