The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing: A Novel

by Mira Jacob

  “If you want, I’ll take you to the driving range tomorrow. We made one by the dump,” Thomas said. “Those guys let us do it out there, and now we all compete, using each other as targets. Raj thinks we could turn it into a new sport even.”

  “Raccooning?” Amina asked.

  “Exactly,” her father said.

  It’s the altitude, she thought.

  Upstairs an hour later, Amina clutched the side of her bed. Her eyes slid dizzyingly around the room, but shutting them was worse, the darkness thick as meat, her head swelling with the sound of the dog barking and the wind through the trees and what might be her father’s voice talking under all of it. She sat up, placing her feet squarely on the floor.

  In the bathroom she leaned over the sink, staring at her reflection. Her hair was flat and her pupils were wide. She splashed water over her face.

  The tiniest bit of light winked from the glass-covered frames that guided her down the hall, and she moved past them like a plane down an abandoned runway. They were pictures, school pictures, hers and Akhil’s, each leading to their bedroom doors. Even in the dark she knew which she was passing with every step, her braces in fourth grade, his light mustache in seventh. When she got to the bedroom doors, she turned to his instead of her own. The cool wood pressed her forehead, which she lifted twice and knocked, as if that was a good idea with all the spinning, as if he might have surprised her with an answer. Nothing came, but she was comforted anyway, holding on to the doorknob like it was somebody’s hand.

  “Hey you,” she said.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Look at this girl!” Sanji Ramakrishna screamed. She threw the door open in a blue silken whirl and streaked down the steps toward Amina, cackling like a fat devil. Pinching hands landed on Amina’s shoulders, her cheeks, and Sanji bellowed at the door, “Hey! Fools! Get off your rusty rumps and come and greet our baby! It’s taken her all of three days to face us!”

  “One day, Sanji Auntie,” Amina protested, but her words were lost to the thrum of voices that moved from the kitchen to the entryway, bursting out of the door with the rest of them: Raj Ramakrishna (led by a spatula), Bala and Chacko Kurian (in one of their many silent fights, from the looks of things), and Thomas, whiskey in hand.

  Raj greeted her first, the loose girth of him swaddled in stylishly rumpled linen. Plump, cultured, and the wearer of a docile smile that was rumored to have wooed legions of older women in his youth, he double-pecked each of Amina’s cheeks before whispering, “There’s pani puri and jalebis in the kitchen.”

  “You really shouldn’t have gone through all that trouble.”

  “Tell me about it!” Sanji said. “All night this one! Clucking about in the kitchen like some mad hen because tamarind chutney wouldn’t thicken and how to get done by the time Amina-baby gets here!”

  “Come in, come in,” Bala Kurian coaxed from her perch on the step, arms clenched in front of her like a tiny prizefighter. Known throughout the Indian community in Albuquerque for her steady supply of gossip, outlandish outfits, and baffling non sequiturs, Dimple’s mother was in fine form tonight, glittering under several heavy chains and a saffron-colored, midriff-baring lehenga. (Straight from Bom! she would brag over dinner. Like a dancing girl dipped in ghee! Kamala would mutter under her breath.)

  “Goodness, Ami! But what’s happened to you? You’re looking so fair!”

  “She uses the Pond’s every night!” called Kamala, heaving up the driveway with an enormous bowl of rasmalai. “I sent her from Walgreens myself!”

  “Or it could be the whole no-sun thing,” Amina said, ignoring her mother’s look.

  “Come, let me see.” Chacko Kurian, who had been waiting by the door, now swept the women aside to grip Amina’s shoulders with gnarled hands. “You’re fairer?”

  “Hi. Not really.”

  He looked down his nose at her as though reading the face of a watch, his eyes glittering from somewhere deep behind heavy brows. “Too old for marrying anyway—why worry about it now?”

  “Chackoji, don’t start,” Sanji warned.

  “What start? It’s not a conversation, just the plain truth.”

