Bodies in Motion (18 page)

Salt first, then chili burns her tongue, and Himali is a little girl again, leaning against her mother's knee as she makes a mango sambol, stealing bites from the bowl, being scolded. “Stop that, duwa! There won't be enough for your father!” Saying it fondly, though, so that the child knows that she is entirely safe in stealing another piece, and another. She eats the same way now, greedily, one piece after another in her mouth, not bothering with the toothpick anymore, just cramming them in with a sticky hand until the bag is empty. The sour lime lingers, but the sweetness of the mango prevails. The old man smiles and turns away, walking back to his cart.

“Thank you!” she calls after him. He doesn't respond as he pushes it away, down the curving road. Himali's mouth is tingling, alive in a way it hasn't been since the day she huddled behind a door with Roshan pressed up against her, not daring to breathe or let him breathe, terrified that the men with guns would find him there, discern that her child was half Tamil, fair game for their vengeful fury. Her father standing in the front door, defying them, denying them entrance to his house, berating them with all the strength and power of his years, his righteous indignation.
Is this how the descendants of kings should behave? What have we come to? You are not our sons! You are nothing, no one!

A foolish old man, and so they turned on him instead, first beating him in the doorway, then, when her mother tried to intervene, shooting instead. Shooting them both in a blind frenzy while Himali huddled, smothering her son, trying not to breathe.

It is raining in the park now. No gentleness to this rain—an open
ing up of the heavens, a full-force pounding against her body, her face, running down her hollowed cheeks. Himali couldn't cry that day, couldn't let them hear her. She hasn't cried since—not when she finally came out to take up the bodies, not on the long road to Ashok's house, not even at the terrible look on that poor woman's face. Himali stole Kuyila's husband, just as surely as the rioters stole her parents away. And did so without remorse, with only a desperate need to take what she could, of what little was left to her. If she could, she would not change that choice.

Himali stands and starts walking back, through the merciless rain. She might still love Ashok, somewhere. Somehow. When she isn't angry at him for being Tamil, for giving her a son who brought killers to her parents' door. Angry at the language he speaks, the people he comes from, enraged by the very shape of his face.

She will try to love Ashok again. She owes that to him, and even more to the American wife, to the daughter who will grow up without a father. There has been enough sourness, enough bitter bite in what has been done to her, in what she herself has done. For balance, she must find something sweet.

Vermont, 1986

CHOPPING ONIONS IN THE DARK, WORKING BY FEEL; VIVEK HAS DONE THIS A THOUSAND TIMES NOW, ISN
'
T LIKELY TO CHOP OFF A
finger. Working as quietly as he can, not wanting to wake her, to let her know that he is home, and hungry; let her sleep, keep her happy a little longer. Relatively happy. As happy as he knows how.

Raji's left food in the fridge for him. The remnants of her solitary dinner, cold pork chops and baked potatoes, ready for microwave reheating. She would have eaten hours before, with slices of white bread on the side, and ketchup on her baked potato. He did open the fridge, considered the food briefly. He always makes himself look at the food she's left for him, even though he knows that he will not be able to stomach it, not at this hour, after sixteen straight hours at the hospital. His head pounding, his stomach churning, craving coriander and curry leaves, chili and turmeric. A little chicken in a dark curry sauce, over a mound of plain white rice. Dal. Brinjal. He closes the fridge door, his husbandly duty done.

Vivek pulls small onions from a basket, chops them, almost as finely as his mother did. He fries the onions with a lid covering most
of the pan, to keep the smell as contained as possible. He hung a drape over the kitchen archway, but still, sometimes Raji wakes. Wakes and lies there in the dark, until he's cooked and eaten, until he's come to bed.
Still hungry? No, I'm fine now—sorry I woke you.
In a few days they'll be moving to Massachusetts for his new job, moving into their first house. It's small, but the bedroom is on one floor, the kitchen on another. He's looking forward to it; they both are. She'll be near her family again.

His first week in America, Raji took him to a grocery store, a superstore, and laughed at his bewilderment. She took him up and down the endless aisles, the lights so bright they made his eyes ache, the vegetables smelling of floor wax, the meat locked behind glass. Vivek was content to be led, grateful for her guidance, and when they returned to their new apartment, he waited eagerly for his first American dinner, cooked by his new bride. Crisp green asparagus, grilled steak with a béarnaise sauce—delicious. He praised each slim stalk of asparagus, each melting bite of rare steak. She smiled and watched him eat, occasionally taking a bite herself. He took two servings, and afterward, she served him thick slices of hot apple pie. He ate until his stomach felt bloated, distended. But later that night, he found himself still hungry. Not just hungry. Starving.

