by Shruti Swamy
“You were kind to her.”
She puts her foot on top of his foot under the table, and it’s cold, he can feel it through his sock. Then she drops her eyes. Her hand rubbing absently the stem of her empty glass. It is a different man she met, six years ago, dressed smartly in a suit. As he has made no effort to dress these last few days, he has made no effort to guard and compose his face. Unshaven, the rough skin of a man, with freckles and creases. She can see the pores on his cheeks. She looks into his face like a palm reader looks at a hand, and sees the future of the face, shock deepening into bitter anger. She sees love for the child spread thickly across the brow. The possibility of cruelty trembling in the tight corners of the mouth. She leans over the table and kisses the mouth softly. Please do not be cruel. The mouth is raw, as though she kisses a wound. For a second their faces hover apart, their bodies are still, as if considering. Then she climbs to him, kneeling against the table to press her body to his. The arms that take hold of her radiate from a desperate body. They go to Maya’s room, not Mark’s, and shut the door. She takes off the sweater that was Chariya’s and the skirt and lies down on the bedspread. Mark standing over her, looking tender and hostile: a stranger. Her body feels crazy. Please do not be cruel. Looking at her, and she lets him, but covers her face with the pillow. He pulls her to him and tugs her underwear down, looses the breasts from the bra, dark nipples bunched as they meet the blue air. Then he thrusts the smooth warm length of himself into her, slicked with her wet, and she is gripping her legs around him. He lifts her up to him, their bodies pressed together, no space, finally, between their bodies, but the tiny, infinite absence that stays between them. The space is a question the body asks and finds no answer. Why? and Where? and Chariya?
Maya’s eyes are open. She sees his ear, the curve of his head, the closed door. She can feel his anger coming through her like venom. But she will take it, his anger, and add it to her own. And warmth collecting at the center of her. She closes her eyes. Finds the body’s comfort in another body, the sweat that gathers where they touch. She puts a hand against the back of his head, buries her fingers in the springy hair. Can he feel it, this warmth at the center, gentling? He becomes calm, even as his body reaches the frenzy. The feeling is almost holy. Her hair, loose, the smell of honey coming all around him, falling over his shoulders. Her voice biting at his neck, building, building, then quieting. Joy from the body stumbles outward. They are stunned, scared by this joy. Yet each grasps it, holding it like a wild cat in the arms until it frees itself and bolts.
He puts her down on the bed. She, panting, looks at him. He is more humble than she has ever seen him.
“You want a cigarette?”
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Chariya made me quit. We’ll have to go outside.”
Maya pauses at the baby’s door to check her sleeping. Her mouth is open, sucking. Mark and Maya put on scarves and hats and coats and step through the sliding door to the back porch. He draws a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and lights it cleanly. She sticks an unlit stick into her mouth and pretends to smoke. Still drunk.
“Can you feel her here?”
“Can you?”
She shakes her head. The cold burns at their fingertips. They’re quiet for a while.
“There it is,” he says, and points to the nest. Still bunched in the folds of the house like a tumor. “Will you come back?”
“Don’t ask me that yet.”
“Oh, have it,” he says, flicking flame from the lighter and holding it out. She cups her hand around it. Draws the nicotine deep into her, the tar. There is no moon out, but stars. She smoked cigarettes with Chariya. Home from college for Thanksgiving, and Chariya already working. Snuck booze and cigarettes into their parents’ pristine house and giggled like wicked children. An animal noise pierces the dark: the baby. It is Mark who tamps down the end of his cigarette and goes inside. Without switching on the light, he lifts her. It is a strange heft in his arms, his arms that have missed this weight. Chariya used to scold him, saying the baby would never learn to walk if he carried her everywhere.
“What is it, honey?”
The baby quiets, becomes watchful. She can smell his cigarettes, but forgives him.
“She has a new tooth,” says Maya, unwinding the scarf from her throat.
