First, his mother had dressed his hand. Then she roasted the rat on the fire, and they had eaten it together for dinner.
Dalits like Nagarajan earn no wages, they are merely allowed to keep what they catch. A privilege, of a kind: the rats are the property of the Jatts, like the fields and whatever is in them or lies beneath them. It’s not bad, grilled. Some say it tastes a little like chicken. The poor man’s chicken. The Dalits’ chicken. The only meat they have. Nagarajan tells how his father ate rats whole, with their skin and fur, leaving only the indigestible tail. He would skewer the animal on a stick, grill it over the fire, then crunch it whole. Lalita laughs whenever she hears the story. Smita prefers to skin the rats first. In the evening, they eat that day’s rats with rice, from which Smita keeps the cooking water, to use as a sauce. Sometimes, the families whose latrines she empties also give her their leftovers. She brings them home and shares them with the neighbors.
Your bindi.
Don’t forget.
Lalita searches through her things and takes out a small bottle of nail polish she found one day when she was playing by the side of a path. A lady had dropped her bag, and the bottle had fallen out. Lalita didn’t dare tell her mother she had taken it. The bottle had rolled into the ditch, and the child had retrieved it, clutching it tight like a piece of treasure and keeping it hidden from sight. She had brought the booty home that evening and pretended she had found it. Her heart had swelled with joy, and with shame. What if Vishnu knew . . .
Smita takes the bottle from her daughter and draws a bright scarlet spot on her forehead. The circle must be perfect, it’s a delicate technique, it takes practice. She taps the polish gently with the tip of her finger, then fixes it with powder. The bindi, the “third eye,” retains energy and enhances one’s concentration. Lalita will need it today, Smita tells herself. She looks at the small, evenly shaped circle on her daughter’s forehead, and smiles. Lalita is pretty. She has regular features, dark eyes. Her mouth has the delicate outline of a petal. She is lovely in her green sari. Smita is filled with pride at the sight of her daughter, the schoolgirl. She may eat rat meat, but she will learn how to read, she thinks to herself, as she takes Lalita by the hand and leads her to the main road. She will help her. The trucks thunder past from early in the morning and there are no traffic lights, nowhere safe to cross.
Lalita looks up anxiously at her mother as they walk: she’s not frightened of the trucks, but of this new world, completely unknown to her parents, which she must enter alone. Smita senses the little girl’s imploring look; it would be so easy to turn around, pick up the rush basket and take her along with her . . . But no, she will not see Lalita vomit into the ditch. Her daughter will go to school. She will learn how to read, write, and do arithmetic.
Do your best.
Do as you’re told.
Listen to the teacher.
The little girl looks suddenly lost, and so fragile that Smita wants to take her in her arms and never let her go. She must fight the urge, however hard it hurts. The teacher had said “yes” when Nagarajan went to see him. He had seen the box into which Smita had put all their savings—coins carefully set aside for months on end for Lalita’s schooling. He had taken it and said, “All right.” Smita knows that’s how everything works. Money has the power of persuasion. Nagarajan had come home to announce the good news to his wife and daughter, and they had all rejoiced.
They cross and suddenly it is upon them, the moment when she must let go of her daughter’s hand on the other side of the road. There is so much Smita wants to say: be happy, you won’t have my life, you’ll have good health, you won’t cough like me, you’ll live longer and better than I have, you’ll have respect. You won’t carry the foul smell, the cursed, indelible scent. You’ll have dignity. No one will throw their scraps to you, like a dog. You will not lower your head, or your eyes. Smita badly wants to tell her all this. But she’s not sure how to say it, how to tell her daughter about her wild hopes and dreams, about the butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
So she bends over her, and says simply: “Go.”
Giulia
Palermo, Sicily
Giulia woke with a start.
She had dreamed of her father in the night. As a child, she used to love going with him on his rounds. They would set off together on his Vespa, early in the morning. She never rode behind, but in front, on her father’s knees. She loved the wind in her hair, the dizzying sensation of infinite space and freedom that comes when you travel at speed. She was never afraid, her father’s arm was tight around her waist, she was completely safe. She cried out in joy and excitement when they hurtled downhill. She saw the sun rise over the Sicilian coast, the early-morning bustle of the neighborhoods, life waking up and stretching to greet the new day.
More than anything, she loved knocking at people’s doors. “Good morning! It’s for the cascatura,” she would announce proudly. Sometimes, the women would give her a piece of candy or a picture postcard along with their sachets of hair. Giulia would proudly collect the booty and hand it to her father. He would reach into his bag and take out the small set of cast-iron scales he carried everywhere, handed down from his father, and his father before him. He would weigh the strands, estimate their value, and present the women with a few coins. In the past, they had exchanged their hair for matches, but when cigarette lighters came in, the trade soon died out. Now the women were paid in cash.
Often, her father would chuckle at the old people, who were too weak to come down from their bedrooms but would still drop down a basket of their hair on a rope. He would wave, take the strands, and put the money in the basket, ready to be pulled back up.
