And Laughter Fell From the Sky (22 page)

“I wonder how long it took them to do this,” Abhay said.

They walked around to the other side of the pavilion, where the ground sloped down and away. From this height they had a view of downtown Portland, and past the linear forms of the buildings in the distance, against the pale blue sky, floated the pale gray form of Mount Hood. “I love seeing this scene from the city,” Abhay said. “It looks like the mountain’s nearby when actually it’s about fifty miles away.”

Rasika took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The mountain was like a vision from heaven.

They continued along the paths, not looking at the few other visitors who walked past them. The garden was cool, green, tranquil, balanced. When they got to an arched bridge over a pond, Abhay said, “How about I take a picture of you? I can stand over there.” He pointed across the pond.

She turned in alarm. “Did you bring a camera?”

He shook his head. “No, I figured you had one, though.”

“I don’t want to have any record of this trip.”

He left her on the bridge and walked along the path until he was on the opposite side of the water. She saw him standing there, observing her. After a few moments, he motioned for her to join him, and she walked off the bridge and down the path toward him.

He picked up her hand and kissed the palm. “You were framed by this weeping willow, and you looked like a flower yourself, in your yellow sweater.”

They wandered under the trees, among the ferns. The path took them over a little creek. They stepped over and around the flowing water, balancing on the flat stones. Rasika squatted down and dabbled her fingers in the trickle. She wanted to stay here forever. They descended to a little hut enclosure with a bench, in a quiet, dark corner of the garden. They sat. No one else was within view. They looked out at the gray slender tree trunks among the layers of leaves in front of them, the light green of the maples, the darker pines beyond. Birds twittered and chirped. Water trickled over rocks somewhere nearby. From a distance came the dull roar of traffic.

She closed her eyes. “I wish it could always be like this.” She took a deep breath.

“It can.” He slid closer to her on the bench, and put his arm around her shoulders.

She opened her eyes. The sun peeked around the rim of the roof above them. Tomorrow at this time she’d be on a plane home. She needed to put herself back together, get herself into shape for her upcoming wedding. Since last night she had forgotten her goals. It was as if she’d forgotten to get dressed, and she hadn’t even cared. She needed to clothe herself again. She pushed Abhay away. “It wouldn’t be like this even if I lived here. I’d be stressed-out and my parents would be angry and I’d never be able to relax. Right now, no one knows I’m here. I’m hidden.”

They heard voices, and another couple emerged from the path. Abhay stood up. Rasika didn’t want to move, but she knew the other couple would want a moment of privacy. She pushed herself up, and her body felt heavy as she followed Abhay along the narrow path ahead.

They were back in the central area, near the little gift shop, which Rasika entered. Abhay followed and stood with his hands in his jacket pockets. After a few moments, he pushed open the door. “I’ll just be sitting on that bench. Take your time.”

Rasika picked up tea cups and pots, packets of origami paper, cherry blossom bath beads, enameled butterfly earrings, silk scarves, carp kites. She wanted to buy something to represent her tranquil time in this garden with Abhay. Finally, she settled on just one thing, which she paid for with two quarters. Its simplicity would remind her. She held it in her hand and walked out to where Abhay was sitting on the bench.

He rose. “You get anything?”

She opened her fingers and displayed a smooth black pebble on her palm. “They have these rocks all around the trees,” she explained. “I like them.”

He picked it up and rubbed it. “What’ll you do with just one?”

“When I look at it, I’ll think of Portland.” She took the pebble back.

“Why can’t you stay?” he asked gently. “If you like it so much.”

Her throat felt tight, but she refused to cry in public. It was too messy, too inelegant. She swallowed down her tears, blinked her eyes, and was able to look at him steadily. “I don’t know anyone here,” she said.

“You know me.”

She opened her mouth to respond, and then shut it. Instead she shook her head. “I can’t stay here because—” She couldn’t think of a reason. She stepped closer to Abhay, he opened his arms, and she leaned against him and gave way to her sobbing. She was still clutching her stone in one palm. She felt as if all the water of Portland—the river, the little creek here in the Japanese Garden—were all flowing through her, and she allowed herself to be swept along. She felt Abhay working, slowly, on untangling the strands of her hair. She heard footsteps coming through the entrance gate, and voices. It was all background noise, like the breeze through the branches.

