Serving Crazy with Curry

by Amulya Malladi

  Saroj hesitated just for an instant and then boldly stepped into Devi's bedroom. Here everything was in bright blue and mauve.

  Feminine, but not overtly so, and it appealed to Saroj's aesthetic sense. Devi even had a mauve vase with some fresh blue tulips arranged perfectly.

  Devi loved flowers, though she could never keep anything alive in the garden or even inside the house in a pot. If it was green and left with Devi, it would die. Shobha had a green thumb but no time for leaves and manure, as she would put it. Her garden was tended by some Mexican immigrant who spoke no English.

  Saroj almost didn't go inside the master bathroom, but she had the sudden urge to pee, so decided to go in to use the toilet. But for her old bladder, Saroj would never have stepped inside the bathroom, never seen her daughter, naked and bleeding from her wrists, lying barely conscious in the white claw-foot bathtub.

  The scream that ran out of her belly never made it to her ears as the blood roared and the world turned red in front of her. She stood rooted at the doorway, her eyes wide, horrified, her mind trying to wrap itself around the image. Denial sprang first; this couldn't be happening she thought surreally as suddenly her feet unglued from the floor and she flew to Devi.

  Oblivious to the water and the blood, Saroj waded inside the bathtub and pulled Devi up, as her head bobbed precariously low inside the water.

  “Devi, no, beta, no,” she said as tears streamed down her face and she reached for her purse where it had slid down her arm by the bathtub. Even as she moved she held on to Devi, hugged her to her bosom. She could feel Devi's heart beat against hers as she dialed 911 on her cell phone. It was a small consolation.

  “What do I do?” Saroj asked shakily, wanting to save her daughter until the experts arrived. Devi wasn't going to die, she told herself firmly, that wasn't going to happen. The skies would fall, but Devi wouldn't die. No, she kept yelling in her mind until all she could hear while the 911 operator spoke soothingly to her was No.

  Saroj drained the water from the tub, snatched her dupatta, and wrapped it around Devi's right wrist. She used Devi's dark-blue-and-mauve towel, hanging on the railing by the bathtub, to wrap her left hand. There was blood everywhere, and Saroj could feel the scent of iron mingle with fear. She wanted to throw up, but her throat felt closed in as she dialed more numbers on her tiny Motorola cell phone as fast as she could.

  “Avi, come now. Now. Our baby's dying, now,” she cried out, hysteria filling her as she heard the paramedics rush inside the house, come up the stairs.

  “Ma'am, you have to step away, we need to get to your daughter,” a young black man, he was almost a boy, told her. A woman, a cop, put an arm around her and gently drew her away as the paramedics brought Devi's naked body out of the bathtub and laid her down on the floor.

  “Is she okay? She's okay, right?” Saroj cried out to the paramedics working on patching up Devi's wrists and monitoring her vital signs.

  “They're doing all they can, don't worry,” the policewoman said and tried to get her out of the bathroom. “Why don't we go outside and you can call a member of your family?”

  “I am not leaving my daughter and going anywhere,” Saroj said, shrugging the policewoman's arm away. “I stay with her. You understand?” Even after more than three decades in the United States, her Indian accent was pronounced, and now in a time of crisis it came screaming through. “Not going anywhere,” she repeated, “nowhere without my daughter. Okay?”

  “Okay,” the policewoman said patiently.

  “She will be all right, okay?” Saroj said, her vision blurring because of the tears.

  “Okay,” the policewoman repeated patiently.

  “She will not die, okay?” Saroj said, tears now staining her cheeks.

  “Okay,” the policewoman said, yet again.

  “Okay,” Saroj said as if agreeing with the policewoman, wiped her tears with her hands, and then with clear eyes watched over her daughter.

  “Hello, Reality

  The image of her bleeding daughter was embossed in the eyes of her mind, stamped on her retina.

  Forty-eight hours had passed since the paramedics rushed Devi to the Sequoia Hospital emergency room in Redwood City. They would release Devi, the doctor told Avi and Saroj, under family supervision.

