Mehendi Tides

by Siobhan Malany

  When she returned to her apartment, her roommate had left a sticky note on the answering machine.

  “Message for you! Urgent.”

  She dropped her bag and launched toward the machine and pressed the flashing, angry button.

  “Kate. It’s me, Nasreen!” the recorder sounded. “I’m heading to Chicago General emergency room. Krishna and Raji were in an accident. That’s all I know. Come quick!”

  Kate drove her ratty car with speed through the winter slush and past the decorative holiday lights wrapped around the street lamps. She prayed that her car wouldn’t stall and cursed the trickle of heat through the vent. She drove one-handed and rubbed her free hand on her thigh for warmth.

  What kind of an accident?

  A pang of guilt emerged in her chest. She had not reached out to Krishna since Diwali. She assumed her days were filled with school and being with Raji.

  Kate headed in a beeline for the information desk in the emergency room. Whines, moans, and chatter echoed across the linoleum floor. The back of Nasreen came into focus.

  “Nasreen!”

  Nasreen swirled around.

  “Kate!” She rushed to embrace her.

  Kate was apprehensive.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Nasreen said as she backed away. “I had to drop off the twins at my mother’s. Mustafa is out of town. I just arrived.”

  “Are you family of the patient?” the attendant asked from behind the desk.

  “Yes, I’m her sister,” Nasreen lied. “Kate is a very close friend of the family.” Her eyes pleaded with the attendant. “Can we see her please?”

  The attendant led Nasreen and Kate along a hallway away from the commotion of the emergency area to a smaller waiting room where they waited an hour before Krishna was discharged and appeared in a dried blood-soaked shirt and a bandage wrapped around her head.

  “Krishna!” Nasreen shouted. “What happened to you?”

  Both Nasreen and Kate stood in shock at the door.

  Krishna buried her face in her hands and heaved in sobs.

  Nasreen encircled Krishna’s head in her arms, not caring about the blood.

  “Your head?” Kate asked, noticing Krishna’s hair was matted with dried blood around the bandage.

  Krishna stood in shock.

  “What happened?” Nasreen said desperately. “Tell us, please!”

  Krishna tried to regain her breath. Her eyes were swollen and raw.

  “It’s senseless. It’s so senseless,” Krishna cried. “It’s a blur. Things happened so fast. And then she was lying in the street.”

  Nasreen looked at Kate confused, but Kate only shook her head, equally as lost. They both took a seat on the bench in the small dull room. A poster of Lake Michigan with a poetic verse written across the sky was tacked to the wall.

  “Start at the beginning,” Nasreen said. “We’re here now.”

  Krishna took a deep, quivering breath.

  “We were studying in one of the studios near campus,” Krishna began. “It got late, later than we planned to stay. We should have waited for the campus bus, but it was cold and dark and Raji’s apartment isn’t that far from there, so we decided to walk home.”

  Nasreen pressed her fingers to her lips and closed her eyes as Krishna’s story unraveled in her head. Kate knew Nasreen was picturing it as she was—two girls at night in the city.

  “I know it was stupid to be out alone. There have been a lot of incidents lately,” Krishna said, guilt seeping in her voice.

  “What happened then?” Nasreen asked calmly.

  “We were hurrying to get to Raji’s apartment. She was holding my hand. We came around the corner and these men, these thugs, they called us names as we passed. They said things I never even heard before, so vile and hateful. I kept walking. I didn’t care what they said. But Raji…”

  Krishna pressed her brow in her palm, bracing against the pain of the memory.

  “Raji what? What did she do?” Nasreen asked.

  “She stood up to them, yelled back, told them to piss off.”

  “I tried to pull her away. Then one of them shoved us. I fell back on the concrete and hit my head.”

  Krishna touched the back part of her head, as if she remembered she was hurt, and squinted in pain as she touched the bandage.

  “Raji told me to run! I got up and I ran across the street. I thought she was right behind me!” Krishna’s eyes were filled with grief.

  Nasreen panicked. “What happened to Raji?”

