The Prayer Room

by Shanthi Sekaran

  “You sound like the Queen.”

  “There’s an unlikely pairing.”

  He laughed.

  “And?” she asked.

  He knew what she meant. And what of his life now, over there: wife and three children who had just turned three, fragile and frightening and as packed with latent destruction as eggs balanced on the lip of a spoon. On the opposite end of a twelve-hour flight, his future awaited him. Here, in stocking feet, was his past.

  She didn’t have to ask the questions, he knew them already. Was he happy? Yes, of course. And his wife? She has a name, you know. And yes, he could only presume she was happy, though she had cried when he’d left for the airport, but she was prone to such leaps of emotion and he knew how fond she was of his mother. Victoria went upstairs and George lay awake on the sofa until after five, when he finally drifted off, and was woken an hour later by the kettle.

  He stayed for three weeks, and so did Victoria.

  “You don’t have to stay, you know, Victoria.”

  “I want to, George. It won’t be long now, will it?”

  “I suppose not.”

  His father disappeared in the mornings and returned at dinnertime. No one knew where he went. “You’d think he’d want to be here now, of all times,” George said. He didn’t care that he sounded bitter.

  Victoria shrugged. “It may be easier, you know, for him to not be here.”

  In the afternoons George took walks with his mother, slow, creaking walks to Sneinton Dale, each day’s walk a more stringent exercise in perseverance. It felt strange, at first, to be back on his old street after six years away. He recognized the crack in the pavement that he’d leapt over every day, running for the bus stop, his toothbrush in his back pocket and half a mug of tea sloshing in his hand.

  Marla was young still, too young to be acting so old. He tried to urge her a bit further each day.

  “A bit farther Mum, to the lamppost.”

  “I’m not feeling up to it, George.”

  “Sure you are, I’m certain you are.”

  “I’m tired today.”

  “Never mind that, you can do it! I’m sure you can!”

  “Stop acting so American, George.”

  The walks grew shorter. Soon they moved from Sneinton Dale to their short street, then to the front door, until at last they extended only between the bedroom and the bathroom. She was stubborn, more stubborn than ever now that she saw the end. It was clear that she’d decided to die, and there was no one to talk her out of it. But George pushed her anyway, not because he thought she’d recover, but because he couldn’t bear to see her give up. The painkillers gave her terrible wind, an embarrassing rumpus that she couldn’t control. But George found it comforting. In those last days, it was the only vigorous thing that came from her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tea bags , Stan thought. She would want tea bags in the kitchen for whoever stopped in, and Victoria sponge, she’d told him to buy Victoria sponge, and her pearls, she would want to wear those bastard pearls, and her shoes—where did she keep her shoes, and what shoes did she wear? What shoes did she even wear? And there was a book, wasn’t there? A book about a girl that she had wanted put in with her, or was it a book of poems—yes—a book of poems from that bloke who lived by the lake and didn’t pay his council tax—was it poems or just words?—what was his name and where was that book? Of course in her bookshelf, where else, and then there was the pipe she’d shownhim wasn’t there, someone or other—the Egyptians—they’d been buried with their pipes. It was in here somewhere in this drawer it was in this drawer where she kept those sorts of odds and ends, oh hell she made a list and what did he do with it? What did he do with that list?

  George woke to a distant shriek, fading, and the memory of a fat black hand pushing out from his closet door. His dreams had a dark edge now. This had begun, he supposed, with adulthood. He slid out of bed for a piss. Through the bathroom’s square window the night was still blue. An owl called, its voice a cool bassoon.

  It was hunger that woke him. His belly muttered with hot indignation. In the kitchen he found a banana. He poured himself a glass of milk. This had been his mother’s cure for insomnia. He opened a jar of peanut butter and dipped the banana in, dipping again after every bite. He left pale yellow threads behind, banana film squashed like mucus into the jar. His nerves had settled. He cherished this time of night, when he managed to cross its path. A single lit room in the middle of a dark house, the domain of jet lag, of final exams and midnight snacks. He crammed the last bite into his mouth and swallowed the milk down before he’d even finished chewing. This was satisfaction.

