“You think he’ll go for it?”
Rasika shrugged. “He’s going to be a doctor. They’re really happy about that. My dad wanted someone to follow in his footsteps, and it clearly wasn’t going to be me. So, if Pramod wanted to marry someone of his own choice . . . I don’t know . . . my parents might get over it.”
“Wouldn’t they get over it with you, too? Eventually?”
“I’m the only daughter. I’m the oldest. I have to do this.”
“Well, I still don’t get it.”
Jill couldn’t understand. Rasika was reluctant to even articulate her fear that if she, her father’s beloved daughter, were to align herself with someone her parents didn’t approve of, her father would no longer be able to love her.
Chapter 10
Abhay stopped by Kianga’s house occasionally after work. He knew that in order to quiet his constant thoughts of Rasika he had to keep himself busy and occupied with other people. Alone, he started to brood about Rasika.
He didn’t have many friends in Portland yet. His coworkers at the bookstore already had their own partners and friends. And his work with Justin Time was mostly solitary. Justin wasn’t always present. Abhay spent what seemed like hours alone in Justin’s dim apartment. He summarized articles and books, and added them to the online database he had created. He felt like a centipede, crawling among the tomes of paper.
The work was frustrating, mostly. Everything he read pointed to the fact that Justin was right, yet Abhay wasn’t sure that compiling all this information was really going to convince anyone to do anything. Justin promised that, soon, they would start working on events and publicity.
Kianga and Ellen always seemed happy to see him. He couldn’t quite figure out the situation at their house. There were often several other people around, and some of them seemed to live in various rooms of the house.
One Tuesday evening in late October, he went over to help Kianga carve her pumpkins. Abhay’s job was to cut out the stems and scoop out the seeds, and to haul the pumpkins outside after Kianga finished carving. Kianga had a set of special, thin knives, and she took the pumpkins very seriously, drawing her designs on the orange globes first before cutting. Her pumpkin faces were beautiful and ethereal, full of swirling eyebrows and smiles. They created a row on either side of the driveway. Kianga planned to put the candles in the next day—Halloween.
They ordered in Chinese food for dinner. Abhay walked to the corner store to get some beer. After dinner, Ellen went to her room, and Kianga gave Abhay an intimate glance with her beautiful, cool eyes, and invited him out to the backyard, where there was a hammock on the tiny back patio. They lay side by side on the swinging hammock in the chilly night. Abhay could still smell the sweet vegetably scent of pumpkin on his hands.
“How’s it going with Justin?” Kianga asked.
“Okay, I guess. I can see this work is really important, and I’m the only one doing it in the entire world, as far as I can tell.” Abhay felt something soft and fluffy on his chest. He held it up.
“What’s that?” Kianga asked.
“A dust bunny. I think. Sometimes I feel like I’m turning into dust, working in that messy apartment.” He dropped the fluff over the side of the hammock.
“Justin’s always been kind of a pack rat. We had him keep our records for the Green Party, because we knew he’d never get rid of anything.” She laughed. “Maybe you can clean up the place for him.”
“He doesn’t want me messing with his stuff. He’s really particular about it.”
“I was afraid of that. I was hoping this organization would bring him out of his shell.”
“I don’t think he wants to come out of his shell,” Abhay said.
“Well, don’t give up yet. I’ve always thought he had interesting ideas. I think he just needs someone to help him connect his ideas to the real world.”
“He does have good ideas,” Abhay agreed.
The traffic from the freeway had died down somewhat and was less apparent in the back of the house. Abhay wondered why Kianga was so interested in helping Justin. He was quite a bit older than she, and somewhat musty smelling. He couldn’t imagine she had romantic ideas about him.
After several moments, Kianga reached for his fingers and held them lightly. “Do you want to tell me about your parents? And your childhood?”
“I’ll tell you if you care.”
“I do. I’m always interested in knowing where my friends come from.”
As they swayed in the hammock, he told her about how his father had gotten his Ph.D. in the United States and had then gone back to India to marry his mother. He told her about living in a little dying rural town near Kent, and how he had run with a pack of other kids who lived in the same town-house complex. “It was great,” he recalled. “There were these woods surrounding the town houses, and we’d explore in there, and pick wild blueberries. There was this little muddy pond we’d go to. We skipped rocks and caught toads. In the summer we’d go into whoever’s house was nearby, and make sandwiches, and eat our lunches outside. My parents never knew anything about this. Dad was too busy with work to pay attention to what I did, and Mom was too busy with housework and my baby sister, I guess.”
He told her about the move to Kent when he was twelve, how he had trouble making friends in junior high school, how he had developed a crush on a beautiful girl, much taller than he, and how other kids had somehow found out about it and teased him the entire year.
“Hm.” Kianga pressed his fingers in sympathy.
He looked up at the dark gray sky through the branches of a tree. There were lights all around them, from living room windows and yard lamps, and he could see Kianga’s face glowing in the dimness. He told her about all the silent family dinners he had endured, about his trouble deciding on a college major, about living at Rising Star. He turned his head against the rough ropes of the hammock to see her smiling gently on him, and he felt she could see right into him.
