Bodies in Motion (4 page)

I put my hand on her shoulder and pushed down gently; she obediently sank to sit cross-legged on the floor. Sushila could wait forever, unmoved. I needed to move her. The words pulsed through me—
one more night, one more night
. I didn't have time to be patient. I pushed her down again; her eyes widened, but Sushila obediently lay down, stretching her legs out straight, with arms at her sides, her sari stark and white in the moonlight, against the dark dirt floor.

I touched her eyelids, and she closed them. I stood and picked up my mother's chopping knife, cold and heavy in my hand. I had always been clumsy; I had dropped it many times, and had cut myself as I chopped. But tonight I would be careful.

I pulled over a basket and, lifting out a handful of chilies, began to chop as quietly as I could. The wind whistled through the palm trees, and down the hall my father snored loudly, but still…I chopped the chilies finely, minced them the way my mother could never get me to do when it was only for cooking. I minced them until they were oil and ground bits, almost paste. Then I scooped them into a tin bowl, my fingers covered in hot oil and slowly starting to burn.

I knelt beside Sushila and placed the bowl and cup by her still body.
I pulled loose the sari fabric, pulled it down so that her upper body was only covered by her blouse, as mine had been the night before. Then I started to unhook her blouse.

I expected her to protest, but she said nothing, didn't move. I don't know what I would have done if she had tried to stop me; stopped, I suppose. But she didn't, and so I unhooked each clasp. I peeled back the fabric, baring her breasts. They were ripe, dark mangoes bursting with juice. I was so thirsty. If we were interrupted now, there could be no innocent excuse…and yet it wasn't enough.
One more night.
I smeared the chili paste in a weaving line, starting with her navel, curving up over her belly, looping and swirling until I reached her breasts, then circling in as she had done, to the centers.

Chilies don't burn at once, on the skin. They take time. To Sushila it would have felt like some slightly gritty chutney. Perhaps she thought I planned to lick it off—but there was a whole cup of water to use up, and first I wanted her burning. When I finished drawing my patterns, I put down the bowl. I sat back on my heels and waited.

She felt it first on her belly, the slight, growing burn. Sushila shifted a little, uncomfortably. I watched. Her eyes started to open, and I placed a hand, the clean one, over them. She kept her arms at her sides, but her body began to twist, to raise up from the floor, to arch. It was useless. Her belly was heated, her breasts. They were getting hotter. Soon it would be unbearable.

“Please…” The word broke from her lips. I took the tin cup. I started with her navel, started rinsing the chili paste away, caressing the skin with wet fingers, relieving the pain. But there wasn't much water in the cup. I could only dilute the essence, soften the intensity, and by the time I reached her breasts, the water was more than half gone. There just wasn't enough water left to do her nipples, their darkness crowned by fiery red paste. I let Sushila open her eyes then, raised the cup and showed her its emptiness.

There were tears in her eyes, but her arms stayed perfectly still at her sides. I smiled down at her.

“Do you want to go back to your husband now?”

“I'm burning, Mangai. I'm burning up.”

My heart thumped. I lay down beside her, moved my head to her breast and took the fire into my mouth. I have never been able to eat spicy food. I swirled the chili paste on my tongue; I savored the burning flavor of it, mixed with sweat. My tongue was being stabbed by millions of tiny pins. I wanted to suffer for her.

I suckled at her right breast, feeling her body shifting against mine, hearing her whimpers. I was afraid we would be heard. Her hand came up to tangle in my hair, to keep me there. Her leg slid between mine, and I moved to her left breast, suckling again, rocking our bodies together as I did. Her breath left her in a tiny sigh, and at the sound, my chest exploded.

I went to bed that night knowing that traces of oil lingered on her body, that she lay beside Sundar still burning for me.

 

THE NEXT NIGHT, I WAS READY WITH MY ARGUMENTS.

I took her hands in mine, caressing her soft skin under my rough fingers. When she smiled, I said, “Come away with me.”

“What?” Sushila tried to pull away, but I held tight. Her eyes were wide and frightened, and I squeezed her fingers, trying to reassure her.

