A People's History of Heaven

by Mathangi Subramanian

  Temple goers point to her and say, “See that one, the fair one. So serious, so devoted. So pure. We should all be more like her.”

  But Leela’s prayers are anything but pure. They snarl with poisonous plants, with sharpened blades. Writhe with lizards dropped into pots of chai, snakes hidden between bedsheets. Squirm with cinema-inspired visions of villains falling off of cliffs and out of planes. Of bad men vanishing and fading into the ending credits of a pure, black screen.

  Leela thinks heaven—real heaven, where God lives—is probably a distracting place. Someone’s got to take care of what’s happening here on the ground.

  Leela says to Rukshana, “Look at that one, dressed in pink and green. Wild, like a jungle.”

  “You like that sari?” Rukshana asks.

  “No,” Leela says. Then, after a minute, adds, “I like the one wearing it.”

  The silence between them buzzes louder than a wedding parade.

  “That one, there—the one who won’t look down, won’t cover her face when she’s praying. She’s got strength,” Rukshana says.

  “That one has nice hips. She’ll know how to dance.”

  “I like that one with the purple and green sari. See how long her neck is? She looks like a swan,” Rukshana says. Winds her fingers through Leela’s and adds, “She looks like you.”

  Leela shifts closer, closer. Rukshana looks down through the tree’s sturdy arms. Arms that balance them above the world, press them against the sky. Arms strong enough to catch them if they jump. If they fall.

  “I like that one. See? With the fish eyes and bony cheeks?” Leela asks.

  Leaves and vines rattle and whisper secrets. Secrets that are becoming almost-secrets. Secrets that might not have to be secrets anymore.

  “Why him?” Rukshana asks.

  After all the shifting and shuffling and advancing and retreating, finally, they are nose to nose. Forehead to forehead. Hands twined like the branches of the mandap tree.

  “He looks like you,” Leela says.

  Just one more turn, and their lips will be twisted too.

  “Leela! Leela, where are you?”

  Leela’s mother’s voice cuts through the air with the sharpness of brass horns, the urgency of beating drums. Rukshana hears the leaves and the vines go silent. Feels herself untwist, untwine.

  “Leela! Come quickly, Leela. Your papa woke up and he’s asking for you.”

  Leela slides down the tree fast as a squirrel. Runs away, her fair feet flying.

  “Where is your dupatta?” her mother asks.

  “Oh,” Leela says, hand fluttering to her neck. In the dawn, her bruised skin glows like a cratered moon.

  “Never mind. Just leave it,” her mother says. “Come now. Quickly, quickly, before he gets even angrier.”

  In the branches of the mandap tree, Rukshana clutches the dupatta. Twists it, untwists it. Twines it, untwines it. Wraps it around herself like a promise.

  “Hey, Rukshana. Where’s that girlfriend of yours?” Joy asks. Gestures at the empty wooden desk where Leela usually sits, dupatta wound strategically around her scars.

  “Her mother came and got her,” Rukshana says. Too late, she adds, “She’s not my girlfriend!”

  Joy doesn’t say anything. Just rolls her eyes.

  “She’s not!” Rukshana says. “She’s my friend. It’s not like I’m in love with her.”

  “Yes you are. Even I can see it,” Banu says. Which is really saying something.

  “She loves you back you know,” Padma says.

  “Shut up,” Rukshana says. Her cheeks flush.

  “Rukshana, watch your language,” Janaki Ma’am says, bustling into the room. “Get out your notebooks. Kannada lessons today, and that teacher of yours hasn’t bothered to show up.”

  In the evening, Rukshana cuts herself peeling carrots. Forgets to go to the water pump, spills flour all over the floor. Leaves the iron on her trousers so long it starts to smoke.

  “Chee, what is wrong with you?” Fatima Aunty says. She snatches away the iron and starts pressing the pants herself. “Are you trying to burn this place down?”

  “Sorry, Ma,” Rukshana says. “I forgot to bring home an assignment. Janaki Ma’am will kill me if I don’t bring it in tomorrow. Can I go to Padma’s and get it?”

