Traveling with Spirits (40 page)

THIRTY-EIGHT

Fall, 2006, Koti

  Sudha chats contentedly with her imaginary friend on the faded pink couch in one of India’s shabbiest hotel lounges. A bilingual friend, apparently, as Sudha switches merrily between Hindi and English.

  Monica marvels at how her beautiful daughter’s eyes flash when she plays. Do all children have such wild imaginations? Will Sudha grow up to become an actor? A painter? Those rich, dark eyes mirror her father’s intensity.

  From a desk at the back of the lounge, Raul glances at a news report on the fuzzy television and listlessly fills out a report. Raul turns to Monica, laughing ironically, “Government funding. I’m grateful we have it, but damn this paperwork! I thought bureaucracy was elaborate in Argentina. Indians make a science out of it.”

  Monica looks up from her letter. “I can take over if you like.”

  “No, you don’t have the patience for it, really.”

  “And you do?”

  “More than you.”

  “Hmm.”

  She changes the topic. “I don’t want to sound like Pollyanna,” she begins.

  “Heaven forbid,” Tina sets down her book.

  Monica ignores her. “But think of it. Four years ago, who could have imagined this: Biju taking over the Manda project, bringing in Anuradha and Rabindra, getting everyone government funding, having secure visas—”

  “Slightly secure visas, Ms. Optimist,” Tina says dryly. “When I worked at the embassy, I had a secure visa.”

  Monica shrugs, diverted by Sudha’s dancing. Sometimes when the girl dreams like this, Monica thinks her dear mom is in the room. Mom before Tim headed West, when she used to say, “Life is as it should be.”

  “Imagine,” Tina teases. “I gave up a visa and a decent flat in Vasant Vihar for tenuous security in the Backcountry Project and or current residence is this—what is it—half-star hotel—while we get the lodgings finished in Koti.”

  Biju clears his throat. The wiry young man peers through the dim lounge at a blueprint. “You’re the one who lobbied for this satellite center. It’s not as if we don’t have enough to do in Manda.”

  “Yes, but don’t you think we’d be more comfortable at the Westminster Ridgetop?” she jokes, “where the American Consul is staying?”

  “Sure,” Monica laughs. “When we start wasting funds on a place like that, it’s time to go home.”

  “Monica is right about the visa security,” Raul says. “We’re much safer now than at Moorty. Remember the trips to the visa office. And those cordial RSS visits?”

  Monica winces. Sometimes she does wait for the thugs to appear in Koti or Manda. Even though the RSS has quieted down since Congress came to power in 2004.

  “Yes,” he continues, stretching his strong arms wide. “Compared to Moorty Mission days, we’re more secure and doing better work.”

  “Different work,” Monica corrects quickly.

  Tina shakes her head affectionately. “You two sound like an old married couple.”

  Monica laughs. Raul too.

  “Better not let Ashok hear you say that,” he feigns alarm.

  Monica sips her tea and returns to the letter.

  Tonight, especially, I am missing you my dear, and our sweet little Sudha. I am just home from a dreary dinner party hosted by Robby Robinson in Geography. His wife, an intense person, is principal of a public school outside Madison.

  “Robby tells me you’re in a commuting relationship,” she said. “Tell me, where is your wife?”

  Of course she’s never heard of Koti, but she looked worried at the sound of it. When I explained further, she fairly exploded in bewilderment.

  “Oh, dear, couldn’t your wife get a visa here? I hope the INS is not making difficulties.”

  Naturally, I burst out laughing, then clarified that my cousin was helping you get a more secure Indian visa. Covered in confusion, she moved on to chat with the others. Thank god.

   Monica grins. This is the sort of encounter that appeals to Ashok’s absurdist taste. She hopes he told the poor woman that he spends summers here, that he’ll have a whole sabbatical year with his wife and daughter in Koti beginning in January. Maybe not, since he likes to make out that things are dire. She marvels, as always, at his elegant cursive. She types her letters for he nags her so about her illegible hand writing.

  I was reflecting on that first year here in Madison. Our Saturday campus walks. Dinners at Lombardinos, films at the Orpheum. And when Sudha arrived, the amazement of witnessing her inch by inch growth. When you returned to help Raul “shore up” the project, I had no idea you’d be gone so long.

