Girl in Shades

by Allison Baggio

  What’s that book? I asked him. It was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, dog-eared, thin, black and orange cover.

  The Bhagavad Gita, he said. Have you ever read it?

  I shook my head.

  ’Tis a shame that no one in the West is interested. Within it are the keys, Marigold.

  Keys to what?

  To happiness, to living a happy, perfect life.

  So why aren’t you living one then? I said, flipping through its pages. That old book smell tickled my nose.

  Marigold, he said. It’s complicated here in the halls of illusion. It’s hard to live the truth even though you know it’s there. (I have to admit now that his religious gobbledygoop was making me have second thoughts about being there, but I went along with it.)

  Ah, you have doubts. I can hear that, Marigold. But it’s a lifestyle you have to embrace, and once you do, fuck, ecstasy is yours.

  Is that why you hang out cross-legged under trees and stuff? I said.

  There are other ways to get there. As he said this, he sat on the couch beside me, his thin thighs lining up against mine, touching. He put his upside down fist in front of me and opened his fingers. Lying on his palm were two small pieces of paper. Two small squares.

  Put it on your tongue, he said. And though I think I knew where it would lead me (devil’s work as my mother would say) and though it was not something I have done before, I did as he asked.

  I took one of the small squares and placed it on my tongue. It dissolved like nothing. He did the same. And we waited.

  Mother is knocking at my bedroom door. Get lost, I just yelled at her. Her knocks and whines are still pounding through my mind. Get lost, I yell again even though she is probably back in her bedroom by now. She’s wants to talk about it, of course. I want her to leave me alone.

  It took a while before we felt anything. Amar was quiet. He seemed to be thinking about something, maybe his mother? I pulled at my nylons as we waited, watching them spring back onto my legs. His words grew increasingly incoherent. It’s useless attachment, he said. That’s what keeps us trapped in this delusion that our mind creates, keeps us trapped behind this veil.

  His gaze grew softer as he spoke.

  We’re deluded! he said, more and more space finding its way between his words. We are so bound to this material world and this mortal physical existence. It makes me sick, Marigold, it does.

  I wasn’t really listening to him, just nodding while the room seemed to be lighting up, candles growing brighter and brighter.

  You can’t let your emotions toss you around, Marigold. You can’t. Your supreme self is more than that.

  Supreme self? I muttered.

  He lit a cigarette with a lighter he found on the floor and puffed out clouds of smoke into the room, leaning back beside me on the couch.

  Yes, Marigold. Surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Have you ever heard of karma? It keeps going. The attachment keeps going if you don’t . . . choose . . . differently. It you don’t stop it. Fuck the depression and sadness.

  His words came out slower by then, each syllable taking an eternity. He was looking down at the dirty floor and his eyes seemed to be getting wetter. When he started talking again and swept his hand through the air, I swear to God, there was colour that followed it. Red, pink, blue, sweeping past our faces, hovering before disappearing again, absorbing. I reached out to grab the colour streaks and he laughed at me, pushing my hand down.

  I think I screamed when I saw it (can’t remember the last time anything made me scream). His face when he turned around to look at me, to hold my arm down. His features, flat forehead, round eyeballs, pointy nose, melting down into nothing, like a candle that disappears with a flame.

  You’re melting! I yelled at him. The top of his head wasn’t there anymore, just his thin lips smiling and laughing. And his finger pointing at me as it too started to dissolve. He grabbed my arm, hard, with his other hand and held me down on the couch.

  Stop it! I shoved him and ran to the door. I ran right through the door (I think?) out into the yard behind the house, and down to the river, screaming. I just wanted to get away. I felt like he was stripping layers of skin off my body or something. I had to get out of there, but there was nowhere to run to. My feet were bare in the snow and I collapsed into it. I looked behind me then to see my own footprints, rising up into the air and landing on top of me.

  He followed me out. His head was whole again. He was no longer laughing.

  My footprints, I said. My footprints are all over me.

  He took his hands and ran them down my shoulders, then across my chest, then his hands across my face, so I could smell him inside the lines of his palms. And I let him. I felt stuck in place, like a boulder buried deep in the earth.

  Does that help? he asked. Are the footprints gone?

  Yes. I said. Thank you. I was crying then, only a little.

  His hands were on my wrists then, wrapping round and pushing me back into the snow. Back onto my spine. Snow coming down around us. My footprints gone because he made it so. He loosened his grip on my wrists and started to open my arms up and back, slowly in the snow.

  Snow angels, he said. And it sounded like he said, Go and tell, which really made no sense, but I started making angels myself in the snow, with my arms and feet and laughing as the black sky filled my head and stars dotted my eyes.

  He lay down beside me on the ground. Moving his own arms and feet in and out, until we were both laughing.

  His angel wing landed on my breast.

  I undid the buttons of my blouse and placed his fingers on either side of my nipple.

  He flipped from his back to his side to his stomach, landing on top of me. Open blouse, snow falling, stones from the ground in my back, mildew smell from the car, smoke from burned candles on his chest hair.

