“Do you remember,” Shanta asked, “when Appa found you?”
“When he found me? Krishnan was telling me a story. That’s all, Shanta, he was only telling me a story.” As if hypnotized, Viji spoke without knowing the words. “I remember I was sitting with Krishnan, then Appa was there, and he was so angry with me.” She saw it now—she had always known this, but the vision rushed at her as if she were seeing it for the first time: Appa’s great bear claws, the soft hands that had turned swift and strong, sweeping down on her. Words like poison spilling from her father, in a voice that wasn’t his. You are just the same, just the same as your mother, aren’t you? Little scoundrel. You wanted him to do it to you. She heard the crack of a hand against her head. The cold stone floor was a shock. She didn’t cry because she couldn’t breathe.
When she opened her eyes, Shanta nodded. “He was angry.”
Viji saw blood. There was blood coursing from Appa’s hand, like the nailed palms of the convent crucifix. It was Shanta.
“You—” Viji pointed into her sister’s face. Shanta snatched her finger and brought it to her cheek, its slight depression, her half-closed eye.
“He was going to kill you,” Shanta said. “I thought he was.”
“He was so angry.”
So Shanta had done what she felt was necessary. She had run to the kitchen, found Old Krishnan’s chopper, the Saracen’s sword, and brought it back. In it plunged, into Appa’s raised hand, through the flesh between the fingers. Viji remembered his screech, like a stricken wildcat’s. And his hand, the other hand, coming down on Shanta, the blow to her head and the quick snap that followed.
“You were so small,” Shanta said.
“So were you.”
“And I tried to get him back. Remember the courthouse? I thought I could find him and convince him to come home.”
“Of course I remember.”
“To think I wanted him back after what he did. What was I thinking?”
“He was our father.”
They were quiet for several minutes, sitting on opposite sides of the chest.
“I left you here, alone, with all of this,” Viji said. She couldn’t bring herself to say the other thing, that Shanta’s face, her nose, her eye, her cheek, had been the lifelong price she’d paid for Viji. Who would want to marry the girl with the dented face? How happily Viji had flitted away to America, to her ranch house and rosebushes.
As if she could hear, Shanta clasped her hand. “What you did was good, sister. You did the right thing.”
No one had ever said this to Viji.
“Come back with me, Shanta.” She saw it with sudden clarity: Shanta in the kitchen on Winding Creek Road, grinding spices, tipping the teapot into a waiting cup. “Leave these women here and come home with me. There’s no need for you to stay!”
Shanta laughed and brought the room to life again.
“Why do you keep them here?” Viji asked.
“Who, the aunts? Where else could we send them? Where we sent Appa? They aren’t a danger to anybody.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
Shanta only shrugged.
“Do you think it will happen to us?” Viji asked. “The madness?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?”
“But we could prevent it, no? We could get help before it happens.”
“You think those big American doctors are going to help you? Mad is mad, Vijaya. It happens or it doesn’t.” Then Shanta gazed at the high, shadowy ceiling and said, “If I go mad, who in this world is going to know?”
The shrieking dog was out that night. With every shriek it counted the seconds to midnight. The sky was moonless, the house robbed of light. In the darkness the furniture turned into looming edifices, a maze of vast plains and sharp corners. She felt her way, following the snores of Kuttima in the kitchen. The woman had her own bedroom, but she chose to sleep in the kitchen.
It wasn’t the dog that had kept her awake; it was her own thoughts, like off-key lullabies. She’d been picturing her children alone on a plane. Would they know where the bathrooms were? And what if Kieran got airsick? A stewardess was supposed to sit with them, but who knew if this would happen? And what if they were separated, what kinds of adults would they be put with? No one could be trusted. She hoped there wouldn’t be turbulence. She didn’t want them to be scared. She’d once seen a bolt of lightning from her airplane window and it had nearly stopped her heart.
