“Daddy?” she questioned automatically.
“The doctor said she's fine and we can take her home tonight. You and Girish should come for dinner.”
“You want us to stop by the Dhaba and pick up dinner?” asked Shobha. Girish and she had been bringing dinner over for the past two evenings.
“Your mother is cooking. Samosas and whatnot,” Avi said. Shobha could hear how tired he was.
“Well then, we'll show up with empty stomachs,” Shobha said as she relaxed. Devi was alive and well, she would be home tonight. Everything was already starting to go back to normal. Soon her stomach would stop churning and she wouldn't be able to smell the iron in Devi's blood anymore.
“Girish's car is in for servicing, so I'll pick him up after work and get to your place as soon as possible,” Shobha went on, ignoring the questioning looks of her staff, seated around a large half-circle table in a plush conference room.
“Is she well?” Shobha's senior engineer, Vladimir, asked after Shobha hung up.
“Yes,” Shobha said. She'd told her staff and her boss that her sister had been in a nasty accident when she'd had to suddenly leave an emergency meeting the Saturday of the “incident.” An explanation was necessary when they were in the middle of a major product launch designed to meet financial goals at the end of the quarter.
Damn Devi! She was always inconsiderate. If she had to do one of her fuckups, maybe she should've waited until after the end of the quarter.
Everyone left after the meeting but Vladimir stayed back. “You look tired,” he said, sounding concerned.
He was a godlike creature from Ukraine who had shown his interest in Shobha in a hundred different ways since she'd hired him a year ago. Shobha couldn't deny the attraction on her part, either. When Girish ignored her, which was most of the time these days, she would fantasize about giving in to Vladimir. What if he took her right here, on the conference table?
Shobha clenched her thighs together under her sleek black skirt and smiled politely. “It has been a long week,” she said.
“You work too hard,” Vladimir said, stretching out. His jean-clad legs were long, and his polo shirt fit across his chest nicely. He was off the cover of one of those novels you walked past in the supermarket paperback book aisle.
Shobha sighed. God, she had sex on her mind. What would people think if they knew that prim and proper Shobha Veturi was lusting after an ex-Soviet macho man while her sister's wrists were still bloody?
“Maybe we can go to Le Papillon for lunch?” Vladimir said, looking at his watch. “Maybe you can have a glass of wine? Relax a little?”
Shobha was tempted. A cozy French restaurant, an interested Ukrainian, things could be worse. But she was no fool. Vladimir worked for her. Wine at lunch would be fine on an occasional Friday afternoon, but Vladimir was suggesting more. Maybe a brief wine-inspired interlude on the way back from the restaurant? Oh, but that was tempting.
“I can't. I have to leave early today and there is so much to do. I'll just pick up a sandwich from the cafeteria. But rain check, okay?” she said with a smile and left the conference room and the object of her lascivious thoughts behind.
This spurt of lust was new. It was a fresh feeling and something she dwelled on for considerably long periods of time. She never felt this way about Girish. Maybe a long time ago, in the beginning of their marriage, there was curiosity, the need to discover what lay behind the man in the suit, the stern glasses and the professorial face. Now the curiosity was satisfied and she was disappointed. She was thirty-two years old, stuck in a marriage to a boring professor, and bogged down by a strict moral code she forced upon herself. She was frustrated and dissatisfied with her life, her marriage, and her husband.
Oh, she could have an extramarital affair or two, what would Girish know and frankly speaking, Shobha didn't think he'd even care. Their relationship was now beyond repair. There had been hope, but after her uterine surgery, things, as they say, went to pot. Now there was nothing left to salvage. If they were not Indian, they would've gotten a divorce, but they were Indian and they were brainwashed. Shobha didn't believe in divorce or in extramarital affairs.
