Vine of Desire

  Tell me something.

  The dead do not speak. Or maybe they are speaking, but I lack the ability to hear. The rain, which had gone away, returns now with a sound like conches. The old man recites, I wake in the dark to see, sitting under a large umbrella leaf, the doyel, bird of dawn. The voice on the tape says, I will not let you go unless. I am standing in a vast chamber walled with incense smoke. The floor is clear as diamonds. The unborn boy is pointing downward with his unlined palm, the gesture of deities in temples. Once a man spoke to me of love in a temple smelling of crushed marigolds and incense. I was young, then. I look down through the diamond floor on hills the color of elephants’ backs in the rain. The man and the woman sit on the doorstep, emptied of words. They lean a little into each other. They’ve come to a decision of sorts, though I don’t know what that might be.

  I’ve come to a decision, too. But this act I am to undertake, is it penance or gift or victory over the illegitimate needs of the body? By what name shall I call it?

  In my dream, I say to the old man, I will give you what you want most in the world, but you must do as I say.

  In my dream, his smile is chipped and yellow, delicate as an heirloom, as the moon.

  Twelve

  She sees him as she walks out of the classroom, her head so full of people in books that at first she doesn’t recognize him. Lately, people in books seem more real to her than people in her life, and certainly more dependable. Open to page twenty-five and you’ll find the old man and old woman, carrying bowls of rice and soup and a leafy branch of peaches, every time. Every time they’ll invite the stranger girl to eat with them. Even when the characters have no names, you know them by their gestures, their tics as familiar as that of elderly relatives. In fact she’s beginning to think of names as graceless conveniences, like tags on baggage, is considering ways of shedding hers. So when the young man detaches himself from the wall he’s been leaning against and comes forward with easy footsteps and an outstretched hand, Anju, it takes her a moment to respond.

  “Anju?” he says again, his brows drawn into questioning arcs, good-looking in such a guileless way that she finds herself smiling back, assuring him.

  “Yes, I’m Anju.”

  And it comes back to her in a flush of memory, that party night, mirrors and strobe lights and sexy, smoky laughter, the house lit like a pink cake, all of them drunk on music and what-might-happen (how young they were then, how young and unknowing). Tonight I’m gonna dance with someone else.

  “I’m Lalit,” the young man says. “You remember … ?”

  “Yes.”

  “You look different—you’ve cut your hair, haven’t you?” He pauses, too polite to mention all the weight she’s lost.

  “You look different, too—didn’t you used to wear a earring?”

  He waves his hand dismissively, as though to suggest that he’s beyond such frivolities now. There’s an awkward pause, then he says, “I might as well say it—Sudha sent me to meet you.”

  She flinches, starts turning away.

  “Please don’t,” Lalit says. “I’ll just have to keep coming back until you talk to me, and it’s hard, you know, canceling surgery and all—patients expiring like flies even as we speak—or, in this case, don’t speak….”

  She looks at him through narrowed eyes. “Did you really cancel surgery?”

  “No, my associate took over for the day. That’s worse, actually. He’s brand-new, and very enthusiastic. I had a gall bladder case today—for all I know by now he’s removed the appendix also, and maybe a kidney as well.”

  “You always did like to joke.”

  “I guess I’m losing my touch—you’re not laughing.”

  Anju sighs. “Ten minutes,” she says. “I’ll give you ten minutes. You can walk to the bus stop with me.”

  In the glass house, Sudha is making tea. She prepares it Indian-style, the milk and water mixed together in a pan, the ground cloves and cardamom sprinkled in, lastly the tea bags—she has bullied Myra into buying a large box of Lipton’s Traditional Blend—lowered dangling from their tagged strings into the bubbling liquid. (“Are you sure you want this horrible caffeinated stuff?” Myra had asked. “Absolutely,” said Sudha, who is learning more every day.) She makes it strong, lets the fragrance weigh the air, stirs in sugar with a generous hand. (“Are you sure you don’t want to try some of this lovely clover honey?” “Absolutely.”)

  The old man is lying in bed, eyes closed, but he smells the tea as Sudha wheels in the cart, and so he doesn’t fuss too much when she props him into a sitting position.

