Serving Crazy With Curry (6 page)

Devi turned her head away from her mother and closed her eyes again.

“Oh, I am sorry,” Saroj said immediately, guiltily. “I love you so much, Devi. The next time she wakes up, Avi, I will tell her how much I love her, how much I … the next time she wakes up … I promise …”

It is tiresome to see the ceiling at all times when your eyes are open. Even when you're alive, it makes you feel like maybe, you are not. But you know that you are alive and that the feeling of lifelessness is just a farce and that's when the tiresome part comes in.

Devi was tired of staring at the white crisp ceiling, the white crisp walls, the white-white-white everything of the hospital room.

She wanted to get up and around. Pop by and see who was in the room next door. Was anyone else here who attempted what she had? And how did that person feel? Guilty cheated, desperate, angry?

As if lying there and having to put up with every member of her family was not bad enough, it really bothered her to have to talk to a psychiatrist. It was for her own good, her father told her as he explained why she needed to see a shrink. She wasn't exactly stupid and had watched enough
ER
to know that they wouldn't just release her into the general population before ensuring she was of sound mind and body.

It didn't make her resentment for the psychiatrist any less. She didn't want to be psychoanalyzed and she didn't want to give anyone any explanations.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Mara Berkley began after she introduced herself.

Devi shrugged. How did she think she felt? Her wrists were sore, her head hurt, and her mother had not left her side for almost three days.

“Devi, I understand that as a child, you used to stop speaking during difficult times,” said the doctor and waited to see Devi's expression.

Devi felt betrayed by her family. They'd told this woman, a stranger, about her life; it seemed like a violation. She didn't know if any of her emotions flickered on her face but the doctor continued even more soothingly, “Devi, it's important you let me know what happened so that I can help you. If you're uncomfortable speaking, would you write me a note?”

She spoke slowly, in a soft voice, and Devi felt ridiculous lying down, unable to respond. Write a note? Why? Devi wondered. It wasn't like she'd lost the ability to use her vocal cords, she just didn't have anything to say. How would a note change that? Would writing a note somehow give her the words it would take to tell the truth?

Devi shook her head, frustration welling in her eyes.

“So, you don't want to write a note?” Dr. Berkley asked again and when Devi shook her head again, she nodded. “And that's all right. You don't have to if you don't want to.”

Her tone, her expression, took away some of the pressure Devi felt was being put on her.

“I understand if you don't want to say anything to me, but I strongly suggest that you keep a journal from now on. Maybe that will help you sort through your feelings,” the doctor recommended with a broad smile.

Devi nodded and then shook her head and then shrugged. Keeping a journal sounded too hokey and she didn't want to sort through her feelings, she just wanted to close her eyes and go to sleep.

“We have prescribed you an antidepressant, Celexa. It's new in the market, but very effective. It should take effect within the week and make you feel better.” Dr. Berkley spoke softly. “In rare cases there is nausea in the first couple weeks of use, are you having any?”

Devi shook her head again. She couldn't believe she was on some Prozac-type drug. An antidepressant! Good God, she shouldn't have to go through this, and she wouldn't if she had been able to stick to the plan and died. Anger bubbled within her again and she wanted to scream, she could feel the scream, the threads of it wind against her vocal cords demanding release. But she ground her teeth together, smothered the scream. For now, she didn't think she could stand to hear her own voice.

“Your parents want to take you home,” Dr. Berkley continued. “Do you want to go home with them?”

Now, that was a tough question. On one hand Devi didn't want to deal with her family; on the other, she had nowhere else to go. The town house seemed too bleak right now, and she was too ashamed to turn to any of her friends.

Because she couldn't truthfully answer Dr. Berkley's question, she shrugged, but it came out more as a nod.

“Are you still depressed?”

Devi bit her lower lip and then shook her head. There was anger within her, loads and loads of it, disappointment and resentment at being alive, but she when she looked within she didn't feel the same bone-numbing and soul-tearing sadness she'd felt just two days ago. It was unsettling for her to realize that a weight had been lifted.

She felt lighter than before and beneath the anger at being alive was also some relief that she wasn't dealing with death and whatever lay waiting beyond it.

“Do you still want to end your life?”

Devi stared at the doctor as the question sank in. She had no idea if she still wanted to die. She was coming to terms with living, how was she to deal with the idea of failing at death?

She shook her head.

“So, you want to live?”

Devi stared at the doctor again. The questions she was asking seemed reasonable but each one evoked a sense of helplessness within her, because there were no clear answers to these simple, reasonable questions. It should be easy for her to say,
Yes,
when someone asked her if she wanted to live, but something had happened, something terrible. She'd tried to kill herself and after that, the question of life was a difficult one to deal with.

“Do you?” the doctor prodded.

Devi nodded, unsure as to why she thought she wanted to live when all she wanted was to go back in time so she could lie in the bathtub again feeling the life seep out of her.

Dr. Berkley smiled.

“We'll meet tomorrow morning to discuss your discharge. The nurse will explain your charge plan to you. We can't release you on your own recognizance. That means you have to be with your parents. They will be responsible for you. I need to see you next week, so we will make that appointment as well. Do you agree to these conditions?”

Devi felt like she was listening to a judge speak in a courtroom scene of a movie. The words
recognizance
and
conditions
zipped around in her mind and she felt like a prisoner being allowed out on parole, if and only if she agreed to all the rules.

Devi nodded, putting some vigor into her nod. Just like a prisoner who desperately wanted parole, she needed to get out of this white hospital room.

“So, we'll talk next week, okay?” said Dr. Berkley, standing up. “Keep taking the Celexa regularly, and if you ever feel like talking,
give me a call.” She put her card on the bedside tray and patted Devi's hand where it lay on her stomach.

