Girl in Shades (29 page)

My last two years of high school pass like a frantic dream. I interest myself in nothing but textbooks, English homework, 7 a.m. wake-up alarms, and pencils with the eraser ends rubbed down to nothing. I take classes all through the summers. I work harder than I've ever worked at anything to finish all my OACs, and soon, it's 1991 and I'm seventeen and about to graduate early.

“So Maya, do you think you'll go to university?” Buffy asks one night after dinner. Our apartment has filled with smoke from the fish sticks I fried up in a pan. Although Buffy can't see how smoky the air looks, I'm sure she can smell the smoke better than anyone. I wave my hands in front of my face before answering her.

“Don't know.”

“You really should think about it.”

Buffy has finished her degree but is having a difficult time getting work as a photographer. “I'll just have to let my portfolio speak for itself” is what she has been saying, and luckily she has a father who will support her until the world can accept a blind girl taking pictures. Ever since Buffy finished university last year, she has been mind-talking less and less at night. It's as if with school done her mind is finally quieting down.

I miss the things I used to hear throughout the apartment. Three weeks before her final exam, I heard her going on for almost an hour about how we need to be courageous almost more than anything. And that even though life seems to suck you down to the bottom sometimes, you should simply observe what is happening and go on.
Go on, feel depressed. Just don't resist it
, she had said.
What you resist goes on and on
.

So when Buffy asks me about university, I'm anxious to hear what she thinks.

“I think I might take some time off first,” I say to Buffy.

“Interesting idea,” she says, removing her glasses and rubbing her fingertips over her eyes and then through her red hair. “But it's hard to go back afterwards.”

“I'll do what I need to do.” My voice emerges like a slow-moving snake, thick, close to the earth, in no big hurry.

“I just want you to be happy, Maya,” Buffy says.

“Thank you.”

“Do you ever think about Elijah?”

I'm surprised when her question stings. “No, he's got some new girl.”

“Sorry that whole thing didn't work out. I know you really liked him.”

This is one of the first conversations Buffy and I have had alone for a while. Mainly because I haven't felt much like talking to anyone and Aunt Leah is usually around to pick up my slack. Tonight she's working late at the Tower and I agreed to cook.

“You seem like you've been so down,” Buffy says, but I don't respond. Instead, I chomp fish sticks off the end of my fork and exhale all the air from my lungs. “I just wish I could make you see that life is meant to be lived.”

“I'm still living,” I say, getting up from the table and going to the kitchen to put my dish in the sink. I comb my fingers through my hair and look back at the table. Buffy looks so small sitting there; her feet barely touch the ground. I am amazed by what wisdom can come in small packages.

They tell me after my last day of high school.

“Maya, Buffy and I want to give you your graduation gift.” Aunt Leah pushes me down onto the living room chair. She's still in her polyester work vest that barely buttons down over her breasts.

“But I just got back from school. Can't I even take my shoes off first?”

“This is too big,” Aunt Leah says. Buffy smiles at us from the other corner of the room, where she leans against the wall. “We found your father.”

“What do you mean? I already know, he's got a new family, he wants me to go visit him, but I told you —”

“No, your real father.”

“What?”

“Amar Ghosh. Your real father. We found him.”

“But how . . . when . . . how did you even know his name?”

“I read your mother's journal. Don't be mad, Maya. This could be really good.” Aunt Leah stands over me with her hands hugging her chest, as if protecting herself from my reaction. “Buffy was the one who had the idea. She thought it would be good for you to meet him. So we made phone calls, put pieces together. We looked through records of changes of address by men with the last name Ghosh who used to live in Toronto but moved to India around 1972. We called them all, and we found him.”

“You talked to my real father?” The bite of this news feels like a full set of teeth digging into my throat.

“Leah talked to your grandfather in India,” Buffy says. “He knows where your father is and if you go there, he can take you to him.” My throat lets barely any air through when I try to speak.

“But I can't go to India. I have no money.”

That's when Aunt Leah pulls out the ticket from her back pocket. In a thin white folder with the words “Air India” written on the front. “That's what our gift is. We bought you a plane ticket.” She hands me the folder and I take it; there are bills of money sticking up from the top.

“And we saved up so that you would have spending money.” A block has formed at the bottom of my throat, maybe a lump of fish, or a lump of coal.

“Thank you. But I can't go to India,” I say again. “If I wanted to go, I would have gone by now.”

“Don't you see, Maya?” Buffy says, feeling her way along the back of the couch and over to me. “This is the perfect thing to do now. You said you wanted to take time off. Why not use the time to figure out these things about your past?”

“I'm not sure I want to see my father, though.” My blood starts to bubble from my feet up over my calves and into my stomach.

“I know you don't want to see Steven,” Aunt Leah says. “And I understand that . . . what he did, well, I see now that it was awful. I've told him you don't want him in your life. But I thought this would be different.”

“Why is it different?” I say. “He abandoned me too, didn't he?”

“But he didn't even know you existed! You should hear how excited your grandfather was when I told him.”

“I'm not sure I can accept this,” I say. I put the ticket back on the table without opening it. After sitting with them quietly for a few minutes, I stand up and take a step towards the door.

“Maya, stop!” Buffy says to the wall. “Don't leave like this.” I turn towards them, pick up the ticket again, take out the bills, and put them in my pocket.

“I'm sorry, I just need to think,” I say. I shut the door behind me and stand alone in the hallway. Someone's cooking curry and onions, which makes my eyes water as I look down at the money in my hands.

