Queen of Dreams (20 page)

Later the elder whispered, There are many sides to history, are there not? Most of them are never heard, except by those who know how to recover dreams.

She said, It makes it harder to judge, does it not?

Inside myself, I heard the young woman scream as men in turbans broke into the compound. I saw the sun flash on their bayonets. Once, twice, three times. Then the pictures were gone.

I did not answer the elder. I was upset with her for having divided me into so many parts, each in conflict with the other. I walked out of the dead palace. The other apprentices were silent, too, and some wiped angrily at their eyes.

But outside was the last of a beautiful sunset, orange against the black palm trees. The electric lights came on in many colors, making the fountains shimmer like a fairy display. Ice-cream sellers sang out
pista kulfi chahiye, pista kulfi.
The other apprentices pushed the dreams into corners of their minds, to be analyzed later. They pressed around the elders, begging to be taken to the cinema, to a Chinese restaurant, to the shops in New Market that sold lipstick and scented powder.

But I refused to let go of my agitation. I turned my back on them and walked into the garden filled with the smell of pink roses, flowers that women from a distant land had planted in their home-sickness. I wanted to hate, but the flowers would not let me. Their petals were so soft, so easily broken. I knelt among them, and they were like entreating fingers on my arms.

When I opened my eyes, he was watching me. He sat under a tree, leaning against its massive trunk, and there was an ease about him that intrigued me. Living among dream interpreters for three years, I had grown used to intensity.

When he spoke, it startled me because I was not used to being addressed by young men, and also because what he said was so unusual.

Would you like to hear a song about flowers? he asked.

I nodded, and he sang. I did not understand the words very well—they were in a language different from mine. I didn’t care. I liked his voice, rich and unself-conscious even when he forgot words and hummed to fill in the gap. What I didn’t understand, I imagined, and thus it became a love song.

When the song ended, I knew I should leave without speaking. Already by looking and listening, I had disobeyed. Now I broke a third rule.

Sing me another song, I said.

This time he sang in Bengali about a woman whose eyes were as dark as those of wild deer, and he looked into my own eyes as he sang so that I felt like that woman. I knew I would break more rules to keep feeling this way.

The elders found me soon after and led me away, chastising me all the while. The other novices stared at me in mingled horror and admiration. I had to remain in the hotel room as punishment while they went to the cinema. One of the elders stayed to watch over me. As we recited the twenty-nine cardinal tenets together, I thought I saw pity on her face. Perhaps, like many experienced tellers, she had the gift of future sight.

I could see the future, too, though I was not experienced. I knew that tomorrow when the group went to the Kali temple, I would slip away and go to the address the man had given me, to the little room he rented on someone’s rooftop. I would wait there until he returned from work. A storm would begin, and we would make love on the night terrace in the rain. I was not afraid of this. I was prepared to follow him wherever his destiny led us. I wanted his destiny to become mine, too.

Ah, but there were things I did not see.

They found me, of course—the elders had their ways—and the next day when he was away at work they took me back by force to the caves. They brought me first to my aunt (but was she really my aunt? I had begun to suspect otherwise) so that she could convince me.

It isn’t too late, she said. You can still return to us. I’ll intercede with the council to take you back, even though you are no longer a virgin. There are purification ceremonies. It is difficult, but it can be done. Come back, she said, or you’ll regret your decision for the rest of your life.

But
regret
was just a sound without a meaning, buzzing like a fly in my ear. I was crazy with love, and I told her so.

How can you love someone you don’t know? she asked in dismay.

I turned away, and though I had always respected my aunt, for a moment I felt contempt. What can a shriveled old woman teach me about love, I thought, about this dizzying excitement that runs through your body like electricity until you think you will die of pleasure?

But knowing what I know now, I would have answered her question in this way: Isn’t not knowing the only way it is possible to love?

22

Rakhi

We’re closing the store today.

Waking in the morning, I pulled the blanket over my head. A gesture from childhood, when I’d believed that if I remained in bed, hidden, I could escape from whatever unpleasantness hovered over the day. My mother would come and whisk the covers off me. My little ostrich, she said.

The difference between being a child and an adult: after a while, I throw off the blanket on my own. I roll up my bedding and place it in the closet, not exactly neatly but not untidily either. It’s more than I would have done in my own apartment, an acknowledgment that it’s my mother’s space I’m inhabiting. In the bathroom I stare in the mirror, noticing new wrinkles, an age spot. I can hear my father puttering around in the kitchen downstairs. His cast came off the day before yesterday, and he’s fixing his own breakfast. Good! The sooner he’s able to take care of himself, the sooner I can get back to my own life.

My father calls up the stairs. Can he make me some scrambled eggs? No, I lie. I’m not hungry.

The real reasons:

When I come downstairs, I notice that he’s set the table with two plates. The scrambled eggs, neatly piled into a serving bowl, look safe enough. He’s also cut up some melon—my favorite fruit—and put out a loaf of French bread. If he dropped something, there’s no sign of it on the kitchen floor.

“Have something,” he says. “It’s going to be a long day.”

