The man sat down and smiled briefly, revealing a row of even teeth, very white. He really had a very attractive mouth. “Roshan—but I am only an intern.” He had an accent, mild and pleasant, halfway between Indian and British to Gabriel’s untrained ear. “General medicine for now.”
“Well, welcome.” The intern status explained the need for a haircut, and the dark circles under Roshan’s eyes. Gabriel remembered his own intern year, four years previous. He had thought he’d never again get enough sleep. “Where are you coming from?” The new interns had been around for a few months, but work had been so hectic lately that Gabriel had been skimping on the requisite social functions. And then, with his mother’s death…
“I am from Sri Lanka, originally, but most recently San Francisco,” Roshan said, as he started to spoon Jell-O into that perfect mouth.
“Really?” Gabriel felt his interest piqued. There were plenty of straight boys in San Francisco, of course, but still. “Did you like it there?”
“I liked it very much,” Roshan said seriously. Gabriel thought he could get to really like that serious tone, the formality of it. It was charming. And then Roshan smiled again. “But it was too close to my parents.”
Gabriel laughed out loud then, because even with the recent loss of his mother, he knew exactly what that felt like. If Roshan was an intern, he was probably about twenty-four, twenty-five? Gabriel remembered that age very well. “Tell me about it.”
After a brief pause, Roshan did.
THAT NIGHT, GABRIEL FOUND HIMSELF MARVELING AT HOW LITTLE contrast there actually was between their skin tones. He himself was swarthy, as his father and grandfather had been. Esther had been fair-skinned and blonde, but none of that had come down to him. Roshan said that he was unusually light-skinned for a South Asian; his mother was Sinhalese, her family originally from northern India. He had inherited her skin, the bones of her face.
“Your mother must be very beautiful,” Gabriel said, as he traced his fingers across Roshan’s bare and hairless chest. He could feel Roshan flush at the compliment.
“Actually, she isn’t very attractive—a little heavy, and sharp-featured.” He smiled. “But my father loves her very much.”
“And does she love him?” Gabriel asked the question idly, but then found himself oddly curious to hear the response. Roshan paused a moment before answering.
“I think so. It’s hard to tell with her; she’s very reserved.”
Gabriel thought, though he didn’t say it, that that was something else Roshan had inherited from his mother. Roshan had been almost silent during the long hours of their lovemaking, though he had seemed to enjoy himself.
“You should probably get going,” Gabriel said regretfully. He had been comparing their skin tones in the early-dawn light; they had been up all night, and Roshan was going to pay for it tonight; he was on call in the ICU. Two nights without sleep—Gabriel was barely thirty but already felt too old to handle that.
“Yes.” Roshan rose gracefully from Gabriel’s bed, sliding one slender hand along Gabriel’s wiry body, patting his cock one last time before pulling entirely away. He started to pull on his clothes—he would shower at the hospital, no doubt, change into a spare set of clothes there. Gabriel lived on Lombard, only a few blocks from the hospital, which made life much easier; he walked in every day. Philly was a good city to walk in, and the hospital was in the old part of town, with its cobblestoned streets. It cheered him up every morning, just walking to work. There was so much history in those streets, so much sense of place.
Gabriel watched Roshan dress, then asked, from the safety of his bed, “Do you want to hook up again sometime?” It was never easy, asking that, no matter how many men he had brought home to this tiny, cluttered apartment. It would be nice, not to have to ask that again, to have someone he could take for granted, could rely on to be there. Since his mother had died, he’d been wanting that more strongly than ever before, wanting an anchor he could hold on to.
Roshan hesitated before answering, and Gabriel felt his own skin flushing. But before he could get too embarrassed, Roshan said, “I would like to see you again. But there are…complications.”
“Oh?”
“I am not…out. At the hospital. Or—at all, really.”
