The Vine of Desire (28 page)

Sunil. Anju’s husband. A man of many obsessions, a man who’s decided to live for himself. Can he be called a good man? And I, if I follow this voice inside which says,
Take him, you’ll never find a man who loves you more intensely
, will there be any goodness left in me?

We’ve reached the apartment parking lot. Sunil starts to get out.

“Please go back to work,” I say. “I’ve got to be alone, to think through things.”

He starts to protest, then says, “I understand.”

Isn’t this the greatest illusion we live by—that we understand each other?

On an impulse I ask, “What’s the difference between a soldier and a lady?” Even to myself I sound foolish.

But he says, “Wait! I think I remember hearing it at school in Calcutta—what was it?—ah, yes, a soldier faces the powder and a lady powders the face. That old riddle! Who told it to you?”

The ways in which people surprise us! I am glad that we are leaving each other in laughter.

I call to Dayita, but she’s fast asleep in the car seat.

“Let me carry her upstairs for you,” he says.

I can’t say no. What if this is the last time he’ll hold her in his arms, that pink, baby-lotion smell, the compact, determined nose wedged into his neck? I follow him up the stairs, the broken straps of the diaper bag dangling from my hand.

The child is sleeping, curled like a roly-bug, in her crib. The sun pulls a rain cloud over itself like a comforter. The room turns dark, so when the man speaks, the woman cannot see what he is saying. I can’t see, she says. He says, Here, I’ll light my hands for you, and he does. His hands are burning, they’re a thousand watts each. She says, Don’t touch me. He says, Only with my eyes. There is an ocean in the living room. His eyes pull her down into the foam. The waves are rocking all the words out of her. Her nipples are bare and hard under his breathing. Her body pitches like a boat in a storm.

He thinks, This is what I waited for all these years.

She thinks,
This?

The child is sleeping, her face closed up like a bud in frost. The sun has fallen into the ocean and cannot climb out. The man’s nipples are salty as sunflower seeds. The room turns into smoke, making the woman’s eyes water.

Why are you crying? he asks. My sweetness, my life.

The words turn into birds and fly at her. She reaches out a hand. Wings, claws, shit.
Yes, that’s what I deserve.
What nonsense are you speaking, he says. His leg between her legs, her tongue between his teeth, his hair covering her eyes, her conscience buried under his hips.

The child makes a sound like a phone ringing. The man breathes like someone who’s fallen into an ocean. The woman doesn’t breathe at all.

What have we done?

We haven’t done anything wrong.

The ocean breaks against a phrase: My sister’s husband. The birds beat out syllables with their wings: Love, love, love. The windows close their eyes so tight, there are star bursts inside. In his grasp, her wrists are as fragile as incense sticks. Wind’s in the north, storm’s coming up. He is asking, Shall I stay with you? The lamp shakes its shadow.
No, no.
He is saying, Tonight I’ll talk to her, it’ll all be settled. The words pour themselves into her ears like boiling wax. His hands are flowers embroidered in silk.

Kiss me, my heart, my queen.

Go now.

The walls are painted in the colors of ecstasy. The sofa is upholstered in regret. If you ever look at anyone else, he says as he pulls on his pants. Now you know what makes a good man crazy, the sun says from the bottom of the ocean. She’s spread
on the floor like a spent wave. Foam fills her eyes, her bones are coral-made. The child sleeps like a pearl in an oyster shell about to be pried open.

How long after he leaves, when I grope around for my underwear? My hands shake, buttoning my bra. My fingers snag on the folds of my skin. My sari is a mess of wrinkles that refuse to be smoothed out. The clock on the oven points to just after noon. Can that be right? In the space of three hours, a life, four lives—what’s the verb I’m looking for—tangled, unraveled, turned upside down? There’s no word that fits this disjointed feeling, this sense of everything out of place.

Everywhere I look, something of Anju’s. A book left open, facedown, on the coffee table, an unwashed teacup on the kitchen counter, a kicked-off pair of sandals just outside the coat closet: silent alphabets of reproach.

I have nothing to say in my defense. If I had said no, if I had struggled, he would have stopped. I considered it, when his fingers were on the hooks of my blouse, fumbling, as though he hadn’t undressed a woman in a long time. But a peculiar heaviness held down my limbs. Words swirled around in my head, their colors bleeding into each other. Morality, immorality. He desired it so much, it seemed unfair to withhold it from him. It was only a body, after all: blood and cartilage, hair and muscle and waste matter. If it gave him such pleasure, such belief in love’s power, why not? I’d given it to Ramesh for far less.

Is that why you shivered in delight when his lips went traveling over your skin? I hear Anju say. Is that why you cried out, bucking, raking your nails across his back, raising weals that a wife may later find?

I may not know why I did what I did, but what I must do now is clear enough.

I find Lupe’s number in the bottom of my purse and dial it.
Please, please.
The phone rings a long time. My heart races from hope to disappointment and back again. Of course she wouldn’t be there, in the middle of the day. Clot of despair in my throat. When the answering machine tells me to leave a message at the beep, I can barely get the words out.

“This is Sudha. That job you told me about, the old man, is it still available? Please call me back, I’m interested. Please—as soon as you can. My number is—”

There’s a mechanical clicking on the line. Then her voice: “This is Lupe.”

“The job you told me about—”

“Yeah, I heard you. I don’t pick up the phone every time it rings—a lot of people call me that I don’t necessarily want to talk to. The job’s still there. You want it?”