I give him a sharp look. I haven’t told him about the store closing, haven’t even told him how bad our finances are. I consider saying no again, but I’m suddenly hungry. And he’s right: it’ll probably be a long, hard day. I take several slices of melon, a wary spoonful of the eggs. They’re surprisingly tasty. He pours us orange juice, his injured arm held at an awkward angle.

“How does it feel?” I ask.

“Better,” he says, flexing gingerly.

“The eggs are good.”

“Glad you like them. Can I give you some more?”

This is still the only kind of conversation I’m able to have with him, and he knows it. He must notice that since the accident I haven’t called him
Dad.
Once in a while, when I’ve caught him unawares, I’ve seen the corner of his mouth pulled down with the weight of all the things he wants to say. But I’m not ready to unburden him.

I tell him I might be late coming back. He shouldn’t wait up for me.

He follows me to the door, then says, “But I’m coming with you.”

That’s when I notice that he’s wearing a clean pair of corduroys, a button-down shirt. He must have bathed early—his hair is damp, the comb markings clearly visible.

“No,” I say. “I don’t want you to.” I speak slowly, as though to a child, trying to hold on to my temper. What makes him think he has the right to intrude like this into my life?

“Rakhi, it’s going to be hard, closing down your store. Having someone there who cares for you may be a good thing.”

“How did you know about us closing down?” My voice rises in spite of my efforts at calmness. “I don’t recall discussing it with you.”

“I overheard you talking to Belle. Maybe I can help—”

The words tumble out before I know it. “You’ve never helped me with anything in my entire life. And now you’ve started eavesdropping! Just because I’m forced to stay here with you doesn’t give you the right to pry into my life like this.”

He blinks as the words hit him. For a moment his lips move but no sounds emerge. Then he says, unevenly, “I didn’t mean to pry. Maybe I shouldn’t have listened. I did it because I worry about you. I always have. But until now your mother was there to take care of your problems. That’s the way she wanted it, without any interference from me, so I let her. Maybe I should have insisted on doing more—. Well, it’s too late to think about the past—”

I’m surprised, then suspicious. Easy for him to say that my mother’s wishes kept him away from me. She isn’t exactly here to deny it, is she?

“It is too late,” I say. “And you’re making me more late right now. So if you’ll excuse me—”

I’m at the door when he says, “Rakhi, what’s more important? Proving that you don’t need me or not losing what you’ve worked so hard for all this time, your business—and maybe your daughter?”

I turn, stunned. How did he know my fears about Jona? And what else does he know?

“I can’t guarantee that I’ll be of any help, but at least let me try,” he says.

I swallow what I’d been about to say—
If you really want to
help, just take care of yourself so I don’t have to be here
—and let him follow me into the car. What he said has hit me hard. Do I really have my priorities wrong, as he claims?

If my mother were alive, I would have consulted her, and she—always honest in such matters—would have told me. Now I must figure it out for myself. I chew on the inside of my cheek, thinking, as we drive to Berkeley in silence.

Belle is already at the store, dressed for hard labor in overalls and a sleeveless T-shirt, her hair bundled into a bandanna. But she isn’t alone. Across the counter from her is a tall young Sikh, dressed in blue jeans and a traditional turban. At first I think he is a customer (an irony—we no longer have anything to offer customers), but then I see that they are arguing. Or, more accurately, Belle is holding forth while the young man listens. She gives my father and me a distracted wave as we enter but doesn’t stop talking.

“I told you I don’t want any of it. What am I going to do with it? What on earth were they thinking of, sending me this stuff! It’ll all spoil. You’ll just have to take it back.”

Between them on the countertop there’s a large box filled with packets and jars. I can also see produce: mustard greens, mulee, lauki squash. Her parents must have sent a care package.

“I told you,” the young man says, “I’ve just come from Turlock, from visiting my folks. I’m not going there again until the end of the month.” His accent, distinctly American, isn’t what I’d expected. He must have been born here, like Belle and myself. I wonder at the turban—so many young Sikhs have chosen to dispense with it. It suits him, though, gives him a rugged, adventurous look.

“I don’t care. Just take it away.” Belle pushes the box at him. “I can’t handle vegetable guilt on top of everything else today.”

He raises a polite, inquiring eyebrow. “Vegetable guilt?”

“That’s right. I don’t know how to cook any of this—and my mom knows it. I can’t figure out why she sent them—and right now, too, when I’m drowning in stress. Look at all these spices: cumin, red chilies, bay leaves. A whole bottle of chickpea flour. I’ve never used chickpea flour in my life.” She pokes at a packet. “And this—I don’t even know what this is.”

“It’s saunf,” the young man says. “Foreigners call it fennel. Very good for digestion. People with bad tempers usually have digestive problems. Maybe that ’s why your biji sent it.”

“Thanks for the lesson,” Belle snaps. “Now if you would please remove the box and yourself from here—some of us have to work for a living, you know.”

The man picks up the box. “I’ll be happy to leave, believe me! I’ll take the produce and use it myself. It’s obviously wasted on you! It’s a good thing your parents won’t know how you treated their gift. They packed that box with a lot of love. But that probably doesn’t mean much to you—you’re far too cool to care about old-fashioned concepts like respect for your elders.”

I brace myself for an outburst, but Belle looks taken aback. Only for a moment, though. Then she snatches the box from him.