“I see.” Gabriel felt a flash of disappointment—he always found it exhausting, pretending to not be involved with someone, being careful to not touch them in public, not hold hands, not say anything that might be incriminating. That was why he had come out in high school, so long ago; he just got so sick of lying. But Roshan would hardly be the first closeted man he’d dated. Sometimes, they changed their minds. “I can cope with that. If that’s all…”
“It is not.” Roshan sat down then, on the edge of the bed. His hands were opening and closing, unconsciously, as he sought the words he wanted. The words ended up being simple, in the end. “I am married.”
And now that flash of disappointment expanded into a burning anger. “You didn’t think that was worth mentioning? What’s your wife going to think now? Are you going to tell her you had to spend an extra night at work?” The man didn’t even have the consideration to call his wife—Gabriel hadn’t left his side for the last twelve hours. “You’re not going to stay closeted for long if you keep pulling tricks like this!”
“It is not like that, Gabriel…” He rose again, took a step back toward the door.
“Look, I don’t care what plan you have for getting around your wife. I don’t give a damn about her—but you could have told me be fore you fucked me. You don’t even wear a ring!” Gabriel was careful about that; he had dated a married guy once before, when he was very young, and it had just about broken his heart into pieces when the guy refused to leave his wife to be with him. Gabriel had sworn that he’d never get in that situation again. And now here he was, and fine, he wasn’t in love with Roshan yet, but he’d been headed that way. The guy was so hot, and smart, and, okay, exotic, strange, different—it had definitely been a turn-on, learning Roshan had grown up in another country, had only come to the United States after he’d turned ten. Gabriel already loved the way he talked, the formal speech patterns, the accent. And the perfectly groomed fingernails, the painfully white teeth—and the contrast between all of that and the few whispered obscenities Roshan had let out in the darkest hours of the night, when Gabriel was riding him, hips pressed hard against Roshan’s sweet ass…But the man was a liar, a cheat. “I think you’d better leave.” Gabriel pulled the sheets over his naked body, searching for a slender thread of dignity.
Roshan frowned and dug his hands into his pockets, looking bewildered, frustrated. “I do not know how to explain—wait, here!” He pulled out his wallet, and for a brief moment Gabriel thought that the man was going to offer him money; he felt his anger swell to an incandescent rage. But instead, Roshan rifled through and pulled out a slip of paper—it looked glossy, like magazine print. “Please, read this.” Gabriel didn’t reach out for the outstretched paper, and Roshan finally put it down on the chair by the bedroom. “Read this, Gabriel—then page me, if you are willing to talk. Please.” He turned away then and walked out.
Gabriel stayed where he was until he heard the heavy front door close, locking with a firm click. Then he got up, went to read the slip of paper. It had obviously been cut from a magazine, creased and worn as if it had been sitting in that wallet for months. It said:
Sri Lankan female, straight but not into serious relationships, looking for gay South Asian male for sham marriage. Let’s make our parents happy. You know you want to.
—[email protected].
He couldn’t see Roshan that night, in any case—he had promised his father that he would come for Shabbat. Gabriel left the city early, took the train from Thirtieth Street Station to Penn Station; he normally found it a pleasant ride, and would often catch up on journals on the way. But today he just stared out the window at the towns rumbling past. It was raining, the way it had been on the day
they buried Esther. When he got into the city, instead of changing to the subway that would take him to his father’s apartment, Gabriel climbed into a cab and rode it out to the cemetery where they’d buried her.
There was grass growing on her muddy grave, but no flowers planted. Gabriel felt a sharp pang of guilt—he had not been here since the funeral, and he was sure his father hadn’t been either. It had seemed too hard, to come out here where her cold body lay, slowly decomposing. He had wanted to cremate her, but Saul had been horrified at the idea. So here she was, her bones slowly blending with the soil. Maybe that was better; he could come here in the spring, spread flower seeds. Esther had never been much of a gardener either—she hadn’t been a very practical woman at all. But she had loved flowers; Saul had always made sure she had fresh flowers for the Shabbat table. Flowers and song, bright colors and soft fabrics—anything beautiful, Esther had loved. She hadn’t liked rain; she would have been cold and unhappy in weather like this. He hated to think of her out here in this weather.