Rasika managed to control her sobbing, and stepped away from Abhay’s embrace to find a tissue in her purse. She knew she looked terrible: wet face, mussed hair. At least she hadn’t put on any makeup this morning. As she was mopping her face, she was aware that some people had stopped to say hello to Abhay. She didn’t feel like being introduced to anyone, so she continued to pretend to rummage through her bag.

“Rasika,” Abhay called.

She ran her fingers through her hair and turned around. Standing next to Abhay were two pretty young women: one had long reddish hair, and the other, short brown hair. They were smiling at her with interest. She felt a jolt of jealousy. Abhay stepped over to Rasika, grasped her hand, and pulled her into the little triangle.

“Rasika, I want you to meet my friends, Kianga and Ellen.”

She managed, as graciously as possible, to shake hands with both of them. This is what she’d turn into if she stayed in Portland. She’d wear baggy, old clothes and wouldn’t bother with makeup or manicures.

Abhay was talking fast, filling in his friends on how he knew Rasika, and what they’d been doing in Portland.

“You should have told us you were having a friend visit,” Kianga said. “We could’ve had you over.”

Rasika said, “You didn’t tell me you had women friends in Portland.” She realized she was showing a lot of teeth when she smiled, the way her mother did when she was trying to hide negative feelings. “He pretends he works all the time.”

Kianga and Ellen both laughed. “He does work a lot,” Ellen agreed. “But he comes over pretty often.”

“By the way, can you come to my birthday party next Saturday?” Kianga asked Abhay. “I want to ask you about India. I’m leaving right after Thanksgiving.”

Rasika was shot through with jealousy. She knew it was completely irrational. Why should she care if two hippies happened to like Abhay, and if he happened to like them? In order to control her feelings, she excused herself, pulled her hand from Abhay’s, and walked away toward the gate. She stood sideways, half-looking at Abhay, and half at the driveway and trees outside the gate.

The two girls were saying their good-byes and Abhay was backing away from them, waving. The brown-haired one skipped over to him and pecked him on the cheek.

Rasika whipped her sunglasses out of her purse and shielded her eyes. She planted herself with her back to Abhay and crossed her arms over her chest. When he joined her, she felt him place a hand on her elbow. She shook him off.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She marched down the driveway.

“I mean—I hope you’re not jealous.”

“Of course not. Why would I be?”

“It seems like you’re angry.” He placed a hand on her lower back, and she elbowed him away. “They’re just some people I met. Nobody special. That’s why I didn’t even bother mentioning them.”

“I don’t know why you think I care.” She swept ahead of him down to the bus stop. When the bus arrived, she tucked herself into a corner of the seat and, still with her black lenses on, kept her face toward the window.

They got off the bus in front of a long white building with rows of windows. “Where are we?” she asked.

“I thought you might like to go shopping. This is a mall downtown.”

“You hate malls.”

“But you like them.” He reached for her hand, and she crossed her arms again. “I’m really, really sorry about what just happened.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

Inside the mall, she stopped in the bathroom, combed her hair, and gathered it into a ponytail. Then she wandered from floor to floor, from shop to shop. Thankfully, Abhay had planted himself on a bench on the first floor. On the top floor of the mall, she circumambulated the balcony and felt she was regaining herself. She consciously held herself tall as she walked. She didn’t purchase anything but drifted past the store windows, absorbing all the things she might want to buy once she was married.

Suddenly, she remembered her phone. She dug around in her purse, fished it out, and checked to see who’d called. Oh, god. Her mother, of course. Sixteen times. And Jill, three times. And even Benito. She speed-dialed her mother’s cell phone.

“Where have you been?” Amma demanded.

“Amma, I’m sorry. My phone got turned off. I didn’t realize it.”

“I called Jill. She kept telling me you were taking a shower. How many showers do you need?”

“Sorry, Amma.”

“I don’t know where you are, or what you are doing. Some man named Benito called the house. He seems very friendly with you. We have been giving you too much freedom to go and come as you please. At least you will be safely married soon. We will not have to control you anymore. That will be your husband’s responsibility, and what he will do—”

Rasika held the phone away from her ear for a moment. Then she shouted, “Amma, you’re breaking up. I can’t hear you.”

“Hello? Hello?” her mother shouted, very clearly.

“Amma, I can’t hear you. I’ll hang up now.” She pushed the “off” button and shoved the phone into her purse. She leaned back against the balcony railing and covered her face with her hands. She just wanted to disappear. Why did she think she could run away from her life? Her parents could always track her down. And why had she even bothered to visit Abhay? She didn’t want a life like Abhay’s. She didn’t care about him. Her jealousy of those two girls had jolted her back to reality. She had to go through with what she had planned. She had to make the whole thing work, because there was no real alternative, after all.

