“…not taking this seriously! We are not ready to have your father in our house!”
George pulled the covers over his head. “Why not? I think we are.”
“We have no room to put him in, in case you didn’t notice.”
“It’s a big house. He’s fine in the boys’ room for now.”
“For now. And then? And then, George? And then?”
George threw the covers off and sat up. It was Saturday. Viji was like this on Saturdays. Always. “So what now? You want me to get up now and refurbish the guest house? Is that what you’re saying?”
Viji pouted. “Go back to sleep. I’m not saying you have to do it now.” With a quick twist, she wound her hair into a bun, picked up the laundry basket, and left the room. George sighed. Another morning, he might have been given tea in bed. He might have lain twisted around Viji, her soft folds melted halfway into his. Or best of all, he might have been left to wake up alone, to draw himself from the spiraling flush of dreamworld back to the pinpoint of reality. With the curtains closed, it was dark in this room. With the curtains drawn and the maroon walls and green bedspread, it was always autumn in this room, even when the outside was August. He stood. His legs were hot in their pyjamas. Curtains closed, autumn. Curtains open, summer, blinding white.
America. For George, before he knew better, America was a hilly jumble of shop fronts, fire escapes, hot dog vendors and steaming potholes. America was Humphrey Bogart and Woody Allen and Diana Ross and Andy Warhol. It was lipstick and disco and blues and pizza and sex and black coffee and boys in tweed caps shouting, Extra extra read all about it. It was Alcatraz and Ellis Island and the reflecting pool at the Washington Monument, Hare Krishnas and flower children and that woman sticking a daisy in the muzzle of a gun. It was where people ate Chinese takeout straight from the carton and walked down busy sidewalks arguing about something esoteric with the friend they’d bedded once in college. George had stepped off the Greyhound bus expecting all of this.
Instead, he’d found Sacramento. He wasn’t the first. There were the natives before him, then the settlers and the gold miners, then the businessmen and senators and civil engineers and urban developers and doctors and nurses and teachers and Avon ladies and donut shop franchisees. Its fresh pavement sank in the shimmering heat of summer and whipped up a harsh freeze in the winter months. When he first moved to Sacramento (with Viji and her suitcases and her hanging brass lamps that made everything heavy), it was a city pockmarked by empty lots. Bordering these were gray and green eucalyptus trees. From the heart of downtown rose the dome of the state capitol, surrounded by rose gardens in a neighborhood where people never walked alone at night. Its storefronts were criminally ugly and separated from the road by vast parking lots. The closest restaurant to their small apartment was a drive-through sausage hut. The closest thing to a pub was a place called the Hard Luck Saloon.
George and Viji drove every week to the supermarket in their secondhand Impala, and on Thursday nights they watched Three’s Company. Viji stayed home every day while George went to his office at the university. She took English for Foreigners at the city college but stopped going after a few weeks, telling George she spoke so much better than the other students that every time she opened her mouth, she felt she was showing off. Now and then, they went to the movies downtown and parked as close to the theater as possible because Viji didn’t like the lonely streets or the dark. But by the time they moved out of their apartment and into the house on Winding Creek Road, things had begun to change.
And by the time the children started school, Sacramento had grown into a typical suburban city with cineplexes and shopping malls and gyms. A jazz festival came through town each May, and high school bands played at the annual Memorial Day parade. Now Sacramento had festivals and outdoor cafés that closed at seven o’clock. In the summers it had Shakespeare in the Park. There was a French café downtown for the people who preferred not to be seen at malls. Sacramento was trying to be a city other than itself. As to whether this was a bad thing, George just wasn’t sure.
The neighborhood of Maple Grove was set apart from the rest of the city by an entrance of arching oaks. Its roads spread like hair through the tree shadows, dipped and climbed into hills, and sprouted, every so often, a dark and dingy creek. The Sacramento Bee’s real estate section called it “ritzy, rustic; a new suburban paradise.” Viji cut out the article and pasted it into a photo album. There were no sidewalks in Maple Grove, only bushes and wooden fences bordering the streets. Houses stood far apart, sprawling ranch-style across acre-long yards, masking the swimming pools and cherry trees that lay behind. Every Fourth of July, the residents of Maple Grove gathered at the corner of Rockwood and Maple Glen to kick-start a parade that wound around the southern border, down Winding Creek Road, and across Ladino Lane. It never ventured into other neighborhoods. The parade ended at the house of whichever mother wanted it most, and the children ate watermelon and sang, You’re a grand old flag you’re a high-flying flag and forever in peace may you wave, you’re the emblem of the land I love in the home of the free and the brave.
