by Angie Abdou
This love is the simple kind.
***
In the afternoon, Lucy takes a nap in our tiny trailer. The in-and-out whistle of her breathing won’t let me sleep so I go sit outside on the step and pick at the blades of grass. There seems to be nothing to do here but wait for the time to pass. Killing time, Nicholas would say, a phrase that makes me sad.
I see Patricia and Tamara talking over by the truck, but the hot wind carries their conversation away. Patricia’s face shines, red and sweaty. Tamara moves her hands in slow downward movements like she thinks she could tame Patricia’s bad mood, push down whatever angry words Patricia seems to be yelling. But Patricia crosses her arms and turns her back on Tamara’s hands. When Patricia disappears into the forest, Tamara comes to sit beside me, adding her sigh to all the other hot air blowing around us.
“Well, Eli buddy, nobody’s too happy with me today, hey?”
“Why did we come here, Tamara?”
Tamara stays quiet until I’ve almost forgotten my own question. She puts her hand on my knee, and I suspect that will be all the answer I get. But then she says, “This land was important to Sam and Mary’s people. Still is. The lake to the west. The river down in that valley. Those hoodoos. These mountains. Their people aren’t here anymore, but when I saw the place advertised, I don’t know, I had ... a feeling.”
A feeling? Tamara kicks at a pebble in the dirt with the toe of her boot. I want to tell her to stop; the dust hurts my lungs. But everything hurts my lungs now.
“The land knows, the land remembers. Sahitya’s practice is about listening—to spirits. She might surprise us.” Tamara rubs her legs nervously. “We needed some movement, Eli. We weren’t getting anywhere at home.” Tamara puts her arm around me and pulls me into her body. I know she does it only so she won’t have to look in my face. I’m hot and uncomfortable, but I don’t draw away.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s see what this land knows.”
***
We arrive at the tepee before dinner at five, as Sahitya instructed. We seem to be the only “guests” here. Sahitya leads us in through the tepee flap, telling us which direction to circle the tent when we enter (clockwise) and which direction to circle when we exit (counterclockwise). When we’re all standing in a circle, Sahitya smiles again. Her kind of smile is new to me. There’s nothing behind it, nothing outside of it. When Sahitya smiles, she is the smile. “Sit,” the smile says.
We all obey and sit around a small barbeque. Patricia doesn’t object to sitting in the dirt in her shiny new yoga pants. Tamara looks uncomfortable shifting herself into a cross-legged positon, but she too says nothing. I copy them. We all look into the ash-filled barbeque. My hunger fights with my fear that she will actually light a fire. The air already feels far too hot, and now we sit too close. I feel faint and, despite the suffocating heat, I am glad Patricia and Lucy sit closely beside me on either side. They will catch me if I fall.
Sahitya pulls a bowl of dates from the basket she brought from the dome house and crawls over to a small shelf filled with framed photos. She places a thin slice of date in front of each photo, bowing slightly every time. She turns back to us and again she smiles that everything smile—a look of such absolute joy that I wonder what she has to be so happy about. Sweat tickles down my back, and my hair feels wet at my ears. My stomach rumbles again, but I don’t see any hot dogs anywhere. I want to take a handful of Sahitya’s dates and stuff them in my mouth.
Still smiling, Sahitya joins us cross-legged in the dirt, places her palms flat together, and bows to each of us. I take a quick peek around the circle, and Patricia, Lucy, and Tamara look at least as confused as I am, but we each nod awkwardly in response to her bow.
When Sahitya bows, we bow. When Sahitya puts her palms together, we put our palms together. In silence, Sahitya organizes a bundle of twigs in the barbeque—the “havan”—and shapes them into a small tepee. When it’s perfect, she bows to us again, all smile. We bow back.
“Those with us and those who will come have our permission to pass through,” she says, “have our blessing. Our ancestors have been stuck in a story about reality.” She speaks softly, with kindness, as if her voice too can smile. But this time, behind the smile, I hear something firm and unbending. “Our ancestors—the dead—don’t know they have the power to create a new reality, a new story.”
Lucy fidgets. She’s had enough. Maybe we will go home. Home to Nicholas, to Sam. Home to Mary.
