I looked up at the milky suspension of the ceiling. Despite
the room’s darkness, sleep evaded me. “When is the right time to have a baby anyway? What if Devi, my headstrong, prideful child, went and impulsively put an end to the child within her?” I asked myself. “The ancient Upanishads speak of the soul moving on, like a caterpillar from one leaf to another, with ease, with insouciant grace. But my daughter’s child—this would be a soul I would never get to know—a child of my blood, my flesh,” I mourned. I was in a strange half-sleep, and the thought of my brother, Laub, returned unbidden to me.
I had never been able to talk to Seetha about Laub. She knew about my dead twin, of course, but did not know about Laub’s presence in my childhood. I thought with longing of that distant day at the university when I had walked into a world of swirling snow, the one magical day in adult life that Laub had made his presence known to me.
Where are you now, Laub
?
Have you grown older and tired too, like me?
I had always thought him slender and pale, shy. I was drifting towards sleep when the door slowly opened with a small squeak. Seetha, a very light sleeper, had stirred—so I could not have imagined the sound.
“Devi?” she mumbled thickly in her sleep.
Layers of darkness troubled my sight. It was not Devi. My heart lurched with joy. I could make out, even in the darkness, that slender shape, his pale indistinct face.
“Devi?” murmured Seetha, sitting up.
A sudden movement as the figure waved something shiny, and Seetha fell back against her pillow, as if banished back into sleep by a spell.
“Is that you, Laub . . .
is that you?
” I whispered, tense with love and longing.
Laub came right to me. In the gloom, he looked translucent.
For a frozen instant, I remembered what Kalo Pir had once told me in that lost mosque.
Is it you, Laub,
I thought,
or is this the last angel who has come wearing our face?
Something glinted in the dark. There was a sharp sting across my face as I reached out with both hands.
“Laub . . .”
Then I felt a hand strike my chest.
Something entered, direct and shining, straight into my heart, connecting us inexorably. I fell back from where I had arisen.
For the past few nights I had fallen into ragged sleep, alone, struggling awake after one obstinate dream: I had been sleeping on a bed drenched with blood.
I had my appointment today. Lying in bed, drained of tears, I looked out the window at the bleak dawn. I put both my palms on my belly and imagined the fetus, its digits shaping, nails emerging like soft mother-of-pearl. I had a sudden clear vision of the child being formed out of my own intimate clay. Lying in my own warm bed, I thought of it growing cold later that day: the draining, the mortal cooling of its sac, its lifeblood failing.
I wrapped the blanket around myself, feeling frayed by lack of sleep, and stepped onto the deck, staring at the shadows under the rhododendron and saw the first hesitant light. Dawn was gathering, a tidal basin while a glitter of frost crinkled on the twigs and branches as I faltered, hugging myself.
The answer came to me, simple and lucid: The only blood relative I had left on this far continent was inside me, its intimate
existence like the tight-leafed protectiveness of the cold rhododendron. I made my choice that moment, for myself, with whatever clarity love brings. I took a long bath in warm water and the Kerala oils Ammu loved. I had a breakfast of local apples and Indian tea.
I went on a long walk along the sleepy edge of town, past the park, through the maple and pine woods that lay beyond the town, and turned back. Striding briskly now, my tiredness dropping away, I thought of my child within me. I felt momentarily comforted, but at this moment I felt full of things I needed to tell Baba, right away, things I desperately needed to ask Ammu. I remembered those times when Ammu and I would comb each other’s hair. Her head, with its cascade of dark hair elegantly streaked with gray, would rest on my shoulder. Baba would sometimes, in passing, put his hand on my hair, playfully mussing it. That had happened just two weeks ago, on Saturday. Sounds around me grew muffled, all colors blanched, and I thought I would fall, suddenly sick with grief. “Ammu, Baba, I’ve decided to keep my baby,” I whispered.
I would now have to form a world around us I could bear to live in. I had no idea when such another wave of grief would come and try to pull me under. I could see nothing, my eyes filling again with tears, no one in my life right now to hold me if I fell. Chitto-kaku and Kamala Auntie were away in India for a niece’s wedding. They would grieve in their loud Indian manner, weeping aloud, abandoning themselves to their mourning. I would have to comfort them and felt a reprieve that they were away for now. I needed time to myself, my grief a new wound, and I wondered how I might nurse and shield it from others, even from well-meant words.