Outside the mall, as Abhay walked Rasika back to her hotel, he tried to reason with her. “It’s not like you think.”

“Abhay, it doesn’t matter.”

He persisted, “You don’t know what they’re like. They have all sorts of people living at their house, and I don’t even know who’s sleeping with who. It’s kind of strange.”

“I thought you liked that kind of thing—everyone living together and all that.”

“I don’t like sleeping around.”

“How do you know about the situation at their house? You must have participated.”

Abhay ran a finger over his upper lip. How was he going to get out of this? “We’re just friends. I mean—Kianga and I—we got together once, but she has a lot of other boyfriends.”

“I don’t want to know.” She covered her ears. “It’s none of my business.”

A saxophonist had set up on the street corner, with his case open in front of him. He was playing a bouncy rendition of “Good Morning, Heartache.”

Outside her hotel he said, “I’ll come by tomorrow to ride out to the airport with you.”

“Don’t bother.”

“I want to.”

She pulled open the glass door so hard it flew out of her hand. She rushed through without saying good-bye.

Early the next morning, Abhay hurried to her hotel. He saw as he strode down the hall to her room that the door was open. Inside, a uniformed maid was stripping the bed. He went down to the front desk and found that Rasika had checked out half an hour before.

Chapter 13

T
he day she left for India, Rasika’s face broke out in pimples. And not just one or two in inconspicuous places. She had two on her chin, three on her forehead, and one on the end of her nose.

Ever since her trip to Portland a month ago, Rasika had been on her best behavior at home. She hadn’t contacted Abhay at all, even though he’d e-mailed and called her several times. She’d come home right after work, had kept to a rigid schedule in terms of exercising, and had limited her caffeine intake. Just yesterday she’d gotten a manicure and pedicure, and had her arms and legs waxed. Why pimples? And why now?

Her mother was in such a rush that she didn’t notice them until they were on the plane to New York. “Since high school, you haven’t had pimples like this!” she said. “Don’t you have any cream?”

Rasika shook her head. When they got to the New York airport, her mother’s mission was to find some acne cream. She commanded Pramod to scour one corridor while she frantically inquired at stores along another corridor. No one carried any kind of acne cream. So her mother could do nothing but inspect Rasika’s face at frequent intervals. “Couldn’t you have waited until after the wedding?” As if Rasika had broken out on purpose.

They arrived in India after midnight, and after a short nap, Rasika woke up. She was sharing the bedroom with her cousin Mayuri, who worked nights at a call center.

Rasika sat up in bed. She knew her mother wanted her to have a good, long nap so she’d be fresh when Yuvan and his parents arrived that evening, but Rasika was wide awake. Her senses were alert and her heart was pounding, as though she were facing a grave danger. She put her hand over her heart to try to steady it, closed her eyes, and attempted to breathe calmness into herself.

In the evening, Rasika bathed and changed into a heavy silk sari in her mother’s family home. Only after she was dressed did she realize how ugly the sari was: wide stripes of black, olive green, and maroon, with a gold border. “Mridula Auntie has given you this sari,” Amma said. Mridula Auntie was Rasika’s aunt—her mother’s younger sister—and also she was Yuvan’s aunt. She was the one who had originally sent Yuvan’s information to them.

Mridula Auntie smeared Rasika’s face with foundation cream, and patted on some powder, which was the wrong shade—far too light.

Rasika’s grandmother, who was still tall and graceful, appeared in the doorway. “Ayyo, why are you putting so much on? You are hiding a beautiful face.”

“She has pimples.” Mridula Auntie kept working.

“The sari is not good,” Pati said. “She needs something delicate—not dark like that.”

“This is the latest style, Amma.” Mridula Auntie stepped back to examine Rasika, and adjusted the palloo of the sari over her blouse.

Rasika submitted to everything. She didn’t really care what she looked like.

When Yuvan and his parents arrived, Rasika was seated in the corner of the living room with the palloo of her sari wrapped demurely around her shoulders. She had always loved this elegant space of her mother’s family home. Because there were no brothers in the family, Mridula Auntie and her husband stayed here with Rasika’s grandparents. Mridula Auntie liked to look through magazines for decorating ideas. One wall of the long room was made up of glass doors, which could be opened to the courtyard to create extra entertaining space. The lightbulbs were covered with actual shades—unusual in Indian houses. The furniture was appropriate for a tropical Indian home: thick embroidered cushions placed on solid teak furniture. At that moment, however, Rasika did not much care about the beauty of this room.