“Devi, we'll work together to help you stay alive and work through the difficulties that caused you to attempt suicide. You're healthy there's no permanent damage. I know you felt hopeless to change your life, but through therapy, we can help you find the strength to overcome whatever drove you to this,” the doctor said as she stood at the doorway, ready to step out of the white room, Devi's prison.

Devi nodded, though she couldn't imagine how therapy, whatever that meant (they were all quacks anyway, these so-called shrinks) could make it all okay. And what was this about no permanent damage? What about the permanent damage that was already done? Who would, who could, repair that?

When the doctor stepped out, Devi's shoulders slumped and the tension that had been building up in the past few minutes seeped out. She felt as if she'd been through a test and that maybe, just maybe, she passed.

Devi was partially correct. Dr. Mara Berkley was convinced her new patient was not going to attempt suicide again. Not as long as she took the prescribed drugs and met with the doctor regularly.

“She already seems quite alert,” she told Avi, Saroj, and Vasu. “Through her communications with me I feel that she's not at risk anymore. But she still needs to be watched, a relative or friend must be with her at all times for the next few days, until she comes to see me again. Make sure she takes the Celexa.”

“How long will she need to take the medicine?” Saroj asked, baffled to be speaking with a mental doctor. It was bad enough that Devi dragged them through the emergency room, but this, talking to a shrink, this was just nonsense. Her daughter was fine. All she needed was some homemade food and Hindi movies.

“About six to nine months. This is a process, Missus Veturi. We'll keep checking on her progress and based on how she's responding to therapy and the drugs we'll decide what to do next,” the doctor explained.

There was silence in the room and then Dr. Berkley cleared her throat.

“It's not common for a grown woman to stop speaking for days like this. Do you have any idea why she does this?” she asked.

“She does it once in a while,” Vasu said, “and it usually does not last more than a few days. She is just… difficult at times. Does not want to explain her actions and this one, this one will require a lot of explaining. Maybe that's why she has shut us off.”

“You said this started when she was ten years old?” When Avi nodded, the doctor continued, “Did anything happen to her? Anything bad? Was she hospitalized? Was there any previous psychiatric illness?”

“Nothing happened to her and she has never seen your type of doctor before,” Saroj cut in sharply and stood up from the purple sofa she was sitting on. “She stole a girl's money and broke that girl's nose. Instead of saying sorry and telling us why she did it, she stopped talking for a week. She is just spoiled and that is our fault, but
nothing
bad happened to her. I didn't drop her on her head as a baby or anything.” Anger made Saroj's Indian accent drip through the words, making part of what she said incomprehensible to the doctor.

“Calm down, Saroj,” Avi said and sighed. “We are all upset and tired. It has been a long three days.”

“Of course,” Dr. Berkley said, and then nodded, smiled, and made a gesture with her hand that told them the meeting was over. “So you'll bring her in next Friday at four in the afternoon? I have asked her to try to keep a journal. I think that might help open her up a little.”

Avi nodded and then shook hands with her. “Thank you.”

“What did you thank her for? She didn't do anything,” Saroj snapped at Avi as soon as they were out of Dr. Berkley's office. As he always did, Avi ignored Saroj and then went about getting his daughter out of the hospital.

Shobha grabbed her cell phone on the first ring. She was in an important meeting but as soon as she saw her father's cell number
flash, she didn't hesitate. For all her cockiness at the hospital the day before, fear had settled in her belly like heavy mud in water. She couldn't envisage a world without Devi, couldn't imagine a life without her. Even as she went through the motions of the day, in her mind she kept saying to herself that Devi would be okay and soon everything would revert to the way it used to be.

“Daddy?” she questioned automatically.

“The doctor said she's fine and we can take her home tonight. You and Girish should come for dinner.”

“You want us to stop by the Dhaba and pick up dinner?” asked Shobha. Girish and she had been bringing dinner over for the past two evenings.

“Your mother is cooking.
Samosas
and whatnot,” Avi said. Shobha could hear how tired he was.

“Well then, we'll show up with empty stomachs,” Shobha said as she relaxed. Devi was alive and well, she would be home tonight. Everything was already starting to go back to normal. Soon her stomach would stop churning and she wouldn't be able to smell the iron in Devi's blood anymore.

“Girish's car is in for servicing, so I'll pick him up after work and get to your place as soon as possible,” Shobha went on, ignoring the questioning looks of her staff, seated around a large half-circle table in a plush conference room.

“Is she well?” Shobha's senior engineer, Vladimir, asked after Shobha hung up.

“Yes,” Shobha said. She'd told her staff and her boss that her sister had been in a nasty accident when she'd had to suddenly leave an emergency meeting the Saturday of the “incident.” An explanation was necessary when they were in the middle of a major product launch designed to meet financial goals at the end of the quarter.

Damn Devi! She was always inconsiderate. If she had to do one of her fuckups, maybe she should've waited until after the end of the quarter.

Everyone left after the meeting but Vladimir stayed back. “You look tired,” he said, sounding concerned.

He was a godlike creature from Ukraine who had shown his interest in Shobha in a hundred different ways since she'd hired him
a year ago. Shobha couldn't deny the attraction on her part, either. When Girish ignored her, which was most of the time these days, she would fantasize about giving in to Vladimir. What if he took her right here, on the conference table?

Shobha clenched her thighs together under her sleek black skirt and smiled politely. “It has been a long week,” she said.

“You work too hard,” Vladimir said, stretching out. His jean-clad legs were long, and his polo shirt fit across his chest nicely. He was off the cover of one of those novels you walked past in the supermarket paperback book aisle.