  Fatima Aunty’s face relaxes. “Is that what it is? Yes, yes, go. Just come straight home. I have my union meeting tonight, so let yourself in.”

  “Yes, Ma,” Rukshana says.

  But she doesn’t go to Padma’s house. She goes to Leela’s.

  Leela’s father’s eyes are bleary and he sways from side to side. Squints and burps and mumbles. Lurches like the devil they talk about at Rukshana’s mosque.

  “Go away,” Rukshana says. Voice deep and growling, shoulders tough and square. Hips hidden in the waist of her dead brother’s worn out trousers, breasts secreted behind the buttons of her no-good father’s tossed-out shirt.

  “Thisismyhome,” Leela’s father slurs. “Youcan’tkeepmeout.”

  “Yes I can,” Rukshana says, although she’s not sure if it’s true.

  Leela’s father squints at Rukshana’s silhouette, crouched between the strips of light streaming from the worn-out bulbs of streetlamps. With her short hair, with her boy’s clothes, he doesn’t know what he is seeing. The liquor churns his vision, liquefies his brain.

  “Are you a man?” Leela’s father asks. “No, no, you’re not. You’re not a man.”

  “No, I’m not,” Rukshana says. “Thank God for that.”

  “What are you then? A god? A demon?”

  “More like a demon,” Rukshana says. Thinks of all the names her mother has called her over the years. Chokes back a laugh. Behind her hands, it sounds unearthly. Like a strangled growl.

  Leela’s father stumbles, turns. Staggers back to the sidewalk toddy shop, yelling,

  “Rakshasa! Demon! There is a demon at my house!”

  After the sharp knife of darkness whittles away the edges of Leela’s father’s body, after the sharp buzz of traffic cuts through the rusted metal of his voice. After the night flowers open their throats and swallow the brittle edges of his sharp whisky smell. After all of that, Rukshana says, “It’s safe now. He’s gone.”

  Leela peeks her head around the doorway like a frightened rabbit. Paws her way to where Rukshana leans against the side of their hut, posing like a stone apsara carved onto a temple door.

  “Someday I’ll escape all this,” Leela says. Nestles her head on Rukshana’s shoulder. Plays with the fraying cuff of Rukshana’s sleeve. “I’ll go somewhere where there are no fathers. No toddy shops either.”

  “A place where girls get jobs and boys make sambar,” Rukshana says.

  “A place with a garden that someone else takes care of,” Leela says.

  “A place with an orchard full of banyan trees and a closet full of cricket bats.”

  Rukshana takes Leela’s hand. Together, they watch the stars gather in the cracks of sky between the buildings, between the clouds.

  “Someday I’ll take you to a place like that,” Rukshana says.

  “We’ll go together?”

  “Yes,” Rukshana says. “Yes.”

  In the morning, after she finishes her chores, Rukshana sits in the doorway and curls Leela’s dupatta in her hands. Twists, untwists. Twines, untwines. This, she thinks, is proof. Of something.

  When Rukshana hears the knock on the door, she thinks it must be one of us, coming to get her to go to school. Or maybe Yousef asking for breakfast, or Vihaan looking for Yousef.

  Instead, it’s Leela. And she is smiling.

  Rukshana smiles too.

  “Hi,” Rukshana says.

  “Hi,” Leela says.

  Rukshana looks down at her feet and blushes. Feels words clogging the bottom of her throat, feels her blood quickening. This, she knows, is the time to say something. Something that will turn their almosts into something new. Into everything.

  E
xcept Leela is the one who breaks the silence.

  “We’re leaving,” she says.

  “What?” Rukshana says. “What do you mean?”

  “We’re leaving! Not my father. Just me and my mother,” Leela says, still smiling.

  Rukshana stares at her, speechless.

  “What you did for us,” Leela says, choking. Clears her throat, and says, “My mother decided she couldn’t take it anymore. Or, actually, that she doesn’t have to take it anymore. So we’re going back to the village.”

  “When?” Rukshana says.

  “This morning,” Leela says. “We’re going to Majestic now.”

  Rukshana stares at her. Balls up her fingers to press back tears. When she closes them, she realizes that the dupatta is still in her hand. Dumbly, she hands it to Leela.

