Tiger, Tiger

by Galaxy Craze

  “I’m so sorry I left you,” she said, her voice reaching to the front window. “Did anyone tell you what happened?”

  “Keshi told us,” I said. “Where have you been staying?”

  “In a motel.”

  We drove past the gas station. The lights of the shop were dark now, and there were no cars in the lot.

  “We’re going back to England,” our mother said.

  “Tonight?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Have you spoken to Dad?”

  “Yes. He sent us money for the airplane tickets.”

  Through the window, the trees on the side of the road blurred. The night was cool, but not cold, and the air came through the opening at the top of the window. I thought of Boxer. I had not said goodbye to him. I would miss the horses. I would miss them so much.

  In the motel lobby, a woman sat behind the front desk, talking on the telephone. Music played softly on the radio. A string of tinsel and old Christmas cards hung across the window behind her. It was February.

  “Your key?” she asked, covering the mouthpiece with her hand.

  “Yes, thank you,” our mother said. Her English accent, even her posture, seemed too formal as she spoke to the woman at the desk.

  Eden sat down in a burnt-orange-colored chair, looking into the fish tank by the wall. Coffee in a pot sat half full on a burner next to a tray of creamers and sugars and Styrofoam cups.

  Our mother held the key in her hand, watching Eden stare into the goldfish tank: the soft gurgling sound of the filter, plastic plants and a mermaid sprouting from a treasure chest, small red and orange fish swimming between these things. Swimming in the clear water above the turquoise pebbles. If you looked closely enough, like Eden, his nose nearly touching the glass, the tank might disappear and it would look like a magical world.

  Our mother led us down the carpeted hallway, past a wood-paneled cigarette machine and a candy machine, to our room.

  Inside, the light was on. The bed was made, covered with an orange-and-red-flecked spread. Her clothes lay at the foot of it. A glass of water and an open book were on the bedside table. We put our suitcases inside the door. The air in the room smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and the air from the road.

  A small table sat against a window covered in half curtains. The lights from cars shone through the fabric as they drove by.

  “May,” my mother said, walking closer to me. “That bruise is terrible.”

  I stepped back, away from her. I didn’t want her to touch me.

  “I’ll get you ice and an aspirin. Something to bring down the swelling.”

  She stood in the room looking at Eden and me, as though she did not know what to do. There was something changed about her, as if half of her had been replaced by a stranger. The stranger who had left us without saying good-bye.

  Eden sat down on the bed.

  “Why didn’t you come back and get us? You didn’t even tell us you were leaving or where you went,” he said.

  “What were you doing here the whole time?” I heard an anger in my voice I did not recognize.

  “I was waiting for Parvati to call and tell me I could come back,” she said flatly. My mother shook her head. Her face looked faded, tired; she turned up her hands. “Are you two hungry? There’s a diner across the street.”

  “I’m hungry,” Eden said. “We didn’t have dinner tonight.”

  We hadn’t eaten since our picnic in the woods. The picnic in the woods near the fire pit seemed confined to a picture frame, a picture of something that had happened many years ago. I looked at Eden, so he would know not to say anything else.

  “Let’s go across the street. We can bring the food back if you want.” She took the keys from the bedside table and put them in her pocket. She took out her purse, counting the money inside.

  Eden walked to the small table in the kitchenette, looking out at the cars passing along the road.

  “Come on, darling. Eden?”

  He turned from the window, as though surprised to hear his name.

  “May? Are you coming?”

  “I’ll just stay here,” I said.

  “Why don’t you come with us? Please come with us.” She held the key in the palm of her hand. I could see she didn’t want to leave us again, so soon.

  “I want to stay here, Mum. I’m tired.”

  “Okay.” She sighed. Eden walked over to her, she took his hand and they left the room. I heard her lock the door behind them.

  I sat down on the chair by the window and pulled back the curtain. I watched them walk across the parking lot. The lights from the passing cars crossed over them, bright white, then blue. They stood together at the edge of the double lane, waiting.

  The diner sign lit up the sky, a model of a milkshake and a straw flashed in neon lights. Our mother stood at the edge of the road, holding her collar closed with one hand and Eden beside her. In a pause of cars, they ran across the road.

  A car pulled into the parking lot below our window. A man with short hair and a zipper-front jacket stepped out. He lit a cigarette, leaning against the car. I imagined I saw him look up at our window with a smile. A smile that said, Got you.

  I let go of the curtain, and it fell closed. I went to the door and turned the inside lock and felt a beating in my chest. The lamplight shone a circle of light against the bedspread. I looked at the pictures of the ocean on the walls, of the California surf. Our mother had stayed here for three days. An open packet of cigarettes sat by the telephone. She had sat here, looking at her watch, looking at the phone, picking up the receiver, checking the dial tone. She had stayed here, waiting.

  Then she changed her mind. She would not wait any longer. She called our father, bought airplane tickets, rented a car. What would have happened if Parvati had called, had forgiven her? Would she have gone back and would we have stayed there, like Renee, like Sati, never seeing our family outside again? Would the outside world begin to seem too foreign, too faraway, to rejoin? Eventually, I wondered, would I have believed? I imagined myself older, serving Parvati, being punished by her, loving her meekly.

