The Prayer Room

by Shanthi Sekaran

  She wasn’t used to this. Life with George was a series of answers. She knew the questions to ask and he knew how to answer them. She wanted him now, his logical conclusions and solidly stacked surmises. Here, questions seeped into each other. Answers blended into the walls like lizards.

  Look, the house seemed to say (but it was only the snap of glass beneath her sandals. Here, said clacking mouse feet in the corner. No, here, whispered the brush of her sandals on the floor. Through that door there, said an insistent shadow, beckoning. She obeyed. Over a meadow of broken glass, white with collected dust, hung a hefty length of brass chain, broken in the middle, fat enough to have once held a swing. Her swing. Only rich people had those.

  Viji had been here. Viji had lived here. Like honey from a pot, the memory dripped back into her.

  Shanta had been here, too. They had stood on the veranda of the big house. The lady and man of the big house had been there. In fact, the whole street watched from windows and doorways—everyone but Viji saw what happened. All she had seen was a hand, Shanta’s, a sticky, flesh-smelling palm clamped over Viji’s eyes and nose, Viji prying at the fingers so she could see. She wanted only to see.

  I hate Amma.

  Why should you?

  She made him go away. She made him want to leave, didn’t she? And where has he gone?

  How should I know?

  But Shanta had only two hands, so Viji heard everything: new voices, hard shoes on the street, the slam of the car door. How she longed to see the car! She had seen only a few in her life, monuments on wheels, chariots for men in dark glasses.

  Appa had left them—of this she was certain. Where he was going, no one would say. She imagined that he’d simply gone to another house, the way she had, that he’d wake the next morning and wash his face at a different tap, spit water into a different hole, walk down a different street to the same office in town. The house may have even had other children—two small girls, like Viji and Shanta, but wholly unlike them. Or perhaps, like Viji, he’d be staying with a kind old couple in a house with a swing. Whether he deserved to go away, Viji would never know. Like most children, she came into the world assuming everyone was good, and spent the rest of her life discovering otherwise.

  “Shanta!” Viji bolted through the kitchen. Shanta’s eyes grew round with fear.

  “What’s happened to you, woman? Why are you dressed like a beggar?”

  “I found it. Where the swing was.”

  “Which swing? Oh, that swing. What are you up to? What is all this?”

  “What is all this is what I want to know.” She paused. “Appa’s picture—is it because he left us?”

  Shanta sighed. “In a way, yes.”

  Viji plopped to the ground. “But why did he leave, Shanta?” It had never occurred to Viji to ask anyone this, though for years the question had darted around her like a nosy fly. It had never occurred to her that an answer existed.

  “He left because we sent him away. You know that.”

  “He was sent away,” she repeated. “But why was he sent away? What did he do?”

  Shanta laid down the knife. Her eyes searched Viji’s, and, finding nothing, she replied, “That’s something I thought you would know, more than any of us.”

  And Shanta would say no more. Her half-closed eye turned its gaze to the vegetables, and there it would remain.

  Like she’d done so many times in her life, Viji closed the puja room door. Her partial cleanup had progressed. Kuttima’s work. The aunts wouldn’t have bothered. The statues were again lined neatly on their shelves, the floor swept and clean. There was fresh water in the offering cup, and new vermillion had been dabbed on every photograph.

  Her mother stared out of her frame, from the same photo that Viji had at home. A tepid wind sailed through the room, raising the remnants of dust from the floor. Beyond the door, the house was silent.

  Her mother spoke. “I died in this house,” she said. “Don’t you give me any trouble.”

  I’m not.

  “And why should you be surprised? My house, my room. What else?”

  Nothing else.

  The photo of Old Krishnan still lay dog-eared on the floor.

  Amma.

  “Don’t ask me.”

  Please.

  “Don’t ask me.”

  Viji cocked her head to the side to get a new view of the picture. “But what is there to ask?” she said. “What exactly is the question?” George was closer to her than she thought.

  “Keep that vellakaran out of this. Mister professor. Where is he now, tell me?”

