IF YOU LOOK FOR ME, I AM NOT HERE

  ‘You mean hermaphrodites.’ Philipose Sir clasped his hands together. ‘Excellent question. Let me explain. In most cases, a person has a XX or XY chromosome but a mixup in the DNA causes abnormal results. Remember every person starts out as a hermaphrodite – the baby has both male and female parts while it is developing. Then depending on the overall chromosomal instructions in the cells one or the other parts are suppressed or cancelled. Then the baby becomes fully a boy or a girl. Sometimes the instructions are not so clear so the baby is then born as a hermaphrodite, a boy-girl.’

  Somewhat like the Before After game, or reading Hobbit backwards, Philipose Sir started talking about the Beginning since he had already explained the End. He substituted for the word sex, words like intimate, intercourse, close, passionate, personal, communication, interaction, exchange and so on. He treated the eggs as though they were goals and the sperms were players running in the field. Intercourse was a heated, perspiring, passionate football match and if the players won they got a prize: XX, XY or in mixedup cases, otherwise.

  I wasn’t listening to all that he said, though. I had something else playing in my mind: in my body I felt like a boy; in my thoughts I felt I was a girl. I was mixedup. God was not responsible for who I was. Amma was not to be blamed for who I was not. It was all Appa’s fault.

  That night I took down the dictionary from the bookshelf and looked up the word Hermaphrodite: An individual having both male and female behavioural characteristics and sexual organs.

  Is this who I was? Some sort of a hermaphrodite? A half and half?

  ***

  It was the last week of the summer holidays. Rebecca had not been very well and she had been acting strange, like the other day when her eyes were far away.

  ‘What’s wrong,’ I asked.

  ‘Everything,’ she said, looking away into the miles.

  The next day, the day after, the-day-after-after that day, Rebecca was still unwell. Her stomach ached or her head hurt. Her throat was sore or she was feeling faint. Each day she felt pain in different parts of her body. This is what she told me. Was she really sick? Was she trying to avoid me? I decided to put to use the Benefit of Doubt. Appa had told me about this on the day he had met Sister Mary Edwards. ‘It is an important tool,’ Appa said. ‘For science to make progress we must give others the Benefit of Doubt, and then when you prove them wrong your victory is sweeter.’

  I waited a week after giving Rebecca the Benefit of Doubt. During this time I felt dreamy and vague and I couldn’t eat. At night I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned in my bed, rubbing my fists on my chest; something inside it moved and it hurt each time it did. My throat was dry, with no moisture in it. Deep inside me the season had changed. Rebecca’s seasons had also changed. I was getting worried about her. I was convinced that she was trying to avoid me. I went to her house each day. She asked me to go away. Or she was not even there. Where was she? Then a few days before school reopened I was surprised to see a cage of lovebirds in Rebecca’s balcony, and a vase of red roses.

  ‘Birds should not be caged,’ I said. ‘They should be flying in the air. You said so.’

  ‘Not these,’ Rebecca said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Cyril gave them to me.’

  The next afternoon I stole some money from the biscuit tin in the prayer room and from Yusuf I bought a glass bowl with a goldfish. On my way to Rebecca’s house I stole a sprig of turmeric yellow Bougainvillea from someone’s garden.

  I found Rebecca in the balcony, huddled in a chair and looking gloomily at her feet. I held out the bowl and flowers to her. ‘I got them for you.’

  She looked up at me and then at the fishbowl and made a fishface. ‘Don’t want it.’

  I thrust the bowl toward her. ‘Take it. Take it.’

  Rebecca grabbed the bowl from my hands and crashed it to the floor. ‘I told you I don’t want it. Look what you made me do.’

  The goldfish twitched, gasped, its mouth opening and closing as I watched it die. Then Tara ran across the balcony and set the lovebirds free. She turned around and said, ‘Look what you made me do.’

