Aerogrammes

by Tania James

  Gina climbed the spiral staircase up to the tower, where Hank had brought her on their first date. Back then she had noticed the cardboard boxes and crates stacked up against one wall, but only now did she choose to open them one by one. She rooted through the trophies, diplomas, Boy Scout badges, a plastic rhinoceros, a framed certificate from the Rotary Club of Louisville, and a 1963 Playboy sheathed in plastic featuring “The Nudest Jayne Mansfield.” At last she came across a leather photo album with Our Wedding embossed in gold on the cover. She opened it.

  Helen. Helen was beautiful. She wore a boat-neck dress with elbow-length gloves and lofty hair that lengthened her neck. In nearly every picture Hank was glancing her way and laughing, as if he had just discovered a woman whose sense of humor outdid his own. The reception looked like a Derby party—bourbon in Mason jars and mint juleps in silver cups; lavish sun hats, pale pink neckties, careless charm.

  As she flipped the pages, Gina felt shame and envy sinking in her stomach like stones, as if her snooping had taken her too far, as if Helen were looking right back at her, transmitting some silent message through her innocent smile. You weren’t invited, Helen said. You want memories? Find your own.

  What came to Gina was a day like any other, when she and Jeremy were in the park, lying on their backs over soft spring grass. He was reading a magazine while Gina watched the blue-brown currents of the Ohio River and its sprawling clots of driftwood, dislodged by yesterday’s rain, gliding downstream like the backs of ancient sea creatures.

  She was beginning to doze off when Jeremy made a noise. “Hm,” he said, as if he were having a conversation with the magazine. With her ear on his shoulder, Gina felt his voice ripple through her, like a seismic wave. “Mm.”

  She raised her head. “I can’t sleep when you do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “When you go, Mm, Mmmm.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t even notice I was doing it. Okay, I’ll be quiet.”

  She nestled herself against his chest, and he went back to reading. But now the silence felt strange. Gina raised her head again. “What are you reading?”

  “Your diary,” Jeremy said, without removing his eyes from the magazine. “ ‘Dear Diary, I am the luckiest woman in the world to be married to a guy who puts up with my shushing. He’s a patient man. And he looks like a male model.’ ”

  She smiled. “A male model?”

  “ ‘I heart him so much.’ ”

  “I have never ‘hearted’ anything.”

  “ ‘I just wish I could lay around with him forever.’ ”

  The grass stirred. They went back to being quiet. Gina put her ear to the cavern of Jeremy’s chest, felt the twitching of his heart beneath his secondhand soccer jersey. All those organs carrying on their precious work until one day, like that, they wouldn’t.

  Out of the blue, Jeremy kissed her hair and said, “Oh, all right, I heart you, too.”

  •

  In the late afternoon, Gina sat in the gazebo and watched shadows lean across the grass. She swirled the melted shards of ice in her vodka tonic. Drinking alone, in the daytime, wasn’t part of her usual routine, but in an hour or so, she would confront Hank, and a glass of watered-down courage might help.

  What would she say to him? That she loved him, against all the odds? Play that Patsy Cline record in the background, that tune about railroad tracks and broken hearts? Some sentiments were better left in song. She poured herself another drink.

  For hours, Gina waited, glancing at the mirrors for the first breath of vapor. Hank never came. She baked a tray of fudge brownies from the box, filling the air with warmth and chocolate, while her stomach remained uneasy.

  Around eight, the phone rang. She snatched it up.

  It was a man whose voice was higher than Hank’s, but heavy with authority. “Yeah, hi, is this Gina Tolliver?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice suddenly clogged with fear. “Yes, I’m her.”

  “Are you related to Hank Tolliver?”

  “He’s my husband. What is it?”

  “Can you come get him, please?” He stressed the word please, as if it were the last scrap of courtesy he had left. “He’s in my son’s tree house, and he won’t come out. He scared the crap outta my kid, I don’t know how long he’s been in there. He even pulled up the rope ladder.”

  “Why?”