  “When I looked back, one of the men had grabbed her arm and the other brandished a knife. They were taunting her. Raji kicked the man in the crotch hard. He doubled over and she rushed into the street.” Krishna started to heave. She could barely speak. “I saw the car lights and heard this horrible screech as the car slid and then a thump.”

  Nasreen and Kate sat horrified, their hands covering their mouths.

  “She wasn’t moving. She had a gash across her face and arm. I started screaming. I screamed until I heard people running toward me.

  “Is Raji…?” Kate said, struggling to speak

  “She’s in surgery,” Krishna cried. “The driver tried to stop. It was too late. The car slid and hit her. I don’t know what happened to the men. They ran off I guess. Why did they have to harass us like that? Why?” Krishna’s eyes pleaded with Nasreen’s to turn back time.

  Nasreen shook her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Did you call Raji’s parents?” Nasreen asked.

  “I called her brother, Nishi,” she sobbed. “Her parents are visiting relatives in Delhi. I don’t know how fast Nishi can get here from Montreal, but I told him to come as fast as he can. He was just here visiting her!”

  Krishna looked at Nasreen and Kate.

  There wasn’t anything else to do but wait for the doctor.

  THE HOURS PASSED in the dreary waiting room. Around two in the morning, Nasreen and Kate raided the vending machines for bitter-tasting coffee and cheese crackers.

  “I know we have a lot to work out,” Nasreen said, broaching the topic of their confrontation at the wedding.

  Kate nodded. She wanted to tell Nasreen about the gift and the note Tariq had given her, but she said nothing.

  Back in the waiting room, Nasreen and Kate sat on the floor with their backs to the wall and didn’t mention their dispute at the wedding but instead focused on Krishna and let her talk.

  “Tell us more about Raji,” Kate said. “She has the coolest apartment.”

  “She sends me notes in class,” Krishna said, smiling tiredly. “Some funny, some private.” Krishna blushed. “She writes just a sentence or two, simple. We started studying together, and I felt happy. For the first time since my mother’s death, I felt like I was going to make it.”

  Krishna’s voice cracked from the emotion.

  “Raji gave me things, a flower here and there, the purple heart necklace.”

  Krishna placed her hand over her neck feeling for the necklace. It was there.

  “You bumped into Raji and me at the café on Devon Avenue. I thought everything was going to fall apart.”

  “But it didn’t,” Nasreen stated firmly. “It didn’t.”

  “I feared you wouldn’t understand. It goes against what we’re taught…what we believe,” she said.

  “Like Raji said, friends like you are a blessing. That is what I believe in,” Nasreen said.

  The doctor came into the waiting room and the girls scrambled to their feet. The doctor stood before them, his surgical mask and hood crumpled in his hand. His face was bloated with stress and fatigue and his hair was disheveled.

  Krishna started screaming. Nasreen and Kate stood on each side in a half circle, holding her from collapsing on the floor.

  RAJI’S INJURIES PROVED too grave. The surgeon explained that there was too much internal bleeding and trauma to the head. She didn’t make it out of surgery.

  “We tried everything we could,”
he consoled.

  Nishi arrived that evening, too late to see his sister before she died. He refused Krishna’s offer to stay at her home but said he preferred to go to Raji’s apartment and wait for his parents to arrive from India. Then the three of them would clear out Raji’s apartment and take her ashes back to India for a formal memorial when the family could gather.

  “Nishi told me it’s best if I don’t go to the memorial,” Krishna told Nasreen and Kate in the days following Raji’s death. “I know he is right, but it doesn’t stop the pain. I feel so helpless.”

  Krishna sat stoically on the couch in the family room. Kate slouched in the armchair and Nasreen knelt on the floor with Mani and Sabreena. Sabreena had fallen asleep in the bouncy chair, and Mani drooled on a teething toy.

