A Time to Dance
Page 4
Except the driver, who died.
After ten years of seeing Uday anna
every day after school,
I can’t believe he doesn’t miss me
enough to visit
once.
Tomorrow he’ll come, I keep thinking.
Tomorrows come and go.
He sends a card:
“With wishes for a complete recovery.”
As if I could ever be
complete
with one leg half gone.
His absence shows
he thinks I’m too crippled to dance again.
I tear up his card.
I’ll show Uday anna.
Sooner than he thinks,
I’ll be back in his classroom,
back in competition,
back on my own feet.
Or rather,
back on my own
one
foot.
WHEELS
SHORTEN
I avoid looking at my chopped-off lump of leg uncovered.
When nurses change my dressing
I stare at the banyan tree outside.
But when I navigate in “my own special wheelchair”
—rigged with a pad to keep my leg elevated—
I can’t not see
this broken bit of my body that I hate.
Chandra hates her flat chest.
Chandra’s eldest sister hates her fat thighs.
I never found myself beautiful
until the day I won the dance competition
but I loved my strong body anyway.
Stuck in a wheelchair,
I’m waist-high to everyone else.
Or worse,
lower than even that.
FORWARD
Pa, Ma, and Paati are in the hospital room
when Jim strides in with a pair of crutches.
Jim says, “Got a feeling you weren’t too keen
on wheelchairs. Or walkers.
Thought you might prefer to leave the hospital on these.”
“Yes!” I can’t wait to stand dancer tall.
Move without rolling on wheels.
Jim’s eyes sparkle at me. “We’ll need to practice.
Especially going down stairs. Come.”
Pa says, “Won’t crutches hurt her ribs?”
Jim reassures him it’s okay.
Ma touches my shoulder, then draws back quickly,
as if she’s scared I’ll bite her hand off.
I don’t like Ma acting so unsure of herself.
I almost prefer the old Ma, who’d argue with me.
Paati pats my cheek, like she used to when I was little
and I fell down and hurt myself.
Her firm touch tells me she expects
I’ll get up without a fuss.
She leaves me no choice
except to get off the bed,
lean on my crutches, and try.
Bowing low as though I’m a princess,
although I must look as ungainly as a clown on stilts,
Jim says, ceremoniously, “I’ll hold the door, ma’am,
while you walk through.”
My ribs jolt with pain and my shoulders feel raw
but I return his grin.
And
I go
forward.
NICKNAMES
My crutches carve wide circles in the air.
“Veda, can you lift and plant your crutch tips?
Please don’t swing them.”
I plant crutch tips ahead, pull forward
with my body and
what remains of my legs.
As Jim guides me
on my new mode of travel, I get him to tell me
how he first came to India.
“On a trip to see the desert in Rajasthan, in the north,
with an ex-girlfriend.”
I’m glad to hear
the girlfriend is past tense.
He continues,
“Fell out of love with her
but stayed in love with this country.”
I wonder how many girlfriends he’s had.
Don’t ask.
“Beautiful place, Rajasthan,” he says.
“Pink palaces, hundreds of years old,
women wearing skirts with bits of mirrors sewn on,
camels burping in the middle of city traffic.”
He wrinkles his nose up as though he can smell them.
I smile.
He says he went to an Indian hospital
where they gave amputees free prostheses,
and that got him interested in making artificial limbs.
This project was a way for him
to travel to India again and use his expertise to help people.
He tells me he loves travel, loves new challenges,
loves people.
I’ve never met another older person
as friendly, as open, as carefree.
I refuse to rest until he forces me to turn back, saying,
“Let’s not overdo it, kiddo.”
“I’m not a kid,” I rasp.
“Aye, aye, ma’am.” Jim salutes with one hand in his pocket.
I start to laugh
but my ribs remind me I still have healing to do.
Grinning despite my pain, I say, “That’s better.”
After that, Jim mostly calls me ma’am.
And even when he says kiddo, I stop minding.
Because whether he says kiddo or ma’am in his teasing tone,
the corners of his eyes crinkle,
and I feel singled out and special.
FAMILY DISTANCES
Two of Pa’s cousins
whom we rarely see
come all the way from Bangalore city, a half-day train ride away.
