by Divya Sood
She made it sound horrible the way she came out with it. I wanted to refute her, contradict her, and tell her she was so wrong but the words sometimes fail you and at that very moment, my words failed me. Writer’s block is painful when you write but when you’re blocked as you speak, it is the most painful of all. Because inside you there are all these thoughts wanting to get out. And then you open your mouth and there’s nothing there.
“If that’s true, then go to her, Jess.”
“It’s not true,” I said as I finally tore away some words to give to her. I snatched some more.
“Anjali, I love you and want to be with you. Isn’t that enough for you?”
“Not if you’re making the biggest sacrifice of your life to be with me by letting go your muse, no.”
“It’s nothing like that. I had a choice. I chose you. It’s that simple.”
The evening started to settle around us, a cold, grey dusk that fell like powder across the expanse of the entire park. I took her hand partly because I wanted her to believe everything I was saying, partly because the darkness threatened me as it always had.
“Why did you choose me, Jess? I’m difficult and spoiled and totally impossible.”
“And you’re kind and you’re sweet and you’re beautiful. You’re forgiving and gentle and totally irresistible.”
I touched her cheek with the back of my palm, opened my fingers to her touch her face. I hadn’t just uttered words, I had meant every one. Perhaps I had thought I was staying with Anjali for her elicited promise. But at the end, Anjali was all of those things, wasn’t she?
Not to say that Vanessa wasn’t kind and sweet. Or that Vanessa wasn’t beautiful and totally irresistible. She was all of these things as well. But whereas Anjali forgave and forgave, Vanessa had forgiven me nothing. She had stormed off, left me when the slightest tinge of trouble arose. But I remembered her stories of past loves, how she forgave every single one, never held a grudge. Maybe she was capable of forgiving me also. With time. And then what? Did it matter?
“I have spent four years with you,” I said, “now five. I spent a few days with her, walking around and writing. How can you compare the two?”
In my own mouth, my words felt so dishonest I wanted to vomit. I knew it wasn’t about walking around and writing. I was leaving out Neruda and the journal. I was leaving out half written, half understood love letters across my back. I wasn’t telling her about halter-tops and senseless lovemaking, storms and sadness. I neglected to tell her that I had told Vanessa things I had never shared, had never dared tell anyone. But what could I say? I love her just as I love you but since you took a fall and I promised myself to you and since we have this history, this history that trumps all love, I chose you? I couldn’t say all that. So I said what I said and then I was quiet.
“It has been five years,” she said. “It has been a long time. Maybe that’s why I forgive you, believe you if you tell me it was just senseless. Because I don’t want to have wasted the past five years of my life either.”
Whether she truly believed me or chose to ignore the truth she knew, I don’t know. But if she could choose to be with me despite everything, then I could choose her as well.
I looked towards Bobst Library, tiny squares of windows full of light. I kept my gaze there, at the library, because if I looked at Anjali now, I would betray my heart, say something or do something that gave it all away.
“Jess, let’s just choose to be happy, damn it.”
Now I looked at her, saw disgust written across her face, a weariness for all that we endured and for all that had been. I breathed deeply, the cold searing my lungs.
“Let’s do that,” I said, not knowing if my next fuck up lay around the corner or down the road. But if she were willing to not look for my next misstep, neither was I.
“I’m cold, let’s go home.”
“It is cold,” I said, “let’s go.”
We took a cab home without words, without touch. Vanessa had said not to fill full spaces with empty words but the space between Anjali and me was not full but rather devoid of all energy, lacking all strength. I hoped we would recover; find ways to reach for place that was rich and full and dense and ours. But I didn’t know what was to come.
When we got home, Anjali declined dinner and lay on the couch.
“I’m very tired,” she said. “I just want to sleep.”
“So sleep in the bed.”
“No, I like it here,” she said.
“Want me to sleep next to you?” I offered hoping she would say “yes” making things somewhat right between us.
“No,” she said, “I need some space tonight. Please.”
I could have argued, could have sat on the couch and refused to go but I didn’t. I gave her her space and went to the bedroom, the door shutting quietly behind me. I wanted to take the journal, to read from cover to cover, but it was in the living room in the drawer reserved for incense. I didn’t want to take it out in front of Anjali so I didn’t go back to retrieve it. Looking back, I wonder how life would have been different if I had taken that journal and read it that night. Sometimes what seems like the smallest decision we make turns into the greatest fate of our lives.
I slept soundly, tired myself, wondering what was going to become of me, of Anjali, of Vanessa.
Later that night I awoke and, as if in a dream, I discerned the scent of sandalwood. Anjali was not next to me. I remembered she had slept on the couch. I went to the living room to see if she was asleep, if maybe she wanted to come to bed. The entire space was dark but, atop our altar, there lay two diyas, the oil giving fuel to the cotton wicks that danced with fire. And there was an incense stick in the elephant incense holder, swirls of smoke scenting the room with sandalwood. And there she was, eyes closed, hands clasped. And I watched her.
There was something about her praying that endeared her to me in ways I couldn’t even dare to describe. Watching her brought such peace to me I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“God,” I whispered to myself, “Grant us our prayers, whatever the may be.”