  “In cases such as these we feel the patient would be better helped by being around family. But we recommend you wait at least two, three days. One of you can always be here if you like,” Dr. Feroze Shah said, his hand on Saroj's shoulder, a calming effect. “And we'll obviously need the resident psychiatrist to sign off on the release. I don't think it should be a problem.”

  The first day, Saroj sat at the hospital all day and all night, refusing to leave Devi's bedside even as Vasu, Shobha, Avi, and even Girish tried to persuade her into leaving, getting out of her blood-soaked salwar-kameez.

  Two days later Saroj still shuddered as she stood under a hot shower, avoiding looking at the bathtub at the other end of the large bathroom. It would be a long time before Saroj could look at a bathtub and not see Devi lying there in her own blood.

  The tears started slowly, mingling with the stream of hot water pouring from the shower, but the tears were hotter, heavier, burning in their intensity. Saroj tried to still them, stop them. She'd cried enough, cried too much, so much that she was afraid that her bedroom would flood with salty tears and she would float away in them.

  Saroj didn't want to cry, what she wanted was to run away, have amnesia so that none of this would matter, none of this would hurt.

  She came out of the shower, naked, having forgotten her towel. There are times in your life when your mind is blank except for one image and that image changes, turns, alters, but in essence remains the same inside your brain.

  The relentless visual of seeing Devi in that bathtub haunted Saroj, and the world around her seemed encompassed with sorrow and shock. What could be more horrible, more terrifying than this? Would there ever be a pain that would be stronger than this?

  “Saroj?” Avi came into the bedroom to find her standing naked, dripping on the hardwood floors. “Put something on, for God's sake,” he said in a rushed voice as he grabbed a towel from the cabinet by the bathroom and wrapped it around her. “The AC is on, you'll catch a cold.”

  “We should give Vasu a break,” Saroj said, tightening the towel around her. She wanted to lean on Avi to erase a part of the scary memory of yesterday, blur the image so secure in her mind.

  She stood away from him, stiff, unable to make her limbs move.

  “You're the one who needs a break,” Avi said softly. “Vasu's just been there for three hours, and she wants to be there.”

  “Devi's my daughter,” Saroj said possessively, snapping out of her blankness. She walked into their large closet to find some clothes.

  “No one's saying otherwise,” Avi said as he followed her in. “You need to get some sleep, eat something. I heated the biriyani Shobha and Girish brought last night from the restaurant.”

  “I am not hungry, Avi. Frankly, I don't know how any of you can even think about food,” Saroj muttered, temper replacing sorrow. “She is dying and you are all pretending like it is a normal thing. She is lying in a hospital but we will eat biriyani.”

  “Oh, so you're the only one who cares about Devi, while we're all… what? Pleased that this happened?” Avi snapped. “Get off your high horse, Saroj. Doesn't it get tiring always playing the righteous one?”

  “Righteous? I am the one who sat with her all night…”

  “No one asked you to. I wanted to, Vasu wanted to, damn it, even Shobha wanted to, but you threw us all out,” Avi exploded. “And Devi is not dying anymore. She's fine, a little wounded, but alive. Keep that in mind.”

  “Oh, I need you to tell me how my daughter is doing? Is that it?” Saroj demanded as she pulled a salwar over her hips and tied the string around her waist.

  “No, what I don't want you to do is upset her when she gets here. Is that too much
to ask?” Avi said crisply.

  “Upset her? Why would I upset her? I saved her life,” Saroj cried out as she picked up a matching kameez from a shelf. “I love my daughter,” she added, her voice muffled as the kameez covered her face before sliding down and falling on her shoulders.

  “You're not the only one who loves Devi,” Avi said, his voice falling, the fight leaving it. “We all love her and we're all hurting.”

  Tears filled Saroj's eyes as she saw the ones shining in Avi's. She wanted to comfort him. So she took a step toward him, to hug him, to hold him as she had several thousands of times, but he walked past her to pull off a white cotton shirt from a hanger.

