Traveling with Spirits (42 page)

  “Let’s not think about the miles,” she says. “We have you here for a whole year. Our family is together. You’re finishing the book. I have useful work at the new clinic.”

  “OK, we will postpone, but not abandon, this discussion. I agree that a little enjoyment is in order. But then we must get serious about our future.”

  “Yes, of course.” She grins. “I’m so jazzed you invited Beata and James to visit this fall. Beata has only come once and James has never been to India.”

  “They’re great people.”

  “On another important matter—what’s this about you being Sudha’s monkey?”

  “Really, don’t ask,” he says.

  She laughs, realizing she’s giddy.

  “This seems to be your month for family,” he changes the topic. “Sudha’s birthday card from Jeanne.”

  “Let’s just hope she stays in AA more than a month this time.” Monica is caught between fear and self-righteousness. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t get in another car wreck.”

  “She’s trying, Monica, you have to give her that.”

  “Yes,” Monica agrees, wondering how her compassion and patience instantly evaporate when it comes to her sister.

  Ashok muses, “I keep thinking about that last sudden note from your father, with the Wyoming T-shirt for Sudha.”

  “It might fit her in a year or two.”

  “What matters is the contact, the gesture.”

  “Yes,” she admits, knowing that the estrangements in her family trouble Ashok. “But then Tim was always a bit of an apparition.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be Tim.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I don’t want to be the father who disappeared from Sudha’s life.”

  Monica feels the tears welling.

*****

  Cook has worked for days preparing the feast for Father Freitas’ visit:
aloo gobi, sag paneer, baingan bharta
, chicken
tikka
and a special Goan curry. All morning the aromas waft through the clinic grounds.

  Monica finds herself unexpectedly nostalgic for Moorty hospital.

  “He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!” Sudha runs into her mother’s small office.

  Monica grins at the girl’s affection for the priest.

  She shuts her notebook and slips on a shawl.

  A small, graying man extricates himself from the van.

  “
Namaste
, Father,” Monica beams.

  “
Namaste
, my friend,” he hugs her.

  “Cook has prepared tea and your favorite biscuits.”

  “No, no,” he protests, in that familiar, high-pitched voice. “Just as I’m retrieving my youthful figure.”

  Monica laughs. “As a doctor, I always prescribe chocolate biscuits to aid travelers overcoming long, winding van journeys.”

  “It is rather a marathon ride as these things go,” the priest concedes. 

  “I’m glad it’s just the two of us for a moment,” Father says as they sit at the dining room table.

  “Raul is eager to see you. But he had an emergency surgery and Ashok will be back in ten minutes. They’ll all be here by the time Cook serves.”

  “We need a private moment. I have sad news.”

  About Sister Catherine or Sister Melba or Brigid or someone else from Moorty?

  “Our dear Father Daniel. He passed away yesterday.”

  “Oh,” she feels wind and spirit leave her. “No, oh no.”

  Father Freitas takes her hand.

  “I was making plans to visit,” she shakes her head. “If I had only known he was so ill.”

  “Quite sudden. Quite sudden. Fortunately, I was in Chennai for a conference.”

  She shudders with sobs.

  Father takes her other hand.

  “I got to say good-bye to him.”

  “Wonderful.” She tries to hold back the tears. “That’s wonderful for both of you.”

  “He asked after you several times.”

  Monica nods, her mouth pursed.

  “I tried to reach you but I couldn’t get a phone connection.”

  “Yes,” she says, “we’ve had problems with the new system.” She takes a long breath. Despite all the losses, she doesn’t seem to get any better at handling grief. Father Daniel has been a spiritual parent; she never imagined him leaving her. A selfish way to look at it—him leaving her.

  “He was worried.”

  “Worried?”

  “Worried that he had brought you to India and now your love for this country and your sense of duty are separating your dear family.”

  Monica sniffs.

  “He had no advice. That was his Buddhist-Catholic way. He did ask me to remind you that God wants us to be happy in this life.”

  Monica smiles. “So like Father Daniel. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is elective.”

  “Precisely,” Father returns the fond expression.

  She’s filled with memories. Dinner with Father Daniel in Minnesota. Their long email correspondence before she came to India. Her happy visits to Pondicherry. Their ongoing discussion about finding equanimity.

  “Do you have any plans, you and Ashok?”

  “Many options, Father. Ashok may teach in India again. I may return to Madison. We may continue the commute. We’re open to many possibilities.”

  “Possibilities are good.”

  After they are all served, Cook takes his seat at the end of the bountiful table.

  Father Freitas offers grace.

  Raul, Monica and Sudha join in. Ashok, Biju and Rabindra bow their heads.

  Monica hopes Tina and Anuradha will return from Koti in time to spend at least a day with their visitor.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Raul pops up and retrieves two bottles of Goan wine.

  “Ho, ho!” Father slaps his chest. “You trekked some distance to find that.”

  “Friendship is worth all kind of journeys.” Raul narrows his eyes enigmatically.

  “To friendship!” Ashok raises a glass. “To the company of those we love.”

  She thinks about her dear friends here today and the traveling spirits who have passed on—Mom and Sudha and Father Daniel—and the ones who seem to inhabit a netherworld, Dad and Jeanne.

