Beyond Molasses Creek (20 page)

I pat my face dry with a clean towel and firm my shoulders. I am not the same woman who left the quarry. I am like a spirit who has left a body. I am in that in-between when the spirit may choose to return to the body, to linger here on earth. Mr. Assai is like the loved ones holding vigil over my death, encouraging me to go on to my ethereal next world.

Yes. I will go. I will not return to the quarry the same as I was before. I will go with Mr. Assai and we will speak to Amaa and Buba. The cruel man is no longer there. I have nothing to fear with Mr. Assai at my side. We will go and I will continue my metamorphosis. I am changing into someone else.

“I will take you to the quarry, Mr. Assai. You may ask the questions you need to ask.”

“Good,” he says. “Very good, Ms. Kunari. You are a very brave woman, the likes of which I have not seen. We will do this thing together, you and I. We will find the truth. You deserve as much.”

My old life is dead to me. I turn and picture my white ashes falling onto the Baghmati riverbed, commencing their long, winding journey to the Ganges. Flowing home.

FORTY-ONE
Falling in Love

Ally

I
WENT HOME TO LIVE WITH MAMA AND
D
ADDY IN
January of 1972. I told AirAmerica that I was expecting a child just fourteen months after starting that job, and of course, they let me go. I had broken “airline policy.” I did not say who the father was; I simply apologized, packed up my belongings, and came home to live with Mama and Daddy on Molasses Creek. I was doing the right thing, keeping my baby, no matter how difficult it was making things. A single woman having a child was frowned upon, but not altogether unseen in those days. The free love era had brought with it some children, and I was beginning to see there was nothing free at all about love. Love was about sacrifice and giving and loss. I could see that now.

My parents were gracious, as I knew they'd be. They never condemned my choices; they just remained quiet for the first few weeks. I remember going to the grocery store with my mother and hearing her whisper to an acquaintance she'd run into that my husband had gone off to war. I knew the depth of her shame in that moment, listening to those lies, but I understood she was doing what she needed to do. As was I. Mama never said anything negative to my face, and I acted as if I didn't know how hard she was working to cover up my indiscretions. Daddy kept on working, seeing his patients from a little office he kept now near Shem Creek with another doctor. I didn't see him nearly as often as when he was visiting patients' homes, so Mama and I spent time together. It went something like this:

“Honey, have you had enough breakfast? I can make you some more toast.”

“No, I'm fine, Mama.”

“How about some grits. You don't need to be getting hungry. You feelin' all right? You're looking kind of pale.”

“Mama, please, I'm really fine.”

She would stand there, rubbing her apron nervously. “Well, it looks like it will be a nice day. How about I set you up some cushions on the porch chairs and you can read or draw. Whatever you like. Get some fresh air.”

“That sounds fine, Mama. Thank you.”

I can't say there was any substance to our conversations. I can't say that Mama seemed comfortable with me being home. She just doted on me to excess. A few months into living there, when my belly was swelling, I understood she was acting this way as a comfort to herself, so she could
act
and not have to talk her way through this pregnancy. But as time wore on, I realized Mama was actually getting excited about the baby. I had been an only child, and now there was going to be another one in the house. Mama, I realized, was nesting, something I had not quite begun. It seemed our house was too small for two mothers, and she was doing a fine job for both of us.

Robert knew I was keeping the baby. It was my body and I was doing with it what I wanted. He was nice about it, albeit scared to death, but I assured him no one would know the truth about his involvement. He relaxed in this and told me what a brave little girl I was. That he would be there to help out in whatever way he could. At about six months my stomach was the size of a small basketball and my limbs and rear were growing in proportion to the food Mama was feeding me. I hadn't seen him since I left Atlanta, but it was then Robert decided to pay us a visit.

He had flown into Charleston and was on a short layover. It wasn't as if he made the trip especially to see me. There he was, flowers in hand, as my father opened the door. We'd been expecting him, but I don't think my parents were quite prepared for how handsome this man was. Honestly, he looked like a movie star, Robert Redford or someone equally as cute, and the baby seemed to be squirming in my belly when I saw him again. I wondered if I really did have feelings for him. Maybe I did. He was coming to see me, after all.