To calm herself, she thought of the ocean, rolling forth, receding. She thought of the creek behind her uncle’s old house in the country. She thought of warmth and sleep and love. Love: her sister’s warm cheek resting on her shoulder; Krishnan’s chapatis, kneaded into the waiting palms of her mother; George patting down the tall grass by the lake so she’d have a soft spot to rest her head; the triplets leaning into each other on the airplane, their arms transcending armrests, legs slung over knees; her own fingers tracing the valleys between Aaron’s ribs; a chest of saris stored hopefully; the distant rhythmic creak of her parents’ bed—yes, even this was love.
The puja room’s doors were shut. She ran her fingers over their carvings to find the latch. Inside, the dark was thick as cloth. It filled her eyes-nose-mouth until, fumbling, her hands discovered a matchbox. A flame, scant at first and then steady and fat on its oil lamp. She didn’t have to wait long.
“I’m glad you’re back,” her mother said.
That’s what Shanta said.
“You had a good time at the beach.”
Idon’t have to answer you.
“Up to the old mischief, always the same,” Amma
laughed. “This is why you came without your husband?” No.
“A good-time holiday, isn’t it?”
I had to get out of this house.
“Yes, it’s such a terrible place, this house. Such gratitude.” That’s not what I mean.
She knew now why there was no picture of Appa in this room. She and Shanta had been sent to the big house, away from him, and he’d been sent away the following week.
The osmosis of family living had taught her that Appa left the house. Viji knew the facts, though she hadn’t seen them until now: he’d been sent to a place better suited to him. And at some point over the many, many years, he had died.
That night, the scenes flashed past again, like images on a looped projector: the yellow coloring pencil, that tiptoeing walk that she’d found funny at first, the blood like syrup that dripped from Krishnan’s mouth, the shallow streams of it that coursed down Appa’s hand, the dull ache at her temple, and the sense that the ceiling, at any second, would come crashing down. This was not love. She remembered it all now. Most of all, she remembered Shanta, who kneeled thin and shaking on the sitting room floor, cupping her nose in her hand and watching helplessly as she covered the tile in a puddle of blood. She’d tried to wipe the blood away with her fingers, but there was nothing to be done for the floor, for her dress, or for the crimson tears that streamed down her face.
The next morning, Viji followed the sound of chopping to the kitchen. Shanta sat, legs splayed around a cutting board piled with plantains.
Viji sat down. “I know what happened.”
“Right. This Kuttima left the batter too long in the sun, didn’t she? Now it’s practically rotten!”
“No,” Viji said. “I know what happened with Appa, and why we were sent away. I remember everything now.”
“Congratulations.” Shanta sent a plantain wedge flying across the floor. It was the same old knife she used, the rusting Saracen’s sword. The morning after everything, the knife had been rinsed and returned to the kitchen. Krishnan had stayed away, only to return a week later. Where he’d been, no one knew, but he must have stayed close enough to know that Appa had left, carried off in a car, a doctor by his side. Viji had heard the rumors at the big house.
“So you knew all this time,” Viji said. “You let me ask and ask. Why did you—”
“Eno
ugh, sister.” Shanta put the knife down, reached up and retwisted her bun. “I said I’d tell you once, and that’s it. The end.” She sighed. “I have to live here, you know. If I don’t keep things in their cupboards, they’ll take over the house.”
He’d worn a suit, they said. A three-piece suit on that hot day, seated straight and proud in the back of the automobile. With a white kerchief he’d dabbed at his forehead. He’d folded it in a triangle, the neighbors said, before tucking it into his breast pocket. When Viji came back from the big house, she’d found Krishnan in the kitchen. By the stove they had sat, the cook and the colossal chopper. Here they both resumed their daily duties. Life in the house continued.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
George had difficulties with women. This much he already knew. What surprised him was that neither age nor marital experience had improved his ability to cope. Men like his father didn’t have these problems—his father and James Bond. They did what they wanted and got on with it. Standing at the counter in his bathrobe and fishing hat, Stan chewed on a chicken bone with just his front teeth, pilfering some invisible bit of sinew.
