The Mistress of Spices (36 page)

I am wrong again.

I am dead.

Or have I waked too early, on my way to afterlife.

O Tilo (but this is no more my name), trust you to fail this too.

For what else can this place be, warm as a womb and as dark, throbbing with power as it surges through the void.

I try movement to see if it is possible. My limbs are wrapped in something silk soft—is it my death-garment, or my birthing sheet. But I can turn my head, a little.

The panther of pain has been lying in wait. It pounces, making me cry out.

It seems unjust that there should be so much pain even in afterlife.

Tilo who is no longer Tilo, since when have you known enough to judge the universe, whether it is just or not.

“Since never, I admit it,” I say. My voice is rusty with disuse.

“Are you awake?” asks a voice. “Does it hurt a lot?” Raven.

Is he dead too? Did the earthquake kill us all, Haroun and Hameeda, Geeta and her grandfather, Kwesi, Jagjit, Lalita just opening into newness in another town?

O don’t let it be so.

“Can you move?” asks Raven’s voice, coming from somewhere to the side of the swollen stiffness that is my head.

I put out my hand toward the sound and touch a wall of fur. The lining of a sarcophagus, I think, a communal sarcophagus where lovers are buried, their dust left to mingle till world’s end.
Only, this one is flying through galaxies, swerving to dodge meteor showers that streak us with sudden light. Then I hear a long, angry beep.

“Wish people would watch where they’re driving,” Raven says. “It’s been this way ever since the quake, everyone acting crazy.”

“I’m in your car,” I say. The words fall from my mouth like flat pebbles. They do not express the wonder I feel. I touch my wrappings. “This is your bedspread,” I say. Even in darkness I can feel the raised threads, the intricate design, silk on silk.

“That’s right. Do you think you can sit up? There are some clothes near your head. You can put them on. Only if you want to, of course.”

I hold on to the smile in his voice. It spreads in me like underwater light, gives me strength as haltingly I unwind myself from the bedspread. My head is a chunk of concrete balanced precariously on my aching shoulders, The heavy silk fabric keeps slipping from my awkward hands which have forgotten a hand’s duties.

Or is it that I wish to delay for as long as possible the baring of this decrepit body.

Gingerly I touch. Having known beauty, how much harder will it be this time to accustom myself to ugliness. And that thought which I cannot bear to face yet: Carrying me to his car, as he must have, what did Raven see. What did he feel.

But what is this. Against my fingers the flesh is not prune-dry, nor the hair thinned to balding. The breasts sag a little, the waist is not slim, but this is not a body quenched of all its fragrance.

How can it be.

I touch again to make sure. Arc of calf, triangle of cheekbone, column of throat. No mistake. This is not a body in youth’s first roseglow, but not one in age’s last unflowering either.

Spices this game is beyond my comprehension. Why have you not punished me. Or is this your doing First Mother. But why this kindness to an erring daughter who does not deserve.

My questions spiral up and up into the night. And it seems to me that after a moment an answer floats down, whisper soft, or is it only what I wish to hear.

Mistress who was, when you accepted our punishment in your heart without battling it, that was enough. Having readied your mind to suffer, you did not need to undergo that suffering in body also
.

Raven’s voice pulls me from the whirlpool of my thoughts.

“If you feel up to it you can climb between the seats and come sit up here by me.”

I slide awkwardly into the front seat, glancing quick at Raven, who looks the same as ever. I am self-conscious in my new clothes—a pair of jeans that I must hold up with a belt cinched tight around my waist. A too-large flannel shirt which smells of Raven’s hair. Different, indeed, from that dress of moonlight and gossamer at our last meeting. Fortunately it is dark in the car—darker than I remember.

I wonder why. Then I notice that most of the streetlights we are passing have burned out.

“Tell me what happened.” This voice, hesitant and husky—I cannot think of it yet as mine.

What else is different, Tilo who once was.

“After I dropped you off I couldn’t sleep,” says Raven. “I
was too upset. I started to pack for the trip. I’ll go alone, I said to myself, if she won’t. But I knew I didn’t mean it. Even at the height of my anger I couldn’t imagine a future without you.”

