Purple Lotus

by Veena Rao

  Her solution: filing a civil restraining order against Sanjay. “That’s the best way to get an early court date,” she said.

  Tara knitted her eyebrows in concentration. “Restraining order? But I don’t expect him to come after me.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We are trying to get you financial compensation as quickly as we can.”

  “Will he be arrested?”

  Kendra shook her head. A restraining order was not a criminal case, it would not affect Sanjay’s records, she said. “Once you file the order at the county courthouse, you will be directed to the magistrate’s court, where a presiding judge will read the petition and hear your version of what happened. In your case, he has no reason not to grant you a temporary restraining order. The judge will set a date for a court hearing, which will be within the month. If you have personal belongings that you need retrieved from your house, talk to the judge about it, and a sheriff’s deputy will accompany you there on a set date. I will let you know of the procedure in detail later, but in short, once the order is signed by the judge, your husband will be served by a sheriff’s deputy, following which he will be required by the law to stay a hundred yards away from you, and also to be present in court on the day of the hearing.”

  Again, a mild bout of panic. Sweat beads on her forehead. “All this—I mean going to court and all—will it affect his job or career?”

  “No, sweetheart. Once again, this is a civil case. This will not affect him in any way, other than the fact that he has to stay away from you, and appear in court.”

  “Will you represent me in court?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “What will happen at the hearing?”

  “The judge will grant you a restraining order which will last a year. Also, he will determine whether you should be granted financial compensation and support.”

  Dottie pressed Tara’s hand and nodded, and her pink lips mouthed “Yes.” Tara turned to look at Ruth, who rubbed her arm and flashed her happy smile.

  Tara looked down at her bitten nails. She wondered what Amma and Daddy might say of her new adventures. She could imagine Amma’s precise words: “What kind of wife takes her husband to court?” That’s what our neighbors and relatives will say. Daddy and I will have to bear the brunt of such loose talk.

  The neighbors and relatives need not know, Amma. You need not know, Amma. Tara rubbed her face with both hands, and when she looked up, she shocked herself and everybody else when she said, “Yes, madam. Where is the courthouse? Can we file the papers today?”

  She felt Dottie to her left and Ruth to her right, press her arms in approval.

  “I’m so proud of you!” Ruth leaned in to whisper into her ear.

  Some of Kendra’s businesslike manner disappeared when she flashed a sunny smile. “I am afraid it’s too late today. I suggest that you go to the courthouse first thing Monday morning.”

  Tara spent the weekend doing whatever Ruth did, following her around like a child in oversized clothes—brown pants and a navy knit top from the church clothes closet that Dottie had picked out for her. They, along with Dottie, devoted themselves to a church project—filling care packages with hand sanitizers, wet wipes, deodorants, laundry detergent sachets, and candy to be dispatched to soldiers in Iraq, remembering to insert Ruth’s thank you note, written in her childish handwriting, into the bag. They dropped off the packages at the church and then went visiting Ruth’s friends.

  On Saturday, they brought flowers and a card to a woman dying of cancer at the hospice off Clairmont Road. Martha could not say much, as she had tubes that helped her breathe and eat, but life still lived in her pale gray eyes. Ruth held Martha’s bony hand and gossiped about people they knew in common. Tara sat on a stool and watched, as Ruth lost herself in an embellished account of how Jane Moore’s daughter had finally admitted to her parents that she was lesbian.

  “Now, that’s all right, Martha. God loves everybody. It’s not for us to judge,” she added.

  Tara noticed how the story spread life from the dying Martha’s inquisitive eyes to the rest of her face.

  Later that afternoon, they visited Sally Andrews, a junkie hooker at the county jail. They left their cell phones and purses behind in Ruth’s car because those items would not be allowed in, Tara learned. They went through the security search and then waited in line to deposit an envelope filled with crisp dollar bills into Sally’s personal account. They awaited their turn to take the elevator up to the little room with dividers and phones. Sally appeared, beaming into the glass of the divider, a weathered expression clinging to the last vestiges of what once must have been a striking face. She waved at them and eagerly grabbed a phone.

