The Vine of Desire (39 page)

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” His words sound slurred.

My heart gives a fearful leap. Why should he be here, waiting?

Pishi used to say, Do you know why street dogs attack certain people and not others? It’s because they smell the fear. I wonder if it’s the same with men, this pattern in my life repeated over. I try to edge by, intent on getting past him as quickly as possible.

“Can I talk to you?”

I massage the back of my neck with trembling fingers. I don’t want to talk to him. All I want is to get to my room, shut the door, and push the dresser against it. Tomorrow I’ll insist on Myra installing a lock.

Trideep slides his fingers in under his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Excuse me.” He yawns, his glasses askew. I see that he’d been asleep.

A hot flash of shame hits me. The world doesn’t rotate around you, Sudha. Not every man has designs on your virtue.

“Is something wrong?” I ask. “Where’s Myra?”

“Myra’s in bed with a terrible headache.”

I know about Myra’s migraines, blinding shafts of pain that make her sick to her stomach. She hasn’t had one since the old man started eating. “What happened?”

“After you went out, we gave Dad his dinner—what you’d kept ready for him on his plate in the oven. He wouldn’t eat while we were in the room, so we left. I’m waiting in the passage outside his room, then I hear these horrible retching sounds, and when I rush in, he’s throwing up—except there’s almost nothing in his stomach, so he’s just heaving and shaking. I hold him as best as I can, and he doesn’t even fight me, he’s that exhausted. He’s messed himself up, so I try to change his clothes—and he’s emaciated, I didn’t realize how thin he’d gotten. Then Myra
comes in and sees him and gets all hysterical. She keeps saying, Oh my God, he’s going to die. And I’m thinking the same thing. If only I hadn’t asked him to come here….” He buries his face in his hands. “If only I’d let him be.”

I have no patience for his litany of guilt. “What happened then?”

“I called my friend Mihir, he’s a doctor, and he came over right away and gave him some shots that stopped the retching. I ran out and bought some Pedialyte, and Dad was able to keep it down. But …” He shakes his head.

“What did the doctor say was wrong with him?”

“Mihir says the problem is primarily mental, compounded by malnutrition. He’s suffering from severe depression, and Mihir doubts whether he can recover by himself. He prescribed an antidepressant but told us we’ll have to hospitalize him within the next couple of days unless there’s an improvement”—he looks up so suddenly that his glasses clatter to the floor—“and I know that’ll kill him, I know it will.”

The old man’s room is filled with the synthetic lemon smell of a deodorizer and, under that, the lingering odor of vomit and distress. I feel my way through darkness to the bed, stubbing my toe on an unexpected chair they must have brought in for the doctor. I put out my hand. Nothing but bedclothes. For a moment I think, with a strange elation,
He’s disappeared.
But, no. Here’s a knobby knee that twitches under my touch. I pull back—I don’t want to wake him—but I’m too late. His breathing has changed, grown uneven and wary.

I’m thinking with sorrow of my father, whom I never knew. As Singhji the chauffeur, I’d always taken his devotion for
granted. Tossed him the careless affection one gives to servants in India. Before my marriage, he took all his savings and mailed them to me—in an unmarked envelope so I wouldn’t know who sent them. And I—I never did anything for him that a daughter should. Neither in his life nor at his lonely death.

But perhaps it isn’t too late. What I couldn’t do for my father, perhaps I can do for the old man. Perhaps I can prevent him from dying in an impersonal hospital bed, in a room filled with the fumes of antiseptic and dread.

“Help me to help you,” I whisper.

There are shadows around the bed, jagged silhouettes like pieces broken off some larger slab of darkness. Pishi used to say, When a person is about to die, the souls of dead people that were close to him come to help him across. Maybe the old man’s wife is here, maybe even his parents, come to take him home.

I yank at the curtains, slide open a window. “Leave,” I whisper, “give him another chance at life.” A long time ago, was there someone else dying, another room in which I performed a similar homemade exorcism? Frosty night air, fog, starlight tumbling onto the carpet. The shadows have turned into ordinary objects: TV, bedside lamp, the food trolley which Myra forgot to remove. The old man lets out a breath like a cough. On the trolley, a vase with an iris. Myra must have put it there. Does he know what I was trying to do? Does he think I shouldn’t have interfered? There’s an untouched bowl of something melted into a puddle. It looks like ice cream, Myra’s failure to tempt him. Death is the only dish he’s interested in tasting anymore.

“Don’t give up,” I whisper. “Help me to help you.”

He gives no sign that he has heard.

In bed, I press my cheek against Dayita’s back.
Calm me down, kid.
Someone I once knew had said that. The rhythm of her breath washes over me like night waves. In my quilt I must find a place for the ocean, though where I don’t know yet. This is why we have children, so that in their sleep they might redeem us.