She stood up and put her palms together in a namaskar to Yuvan’s mother, who had a friendly face. Then she turned to Yuvan’s father, and was startled. He was slim, with a thick head of graying hair. He was handsome. In fact, he looked like Kanchan Uncle. Of course, not exactly. His eyes seemed kinder, and he was shorter. Still, her heart began to race, and her throat felt dry. She could barely whisper, “Namaskar.”

Yuvan calmly shook her hand and seated himself next to her. He didn’t seem to notice her agitation. She took a few deep breaths to calm down. He spoke slowly and softly, in English, just as he had over the phone. His manner was very cultured and cool. He didn’t smile. He didn’t seem in awe of her beauty. Of course, she wasn’t much to look at today with her pimples and face powder and ugly sari. He asked her about the plane ride. “I’m sorry we had to insist on meeting you right away,” he said. “It’s just that you are here for only a short while.”

“It’s fine. I understand.” She tried to smile. Her face felt stiff and dry.

He clasped his hands on one knee, cleared his throat, and launched into a description of his career. He wanted to work on artificial intelligence. “The field is broad enough to keep me interested,” he said. “Cognitive science comprises not just computer science but also philosophy, linguistics, neurobiology, and other subjects. I tend to get bored of a single subject. And the career possibilities are very good.”

Her mother and Yuvan’s mother were chatting with animation, and Rasika was shocked to see Yuvan’s mother reach out and take Amma’s hand. Had things progressed so far? Maybe Yuvan’s mother was just naturally affectionate. Her father’s face was calm, and his hands were still as he sat next to Yuvan’s father. Pramod was talking to Yuvan’s brother, whose name she couldn’t remember.

Suddenly the electricity went out, and the room was plunged into darkness. “It is because of the road construction,” Mridula Auntie said. The elders were all speaking in Tamil.

“They are constructing an underpass for the new airport road,” Prabhu Uncle said. “Right on the next street. When I take my morning walk, I go that way and watch.”

“Every day, five or six times a day, they cut the current,” Pati said.

Mridula Auntie left the room and returned with two bright lanterns, one of which she placed right next to Rasika and Yuvan. Rasika didn’t even want to think about how she looked in the glare of the lantern.

“You do not have this problem in the U.S., I think,” Yuvan’s mother remarked.

“In the U.S., when the electricity goes out we don’t even know what to do,” Amma said. “We don’t even remember where we put our flashlights or candles.”

Amma and Mridula Auntie carried a lantern into the kitchen and came back with cups of juice and plates of crunchy murukkus. No one spoke for a long time. It was like eating in the beam of car headlights. Rasika tried to choke down some food. This was not how she’d pictured her first meeting with Mr. Right. She could hear him crunching and sipping next to her. He apparently didn’t feel the need to say anything, and she couldn’t think of what to say to him.

The next day, Yuvan was scheduled to take her out for lunch. This time she did her own makeup and chose a simple pale yellow tunic, embroidered all over with blue flowers, worn over matching yellow straight-legged pants. Yuvan arrived in an autorickshaw. Again, he was very polite. He made sure to say hello to her parents, and to sit in the living room chatting with the relatives for a few moments. Yet he was distant. He didn’t smile at her or look at her.

As they left the house he said, “There’s a fairly good restaurant nearby. We’ll walk. The traffic is very bad.” He didn’t seem to care what she would prefer.

Whenever she was out in a Bangalore street, Rasika felt the pollution depositing a layer of grime on her skin. Nevertheless, she had always loved this particular street, with tall trees on either side forming a green canopy. They strolled past the decorative gates of two-story middle-class houses whose courtyards overflowed with bushes and potted plants. The grinding of the machinery from the road construction nearby, combined with the usual traffic noise, made talking difficult.

The restaurant was nothing special—just a brightly lit, noisy neighborhood place. They entered the air-conditioned section and ordered different kinds of chaat, and when Yuvan received his plate of six tiny pooris filled with potatoes, he carefully lifted half of them onto her plate. Rasika normally loved crunchy, spicy chaat, with piquant tamarind and yogurt sauces, but today she didn’t have much appetite. She lifted her plate of bhel puri and spooned most of her puffed-rice-and-onion concoction onto his plate.