She didn't want to be like her grandmother. Vasu was a wonderful, kind, loving person, but Shobha knew that in Vasu's family and social circles she was looked down upon for being a divorcee and the kind of woman who had an affair with a married man. Granted, the married man she had an affair with couldn't leave his wife because of societal pressure. Granted that the “affair” had been going on for more than thirty years before he passed away. But the stigma, the bad reputation, no, Shobha thought, as she violently shook her head to remove Vladimir's image from her mind's eye, that just wouldn't do.
She was a respectable woman. Everyone knew that Shobha Veturi could do no wrong. She was an example of the perfect Indian woman living in the United States. She'd heard how other mothers talked about her.
“That Shobha Veturi, smart girl, nahi. Had an arranged marriage, but still kept her last name. Pukka mix of East and West. And she's doing so well in her career. Making her parents proud.”
And when one sister was praised, the other was disgraced.
“Oh and that Devi, no sharam that girl has, no shame. Did you hear? Kissing some kallu, some black man, in front of Pasand, cheechee. Poor Avi and Saroj, how embarrassing for them, nahi. Why can't she be more like her older sister?”
Shobha was not going to topple her image of perfection because she wanted to spend a sweaty afternoon with an accented Ukrainian.
Temptation remained, though, like the aftertaste of a good wine.
She knew jealousy prompted her to ridicule Devi's lifestyle. Devi slept around, partied hard, and had a lousy career. There was no pressure on Devi to be anyone but herself. She didn't have to fit into any mold of perfection. Even Girish liked her, and that tormented Shobha some more.
“She fucks everything that moves, Girish, is that something that appeals to you?” Shobha asked him after a not-so-joyous family dinner at her parents’ house. Girish and she were fighting again, about what neither could remember, but the discussion somehow ended with Girish defending Devi and Shobha baring her claws.
“At least she's passionate enough to do that, unlike you,” Girish retorted in a low voice. He never yelled at Shobha, never lost his control. He would say hateful, hurtful things quietly and slowly so that you couldn't even blame his hot temper for what he was saying. It was cold and calculated and he hit his mark every time.
“Maybe you'd like to sleep with my little sister?” Shobha asked, blind with anger.
“Don't be disgusting,” Girish said dismissively and ended the discussion/fight by walking out of the house and not coming back until the next evening.
They'd been married five years and Shobha couldn't remember a single time when they were truly happy. Usually, with bad marriages, there was something holding it together, maybe just memories of good times. With them there was nothing. A child, she always thought as her heart broke again, a child would've made them closer, brought them love.
The longest night in her life was after the day she found out that there would be no child, that there simply couldn't be. Surgery would leave no ovaries or fallopian tubes, which were eaten away by endometriosis.
That night Shobha wanted to die. She'd sat under a beating shower for over an hour, even past the point when the hot water ran out. There were no tears as she contemplated a future where she'd never know what it would be like to be a mother.
Every day she would know that she would never feel her belly swell, never complain about morning sickness or compare notes on how long the labor was and how difficult. There would be no children coming for the holidays, for dinner, no grandchildren to spoil. The finality of it was akin to death. What was the point if there could be no life beyond hers? And that night she'd wondered how easy it all would be if she were dead. How easy it would be to end her life and not go through the next day and the next day knowing w
hat she knew.
Girish and she had never managed to get close, but after her surgery they drifted farther apart and even stopped pretending that there was anything left to salvage.
Vasu once told Shobha when she complained about her lifeless marriage, “There is nothing deader than a dead relationship. Cut your losses, you have only one life.”
“G'ma? You're not saying I should divorce Girish, are you?” Shobha was stupefied.
“Why make his and your life miserable. Get out and find someone who can make you happy,” Vasu advised.
Shobha never complained to Vasu again.
She could in some way understand why Devi tried to end her life. Sometimes Shobha could feel the pressure from within to finish it, to get away and not deal with deadlines, Girish, her ditzy mother, life. But she didn't have the raw guts. Even in this, Shobha admitted, she was envious that Devi could do something about her useless life, while Shobha could only pretend that hers was perfect, which made her life worse because it was dishonest.