  The handle on the door turned. Then there was a knock.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s us,” my mother said. “Hello?” She knocked again, more loudly this time. I opened the door. She was holding a paper bag of food. She carried it to the table and the room filled up with the smell of it.

  “What did you get?”

  “All sorts of things,” Eden said. He opened the paper bag on the table and took out three sandwiches wrapped in white wax paper: grilled cheese and tomato with pickles on the side. The sandwiches were warm, the cheese melting down the side. He took out two red-and-white checked paper baskets overflowing with French fries, two cups of vegetable soup with packets of crackers, and two chocolate milkshakes in tall waxy cups.

  My mother brought me ice in a plastic cup and a small packet of aspirin. She wrapped the ice in an old T-shirt and told me to hold it to my head.

  She touched my bruise gently with her hand. The chip I had seen in her eye, the missing flower on the blue and white plate. The piece we had searched for on the kitchen floor, but never found again.

  Eden stood in front of the television. He turned it on, and a line of white opened into a picture of a game show. The sound of laughter in the background, an announcer in a brown suit. He turned the knob, looking through the channels.

  I sat down in the chair at the table.

  Now on the ashram, darshan would be ending, Jaya’s baptism completed, the baby passed around the room, I thought of Sati parading with Jaya in her long white dress. After we left, I knew Parvati’s devotees would feel more complete, the string that bound them pulled tighter. They had stayed, they would tell themselves, while we had lost our way.

  I wanted to be there for one more day, to say good-bye, to know I was doing everything for the last time. I had hoped Sati would come back to me, that she still loved me. I believed what we had
couldn’t fade so quickly, this was only a test of our friendship, and one day we would lie together in the bed in her parents’ house again, laughing about our only fight.

  Now that we were here, in the motel room, I knew this would not happen. I knew I would think about Sati for the rest of my life but never see her again.

  Eden stared at the television as he ate. The light and shadows reflecting on his face. On the screen two men rode down the highway on motorcycles. At the window, I pulled the curtain slightly apart. The man was gone. His car was gone too.

  We left the motel in the morning. In the diner, our mother looked into her beige-colored cup of tea. “Why can’t they ever get it right? The Americans simply cannot make a cup of tea, the water’s never boiling. They pour the water and milk and then put the tea bag in.”

  In London, this would be what she told people about America. As though the watery beige cup of tea was what she would remember. Maybe it was the easiest, the funniest thing to tell. How would she explain the ashram?

  How would I? I imagined telling the girls in my school, their questioning faces. What we would say to our father, to our grandfather? I thought it would be better not to tell him anything, to simply say we were in California. I invented a house near the beach, riding bicycles, roller-skating in the sun, while Eden and I sipped our orange juice with ice and finished our pancakes.

  We drove to the airport on winding cliff roads overlooking the ocean and then on a four-lane highway.

  “Mum?” Eden said, calling from the backseat.

  “Yes?” Mum glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Does Dad know we’re coming home today?”

  “Well, we won’t arrive until tomorrow, really.”

  “Is he happy?”

  I saw her still face, in the mirror.

  “Oh, of course he is,” she said. “He can’t wait to see you.”

  I looked out the window. A long truck passed on our right. A woman in sunglasses drove a convertible. She was not telling him a lie; she was not telling him the truth. She was telling him what he wanted to believe. She was shaping the world around him, smoothing away the edges, so that when he was older he would not remember this moment: sitting in the backseat of a car on the way to the airport, going home to a father who had not tried to find us.

  I imagined our mother phoning our father collect from the motel room, asking for money. “Why should I pay for the tickets? Why should I give you money for kids I never see? We had a nice life here, Lucy. You took them away from me.”

  Eden turned, looking at me. His face full, a smile on his lips. The knot in the balloon tied, the air sealed inside. The road full of long trucks, of shining cars. The blue sky, the airplanes flying low, flying higher and disappearing into the sky.

  In the airport shop, Eden held a snow globe in his hand. Inside, a surfer rode a large blue wave. I turned the rack of postcards: the Hollywood sign, beaches—places we had never been. Roller skaters on the boardwalk, hand prints in the pavement—a California we hadn’t seen. I bought the postcards to show the girls at my school. Along the wall hung black T-shirts with CALIFORNIA written in sparkly gold letters.

  As we walked through the terminal, I imagined I heard Parvati’s voice through the sound of the crowd and the engines of the planes outside: What are you going home to? Fights and unhappiness?

  Our mother held the tickets in her hand. She stood with Eden looking through the glass walls at the airplanes outside. The sun fell against her skin, the lines in her forehead visible in the light. She touched the glass with her hand and drew an invisible line, watching her finger travel down. Eden stood beside her, his face pressed close to the glass.

  Outside, the planes landed in the sun, rolling down the long dark runway. The roaring sound of their motors came through the airport walls. Announcements played on the loudspeakers, and we lined up for our flight.