For the rest of the year, the streets of Maple Grove lay mostly empty, aside from the few residents who took their evening strolls and walked their dogs to poop next to other people’s lawns. Only Mexican gardeners could be seen during the day. They angled leaf blowers at the road and stepped back for passing cars. At four o’clock, the leaf blowers shut off and the pickups drove home. The rumble of their engines faded, gaving way to shouts from distant swimming pools.
But every neighbor knew at least one other neighbor, and news of Stan’s arrival traveled fast. Elena Feldman was the first to bring a cake, baked at home and smothered with chocolate. She rapped on the kitchen window one afternoon, called yoo hoo, and greeted Viji as if they were old pals. She was more than charmed to meet Stan, who kissed her hand and followed her every movement with his eyes. But she wasn’t nearly as charmed as Marcia Fromm, whose great-grandfather was English, who brought frosted cupcakes, and who insisted that Stan come for tea the next day. You mustn’t keep him to yourself, she scolded Viji. Viji managed to smile as she poured scalding water into a teapot. A new neighbor, a bona fide English neighbor, was something that had to be seen. Of course, the fact that George was and always had been English seemed irrelevant. George had been in Sacramento so long that he was pretty much an American. And so, when Stan wasn’t smoking on a deck chair, he was touring a neighbor’s house. It didn’t seem to matter that Viji had never seen the insides of these houses. When he returned from such visits, he had little to say. From his silence, Viji could assume only that he wasn’t impressed, and that the efforts of the Maple Grove ladies were wasted on a man like Stan.
CHAPTER FOUR
Stan removed his trousers and spread them on the deck chair. The seat was hot and would burn the backs of his very white thighs if he wasn’t careful. He unbuttoned his shirt, removed it, and hung it on the back of the chair. He began to take his undershirt off, but thought twice. Easy now, Stan. Take it slow. Removing his black leather shoes, he lined them up at the foot of the chair. He didn’t wear socks. Too hot. Hot as Spain, this. The pool was kidneyshaped and clear, free of shade, a few leaves floating at one end, and bordered by cement that baked in the afternoons. He’d never been in a house with a pool. He lit a fag, settled into his deck chair, and closed his eyes. Tobacco in his nostrils, sun against his eyelids. There was nothing better. In the soft pillow of heat, he could relax. No fear of a sudden chill wind, or of a finicky sun that cooled itself on a whim or dodged behind a cloud for no reason. The weather here was like a good woman: warm and constant, never threatening to abandon a man before he abandoned her.
He thought of Marla, his wife. Marla had been an artist in every sense. She had painted frescos for people with too much money who liked to think of themselves as lords and ladies. Mostly, these people lived in the Park, the wealthy part of Nottingham. Their fathers had owned the old lace factories, then used
that money to make more money. Stan’s father had been a cabbie, Marla’s a factory foreman. But the posh folk welcomed Marla with open arms, went on waiting lists for her, talked about her like she was the secret of the century, and all because she did some pretty drawings on their walls. Eventually, one of them got it into his head to put a painting on his ceiling. And so Marla obliged. She painted those ceilings quicker and better than Michelangelo.
Stan used to go along to help on his days off. He’d stand below Marla, handing up tint mixes, soaking and drying brushes. From below she looked like a sculpture— atall and strong body atop a ladder and platform, one arm held high to the ceiling, the other poised beside her hip. Black hair hung down her back. Her breasts, from below, were golden pears, round weighty fruits that pressed against the cloth of her shirt. He watched her paint angels, fat and naked things with special names that Marla knew but that Stan could never remember. They had trumpets and wings, and sat on rocks next to men with long beards. Marla wouldn’t eat while she painted. Go on, Stan would urge. Just a quick one. He’d hold sandwiches up to her, shake his thermos, try to tempt her with the hot tea inside. Just two ticks, she would say, I’ll just finish up on this. And then she’d ignore him. She ignored the lady of the house who clopped through in high heels, bringing her friends to watch. She ignored the maid who came in to polish the wood floor. She ignored the three o’clock ruckus of children coming home from school, even though George would be reaching home that very minute, opening the door to their empty row house, dumping his coat on the floor, and making himself a sandwich. Two ticks turned into two hours, and then more, until Stan gave up and, sitting by himself on the floor of the rich person’s house, opened the sandwich box and ate. He always saved two halves for Marla.
