by Veena Rao
How nice he sounded, spouting dispassionate, practical ideas for her future—a future that he did not see himself in.
“Why did you apply for my green card? Why did you send me a visa?” she asked.
“I was giving it a try.”
“But you haven’t tried.”
His lips moved; he started to say something but stopped. “I can’t,” he said instead.
She got up and lumbered into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and stuffed her mouth with two laddoos from the box, then shuffled with purpose to the bedroom. She flopped on her back, rested her forearm over her forehead. She noticed that the vent puffed icy air directly onto her face; that the ceiling had a sprinkler to subdue flames. Insignificant things to notice when her life was falling apart.
“Useless observations of a useless person,” she muttered. She put a hand to her chest and moaned. It felt like a nail was lodged in her heart. The hurt was not new to her. She was a magnet to nails. The first one had been driven into her soul a long time ago—after only twenty-one months at Shanti Nilaya.
Life had established a set pattern. She went to school, had Parle-G biscuits dunked in tea that Grandmother Indira served her when she got back home, and when it didn’t rain, Uncle Anand took her and her baby brother, Vijay, up the hilltop for an outing.
They sat on granite rocks in a grassy clearing near the banyan tree and watched Vijay, who ran around in glee, picking pebbles and plucking grass. Tara was in awe of the tree, of its massive arms, its hanging ropelike roots. The banyan tree was the kalpavriksh, Amma had told her once; the divine, wish-fulfilling tree. Tara was too afraid to sit under it, but from a distance, she closed her eyes and wished fervently for Daddy to send for her, Amma, and Vijay to Dubai.
Beautiful Amma now looked more thin than statuesque; her collarbones jutted out above the hemline of her blouse, making an unsightly hollow between them. Her face, once a lovely portrait of class, was now a contrast of dark shadows and ashen skin. Daddy had still not sent for them. She fretted, became depressed, and no longer slept soundly, tossing and turning and sighing for most part each night.
Because Amma no longer painted her toenails, Tara painted them for her, applying scarlet vertical strokes. It bothered Tara that Amma was sad. She wished she had a magic wand that would make Daddy send their tickets to Dubai, so Amma could go back to being happy.
Each night, after sunset, Grandfather Madhava led the devotional before the numerous frames of gods and goddesses in the inner hall of Shanti Nilaya. Everyone joined in, singing Kannada bhajans, as Grandfather Madhava did aarti to the gods with a brass lamp lit with five cotton wicks soaked in ghee. At the end of the ritual, they prostrated themselves before the deities, praying for good health and the wellbeing of their clan. Tara bowed before the gods, kneeling and bent over, head touching the floor, hoping to please the gods with her earnestness.
“Oh God, please make Daddy send us tickets to Dubai soon. Please make Amma happy again.”
Several afternoons at school, after their lunch break, she went to the school chapel. She knelt before the figure of Jesus on the cross, locked her fingers in front of her chest like she had seen the nuns do, and repeated her prayer to the Christian gods.
“Oh Jesus, oh Mother Mary, please take us to Dubai.”
Amma did not leave the gods alone either; she even attempted to bribe them, as grown-ups often did. She and Grandfather Madhava made trips to the temple towns in the district. They went to the Kateel temple of Sri Durga Parameshwari and prayed to the feminine creative form in the inner sanctum. They visited the Subramanya temple of the Lord of Serpents, beseeching the celestial being, through a puja performed by the temple priest, to rid her family of any sarpa dosha, curse of the serpents. Every temple they went to, Amma promised puja sponsorships or special offerings to the gods if her prayers came true.
Tara imagined a group of gods, blue-skinned, shiny gold crowns on their heads, seated on majestic thrones in a regal court nestled among cottony clouds, laughing at Amma’s plight.
“Amma, don’t be sad,” she said. “You have me and Vijay.”
Amma sighed. “Yes, Tara. You two are the only reasons I am still alive.”
In March 1977, the cosmic balance finally shifted, and a blue-skinned god smiled a condescending smile, held his radiant hand up, and said, of the innumerable prayers offered to him: tathastu, so be it. Or so it seemed.