“Now, matches.” Sahitya looks around, hot and flustered, her full cheeks red and shining. She wipes at the sweat on her cheek with the back of her hand. An iPhone dings. Sahitya pulls hers from her pocket and reads a message. We wait as she scrolls down and then watch as she sets the phone in the dirt at her side. “Matches, matches, matches.” She makes no excuse about the phone. She rubs her legs, checks her jean pockets, and then pats a hand at each of her back pockets. “Yes! Matches!”
She does actually plan to light a fire in this heat, then, on this dirt, with that dried-up garden all around us. Lucy shifts again but says nothing. I know what she’s thinking: What would Nicholas say? Surely there’s a fire ban.
“The dead cling to us because they want us to hear them,” Sahitya says, lighting the first match. “They need us to hear them. Our dead want to tell their story about love and loss, and they won’t leave until we hear them.” She holds the match close to the twigs, touching down in three spots, waiting for it to catch each time. The smell of smoke fills the small space. “The story is about love.”
Sahitya holds her hands palms up, slightly outstretched at her sides. Again we guess at her cues, and we reach out to hold hands in a ring around the fire. Lucy’s hand is hot and clammy, but she gives mine a reassuring squeeze. On my other side, Patricia’s hand, heavy and still, feels dead.
“So, a mantra,” Sahitya says through her smile. “An easy one. Here’s what you say: Om kreem kreem kreem swaha. Try it. Om kreem kreem kreem swaha.”
My lips stay stuck together, but I hear the others fumble through Sahitya’s chant. They say it the same as Sahitya, except that, at the end, their voices go up in a question mark.
Sahitya looks at me, her smile hard. “Try it again.”
This time I croak it out with the others: “Om kreem kreem kreem swaha.”
“Better.” Smile. “Now, you take this.” Sahitya pulls another container from her basket and pours into each of our palms some dirt mixed with bits of dried weeds. “Throw it on the fire with each swaha.” She sets a jar of thick liquid, bright yellow and sweet-smelling, into her lap. I hope we get to eat it. “We do it together a hundred and eight times. Om kreem kreem kreem swaha.” She waits for us to repeat the sounds again, so we do. “There you go! You’ve got it.” Smile. “Through this ceremony, we will clear the suffering and pain that our dear ones have been holding onto.”
A shiver runs through me then. My skin stands up in goose bumps, ignoring this horrible heat, ignoring the flames leaping toward me. The way Sahitya says “suffering and pain,” makes me forget about the dirt in my palm and the heat of the fire radiating uncomfortably onto my face and chest. I feel only that weight, the one I’ve been holding onto for so long. The weight of suffering and pain. My own and not my own, though I’m afraid responsibility for both falls on me.
***
I lie flat on my back in our daisy field, the sun warm on my face, Mary’s head heavy against my chest. I stroke her smooth cheek and wrap my leg around hers. This time will be the final time, I tell myself. Just like I told myself the last time and the time before that.
Mary sings softly into my chest—eye ya ah nuss hewk zoo kah nee—and each syllable vibrates through my body. I don’t know what the words mean or what story her song tells. But I’ve memorized its sounds. I hum its tune to myself at home while I bathe or smoke my pipe or whittle on the front step. Ursula never asks where I learned this new song or how it goes.
“Mary—”
She must hear the warn
ing in my voice. She climbs on top of me and holds her mouth to mine, stopping my words. I know she’s tired of my apologies. She no longer believes my goodbyes.
When she’s done kissing me, she pulls away. Her arm pushing into the earth, she holds her head above mine. “What’s your wife doing this afternoon? Baking me biscuits?”
Mary’s disrespect of Ursula angers me, reminds me of my own disrespect, and I roll out from under Mary’s body. I am not rough, but she flies away from me as if thrown. She lands on the hard ground, and a wounded expression twists her features. She’s an actress, when needed; she’s made a business of playing weak men—men injured in the war, men guilty they never went to the war. Men who can’t get wives and those who sneak out on their wives. I set my mind against her melodramatic antics. It’s the only way to steel myself, as I must. I sit uncomfortably now in the grass. This will be the last time. I don’t hurry, though. I pass my gaze over the forest to the mountain range in the distance. I breathe in the immense beauty of this wild daisy field that now belongs to Mary and me.