  Tara marveled at how Ruth knew what to say to a woman dying of cancer and to a woman who was incarcerated for being a public nuisance. Her silly banter told them what they wanted to hear: that they weren’t alone in the world, that she cared.

  That night, after they had dined on homemade chicken walnut salad and cornbread, Ruth settled down in the family room with a book. Tara relaxed on the carpet cross-legged, Doodlebug next to her. Her eyes fell on a small, framed black-and-white family photo on the side table, in the shadow of the lamp that stood behind it. A young couple and a boy of about seven stood in the front yard of a house, smiling into the camera. The man was immaculately dressed, his hair neatly brushed back. The woman wore a form-fitting dress that ended an inch above her knees, and had a sixties-style bouffant. The boy had his hands on his hips, a naughty smile on his lips.

  “Ruth, is that your family?” Tara pointed to the photo. Ruth nodded.

  “That’s my husband Joseph and son Charlie. And me, of course. This was taken outside our home in Augusta. I forget which year. They are both with God. Joseph passed two years ago. But Charlie left us first.”

  For the first time since she arrived, Tara saw the effervescence on Ruth’s face flatten and fade.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Ruth folded her reading glasses. “Life has to go on.”

  “Yes.”

  “When Charlie died of cancer, my life fell apart. I had just retired after teaching at the county school for thirty-five years. I knew no other life. My only son was gone. He was divorced and didn’t leave behind any children. My life had lost all meaning. I prayed every night for guidance, to make sense of the loss. One day, I decided to make peace with my life. I discovered that making others happy made me happy. And so, every day, I wake up with the intention of making one person a little happier. You know, my dear, as they say, joy is contagious. It rubs onto me.”

  Ruth lived a charmed life despite her losses because she made herself useful to others. Perhaps, to Ruth, Tara was just another beneficiary of her kindness. But Tara couldn’t help but see Ruth as a surrogate mother and not just a kind woman who was helping her out because that was her nature.

  On Sunday afternoon, they went shopping to buy three bras, a pack of cotton panties, and a cell phone charger for Tara, whose phone had died on Friday. Ruth insisted on paying for everything. When the phone was sufficiently charged, the first thing that lit the screen was a message from Sanjay.

  “Tell your mother to stop calling my home number.”

  My home number. Like she didn’t live there anymore. Like she had no part in his life anymore. Like he hadn’t wasted even a moment to wonder what had happened to her. Tara felt a twinge of sorrow. What did she expect? Remorse? Guilt?

  She knew Amma would be frantic, but she wasn’t ready to tell her anything yet. She didn’t respond to the text message, but she emailed Vijay that night, telling him she was out on a trip with Sanjay, to tell Amma not to worry about her. It was a vague email with no details, but she would worry about filling in the facts—real or made up—later. She hoped fervently that Sanjay had not picked up the phone and told Amma everything.

  On Monday, Ruth accompanied Tara to the courthouse. When she was finally ushered into the chambers of Judge Greg Thomas for the ex p
arte hearing, Tara had clammy hands, and her throat felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper. Sitting in the outer hall, she had imagined Judge Thomas to be an imposing man with a gruff manner, someone like Grandfather Madhava. She had worried incessantly about freezing, not being able to even open her mouth to make her case. But she had imagined wrong. Judge Thomas had kind brown eyes and a warm voice. He read the petition, then asked her questions, and his sympathetic manner put Tara at ease. She recounted, in brief, what must have seemed to Judge Thomas a sad story of domestic abuse. He had no hesitation in granting her the temporary restraining order she sought against Sanjay. He set the court date for two weeks later. A sheriff’s deputy would serve Sanjay at his apartment, he said. Sanjay would have the opportunity to make his case during the second hearing.

  Ruth had decided they had to celebrate Tara’s win even before she was out of Judge Thomas’s chamber. So, they drove over to B&B Cafeteria, where they made plans for the next two weeks over fried chicken, green beans, collard greens, sweet potato soufflé, corn bread, and iced tea. Tara would have more privacy in Dottie’s finished basement, where she could come and go as she wished, cook her own meals, and watch any TV show.