The prime minister finally lifted emergency rule. Amma’s personal emergency also ended. Daddy’s letter arrived. The shadows that Tara had come to accept on Amma’s face disappeared, banished by good news. Daddy would send for them soon, Amma said. His letter had promised her that.
“When Amma? When are we going?” she asked.
“Very soon, Tara.”
“Will I have friends there?”
“Yes, you will have friends there. Maybe it will be like back home.”
“Will the bathroom have a bathtub? Will there be ACs in the bedrooms? Will there be a clubhouse?”
Amma laughed.
“You will have to ask Daddy all those questions,” she said. “I have not been to Dubai yet.”
“Will I have to go to a Dubai school?”
“Yes, Tara.”
Tara wasn’t happy with the idea of changing schools again. But she wasn’t going to worry about that now. She snuggled up to Amma at night, the comfort of her sari against her skin, thinking about Dubai and the little characters she made up in her mind that populated the desert city. She saw soaring buildings, gleaming foreign cars on wide roads, and sparkling homes with abundant date palms in the yard. When she imagined friends, they were usually her old friends Pippi, Leenika, and Runa. And even though she thought she was too old to play with dolls, they appeared on their own, on neat little shelves in her room. They had shiny golden hair and violet-blue eyes; they were the sisters, friends, and twins of Pinky.
It made her feel a little guilty that she rarely saw Daddy in her imaginary world. She saw other men—a white-uniformed chauffeur, a gardener dressed nicely in pants and shirt, and lots of Arab men in flowing robes and headgear in the open markets—but Daddy, he was always away at the office. But it was just as well, she found out when Daddy’s next letter arrived, because Daddy did not think about her. He thought about Amma and the son he had never seen. But he did not think about Tara.
When Amma, teary-eyed, gently broke the news to her, all Tara could do was bury her face in Amma’s sari and lay very stunned and very still and wonder if there was a way to go back into her mother’s womb, or to hide in her suitcase when she left. There was little use in pleading, begging, or crying. Tara wasn’t six anymore. She knew Amma did as Daddy commanded. But she had to know, so she asked, stifling the urge to scream out the hurt and fear from her lungs.
“For your own good, Tara,” Amma replied tearfully, drawing Tara close to her bosom. “The schools in Dubai are not up to Indian standards. Someday, when you are a doctor or engineer, you will thank Daddy for this decision.”
“Why does Vijay get to go with you?”
“Because he is still a baby. He is not in school yet, no?”
Amma wept all night before their departure. She would miss her sweet daughter every single minute, but Daddy needed her as he found his feet in a new country, she said. It would be a tough life in a desert country, where the heat was oppressive, and they did not know many people. Of course, Tara would visit during the holidays. Amma and Daddy would come home to visit their little angel often.
It was curtain call for Tara’s pretend Dubai world. The sharp edifices of her imaginings crumbled like Parle-G biscuits dropped in hot tea, until there was nothing left but desert sand; miles of it stretched ahead of her. Weren’t families meant to be together? We two, ours two, like in the family planning advertisements? Why did Amma and Vijay get to fly to the happy world, while she had to stay back? How could God do this to his little children? What was the use of prayers?
Chapter 6
She suddenly understood when the taxi driver whispered in her ear, “It’s the same story. Always the same story. Don’t you get it?”
Tara opened her eyes in panic. She tried to move, but her body felt like a ton of bricks. She tried to scream, but no voice emerged. The taxi driver’s voice grew louder as she struggled to move her fingers. “Your parents had your brother. Your husband has another woman. Don’t you get it?”
She felt breathless from her efforts. She struggled to open her mouth to let in more air, but her airways felt constricted. She could see the ceiling, the vent, the sprinkler, but she sensed that she was in prison, under solitary confinement.
He whispered something else, this time from the foot of the bed. She couldn’t hear him; she had all her focus on trying to open her mouth. She finally managed guttural sounds.
“Aaah, aaah, aaah.”
