Bodies in Motion (13 page)

His wife is angry with him, he knows. Velu is angry with her too. They both blame each other for what has happened, and he does not know, at this point, who has the truth of it. Perhaps it is both their faults, or neither's. In some ways, it is easier, having someone safe to blame.

Others are not safe to blame. Others can destroy you in a single moment, at night, with loud knocking at your flimsy door.

It would soon be dark—Velu needed to go now, before it got too dark, too late. Before he lost his nerve. He released his wife, and she stepped back. She followed him as he walked to the door, handed him a walking stick as he stepped out. Stood in the doorway, watching, as he walked down the path with strong steps, heading toward the road, then to the jungle.

In this, if nothing else, she would support him. Finally, they were united.

Massachusetts, 1979

SUNDAR WAKES UP HOURS BEFORE HIS FAMILY. THIS IS NORMAL, ALTHOUGH TODAY IS NOT NORMAL, TODAY IS A SPECIAL DAY. MOST
days he makes tea, reads the paper, eats some toast without butter before going to work at his store. Sushila, his wife, never wakes until after nine. She likes to stay up late, talking on the phone with her friends. When the children were younger, he was the one who woke them, who ironed their Catholic school uniforms and put out milk and cereal. But now the children are able to wake themselves, and only Kuyila, his youngest, still sleeps at home.

It is Kuyila's birthday today. Tonight all of their friends will gather to celebrate his youngest daughter's seventeenth birthday. She has just finished high school and plans to start at the local community college in the fall. Not as smart as her older sister, no. His sweet Kuyila will
never join Raji at Harvard. Just as well, considering what Raji is doing there, running around in public with white boys. It turns his stomach.

He drinks his tea, savoring the taste of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, with shreds of ginger so fierce and strong. He's tasted the tea in American stores—weak, sugary brews. Diluted, adulterated. Pathetic. His wife claims she likes it that way, but she still makes his strong, the way they drink it back home. She knows that his standards haven't changed, that he still believes in doing things right. When she is with him, she drinks tea the way he does. But when she's on her own—who knows?

Sushila is still asleep; she has stayed up late, cooking for the party, making curries that will taste better the second day. She has made beef curries and pork and chicken for their friends, who are all Catholic like her; vegetables for him, the lone Buddhist. He has sometimes been tempted by the smell of her meat curries, but the thought of actually eating meat turns his stomach. He has not had meat since he was twenty, back in 1946. Two years before they married; thirty-three years ago. He has held firm to his convictions. If he ate meat now, it would make him ill.

He can taste already her brinjal curry, savor the spicy coconut sambol and the pungent pickled limes. His mouth is almost burning, though the fire is wholly imagined, and he takes a long drink of tea to soothe it. He chokes on a piece of ginger and coughs for a few moments, his whole body shaking. Then it's gone, swallowed down, and he is at rest again.

His wife is an excellent cook; none can deny that, at least, though he can guess what else they say about her. She won't be awake until eleven at least. But there is a lot to do between now and then. He washes the cup, dries it, puts it away.

 

HE CALLS THE STORE; NO PROBLEMS. HIS ASSISTANT IS A SOLID MAN
, his cousin's friend, and reasonably trustworthy, although he wouldn't
give the man access to the store's bank account. He knows that you can't really trust anyone here, in America, not the way you could back home, in Ceylon. It's just not the same; family and friendship don't mean the same things here that they did back there. He has learned that the hard way. Still, the man works hard, and the store takes a lot of hard work.

The store has fed and clothed him and his family; in it he sells saris, lengths of shining fabric in silk and chiffon with bright gold threads. Sundar started the shop with money saved up from work in Colombo, the capital, back when they were newlyweds. He had saved enough to bring his wife and young children to America, enough to buy a partnership in a new sari store, one of the first in the country, and then worked hard enough to buy the store outright a few years later. He's proud of the store, and it's doing well, but who knows for how long? When they first arrived, it seemed that their white neighbors shared their values, knew the worth of hard work, the importance of family, of decency. He'd thought it a good place to raise children, a place of opportunities. But in recent years, America has changed, changed completely. Nothing here is as it was, nothing lasts. In this country, everything looks bright and beautiful and substantial, but it is so often a sham, with nothing real supporting it. Not like back home.