  He reminds her of this in each letter. Truthfully, she hadn’t expected to be here for two-and-a-half years. She misses Ashok dreadfully. Yet he feels the separation more. After all she lives with the grace of Sudha. She loves her work, feels it’s far more useful than anything she’s ever done.

 
I know, I know we’ve discussed this. And I’ll be there in January. But the cold days until final exams feel endless. When I get there, will Sudha recognize her father?

  Monica will reassure him when they Skype on Saturday. Tina wonders why they write such long letters when they manage to Skype or email once a week. You say different things in a letter. Monica learned this from Beata years ago.

  Last weekend with Beata and James—no doubt we’ll talk about all this before you get this miserably slow letter—was excellent. They taught me to cross country ski at Lake of the Isles. Beata was oddly preoccupied by her decision to move back to Minneapolis. Their new house is closer to their jobs. She thought you’d be pleased, though, that she’d left St. Paul. I didn’t catch the point, actually.

*****

  Half-star hotel, Monica considers brushing her teeth. Tina loves to impersonate the spoiled American, but she’s become an invaluable member of the team. Oh, no
that
word. Yet, here they are a
team
with common goals rather than running on parallel high-powered career tracks. Tina is tireless, inventive, always challenging them to do more. She and Anuradha have developed a model inoculation program and their proposal to UNICEF is sailing through committees.

  “Mama, Mom!”

  Monica rushes into the candle-lit bedroom. “I’m right here, sweetie, right here.”

  The sprite looks at her with one eye open.

  Monica grins, in spite of herself. “I thought my beautiful daughter was asleep.”

  “I want a doll like Meenakshi’s,” she says in a most wide-awake voice.

  “Meenakshi?” The full weight of her exhaustion descends. Monica perches on Sudha’s bed. “Remind me, who is Meenakshi?”

  “You know.”

  She draws a blank. It’s especially humbling to confess ignorance in the face of a three-year-old’s certitude.

  “You’ve met my secret friend.”

  “Yes, of course,” she whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

  “May I have one, please?”

  “One what?” Monica yawns. It’s been a long day, examining people in their makeshift tent clinic. More exhausting without the proper supplies, without a building that was supposed to be finished weeks ago.

  “Maaama!” Sudha claps her hands.

  “Sorry dear, I don’t remember.” All day she’s been obsessed with tomorrow’s fundraising meeting with the ridiculous American Consul. Concentrate on your daughter, she tells herself. Otherwise she’ll be calling her
ayah
“Mama.”

  “You know. You know.”

  Monica shivers. Meenakshi, the niece. The Haryana doll for the traditional child that Sudha bought at the
mela
. This isn’t the first time Sudha Badami has appeared in her daughter’s imagination.

  “May I, may I have the doll?”

  “Maybe when Daddy comes. Maybe we can go with Daddy to a
mela
.”

  Sudha nods and slips down into the covers. “Nightie night.”

  “Sweet dreams,” Monica smoothes the child’s black hair away from her tightly shut eyes and kisses her forehead, right on the two freckles which seem to be the only part of her appearance she’s inherited from Monica.

  Sudha smiles serenely.

  Monica finishes brushing her teeth in the damp bathroom. A semi-functioning shower has drenched the floor and made subsequent access to the toilet or sink a soggy adventure. Newly constructed plywood cabinets reek of camphor ball disinfectant. She hangs her skirt on the door latch. At least they have clean towels. After days of asking. She shouldn’t complain. They’ve lived in sparser conditions in camp. She’s never fully described the hotel to Ashok, by far, the most fastidious member of their family. By the time he comes, she’ll be back in comparatively developed Manda.

*****

  Amit drives a little too swiftly for Monica’s comfort, but the speed and traffic don’t bother her as much as they once did. What can she do? These hill roads are being expanded by good government schemes which will take years to realize. Meanwhile, the route is teeming with ox-drawn carts, hundreds of bicyclists, honking, multi-colored wooden lorries, pedestrians, meandering cows, spanking new Ambassadors and trucks groaning under building materials for the future of this ambitious nation.

