All of you, she said, are blessed because you possess the gift of dreaming, but unless you know what the dream is, whence it comes and what its purpose can be, the gift is useless.
Erase from your mind all the notions you hold about dreams. They will only impede you in your path.
It is true that oftentimes a dream is stitched together from images thrown up by an agitated mind, worries that surface when the body is still. But those are the dreams of ordinary beings and need not concern you, though much of your life will be spent in explaining them.
Sometimes you will be given a warning in a dream, which you must convey to the person it is meant for, a person whose mind is too thick for the dream spirit to pierce. This is a more difficult task—for often such a person will not want to hear what you say— but it is still not your main purpose.
The dreams that are most important come from another reality—you might call it another time, for want of a better term in our limited speech. This is the time of the dream spirits. I lack the capacity to describe it. All I can say is that even an instant of being in that time will transform you the way the philosopher’s stone transforms base metal into gold. But I stumble ahead of myself.
As you progress in this path, you will realize that each of you has a guardian spirit. If you are fortunate and careful, the love between you and this spirit will grow into a great and wondrous thing. Through dreams the spirit will tell you who you truly are, although it might have to speak many times before you learn to listen. Unless you observe a life of service and compassion and cultivate the six treasured virtues, you may never learn this skill. But when—no, if—you finally hear, you will see the intricate web of love that binds existence together, and you will never need anything else in order to be happy. The more fortunate among you, blessed by the dream, will live long in the world after, and help many souls. But for others the message will come at the moment of death, and will be inseparable from it. For those who need extra guidance, a messenger may appear at the time. Do not lose him or her—it will be your last chance to grasp the truth of the dream time.
Many years have passed since Samyukta’s speech, and since I left the caves in disgrace. I think of her words from time to time (the fragments I am left with) and grow dejected. I’ve tried to live a virtuous life, but unsuccessfully, caught as I am between two worlds that define virtue in opposed ways. I’ve often been impatient, and angry, and restless. I’ve regretted the choices I made and blamed them on others. Worst of all, I have not loved anyone fully, not my husband or child, not the suffering souls that have come to me for help. Try as I might, the core of my heart remains moldy and desolate. Even the dream spirits have not been able to fill it. My only hope is the messenger—will he ever come?
28
Rakhi
The fever is gone, but Jona is still too weak to go to school. Sonny wants her to stay at his house, and though part of me bristles at him (Sonny-the-controller), I have to concede that it’s more practical. This way when he goes off in the morning to do whatever it is that DJs do when they’re not performing, I can come over and keep Jona company. By the time I have to leave for the Kurma House, Sonny will have returned.
The morning after the fever, I wipe Jona down and change her sweat-crusted clothes. I put baby powder on her the way I used to when she was little. When I bend over to kiss her forehead, she asks if I will move in with her and Sonny until she’s well enough to go back to school, please, Mom.
It’s hard to refuse when she’s been so ill. I hate myself for it. But if I weaken and give in, the result will be disastrous. Being in this house when Sonny is gone is difficult enough. Being here when he’s around will bring up too many painful memories—even if he wants me here, which I doubt.
But most of all, I don’t want to give Jona false hopes about the two of us getting back together.
I say no, bracing myself for tears, but Jona doesn’t insist. She turns on her side and closes her eyes, as though she hadn’t really expected that I would say yes. There’s such resignation in the curl of her back that a pang goes through me.
Am I making a mistake? I guess I’ll know only later. Up close, it’s impossible to read the foreshortened angles of one’s actions—which are the right turns, which will lead to sorrow.
Did my mother make the wrong choice in deciding to come to America with my father? Reading her journals, I begin to see what she hid from us so craftily: her regret, her longing for community, her fear of losing her gift. Ironic that her ability to tell dreams stayed with her; it was love that she lost—the love for which she’d crossed the forbidden ocean. I had always thought of my mother as a serene person. Now I see that this was only because she denied sadness, which she considered a useless emotion. She survived by making herself believe that loneliness was strength. I begin to understand why she kept her face resolutely turned to the future. It was too painful to think of the past. Except in the journals, she cut that part of herself out of her heart.
Reading, I feel a great pity welling up in me—for her and for us. Because existing in this way exacted its price. Her discontent worked its way under our skin, living there undetected like a low-grade infection. In my father’s case, it would erupt from time to time in his drinking bouts. My disease was a subtler, more chronic one. It expressed itself in my endless sallies toward knowing her, as though by gaining that knowledge I could make her mine.
My life is not as dramatic as hers, nor my choices as momentous. But I know this as well as it is possible to know anything in this shifting, shadowed world: if I got back together with Sonny for Jona’s sake, sooner or later I’d resent her for it. And that would be much worse than the disappointment she’s suffering now.
This Friday Jona has recovered sufficiently to go back to school, but I decide to keep her home one more day. One day for us, mother and daughter, to shrug off worry and exhaustion and enjoy ourselves. When I ask her what we should do, she tells me she wants us to paint together.