  “Heck if I know. He keeps asking if he can stay up there for a while. He’s not hurting anybody, but he won’t come down. He said his name was Hank Tolliver, and I looked him up in the white pages. The only Tolliver is you.”

  “I’m his wife,” Gina said, and then repeated herself, this time, more firmly. “I’m his wife. I’m coming.”

  •

  The tree house was quaint, wedged between the branches of a knobby oak. Gina stood beneath it and called up to Hank. “I just want to talk,” she said.

  A dejected voice emerged from within. “Is Cro Magnon Man with you?”

  “His name is Mr. Adler.” She couldn’t remember his first name though Cro Magnon seemed apt, in light of his sloping forehead and the ledgelike brow over his eyes. “This is his house.”

  “It used to be Helen’s house.”

  “Either way, we’re trespassing. The only reason Mr. Adler hasn’t called the cops yet is because his wife feels sorry for us.”

  “I feel sorry for her, too.”

  “Can you at least drop the ladder? It’s just me.”

  After a few moments of silence, a rope ladder wobbled down.

  Gina removed her flip-flops and clambered up the rungs. She hoisted herself belly first into the tree house, only to find Hank hunched in the corner, sitting cross-legged, his elbows on his knees. He was wearing navy socks. Exposed, they made him look like a giant, graceless boy.

  Gina sat in the opposite corner and waited for Hank to speak. She noticed a stack of newspapers beside him, all comics and crosswords beneath his gray felt fedora.

  “This was Helen’s house,” Hank said finally, as if they’d been arguing through the silence. “Five fifteen Burnham Heights. She moved in after we separated.” He peered through the cut-out window. Mr. Adler stood at the back door, his arms crossed in a territorial fashion.

  Hank sighed, then spoke in a softer voice. “She said she didn’t want anything to do with me or my money. She wanted to start over completely. So she bought this place, got a job at the library. I used to take the long way home sometimes, just to drive past her house. To see her without her seeing me.”

  Gina tore a dry leaf to pieces. “So this is where you’ve been every day? Peeping from some kid’s tree house?”

  Hank lowered his gaze. Maybe it was the dimming light, but his eyes had never looked more swollen. “Here or the library.”

  “Did you find her there?”

  “Oh no. She probably retired a long time ago.”

  “Well, she also remarried, if you want to know the truth.”

  Hank bowed his head. Gina almost wished she could take back the news, but she continued, quickly, hoping to minimize the pain. “I looked her up on the Web.”

  “What web?”

  “I think she lives in Illinois, but who knows, she could’ve moved again. She could have grandkids. She could be dead. You have no idea!”

  Hank blinked, quietly processing the news. He returned his gaze to the window, calm as the day Gina first met him. “Sometimes I think I see her in the kitchen, like before. I know it’s probably not her, but it’s a possibility. It’s better than nothing at all.” Hank looked at Gina. “I think you know the feeling.”

  Gina leaned back against the wall, averting her gaze so he wouldn’t see her tearing up. She concentrated on the potpourri of dried leaf in her palm. Yes, that was a feeling she knew very well.

  While Hank waited in the passenger seat of the car, Gina apologized to Mr. Adler, promising that Hank wouldn’t frequent the tree house anymore. As she drove Hank home, he stared straight ahead with the unseeing eyes of a st
atue, the brim of his fedora pulled down.

  Gina gripped the wheel with both hands as she tunneled through the fog. The car bobbed up and down hills, swung around sickled trees, not a single taillight or streetlamp to guide the way. Here she was, crawling along with Hank beside her, and never more frightened, more alone.

  At last Gina pulled into the half-circle driveway, but she didn’t turn off the car. They sat without speaking. She looked out the window at her pale, glowing house.

  She remembered moving into Jeremy’s house and how it shocked her, all the noises he made. Horking into the sink, or retorting at talk radio, or belting out the chorus of a song. It drove her crazy. Once, she heard a violently loud slapping sound coming from the bathroom. She knocked. He stood there, bare-chested, baffled, lotion on his hands. “What?” he said. “I’m just lotioning.” That was the story she had wanted to tell at his funeral, but she didn’t know if anyone would find comfort in it, or how to explain why she did.