  At that hour of the night, hearing was easy. The clink of shades against the sliding door, the clear rustle of dried leaves. He blinked, and peered from the kitchen into the family room. A breeze moved through the house.

  “Hello,” he called, quietly, in case he was being foolish. The screen door was open. His breath caught in his throat. “Hello,” he called, louder. “Who’s there?” It could have been a ghost or a strong raccoon. There was no answer, and hardly a sound. He picked up a whisk. No, too airy. He found a potato peeler in a drawer, good for gouging the eyes. Stepping out of the kitchen, he felt for the television and skirted the coffee table, making his way through the blackened family room. He moved wincingly, expecting at any second to be seized and smothered. He raised the potato peeler. “I’m armed,” he called.

  And then he saw. The backyard was a shallow well of moonlight, and at its center was the pool. It lay tranquil despite the breeze, unblinking. It turned to gaze back at him, a subterranean eye. Beyond the water, lit by a quivering reflection, he saw his father. “Dad!” he shouted, but Stan didn’t hear. George stepped outside. “Dad!” The sound fell into the night. As George drew closer, he could see that it wouldn’t matter how loud he shouted. Stan squatted in the dark soil by the pool house, wearing only his pajamas. His hands shook with cold, his fingers rifled through the dirt, as if he were sifting it, searching for something. He worked busily, now and then throwing a bit of dirt over his shoulder. George stomped toward him. “Dad!” he called. Stan looked into the distance, but his eyes never settled on George.

  George jogged to reach his father and put his hands on his shoulders. Never wake a sleepwalker, he remembered—the shock could kill them. He stepped away quickly. Stan’s shoulders shook and the tremors reached his voice as he mumbled.

  “Marla?” Stan said, the name rising like a question. The syllables rang clearly, there was no mistaking them. “Marla,” he said again, growing impatient. He began slapping at the dirt, bare-fingered punishment for not yielding his Marla. George stood up and watched. He had seen this before.

  Marla was buried in Sneinton Cemetery. George had always assumed she’d be scattered at sea, or buried in a grassy dale in the sun, somewhere in Devon or on the southeast coast, where it was sunny, where gulls cried and swooped. “Rubbish idea,” she’d said. “This is my home.” It was a rainy and gray day, and they were black-clad, moving slowly through the burial ground. It was a funeral from a film, George had thought, looking at the people around him. Even the hippies and the artists had put on their funeral costumes, even they knew how to mourn. George did not know how. He was numb, watching through a looking glass. The others threw clumps of dirt on the pale polished wood of the casket. His father threw the last clump, and then it was George’s turn. Stepping to the middle of the group, where the preacher held a basket of earth, he scooped up a respectful handful, just enough to cover his palm. A moment later the wind picked up and swept some of the soil from his palm. He watched the brown granules race off his hand, scattering in the wind and landing nowhere near his mother’s casket. He was aware that the others were watching, waiting for him to do something normal. But there seemed no point in it; it was just as good to stand there, letting the dirt fall through his fingers, like hourglass crystals. When the breeze died down, a few large clumps remained in his hand. These he threw
onto the casket, where they landed and broke into sand.

  He closed his eyes, counted to five, and then walked back to stand with Stan. The preacher said some words, a woman in a hat with black netting sobbed audibly. He hadn’t seen her before. There was a shell around him, and off it pinged the light drizzle, the preacher’s words, the hymn sung by resolute voices, the shadow of the gravedigger who stood nearby with his shovel and waited for them to finish. But like any shell, his was meant to crack. A few people George vaguely recognized walked up and hugged him. They didn’t hug Stan, who stared without blinking at the stone slabs of the church.