  Never mind.

  “Close your eyes and pray,” Amma ordered.

  Why? What’s the use?

  “Close your eyes,” she repeated, “And pray.”

  Viji did not pray, but she closed her eyes. And when her eyes closed, her throat opened, the hidden grotto of anger and love, where the tears hurt the most, where emotion could swell and burst without warning. And there, in the back of Viji’s throat, the fetus of a feeling was born. Curled inside her it grew head-tail-eyes, and like a tadpole it knew to swim, swishing and leaping, then coursing upstream to her head, where at last it unfurled: a memory.

  The kitchen. A mound of chapati dough sits smugly on its wooden board on the floor, waiting to be divvied into balls and rolled flat. Amma, young Amma, pinches a fingerful and dabs it into her palm. Old Krishnan, young Krishnan with moonface and almond eyes, does the same. He looks straight into Amma’s face, as if he’s searching. They both look up at Viji. Amma continues to ball the dough. Krishnan begins to roll, forearms tensing then releasing. Viji sees paper and green and yellow pencils. She draws a house, coloring more busily than she ever has. She wishes yellow weren’t so close to white. And looking without looking she sees: hands on dough, one ball, two balls, Amma placing a ball in Krishnan’s hand, Krishnan’s fingers closing around the dough. Then she sees the beaten fingers of a cook and, laced gently through them, the soft fat fingers of a wife. This was all Viji needed, though other visions followed: the dark coarse finger sliding a trail up her mother’s arm, her mother shying away, Krishnan smiling, gazing at her as if he were singing a love song, her mother glancing sharply at Viji, then pulling away, pulling Viji’s arm, Come, chella-kutti, it’s time for your reading, isn’t it time for your reading?

  Shanta was a vault. And Viji couldn’t explain what she was looking for. Not then, not in the daylight. She would wait for the night, just before dawn, when the high fences built in the afternoon had fallen away, when the world was unreal and truth could be coaxed from sleepy corners. She would sneak out of her room and into Shanta’s. Her sister would sit up at first, startled by the presence of another in her bed, something she had never known. And then she would scoot over to make room for Viji. Viji would lie next to her sister, pillowed by the bosoms that reminded her of Amma. She would stroke Shanta’s nose that curved to one side, and try to push it back the other way, as she had when she was young. There’s something I’m not remembering, she would say. There’s something about this house that I’ve lost. And now I come here and I see these things, like Krishnan’s photo and not Appa’s. And this swing. And that house. And I think that something is not right, but I don’t know what it is. And Amma, what was she doing with Old Krisnan? What were they up to? And Shanta?

  Shanta did not answer. Not in the daylight, not in the privacy of night. And Viji returned to her room and packed her suitcase. In the morning, things would be real again—the screaming dog, the clouded mirror, the smell of coffee and the sizzle of dosas in a frying pan. But most real would be the suitcase, packed in the corner of the room.

  “We’re going,” Viji said.

  “Where?” Kieran looked at Babygirl, who looked at Avi, who looked at Kieran.

  “It’s Christmas tomorrow, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Are we going home?”

  “No, Avi.” The children looked up with gray faces. What a mother she’d been,
bringing them to this dreary house, with only a rooftop to play on. How serious she’d made them. She wanted badly to see them smile.

  “Come on, long faces, cheer up!” She forced a laugh. “We’re going to the beach!”

  A chorus of yells rose from the rooftop. In the distance, atop the big house, the weather vane swung around in the wind, as if it shared their joy.

  The next day, on a bus brimming with strangers, Viji regretted leaving. More accurately, she regretted leaving on a bus. Already Kieran had thrown up once and Avi was looking green. Heat rash had spread an army of lesions along Babygirl’s arms. “One hundred degrees!” Viji scolded her. “One hundred degrees every summer in Sacramento, and now you get heat rash? Now?” She felt a twist of guilt when Babygirl shrugged and looked at the ground. She was a terrible mother.