Mama nearly tripped over her own two feet as she waited on him with iced tea and little cucumber sandwiches. If I didn't know better, she seemed flummoxed and flirty. I suppose Robert had that effect on people.

He and Daddy sat on the back porch and talked about airplanes and flying and such. Daddy said he'd always wanted to fly, something I had never once heard him utter, and I remember wondering if he was lying or if there were really things I did not know about my father.

After a supper of chicken fried steak, asparagus, and roasted baby potatoes, Mama served her famous key lime pie, and with all the fussing and goo coming from everyone's mouths, you wouldn't have known there was an elephant the size of Texas in the middle of the room with us—namely me.

Filled with muscadine wine and key lime pie, the handsome and dapper Robert looked my father in the eyes and told him he thought he and I should get married. He turned to me and said with dimples shining, “How 'bout it, kid?”

I gasped and Mama grabbed at her chest and Daddy reached out and shook his hand.

“Is there a ring too?” Mama squealed as if this was happening to her and not to me.

But I knew there was no ring. This was not a premeditated marriage proposal; it was probably the last thing Robert ever intended to do. And that angered me, seeing Mama and Daddy all happy and hopes up and wrapped up in him. Something in me knew Robert was a fly-by-night. He was impetuous by nature and a true romantic and honestly believed whatever he was saying in the moment. Until he changed his mind later. The problem was he didn't have a loyal bone in his body. I knew how many girlfriends he had. I knew he couldn't become a one-woman man overnight. I knew his career and his flyboy lifestyle were too important to him to give up, and so instead of having him break Mama and Daddy's hearts later, I took the bull by the horns right then and there.

“Thank you, Robert, but I just don't think you're ready for marriage. Or me, for that matter. Thank you for asking, but my answer is no.” Then I stood up and walked away before anyone at the table could utter a word.

I didn't cry, but I looked out the window as I walked back to my room. I saw the marsh grass blowing and the water rippling in the current. I saw Vesey's mother's house and the permanence it had on the riverbank, in my life. I had given up my career, my body, my dignity by getting pregnant with Robert, and I wasn't about to give my future and my heart to him too. I could see him for what he really was. Too good to be true.

Right or wrong, I was going to do this thing on my own, have a baby. I was bringing this child into the world and I vowed, then and there, to do everything in my power to protect it from smooth-talkers like Robert Friedberg. I grabbed my belly and held on tight, and in those quiet moments, I fell in love with my child.

FORTY-TWO
Collecting Evidence

Kathmandu, Nepal
Sunila

I
AM IN A CAR WITH
M
R
. A
SSAI AT THE WHEEL. HE
pauses to let a cow cross the road and then manages to ease in and out of people and bicycles and rickshaws. It seems everyone is out in the street tending to work and other errands before the rains come again this evening. I look at his hand gripping the stick shift. I have never learned to drive a vehicle, though I have seen men driving on buses. I always like to see what people's hands do while their eyes are on something else.

When I carve, I must look at my subject, but every now and again, when I have done something so many times, I can look away while my hands continue working. I can look away and forget that I am a slave to this piece of stone. Even if it is becoming a beautiful angel with outstretched wings.

How can I love the stone and hate it at the same time? Because it is a piece of me. I know nothing else. How can the ox stand having the yoke put upon its neck day after day after day? Because it is all it has ever known. Nothing more, nothing less.

I study Mr. Assai's face. He has not spoken in many minutes since we left the Shangri-La Hotel. I want to tell him,
Thank you for believing my story
. I want to thank the gods for planting this seed in my heart long ago. I've always known there was something about me, yet the truth has always eluded me, much like a horse with blinders. The world is there for it to see if it could simply turn and look at it, yet it has not the courage to turn and to look.

“We are getting near,” I say after a while. The streets are dirtier here. The walls of the buildings grayer. There are children with dusty bare feet standing on the corners, and as we pass them I think to myself:
How many of you are meant to be here? How many of these children have no future but to break stones or to be broken? Which of you will be lucky and find favor with the gods as I surely have?

