“What things?”
This time Bella doesn’t get an answer. Instead, Valerie asks a question of her own. “Do they know that you are here?”
“They do,” says Bella.
With a touch of sarcasm, Valerie responds, “Lucky you!”
And Bella can’t resist adding, “But then, I’ve invested in them and you haven’t. I never lost touch.” Bella doesn’t like to hear herself speaking vengefully, rubbing more salt in Valerie’s open sore. And so she adds, a little more softly, “Not that anyone can guarantee it will be smooth sailing with teenagers.”
But her sympathy evaporates when Valerie responds, “I can’t wait to see them, my treasures!”
Bella doesn’t tell her what the children have said to her about their mother. She spares her this, not out of kindness, but because there is no point in getting into a scuffle.
Bella gets up, ready to show Valerie out, but just then the phone rings. It is Mahdi. She asks him to wait, then she says to Valerie, “Please see yourself out, if you don’t mind. I must take this call.”
At that, Valerie exits, slamming the door behind her.
After speaking briefly with Mahdi, Bella calls the hotel reception desk to ask that they prepare her bill since she will be checking out of the hotel in an hour or so. One less worry, she thinks, as she goes through the room, making sure she leaves nothing of hers behind. Then she rings the concierge, requesting to please have her car brought to the front and a bellboy sent up to her room to take her luggage to the vehicle.
—
Valerie walks out of the room and turns left past a fire door. She takes a lift to the ground floor and slips out a side entrance. In the gathering dusk, she makes her way along a tree-lined path until she comes to a low-built two-room chalet. She knocks three times on the door, then, without waiting for an answer, inserts the key and enters.
“It’s me, Pad,” she announces. “I’m back.”
Padmini has just stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around her head and another one around her waist. She stands not an inch shorter than six feet and is very proud of her height. At once serene, majestic, and beguiling, Padmini is ordinarily capable of stunning anyone, man or woman. But after two nights in a Kampala lockup being roughed up, humiliated, and bullied by corrupt police officers, she would not remind anyone of the famous actress for whom she is named. As part of their intimidation, the officers shaved her head with a dull razor in the basement of the jail. Then they made her sweep up her hair and take it back to the lockup to show to Valerie. Padmini will remember this mortification for the rest of her days. And it is compounded by the fact that Valerie was not subjected to similar treatment. Padmini knew the police goons had singled her out for this punishment in accordance with the Ugandan stereotype that Indian women take excessive care of their hair. Seemingly to go with her new look, she wears no makeup at all. Still, she is gorgeous—“to die for,” as the phrase has it.
Padmini struts to the standing mirror and examines a reddish spot—maybe a mosquito bite—between her breasts, each the size and shape of a plantain. The spot is sensitive to her touch and turning redder by the second. She is incensed, uncannily angry. She utters muffled curses, damning Africa and its malaria and wishing to get rid of everything to do with the continent. Padmini finds her handbag, fumbles in it, and brings out a tube of antibiotic ointment, which she applies to the spot. Then she swivels her head in Valerie’s direction.
“How have things panned out?”
“Let me see.” Valerie moves toward Padmini.
“Was she hostile?”
“What do you expect?”
Padmini turns to face her. “Surely the children are more yours than hers.”
“She was friendlier than I expected.”
“I wonder why.”
“Maybe she is up to one of her tricks.”
“And what might those be?”
“She knows something I don’t.”
“Something to do with her brother’s will?”
“Bella is no fool.”
“She is very smart. I’ll say that.”
“She hasn’t struck me as devious.”
“But she isn’t as straightforward as Aar.”
Valerie says, “Aar was an angel, the best man any woman could hope to find among the pack. Not an ounce of badness in him. I can’t say that about Bella.”
In the abrupt silence that follows, Padmini starts to turn her interest to another insect bite just below her right buttock. She relaxes her grip on the towel and cranes her neck, but she is unable to catch sight of it. She utters a salvo of damnations aimed at every insect that bites and then curses Africa, which has reared the lot, willing them to torment everyone who visits the damned continent.