His words flow like honey wine through my body, warming me. But even as I listen, my eyes are on his rearview mirror. When he stops at a crossroad I turn it toward me.

“I need to look,” I say. My voice trembles a little, apologetic.

Raven nods, his eyes full of compassion.

She is different, the woman in the mirror. High cheekbones, straight brows with crease lines between. Some gray hair. Not particularly pretty or ugly, not particularly young or old. Just ordinary.

And I who have through my many existences recoiled from ordinariness or rushed toward it longing, see that it is neither as hateful as I thought, nor as full of quaint charm. It is itself, and I accept it, I who was lovely Tilottama for one night only.

The only regret in my heart is for what Raven seeing me must feel.

“You know,” says Raven who has been watching my face, “this is more like how I always imagined you.” He touches my cheek with a gentle finger.

“You’re being kind,” I say stiffly. I do not want his pity.

“No, really.” His voice says
please believe me
.

“You don’t mind? All that beauty gone?”

“No, at first I thought I might, but I don’t. Frankly, it was a bit intimidating. I felt like I had to stand tall all the time, suck in my stomach. Things like that.”

We both laugh the brittle, lightheaded laughter of people
who have not slept enough, who have nearly died, who have seen things in the last dayspan that it will take a lifetime to figure. I look in the mirror again.

And see that the eyes are the same. Tilo eyes. Still curious-bright. Still rebellious. Still ready to question, to fight.

They remind me of my note. Remind me that what I wrote in it hasn’t changed.

I snatch back my hand which he is raising to his lips.

“What now, dear one?” He is half concerned, half amused.

“My note. Did you read it.”

“Yes. That’s how I got to you so quickly. I found it when I was packing my bathroom stuff. It scared me, how you wrote you were leaving, but didn’t know where you were headed. It was like being at my great-grandfather’s deathbed again, faced with a strangeness beyond my understanding. I’ve always known you have this other side to your life with no place for me in it.”

“Not anymore.”

Raven hears the sorrow in my voice, reaches to touch my hand.

“In our paradise you won’t need it. You won’t need anything except me.” He gives my hand a squeeze.

I do not say yes or no, and after a while he starts again.

“Reading your note brought me back, too, to that moment in the car with my mother, the one I’d botched so miserably. It was like I was being given another chance. This time I was determined to do the right thing. So I left. I was only half packed but I didn’t care. I had to get to you before you were snatched from me forever. And it’s a good thing I did, because soon after I crossed it they announced”—he taps the radio with his finger—
“that the Bay Bridge was damaged. I could have so easily been stranded on the other side.

“As I got closer to the store I felt this ominous weight pushing down on me, getting heavier with each moment. I floored the accelerator—it’s as though I was in a race with something unseen, I can’t explain it. Luckily there was hardly anyone on the freeway. Then—I was about a couple of miles from the store, near the water—the quake hit. It was like a giant fist slamming up from underground, right under my car. Like someone had targeted me. Except that’s a crazy thought, isn’t it? I was thrown against the door. I lost the wheel. I could feel the car tipping. I was sure this was it. I screamed your name over and over, only I didn’t realize it until later. But somehow the car righted at the last moment. Then I saw a wave come over the embankment, shining like phosphorous. A solid, power-packed wall that could smash a semi to bits. Missed me by inches. Inches. By now my hands were shaking so much I could hardly hold the wheel. I had to pull off the road. I sat there for a good ten minutes and listened to the noise. It was a roar from deep under, like some kind of earth-animal waking up. I didn’t know how long it actually went on, but I kept hearing it inside my head for quite a while.

“I’ll admit it. I’ve never been this scared in my life.

“But then I thought of you and made myself get back on the road. It was tough. My legs were still trembling like they do after you’ve run a long race. I couldn’t control the pressure on the accelerator. The car kept jerking and shuddering, and I was afraid I’d go off the road again. There were big cracks slashed across the freeway, fissures with gases rising from them. A stench like sulfur covered everything. Buildings were burning, and every once in a
while you could see glass explode. Even with my windows rolled up I could hear people screaming. Sirens. Ambulances. For a while I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get through.

