You know that magazine you gave me? In the back were notices. One said, If you are a battered woman, call this number for help. I looked at it for a long time. One minute I would think Why not. Next minute I would think Chee chee, what sharam to tell strangers your husband is beating you. Finally I threw the magazine in the pile of old papers he takes to the dump for money end of every month.
I decided to try one more time. Put the past behind. How much choice did I have. I told him, Why not I go see the doctor and see what is wrong, why I am not becoming a mother.
He had no objection. Even the money he was willing to spend. Maybe he too thought a baby will make things better, tie us in a shared love. Okay, he said, as long as it is a lady doctor. Indian is better.
I didn’t find an Indian doctor but the American lady said everything was fine with me. It could well be your husband, she said. Maybe his sperm count is low. Have him come in for a checkup. Tell him not to worry. Plenty of things can be done nowadays, easy.
But when I told him this, his face turned dark as the monsoon sky. The veins in his forehead were like blue knots. What are you saying, he said, I’m not a man? You want to look for someone better? He started shaking me so hard I could hear the bones in my neck make snapping sounds.
Please, I said, I’m sorry, my fault, let us forget it, you do not have to go anywhere.
He slapped me hard, two, three times. This is all part of your plan, no? Get the American doctor on your side?
He pulled me to the bedroom, threw me on the bed. Take off your clothes, he said. I’ll show you whether I’m a man or not.
Mataji I was so terrified my hands went to the buttons of my sari-blouse, like usual. Then I remembered what you said, No man, husband or not, has the right to force me to his bed.
I sat up. One part of my mind said, He will kill you for this. One part said, How can that be any worse. I forced my voice to tell him, I will not go to bed with a man who beats me.
For a moment he stood surprised like a stone. Then he said, Oh yeah? We’ll see. He lunged forward, grabbed the front of my blouse and tore it. I can still hear the ripping sound, like it was my life.
I cannot write what else he did to me. It is too shameful. But in a way it was also good. It broke my last hesitation, my fear of hurting my parents. I lay there afterward, listening to him crying, begging my forgiveness, putting ice compresses on my face, saying, Why do you make me do these things. When he fell asleep I went in the shower and stood under hot water scrubbing, even the bruises, till my skin felt as if it would come off. I watched the dirty water being sucked down the drain and knew I had to leave. If my parents do not love me enough to understand, I thought, then so be it.
Next morning he told me not to go out anywhere, he’d take a half-day, be back at lunch with a surprise for me. I knew his surprises, jewelry, saris, things we can’t afford. Him believing they would make me forget. It made me ill to think I'd have to wear them for him. As soon as his car turned the street I went to the old paper pile. At first I couldn’t find the magazine. I was so scared. I thought somehow he’d seen it and thrown it away, that I would have to live with him forever.
I went through the pile again. My head was feeling dizzy, I was so nervous he’d come back early. When I found it I started crying. I could hardly talk when I phoned.
The woman on the line was very kind. She was Indian like me, she understood a lot without my telling. She said I was right to call, they would help me if I was sure of what I wanted to do.
I packed a bag, took my passport, some wedding jewelry that was in the house, whatever money I could find. I didn’t want to touch anything of his, but I knew I’d have to survive.
Two women picked me up at the bus stop. They drove me to this house in another town.
I don’t know what I’ll do now, Mataji. They’ve given me lots of books to read. My rights. Stories of other women like me who now lead better lives. Stories of women who went back and were beaten to death. They tell me if I want to file a police case they’ll help me. Also they can help me set up a small tailoring business if I like. They warn me things won’t be easy.
There are other women here. Some cry all the time. Some don’t talk at all. They’re afraid to press charges, afraid to leave this place. One woman had her skull fractured with a wrench. Sometimes I hear her praying, He Ram, forgive me for leaving my husband. I can’t even pray. Who shall I ask to bless me? Ram, who banished poor pregnant Sita to the forest because of what people might say? Even our gods are cruel to their wives.
