And Laughter Fell From the Sky (29 page)

“Are you going to move there?” Her voice was low and hard.

“No, but I’m thinking of applying to graduate school. Maybe I’ll even get a Ph.D.”

She turned her face to him. He smiled. He wished he could see her eyes. She looked away and sighed deeply. “Of course you will. You’re so smart. You’ll be a great professor.”

He felt an outpouring of love for her. He wanted to look into her eyes, to touch the twinkling diamonds in her earlobes, the wisps of hair escaping her barrette. On her upper arm were several dime-size bumps. “Mosquito bites?” He brushed a fingertip against them.

“Don’t touch me,” she murmured.

“You’re way too thin,” he said. “Your hand is trembling. You’re a mess.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Why’d you invite me out here?”

“I just wanted to help Mayuri.”

“So it had nothing to do with me?”

Rasika bit her lip. They walked along a path through the grass. On their right was a strip of colorful flowers; on their left, a grove of trees. Mayuri and Khaleel were several yards ahead. As Abhay and Rasika passed a trashcan, she calmly tipped her corn into it and brushed her palms together.

“When’s the wedding?”

“Next Friday. January fourth.”

“And your birthday is, when?”

“End of January. So we’ll be fine.”

“You’re really going through with it?”

She pressed her lips together and watched her sandaled feet taking one step after the other.

“I don’t think you like him,” Abhay said. “Do you have to marry him?”

“Everything’s been arranged. The guests have been invited. I’ve bought my saris and jewelry.”

“Does anyone care that you don’t actually want to spend your life with this man?”

“How do you know what I want?”

“It was completely obvious when I saw the two of you together. I don’t understand why you’re doing this to yourself. You look completely lifeless.”

Rasika cleared her throat. “I’m just kind of stressed-out because I’m dreading all the Hindu rituals—sitting in front of that hot fire, and changing my sari halfway through, and chanting all those prayers.” Her voice quavered. She cleared her throat again. “That’s all. After the wedding’s over, everything’ll be fine.”

“Stop.” Abhay stood still and put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re running blind. You need to open your eyes. Listen. We’ve both been looking for an ideal. You think your life will be perfect if only you can be the kind of person your parents seem to want. I thought my life would be perfect if only I could find a place on earth that matched the utopia in my imagination. We’re both searching for something we’ve built in our own brains.”

While he was talking, Rasika stopped, but she seemed to be looking past him, at something in the distance above his ear. He stopped talking, and she walked ahead. He trailed behind her. They came upon a pond, shining blue water edged with greenery. No one stopped to look. Mayuri and Khaleel seemed deep in conversation, and Rasika just kept walking. They passed benches from which people were selling cucumber slices, newspaper cones full of peanuts, sliced guavas smeared with chili paste.

They passed a small garden of bushes clipped into animal and cartoon shapes, and reached a clearing with a huge tree. Its roots climbed out of the ground, and its branches rayed out just above the roots. The whole thing, roots and trunk, seemed to have a diameter as broad as a bus. They all stopped near the tree, and Rasika strayed a few steps away from the group. Abhay noticed her remove her sunglasses and dab carefully at her eyes with a hankie.

“This is the largest tree in Lalbagh,” Khaleel said.

The tree was obviously a photo opportunity: women in bright saris, boys in shorts, and girls in dresses were crawling all over its roots to find places to sit, before smiling for the camera.

“Mayuri, you and Rasika stand near the tree. I will take a photo.” Khaleel held up his cell phone. The sun dappled the ground around them.

“I’ll take the picture,” Abhay offered, holding out his hand. “You go stand with Mayuri and Rasika.”

Mayuri stepped toward Rasika to bring her into the picture. Rasika was now blinking her eyes and trying to smile brightly. Suddenly, Mayuri clutched at Rasika’s arm. “My cousin is here,” she whispered.

Abhay looked in the direction of Mayuri’s frightened gaze. A group of young men strolled toward them over the sandy earth, holding newspaper cones and tossing peanuts into their mouths.

