When She Was Queen (18 page)

“Think about it,” she says.

He smiles, which could have been taken as polite assent. He feels sorry for her; that wonderful exterior, this show of Indian hospitality that will not take no for an answer, hides a terrible loneliness and isolation after all. She deserves better: masses of people around her, an extended family and friends, in-laws to bicker with,
servants to do her work, a community she belongs to.

A place such as this mummifies you at the core, that vital core of your being. You learn the lingo and show off the idiom, use the modern conveniences and say how could you ever have lived back
there;
but all the while that mummy inside you cries out for release. Or you grow warts, get weird….

On a cold and grey Chicago morning…

“Do you know this one?” Rusty asks, having put on a CD.

“Yes,” Diamond replies.

Rusty gives him a look that acknowledges, if anything, that the guest is not entirely ignorant. Vina gives a barely perceptible smile.

“Rusty—” she puts in while she has the chance. “Rusty, perhaps we can convince our guest to stay longer—”

“Of course he’ll stay—it’s not as if he has to rush off to work in the morning,” declares Rusty too glibly, then turns to show a more reasonable face to Diamond: “Stay a few days with us. Find out how we live in the Midwest.”

“Stay the week, please,” begs Vina.

She has lost some of the poise that so charmed him last night; but meanwhile she has revealed a side of herself no less compelling, in that it is intimate and friendly and vulnerable.

“All right, I’ll stay tomorrow also but not a day more,” he relents and could kick himself for yielding so easily.

Vina sees the look in his eyes and says teasingly, “Tomorrow, at least, to start with.”

“Only tomorrow,” he says firmly.

“Let Raja decide,” Rusty says, observing the exchange indulgently. “You should meet Raja anyway, he’ll tell you when you should go.”

“Who’s Raja?” Is there a dog here he’s missed, who influences the household, or perhaps a resident ghost?

“You will find out tomorrow. Now we have to go out for groceries—let’s go, Diamond.”

“No—let him rest,” Vina tells him. “You go by yourself—or take Shireen.”

Diamond thanks her with a look.

“I know,” she says, putting things away, “you can have a bit too much of Rusty. He’s a darling, really.”

She goes and puts on a selection of Indian film songs.

“We’re going to have an Indian evening—music, biryani, laapsi, kulfi for dessert, and a movie—an oldie. What says you to that?”

“Sounds terrific.”

He goes to his basement room and lies down on his back, wondering how he will extricate himself from the tight embrace he has recklessly walked into. Somewhat delicately. He doesn’t want to hurt the couple. How familiar he’s become with them in such a short time. That’s disconcerting. Is
he
the one hungering for closeness? Perhaps it’s they who have taken pity on him. He’s utterly alone, after all, and drifting like a sea rat. There’s nothing, nowhere to return to. His life has gone up in flames.

—
You know I loved you, Di
.

Her plea. She was frightened.

At first it was the recurring colds. Then there appeared the boil on her thigh, the first external sign,
grim as a death’s head to the knowing. It’s not related to HIV, he murmured, when she showed it to him.
It must be
, she whimpered. Shh, he carried her to bed, put her to sleep. And how many more times of that, as the body yielded up one defence then another, a fortress whose doors had suddenly turned to jelly … and the rats advanced for the feed. She repulsed him at times, to his horror, and attracted him at others when he saw her as she had been. I would have wished the same for me, he told himself, after all that time together, all the young days we gave each other. I would have liked—not demanded—the same, someone to bathe and clean me, feed and change me, battle my depression, play me music and even sing, hold me through the agony of pain and put me to sleep, as the body quakes and breaks and screams. A complete marriage, through thick and thin, sin and forgiveness, sickness and decay. Is this what it means, through sickness and health, she asked once pathetically, it’s so not fair; and he replied, yes, that’s what it means to be married and to love, we are for each other. There was no religious dividend, no reward in afterlife that goaded him, there was just that sense of duty, in giving dignity to his partner when the moment demanded. We never bargain for this kind of duty, so when it comes, grab it, it gives some meaning to life. Finally, when it was really impossible to look after her, when the medications were multiple and constant yet producing little hope, he took her—carried her—to the hospital ward. It was then that her parents came and told him, now let her be ours. The next day she died. They cremated her, took the ashes back to New York.

