Happy Birthday! And Other Stories Part 15

Hemant picked up the needle to place it back into the tube, but his hands were shaking.

*Leave it, let me do it,' Tanuja said. *Don't tell Mo about the needle or he'll be upset.'

Hemant stared at her blood on the floor, on the bedsheet, and he felt faint.

*Are you okay?' Tanuja asked, her hand on his slumped shoulder. He nodded, the back of his palm still on his mouth. *Does this remind you of her?' she added.

He looked up at Tanuja. Farah was the reason why Tanuja had started speaking to him again after twentythree years of silence between them. She'd heard through a common friend that he'd lost Farah in a car accident, and that he was in the driver's seat.

His left leg, which had been maimed in the accident, began trembling.

Tanuja was looking at him, waiting for his answer.

*No, this doesn't remind me of Farah,' he replied. But Tanuja kept looking at him, as though she hadn't found her answer. He looked at the drops of blood on the white sheet, her blood that he'd spilled, and realization hit him like a clap of thunder. Tanuja's voice came back to him, loud and clear, heedless of the pa.s.sage of time: You made me kill our unborn child, you rejected the fruit of our love, you murdered a girl who deserved to live.

He took out a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his wet forehead.

Tanuja took this as a confession of his guilt, for her shoulders sagged back into their cavity and her eyes withdrew their steely glance. She'd forgiven him.

She said, *I wish you'd talk about your emotions once in a while, Hem. I worry about you, so bottled up, telling no one what's beneath that jolly nature.'

This was his opportunity to show her that he had changed. Hemant took her hand delicately in his. *Then let me try being serious. I thought I'd be the first to go, before Farah, before you.' He knew he deserved it with his excessive drinking, which tinged his eyes red, and his bouts of excessive eating, which made his body bloat. He was the one doing cocaine and weed at sixteen, and Tanuja was the one who'd saved him from those demons. But the liberation had been a falsehood, a fantasy, and he'd gone back to being weak, rejecting their love by running away into the arms of other women he had then so admired. *Yet you, flawless, beautiful you, are the one dying. Why?'

He asked the question though he knew its answer, that death was unpredictable and if you knew when people you loved were going to die, everything would change, you'd live each moment differently.

Mohit popped his head into the room, and Hemant let go of Tanuja's hand guiltily. If Mohit noticed, his face revealed nothing.

*Sorry it's taking so long, pumpkin. I'm making garlic bread to go with the soup.' Mohit looked at Hemant and added, *I would offer you something to eat, Hemant, but it looks like you've had a heavy meal already.'

Hemant sucked in his protruding belly.

There was something in the way Mohit's thin lips were set that suggested an unsatisfied triumph, as though he'd reluctantly won a fight that he didn't want to partic.i.p.ate in.

Once Mohit's footsteps faded, Hemant wanted to bring the power back into his hands.

He asked Tanuja, *How do you tolerate his negativeness after all that happened?'

Mohit and Tanuja had separated a year after his accident. Hemant remembered Tanuja's words as if they were a force of life injected into his bloodstream: I wish he'd leave me alone. His constant barraging has taken away the last bit of confidence I had in myself. I can't relate to people any more because I'm so concerned with saying the right thing. At that time Hemant had been hopeful that Tanuja and he could get back together, but he'd said nothing, playing the dual part of the mourning widower and undeserving friend inching his way back into the delicate folds of their friends.h.i.+p. Mohit and Tanuja soon reconciled, but hope still coursed through Hemant's veins.

Tanuja played with the ends of her sheet. *It's strange but his cynicism insulates me. It saves me from the vulnerability that hope and expectation bring, and from the inevitable disappointment that follows happiness. He's helped me become a responsible adult.'

*But we used to share everything. Every dumb thought, every silly experience, and you loved that about our relations.h.i.+p. I didn't find this openness with anyone else and you don't have that with him either, you never will. Don't you miss it?'

*Yes ... I mean ... not all the time. The kind of love that you and I had was childish, immature and unsustainable. I live with Mo, decently satisfied with our day-to-day life. We've left many things unspoken, about ourselves, our marriage, and we don't make an effort to fully know each other, but we're close enough for me to tell him that my Chacha once molested me and that I cheated in my history exam. Being with Mo has taught me that wanton divulging does not equate to love. I think that some things are better left unsaid between two people.'

*I wish ... I wish I'd made my mistakes with anyone but you. I should've never let you go, I could've been here with you. We ...' he started, hoping to let it slip that they still could.

*What about Helen?'

*Helen is a distraction, a companion for when my heart aches for you.'

*Life is a long, strange trip,' Tanuja said slowly.

Hemant became giddy. This was a dizzying experience for him and he'd forgotten to take his heart medicine, though his cardiologist had warned him not to miss a single pill.

He grabbed her hand. *Did you love me more than you love him?'

Tanuja looked at him evenly, mirroring none of his angst. When she spoke, though, her voice was raw. *I loved you like love would never end, Hemant. I love Mohit despite knowing that love ends, and if not by choice then by force. You were my rude awakening while Mohit brought hope back to me.'

