The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing: A Novel (27 page)

“What the fuck?” Akhil croaked through a dry throat, eyes goopy with sleep.

“What’s happening?” Kamala asked, but the question came out wrong, too full of cheer that did not match her anxious face.

The subtleties were lost on Akhil, who rolled over with such a thump that the couch shuddered a little.

Kamala peered at her son as though he were a jar of something unidentifiable in a fridge. “At least he’s eating.”

It was an understatement. The sheer amount of food Akhil put away each night at dinner was nothing short of phenomenal. Mountains of rice, stacks of chapatis, flotillas of idlis, and entire chickens disappeared during meals. Amina saw him go through a bag of oranges in one sitting.

At the end of the third week, Kamala perched on the sofa arm. “And what,” she asked Amina, as though they had been in the middle of a conversation, “does he say about it?”

“About what?” Amina turned the page of her book, guilt emanating from her upper lip, her armpits.

Kamala pointed a squiggling finger at the space over Akhil’s head. “This sleeping-all-the-time business.”

“He doesn’t say anything about it.” This was true. The three times she had tried to bring up his new sleeping pattern, Akhil had either
turned up the radio, ignored her, or accused her of trying to “get more fucking money by making shit up.”

“You think he’s depressed?”

“He’s always depressed.”

“Not true! He’s always
angry
.” Kamala pulled a piece of fuzz from his eyelashes, studied it, and flicked it away. Akhil did not move. “Has something bad happened to him recently?”

“You mean other than Salem?”

Kamala’s lip curled inward, her nostrils flared. She blinked at Amina several times before saying, “That didn’t happen to Akhil.”

“No, I know, but we just—”

“Not Akhil. Not you.” Kamala walked to the chair Amina sat in and bent down, surprising her with a kiss on the head.

“You both are
fine
,” she said, squeezing Amina’s arm quickly before heading to the kitchen.

Strangely, saying the words out loud changed something in Kamala. As week four turned to five and the holidays rounded the corner, she was lighter suddenly, bustling about the kitchen, making tins of cookies and halwa that Akhil would devour by the handful before passing out, crumbs lining his lips. Once, when she caught Amina hovering over the couch, she prodded her away, saying, “Enough,” like Amina was pinching him.

“Maybe he’s fucking possessed,” Dimple suggested on Christmas Day, channeling Mindy Lujan to the best of her ability, though the holiday had wrenched them apart for an entire twenty-four hours. She and Amina stood in Akhil’s room, looking down at his sleeping body. “What does your dad think?”

“He’s been really busy with work. And it only really happens in the afternoon like this, when Dad isn’t around, so it’s really just me and Mom who see it.”

“And what does Our Lady of Supreme Intolerance say?”

“She thinks he’s fine because he’s not depressed.”

“Cool.” Dimple’s eyes wandered toward Akhil’s window. “Do you know where he hides his cigs?”

But it was not cool. As the cars of the Kurians and the Ramakrishnas receded down the driveway, as Thomas mumbled about needing
to make rounds and Kamala divided the leftover idlis into Ziplocs for freezing, Amina sat in Akhil’s beanbag, peeking at her snoring brother over the pages of her book. The next week she grew more agitated. Was it normal for anything that wasn’t a cat to sleep for sixteen hours a day?

“I think he’s sick,” she announced loudly after dinner the following Monday. Enough was enough. Winter break was over, and Akhil was getting worse instead of better, heading for the couch like a drunk rushing to the bottle the minute they came home.

“You said yourself he is doing fine in school,” Kamala said, scrubbing the stove with gusto.

“Look at him, Ma. Does he look fine to you?”

They looked at Akhil. Truthfully, Akhil did not look
un
fine so much as uncomfortable, one arm folded under him, the other hanging bent over the edge of the sofa.

“This isn’t normal,” Amina said.

Her word lingered in the air, spreading like the smell of smoke. Amina saw her mother’s shoulders dip and rise. Kamala went to the kitchen, picked up the phone, dialed.

“Come now! Your son is sick and won’t wake up!” she announced after a beat. She slammed the phone down.

It rang back almost immediately. She listened.

“No ambulance!” She slammed the phone down again.

Half an hour later Thomas gunned down the driveway in a whirl of dust. He left the car door open and the lights on, running in the front door.

“Where is he?” he asked Kamala, not breaking his stride.

“The living room.” Kamala, Amina, and Queen Victoria followed him down the hall.

“What exactly is wrong?”

“He won’t wake up.”

“How long has he been out?”

“Not out, sleeping! Since he got home!”

“Did he suffer any kind of head trauma today? Falling, getting hit, anything like that?”

Kamala looked at Amina.

“Not that I saw,” Amina said.

By now they had entered the living room. Thomas took a sharp breath and knelt down on the shag rug. He shooed away the dog and pulled at Akhil’s eyelids, revealing the white, swirling custard of both eyes. He grabbed a wrist.

“Akhil?” His voice was loud.