He decides to go out for a walk.

The house is built on a wooded hillside and is the last one on a road that heads straight out and up from the local hospital at the edge of town. All the houses are on the same side of the road. A little further up, the road turns to the right and crests before descending to meet the highway exit for Greenfield. The area has the spook-iness of a housing development abruptly halted, a town expansion abandoned and forgotten.

As Diamond watches the traffic on the highway from the road crest, he sees Vina walking toward him at a brisk pace.

“It’s a good walk,” she says when she reaches him, panting lightly. “People ski here in the winter, and do all kinds of winter sport.”

They go back together, at a casual pace. She asks to see, and he shows her a picture of Susan that he still carries in his wallet. She looks at it without comment. As they approach the house he asks her, “Where do they burn the cross—the Klan or whoever they are?”

She takes him to a clearing diagonally across from the house; it shows evidence of occupation by builders not long ago—a mound of abandoned sand, a few bricks, bits of PVC piping, an empty reel of electrical cord.

“They’ve come twice,” she tells him. “They parked here on the road and came out of their trucks wearing white hoods. We thought they looked funny at first, and there must be a mistake. It looked like a Halloween night. But then they stood facing the house, and making strange sounds—hooting and howling—and filthy, abusive
comments. We were terrified. The second time they brought out a tall white cross….”

“Have they harassed other non-whites in the area?”

“No. Only us. It has to do with Elvis. You should ask Rusty. We hope they’ll stop, get tired or something. It’s driving us—and him especially—crazy.”

“And the police—what did they say?”

“By the time they finished questioning us on the phone, the hoods had gone.”

“When was the last time they came—these hoods?”

“Over two months ago.”

Rustam Mehta, shaking uncontrollably
, begins stamping a foot and mouthing a stream of obscenities he cannot be quite conscious of, as he stands glaring out the picture window at the spectacle taking place outside. The drapes were overlooked earlier and are open. A helpless, tearful Vina hovers beside her husband, unable to calm him.

They had entered the second hour of the long Indian film, had taken their dessert and tea was to follow shortly, when Rusty suddenly sat up and stiffened, adjusted his glasses, and before anyone could respond was up and running to the window, shouting, “It’s them! They’re here!”

“Who, what?” Diamond said, startled, no sooner having asked which than he heard the low humming of truck engines outside. Vina was already up, behind Rusty, and Shireen emerged from the privacy of her room.

Two trucks, engines on, headlights off, parked across the road from the house; six hooded Klan figures, four of them strutting about, evidently up to something, the other two standing erect, arms folded, facing the house. A white cross about five feet long appears, held up vertically by two of the four figures, apparently burning but actually powered electrically by one of the truck batteries. Tepid, smoke-free Klansmen (and perhaps women), to the townspeople a joke in bad taste.

There comes a look of terror on Vina’s face at the sight of the raised fluorescent cross; her face drained white, she turns her large eyes silently upon Diamond. Her husband, on the other hand, in constant fidgety motion, is red with rage. The old woman is next to Diamond, moaning, perhaps uttering invocations, and he feels compelled to put an arm around her frail shoulders. Shireen watches all with a calm, blank face, all her expression caught in her tense young body, her fists clenched at her sides. Diamond’s eyes meet the girl’s and he wants to apologize, say to her, Sorry kid, I’m so sorry, we should be able to do something.

Rusty meanwhile has dashed off inside and emerged waving a handgun in front of him, screaming, “I’ll show them, those motherfuckers—”

His wife moves to restrain him, “No, Rusty, please, this isn’t the solution, Rusty—”

Rusty, “Get out of my way,” is back at the window yelling mindless imprecations. “Come out you yellow bastards, redneck devils! Halloween ghosts, mahdder chod, show your balls you cowards in bedsheets!”