  There were more framed photos, Kate noticed, that lined the piano’s ledge, now a display case, and extended along the staircase wall to the landing. Krishna had framed many of the photos she had distributed to her relatives during Diwali. There were other photos she had not seen before, photographs of Krishna’s mother as a volunteer at a food bank and with friends at a special event where she wore a mint sari covered in rhinestones. In the middle of the wall where the staircase curved hung a beautiful photo of Saritha visibly pregnant with Krishna. She was laughing with one hand resting on her swollen belly. Krishna must have found the old photos in her mother’s things along with the seascape picture of the boat in Kerala that still hung above the mantel.

  “I just want to sleep,” Krishna stated.

  Suddenly, Mani let out a piercing cry.

  Krishna was unfazed by the noise.

  “Oh, he is hungry,” Nasreen said, jumping up and swooping Mani into her arms. She carried him into the kitchen for a snack of crackers and milk.

  Kate fidgeted in the chair and spied a book on the coffee table partly covered by Suneel’s magazines and newspapers.

  “I heard this was a good book,” Kate said, picking up the novel, thankful for a distraction.

  Krishna shrugged. “I haven’t read it. It’s Raji’s book.”

  Kate flipped through the pages. The book opened where a red napkin was inserted between the pages.

  Kate pulled out the smoothed cocktail napkin and paused.

  “Oh my gosh,” Kate said, surprised. “This napkin with Tariq’s number on it. How is it in Raji’s book?”

  Krishna looked confused.

  “I gave it to you at Diwali to throw away, remember, at the door?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Krishna recalled unemotionally. “I put it in my pocket. I was wearing Raji’s sweater. Obviously, I forgot about it and Raji found it. Why would you throw it away if it had Tariq’s number on it?”

  Nasreen had entered the living room with Mani, bits of crackers stuck to his puffy cheeks. Kate locked eyes with Nasreen.

  “Honestly, I don’t know anymore! Tariq and I had breakfast together the morning after Eid,” Kate explained. “He talked about his upcoming engagement and finishing his master’s and returning to India. He seemed to have everything worked out. I can’t expect him to feel the same about me ten years later. We were just kids then. But he gave me his number on this napkin and he gave me this beautiful jewelry box with a note inside that said, ‘To the one that captured my heart.’ I didn’t know about the note for the longest time until, Nasreen, you confessed about the letters that you never sent. I rushed home and remembered that the box had been open in my pocket and I found the note.”

  “Raji saved his number for you, so maybe you should call him,” Krishna said.

  “Just call him,” Nasreen added.

  “He is arranged to be married!” Kate said, irritated.

  “He obviously still cares,” Krishna argued. “You’re being pitiful! Raji always sent me notes,” she said. “Little notes. Some were funny and some were so full of heart. There are a bunch of papers in that box.” Krishna motioned toward the plain cardboard box by the fireplace. “Nishi saved some of Raji’s possessions for me. The ones he thought I might want to hold onto. I don’t know if I will find another note in that box full of her personal things or if I have read the last one.” Krishna choked back tears. “I never sent her notes. I don’t know if she knew how much I cared. But, if I had a second chance,” she heaved, “I wouldn’t hesitate to call her and tell her how I feel!”

  Both Nasreen and Kate were overcome with emotion.

  “I loved her,” Krishna sobbed. “That is all that matters.”

  Krishna’s father had at some point entered the room to stand in front of the window and was staring blankly out at the lonely trees standing as stripped stalks in the December haze.

  “Raji died protecting you, Krishna. I think she knew you loved her,” Nasreen said.

  KRISHNA SANK DEEPER into a depression. She didn’t return to the photojournalism program for the new semester but took a leave of absence. Losing Raji within a year of losing her mother proved to be too much for her soul.

  Kate hurried to Krishna’s home after she left the lab like she did many nights a week since Raji’s death. Nasreen was there with the twins. Suneel cooked them dinner—a delicious fusion of South Indian and Bangladeshi cuisine. Krishna’s father seemed more lively and cooked with new purpose.

  The young women sat together in the warm dining room under the low light of the chandelier, snow falling outside. Since Krishna remained quiet, Nasreen started talking to fill the stillness.