  Goodbye, she’d whispered to the house with the single tree, to the women in the doorway who never ventured beyond the gate, their lives crusting around them.

  She wanted to ask the man next to her to move. His hand was wedged against her thigh and she sensed that he didn’t mind it so much. But already his arm was hanging out the window, his hand flat against the outside of the bus as if he were holding the walls together. The ride was twelve hours long. A sack with vomitous drippings sat at her feet and its fumes grew stronger as the day grew warm. Four hours had passed.

  And at last, at last, the bus spewed them to the pavement at the Trivandrum station, where under white porticos the light coastal wind nudged her back to life. The children, armed with backpacks, looked accusingly at her. But here in the sea air, she found it easy to smile.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  George needed a fried egg. An egg dripping with oil, crispy around the edges, on well-buttered toast, was the final step in obliterating a hangover. In the kitchen he heard voices and a sudden laugh. Stan, Lupe. No. Stan and Kamla. A quick check in the hall mirror confirmed his suspicion that he looked as if he’d died, partially decomposed, and come back to life. There was nothing to be done for it but retreat back to bed. He pushed on. Dogfaced, he entered the kitchen.

  “On the mend, then, son?” Stan observed, shoving a hand in his pocket.

  “Why are you so happy?” George asked.

  “Hello, George darling, feeling better?”

  He lamented his bloodshot eyes and blue skin. He remembered he was wearing a yellow bathrobe over sagging underwear. He sensed his sorry chest hairs sprouting weakly, and couldn’t bring himself to answer.

  “Eggs,” he said, and fished a frying pan from the cupboard below the stove. Cracking the egg (slamming it too hard on the edge of the pan, splattering yolk over his fingers), he watched Kamla, looking without looking. She was natural in their kitchen; she leaned against the counter and held her cup of tea as if she owned the counter and the cup and the tea bag that floated inside it. He watched her drum her fingernails and move her hand to her waist.

  “Have you heard from Viji, George?”

  “No.”

  “Not at all? Really?”

  “Once. One time.”

  “Is that all? I would have thought—”

  “The STDs were closed!” he snapped.

  There was silence, and he could feel his father looking at him.

  “I’m sure you’ll hear from her soon, though,” she said quietly. “I’m waiting for my postcard.”

  You of all people should know that no one sends postcards from India, he wanted to say. What would they send pictures of? The broken sewers and beggars and mysterious pools of liquid in the street? The Taj Mahal? Sure, why not—nowhere near Madras, but who cares? But he said nothing.

  “Well, I should get going,” she said. “Anisha will be home any minute.” She paused.“She takes the bus. But you know that.”

  George focused on his frying egg and heard Kamla say goodbye to Stan. The door closed on her, and she walked quickly down the drive and disappeared around the corner.

  “You’re a right bloody bastard,” his father announced.

  “Why?”

  “You know why, talking to a woman like that.”

  “You’re right, Dad,” George muttered. “Guess I’m not as good with the ladies as you are.”

  “I’d’ve thought if nothing else, I taught you how to speak to a lady.”

  “Yes, I’d’ve thought as much, too.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Stan grumbled. “I’ll leave you to yourself now, you daft sod.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Later that evening, George found himself walking down Winding Creek Road and turning the corner onto Ladino. A couple walking their dog said hello to him, and he nodded back. He’d never seen them before. A man jogging alongside a helmeted boy on a bicycle with training wheels stuck his hand up in greeting. George hesitated and then waved back.

  The door opened. Kamla’s daughter stood there, looking up at him.

  “Yes?”

  “Hi there!” George kicked at the ground and tried to seem casual. From inside the house, Kamla called, “Anisha, who is it? Did you ask who it was first?”

  Breathless, Kamla came to the door. A smile blazed across her face. She invited him in. But the girl stood in the doorway, staring up at him, and didn’t move. He found it hard to squeeze by her. She didn’t budge, not even when his hip grazed her shoulder. She was like a robot.

  “I was just walking,” he explained.