  “This can be a permanent arrangement if you wish,” Dottie said kindly.

  When evening came, Ruth helped Tara pack a small tan suitcase with clothes from the church closet—mostly tops and skirts—and her underclothes and toiletries from the guest bathroom. A cardboard box from Sam’s Club was filled with rudimentary utensils—a pot and pan, two plates and two mugs, some forks and spoons, a kitchen knife. There were also cans of soup, baked beans, and cut vegetables from the church larder. Ruth remembered to bring a loaf of bread and a box of homemade brownies from her kitchen to drop into the box.

  “Now, visit me any time you feel lonesome or feel the need to talk,” she reminded Tara. “You can walk in anytime. Anytime.”

  Four days after being thrown out of her apartment, Tara was settled into her own personal space in Dottie’s basement, a rectangular room with a sea-green tiled kitchenette and bathroom that overlooked the grassy oak-leaf hydrangea-and-magnolia-scented backyard. Tomorrow, she would muster courage to go back, but only to bring her car. Thereafter, she would get back to classes and work, to a whole new vision of a normal life.

  Tara lay wide awake on the green-and-white-checked sofa bed, barely watching the small TV that was set to CBS News. She had cut the volume, so all she did was stare absentmindedly at the flitting images. The day had been rather uneventful, at least by her recent standards. Ruth had driven her to the apartments to bring her car back that morning. She had spent the afternoon working with Nadya, who now knew to pick her up from Dottie’s front yard. Alyona had visited her in the evening, bringing two containers filled with homemade pasta and egg salad, which they had eaten over noisy conversation.

  She stared languidly at the hands of the old wooden clock that was mounted on the far wall, at the tick-tock of the passing seconds. It was 11:17 at night. It would take her a while to get used to her new home, to discard the vague feeling of being marooned on an island. She needed to shift her awareness, to focus on all that her newfound independence would bring—bonding with Ruth and Dottie, filling the space with laughter and conversation, even just breathing freely. She would never lack for companionship here. When she thought of home with Sanjay, she thought isolation, prison, purposelessness, betrayal. And yet, severing bonds, ruffling feathers, defying the established were hard things to do.

  Sanjay was served that morning. She imagined what the scene may have looked like. Did Sanjay’s jaw drop at the sight of the crisp, khaki-uniformed deputy? Was he furious? Had he expected her to go away quietly, so he could forget her like a bad dream? Was he plotting ways to get even with her? She was dying to know what he was thinking.

  Close to midnight, her cellphone, which lay on the cherry wood desk by the sofa getting charged, lit up like a hundred-watt bulb. She jumped up and grabbed the phone in a spurt of reflexes. It was Sanjay’s message.

  “I am sorry. Please come back home,” it said.

  Tara read the text over and over again, as if a hidden message or a new insight might pop up the fourth or fifth time. She had to control the urge to run upstairs to Dottie, to seek her advice on how to react. Was she supposed to feel happy, relieved, suspicious, angry?

  Right now, all she felt was a colossal storm of confusion that submerged all rational thinking. She paced the long stretch of her room, taking baby strides to make her route last longer. She felt the sudden urge to pee. She ran to the bathroom and sat on the commode for what seemed like eternity. When she returned, her cell phone was lit up again. She stumbled to the desk, flipped her phone open.

  “Tara, come back, darling. I am so sorry I hurt you,” his second message said.

  A sob constricted her throat. The phone dropped from her shaking hands. She scrambled to pick it up, afraid the fall might have somehow deleted his messages. She read the message again, then again and again. Her feelings were grouping, forging in one direction. They seemed a lot like sympathy, or at least a mixed version of it. But when she resumed pacing the room, now with more vigor, those feelings changed. One minute, Sanjay was a pitiable character, the next, a demon.

  She had spent months imagining this—Sanjay apologizing, accepting her as his wife—and yet, the circumstances were so different now. His messages didn’t warm her heart. She knew he had perceived the court case as being a threat to his job, his career, and his life in America. He was scared enough to want to take her back. She felt stupid to feel sorry for him. And yet, her feelings were out of control; they had a free will of their own.