Somedays I’m afraid too. And so depressed. I look at the room I share with two women, all of us living out of suitcases. I have no place to be alone. One bathroom in the house for six of us, underwear hanging everywhere. The smell of monthly blood. I think of my neat home. And then my mind plays tricks, reminds me of the happy moments, how sometimes he could be so kind, how he would bring video movies and pizza on Friday nights, how we would sit on the sofa watching Dev Anand, laughing.
There are voices in my head every day. They whisper, He’s learned his lesson, things will be different now, would it be so bad to go back?
I try to push them away. I remember what you said to me just before I left. I tell myself I deserve dignity, I deserve happiness.
Mataji, pray for me that I will remain strong enough to find it.
Yours,
Lalita
The letter blurs as I clench it in my hands. Are these tears of sorrow or of joy. Yes my Lalita, coming at last into your own, I am praying for you. O spices, o all the forces of the world, do not let her give up. Daughter, the birth passage is always narrow, suffocating. But that first free gulp of air filling the lungs, ah. I pray it for you.
Meanwhile I will pound almond and chyavanprash for mental strength and physical and set it outside the door for the wind to carry to the woman-house where you wait. I will do it now, in the thinning sliver of time left to me.
I open the door to set out the chyavanprash and there he is on the step, his face startling-close to mine, Jagjit in a jacket of real leather, looking through the milky glass at the poster of Kwesi’s One World Dojo. Jagjit whose homeboys call him Jag.
Thank you spices I had let go of hope.
He snarls backward, Jag short for Jaguar, his hand going for his pocket, then steadies.
“Hey lady, shouldn’t creep up on a dude like that. You might get hurt.”
I smile, think of telling him, It’s my doorstep after all. But is that any longer true.
“You scared me too,” I say instead.
“Scared, who said anything about being scared?” Silver glint of an earring as he tosses his head. Then he takes a closer look through the dusk-light. “Wait a minute. You’re not the old woman who owns the store.” His eyes hold new interest, Jagjit not yet fourteen growing up so fast in America.
I tell him the niece story. Then I say, “But I know who you are.”
“How come?”
“My aunt told me to look for you. Said, That Jagjit is one fine young fellow, lot of potential. Could become anything in the world he wants.”
“She said that?” For a moment his face is boyishly pleased, then the shadows take it back again. His thoughts are full of violent sounds.
Jagjit world conqueror, what have you been doing, who have you—
Haroun’s face pale in bandages flashes in front of me but no it cannot be I will not think it.
Tilo sooner or later it will happen, the path he is going.
“You want to buy something?” I ask. I want him inside the store. I point to the sale signs. “Today’s a good day for it. Maybe your mother needs?” But already I know he no longer shops for his mother.
“Nah. I was just passing by, don’t even know why I stopped. Maybe it was the poster.” He jerks his chin at it.
“You like karate?” Spices, make it happen make it happen.
He shrugs. “Never tried it. Costs too much to keep up. Besides, I got other things to do. Gotta go now
.”
His feet are already turned toward the night alleys.
I think fast, I who am not good at this. And then it strikes me.
“Oh, I almost forgot. My aunt left something for you.”
“She did?”
“Yes. She said it was very important. I’ll find it for you if you come in.”
He hesitates. “I ain’t got the time.” But then curiosity pulls at him, Jagjit who is still just a boy. “Only for a minute.”
“Only for a minute,” I say. In my mind I am already in the inner room. Stapling the ends of the money-sack, writing the note to go with it.
“Do you think I did the right thing?” I will ask Raven later as we lie in bed. “It seemed the perfect solution then, all that money which would otherwise be wasted. But now I’m not so sure.”
Crease of doubt between his brows as well. But he wants me to be happy. So he will say, “I think you did the best thing possible.”
Still, misgiving will gnaw at me.
“There was more than a thousand dollars in that sack. What if he uses it for something bad, you know, drugs, weapons, instead of taking it to Kwesi’s and enrolling.”