Time to start cleaning. Sushila does the light cleaning—she looks lovely wandering around the house in a simple green sari, feather duster in her hand. But ask her to scrub the bathroom tiles, or even move the furniture to vacuum behind it…But he brought her here, after all, against everyone's advice. The first man in his village to go so far from home. It was his vision—America, land of opportunity, a shining bright future for his family. How could he have known that in America, you had to be fabulously rich to afford even a single servant? They are not fabulously rich, and his wife prefers not to think about the dirt that gathers in the corners, under the carpet.

He does not force it on her, though sometimes he is exhausted,
coming home from the store only to find the house is so filthy that he cannot stand it. Sometimes he stays up late for nights on end, sweeping and scrubbing and mopping, while she talks on the telephone to her friends. She has so many friends, and they have so much to talk about. Sometimes he wants to take her face and push it down in the bucket of scummy water, just for a moment, just so she knows what she is forcing him to do—but he would never do that. He doesn't even raise his voice when he asks her what she has been doing all day long; he is not that sort of man. The Buddha counsels calm in the face of the vexatious, restraint when in the presence of troublesome souls. He tries to follow the teaching.

 

AN HOUR LATER, SUNDAR IS STILL CLEANING, BUT KUYILA HAS
woken up. She comes down the stairs in her purple pajamas with sleep still crusted in her eyes, hair falling tangled down her back. How many times her mother has told her to brush it with oil and braid it before sleep? She always forgets, like a child. His little one, his delicate angel. She looks just like her mother did when he married her; much the same age as well. So lovely. They sent her to a Catholic girls' high school; both of them had agreed that it was best, after what had happened with Raji. But soon the boys will be swarming around her; even tonight, at the party, the sons of their friends will be drawn to her. His sweet innocent; if he could only keep her a child, safe, forever.

She wraps her arms around his neck as he bends over the bathroom sink, scrubbing at a stubborn stain. “Good morning, Appa.” Oh, good morning, my daughter. Happy birthday. I hope you have a very happy birthday today…

Then she's off to eat cereal before starting to help with the cleaning. Dutiful child, not like her sister, who had always found some excuse to be out of the house when there was work to be done. Even today—where is she? Has Raji come home to help? No. She'll take the late train from Boston, waltz in the door at four o'clock when the
guests have arrived and the work is done. And he'll have to count himself lucky if she comes alone.

So far, Raji has at least kept her shameful behavior with her at college, not brought it home to their house. He's not sure how much it matters, since she isn't discreet enough to keep it a secret. Running around in broad daylight, holding hands and kissing. All of their friends know what she does at night, when her mother calls at eleven o'clock and she isn't in her dorm room. One friend called them from
Australia
to tell them what she had heard—oh, how troubled she was, how concerned about their Raji. Sushila has pleaded with him to do something about it, has raged at him. But what can a father do? Raji has made her own choices. He will educate her, that is his duty; then she will be on her own.

 

THE HEAVY CLEANING IS DONE. NOW THERE IS JUST A LITTLE
straightening left. Though soon Sushila will be up with an endless list of errands for him to run. He turns the sofa cushions in the family room, his fingers digging deep into the fabric, threatening to tear. She always has lists for him, and never mind what else he has planned; she never asks—that's yet another of his jobs, after all. To run around after his wife. He deliberately relaxes his hands, breathes deeply, releases the cushions.

He pulls open the curtains to let sunlight into the fading room. Sundar straightens the photos on top of the TV; so many of them. His beautiful wife, laughing at party after party. She likes parties, where she is always surrounded by her female friends. He can imagine the others not in the picture, the ghosts surrounding her. He is standing behind her, there to hold her up, catch her if she falls—the good husband.

There is Raji, so tall and straight and serious. His studious one, always busy alone in her room with her books and paper and paint. He had such hopes for her…all gone, now. And Kuyila, his angel girl, like
a flower. Kuyila dancing, like her mother, a twirling burst of colored flame. After her Arangetrum, her graduation dance performance, she stood up on the stage so seriously, and thanked her teachers, her sister, her amma and appa most of all. You could see in her face her sweetness, her love for her family; it was clear from the light shining out of it. You can see it still.

