by Leah Franqui
Starbucks was a newcomer to India, and its high prices meant it was still aspirational for many. Walking in, Swati spotted college girls giggling over sweet drinks, a few coffee dates in various stages of success, and a group of friends playing with some app.
Then she spotted Arjun, who stood up to greet her. He looked well, vibrant, his hair slightly wet, as if he had recently had a shower. She should not, would not, think of him in the shower.
“Hello, Auntie,” he said.
“Hello.” She sat, her skirt billowing around her, caressing her legs and his. She shut her eyes, trying to purge her mind of its thoughts.
“Are you all right?” Arjun asked solicitously, the way you would of a frail older person. She was suddenly angry again, and grateful for it; it banished her desire.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she snapped back.
“It’s quite a hot day . . .” Arjun said, clearly scrambling for something.
“I hadn’t noticed,” Swati sniffed.
“Are you just determined to be contrary for the sake of being contrary?”
“You talk that way to your elders?”
“You cannot pick and choose,” Arjun pointed out. “You cannot want to be treated with the respect of an elder and be offended when I do so.”
“I did not ask you to come here,” Swati said.
“You should be grateful that I am. Your mistake can be quickly fixed. It is not so easy for everyone.”
“I didn’t make a mistake,” Swati said pointedly.
“You do not know the situation,” Arjun said condescendingly.
“I know what happens when a man is without honor,” Swati said, equally condescending. Arjun leaned back, looking the way he had at the mall, reluctantly impressed. She was both pleased and insulted by the look.
“So that is it. You won’t listen to me because I’m not a good enough man.”
“You could be Lord Shiva—it would not bring me back to Kolkata.”
“So what is your plan? You will just turn your back on all the things you are supposed to be? All the things you’ve been told to want?”
Swati shrugged. Arjun shook his head.
“Where did this courage come from?”
“Why does everyone find me to be so brave?” Swati asked.
“You have done everything you are not supposed to do,” Arjun said, a hint of admiration in his voice. “And far worse, you are not penitent or regretful.”
“What would I have to regret? My marriage was arranged. There was no love there. There was habit, and duty, and now my duty is done.”
“Don’t you have a duty to your husband until you die?” Arjun said, citing the Hindu marriage ritual, as well as the thousand other ways women were told that their dharma as a wife was more important than anything else in the world.
“All our sages, all our great men, they leave the world behind to find enlightenment. Why should I be something different?” Swati said. She had never really thought about it this way before, but it was true. The Hindu stages of man included a stage of becoming an ascetic, turning one’s back on the world to find the truest sense of spiritual self. It was a modern age now; why shouldn’t women experience those stages, too?
“So you plan to embrace all the elements of a sage? Give up all worldly ties and bodily pleasures?” Arjun asked, his tone wicked, his eyes curious.
Swati looked away. “Why have you come? Really?” Swati asked. “If you wanted to please your mother, you should have wooed your wife back home, not me.”
“It seems I will not have much success with either,” Arjun said.
“Do you even want to?” Swati knew she never would have asked a question like that even months earlier. But now desire, what someone wanted, selfish as it might have been, felt more important than it had before.
“How is it that you are the first person to ask me that? Everyone I know talks to me like there is only one possible outcome: convince her to come home. But that is not the only way that this can go. Maybe I don’t want that.”
“Maybe?”
“Sometimes I think about the happy moments, and I long for them. The comfort of them. But if we return to what we were, I will still be looking for something I know I cannot find with her. I know myself.”
“You are being very open with me, Arjun,” Swati commented.
He shrugged. “No one at home is talking to you. Who would you tell?”
Swati smiled at his words. Of course, everything came with the consideration of discretion.
“And besides. There is something about this, talking to you, that is unlike any conversation I have ever had before. We are both wrong, in the eyes of the world, and you do not care. I find that amazing, wonderful, strange.”
No one had ever described her in words like that. Her face flushed.
“And you are looking so well.”
“Thank you.” She blushed, and thanked Rachel mentally. Looking good was a kind of armor that had helped her withstand Arjun’s words, helped her fight back.
“Do you know something? I have always been so jealous of Dhruv. You and Uncle, you let him do what he wanted. You let him stay away. You let him . . . become what he wanted. My parents have never been like that. I married my wife, and I did care for her, I do, but when I look at her, I can never stop seeing my parents’ hands on her shoulders, pushing her toward me. Every choice we made, they were a part of it. And she never said a word, she never resented it, she accepted it. I hated her acceptance. She was—is—such a good wife, and I hate her for it.”
Swati was taken aback.
“But, surely your parents didn’t make you do anything.” Bunny and Pranay had always seemed, to her, loving, even indulgent parents. They gave their son whatever he asked for, things she had seen as decadent, things she had judged them for.
“Of course they did. They controlled my life through money. They still do,” Arjun said bluntly. “That is why I am stuck in my life like a pig in the filth.”
Swati flinched at the image. “Maybe that was the difference. Dhruv didn’t take money from us,” she said gently. “He made his own.”