James Bond, George was sure, would not have left Kamla half-clothed and stranded on her bed. He wouldn’t have shrunk from the consequences that awaited him, or the guilt that promised to follow. Now get those clothes off, James Bond would have said, slamming the door shut with his foot, ignoring the muffled din of Three’s Company. At the very least, he wouldn’t have stood in the kitchen, as George stood now, his fingers trembling on the receiver, wondering feebly if he should call Kamla back. Maybe for a coffee, he thought. Or just to apologize? He wouldn’t want awkwardness, after all. God forbid that anything should be awkward.
“What’s gotten into you?” Stan asked.
“Nothing, Dad. Just a bit tired.”
“Heading to work today?”
George looked at the calendar. It was indeed a weekday. It was Monday. Not only was it a weekday, but it was the weekday, marked in red capitals on the calendar: KIDS ARRIVE HOME 12:35 SFO.
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
“What time is it?” What time was it? eleven-forty. He was still in his bathrobe.
George found himself honking through traffic at twelve p.m. He’d managed to pull some trousers on and shed his robe. Landing took twenty minutes. Immigration, thirty minutes. Baggage claim, fifteen minutes. Customs, zero minutes. The entire drive to San Francisco International, two and a quarter hours. He whimpered at the thought of his children standing fatherless in International Arrivals, searching among the unknown faces that would stare, raise an eyebrow, and then look past them. What was wrong with him? He pictured the airline employees who’d take charge of the triplets, waiting with them for their deadbeat father. Already he could see the disdain on their faces when he showed up, unshaven and uncombed, his breath rank with coffee and eggs.
He didn’t crash. He wasn’t pulled over for speeding. He arrived at SFO exactly one and a half hours after the triplets landed, and found them sitting on their suitcases in a corner of the arrivals building. There were no adults looking after them, and for this, George was relieved. “You took forever!”
“Where were you?”
“What happened to your face?”
George had gashed his jawbone while shaving a few days earlier, and hadn’t attempted to shave since. His mind flashed to Anisha Mehta, the slovenly way she held her sandwich. Then he dropped to the floor and pulled his children to him, all three at once, holding them fiercely, though they squirmed against the bristle of his cheek.
“So, what did you think of it?” George asked. The triplets knelt on their chairs, their hands diving into the pizza box, taking two pieces at a time, three.
They ignored him. He cleared his throat and waited, glad that no one was there to witness him being ignored, aware that for weeks the triplets had probably been craving pizza, missing their hamburgers and chicken chow mein and sugary cereals, the way he’d missed fish-finger sandwiches and lager. He would surprise them tomorrow after dinner with a trip to Leatherby’s for sundaes—one towering ice-cream sundae for each of them, no having to share.
He waited for them to settle and tried again. “So, how’d you like it?”
“Like what?” Babygirl asked through a mouthful of cheese.
“India. Did you like India? What did you think of it?” He remembered when they were babies, how he’d asked questions two or three times, slowly and clearly, to help them grasp the language, hoping that they might turn into prodigies who started talking long before their peers. They hadn’t.
She shrugged. “Good.”
“Good? And how was your aunty?”
“She was nice.”
“She was nice?”
She shrugged again. There had been hundreds, thousands, of treatises written on India, its paradoxes, its unfathomable depths of tradition. “It was good,” George repeated. “It was good.”
“I saw a man with no legs,” Kieran offered.
“Interesting. And how did that make you feel?”
“Weird, I guess.” With his finger Kieran pushed the butt end of a crust into his mouth.
“I see. Did you two see this also?”
“No,” Babygirl said. “I didn’t. But we saw lots of beggars.”
“Yeah,” Avi confirmed, “there were beggars and bums, like, everywhere. It was weird.”
“Weird in what way?”
“Well, not like here. They don’t have beggars here.”