  His hands worked their way up the sides of my body, over my hips, across my stomach, up to my ears. Then they went down again, down the front, under my skirt, staying there the longest, circling fingers that dipped themselves in, wetness that appeared from nowhere.

  What was I doing?

  He took me there in the snow, trees around us clapping and cheering, the snow angels we made floating above us, smiling serenely. That which I hadn’t let any man touch, I let him take last night.

  And now, I want to remember every detail.

  I got home at 6:00 this morning. He drove me, but we didn’t speak much. He said goodbye with a quick peck on my lips. I couldn’t find the words to ask what he was thinking.

  Mother was waiting in the kitchen when I came in, asleep at a kitchen chair, the telephone in front of her.

  I’m back, I said as one word. And she started crying, moaning about fear of losing me, and how worried Steven was, and how they were going to call the police if I wasn’t home by 7:00.

  I’m a big girl now, was all I said. You can stop worrying about me.

  I pushed her away and went to my bedroom. I slept five hours, and now I am awake. It’s almost noon. The phone has been ringing. I am not opening the door.

  I can’t believe I let him go without asking him. How will I know?

  I think I might be in love. Maybe, you never know. He sees me like no one else does and it’s not just because of what we took, or what we did. Amar. Amar. Amar.

  I’m going back. I am going to take my mother’s car keys off the table, and drive out there. Back to the cabin.

  I can’t wait any longer.

  I need to know if we have found something special.

  November 27, 1972 (later)

  I drove all the way out there, in Mother’s car, without her knowing. It was almost 3:00 by the time I got there (because of the time it took me to find my nerve).

  He was gone. The cabin locked up. As far as I could see there was nothing inside, except for the couch and
tables. No candles, no books, nothing and nobody. His van was not in the driveway. I felt foolish. The wind whistled in my ear, mocking me.

  When I reached home, Mother was holding a thick white envelope. Mari, we need to talk about this, she said when I tried to grab it. She moved her hand. Mari, this was dropped off to me by a very scary looking man.

  Just give it to me, Mother.

  He was an East Indian man. What is going on? Why do you know an Indian man? Is this where you were last night?

  I pushed my mother’s hand into the side of the refrigerator and grabbed the envelope from her fingers, telling her again to just give it to me. She did.

  I took the envelope up to my room and opened the part that had already been torn (and read no doubt).

  On the outside it said my name: Marigold McCann.

  And inside, on the slab of white paper torn from the back of a book, a note:

  Dear Marigold:

  Thank you for sharing yourself with me last night, it meant a lot. I’m afraid though that I woke this afternoon having experienced a sudden but distinct shift in priorities and have decided I must now go to India to live with my father.

  It’s not your fault. It’s important that we both take time to cultivate our souls and work to transcend maya.

  Try not to be upset, but instead remember what the Bhagavad Gita tells us, “The soul that with a strong and constant calm takes sorrow and takes joy indifferently.”

  I hope you will wear these to remember me by . . .

  Amar Gosh.

  P.S. Please enjoy the book as well — never stop searching!

  As I move my hand to write this, three thin wire bracelets, red, blue, and gold, with tiny silver butterflies dangling, encircle my wrists. These are the Indian bracelets that he left with the letter. And I’ve got his copy of the Bhagavad Gita, like a last love letter. But what the hell? He’s just left me, after that? I want to punch him and kiss him all in one. My heart is skipping on the same beat like my old Beatles records, and my exhale is caught in my throat.

  Chapter Twenty

  My father called the police. He called the police to try to get all the people out of the yard, but when the cops arrived, they only got in the line to pay their respects to my mother — a line that had not moved because I refused to let anyone in.

  Most of the people Mrs. Roughen had let into the backyard were still clutching the things that were meant to help Mother. And I think also holding on to the hope that maybe she could predict their future, or at the very least help them feel better about their own predicaments.

  Some just wanted to see the freak in the teepee — and they brought cameras.

  There had been another news story about all the people who were showing up, which did nothing but convince more people in the city that it might be a good and noble idea to stop by. It became the cool thing to do. Like watching Miami Vice. Or trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Only my mother could never be solved, and I didn’t want her to be watched by anyone.

  “Just be patient,” Mrs. Roughen instructed everyone, including the Native man who was chanting and pacing around the teepee, wafting sage out of a seashell. “Marigold needs some time to rest. She will see you all as soon as she wakes up.”

  Father pushed through the door of the teepee and I jumped, like he was someone else.

  “Well, the goddamn police are here, but they’re not doing anything. They’re just standing out there talking to Trudie and smelling the goddamn bottles of perfume.”

  “They are supposed to be helping her,” I said.

  “Mari, maybe we should take you to the hospital or something. Just to get away from this madness?”

  My mother shook her head from side to side. Her eyes were full. She still wasn’t talking much, which I kind of liked. A quiet Mother was like a little kitten. You could hold her and pet her and she never told you what to do or started screaming about anything.

  “She doesn’t want to go to the hospital,” I said for her. “She wants to stay here. She wants the people to leave.” He sat down with us on the bed and put the palm of his hand on my mother’s stomach.