  And now dread filled her chest at the thought of this silent house looming before her, and all the silent afternoons to come.

  Gina told Hank of her promise to Mr. Adler, that he wouldn’t return to the tree house anymore.

  “I can’t promise that,” Hank said finally.

  Gina nodded. For a moment, they said nothing.

  Hank placed his hand on the door handle. “Coming?”

  “You go ahead,” she said.

  “Scrabble?”

  “Not tonight. I need some rest.”

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  Gina shook her head.

  Hank lightly knocked his knuckles against the door. “I think I’ll put on a record.”

  Their eyes met, and Gina’s stomach clenched. “I’m sorry, Hank.”

  He gave a small shrug, and then: “We tried.”

  She watched him enter the house.

  After he closed the door, Gina continued around the driveway and idled at the curb. She looked up at the tower’s round, lit window like a second yellow moon. For an instant, she felt herself again on the front step of the Tolliver House, giddy and hopeful, about to meet Hank for the very first time. It wasn’t simply the house that had wooed her, or the cars, or the money, or even his cinematic smile. In marrying Hank, she thought she could marry herself to a realm where Jeremy still existed, even if only as the faintest echo between her ears.

  Gina turned onto the street, in the direction of her sister’s house. She took a narrow, empty road. Halfway there, she was stopped at a red light when she began to weep. Move on! Ami whispered in one ear. Wait, come back, Jeremy said in the other. And though no one was around, Gina pressed both hands to her car horn for three whole seconds. She then sat, breath held, in the silence.

  Acknowledgments

  • • •

  My heartfelt thanks to Nicole Aragi and Jordan Pavlin for their friendship and guidance. Thank you also to Christie Hauser, Leslie Levine, and the wonderful Knopf team. My friends and teachers from Columbia University put their effort and wisdom into these stories, with excellent last-minute assists by Jenny Assef, Alena Graedon, Nellie Hermann, and Karen Thompson. I am grateful to the Maru family for their open arms. Hannah Tinti, Maribeth Batcha, and Dave Daley—thank you.

  I am indebted to John Macarthy, lead paralegal of Timap for Justice and section chief of Bo Town, who provided much useful expertise for “What to Do with Henry,” as did Frans de Waal’s Chimpanzee Politics.

  Gama the Great and his brother Imam are historical persons, and in imagining a slice of their lives, I drew from the following sources: The Wrestler’s Body by Joseph S. Alter; Strong Men over the Years by S. Muzumdar; and “The Lion of the Punjab” by Graham Noble, from InYo: Journal of Alternative Perspectives on the Martial Arts and Sciences (May 2002).

  The magazine quote in “Girl Marries Ghost” is from “Hitched” by Ariel Levy, a book review that appeared in the January 11, 2010, issue of The New Yorker.

  And finally, my love and gratitude to my parents, for endless gifts; to Neena, Raj, and Christy, close readers and closest friends; and to Vivek, for entertaining this hermit with fruit, good humor, and good care.

  A Note About the Author

  • • •

  Tania James is the author of the novel Atlas of Unknowns. She has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She was raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and now lives in Washington, D.C.

  Aerogrammes

  by Tania James

  Reading Group Guide

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE:

  The questions below are intended for use in facilitating discussions of the stories and themes in Tania James’s marvelous story collection Aerogrammes. Set in locales as varied as London, Sierra Leone, and the American Midwest, James’s short fictions capture the yearning and dislocation of young men and women around the world. In the title story, two aging residents of a nursing home build a sustaining bond through problematic relationships with absent sons. In the heartbreaking “What to Do with Henry,” a young African orphan forges a critical relationship with a chimpanzee, who is consigned to life in captivity. In “Light & Luminous,” a gifted dance instructor succumbs to the desire to change the color of her skin. With wit, compassion, and an unerring sense of the absurd, James introduces us to a host of delicate, complicated characters who find themselves separated from their families and communities by race, pride, and grief.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Why is the book called Aerogrammes? What is the thematic implication of this title, and how does it transcend the title story? Discuss the symbolic meaning, to James, of the aerogramme.