  “No, keep it,” Leela says. She leans forward and kisses Rukshana’s cheek. Runs away, the bottoms of her feet flashing in the light of the barely risen sun.

  Three days later, at school, a ball of paper flies across the room. Yousef aims it at Joy, but it hits Rukshana in the back of the head instead.

  “Sorry, sorry!” Yousef says. Backs away with his hands in the air.

  The last time Yousef hit her with a piece of trash, Rukshana gave him an almost-broken nose and a fully blackened eye. This time, though, she just shrugs. Worries a hole in her desk with a pair of half-sharpened scissors.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Joy asks, shooting Yousef a dirty look.

  “Didn’t you hear?” Padma whispers back. “The city demolished Purvapura. I saw it when I was reading the paper to Deepa this morning.”

  “Oh, Bhagwan,” says Joy, who sometimes still forgets that she’s Christian. “Is Leela all right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She’s fine,” Rukshana says. When we don’t say anything, she says, “I’m sad, not deaf.”

  “Who knew Rukshana could get her heart broken?” Padma whispers.

  “Who knew Rukshana even had a heart to begin with,” Joy whispers back. But none of us feels like laughing.

  “Come, come,” Fatima Aunty says when Rukshana gets home. “Wash your face and comb your hair. We’re going to Purvapura.”

  “What?” Rukshana says. “Why?”

  Fatima Aunty raises her eyebrows. It’s the biggest response she’s gotten out of her daughter since the night of her union meeting, the night when they planned the protest that was supposed to stop the Purvapura demolition from happening. Except the city showed up a day early, so no one was there to hold up signs, to make a human chain. The bulldozers rolled right through.

  “These people have nothing left,” Fatima Aunty says. Shoves a stack of chapatis into a plastic bag. Holds it up and says, “The least we can do is bring them something to eat.”

  Purvapura was never anything special. But tonight, it’s even worse: it’s nothing more than a handful of families huddled around fires lit from the wooden frames of collapsed tents, demolished shacks. Fatima Aunty drags her daughter through the ruins, telling Rukshana to lift her feet to avoid the broken glass, broken lives. Rukshana lifts her feet so high she feels like she’s floating. As though the city has broken all the laws governing human existence. Even the law of gravity.

  “Wait here,” Fatima Aunty says. “I’ll pass out the food and then I’ll come get you.”

  Rukshana sits on what remains of an orange sofa, listens to the metallic crash of families pushing aside walls and doors and roofs to recover photographs, clothing, cooking pots, bedding. To the rush of traffic on the main road, fully visible now that all the houses have been cleared away. Black smoke and gray dust swirl up from the cratered ground, catching in Rukshana’s hair, her throat. The air smells charred. Crushed. Exhausted.

  “I told you that girl was trouble,” Joy says, coming up behind her. Puts her hand on Rukshana’s shoulder and squeezes.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “My mother’s aunt,” Joy says. “Or cousin? I’m not sure. My mother said we had to come see about them. What about you?”

  “Union,” Rukshana says.

  “Of course,” Joy says. Sits down next to Rukshana on the sofa. “Did you see Leela and her mother?”

  “They left the night before the demolition,” Rukshana says.

  “Well that’s lucky.”

  “I stood up to her father. Leela says that’s why they left. She says I gave them the courage to run.” Rukshana’s words sound like the wreckage around them. “She told me I saved them.”

  “She was right,” Joy says. “Look around. They almost got caught up in all this, didn’t they?”

  Rukshana shrugs. Stares at her feet and thinks, The world is full of almosts. Almost living, almost dying. Almost husbands, almost wives. Almost together. Almost apart.

  Almosts that taste like rust and rain. Almosts that empty you, that leave you clinging to nothingness, trying to find a foothold. Trying to survive.

  “She wasn’t worth it, you know,” Joy says softly. “If you love someone, you don’t leave. You stay.”

  “She wasn’t safe here.”

  “You think any of us are safe here?” Joy asks. “Please.”

  Rukshana squeezes her eyes shut. Color bursts in the darkness between her pupils and her eyelids. She feels Joy’s arm tight around her shoulder, pulling her close. Smells Joy’s familiar mix of coconut oil and wet lipstick and something else none of us can describe. Something like loyalty.

