“Thy kingdom comes,
Thy will be done, in heaven as it is in earth.”
Another deep breath, and:
“Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us.” Though she could feel herself recite the words, all she heard was the drum of uncertainty that beat against her temple. The sounds trailed obediently from her, and then she was finished: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever and ever.”
She thought there might have been clapping. Only one or two of the other girls had snickered at Viji’s mistakes. Even Shanta seemed not to know that anything was amiss. If everyone had laughed, if they’d gasped and cupped their hands over their mouths, at least Viji might have stopped. At least she wouldn’t have continued, as she had, into the warm, foul mouth of her errors. At least she might have shut up and sat down and not found herself standing here, in front of the priest and Shanta and everyone, her hand stretched out to Tall Dolores.
Thwack. The ruler came down on Viji’s palm. She felt nothing at first.
Thwuh. The ruler missed and there was quiet, hissing laughter.
“You moved your hand.” Tall Dolores grabbed her wrist and held it too tightly. “You think you don’t deserve this?” This time the ruler caught Viji squarely on the ridges of her palm, along the small hills that rose below her fingers. The sting shot across her heart line.
The class fell quiet, except for the rustle of the rosary. Sweet Dolores’s timid fingers fondled every bead. The priest cleared his throat and crossed his legs. When Viji looked at him, he smiled.
One more rapturous thwack, and Viji yanked her hand away. She began to cry. She blamed it, not on the ruler or the pain in her wrist or even Tall Dolores, but on the smile that seeped across the old priest’s face, at once pitying and spiteful, as if he’d expected precisely this. If he had gazed sternly at her, if he’d been as unfeeling as Tall Dolores, Viji would have been all right. But now she felt foolish and wronged, and the tears tasted like medicine. She saw herself, as if in a dream, crumple-faced, her mouth wide with weeping, her teeth bared. She knew the other girls were laughing at her and that she was weak. Nobody cried during these punishments. It was a rule among the girls: no crying during punishments.
Tall Dolores tapped her back with the ruler ,and Viji returned to her seat. She wanted to run from the room. She didn’t dare. But she couldn’t stop crying, either. Even after the urge had gone, she couldn’t put an end to the sharp and phlegmy inhalations. Her eyes ached but the tears continued, through the assembly, during the math lesson, and into the reading activity.
At some point in the middle of English, she found herself dry. The tears had petered out without her having even noticed. Her classmates had lost interest long before, and her teachers pretended not to care. Her breath was steady, her cheeks tight and stinging slightly.
By lunchtime, her face was tired. Her parts were loose and rattled in their casings. She filed to the canteen, as usual. Here, Shanta met her and held her left hand. Viji ate with her right, and had to put her food down when she wanted a sip of water.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with that lady,” Shanta said, her fingers gripping Viji’s, “I liked your speech.”
“It wasn’t a speech.”
“She was acting big for the priest, that’s all, that’s what everyone said.”
“I hate her.”
Shanta picked up her crispy fried vada and placed it on Viji’s plate. “I hate her too.” They ate in silence. “Don’t tell Appa.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t tell him what she did. Don’t tell Amma, either. She might tell Appa.”
“Why?” Viji asked again.
“You know why. He’ll do something. He won’t act properly.”
“He’ll get angry?”
“He’ll get very very angry.”
“Do you think he would come here?” She envisioned her father’s pointed face bearing down, into the orbit of Tall Dolores’s wimple, the old nun glaring back and clutching her rosary.
“Okay. Shanta Akka?”
“Yes?”
Viji paused. “I won’t tell.”
That night, Viji found Old Krishnan, the cook, in the kitchen. She showed him the faint pink band across her palm, and he gave her a whole laddu, golden and sweet and bigger than her wounded hand. She ran with it to her room, climbed under her bedsheet, and ate it in careful bites, until it was gone completely.
Viji sighed and sifted through the roses in her basket. She would find a good one for Appa. Before some of the frames in the puja room, she placed only clumps of petals. Some got whole roses, some got nothing, depending on her mood. For Appa, she would find a good one.