Today Lupe called to check on how things were going.

“Not too good,” I said, explaining about the old man. “Do you have a number where I can reach Sara? An address?”

“Nope.” Lupe sounded annoyed. “She quit the job I got her and went off somewhere. Didn’t even call me. I have no idea where she is.”

“I’m worried about her,” I said. Though I couldn’t have explained why.

“Save your worries for yourself. Maybe I should start looking for another job for you—”

“Not yet,” I said. “I don’t want to leave him until I absolutely have to.”

“Don’t get attached,” Lupe said. “That’s the recipe for trouble. Remember, it’s just a job. They could put him in the hospital tomorrow and fire you. Then what?”

Dayita smells different, too sweet. It takes me a moment to recognize Myra’s perfume, Natural Freesia. She must have held Dayita for a long time. I wait for the pang of jealousy to hit me, the way it would with Anju. Nothing. It is easy to be kind to strangers. Is Anju sleeping? When we slept together as children—a rare treat allowed us only during the holidays—she was a terrible bedmate. She kicked me all night in her sleep, stole my pillow. But we’d talk late into the night. I remember the excitement of those whispered conversations, the suppressed
giggles, though I’ve forgotten what we spoke of. I will her to dream of me, to call me in the morning. Tomorrow I must talk to the old man. But what will I say? I slip my finger into Dayita’s fist, feel the sleeping fingers tighten over mine.
Thanks, kid.

Earlier this evening, Lalit asked, What did one psychic say to the other when they met?

The answer: You’re doing great, how am I doing?

I laughed, then stopped abruptly. In all his jokes now, I look for hidden meanings.

(How am I doing? How am I doing?)

In my quilt, the waves will be the color of laughter, orange like balloons, like the sugar candy they sell on trains in India, like a parrot’s beak. I will call it
The Quilt for Lost Souls.
In which company I include myself.

Tomorrow I’ll tell the old man all the jokes I know.

Eight

L
alit

what I said

How about some coffee before I drop you home? Does the Café Monaco sound good to you?

what I didn’t say

All right, since you won’t tell me what happened, you leave me no choice but to imagine my own scenarios.

One: You guys had a fight, they (maybe he) said something related to how much they’re doing for you, you left, insulted. Possibility: 35 percent.

Two: Your cousin and her husband had a fight, something to do with you, maybe related to money, maybe just the tension, too many people in too small a place. You felt you were causing a problem. You left. Possibility: 45 percent.

Three: Your cousin suspected something going on between you and her husband. She confronted you, you left in shame. Possibility: 55 percent.

Four: Your cousin’s husband made a pass at you, maybe suggested an affair, you left, outraged. Possibility: 65 percent.

Five: You fell in love with him. You left so you wouldn’t ruin their marriage. Possibility: 75 percent.

Six: You both fell in love with each other. You left to give him time and space to work out a divorce. Then you’ll get back together. Possibility: 80 percent.

Seven: He made a pass at you. It made you realize that I was the one you really loved. You left, and are waiting for the right opportunity to tell me this. Possibility: 0 percent.

Never let it be said that I’m a romantic.

what you said

It’s just where I live, it’s not home.

what I said

What’s home, then?

what I wanted you to say

Home is where the heart is.

(Sorry about the cliché. I can’t think too creatively with you sitting in front of me with your windswept troublemaker face, the problems you won’t tell me about tangled in your hair, so stubborn in your silence that I want to shake you.)

what I wanted to say

Could you make your home with me, then?

(More clichés. Thus passion doth make idiots of us all.)

what I wanted you to say next (with a demure, downcast blush)

Yes, dearest.

what you said

Could I have some hot milk with honey, instead of coffee?

(Later I took your fingers in mine. They were warm from holding the mug of milk. Your nails were like mother-of-pearl. I pretended to read your palm. I predicted that a dark and handsome stranger was about to become very important in your life. I added that he wore an ear stud. You laughed and then caught one of my hands in yours.)

what I wanted you to say

Lalit, you’re already very important in my life.

what you said

mLalit, you’re already very important in my life.

(I choked on the last of my coffee. You were tracing the lines on my palm with the tip of a nail. I knew what they mean when they say
an exquisite shiver went through him
, because that’s exactly what went through me. I wanted to throw a twenty onto the table, take you where we could be alone and)

then you said

You’re the only one I can turn to as a friend. All my life, men have wanted me. It’s always been the wrong man, or the wrong time, or the wrong reason. And then I never wanted to see them again. Please don’t let that happen between us. Please?

what I wanted to say

Shit shit shit shit shit

what you said

I can’t be anything else to you, I’m sorry, I just don’t have it in
me right now. There’s a lot of things I need to flush out of my system. I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to do it. But I really need a friend—and I’ll try to be a good friend to you. That much I can promise.