by Anita Desai
Uma dips her jar in the river, and lifts it high over her head. When she tilts it and pours it out, the murky water catches the blaze of the sun and flashes fire.
Part Two
Fourteen
IT is summer. Arun makes his way slowly through the abundant green of Edge Hill as if he were moving cautiously through massed waves of water under which unknown objects lurked. Greenness hangs, drips and sways from every branch and twig and frond in the surging luxuriance of July. In such profusion, the houses seem as lost, as stranded, as they might have been when this was primeval forest. White clapboard is most prominent but there are houses painted dark with red oxide, some a military grey with white trim, and a few have yellow doors and shutters, or blue. These touches of colour seem both brave and forlorn, picturebook dreams pitted against the wilderness, without conviction.
Outside many of them the starred and striped American flag flies on a post with all the bravado of a new frontier. In direct contradiction, there are the more domestic signs of habitation that imply settlement by generations—the rubber paddling pools left outdoors by children who have gone in, moulded plastic tricycles and steel bicycles, go-carts and skateboards. There is garden furniture and garden statuary—pink plastic flamingoes poised beside a birdbath, spotted deer or hatted gnomes crouched amongst the rhododendrons like decoys set out by homesteaders, conveying some message to the threatening hinterland.
Arun keeps his chin lowered, as nervous as someone venturing alone across the border, but his eyes glance from side to side into all the windows. None of them are curtained. Most are very large. He can look in directly at the kitchen sinks, the pots of busily flowering busy-lizzies, the lamps and the dangling glass decorations. There are so many objects, so rarely any people. Only occasionally a woman crosses one of these illuminated rooms, withdraws. There seems to be more happening in the darkened rooms where the uncertain light of television sets flickers. Here he might see undefined shapes huddled upon a couch, sprawled on the floor. And there is the multicoloured life of the screen, jigging and jumping with a mechanical animation that has no natural equivalent. The windows are shut, he cannot hear a sound.
Now and then a car turns into the road, very slowly because it is a residential area and there are mountainous speedbreakers, then turns into its assigned driveway. A garage door slides up with an obedient, even obsequious murmur, and the car disappears. Where?
Arun knows nothing. He peers around him for footprints, for signs, for markers. He studies the mailboxes that line the drive, leaning into each other, for some indications or evidence. He notes which ones have names written upon them, which ones only numbers. If the mail has not been collected, he squints to find the name on the newspapers and the mail order catalogues stuffed into them.
Shambling along, he notes which house has a large clutter of children's toys—spades, buckets, bats, balls—and which have carefully constructed gardens: the small beds of bright flowers, stone-edged and stranded in huge stretches of immaculate lawn, the clipped hedges, the bird-feeders watched over by murderously patient cats that seem painted onto the scene in black and white.
Tucking his chin into his collar, he ponders these omens and indicators.
A car drives up suddenly behind him, very close, as if with intention. He climbs hastily onto a grass verge. It passes. Why had it done that? Are pedestrians against the law in this land of the four-wheeled?
He turns into Bayberry Lane and walks past more trimmed lawns, more swept drives, till the road slopes down to the last house in the lane, on the edge of the woods below the bill. Here, too, a red-white-and-blue flag flies upon its pole, its rope slack in the summer stillness, and the mailbox holds its measure of junk mail, too voluminous to merit collection. Here, too, the big picture-windows are lit, and the rooms empty, like stage sets before the play begins: is there or is there not to be a play?
He walks around to the side of the house where a basketball hoop holds its ring over his head in speechless invitation to play. As he slouches past the manicured shrubs, he glances into the kitchen window and sees the aluminium sink, the wall cupboards, the tea towels on their rack.
Mrs Patton is there. She is unpacking several large brown paper grocery bags, placing cartons and containers on the counter, slowly and thoughtfully putting away each item after several minutes of holding it and considering it. Arun stands watching her purse her lips and occasionally touch her mouth with a plump, freckled hand before she bends to put away the cat food or open the refrigerator and stack frozen cans into its icily illuminated spaces.