“And all the time, you know what I was thinking? Please God, let her be okay. If
someone has to get hurt, let it be me
. I don’t remember thinking something so intensely ever in my life.”

I move closer, lean my head on Raven’s shoulder. “I appreciate,” I whisper. “No one has ever been willing to suffer in my stead before.”

“It’s new for me too, thinking of someone before myself, not really seeing them as separate from me.” His lashes sweep his cheek as he looks down, my American shy to speak of these things. Finally he adds, very soft, “I guess that’s what love is.”

Love
. The word reminds me of my note. But before I can speak, Raven continues.

“I took some side roads, finally managed to get to the store. The building was totally gone, not even a wall left standing. As if—yes, it’s a foolish thought, I know—as if someone went at it with particular vengeance. But at least it wasn’t on fire.

“I’m not quite sure what I did next. I know I kept shouting your name like a madman. I called for help, but there was no one. I pushed through, clawing at debris—what I wouldn’t have given for a shovel—cursing because I couldn’t move any faster, not knowing if I was getting any closer to you. I was terrified you’d suffocate by the time I got to you. I’ve read of that happening. Or maybe I’d step on something you were trapped under and crush you. Finally, when I’d almost given up, I saw a hand. Clutching a red chili, of all things. I dug through the rubble like crazy, and finally found the rest of you—only you weren’t wearing any clothes.”

He stops to give me a glance.

“Someday you must tell me what you were doing.”

“Someday,” I say. “Maybe.”

“You didn’t even look like you, not like when I dropped you off, and not like before either. But I
knew
. So I got you into the car. Wrapped you up. Hit the road going north. We’ve been moving for about an hour. We had to take some detours—parts of the freeway are pretty bad. But we’re almost at the Richmond Bridge. It’s the only one left undamaged—almost as though it’s fate, don’t you think, so we can cross it and keep going north, to paradise.”

He pauses for a response. I say nothing, but I feel strangely weightless, my whole body a smile, like an obstacle runner who never thought she would make it and now has just sailed over the last hurdle. Raven you have made my decision for me. Perhaps the rest is fate, and it is time for me to relax into it, I who have fought my destiny so hard all my life.

But there is still one unresolved thing.

I move back to my corner of the car. “Raven, did you read my note?”

“Yes, of course I did. Didn’t I say—”

“Did you read all of it? The part which explains why we can never—”

“Listen, can’t we discuss it later? Please? In our special place these things will take care of themselves. I’m sure of it.”

“No.” My voice sounds ungracious, adamant. I wish I could acquiesce graciously, as women—Indian and not Indian—are asked so often to do. Kiss away conflict. But I know I am right not to.

Raven sees the look on my face, pulls over to the side of the road.

“Very well,” he says. “Let’s talk.”

“Don’t you see what I mean? Don’t you see why it would never work? Each of us loving not the other but the exotic image of the other that we have fashioned out of our own lack, our own—”

“That’s not true.” His voice is raw with hurt. “I love you. How can you say I don’t?”

“Raven, you know nothing of me.”

“I know your heart, dear one. I know how you love. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Yes
, I want to cry. But I hold myself hard against my desiring. “All the things that attracted you to me—my power, my mystery—they’re all gone anyway.”

“And see, I’m still here.” He holds out his hands for mine. “Doesn’t that prove you wrong?”

My hands move of their own will, their longing to lie in his. But I pull them back. Fist them in my lap.

Raven watches me a moment, then sighs.

“Okay, maybe my ideas about you and your people were wrong. And maybe, like you said, you don’t know that much about who I—we—are. But if you go off on your own, things are never going to get better, are they?”

When I say nothing, he continues. “Let’s teach each other what we need to know. I promise to listen. And you—I know you’re good at listening already.”

I bite my lip, debating. Could he be right.

“Please,” says Raven. “Give me—us—a chance.” Again he
holds out his hands. And I see what earlier I had not: the torn palms, the broken nails.

For me
.

You who were foolish Tilo once, who are perhaps foolish still, is that not worth all the knowing in the world.