As I set her up at the table with her watercolors, I can feel my heart tightening as though someone has pushed me to the edge of a cliff. I consider telling her I have nothing to paint with. But she’ll catch me in that lie: she knows I always carry a portable easel and a canvas in the car. Reluctantly I fetch them, and we begin. Rather, I stand at my easel and watch my daughter paint, eyes narrowed, head tipped to one side, so engrossed that she forgets my presence. I envy her as she mixes reds and oranges and blacks, as she applies the strokes with a bold, unwavering hand. As objects take shape on the paper, I see that she is painting—once again—a fire. I watch uneasily. What is this obsession with burning? But soon I’m distracted by how much she’s improved. She must have practiced a great deal in these last confusing months. With her grandmother dead and her mother overwhelmed, painting must have given her stability. A way to express her emotions. I observe the care with which she delineates details. The windows of the tall building gleam in the light from the flames. They are filled with people, palms flat against glass, mouths open in a silent scream. The sky, too, is full of fire. It’s hard to wrench my eyes from the strangely magnetic quality of the painting.
My own canvas is still blank. Even after the vivid dream that came to me in Sonny’s bed, I haven’t been able to paint. God knows I’ve tried, staying up nights, even after returning bone-tired from the Kurma House. I’ve stared for hours at the canvas, trying to find a subject. But everything I loved to paint before—a Calcutta train station, fishermen on the Ganga, the Belur Math at sunrise—seemed tired. Or perhaps it was I who was tired of them. I needed a new field, a new style—I just didn’t know what.
Maybe I, too, should paint my dream. I sketch in the line of the hill, the two figures standing with their backs to me. I mix white and yellow for a dawn sky, a deeper yellow where the sun would be rising in a little while. No use. Even when I use my best techniques, I can’t seem to put life into the painting. The mother and child stand stiff as wooden cutouts; the wildflowers are lined
up in regimented rows. The anguish I felt in my dream, the sense of loss and fear—I just don’t know how to convey that, no matter how I slash my strokes or pile paint on paint. Finally I take a turpentine-soaked rag and wipe off the canvas.
Sonny comes whistling in the door, carrying a bag of groceries, but when he sees what I’m doing he breaks it off. He offers to carry my art supplies to the car. No thank you, I say, but he follows me out anyway.
“I’m sorry the painting isn’t going well,” he says.
I want to tell him it’s none of his business. But I find myself blurting out, “What if I can’t ever paint again? What if my talent left me when my mother died?”
He puts out a hand as though to touch me, then drops it. There’s understanding in his eyes, and sadness. “I feel that way sometimes, too. It makes you want to die, doesn’t it? But it’ll pass. You have real talent, Riks. I know it.”
I don’t believe him, but I want to hold on to the small comfort of his words. When he invites me to stay and eat, I don’t say no.
Jona decides we are to have pancakes for lunch. (“Sonny and I will make them, Mom. You just watch.”) They put on aprons. Jona fetches the ingredients and Sonny measures them, looking decidely domestic. It’s just an act, says my whisper voice. Deep down he’s still Sonny-the-hell-raker. Still, I’m impressed. The father-and-daughter team cooks the pancakes to the accompaniment of much laughter. (Making a mess of the kitchen in the process, my whisper voice points out primly. It’s not my kitchen, I point out in return. I don’t have to clean it.)
We eat our pancakes topped with fresh strawberries and cream—that’s what was in the grocery sack. (My whisper voice purses its lips. So impractical. ) Jona pours us orange juice. There’s a smudge of flour on her nose; pleasure flushes her cheeks when I tell her how delicious the meal was. Sunshine floods the kitchen, loosening my muscles. I feel warm and fuzzy and pleasantly full. I could commit to doing this every once in a while. Even if we can’t be a happy family 24-7, we can be it in bits and pieces.
Then Sonny says, “I’ve been working on some new music that I’m really excited about. I’d love to have you come to the club and hear it.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Jona adds. “You should go. It’s really cool.”
My serenity takes a nosedive. “How do you know?” I glare at her, then at Sonny. “Have you been taking her to the club?”
Sonny puts on his injured face. Jona rolls her eyes. “Mom! He brings his CDs home for me. The new ones, you know, the ones he’s been recording.” She pushes out her chest. “I’m the first one who gets to hear them! They’re really good.”
I stare at Sonny in surprise. “You didn’t tell me you were recording music,” I say, feeling unreasonably hurt. He shrugs and smiles but doesn’t offer excuses. Why should he? I don’t keep him informed of every little detail of my life.
“It would be great if you came,” he says again. His smile is as seamless as silk. But I, who know this man better than any other woman does (ah, the ego of the ex-wife), locate a telltale pulse beating in his temple. It’s costing him to extend this invitation to me.
Yet I can’t say yes. Whenever those images come crashing down on me—smoke and sweat, arms grabbing for me, hands holding my head, forcing my lips open—there’s always Sonny’s music in the background, throbbing in complicity. Can I ever hear it freshly again? All that anger and hurt that I’m working so hard at getting rid of, I can’t risk them surging back.
“I can’t do it right now,” I say, pretending casualness. “Too much going on. Maybe later—”
Jona glares at me. I can read her thoughts. Meanie. We were having such a good time and you had to ruin it.