  “I think your stomach’s settled enough for you to have some cha today,” she says as she holds the cup to his mouth. “Careful, it’s very hot. Do you like it?”

  He doesn’t reply, but he takes a tiny avid sip, and then another.

  “Of course, this probably isn’t as good as what you’re used to in India—Trideep told me you lived near a tea estate up in the hills….”

  The old man stops drinking, glares at her.

  “I know what you’re thinking—it’s cruel of me to bring up India when you miss it so much….”

  He’s let himself fall back onto his pillow, eyes pinched shut.

  “There you go again, acting like I was a bad smell. Closing your eyes won’t make your problems disappear, you know. I have a better plan—if you’ll give me half a chance.”

  He turns from her. It takes a while, his limbs are so weak, but finally he’s facing the wall, breathing heavily, the quilt pulled up to his neck.

  “Listen to me,” Sudha says. She tugs the quilt away. “I insist. After that you can go back to being a stubborn old curmudgeon again.” She pauses for emphasis. “I’m trying to help you get back home.”

  No sound in the room, not even a breath.

  “We can do it. The doctor says that the main obstacle to your recovery is mental, and I agree. If you want to go home, you’ve got to start cooperating. Eat right—not just those few symbolic mouthfuls. Start doing a few simple exercises in bed, and then maybe in the wheelchair.” She crosses over to the other side of the bed, kneels and puts her face near his. “I’m serious! Open your eyes! Look at me!”

  He opens his eyes slowly, unwillingly. They’re black with the pain he numbed himself against feeling all these weeks.

  “You’re thinking that Trideep won’t let you go back, aren’t you? Well, I have a plan. But you’ve got to talk to me, to say something. Something nice, mind! Or I won’t tell you.” She risks a grin, licks her lips lightly. Does he see how nervous she is, underneath?

  He licks his lips, too. They’re trembling.

  “Hurry—I think I hear Dayita waking up. I’ll have to go in a minute.”

  His voice comes out cracked and furious, so low that she has to bend closer to hear. “Stop torturing me.”

  “That isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I said something nice.”

  “I’ll never get back home, I know it. I’m going to die here.”

  “You certainly will if you keep up this kind of positive thinking,” Sudha says cheerfully. “Whoa, there she goes! That kid’s got a voice like a pterodactyl. See you in a bit.”

  She comes back with Dayita, settles her in the high chair with a cup of milk and some animal crackers, sings nursery rhymes to her until he says, grumpily, “Turn me over so I can see the child.”

  “Hi,” Dayita says when she sees his face. “Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi.” She holds out an animal cracker for him.

  “It’s her new word,” Sudha says. “Brace yourself—you’re going to hear a lot of it.”

  “You don’t have a plan.” He pauses for breath between phrases. “You’re just trying to trick me.”

  Sudha covers her face with her hands. “I confess, I confess. It’s a heinous conspiracy. I was foolish to think we could pull the wool over your eyes. I might as well tell you—the FBI is involved, too.”

  “Your jokes are in poor taste.”

  “You won’t
let me talk seriously, you won’t let me joke, what do you want me to do?”

  “Just tell me,” he says in a tired voice.

  “Once you’re strong enough, they’ll let you go back. If I go with you.”

  His eyes fly to her face. “What do you mean?”

  “Go back with you—like a nurse, you know. Take care of you the way I’m doing here.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” his voice is suspicious, but she can see the rapid beat of a pulse in his emaciated throat. “Young people who come to this country never want to leave.”

  Sudha shrugs. “America isn’t the same country for everyone, you know. Things here didn’t work out the way I’d hoped. Going back with you would be a way for me to start over in a culture I understand the way I’ll never understand America. In a new part of India, where no one knows me. Without the weight of old memories, the whispers that say, We knew she’d fail, or Serves her right.”

  “Help me sit up,” the old man barks. He struggles impatiently as she places the pillows behind his back. “You’re serious? You’re not just saying this to fool me into getting better?” A worse possibility strikes him. “Or … because you feel sorry for me?”