They say they’re sorry about my accident,
then talk politely with Pa and Paati about other relatives.
Ma’s family probably doesn’t even know I’m hurt.
Paati told me they disowned Ma when she married Pa,
even though he was Brahmin
and they were a lower caste,
because he was a poor librarian
with no prospects of getting rich,
and they were wealthy.
Ma never
speaks about them.
Her diamond earrings are all we have to remind us
of them
and their riches.
MY
Last
VISITOR
After Pa’s cousins leave,
someone I expect even less appears:
my former rival, Kamini.
Holding a big bunch of red zinnias.
Why is she here?
To gloat over my crutches?
Hands shaking, she thrusts the zinnias in my face.
“For you,” she says, pointing out the obvious.
I’m so shocked I open and shut my mouth twice, fish-like,
then manage to mumble, “Thanks.”
“So- so- sorr-rry,” Kamini stammers.
What’s Kamini scared of? She’s the one with a sharp tongue.
My tongue’s never been quick enough to answer back.
My foot won’t outpace her feet anytime soon.
“Sorry,” she repeats, looking so uncomfortable
I start feeling more sorry for her than irritated.
“Kamini? Not your fault.”
Her face contorts as though she’s being tortured.
She stumbles on her way out of the room,
leaving me wondering why she came.
“Your frie
nd?” my roommate asks.
“Nice red zinnias she brought.”
“Not my friend.” I consider
tossing the flowers into the wastebasket
where I threw our dance teacher’s torn-up card.
But Kamini actually visited,
which is more than Uday anna did.
As we’re not exactly friends,
and seeing how she was shaking the entire time,
it must have been hard for her to come.
Kamini’s flowers deserve better treatment
than our dance teacher’s worthless card.
I put the red zinnias on the side table
between my roommate’s bed and mine
so she can enjoy them.
DISCHARGE
Dr. Murali removes most of my bandages.
My cuts and bruises are healing.
He says I can go home with my right leg still bound,
stitches still in.
“Maintain good posture.
Bad habits are hard to break,” Jim reminds.
He guides me one last time,
up and down a flight of stairs and through the corridor.
He stays at my side.
I hobble behind Ma, Pa, and Paati,
glad I’ll soon be free of innumerable pairs of nurses’ eyes.
Scared I won’t be near Jim’s caring arms,
won’t hear him say, every day,
“You’re doing great.”
Near the main doors, I see two nurses, heads together,
sharing my story
in too-loud voices.
“She was a dancer, that one.”
As though I’m a star in some sad soap opera.
Not “was.”
Am. Am. Am.
I move past the nurses, my crutches tick-tocking on the tiles
like the pendulum of an old clock.
Not quite a dance rhythm.
Yet.
RETURNING
to
NORMAL
Squashed between Paati and Ma in the backseat of a taxi
speeding farther and farther away from the hospital,
my stomach shrinks fist-tight with fear
as a bus overtakes us,
passing so close by I could touch it if I reached out the window.
My palms feel wet.
Sweat, just sweat. Not blood.
A lorry honks, coming at us,
speeding on the wrong side of the road.
Dust clouds fly into my eye through the open window.
The smoke makes me gag.
I tense,
though I feel Paati’s fingers massaging the back of my neck,
trying to calm me.
I hear Ma say, “Please drive slower. Be careful.”
“Don’t worry, madam.
Ten years I’ve been driving in Chennai city traffic.”
The driver screeches to a halt
in the middle of the concrete jungle where we live.
Our apartment building looks unwelcoming as I enter.
Clutching my crutches, I stand at the bottom step,
thinking through the motions of climbing on crutches.
Feeling alone. Frightened.
Far from Jim’s encouraging voice.
Missing his strength, his support.
Missing the safety of the hospital.
Pa says, “Veda, would it be easier if you leaned on me
and left your crutches behind?”
Maybe,
but I say, “No.”
Ma pulls anxiously on an earlobe.
Her diamonds scatter the sunlight.
Paati nods. Her nod says, “You can do it.”
I plant my crutches on the ground,
propel my body upward.
My leg reaches the first step.
Then, my crutches join me.
Pa says, “Don’t worry. I’m behind you.”