  ‘Go. Away.’ That’s all Rebecca said. Go. Away. It was the tone in which she said Go. Away. that hurt me. So I went away clutching the branch of Bougainvillea. I ran all the way down the strip of bitumen and turned into the fields. The oilseed plants on either sides squeaked as the branches rubbed against one another. Bushes trembled with life: the flutter of a sleeping bird, zipping dragonflies and the scamper of mice. A large grey rat shot across from one field to another. I ran through the woods, past the bushes to the lake. I walked along the shore to a cluster of bamboo trees and enclosed myself in it, as if in a womb. The bamboo leaves went sis-his in the breeze. The water sloshed against the banks. A hum went off in my head: our wombsong, Tara’s and mine.

  Wazz wrong?

  Everything.

  Don’ worry, am ‘ere.

  Go. Away.

  Then I lay my head down on a clump of grass, the Bougainvillea next to me, and shut my eyes. I pressed my fist to my heart so it wouldn’t move. And there, in the afternoon breeze I fell into a deep sleep. Until I was surprised by noises, voices I recognised and my heart moved again: it fluttered alive and then it sank. A chill spread right through to my chest, arms, legs, right through to my toes. There under the chakka tree, the orange setting sun on them, were Rebecca and Cyril. I looked away at the pond.

  I started counting:

  2 large lilies …

  1 toad…

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cyril hold Rebecca’s face in both his hands.

  2 buds.

  2 more toads.

  Cyril bent down and kissed her cheeks.

  1 more half-bloomed lily.

  And 1 toad on a wet leaf.

  Cyril put his arms around Rebecca’s shoulder.

  1 more lily in the corner.

  Cyril pressed Rebecca to him.

  And 1 more lily.

  Then Cyril kissed her head.

  And 1 more toad.

  And kissed her eyes…

  And another 1.

  And kissed her forehead. And 1 more time. I lay still, still counting. Then Cyril kissed Rebecca hard on her lips.

  14 full-bloomed lilies.

  4 half-blooms.

  6 buds.

  And 7 toads.

  Tara felt a fury knotted deep inside; it tasted sour on my tongue. Suddenly the typhoon in Tara’s heart raged, the air in my head swelled, and a wail of despair escaped from my mouth. Then Tara felt the pain. I felt a different sort of ache.

  ***

  Rebecca didn’t come to school the next day and I was glad. She didn’t come all week; I was worried. I tried not to think of her or the way her luminous eyes lit up, as though she held an inconceivable joy inside her. She was always laughing, even when there was no reason to laugh. I longed to touch the two dimples that appeared on her cheek when she smiled. And that earthy whiff about her reminded me of the rains; I longed to inhale her scent. I tried not to think of her.

  My heart was pounding, as I thought of that afternoon by the lake when Rebecca had pulled me into the water. I had felt her body crushed against my chest as she had held me, helped me up on the shore. Then as I lay down on the ground she had bent over me, drawn a line with her finger from my brow to the tip of my chin, and then her finger had moved over my cheek, outlined my lips, and she had bent close and kissed me. Her lips were musky, moist, like the earthmusk of first rain. I had remembered this. I remembered this. She had rested her cheek on my chest and heard my heart pounding in her ear. All at once she stood up, scrambled to the chakka tree and with a pointed stone marked its trunk with the letters: R Loves S. I had remembered this. I remembered this.

  I had wanted to take pleasure in that moment when she kissed me; I had wanted to
live with it each day. But I couldn’t, unless Rebecca returned to me. So I had for all these days locked this memory in my heart for safekeeping, trying not to let it escape into my mind. But it did constantly. Then her voice screamed in my head: Go Away. And then I remembered there had been 14 full-bloomed lilies. 4 half-blooms. 6 buds. And 7 toads that day.

  I couldn’t stop thinking of Rebecca. I stood opposite her house to stop thinking of her. I went to the lake to our favourite spot to stop thinking of her. Everything seemed different now. The usual noises, the sound of the water, trees, birds, insects, collapsed into one long humming sound, like the wind in a tunnel. When a crow cawed, it did not disrupt silence, it added to it. Sound had a way of being very silent. Even the smell was unfamiliar: the sweet-pungent aroma of the chakka fruit, the sweetlysmelling flowers, they had all gone. Everything smelled dry. I felt dry. My stomach groaned and caved in. I knew this much: love was felt in the heart, but I felt it in my belly. Maybe it was not love, but something similar that had yet to be named:

  Heartfelt – Bellyfelt

  Heartrending – Bellyrending

  Heartless – Bellyless

  Heartwarming – Bellywarming

  I had no idea how the week passed, ever-so-s-l-o-w-l-y on caterpillar legs. Now here I was again across the road looking up at the green shutters of Rebecca’s house. They were all shut. Maybe she was out of town. Where had she gone? Had she Gone Away? Oh God let me not think of her.

