A Play for the End of the World
Page 19
Watching Neel rehearse, Lucy understood why Janusz Korczak had chosen this play, why he’d wanted it performed in the ghetto, facing starvation and the fear of the camps. She saw it in Neel’s expression—what dignity the boy had. The art that mattered was about sustaining this sense of self, even when everything else in the world demanded otherwise. At night in the cabin she wanted to talk about the play’s meaning with Jaryk, but even when they touched he still felt distant from her. They’d pulled their bed close to the window to listen to the rain. It was never the same music, perennially moving into new rhythms.
“Pan Doktor had this belief that you should never surprise a child,” Jaryk finally said. “Not in the bad way, at least. I remember when I had to get my vaccine shots. Pan Doktor told me days before what was going to happen and why. Then he showed me how he was going to do it and explained it was going to hurt, but only for a second. The play was one big rehearsal for Treblinka.”
Jaryk grew quiet again. “It’s making me remember how we spent our days, and I feel hungry all the time,” he said. While she’d battled nausea ever since she’d become pregnant, and stayed away from most of the food on her plate, he’d eat his own meal and move on to her leftovers.
“And it makes me think of what happened after. Me and Misha were the only ones who performed who lived.”
Back in Brooklyn, she’d been chastised for wanting to know about his last years in Warsaw, but neither Jaryk nor Misha had told her the whole story; the gap between what he was willing to tell her of his survival and what she wanted to know had remained a thorn between them. She tried to clear away these thoughts by listening to the downpour, which sounded like a village of drummers calling across far distances. She heard the wind’s rattle against the walnut tree, all its bells in fury. She wanted to take Jaryk home.
“Jaryk, let’s go to the city tomorrow,” she said. “Let’s find you a return ticket. We can get a last-minute cheap seat.”
He said, “Actually, I was thinking you could stay on a bit longer.”
Years later, sitting in a café, she’d remember his face as he said those words, her child dozing in her lap. How earnest he seemed, how full of some boyish belief. It would be difficult to refuse him but impossible to lie. “Can we go out in the rain?” she asked, keeping her answer at bay.
It was a denser, heavier rain than she’d ever seen. It felt like a thousand little fists pounding on her skin. Soaked through, she ran back inside and dumped her clothes by the door. She burrowed into the bed, and soon Jaryk was next to her. His warmth felt so familiar, so essential for her and for the child that would soon come.
The Ruined Temple
Jaryk was sanding the stage—the sharp edges of the bamboo smoothed down—when he heard the commotion from the steppes above. All the children had gathered around Neel’s hut, with Lucy among them. She was wearing a bright yellow blouse, celebrating the return of the sun, he supposed. After three days of rehearsals at the Bose estate, it felt necessary to be outside, though the grass was wet, and a palpable lethargy still in the air.
When he climbed up to the huts, he found the children had presents in their hands. The boys had little soldiers and the girls dolls in glittery dresses; in their excitement, they were circling Lucy, who in a moment’s time had become the most popular person in Gopalpur. He imagined Lucy combing through the bazaar at Shantiniketan until she found exactly what she wanted. She was picky in this way; she believed that the right gift announced itself.
Days before her last birthday, which felt so long ago now—February, the streets of New York covered with the gray of city snow—he’d scoured the vintage shops on the Lower East Side. What would make her happy? Impossible questions to ask of objects, but he knew better than to ask her what she wanted. Usually she was the one who knew exactly what to make for dinner, what to do on a Saturday afternoon, but other times she needed him to be the one to know, without asking, just what she wanted. If he asked her then, it was as if he’d failed to listen, though she hadn’t actually said anything. He finally found a shop that sold LPs of 1940s jazz. Songs for the Moon was what he bought her. It had a woman’s face on the cover, a woman with a long nose and a full, mischievous smile. A face that reminded him of Lucy’s mother, from the one black-and-white portrait Lucy had propped on her nightstand.
Listening to the scratched record and the honeyed voice, Lucy danced softly around the room, kissing him hard on the mouth only after the third song, keeping him in suspense whether he’d done right. Only now did he understand that it hadn’t mattered so much what he gave her. She’d never been a woman charmed by expensive things. She’d only wanted him to go searching, to consider carefully what would fit the shape of their love.
* * *
………………
That evening, he found the professor in his courtyard office. A wild dog poked its nose in, but the professor didn’t seem to notice. He was writing to editors of different newspapers to see if they’d cover the production.
“I was going to hire an assistant for this, but the funds are with Mr. Pal’s position,” the professor said.
It wasn’t the first time the professor had alluded to his kindness in securing Mr. Pal a position, and Jaryk found himself thanking Rudra Bose again.
“Listen, Dr. Bose—”
“Why do you insist on calling me that? I am Rudra to you and to anyone else who’s spent an afternoon with me.”