Now she stops, a can of plum tomatoes in her hand, and does not seem to know what to do next. She is frozen, with a stricken look upon her face, like an actress who has forgotten her lines. Although at the very heart of this domestic scene, she seems lost.
Arun climbs the stairs to the door, pats it with the flat of his hand, pushes it open and apologetically lets himself in.
'Ah-roon!' she exclaims with a little, scared laugh. 'Oh, Ah-roon,' she repeats, trying a different tone, less alarmed. 'I'm glad you're back. Dad got home early. He's on the patio, cooking dinner.'
Arun nods, morosely, since this means it is to be steak again, or hamburger: the odour of raw meat being charred over the fire ought to have warned him. It is the pervasive odour of the entire suburb on any summer evening and it had not struck him that the Pattons were making a contribution to it.
Mrs Patton notes his expression and gives a little groan. 'What will you eat, Ah-roon?' she worries. 'What will we eat, you and I?'
What will they eat? He looks back at her dejectedly. Neither is capable of changing the situation. Somehow he has found the one person in the land who is in the same position as he; that makes for comradeship, there is no denying that, but it does not necessarily improve anything.
They both stand staring at the can of plum tomatoes she is holding as if it contains the answer. Becoming aware of his gaze, she brightens. 'There was this special offer at the Foodmart,' she confides, 'three for a dollar.'
Fifteen
AN irate voice calls from the patio: 'Isn't anyone interested in the bar-be-cue?'
Mrs Patton clutches a bag of lettuce to her chest and her usually mild eyes suddenly look wild behind the rimless spectacles she wears. Arun, too, pauses. Then she murmurs, 'Quick. Wash your hands, dear. Daddy's got dinner waiting,' and the murmur is as an order might be from another, so urgent is it, and eloquent.
When Arun goes to wash his hands in the small washroom under the stairs where there is a sink wedged in between an ironing board and a filing cabinet, and a toilet beneath a shelf loaded with garden tools and pesticides, he notices an uninhabited slipper at the foot of the stairs, just protruding from behind the banister.
On coming out, with damp hands, he takes another look at it, curious. It does not move but he feels impelled to ask, hoarsely, 'Melanie?'
The owner of the slipper does not reply but ruffles a bag she is holding on her lap. He retraces his steps to find her sitting on the bottom stair, dressed in denim shorts and a faded pink T-shirt, holding a party-sized bag of salted peanuts into which she reaches and from which she draws out a fistful. She sits in the gloom of the unlit staircase, munching the nuts with a mulish obstinacy, regarding him with eyes that are slits of pink-rimmed green. Has she been crying? She looks sullen rather than tearful. It is her habitual expression. Arun reflects that he has not once seen it change.
'We are asked to come to dinner,' he mutters, looking away, down at her bare foot beside the empty, dusty slipper, 'by your father.'
In reply she thrusts her fist down into the bag again, crinkling it loudly, and draws out another handful of peanuts. She does not say a word. Perhaps the crunching of nuts is her reply. Certainly she makes it expressive, and defiant.
Stooping even further—this is only the latest in his many failed attempts to involve Melanie in speech—he goes out through the kitchen door onto what the family calls the patio. At its edge, just un
der the branches of a large, spreading spruce, Mr Patton has set up his grill at which he stands, garbed in a long, red-checked apron that ties at his neck and descends to his knees. Embroidered across the pocket at the top is the legend Texas Bar & Grill. He holds a spatula up in the air, waiting for his congregation to assemble.
It is a congregation of two, hesitant and slow.
'Where's Rod?' he demands. 'Where's Melanie?'
Mrs Patton and Arun exchange looks, furtively, and Mrs Patton goes bravely forward as if to take the shot, and says placatingly, 'I'm sure they'll be here any minute, dear.'
'Don't they know I came home early to cook their dinner?' Mr Patton sounds petulant, a minister who cannot see why his congregation dwindles. His lower lip is moist, like a baby's, and his hands, too, are surprisingly soft, pampered. 'Got my work done, got into the car, and drove home half an hour early so's to marinate the steaks—and then they can't even get here on time to eat.'