She turns angrily on Valerie. “Look at what they’ve done. I tell you that Africa is out to disfigure my body.”
“Come, darling,” Valerie pleads.
“Take a good look. I am done for.”
Valerie parts the towel and sinks to her knees, as if in worship of a temple deity. She touches the swollen red spot and, going still redder herself, kisses it.
But the instant Padmini’s eyes clap on their bodies in the mirror, she snaps, “Don’t you start!”
“What’s with you lately, Pad?” Valerie says.
“I feel as if I’m being watched.”
“I’ll protect you!” cries Valerie. But when she follows Padmini’s gaze, she sees a man with a hose watering a neatly trimmed patch of the garden opposite, and she realizes that he is not so covertly staring at them. Stiffening, Padmini gets up to draw the curtains. They stare at each other, Padmini with a look of reproach and Valerie with a look that says, “So what, who cares? Let them look.” In India, Valerie remembers, it used to be the other way round. She should never have come to Uganda with Padmini, she thinks.
“You are in one of those moods,” Valerie says.
The two of them have been through a lot together, first as classmates at their boarding school in Ely, in East Anglia, then as friends enjoying a secret liaison while each of them was married. The question now is: Will their partnership survive the current challenges? No doubt, Kampala was a disaster. But will Valerie’s attempt to reclaim her children meet with success? It is too early to tell. In the company of those of similar sexual orientations in Europe and North America, Padmini and Valerie delight openly in their union and speak of their partnership as being on a par with marriage. Not so in India or Africa. When Padmini mentioned that she would love to mother Valerie’s teenagers, whom she’s known from birth, she added a caveat: that they move back to Britain, where they can live as a lesbian couple with full rights. Of course, who knows how Dahaba and Salif will react to this proposal.
Now Padmini holds Valerie’s gaze and they look deeply into each other’s eyes, eyes flooded with worry. Padmini’s parents relocated to Britain when she two; she was brought up in a very strict household. Their homes, both in Uganda and England, had a small Hindu shrine off the kitchen, where incense burned day and night. When Padmini was fifteen and still at school, her mother “found” her a husband—a very handsome boy two years her senior, the only son of a family that lived next door in Kampala before the mass expulsion; his father owned a chain that distributed newspapers all over Britain. Padmini became distraught at the thought of marrying a man she barely knew. “You don’t know what I am like,” she sobbed to her parents, “and any man who marries me isn’t going to like me when he gets to know the real me.” No one bothered to ask Padmini what she was really like. If they had, would she have dared to give her love a name? Her parents thought she meant to say that she was not going to be a typical Indian wife. They let that match go, but it never crossed their minds that their daughter was partial to women.
She was an outstanding student and represented her comprehensive school in many interschool competitions
. It was in the finals of one such competition that she encountered an equally exceptional student, Valerie Wilkinson. Padmini won first prize, and Valerie took second. They began writing letters to each other, and a friendship grew. Both were accepted to the University of East Anglia, where they roomed together and exchanged stories of their crushes and previous amorous encounters. Valerie was keener on boys, while Padmini already knew that she was only attracted to girls. One summer, they traveled together to France because Valerie was majoring in French and Padmini harbored the ambition of one day running a Michelin-starred restaurant.
After completing their studies, they went their separate ways, but they stayed in touch. Valerie was very surprised when Padmini entered into an arranged marriage. Rajiv was okay, but he and Padmini were nothing alike. Meanwhile, Valerie went from boyfriend to boyfriend until she met Aar, her first long-term affair. He was five years her senior and based in Geneva as an employee of the UN. He traveled a lot, which was part of his appeal for Valerie. He would go to London for weekends, where he would share her room at the hotel where she was a deputy manager, mainly in charge of the bars, the restaurants, and the catering service. She spent a wonderful week with him in Senegal in a beach house he borrowed from a colleague who worked with him in Geneva. Back in England, she brought him along to a party at Padmini’s. That night, Valerie became pregnant. When she informed Aar, he sought Bella’s counsel. Bella was not in favor of her brother’s having a child with Valerie, nor of their marrying. She said, “I have a visceral dislike of the woman and would advise against your marrying her.”