“How about that,” he says to the child, rocking her, as the alcohol leaves his body. Soon she is asleep. The house is soaked in night: night has contracted like a fist around the house. No matter. They can light every lamp in the house until morning burns.
My Brother At The Station
On the front porch, my little brother was sitting with the neighborhood cat. He was gazing very intently at it. He had crouched down, meeting it almost at eye level. At first the cat hissed and raised its skin like it was scared. Then it settled down and became very still. It stood with all four paws gathered very neatly and gazed at my brother with its bright yellow eyes.
“What are you doing?” I crossed my arms. Who ever wants to be a big sister?
“Nothing,” he said. He didn’t look up at me. Four years old and he had just begun to lose his baby fat, but his hands and elbows were still soft as cheese. His hair was growing back in from the hair-cutting ceremony my parents had done for him, belatedly, a month or so before. He had a serious look.
“That’s my cat,” I said.
“No it’s not. It’s the Epsteins’s.”
“That’s my cat,” I said again. It was no use. I used to catch the cat between my knees and put my nose right up against its dusty belly, pulling in the warm, hayish smell of it. But now their gaze was so thick it was almost physical, a cord tied between them.
“He doesn’t like it when you hold him so tight,” said my brother.
“How would you know?”
“He told me.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“I’m not a liar,” he said.
“Prove it,” I said.
“You prove it.”
“Tell him to do something.”
My brother paused, frowned. “He doesn’t want to.”
“Yeah, right. I knew you were a liar.”
He turned his attention back to the cat. There was a very determined expression on his face. They were quiet for a little while. “Okay.”
“Make him jump up to my hand.” I stretched my arm out at shoulder level. The cat looked at me, my brother, back at me. Then he leapt at my hand, butted its forehead against my fingertips. For a second I was so stunned I thought almost that I would cry. But I didn’t want my little brother to see me cry so I didn’t. I gathered myself into a black knot. “Does he love me more than you?”
My brother shrugged.
“Ask him,” I said.
“Can’t tell you,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Ishi says so.”
“Who’s Ishi?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even have a mean look on his face. His eyes were so dark it was impossible to tell the pupil from the iris. Three weeks ago when our grandma died he said he could see her standing behind me. But I thought he was just lying or imagining like babies do.
“Ishi says there’s a bad black thing in you that eats up the good part.”
“Who’s Ishi?” I said. “Who’s Ishi?”
That night I woke to my father shaking my shoulder in the dark room. “Baby, we have to go,” he said.
“Go where?”
Light came in from the living room, and as my eyes adjusted I saw he was dressed. Outside, a row of evergreens that lined the fence between our house and the neighbors’ striped the grass with thick shadows. I could see the deck chairs and my brother’s tricycle sitting lonely in the yard.
“We have to go to the hospital,” he said. “We’ll be back soon.”
“What’s happening?”
“Don’t be scared,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”
I got out of bed and followed my
dad to the living room. My mother was holding my brother in her arms, sleeping, it seemed, but not quite, for his eyes were glazed and open. There was a strange sucking noise coming from my brother’s mouth. His feet were in socks but not shoes, hanging loosely from his ankles. “Go back to bed,” said my mother.
“Can I come with you?”
“No, baby,” said my dad. He was putting on his jacket. “If we’re not back in the morning then Mrs. Epstein will come over. Okay?” And, “Do you have the insurance information?” he asked my mother.
My mother said yes.
I climbed up onto the kitchen counter and watched them leave through the window. After they left I turned on every light in the house. I tried to be excited to be left alone. I switched on the TV. But there was nothing for kids on that late. And my mom didn’t keep any junk food in the house. There was nothing bad I could think of doing. My parents already let me jump on my bed.
The house seemed, all at once, terrifically empty. I could hear the moan of a dog coming from outside, or maybe a wolf, though I knew that was stupid. I could see myself reflected in the window, a little girl in a lonely bed, and beyond that the trees turned into the fingers of a monstrous thing. Were my mom and dad coming back? I went outside and called for the cat, and after a while he came. The cat was tight in my arms and even though he squirmed I didn’t let him go.
