Before We Visit the Goddess (11 page)

“Naturally,” said the love of my life. “You should have seen Victor's face.” He ran his hand over the raccoon's back. “Feel the fur—it's incredible, soft and bristly at the same time.”

I declined. The only thing I found incredible was that he expected me to sleep in the same room with this monstrosity.

“Want a shower?” Robert offered as a peace gift.

I considered sulking, but I love showering with Robert, his fingers unbuttoning my clothes, letting them drop where they will, the way he holds me as he soaps my back, as though I were a child who might slip and fall.

But afterward, I couldn't sleep. I stared at the sliver of moonlight that had edged through our window, illuminating our belongings: secondhand waterbed, two gooseneck lamps that didn't match, chest of drawers, a teetering stack of books. Coming from my parents' overcrowded home, I'd felt proud of our minimalism. But tonight it frightened me, how either one of us could walk out the door and not feel we'd left behind anything we cared for.

Except, now, the raccoon.

I became aware of a musky odor. The raccoon? Surely it couldn't smell, except of whatever embalmment Victor had used. Was it the scent of another woman? I couldn't stop myself from imagining Robert at work, his hands caressing female curves. What did he say to them? What made him the most popular massage therapist at Bodywork?

The raccoon's glass eyes glinted. Its tiny teeth shone, so white they could have been in a toothpaste ad. I pushed myself closer to Robert and held him tightly until he gave a drowsy grunt and twitched away.

In the morning I wanted to confess my fears, exorcise them with laughter. But I couldn't. In her twenty-one years of marriage, my mother had never suspected my father. When one morning at breakfast, as she was serving him a crisp dosa, he told her that he loved someone else, she smiled, thinking it was one of his jokes. Here, she said. Have some coconut chutney.

So instead I asked Robert to move the raccoon to the living room. He refused. I claimed he was inconsiderate. He accused me of not caring about what was important to him. I took to covering the raccoon with a pillowcase when Robert was out of the house. He took to checking on it, first thing, when he returned. Without a word, he'd ball up the pillowcase and throw it with vicious accuracy into our dirty-laundry basket. I'd rescue it surreptitiously so I could use it again. It was like a vaudeville show, except not funny.

But today I don't want to fight. I'm going to be at the Mehtas' starting tomorrow, Thursday evening until Sunday night, and I want to repair matters before leaving. I pick up a bottle of ouzo and rent a DVD of
Total Recall
, the original one with Schwarzenegger. It must be telepathy, because when I enter the apartment, Robert has made moussaka. We eat sitting cross-legged on the couch, replaying favorite scenes, refilling glasses. Robert laughs when I describe the Mehtas. But when I tell him that I got the job, he frowns.

“Victor's throwing a barbecue party Saturday,” he says. “I wanted to introduce you to the guys.”

I'm flattered—and surprised. It looks like our relationship has just been bumped up several notches.

“I can't believe you're abandoning me the entire long weekend for some old woman.”

“Not just any old woman. An Indian woman. She could be my grandma. Maybe she'll teach me some great Indian dishes that I can cook for you—”

Robert looks skeptical, so I offer to make it up to him the only way I know, in bed.

When I arrive, the Mehtas are standing at the door attired for adventure: he in a Hawaiian shirt, she in a sundress. Of the mother there is no sign. He hands me the house key and a sheet with phone numbers: the family doctor, the hospital, and Mr. Mehta's brother, who lives in Poughkeepsie. In case of an emergency, they are to be contacted in that order. At the bottom, in tiny digits, is Mr. Mehta's cell number. It won't work once they set sail, Mrs. Mehta informs me happily. She leans toward me.

“Be careful,” she whispers. “She can be tricky.”

Watching them hurry to their car, I think they make an unlikely pair. Then she reaches out and puts her arm around his waist, even though she has to bend a little. He opens the car door for her and tenderly tucks in her dress.

What do I know about love, anyway?

I discover Mrs. Mehta, a tiny woman in a widow's white sari, crumpled in a heap on the kitchen floor, her glasses askew. My stomach cramps. I'm halfway to the phone to call the Mehtas when I remember the warning and swing around. Sure enough, I catch a glint under her closed lids. She's watching me. I'd love to empty a pitcher of ice water over her and watch her gasp and sputter and not be able to complain. But I am not that kind of person, so I say, “I'm not going to call your son and force him to cancel his vacation, if that's what you're aiming at. However, I'll be happy to call an ambulance. You can spend the weekend in the hospital, getting poked and prodded and having your blood drawn.”