  “It’s a warm night, isn’t it?”

  “You want to walk with me?” he asked.

  He could tell she was about to say yes, but then she stopped. “I was going to have some tea. Would you like some?”

  Yes, tea he could do.

  It began then, a period that George would think about often and never be able to explain. George had tea with Kamla that evening. He apologized for how he’d spoken and she laughed his words away. She smiled too much and punctuated her sentences with pensive, meaningless shakes of the head. He left an hour later, knowing he would take a walk again the next day, but wondering if he should. Kamla, standing at the door, said, “Come back anytime,” and the words wrapped around him like two warm arms.

  He returned the next evening.

  “Do you like to read?” he asked, noticing Kamla’s bookshelf. It was empty, except for a dictionary and some coloring books.

  “My husband was the reader,” she said. “I used to read a lot, but then Anisha came. It would be a good thing to do, though, wouldn’t it?” George picked up a coloring book with a red fox on the cover. The pictures were poorly filled in, with little attention to tonal harmony. He saw no evidence of any attempt to stay within the lines. His children would certainly have done better.

  “Would you like to start reading again?” he asked. “I could lend you a few things.”

  She paused with her teacup in midair. “That would be lovely. That could be my project now, to fill that shelf.”

  “Yes!”

  “But I should fill it with my own things, really.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like books.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you know where I could buy some books of my own?”

  He leaned in and surprised himself with a grin. “I know just the place.”

  The smell of woodsmoke trailed through Maple Grove, as it did every winter when the temperature dropped to freezing. Houses down Winding Creek Road glowed with hanging lights. The Fromms hung theirs sloppily, the bulbs multicolored and large, drooping from their rows, an electrical chord trailing visibly from roof to wall. Across the street, the Attenborough willow tree dripped with light, and next to their mailbox stood a cardboard sleigh pulled by plastic reindeer. On their door was a wreath of tiny white bulbs. Next door, the Bauers had invested in the new kind of light, small white fairy bulbs that clung with desperation to the eaves of the house, straight stark lines of cheer that winked into the dusk: on-off-on-off-on-offon-off-on. The twinkling was keeping George awake. He snapped his curtains shut, muttering. Every Christma
s had its Scrooge.

  The Armitage house was a puddle of darkness, broken only by the garden lanterns that shone every night, every month, every year. This was normal. What was not normal was the hacking sound that trailed from the far end of the lawn. George listened to it for several minutes, a pillow over his head, before he realized that it wasn’t right.

  He opened the front door.

  “Dad!” he called to the stooped figure at the end of the yard. “What the hell are you doing?”

  His father didn’t answer. It was happening again, but this time he had to be stopped. The sound: Stan with an ax, chopping at a pine tree. George had never liked pine trees.

  Stan wielded the ax with wild strokes. Where had he found it? Could sleepwalkers rummage?

  “Dad,” George said firmly, “put down the ax.” Stan, of course, paid no attention. Gingerly, George stepped in, reaching for the ax handle. Stan raised it over his head. George grasped the handle. Stan slammed the ax down and millimeters—millimeters—stood between the blade and George’s foot.

  A dense wind swallowed the shake in his voice. “Put it down. Put it down.” Stan dropped the axe. Heavily, he fell into his son’s arms, his head over George’s shoulder. George held him in the cold. He was like a sleeping child. He was like a sack of flour.

  The next time he met Kamla was late on a Thursday afternoon, a week before Christmas, in a cramped and murky bookstore on J Street. There was hardly enough light to read, and the shelves rained dust each time he pulled a book down. It was run by an old man who sat stooped on a stool and never moved. He wore glasses with square black frames, the sort the NHS used to give out for free. George piled his arms with books, and the old man began to watch him suspiciously. He chose Carver, Cheever, Bellow, and Roth, but worried his choices were too masculine, so he put down Roth and picked up Woolf. She would never get through Woolf, but she could try. He worried that his choices were too obvious, but Kamla seemed happy with them. The books towered in his arms and threatened to avalanche.