After a week of such dinners he started cooking in the night, surreptitiously. A little curry, a little rice. Just enough to ease the cravings. After running short of groceries a few too many times, Raji couldn't help noticing.
I could ask my mother to teach me.
She tried to make him rice and curry a few times, but she didn't have the knack, the years of tasting that taught you when you needed a little less chili powder, a little more cumin seed. Vivek knew that she was happier eating spaghetti and meatballs, chicken parmesan, mashed potatoes. Raji called it comfort food.
Don't go to any trouble
, he told her.
I just want a taste, now and then. No big deal.
She served him smaller portions at dinner and started buying extra groceries for him to cook at night.

Marriage is based on compromise. His mother had told him that,
and told him he'd have to make more compromises than most, given his choice of wife. He'd laughed at his mother, stroked her hair with affection and sadness, feeling the many coarse white strands mixed in with the remnants of silky black.
Don't worry, Amma. I know what I'm doing.
Had known when he saw the photo, so different from the studio portraits of the local girls.
She refused to sit for a picture; she doesn't like to be photographed; all I have is this candid.
Raji's mother, an old friend of his mother, had written that in apology, but he was grateful for the chance to see the girl like this. A young woman, actually—nineteen in the photo, a Harvard college student. Raji was swinging at the playground with her young cousins. A little too tall for the swing, her bare legs too long. Her head, her whole body tilted back and her hair falling long and loose behind her, almost brushing the dirt on the ground. Her face was turned slightly away—all Vivek could see was a profile, a single closed eye, a laughing mouth. It was enough.

Raji's mother had also written, her embarrassment rising off the page, that her daughter had dated, a little. He knew what that meant—knew that he likely wouldn't be her first, though she would be his. It didn't matter. He would be her husband; she would be his wife. That was what mattered. If there were problems, they would work it out, work everything out, and love would come. That was what his aunts always said, talking to their daughters about marriage: Love will come. He planned to be a good husband to Raji, a good father to their children. He imagined their daughter, in America, running through a big grassy backyard, riding her bicycle to school—a daughter with Raji's hair and eyes. Or perhaps a son, who played baseball instead of cricket.
Everything will be fine, Amma. You'll see.

He had been so sure. From the first time he saw the photograph to the first time he saw her, standing so straight and still just outside the Colombo airport, among the weeping mothers, the eager children off to see the world, the inescapable hands of beggars. So sure, especially after the first time he touched her, in their marriage bed. She, regretting already whatever impulse that had brought her here, across the
world to his arms, his bed, and he, with what felt like bird wings fluttering in his stomach, his chest, the knowledge that with one wrong move he could ruin this, ruin all the possibilities past repair. The rains had pounded outside the thin walls, monsoon rains thundering down in the thick, warm air. It had been difficult to breathe. But he had chosen rightly; his arms had enclosed her and she had opened for him, had, laughing and trembling, shown him how to touch her, how to please her. Vivek had come through the trial of fire, come to rest, to sleep heavily beside his smiling wife. Had fallen asleep thinking,
See, Amma? See?

He had seen. The green card came a month later, the hospital job in Vermont. The plane flight had been long; the wind that greeted them as they left the airport was bitterly cold. But Raji took his cold hand in hers, rubbed it to warmth again.
Just wait until I get you home; I'll warm you up properly then.
And she had, and their bodies curving together, parting and rejoining in the night had been a talisman, a touchstone, a silent promise. He dissolved in pleasure, night after night; he lost himself and took her with him, both lost, lost together, joined forever at hip and heart. Or so he'd thought, until he woke one night with a churning stomach and found the bed empty. Vivek staggered down the hall to the bathroom to find his wife taking a packet of pills from her purse, a glass of water in her hand.

He recognized the pills, had prescribed them himself for more than one woman in the hospital. Three rows of blue and one of white. Impossible to mistake.
How long have you been taking those?
He had thrown the words at her, an accusation, his voice chilled and harsh. She had turned away, at just that same angle as in the photograph, her eye open this time, her mouth tight.
For many years. From long before I met you. Do you have a problem with that?
He hadn't known how to tell her what his problem was, hadn't known how to tell her how he had been watching her move through their apartment, watching her belly surreptitiously, spreading his fingers during sex across the skin above her mound and wondering if a child of his might be growing there al
ready. Didn't know how to explain the cold ache in his gut, the mirrored cold in his chest. Could only say,
You don't have to hide them from me.
Raji stared at him, her eyes dark and wide, then gulped a pill down, dry, and went to bed. Vivek closed the door, then pushed up the toilet seat and knelt on the cold tiles, heaving up the contents of his gut until he was empty, drained dry, his mouth sour and his head dizzy. Six months of knowing her, six months married, and so much he didn't know. So much he was learning.