  2. On the surface, “Lion and Panther in London” tells the story of two wrestling heroes, “Gama the Great” and Imam, the “Panther of the Punjab,” who come to London to claim the world title. But on a deeper level it is also a story about the tensions between East and West, and in particular the relationship between India and Britain. Can you discuss how these themes infuse the story with tension and meaning? And how they relate to the story’s title? Look in particular at the propaganda about Gama and Imam with which James has elected to begin the story.

  3. “Lion and Panther in London” ends with a paragraph that begins: “He says this so softly he could be talking to himself, if not for that one tender word, which Imam has not heard from him in years. It is as if they are eight and twelve again, and Gama has set him apart from everyone else—chotu. Imam feels himself rising to the word. Inglorious as it is, this is something for once only he can be.” How does the intimacy and emotion of this final paragraph reframe the story for the reader? How do these closing lines recast your perception of the nature of the brothers’ journey?

  4. In the story “What to Do with Henry,” how can Henry’s struggle to fit in and find a sense of belonging at the zoo be read as an allegory of our human strivings?

  5. What do you think of Pearl’s decision, in “What to Do with Henry,” to travel to Sierra Leone and to take responsibility for Neneh? What would you have done in this situation? Why do you suppose Pearl was prepared to adopt her husband’s illegitimate child?

  6. Discuss Pearl’s thoughts when she first sees Henry. Look in particular at the paragraph on this page that begins, “As Pearl reached for the chimp, she felt a rejuvenating sense of certainty, a rectitude with no moral or rational ground.” What is the nature of her epiphany here, and why is Henry the catalyst for it?

  7. What kind of analogy can be drawn between Neneh’s experiences in school and Henry’s experiences at the zoo?

  8. On this page, Neneh reflects that “by rescuing [Henry], they had ruined him.” She also wonders “if Pearl had felt similarly about rescuing her.” Discuss the parallels between Neneh and Henry’s journeys. Look in particular at the passage, on this page, where Pearl tells Neneh that Henry “can’t be two things at once.”

  9. How do you feel about the story’s conclusion, and the final confrontation between Henry and
Neneh at the zoo? When James writes, “And though he could not talk, they were communicating in a wordless language all their own, and he was thanking her, he was telling her that he loved her, he was promising her that she was not alone,” do you believe her? Is this intended to be taken at face value, or ironically?

  10. What is The Scriptological Review, and what purpose does it serve? How and why is Vijay using it to mourn his dead father?

  11. Discuss the relationship, in the title story, between Hari Panicker and May Daly. Is it harmful or sustaining? How does James use their struggles with their sons—Mr. Panicker’s actual son, Sunit, and May’s fictive son, Satyanand Satyanarayana—to illuminate their personal struggles?

  12. Is Mr. Panicker in denial? Is May? How did you feel about the story’s conclusion? May has misplaced her precious aerogrammes and insists that Mr. Panicker’s photograph of Sunit is a picture of her beloved Satyanand. Will May ever know the truth about her correspondence? Should she?

  13. What is the significance of Minal Auntie’s trip to the beauty salon in “Light & Luminous”? Do you think James intends the name of the facial Minal Auntie receives (the “Fairness Facial”) as a pun, and, if so, what does the pun imply about skin color? Look also at Aartie’s description of Minal Auntie’s advice to her on this page—“She said your color is your color, and there’s nothing you can do about it”—and Minal Auntie’s recollection of her own intentions at the time: “It seemed, at the time, like honesty, meant to equip the girl with a tougher skin” (this page). James uses the word “skin” both literally and figuratively here. Why, and to what end?

  14. How did you feel about the premise of “Girl Marries Ghost”? Did you find this story essentially comic or essentially tragic? What are the benefits of marrying a ghost?