“Okay, Rudra.” It still felt odd to call the professor by his first name, and technically the man was his boss. After all, he’d arranged Jaryk’s plane fare and was paying him a small stipend, which meant he was about to ask his boss for time off, something he’d never enjoyed doing for fear his job might be taken from him; and so, while in the employ of the fish market and, later, of Beth Israel, he had neither asked for nor taken much leave. But he did so now, for Lucy’s sake, telling the professor he needed a few days away from the play’s production.
“Of course, I understand,” Rudra Bose said. “But I hope you are not planning any drastic actions?”
“What do you mean?” Jaryk asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.
“Please, sit down,” the professor said.
He took the seat across the table, which was lower than the professor’s own, so that despite being several inches taller than Rudra Bose, he found himself staring the man in the eye.
“The people of Gopalpur have formed a relationship with you. The children see you as an uncle. Their mothers are looking to you for something. A promise.”
“A promise?”
“Of what your art will deliver. Of what change will come.”
“I understand,” Jaryk said. “The play is their publicity. The publicity holds the government’s mercenaries at bay. You’ve told me this all before. I’m your token American, and I’m your man from Warsaw.”
“There’s no need to get upset,” the professor said. “We are friends, are we not? I was going to tell you something beyond what you already know. Not only are the cerebra and celebrity of Calcutta coming to our little production, we shall also be receiving the sarkar in the form of Rajan Datta. Mr. Datta is the chief minister’s right-hand man. We shall be able to exert influence on the state. We shall be able to send a direct message to everyone in the government.”
That morning he’d seen the professor and the butler conferencing in a dark corner of the house, and though they were speaking Bengali they ended their conversation when he approached, as if what was being discussed wasn’t fit for public consumption. A direct message. Sometimes the professor’s words inspired him; other times they left him feeling afraid. There were times when they bore some resemblance to words that had come from the loudspeakers in the ghetto, recounting in German and Polish all the injustices he and his brothers had supposedly committed. But this was not about Rudra Bose. This was about Neel and the people of the village.
* * *
………………
After breakfast the next morning, he pulled Mrs. Pal aside.
“I’d like to buy a piece of jewelry,” he said. “For Lucy. As a gift. I would like your help.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Pal, as if she’d expected his request all along; and what a relief it was to ask for help, to have the Pals still with him. They walked to the village market, where local artisans had come to show their wares. Healthy lambs were on tether. Jackfruits larger than his head were being weighed. A corner was kept for textiles and for handmade jewelry.
“It’s not a vast selection, but perhaps we’ll find something to your liking.”
The villagers had brought humble selections of brass earrings and iron bracelets, though in one stall he found a dusty old ring, which after considerable polishing seemed extraordinary in the light: three ruby stones, red, orange, and a deeper red. “From the caves of the south,” Mrs. Pal translated. He was thinking of the outer two stones as the two of them and the gem in the center, the deepest red, as the third body. Someone they could feel but didn’t yet know.
He didn’t haggle the price down, though Mrs. Pal found his accepting the first ask to be bad form. The jeweler wrapped the ring in what looked to him like tinfoil, and Jaryk wedged it into his pocket, where he checked for it every few moments.
As they reached the Bose estate, Mrs. Pal touched his wrist. “Jaryk, you should know there is talk of unrest. Of Professor Bose spreading word of the production in a way that has incited certain government peoples. If you were to return to America, you would avoid any ill that might come of the professor’s publicity.”
What had once felt distant was now all around him. He could taste the danger in the minerals of the well water, see it in the way Neel’s mother clutched her sari hem, feel it whenever he touched the professor’s hands, shaking from what he’d first thought had been too much coffee but which he now suspected was simply fear. Danger grew on the trees here, spread along the canopy wall, and sank back into the rice paddies. He’d lived that life once. For good cause, he would do so again.
“The spirit of this country is of peace, I think,” Jaryk said finally.
Mrs. Pal stared at him evenly. “Yes and no,” she said, allowing him to continue past the gate and into the mansion.
* * *
………………
He had imagined proposing to Lucy like Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember, atop the Empire State Building with the view of the city all around them, and he had imagined proposing to Lucy at Montauk beach, to the tune of sunset and crisp, clean air, and he had imagined proposing to her on one of those beaked boats he’d seen in Venice travelogues. He hadn’t imagined proposing to her in a village in India with a ring he’d come by in the local market. It didn’t feel perfect, but then, nothing in their story had come the way the movies promised.
Mr. Pal had suggested a romantic spot. Suggested, perhaps, was the wrong way of putting it. Jaryk had cornered Mr. Pal on campus and grilled him on quiet, reclusive places accessible by rickshaw.
* * *
………………
They headed away from the town on a rickshaw driven by a turbaned man—hard to say man, maybe closer to teenager—who smiled coyly at Lucy from time to time. She was wearing her blue chiffon dress, the one he’d seen her in when she’d first come to Gopalpur, the mud cleaned from the hem, the wrinkles magically gone. He felt for the three-gem ring in his pocket—still there—and they talked first about Neel, how the boy had learned to say the Southern y’all with the right intonation, and then they reminisced about their first fancy dinner.