“What do you think? Should I call him?”
Gabriel wasn’t surprised to find himself talking to his dead mother—she had always been easy to talk to. When he had come home from high school senior year, head over heels in love and burning with the desire to tell someone, it was his mother he had confessed to, terrified and exhilarated all at once, tears in his eyes. Esther had gone very pale, her blue eyes even bluer against the whiteness of her face. But she had pulled him into a hug, had held him when he burst into tears. She had stood up to his father, had even gone out and bought him condoms, slipping them to him that night with a whispered injunction to be safe, be happy. More than a mother should be called to do, surely. And Roshan was beautiful; she could understand that.
But is he beautiful inside, my boychik? That is what is important.
She had known that—the beautiful Esther had married his father, after all, surely one of the ugliest men on God’s green earth, almost a caricature of a stereotyped Jew with his massive nose, shrunken torso, fierce, squinty eyes. But a good man, an upright man of the community who had cherished his wife and had even tried, on occasion, to understand his wayward son.
Gabriel couldn’t answer that question, he just didn’t know. He stood in the rain a little longer, until he was quite thoroughly soaked. Then he heard his mother scolding him to go inside, go, even a big doctor can catch his death of cold. So he left the cemetery and got back in the cab.
HE HAD STOPPED ON THE WAY TO HIS FATHER, BOUGHT FLOWERS for the table. Nothing fancy—just some white carnations, fresh and simple. His father had grunted approval when Gabriel arrived with them clutched in a wet hand. “Your mother would have liked that.” The rest of the meal was silent, except for the prayers. They had eaten store-bought bread, the widow Rabinowitz’s soup, her chicken and kugel. Neither had eaten very much—grief was thick in the room, weighing heavy on their stomachs. When they finished, Gabriel washed the dishes while his father blew out the candles, put away the remaining food.
“I should get back,” Gabriel said. “I have work in the morning.” Work, and a decision to make. To call Roshan or not? He still didn’t know. He wondered what his father would think if Roshan were a woman—would he be upset that she was brown-skinned, wasn’t Jewish? Gabriel just didn’t know.
“Yes, yes, of course.”
Gabriel ached to see Saul like this, his face so lined, so old. “I’ll be back next week, Dad. Call if you need anything.” He pulled on his coat, still damp.
“Son.” His father’s face was abruptly stern. “You must not keep coming up here, every week. It is too far.”
“I don’t mind.”
“No. I am telling you, no. I will be fine—there are more than enough people to pester me here. If the widow Rabinowitz doesn’t drive me up the wall with her nagging, your mother’s sisters will manage it nicely. You, stay there.”
Gabriel felt a pang of bewildered grief—was his father rejecting him outright now? But then Saul reached out, took his son’s head in both hands and pulled it toward him. He kissed Gabriel’s forehead, then released him. “Go, son,” he said gently. “Be safe. Be happy.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am certain.” His father opened the door for him, said, “Come back in a month or two, tell me then what you’ve been doing.”
“All right, then. Good night.” Gabriel stepped out the door, heard it close behind him.
He started walking to the subway stop, still not sure what had just happened. Those had been his mother’s words, the words Esther had said to him, the words she had undoubtedly said to his father. Gabriel didn’t know what they meant. But he knew one thing—he would be calling Roshan after all, would at least let him explain what was really going on. Roshan deserved that chance at least, the opportunity to step forward, to tell the truth.
After that…well, after that, they would just see what happened. See if there would be an opportunity to find some happiness after all.
It was what his mother would have wanted.