  He had become adept at buttoning his shirt, all the way, even without his right arm. He probably had always been able to button his shirts and tie his shoelaces with one hand, but he used to ask her for help. Being needed by him was as good as, and sometimes even better than, being loved by him. But as need eroded, Saroj was afraid that maybe even love had worn out. Through this tragic time they couldn't envelop each other and offer comfort. Instead they stood as adversaries, and bickered, from a distance.

  “If something happened they would call, right?” Saroj asked as a new doubt emerged. What if something went wrong while she had been away, while her mother was at watch?

  “Vasu has my cell phone,” Avi said.

  “Yes, she would call,” Saroj nodded and then sighed. “Why? I can't understand it. Shobha would never do something like this … Devi… always so fragile, so … weak.”

  She watched Avi put on the white cotton shirt. Before he could get to the buttons, she took a step toward him and started slipping the white buttons into their buttonholes as she used to all those years ago.

  She could feel the sudden rigidity in his body as she stood close, tension vibrating through him. What was wrong? she wondered. When had it all fallen apart? They had loved, loved so much, and now … nothing? The years had taken their toll. He'd worked hard, too hard, working late always, going away on business trips, always gone, to the point that when she was in labor with Devi, Avi drove her to the hospital via his office where he spent ten minutes and two contractions sorting out some matter. His priorities shifted and Saroj, whose place had been number one on his list, had slowly slipped to nonexistent.

  They'd stopped communicating as he'd started spending longer hours in the office, and then when he semi-retired it'd been so long since they'd spoken that conversing was difficult, and after a few jerky and unsuccessful attempts they gave up. A promised second honeymoon to Paris ended with him meeting some clients and Saroj walking by the Seine alone, marveling at the Notre Dame, the outdoor cafes, the romantic city without the man she'd always wanted to see it with.

  “Devi didn't do it because of me, did she, Avi?” Saroj asked, her fingers shaking as she slipped the last button into its little buttonhole.

  Avi took a step back, walked around her, and left the walk-in closet without answering Saroj's question.

  They drove to the hospital in Saroj's Mercedes. When they were together, Saroj always drove. It was habit. It started when they'd just married, still in India all those years ago. They'd inherited Vasu's old white Padmini Premier and always, Saroj drove it when they were together. Avi was competent at driving even without his right arm. Nevertheless, it was Saroj who sat in the driver's seat.

  The first time Saroj compared Shobha and Devi was when she was in labor with Devi. It was natural for a woman who had been in labor for more than thirty-five hours to feel some resentment toward the baby responsible for that mountain of pain.

  Even now Saroj felt guilty when she remembered how she'd howled, complained, and in general made a fool of herself. She'd now forgotten the physical pain, but remembered the embarrassment of having Avi tell her how it was wrong to blame the child.

  “Come on, Saroj, don't blame the child. You wanted a second child and so did I. Blame me … our child is without fault,” Avi had said seriously while allowing Saroj to crush his hand as she rode through another contraction.

  So it started then. Avi was always on Devi's side, always protecting her, no matter what her crime. Shobha and Avi had waged battles over the subject of Avi taking it easy on Devi, helping her become “a dependent loser.”

  Shobha was perfect as a baby. Born in the afternoon after putting Saroj through just five quick hours of labor, Shobha emerged with minimal pushing. A week after her birth, Shobha started sleeping for six hours every night, and within two months she was pulling eight hours a night. Saroj was surprised at how wonderfully easy Shobha was. All new mothers told her that she would be bleary-eyed, desperate for sleep, the first year of her baby's life, but for Saroj it had been easier than learning her ABCs.

  And then, four years later, came Devi!

  Well, she never really came out, rather had to be pulled out. After thirty-five hours of labor, Saroj finally dilated to the coveted ten centimeters and started to push, with hardly any energy left after so many hours of pain. After pushing for almost two hours, the doctor said that maybe it would be best to do a C-section. At that point Saroj wanted so desperately to get the baby out of her body, she all but shoved a knife into the doctor's hand.

  Devi came out looking beautiful, not scrunched up by being squeezed through the vagina like Shobha had, and Saroj had sighed and told Avi, “This girl's going to be trouble.”

