Today People

by Barbara G. Tarn

  "I'm sure he could entertain you for hours." Bettie smiled despite herself. Dave was still charming. Pity he was gay. But he was right. They should meet again back in the US. If she told Rob only half a truth – "We were best of friends in college because he's gay." – her husband might enjoy his company as much as Jennifer would...

  ***

  Nara was a short train ride away from Kyoto, especially since they took the fast train. Hiroko guided them to the bus stop and told them on which bus they should climb on. The bus was full, but most Japanese passengers got off at a museum where there was an important exhibition. The little American group continued to the terminus of the bus line, at the group of temples and sanctuaries they were going to visit.

  Besides Bettie and her family, there were a young couple on their honeymoon and three singles who didn't know each other before the tour – two women in their forties and a younger man in his early thirties. All followed Hiroko away from the parking lot where the bus left them and headed for the first temple.

  Bettie noticed a panel that warned about deer – with the English word besides the Japanese and an explicative drawing – but also saw that everybody ignored the warnings. Small stalls sold "cookies for deer" everywhere and children petted the deer that walked freely among the people.

  Peter asked to buy one of the cookie packs, but the greedy deer snatched all five biscuits from his hand before he managed to offer them. Jennifer laughed at his clumsiness and showed him how to do it with another pack of cookies. She was taller than Peter, so she held the pack high while she gave one cookie at the time to the next deer that had approached them.

  Some deer followed them even when they didn't have anything else to give them, while others just sat in the shadows of the trees that flanked the pedestrian street to the temples.

  "I'm quite sick of pagoda roofs," Bettie whispered in Rob's ear.

  He chuckled. "And we even went to that World Heritage place that has different kind of houses! Are you tired of this country?"

  "A little," Bettie admitted while the children chattered about deer and cookies. "But I had always wanted to see it, so I'm glad we came. I wouldn't come back, though."

  "Me neither." Rob sighed. "Too different. Too hard to communicate. Too... much!"

  They smiled fondly at each other.

  "But the kids loved it," Bettie said, thoughtful. "And hopefully they're old enough to remember this trip forever."

  Without telling her very Christian husband, she even said a little prayer, for protection on her family, at a smaller shrine. God's way were infinite, who knew where help could come from.

  They stopped at a souvenir shop and bought the local cookies with the ubiquitous deer on them – salted rice biscuits that Peter didn't like, but Bettie found quite delightful, and perfect for a snack – and saw a calligraphy shop.

  "Don't let your mom go there, or she'll never come out," Rob warned playfully, making Jennifer giggle.

  Bettie smiled and shook her head. Rob was right, she better not enter that shop!

  Near the temple than enclosed the giant Buddha statue they saw small children seated for a picnic, with their blue uniforms and colored hats – red or yellow, probably depending on the class.

  "They're so small!" Bettie marveled. "How old are they, Hiroko?"

  The Japanese guide asked them and a couple showed four fingers, while one little girl showed five.

  "I wish we got to go on field trips too," Jennifer said with a sigh. "Mom, can I move to a Japanese school?"

  "It would mean moving here, and neither I nor your father are ready for that, honey," Bettie said, pulling her closer.

  Jennifer sighed but didn't insist.

  They went around the giant statue inside its temple and slowly headed back for the bus, and the Japanese-style restaurant that awaited them. Again they had low tables and Japanese dishes, and the men asked for meat while Jennifer had sushi and Bettie had pork and tempura.

  Then they were free to explore the shopping center outside to purchase the last souvenirs. Somehow Bettie and Jennifer split from Rob and Peter and went looking at clothes and kimonos and fans. They reunited at the station to catch an earlier train back to Kyoto so they'd have time to relax before going to the geisha show that evening.

  As Jennifer dozed off on her bed, Bettie found Dave's card while rummaging in her bag. She stared at it for a long time, remembering. Her youth, her crush, her first marriage. The shock, the disappointment, the pain. And then Rob had saved her. Shouldn't she stay true to him?

