What Lies Between Us Read online

  A sound, an eerie hum like static electricity buzzes in my ears, a dizzying sense of the world’s getting bigger and bigger while I have no footing or purchase in it. I stumble around the darkened upstairs, where the relatives do not venture. I stare at the walls, at all the things in this house that are no longer familiar. The mirrors look like pools of dark water. If I touch the surface of one with the tip of a finger, the flatness will undulate and open and suck me under until nothing is left but a flurry of silver bubbles bursting to the surface.

  Here is the wedding photo. Sita must have moved it out of their bedroom. The cobwebbed creases stand raised and white as lightning, slashing my father and mother in a thousand different ways.

  * * *

  In the living room the dogs lie with their heads between their paws, refusing to eat, refusing to get up. When the coffin is brought to the house Judy finally stands, the fur rising like quills on her ruff. She points her snout to the sky and howls. She has never made this sound before. It makes the small hairs all over my body alert, makes my internal organs cold. My mother raises her brittle face to say, “Shut that damn dog up. People will think we are killing it.” But we don’t need to kill Judy because she is killing herself. I try to coax her to eat. I put the plate of rice and meat that my father has always fed his dogs in front of her, but she ignores it. I sit on the floor and mix the food into fist-size balls, hold them before her grizzled snout. She turns her head away. She lies there, pure misery in her eyes, a broken heart, her ribs suddenly visible. I lie on the floor with her and put my arms around her and my head against her chest. I hear the breath coming in great gasping sighs, the wheeze of her lungs.

  We mourn together. She had been my father’s creature so purely. Without him, there is no more reason for her. The next day is the funeral. When I wake in the morning, Judy is gone. “She died in the night,” Sita says, her hand soft on my shoulder. Now only Punch follows at my heels.

  * * *

  I stand with my arms raised over my head, not daring to move as Amma tucks and pins the swirling white fabric around me. I try to keep as still as possible because her hands are trembling. She is trying hard to contain herself, and also we are in a rush because the car is coming for us and already we are late. When the safety pin jabs hard into my hip, I gasp as the blood splotches and spreads quickly on the white sari. She sits on the bed, holds her face in her hand, says, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, my girl. I’m so sorry.” But there is no time. She stares at the bloodstain spreading at my hip. The white is ruined. She pulls saris out of the almirah onto the bed, shaking her head, discarding each one. “No, no, no! What are you going to wear?” She has no other white mourning sari. “This one,” she says. “It’ll have to do. It’s a little pink. Never mind. It’ll do.” Later at the funeral I feel the eyes of the relatives sliding up and down me, taking in the pink blush of my sari.

  I catch fragments: “The father’s funeral and the daughter is wearing pink? Really? What do they think this is? A wedding?” I feel the undercurrents of shock and outrage, backs turned to us by everyone—the relatives, my father’s colleagues at the university, his young students bereaved at the loss of their favorite professor. Very subtly, even as we are encased in the “So sad, so sorry for your loss, such a tragedy,” in the long line of condolences, we are minute by minute becoming outcasts, the strands that have held us firmly in place being cut one by one.

  Earlier the funeral director had come to the house and said, “He won’t look like he did in life. He will look very different. There was a lot of … damage. It is better to remember him as he was before. It’s better that you don’t see him.” And my mother had acquiesced. So he lies inside a closed casket, around it wreaths of lilies and orchids, which send their perfume drifting into the air.

  They slide him into the crematory fire. It will take hours, they say, until the fire reduces him to a pile of ash, and then more hours until he is cooled down enough to take home. We wait, and when the attendant hands my mother the urn, her face is startled. “It’s still warm,” she says in wonder. “Yes, madam, this is how it is.” My mother places the urn at her hip, reaches out her hand for mine, and we leave this place together.

  * * *

  This is what it feels like: we had all been on a train traveling together toward an unknown destination on a trip that stretched into the far reaches of time. And then abruptly and without warning, my father had stepped off that train. He had simply gotten off the ride, with no forewarning or explanation. He left us to plunge forward into the future with no sense of direction or purpose.