Early in my marriage, I would have liked to have brought Ursula to this place, but Ursula has never enjoyed walking in the woods, especially up the mountain. I cannot imagine her with sweat on her brow. When I head up the trail behind our house alone, Ursula does not object. She never asks to join me. She knows I will return in time to eat with the family.
“I am going home now,” I say, “to have dinner with my wife.” I don’t like myself when I say it. I have sharpened the words to hurt. My wife. If I cannot stay away from Mary, I will have to push Mary away from me.
***
Om kreem kreem kreem swaha.
I copy the others and throw a pinch of dirt in the fire with each swaha. I don’t know if I’ve been doing it all along. I’m not sure if I’ve been chanting with them each time. I can’t tell how far into the 108 chants we’ve gotten. But the words come naturally, their vibration filling me. The flames shoot high in all directions, and after each toss of dirt Sahitya drips a ladle of her yellow mixture onto the fire. With each splash of goo, the flames flare higher. Even Patricia seems taken up in the chanting, all of our voices blending in an odd mechanical song. I get lost in the chant, in the repetition of these strange sounds, in the energy they send through my body, in the lovely sensation of not thinking but only repeating. I get lost too in the repetition of movement, the pinch of dirt between my middle fingers and my thumb (never my forefinger—Sahitya has a rule for everything). We pinch on the om, ready for the throw on the final kreem, and toss our spark of dirt onto fire on the swaha. Over and over and over again.
I forget about Tamara kneeling across from me in her jean overalls. I forget about Patricia in the dirt in her pretty yoga pants. I even forget about Lucy, my unhappy Mama. It’s only me and the sounds and the fire and the dirt. I don’t even mind the heat of the flames anymore. I no longer worry the fire will spread. I stare deep into the havan, enjoying the blaze so close to my face and repeat, Om kreem kreem kreem swaha.
But I’m pulled from the words, from the fire, from the dirt when Sahitya misses a dollop of yellow following our spray of dirt. She still chants with us, but she’s shifting now, searching for something.
Her iPhone. She finds it in the dirt at her side, sets down her ladle, and holds the phone to her face. “You’ll see,” she says as we all shout swaha and throw a pinch of dirt in the fire. “I take pictures of the havan fire and when we look later, we’ll see spirits. One time, we saw a pregnant woman. Clear as day, big belly.” Sahitya shapes the belly over her own with her free hand.
Our voices waver. “Om kreem kreem kreem swaha?” We forget our dirt, the pinch between our thumb and middle fingers. We’ve turned from the fire and now stare at Sahitya, purple scarf around her head, streaks of dirt in the sweat on her chin. Her iPhone blocks the rest of her face. “You’ll see,” she says.
I don’t find the vibration again or get lost in the fire. But we finish out our chanting with an increase in volume, following Sahitya’s cue, and then we sit silently, chins tucked into our chests, palms pressed together at our hearts.
“Okay!” Sahitya finally speaks, rubbing her hands against her thighs. “Jai ho! That’s Sanskrit for yee-haw!” She raises her arms in the air like she’s at football game and her team just scored a touchdown. “Jai ho! Dinner!”
Only I hear Lucy’s sigh. Patricia and Tamara have jumped, as if turbo-boosted by the word “dinner.” Lucy, though, stays on the ground. She leans into me and pulls me tightly to her side before we stand to follow Sahitya. I smell Lucy’s sweat, but I don’t mind when she puts her sticky forehead against mine. I don’t mind when she kisses the top of my head like I’m still a baby, like we’re still a normal mother and son. That’s what Lucy wants, normal. She doesn’t really know why we’ve come here. Still, after all of Sahitya’s talk of the dead, Lucy does not know.
Dear Nicholas,
She left. My new friend, gone! No more Patricia at Lokya Landing.
Tamara brought us to this post-apocalyptic goat farm on the driest and dustiest mountain in the world, and then she too tried to abandon us. I caught her and Patricia whispering by the llama pen after this evening’s havan. (Don’t ask, you wouldn’t believe me—let’s just say news of the fire ban hasn’t travelled up to Lokya Landing—or if Sahitya’s spirits know about the ban, they haven’t deigned to share the information with the blessed Sahitya.)
Yes, Sahitya. It’s her name.