  But then, Dave was gay. It wasn't like they were going to have a fling now, twenty years later. She was kind of curious to know how he was doing... She sighed as her hand with the card fell into her lap and she stared into space.

  Decisions. Burning bridges or getting back in touch...

  She stared at the card in her lap again. She put it in her wallet. She was too tired to think about it now. She better take a nap too, if she wanted to take Jennifer to that geisha show.

  She lay down on the second bed and closed her eyes. She looked forward to be home, where the kids each had their rooms and she could sleep with Rob again...

  Wishing Parenthood

  Ben reached the top of the hill that had only barely slowed down his pace. Roma had spread way beyond its original seven hills, though this one didn't have a specific name as far as he knew.

  He liked to walk from the Laurentina metro station, especially during the warm Roman October days like this one. It saved on the gym expenses and kept him fit. At forty-one, he'd managed to keep down the belly bump he'd have had by now, thanks to the cooking of his beloved wife.

  Ben had taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie before the climb. The laptop case weighted on his left shoulder. The breeze caressed his short dark hair and clean-shaven face.

  He crossed the wide street with central bed and interspersed pine trees, something he had found only on the outskirts of the ancient town where he now lived and worked. Coming from the US to work at the World Food Programme, he'd found himself in a modern part of Rome that made him almost feel at home.

  Ben turned left onto the street where he lived, a narrower one compared to the viale uphill. The sidewalk had shops to his left and parking on the right, but there was always someone parked outside the designed spots, blocking the street and turning it into a one-way, which made him shake his head. One more reason not to drive in this crazy country!

  His apartment was in the only "skyscraper" – a fifteen-story condo block that overlooked everything. Just one of the many rented houses of his working life, it was slowly becoming his favorite, in spite of the thin walls and sometimes noisy neighbors.

  He quickly crossed the street and entered the building. He strode to the elevator and punched the button. As he waited, he noticed a child sitting on the lower steps of the staircase that went up around the elevator shaft. The boy looked five or six with Indian features. There weren't any Indian families in the building as far as he knew.

  The dejected look on the child's face made Ben's heart shrink.

  "Hello?" he said tentatively, wondering what language the child spoke. Certainly not Italian and maybe not English at his age.

  Big brown eyes stared at him and the little boy sighed. "Hello," he whispered back.

  Ben glanced around the building's entrance, but the couple of doors there were closed. Glancing up the staircase, he saw the doors were also shut, but he heard voices arguing in Italian coming from the upper floor.

  "Do you live here?" he asked.

  The boy who shook his head.

  "Delhi," he said.

  The elevator door opened, but Ben ignored it, staring worriedly at the child who had hugged his knees and put his chin on them.

  "Surya!" called an upset female voice from above.

  The boy furtively looked over his shoulder but didn't move.

  Ben sat on the steps next to the child who stared at him without speaking.

  "Surya!" Th
e voice was closer and added something in a language that Ben assumed to be Hindi.

  "Are you Surya?" Ben pointed his finger at the boy who nodded and shrugged, looking away.

  From behind the corner of the landing emerged a young Indian woman who wore a salwar kameez. Her long black hair was tied in a braid and she had the red mark of married women on her forehead.

  She was dragging behind a toddler who could barely walk and seemed on the verge of tears. At the top of the staircase, she took the little boy in her arms as Surya stood and looked at her expectantly.

  Ben also rose, but the woman wasn't looking at him.

  "Challo, challo, Surya!"

  "Priya, wait," a male voice called.

  A tall young man also emerged from behind the corner and quickly rushed down the stairs. Ben thought he recognized him as the younger son of Mrs. Ferri, the matron who lived at the opposite side of the landing above. He could hear her screaming in Italian, and she didn't sound happy.

  "Come, Surya, we're obviously not welcome here," the young man muttered, taking the boy's hand.

  Ben stepped back as the young man quickly headed for the exit, following the young woman who had stopped at the main door to repeat, "Challo, challo!"