There is a face missing from the photos as well, his son's, Raksha's—but the boy abandoned his family, and all the photos that contained him were thrown out long ago.

 

IT
'
S ALMOST TEN—TIME TO WRAP KUYILA
'
S PRESENTS. SUSHILA HAS
chosen most of them. Pretty dresses, and one of them not to be wrapped, since Kuyila will wear it today. A white handbag. A dark green sari.

Sushila wore green the day after they were married. Sitting at the table with him, his mother, his sisters—he remembers how beautiful she looked in that green, how she smiled and blushed when one of his sisters teased her about the night before. His young bride.

He had been so nervous the night before. His friends had been full of coarse advice; he was the first of them to marry; they knew nothing. One of his aunties had pulled him aside—he can't remember now which one it was. She whispered to him: “The girl's more scared than you are.” Then she stuck a chicken roll in his hand and went away. The older relatives never remembered that he had given up eating the flesh of animals two years before, when he became a Buddhist. But it was good advice. It had calmed him down and let him be very patient and gentle with Sushila that night. She had been so vulnerable, so sweet and still as he unwrapped her crimson sari. Afterward, he had fallen asleep with her small hand held tightly in his own. When he woke, it was still there. Sundar aches even now, at the memory of it.

His fingers continue wrapping, creasing the delicate paper, tearing it, folding it over each gift. Lipstick. Blush. Eyeliner. Small gold ear
rings. He does not approve of the makeup. His daughter does not need to paint her face to be beautiful. But it's not worth arguing with his wife. He learned that long ago.

The earrings are good; a girl should have some nice jewelry, for beauty and security. He has been saving money; a little here and there put into a special bank account. He started when Raji was born—money for his daughters' dowry, for their jewelry. Now who knows whom Raji will marry, if she ever does. Running around with American boys. Taking them back to her dorm room for anyone to see—and they run and tell her shamed parents, of course, and all their friends. Sushila screams at the girl, hits her, but it does no good. Violence never does. Raji will find her own path, away from her family, and the jewelry will go to Kuyila instead. It is just as well. A girl cannot have too much security.

One present left, but he will wrap it later.

 

AT ELEVEN, SUSHILA WAKES. HE BRINGS HER TEA AND SITS BY THE
side of the bed while she drinks it. She has a list of instructions for him: buy chicken for the rolls, wine and beer, some large prawns; she's decided to make another curry. It will be expensive, more than they'd planned to spend, but he can work late tomorrow and make up the difference. She does not ask what he thinks.

She finishes her list and gets out of bed. Sushila wears a thin white cotton nightgown. Her heavy breasts show through the sheer fabric, her waist and swell of hips, the darkness at the juncture of her thighs. Her long hair falls thickly down her back. He stirs at the sight of her; he often does.

Kuyila is working in the front yard, trimming the roses, mowing the lawn. He can hear the roar of the mower through the open window, and knows that if he were to close the bedroom door and pull his wife back to the bed, Kuyila would not hear them. He considers it—if he did draw her to the bed, Sushila would not protest. She never
protests; she is always willing, always available, the accommodating wife. But she will lie still beneath him, with her head turned away and her eyes closed. She will be still like a statue. It is the only time she is awake and not in motion—when he is moving in her, above her.

On that first night, their wedding night, Sundar had been so gentle with her but had not managed to coax a response from her. He had told himself that it would get better with time, that she hardly knew him, that he was a stranger to her. But it had not gotten better, and so only rarely had he let himself sink inside her. Once was a night when Sushila had gone shopping with her friends and had come back late—so late! Nine-thirty at night, and while it was true that the mall was open until nine, he had not been able to believe that she had only been shopping.

His anger had risen up in him then, and he had almost dragged her to their bed. He had wanted to hit her, wanted to hurt her, and he had come so close…Yet he had remembered the words of the Buddha and had restrained himself. He had taken her fiercely, but without causing her pain. He had stayed true to himself, to his beliefs, and she had never known how angry he had been. Sometimes he wondered if that anger had infected Raji, conceived on that night.

Sushila raises her arms, stretches, displaying the dark thatch of hair under her arms, and he bites his lip, drawing blood. He wants her. She is his wife, and he has every right to take her. But he knows that if he takes her back to bed now, she will not want him. She will not want him. He lets her go to her shower, undisturbed.