  Just then I heard voices screaming aloud. I ran up the road to see. A crowd churned around Tommy’s Garage. The shop sign had been painted over in black. Tyres were all over the road, and nuts, bolts and all sorts of scrap. Men in saffron-coloured clothes shouted at Tommy-uncle, their fists raised in the air: no English names. Change your garage name. Swami sat on a tyre on the road shouting: Motherfuckers. Sisterfuckers…

  Tommy-uncle stood there, his arms crossed across his chest, muttering: a rose is a rose is a rose.

  Across the street Pinto’s Ice-cream Centre, Good Morning Café and Eros Cinema were in a mess. Further up Gibbs Road, the glass window of Gracious Me was smashed. Ribbons and hairclips were strewn on the pavement. Cake and pastries were strewn inside Sweet Heaven Cake Shop, and piles of photographs lay outside Sunrise Studios. A large signboard had been rammed into the earth: No English. Only the language of the soil. Only Telegu. Ironically the sign was in English. At the bottom of the sign was a list of new names assigned to the old names.

  Gibbs Road – Sri Krishna Road.

  George Gibbs Institute – Mahatma Gandhi Institute.

  Victoria Dyes – Vishnu Dye Factory.

  Queens Hotel – Maharani Mahal.

  Eros Cinema – Saraswati Talkies.

  Tommy’s Garage – Laxmi Garage…

  Nearer home I saw a gang of saffron-clothed men walking away from Victoria Villa. They had fixed a cardboard sign on the gatepost over the old name: Ram Vilas.

  That night as I looked up at Georgie’s picture on the wall, the lightbulb was reflected in his eyes. He looked worried and sad.

  I am so sorry Georgie, I said.

  ***

  I was startled to see Rebecca with her father in school the next day. They were waiting outside the principal’s office. Was there something wrong? I wondered if I should go over to her, then I thought maybe not. What would I say to her? So I turned away just as she called out to me. And then she was by my side. ‘Can’t talk now,’ she whispered. ‘Meet me by the lake this evening.’ Rebecca’s father called out to her as he stepped into the principal’s office. ‘4 o’clock. Be there,’ Rebecca said.

  I went to the lake half an hour early and waited for Rebecca for nearly an hour. I wondered if she would come. What did she want to tell me? My head throbbed and I felt a dull ache in my belly. The chakka tree swished-swished above me. I rested my head on the ground and fell asleep in its smell.

  I heard a sound and I opened my eyes. Rebecca was sitting on the shore. I crawled up to her and sat down beside her. The air was moist and heavy. The clouds looked like dirty rags hung on an invisible clothesline. Around the sweet hedge, fireflies danced and cruised the evening air in fine grains of light. I sighed, not because of the fireflies but because I could feel the warmth of Rebecca’s thigh pressed to mine. A giant firefly stirred in my belly; it flapped its wings and forced my breath out in a whistle.

  ‘Daddy’s moving to LA,’ Rebecca said.

  ‘Moving?’

  ‘Yes. He’s going to live with that American woman.

  ‘You said he was only having an affair.’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘You said it was temporary.’

  ‘This is a different kind of temporary.’

  ‘So why did your father have to meet the principal for that?’

  ‘To get my leaving certificate.’

  ‘Are you leaving?’

  ‘Yes. I. Want. To. Go. To. LA.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘For. Ever.’

  Desperately I threw my arms around Rebecca’s neck and, pulling her closer, kissed her lingeringly on her lips. Her lips were soft and smelled of sweet flowers and spice and her breath was warm like the summer breeze. I felt an unfamiliar thrill. The giant firefly fluttered in my belly once more and a surge of longing consumed me. ‘I love you,’ I blurted out.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Rebecca said pushing me away. I was afraid I was going to cry. To make matters worse she thrust a hand in her pocket and held out the beetle with green eyes. ‘You keep it.’ She shoved it into my hand. ‘I am not taking it to LA.’