A whole paycheck must have gone toward that evening, full of French dishes and expensive wines, but he was glad to have planned it. Lucy had had a hard week at work, and he wanted to surprise her with something nice. He remembered their waiter’s name was Colson, which seemed to him like it belonged to a more genteel time. When Colson asked what he’d like for his entree, he ordered the second-least-expensive dish on the menu, figuring that was a fair compromise between his budget and his desire to experience the finest the city had to offer. Lucy had no qualms getting the porterhouse steak, medium rare, with a half bottle of Merlot that poured so perfectly red it seemed there were jewels inside. She belonged at the restaurant, flirting easily with Colson, while he’d felt, all the while, as if he were trespassing. When the meal came out, she sent hers back—twice—and Colson apologized and smiled both times. She was a woman who wasn’t afraid of asking for what she wanted, which felt important to him but also terrifying.
Now he had only a picnic basket of sundries he’d bribed the maid to cook. A few pieces of paratha warm in his lap, some curried potatoes and peas, and a tiny jar of jam. Lucy asked him again what this was all about, though he could tell she was enjoying the surprise.
“Just a night on the town,” he offered.
As they approached the hill that led to the ruins, he felt a chill in the air. It was cooler here than it was in Gopalpur, the humidity a half step behind, but underneath his shirt, which he’d ironed for the occasion, he was sweating. More than once he had imagined they would get married someday, but it was a someday in the sweetly distant future; now he felt his hand had been forced. He loved her, but still, the idea of fatherhood had not settled. How could he bring a child into this world? he asked, but again only silently, afraid to share his worries with Lucy.
Mr. Pal had sketched him a map of the place. He tried to study it, but his hands shook. No matter; he remembered the general outlay. He asked the rickshaw driver to wait for them and led Lucy onto a cobbled path that had once been the gateway to a temple where acolytes worshipped a dark goddess who was depicted with her tongue sticking out. Nowadays bats slept along the temple’s rafters, and from the nearby forest a gang of macaques announced their claim to the land.
“There are three natural sulfur pools where devotees came to cleanse themselves,” Mr. Pal had explained, and Jaryk now relayed that to Lucy. He led her toward the nearest pool. Its water rippled in the light of the sun, low now above the horizon.
“Whatever spirit gave you this idea, I thank her,” Lucy said, testing her toes in the water.
For years, he would remember her as she was in that moment. Full of energy, awaiting his surprise—did she suspect?—her toes grazing the water ever so slightly, her hair curling down about her shoulders, her slip showing through her dress, and that smile, which said yes or no depending on the weather of her and you just had to sense it, you couldn’t ask or try and figure things out as if it were a puzzle, because life with Lucy was not a puzzle at all, but a mystery that didn’t need solving.
“Thank you for coming to India,” he said, though it didn’t feel like it was enough; it felt more, in fact, like an apology.
She must have sensed it then, how he was in a bad way, his fingers made into fists so they would stop shaking.
“What is it that you’re afraid of?” she asked, almost a murmur.
He couldn’t have told her then. What words were there to describe it?
He kept the silence, and when the silence seemed intolerable, he stripped down to his boxers, holding the ring in his hand, and plunged into the pool. It wasn’t deep, but he could sink all the way in, keep his head under water. He stayed down for a while until he felt Lucy’s hand pulling on his hair. She was worried he was under for too long, but he could’ve held his breath even longer.
“You know I can’t go in with you,” she said. “The water’s too hot for our special friend.” She rubbed a circle around her belly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think about that.” The three-gem ring was still in his hand, and he could’ve gotten on one knee and asked for her hand in marri
age, except he was overcome with a terror that sent chills up his spine. He didn’t know anymore what he felt about fatherhood, what he felt about caring for a child he’d brought into this world, except he believed it wasn’t his right, it wasn’t his due. He plunged once more below the surface and let the ring fall into the deep.
That night he felt lighter. He’d returned to the Bose estate as unmoored as ever. Nothing to hold him. When he and Lucy had dinner with the Pals and the professor, Jaryk told them the story of how they’d met, described the subway as if it were some sort of mythical beast that had refused to crawl any farther, and how then they’d had to walk, hand in hand, from the darkness of the tunnel into that sallow light.
“You must have been terrified,” said the professor.
“Not at all,” he said. He felt giddy with the lie, sure somehow that no one could tell from the fix of his face how scared he’d been then, how fearful he was now.
* * *
………………
The next night, they had an argument, which he imagined had been coming since their time at the ruins, when he’d failed to do what he’d set out to. They were sitting by the walnut tree, watching the priest play along the line of bells. Lucy had been silent for most of the trip back from the temple and the day after.
“Tell me one thing you notice about me tonight,” she said.
Her eyes were firmly on his, and he didn’t dare look away. But he didn’t need to. He noticed her from smell to smell, from sight to sound. He noticed when the cycles of her breath became disturbed, and the temperature of her.
“I notice you’re wearing your mother’s earrings,” he said. “The ones you found underneath the bed in her bedroom after she died. Like she’d hidden them for you. Like she wanted you to find them only after searching.” The earrings were jade, finely cut triangular drops.