No, I am not lucky. I have never been lucky. I have been a curse. My throat closes on me and I close my eyes. I breathe in deeply until I am able to open them again.

“Are you all right?” asks Mr. Assai.

“Yes,” I manage.

“You are welcome to wait here in the car if you feel it's too much for you. They may speak to me on my own. It is a possibility.”

“No,” I say. “I must go with you. I must be there to see the looks on their faces.”

“Very well. We will go together, and when we have what we need, I will take you directly back to the Shangri-La Hotel. You are happy there?”

“Oh, very happy.”

Yet part of me feels I am being tricked. Mr. Assai is taking me back to the quarry and leaving me there. My parents will never admit to their wrongdoing, and I will appear to be insane. The cruel man's son will never let me go. I will stay here and die here as we all do. As we all must.

The sound of pounding greets us, like birds chirping. Some are hard at work already. When the rainy season comes, people are hungry. They cannot make their wages, for the stones are wet and the dust turns to mud. There is a storehouse with some shelter overhead and some stone on the top remains dry. These are the stones fought over in this hungry season. We walk past mothers with naked children strapped to their backs. We pass old men crouched down and talking to themselves. The people recognize me after a few moments, yet they do not recognize me. I am clean. I have no dust on my clothes or hands or feet or face. I am with a man, a very important-looking man. No, it could not be Sunila, they think to themselves. And we walk on toward Amaa's tent.

I stand there silently taking in this desolate place that is my home. Now that I've seen the Shangri-La and slept in its bed, tasted its fine food, and bathed in its clean water, I am shocked that I have not seen this place for what it is before. I open my mouth and utter, “Amaa?”

There is a rustling sound within the tent and when the cloth swings to the side, I see Buba with no tunic, and unkempt, gray taking over his beard. His eyes pierce me. “You,” he says.

“Namaste,” I say, nodding. My father spits in my face.

Mr. Assai moves forward and moves me aside. “Mr. Kunari, my name is Mr. Assai. I am with the consulate office with the US Embassy.”

Buba looks at the man and shrinks. Fear is in his eyes.

“What is it?” I hear my mother's voice in the tent and my heart melts. I want to hold her again.

“Amaa?” I say. “Amaa, it's me. Sunila.”

“Sunila!” My mother wails and comes to her husband's side. She does not pass him, yet falls to her knees, arms outstretched when she sees me. “I thought I would never see you again. Oh, my child, my Sunila.”

I go to her. Of course I go to her. She is all I've ever known about love. She is all I've ever had in my life. I love this woman, no matter what she did to have me. She is the only family I have ever known. I bend and pull her to me, fearful at first that Buba will strike my face, yet he is too afraid of this consulate officer from the US Embassy. I have brought a shield beside me.

Mr. Assai holds out identification for Buba's eyes and Buba holds his hands to his sides, perfectly still.

“Mr. Kunari, I have some questions to ask you about something that happened a long time ago. Ms. Kunari, Sunila, here, has come forward with a book of drawings.” He looks toward Amaa. “It is my understanding that you, Mrs. Kunari, told your daughter she was taken as a baby from a café in December 1972. That she was not abandoned but stolen. Is this true? Did you say this to your daughter?”

Amaa stands slowly with my help and is no longer crying. Her hands shake as she holds on to mine. “It is true,” she says, finding the courage to look me in the eyes.

My father flinches beside her. She dares not look at him.

“Thank you, Mrs. Kunari. Mr. Kunari,” says Mr. Assai. “It is very important that you listen to me carefully. You will see I have not brought the police with me. Yet I do need a statement from you. Your daughter, against my own encouragement, wants to protect you and does not want to press charges. But in order for her to find her own mother again, for justice for this family to be served, I need you to tell me the truth of what happened. You understand, I have enough evidence to have you jailed at this very moment, but your daughter is saving you. Do you understand this? Now please, tell me your involvement in stealing this child.”