Slowly I started to become aware of the dead, gathered in the corners of the house. I couldn’t see them, but I sensed them the way you know someone is standing behind you before you turn around to look. If it was my brother, he would see them, but they would glow for him, beautiful and benevolent as moons. For me, they were leeched of color, their bone-white faces and hands and mouths smelling of rotted wood and leaves. In my mind I could see them circling my bed, their hands reaching, reaching. They were saying—what? Their mouths didn’t work. They were trying to tell me something, only I couldn’t hear it. What did my brother mean about the bad part eating the good part? Under the blankets I put my head close to the cat’s, to feel its breath in my ear.
When I woke up the cat had peed on the rug and my mom was making pancakes. My dad was drinking chai in the kitchen. “How could he have known that?” my dad was saying.
“I don’t know,” said my mother. She was stirring the batter very hard, which made me think she was angry.
“To hear him say it—I’d never told anyone—and my mother, you know, I wasn’t there when she died . . .”
My mother put down the bowl and began to cry. “What are we going to do?”
“We don’t have to do anything.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“I feel so crazy—” She saw me, standing in the doorway, and wiped her face. “Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Is that the neighbor’s cat in there?” said my mother.
I nodded.
“Go put it out,” she said, but didn’t scold me. When I came back she had put a plate on the table for me. She had made a pancake in the shape of Mickey Mouse.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“He’s fine. Sleeping.”
I sat down and began to eat. I was very hungry. “Do you want another one?” said my mother.
“Yes,” I said.
“This one isn’t shaped like Mickey.”
“That’s okay.”
I finished my food and went to my brother’s room. He was sleeping on his side with his hands curled into tight fists. He slept with his eyes partially open so you never knew. But his breathing was slow and deep and sometimes his mouth twitched. So still and smiling like this I could pretend that he loved me. I put my face close to his face and put my mouth next to his mouth, so I could breathe his breath. His mouth was sour and spiky, held the ugly taste of medicine. I was so angry. I was strong enough to pick him up and crush him. I really could have. He looked smug. He could have kept them away from me forever if he wanted to. He let out a little mewling noise like a kitten. I spat at him. A globe of spit quivered on his cheek, but he didn’t wake.
These days when I sleep on my side, I have to put a pillow underneath my belly to hold it up. I had trouble sleeping even before I was pregnant, unlike my husband, who could sleep through an earthquake if I wasn’t there to wake him, which once he did. At university when I slept by myself, night was sticky and unbearable. But now, a body beside me, the night becomes something I can tolerate. I get up and go to the kitchen, and let myself eat something, anything I want. Lately what I have been craving is buttermilk, cool and thick from the fridge. Other times I will drink some hot milk with a little honey in it. I often wonder what kind of mother I will be. My mother used to pray a lot when she was pregnant with my brother. But I cannot whisper like her with the beads. I feel sorry for that.
Five weeks ago I shaved my head. I did it because I got infected with lice from the kids at the elementary school where I work part time, and it was becoming too much of a hassle. I wasn’t sure if my head would be lumpy or smooth; my parents never did the hair cutting ceremony for me, only for my brother. I remember how he never even flinched when the priest took out the razor. My husband fit his palm around the base of my skull.
“Your eyes look huge.”
“Maybe I should shave my eyebrows for emphasis.”
“Don’t shave your eyebrows.”
“Do I look like a freak?”
He thought for a moment. We were in our kitchen, me on a high stool and he beside me, standing, his hand on my head. “Not like a freak,” he said. “But strange. You know, the most beautiful faces are strange. Slightly off-kilter.”
“Oh, good. Off-kilter was what I was going for.”
“No, I’m not saying it right,” he said. He rubbed his hand over my scalp, scratchy one way, smooth the other. Air rested on the crown of my head in a new way, and I felt shivery and light. “You look—beautiful, of course you do. Sort of witchy. Go see for yourself.”
