The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing: A Novel (42 page)

Thomas shrugged.

“We’ve had some success in preventing growth with radiation,” Dr. George said, but now he was talking to Kamala, Kamala whose head tilted farther back, glaring at the ceiling. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. Amina watched in surprise as her father stepped toward her and reached down to brush one, then the other away.

“Kam,” he said softly, and her mother pulled his hand forward until it covered her whole face.

There was a knock at the door, and it opened to show a slight Asian woman who held two more folders in her hand. She smiled when she saw Thomas. “Hey, Doc.”

“Thank you, Lynne,” Dr. George said, rising to take the envelopes from her. “We’ll be a minute longer.”

“Oh. Sure.” She closed the door quickly behind her, and Thomas motioned for the envelopes. He slid them out and flipped from one page to the next, reading for what seemed like twenty minutes, though of course it could not have been. Amina looked blankly in front of herself. She counted the yellow bodies until she lost count, and started over. Her father handed the papers back to Dr. George.

“I should go,” he said. “I have a patient waiting.”

“What?” Her head snapped up. “Dad—”

“Sir,” Dr. George said, rising, “I’d like to schedule you for a biopsy as soon as—”

“That’s fine. Please make the necessary arrangements with Monica. My schedule will be cleared.”

“Wait!” Amina half-shouted, and Thomas turned to her, stoneeyed. “Can we—I mean, we need to talk about this, right?”

“I’m late as it is.” Thomas swiveled to find the doorknob, avoiding looking at Kamala, who wasn’t looking at him anyway, but at her own lap, as though she couldn’t imagine who it belonged to. “Please make sure your mother gets home safely.”

BOOK 9
A FATHER OF INVENTION

ALBUQUERQUE, 1983

CHAPTER 1

T
he morning of Akhil’s funeral, the remaining Eapens sat in the car, looking at the glass doors of Love’s truck stop. Outside, an eighteen-wheeler glided by like a cruise ship, and the car rocked gently like they were on water.

“Okay,” Thomas said, a reassurance to no one in particular. “Okay then.”

Amina watched her father open the door and stand up. He shook his legs so that his pants fell smoothly, and when he took out his wallet, she looked away. It wasn’t that she expected the world to stop for the funeral. But certain things, like the country music blaring from the car next to them, or needing gas to get to the church, or having to pay anyone for anything, seemed cruel.

In the passenger seat, Kamala readjusted the pleats on her white sari, smoothing them down with one hand. She leaned her head back into the seat cradle, and Amina watched her through the rearview mirror. The bruise was spectacular. A large purple poppy bloomed over Kamala’s cheek and eye socket, her red-rimmed eye in its center.
Strangely, the bruise had the effect of making what was beautiful on her face more so, her nose more patrician and lips more full and the good eye somehow better than it had been before, so that the sum of her parts gave her the air of a harrowed starlet, of glamour all lit up with tragedy.

“These were the biggest they had,” Thomas said as he opened the door and sat down. A cloud of diesel and dust floated in, and he handed the sunglasses to Kamala before shutting the door. Amina watched her open them and pause. The frames were purple and sparkly and as big as tea saucers. Kamala put them on gingerly.

“Let me see,” Thomas said, and she turned her head toward him. He placed his thumb on her chin and rotated her head from one side to the other.

“Fine,” he said, and started the engine.

She would not cry. At the funeral, Amina kept her eyes closed for fear of seeing any one image that would stick too deeply inside, turning the day into something real. She ran her fingers along the edge of the card stock in her hand, digging the corner under her thumbnail. Already she had seen too much of it, the white program with Akhil’s senior photo and the numbers 1965–1983 underneath. Already it had sucked her air out, replaced it with a buzzing numbness. The room, she knew, was thick with Indians, doctors, nurses, patients, parents, teachers, and the throngs from Mesa High, unrecognizably adult in their suits and black dresses.
Prom
, Amina thought when she first saw them. It was like they were practicing for prom. And in truth, there was something prom-ish in their manner, some terrible mix of dread and cool and hunger for the unknown that washed over their faces like sunlight.

“Two, Samuel, chapter twelve, verse twenty-two to twenty-three,” the minister said. The rustle of opening Bibles sounded like a flock of birds rising through the church. Kamala, face hidden by the sunglasses, did not move.

“While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’
But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” Pastor Kelley exhaled and looked up. “This morning is a difficult morning for you. It is a morning filled with questions and despair, when the young have seen one of their own taken by the hand of the Lord. And so you have come here for comfort and I can only say to you …”

Amina kept her eyes shut as Pastor Kelley went on to deliver a sermon about God’s favorites, apparently believing that Akhil was one of them. She did not see Mrs. Macklin rising to the podium to give, at Kamala’s request, an odd testimony to Akhil’s courage in the face of French. She did not notice how Mindy Lujan looked at the coffin and stifled sobs, surprised and terrified by her own grief; how a group of young Mathletes stared at their just-shined dress shoes, wondering what it felt like to fly over a cliff and exactly how fast Akhil had been going at the moment of impact; how everyone kept looking around for no-show Paige, as if she was supposed to be the North Star of their mourning, something they could fixate on and guide themselves by.

Instead, buffeted by the darkness of her own eyelids, Amina saw her mother’s face so clearly that it seemed for a minute that time had been kind enough to reverse itself. She saw the orange cut of the kitchen light on her mother’s cheekbones, the rise of steam from the idlis and stew, how Kamala’s mouth had softened watching Akhil eat, how in that moment everything extraneous had been erased. Two mouths, one eating, one hiding a smile. She opened her eyes to see her brother sitting on the choir bench.