  I refuse to go back to school. There will be so much whispering behind my back, so many questioning looks. I won’t be able to stand it. We have a girl with divorced parents in our class; she lives alone with her mother and no one has ever let her forget how different she is from the rest of us. My own othering will be worse. Forever I will be that tragic girl whose father drowned during the monsoon season. I will be a reminder of bad luck, inauspicious omens. All those limes cut over me by the Hindu monk, they have not kept away misfortune. This is a place where people do not forget or forgive bad luck easily.

  I wander the house and the garden, Punch at my heels, he too looking lost and bewildered. I sit by the river and stare into the rushing water. I imagine my father’s body falling. An accident, they say. The storm had been so fierce, he had not seen the river; he had fallen in from the bank. But I know that’s not how it happened. When the monsoon comes as it does every afternoon, I sit at my window and watch water punishing the world.

  The policemen look for Samson. They want to question him about that night but can find no sign of him. I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes I hear him creeping up the stairs, coming for me. No one knows if he has run away or is hiding somewhere, waiting. Sita brings plates of food to my room; she sits by my bed and mixes it with her hand, feeds me. I can see that she too has not slept properly in weeks. The three of us have become gaunt female ghosts mourning our lost men.

  * * *

  My mother stares out of the window at the river. She puts her hand on the glass as if beseeching what is outside to come in. Her voice is ragged. “Why did he have to go out? I begged him not to.”

  I don’t say anything. I stay very, very still. I know what she is thinking even if she never says the words. This is all my fault. She’s lost him because of me.

  Inside me, the dark waterweed stirs.

  * * *

  After the funeral, people come. Every tangled, twisted branch of the family, every far-flung relative, every department head and professor my father has taught with over the years comes.

  They sit on our couches. Sita brings out sandwiches on a silver multitiered stand, cakes, a pot of freshly brewed tea with the smaller containers for milk and sugar, all the familiar paraphernalia. They sit and look at us with shrewd eyes and say, “He was so strong, no? Such a good swimmer. How is it possible?”

  The men say, “Yes men, I was with him at university. He swam like a fish.” Suspicion rises like clouds from them. My mother and I have crossed an invisible threshold. We are marked by worse than accidental drowning; we are marked by scandal.

  After they leave, Amma cries, “What do they think? That I held his head under the water until he died? What the hell is the matter with people? It was an accident. He fell … in the rain. It was raining so hard. What the hell do they think happened?”

  I sit next to her, rubbing her back, handing her my own hankie, hoping she does not turn to look into my eyes. We do not say the words we are thinking: suicide, murder. We lock these words in the boxes in our chests.

  She turns to me wide-eyed and says, “Oh my god, your birthday.”

  I say, “It’s okay, Amma.”

  She says, “Are you sure? Shall we have a cake?”

  I shake my head fiercely. “No, really. It’s okay. I don’t want anything.”

  She looks at me even more closely, and maybe seeing that I am not lyin
g, that I really don’t want to be looked at or seen, she relents. She says, “Okay, but next year, I promise. A big, beautiful cake with roses on it. A party. Everyone will forget all this by then. Everything will be normal again. I’m sure.” She looks anything but sure, but I nod my head. I know I am the mother now and she is the little girl. I fold her into my arms and let her cry against my small bony chest.

  * * *

  They come in their large rented car, the driver waiting outside. My mother’s sister, my aunt Mallini, who left the island a decade ago with her husband, my uncle Sarath, and their daughter Dharshi, who is just six months older than me. Names I have associated with boxes sent from America, magazines and shorts, precious things.

