Silence and the Word (8 page)

Anjali didn’t look at her—she kept her eyes
fixed on the trail ahead, her feet steadily moving up the dirt
path, a hand occasionally reaching out to brush aside an errant
twig, festooned with bright red berries. “He hasn’t called me. He
doesn’t want to talk to me.” Anjali had come up here because she
wanted to get away from the city, from people—but this was part of
the city, too, these mountains.

Her students were always skipping classes to
come up here, to hike in the autumn and spring, to ski in the
winter. This city wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the valley it
sat in, sheltered by the Wasatch Mountains, bordered by the Great
Salt Lake. Sometimes when she had stayed up all night, unable to
sleep, Anjali would sit on her bed with her arms wrapped around her
knees and watch the sun rise over the high mountains, impossibly
beautiful, spreading gold light across the bright blue sky. For a
few minutes then, she could believe in God.

The pioneers coming across the desert had
thought they’d found the promised land—most had stopped here,
gladly, and only a few had continued on to California. What if they
had all continued, found the gentle coast and thrived there? Would
California be Mormon country now? Or would that prime coastal
property have attracted enough people that the poor Mormons would
have been wiped out? Maybe it was only their choice to build a city
in the desert that had let them survive at all.

Jessica sighed in visible exasperation. “Men
don’t know what they really want. You have to tell them.”

It was just like having an irritating little
sister who wouldn’t leave you in peace. All Anjali wanted was to be
left alone to find her own damnation. Was that too much to ask? She
turned to Jessica and said sharply, “If you know so much, why are
you here?” It was the forbidden question, the one her grandmother
would never have asked a ghost. Some great grief or anger, that was
what bound them to the earth. It was dangerous to probe into that;
an angry ghost could kill you. Anjali asked anyway. “Why aren’t you
with Matthew? Don’t Mormons get to go to heaven?”

Jessica stopped still in the middle of the
trail, her cheerful expression wiped away, her face blank and
stricken. “Good Mormons do.” Late afternoon sun shafted through the
trees, sliding right through her. She looked utterly
insubstantial.

“And you weren’t good?” Anjali knew the
answer—she was only twisting the knife. Though she was also
curious; what had this innocent young girl done that could be so
bad as to bar her from her heaven? Had jealousy risen up in her,
sending her to attack one of her sister-wives? Jessica might even
have killed one; there were many graves in that graveyard.

“I was wicked.” Jessica’s voice was quiet
now, matter-of-fact.

“What did you do?” Anjali pushed at it, like
pushing at a sore tooth, halfway hoping that it would simply fall
out and stop hurting. All she wanted was for it to stop
hurting.

“I killed my baby—and I killed myself.”
Jessica’s hands moved to cradle her stomach, protectively.

Anjali was startled; she’d assumed, from the
dates, that she knew what had likely happened. It could have been
illness, of course, or an accident, but so many young brides had
died in exactly the same way… . “You didn’t die in childbirth?”

“I didn’t want to be a mother—I wasn’t
ready.” Jessica’s voice grew louder, more distraught. “I loved him
so much, and I couldn’t believe he loved me back. He made the sun
rise for me.” She was trembling now, her blue skirt shaking as if
in a strong breeze. “I was never so happy as I was after I met him;
I didn’t know it was
possible
to be so happy. And then there
was the baby, who would want me to be its mother, to take care of
it and pay attention to it and turn into someone else. I’d seen
what happened, with my sister-wives. They forgot all about their
husbands; all they cared about were the babies. I didn’t want that,
don’t you understand? I just wanted to be with Matthew!” Jessica
shouted the last words, but she wasn’t substantial enough for
shouting—her words thinned, dissipated into the air.

Anjali sat down heavily on a fallen log, her
mind resolutely on the scratchiness of the bark, the small white
flowers bursting up from the ground. She didn’t know why she had
pushed the girl—didn’t even
want
to know all these details.
Didn’t want to imagine Jessica at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,
nineteen. Head over heels in love with her man, still little more
than a child herself and terrified of having a child. The poor,
stupid kid.