“Come away. Take the tickets; we can trade them for another town and leave together. We can go to the capital, far away. I can find work.”

Her mouth twisted in a way I had never seen before. Ugly. “Work? What can we do?” Her voice was carefully low, scornful. “Should we end up washing someone's filthy clothes? Lose caste, lose family, lose the future?” She pulled away then, sharply.

I wrapped my arms tightly around my body, trying to slow my thumping heart.

“
You
are my future.” I wanted to shout the words. “It doesn't matter what we do; nothing matters but that we leave, together.”

“I can't leave him—you have nothing and I have nothing. All I own
are my wedding saris, the gold jewelry your family gave me; would you have me sell that so that we can buy rice and lentils?”

“Yes, if we must. How can we be separated? It's not right!” I reached for her hand, but she pulled away. Sushila walked to the window, stared out into the night. Her voice grew even softer, so I could barely hear her.

“It's not right to leave, Mangai. The jewelry, even my saris, belong to him. I belong to him. Would you have me abandon your brother, leave him alone and shamed, without wife or the hope of children?” She paused, then said, “I have to go with Sundar.”

What had happened to my Sushila, who had burned for me last night? She sounded so cold.

“It doesn't matter what's right or wrong. What's wrong is the idea of you leaving me…” I didn't know if I was making any sense; I was desperate to say something that might keep her. But she wasn't listening.

Sushila turned back to face me. “I'm sorry.” She sounded like the statue I had once thought her, as if she were built of stone.

“But I love you!” My heart was breaking. It had broken, and she was crushing the pieces under her heel. “Don't you love me?”

Her voice gentled a little. “I care for you, Mangai. But if they found us, they'd drag us back in shame. They might do worse. My friend—her husband died, and his family said she'd poisoned him with bad cooking. They burned her alive.”

I sucked in my breath, shocked. “My family wouldn't—” She cut me off.

“No, you're right. They wouldn't. But Mangai—my place is with Sundar. There's no place for us out there. Just here in the kitchen, without words. Just you, me, and the cup full of water.” Her voice had turned soft, persuasive, but I would not be persuaded.

“The cup! Is that what matters to you? The cup is
nothing
, Sushila. The cup is just a game, it's
your
game. You just want to play your game and then go off, safe in the arms of your husband, leaving me here.” Leaving me alone.

“Safe? You think I'm safe with Sundar?” Passion in her voice, finally—but not the kind I'd wanted.

“My brother would never hurt you.” I was sure of that.

She closed her eyes, squeezed them tight, opened them again.

“Oh no. He's sweet, and gentle, and kind. He will try to be a good husband to me, and I will try to be a good wife to him. We will have children, if the gods are kind.” There was the pain I felt, there in her voice. But it wasn't for me. “And after ten or twenty or thirty years of that, I will have all the juices sucked out of me; I will be dry as dust. I will die of my thirst and blow away on the wind. That's the way it is, the way it always is. You're the lucky one, Mangai.”

“Lucky?” I didn't understand her, didn't know her. Who was this woman with flat eyes, speaking of dust?

“You're sixteen, almost as old as me, old enough to be married, but you're still free. They're not even talking of arranging your marriage yet. Take what pleasure you can of it. That's all we can do, Mangai. Take a little pleasure when we can.”

Sushila fell silent and I did too, still thinking that there must be some other argument, some persuasion I could offer. But I thought for too long.

“Come,” she said softly. “Take up the cup.” It waited full on the table. She was trying to save what she could; it was our last night, the very last. I grabbed the cup, held it in my shaking hands.

Then I turned it over, spilling every drop of water to the floor.

I didn't know what she'd do, if she'd rage and shout, if she'd drag me to the ground. But Sushila just turned and walked away.

 

I SLEPT LIKE THE DEAD THAT NIGHT. I DIDN
'
T WANT TO FACE THE
morning, hoped that she would just slip away without my having to see her again. My mother shook me awake.

“What, are you sick too? Get up, Mangai—I need your help. Sushila's sick and they can't leave today. I need you to take care of her.”