*So you love him more?'

*Can love be measured on a weighing scale?'

Hemant put his mouth on Tanuja's, a spontaneous move he'd neither deliberated nor intended. She kissed him back as if putting him aside, gently but firmly.

Now what?

*Live with me,' he said, his breath long and hard, like when they'd made love. *I will make up for my mistakes and all the lost time. I will fill your last days with the love that's been building up inside me for most of my life. I will never let you have a moment where you don't feel profoundly appreciated and loved. Give me a last chance.'

Tanuja looked at the milk and blood spilled on the ground. *Hem, my shortened life has helped me focus on the things I care about. For the first time ever I am completely present. Mo may be a lot of wrong things, but he is sincere and responsible. This illness has softened his rough edges. My hair is gone but he's there, my blood spills and he doesn't retch. All I am is bones and he loves me more than ever. If I go, I'll be taking away a part of him. I can't leave him for a man who sits in his house declaring love for his wife. And as much as you feel for me right now, there is no surety that you'll feel that tomorrow. Our time is over.'

*So you want to spend your last few days on earth with a man you've never wholly loved because he's more responsible than I am?'

Tanuja took in a deep breath. *I am going to live,' she said, without hope, without happiness. *The doctor told me two days ago. I haven't told anyone yet.'

*What?' Hemant said. Yet no weight left his shoulders and he didn't feel the immense relief he thought he had expected. She echoed his sentiment: *I was ready to go, Hem. I was looking forward to some peace and now, now I have to learn all the things I had unlearned. I have to go back to living, back to waking up, making breakfast, keeping Mo company, entertaining friends, watching my daughter struggle through her choices. I was ready to step away from all this.'

*But you have life now. Isn't that ... good?'

Her eyes became misty. *Is it? I used to live my life as though it was this tightly wound enterprise. Everything had to be controlled and everything had to make sense. Nothing could be random. So when I got sick, ironically, the threads holding my life together came undone, and I could breathe. And now I have to make life an intense occupation again, you know, be productive, compete, eat, love, be loved, breathe, and-I don't know if I'm making sense-I'm not up for it.'

Mohit entered the room. On seeing Tanuja's upset face he left the soup bowl at the bedside table and reached out to her. She fell into his arms.

Hemant got up from his chair in surprise.

Tanuja didn't even notice him.

He went to the door. He turned around. Though they'd not exchanged a word, Hemant saw that with Mohit by her side Tanuja was comforted.

Hemant quietly left the room. On the way out he heard nothing. Tanuja must have whispered her secret to Mohit. He imagined that her heart, burdened by fatigue, had found a home in Mohit's stillness and decided to stay there.

Hemant shuffled away, leaning heavily on his walking stick, his shoes leaving imprints of brown milk on the floor.

AFTER ASHES.

*Kate, is that a pose from the Kama Sutra?' Mark asks, gaping at the naked man, whose legs are wrapped behind his own neck.

*Can you pay attention, Mark? We are lost,' I say, examining the hand-drawn map of Palkhot village more closely. *According to this map thing we should be at Gandhi Road but...' I look around. We are at the edge of a summit overlooking snow-capped mountains. There are no signs or roads here, only unmarked, muddy paths. *Maybe we should ask someone for directions.'

I've been told that the only way to find a place in India is to ask an Indian.

As if on cue, a sadhu wearing a tiger-print skirt comes towards me. He dips his hand into the copper pot he's carrying and sprinkles ash in my direction.

My hand immediately goes to my protruding belly.

He says something in the local language. I shake my head and reply, *No Hindi.'

His eyes glaze over before he says in English, *This protect baby.' He glowers at Mark-who is still clicking photographs of that naked man now rocking gently on his stomach like a boat-and whispers, *Light eyes bad for baby. Leopard, cheetah, hyena, all light eyes, all dangerous, all animals. White husband, light eyes, bad omen.' He shoves his silver trident between Mark and me, and adds, *I protect you from white husband for small fee.'

*He's not my husband,' I say, trying to redeem myself.

The sadhu now glowers at me.

I realize my mistake. I am brown. Mark is white. We are in a small Indian village together. I'm pregnant and unmarried. This is not something I should have declared to a stranger, a holy one at that.

I dig inside my khaki pockets and thrust a hundredrupee note into his hands; he deserves it for his tenacity. By the time I finish blinking, several beggars surround me. Their outstretched palms-crooked, albino, fingerless-shove me around. I hear boisterous pleas, *One rupee, give only one rupee.' My body becomes numb against the will of so many. I feel my feet-for shoes are not allowed inside this holy place-step on something soft and squishy: cow dung.

At that time a singular thought comes to my mind: why am I here?

It's because of Walter Scott, the editor of Who! magazine in New York City and my boss. Two weeks ago he'd issued me an ultimatum: *You've covered nothing but geriatric tea parties. You don't have the drive to be a good reporter and-'

This was my fifth job in six years. I begged Walter for a month more to prove my worth.