  Aunty Mallini is tall and dark, where my mother is small and fair. No one would ever think they are sisters. But now she is kissing my mother on both cheeks, holding her tight, and my mother is hugging her back. Uncle Sarath wraps his arms around both of them and they stand there for long moments, cocooning her while my mother’s shoulders shake. I have never seen her accept affection like this. I realize that these are people she has missed desperately. People I don’t even remember. I feel a stab of envy. These are people who have known my mother before I was born.

  They turn to me, opening up their little circle, and Aunty Mallini says, “My god, what a long time it’s been. Look at you. You were only a little one last time I saw you. You and Dharshi. Both of you so small when we left.” She turns to include the girl, says, “This is your cousin Dharshi.” We look each other up and down. She is tiny, coming up to my shoulder. I had thought Americans were large, taking up more space than everyone else. But nothing is big on this girl except her coal eyes. Her hair swings loose to her denim shorts, which have frayed white edges just like the ones she sent me. Her toenails are painted a violent pink. I’m profoundly aware of my calf-length skirt, the baggy T-shirt I’m hiding in, my hair parted in the middle and tightly braided.

  I say shyly, “Thank you for the magazines.”

  She nods.

  We regard each other warily and my mother says, “Why don’t you take her around the garden?”

  She follows me as I show her the various landmarks of my childhood: the river, the hibiscus, the ponds and fish, the well in its overgrown corner. She looks at each politely. At the well she leans over the side says, “Oh my god! It’s so deep. What if someone fell in?”

  I say, “No one has fallen.”

  Our old dog comes up to lick her hand.

  I say, “This is Punch. Judy died.”

  “Oh. Like the puppets?”

  I had not expected her to know this. I nod.

  She says, “Do you have MTV here? What do you do for fun?” And then looking at me from the corner of her eye: “My mother says you’re coming to America with us.”

  I stare at her and ask, “What is MTV?”

  * * *

  Inside the house our parents are talking. We stand outside the dining room listening, some complicity binding us to silence.

  Aunty Mallini’s voice says, “You must be careful. People will talk. They’ll say things.”

  “What things?” I can picture Amma plucking at the edges of her dress.

  “Things … you know how people are.”

  “What things?”

  “About how strange it is that he drowned. They’ll ask what he was doing out at night by the river. It just doesn’t make sense, you know. It’s not me. I’m just saying what people are saying. And you have to be careful. You have a young girl. People have long memories here. They will remember when it’s time for the girl to marry.”

  My mother says, “What does it matter?”

  “It matters a hell of a lot. You want the girl to make a proper marriage, don’t you? It’ll be hard with this hanging over her head. And also how will you support yourself? You’ve never worked a day in your life.”

  Uncle Sarath breaks in, his voice practical. “Think about it. Very soon his relatives will come. They will want the house back. You don’t think they will let you keep their ancestral house, do you?”

  Amma makes a wounded sound. She knows this is true. Already the relatives are flapping around like vultures sniffing carrion. They want their house. They will get it back by legal or illegal means. Either way there will be a fight.

  Aunty Mallini says, “What we are trying to say is that we think you should come with us. To America. We can sponsor you. The business is growing. It’s only a small agency now, but everyone there has to fly home, and they all buy their tickets from us. You can stay with us, work with us. Until you get on your feet.”

  My mother says nothing. Aunty Mallini continues, “It’s the best thing to do. You’ll be able to give the girl a proper education. Nothing’s happening here. Between the army and the Tigers, anyway, this country is ruined. Better pack up now and come with us.”

  Next to me Dharshi grins, whispers, “See, I told you we’ve come to take you away.” As if they were rescuing us. Airlifting us from our devastated lives into some new and exhilarating reality.

  * * *

  Amma comes into my room as I’m falling asleep. She sits on the bed and talks about things that don’t matter for a while. I wait and then she says, “Darling, listen. Aunty Mallini and Uncle Sarath, they think we should move to America. Live there for some time. Stay with them. What do you think? Shall we do this?”