I dressed quickly, rushed to Sundar's room to find him standing over his wife, his cheeks pulled in. Sushila's eyes were closed, and she looked pale.

“Mangai, she's nauseated. She's been vomiting all morning. Stay with her? I need to go change our tickets.”

I nodded and sat down in the chair beside her; he patted me on the head and then left the room. Once he'd gone, her eyes opened, and she motioned for me to bend closer. She whispered in my ear, “I made myself throw up. I'm giving you one more chance.” When I pulled back, Sushila was smiling, and I was too. Perhaps I looked too happy, because all too soon she was saying, “Sundar and I will leave tomorrow.”

“But—”

“No, Mangai. It's too dangerous.”

I knew she was right. Each night we'd gone further, taken more risks. If we kept this up, we would be caught. I finally nodded agreement.

I stayed with her through the day; we didn't touch.

It was an eternity until nightfall.

When I arrived in the kitchen, she was waiting. Something was different. The tin cup sat on the table, and the pitcher, but something else as well—a stone. My mother's sharpening stone that she used for her knives.

“Help me,” she said. Sushila picked up the cup and ran the stone along the jagged edge. I thought at first that she was dulling it, making it safer—but after a few strokes, I realized she was making it sharper. Sushila handed it to me, and I stroked it to greater sharpness. We passed the two items back and forth, the cup and stone, sharpening the edge to match that of a blade. Finally, she put down the stone and called the cup done. Three-quarters of the rim was still that of a cup, safe and dull. But one quarter had a sheen of sharpness to it, seemed more than just a cup.

“Pull up your sari,” she said. I obeyed, pulling it up past my ankle, my calf, my knee, until almost all of my thigh was visible. “Stop.” I stopped obediently and watched her do the same with her sari. Her
legs were so smooth and fragile; for a moment, I felt like a hairy cow. But the moment passed; we were past that now.

“Cut me.” She pointed to her thigh, and, suddenly understanding, I took the cup in my hand. I reached out, pressed it against her soft flesh, bit my lip, and sliced down. A short, sharp cut, barely half the length of my palm. She exhaled once, sharply, but made no other sound. She took the cup from my hand and, with a swift motion, made an identical cut in my thigh. The beads of blood welled bright, shining in the moonlight, and for a moment I was so dizzy I thought I would faint. But then I steadied, and when she leaned forward and pressed the cuts together, blending our blood, I held firm. She kissed me then, and the world spun around us.

“Pour the water.” I poured the water into the cup with my left hand, spilling some onto the table. It didn't matter. I poured until the cup was full. She took it then, and carefully sluiced some onto our joined legs, pulling away as she did. The bright blood ran down, mixing with the water, diluting.

“Don't pour it all!”

“I haven't. See?” She showed me the water left in the cup, barely a mouthful.

“Good.” But we had a problem. “If we let the fabric go, the saris will be stained. People will notice.”

Sushila said solemnly, “We'd better remove them, then.”

It was so risky; it was the last time.

We carefully removed our clothes, holding them away from the now trickling blood. We piled the fabric on the table and then, carefully, eased to the floor. My hand found her breast, and her arms wrapped around me. We lingered over our pleasure until the sky began to lighten, and then we shared the last mouthful of water. By the time the household wakened I was back in my room, one hand pressed to the ache in my thigh, trying to remember everything.

 

WHEN SHE LEFT, SHE LEANED TO MY EAR IN FULL SIGHT OF EVERY-
one and whispered, “It's for the best, Mangai. You'll be married soon—try to be happy.”

I didn't say anything. I knew that I would never marry, and that I would never love anyone as I had loved her.

 

THE SCAR FADED INTO NOTHING WITHIN A YEAR.

Colombo, 1949

SHE COMES IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE DRY SEASON, WITH THE BABE IN HER ARMS, CLOTHED IN WIDOW
'
S WHITE. THE THIN CHIFFON SARI
that wraps around her tall, slender bones is clearly of good quality, but is sadly torn and dark with dust, dark like her smooth skin. She is too thin—the nuns all agree on that. When two nuns find her wandering mute in the road near Holy Family convent, the bones stand out sharp under the skin of her face, her back, her ribs. The woman might have been beautiful if she hadn't been so thin, and so very dark.