In reply, mindless answers, mock laughter: “Tee-hee,
tee-hee,” and what Diamond discerns as “Go home, niggers,” and “Elvis ain’t for Hin-doo cows—tee-hee.”

There comes the faint sound of music from a truck radio; perhaps Elvis.

The Indian movie, still running in the rec area behind them, belongs to another world.

Rusty is finally subdued, the trucks speed away. The terror has lasted ten minutes.

Rusty, gasping for breath, is guided to a sofa, and he hands his gun to Vina, who with a doubtful glance at it passes it quickly to Diamond. It is the first time Diamond has held a gun, and somewhat alarmed at himself he can’t suppress a twinge of excitement, a trite momentousness, at the feel of its compact metallic black density in his hands; it is an object, he surmises with grudging admiration—turning it around and over, running his fingers over the grip with the maker’s insignia, the smooth barrel, all the notches, the grooves, the sleek multiple surfaces in such a small space—designed and finished with devotion. It looks perfect.

“It’s a cool weapon—Beretta 92, double-action 9-mm auto, packs ten shells in all of two pounds,” says Shireen.

In the frenzy of the past few minutes she had disappeared from sight. Here she is now in her denim and khaki, tall and limber, a rifle held casually in one hand.

“Isn’t that too heavy for you?” he asks for want of anything better to say.

“Nope. It’s mine, a ladies’ model—Winchester.”

She lets him hold it.

Next morning brings a calm
bright cheeriness with it, the household taken over in happy preoccupation with its weekend routines—Vina and her mother cooking brunch, Shireen watching cartoons, Rusty pottering away in the backyard; and the previous night’s terror a bad dream.

“Here’s the
Chicago Tribune,”
says Vina, as Diamond emerges from his basement domain. She indicates the paper on the dining table and brings over a cup of tea along with a plate of sweets from the kitchen. “Brunch will be a while yet.” He smiles his thanks and she sits down a moment with him. She is still in her housecoat, a fact that sends an unwelcome pang of nostalgia through him. The plain, unmade face has a nice frankness to it, and the multiple loose strands from her casually tied hair make her viscerally attractive. Feeling his predatory look upon her, she skips away with a knowing smile.

A sizzling overture precedes the aroma of fried spices that soon begins to fill the air. In the background the kitchen TV contends boisterously with a program of ear-catching Indian oldies from the films of the sixties. “The program comes to us on cable from Vancouver,” Vina explains. “Come inside the kitchen if you would like to watch the show.”

He would hate to watch old black-and-white dance numbers from a bygone era, and he declines the invitation politely, saying he’d rather not crowd the kitchen more than it already is, with both Ma and Vina busy inside. The
hostess nods she understands. Taking the paper with him, hunting for a suitable place to read by himself, Diamond pauses briefly at the front window. Cool golden sunlight bathes the earth on this beautiful, peaceful fall Sunday as serene as the first day of creation. Did this same world on some nights grow horns, wings, and scales, breathe fire and howl to terrify the inhabitants of this house?

Vina has to announce brunch in several parts of the house before everyone gathers at the table. There is on offer puri and spiced potato garnished with fresh coriander, which Ma grew indoors, and parathas stuffed with radishes and other vegetables, an omelette, and idlies and daal. Altogether a meal for a platoon, Diamond observes, and Ma says something that Vina relays as, “We have to fatten you up.” Rusty reassures him, “You’ll use it all up. I’d like you to help me in the backyard for a while.”

Afterwards Vina, Ma, and Shireen pick up the telephones for their Sunday call-up-long-distance ritual, and Rusty and Diamond go to work in the backyard. The women have cleaned up the vegetable and flower gardens and replenished the soil, the grass is trim; now it is up to the man to fortify the castle against the coming cold season. With his guest’s compliant though unskilled assistance he repairs a wire fence (under which a fox has persistently burrowed that year) and a storm door, replaces storm windows, cleans up and resecures the kitchen exhaust vent where a family of birds had nested in the summer. He works fast and intensely, breathing hard and grunting from the exertions. “Back home we disdained such work,” Rusty says, “here we take pride in it.”