Love Songs for a Lost Continent

by Anita Felicelli

  Sita had planned her escape carefully. Anand knew nothing of Srinivasan, but she’d read too many suspense novels to risk his discovery. She rode a bus to the northeast edge of the city to save money, instead of hailing a rickshaw.

  As she stepped off the bus at the stop by Srinivasan’s house, she breathed in the sweet scent of roses, the warmth of hot dough frying. The shouts of the paan wallah, his teeth stained red and his bare arms blackened by eczema. There were so few of these perfect moments in her life, these interstices between one mundane horror and another.

  After the Smriti 3000 did its work, she doubted that this perfect moment had ever existed. It seemed to belong to someone else, someone who was not caught up in a nightmare, someone who had been that most reckless of things—happy. Was it enough to feel this giddy sense of expansion, this blooming, for only a few pure weeks in a whole long lifetime? Perhaps this was still more than her parents—at least the version of her parents plagued by health troubles—had ever known.

  ***

  Over the years, she played detective behind prison walls. She developed theories about who had killed her husband, the most plausible of which was that her brothers had done it—had noticed her bruises and believed it was better for her to be a widow—not realizing how painfully close she’d been to escape. At first, haunted by her imaginings of what might have happened, she tried to trick Deepak into revealing more than he already had, but after a few failed attempts at squeezing the truth out of him, she grew resigned.

  She would never know or understand what her brothers had done, but no matter. There would be no return to the city of pink palaces. Instead, resignation became a kind of friend, a way to stanch the horrible turmoil that hope stirred inside her blood. Sitting in her tiny prison cell, exiled from her village, she could still remember clearly the stars that night, the white swirl of them like splattered milk, and how she thought for that shining instant as she walked down the street, that the whole universe was now hers.

  In the morning, the Sarma family explored the Jaipur palace hotel grounds. Kai lagged a few paces behind his parents and little sister. As they strolled through the spring gardens past blue iridescent peacocks with fanned-out tails, he daydreamed about what it might be like to be a prince, to have the world at your feet. But as they passed the long gravel drive, his thoughts shifted to consider the mystery at its end—the chaotic streets of the Pink City, a phantasmagoria of forts and street markets and fortune-tellers.

  Reading to his family from the guidebook, Gopal explained that the palace, a sedate tan edifice with Islamic filigree and blood-red railings, had been converted to a hotel in 1925. “We got special rates because I’m still an Indian citizen.”

  “Why?” Hema asked, skipping down the brick path. Prahba had dressed Hema in an electric blue chiffon salwar that matched her own.

  “They charge Americans more, but they didn’t check your citizenship statuses.”

  “I’m Indian, too!” Hema said.

  “You were born in America. If you come here when you’re grown up, you’ll have to pay full price,” Prabha said.

  Hema grabbed her mother’s hand, yanking for leverage as she jumped.

  “Then again, it’s not like you’d even come to India if Mom and Dad didn’t make you come, Shrimp,” Kai said. He straightened his thrift-store pinstriped suit, which he wore with skull cuff links over a Dead Kennedys T-shirt as a form of protest against the vacation.

  “Yes, I would, too!” Hema put her hands on her hips and thrust them forward. “I’ll visit India every year all my life, just like Mommy and Daddy.”

  “Nobody made you come with us, Kai!” Gopal said.

  “You didn’t give me a choice. You never give me a choice.” Kai had come out to his parents during Pillayar Chaturthi. He’d been planning to tell them for some time and resolved to do so while they stood in front of the statue of Ganesha, as a priest spooned vibhuti, sacred ash, into his palm. They returned home from the temple in Livermore in a hot car that smelled like musty marigolds and sugar. He blurted it out, wanting to get it over with. Back home in Palo Alto, Kai had a number of bisexual and gay friends who were out to their parents and had been for years. He hadn’t expected his own to take it so badly.

  “What? I didn’t give you a choice?” Gopal slammed the book shut. “What nonsense! We let you wear that ridiculous outfit, didn’t we?”

  “Engineering college, no dating boys, skipping the spring break trip, visits to India year after year. Everything in my life has to be your way,” Kai said.