Arun stands looking at his shoes, dusty from the long walk out of town, and carefully refrains from informing him that Melanie is indoors, gorging on peanuts. He waits for the dreaded moment when he will have to confess what he wishes he did not have to confess—again. Will Mrs Patton make the confession for him? Will Mrs Patton be brave and make it unnecessary for him to speak, publicly reveal himself as unworthy, unfit to take the wafer upon his tongue, the wine into his throat?
'Come on, bring me your plates,' Mr Patton tells his foot-dragging communicants, trying to sound jovial and only managing to sound impatient.
Mrs Patton advances, holding her plate before her. She stands very upright before the grill, trying not to flinch but evidently fully aware of the gravity of the ceremony. 'Thank you, dear,' she says as she receives the slab of charred meat on her plate, making it dip a little with its weight so that grease and blood run across it and spread.
'And now you, Aaroon,' commands Mr Patton, sliding the spatula under another slab that is blackening upon the coals. 'This here should be just right for you, Red,' he jollies the nervous newcomer to his congregation, not yet saved but surely on his way. Arun has made the mistake of telling the Pattons once that his name means 'red' in Hindi, and Mr Patton has seized upon this as a good joke, particularly in conjunction with his son's name, Rod. Fortunately Arun has not elaborated that it means, specifically, the red sky at sunrise or Mr Patton might now be calling him 'Dawn'.
Instinctively, then, Arun steps backwards and even puts his hands behind his back. Some stubborn adherence to his own tribe asserts itself and prevents him from converting. 'Oh, I'll just have the—the bun and—then salad,' he stammers and his hair falls over his forehead in embarrassment.
Mr Patton raises an eyebrow—slowly, significantly—holding the spatula in the air while the steak sputters in indignation at this denial.
Mrs Patton rushes in hurriedly, but too late. 'Ahroon's a vegetarian, dear—' and then her voice drops to a whisper '—like me.'
Mr Patton either does not hear the whisper, or does but ignores it. He responds only to the first half of the statement. 'Okay, now I remember,' he says at last. 'Yeah, you told me once. Just can't see how anyone would refuse a good piece of meat, that's all. It's not natural. And it costs—'
Mrs Patton begins to play the role of a distracting decoy. She flutters about the patio, helping herself to bread and mustard, pattering rapidly, 'Ahroon explained it all to us, dear—you know, about the Hindoo religion, and the cows—'
Mr Patton gives his head a shake, sadly disappointed in such moral feebleness, and turns the slab of meat over and over. 'Yeah, how they let them out on the streets because they can't kill 'em and don't know what to do with 'em. I could show 'em. A cow is a cow, and good red meat as far as I'm concerned.'
'Yes, dear,' Mrs Patton coos consolingly.
'And here it's all turning to coal,' Mr Patton mourns, patting the scorched slice.
Arun follows Mrs Patton to a table set with platters and bowls of lettuce and rolls. Sadly he resigns himself to the despised foods, wondering once again how he has let himself be drawn into this repetitious farce—the ceremonies of other tribes must seem either farcical or outrageous always—as bad as anything he remembers at home. Thinking of his father's stolid face and frown at the table, grave and disapproving, he feels he must assure Mrs Patton as he would his mother, 'I will eat the bun and salad.'
Mr Patton says nothing. He is prying the scorched shreds of meat off the grill with his spatula and scraping them onto his plate, grievously aware of the failure of this summer night's sacrament.
Mrs Patton settles onto a canvas chair and pantomimes the eating of a meal while playing with it with her fork. 'Mmm, it's real good,' she murmurs. 'Rod and Melanie just don't know what they're missing.'
Her words make Arun wince. Will she never learn to leave well alone? She does not seem to have his mother's well-developed instincts for survival through evasion. After a bit of pushing about slices of tomatoes and leaves of lettuce—in his time in America he has developed a hearty abhorrence for the raw foods everyone here thinks the natural diet of a vegetarian—he dares to glance at Mr Patton. As he expected, Mr Patton's underlip is thrust out in a petulant scowl as he cuts and saws at a piece of meat that to Arun seems not merely raw but living: it is bleeding in a stream across Mr Patton's plate. The air is murky with the smoke of the dying barbecue and the spreading dusk; the blood is a stain, a wound at its heart.