  In the last few hours I’ve thought about what to tell her when she asks me. I’ve thought about my father falling through air, about him getting off the train while we travel onward into the unknown future. I’ve thought about the small urn that held his ashes before Amma took me by the hand and we went down to the riverbank and let the water claim again what it had already taken. I can barely look at the river without imagining the waters closing over my father’s head, without reeling with guilt. Everything that has happened is my fault. Everything in this place knows it. The monsoon, the river, the trees—all the nonspeaking witnesses, they know who my father’s true murderer is.

  And beyond all this, Samson. He may be anywhere, hiding, waiting. When I let my guard down, he will come, and then I know his punishment will be cruel.

  I say, “Yes, Amma, I think we should go.”

  “Really?” She has not expected this.

  “Yes. Otherwise if we stay, people will keep saying things. If we go, at least we’ll be with family.” It’s the right thing to say. Her sister is the only family my mother has known. I saw it in the way they embraced.

  She hugs me close, kisses me on the forehead. For a moment we clutch each other, panicked. Then she lets me go. I listen to her footsteps through the quiet house.

  By the end of that week, it is decided. We will go to them as soon as we can get the proper papers. A new life. It’s what we have to carve out now.

  * * *

  Months later, the house is returned to my father’s people and our bags are packed. Puime and her mother come, both of them with worried eyes. I haven’t seen them in a long time. I’ve stayed out of school, hidden in the house. Puime’s mother sits awkwardly at the edge of the couch while Amma pours tea and tries to make small talk. When my mother releases us to my room, Puime says, “Really? You’re going to go to America?”

  I nod.

  She comes close, tears suddenly welling in her eyes, “I’ll miss you … a lot.”

  I feel a squeezing in my throat and say, “I’ll miss you too. So much. I don’t know anyone there. I don’t know how they do things. Must be very different, I think…”

  My voice trails off and suddenly I am shaking. How can I do this? How can I leave everything known? How can I leave language and belonging and familiar faces, faces that look like mine? How can I leave this patch of earth that has been mine? Samson taught me once that the hydrangea blooms in a range of shades depending on the soil it sinks its roots into. From faintest pink to darkest night blue, the flower reflects the acidity of its patch of earth. How am I different? This person I am, will I be
killed in the transition across the planet? What new person will emerge in that other soil?

  Puime wipes her face, takes a deep breath, and says, “At least you’ll have the right clothes. Not like these old things.” She gestures to the school uniform she’s wearing and then her eyes get big, “Maybe you’ll see Duran Duran! My god. That could happen there.”

  I nod. I hadn’t thought of that. They are in America. I’m going there. I could actually see a concert. The thought makes my heart race. The idea of being somewhere new and bright and shiny. A place I have seen in my magazines for so long about to become real. Under the sadness, I feel a razor’s edge of excitement. I say, “Anyway, here, these are for you.” I point to a stack of books, folded clothes. Her eyes sparkle. “My god. All this for me?”

  “Yes. The jeans that you like, the strawberry-pink blouse. Lots of other things. I don’t think I’ll need them there.

  “I’ll keep them for you. For when you come back.” Her fervent words: “You will come back. I know you will. I’ll keep everything for you until then.” She hugs me tightly and fiercely and then bends to examine her new cache.

  * * *

  The night before we leave, Punch raises his snout to the sickle moon and howls for hours exactly as Judy had before. The sound of it rocks the house, echoes through the garden. He has never done this before; he had not joined Judy in her funeral lament. Now it is as if he knows exactly what the suitcases in the living room mean. He cannot be stopped; he is determined to give voice to what we cannot.

  I shut my door against him. I try to sleep one last night in my own known bed, but I toss and turn until dawn. At some point in that long night I dream that Sita comes into my room, sits on the edge of my bed, smooths my hair, and murmurs words of love and sadness. She will hand the house keys over to my father’s relations in a few days, and then she will make her final journey back to the village of her birth. She had expected to die in this house. I had expected to live here all my life. But none of our expectations are to be fulfilled. We have all been tossed up in the air like pieces of confetti.