  “That’s enough, you two. We’re here to have fun, right?” Prabha pleaded. She adjusted her dupatta, breathing heavily as she huffed up the short flight of steps to the hotel. A month before the trip, Prabha had reminded Gopal that Kai would be graduating high school that summer. She was intent on having one last happy family vacation together and so, instead of spending two weeks shuttling between relatives’ houses in Chennai, the Sarmas used their second week to tour Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, northern parts of India none of them had ever visited.

  Kai sighed loudly in the direction of his mother, veered off the path, and cut across the lawn toward the restaurant.

  ***

  It was early for lunch, and the Sarmas were the only people seated at the palace’s Pearl Restaurant. On the gaudy gold-papered walls hung gilt-framed mirrors reflecting infinite rows of polished wooden tables and a wide Persian carpet, violet with hot-pink roses. None of them felt quite right under the chandeliers, but Kai was the only one to voice it.

  “All this is too fancy. Biriyanis and pilafs and meat.” Kai gestured at the placid Renaissance frescoes in oval frames that loomed in the high ceiling. “I just want idlis and sambar.”

  “We’ve been away from Chennai a day, you can’t be sick of North Indian food yet.” Gopal scanned the detailed menu. Kai knew his father was looking at the prices.

  “Kai da, you can’t spend this whole vacation complaining. What would you like to do today?” Prabha asked.

  He frowned. “Nothing. Watch TV maybe.”

  “But you only turn eighteen once! We should celebrate, so you won’t forget.”

  “We’re going to the elephant polo match,” Gopal reminded Prabha.

  Kai rolled his eyes. The waiter appeared, quietly holding his pen and notepad ready. “You are ready to order, sir?”

  Gopal waved a squat hand. “A Kingfisher beer for everyone at the table—except the little one. Do you want a mango lassi, kutty?” he asked Hema. She nodded. The waiter jotted down their orders and smiled with an obsequiousness that made Kai cringe.

  Kai ordered only a chicken appetizer.

  “That all you want?” Gopal asked. “Get something fancier.”

  Kai shrugged. “I’d rather have a bucket of KFC, but this’ll do.”

  “You never eat properly,” Prabha said. “That’s why you’re so depressed all the time.”

  “Not this again.”

  Prabha’s face crinkled, but her tone was conciliatory. “We’ll go out again for your birthday when we get back home.”

  “So, this is an exciting time for you, Kai.” Gopal spoke in a cheery voice. “Where are your friends going to college?”

  “Mostly UCs.”

  “And Gavin?”

  “How would I know?”

  The waiter set down three glasses brimming with amber beer and the mango lassi. Gavin was Kai’s best friend, the blue-eyed boy he’d harbored a crush on for three years, the only other boy at his school who bought indie vinyl records and skateboarded at the bowl to The Clash, the boy who’d gone with him to the thrift store to buy the pinstriped suit. The boy who, just last week while they were studying calculus, told Kai that even though he was bi, he just wasn’t attracted to him. A cute redheaded girl in their Spanish class had already asked Gavin to prom, and he’d said yes.

  After the waiter left, Gopal took a sip of his beer. “You’re not friends anymore?”

  “Nope. You’ll be happy to
know.”

  “I didn’t want you to stop being friends.”

  “No, you just told me I couldn’t date him, that I couldn’t date anyone I find attractive. Which doesn’t matter because he doesn’t even like me like that.”

  Hema sipped her mango lassi. Prabha frowned. “Do we have to talk about this in front of your sister? Kai, you know that all this gay business makes us uncomfortable. Let’s talk about something pleasant. And how would you know you’re gay, anyway?” Gopal continued. “At your age, you don’t know.”

  “Shh.” Prabha swatted Gopal’s hand lightly.

  “Right, you’re so concerned about making my birthday special, but let’s chat about what college my so-called friends are going to, now that you’ve forced me to pretend I’m not gay, forego music, and go to some stupid engineering school.”

  His parents glanced at each other, unsure of how to respond. At that moment, the waiters whisked out silver platters stacked with gleaming metal dishes of meat and rice and vegetables and pulses. Ceramic plates were gently set before them. Trailed by a fragrant vapor of cardamom and anise, the waiters left.