She went up every morning tough and straight, and came down every evening speckled with paint, eyes dark and tired. It troubled Stan that his wife had to work. If he could, he’d have given her her own grand house to paint. Or he would have hired painters for her, and sent her out with a bag of money to buy hats with her lady friends. Eventually, the ceilings did her in. Like nails hammered into her neck, she said. Her back burned, and she rubbed salve into her aching arms each night. But there was only one way to paint a ceiling. He was tempted at times to tell the posh people to sod off, to leave his wife in peace. But two shits don’t make a shilling, and it was best to let her work. If the Sistine Chapel was what they wanted, Marla would deliver. In the end, she was a better soul than any of them.
He felt a pull of guilt when he thought of his wife. Leaving Nottingham had meant leaving her. But Stan had had no choice—memories of Marla didn’t pay the bills, and he couldn’t drive a cab forever. He’d locked the windows and shoved the door shut against a rising hill of post. They fell through the letter slot every day, those envelopes with mean little windows. They started out white and over the months turned pink. He couldn’t pay a penny toward the water bill, and they were threatening to turn it off. Well, do it then, he’d wanted to say. But there was no one to say it to. He couldn’t pay his phone bill, either, but that didn’t stop it from coming every month, the number at the bottom of the page growing like a blister. Absurd, when he thought of it, since he never used the phone— who was there to call? But when he rang to get his service discontinued (the first call he’d made in weeks), the confusion of it was too much to handle, the rigmarole of operators and the identification codes they kept asking for. Not to mention that they wouldn’t cut his service until he’d paid his bill. Well, he said, if I could pay my bill, I wouldn’t be cutting my service, would I? He’d also been ignoring the invoice from the furniture store that had sold him the new sofa after the old one surrendered to fleas. They told him he’d have a year to pay for it. They hadn’t told him about the interest they’d charge. Bailiffs had started coming around, bald men with earrings, banging on the door in the early hours of the morning, when Stan was still naked and sipping his tea or huddled in bed with the covers over his ears. They were modern-day bounty hunters, and they had no respect for penniless old bastards like him. He could hear the neighbors open their windows and doors to see what the commotion was about. Soon the bailiffs would stop. Now that Stan was gone, the neighbors could say, truthfully, that they had no idea where he’d gotten to.
The door slid open and the boys came out. The children didn’t dress in the summer, just wore swim shorts all day, every day. Into the pool they jumped every morning, first hopping and shivering in the cold water, then dunking themselves in again and coming up smiles. Stan decided he would tell them about Marla. In fact, he had a whole host of things to tell them. He watched them run past the pool and to the pool house.
Things to tell the boys about (and the girl):
MAKING ROSES GROW PROPER MUGS OF TEA HOW TO ASK A WOMAN ON A DATE HOW TO LET A WOMAN DOWN EASY WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU’RE LOST IN A CITY YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO BEFORE HOW TO TELL IF A BLOODY LAYABOUT’S ABOUT TO VOMIT IN YOUR CAR HOW TO WIN AN ARGUMENT WHAT TO DO IF YOU LOCK YOUR KEYS IN A CAR THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOOD LAGER AND AMERICAN PIGEON-PISS BREATHING UNDERWATER (THE IMPORTANCE OF) RODGERING A WOMAN AGAINST A BRICK WALL (THE MECHANICS OF) (WOULD PROBABLY BE BEST TO LEAVE THE GIRL OUT OF THIS ONE) CARVING A ROAST DOING A BACKFLIP RETURNING A PURCHASED ITEM WITHOUT A SALES SLIP EVEN AFTER YOU’VE USED IT CHANGING A BUSTED WHEEL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN EXCUSE AND A REASON.