He spent too much time in the hospital, that first year in America. He had left his family behind, but the other doctors, working the same crazy hours, they understood. Their skin was white, but they were just like him underneath it. They understood how it tore at you, watching the patients come in at the end of your shift, and the hospital chronically understaffed, so you stayed, and stayed, for just one, one, one more patient. When you remembered, you called your wife, but too often she was already long asleep. Raji worked; she had a job at the college library, but it wasn't even nine to five, barely thirty hours a week. She hadn't finished college, after all; she had come to marry him instead. He was the doctor, and he was no dermatologist, no ENT, with regular hours and a comfortable office. He worked the emergency room, his gloved hands bloody, and no matter how many he saved, it was never enough. Only a few people had died back home, in the early troubles; he'd left home thinking it had been an aberration, that things were settling down. But the conflict was getting worse instead; now he crouched at the dining table in the early mornings, bent over the shortwave radio, pulling in the BBC reports reporting the riots, feeling an ache of guilt tugging at his chest. He wanted to save those lives, to close the gaping wounds. So medicine, long hours in the emergency room—and now, in America, he did save lives. The price was that he never saw his wife.

He thought Raji might have a talent; had seen it in the doodles by the telephone, in the quick, unthinking sketches scribbled at the end of shopping lists. He encouraged her to quit her job, to go back to school;
he made plenty for two, after all. Vivek had paid for the classes, so how could he say a word when she brought back the sketchbooks full of naked men and women, their bodies curving, muscles taut, almost hurling themselves off the pages, assaulting his eyes. He was an educated man; he should have known what he was signing her up for.

His wife, sitting in that class, her eyes following the lines of their bodies, pausing to shade in a nipple, to etch a cheekbone or the muscles of the groin.
How can you let her do this?
his mother-in-law asked him, shocked on the telephone, and Vivek only laughed, told her gently,
It's just art, Aunty
. And it was true, he saw naked bodies every day at the hospital, but those were different, were broken and fragile, wasted and suffering. Almost holy, in their pain, and he was only a sexless priest, witness to their suffering, able, occasionally, to alleviate the pain. The bodies his wife drew were healthy and whole, radiant with youth, with strength. Young art students, taking off their clothes to earn a few extra dollars themselves, and he didn't ask whether she ever took off her clothes for them, or even wanted to—he didn't want to know.

It was art, only art, and so he tried to ignore the twisting in his gut that reminded him that art was not necessarily safe, or sexless. Vivek kept silent, as she moved from sketches to paintings, to longer hours working under bright lights with nude, naked models. After a year of classes, Raji rented a studio space; their apartment wasn't large enough to work in. Sometimes he would go to the studio and stand outside the glassed door, quietly watching her, paint smeared across her hands, her cheek, her nose, eyes intent, lost in her work. She rarely even knew he was there; he came and went silently. She was happy there, and he didn't want to disturb that happiness.

Raji wasn't happy with him—or at least, not often. Vivek wasn't sure how often, to be honest. Perhaps she was happy enough. Sometimes, at night, usually after sex, Raji would roll over in bed, would curl her body against his back, reach around to hold him. Five minutes, ten, fifteen—he lay as still as he could, counting the minutes, counting
their shared breaths, his heart pounding, happy yet afraid of the inevitable moment when she would squeeze gently, then pull away, returning to her side of the bed, leaving him abandoned, alone. In the early days of their marriage, he had tried to hold on after sex, taken her hand in his and tried to keep her longer.
I can't sleep like that, Vivek.
And he let her go, always let her go, hoping only that she would keep coming back to him.

He said nothing about the pills for one year, for two. His wife was young, after all—she'd only been twenty-one when they married. There was plenty of time. His mother called, the transatlantic connection weak and staticky. It wasn't even her phone; there was only one phone in the village, and it wasn't hers. She called to ask what was wrong, why there were no babies. She wanted him to bring Raji back to Sri Lanka, to see some village man, to see what was wrong. He hadn't lied to his mother since he was a little boy, stealing sweets from the market and denying it when caught.
Amma, don't worry. We've both been checked out, everything's fine. The doctor says we should just relax and give it time.

On their third anniversary, he'd cooked for her. Biryani rice, tamarind shrimp, dark chicken curry, three vegetables, four sambols and chutneys. Enough food to feed both their families. Raji came home wearing a dark red dress, bringing flowers, candles for the table, and a painting of him. Vivek hadn't posed for it; she'd done it from memory. The figure was tall, imposing, dark. When he looked at it, he didn't recognize himself at all, but the man was certainly handsome.

He'd meant to wait until after they'd eaten, when her belly was full and she was comfortable, relaxed. But his mother had called again that day, and her mother as well, to wish them well, and as Raji was lighting the candles, the words came spilling out.
Do you want to start trying?
Vivek hadn't meant to ask yet, but as soon as the words were out he felt as if a crushing weight had been removed from his chest. Raji's face was completely still, bathed in flickering light. Beautiful. Then she said,
I'm sorry—I can't do this. I tried.
And she put down the lighted candle, carefully in the candlestick. Turned away, opened the door, and
stepped out, into the night. He couldn't stop her, couldn't run after her. The weight was back, twice as heavy as before, and it was crushing him, bearing him down.