  “Friendship!” They clink glasses.

  For this moment, she knows,
I am happy in my lucky life
. Monica gazes at her family and friends. She remembers Father Daniel’s wise retreat talks. And Sudha Badami’s delicious cooking lessons.

END

Acknowledgments

  I am grateful to the many people and institutions that helped support my work on Traveling With Spirits during the last ten years.

  I was fortunate to have residency fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Ucross Foundation, Hawthornden Castle, Hedgebrook and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. The staff at each of these places welcomed me “home” to comfortable work places, peaceful surroundings and stimulating company. 

  The McKnight Artist Fellowship and the McGinnis-Ritchie Fiction Prize gave me practical and artistic encouragement in pursuing the story of an American working in India, first through short fiction and then through this novel.

  Many thanks to the University of Minnesota for a sabbatical supplement award, a Graduate School Faculty Summer Research Fellowship, and a Faculty Humanities Research Fellowship.

        I am very thankful for the skill and advice of many librarians, archivists, and others who helped me with research. Although, Mission House, Moorty, Manda, Koti and other locations are imaginary places, the book is deeply informed by my own experiences visiting and working in India for decades. Authenticity is crucial to literary fiction.  So, too, is respectful artistic liberty. Thus some details, like Monica’s visit to Spiti, would not have occurred during the exact year of the story because of large rock slides that closed the roads. 

  Joe Taylor and his colleagues at Livingston Press have brought this book to you. I am grateful for their engagement with the novel and their hard work in all the complicated processes of publishing.

  David Schorr’s beautiful cover reflects his passion for India and its people. Thanks to David for sharing his art and many years of wonderful conversation about India.

  I first started going to India in 1988, at the invitation of writer and activist Kalima Rose. In 2000, I received a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award which supported my teaching at the University of New Delhi (Miranda House), the University of Calcutta and the University of Himachal Pradesh. 

  I’ve returned to India to give lectures, readings at workshops in 2003, 2007 and 2010 in Jaipur, New Delhi, Calcutta, Berhampur, Bhubaneswar, Bombay, Nasik, Aurangabad, Trivandrum and other sites.  These visits were made possible by K.S. Bijukumar, Smita Basu, Rajul Bhargava, Veena Chawla, Elizabeth Corwin, Aruna Dasgupta, Mariam Dossal, Anne Grimes, Muthukrishnan Janardhanan, Hameed Khan, Almitra Kika, Anuradha Marwah, Saroj Merani, Sunrit Mullick, Sudha Rai, Lea Terhune and others.  I appreciate all they taught me about Indian cultures and histories and landscapes.

         A number of stalwart friends and colleagues read entire drafts of the novel and offered detailed, helpful criticism. These people include Chitralekha Basu, Arundhati Das, Kath Davies, Janice Eidus, Zoe Fairbairns, Elizabeth Horan, Deborah Johnson, Helen Longino,  Susan Mahle, MD, Rashmila Maiti, Kat Meads, Ranjini Obeysekere, Eve Pell, Rose Pipes, Pamela Satran, Mandira Sen and Sonja Swenson.

  I relied on the innovative and diligent work of research assistants at Stanford University and the University of Minnesota. No question was too large or small for these sleuths and I appreciate the many kinds of work they did to make this novel possible: Jennine Capo Crucet, Ellie Freedman, Lori Hokyo Misaka, Scott Muskin, Elizabeth Noll, Anna Rafferty, Jocelyn Sears, Sonja Swenson and Andria Williams. Jovel Queirolo was crucial in the proofreading process.

  Gary Garrison at the Institute for International Education offered incalculable support and advice over many years. Thanks to Annu Matthews for help with research questions.  Friends are the main reason I keep returning to India. Amit, Amita, Anuradha, Ashok, Atiya, Bina, Dhruv, Irfan, Jan, Jasodhara, Madhvi, Mandira, Manju,  Mimi, Naren, Rajashri, Raji, Rajul, Ritu, Shefali, Sudha, Urvashi,  and Veena—Thanks to you all for your gracious hospitality, provocative company and many kindnesses.

  There would be no pages here if it were not for my best critic, beloved partner and traveling companion across the astonishing Indian subcontinent, Helen Longino.

 
Valerie Miner
is the award-winning author of fourteen books. Her novels include
After Eden, Range of Light, A Walking Fire, Winter’s Edge, Blood Sisters, All Good Women, Movement: A Novel in Stories
, and
Murder in the English Department.
Her short fiction books include
Abundant Light, The Night Singers
and
Trespassing
. Her collection of essays is
Rumors from the Cauldron: Selected Essays, Reviews and Reportage
. In 2002,
The Low Road: A Scottish Family Memoir
was a Finalist for the PEN USA Creative Non-Fiction Award.
Abundant Light
was a 2005 Fiction Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards.

     Her work has been translated into German, Turkish, Danish, Italian, Spanish, French, Swedish and Dutch. In addition to single-authored projects, she has collaborated on books, museum exhibits as well as theatre.

     Winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award, she has taught for over thirty years and is now a professor and artist in residence at Stanford University. She travels internationally giving readings, lectures, and workshops. She and her partner live in San Francisco and Mendocino County, California. Her website is www.valerieminer.com