  Still a little puzzled, Ben took the elevator to the ninth floor, removing his tie in the process. He opened the reinforced door and dropped the laptop case in the entrance with the keys and his tie. He put his jacket on a hanger and unbuttoned the top of his shirt as he took off his shoes and slipped his feet into comfy slippers.

  Rose was in their living room, at the computer. She was staring at the screen with a frown, concentrating too hard to hear him. She tugged at her short blond hair with one hand and had pulled a knee to her chest, resting her chin on it. The other hand frantically moved the mouse.

  He tiptoed to her chair and put his hands over her eyes, startling her.

  "Ben! Is it six already?" she asked, surprised.

  "Six fifteen," he said, turning her chair so she'd face him as he slumped in a nearby armchair. "I thought you were missing me."

  Rose smiled. Even in her home attire, at thirty-nine she was still the most beautiful woman Ben had ever met and he felt blessed to have found her. The only dark clouds in their marriage were the lack of children. They'd tried everything, including IVF back in the US – to no avail.

  Rose's sister, Geena, had four kids, but Rose couldn't have any. Ben's siblings also had no problems breeding. Ben and Rose had stopped going back for the holidays, since seeing their nephews and nieces was more hurtful than joyful.

  "I did miss you, but I got the doctor's e-mail and I was checking..." She rose from the chair, came to sit in his lap and put her arms around his neck. "Maybe we should consider a surrogate mother. I mean, we've tried traditional IVF. How about we try gestational surrogacy? In the US, it's less complex, legally. That's because both intended parents have genetic ties to the baby. We could try that when we go back for your next vacation... the doctor says it's very feasible."

  "How's that different from what we've already done?" he asked, caressing her.

  He could feel how tense and stiff she was. He knew Rose would never be able to give birth. Her miscarriages had always happened within the first weeks. And after the latest attempt, the doctor had said it was risky, since she had medical problems with her uterus.

  "Well, instead of the traditional IVF, they harvest my eggs, fertilize them with your sperm, but then they place the embryo into the uterus of a gestational surrogate. She carries the baby until birth, and she will be called the birth mother. But I'd still be the biological mother, and you the father..."

  Ben nodded, thoughtful.

  "Who would be willing to give birth to our baby, though?" he asked, frowning.

  "I don't know, that's what I was looking for." She frowned even more as she got lost in thought.

  He squeezed her.

  "You know, we're not too old to adopt. We want children, is it so important they are biological children?"

  She stared at him, surprised, then shook her head.

  "I don't know... where would we adopt from, though? Third-world countries?"

  "Or we could adopt an Italian child, since we're here," he replied. "This house is too big for just the two of us."

  She sighed and put her head on his shoulder, her arms around his neck.

  "I know... I guess even a child or a toddler would help fill it."

  Ben thought about Surya and the toddler and the scene he'd just seen downstairs.

  And then he told her of the meeting, of the little boy from Delhi and how he thought he was related in some way to Mrs. Ferri's son who had gone abroad to study a couple of years earlier.

  "I didn't know he'd gone to India!" Rose said, surprised.

  "Maybe not even his mother knew, she sounded quite angry, but you know how pitiful my Italian is," he replied. Since he used English at work, he hadn't really bothered learning Italian. Rose was much better than him, probably because she needed to deal with shopkeepers and other people who didn't speak English at all.

  She smiled fondly at him. "I shall inquire, then. If it's really Marco, why didn't he call me, though? He had promised to resume the English conversations as soon as he was in Rome again."

  "Maybe he just came back." Ben shrugged. "I don't know why he has an Indian bride, but maybe they wanted help from his parents and got none..."

  "But how old was the child?"

  "I think five or six... too old to be Marco's, unless he'd been to India before. Did he mention anything when you gave him English lessons?"

  "Uh, no, but he did mention he had this dream of going to India one day." Rose frowned, gathering her memories. "Something to do with finding himself in an ashram or something. But his parents didn't want him to go. I wonder how he eventually got there."

