During Ella’s senior year, two springs ago, while planting rosemary in the herb garden, she realized she was in love with Charu Saleem. From that day, Ella lived in constant suppression. She’d grinned at Charu in the hallway, and it was easy to avoid her in the twelve-floor behemoth of a school, since she had her schedule memorized. Charu never fathomed Ella’s infatuation, and remained free and uncomplicated with her cousin. Charu changed in and out of her clothes all the time without a thought to decency.
Ella never let her mind wander to Charu’s body at nighttime, committed to being chaste. She pondered why, over and over. The word lesbian felt as foreign to her as the word sister. There were other kids in school who were more comfortable with being queer, and formed clubs and events that she seemed to get invited to. The idea of belonging to a group because a crush on Charu would “qualify” her as a member—that just wasn’t okay. It wasn’t like anyone else had ever caught her attention at school, and during those sleepless nights, Ella wondered if anyone ever would.
Once during a game of Taboo, Charu’s clue was like you, and upon learning the word was adopted, Ella stormed off, not speaking to Charu until the next afternoon. She walked around with fists clenched, and developed a teeth-grinding habit that would last for years. Anwar attributed this behavior to a sedentary adolescent lifestyle and asked her to help him build the fence for the vegetable garden. This worked for a while; she was too exhausted at night to desire. But after the fence was built, the old insomnia persisted. It was Hashi who cured her, with lovers rock. The Guyanese hawker Rashaud Persaud had brought the reggae CD as a gift to Hashi during a salon visit. Finding no use for “such slow” music, Hashi passed it on to Ella, who listened to it every night till she left for college. She stopped seeing images in her dreams—she dreamt as though born blind.
* * *
And now, seeing her cousin in her bedroom, Ella hesitated for a second before rapping on the window. Even though Ella had wrapped up her sophomore year at Cornell, met some good folks, she flushed with that same embarrassment.
Charu’s face switched from seductress to sister. “Ella!” She hugged her cousin through the window.
“Charu,” said Ella, lightly returning her hug. Charu hugged back tighter, and pulled Ella through the window into her bedroom.
“Shit, I wasn’t expecting you!”
“Who were you expecting?”
“You’ll never guess who I’m dating.”
“Who?” This takes the cake for shitty guessing games.
“Malik. Can you believe it? After all these years?”
Ella scanned her memory—Malik? Ah, Anwar’s intern. Same year in school as Charu. Skateboarder extraordinaire. Stupid bastard. “How’d that happen?”
“He just offered to teach me how to skateboard. See?” Charu pointed to a scab on her knee. “Isn’t that awesome?”
“Yeah, awesome.”
“Should I wait in the nude? Should I wear this?” Charu grinned, holding up a lace teddy. “I made it.”
“God, Charu, I don’t know about that stuff.” Ella grimaced at the lingerie. “Did you two . . .” She let the sentence fade. “Wait, you made that?”
“No, we haven’t had sex yet. Maybe tonight’s the night. And yes, I’ve been hittin’ the sewing machine like crazy.”
“It does look a little crazy in here,” said Ella, looking at the mess everywhere. Charu’s sewing machine was covered with lace and fabric swatches, paper patterns, pins, and spools of thread.
“Well if they’d let me go to FIT, like I wanted, I wouldn’t be hoarding all this shit.”
“I’m sure if you made more of a case—” Bullshit, thought Ella. While the Fashion Institute of Technology was Charu’s first-choice public school, Ella knew Charu blaming Anwar and Hashi was a load of crap. When it came down to it, Charu had chosen NYU and a pretty decent financial aid package because of the slightly higher probability that she would meet a straight guy.
The unmistakable sound of a shaking tree interrupted Ella.
“Shit, he’s here!”
At the same moment, they heard Hashi’s militant footsteps approaching Charu’s room. Charu fumbled to turn on the overhead-light switch, her signal to Malik that it was not safe to enter. The rustling of the branches stopped. Just as Charu yanked on a terry cloth bathrobe, Hashi turned the doorknob without bothering to knock. Ella saw the heat of resentment rise in her cousin’s face and could not help but laugh.
Hashi pushed her way through the door, carrying a plate of food. “Charu—it is late! Have your dinner.”
