The Vine of Desire (44 page)

“I’m Lalit,” the young man says. “You remember … ?”

“Yes.”

“You look different—you’ve cut your hair, haven’t you?” He pauses, too polite to mention all the weight she’s lost.

“You look different, too—didn’t you used to wear a earring?”

He waves his hand dismissively, as though to suggest that he’s beyond such frivolities now. There’s an awkward pause, then he says, “I might as well say it—Sudha sent me to meet you.”

She flinches, starts turning away.

“Please don’t,” Lalit says. “I’ll just have to keep coming back until you talk to me, and it’s hard, you know, canceling surgery and all—patients expiring like flies even as we speak—or, in this case, don’t speak….”

She looks at him through narrowed eyes. “Did you really cancel surgery?”

“No, my associate took over for the day. That’s worse, actually. He’s brand-new, and very enthusiastic. I had a gall bladder case today—for all I know by now he’s removed the appendix also, and maybe a kidney as well.”

“You always did like to joke.”

“I guess I’m losing my touch—you’re not laughing.”

Anju sighs. “Ten minutes,” she says. “I’ll give you ten minutes. You can walk to the bus stop with me.”

In the glass house, Sudha is making tea. She prepares it Indian-style, the milk and water mixed together in a pan, the ground cloves and cardamom sprinkled in, lastly the tea bags—she has bullied Myra into buying a large box of Lipton’s Traditional Blend—lowered dangling from their tagged strings into the bubbling liquid. (“Are you sure you want this horrible caffeinated stuff?” Myra had asked. “Absolutely,” said Sudha, who is learning more every day.) She makes it strong, lets the fragrance weigh the air, stirs in sugar with a generous hand. (“Are you sure you don’t want to try some of this lovely clover honey?” “Absolutely.”)

The old man is lying in bed, eyes closed, but he smells the tea as Sudha wheels in the cart, and so he doesn’t fuss too much when she props him into a sitting position.

“I think your stomach’s settled enough for you to have some cha today,” she says as she holds the cup to his mouth. “Careful, it’s very hot. Do you like it?”

He doesn’t reply, but he takes a tiny avid sip, and then another.

“Of course, this probably isn’t as good as what you’re used to in India—Trideep told me you lived near a tea estate up in the hills….”

The old man stops drinking, glares at her.

“I know what you’re thinking—it’s cruel of me to bring up India when you miss it so much….”

He’s let himself fall back onto his pillow, eyes pinched shut.

“There you go again, acting like I was a bad smell. Closing your eyes won’t make your problems disappear, you know. I have a better plan—if you’ll give me half a chance.”

He turns from her. It takes a while, his limbs are so weak, but
finally he’s facing the wall, breathing heavily, the quilt pulled up to his neck.

“Listen to me,” Sudha says. She tugs the quilt away. “I insist. After that you can go back to being a stubborn old curmudgeon again.” She pauses for emphasis. “I’m trying to help you get back home.”

No sound in the room, not even a breath.

“We can do it. The doctor says that the main obstacle to your recovery is mental, and I agree. If you want to go home, you’ve got to start cooperating. Eat right—not just those few symbolic mouthfuls. Start doing a few simple exercises in bed, and then maybe in the wheelchair.” She crosses over to the other side of the bed, kneels and puts her face near his. “I’m serious! Open your eyes! Look at me!”

He opens his eyes slowly, unwillingly. They’re black with the pain he numbed himself against feeling all these weeks.

“You’re thinking that Trideep won’t let you go back, aren’t you? Well, I have a plan. But you’ve got to talk to me, to say something. Something nice, mind! Or I won’t tell you.” She risks a grin, licks her lips lightly. Does he see how nervous she is, underneath?

He licks his lips, too. They’re trembling.

“Hurry—I think I hear Dayita waking up. I’ll have to go in a minute.”

His voice comes out cracked and furious, so low that she has to bend closer to hear. “Stop torturing me.”

“That isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I said
something nice.”

“I’ll never get back home, I know it. I’m going to die here.”

“You certainly will if you keep up this kind of positive
thinking,” Sudha says cheerfully. “Whoa, there she goes! That kid’s got a voice like a pterodactyl. See you in a bit.”

She comes back with Dayita, settles her in the high chair with a cup of milk and some animal crackers, sings nursery rhymes to her until he says, grumpily, “Turn me over so I can see the child.”

“Hi,” Dayita says when she sees his face. “Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi.” She holds out an animal cracker for him.

“It’s her new word,” Sudha says. “Brace yourself—you’re going to hear a lot of it.”

“You don’t have a plan.” He pauses for breath between phrases. “You’re just trying to trick me.”

Sudha covers her face with her hands. “I confess, I confess. It’s a heinous conspiracy. I was foolish to think we could pull the wool over your eyes. I might as well tell you—the FBI is involved, too.”

“Your jokes are in poor taste.”

“You won’t let me talk seriously, you won’t let me joke, what do you want me to do?”

“Just tell me,” he says in a tired voice.

“Once you’re strong enough, they’ll let you go back. If I go with you.”

His eyes fly to her face. “What do you mean?”

“Go back with you—like a nurse, you know. Take care of you the way I’m doing here.”