My tongue is thick with thankfulness. “Yes, yes.”

“Hey, you okay? You sound kind of funny.”

Even that slight concern in her voice threatens to bring on the tears I’ve been holding back. “I’m all right,” I manage to say. “But I’ve got to leave here right away. Can someone come pick me up in the next couple of hours?”

I wait for her to say that isn’t possible, but she only says, “I can come by in an hour and a half and drive you up to Berkeley.” She doesn’t ask for explanations, doesn’t sound surprised. Perhaps she’s used to women who need to make fast getaways. She jots down the sketchy directions I give her—I know so little beyond the few streets I walk on, it’s shameful—and tells me to wait on the street for her.

I pack as quickly as I can: a bag for myself, and one for
Dayita. I leave a lot of things behind. It’s becoming a pattern in my life, shedding belongings as I flee—first from Ramesh’s house, then the mothers’ flat in Calcutta, now from Anju’s. It should make me feel lighter. But the emotions lodged in my chest like rusted anchors weigh me down.

Baby blankets, diapers, a bottle of Gripe Water. I feel a pang as I put in Dayita’s favorite stuffed animal, a bear which Sunil bought her the week after she arrived here. He named it Jambavan, after the bear in the Ramayana. They call him Jamu. What I’m doing, what I’m depriving her of—when she’s old enough to understand, will she hate me for it?

Dayita, none of the choices ahead of me are good ones. This one just seems a little less bad than the others.

Now the most difficult part: the two letters. I tear up sheet after sheet, consider leaving without writing them. But that would be cowardly.

Excuse me, Dayita says in my head, sounding just like Anju. You think the rest of what you’re doing is brave?

Dear Anju
,

I’m sorry to leave like this. I don’t know what else to do. I came here to help you put your life together—but all I’ve done is disrupt it. I’m leaving before I make things worse. With me gone, hopefully the tension between you and Sunil will die down.

Don’t worry about me. I have a job. I’ll tell you more when I can. In any case, I wanted to work and make a little money before returning to India. To experience life in this country, and not just from the shelter of your home. This will allow me to have that.

Thank you for everything you did for me. You gave me a chance to get away from the problems that were suffocating me in India. I think that’s given me a better perspective on my life—at least I know what I don’t want.

We haven’t been too good about talking to each other recently, but I love you, Anju. I’m still your sister. That’ll never change.

I’m sorry I had to take Dayita away from you. That’s my biggest regret. Don’t worry, okay? I’ll be in touch.

Sunil
,

I can’t give you what you want. For me, you’ll always be my sister’s husband. And I’ll always be your wife’s sister. We can’t forget it, no matter what we convince ourselves of right now.

I’ve been no good for you, ever since the beginning. I shouldn’t have come to America. There are so many things I shouldn’t have done, I could fill a book with them. What’s the use?

Whatever mistakes we’ve made, let’s put them behind us. Let’s not encourage them to grow until they crush our lives.

I’m starting over. I hope you will, too, with Anju. It’s best for us not to be in touch again.

There’s a lot of strength in you, and goodness and intelligence. I pray you’ll draw on them as you make your next decisions.

I’ll always be grateful to you for all the love you gave Dayita.

I hate the letters: prim, abrupt, inadequate. Filled with clichés, they say nothing of all the things wrenching at my insides. And, yet, what can I write? What happened between Sunil and me is his secret, too. I have no right to lighten my heart by confessing it to Anju. That decision will have to be his.

I don’t seal the letters. I don’t mark them
private.
Maybe if they each read the other’s, the letters will help them talk the way they should have talked a long time ago.

I wait nervously on the curb with my suitcases and Dayita’s stroller, shifting from one foot to the other. Dayita rattles the bar of the stroller, points in the direction of our usual walk.

“Park!” she commands. “Park!” She can’t understand why we have to keep standing here. Her face crumples in preparation for a robust wail—just what I need today! I search in my pockets and come up with the teething ring I picked up at the last minute. For the moment, at least, she’s pacified. Another debt I owe Sunil.

I notice that I’m wearing the same pair of old jeans that I wore for my date with Lalit. The irony of it! A bitter laughter is building up inside me. Will I see Lalit again? And if I do, what can I say to him, after what happened today? But I have more immediate worries. What if Anju comes back early? Or Sunil? Every time a vehicle swerves around the corner, I cringe, willing myself to grow small and invisible. I must be emanating some type of distress signal, because passersby stare at me strangely. If this were India, at least half of them would know me. They’d ask me a thousand questions, offer to help, give advice, maybe even escort me back home. Thank God for the impersonal customs of America.

Finally—but, no, it’s exactly an hour and a half—Lupe drives up. Her car is small and nondescript, perhaps intentionally so. A woman of resources, she’s managed to make sense of my garbled directions, and even found a car seat for Dayita. I slide a sideways glance at her as I get into the front seat. She could be anywhere between forty and fifty, with a large, calm forehead. A slight sag to her cheeks, sharp lines running downward from the sides of her nose which deepen as she says hello. She doesn’t quite smile, though she’s pleasant enough. A dark blue pantsuit, with authoritative shoulders, smart but not showy. The only thing about her that surprises me is her hair, lush and black, all the way to her shoulder blades. She maneuvers the car onto the freeway between two monster trucks without
blinking an eye. If she were in my situation, would she be running off like this? I don’t think so. I watch her hands resting easily on the wheel and long for some of their confidence.