  “Marriage counseling hasn’t been as awful as I anticipated it would be. Mustafa is a good father,” she said, pausing to look at her plate full of food, the steam rising off the rice. “He told me he wants to be a good husband, but I don’t let him in.” Nasreen ate a spoonful of rice pulao. “This is excellent by the way,” she remarked as she savored the Bangladeshi recipe. “I don’t know if the counselor can save our marriage.”

  “Have faith,” Kate said.

  Krishna poked at the food with her fork.

  “I talked about the rape,” Nasreen revealed.

  Kate stopped eating and placed her fork down on the plate to listen.

  “Once I spoke the words there was no going back,” she continued. “I was angry. So angry that I was cussing at my abuser wherever he is. Then I fell apart. It was like a monster erupted inside.”

  Kate placed her hand over her mouth.

  “When I regained some control,” Nasreen laughed, nervously, “I could see the relief in Mustafa’s eyes.”

  “It takes courage,” Kate said.

  “I think of Raji, the victim of this hate crime, and I know I can’t be silent anymore.”

  Krishna looked at Nasreen with pain and admiration. The room was growing dimmer as dusk diffused through the large front windows.

  Suneel entered the dining room with a teapot. “I thought you girls would like some tea,” he said with a meek smile. “Darjeeling, Krishna’s favorite from India.”

  “I would love some,” Nasreen answered brightly. “Thanks for going through the trouble.”

  “No, no trouble,” Suneel said and then turned to his daughter. “I added cardamom like your mother used to do.”

  Suneel wore a light-colored oxford shirt that tinted his freshly shaven chin a healthy glow. He reached over to set the tray of tea on the table.

  “Your father seems to be coping better?” Kate said after Suneel had left the dining room.

  “He is quiet most days, reflecting on a past memory. He started cooking my mother’s favorite recipes, and we both remember the last time we enjoyed the dish with her.” Krishna smiled faintly.

  “Have you talked to him about Raji?”

  Krishna looked pained.

  “He looks at me confused,” she responded, “like he doesn’t know quite who his daughter is. I haven’t exactly lived up to what my parents envisioned for me—a lesbian artist.”

  Krishna looked at the floor. No one spoke. Even the twins, strapped in their seats, sucked in their breath and blinked.

  “The closest my father a
nd I came to talking was a few nights ago,” she began. “I came home and heard flute music coming from the basement. I found my father sitting on the floor next to an old dusty leather case. He was playing ‘Moon Dance,’ my favorite song. Apparently, he used to play the flute next to my crib when I was a baby to get me to sleep. I never knew he played!”

  Krishna looked bewildered at Kate and Nasreen as they listened intently to her story.

  “He played the flute so wonderfully, the sound was a mix of joy and nostalgia. I waited for him to finish the song. He knew I was standing behind him, and without turning around he told me he always wanted to be a professional flutist. I asked him, ‘Dad, why did you stop playing the flute if it’s what you wanted to do?’ He told me because his parents wanted him to focus on his studies. By the time he went to graduate school in physics, he played so infrequently that he packed it in the back of a closet until I was born and he was inspired to play again. But by the time I was three or four years old, he’d packed the instrument away again.”

  Krishna paused and took a deep breath.

  “Then he turned to me and said, ‘I dream now of your mother, and in my dreams I am playing the flute.’”

  The doorbell rang, startling them. Suneel appeared in the room, surprised by the thought of a visitor.

  “I’ll get it,” Krishna said, grateful for the distraction.

  “I’m glad you, my daughter’s friends, are here,” Suneel said in an attempt to fill the silence after Krishna had left the dining room.

  Krishna returned holding an envelope and looking confused.

  “This came, certified mail for me,” she said as she pulled out the letter and began to read.

  Suneel sat at the table with Nasreen and Kate and poured himself a cup of tea.

  “It is notification for a scholarship. But I don’t understand.”

  “Scholarship for what?” asked Nasreen.