“Tara? Tara, what happened?” He was bent over her, shaking her arm. It wasn’t the taxi driver. It was Sanjay. She sat bolt upright, gulping in air.
“You were making strange noises,” he said.
She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Did you have a nightmare?” He sat on the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?”
She blinked and stared at her hands, her breath rugged and wheezy. “Is there another woman?”
“What?”
“Is there another woman in your life?” she rasped.
“No.”
She looked at him, and she was neither shy nor afraid. He kept his gaze on her as she probed his eyes. Did she see honesty in them?
“Then why won’t you try?” she asked.
He stretched his arms out. She blinked and looked away.
“Come,” he said, leaning forward, gathering her in his arms, leaving her stupefied through the haze of her mind.
He felt so masculine and tender, and she felt so confused and heartbroken, that the tears started to pour. They rolled down her eyes in torrents, racked her slender frame, and wet his linen shirt. He rubbed her back gently, patiently, until she had exhausted her tears.
His arms felt warm and secure, as if their conversation of a couple of hours ago had not happened, and she didn’t want to ever move away. She wiped the tears away from her face with the pads of her fingers. He hooked a forefinger under her chin, and lifted her face up, until they were face to face.
“Hush now.” His voice was gentle. He kissed her forehead softly. She closed her eyes. He stroked her cheek with a thumb. Warmth arose in her, and her skin burned. He outlined her moist lips with his forefinger; she felt his lips pressing into them. She parted them, allowed him to claim her mouth. She kissed him fiercely, hungrily, not conscious of the soft moaning sounds that were erupting in her throat. He was burning, too. He had never kissed her before, not once during the four nights they had spent together in Mangalore.
He slid his hand under her top and rubbed the concave small of her back. She unbuttoned his shirt and caressed the fine hairs of his chest.
“Take that thing off,” he whispered. She pulled her blouse over the top of her head and yanked it free, while he took his shirt off. She was suddenly conscious of being exposed in a bra. But he quickly closed the gap between them. He was on top of her, kissing the hollow of her neck, the valley between her small perky breasts, her taut belly. For once, she let go of all abandon, unleashing her deep longings. She led him on with her recklessness. They made love with the ardor of lovers.
He rolled away and lay on his back next to her. She propped herself on her elbow and looked at his flushed face, his heaving chest, his manliness, now spent and flaccid.
“That was something,” he said, running his fingers through her hair.
“What about me?” she said.
“Tell me how.”
She closed her fingers around his forefinger. “This is how.”
He obliged, until she convulsed with pleasure. The release was intense, and suddenly the world turned balmy—the afternoon, her thoughts, the beat of her heart. The vent blew cool air over her moist body.
Her eyes had started to close again, when she heard him laugh. She raised her head to look at him.
“Who would have known?” he said.
“Hmmm?”
“Who would have known that a shy girl like you can be such a bitch in bed.”
Did he just call her a bitch? She blushed happily.
They made love again that night, this time with protection he had bought at CVS Pharmacy, after he had taken her out to dinner at Olive Garden. For the first time, they had talked, over gnocchi soup and chicken parmigiana. He talked fall in Atlanta, baseball, sushi. He opened up about work, about the effing main office in DC that didn’t understand the value of his innovative suggestions, about his ambition of securing a management position, about his dreams of one day heading a Fortune 500 company. She absorbed everything he said with keen-eyed interest, nodding, asking questions, engaging him in conversation, like Amma had advised.
On Sunday, he took her to see Richard Gere’s An Autumn in New York at Regal Cinemas, after they had made love in the afternoon. She cried for the dying Charlotte; he complained about the soppy storyline.
On Monday, he came home from work and declared, “You gave me blue balls today.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s an affliction that tortures men when they are at work thinking about the wild weekend they’ve had.” He guffawed.
Her heart did a little jig, as if she were drunk.
That night, he lay sprawled on the sofa, nursing vodka over ice, glued to his laptop. She sat on the loveseat, absorbed in that week’s edition of Time magazine, educating herself on the Bush dynasty, especially presidential candidate George Bush.
“Hey, Tara.” She looked up at him.