“Do you still keep in touch with any of the folks from the commune?” Kianga asked.
“No,” he said. “I had a bad experience there with a woman that I’m trying to forget about. And it’s hard to correspond privately with anyone at Rising Star. No one has their own personal phone or e-mail address, and the mail is sorted centrally, so if I contact anyone, the entire community’ll know.”
“Don’t you miss that lifestyle?”
He thought about this. “When I first got there, I was so full of hope. So sure it was the right thing for me. I think I miss that feeling more than anything. By the time I left I was sick of the place.”
When a member left, it was never a happy occasion at the community, never a time for a party or sharing food or dancing. He had packed on his own, the treasurer had solemnly handed him $100 in exit cash, and the woman in charge of the communal cars had driven him to the bus station. And that was that.
“In fact, now that I’m telling you about my childhood, I’m realizing something,” Abhay said. “I’m wondering if my quest to live in a commune was an attempt to recapture something from my childhood.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I had this wonderful communal experience as a child, sharing food, sharing adventures. And when that all ended, I was shoved into an environment where my vulnerabilities were exposed and mocked. So I wonder if through the commune I was trying to get back to that happy time of my childhood.”
“I think you’re overanalyzing,” Kianga said. “Communal living makes sense: it’s cheaper and it’s more energy efficient. There doesn’t have to be any deep psychological reason for it. Isn’t that how people in India live, in families all together?”
He thought about his summer trips to Bangalore as a child. “Yeah, I guess I never realized that. My grandparents and my uncle and his family all lived in the same house, and when we went it was like a party every day. I remember one time sleeping with a whole bunch of cousins on the floor of the living room. I was maybe seven or e
ight, and the house was full of people. Relatives had come to Bangalore for someone’s wedding—I can’t remember whose—and it was like a big slumber party. My cousins and I ran around the house and yard, playing hide-and-seek, marbles, cricket.”
“So maybe communal living reminds you of the way your family in India lives.”
“Yeah. Maybe. I never thought of that until just now. And out there in Ohio, we’ve been all by ourselves.”
“When were you in India last?”
“It’s been years. As I got older I found it boring to spend my entire summer in Bangalore. I couldn’t ride my bike because there was too much traffic, and there weren’t any public libraries, and my cousins were usually at school all day when we went because their school vacations were different. My parents and my sister went when I was seventeen, and I just stayed home.”
A nearby light was shut off, and he and Kianga were now lying in a pleasant grayness. She rolled onto her side, lifted an arm, and let it drift down onto his chest, where it lay warm and solid. He stroked her forearm, and soon was stroking more of her. He was melding into her warm body, and his breath was mixing with hers. He was part of the night air, part of the hammock, part of her, and she was part of him.
The next morning he woke up alone in Kianga’s bedroom. She had a loft bed. He sat up and looked down at the room below, at her desk near the window with its stack of textbooks, a few large crystals, and a potted plant trailing dark green leaves. The closed white curtains let the sunlight in. The flowered dress she had worn yesterday was on the carpet below him. She had let it fall from the loft bed last night. He remembered its softness, and liked seeing it lie there in disarray. The room smelled faintly of incense, sweeter and different from what his mother used at home during her pooja. He smiled to himself. Kianga was definitely the type of woman to fit his life. How could he have possibly gotten so attached to Rasika, who was completely unlike him?
He climbed down from the loft and put on his clothes. He needed to get back to his place to get ready for work. This morning he had a meeting with Justin, and in the afternoon he had a shift at the bookstore. And in the evening, perhaps he’d be back here, making dinner with Kianga, swaying in the hammock again, eventually drifting to her room.
In the hallway, he almost ran into Ellen as she exited the bathroom. She was holding her toothbrush and towel. “Hi!” he said cheerfully.
“Sorry.” She darted around him, peering at the floor. He was a little taken aback at her unfriendliness.
He finished in the bathroom and floated down the hall to look for Kianga. He imagined wrapping his arms around her and continuing their blissful connection of the night before.
In the kitchen, Kianga was at the stove, stirring a pot of something. She called, without turning around to face him, “You want raisins?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “What’re you making?” And through the window above the sink he heard a male voice say, “Yeah.”
Kianga turned to Abhay and smiled. Preview stepped through the back door, holding a cucumber and a bell pepper. He nodded to Abhay, washed the vegetables at the sink, and started slicing them at the island counter.
Abhay felt useless standing in the middle of the kitchen. He’d thought he was going to gaze into Kianga’s eyes while they ate a private breakfast.
“You got here early,” Abhay said as Preview arranged cucumber slices on a plate.
“I live here.” Preview scratched his head of matted hair.
Kianga was spooning oatmeal with raisins into four bowls. “Abhay, go ahead and put on some water for tea,” she instructed. He thought about walking out the door, but he had to eat breakfast anyway. He just needed to be cool about the situation—whatever it was. He strolled over to the sink and filled the teapot. By this time Ellen was in the kitchen. She stood on a stool next to him, took several boxes of tea bags out from a high cabinet, and set them on the counter. After he turned on the stove he picked up the boxes of tea bags and took them into the dining room. Ellen was setting out spoons next to the bowls of oatmeal. “Would you bring the honey?” Ellen asked softly. “It’s next to the stove.” He found a jar of honey and a spoon and brought them out.