Though it wasn’t her fault, she sometimes felt guilty that there were no photos of her father in her house. She didn’t own one. Her family hadn’t kept photos in their home, at least not of the people who were living in it. And why should they have? They were all there all the time, the same old faces around the dinner table night after night, the same weary backs that shifted onto beds for afternoon naps and gathered in the kitchen in the evenings. Appa’s departure meant one less face, one less back, one less cup of coffee in the mornings. For those he left behind, it was easier to just forget him.
But now that he was gone, there would be a photo hanging in the family puja room in Madras, dug out of some dusty cabinet. She longed to see it, a real picture with impeccable lines: Appa’s nose, his eyes, his chin. Her own memory of him was shifty and blurred.
No one quite knew when Appa died, or how. Correction: someone must have known, for a telegram had come one day, but that someone wasn’t Viji. Instead of a picture, she had a rock for him, one that fit neatly in her palm, a luscious cream color with streaks of copper. She didn’t know where it had come from. She’d found it outside the pool house, just sitting there, one summer morning. She’d been nebulously aware of his death, but at the time, it had passed her by like a piece of local news, something to be known but not fully felt. “Where is it that you went, Appa?” she asked the rock. But it was only a rock, and had no answers.
All homes should have a puja room, and it should always be kept clean. Viji’s was hidden away at the top of the stairs. It was more a closet than a room. And because it was small, it was easy to maintain, though dust gathered easily, especially on the picture frames. The first picture she owned sat on the middle shelf: a print of Durga, the mother goddess, sitting on a tiger’s back. Her uncle had bought this outside the Tiruchi temple. The next oldest was the Nataraja statue; her dance teacher had given it to her, and she’d practiced in front of it when she was a girl. All the gods were here—Ganesha, Siva, Krishna, Lakshmi. But Viji liked Durga best, if favorites were allowed. Durga protected and destroyed. Viji had bought prints and statues of her, crammed other idols into corners to make more room for her.
A few years earlier, George had wanted to install a light fixture. Viji wouldn’t have it. Instead she lit the small oil lamps that hung from the ceiling, and a few sticks of incense. She could see well enough, and the dimness helped her concentrate. After eleven years, smoke from the lamps had turned the ceiling black. Three years earlier, Kieran and Avi and George had painted half the room light blue. The paint was uneven, smudged into dark patches, like it was in her house in India. Sometimes, the children sat here with her, all three of them, usually on Saturday mornings after their baths. Though today was Saturday, and they were in the pool. It was summer vacation, so they must have forgotten.
They would cross their legs like she told them to, their hands resting on small knees. While they closed their eyes, Viji kept hers open to watch the feathery movements of their lips. She watched for signs of their growing up—the sharpening of Babygirl’s nose, the thickening of Avi’s hair. She watched to see if they were becoming more like her. Her face had once been a package of small glories: her hair, her lips, th
e hedged thickness of her brow. At school they had called her Laughing Beauty. She was so daring back then, she should have been ashamed.
Once she had children, it felt silly to pay attention to herself. The triplets became her glories, piling into the world one after the other, Kieran’s head pushing on Avi’s toes, Babygirl screaming to be let out. It was as if they couldn’t wait to begin. But sometimes, passing a mirror or catching a glimpse of herself in a car window, she missed being the beautiful one. She used to line her eyes with kohl.
On the side wall were pictures of people who’d died. It seemed she had to add a new one every few years—now there were eleven. “Isn’t this a little morbid?” George once asked. “Doesn’t it bother you to be reminded of them?” She wasn’t bothered. She didn’t pray to them, but she could sense them watching. The pictures were a comfort, the people in them awake and ready. In a world run by Maple Grove housewives, these felt as real to her as she’d been to them.
They began about a foot off the ground, eye level when she sat down. The first she hung was a portrait of her mother. She’d been the first to die. People looked so stern in these black-and-white photos, but it hadn’t been normal back then to smile. The photograph had been taken just before her mother fell ill, so she still looked plump, her skin smooth, though a worry line cleaved her forehead. George’s mother was also on the wall. George had protested when he saw it.