  “
What’s a two-word synonym for India?” Ashok asked her one morning in their new Madison house. He relished the sleek lines of their kitchen cabinets, the lush pile in the bedroom carpet, the intense quiet in this cul de sac on the edge of town.

  “I give up.”

  “Well, that could be a three-word synonym,” he grinned. “No, the answer is Under Construction.”

  Monica understands his ironic distance and his fierce attachment to India. Being a foreigner—still, despite her years here, despite her Indian daughter and husband—she can’t afford, doesn’t actually experience—ironic distance. “Sense of possibility” would be her three-word answer. There’s something invigorating about this place where everyone is on the move, where people are so literally engaged with the growth of their country.

  The van swerves around a dawdling white cow.

  “So sorry, Ma’am,” Amit grins into the rearview mirror. “Close call, yes?”

  “Indeed! Not your fault, don’t worry.”

  On the roadside, teenagers in salwar kameez school uniforms carry backpacks adorned with logos of U.S. companies. Every tenth shop advertizes phone service: STD/ITD. One shack bears the sign, “Friends’ Books and Electricals.”

  Despite the bumpy road, she studies her notes for the meeting. Assistant Consul Geoffrey Marshall is Tina’s bright idea. From her Delhi days, she knows the embassy has deep pockets and an intense interest in making friends in remote areas. Assistant Consul (that’s his title, isn’t it?) Marshall will be in the state capital for four days to open an American Corner reading room and preside at local functions. He’s agreed to meet with Monica for lunch. A three hour journey for lunch.

  “
Why don’t you go?” Monica nudged her friend, who was altogether more suited for diplomatic hobnobbing.

  “Oh, no, I’m not on the favorites list of Mr. America.”

  “Mr. Who?”

  “He’s this young guy—maybe twenty-five—who has a master’s in international studies from Brown and thinks he profoundly comprehends the world.”

  Monica regarded Tina skeptically. Hard to believe her old med school pal had so much grey hair now. Of course the silver didn’t show so much in blonde hair. She was ripening into a beautiful middle-aged woman, just as she’d been a gorgeous student. “Now tell me, we’re sure to hit it off as two blue bloods from The Main Line?”

  “No, really, he’ll like you. You’re not sarcastic. You’re a nicer person.”

  Monica shook her head in exasperation with Tina, who had intentionally left out the background story on Mr. America when she made the appointment.

  Tina shrugged.

  “OK, but you owe me one.”

  “I owe you a thousand.”

  Monica is astonished at how different parts of her life have come together. Imagine, Raul and Tina are both her colleagues now. It’s all coincidence. OK, Sudha would call it Karma and Father Freitas would say Providence. When she returned to help Raul, Tina came for a visit. And she decided she was ready to leave the embassy, but not India.

  The work here is so different from Moorty. She could never return to the Mission. Not just because of the Walshes. No, her work there left her with too many moral and spiritual questions.

  She misses going to Mass, but feels like an imposter in church now. She sometimes thinks of seeking out a really liberal parish, but that’s getting harder with this new German pope. Oh, she still believes in some kind of spirit. An encompassing power and presence. Jesus now has become a loving model, a bodhisattva, a brother, not a deity. When she talks with Father Freitas and Father Daniel, they each advise her to have faith in faith.

  Yes, maybe someday things will become clearer, as clear as they were to Mom, as they are to Beata. Right now, she’s fine. When pressed, for Indians are preoccupied with spiritual questions, she says she believes in the practice of compassion. In Manda and Koti, there’s plenty of opportunity to be useful and loving without the restraints of a diocese or dogma.

  Ahead of them, Monica sees rolling hills, rice paddies, palm trees. She should be strategizing about fundraising, but her thoughts keep jumping around.

  Somehow here, she’s found a spiritual community. They all share a similar sense of service. Her colleagues come from such different backgrounds. Rabindra from a Calcutta Marxist family; Anuradha from a secular Punjabi community. Raul still believes in his own Argentinean-Indian-American Catholicism, but can’t stand the current pope.

  Monica wonders if she herself is agnostic. She prefers the word “seeker,” but that sounds too sentimental, too Hermann Hesse-ish.

  As they approach the hotel, she returns to her notes, reminding herself that this trip has an urgent material goal. Focus, Monica.