  She shakes her head. “Let’s get this straight right from the first. It’s got to be a good business proposition for me. They’ll have to pay me well enough to bring Dayita up properly—she’ll be coming with me, of course. I take it that’s okay with you? I want to be able to send her to a really good school. And put away enough in savings so I never have to depend on anyone again.” Does he see how her mouth hardens as she says this? “But I figured they wouldn’t object. Dollars go a long way in India.”

  “They wouldn’t have to … I …” But he doesn’t complete the sentences.

  “And think how much Myra will be saving once you’re gone—all those stress-reducing elixirs and aromatherapy massages don’t exactly come for free, you know.”

  He frowns.

  “Just kidding. Here, Dayita wants you to have an animal cracker. It’s a trifle soggy. Do you mind?”

  He takes the cracker, bites into it absentmindedly.

  “Attaboy!” says Sudha. “Way to go!” She’s been watching reruns of All in the Family on afternoon TV. “I’ll have only one regret when I leave.”

  He tightens his grip on the cracker until it crumbles onto the bedsheets.

  “All the trouble I took to learn the latest American expressions—and now there’ll be no one to use them on.”

  “She misses you,” Lalit says. “She wants to write to you.”

  “Who’s stopping her?”

  “She wants to make sure you’ll read what she has to say. That you’ll respond.”

  “What does she want me to write? Dear Sudha, thank you very much for breaking up my marriage?”

  “Look—there’s a lot of gaps in the story which neither of you is willing to fill in, but this much I’m sure of: she left your home as much for your sake as hers. She worries about you all the time. One of the reasons she asked me to come see you is to make sure you’re okay.”

  “No thanks to her,” Anju says. She hugs her arms, shivers a little in the evening chill. They’ve been sitting on the bus stop bench for half an hour. A bus pulls up to a stop with a rattle, but she doesn’t even look. “She’s really taking care of this old man?” she asks after a while, her tone rough. “You’ve been to see her?”

  “I have.”

  “These people—they’re treating her well?”

  He gives her a quizzical look. “They are.”

  “And … Sunil?”

  “She hasn’t been in touch with him, and doesn’t intend to, as far as I can tell.”

  “Do you—?”

  “Love her? I’m not sure. People use that word too easily, anyway. I might be on the way to it. I’d certainly like a chance to find out. But she told me that what she needs right now is a friend—so that’s what I’m trying to be.”

  “I think you do love her,” Anju says. “Maybe too much.” She sighs. “I don’t blame you. They all do. She’s very lovable, my cousin.”

  “Listen, you’ve got to put it behind you, whatever happened between her and your husband—”

  “Easier said than done. But I wasn’t referring to that. I was thinking about Ashok—did she tell you about him? Her childhood sweetheart?”

  “Ah! A rival. Should I be concerned?”

  “Well, he’s here, for one thing—”

  “The plot thickens. Maybe that’s why Sudha ran away?”

  “I hate to dash your hopes to the ground. He did send a letter—but only after she left. I didn’t open it—figured it wasn’t my business. Just forwarded it to her new address. A couple days back, I’m at the apartment, packing, and he shows up. It was a bit of a surprise for both of us.”

  “That’s what I love about you, your masterly understatements.”

  “He’s come to take her and Dayita home. He’s been waiting forever to marry her—”

  “I’m all for him continuing to do that.”

  “Ah, but he’s determined this time, and that’s where you come in.”

  He throws her a look filled with misgiving. “Oh, no, don’t even think of it—”

  “He needs to see her—”

  “What, you think I’m the CEO of Lalit Matchmaking, Incorporated?”

  “—to talk to her face-to-face. To hear her answer, whatever it is. He deserves that much—”

  “Sorry. Cupid doesn’t live here anymore.”

  “You want me to read her letter? You want that maybe I should write back?”

  “Mrs. Majumdar, I’m shocked to see you stoop to such heinous blackmail.”

  “The name’s Ms. Chatterjee, actually.” She tears a sheet from a notebook, writes on it. “Here’s Ashok’s hotel number. Tell her to call soon—the poor man’s running out of dollars.”