But Aar and Valerie were married anyway, in Mali, at a ceremony where the country’s most famous band led by Salif Keita performed. Several local notables had been invited and everyone had a good time, especially the marrying couple. And during the first few years of their marriage, it was universally agreed they were a happy couple. They had Salif, who was named for the bandleader, and then Dahaba.
After that, things seemed to change. Aar was loyal to her, and Valerie was hospitable to their friends, but at home he took more care of the children than she did; she seemed relaxed only in the company of other adults, especially when she and Aar were giving dinners. Aar felt, Bella remembers, that these gatherings gave Valerie’s life purpose. When they were living in Geneva, she set up a catering business for the foreign embassies, consulates, and UN bodies. But she was always fighting with her employees and firing them.
Padmini remained a frequent visitor, staying away from Rajiv for longer and longer spells. During Aar’s protracted absences from home, Padmini and Valerie slept in the same bed; the children, especially Dahaba, were unsettled by this and complained to Aar about it. But because Valerie seemed happy again and complained less, he stayed quiet. By then, Valerie had abandoned all pretense of running the catering business. It was equally obvious that Padmini’s marriage was doomed, but she hadn’t the heart to bring it to an end, reasoning that in her culture such things were not done.
The first time Aar caught Valerie and Padmini in bed was when Valerie fell asleep in Dahaba’s bed after reading her a bedtime story and instead of joining Aar in the conjugal bed, she went to Padmini’s room, sneaking back to Dahaba’s bed before sunrise. Good breeding forbade Aar to speak of what he saw. But when Bella came for a brief visit, he talked about what was going on. To his surprise, Bella refrained from giving him advice. Perhaps, he thought, she’d decided it was too late to give her opinion on Valerie.
And so Aar bided his time until an opportunity presented itself. There was an opening in the Nairobi office. Padmini was on one of her many visits. He told Valerie he had to go to the New York head office for an interview, and by the time he returned, he would know if he had the job in either Vienna or Nairobi, with a possible secondment to Somalia. When he got back, Padmini was there. He told Valerie he had been offered the position in Vienna. Eventually, he said, he hoped to be transferred to somewhere in Africa, preferably closer to home.
Valerie did not appear to be enthusiastic about moving to Vienna with him. Unlike Aar, who had already acquired Italian in Somalia, English in Canada, and French in Geneva, she was not proficient in languages and had no intention of learning German.
Valerie smiled when her eyes met Padmini’s but frowned when her gaze encountered Aar’s knowing grin. He guessed that Valerie and Padmini needed time alone to talk things through. A furtive glance at his wristwatch supplied him with an excuse to depart. “I’ll pick up the children from afterschool,” he said. “Let us talk later after dinner.”
When he returned home with the children, he found a note from Valerie. The note simply said that she and Padmini had gone to the gym for a workout and were not coming home for supper that night. They did not return until about one o’clock in the morning; a light sleeper, Aar woke to the sound of Valerie’s key in the lock and then their footsteps.
A couple of days later, Padmini left, and things seemed normal between Aar and Valerie, even if she didn’t return to the conjugal bed or accept any of his physical approaches. As he was not the type to force a woman to do his bidding, especially his wife, Aar acceded to her request that they remain physically apart.
Aar was not due to begin the job in Vienna until the fall. With the end of the school year approaching, Salif and Dahaba talked of how eager they were to visit a game park in Africa. Aar said, “What a brilliant idea.” He suggested a family trip to Nairobi in a bid to work on the marriage and mend his rapport with Valerie without the presence of Padmini. All four of them had a wonderful time, above all Valerie, who was equally delighted to see wild game galore and sample some of the sixty-four types of meat served at the restaurant Carnivore, which Salif adored and Dahaba, who was in her vegetarian phase, hated. Taking long walks and long drives, staying up late and rising early to watch wild animals in their habitat, everyone enjoyed the visit to the game park. But as the trip progressed, Valerie began to run a high fever, especially in the evenings, apparently because a tick bit her.