The baby is fair, and almost as thin as the mother. When they find her, the smaller nun, Sister Anne, starts to put a supporting hand on the woman's arm, since she seems dazed, close to fainting. But the woman screams and hunches down in the dirt road, her entire body huddled around the child; the nun pulls back. The taller nun, Sister Teresa, speaks sharply; though she is younger, she was of high caste before coming to the convent and misses no opportunity to remind the other nuns. But when she reaches out, the woman screams again and almost falls backward as she scuttles away. Sister Anne bites back a smile.

Sister Anne speaks softly, gently to the woman. Despite the baby in her arms, she seems no more than a girl—perhaps eighteen or so in years, her face tear-streaked and open. Sister Anne's words are low and rhythmic, more a croon than speech. Without touching the woman, she coaxes her to rise to her feet again, to start walking down the road. The sun is high in the sky when they meet her; it is almost down to the top of the nearby coconut palm before they manage to lead her inside the convent gates.

Sister Anne takes her to the Mother Superior, and leaves her in the Mother's small, dark office. The woman is closeted with the Mother for a long time; when they come out, the Mother instructs that the woman be given a small northern cell, and an opportunity to bathe, and some food. The Mother goes back into her office and shuts the door, leaving the woman in the care of the nuns. The northern rooms are coveted in the dry season for their coolness, and the nuns think it unfair that one be given to a stranger.

The woman cannot immediately make friends, for she is mute. She has a tongue, but does not seem to know how to use it. Had she talked to the Mother Superior? No one knows, but rumors quickly fly among the nuns. Sister Anne is the most generous among them; she staunchly claims that the poor woman must have been widowed and left without family in some terrible accident.

She had been beautiful, a girl of good family who had married and borne a child. Perhaps it had even been a love match. She had a good life, cooking and caring for her husband and baby. Barely a year into her marriage, her husband had been hit by a bus, or lost in a train crash, or drowned in a river, or, most likely, taken by disease, and the poor woman was left alone and bereft, driven mad.

The capital is large and crowded enough that tragedies occur daily and are swallowed in the rush of life. Anne is sure that once the grief passes, the woman will begin to speak. Others, led by Teresa, look at the baby and the woman and tell a different tale.

A darkie, unmarried, falls in love with a fair man. She offers herself to him, and he takes advantage. She becomes pregnant; her family finds out. They press for marriage, but he is of higher caste; his family laughs. The girl is disgraced, ruined, thrown out. She works, shamefully—in a shadowed room, men do not care that she is dark. She gets large and has difficulty finding such work. She grows thin; she gives birth. She is driven mad by the shame. She takes to wandering the roads, slowly starving herself to death as penance, an atonement for her sins.

Teresa is certain of this version and tells it often, until many of the others are convinced. There are other stories told, of course, but none so well liked. The convent is divided between the two tales, and one of the nuns names the woman Mary. So they call her, each in her own mind deciding whether they are speaking to one more like the Holy Virgin Mother, or more like Magdalene the whore.

 

IN A NORTHERN VILLAGE, A WOMAN IS WASHING DISHES, FACING THE
sink.

“You weren't to leave them alone!” A man stands behind her, tall, straight-shouldered. He is fair-skinned, handsome as an actor. She does not turn to him; all he can see is her back. It is an attractive back—the skin at her waist and above the scoop of her cotton sari blouse is fair, unblemished.

“It was only for a few minutes, while I washed my face. I was tired, Sundar.” She scrubs a dinner plate; she washes a cup. Water splashes up onto the front of her bright green blouse. He takes her shoulder with his right hand; he pulls her around.

“Tired? Why?” His voice is sharp. “You do nothing, Sushila. She washed him, fed him, played with him. You had her do it all.”

She holds a half-washed glass in her hands. “I know how to manage her. I always have.”