  ‘It’s yours,’ I said giving it back to her. ‘Take it.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’ She flung it into the water. ‘Now look what you made me do!’

  I stood up, turned around and walked away. My head felt numb; I couldn’t think. I walked and walked. My feet walked me to the beach and, squatting on the sands, I stared into the sea, darkblue as the sky. It seemed to me like a big hole, the sky and the sea together. I dipped my head forward, pushing it into the hole, further so that I could never see myself again. I tried to work it out backwards, Hobbit-like:

  The kiss.

  Lilies and Toads.

  XX & XY.

  The dream.

  To catch a thief.

  Loves me, loves me not.

  Periods.

  Hail Marys.

  Breasts.

  All good things must come to an end.

  Ajeeb dastan hai yeh, kaha shuru kahan khatam.

  Snakes and Ladders.

  Pretend Game.

  Butterfly & Caterpillar.

  Before After.

  Rebecca’s hair floating out of the window.

  We’d gone through a lot together. It didn’t make sense. Perhaps there was more to it, but I didn’t know any more. I didn’t know how long I sat there. The sky had turned dark and the stars had come out. The light from the boats in the sea seemed to grow bigger and bigger. Then the light burst into flames. Or so I thought. My eyes felt as though they were on fire. I closed them and ended the pain momentarily.

  Something ended in me.

  20

  An end in the end was no end. An end was merely a pause before change, an interruption. End was unnatural, Appa had told me. The end of the pupa was the beginning of the mosquito. The end of a caterpillar was the beginning of the butterfly. Changes in nature, of life, were ruled by patterns of cause and effect. Every effect was the result of a string of causes, and each cause had an effect. To prove his point Appa relied heavily on the Fibonacci sequence:

  The sequence was formed by starting with 0 and 1, and then adding the latest two numbers to get the next one: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 – what came after was the result of all that came before. It was endless. The Fibonacci sequence revealed the pattern of things: of things to be, and of things to come, not as
ultimate law, but as a tendency.

  I should have known therefore, that Rebecca’s departure somewhat followed the Fibonacci Sequence. It was meant to be. I couldn’t fight what was preordained. So whenever I missed Rebecca I spread her atlas on the floor and with a hope and a wish I flew my finger across the Indian Ocean, over Egypt and the Sahara, and then I submarined under the South Atlantic Ocean, skirted the bottom of South America, plunged into the South Pacific Ocean, headed north and swam all the way to the coast of California. There with my finger poised over the land I walked them to the cities: San Francisco, San Jose, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego. Where the hell was LA? Rebecca would let me know when she sent for me. She surely would.

  Promise?

  Promise.

  Cross my heart and hope to die.

  And with that hope in my heart I remained comforted.

  Rebecca’s departure seemed to affect Amma more than me. Her skin was pallid, notched with pain lines, and her eyes, those aubergine eyes, had turned muddy brown. Aches descended inside her head and stayed there: hurting, throbbing. Shrill sounds drilled into her ears. Sunlight pricked her skin, left it raw. Her eyes discovered darkness invisible to most. She could see shadows in the dark.

  Amma walked stealthily, shadow-like, her body pressed against the walls, from room to room, up and down the stairs, her head bent low, her eyes tied with invisible strings to her toes. Sometimes she would shadow down the road, stop midway and wonder where she was going: she forgot things frequently. What was worse, she forgot the Sequence of Things. She would boil the vegetables in coconut paste before she added the tamarind instead of the other way around, and quite often she changed into fresh clothes before she had a bath, and on some days she forgot to bathe all together. It was not easy for her. The hours took months to make a day; the month sometimes collapsed in a minute.

  On her better days Amma went to the market and returned with armful of old magazines and secondhand books, tattered copies of Georgette Heyer novels. They were her favourite. Her room was full of them. As she read them she would be transported to those old times and she was at once Leonie or Barbara, or Judith or Horatia, falling in love with the Duke of Avon, or the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Worth or the Earl of Rule. She would read aloud from these books or sometimes talk to herself in a strange voice. No one understood her actions; neither did I. Only Munniamma did: Amma confided in her.