  Delivered at least twelve times in every get-together, Chacko Kurian’s plain truths could have stamped the joy out of any festivity if anyone were to take him seriously. Springing from lost dreams (to pioneer heart surgery with a fleet of like-minded sons) and found realities (a daughter who was as uninterested in his line of work as she was in trying to make him happy), his edicts were always promptly dismissed by the others, giving him the air of a king ruling the wrong kingdom.

  “So what all is happening in Seattle?” he asked, clearing his throat. “Your father says you’ve been busy-busy.”

  “Yes, well, it’s the wedding season.”

  “How many weddings do you do in one weekend?”

  “Depends. Usually two, but sometimes four. Once I even—”

  “And Dimple?” His jaw flexed as he asked. “I don’t suppose she’s given up this silly art business?”

  “She’s doing great. I saw her right before I left.”

  “We heard that’s not all you saw!” Bala beamed. “What’s this about you going on a date with Sajeev?”

  “Oh, for the love of God. Dimple and I met him for a meal.”

  “Dimple went on a date with Sajeev?” Bala looked even more thrilled.

  “It wasn’t a date. It was dinner.”

  “A dinner date?”

  “Always, I knew that boy would go far,” Chacko announced.

  “Who cares about that little stick-necked thing?” Sanji asked. “What other news of our girl? And when will she come home? It’s been two years already.”

  “She’s really stressed about work right now,” Amina said, making the kind of excuses she always had for Dimple, whose teen stint in reform school had gone badly enough to keep her from coming back to see her father, even all these years later. “There’s a big show coming up.”

  “Ach,” Sanji sniffed. “Too successful, what to do?”

  “Listen, at least she isn’t working in a strip club,” Bala said, her tone dropping into decibels reserved for gossip-tragedy. “Did you hear about the Patels’ daughter Seema? Seems she’s in Houston living with an American boy and owning some topless bar where you can only order small dishes of Spanish food! Mother herself told me!”

  While the others choked on disbelief (“Seema? The National Merit Finalist?”), Sanji Auntie put a firm hand on Amina’s arm, guiding her away.

  “You’re thirsty, darling? Let’s get you a drink.”

  Amina let herself be whisked up the step and down the green-tiled hall. It was quiet and cooler in the living room, where the bar and the puja table competed for attention on opposite sides of the room.

  “You need a gin, love? Or are we being good for the parents?”

  “No, thanks.” Amina took a seat on a leather stool, inhaling the sharp mix of sandalwood and rosewater. The mirrored wall behind the bar showed her pallor. “I’m still feeling the whiskey I drank last night.”

  “Hair of the dog it is.”

  “No! God, please.”

  “Poor baby. Ginger ale? Just sit here and catch your breath.” Amina watched Sanji waddle behind the bar, where she grabbed a tumbler and filled it with ice. Of all the family, it was Sanji Ramakrishna who Amina still loved the most, her thick, meatish body, deep, rumbling laugh, mottled nose, ruddy cheeks, ability to weave equally between the men’s and women’s conversations, total inability to cook. And then there was the Ramakrishnas’ marriage, a subject of continual fascination for Amina and Dimple, having occurred in their unthinkable thirties as Ph.D. students at Cambridge. (A love marriage, their own mothers called it, shaking sad heads at the lack of children, though to Amina, that fact itself was unspeakably romantic, as though real love was the substitute for progeny, and vice versa.)

  She took the bubbly tumbler from Sanji’s extended hands. “Thanks.”

  Sanji smiled
. “So things are fine with you? We didn’t know you were coming, you know.”

  Amina took a sip. “I had some time off.”

  “Nothing else?”

  She put the glass down, took a breath. “I need to ask you about something.”

  Sanji studied Amina’s face for a moment, then leaned in. “It’s okay. I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Because Mummy has been so worried, you know. Said you were losing hope about not meeting anyone and needed to come home for a bit to build up confidences. Which is fine, nah? We’re always so happy to see you. I just wish it wasn’t because you were feeling so down.”

  Amina frowned. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “No?” Sanji’s concern dipped slightly toward disbelief.

  “No! I came home because of Dad.”

  “What about Dad?”

  “Mom said he was acting funny for the last three weeks, so I came back.”

  “Funny? Funny how?”