  And Devi was trouble. She was a colicky baby, screaming and crying every day for at least three to four hours until she was three months old. There were times when Saroj was sure that she would go deaf if she heard Devi cry anymore.

  After colic, there had been the ear infections, one after the other. Devi was always crying in pain and even though Saroj's heart ached in sympathy, she wished that Devi was more like Shobha, who rarely fell ill as a baby.

  As Devi grew up, her problems shifted from the physical to the emotional. She was in the fourth grade when Devi's teacher, a Mrs. Parson, invited Avi and Saroj for a small chat regarding Devi.

  “My husband is a founder of a technology company, we have lots of money,” Saroj blurted out when Mrs. Parson accused Devi of stealing money from a classmate.

  Saroj refused to believe that either of her children was capable of stealing. Why would they steal? They had everything they needed and most of what they wanted. Hadn't Avi bought Devi that bicycle she nagged about? The orange-and-black dress (which Saroj thought was ugly and ill suited for Devi) that was hideously expensive?

  “And she also hit a classmate, Lilly, very hard in the face. Actually, Devi broke Lilly's nose,” Mrs. Parson further explained. “You have to understand, this is a very serious matter.”

  That information was digested by Avi and Saroj in icy silence. Saroj could barely form any words, she was so flustered. Her frail little Devi hitting someone? Breaking someone's nose? Impossible!

  “We talked to her, but… she won't say anything. As a matter of fact, she simply won't talk, at all. The school counselor feels the problem might be that Devi is not getting enough attention at home.”

  Mrs. Parson could as well have said that Avi and Saroj were sexually molesting their child, Saroj was so horrified.

  “What on earth are you talking about? My child has everything she needs. Are you saying we don't love her?” Saroj demanded. She stood up as she spoke, kicking her chair aside, towering over the teacher, her hands bunched into fists at her waist.

  “Please, Missus Veturi,” Mrs. Parson pleaded, but she was looking at Avi because it was obvious that mere words would not placate Saroj.

  “Saroj, sit,” Avi instructed, and Saroj had half a mind to throw the glass vase with the plastic roses on Mrs. Parson's table at him.

  “You said your husband is a founder of a company and that probably means he's very busy, correct?” Mrs. Parson said in a questioning voice, and Avi nodded while Saroj shook her head.

  By the end of the meeting Saroj was ready to pack her home and children, move back to India. “Here they are all cr
azy, Avi, and they are making our children crazy. Let us go home.”

  “This is home, Saroj,” Avi said in his noncommittal tone as Saroj drove the car a little too rashly in her anger.

  That afternoon both Avi and Saroj took Devi to task, but they couldn't pry a single word out of her. She just stood there, rooted, in silence. She didn't speak for a week to anyone, and then finally when Vasu called from India at Saroj's insistence, Devi spoke to her on the phone. But she didn't say anything about her little mishap in school.

  Things went back to normal, but Saroj and Avi never found out why Devi stole one dollar and twenty-three cents and why she broke Lilly's nose. But they also never heard from any of Devi's teachers again.

  Devi's problems didn't end there, though. There were many, many things that went wrong: there was the car accident without insurance, the dumped perfect-husband-material boyfriend (Indian boy from a good family), the kissing some black man in a public place for all to see, the speeding tickets, the layoffs from all her jobs, et cetera, et cetera. And each time something went wrong, Saroj thought how wonderful it would have been if Devi was just a little like Shobha who never seemed to have car accidents, unacceptable liaisons, or job problems.

  Vasu once warned Saroj not to compare her daughters. “You will make them resent each other, and compete with each other. That is wrong. They are sisters, they should be friends.”

  “I have two children and if I don't compare them with each other, who will I compare them with? And Mummy, don't tell me how to raise my children. It's not like you did such a great job with me that you can tell me what to do,” Saroj replied. A part of her could see sense in what her mother was telling her, but she couldn't bring herself to admit it. How could Vasu, the most irresponsible mother anyone could have, be right?

  •••

  “Maybe if you had been a better sister …,” Saroj said angrily to Shobha, who was standing in the hallway just outside Devi's hospital room with her husband, Girish.