  “Good. Maybe they’ll deport him.”

  Anju gives him a reproachful look.

  “Why don’t you tell Sudha yourself?” he asks. “Wouldn’t that be better? I can give you her phone number—”

  Anju looks up, her face suddenly harrowed. “I can’t talk to her, or even write. Not yet. Not until I work out some things myself.” The streetlamp, which has just come on, throws pools of blackness under her eyes. “I, too, love her too much. I think I just rediscovered that.”

  Lalit takes the paper. “I’m an idiot, a wimp, a pushover.”

  “Not at all,” Anju says. “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.” From the window of her bus, she throws him a kiss.

  The river is gray with age and weight. It has traveled a long way from the ice crag where it appeared out of a cave shaped like a cow’s mouth to this city populated by too many people, all their histories and hopes. Their deaths. For that’s what they bring to the river here, by the Kali temple. Flowers and food offered to the spirits of ancestors who hover, it is believed, on its banks until sent on with prayers. Bones and ashes and lamps to be set afloat in boats made of leaves. Elsewhere, the river is not so deified. Children pee into it, farmers bring their buffaloes for a bath, jackals drink from it at night, in the morning teenage boys kick up mud and ogle the girls bathing in the women’s ghats.

  “Take, take,” the priest says to Sunil. “Put on your head, your shoulders. Put more water, put properly. Ask Mother Ganga to take your sins away.”

  Ankle-deep in sluggish mud, the two men are standing on the steps leading down from the temple area to the river. Sunil has reluctantly agreed to this ceremony to propitiate the dead, mostly to please his mother. Reluctantly, he has dressed himself in the coarse cotton dhoti which mourning sons traditionally wear and left his shoes in the car. (“Would you like to shave your head?” the priest asked earlier. “You must be kidding,” Sunil said.) Now he dips a finicky finger into the liquid, which does not look too clean. The priest, who has known Sunil’s family for years, shakes his head and sighs.

  “Ah, you modern boys return
ed from America! But what to say, our boys here are no better, always talking germs and what not. There’s more in this world than what you see with your physical eyes.” His own eyes, magnified by thick glasses, glint as he speaks. “Don’t you know the story? When Mother Ganga, river of heaven, was asked by Lord Vishnu to come to earth to save us, she wept and said, Lord, don’t ask me for this, earth people will put all their dirt in me, physical things and their disgusting sins also. And the Lord said, See, I bless you with my touch, nothing can make you dirty. Never mind what-all they do, you will be most holy always.”

  Sunil looks unconvinced, but he chooses not to argue. He was tired even before he started from America, and the long journey has made things worse. He’s still getting those headaches, is still nauseous from time to time, though his anxious mother has fixed for him, each day, the green plantain soup that they give children to settle their stomachs. He hasn’t been sleeping well, either. The house is still full of guests, and so, despite his protests, he’s been put in his father’s bedroom, though thankfully not on his bed. (The mattress was burned along with the corpse, and there hasn’t been time to get a new mattress.) He startles awake each night, roused by a shriek. Tram brakes? A night owl? But surely there are no owls left in Calcutta.

  Sunil has been disoriented ever since he landed at the airport. There was a Bangla Bandh that day, processions of yelling men who shook militant placards, while policemen waited on the pavements, armed with truncheons and tear gas. Sunil, who had not been back to India since his wedding, tried vainly to read the Bengali on the placards, the uneven sticky red of letters that looked as though they had been written in a hurry, with blood. Finally, he had to ask his mother what they said. She explained that it was a march by street hawkers to protest the new law that no longer allowed them to sell their wares on pavements in Calcutta. Street hawkers? Sunil repeated, his brow wrinkled as though it were a word he had never heard before.

  Many of the major streets were closed because of the bandh and the private car his mother had cajoled from a relative had to go around and around, through narrow alleys Sunil did not recall ever seeing, trying to find a way home. (“Why did you get a private car?” Sunil had asked. “Because taxis stay off the streets when there’s a bandh. The crowd could beat up the driver and burn the car,” his mother said tiredly. “Don’t you remember anything, baba?”)