Mayuri turned and walked swiftly away in the direction of the tree. Abhay, Khaleel, and Rasika stood around awkwardly. Mayuri disappeared behind the tree. Khaleel slipped his phone into his pocket.

“Do you come here often?” Rasika asked Khaleel, smiling at him.

“Yes, I do,” Khaleel answered, grinning and playing along.

The young men had stopped to watch. Rasika and Khaleel kept up their silly banter. Abhay wandered a few steps away. The young men were now whispering to each other.

Rasika called cheerfully, “Abhay, come on. Let’s get our picture taken.” Khaleel was displaying his phone again. She hooked an arm through Abhay’s— he winced in pain as his arm was jerked—and marched him over to the tree. He was surprised at her willingness to touch him in public. He obliged by slipping an arm around her shoulders. She held her sunglasses in the fingertips of her other hand. As Khaleel held out his phone to frame them, one of the young men from the cousin group seemed to be aiming his cell phone at Rasika. Abhay glanced at Rasika to see if she noticed. She wasn’t looking at the men. She was beaming determinedly at Khaleel.

The men walked away. Khaleel pocketed his phone.

“We should leave,” Rasika said as she and Abhay joined Khaleel.

“Yes,” Khaleel agreed. He continued to look at the tree.

“You go first,” Rasika said. “We’ll find Mayuri and walk in a different direction.”

Khaleel put his phone back in his pocket and walked away, still gazing sideways at the tree. He gave a surreptitious wave and a quick smile, after which his pace quickened.

Mayuri and Rasika gave Abhay a ride back home. Mayuri had use of the family car for the day. No one spoke of Mayuri’s narrow escape, and she herself seemed fairly calm. She wove comfortably through the traffic, accelerating aggressively whenever anyone threatened to cut her off.

As they dropped Abhay off at the gate of his grandmother’s house, Rasika said, “You’re not far from our place.”

“We could walk home from here,” Mayuri said.

“It might be faster,” Rasika agreed, and they looked at each other and giggled.

Abhay, unlatching the gate and stepping into the compound, still heard their laughter from the car. He rubbed his sore neck and shoulder. As the car pulled away from the curb, Abhay looked back at Rasika and discovered her eyes on him. She turned away as soon as she saw him looking, and the car moved off.

“How do you know Abhay?” Mayuri asked casually. “You seem on very good terms with him.”

Rasika and Mayuri sat on the flat rooftop in the evening, eating slices of cucumber and talking. Rasika felt exhilarated, as she often did when she flirted with the life she wasn’t supposed to live. In this case, she was experiencing it vicariously, through Mayuri’s narrow escape that afternoon.

“He’s just an old family friend. Nobody, really.” Rasika laughed.

Mayuri dabbed her cucumber slice in the small pile of salt on her plate. “I wondered if you had ever dated him. I wondered how your parents would feel if you were in the same situation I am in.”

Rasika glanced at Mayuri’s pretty face. She felt a connection with Mayuri, since she had helped her cousin in a way Jill and other friends had always helped her. “I have dated,” she said quietly. “Not much. And my parents don’t know.”

“You never wanted to marry anyone else?” Mayuri’s eyes looked eager.

Rasika felt that Mayuri would understand her own predicament. As the sky grew darker, Rasika began to reveal more and more about her own life. She started out cautiously, talking merely about being “friends” with men in college. When Mayuri didn’t seem shocked, Rasika told her about her friendship with Abhay. She left out the part about the Renaissance Hotel, but mentioned that she had visited him in Portland. She felt more relaxed now than she’d ever been on this trip. It was a relief to confess to someone who cared.

“You have experience with men, but you have not fallen in love like I have.” Mayuri covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know what I should do.”

Rasika laid a hand on Mayuri’s shoulder. “It’s hard for us. We have a little more freedom than our mothers did, but just enough to get ourselves in trouble. They still expect us to do what they tell us.”

“You are the only one who understands me,” Mayuri said.

“Now you know what I’m going through. I don’t know if Yuvan is really the right person for me, but time is running out, and everyone wants me to do this. So I’m going to go through with it. This is what we have to do.”