“She's a half-wit. We should never—”

Sushila looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “Husband dead, baby dead. A woman alone—where could she go? What life did my sister have?” She looks down again. “And I needed her.”

He turns and paces away a few steps, turns back. “How could you leave them alone?” His voice is low, anguished.

“I just—had to wash my face. Just for a few minutes.” She looks down at her plump hands, wrapped around the wet glass. They are covered in gold rings. “Sundar—what happens now?”

“The police keep looking. We keep looking. We'll find her.” He sits down, as far from Sushila as he can. “How far could she have gone?” he asks softly.

She says nothing in response, only turns back to the sink. But she does not start washing again. The glass lies cradled in her hand, delicate, fragile.

 

THE BABY CHUCKLES HAPPILY, NO MATTER WHO IS HOLDING HIM.
He is not quite so thin as he was; once the woman has been fed, she begins to produce good milk again. He is getting better, and with each day, he seems more beautiful. He is the most beautiful baby the nuns have seen—though they don't see so many, other than the scrawny, sickly babies of the parish destitute. They do not name him—he is
the baby
. Within a few days, he is their baby.

He is as happy with Anne as with Mary, and, more surprisingly, as happy with Teresa as with Anne. The youngest novice is so enamored of the child that she begins to whisper that perhaps he is more than a baby, that he is the Christ child come again. But the others laugh at her, and when she persists, Sister Anne sets her to chapel-cleaning.

As Mary's health improves, she begins working. She is competent in the kitchen, but seems happiest in the garden. The dry season is ending; it is time to turn the soil, to weed, to plant the seeds and seedlings. She wears the baby in a sling and works peacefully. When
she tires, there is always a nun happy to take the child. After a few weeks of this, she seems much better.

 

THEY WERE SITTING IN HER GARDEN WHEN IT HAPPENED, SUSHILA IN
a bright sari, pink like the bougainvillea arching overhead. Her sister, dressed in widow's white, held the baby, humming to it wordlessly. Her sister had not spoken since the sickness carried away her husband, her own baby. But she had been a good wet-nurse for the baby, had taken such care with it. Even now, she held a hand above its face, shading it from the sun. Before she came to join them, Sushila never took such care.

Sushila watches them, her heart beating faster. She has had an idea. The words are fluttering in her head, aching to get out. She has been beating them back for days, for weeks. But she is about to lose that battle. In a few minutes, she will start talking, softly, quietly, almost as if she is speaking to herself. She will say that there are places for a woman to go. Not here, perhaps, but far away, in the capital city, where Sushila had gone with her mother, her sisters, to buy her wedding jewels and sari. There are places that will take a woman in, will care for her.

She will mention one such place, Holy Family convent, where they had once visited, had had a nice cup of thick, sweet milk tea with the Mother Superior. Sushila will say that a child would be happy in a place like that, sheltered, safe. She will say, even softer, that a child should have a mother who loves him. Then she will rise, will go into the house, leaving them alone there in the garden. She will leave them alone for a long time. Her sister is silent, not stupid.

 

THE BABY IS SICK. THE CONVENT IS IN CHAOS. THE FLOOR HAS NOT
been swept. The rice is burned. Sister Catherine's mother once mentioned feeding a sick baby drops of ginger juice, and two nuns run to
the kitchen to chop and mince and squeeze. The doctor has come once, twice, three times.

The child is pale; he will not drink milk. He sucks for a minute—maybe two—then turns away fretful, crying. The pitiful wail echoes through the long white halls. Mary does not leave him for a moment. She paces the room, she does not sleep. She coaxes him to eat, offering her breast again and again. She hums and murmurs—nonsense sounds, nothing that makes any sense at all. As his face grows hotter, she grows colder. Her hands and feet turn cold as mountain snow, and as the days pass and the baby becomes more ill, she stays on her feet through sheer determination.

The Mother Superior has even come out of her office, once, to look in on Mary, the child, the huddle of nuns with their panicked whispers and scurrying feet. She shakes her head, then turns and goes back in, closing the door behind her.