  Ben sighed. "And I would love to talk to him about the whole situation. Who's the woman and the children and why did they come back and..."

  "But where did they go?" Rose asked, frowning with worry. "Mrs. Ferri can be a bitch. If she kicked out her son..."

  "He has a brother," Ben reminded her. "Do you think you can coax her into giving you her other son's number?"

  Rose brightened. "She's always rambling about her lawyer son! I guess I can pretend I need a lawyer..."

  Ben smiled and squeezed her. "And that's why I love you so much, honey..."

  ***

  The next day Ben found Rose eagerly waiting for him. He saw her curled up on the couch from the entrance, but she straightened as soon as he set foot in the house.

  "Got news!" she shouted as he quickly went to get his slippers before joining her to the living room.

  He sat next to her and pulled her against him. "You managed to get something out of Mrs. Ferri?"

  "No, but I had a nice chat with Orfeo. You know, the old man in the small apartment next to the stairs, Mr. Rossi?"

  "The cheerful ninety-year-old widower? What did he know?"

  "He heard the screams too and went to ring on Mrs. Ferri's bell, and she told him everything." Rose's cheeks were flushed with excitement. "She was still furious, apparently. Marco came back with this woman who isn't Catholic and doesn't speak Italian and has this son from a previous marriage..."

  "Surya?" Ben asked, arching his eyebrows.

  "Yes, Priya was a widow when she met Marco. They fell in love, got married, had a baby..." Rose was dreamy. She snapped back to reality. "Well, you can imagine how Orfeo told the story!"

  Ben smiled. Yes, he could imagine the old man taking the sides of the young man in love with a foreign woman. Mr. Rossi had married an Italian, though sometimes he had hinted that he'd had trysts with foreign women, especially when he was much younger. But that had never bothered Mrs. Rossi. She knew he loved her and would always come home, "because those other women, they could never cook like her" in Mr. Rossi's own words.

  "So where is Marco now? Is he going back to India?"

  "He's found wor
k here in Rome, guess where?"

  "World Food Programme?"

  "FAO – close enough." She smiled. "He starts at the beginning of next month. He has a week to find a place to stay with his wife and kids. He'd hoped to get his room back for now, but his mother wouldn't let Priya and her kids in the house."

  "So where is he staying, at a hotel?"

  "Orfeo thinks he's staying at his brother's... Do you still want me to get Andrea's number?"

  Ben pondered. "Maybe we could adopt a whole family..."

  He looked her in the eyes. They had a spare room. And a small room next to the kitchen that could be given to the children... It would mean filling the apartment that felt too big for them...

  "We could have two children with us..." Rose whispered, her big blue eyes almost pleading now.

  "With their mother. And father. We'd be foster parents... how does that sound?"

  Rose's laughter sounded frail. "It sounds better than no children," she whispered before kissing him.

  It would mean inviting a family of strangers to share their roof. To help someone who might eventually be grateful and return the favor somehow. They could be putative parents of Surya and his little brother...

  "Did Mr. Rossi tell you Marco's son's name?" Ben asked.

  "No, he had no idea. Should I go downstairs and get Andrea's number?"

  Ben let her go. "I'll have a shower," he said as she grabbed her keys with a big grin on her face. "Hey, you need to look in need of help, not overjoyed!" he shouted as she closed the door behind her.

  He heard her chuckle on the landing and smiled, shaking his head. He was sure she could pull it off. She'd come back with Andrea's number and if Marco was staying at his brother's...

  When Ben got out of the shower, since Rose wasn't back yet, he went to the kitchen to see what was available for dinner. Rose usually did the cooking, but sometimes she was too busy to start and he happily helped.

  A voracious reader, Rose had started writing in her twenties. She'd had to quit her job to follow Ben around the world, and she didn't see herself as a housewife, so she'd found something to do. Ben was quite impressed by how good she was. He was her first reader and lately also her publisher, since her sense of business was close to zero. Her math skills were non-existent, and she'd rather be writing than doing everything else a writer was supposed to do in the twenty-first century.