Mayuri looked up and nodded sadly. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to be like you, Rasika. I’m afraid for myself.”

Rasika held Mayuri’s hand in silence. All that mattered now, in the darkness, was that Mayuri understood her—that an Indian woman, someone in her own family, was aware of what she was sacrificing in order to sustain the structure of tradition. In some way this almost made up for what Rasika was going to have to go through.

Chapter 17

E
arly the next morning, while Abhay’s uncle was still sitting in the living room in his dhoti, watching the dawn pooja from Tirupati on television, the doorbell screeched through the house. His grandmother was taking her bath, and his aunt was in the kitchen grinding something in the blender, so Abhay answered the door. Rasika stood on the doorstep. She looked terrible. Her eyes were wild, her hair was uncombed, and she had on a pair of jeans, a baggy T-shirt, and unmatched sandals—one brown, one black.

“What’re you doing here?” He stepped out of the house and pulled the wood door shut behind him. The bore well drilling was finished, but the yard was still muddy.

“They found out,” Rasika gasped.

“Found out what?”

Rasika appeared not to know how to answer this question. Her eyes darted around, as if trying to see the answer in the air. Then she closed her eyes, shuddered, and opened them again. She looked like she’d been deflated. Her eyes were sad and distant now. “The wedding’s off,” she said in a monotone.

“Why?”

Rasika held a palm up to her face and peered at it. She rubbed it with the thumb of the other hand, as though trying to wipe off some dirt. Abhay remembered that gesture—she had done the same thing at Ledges, although then she had been wiping off mascara. Now, her palm seemed clean.

It was awkward trying to talk in the muddy yard. His cousin’s motor scooter was parked on the narrow pathway between the house and the compound wall, and his uncle’s car was in the driveway.

“Let’s take a walk.” He ducked inside and slipped on a pair of sandals. When he returned, Rasika was still standing in the same position, still rubbing her palm.

“Come on.” He headed toward the gate. When she didn’t move, he grabbed her by the elbow and steered her out with him. It was so early that the traffic hadn’t really started yet. He led her around the corner to a little high-walled park tucked between the houses. It was filled with trees and a formal arrangement of greenery, a bricked path going around in a square, and several concrete benches. No one was here at this hour. This park was too small to be useful for the fast-paced morning walking that many Indians seemed to engage in. Abhay dropped onto the bench closest to the entrance. He knew from experience that the far corners of the park smelled distinctly of urine.

Rasika sank down beside him. She looked crumpled.

“Tell me everything,” he said.

“The wedding’s off,” she repeated. “Yuvan saw us.” She looked up at him plaintively. “You shouldn’t have put your arm around me.”

“What? When?” He tried to think when he had last had his arm around her, and remembered the big tree at Lalbagh. In order to play along, he had put his arm around her as Khaleel was taking the photo. “How could . . . was Yuvan at Lalbagh?”

“His brother showed him a picture. They took a picture.”

He remembered the group of young men, Mayuri’s cousin and friends. One of them had taken a photo. “Mayuri’s cousin?” he asked.

She nodded, and sat up straighter. “Yuvan is Mayuri’s cousin. On her father’s side.” Her eyes were clear and hard now. “His brother was at the park.”

“Didn’t you recognize him?”

She shook her head. “I’ve only seen him once, when Yuvan and I first met. I didn’t recognize him yesterday. I wasn’t really paying attention, I was so busy wanting to protect Mayuri.”

“Well, you can explain, can’t you? I mean, you were only flirting to draw attention away from Mayuri. Just tell the truth.”

Rasika looked at him, and her eyes gradually grew dull. “No.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do that to Mayuri.”

“Well, Mayuri will have to tell the truth, then.”

“She’s backing them up.”

“What?”

“She’s telling everyone that I asked her to drive me to Lalbagh so I could meet you there.”

“That’s insane!” Abhay was outraged that Mayuri would drag his name into her sordid affair. “You’ve got to set things straight.”