Jessica’s voice went quiet then, once again
matter-of-fact. “I mixed together everything we had in the kitchen,
and I drank it all down, but it didn’t make me sick enough. So when
we went to Brother Brigham’s house for dinner a few nights later, I
threw myself down the stairs, from the fairy window he built for
the children, all the way down.”

Anjali had been to the Beehive House, had
taken the tour and stood at the fairy window, looking down into the
front hall. She’d admired the extensive collection of books, so
impressive for a pioneer household, and had enjoyed the beautiful
French furniture, the elegant grand piano. She’d listened as the
missionary woman had shown them Brigham Young’s bedroom, and his
wife’s, and his children’s—never mentioning the other wives and
children who had lived in the Lion House next door. Anjali had felt
superior, listening to the whitewashed history, felt pleased that
she knew the real story. But that wasn’t the real story—this was.
The real story, the crazy things people did for love.

The girl was crying now, translucent ghost
tears. “I was just trying to lose the baby; other women did it! But
I did something wrong, and I broke my own neck. Everyone said it
was a tragic accident, such a shame, to have such a terrible thing
happen to a young, pregnant, godly wife.”

Anjali felt a stirring of anger, an emotion
she hadn’t felt since the day Neil left her, saying only that it
wasn’t working, that he needed to be alone, to have space. She’d
been furious for a little while, but the emotion had dissolved into
grief, and then numbness. The anger was back now, warming her
chest, clenching her hands into fists. How many years had this poor
girl been walking in this cemetery, these mountains, the
sanctimonious city, suffering for a single mistake? “For that, your
God would condemn you to be a ghost forever?” Could people really
love a god that cruel?

Jessica shook her head, wrapping her arms
tightly around her body. “No—no, you don’t understand. I could
leave here anytime; I could be resurrected, and my spirit united
with my body. You mustn’t blame God for my sin.” She was earnest,
pleading. After all these years, she maintained her faith.

“So why don’t you go?” Anjali felt
bewildered. If you were married in the Mormon church, you were
supposed to be married forever. Why hadn’t Jessica flown to rejoin
her beloved husband?

Jessica hesitated a long moment, her eyes
wide and haunted. Then she said, quickly and quietly—”I did such a
terrible thing. What if he doesn’t love me anymore?” And she’d gone
again, dissolved, leaving emptiness behind her, and a faint
chill.

Anjali wondered if she’d ever see her ghost
again.

When she came home, the phone was ringing.
She let it ring, and ring, until finally it stopped. Anjali made
herself some dinner, chicken curry over rice, and forced herself to
eat it. She’d always loved food, but ever since the breakup, it had
tasted like dust to her. She drank a big glass of water, put the
leftovers away, washed the dishes. And then, when there was nothing
else to do, she picked up the phone, called voicemail, listened to
the message. Maybe all her recent contact with a ghost had given
her some ESP—although he hadn’t called for weeks, she knew who it
had to be, and knew what he would say.

Neil wanted to see her. He thought he might
have made a big mistake.

No, really? Anjali could almost laugh,
listening to that message.

She listened to the message over and over,
just pressing the number one on the phone, not letting it get to
the end. She knew that if she stopped listening, she’d have to
decide what to do next. But there was only so long you could hold a
phone to your ear before your hand started to go numb, especially
if you were gripping it too tightly. Anjali deleted the message and
hung up—then picked the phone up again and called him.

She didn’t know what she was going to say
until Neil answered, but as soon as she heard his voice, she knew.
Maybe she always had, and was just waiting for him to figure it
out. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d hurt her, that it had taken
him a year to figure out what he wanted. It didn’t matter that her
friends would think she was nuts, and his probably would too—it
didn’t even matter that Neil was still scared, and unsure, just
like she was. They had no guarantees; there weren’t any. Jessica
was nineteen, too young to know that it didn’t matter if you were
scared. You just tried, and kept trying, even when anyone with any
sense would have given up and walked away.