  “Love isn’t running away to save yourself,” Joy says. “Love is staying together to survive.”

  Rukshana doesn’t answer. Opens her eyes and stares at her hands, her arms. Studies her chipped thumbnail, her calloused fingers. A scar is forming by her elbow, where she cut herself climbing the mandap tree. She touches the tough crescent moon growing over the place where her skin was ripped and torn. The place where she bled.

  Examines the injuries she can see. But only because it’s easier than considering the ones that she can’t.

  12

  Playing Metro

  city lights churn the bangalore sky into an electric orange pink. Night jasmine spread their pointed petals, exhale a fragrance sweet as starlight. Packs of stray dogs pace the streets, weave in and out of traffic. Their voices dissolve into a velvet symphony of howls.

  Downtown, the honeycombed windows of government buildings darken, the ceiling fans purr into silence. Employees in offices lined with files pack up tiffin boxes that smell like masalas ground in the towns and villages where they were born. Tuck rubber stamps and signing-in-triplicate pens into crooked metal drawers.

  Pens that, earlier today, may have filled out a form allowing water trucks to service our pump, allowing health workers to ration oil and salt and palm sugar to our kitchens. Stamps that may have officially cut off water or kept it going, called for a garbage pickup or a discontinuation of service. Declared Heaven a blank space, a land without history or people, without claimants.

  Our mothers tell us if we work hard enough, we can grow up and get government jobs with stable salaries, paid vacations, guaranteed pensions. And, of course, the power to declare who exists and who doesn’t. All with the thump of a rubber stamp.

  Before she leaves, the foreign lady says, “I will see you tomorrow. I will come. I will take more photographs.” Taps her camera and smiles. Teeth clean and straight and square as the shined-up shop windows along 100 Feet Road.

  “Chee! She’ll sell those photos to a paper and then we’ll never see her again,” Fatima Aunty says, watching the woman climb onto the bus with the engineers.

  When the bus pulls away, our mothers go about the business of managing a crisis. Gather blankets and soap and changes of clothes. Take turns using each other’s phones to tell their employers that they won’t be in tomorrow. Probably not the next day either. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. They are bustling and efficient, moving with a surety that surprises us.

  “How do you know what needs to be done?” Joy asks her mot
her. “Have you dealt with this kind of thing before?”

  “What kind of thing?” Selvi Aunty asks.

  “A demolition.”

  “I myself haven’t dealt with this exactly,” Selvi Aunty says. “But close enough. There’s always something like this going on, isn’t it?”

  Selvi Aunty’s right. Heaven is nothing if not a series of crises. Men lurching home after midnight, collars and shirtsleeves blotted with blood. Women rushing to the police station to post bail for a son wrongfully incarcerated, a husband rightfully restrained. Children stumbling out of tin-roofed huts where their mother has died giving birth, cradling babies swaddled in torn-up saris, blinking their newly orphaned eyes.

  No two tragedies are the same. But human needs are never different.

  “Luckily, you and I don’t have to live like this for much longer,” Selvi Aunty says.

  “Meaning?”

  “Your older brothers are doing well. They send me money every month. Soon we’ll have enough to move into a flat.”

  “You mean move out of Heaven?”

  “You don’t see any flats here, do you?”

  “The government promised to build us some. Fatima Aunty said so.”

  “Chee! Like a government promise means anything,” Selvi Aunty says. “How many years have they been saying that? They’re too busy building malls to worry about homes for people like us.”

  Selvi Aunty rests her hand on her daughter’s shoulder and squeezes. Joy feels the ridges and plains of her mother’s calloused fingertips, a rough landscape of survival.

  “Better we find our own place, kanna. On our own terms.”

  Joy knew this was coming. It’s what Selvi Aunty always planned. What all of our mothers have always planned, but no one actually did: Move out. Move forward.

  “Just imagine. Piped water. Regular power. A real roof, real floors. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Selvi Aunty turns her face up to the sky, as though their new home can be plucked from the craters of the moon, the space between the stars.