I stood there watching her as long as she prayed. When she finished she touched her fingers to her forehead and then to her heart. As she turned around, she saw me and stopped moving. In the glow of the diyas I saw that she was crying. I walked to her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked stupidly.
“I wanted to light incense and I wanted sandalwood because I like it,” she said.
“That’s fine,” I said. “You know where I keep the incense…”
I stopped. The journal. I kept the journal in that drawer.
“It wasn’t really about the kiss, Jess. Maybe you were ending something, I don’t know. But….”
“You read it?” I asked.
“I shouldn’t have,” she said.
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
“But I did. You love her, Jess. And she loves you. Who am I in this equation?”
I wanted to tell her how and how much I loved her. I wanted to tell her that she meant the world to me. That things had changed in these last few weeks. But the words. The words wouldn’t come. And we stood there silently staring at each other, not moving. All because I couldn’t tell my Anjali that I was finally hers.
“You gave her your soul, Jess. Muse or no muse, you haven’t shared with me in five years what you shared with her in less than a week. Do you know how that makes me feel?”
“How?” I whispered as my own eyes became moist, as I felt the guilt that I deserved and had circumvented for so long.
“Defeated and stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” I offered, wishing I could take from her her pain.
“I am, Jess. To not see what I should have. That I’m just…convenient.”
“That’s not true, baby. That’s not true!”
“Then what am I, Jess? What am I that you lied to me to be with her and then lied to me about what you had? And I believed you. I fucking believed
you. I closed my eyes to everything you didn’t want me to see. But my eyes are open now. And what do I do with that, Jess? What do I do?”
I wanted to tell her she should forget the journal, return to me whole, not be fragmented by my dishonesty or love for another woman. But even I had some sense of shame and it rose up right then, radiated through my body, and touched my fingertips and toes. I was speechless. Empty space. Empty Jess.
As she passed me to go to the bedroom, she turned and looked into my eyes.
“You weren’t my muse, Jasbir Banerjee. But you were the ground beneath my feet, the air I breathed, my hunger, my laughter, my goddess.”
And then she was gone leaving me standing in the glow of diyas and the scent of sandalwood. I looked up at our altar and tried to pray. Although I had a feeling that even the gods couldn’t redeem me.
Chapter Thirty-three
The next few days, little changed except that we barely spoke and she insisted I sleep in the spare bedroom. I didn’t want to press the issue. The silence was unnerving at times but what could I say to her? I couldn’t say, “What’s bothering you?” because I knew full well where her hurt lay. It was in my wrongdoings, once again in my fuck ups. I never knew when she awoke or when she left because now, sleeping in a separate room, I never heard her stirring in the morning. She never called throughout the day and if I called her, which I had twice, her secretary told me she was too busy to come to the phone and would call me back which she never did. When she came home from work, she delicately prepared her martini as always, sat on the couch and gingerly placed olives in her mouth. She ate the dinners that I made, complimented me on the balance of spices or the softness of the meat. Beyond that, we didn’t interact and I started to feel suffocated. I wished for a break in this solid silence, this quietude that had become Anjali.
She came to me one night as I sat on the couch trying to write something that would stop me from feeling as helpless as I felt.
“Jess.”
I was happy to hear her say my name.
“Yes?” I said, hoping we could talk away everything that had happened, hoping once again for Anjali’s unrelenting forgiveness. But a fear rose within me that hadn’t been there before. Anjali seemed different. I knew she was sad. But now, she seemed somehow resigned. I couldn’t place it. I knew that when she was angry or when her heart ached, she did not react this way. The last thing I could ever have expected from her was resignation. I was pondering this dilemma when she came to the couch and sat down beside me.
“Jess, I want to talk to you.”
“Yeah,” I said, heart pounding, racing, tumbling.
I was relieved that finally, we would talk about the other night. About Vanessa. About my commitment to Anjali. About the journal. About muses. About love.
“Jess, I’m leaving.”
I stared at her as if I didn’t understand what she was saying.
“I love you, I do,” she said.
“You’re leaving?” I repeated slowly as if I didn’t understand the language in which she spoke.
“I’m leaving,” she said as she breathed harder, as she looked towards the wall, as she avoided eye contact with me. She was gathering her strength, making sure she didn’t fall in her attempt to rise. As the tears slipped from her eyes she ignored them, pretended they had a place upon her cheeks, that she wanted them there, streaming down her face.
“But I love you,” she said as her voice quavered.
“Then why are you leaving me? You can’t fucking love me and leave me.”
“I used to think there were rules in love too, Jess,” she said softly, “But you proved me wrong. There are no rules. You can love someone and fuck a thousand others. You can love someone and run off with a muse and share your soul with her. You can love someone and not be honest with her. So then why can’t I love you and leave you at the same time?”
“Because I love you too, damn it!”
I wanted to break something, shatter something that was whole. I took the vase from the coffee table, smashed it to the ground.
“Are you finished?” she asked.
“Anjali, listen to me,” I panted, “listen, it’s just you and me. It’s just us and we’re going to make this work.”