“You want a sip?” He stretched his arm out. She took the tinkling glass from his hand and took a sip of the clear liquid, twirled the glass, sniffed the sweet odor, gulped a big mouthful.
“Don’t gulp it down. It’s not Coke.” He was mildly amused. “It’ll hit you.” She returned the glass to him.
On rare occasions, when he was in an exceptionally affable mood, Daddy had allowed Tara a few sips of his scotch and soda. But vodka was softer and smelled better than Daddy’s scotch.
Tara turned her attention back to the magazine. After a couple of minutes, he offered her another sip, then another, and she was beginning to feel lightheaded.
“I think I’d better stop. I’m feeling tipsy.”
“Come here. Let me show you something on my laptop.”
She glided next to him, rested her floating head over his shoulder, crossed a leg over his. Her eyes were glazed, giddy from the smell of his cologne.
The laptop had moving images; it was a video, a voyeuristic recording of a well-endowed ripped white male and a buxom blonde in the act. Tara’s eyes opened wide, and she clamped her hand to her mouth in shock. She giggled uncontrollably. She had never seen pornographic images before. There was nothing left to the imagination. It was all right there for the camera.
“Oh, my god!” she exclaimed. “Oh, my god! They’re doing it all.”
“Can you leave God out of it?” he said with a laugh. He snuggled closer, brushed her hair away from her face, and nibbled her ear. He slipped his hand inside her T-shirt and felt her softness. She warmed up immediately, her tips swelled. She had a sudden, alcohol-fueled idea. She kissed him passionately, then slithered to the floor, got up on her knees, and pulled his shorts down in one deft move, as if she were skilled at this. She did what she had just seen the woman on the screen do. Her hands, lips, and tongue took him to heaven.
Later, lying on her back next to a gently snoring husband, Tara laughed. She could only guess what had brought about the sea change in him. Perhaps he had discovered that he liked igniting her sexual side. Maybe it stoked his male ego. She had made her husband like her, even if it was just for one reason. It was a beginning.
Chapter 7
Tara
had heard that the best way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Sanjay said he liked Italian and Mexican food. After spending a considerable amount of time on the Internet researching Italian and Mexican recipes, Tara finally took the plunge. She would draw up a list of ingredients she would need, and if he was in the mood, Sanjay would take her to Publix when he got home. Her first attempt at making veggie lasagna was a disaster, but her refried bean enchiladas turned out better—the cheese had melted sufficiently, the sauce was still bubbling when she pulled the dish out of the oven, and the chopped black olives and cilantro added aesthetic appeal to their plates.
“It’s good,” he said, after the first mouthful; she savored the compliment all evening. There were days when he still preferred to eat out with his coworkers, but she thought four days out of seven was still a small victory for her attempts at making her marriage work.
Sometimes, when the craving hit her, Tara grabbed a fistful of coins from a little glass jar in one of the kitchen cabinets that Sanjay deposited spare coins in, counted out a dollar and some more, walked a mile and a half to Bharat Bazaar Indian grocery store late in the afternoon, and bought herself a pack of peanut chikkis. The store owner, a graying grouch, always checked her out in complete silence, the only sounds coming from his greasy till.
“Hello, Uncle,” she greeted him on her third visit.
“Hmm,” he grunted, eyes on the till, fingers clanging the math.
“Mister, does it cost you money to smile?” she yelled—inside her head, of course.
She did not see the taxi driver after her first solo adventure outside. She almost wished she would, if only to prove to him that she wasn’t that fresh off the boat anymore. Perhaps she would turn around and wave at him, or greet him with a casual, “How are you doing?”
She craved human interaction. Now, except when she was having sex, the silence that filled her emptiness was deafening. Then, one evening, on her way back from her evening walk, she saw a petite young woman from a distance as she approached her building. She stood in the parking lot, leaning against the back of a white Mini Cooper, feet crossed, keeping watch over her young boy who was on a razor scooter, pushing it up and down the paved, rectangular stretch. She was dressed in a short, paneled skirt and black tank top, but it was the pink streak in her short blond hair that called out for attention.