  It began when the first person left, walking off with that steady slow gait that was meant to show respect. Leave them alone, it said, let them say goodbye. Others followed. The group dripped away, like black water from a faucet. And with each empty space, Stan’s eyes grew wider until he was looking wildly around, at the trees, at the sky, at George. “No.” He said it calmly, as if someone had asked him a question. No, this wasn’t happening, was what he meant, and George agreed. “Not yet,” Stan shook his head frantically and then he was down on his knees, stooping far into the grave and scooping out the dirt, throwing handfuls of it over his shoulder, undoing what had been done. He didn’t stop, not when George pulled at his sleeve, not even when the gravedigger stalked over or the priest murmured useless platitudes. Dirt flew and covered them all, it landed in Victoria’s eyes, powdered George’s shirt and did not stop until George wrapped his arms around his father and pulled him away, tackling him to the ground. They lay together for a few seconds, their heads resting in the peaty grass, both of them as close to Marla as they would ever be.

  George had heard his father cry then, for the first and only time. Stan had been rigid and bulky in his arms, and he remembered how holding him hurt his elbows. The shell around his father, hard and blemished, had finally cracked. George’s breath came in winded gasps and above them, Victoria stood and waited. The priest walked away, the gravedigger chewed and waited. Then they were in a car, driving home, and it was done.

  Now, beyond the pool, the bushes sat like sentries bearded with leaves. Stan’s pajamas were soaked. There was nothing for George to do but watch. He brought Stan’s coat out and draped it over his shoulders. The deck chair scraped on the pavement when George sat down. It was a warm night for December, and a still one. The air was sharp, waiting for wind, waiting for something. It lasted five minutes more and then Stan rose, teetered on his heels, and let the jacket slip from his shoulders. He walked back inside and left the sliding door open. George picked up the potato peeler and followed him in, closingthe door and locked it.

  Victoria had stayed with them for a week after the funeral, though no one had asked her to. Stan barely noticed she was there, but as she told George, she hadn’t come to be noticed. George was due to go home himself, and he looked forward to the flight, to those long hours in the air when nobody would know what had happened to him.

  He had to go through Marla’s possessions, Victoria said. Stan would never get around to it. Two piles, she said: keep and throw. In the throw pile: Marla’s shoes, old boots and sandals that were faded and stiff from not being worn. Her clothes, most of them. George was sorry to see them go, the rainbow caftans, the faux-fur collars, the shapeless crocheted concoctions. Viji would wear none of these. He couldn’t imagine who would. He kept a blue cardigan that smelled of Marla.

  “It smells of patchouli,” Victoria said, sniffing deeply. “And potatoes.”

  “Stop that.” He snatched it from her. “You’ll use up the smell.”

  In the keep pile: her leather gloves, buttersoft. A cameo brooch that she had never worn but looked expensive. Most of her jewels were old junk, and had taken on the rancid smell of aging metal. And then, of course, there were the earrings. They twinkled sadly in her box, blue stars in a moonless sky. He slipped them into his pocket.

  From across the room, “I’m sorry, George.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry.” She stood with her arms hugged around her chest. “This is really awful, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged, “She was ill, Victoria.”

  “Well, of course she was.” She kneeled next to him, on the throw pile. “But it’s awful, isn’t it?” He shrugged again. There was nothing to be done about it. Women needed to say things aloud. She began to cry then, meekly at first, then in racking half-sobs, improperly formed.“It’s fucking awful, this.” She picked up a bracelet, dropped it.

  “It’s rubbish,” he agreed. “It’s the shittiest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

  When she moved into his arms, it felt natural. She had been there before. There was nothing exciting about Victoria. To him she was home. She rubbed his edges away. He wanted to tell her he disliked her hairstyle. She’d gotten one of those perms, and it frayed her hair, made it dry and frantic at the ends. He distracted himself with this as her arms braceleted his waist, as her hands slid up to his chest. She was unbuttoning his shirt. And he was letting her.

  “I don’t like your hair,” he said.

  “I don’t care.” He tangled his fingers into that mess of hair, and found it surprisingly soft. His fingers slid down to pull up her sweater and she shrieked. “Your hands are cold.”

  “Sorry.”