“I don’t think my father would like this, Viji. He isn’t exactly open-minded.”
“But your father isn’t the one on the wall, George.” Open-minded or not, his wife hung there in a dark dress, hands folded in her lap, a sweep of pearls across her neck, eyes dark, hair falling over her shoulders.
There were young faces here as well. Her old classmate who had died when she was twenty-two. Viji’s cousin hung in a frame above her. He was grown, yes, but he would always be young. Next to him hung her friend Anjali, who’d been many years younger than she and called her Aunty. Viji had met her parents in line at a movie theater in Davis. In those days, and even now, it was always a surprise to see other Indians. Always, they smiled at each other. “Are you Indian?” they would ask, just in case someone wasn’t.“Which language do you speak?” This they had to know, even before they knew each other’s names.
After Viji met Anjali’s parents, the families began to see each other regularly. That is, Anjali and her parents would come to Viji’s house, and George would say hello before vanishing into his study. Then they would speak only in Tamil. Always, Anjali wore her hair in two braids, like she would have back home. Western clothes were forbidden; she even wore a salwar kameez to school. One night, as they were sitting at the dinner table with her parents, Anjali cut her mother off midsentence: “You’re so lucky you get to wear American clothes.” She looked straight at Viji.
“But I’m married,” Viji had replied, stupidly, as if this were a reason. She’d wished afterward that she had said something different.
Anjali wore two braids in the photograph. It was a school portrait, taken in the style that was popular in the seventies. A large, well-lit Anjali looked straight into the camera lens, while a smaller version hovered just above, in profile, looking up and into the distance. She’d given it to Viji the last time they’d met. “I want you to have me forever, Aunty.”
Two weeks later, Anjali was hit by a bus. She’d been walking to school, crossing the road, and hadn’t looked both ways. One week later, Viji had tried to phone Anjali’s mother, who didn’t want to speak to her. Soon after, the parents had moved back to India.
Sad eyes. Something, a draft perhaps, extinguished an oil lamp. Viji relit it. The flame flickered. I would have looked both ways, she told the photograph. The girl with braids only stared back, steady and cold.
And between Viji’s legs, fire. Heat moved between her thighs and into her bladder, which flamed urgently. She descended from the puja room. Bathroom, door closed, and nothing came. She strained. It had been there a moment ago. Now, only the warm air. The clock in the living room chimed nine. It was already hot. Her hair was still wet from her shower, dripping down her back, soaking her blouse. She left it. The urge would come again.
The house was quiet, the hallway empty.
“Babygirl!” she called. “Kieran. Avi!”
They would still be in bed. Lazy. When she was eleven, she couldn’t wait to get up. Each morning she would wake at dawn to the sound of barking dogs and the clip-clop of a bullock cart, and run outside to find the servants boiling water in outdoor cauldrons. Old Krishnan would pour her a steaming cup of water, then stir in milk with a spoonful of chicory. By nine o’clock, she would have had her breakfast, taken a bath, prayed, braided her hair, dressed, and practiced her dancing.
“Avi!”
She opened the door to Babygirl’s room. The bed was empty and unmade. On the floor, the boys’ sleeping bags lay in rumpled heaps.
She wouldn’t worry. They would be swimming, or eating cereal in front of the television, which they weren’t allowed to do.
The kitchen was silent. There were no cereal boxes left open, no milk dribbles or scattered Cheerios on the countertop. Through the bay window, the day was bright and cloudless. And the water in the pool was still. Her mouth went dry. She pushed away the old nightmare, the thought of three small bodies floating in the pool, suddenly unable to swim. Nonsense.
She pushed the sliding door open.
“Kieran!”
Silence.
“Kieran!”
She noticed a towel drying in the sun, slung over the yellow patio chair. Stan’s leather shoes waited beside it. She was about to call again, when she heard a rustle from the rosebushes that bordered the far side of the pool.