“I’m not eating this late, Ma.”
“Then go to bed, now.” Hashi sounded tired, with a hint of sadness. She took the plate back. The shawl arranged around her head slipped to her shoulders, exposing a fringe of gray hair along her temple.
Hashi pointed to Charu’s bed and her eyes narrowed. “What’s this, some Hindu puja? You’ll burn yourself alive. Stop the fire!”
“Ma, aren’t you going to say something?”
“What—” started Hashi, then she noticed Ella. “Arré, Ella? You’re home!” She leaned in to give Ella a kiss on the cheek; then she took a step back. “How on earth did you get in? I didn’t hear the front door.”
“You know Ella’s burglar quiet, Ma,” said Charu.
Ella stared at the floor, deciding it was the smartest thing to do.
Hashi’s gaze wandered to the window, as if she sensed something awry but could not locate it. She walked over to the closet and opened it. After finding nothing, she gave Charu one last killer look. She patted Ella’s shoulder.
“Maybe you can bring some sense into your sister,” said Hashi. “It is good to have you home.” She left them without saying good night to Charu.
“Goddamn, the woman’s an evil psychic,” Charu said, exhaling.
“She knows you,” Ella said, starting to leave. “Have a good—”
“No, El, stay a bit. She’ll get suspicious if you leave right away. It’s better if she thinks I’m awake talking to you.”
“You’ve got it twisted, but—all right.”
Charu turned off the light, and once again, Malik could be heard climbing the hibiscus tree.
The tree shook with the expectation and longing of an eighteen-year-old. Malik tapped the window. Charu slid it open. His feet were on a branch; his hands gripped the sill. His short legs, back, and arms were taut and straight—he resembled a small bridge. He reached for Charu’s arm, but she lacked the strength to pull him in. She gestured for Ella to help her.
“Thanks, guys,” Malik said, as they struggled to hoist him into the room, trying to be quiet. He looked around, sniffed with pleasure at the scent of incense trailing. He was bathed in cologne, and his black plastic-frame glasses slipped down his nose. Ella couldn’t stop herself from appreciating the nerd in him. He wore cutoff shorts and a black tank top with a screen-printed red fish skeleton, FISHBONE scrawled across. He presented Charu with a gift: a pink rose, with two Valium pills taped to the stem. “It’s good to see you, Ella, how you been?” Malik offered her his hand. Ella shook it, firmly.
“You got two pills?” Charu joked. “Guess there’s limited perks to you working in my uncle’s pharmacy,” she said. She dropped the flower on the bed and pulled him closer.
“Hey, your dad’s gonna kill me if he finds out I’m giving his daughter drugs,” said Malik. “I’m a lucky dude for getting this gig, but I gotta say, I miss ol’ Anwar. I might still help him out a couple days a week.”
“He won’t even know you’re getting them from Aman’s pharmacy,” said Charu. “Should we take ’em now?”
“Naw, let’s hold off for a minute, sugar.”
“Too late!” Charu popped a pill into her mouth.
“Well, shoot,” said Malik. “You want this one, Ella? I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
“No. I’m good.”
“A’ight. Well, fuck it. Here goes,” said Malik. “Got water?”
Charu fished a water bottle from under a pile of fabric. “It’s not old. Promise.”
Malik took a swig and swallowed.
“My uncle’s got the personality of a prison warden, huh?” said Charu.
“Dude’s getting a divorce. I got sad today, hearing him talk about his wife.” He looked around, as if Hashi might appear behind him. “Your mom asleep?”
“She’s been killing me softly, but yes, the wicked witch sleeps.” Charu gave him a few tiny pecks. He let Charu kiss his ears and looked at Ella. She looked back at him with undisguised loathing.
“I—uh, brought this film I thought we could watch,” he said.
“Oooooh, that’s sweeeeeet, Maliiiik,” Charu said.
Why do girls add so many vowels when they’re into someone? Ella wondered. “I’ve got to sleep,” she said. “That bus ride did me in.”
“It’s—it’s good for inducing sleep,” Malik stuttered, excited. “It’s a French film set to this incredible music and y-you-you-just watch this bit of forest grow from nothing into, well, a forest.”