Also: don’t ask.
So, after the havan, Patricia said to me, “I need wine. One glass of wine.”
“Of course, you need wine,” Tamara answered, massaging her own neck, digging her fingers deep. “After that, we all need wine. I need fucking tequila.”
“I’m not staying here.”
There was no arguing with Patricia. She needed to go back to her sandstone countertops and her dual-head rain showers. She needed to pull a Chardonnay from her wine fridge and enjoy it in her jet tub while Steven slathered himself in Vaseline for his next long training ride. Fine.
But I expected Tamara to back me. This nut farm was her idea.
“You stay for Eli.” That’s what Tamara said. “We’ll come back for you when you’re done.”
Done what? I wanted to scream it, but I’d been lured into their whispers. We were all afraid of Sahitya.
I tried to talk Tamara into having Sam come and pick them up at least, so Eli and I could keep the truck. I wanted some means of escape. But you know Tamara and her fucking truck. She wanted to fly off in a blast of dust, and leave Eli and I stuck here. This time I said no way. “Listen here, Tamara. You and your leaving can bite my ass. You dragged us here. You can stick it out with us.”
In the end, Steve came and got Patricia. I wanted to leave as much as they did, but I asked Eli, “Can we go? Do you want to go home?” Eli surprised me by saying he’s curious. Not convinced, not sold, and not cured. But curious. “I think Tamara’s curious too,” he said. “We both are.”
Since “curious” is the best we’ve gotten from him for a while, we’ll stay. No cell phone. No wine. No clue.
And it got stranger at dinner, when we met the husband, Jiva. Yes, Sahitya and Jiva. For fuck’s sake. These people are whiter than we are.
“I am glad I came to Lokya Landing and Right Living Centre,” Patricia said just before she left us. “Now I’m prepared for the apocalypse. I know what it will look like. I know its smell. But I am never coming back.”
Other than his lungs, Eli seems okay. He’s quiet, and he disappears at times. He sinks into himself. Those spells of absence last longer than they used to. But it’s the other ones that scare me more—when he’s here but not himself. When he speaks in a voice that belongs to no ten-year-old boy. Those episodes have been frequent too. But in terms of strength, or maybe it’s only resolve, he seems well. (We must stay positive!) He didn’t shiver and complain when I had to bathe him in icy well water. He stood solid against the cold assault, robust even. E
li has never been robust. But somehow even in this new strength, he’s not with me. Or he’s here in only the most fleeting visits. You know all of this as well as I do.
I guess I’m willing to follow Eli’s curiosity and Sahitya’s iPhone spirits and whatever else she brings our way, if her hippie tricks will bring back Eli. Even you, with your scientist’s mind, would want me to try.
After dinner, Sahitya pulled out her iPhone to show me pictures of the spirits that came to us in this evening’s havan fire. You know how that goes. Like finding animals in the clouds. I see a dog. I see a lion. I see an elephant. Look, there’s the trunk! I didn’t want to play along. I hope we have not come all this way for child’s games. But Eli changed then. He grabbed the phone from Sahitya and held it in both hands, the screen very close to his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a whisper. “I’m so sorry.” He kept saying it, not louder but with more intensity. I could hear real sorrow in his words, but he didn’t cry. I tried to shush him and pull the phone away, but Sahitya stopped me.
“Let him finish,” she said, brushing my arm aside.
I should be okay with all of this, Nicholas. Me with my medieval mystics. I should immerse myself in a cloud of unknowing. I should be fine. But I’m scared. I want our normal life back. Just the three of us. I want the world I knew, the one where Eli named his comic books “Death of Invincible Man” and “Death of Invincible Man, Part II” and we laughed. We laughed because people only die once.
Eli is fine now. “Jai ho! for that,” as we say here at Lokya Landing. He’s sleeping next to me. We’re in a tiny beat-up trailer. I put Eli to sleep in his own little bed, but he called to me in the dark, “Can I sleep with you, Mama?”
Mama.
“Of course you can, baby. You can sleep with Mama.”
I had him for that moment. I had Eli.
I don’t know how I can even send this message to you. Carrier crow?
Maybe I’ll send you my messages via smoke signals from tomorrow’s havan. Don’t laugh. It’s not funny.