  It was another hour before his third message came.

  “We will work at being happy together. Text me. Please.”

  She did not text him, even though it took every ounce of her will to refrain from providing him with some solace, some respite, from the churning of whatever emotions he was feeling because of her.

  At nine in the morning, she got a call from Vijay, who had just received a phone call from a remorseful Sanjay. An hour later, Amma called on her cell, but it was Daddy who spoke to her. Her personal crisis had become a crisis for the family.

  Chapter 19

  “You are kidding. Please tell me you are kidding.” Ruth made no attempt to coat her disappointment in Southern charm. “You don’t have to do that. You’ll be okay. We are here for you.”

  Tara drew in a long breath. Daddy and Amma’s sage advice—all of which made perfect sense to them—was so hard to translate for the benefit of her American friends. Sanjay had called Daddy and pleaded with all the skills he could muster. He was a reformed man, he would make marriage his first priority, he had promised.

  Daddy and Amma had insisted that she go back, give Sanjay another chance. Now that Liz was gone, the playing field was hers to claim. A grown man, a proud man had groveled at their feet. Groveled. She would have to be hardhearted to not give in.

  “My parents want me to give Sanjay another chance,” she told Ruth feebly.

  Ruth grabbed Tara’s hands and sat her down on the sofa. “And what do you want? Do you want to give Sanjay another chance?”

  “He has promised to change, to make marriage his first priority.” Tara looked down at her hands, away from Ruth’s probing eyes. “Separation is not easy. It would bring shame to my family. My parents would have a hard time in their community.”

  Ruth sighed. “I wish I could understand this better.”

  At night, Tara stayed awake, probing her decision to go back. At some point in the night, she uncovered a deep truth. Being wanted had always been the biggest challenge of her life, and of greatest import. She had to see if Sanjay would now want her, love her. It mattered, even though, to her own shock, when she searched her own heart for some love for him, she came up empty-handed.

  When Tara got into Ruth’s Oldsmobile for the ride back to the apartment she shared with Sanjay, her chest felt like a block of
granite. She felt no eagerness to return, despite the uncovering of her truth. She knew she had opened her palm and let it fly, that which she had in her grasp for a minute. She knew the pangs of forfeiture would stay in her heart for a long time.

  Ruth insisted on coming in to meet Sanjay. Even though he looked haggard with a two-day stubble that stuck out of his chin like prickly weed, Sanjay returned Ruth’s cordiality, even offered to make her some coffee, which she politely refused.

  “Take care of my girl. I’ll come get you if you don’t,” she said to Sanjay on her way out, a plastic pink smile on her lips.

  “Of course,” he promised, with a hollow laugh.

  He was quick to shut the front door behind Ruth, as if to put a lid on an embarrassing drama. Tara shuddered, as if she were a rat caught in a trap. She had expected to feel righteous, for the balance of power to have shifted. Yet, when Sanjay towered over her, she couldn’t help but sink into a corner of the sofa to stop the trembling of her legs.

  He took the loveseat. She could see him struggle to get the appropriate words out. “You must be hungry,” he said at last. “Let’s grab some Indian food. I hear that a new desi restaurant has opened in Decatur. Their tandoori chicken is supposed to be the bomb.”

  She nodded. Sanjay didn’t like Indian food. This was his way of making up. But it was so inadequate, so ineffectual. She escaped into the bathroom, where she stayed for a long time, giving in to all that emanated from her chest. On the other side of the door was her reality. Her return was as much a compromise for Sanjay as it was for her. Nothing had changed between them.

  Sanjay kept his promise to Daddy and Amma. In the spring of the following year, they moved into a house in a neat subdivision called Stone Crest in Dunwoody, a different part of town, away from her friends. The house was bright and warm, especially in the summer when the sun toasted its red brick front and made the grass in the little front yard seem greener, the roses redder. Two of the three bedrooms had plenty of sunshine, and the third Sanjay used as his study. They bought a new sofa set for the formal living room. Alyona helped Tara pick the sheer curtains and tan faux silk valances for the windows, a fact that Tara did not care to tell Sanjay.