“What’s going on back there? Kieran? Answer me.”
The voices grew louder—giggling and hushing as she approached.
“Kieran?” She called again, then walked to the rose bushes.
Disgust. Horror. Her boys stood, pants down, pissing on her roses. Even her daughter squatted in the shade of a floribunda shrub, her hand over her mouth, eyes creased with glee. And watching all this, smugly, was Stan.
“What is this?” Viji demanded. Babygirl lowered her hand and stopped smiling.
“Just fertilizing the roses, love.”
Viji glared at Stan.
“Well, you could stand by and watch these shrubs get blackspot. Or you could learn a thing or two from me.”
“I don’t want my children—relieving themselves in public.”
Stan looked around, at the sky, at the eucalyptus trees that bordered the yard.
“Are we in public?”
She turned to her boys, who stood now with their swim shorts up.
“You should have known better.”
Avi shrugged.
“Grandad did it first.”
The trace of a pale gold puddle lingered under a floribunda bush, then sank into the dark soil. The smell of piss hung hot in the morning air. The thought of Stan’s piss, yellow and frothy, made Viji gag.
“Sorry, Mom,” Kieran said, followed by another “sorry.” And, quietly, a third.
Her floribunda shrubs were bushy and bursting. Clusters of pink roses sprang from each stem. She looked at Stan, who stood gazing at the trees above, planning to piss on them as well, Viji assumed.
“Okay,” she said. “Come eat.” She turned and walked to the house. A few moments later, light footsteps followed behind.
“Babygirl, sit down.”
Her daughter hoisted herself onto a kitchen stool and rested her brown elbows on the countertop. It was late afternoon, and the boys were watching cartoons. Babygirl still wore her swimsuit, and her skin was darker than ever from that morning’s swim. Her hair, by contrast, was nearly blond, toughened into ropes by chlorine. Instead of showering, she’d gone to her room after swimming and put on her new bracelets. Viji brought her a pudding pop from the freezer and stroked her head, smoothing down the stray hairs.
“You h
ave fun with Grandad, don’t you?”
Babygirl nodded and tore the wrapper from her popsicle. “He’s nice.”
“Is he nice to the neighbors? When he goes to visit?”
Babygirl shrugged. “I guess so.”
“When you went to the Bauers’ house, was he nice there?” Viji imagined Stan trickling urine onto their rosebushes.
“Yes.”
“And did Mrs. Bauer talk to him? Was he nice to her?”
Babygirl’s eyes grew wide.“Sure. But you know what?”
“What?”
“If Grandad was nice to anyone, it wasn’t Mrs. Bauer. It was Loopy.”
“Who’s Loopy?”
“The maid.”
Lupe, the Bauer’s housekeeper, cleaned houses around the neighborhood. George had offered to hire her, but Viji didn’t want a stranger cleaning her home.
“And what is Loopy like?”
“She’s Mexican, I think. That’s what Erin Bauer, told me anyway. And when Grandad was talking to her, he was, like, leaning against the side of the house.” She jumped off the stool and left her popsicle on the counter to demonstrate. “And Loopy was standing kind of like this.” Babygirl leaned against the kitchen wall, one leg crossed over the other, her hip cocked comically to one side, her flat chest stuck out.
“How do you know he liked her.” Viji asked.
“Well, he was leaning over, sort of, and talking really close to her. Which is what a man does when he likes a woman.” Viji hid her surprise and let Babygirl continue. “And I don’t blame Grandad. Loopy is way prettier than Mrs. Bauer, and plus she isn’t married or a mom—at least that’s what Erin Bauer told me. And she wears red lipstick, even when she’s working. And you know what else? She wears purple jelly sandals, the exact same color as my jelly bracelets.” She held her hand out proudly and jiggled the purple rubber rings around her wrist. Melting chocolate began to pool across the counter. Babygirl clicked her tongue, picked up her pudding pop, and licked the line of chocolate that was trailing down her arm.
The Prayer Room Page 5