There Is Absolutely No Place Like Home
Once, a long time ago, when Devi was eleven years old, she ran away from home. No one noticed and no one found out. And since no one knew, it shouldn't have mattered, but to Devi it did, because she knew, both that she ran away and that no one noticed.
It was a few days after she kissed a boy for the first time.
Dylan (and now she couldn't even remember his last name) lived in the neighborhood and they played football together in the park across the street from their house in Sunnyvale. Joggers pounded on the beaten cement path while people with dogs hung around with plastic bags waiting for their pets to poop. There was a small pond shaped like a drop of water and a fountain at its base that spurted water at regular intervals. A few ducks pranced in the pond, while little children played in the sandbox as their parents watched them with delight and apprehension, enjoying the antics of the ungainly little ones even as they waited for the inevitable fall.
Devi and Dylan had been wrestling for the football for weeks. The first few times Devi hadn't felt anything, but lately she could feel a tingle as his hand brushed against hers. She was just eleven years old and the mysteries of the world lay bare in front of her. All she wanted was to investigate and find out what lay beyond the tingling feeling brought by his hand against hers.
It wasn't that she was unaware of the birds and the bees. She knew the basics, had known because Vasu, against Saroj's wishes, had shown and explained the facts of life to both her granddaughters with diagrams and images. But knowing the basics and “feeling” the basics were a million light-years apart.
She knew it was wrong. She knew she was too young, but growing up was such a delight. Devi didn't even stop to look back at innocence, at lying against a boy, unaware of any sexuality, trying to pry a football from his hands.
Then one day, while they lay sweaty on the grass, the other kids gone, twilight streaking in, coloring the California summer sky, Dylan put his hand on Devi's, firmly, not playfully. Saroj's daughter wanted to run home, but Vasu's granddaughter wanted to stay.
Devi turned her head and awkwardly their lips met. She knew by instinct that she need only to open her mouth and the kiss would bloom, like it did in the movies, so she did and their tongues touched. Disgusted and excited by the intimacy ofthat first kiss and touching of tongues, Devi and Dylan didn't look at each other again for almost three days.
But they soon found themselves on the edge of the slippery slope again. This time however, Dylan was less enthusiastic than Devi.
When Devi leaned over boldly, even shyly, ready to slip into the delights of the forbidden, Dylan pulled away.
“Father Thomas told me that it was wrong to kiss you,” he said solemnly, even though Devi could see that he was just trying to be mean. His lips were twisted, his stance arrogant. He had tempted her into reliving their previous kiss and had then jerked away with righteous fervor.
“Who's Father Thomas?”
“He's our father at our church and I told him that I kissed you and he said I should never ever do it again and … that you are a …” Dylan shrugged and looked away.
“And I am a what?” Devi demanded, standing up now, her hands fisted, resting against her waist in offense.
“A brownie slut,” Dylan said loudly and then ran away.
For a second Devi wondered what chocolate had to do with slut and then realization sank in. She was embarrassed that she wanted to kiss again while Dylan did not. And she was furious that this Father Thomas called her a brownie slut.
Devi never really noticed her skin color compared to those around her. She knew (and how could you not with Saroj talking about it all the time) that she was dark, not pale like the white girls and boys she played with and went to school with. She knew all that but it wasn't something she paid attention to. She didn't go to school every day thinking they were white while she was brown.
But being told so crassly so accusingly that she was different and not worthy of being kissed tore open the color blinders she'd been wearing. Devi would learn as she grew older to not notice the color of a person, but from that day in her heart she always knew she was brown.
Her legs were shaking as she found her way across the street to go home. Her body felt like it was burning. She could feel her heart pounding against her ears and her bruised pride twitching helplessly, painfully.
“What's wrong, beta}” Vasu, who was visiting for the summer, asked when Devi reached home, hot tears streaking down her cheeks.