As I walked back home through the deserted morning street, I noticed a squad car parked at the head of our cul-de-sac, the officer
dozing against the fogged window, one hand limp on the bottom of the steering wheel. Sent by Sheriff Zuloff to stand guard discreetly over the house, I supposed, although the yellow police tape had been removed. I went through our gate, but as I approached the porch, I noticed two feet sticking out. I felt wary, but the sneakers looked familiar. One more step, and I saw Neel slumped over his rucksack, fast asleep, and beside him an old-fashioned leather suitcase I had never seen in his room before. I shook him by his shoulder. He blinked up at me, then scrambled up and held me. “I am so—I . . .” he began to falter. “I heard . . .” I stood stiffly in his arms, listening to his torn breath. “I . . .” he started again, and then seemed to gather himself with effort. “Are you all right, Devi?”
“Am I?” I began, then blurted, “I am pregnant, Neel.” I looked at him carefully, noting his reaction.
A smile flickered and his eyes began to tear. “Oh Devi,” was all he said.
“Are you staying? There’s really no need to,” I said over my shoulder as I walked into the house. I did not yet trust myself not to cry. Needing to do something, I filled the coffeepot and turned on the stove then, opening cabinets, pretended to look for something. This kept Neel momentarily silent. I stared at all the rows of spices Baba had bought, including the black mustard seeds for our
ilish
, and the small jars of spices Ma used for her twice-a-year sambar and dosa. Slamming the cabinets, I stood at the window, suddenly dazzled by the brilliance of the day. The coffeepot began to boil.
“Devi,” Neel began, “when I heard what had happened . . .”and stopped, his voice cracking. He fell silent, for something else had distracted him.
When I turned, I saw he had seen the crumpled piece of paper I had smoothed on the kitchen island. My hospital appointment, and the name of the procedure. I could see this new shock slowly registering on his face. Neel could barely speak in his distress. I looked at him as if he were a stranger trying to convey something from an impossible distance.
“D-devi,” he stammered, “we . . .”
I removed the coffeepot. “Milk, sugar, black?” I asked him briskly, although I knew he liked it black and sweet. I felt oddly detached from it all, the streaming light, the steam curling from the kettle on its trivet, the dishes in the sink. Neel’s mouth opened and closed. He said something, but my world was muted. I bent to pour the coffee. He was shaking his head slowly, his eyes closed. Like a child, I thought, like a child who cannot tell if he is lost. He moved toward me, leaning on the counter, and cried out sharply in pain.
Neel held his hand up—he had leaned his open palm on the still-hot burner where the coffeepot had been. I reached quickly and turned on the cold water in the sink. “Put your hand there,” I said impatiently.
“No,” said Neel, his face pale, his eyes angry and stubborn. “No.”
“Suit yourself, but you’ll get a blister,” I told him.
“No,” said Neel again.
“It’s your hand,” I said. “Do what you want.”
“It’s our baby,” he said. His palm was an angry red as he held it out toward me, a supplicant. I took him by his wrist and put his hand under the tap. He let me do as I pleased with his hand, as if he had given it away.
“There is already so much death,” he said, his face buried in
my disheveled morning hair. I could hear him draw his breath, smelling my hair. He loved to do that after we made love. He held me carefully, on a headland canting toward perilous water. “Don’t you feel any love for our child?” he said.
But you don’t know what I’ve already decided
, I wanted to blurt out. Tears were streaming down his face, while his hand, a seared red, dripped water on the kitchen tiles. “It’s what I don’t want you to do,” he pleaded.
“What do you think I’m going to do?” I asked him, wondering if I should get him some of Ammu’s calamine to put on his palm.
“I love you, Devi,” Neel said simply. With a sudden force, Baba’s words at the dinner table, perhaps his last words to me, hit me. I was choking.
“What?” I said, completely taken aback. He had never said this before.
“I love you,” he whispered, “Does my saying the words make it more real? Don’t you already know, clear as light?”
I tried to calm myself, wiping my hands on a kitchen towel. “I have already decided to keep my baby.” But I said it so softly he did not hear me in his frantic search for words.