Rasika shook her head sadly.

“Why not?”

“I just . . . don’t want to stoop that low.”

“It’s not stooping, it’s standing up for yourself.”

“I don’t want to point fingers at Mayuri. I’m not that kind of person. I’ve lied in the past, but only to protect myself. I don’t tattle. I’ve never done anything to get anyone else into trouble. Anyway, I don’t know if anyone would believe me. Even my mother has bought into the whole thing. Yuvan’s father called this morning to tell us their decision, and Amma woke me up by screaming at me. That’s why I had to leave the house. I think she’s always suspected me. Remember when Mita Auntie saw us at that hotel in Cleveland, and told everyone?”

Abhay nodded. That seemed so long ago now. He was proud of Rasika’s integrity toward her cousin. “So Yuvan believes Mayuri?”

“I don’t know what he believes. He didn’t call, his father did. His family’s already involved. It’s a mess.” She turned her eyes toward him, and they seemed soft and open. Her mask had dropped away.

“I would think Yuvan would at least give you the benefit of the doubt and listen to your side of things.”

“What can I say that would convince him? I’m not innocent.”

“You mean you’re not innocent because we’ve had a relationship?”

Rasika nodded. “Mayuri knows about that. Last night we stayed up late talking. I felt like she understood me. And now she’s telling all the details to everyone.” Rasika covered her face with her hands. “I can’t go back.” She was still for a moment, and he realized she was crying. At first she seemed to be trying to control herself, holding her breath and wiping at her eyes, and then she let go. It sounded like the tears were ripping out of her.

There was something wild about her now, something true, and he loved that. When she stopped shaking with emotion, he said, “At least you’re free now. You never wanted to marry him anyway.”

She took her hands from her face and looked at him, and he felt he could see into her soul.

Then her tear-filled eyes narrowed and turned sharp. “You could marry me.” Her voice had a rasping quality.

“What?”

“Everyone thinks we’re together anyway. You could marry me. Everything’s all ready for a wedding next week. You could fill in and be the groom.” She looked up at him with pleading eyes, yet the mask was there again.

He stood up, as a way to gain more control over the situation. “Of course, I’ll marry you. But not like this. I don’t want to marry you as a substitute.” He paced in front of the bench. “In a way, it’s good this happened. You didn’t even want to marry that guy. Now you can be who you really are. You don’t need to pretend anymore. Now you can decide what you really want to do.” Abhay stopped pacing and let out a deep breath. Rasika wasn’t even looking at him. Her eyes were narrowed, and she was gazing off to the side, as if thinking of something else.

“You don’t understand me,” she said. “No one understands me.”

Crows screeched and cawed in the dark branches overhead. The quacking beeps of a motor scooter passed by outside the walls of the garden. Various smells reached them on the morning breeze—snacks being fried in oil, cow dung, a whiff of roasting coffee.

Rasika stood up.

“You ready to go home?” Abhay put a hand on her elbow. “I know you can be strong. They’ll get over this.”

Abhay took her hands and looked into her eyes. They seemed cold and distant. What might happen after she stood up to her parents? They might be together. He pressed her fingers in his. “I think it’ll work out fine,” he whispered.

She suddenly pulled her hands from his, snatched her purse up from the bench, and peered into its depths.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m—I don’t have any money.” She let the purse drop to the ground. “I spent it all. This morning I had enough to pay for the auto to your house. That’s all.”

Abhay pulled out his wallet and offered several hundred-rupee notes. She hesitated, and then put out a hand. He picked up her purse and handed it to her.

“I’ll give you the phone number at my grandmother’s house.” He scribbled on a scrap of paper.

Abhay led her out of the park and up to the main road, where he put up an arm to hail an autorickshaw. When a vehicle veered toward them and stopped, the engine muttering softly, she did not get in. Instead, she clung to him. “Come with me,” she said.

“You want me to come home with you? Won’t your mother—”

“Let’s just get away. Let’s go somewhere.” She was trembling against him.