I decide then to go get drunk.

I pay some scruffy guy five bucks to buy me a mickey of vodka from the LCBO. I take the subway to Nathan Phillips Square — where the homeless people hang out. Because it's June, the air has warmed up and the rains have almost stopped. I push my back up against a window of a building. All the lights are out on the inside and a man wearing a grey toque is slumped beside me over a grate. The sun has just gone down and the voices of the homeless people are growing louder and more frantic.

I take my first sip of vodka. It burns a path into my body and immediately gets picked up by my blood stream. My feet buzz with warmth and I laugh to myself, waking up the sleeping guy.

“Keep it down,” he says. “I'm trying to get a little shut-eye.” His words are slurred, and I see then that his eyes are red and his face a mess of grey stubble.

“Sorry,” I whisper, hugging the bottle closer to my chest.

“Do I know you?” the man asks then, rubbing his greasy hands over the front of his sweatshirt and adjusting the garbage bag at his feet.

“I don't think so.” I look in the other direction.

“I think we've met before.” I take another look at him — he's mistaken. I have never seen him before in my life.

“Maybe I'm your daughter,” I say. The vodka soaks into all my cells, lighting me up.

“That's it,” he says. “You're my daughter. Nice to see you again, daughter.” He holds out his hand, cuticles chewed up to his knuckles, black stuff shoved under the nails. I shake it.

“Nice to meet you, too, Dad,” I say.

“You sure have turned into a beautiful girl,” the man says. “So exotic looking, with the black hair and all. And your eyes like glowing sunflowers.”

“Thanks, Dad. I guess I take after you.” We laugh together, me and the homeless man who doesn't even seem to have a name. I raise my bottle to him. “It's my first time getting drunk.”

“Congratulations!” he shouts, and we laugh again, our backs bouncing against the office windows behind us.

“Got to start some time.” I take another swing and feel my eyebrows start to droop down towards my eyes.

“What's your name?”

“Maya.”

“I've been meaning to ask you, Maya. How's your mother?”

“My mother?” I'm stunned by the question and choke a bit on the vodka going down. “My mother is just fine. Beautiful, happy, successful, like you always remembered her.”

“Ah, yes, I remember her.” The homeless man pulls his toque back over his eyes and slumps his body to the side, resting his head on his garbage bag. I take off my green sweater and drape it over his shoulders. Then I stand up, throw my half-empty bottle into the garbage can and start walking. So far, I have been homeless for two hours.

I start walking up Yonge Street. Flashing lights that make my head spin, loud voices that crash their way into my thoughts, men who look like ladies. I look to the left and think I see an older Corey Hart wearing a black leather jacket and slumped against the wall in an alley. Something contracts in my head behind my eyes. The man turns his head to show me he's not Corey Hart at all, just some middle-aged man with spiked hair and a hopeless frown. He starts to walk towards me, shouting, “Young lady, young lady!” I pick up my pace away from him — past sex stores, Chinese restaurants, meat shops with naked chickens slapping against windows. Then, I stop. I stop right where I am supposed to.

The sign above the store says “Yonge Street Tattoo,” and a smaller sign reads, “We make your dreams a reality.” White lights flash from all corners of the window, making me wonder if it's there at all. Is it just a mirage? I open the heavy door and go inside, my fingers numb to everything I touch.

“I want a tattoo,” I tell the man sitting behind a small desk smoking a cigarette. He's got fifteen earrings in each ear and even more in his nose, lip, and the little piece of skin between his eyebrows. A tattooed lion raises a claw at me from the top of his shaved head; colourful vines peek out from under his sleeves.

“How much 'ya got?” he asks. I pull the bills out of my pocket and lay them on the desk so he can count them. “Twenty, forty, hundred, two hundred bucks. That'll do.” He points to the diagrams of eagles, crosses, and skulls taped to the wall behind his head. “What do you want?”

“What do you recommend?”

“Depends. If you're religious, you could get Jesus on the cross. If you like animals, why not get a snake wrapped around your arm or curled up on the small of your back. Barbed wire is always attractive as well.” He takes a deep drag of his cigarette and puts it out into an ashtray filled with butts.

“I want to get someone's name. On my chest, here.”

“So, on your tit you mean?”

“No, here. Over my heart.” I lay my hand on the left side.

“Get on the table then.” I lie down on the cold silver table, which seems to be spinning in place.

“Does it matter that I'm a little drunk?”

“Nah, as long as you can stay still. Now, whose name do you want? A boyfriend's?”

“No, I want the name ‘Mari' – M-A-R-I – as pretty as you can make it.”

“Take off your shirt then.” I remove my blouse and pull my bra strap down off my shoulder. My nipples protrude through white cotton, but I'm not embarrassed. I'm feeling too much to feel anything. He uses a cotton swab to disinfect my skin and pulls out an electric needle from his drawer. “Black ink okay? It's all you can afford.”

“Aren't you going to draw an outline or anything?

“I prefer to go freehand. Now, just relax and it won't hurt too much.” The man leans over me on the table, red light sticking to his body, breathing the smell of nicotine smoke in my face. I close my eyes as the needle pricks me in and out. My ears feel like they are vibrating up and down, my whole body is swimming in invisible waves.

I think about my father with the straight pin and ink . . . pushing it in and out by his own hand.

“It hurts,” I tell him, even though my skin feels mostly numb.

“Just hold still.”

When he has finished the M and A, my guts start to churn. I put my hand on my stomach, roll to the side and throw up orange chunks onto the man's lap.