“Do you actually want me to go down on my knees?” he said awkwardly. What was he asking of me, I thought in panic. “Will you—” he started.
“Stop, Neel,” I said, demanding a moment of stillness.
All the events and decisions of my life seemed to be gathering, heaped one on the other, jostling at this narrow isthmus of the present.
I want to understand, weighing each piece, part by part,
I thought, clutching the table. I looked away, outside the kitchen window, and saw a man smoking a pipe under the horse chestnut in the backyard. I would use this excuse to get away for a moment. I needed the time to collect myself.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Neel, leaving him kneeling on the tiles, looking up at me as if I were losing my mind.
“I’m going to talk to that plainclothes cop. I’ll have him leave now and go back to Chief Zuloff. I don’t need anyone to watch over me,” I rehearsed as I rushed outside.
The garden was sparkling, and the light caught a glint of red in the man’s gray hair. His face, lean and lined, was clean-shaven and reminded me of the knight in my favorite film, the one in which he plays chess with cowled Death by a rocky coast. I could not remember having seen this policeman before.
“You can leave now,” I said firmly as I came up to him. “There is no need for you to stay here anymore.”
“I am very saddened by what happened,” he said quietly. I nodded, slowed before his poise.
“You can go back,” I continued. “I can call Sheriff Zuloff if you want.” Up close, he looked too old to be a cop.
“Ami Neel’er Dadu,” said the man, putting away his pipe.
“What?” I said in confusion, searching his face, “What are you saying?” Then I understood, in a rush. He had spoken to me in Bengali.
I am Neel’s grandfather
. I leaned against the bark of the horse chestnut. I needed that firm trunk, its steady presence.
“Mr. Aherne, the letter you wrote to Neel. After Ireland,” I said stiffly. “Well, I . . . I read it.” He nodded, but said nothing.
“I’ll tell you right now. I am pregnant,” I added, leaning against the bark. “I just told Neel, who did not know.” My teeth were clenched, my hands clasped tightly about myself. I interrupted him as he made to speak, “He’s inside. He’s free to go.”
He said nothing, but held out his arms and folded me into himself. He somehow understood that I needed him to know the worst about myself. I wanted him to dislike me immediately, so that our
interaction would end abruptly and soon. My defiance was my only, frail weapon.
“Neel blistered his palm,” I mumbled.
“Yes,” he said simply. He touched my hair with his fingers, and I sensed that he did that when Neel needed to be comforted. I clung to him, my head burrowing into his chest, trembling, and he held me, providing me that small important space to stand on.
When at last I let him go and stood at arm’s length, I had stopped shaking. I led him inside to my father’s shuttered study, off the living room. I curled up on the sofa, hugging my knees as I used to, while chatting with Baba. Mr. Aherne turned his head when he heard Neel in the kitchen.
“He’s got off his knees. He must be making coffee,” I said softly, just to him.
“Knees?” he said, “Ah, he had the good sense to propose, did he?”
“I don’t think I let him get to it,” I said, smiling at last.
“I don’t suppose you’d let his grandfather complete his job for him?” he said, his face breaking into a grin. I was struck by how natural it looked, for his lined face in repose was full of inwardness, meditative.
“Are you surprised?” I asked him, suddenly full of confidences. “Oh—and I took you for a plainclothes cop.”
“Should I be?” he tilted his head. “And incidentally, many years ago, I used to be a policeman, in plainclothes, when the British ruled India.”
“I wonder what Neel is up to. Let me get us some coffee,” I said.
When I went into the kitchen, I found that Neel had managed to wind a moist napkin around his palm. He had also set a pot of
coffee on Ma’s favorite tray from India, with three mismatched mugs on it. He had reached the limits of his efficiency.
“Devi, will you,” he began again uncertainly, standing in the middle of the kitchen, “will you marry me? I can’t kneel, holding this tray and all.”
“Yes, Neel, I might,” I said, “oh, but please don’t kneel. You’ll just tip the coffeepot and scald the other hand!”
We came into the study together, where Neel set down the tray, wincing as he flexed his palm. He went to raise the blinds. Light pooled into the book-lined room. As our eyes met again, I could not help smiling, our different pains set aside.
I will
, I mouthed the words. He read my lips, and came over to kiss me.