George wanted to tell them that they did, indeed, have beggars here. Not in Maple Grove, but in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, even as close as downtown Sacramento, there were people living in tunnels, sleeping on burlap sacks, asking for spare change to make a phone call, tying elastic bands around their arms and pulling them tight with their teeth, spending the night in shelters and abandoned buildings and subway bathrooms, sometimes alone, sometimes hoping to God that their children wouldn’t remember too much of it. But the triplets were showered now and dressed in pajamas, their hair still damp and their cheeks tanned and clean, their eyelids heavy with satisfaction. Before them sat cups of frothy root beer, and cans that were still more than half full. Their Friday-night TV shows were starting in twenty minutes, and they chomped confidently on their pizza, so settled and secure with their place in the world that George didn’t want them to have to know otherwise.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The weight of Viji’s thoughts bore down on her that day and night. Like a ratty bathrobe, they reeked of the past and turned the room gray—if only she could take a match to them and turn them into glorious flame. She wanted to call George. She wanted to know that somewhere in the world, things were ordinary.
“Hello, darling!” George sounded nervous. “What happened?”
“Sorry? Well, nothing.”
“Are the children back?”
“Sure, I picked them up yesterday,” he chuckled. She could tell something was wrong. “You know,” Viji said, “I was thinking. I want to come home.”
She heard him inhale and then his voice, as if untwining, relaxed. “Really? You do?”
“But not yet. I need to be here longer.”A flash of Aaron, which she pushed away. “Just to spend some time here.”
“Um, okay. What, a week or two?”
“Mm. A week or two. I’ll look for tickets.” And she would find one. The tourist season was drawing to a close.
“I’m glad, Viji. I’m glad you’re coming back.”
Through the streets of the city a fresh wind sprinted, lifting Viji’s sari off her shoulders. The sky above was no longer colorless. It was an empty white canvas, ready for the spill of possibility.
She caught an auto rickshaw and took it to the nearest shopping complex. No more memories. She’d had them all. She wanted fresh things now, she wanted armfuls of beauty.
First, a sari shop. No more rifling through moth-eaten trousseaux. She would buy her sister something new and beautifu
l, to be worn every day, not stored away for some special occasion that was never to arrive. The shop boys climbed the high shelves, tossinging down the tight parcels like monkeys throw down fruit. The salesman unfolded the saris and billowed them out in three swift moves. He asked her to sit, sensing she had money to spend, and when he snapped his fingers a tumbler of tea appeared at her elbow. He had a remarkable talent for choosing the ugliest saris to show her, but she knew to be bossy with these men, and soon she had what she wanted: five saris for Shanta, two for Kuttima, and one for each of the old crones. The cashier slid them to her, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, cradled in a cloth bag that bore the store’s logo.
This was the city she knew. She’d missed it more than she realized. Back on the street, she bought a strand of jasmine for her hair and another for Shanta’s. The lady selling them rolled the fat, fragrant bulbs in newspaper and wound them round with string. From the next cart she bought a paper cone that steamed with chili peanuts, too hot to touch. She blew on them.
Last of all, she bought a phone. It was a red one with touch-tone buttons. No more STD offices, no more months and years of transoceanic silence. She caught an auto rickshaw. It wound through traffic like an ant, touching noses with other rickshaws as it made its way home.
Viji spent six more days in her sister’s home. She made Shanta try on all of the saris, not just by holding the fabric up to her chest, but by unraveling all six yards and wrapping them around herself. She knew how easy it was to let a perfectly folded sari stay perfectly folded. “All of them are red,” Shanta said.
“I know they are. You’ll be a bride every day.”
Twice, Viji picked up the telephone and dialed the operator, asking for the number of the Sea Rock Inn at Kovalam Beach. There were plenty of hotels in Madras. Aaron could book a room in one—but she stopped herself from calling him every time. Instead, she filled her days doing as she pleased, taking afternoon naps on the sofa, wearing only her petticoat and a cotton blouse. There were only women in the house, so why get dressed at all? On the fifth day, she hired a car and took Shanta to the Marriott, where they ate a lavish Chinese meal. On the sixth day, she found a salon and the sisters got their eyebrows threaded. This was what sisters did.
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