Giulia remembered that: how her father laughed when he told her about it.
Then they would set off for the next houses on their list. Arrivederci! At the hair salons, the spoils were even greater, and Giulia loved her father’s expression when he received a long skein of hair, the rarest and most valuable. He would weigh it, measure it, feel the strands’ texture and thickness. He would pay up, thank the client, and leave. There was no time to lose. The Lanfredi workshop had a hundred suppliers in Palermo alone. If they hurried, they could be back in time for lunch.
The image held a moment longer: Giulia at nine years old, riding aboard the Vespa.
The seconds that followed were vague, confused, as if reality itself was struggling to focus, caught up in the dream that had just ended.
So it was true. Her father had had an accident the day before, on his rounds. For some unknown reason, his Vespa had skidded off the road. And yet he knew the route well, had ridden it hundreds of times. Perhaps an animal ran out in front of him, the paramedics had suggested. Or perhaps he’d suffered a stroke. No one knew. Now he was in Francesco Saverio Hospital, hovering between life and death. The doctors were saying nothing. You must be prepared for the worst, they had told her mamma.
The worst. Giulia couldn’t contemplate that. Fathers didn’t die. Fathers lived forever. A rock, a pillar, especially hers. Pietro Lanfredi was a force of nature, he would live to be a hundred, as his friend Dr. Signore liked to tell him over a glass of grappa. Pietro, the lover of good food and wine, and good company, her papà, the patriarch, the boss, with his fiery temper and his passion for life, her father, her adored father. He couldn’t leave. Not now, not like this.
Today was the Feast of Santa Rosalia, thought Giulia, with grim irony. Palermo was celebrating its patron saint. The festinu would go on all day, as it did every year. And like every year, her father had given the workers the day off so that they could take part in the festivities: the procession along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, and the fireworks at nightfall on the Foro Italico.
Giulia was in no mood to celebrate. She had made her way to her father’s bedside with her mother and sisters and tried to ignore the festivities outside in the streets. Lying in the hospital bed, he showed no sign of suffering, which was some comfort to her. His once-robust form looked so fragi
le now; he might almost be a child. He seemed smaller than before, as if he had shrunk. Maybe that’s what happens when the soul slips away. She chased the morbid thought from her mind. Her father was there. He was still alive. They must cling to that. Head trauma, the doctors said. Which meant: we don’t know. No one could say whether he would live or die. It seemed his own mind wasn’t made up, either.
We must pray, Mamma had insisted. That morning, she had asked Giulia and her sisters to walk in the procession for Santa Rosalia. The flower-decked Virgin performed miracles, she said. She had proved her power in the past when she saved the city from the plague: we must call upon her to intercede. Giulia disliked these displays of religious fervor, with their dense, excitable, unpredictable crowds. Besides, she didn’t believe any of it. She had been baptized, of course, and made her communion—she remembered wearing the traditional white dress and receiving the Holy Sacrament for the first time under the intense, pious gaze of her assembled family. The memory was one of the happiest of her life. But today, she felt no desire to pray. She wanted to stay at her papà’s side.
Her mother had insisted. If the doctors were powerless, God alone could save him. Her conviction was such that Giulia felt suddenly envious of her mother’s faith—the unshakable faith that had never deserted her. Her mother was the most pious woman she knew. She went to church every week, to hear the Latin mass, of which she understood barely a word. There was no need to understand in order to worship God, as she liked to say. Finally, Giulia had given in.
Together, they had joined the procession and the crowds of Santa Rosalia’s admirers lining the route between the cathedral and the Quattro Canti. An ocean of humanity, packed tight to pay tribute to the Virgin of the Flowers, whose gigantic statue was borne through the streets. July was hot in Palermo, the air was stifling. In the midst of the procession, Giulia found it hard to breathe. She heard a ringing in her ears; her vision clouded.
Her mother stopped to greet a neighbor who was asking after Papà—the news had spread fast—and Giulia seized her moment to slip away. She took refuge in a shady side street and drank some water from a fountain. The air was clearer, she could breathe again. Her spirits revived. Voices rang out farther along the street. Two uniformed carabinieri were issuing a warning to a tall, well-built, dark-skinned man, his hair covered by a turban, which the two police officers were ordering him to remove. The man protested, in perfect Italian with a hint of a foreign accent. Everything’s in order, he told them, showing his papers. But the officers would not listen. They became angry and threatened to take him to the cells if he still refused to comply. He might have a weapon concealed in his headgear, they said. Nothing could be left to chance on the day of the procession. The man stood his ground. The turban was a sign of his religious allegiance; he was forbidden to remove it in public. And it did not prevent him from being identified, he continued, because he was wearing it in his ID photograph—a privilege granted to Sikhs by the Italian government. Giulia watched the scene and felt uncomfortable. The man was good-looking, with an athletic figure, fine features, and curiously pale eyes. He looked about thirty years old at most. The carabinieri grew angrier still. One of them pushed the man. Then, holding him firmly between them, they led him away, in the direction of the police station.