“No sweat,” Sonny says, his tone as casual as mine. Does he guess my real reason, or does he think I don’t consider his music worth my time? Either way, he’s angry. I can tell because of the way his eyes change color, turning darker. I wish I could put an arm around him and explain my refusal, but I’m too prickly a person for that. I say my good-byes to Sonny and a Jona who stares frostily out of the window.
29
Rakhi
Business is brisk at the Kurma House. Our busiest time is in the evening, before the music starts, with a flurry of take-out orders afterward, but we’re getting a decent lunchtime crowd, too. The cooking is becoming too strenuous for my father. Though he loves it, sometimes I catch him massaging his broken arm. Belle and I help as much as possible, but we’re needed out front, to attend to customers. If business continues this way for another month, Belle says, we’ll hire a chef ’s helper. Jespal, who’s here most evenings, jokes about applying for the job.
“It’s more fun than my engineering projects, and I love the perks,” he says.
“Like what?” Belle asks.
“Free food, great live music, and the company of you two beautiful ladies.”
I hide my smile. It’s quite clear which of the beautiful ladies he really comes to see. Often, after closing, the two of them drive off into the night—a development, I fear, that Belle’s orthodox parents hadn’t quite intended.
This afternoon when I come in, the Kurma House is quiet. The lunch crowd has left. Ping has cleaned up already, so I let her go. I can hear my father whistling in the back, but Belle isn’t here yet. This surprises me. She’s always here before I arrive.
“You don’t have to come in so early,” I told her once. “Ping can manage lunchtime. You always stay till closing, anyway.”
Belle scrunched up her forehead. “I feel more comfortable if I’m around.”
“Honest, Belle, you’re getting to be like one of those neurotic mothers who believe disaster will strike her child as soon as she looks away. If it weren’t for Jespal, you’d probably move in here!”
She let that one pass.
The shop is full of the smell of singaras. I peek into the back room and see that my father has already cooked the cauliflowerpotato stuffing and laid it out on a large tray to cool. Oil is heating in our largest wok over the big gas burner. Now he’s rolling out the thin dough that will make up the skin.
“Hey, Dad,” I say. “How come you’re going to all the trouble of making singaras—and so many of them, too? Is it a special occasion?”
“Sometimes we should just make special things, no?” he replies. “Who knows if we’ll be around when special occasions finally arrive.” He glances at the photo in the alcove, and suddenly I wish my mother could see us like this, helping each other. Not much surprised her—but seeing my father in an oversize apron would have. Maybe it would have made her laugh.
I try to recall how she used to laugh, but I can’t. Everything about her is receding into mist.
My father sighs, then resumes rolling. He must miss her even more than I do. I make a mental note to drop by with Jona next weekend. Maybe I can get him to tell us some more India stories.
It strikes me that he hasn’t had one of his drunken binges since my mother died.
“And as for making so many, I don’t know. I just had a feeling this morning. I can always freeze the extra ones.”
“I’ll help you stuff,” I tell him.
He eyes me with uncertainty.
“Don’t worry! I’ve done them with Mom. And don’t try to take that heavy wok off the fire by yourself, okay?”
He frowns. “I can manage.” He’s as stubborn as I am.
I cut a circle into halves, the way my mother did it, form each half circle into a cone, fill it with the mix, moisten the top and pinch it closed. It’s a tricky maneuver. I set each one down on a floured tray, and wait. A well-stuffed singara, she once told me, doesn’t topple over. I am gratified to see that mine are staying put. I flash him a grin of triumph. He grins back.
The door chimes. “Sorry I’m late,” Belle calls as she rushes in, out of breath. “Rikki, I’ve got to talk to you! Mr. Gupta, please excuse us for a few minutes.”
I leave the singaras, intrigued. Belle isn’t the secretive type. In fact, she’s embarrassin
gly frank in front of my father, whom she’s taken to treating like a favorite uncle.
She pulls me into a corner of the store, looking at once excited and nervous. “Riks, what am I going to do!”
“You could start by telling me what’s going on.”
She takes a deep breath. “Jespal asked me to marry him.”
I give her a hug. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations!” Seeing the expression on her face, I add, “Don’t tell me you weren’t expecting it! Maybe it happened a bit sooner than I thought it would, but I could certainly see it coming. Aren’t you happy about it?”
“I’m not sure,” Belle says. “I’m crazy about him, and I know he’s attracted to me. But I didn’t think he was serious, not in this way.”
“Why not? He strikes me as a serious kind of guy. Husband material, unlike the disreputable young men you generally tend to gravitate toward.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. Sometimes I think we’re too different. He’s so traditional. Like with his turban. Did you know, he really does have long hair under it. It goes halfway down his back, like that man in The English Patient, remember? The first time I saw it, I freaked out. Though now I must say it’s kind of sexy.”
“Well then, what’s the problem? You think his turban is sexy. He probably thinks the same about your pierced navel and your pink hair—”
“The name of this color is Burnished Burgundy, I’d like you to know. But seriously, you can’t build a marriage on sexiness.”