Yuvan seemed content to eat without speaking. Rasika couldn’t think of anything else she wanted to know about him. The table next to them was occupied by a love-struck young couple who stared into each other’s eyes. The young woman had a plate of mini pooris, and she was placing them, one by one, into the mouth of her beloved.

Desperate to break the silence, she pointed to the pimples on her chin. “My mother acted like I sprouted these on purpose.”

He raised his eyes from his plate. “Yes, I noticed you had a problem with your skin.”

For the first time, Rasika began to wonder if Yuvan might actually refuse to marry her, perhaps because she wasn’t beautiful enough. Her beauty was always the one thing she could be sure about. “I normally have very good skin,” she said.

“While you are in India, you should see an ayurvedic physician. Our mutual cousin, Mayuri, used to have the same trouble.”

Mayuri was Mridula Auntie’s daughter and Yuvan’s cousin.

“Her mother took her to an ayurvedic physician,” Yuvan continued, “and he prescribed a diet and some ointment. Her skin is quite clear now.”

Rasika felt humiliated to receive beauty advice from a man.

Yuvan seemed unaware of her discomfort. He pushed his plate away, leaned back in his chair, and began discussing American job possibilities. It became clear that, if they got married, they might not be able to remain in northeastern Ohio. He preferred a job that involved a lot of research, either at a university or a corporation, and it really depended on where the openings were. “I know you have a good job already, but I am sure it will be easy for you to find another one. You are in a flourishing field.”

By the time the saffron and pistachio ice creams arrived, Rasika felt thoroughly confused. She put her spoon down. Yuvan was socially adept, poised, handsome, and had the potential to make a good living. He didn’t talk too much, and he didn’t insist that she quit her job. Yet he was not terribly friendly. She hadn’t thought friendliness mattered all that much, but could she stand to be married to the perfect man if he didn’t love her or even like her very much?

She thought about Abhay, and how much fun they’d had together in Portland. He’d been calling her and sending her e-mails. She’d virtuously deleted all his messages without listening to or reading them. Now she pushed thoughts of him out of her mind. She was just going to have to steel herself and go through with this.

In mid-December, on his first morning in India, Abhay stepped out of the front bedroom of his father’s family home, stood under the portrait of his late grandfather hung above the front door, and eased open the metal bolts on the wooden door. He could hear murmuring in Kannada from the kitchen, but didn’t understand the language.

“Abhay? Where you are going?” His aunt yelled in English from the kitchen.

“Just for a walk.”

His aunt, a small, perpetually cheerful woman, hurried through the living room, holding a stainless steel bowl full of cilantro stems and leaves. “Why so early? Have coffee first.”

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“Don’t walk all by yourself. You may get lost. Stay and I will send Mahesh with you.”

Mahesh was Abhay’s cousin. “Thank you, but I’ll be okay. I just want to be alone.”

“Later on you must tell us where it is you want to go. Pondicherry, you said?”

“Auroville. It’s ten kilometers north of Pondicherry.”

“You can take bus from here straight to Pondicherry. Guru Uncle will book for you.”

“It’s okay. I can do it myself.”

“We will do for you.” She laughed. “For so many years you have not been here. We will take care of you now. Anyway, it is good you will be gone next week, because we are having the bore well drilled. It will be very noisy.”

“Bore well?” he asked. “So you’ll have a better water supply?”

“We are selling the house and land!” she said happily. “We will have eight apartments built. One is for us and your granny. Mahesh, when he marries, he will have one. Another will be for your parents when they come to India. The others will be rented out. For that we must have a bore well drilled.”

Abhay was stunned. He hadn’t realized his own relatives would be participating in the transformation of the neighborhood from single-family homes to apartments. “But it’s so cozy with everyone living in the same house!” he blurted out.

“It is cozy for the children, but it is difficult for women to share a kitchen. My daughter-in-law will want her own kitchen.”

Abhay was amused that Auntie was speaking of a daughter-in-law as though she already existed.

“We will still all be here in this compound. We are not going anywhere.” His aunt bustled away. “Guru!” she called as she entered a bedroom.

Abhay walked out the door, past the motor scooters parked between the house and compound wall, and unlatched the gate. There he turned back and stood, looking at the house. It was a typical Indian house—one story, with a flat roof and plaster walls. If his father hadn’t moved to the United States, this is probably where Abhay and Seema would have grown up. His father was the oldest son, who was expected to live in the family home and take care of his parents. But since he didn’t stay in India, the second son—Mahesh’s father—took on those duties instead.