  The jubilant hum of Rajasthani being spoken just outside the restaurant doors drifted into the restaurant. Moments later, a group of young men paraded into the dining hall and sat around three tables. One set wore long stiff black coats, their heads wrapped in bright orange pagris. The others wore white polo shirts and shorts.

  “Who are they?” Hema asked.

  “Those are the elephant polo players and handlers,” Gopal said. “For the match this afternoon.”

  Kai caught the eye of one of the polo-shirted men as he sat down at the table next to them. He was handsome, godlike, very young—perhaps twenty, dark with an aquiline nose and light brown eyes. His tender lips had a dusky mauve cast. He smiled radiantly at Kai.

  “Do you like your first beer?” Prabha asked Kai. “Is it going to your head?”

  Capsaicin from the chiles that seasoned Kai’s chicken had disintegrated on his fingers. He rubbed his nose, setting the edges of his nostrils on fire, and took another sip of the cool froth. “It’s not bad.”

  “I remember my first beer,” Prabha said. “We had just come to the States, and we were at a taqueria with your father’s colleagues, and as a Brahmin girl, you know, I never touched alcohol, it was as forbidden as meat. But everyone at the table was ordering Tecate or margaritas, so I thought to myself, what the heck? I did, too.”

  “And I look over five minutes later!” Gopal broke in, laughing, though Kai wasn’t yet sure what was so funny. “And she had her head on the table! Completely drunk on one beer!”

  Irritated, Kai said, “I hate to break it to you guys, but this is not my first beer.” The handsome young man was eating a plate of biriyani with his hand, licking his fingers occasionally and speaking loudly to the other men. He smiled again at Kai when their eyes met, a friendliness that so startled Kai that he could only glare at him and then blush, both ashamed and hopeful that such a moment might reoccur, so he could smile back.

  “Where have you had one before?” Prabha asked, her voice reedy and high.

  “Just around, on the weekends sometimes.”

  Gopal and Prabha looked at each other with worried eyes but said nothing.

  ***

  An hour after lunch, the Sarmas pushed through a gathering crowd of tourists adorned with large reflective sunglasses and gleaming white sunhats. Over the loudspeaker, a man announced the players in English as elephants lumbered by, tails swishing, their wide backs draped in crimson brocade. The elephants’ ancient faces and foreheads were ornamented with elaborate dusty designs in pink, chartreuse, and lavender powders.

  Kai located the handsome young man patting the back of a slightly smaller elephant as it loped away from his teammates. Two men rode each elephant—one an expert handler in a formal jacket, the other wielding a polo mallet. At one point, the handsome man’s small elephant squatted and took a dump. His handler ministered startling, forceful kicks to the elephant’s neck. When violence failed to work, he leaned forward and whispered, stroking the recalcitrant behemoth. Kai lifted his binoculars to take a closer look.

  “I want to see,” Hema demanded.

  “Wait a minute,” Kai said.

  Hema tried to seize the binoculars, but Kai shrugged her tiny, sticky hands away and re-trained the binoculars, trying to discern from the announcer’s comments whether his handler had been introduced yet.

  “Give it back to me! Give it back to me. It’s not just yours.” Hema began to cry, and the spectators sitting in front of them turned to look at her.

  “Kai, give it to your sister already! What in bloody hell are you doing?” Gopal snapped. Kai numbly handed the binoculars to his sister. Then the match began.

  There were four elephants on each side, black jackets battling red. The smaller two elephants on each team were on the front lines, to attack, while two larger elephants remained behind to defend their goals. A referee sat astride a docile elephant that followed the teams back and forth.

  Once the game was in full swing, the handsome man’s elephant snapped to attention and charged toward the goal, the handsome man pushing the ball expertly with his stick. Kai jumped up and yelled. A sweaty man in shorts ran after one of the other elephants to scoop up its giant turds. The ball zipped back and forth. The elephants were stomping and trumpeting, their large ears flapping. With comedic timing, one of the red defender’s elephants plopped down squarely in the middle of the goal as the handsome man’s small elephant approached and scored. The crowd cheered.