“Trust,” he will say. “Trust in him, trust in the universe. It’s a fifty-fifty chance. More than you and I had of ever meeting.” He will lift my hand from the coverlet, kiss each fingertip.
I will rub his jaw, the slight prickle of beard, the clean lime smell. He’s right.
“Think of his face. What kind of look was on it when he opened the package? When he walked out the door?”
I will remember Jagjit’s not-believing eyes. “For me?” How he re-reads the note over and over.
“You know what it says?” he asks.
“No. Will you read it to me?” I say, lying shamelessly.
“It says, For Jagjit my world conqueror, to start a new life over. And underneath, Use power, don’t be used by it.”
“Sounds good to me. This aunt of mine, she is wise,” I smile. Then I take down the poster from the door, give it to him. “Go for it,” I say.
His eyes hold a new shine, visions of impossibly high kicks, edge of the hand breaking a brick in two. Kiais fierce enough to shatter the walls of an opponent’s heart, katas delicate and precise as a dance. Fame and fortune, perhaps the movies, like Bruce Lee. An escape from now into forever.
But also a worry. Jagjit who already knows that the way back is twice as long. Blockaded with steel blades where there were none before.
“I don’t know if my homies will let me.”
I give him a bag of laddus, besan and rock sugar, for protection. For resolve that does not crumble. I tell him, “How will you know unless you try, that is what Aunt would say.”
He gives me his smile, a little scared but open and full also. “Tell her thanks. Tell her I’m going to give it my best shot.”
“I trust,” I will whisper from Raven’s bed on my last night, seeing again Jagjit vanishing into night-milk fog, my prayer my hope, the only thing left that I can do. “Jagjit, I trust you will.”
At last the day is over, the customers gone, everything in the shop sold or given away except what I will need for Shampati’s fire.
Shampati’s fire, blue flame green ember, the sound of blazing not unlike the sound of rain, what will you do to this body given me by the spices. Where will you take this heart I have promised back to them.
And pain. Will there be—
Stop. Time enough for that later. Now the moment is ripe for the seed you not-knowing plucked that day in the Sears store, to plant here and water every night from the unending river of desire.
I put on the white dress Raven gave me, all foam and flower-scent falling over slimness of waist and hip, all whisper and glide around my bare legs. I fill a small silk sachet with dust of lotus root, herb of long loving. Tie it on a silk cord around my neck so the sachet lies between my breasts that smell of ripe mangoes.
Now I am ready. I go to the back where it hangs on the wall, remove the covering from it, I Tilo who have broken too many rules to count.
How many lifetimes since I looked into one.
Mirror what will you reveal of myself.
I am dazzled by the face looking back at me, young and ageless at once, the fantasy of fantasies come to life, spice power at its fullest. Forehead flawless like a new opened shapla leaf, nose tipped like the til flower. Mouth curved as the bow of Madan, god of love, lips color of—there are no other words for this—crushed red chilies. For kisses that will burn and consume.
It is a face that gives away nothing, a goddess-face free of mortal blemish, distant as an Ajanta painting. Only the eyes are human, frail. In them I see Nayan Tara, I see Bhagyavati, I see the Tilo who was. Wide elated eyes, but also telling me something I did not expect.
Can beauty frighten? I see in my eyes that mine terrifies me.
And now at the door, knocking.
I move as through deep water, I who have waited all my life—though I see it only now—for this brief moment blossoming like fireworks in a midnight sky. My whole body trembles, desire and fear, because it is not for Raven alone I am doing this but for myself also. And yet.
With my hand on the doorknob I freeze.
O Tilo what if the real night falls short (as surely it must) of the imagined one. What if this love of man and woman, lip to lip body to body heart to heart is less than—
“Tilo,” he calls from the other side. “Open.”
But when I do, it is he that stands frozen. Until I cup my hands around his face and say with gentleness, “Raven it is only I.”