The blue oblong of electric light that hangs from a branch of the spruce tree over the barbecue is being bombarded by the insects that evening summons up from the surrounding green. They hurl themselves at it like heathens in the frenzy of their false religion, and die with small, piercing detonations. The evening is punctuated by their unredeemed deaths.
Sixteen
THE room Arun had had in a dorm during that first semester of his American education was on the fifth floor of a fourteen-storey block at the edge of the campus. He shared it with a mostly silent student from Louisiana who would lie on his back smoking an endless chain of cigarettes, filling the small concrete cell with a thick yellow smoke that brought on Arun's asthma. The boy had a coffee mug that bore the legend Ya snooze, ya lose, but he used it only to drop ashes in and ignored the message that stared Arun in the face every time he glanced, inadvertently, in his direction.
The room was at the end of a long corridor scribbled over with graffiti—in chalk, charcoal, spray paint, lipstick, possibly even ordure—and its one window, an oblong of uncurtained glass, looked out onto the parking lot. From his desk Arun could look across its bleak expanse, watch students drive off in their cars, leaving behind pools of oil and grease. On Friday nights even this desolation would explode—quite literally—as students hurled beer cans out of the windows, sometimes entire garbage bags filled with them, and bottles were flung down to shatter spectacularly. The emptiness of Arun's weekends would be punctuated by sudden eruptions of music from enormous pieces of sound equipment set up or transported across the campus. These were like voices shouting out of another world, another civilisation:
'Hey, hey, baby, I can't let you go-o—'
'Don' you mess wid me, Ah'm a fightin' man—'
'Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, I'm so bl-ooh, bl-ooh—'
Their very volume created a fence, a barrier, separating him from them. They were the bricks of a wall that held him out.
It was much the same in the classes he attended. After taking a look around the classroom at his fellow students, and noting the young man who wore his hair in a plait, the older woman who had short grey hair on which she always wore a baseball cap, the young girl who hungrily ate her way through packages and cartons full of food, bottles full of coloured liquids, rolls of candy and gum, then finished off with a very ripe banana or almost rotten orange, his instant reaction was to reject them all as potential allies or friends. After that, he could lower his face into his books, hide himself behind his thick glasses, and excuse himself from any further involvement with them.
&
nbsp; Once he had run into the older woman from his geology class in the cafeteria: he had not noticed she was sitting at the table till he had already put down his tray beside her and it was too late to be able politely to change his mind.
She beamed at him. 'I missed today's class,' she told him. 'Just got back from the med centre—had to go for my checkup.'
Oh, are you ill?' he had to ask then.
'Cancer,' she told him, with professional pride, 'of the cervix. They spotted it on time—I've been regular with my pap smear—and I had chemo. That's when my hair fell out.' She put her hand to her head and pulled off the baseball cap, revealing the bald patch beneath it. Arun stood, appalled, but she laughed reassuringly, 'It's growing back now, except for this bit here. My husband wants me to wear a wig, but I say what the hell, I don't care about all that, looking glamorous and such. What I care about is getting me an education.' She put her hand on her book bag with pride, as if swearing an oath of allegiance. 'He doesn't see why. Folks don't always know what the important things in life are. But you know more about that where you come from,' she suddenly broadened out to include him.
Arun immediately panicked, and the straw in his bottle of Coke bent under the pressure of his fingers. As soon as he could, he fled. She had confirmed what it was that filled every cell of his body—a resistance to being included.
He resisted even the overtures made by his own countrymen who had formed a small ghetto on the thirteenth floor of the dorm where they could concoct the foods that they longed for over an illegal hot plate and sing to the tapes of music that were their most precious possession from home. Arun always managed to have a test to prepare for when they invited him to join them for a meal they had made, and a Bombay film they had found at the local video store.