“How is Veda?” Mrs. Subramaniam shouts.
I want to yell, Ask me. The accident didn’t damage my ears.
Her shout brings other neighbors out.
They crowd on the landings or lean out their doorways,
watching me labor up the steps
of our shared staircase.
They make me feel as if
I’m the star attraction
at a freak show.
GECKOS,
GHOST CRABS,
and REGENERATION
Lumbering at last into the bedroom I share with Paati,
I collapse on my bed.
A gecko stares at me,
its large eyes almost popping out of its sockets.
Waving its yellow-brown tail from side to side
like an admonishing finger,
it chirps, “Th-th-th.”
I shake a crutch at the gecko. “Shut up!
I’m going to dance again!”
Clucking with fear, it turns tail and scurries
toward the open window.
Before racing onto the branch
of the pipul tree that brushes against the windowpane,
the gecko drops its tail on the sill.
Feeling slightly sick, I watch the dismembered part
seesawing up and down—as if alive—
while the tailless gecko disappears up the tree.
Once, at the beach, when I was a child,
Ma pointed at tiny ghost crabs scuttling along the seashore
and said, “If one leg is bitten off by a predator,
crabs can regenerate that lost leg.”
Pa added, “Geckos can regrow their tails.”
I thought—how magical,
how wonderful.
Paati comes in and places my Shiva statue
on the table between our two beds.
I want to throw it out of the window
at the gecko that’s chirping loudly
as if to brag about powers
it has
and I lack.
SOUNDS
of
LAUGHTER
Chandra drops in,
apologizing for having been away so long. “I was busy.”
“Busy doing what?” I demand.
She sighs. “Okay. I wasn’t busy. It’s just
I don’t know if it helps when I visit.”
“I don’t know either.”
“I feel I should come.”
“Coming to see me on my sick bed is your duty?”
“So what if it’s a duty?” Chandra shakes her head. “Don’t friends
have a duty to each other? Don’t you see I want to help?”
“I hate seeing you walk,” I say.
It’s a relief to finally confess that.
And relief to hear
Chandra snap, “Fine. Sit and stew in your self-pity.”
But then, softening her tone, she goes on,
“Sorry. I understand how you feel.”
“You can’t understand, Chandra.”
“True. I guess I can’t imagine
being in your
shoes.”
I snort with laughter. “You mean my one
shoe?”
Chandra looks frightened.
I giggle and tell her,
“You look as scared as that night Paati told us a ghost story
and you had to run to the bathroom three times.”
“Five times,” Chandra corrects.
A mist-thin giggle escapes her.
My ribs must be healing.
Laughing doesn’t hurt.
That realization sends me into another peal of laughter.
Our laughter thic
kens
into a fog
filling the room.
It’s a little forced, a little hysterical, but it’s good to feel
connected.
DRESSING
I lock the door to my room.
Balancing on my crutches, I open my dresser.
Inside, neatly folded, sit my school uniforms:
Western-style blue collared shirts to go with gray skirts
or embroidered cotton kurti tops with loose salwar trousers.
Can’t dress or undress standing,
so I sit on the bed, wriggle into salwar trousers,
hop on my crutches and force myself to look
at something I’ve avoided so far:
my full-length reflection
in the long mirror on our wall.
A one-legged girl stares back.
She isn’t me! a voice screams in my head.
She isn’t me!
Letting my crutches clatter to the floor, I fall back onto my bed.
Not me!
I punch my pillow.
Not me!
Punch. Punch. Punch.
Not me!
A new voice whispers,
Be grateful you can still stand.
On crutches I face my mirror-self.
Dare to stare
lower down.
One trouser leg flaps emptily below my bandaged limb.
I try on my long school skirt and my bandaged limb
juts out below the hem.
I whip my skirt off. Crush it. Fling it on the floor.
Toss all my school uniforms on the ground.
In an open drawer, I see
the blue batik skirt Chandra and I bought
before my accident.
I brush my cheek against it. The skirt still smells new.
Haven’t worn it once.
My tears soak into the silky fabric.
Paati knocks.
Trying not to think how good the skirt
would have looked on me,
I shove it in the bottom drawer.
Pile my other suddenly too-short skirts and dresses on top.