Anjali told him to come, to take the next
flight in. She’d be waiting upstairs, and he should just let
himself in.

Anjali never did see Jessica again. Sometimes
she and Neil would take walks in the cemetery, in the evening, and
she’d look, under the pines—but there was nothing. Maybe Jessica
just didn’t want to talk to her, but Anjali hoped that there was
another explanation. That once the girl had said the words out
loud, had said what she was so afraid of, that she might have found
the courage to face her fears, to go on and find out what awaited.
To find the man who made the sun rise in her sky, and learn if he
still loved her.

Even after all those years, that would be
worth waiting for.

It’s dark again, and we have searched for
quite

some time for that still center, that
space

where you and I can co-exist. Your face

these days is hard to bear, your eyes so
bright…

I’ve filled my room with candles, to keep the
night

away. I’ll step to a more measured pace;

resist the fruitless urge to simply race

in spinning endless circles, locked in
might-

have-beens. Speed will not save us. So
brace

yourself—it’s time to slow things down. Hold
tight

to what you know. The fragile tree of
light

you gave to me—the still and shining lace

of silver branches, falling glass. Its
slight

geometry holds something true, and right.

folding your socks

to insert into a plastic tray

a sock-organizer

I purchased

an item

you will never use

it is partly compulsion

a distaste for disorder

the same urge that leads me

to alphabetize

your fiction

it is partly a pledge

a hope

a desire

that I will be here

folding your socks

when you return

from Zurich

and after

My brother’s wedding day. The feasting lasted
long past dark, and I went to bed exhausted. I first peeled off my
sweat-soaked sari, rinsing my body with cool well water before
changing into the white sari I wore to sleep. The old women had
consulted the horoscopes of my brother and his young bride, had
pronounced that this day, in this month, would be luckiest, in fact
the only day that would not bring down a thousand curses on the
young couple — never mind that it was also one of the hottest days
of the year. There was no flesh left on the old women’s bones,
nothing that could drip sweat; I am sure they enjoyed making the
young ones miserable.

I thought that for once, I would be able to
sleep. I’d been allowed a little of my father’s whiskey, to
celebrate Suneel’s wedding; I had danced with the other unmarried
girls. My sisters’ friends giggled and preened as they danced,
flashing their dark eyes and slim brown bellies at the young men
who lounged by the door, drinking. I just danced; I had no interest
in catching a man. Not that any would have spared a glance for me,
too-tall, dark Medha with coarse hair and flat chest. I danced for
myself, not for them. I danced until my feet were aching, until my
arms and legs were lead weights. I danced until Suneel and his
lovely Sushila were escorted to his bedroom, until the last piece
of rich wedding cake was eaten, and the last guest had gone. Only
then did I bathe and change, only then did I lie down on my bamboo
mat, a few feet from my peacefully sleeping sisters. And still I
could not sleep.

It might have been the heat. Our house is
near the ocean, and usually cool breezes fill the small rooms, but
that night it was so hot that it was hard to breathe. I kept
thinking it would get cooler, but instead it got hotter and hotter.
Sweat dripped in uncomfortable trickles from my neck to my throat,
from my breasts to the hollow between them, pooling in my navel. My
mouth was dry as dead leaves, and I finally rose to get some
water.

The house was silent. I left my sisters
sleeping, passed my parents’ room, and my brother’s. I passed the
main room, where dying flowers and bits of colored foil testified
to the day’s happy event, and finally entered my mother’s huge
kitchen. We weren’t rich, but we did have one of the largest houses
in the village. We needed it; I was the youngest of eight, and
cooking enough food for all us took many hands and pots in the
kitchen. The moonlight streamed in the window, illuminating the
rickety table where my mother chopped, the baskets of onions and
garlic and ginger and chilies, the pitcher of water that was always
kept filled. It was one of my mother’s rules — if you drank from
the pitcher, you refilled it from the well. With five daughters and
three sons, she needed many rules to keep peace in the house. Not
that we always obeyed them.