  “Talking on the porch all night,” Amina said, and when her aunt continued to look unimpressed, added, “to his dead mother.”

  Sanji raised an eyebrow. “Kamala brought you home for this?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Oh, I wish you would have just asked me about it, Ami. I could have saved you the trouble.”

  “You know about it?”

  “Of course I know! Raj himself barely sleeps four hours a night anymore—always chattering away like one damn BBC interview. He talks to his father, his uncle, his grandfather. No, really, I’m telling you, it’s true! And if your mother would ever just talk to me about anything other than this Jesus business, I would tell her! It’s just an old man’s disease. Nothing more.”

  “I don’t know. It seemed bad when she called.”

  “And now?”

  “Now he seems fine,” Amina admitted.

  “Because he is fine. Pish, Kamala. She’s just missing you is all. Speaking of which”—Sanji stood, motioning for Amina to do the same—“we need to get you back there before those fools accuse me of hogging.”

  In the kitchen, under a cloud of protest and frying mustard seed, plates of pani puri were being passed around.

  “It’s only appetizer!”

  “Amina, come get a plate!”

  “I better get more than this!” This came from Thomas, looking down at his portion. “I didn’t come all this way to starve.”

  “Who starves you?” Kamala asked indignantly.

  “We’re trying something a little different tonight, Amina,” Raj explained. “Appetizers and dessert only are Indian. The main meal is Mongolian hot pot!”

  “It’s a fancy way of saying he didn’t cook anything.” Sanji pointed to the dining table in the room next to them, where small hills of raw meat and tofu and vegetables surrounded a steaming cauldron. “I told you they wouldn’t like it.”

  “Oh,” Amina said. “Wow.”

  “Wow is right,” Chacko said. “Salmonella. E. coli. Could be our last supper.”

  “You Suriani bores!” Raj huffed. “So averse to change, all of you! Remember how you loved the fondue night?”

  At this there was a general murmur of agreement, heads nodding over Yes the fondue was quite good, who knew all that cheese and chocolate but still.

  “Do we get to use the long skinny forks again?” Bala asked hopefully.

  “Even better,” Raj said, smiling. “We get to use chopsticks.”

  The chopsticks, for the most part, were abandoned after five minutes. Most found their way back to the kitchen, although one poked out of Kamala’s braid, placed there by a frustrated Thomas and either forgotten by its wearer or just tolerated. By mid-meal, three forks had also been lost to the bubbling broth, covered by chunks of meat, cabbage, snow peas, and tofu, and there was a bit of chest puffery from the men over who had made the best dipping sauce.

  Bala nudged Chacko. “Tell them about the nurse in the OR!”

  “Which?” Thomas asked.

  “Sandy Freeland,” Chacko said. “You remember how she left suddenly for those three weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  “Turns out she went to find out if her husband, the pilot, was cheating on her.”

  “And?” Kamala asked, trying unsuccessfully to drag a too-cooked piece of tofu from the pot with a lone chopstick.

  Chacko passed her his fork. “She found him in Dubai with not just another woman, but two sons!”

  “No! My God!” The gasps came from every side of the table.

  “Americans!” Kamala said.

  “Not just Americans!” Bala fanned her hands out. “My God, Madras has become a hotbed.”

  “Ahno?” Kamala motioned for the soy sauce. “Who says?”

  “My sister only! She was telling me of one Lalitha Varghese—”

  “Lalitha from MCC?”

  “Yes, yes! That Lalitha!” Bala said. “Anyway, her husband, the ob-gyn, goes and has an affair with a patient … and then moves her into the house!”

  Around the table: hisses, nose tuggings, head shakings.

  “Poor thing.” Sanji tsked. “What did she do?”

  Bala held her hands up. “She started shooting the drugs!”

  Amina choked on her rice.

  Thomas thumped her back. “Heroin?”

  “Demerol. She took it from his office only.”

  “Pathetic!” Sanji shook her head. “I would have started shooting the both of them dead and gone to Mahabilipuram on beach holiday.”

  “Of course you would, darling,” Raj said, holding up a plate. “Now, who wants more tofu?”