“C’mon, Ella, I haven’t seen you in months! I’ll be studying and taking Regents all next week!”
“Yeah, right,” Malik said, and they laughed.
Ella frowned, but sat down on the bed. The longer she stayed, the longer she would be able to keep an eye on Charu.
Charu put the DVD into her computer, and sat between Ella and Malik, spreading a thin kantha blanket over their legs. Ella was practically pushed off the side of the bed, like a pineapple-flavored Life Saver, unwanted, at the end of the pack. She kept glancing to see if Malik was petting Charu, but he kept his hands by his sides, eyes on the screen as if he wasn’t using the film as a ploy to bed her cousin.
After a while, Ella relaxed. The film’s music wafted over her. She took off her glasses to rest her eyes. Her vision was in the negative nines, and most things were fuzzy outlines until she put her glasses on. Around the time of her parents’ death, something else had started happening, usually set off by a headache or stress. From twilight until she slept, she would see bright lines and shapes, plants, or people. And now, the time-lapse frames of the documentary became a riotous, psychedelic hallucination of blossoms, fauna, the curling, spreading, mixing within a microcosm.
Ella’s visions ranged from meditative to wacky. A waning moon over a placid lake, a bevy of Egyptian blue monarchs, a television set bouncing up and down around the room. For much of her childhood, she assumed her eyes were making up things for her to see; she’d wondered if she were going insane. And she worried that telling Anwar and Hashi might then involve seeing a shrink. Or being sent back to Bangladesh.
She’d even taken a couple of classes to make sense of her visions. Her Neurological Disorders seminar mapped the fearsome world of disorders and delusions, from migraines to schizophrenia. In the Hallucinations class, Ella devoured any literature she could get her hands on to figure out the cause. Getting an MRI at the medical center was easy enough, but she always found excuses to not make a doctor’s appointment. Poring through study after study led her to two conclusions: It was either a tumor or trauma that caused her phantasms. Each case bore a resemblance to Ella’s. Lilliputian beings or kaleidoscopic visions at dusk. Perpetual insomnia. Yet it didn’t happen every single evening; rather, something would set it off, if she was stressed or dehydrated or had a migraine. Ella wondered if years of depression, another possible cause, had done her in. She’d tried therapy in fourth and fifth grade, upon her teachers’ suggestion, but she didn’t ever find comfort in talking about herself.
She couldn’t figure out a way to tell Anwar and Hashi that she hallucinated without worrying that her aunt would fall into hysteria. So Ella picked up a prescription for antidepressants, after telling one of the student health center counselors her story. She hadn’t yet taken the pills the shrink so readily prescribed.
* * *
Coming home stirred up thoughts of the parents Ella had barely known. Anwar spoke about Rezwan and Laila like they were characters in an epic. Freedom fighters. They survived a war, only to be murdered just before her third birthday. There was one black-and-white photograph of them, perched against a graffiti wall marked with sickles and hammers. Rezwan Anwar, undeniably regal, in aviator sunglasses, standing next to Laila, nearly six feet tall, her arms holding baby Ella. She stood with her head cocked to the side, daring the camera to capture her. A teenage boy stood beside Rezwan, almost hiding behind his enormous bell-bottomed pant leg—Ella vaguely remembered the boy hugging her good-bye when she left Dhaka. Her only lucid memory of her homeland was leaning into her grandfather Azim’s chest in the car en route to the airport. He hummed a fisherman’s tune, smelled of sweat and cloves.
There was wriggling on the bed. Charu was kissing Malik wildly; he flopped and gasped like a fish struggling in the open air. Ella was rigid. She had drifted off but was now witness to the spectacle. She was anxious to leave, anxious to watch. Charu squinted with the cunning of a girl who believed she knew how to pleasure a man, but then she started giggling; she must have felt the release of the Valium. Malik shushed her, to no avail.
Ella Anwar, orphaned, adopted, with her wayward visions, her frizzy hair, her large hands and feet, a bass voice. She longed to nestle in the burning that filled the air. She edged herself off the bed, leaving them to each other.