Arjun looked at her with something like a mix of disgust and despair on his face. “I didn’t know how to do that. And it wasn’t until later that I realized that I should learn. And then it was too late. I want the things I was too stupid to want before. I want the choices I didn’t know I needed.”
“And you don’t mind who is hurt because of that,” Swati said softly.
“Of course I do. I hate that I have hurt my family. But I don’t hate it enough not to want something more. Not to strive for it. Do you?” Arjun asked.
It was so strange to sit here with him, to talk this way with him, a boy like her son, but not like her son at all, and not a boy. A man more than twenty years younger than her who looked at her with hunger. Who made her hungry. They were connected in a way that she had never been connected with anyone. He admired her, respected her, she could see it in his eyes. He was awed by her. No man had ever looked at her like that. Vinod had never looked at her like that. Like she was impressive, like she was dangerous.
He reached out to her, touching her hand, and it was like a flame on her skin. She pulled back and stood up.
“I should leave,” she said. “We both know there is no point to this. I am not going with you.”
“I want to see you again,” he said, his voice plaintive.
“Why?”
He looked at her, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer. There was something sparking in the air between them, and he seemed as confused about it as she was. She wished she was as brave as people thought she was, that she could voice what she felt, that she could even attempt it. But she wasn’t. So she turned, and, passing through a sea of teenagers sipping on sweet drinks and aspiring screenwriters working to craft the next Hindi hit, she left. She wasn’t sure if she would ever see him again, but she was sure that she shouldn’t. But recently, what hadn’t she done th
at she shouldn’t have?
Outside Kolkata, there was a large jungle, which India shared, begrudgingly, with Bangladesh. Although Swati had never been, everyone knew about the Sunderbans and the way that the tigers there were the most violent, most bloodthirsty in the world. They craved the taste of human flesh and ate villagers who strayed too far into their territory, those who stayed out fishing too late, who didn’t heed the setting of the sun, who planted their rice too far beyond the boundaries of their village land. The more they ate, the more they craved. Rumors passed through Kolkata on the backs of newspapers and servants with relatives in the little towns that dotted the mangrove forests, that the tigers had stopped hunting other prey altogether, that they only focused on humans now. People said you didn’t know they were there until they snuck up on you, emerging out of the water, silent, strong swimmers that they were, a pair of violent yellow eyes glowing in the night, lighting the way to your doom.
When Swati let her eyes close for a moment, that’s what she saw. Only, instead of tiger’s eyes, she saw Arjun’s eyes in a tiger’s face, huge and deep, and she fell right into them and let him devour her. She could almost feel the bite. A good woman would have tried to ignore it, would have thought of him as little as possible. A good woman wouldn’t have invited a tiger into her home and hoped that he would come. But Swati was not a good woman, she knew now. For the day after they had had coffee, despite having left so suddenly, her face on fire, she invited Arjun over for lunch. She told herself it was to apologize, to explain herself, but it wasn’t. It was to see what might happen next. It was to make something happen next. For what had she come to Mumbai for, if not to make her own life?
After the way she had left so suddenly, she wasn’t sure he would want to see her, but when she sent Arjun the invitation by text message, he responded almost immediately, and a spike of heat rose in her body. Her fingers felt warm on the touchpad of her phone.
That morning, Rachel had gone out for a walking tour in South Mumbai. She had asked if Swati wanted to come with her, but Swati couldn’t think of anything worse than walking around Mumbai in the heat of the day. Part of Swati had wanted to insist that she stay, and another part of her wanted to make an offering of thanks at the temple that she wouldn’t be there. Everything inside of her was splitting apart, fighting with itself. She was buzzing with an energy she could barely contain, and she had never felt this way before.
Swati called for food, worried about what Arjun might want to eat, and got too much, showered, dressed, showered again, dressed in a new outfit, going from Western to Indian back to Western with a maniacal energy she had never felt before. She tried to sit still on the couch, tried to read, tried to watch a serial, but nothing calmed her, so she sat tensely on the balcony and watched the city from above. She looked down, every few minutes, or seconds, trying to see if she could identify visitors entering the building from this height. She could not, but she did not stop trying. It was something to focus on.
The doorbell rang, and she looked up, fearful and eager. She opened the door, and there he was, dressed in a pair of running shorts and a close-fitting T-shirt, his body clearly well maintained underneath his athletic wear.
In the coffee shop the day before he had worn trousers and a crisp shirt, but now, in his casual wear, he seemed bigger, his body more imposing. He didn’t even dress for lunch, her matronly self said, sniffing in disapproval. Good, said that wild thing in her, he’s dressed so you can see what is underneath. He’s dressed in things that you can pull right off of him. Isn’t that better? She wanted to run a bath in her head and rinse out all these thoughts. She wanted to bottle them up and wear them as perfume.
“Hello, beta,” she said automatically, and then wished she could cut out her tongue. Calling him son came out of her so easily, but it made what she wanted from him seem wrong. She hoped he wouldn’t call her Auntie. But what would he call her, instead?
“I don’t think of myself as your child,” he said, smiling slightly.