  “No more ’fu!” Thomas said, standing up rather dramatically. He scanned the table, taking a moment to locate his glass before plucking it up and heading out.

  “So, Ami, what’s this big show Dimple is working on then?” Sanji asked.

  “It’s Charles White.”

  They all looked at her blankly.

  “He’s huge. It’s a big deal that she got him.”

  “So does that mean that if we go to the gallery, someone besides Dimple might actually be standing in it?” Chacko grumbled.

  “Chackoji, please don’t make me bring out the after-dinner muzzle.” Sanji reached for her drink.

  “I will never understand what it is she gets paid money to do. Hang pictures on the wall? And this one, with the weddings! What fool can’t grab a camera and take some snaps of his own wedding?”

  “Ami, baby, a spot of gin?” Sanji said, waving her glass helpfully.

  “Yup.” Amina snatched it on her way out the door.

  “I’m just telling the plain truth; if these girls don’t want to hear it—”

  “I know, I know, it will be our own undoing.” Amina followed after her father as Sanji asked in her loudest, most determined-to-change-the-subject voice, “Now, Bala, darling, where did this golden getup come from? You look positively radioactive.”

  Out in the cool hallway, it felt good to breathe. These dinners with the family could get so stuffy, what with everyone sitting on top of her like she might hatch. A quick peek in the kitchen confirmed that it was the kind of wreck that Raj was prone to making and Sanji was doomed to clean up, being, as she put it, “bad in all other feminine arts.” In the living room, Thomas was pouring another drink with a scowl-darkened face.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Now, that is just not true.”

  “What’s not?” Amina walked up behind him.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “What?”

  Thomas turned around with a start. “Amina!”

  “Who were you talking to?”

  He blinked a few times before saying, “I wasn’t.”

  “I heard you.”

  “Really? I must have been talking to myself.”

  Amina gauged the fumes coming off him. He said nothing as she made her way around the bar, getting a gin and soda for Sanji. “How many have you had?”

  Thomas shrugged. “I don’
t know. Two.”

  She doubled the number. “I’ll drive your car home.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “I do.”

  “Whatever,” Thomas said, sulking as he always did when she pointed out his drinking, but later, as dinner was finally declared over and everyone stood out in the driveway under the pocketed haze of street lamps, he bragged to the others that his “chauffeur” would be taking him back to his home in the country.

  “So you’re leaving Friday?” Sanji asked, walking them to the car.

  “Yes. Afternoon.” Amina unlocked the doors and slid in. She rolled down the window, and Sanji leaned through it.

  “How about if I come Friday morning. You’ll be around?”

  “Like there’s anywhere else for me to be?”

  Sanji gave her a fat kiss on the forehead. “Good girl.” She peered over Amina’s shoulder to where Thomas was already settling in for the long ride home, sweater bunched into a pillowish mass behind his head, seat back reclined, large, sock-covered feet on the dash. “Good night, Thomasji. Try not to drive this one too nuts before Friday, nah?”

  “Can’t drive a nuts nuts!” Thomas said cheerfully, not quite opening his eyes.

  Amina slid the car into gear, and her aunt backed up, waving. Soon Raj and Chacko and Bala joined her, their hands raised into the light and flickering like moth wings in the rearview mirror as Amina drove away.

  CHAPTER 5

  In the garden the next day, Amina and her mother weeded and watered, while dragonflies buzzed overhead and Prince Philip snored into an anthill.

  “I don’t know where to plant these ones,” Kamala grumbled, squinting down at the plastic trays filled with cubed earth. Just a few were beginning to sprout, the thin curls of green reaching out like greedy fingers.

  “Can’t you put them next to me?”

  “No, that’s for pumpkins.”

  “What about back there?” Amina pointed to the fresh mound at the back of the garden. “You’ve already tilled the soil.”

  “That dumb dog did it. I gave him a lamb bone the other night, and next thing I know, he’s built the pyramid of Giza for it.” She picked up the hose, moving it to the bean trellis and releasing the wet, sugary green smell of snow peas and hot soil. Amina breathed deep.