* * *
Crisscrossed parquet floors creaked under Ella’s step. Gold leaf wallpaper, beloved of the old Brooklyn bourgeoisie, gleamed in the dimness. On either side of the stairs were two archways: To her left were the living room and kitchen; to her right was her bedroom, and a bathroom behind the stairs. Hashi called this the “guest bathroom,” a bad habit from the renovation days, though Ella was the only one who ever used it.
She saw something looming in the living room—a headless naked figure. She went inside and touched the form. Just one of Hashi’s mannequins, idiot. She hurried back to her side of the house, to go to the bathroom. She scrubbed her hands raw and splashed water on her face. She looked up at the mirror. Mirrors were never a part of Ella’s day. Long arms and legs and coarse hairs everywhere. She was rough as a prehistoric man. She wore an oversize T-shirt with relaxed-fit Levi’s. She’d had these clothes since her freshman year of high school. Ella pressed her nose against the mirror for a closer facial evaluation. Her pores—at least what she thought might be pores—were enormous. She scraped her nose with a nail, loosening tiny, hardened yellow flecks. Damn, you ugly.
* * *
Ella took in her old room—one wall with three rows of framed pen-and-ink botanical drawings, freshman biology textbooks on a bookshelf, a poster of Simone de Beauvoir. The windowed wall was painted verdigris, with the bed pushed up against it for the best view of the garden. Everything was just as she’d left it when she was home over Christmas break, except—she blinked her eyes several times to be sure—there was a person sleeping in her bed.
This was a girl; Ella could tell from the slope of the body under the sheets and the scent of floral shampoo. Ella got on her hands and knees and stared at the girl. She was lithe, hair shorn in a pixie; a small diamond studded her nose. She shivered in her sleep. Somehow, she was familiar, but Ella did not know how she knew her. She found herself matching the sleeping girl’s breathing. She wasn’t about to climb into the twin bed with a stranger. For an evening without hallucinations, this was the weirdest (and maybe worst) night Ella had experienced in a long time.
The summer air was warm and crisp. The sky had not yet brightened. She moved past the headless mannequin, the overwhelming smell of onions in the kitchen, out the sliding back door. She would sleep outside.
3
The songs of sparrows stirred Charu awake at dawn. Soft computer glow beamed on the high ceiling, eerie a
s an alien confessional. Ella’s glasses sat in the mess, an artifact left behind in a raid. In her high, Charu had lost track of her sister, who had managed to slip out of the room.
After four months of chaste skateboarding and two-slices-and-a-soda specials at Luv ’N Oven, things between Charu and Malik had changed in the past week. Each day after school, a new lesson, the unfurling of their desire. Monday, riding the G train back and forth between Queens and Gowanus, kissing. Tuesday, humping jeans over jeans in his empty apartment in Bed-Stuy. His mother worked interminable shifts at JFK airport at the British Airways counter. Malik missed her, but freedom (and free trips to the West Indies) was a fair trade. Wednesday, he rolled Charu a joint (the most potent shit, courtesy of Uncle Bic); they ate Luv ’N Oven and watched Total Request Live, which killed the vibe. Thursday, he churned her insides with strong bassist fingers. Playing chords in your pussy, he had chuckled. It hurt terribly. But it was the first time she could ever remember something that hurt terribly but felt good all at once. Maybe Chinatown massages or tattoos or gym class, but she didn’t know much about those things either.
Charu closed her laptop and watched Malik sleep. Her mouth watered, wanting to nosh and suckle flesh like a newborn. She raked him with her teeth, tasted hard salty shoulder, vein ridges along his sinewy arm, a slim wrist and musky fingers. He whistled air from his nose. She straddled the morning tent that sprouted from his underwear and bent down to kiss his snoring mouth. His locks lay gnarled on his chest like a prized fleece. She sucked his breath and kissed him harder. He heaved and gasped as if drowning and pushed her aside.
“Whaaat?”
“I—I—couldn’t breathe,” said Malik. “Stop.”
She flinched at his tone. “Maybe you should leave,” she told him, peeling herself off his body.
He took a few more deep breaths. “Relax. No need for salt, sugar,” he said, chuckling. He spread his fingers over her belly. She stiffened, but let him suck on her breast, eyes still half-asleep. She pressed against him to imprint a raspberry star, one more in a galaxy of bruises.
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