“Why would you want to do that?” his voice is suspicious, but she can see the rapid beat of a pulse in his emaciated throat. “Young people who come to this country never want to leave.”

Sudha shrugs. “America isn’t the same country for everyone, you know. Things here didn’t work out the way I’d hoped. Going back with you would be a way for me to start over in a culture
I understand the way I’ll never understand America. In a new part of India, where no one knows me. Without the weight of old memories, the whispers that say,
We knew she’d fail
, or
Serves her right.”

“Help me sit up,” the old man barks. He struggles impatiently as she places the pillows behind his back. “You’re serious? You’re not just saying this to fool me into getting better?” A worse possibility strikes him. “Or … because you feel sorry for me?”

She shakes her head. “Let’s get this straight right from the first. It’s got to be a good business proposition for me. They’ll have to pay me well enough to bring Dayita up properly—she’ll be coming with me, of course. I take it that’s okay with you? I want to be able to send her to a really good school. And put away enough in savings so I never have to depend on anyone again.” Does he see how her mouth hardens as she says this? “But I figured they wouldn’t object. Dollars go a long way in India.”

“They wouldn’t have to … I …” But he doesn’t complete the sentences.

“And think how much Myra will be saving once you’re gone—all those stress-reducing elixirs and aromatherapy massages don’t exactly come for free, you know.”

He frowns.

“Just kidding. Here, Dayita wants you to have an animal cracker. It’s a trifle soggy. Do you mind?”

He takes the cracker, bites into it absentmindedly.

“Attaboy!” says Sudha. “Way to go!” She’s been watching reruns of
All in the Family
on afternoon TV. “I’ll have only one regret when I leave.”

He tightens his grip on the cracker until it crumbles onto the bedsheets.

“All the trouble I took to learn the latest American expressions—and now there’ll be no one to use them on.”

“She misses you,” Lalit says. “She wants to write to you.”

“Who’s stopping her?”

“She wants to make sure you’ll read what she has to say. That you’ll respond.”

“What does she want me to write?
Dear Sudha, thank you very much for breaking up my marriage?”

“Look—there’s a lot of gaps in the story which neither of you is willing to fill in, but this much I’m sure of: she left your home as much for your sake as hers. She worries about you all the time. One of the reasons she asked me to come see you is to make sure you’re okay.”

“No thanks to her,” Anju says. She hugs her arms, shivers a little in the evening chill. They’ve been sitting on the bus stop bench for half an hour. A bus pulls up to a stop with a rattle, but she doesn’t even look. “She’s really taking care of this old man?” she asks after a while, her tone rough. “You’ve been to see her?”

“I have.”

“These people—they’re treating her well?”

He gives her a quizzical look. “They are.”

“And … Sunil?”

“She hasn’t been in touch with him, and doesn’t intend to, as far as I can tell.”

“Do you—?”

“Love her? I’m not sure. People use that word too easily, anyway. I might be on the way to it. I’d certainly like a chance to find out. But she told me that what she needs right now is a friend—so that’s what I’m trying to be.”

“I think you do love her,” Anju says. “Maybe too much.” She sighs. “I don’t blame you. They all do. She’s very lovable, my cousin.”

“Listen, you’ve got to put it behind you, whatever happened between her and your husband—”

“Easier said than done. But I wasn’t referring to that. I was thinking about Ashok—did she tell you about him? Her childhood sweetheart?”

“Ah! A rival. Should I be concerned?”

“Well, he’s here, for one thing—”

“The plot thickens. Maybe that’s why Sudha ran away?”

“I hate to dash your hopes to the ground. He did send a letter—but only after she left. I didn’t open it—figured it wasn’t my business. Just forwarded it to her new address. A couple days back, I’m at the apartment, packing, and he shows up. It was a bit of a surprise for both of us.”

“That’s what I love about you, your masterly understatements.”

“He’s come to take her and Dayita home. He’s been waiting forever to marry her—”

“I’m all for him continuing to do that.”

“Ah, but he’s determined this time, and that’s where you come in.”

He throws her a look filled with misgiving. “Oh, no, don’t even think of it—”

“He needs to see her—”

“What, you think I’m the CEO of Lalit Matchmaking, Incorporated?”

“—to talk to her face-to-face. To hear her answer, whatever it is. He deserves that much—”

“Sorry. Cupid doesn’t live here anymore.”

“You want me to read her letter? You want that maybe I should write back?”

“Mrs. Majumdar, I’m shocked to see you stoop to such heinous blackmail.”

“The name’s Ms. Chatterjee, actually.” She tears a sheet from a notebook, writes on it. “Here’s Ashok’s hotel number. Tell her to call soon—the poor man’s running out of dollars.”

“Good. Maybe they’ll deport him.”

Anju gives him a reproachful look.

“Why don’t you tell Sudha yourself?” he asks. “Wouldn’t that be better? I can give you her phone number—”

Anju looks up, her face suddenly harrowed. “I can’t talk to her, or even write. Not yet. Not until I work out some things myself.” The streetlamp, which has just come on, throws pools of blackness under her eyes. “I, too, love her too much. I think I just rediscovered that.”

Lalit takes the paper. “I’m an idiot, a wimp, a pushover.”

“Not at all,” Anju says. “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.” From the window of her bus, she throws him a kiss.