Bodies in Motion
Chicago, 1999
CHAYA WASN’T SURE HOW SHE’D ENDED UP AT THE DUKE OF PERTH, SIPPING SCOTCH WITH DANIEL OWENS, WATCHING THE APRIL RAIN fall steadily through the foggy window of the pub. The sequence of events was clear enough: the e-mail arriving at the department, from Jenny, who had been her roommate in grad school. Inviting her to apply for a tenure-track job at UC Davis, with a possibility of preferred access to the big telescope at Keck Observatory. His interruption of her reading the letter, her explanation of her dazed state; his congratulations and offer of a celebratory dinner. She’d accepted and let him take her across town, to eat alone, together. That was strange enough. And now she was on her third shot of single-malt Scotch, which was unheard of. The events were clear, but her motives were opaque. She had sat mostly silent through dinner, letting Daniel’s friendly babble fill the empty space.
When she finally spoke, her words dropped into a stream of his chatter, like heavy stones.
“I don’t know if I should apply.”
“But it sounded like she was practically promising you the job…”
“That’s not it.”
Daniel’s mouth started to open again—she could practically see the flurry of words resting on his tongue, eager to leap out. But he closed his mouth, trapping the words behind his teeth, his firm lips. Daniel laced his fingers together under his chin and sat there, waiting. He had nice hands, with long, thin fingers. Chaya had noticed them before. Two more glasses of Macallan arrived, and she took one in her own hands, staring down into the clear liquid.
“I can’t leave my mother.” Twenty-nine years old, and she couldn’t leave her mother? She didn’t owe Daniel an explanation, but the words were whispering in her throat, wanting to come out. She couldn’t say them to anyone else—she’d had a few friends in grad school, but hadn’t really made any at UIC. Why not Daniel? He was there, after all. And a live band was playing at the front of the pub, not too loud, but loud enough. No one else would hear.
“My father died when I was eleven. It was a car accident. Black ice on the road, a winter storm. We were driving home after one of my piano recitals, and we just skidded off the road and slammed into a tree.” There was more to the story than that—Chaya remembered leaving the recital, her father pushing her into the right front seat, her mother crying, climbing quickly into the back before the car started and raced away. No one had ever told her what was going on that day, why everyone was acting so strangely. After the accident, she hadn’t asked. She had felt, obscurely, that it was somehow her fault, though she didn’t know why. After the accident, she hadn’t talked about her father at all. “My mother was eight months pregnant, but she was barely hurt. None of us were, actually, not by the impact. Just thrown around a little, and my mom went into labor early. But my father had a heart attack, from the shock, and died.”
Chaya had never told the story out loud before, and she was surprised at
how calmly she was telling it now—eighteen years made a difference. It had all been a long time ago.
It was only when Daniel wrapped his hands around hers that Chaya realized that she was shaking, and that she had spilled Scotch all over her hands, all over the dark wood of the table. She felt a brief desire to pull her hands away from him, but she forced herself to leave them. He was steadying her; it felt good. It helped her keep talking. Chaya was fighting waves of nausea, though perhaps those were from the thick fried smell of fish and chips, wafting past their table, trailing a waitress loaded with plates.
“So my mother, who was only twenty-nine—that’s how old I am now—my mother was left with an eleven-year-old daughter and a premature baby girl. My mom’s parents helped us, but they died a few years ago. My dad had been estranged from his family; I don’t know why. They’ve never spoken to us, I never even met them, though my grandmother on that side did send some money for the funeral.
“My aunts, my mother’s sisters, all helped raise us, but they have families and careers of their own. Savitha, my sister, got married this year—she married a cousin, actually. They moved away a month ago, without saying a word to anyone. They sent one postcard from the road just telling us that they had gotten married—no address, no phone. She hasn’t written again or called since she left.”
Her voice dropped a little, so that Daniel had to lean closer to hear. “So that leaves me. My mother—she’s not strong, since my father died. I can’t leave.”
Chaya expected Daniel to try to persuade her to go—but he just kept holding her hands, safe in his. His eyes were fixed on their hands, pressed against the scarred wood with its unsteady lines carved by legions of sloshed patrons. When he finally spoke, he didn’t look up.
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