For a long moment, she lies there. Then, just as I'm thinking maybe she did have a stroke, she sits up and announces that she would like dinner.

I assemble the feast that the younger Mrs. Mehta left for us: garbanzo beans glistening in a dark gravy, green pepper curry, rice, yogurt, mango pickle, sliced cucumbers, burfi for dessert.

She casts a jaundiced eye over the offerings. “Where are my chapatis?”

“Chapatis?” I look in the refrigerator, but there's only a ball of dough inside a Tupperware container.

She speaks slowly, as though to an imbecile. “She makes them hot-hot, when I sit to eat.”

“That's not going to happen. Unless you want to make them yourself.”

“You're the maid. You should be making them.”

I take a deep breath. “I am. Not. The maid.” She's waiting, so I try to figure out what I am. “I'm your—caretaker, here to make sure you don't fall down and break your hip.”

Her lips tremble. “But I can't eat without chapatis.”

I consider telling her that I'm no good at making chapatis, but I'm afraid that revealing this vulnerability would place me at a strategic disadvantage. I dish out portions onto two plates. When she makes no move to join me, I eat, although it's not exactly a happy meal, with her watching. After I'm done, I wash up, put her plate in the fridge, and say good night. She doesn't reply. When I leave, she's still standing at the counter.

I've been looking forward to a relaxed, raccoon-free slumber in a bedroom all my own. But when I snuggle under the satin comforter that smells like lavender, I find myself thinking of the old woman: the razor-sharp curve her collarbones made under her skin, the way her arms hung at her side, as though they'd given up.

Confession: I have been disingenuous. I did not inform my employers that on Friday—in a couple of hours—I must go to work. It is true, as Mr. Lawry would say, that they did not ask me about this. However, I feel guilty, and a little worried at having to break the news to Mrs. Mehta.

She's in the kitchen pulling out pots, making a great and unnecessary din. Of the uneaten dinner there's no sign.

“I brewed tea,” she tells me, “since you probably don't know how. This morning we'll have aloo parathas. You can boil the potatoes, then peel and mash them. I'll mix in the spices.”

“Can't. I have to go to work.”

I steel myself for histrionics, but she just looks at me, mouth slightly open. Her lower lip is ragged, like she's been chewing on it.

“Only for a few hours,” I say. “You'll be fine—”

She sets down the pan. “I'll come, too.”

Visions of her sweeping through Nearly, her nose turned up, run through my head. (You work
here?
she'll say, ruining the place for me.)

“No.”

She grabs my sleeve. “It's so quiet. Not one live person, not even on the street, to look at or wave hello. I feel like I'm being buried alive.”

When my mother first moved from India to Northern California, she felt dreadfully alone. One winter day when my father was at work, she walked to a park and sat on a bench, just to get away from the dark, empty apartment. A storm started, but she didn't move. She sat there in the freezing rain until my father came looking for her. He had to carry her home, her feet were that numb. He made her take a hot shower, rubbed Vicks on her chest, and forced her to drink her first glass of whiskey. In spite of that, she fell ill with pneumonia.

She told me this after he moved out of the house. She said, “He showed me so much love. I wish I'd died then.”

Mrs. Mehta senses me weakening. “I'll take my knitting bag and sit in a corner. You won't even know I'm there.” She scuttles upstairs to change her sari before I can forbid her.

It's only when we're halfway to Nearly that I notice she isn't carrying anything.

“Where's your knitting bag?”

She turns toward me a face as innocent as applesauce. “Oh, my goodness! All this excitement made me forget it.”

“This is not a crèche,” says Mr. Lawry. “This is not a senior center. This is a business.” His voice rises operatically. The entire population of the store—Blanca, Keysha, and two teenage girls who should have been in school—congregate around us. “People come here to buy.” He glares at the bagless Mrs. Mehta.

I consider pointing out that fully three-quarters of our customers never buy anything, and that another 20 percent demonstrate a proclivity toward wandering out with purchases before they've paid for them. But before I can jump to her defense, Mrs. Mehta says, “What makes you think I haven't come to buy?” Houdini-like, she pulls out of her sari-blouse a small cloth purse and extracts from it several twenty-dollar bills, which she waves at Mr. Lawry. “Not that it looks like you have anything I want.” She strides haughtily toward the bed linens. Mr. Lawry glares after her and sentences me to scrubbing the floor.

Mrs. Mehta reappears after a couple of hours. She has sifted through mountains of chaff to discover a fine pair of black pants, a sporty aqua knit top, and a barely used leather tote that I wouldn't have minded finding myself. When she goes inside the fitting room, everyone gives up the pretense of working and waits.