  “Maybe the doctors could do something, Mari?” She shook her head again, grabbed his hand and threw it off.

  “Stop it!” I yelled at him.

  “I’m just trying to do what’s best for your mother, Maya.”

  From outside the teepee: “Yoo-hoo, anyone in there? It’s Trudie! Can I come in?”

  “Stay the hell out of here, Trudie,” said my father. “And take the rest of those idiots with you.”

  “Officer Martin wants to know if everyone is okay. We heard yelling.”

  “We’re fine.” My father’s voice was stern and threatening — a tight package that could explode at any second. “Leave us alone.”

  And then another voice, of a woman: “Um . . . well, if you think it’s okay, Trudie. I’m just wondering . . . if Marigold might have any idea where my teenage son is. You see, he’s been missing.”

  “Fuck off!” my father yelled. “She has no idea about your son.”

  Silence in the yard. A somberness returned.

  Time passed. Inside the teepee, my father and I said nothing. And my mother stayed in the silent space she had been for the last few days, only opening her mouth to sip water or chew on crushed strawberries or grapes. Voices still hummed their way through the walls of the teepee.

  Trudie stood guard outside the door, politely refusing anyone who came and asked if my mother was rested enough yet, and when it would be time for him or her to pay their respects. Pay their respects? She wasn’t even dead yet. The Native man left when he ran out of purifying sage. I heard Mrs. Roughen say goodbye to him like an old friend, “See you tomorrow, Howahkan!”

  Dinner came and people started barbequing on my father’s old grill that hadn’t been fired up in years. My mother pulled the blanket over her head to block the smells of flesh burning, like maybe it was her own. My father paced angrily.

  I said a secret prayer inside my head: If you just make everyone leave us alone, and make my mother start talking again, I promise to never again act like a child.

  And then the bees came.

  Bees, in the yard, hundreds of them. And they were angry. Angry bees are the worst kind. Just ask Elijah. He was the one that made them that way. We heard Mrs. Roughen’s voice before we heard what was going on: “Elijah, Christ, what are you doing?”

  I peeked my head out the door flap of the teepee. Elijah was standing in the centre of the yard dressed in a full-length mechanic suit and a screened-in bug hat. Through the mesh I saw his lips were pulled into a serene smile. He had work gloves on his hands, and between them, he was shaking what looked like a grey paper ball. And out they were coming — bees — creating a violent hum in the air, looking for revenge.

  What happened next was like a scene in a horror film: old ladies dropped casseroles, covering their faces with their hands, screaming in terror and running from the yard; muscular men in tank tops swatted bees from their shoulders and winced at the stings as they hopped fences; a teenager covered her face with her arm and shrieked as she fiddled with the latch on our gate. Hot dogs and potato salad flew to the grass when the bees attacked. Bags were dropped, file folders of photocopied information created paper angels flying through the air. Mrs. Roughen tried to run towards her son but stopped when she saw their tiny wings and yellow backs. She too ran from the yard.

  “Stay in there, Maya!” Elijah shouted out to me then and I closed the flap.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” my father asked, taking a step towards me. All I could say was “bees.”

  When the buzzing and screaming stopped, only Elijah was left in the yard. My father went out to talk to him, shielding his face just in case. “What are you trying to prove, kid?”

  “They’re all gone aren’t they?
” Elijah said. “Doesn’t that help you?”

  I flung open the flap and screamed: “You had no right to do that! You could have hurt people! What if my mother got stung?”

  “She didn’t, did she?” Elijah asked, his mouth dropping in defeat.

  “No, but you could have hurt her. I hate you!” I said this even though I didn’t hate him. I hated the part of the situation for which he had played no part. I hated my mother’s cancer and because I couldn’t tell the cancer I hated it, I told him. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!”

  “Sorry for trying to help!” Elijah said as he marched towards the side gate, throwing the empty nest to the ground.

  “You did a good thing,” my father said to Elijah as he left. “A bit crazy, but effective.” Then he turned to me in the teepee. “Maya, you were kind of hard on him, don’t you think?”

  I was almost crying then, the tears growing on the insides of my mouth and threatening to come out. I couldn’t get the sound of bees buzzing out of my head. I sat next to my mother on the bed and listened to her laboured breathing.

  By sunset, things were almost back to normal. My mother started talking again. She asked me for a piece of bread with peanut butter and if I could bring in her Bhagavad Gita from the house. I did both and sat on the floor while she read and ate. Sometimes the words she read would fill the room through her weak voice: “What must be done, and what must not be done. What should be feared, and what should not be feared. What binds and emancipates the soul.”

  She was back to her nonsense — reciting things almost like a crazy woman would, but I was just happy to have her to myself again. “Mother, why would Elijah make those bees try to sting everyone?”

  “He was chasing them away, Maya.”

  “Yeah, but what if you got hurt?”

  “Nothing could hurt me anymore,” she said. “You should apologize to Elijah for yelling at him. He gave us this.” She pointed to the empty room, sighing, and I could smell her peanut butter breath.