“Rasika.” He stepped away from her and took her by the shoulders. “I think it would be best if you went home to explain. Your family will be worried sick.” He had to shout over the rumble and roar of traffic.

She nodded. She was still shaking.

The autorickshaw driver shouted something to them in a language Abhay didn’t understand; clearly, the man was impatient. “If you want me to come home with you, I can,” Abhay said. “Just for support.”

“No,” she said firmly. “You don’t understand.”

“Call me as soon as you talk to your folks. I’ll be waiting.”

She threw her arms around him and gave him a fierce hug. “I love you,” she said gruffly. Then she flung herself into the waiting autorickshaw.

The autorickshaw driver pumped his starter and jerked away from the intersection. “Where to, ma’am?” he asked in Kannada. She understood that much but didn’t answer, because she didn’t know what to say. He brought the autorickshaw to a puttering halt along the side of the road, and glowered at her.

Her mind was in a fog. She felt as if she had a swarm of ants crawling around inside her head, in front of her eyes. She shook her head, and wiped her hair from her face. She could see the dusty street, and she could see the driver’s bare brown feet in flip-flops. She could see the stub of incense stick in front of the tiny photo of Ganesha behind the driver’s handlebars. But she couldn’t see what she should do next.

The driver said something to her in a harsh tone. She didn’t quite understand the words, but she knew she had to figure out where she wanted to go. She couldn’t sit here motionless forever.

A thought arose out of the muddle of her mind. Yes, that might work. It would mean swallowing her pride, but it was her only option now. Over the roar of the traffic, she shouted out the name of a neighborhood bordering the area in which her grandparents lived, and the vehicle was off again.

She clutched her almost-empty purse. She had to escape, and for that she needed money. But she had none, except for the rupees Abhay gave her, which would flow through her fingers in minutes. She couldn’t buy a plane ticket with this money. She couldn’t even stay in a decent hotel for this amount of money.

She’d spent all the thousands of rupees her father had given her, and also the thousands Yuvan’s parents had given her. She’d bought silk clothes, cotton clothes, gold jewelry, corals, hundreds of cheap glass and metal bangles in every color to match all her outfits, several pairs of sandals, batik wall hangings, sandalwood carvings, brass deepas, idli pans and chapati boxes and spice boxes and a pressure cooker and a special dosa batter grinder. All of these purchases were packed in suitcases, bags, and boxes at her mother’s family home, waiting for her to get married and carry them back to Ohio with her.

She wanted to be honorable. She loved Abhay. He was a very good man. She wanted to make him proud of her. She wanted to make her parents proud of her. This was really the only thing she could do.

Rasika exited the autorickshaw in front of a small house. She stepped through the gate, threaded her way through a clutter of motorbikes and bicycles in the paved front yard, and rang the doorbell.

Shouts and laughter sounded inside the house, but no one came to the door. She rang again, and finally the door was hauled open by a small child who took one look at her and then ran shouting through the house, “Some woman is here.” Eventually, an elderly man appeared at the doorway and looked at her quizzically.

“Is this where Balakrishna stays?” she asked in Tamil.

He nodded and held the door open. She entered and slipped off her mismatched sandals in the front hallway. He disappeared through the doorway curtain, calling, “Balu! Someone is here to see you!”

In the moment she was alone, she combed through her hair with her fingers to try to bring some order to it.

Balu Uncle appeared through the curtain. He wore a white dhoti wrapped around his waist and legs, a button-down shirt, and a cloth folded neatly over one shoulder: the typical at-home outfit of an Indian man. When he saw her, he halted for a moment. Then he said quietly, “Please sit down.” He held a hand out to a chair right there in the front hallway, and she sat. He placed himself on a bench opposite and crossed his legs on the seat, one ankle over the other knee, tucking his dhoti neatly around his legs.

It seemed odd to her that he didn’t take her into the living room and offer her some tea. Perhaps it was because she had arrived so early, and so unexpectedly.

They sat without talking for several moments. The house resounded with thumping footsteps and children’s high-pitched shrieks. She wondered how many people stayed in this small house.