First there were just sobs, hiccups. And then slowly, tearfully, Devi told Vasu that Dylan called her a brownie slut.
“How dare he?” Vasu said wiping Devi's tears with the pallu of her sari.
“Oh, G'ma,” Devi screeched, warming up to the sympathy, and she spilled all the beans. Saroj who was bustling around the house only heard the “I wanted to kiss Dylan again and he called me a brownie slut” part and came charging like a bull on the loose.
“What did you expect when you behave like one?” she demanded angrily and didn't wait for Devi to respond.
The first slap rocked Devi almost off the floor. The second was warded off by Vasu.
“Saroj,” Vasu warned rising above Devi like Durga Ma, ready to protect her granddaughter from such abuse.
“This is your doing, Mummy,” Saroj bit back. “You keep saying it's okay this and it's okay that. And then you tell them both about sex. Of course they want to experiment. She is eleven years old and she wants to kiss some boy. All this garbage you put in her head.”
“I put the same garbage in your head and you seemed to have gotten by just fine,” Vasu countered.
“Fine? What fine, I had to raise myself,” Saroj retorted.
Soon they both forgot about Devi and her tears. And that was when she decided to run away. No one loved her, that was evident, and she wanted to get away, never see Dylan again, at the park or anywhere else. She was even more afraid to bump into this Father Thomas. She imagined a white man with a large beard who looked like Jesus Christ and wore black with a white collar. She could see his stern face and his wagging finger as he told her that it was wrong for a brownie like her to go around kissing white boys.
She didn't know where she would go, but she had three dollars and fifty-two cents, which she carefully put inside the pockets of her shorts. She looked around at her room and felt the itch to stay, forget about Dylan and the whole nightmare. But the word slut still rang in her ears and she started packing fretfully. She wanted to take everything, but finally settled for Mr. Turtle; her blue teddy bear; her favorite book, The Enchanted Wood, which Vasu gave her for her ninth birthday; her favorite red T-shirt; a pair of socks; two pairs of underwear; and an empty notebook that had a pencil attached to it.
She zipped her backpack, hauled it onto one shoulder, and said a silent good-bye to her room before starting her unknown journey.
Vasu and Saroj were still yelling at each other in the kitchen about some party
Saroj had not been allowed to go to when she was fifteen. Neither noticed Devi's departure.
The bus stop was just a few hundred steps away and Devi sat down on a bench, trying to figure out where she could go. Maybe Los Angeles, she thought, and then shook her head, almost sure that three dollars and fifty-two cents wouldn't get her there. Maybe she could go to San Francisco and then work at some restaurant as a waiter, make enough money and go to LA? Yes, she thought that would be a good idea. Once in LA, well, once she was there, someonewould want her to be in all those ads about milk and juice. Everyone kept telling Saroj that she should take Devi to an audition for advertisements because she was so cute.
“Better than that Welch's girl, they will just grab her, cent percent guarantee,” Megha Auntie said all the time.
A bus stopped.
Devi sat rooted to her seat, unable to get on, unsure how to ask if the bus went all the way to San Francisco.
The bus left and Devi promised herself that with the next one, she would ask the driver where the bus went. She then noticed a man in black come and sit next to her at the bus stop and knew she had to be careful. Saroj had told her, showing the face of a little girl in the back of the milk carton, “Don't talk to strangers. If you do, your picture will show up here and we won't know where you are.”
“Did the bus for San Jose leave?” the man asked politely, and Devi shrugged. She didn't have an answer to his question and she didn't want to talk to him.
“Where are you going, young lady?” the man asked.
Devi wondered if she should tell him and then decided against it. If she told him, he might follow her and then what? She didn't want her face to show up on the back of a milk carton for everyone to see.
“Do your parents know where you're off to?” the man asked, and this time Devi all but bolted.
“They know,” she said a in a low voice, looking at her sneaker-clad feet.
“I'm Father Velazquez, what's your name?” he asked.
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