  At the British Airways terminal, the English were returning home, tanned or sunburned from their holidays. Boarding the plane in socks and sandals. Two children wore Mickey Mouse caps with plastic ears. We stood behind an old woman who told us she was from Leeds. She had come to California to visit her granddaughters. She held a bag of English sweets, blackberry with licorice centers, and offered one to each of us.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The day was just beginning as we landed at Heathrow. Outside the airport windows, the sky looked overcast, gray. A friendly customs official whistled while he checked our passports, pressing down the stamp. “Welcome home,” he said.

  Our mother looked anxiously through the crowd of people who had come to meet the arrivals. We stared at the waiting crowd, looking for him, and saw our father standing beside a man holding a taxi sign. He stood with his arms crossed and his eyes looked heavy, tired as he checked his wristwatch.

  “Simon!” our mother called out. His eyes crossed the crowd but did not seem to see us.

  “Dad!” Eden waved.

  We stood together as he made his way toward us.

  “Hello, darlings,” he said, opening his arms. He hugged Eden and me tightly.

  “Hello, Simon,” I heard our mother say, as she stood behind us.

  “Hello, Lucy.” They kissed each other on the cheek. He touched her lightly on the shoulder and then pulled away. I saw him look down at her denim skirt and gray sweater tied with a belt around her waist. Her hair was pulled back, brushed smoothly. In the fluorescent light, from the side, I could see that she had put on lipstick.

  “Look at you,” he said to me. “Your hair is so blonde.” I smiled at him, nervously.

  “You’ve gotten so thin,” our father said to Eden. “I would have hardly recognized you. Didn’t they feed you there?”

  “I didn’t like the food,” Eden said.

  “Well, I’ll make you a good breakfast when we get home.”

  “We better get our luggage,” our mother said. “I can see them queuing at the carousel.”

  Outside, the damp smell of the rain mixed with the city air. Our father pushed the luggage cart across the lot to the car.

  Inside, the early morning news played on the car radio and my father held his hands tightly around the steering wheel as we drove away from the airport. The gray sky fell, like a lowered hand, over the rows of houses. The shopkeepers were just opening their doors, turning the lights on inside.

  “Was the flight okay?” our father asked, looking at Eden and me in the rearview mirror.

  “It was long.” I squeezed my hands together in my lap. I felt frozen. Whenever we were apart and came back together, it took me some time to feel comfortable around him again.

  “Did you sleep?”

  “A little.”

  “Was the film good?”

  Our mother looked out of the passenger-side window. There were only a few other cars on the road, and the windows of the houses were still dark.

  “It was all right,” I said.

  “I liked it,” Eden said.

  As we drove down Wondle Road, the green door of our house stood like a person who had come to greet us. On the street, a man in a business suit walked a white and brown Jack Russell on a lead, as he read the morning paper. Our father parked the car and carried the luggage from the boot. I held the handle of the door but did not want to get out of the car. I watched my mother and Eden follow my father up the steps of our house.

  I saw them look back at me and I opened the car door. The air was damp and the wind blew softly down our street. It was the end of February, and we stood on the doorstep in our summer clothes and cardigans.

  “It’s like Fort Knox trying to unlock the door,” our father said, looking at his ring of keys. I had to change the locks and put in a dead bolt. The house next door was burgled twice. The thieves stuck a wire up the mail chute, unlocking it from the inside. I have to say, they’re bloody smart, aren’t they. If only they’d put their minds to good use.”

  Our mother picked up the bottle of milk left on the doorstep. Except for the ma
n walking his dog, there was no one outside. I imagined that, in a moment, the doors of all the houses on our street would open and our neighbors would come out to say hello to us.

  Our father turned the final lock and opened the door. I felt my heart beating quickly. I looked at Eden and at Mum, unsure of who would walk in first.

  “Well, go on, one of you,” our father said. “I can’t hold the door all day.”

  Our mother walked inside. She switched on the hall light, looking at the stairs and the floor. She touched her hand to the wall as she walked cautiously. I saw her turn to look at herself in the hall mirror. She touched the post on the table and then took her hand away.

  I took a breath. This was the scent of our house. I breathed in deeply, trying to capture it. Trying to name it.

  Porridge peered from the side of the stairway, her tail twitching. “Porridge,” Eden called, as he walked toward her, but she turned away. Slowly she appeared from around the stairs and came toward him, letting him scratch her cheeks. When I knelt down and stroked her back, a handful of fur came off in my hand.

  “Are you hungry?” our father asked, as we followed him into the kitchen. “Why don’t I make us a good breakfast?” He rubbed his hands together standing in his charcoal suit.

  We watched him as he took the eggs and sausages from the refrigerator.

  “So what did you do there, on the ashram?” our father asked us.

  I looked at Eden and Eden looked at me. I saw out mother stroking Porridge in the hallway. Behind the kitchen sink sat a striped blue and white bowl and a green vase in the shape of a fish. For as long as I could remember, the bowl and the vase had been there.

  “We went to school. And there was a pond and we went swimming so much, sometimes five or six times in one day. I could swim the whole length and back.”

  “Did you like it there?”

  “I have a best friend now,” Eden said. “His name’s Jabe and we built a fort in the grapefruit grove.”

  “Grapefruits? I bet they were delicious there.”

  “They were,” Eden said.