  Kai leaned over and hissed at Hema, making a menacing face. “I want the binoculars.”

  “No!”

  “Come on! Quit being such a fucking pain in the ass.”

  “No!” She exhaled with a fake sob. Kai tried to grab the binoculars, but she held them away from him.

  “Stop it, Kai,” Gopal said, his voice even.

  “Stop what? Why do you keep taking her side?”

  “I’m not taking her side. She has a hard time seeing because she’s small. Fair is fair.”

  “As long as fair is fair, I’m your son. Not your punching bag.”

  Prabha rested a soft hand on his shoulder. “Kai, let’s talk about this later. When we get back to the room.”

  “Punching bag? What nonsense!” His father’s eyes darkened, an eclipse.

  “Ever since I told you that I’m gay, you treat me like dirt.” Kai slumped forward, his suit jacket over his narrow shoulders feeling too brash, too big.

  “I told you, I don’t want to hear about that gay business. We’re not going to agree, so let’s just drop it.”

  A little man sauntered up and down the slope between rows of spectators, shouting in a nasal twang as he hawked boiled peanuts in little paper cones. Gopal yawned. “Let’s go back to the rooms. I could use a nap.”

  “I’m going to buy a snack and walk around.” Kai stood. “I’ll meet you guys back in the room later. Looks like they’re pretty much done.”

  The crowd cheered as the game concluded. The riders dismounted. Kai’s player pumped his fist. Kai followed the peanut hawker, bought a cone, and popped peanuts into his mouth one by one as he climbed the steps and trudged along the marble walkway, making his way onto the garden path, and past a swimming pool.

  From a distance, he watched the swarm of tourists disperse. He hurried in the other direction, shading his eyes from the sun. There wasn’t much time before the tourists who’d come only for the match tried to leave the compound. Two guards in burgundy suits stood at the end of the gate, and they nodded at him and said, “Good evening, sir. Will you need a driver, sir?”

  Kai said no, and they opened the gates.

  ***

  As the gates closed behind him, Kai reveled in the freedom of not knowing where he was going, of being free from his parents’ recitation of facts, their tedious schedules and intricate plans. A mangy three-legged dog limped across the street. Three b
eggar women with thinning silver hair sat on the side of the road. One of them hobbled toward him and he hurried forward to escape her outstretched arms and upturned palms.

  In the late afternoon light, the city glowed rose, luminous, rising out of the deep shadows. As he approached the bazaar, Kai heard the men. He immediately recognized the cadences of their speech though he could not understand what they were saying, the joyful rolling sound of it washing over him. Turning, Kai spotted his player in the crowd.

  The player took short strides, a cigarette drooping from his mouth as he searched his pockets for a lighter. He made eye contact with Kai a moment later, and this time Kai smiled.

  The player raised his hand in greeting. “So, it’s you again. American, no?”

  “Yes.”

  The other men paid him no mind. The player stopped. His eyes bore a sweet, overly sincere intensity. Kai blushed and looked away. Unfazed, the man said, “What are you doing now? You would like to celebrate with us?”

  Kai glanced back at the palace gates, now one hundred yards behind him. The group of men strode ahead with arms slung over each other’s shoulders, singing and carousing with beer bottles in their hands. “Why not?”

  Kai introduced himself. The player said his name was Vikrant. He lit a cigarette and handed it to Kai. “But call me Vik.”

  “I can say Vikrant,” Kai said. He was thinking of how his father mocked his American accent when trying to say Tamil words.

  “You are wanting me to call you Kailash, then?”

  “No, I’m just Kai.”

  “Okay then.” Vik lit another cigarette. He hooked arms with Kai and ran to catch up with the group. When they stopped running, Kai took a deep drag and coughed.

  “You are not smoking cigarettes?” Vik asked. He held out a hand to take the cigarette back.

  Kai waved his hand away. “Not many people smoke where I’m from.”

  Vik walked arm-in-arm with Kai, his warm skin pressed against Kai’s skin. Kai tried to suppress his excitement. His father had once explained that men were publicly affectionate with each other in India, and it didn’t mean they were gay.