At last he says, “I had not dared to dream such beauty. I do not dare to touch it.”
I take his arms and place them around me, half laughing half dismayed. “Does the body make such a difference? Can you not see I am still the same Tilo?”
He looks some more. Then his arms tighten. “Yes,” he says against my waterfall hair. “I see it in your eyes.”
“Then take me with you Raven. Love me.” And inside my heart I add, O don’t waste time.
But there is one last thing for me to do.
Raven brings his car to a smooth halt. Eyes the dark stairwell darkly.
“You sure you don’t want me to come?”
I nod, clench closer to my breasts the package I am carrying. I push from my mind what he would say if he knew its contents.
All the way up the spiral of stairs smelling like old socks, a voice like a rusty nail scratching inside my skull. Is it the First Mother’s is it mine. Is there anymore a difference.
Tilo do you know what you are doing.
I set my teeth against that voice because I do not really. Because from time to time imagining this moment I have been struck dizzy with the fear that it is all wrong. But this is what I say aloud: “Violence for violence. Sometimes that is the only way.”
When I push at Haroun’s door it opens. I am glad for it but also angry that he is not more careful. Haroun haven’t you learned yet.
His room is full of still, dark shapes. His bed, his body, a pitcher of water, an unlit table lamp, a book someone has been reading to him. Only his bandages shine like a warning. The oval of his head is turned away. I think he sleeps.
I am reluctant to wake him into pain, but I must.
“Haroun.”
At the whisper he moves a little, as in a dream.
“Ladyjaan.” His tongue staggers on the word, but there is pleasure in it.
“How do you know it is me,” I ask in amazement.
“It is how you call my name,” he says, his voice tired but smiling through the darkness. “Even though your voice is different today, sweeter stronger.”
“Are you okay? Has the doctor been by again?”
“Yes. He is being very kind, and also Shamsur-saab and his sister.” His voice lifts a little on the last word. “They are not taking one penny from me. She is cooking all meals, changing bandages, sitting by my bed telling stories to keep me company.”
Ah Hameeda. It is as I hoped.
“Haroun, are you not angry at what happened?”
“Ai Ladyjaan.” His mouth grows razor-thin as he speaks. “Of course I am, If I catch those bastard pigs, those shaitaans—” He is silent for a moment, replaying the past, imagining the future. Then he takes a deep breath. “But also I have been lucky. Left eye is a little blurry still, but Doctor-saab says by Allah’s grace and his skill it will be good as new. And I have found such friends—like family they are. Even Hameeda Begum’s little girl with her voice like a mynah bird. Already we are planning to go to the circus as soon as I get better.”
“Haroun I came to say good-bye.”
He tries to struggle up. “Where are you going?” His fingers grope for the bedside lamp. “No Haroun no.”
But he has switched it on already. He draws in his breath sharply, presses his hand against the sudden pain in his ribs.
“Lady what jaadu is this, and why?”
I am blushing under his gaze. I have no words that he will not think frivolous. But Haroun with his heart new-opened understands more than I hoped.
“Ah.” The word is his compassion but his concern also. “And after? Where will you go? What of the store?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and the fear is a salt wave I am once more drowning in. “I think I am returning home, Haroun, but is there ever a way back.”
He holds my hand in his, Haroun comforter, our roles reversed.
“Not for me, Ladyjaan. But for you—who knows? I will do a dua to Allah for your happiness.”
“I have here something for you. And then I must leave.”
“Wait simply two minutes, Ladyjaan. Hameeda is coming back as soon as she gets cooking done. Special tonight, goat curry with parathas. She is so good in cooking, all spices nicely mixed, you will certainly like.” I hear the glad pride in his voice. “She will be so pleased to see you again. We will be honored if you stay and eat with us.”
Then he asks, my curious Haroun, “What have you brought me?”
And suddenly I know what I must do. And am glad of it, like a person on a night precipice who just before taking the last step sees, lightning-etched, the fatal edge.