Then, not knowing what else to do, he stood near the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. Preview set out bottles of olive oil, vinegar, and herbs on the counter in front of him.
“So, Preview,” Abhay said. “What do you do for work?”
“Well, right now I’m kinda between jobs.” He splashed olive oil and vinegar into an empty jelly jar. “Kianga got me a temporary gig helping a disabled woman who’s making this film about disabled street performers. I carry her equipment and help set it up.” He added generous pinches of herbs with his fingers, capped the jelly jar, and shook it vigorously.
Kianga came in the back door holding stems of bright red tubular flowers, which she set into a drinking glass filled with water and brought into the dining room. “I needed to thin these plants anyway,” she explained to Abhay. “They grow like crazy. The hummingbirds love them.”
Preview set his plate of vegetables, drizzled with dressing, on the table. Abhay thought about slipping out without eating, and perhaps never coming back to this house again. Ellen smiled at him and said, “Come and sit down.” So he sat next to Ellen and across from Preview, who was next to Kianga. Preview laid a hand on Kianga’s bare shoulder and massaged it carefully. Kianga and Preview exchanged a long glance. Abhay noticed Ellen gazing at him in the same way. He gobbled down his oatmeal as fast as he could.
Abhay stayed away from Kianga’s place for the rest of the week. On Friday evening he went with his roommate, Victor, and Victor’s girlfriend, Tiffany, to see a movie called Sicko, about everything wrong with the American health care system.
“Our country’s going to hell,” Victor said when they exited the theater. He had his arms around Tiffany, and she was nuzzling his neck. “Canada’s got a way better system than we have, so does France, even Cuba’s better off than us. Those governments take care of their people. We spend our money on wars and shipping arms to dictators.” Victor gave Tiffany a sloppy kiss. Abhay looked away.
Victor and Tiffany took off for her place. As Abhay walked in the other direction, he could hear the two of them laughing. Why was it that Victor, and so many people like him, could see a disturbing movie like that, and complain about the country, yet continue to be apparently happy with their lives? Abhay, on the other hand, brooded.
In the apartment kitchen were dirty bowls, plates, glasses, and pans in the sink, which Victor and Tiffany had failed to wash. Abhay noticed a large black bug squeeze itself into a crack between the countertop and wall. He walked past it all to fall into bed with his clothes still on.
Saturday morning dawned dull and overcast. The greasy popcorn from last night still sat heavily in his stomach. He showered, dressed, washed his dishes, and then sat at his kitchen table looking out at the gray sky. He thought about calling Rasika.
The phone rang. It was his mother. She called every week or so, worried about his low-paying job as a bookstore clerk, and worried that the job with Justin Time didn’t really count as decent work.
“How are you?” she asked dolefully.
“Great!” He tried to make his voice full of pep. “Things are going really well here. How are you, Mom? How’s your business going?”
Mom clicked her tongue. “Remember big sale I made? Last month?”
“To that home-schooling group?”
“So much work it was. So many times I met with them. Then they bought lot of books, so I am happy. I think, it is all worth it. Finally I receive my check. Hardly anything it is. All people above me have taken so much.”
“That’s the way it is with these pyramid schemes, Mom.”
“Your father is angry. I did not even earn enough to pay for all samples I bought. They did not tell all this. In those meetings they just told how much money we will make.”
“I’m sorry to hear t
hat it didn’t work out, Mom.”
“So I will not do this work anymore. I gave samples to my friend Linda. I don’t know what I will do now.”
“Well—do you feel like you learned something from this?” He watched a black water bug march boldly across the floor. “You were running your own business, after all. Maybe some of those skills are transferable. You could start another small business.”
“What business? What I know to do? I can cook. I can take care of children. I can type and answer phone. What business I can start?”
“What about catering? Or a small day care? Or, I don’t know, maybe a typing service or answering service?”
“Right now I have too many worries. I cannot think about anything new.”
He flung himself back in his chair and looked at a stain on the ceiling in the shape of a dog’s head. “What worries?”
“I want you to talk to Seema.”
“Why? What’s going on? I thought she was doing great in her classes.”
“I think she has—boyfriend,” Mom choked out. “Black boy, I think.”
“Oh?” Abhay focused on one of the dog’s ears, hoping that his mother’s comment wasn’t as bigoted as it sounded.
“Some Pan-Africa group she is involved in now. One freshman class is about multicultural something. I thought they will be learning about different countries. But she is spending lot of time with these black students.”
“How do you know she has a boyfriend?”
“I can tell. One day she came home wearing new dress, some kind of loose African thing. She said her friend gave it. What friend, I said. And she told this boy’s name. He must be black boy, if he is giving African dress.”
Good for her, Abhay thought. He sat up straighter and placed his elbows on the table.
“I cannot tell your father,” Mom said. “So upset he will be. I want you to talk to her. I will go and give her phone.”
And Laughter Fell From the Sky Page 17