 

SUSHILA IS FINISHING HER BATH. SHE TAKES THE TIN DIPPER, POURS
the water over her head, down her long black hair and lush body. It has softened in the last year, becoming uncomfortably heavy. Her belly is marked now, her thighs rub together when she walks. Her breasts are finally getting smaller again, but they still hang from her chest. Sushila cannot bear to touch her alien flesh.

Her hands move smoothly, mechanically—dipping the water, pouring it down. It is cold; she shudders. She finishes and steps out of the small room. She dries herself, eyes closed. She wraps a blue silk sari around herself and steps lightly across the corridor, into the bedroom. Sundar is sleeping. His clothes are scattered here and there, wherever he has flung them. She picks his shirt up, quietly, and folds it awkwardly. She looks around the room, uncertain, and then places it on a chair. She picks it up again, and puts it on top of the chest. Then back on the chair.

Sushila sits down on the packed dirt floor, arms wrapped around her
knees, and watches her husband sleep. His face is smooth, unlined. He is still as handsome as the day she was married to him. She hadn't objected when her parents had first brought her to his parents' house. She had looked up at him once, then cast her eyes down and remained silent. He seemed as good as any other that day, and her mother had said, leaving, that they would have beautiful children. A streak of silver has appeared in his dark hair over the last few weeks, and he sleeps curled in on himself, huddled like an animal in distress. His hands are buried under the sheet, but she knows that they will be tight fists against his body, fingers digging into the palms. She has felt them that way for many nights.

He has not been a bad husband to her. Perhaps she should have taken the road to the convent herself, vowed silence and disappeared into a black robe, a cowl hiding her wealth of silky hair. It had not occurred to her then, that solution. It was not much of a solution.

When the sun's early light enters the room, Sushila rises, her limbs stiff. She walks into the kitchen, sits down at the table with pen and paper. She has a letter to write.

 

THE CHILD
'
S FEVER BREAKS, AND MARY FINALLY SLEEPS A FULL
night through again. The doctor gives all the credit to their devoted nursing, and the nuns are pleased with themselves. The baby cuddles content against Mary's breast; Mary's smile stretches across her face even in sleep. Her teeth shine, white and beautiful against her dark face. The youngest nun looks in on her and thinks that this is how Christ himself must have looked, as he rested, after battling the devil's temptation for forty days and nights in the barren desert. But she knows to keep that particular blasphemous thought to herself, and walks away singing a Gloria softly, under her breath.

 

THE MOTHER RECEIVES THE YOUNG COUPLE GRACIOUSLY; AS THE
door closes behind them, the whispers start among the nuns. How
handsome they are! See how fair their skin! Does the baby have his eyes? Is he a husband? A brother?

Mary sleeps soundly through the morning, through the hours that the couple spends closeted with the Mother. When the three finally emerge, they walk down the long white hall to her room, together. At the door, they see Mary and the baby, sleeping. Sushila steps forward and touches Mary gently on the shoulder. She wakes at once and at the sight of her sister begins to moan. The moan rises, louder and louder, into a panicked, broken wail. The nuns clustered in the hall move to defend, but the Mother stops them with an outstretched iron arm.

Sundar steps in, looks at his wife. Looks at Mary. Then he reaches forward and takes the baby from her limp arms. He turns away, cradling the child, tears bright in his eyes. He turns and walks out. Sushila brushes a few strands of hair from Mary's forehead, then turns as well, following her husband, leaving her sister behind, to the nuns' gentle care. She does not weep, but in the next few weeks, she is never more than a few steps away from her husband, her son.

The wails eventually lessen to low moans, almost inaudible. A day comes when Mary goes back to working in the garden. She does not smile, and she never does speak. The nuns continue to speculate, to conjecture, but though they discuss this for the rest of her life, invent a thousand different stories, they will never know the truth of it. They will never even come close.

 

A dark girl, married off. Love, unexpected, and a child. A terrible disease, deaths. A sister, beautiful and fair, married off. A baby, a wet-nurse. A gift, a theft. Flight from a garden. A desperate search; a weeping man. The lost, found. Two women, lost.