“This,” she said as she rose of the sofa, her hands up in the air making circles, “this doesn’t work. We don’t work. We won’t work. Do you understand that?”
“It’s not true!” I screamed. I wanted to kiss her but my lips were quivering. I was trying hard not to cry, not to be weak. I needed strength to coax her, to make her forget the ridiculous notion of leaving.
“I talked to the landlord and paid the year off,” she said, “so you could relax and write. I want you to do that. Here, without me, you can invoke your muse.”
“I don’t want a muse. I want you.”
“All I inspire you to do, Jess, is run to other women. Aar paari naa.”
With that she turned to make a graceful exit, to walk away from me forever.
“Fuck that! Why are you leaving? Because I kissed someone? Because of the journal? Anjali, I was ending it with her, I was. And the journal is just us writing back and forth. You have to give me a reason!”
She turned at glared at me. Her face had changed. The softness that had been there moments ago was gone and it was replaced by a fierceness I had never seen in her.
“Actually I have to give you nothing. And as far as your journal, have you read it? Would any self-respecting person be with you after reading that journal? You bared your soul to this woman while I was here, praying for your success, your life, your dreams. I’m not doing this anymore.”
“Fuck that Anjali! Fuck that!”
“Okay, how many times am I going to sit here and be fucked over? It’s not about the kiss. It’s about all the other kisses and fucks that are to come.”
“None, Anjali. No one but you, jaan.”
She laughed. She actually laughed while my chest and heart hurt so badly I could barely breathe.
“Okay, Jess…I believe you. I believe all the jaans and all the babys. I do. Because I’m just that stupid.”
I looked away from her and stared at the shattered vase. I finally started to cry. It all came out at once. I started gasping for breath. I felt like a fool.
“Anjali, I promise.”
“And I promised myself that if you broke my heart this time, I wouldn’t stay. I promised myself that. And I finally have enough respect for myself to follow that.”
“Anjali, you can’t leave. You can’t. I love you!”
“I love you too, jaan.”
She got up and I followed her into her room, wiping my eyes with the back of my hands, feeling helpless and frightened and foolish. There were two suitcases packed and ready to go. When she had packed or where she had hid them, I didn’t know. Was I such a fool that I hadn’t even noticed?
“I left you some money in the top dresser drawer,” she said.
“You think leaving me money is going to make you any less guilty? What the fuck?”
She turned around and faced me. Her eyes were ablaze with indignation.
“I have nothing to feel guilty about. Nothing. I have done nothing but love you. I have done nothing but wait up nights and quietly tolerate your girls in my apartment. I have given you everything of myself. So don’t you ever make the mistake of saying I should feel guilty.”
“Where the fuck are you going? What are you doing?”
She was silent.
“What, I don’t have a fucking right to know?”
“You want to know? You really want to? I’m getting married to Abhay.”
I felt as if she had hit me. I couldn’t breathe. “You’re marrying the asshole?”
“Jess, he loves me. And it’s time for someone to love me, isn’t it?”
“Dick or no dick? Love or no love?”
“His love is more complete than anything you ever offered me. And maybe I’m wrong but I need to be loved. By so
meone.”
“You’re selling your fucking body for love then!”
“Maybe. Maybe. But I need to be loved. I need what you never gave. And at this point in my life, I would do anything.”
“I love you. He just wants you. But I love you. Please stay with me. Please.”
She made sure to look in my eyes before she spoke.
“With your betrayals, Jess you want to know the truth? I would rather marry him than be loved by you.”
“Anjali!”
She continued to say everything she had wanted to say for years. And I listened. I deserved it, didn’t I? I had betrayed her, lied to her, stolen moments from her a thousand times over. And she had patiently erased my mistakes, tucked away my transgressions. And now it was my turn to listen, to hurt, and to hear her out.
“Your sorry ass excuses for love, for desire. You don’t know what it is to love. Love changes you. Nothing changes you, Jess. You’re the same manipulative, heartless person I met at a party once. Your life is random. Random fucks with random women. Do it. At least, at least he gives me a position in his life. What am I to you?”
I felt as if she had struck me hard. I don’t deny that every word she said was true. I don’t deny that I deserved her tirade. But the mirror she held up for me to see myself made me realize how pathetic I was. And I had no answer for that.
She didn’t hesitate to grab the handles on her suitcases and drag the wheels through the apartment. I could hear the gurgle in my throat as I cried. I heard my voice shrill with despair. She stopped walking and for a moment my heart had hope.
“Jess, no one will ever love you like I do. And I do love you. I just can’t get fucked over any more, Jess. My heart can’t do this anymore.”
“There will be no more.”
“You’re right, Jess. Finally, after all these years of loving you, there will be no more. Aar paari naa.”
As she walked out, I did nothing but stand there. She closed the door behind her and I felt myself crumble. I cried. I cried so hard my chest hurt from heaving. I sat at the glass table, our breakfast table, and cried to no one. I wanted to hold her again. I wanted to find her fragrance wafting through the apartment after she had showered. I wanted to hold her close to me, run kisses from her temple to her jaw to her neck to her locket. I wanted to feel all of Anjali against my body, grazing my mind and soul.