  He knew the ridges of her spine and the plains of her back; they were as familiar to his fingers as a relief map of England. He knew the circumference of her waist. It had stayed the same over those few years. And here were the small nubs at the ends of her shoulder blades, the ones that fit neatly between his lips. He didn’t need to touch her breasts, he knew everything about them from their warmth. And her small, feverish mouth. This was Victoria. George was a blind man who didn’t need to see.

  For a moment he feared that Stan would walk in, but Stan had gone to sleep in George’s old room, not wanting to come back to this bed, not tonight.

  Soon they lay without clothing, pillowed and blanketed by piles of old cloth, the crumbs of his mother’s life. The two piles had seeped into each other, and among them were strewn George and Victoria’s clothes. He could see that her lips were swollen and red. He pawed at the raised red speckles around her mouth. “Sorry,” he said, “I haven’t shaved.” She felt her own face, then looked into his and said nothing.

  When she sat up, her breasts dangled onto her stomach. She surveyed the room. “It’s buggered now,” she said. “We’ll have to start all over again.”

  Back, now, to George’s office, the smooth leather armchair he’d bought with department funding. Outside the office, the noisy Christmas party trailed from the hallway to the faculty lounge, where an open bar had been set up. A ruckus of music and yelled conversation—why people had to yell at parties, George would never understand—students excited by the free booze and the chance to see their professors drunk, anonymous rock ‘n’ roll rattling from the department’s sound system. But George could hear nothing but the calm susurrations around his earlobe, moving now into the spiral, and a voice.

  Oh, George. George what are you doing? It was Victoria’s voice in his ear, or so he imagined. In reality, the only thing in his ear was the slim, slippery laugh of a sylphlike female student. It was she of the office visits, she of the crossing and uncrossing legs, of the heavy eyes and large head and flipping ebony hair. He wasn’t composing an ode—he just couldn’t remember her name. What are you doing, George? The answer: George was doing nothing but sitting in an armchair, his world turned to a carnival after five Ketel One martinis, four of them drunk in hasty succession, courtesy of the art history department. She stood across the room, but close enough to ensure that she would see him. She was wearing fishnet stockings, of all things, running the toe of her high-heeled shoe up and down the inside of her leg. She was speaking to another female student—this one in jeans and a T-shirt, she hadn’t even bothered to brush her hair—and casting lingering glances his way.

  “Keep your knickers on,” George muttered to nobody. “You th
ink a pair of fishnet stockings is all it takes? I’ve seen fishnets in my time.” He leaned forward and squinted in her direction. She remained oblivious. “You don’t know the fishnets I’ve seen.” She laughed at something the other girl said—it looked like a genuine laugh, not staged for his benefit.

  She didn’t belong in fishnets. She belonged in a gossamer bedsheet, wrapped across her chest and tumbling over her bum, down her legs, swishing across the floor when she walked.

  What are you doing, George? The voice felt real this time. In the distance, he spotted Amaré, next to the bar, looking directly at him and shaking her head.

  He awoke the next afternoon feeling like someone had yanked out his organs, swirled them in a sewage tank, and crammed them back down his throat. The pain was a knife in the back of his head. He hobbled to the bathroom, bent over at the waist, turned on the shower, and threw up in the bath drain. Bad form, he scolded himself. Bad form, through and through. Fortunately, he’d invented a cure at university. He switched the shower to cold and tried not to yell as the ice water missiled his back. A cold shower, the coldest shower possible, followed by a naked sleep, without sheets, to freeze the misery out. It was the only way.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Around them, the puja room dripped. Kuttima quavered in the doorway. “Be careful, you. It’s not respectful.”

  “Keeping it so dirty,”Viji snapped.“ That’s not respectful. What’s wrong with these women?”

  Kuttima hissed,“They’re crazies, you know. You know what crazies they are.”

  “Yes, mad, crazy, that’s what everyone says. It’s no excuse for this.” She waved a limp arm around the room, where picture frames seemed to trail tears, where the dustcoated lingam thirsted for more water.

  Kuttima shrugged. “You want to clean it? You’re here now. So clean it”