“Come in,” she said, hoping to ignore it, move on. He hadn’t called her Auntie in return, at least. That was something. “How have you been?”
“Busy. I didn’t think you would want to see me again.”
“Neither did I,” Swati said honestly.
“I didn’t know if I wanted to come,” Arjun said.
“So why did you?” Swati asked.
Arjun looked at her, like she was a puzzle he couldn’t understand. “I don’t know. I can only think I am doing this because I know I shouldn’t.”
“Oh.” Swati didn’t know what to say to that. He was right, of course. He shouldn’t have been doing this, and neither should she. And what was this, anyway? She still couldn’t voice it, even in her own mind.
“Are you going to let me in?” Arjun asked, smiling. Swati realized that she hadn’t even allowed him past the entrance of the apartment. I am doing this because I know I shouldn’t. It was, she realized, a rather delicious thought. She had never dreamed she could be so bold, and she still wasn’t sure she really could be. But she had to try. With this man whom she didn’t like but she wanted.
She stepped aside and let him in.
“I’ve called for lunch,” she said, gesturing to the kitchen, where everything sat, cooling, in plastic containers.
“You didn’t slave over all of this?” he said, smirking. He had been a smug little boy, and he was a smug adult. It looked well on him; it was a shame, really, that smugness could be attractive, but Swati knew that it was true. It was sexy, the way people talked about things being sexy and she had never known what that meant. Now she knew, it was this, it was wanting to feel that smirk pressing against her skin.
“I suppose I should have lied and said I did.”
“I wouldn’t have known. I don’t cook. I would have said, Such amazing home food, Auntie!”
“I don’t think of myself as your auntie,” she said, echoing his words. “After all, your mother and I are no longer close. So, now, what am I to you?”
He looked at her, assessing her. His gaze was bold and calculating, everything she had hidden from and been offended by during her life. Now she felt like she was blossoming under it, opening herself to his inquiry. She fought the urge to look away, to cower. She looked back at him and saw him nod, happy, the way a person was when talking to their equal. It thrilled her.
“Come. I’m hungry,” she said. She had never said something like that to a guest, declared her own needs like that. She had always waited for them, asked them what they preferred. But she was hungry, for so many things. Why not show it? Arjun’s eyes had lit up at her words, and she walked him to the table, taking his arm.
When his hand touched her elbow, Swati’s whole body felt like it was going to combust. It was a sedate touch, the kind of touch that young men gave older women every day, to guide them, but it sent fire through her already overheated body.
At what point, she wondered, had it become acceptable for men to touch her? Perhaps after forty. There had been years when, as a child, any man could touch her, not, of course, in some obscene way, though Swati knew stories of old uncles who touched little girls in naughty ways. When Swati had been growing up, such things were not talked about, but mothers seemed to silently communicate, to know when an older man was up to something bad with their children, to create excuses not to leave children alone with people like that. Now parents were talking to their children about these things; one boy she knew, the nephew of a friend, had told his parents as a teenager that another uncle had abused him for years, and he was now in a health facility and no one ever spoke of him.
But naughty acts aside, for such ideas had never entered Swati’s head as a child, any older male who was known to her family had been able to touch her head, pinch her cheeks, give her a cuddle, or swat at her bottom when she was a little girl. Then, as she grew older, eleven or twelve, maybe, suddenly she had to be alert for touching; suddenly touching was something bad that bad people did, bad me
n did to bad women. She had to carry herself in such a way that boys wouldn’t touch her, that men wouldn’t grope her on the bus or become too close to her in a crowd, something impossible in India, but nevertheless. Then marriage came and Vinod could touch her, but other men were even more assiduously to be avoided, to avoid the deadly stain of adultery that could mark her black as sin.
And then, something happened, not with the birth of Dhruv, not with the relaxation of the age, but as a change in her own life. Her age changed the way that the world saw her, and suddenly she was someone who could be touched again by men, safely, comfortably, because she had ceased to be a woman, and she was now a thing. A mother, an auntie, her body swathed in layers of material, her sexuality packed away, if it had ever existed. She was to be respected and not desired. For years that had been a profound relief for her, the erecting of that barrier separating her from the needs of men.
Now she hated it. With Arjun’s hand on her body, the body that had longed for him, dreamed of him, she wanted to be more than a thing, longing to be young and desirable in his eyes. She had shied away from it the day before, but that was because she had been afraid of it. She had decided to try not to be afraid anymore of the things she wanted.
He sat down at the table, and she began to bring the food over. Within seconds, he was up, helping her. No man had ever done that for her, helped her serve. It never would have occurred to Vinod, or Dhruv, even, to bring dishes to the table. She thought Arjun was arrogant, smug, but he was doing for her what the men who cared for her would never do. What a strange world.
As they moved back and forth, his body brushed past hers in the narrow space. She thanked Mumbai for being so claustrophobic; the apartments were so expensive, and so small, people had to be close to each other all the time. In Kolkata they could have kept their distance; here his body had to meet hers. In Kolkata, he would be your friend’s son, and you his auntie. Here you are something entirely different.
“It’s delicious,” Arjun said, trying a bite.