The unknown man showed no resistance. He passed in front of Giulia with a dignified, resigned air, flanked by the two carabinieri. For an instant, their eyes met. Giulia did not lower her gaze, and neither did the stranger. She watched as he disappeared around the corner at the end of the street.
“Che fai?!”
Francesca had appeared behind her, making her jump.
“We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Andiamo! Dai!”
Regretfully, Giulia rejoined the procession, walking behind her sister.
That evening, she found it hard to get to sleep. The image of the dark-skinned man returned. She couldn’t help wondering what had happened to him, what the police officers had done. Had he been interrogated? Beaten? Sent for deportation to his own country? She was lost in pointless speculation. One question tormented her above all: Should she have intervened? And what could she have done? She felt guilty at her passive response. She had no idea why the stranger’s fate intrigued her so. She had felt a strange, unfamiliar sensation when she looked at him. Was it curiosity? Empathy?
Or something else, something she could not name.
Sarah
Montreal, Canada
Sarah had just collapsed. In court, in the middle of a plea. She had found herself short of breath, faltered in her speech, and then stared around her as if, all of a sudden, she had no idea where she was. She had tried to pick up the thread of her argument, despite her white complexion and trembling hands—the only sign that anything was wrong. Then her vision had clouded and darkened as the room closed in around her. Her heartbeat had slowed, and the blood had drained from her face, like a river shifting its course. She had collapsed to the floor, right where she stood, like the supposedly unshakable Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. She fell in complete silence. She had not called out in protest, or for help. She just sank to the ground, making no noise, like a house of cards, quite gracefully, in fact.
When she opened her eyes, a man was bending over her, wearing a paramedic’s uniform.
“You passed out, madam. We’re taking you to the hospital.”
The man had called her “madam.” Sarah was just regaining consciousness, but the form of address didn’t escape her. She hated being called “madam.” The term was a slap in the face to every woman of a certain age. Sarah hated the word, which seemed to say, “You’re not a girl, or a young woman anymore, you’ve moved on to the next category.” She hated forms and questionnaires that insisted she tick the box corresponding to her age. She had been forced to abandon the seductive 30–39 age group for the less attractive 40–49. Fortysomething. Sarah hadn’t seen that coming. She had been just fine at thirty-eight, even thirty-nine, but not forty, no, she really hadn’t been expecting that. She hadn’t thought it would come so quickly. “No one is young after forty . . .” She remembered reading Coco Chanel’s phrase in a magazine and closing it right away. She hadn’t taken the time to read the rest: “. . . but a person can be irresistible at any age.”
Miss. Sarah corrected the man immediately as she sat up. She tried to get to her feet, but the paramedic stopped her with a gentle but commanding gesture. She protested—she was in the middle of pleading a case. An urgent and highly important case, as they always were.
“You cut yourself when you fell. You’re going to need stitches.”
Inès was standing beside her, the colleague she had recruited, who assisted her with her caseload. The session had been adjourned, she told her. She had just called the office to postpone her upcoming meetings. Inès was efficient and quick off the mark, as always. In a word, perfect. She seemed concerned about Sarah, offered to come with her to the hospital. But Sarah told her she had better get back to the office, she could be of more use there. She could get on with preparing tomorrow’s assignment.
Sarah sat waiting in the emergency room at CHUM. Montreal’s university hospital did not live up to its charming acronym, she thought. In Canada, the word meant a boyfriend, a lover. But there was nothing to seduce her here. Eventually, she rose to leave; she had no intention of spending two hours waiting for three stitches to her forehead when a Band-Aid would do the job. She had to get back to work. A doctor caught her by the arm and escorted her back to her seat. She must wait to be examined. Sarah protested, but had no choice other than to comply.
The intern who examined her, at last, had long, delicate hands and an air of concentration. He asked her a great many questions, to which Sarah gave brief, laconic answers. She couldn’t see the point of all this, she was fine, she kept telling him, but the intern persisted with his examination. Against her better judgment, like a criminal suspect delivering a hard-won confession, she admitted that yes, she had been f
eeling tired lately. How could she not feel tired when she had three children, a house to keep, a fridge to fill, and a full-time job?
Sarah didn’t tell him that she had woken up exhausted every morning for the past month. That every evening, when she got home, after listening to Ron’s report of his day with the kids, after dinner with them, after putting the twins to bed, after helping Hannah with her homework, she would collapse onto the sitting room sofa and fall asleep before she had time to reach for the remote and switch on the giant flat-screen TV she had just bought, but never watched.
She didn’t tell him about the pain in her chest, on the left side, that she had felt from time to time, for a while now. Probably nothing . . . She didn’t want to talk about it, not there, not now, not to this stranger in a white coat, with his cold, penetrating stare. Now was not the time.
The Braid Page 3