I turned to see myself reflected in the dark window. Like a nacreous ghost on the other side of the glass, my reflection gazed back. She looked older, suddenly, than I remembered. Her eyes were big and bruisey, her neck exposed, her ears naked. Was this the face of a bad woman? On the other side of the glass, a cat walked across the top of the fence, one delicate paw in front of the other. I put my hands on either side of my face and stretched my mouth into a grin.
The next day I saw my brother at the train station, which I normally walk by on the way to the grocery store. I was going for milk. At first I wasn’t sure that it was him, for I had been thinking about him, and felt for a few moments like my thought had put a wish onto a stranger, and lent him temporarily my brother’s face. But not so: it was my brother. Though I had not seen him in many years—indeed, in the space of the many years since I’d seen him, he’d grown from teenager to man—his features had traveled with him to the present, the proud nose and lips that were my mother’s, and his strange far-seeing eyes. He looked rough. He had an uneven beard and his fingernails were long, his pants, jeans, were threadbare and his camouflage jacket several sizes too large; still he looked better than I had expected. Actually I had not expected much. Some days I had expected him dead.
I stood on the platform and watched him. He sat on a bench with an intense stillness until the train came. He did not seem to be aware of my presence. Would he look to another eye like a college student, or someone without a home? When the train came I abandoned my milk on the platform and boarded it. I got on the same car through the rear door, and sat a few seats behind him so that I could see the top of his head. The train passed through the unwanted parts of towns, the backs of auto shops, the edges of mall parking lots, the dump, the impassive facades of apartment buildings that housed the poor. Even seated, my back hurt, my feet hurt, my hips were loose and tired. If I had not gotten on the train, I would have been back home by now, drinking milk while I lay in bed and read a book. As though sensing my agitation, the baby began to move inside me,
a kind of turning that I found both reassuring and not very pleasant: it was the same feeling you had when a roller coaster tipped into its first descent, or an elevator began to drop very suddenly. At that time in my pregnancy, we wore each other like a kind of weather, the child and me, my moods, I imagined, passing over her like wind or rain, and her movements wild inside me some early mornings like an electrical storm.
If I called my parents now, they would urge me to speak to him, they would forget what they had promised each other and beg me to offer him money, however much I had, beg him to return home. So I switched off my phone. When we pulled into the final station I followed him off the train and onto the street, simply for the pleasure of watching him walk. The way he moved contrasted with the way I did at any time but especially now, when pregnancy inflected my every movement, making me more clumsy and graceless. Even when my brother was a boy he never slouched, he walked with an unconscious trust of both his body and the world surrounding it. He never hid his fists in his pockets or the folds of his coat, each hand with the bony elegance of cats. Feet too, but those were in busted sneakers whose soles were starting to separate at the toes. His hair was feathered with grease and long, past his ears; his shoulders looked narrow as a child’s in his jacket. We walked up the sidewalk of a wide street, then through the press of Market, then up Eddy, where the facades of the buildings were shamefaced and sad. I was having trouble keeping pace with him, slow as I was, tired and thirsty. It was windy but clear in the city with a low winter light. I imagined we were running a race, like when we were young, and at any moment he would turn back to smile at me—see, I’m winning. Only a few feet behind him it seemed impossible that he could not feel my presence, but he didn’t turn to look. Perhaps he didn’t recognize me, remember me, think of me anymore. But I was not so sorry for myself that I would allow that thought for long.
We got to a small park, he sat, then I did, choosing a bench not so far away. He brought out a cigarette and lit it. I wanted a cigarette—that cigarette, the one he held, to press to my own lips. Would I love my child the way my parents loved him, or the way they loved me? It was equal, they had said, you do not love your right hand more than your left. But even then I knew it to be false. You may love your right hand less than the thrilling evanescence of lightning. Which would my child be, the hand or the lightning? Which would be easier to love—to bear?