“Grandad!” The boy flapped his hand, calling him over to the pool house. “Grandad!” he called again. Stan didn’t want to get up, but he did.
Next door, at 3710, the Bauers had a real-life waterslide. The skinny one had climbed the pool-house wall and perched there, one hand blocking the sun from his eyes.
“What do you mean, a slide?” the pudgy one asked. He still stood on the ground, fingers tight around Stan’s wrist.
“A real slide, like at Water World. It goes straight into the pool, and it’s twisty.”
“No way.”
“It’s true, I swear.”
“Well, bloody hell, stop spying and go play on it,” Stan said.
The boys looked at each other, and then back at their own quiet house. The sound of splashing trailed over from the Bauer pool.
“What?”
The pudgy one shrugged.“I don’t think we’re supposed to.”
“Why not?”
“Mom said it would be rude.”
“To go without being invited,” the skinny one added.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, you’re only children. You don’t need an invitation.”
The boy shrugged. Stan sighed. He eyed the deck chair, where his clothes lay spread, sleeping in the sun.
“Come on, then. I don’t have a calling card, but I think I can get you an audience.”
The boys whooped, and the skinny one jumped down from the wall.
“Where’s the other one?” Stan asked.
“What other one?”
“The girl one.”
“She’s inside.”
“She still poorly?”
The pudgy one shook his head.“But Mom said she still has lesions and the sun’ll make them scar.”
“Well, bollocks to that.”
Kieran didn’t know what bollocks were, but he knew that he’d have to get Babygirl. He and Avi burst into her room, and with sun-warmed arms they pulled her out of bed. She was already wearing her swimsuit.
CHAPTER FIVE
A few rules: never wear shoes in the puja room. Never go in dirty, or before taking a shower. Never enter during the first three days of menstruation. Refresh the flowers and water daily. Sit with your legs crossed or tucked beneath the body, but never with your feet stretched forward. Never blow out the flames of the oil lamps—wave them or snuff them out. The left hand shouldn’t be used unless absolutely necessary. Every puja room has a small bell, to be rung during prayers, a pot of vermillion and one of vibhuti, the soft gray ash that’s dabbed on the forehead after prayer.
Viji had learned her prayers as a child, a stock reperto
ire of Sanskrit chants. She didn’t always know what they meant, but she’d said the words so many times that they were part of the low, constant hum of her thoughts. Sometimes she caught herself chanting in the car, at the supermarket, while washing the dishes. These came easily to her, mouthfuls of five and six syllables that tumbled from her lips with no more effort than it took to breathe. She knew what some, but not all, of the words meant. All she really needed were the sounds, soft allegros on her tongue.
There were, of course, the other prayers she’d learned from the nuns at the convent school—weighty, admirable passages with solid words that Viji could never get quite right. With them came the memory of a sharp slap, fire across her palm, two Doloreses (Tall and Sweet), and the priest. Kingdom come, thy will be done. They smelled of mahogany, these words; they sang of wood resin and choking frankincense.
Viji was aware that she’d been standing like this for several seconds, listening to the breathing of her classmates, as loud as a cricket chorus in the silent room. It was girls’ assembly, and forty brown faces waited. Viji was aware of the hand, her left hand, that gripped her right arm, worrying the scaly skin of her elbow. How many times had the sisters told her not to stand like this? She glanced over at Tall Dolores, whose face was a cloud of pretend tranquility. Sweet Dolores sat in the corner, gripping a rosary. The visiting priest sat next to her, important and old and beige and plain, a face like a canvas bag.
Her sister sat in the second row, the only smile amid the jumble of gray uniforms. She closed her eyes. Just look at me and finish it and sit down, Shanta had told her. She grinned foolishly now, and Viji had to curl her lips in to keep from smiling back. Before she began, she took a breath, as Tall Dolores had taught her.
“Our father, which art in heaven, hollow be thy name.” Asharp glance from Dolores to Dolores, and four eyes shot to Viji. The priest rubbed at his lips, as if brushing away breakfast crumbs.
The Prayer Room Page 4