*Remember, Kate-' he called after me as I left his office, and I mouthed what I knew he was going to say, *-sensation sells.'

But I had nothing to prove myself with. Then Mark found an online article about a woman who was going to perform sati in India.

*This is your story, Kate. We should go to India and meet this sati lady,' he said.

I gave Mark a sidelong glance, not because he'd said *we' but the way he'd said it, unsure and pretentious, as if it was a word he'd just discovered.

*That's too gruesome,' I told him. *Let's keep looking.' In truth, I didn't feel ready to leave New York to go to India.

A week later I had no other leads.

Walter sanctioned what he called *Sensational!' but not on generous terms-I was to leave immediately after getting a visa and go alone, without the courtesy of even a staff photographer. This gave Mark a valid excuse to insist on coming along.

That's why I'm here. I begin to wheeze.

Suddenly, a strong hand yanks me out of the mob. I gulp a mouthful of air, straighten my body, and turn to my saviour-a man with a monkey perched on his right shoulder.

*Thank you,' I say, extending my hands, before quickly retracting them into the folds of a namaste. It's frowned upon if women and men touch each other in public here, our cab driver from Delhi airport had warned us, and I have no intention of sparking a controversy in a place where small things can trigger riots.

*Hotel?' my abiding saviour asks, in a way that suggests he already knows the answer.

I nod my head gratefully, and peel Mark away from the naked man, who has untangled himself, and is now collecting a fat smile and a fat fee from Mark.

The monkey-man leads Mark and me without a word, walking briskly into the growing darkness. His monkey bares its teeth at us, and begins to dig through its owner's hair. After finding a louse-which quickly disappears into its mouth-it clutches its owner and watches us warily.

The monkey's clinginess reminds me of Mark, who I'd met on some Monday morning on my way to work. We were standing next to each other in the subway when I noticed him staring at me. I looked back but he diverted his gaze. It was only after we had crossed from Fulton station to Grand Central that he asked, *Excuse me, miss. Are you from India?'

I replied curtly, *Why do you ask?'

He blushed before saying, *It's just that the pendant you're wearing is beautiful. I read somewhere that a trident symbolizes the Indian G.o.d s.h.i.+va and protects the one who wears it.'

Already taken in by his British accent, deep-set blue eyes and medical books, I tilted my head to the left and smiled. Knowing he could now see my dimples, I added flirtatiously, *Really? I never knew that.' My mother had given this pendant to me on her deathbed, when her brain had already become delirious. I hadn't had the time to ask her what it signified.

Mark opened a door to me that my father should have; but my father was too busy living the American dream: he bought a four-bedroom house and promptly left my mother and me to marry a twice-divorced middle-aged American woman, his colleague at the accounting firm. As a divorcee-considered a *failure' among her Indian peers-my mother developed an unwillingness to go back to India or to stay in touch with her fellow countrymen. So we moved into a rented studio apartment. She took to silence and eventually cancer, while I, at twelve, took to raising myself.

Mark's father, on the other hand, was Indo-nostalgic, having served in pre-independence India as a British soldier. Mark had grown up hearing endless stories of ivory, peac.o.c.ks and saffron. In spite of being far removed from anything Indian, I was a culmination of fantasy and romanticism to Mark.

In his clipped voice, Mark would read aloud Rabindranath Tagore's poems to me and sing Bollywood songs. He'd sign off each email with a Gandhi quote. He'd harp on about the benefits of Ayurveda, celebrate Diwali and cook chicken tikka masala. For thirteen months I used him to fill my unsteady gla.s.s of ident.i.ty, drop-by-minuscule-drop, till I was full.

*You deserve to be taken care of, Rani. Marry me?' he asked one day.

If he hadn't called me Rani, hadn't clung to me, I may have said yes.

*I'm twenty-eight, Mark. I can take care of myself.'

It was time to end things.

I had just started looking for my own apartment when I found out that I was almost two months pregnant. I couldn't believe it at first. I cursed Mark and myself for not being more careful. And I was horrified at the thought of being a mother; after all I didn't even have any benchmarks for good parenting. But once the idea settled in, an unexpected maternal desire gripped me. I realized that I wanted to keep the baby.

So I stayed put with Mark, consumed by my own indecision, while he remained, as always, oblivious to my state of mind; mulling over Indian names for our baby.

*Manya,' he exclaimed loudly one morning, a month later, in our Brooklyn apartment. *Manya is what we'll call our baby girl.'

I was cooing softly to our baby, who was now closer to my heart than anyone else.

*What if it's a boy?'

*It will not be. I deserve another Rani in my life.'

It's been four hours since we arrived in the hotel room. I am tending to my feet, which are swollen, probably due to the long trip, and also smell of cow dung. Mark-in his excitement-has gone out to investigate if there's a way to meet the sati lady.

He comes back soon enough; his blonde hair is damp with sweat, and his clothes reek of woodsmoke. His pale skin is scarlet from excitement. I have never seen him so happy.