When they were back in Geneva and ready to move to Vienna, Valerie’s fever persisted, but she still refused to see a doctor, until she developed massive headaches as well, whereupon Aar insisted she see someone. She was eventually diagnosed as suffering from the aftereffects of a tick bite. Most of her physical symptoms came under control, but others—the obvious volatility to her behavior in particular—persisted.
Three months later, just at the end of the school year, Valerie was suddenly gone. She left Aar not even a note saying where she had gone or when she would be back. He called her mother, who didn’t know any more than he did. He tried contacting Padmini, but she didn’t answer either his e-mails or his phone calls. When September neared, Aar relocated himself and the children to Vienna, arranging to move their belongings and enroll the children in a new school.
“We were meant for each other,” Valerie now says to Padmini. “That is the long and short of it. And although we failed in Uganda, I am optimistic that we’ll be successful in our effort to reclaim my children. I can’t imagine them not wanting to be with us and staying with Bella instead.”
“Yes,” Padmini says, “Bella doesn’t have the patience to look after teenagers, I reckon. Here one week, Brazil the next, then Mali and back to Rome, the life of a sailor.”
Valerie yawns and looks away, eyes closed. She is thinking about Bella and the appetites she senses in her. Yet Bella is so discreet that in all the years Valerie has known her she never worked out where Bella was with sex. With whom did she do it, if at all? Was she frigid or merely discreet?
Valerie asks Padmini what she thinks. “Of course there are lovers,” Padmini says. “There have to be.”
“Some women who hide in plain sight?” says Valerie.
“You reckon she is in the closet?” says Padmini.
Valerie says that she once asked Aar directly about his sister’s love life. “He looked at me, amused. Then he said, ‘For crying
out loud, she is my sister.’” That was Aar, proper in every way. And that was Bella, a mystery. “In all the years I’ve known her,” Valerie says, “I haven’t detected any flicker of an intimation of what excites her.”
Padmini says, “Maybe, being Somali, she doesn’t have it in her. Maybe they chopped hers off, all of it.”
Valerie laughs. “How about if we ask her?”
“At the first opportunity.”
Valerie says, “I wonder what circumcised female genitals look like.” She imagines something like the hollow cheeks of an elderly person, a cavern.
“In Uganda,” Padmini says, “they stretch the labia.”
“Ideal for self-stimulation, I hear,” Valerie jokes. She knows they are having fun at Bella’s expense, but the two of them are roaring with laughter when the phone rings. They fall instantly silent, as if suddenly aware that someone has been listening in on their indiscretions. The ringing goes on and on, but neither dares to answer it. Finally it stops, but then it almost immediately resumes. “Maybe my children,” Valerie says. “Hello!”
It is Bella, inviting them to dinner.
“Give me a sec,” says Valerie. She consults with Padmini, who nods.
They settle on an Indian restaurant called Tandoori House at eight. Bella says she has some things to take care of first and that she will meet them there. She doesn’t elaborate. “The reception desk will tell you where it is,” she says.
After Valerie hangs up, she discovers that a new worry has crept into their conversation now that they are no longer saying terrible things about Bella’s privates. Padmini says, “Why is she inviting both of us?”
“Maybe she wishes to take your measure,” says Valerie. “After all, you’re the one who led me astray, made me into a lesbian.”
“You’re too long in the tooth. She won’t believe that.”
And suddenly there is joy on their faces as they prepare to go out. They resolve to ask Bella about her love life at dinner. They shower together and take their time dressing. Valerie chooses a multicolored silk sari that Padmini suggests. And Padmini, not feeling Indian with her shorn head, puts on a pair of jeans.
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