She blinked. He blinked back. She sucked in, trying to make her mouth move, make anything move. He waved. She couldn’t breathe. She tried to yell or shout or scream or just say anything, but Akhil winked at her and put his finger to his lips, a dodgy smirk rising on them. She shook her head. Up on the podium, Mrs. Macklin leaned in and whispered,
“L’esprit est éternel pour les enfants,”
and Akhil flipped the woman the bird, kissing his middle finger before raising it high.

“Stop,” Amina said, and a chastened-looking Mrs. Macklin stopped talking.

“He’s right there,” Amina said, but her arm felt suddenly too heavy to lift and no one looked anyway. Dimple’s hand was cool on her wrist.

“He’s there,” Amina said to her mother’s sunglasses, and watched Kamala’s lips curl in until they disappeared completely. Her father’s eyes were stones.

“Bathroom,” Dimple whispered in her ear, and Amina stood up, letting herself be led down the center aisle, past the Indians, past Jamie Anderson, who stood trapped in the middle of his row as she walked by, silent and aggrieved. By the time she thought to look back, Akhil was standing too, stretching at the side of the podium. He waved at her lazily and strolled toward an open window. No one stopped him when he climbed out.

“Ami?” The tips of Dimple’s black shoes pointed into the bathroom stall.

She had asked to be let in before. She would ask again. Through the crack in the stall door, Amina could see the bathroom mirror, the reflection of Dimple’s head pressed to the metal door, listening. Outside, mourners were singing some flat and lousy hymn that managed to make them sound like children and insects all at once.

“Please?” Dimple shifted her weight. Amina leaned forward, slid the lock open. Her cousin came in, locking the door behind her, and Amina scooted over on the tank of the toilet. Dimple climbed on, nervously eyeing the toilet water. When she leaned back, it was Amina who sighed. It was better with Dimple there. They sat next to each other, a pocket of warmth growing between their touching shoulders. Their feet ringed the toilet.

“I’m not crazy,” Amina said after a few minutes.

“I never said you were.” Dimple flicked a piece of lint off her skirt.

Amina flexed her fingers in front of her, counting them silently.

“What did you see?”

Amina shrugged. The bathroom smelled of disgusting pink soap and talcum powder that made the back of her throat itch. Ten. All fingers were accounted for. Dimple splayed her own hands out, raising them to cover Amina’s, squeezing them into tight fists. Amina ducked her head to her chest to keep herself from crying.

“It’s okay,” Dimple said. “No one can see you.”

Amina shook her head. How to explain that she felt like if she cried, if she actually started, she might never stop? That it felt too bottomless, like jumping into one of those cave pools that was the size of a pond but actually thousands of feet deep? No, there was no explaining this to anyone, even Dimple, who held her in a clumsy half hug as the service ended and the mourners rose to leave.

They made an uneasy knot in the kitchen. Long after the reception had ended and the rest of the guests had parted, the Ramakrishnas and the Kurians curled tightly around the kitchen counter, watching Kamala. It had been hours since the burial service, hours since their arrival at the house, whereupon Thomas immediately excused himself for the bedroom and his wife took up a post at the stove. A hissing cloud of ghee billowed across the ceiling, and under it Kamala flipped and folded yet another golden crepe, its thin edges perfectly browned.

“Who’s ready for another?” she asked.

Bala and Sanji shook their heads, while Raj and Chacko exchanged hesitant glances. They had all eaten as much as they could, and certainly more than they wanted. Even Dimple, for once willing to accept anything Kamala had to offer, had stuffed herself beyond reason.

“Amina?” Kamala trilled.

“No, Ma.”

“I’ll take it, Auntie,” Dimple said, shuffling forward.

Kamala nodded curtly, slipping it onto the plate before returning to the batter bowl. She lifted the ladle with a quick hand.

“No! No, Kamala,” Bala said, standing up. “Really, no need. We’re all so full. Make it for yourself only.”

Kamala stared at her through glassy eyes. “I’m not hungry.”

“Of course not. It’s okay. Don’t eat, then. Why don’t you come sit?”

Kamala was silent, considering this. She looked away. “Have you seen the mural?” she asked.

Bala looked desperately at Sanji.

“Kamala, come sit for a moment,” Sanji said.

“Come, I’ll show you,” Kamala said, walking quickly out of the kitchen.

The others looked at one another, too anxious to move.

“You think maybe we should sedate?” Sanji asked Chacko and Raj, but the latter’s eyes flashed nervously toward Amina. They all turned to look at her.

“It’s upstairs,” Amina said. “The mural.”

In the stairwell, the rustling of silk against silk, the thick press of kitchen spices and the day’s stunned sweat. Amina followed her relatives up. It was strange enough to see the Kurians and the Ramakrishnas on the stairs, since they usually just called up when it was time to go, but when they entered Akhil’s room, all eight of them crammed around the bed, Amina felt distinctly ill. She stared at the floor while Kamala flipped the desk lamp up to light the ceiling and the others craned their necks. A sharp silence filled the room.

“It’s the Greats!” she heard her mother say. A flurry of motion dotted the corner of her eye as her mother extended an arm. “You see?”

“Yes,” Sanji Auntie said at last, and the men shuffled in assent.

“Gandhi is the one with the glasses,” Kamala continued. “Gandhiji, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Rob Halford!”