Akhil rolled over. “Mnff.”

“Akhil, wake up.”

Akhil frowned but didn’t open his eyes.

Thomas looked at his watch. “Pulse is steady and breathing looks fine.” He placed his hand under Akhil’s nose, then reached into his pocket, pulling out a thermometer. He placed it in Akhil’s ear. “So he’s been asleep for about five hours?”

“No, he was awake for dinner,” Kamala said.

“I thought you said he’s been asleep since he got home.”

“He woke for dinner and then went right back to sleep,” Kamala said. She leaned forward, whispered knowingly,
“Maybe drugs.”

“Did he have a healthy appetite? What did he eat?”

“Five helpings of chicken curry, nine chapatis, two spoons of salad, one bowl of rice and dahl, one bottle of RC Cola.”

Thomas’s eyes widened. “Really? All of it?”

“What, all of it? He likes my cooking.”

“And dinner ended when?”

Kamala glanced at the clock in the kitchen, held up her fingers calculating. “Two and a half hours ago.”

“He’s not on drugs,” Amina volunteered.

The thermometer beeped and Thomas pulled it out, looking at it for a long moment. “So he was totally coherent during dinner?”

“Not at all,” Kamala said with the barest note of triumph in her voice. “I said ‘Good for Star Wars,’ and he said nothing!”

Thomas looked at Amina for translation.

“You know, Reagan’s new defense-policy thing. Mom said she supported it, and Akhil didn’t argue.”

Amina watched this information filter through her father’s mind, his brow growing heavy. “Kamala, you do realize I was with a patient.”

“And?”

“And this could have waited.”

“I’ve waited two months! How much longer should I be waiting?”

Thomas pulled the stethoscope from his neck, placing the white tips inside his ears. Amina and her mother stood still as he cocked his head, shut his eyes. When he was done, he pulled the earpieces out and rocked back on his heels, taking in the room. He looked at the book bags flung on the floor, the shoes and papers covering the carpet, the television broadcasting game-show applause. His eyebrows raised slightly at the “snackument”—a tower of crackers and spray cheese that Amina liked to build and eat—before landing on Vanna White turning over a row of white
s
’s.

“Well?” Kamala asked.

Thomas stood up, pulling a big antennaed block out of his pocket and setting it on the table in front of the couch. “We’ll just have to see.”

“Don’t you think we should take him to the hospital?”

“Not yet.” He walked across the room to the liquor cabinet.

“When? Tomorrow?”

“I think we should just watch him for a bit.” He took out a tumbler.

“We’ve been watching! I’m telling you! He’s not himself anymore!”

“Kamala, please.” The liquid splashed down. “We can’t send him to the hospital because he isn’t fighting with you. Sleeping for a few hours in the middle of the evening is hardly unusual for a boy of his age.”

“But it’s not just that! Amina, tell him!”

Her parents’ eyes shifted to her, pleading separate cases. Amina looked from one to the other.

“Something is wrong with him,” Amina said at last, and her father looked plainly disappointed. “No, really, he’s been sleeping all the time. And he …” She struggled to think of something that wouldn’t get Akhil into trouble. “Even when he is awake, he’s really out of it. Sometimes he has to pull over when we’re driving. He sleeps during lunch. And then he comes home and eats like some crazy starving animal. And Dimple thinks he’s possessed.”

Her father sighed. “Is that everything?”

Amina nodded, feeling foolish.

“Not everything!” Kamala interjected. “He needs to see another doctor! Right now! Take him!”

“I told you he doesn’t—” Thomas started.

“Yes HE DOES. I AM TELLING YOU HE DOES.”

“Does what?” Akhil asked, his voice cottony with sleep. They turned to him, but no one said anything.

“What’s going on?” Akhil asked.

“You’re awake.” An unsurprised Thomas took a sip of his scotch.

“Yeah.”

“What day is it?”

Akhil stared groggily. “What?”

“Day of the week. Monday, Tuesday—”

“Thursday.”

“What’s the date?”

Akhil frowned. “Is this a test?”

“Yes,” Thomas answered.

Akhil blinked several times before saying, “January 12, 1983.”

“Why are you sleeping so much?” Kamala demanded.

Akhil looked at Amina, his face darkening with accusation. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, of course not,” Thomas said.

Akhil slumped back into the chair. He looked at his father, frowning. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s early.”

“Your mother called me home.”

“Why?”

No one said anything. Kamala bit her lips together, blew air in puffs through her nose.

“What is going on?” Akhil looked warily from one to the other. Amina shrugged.

“Something is wrong with you!” Kamala shouted.

Akhil’s eyes rounded. “What?”

“Kamala!”

“
Wrong
with me?”

“Your mother was just worried, and now she’s not,” Thomas said. “Don’t worry yourself.”

“Don’t say how I am!”

“Kamala, enough. You’re scaring him.”

“I’m not scaring anyone! Reagan could be deporting all of us tomorrow, and he would sleep like a baby!”

“We’re being deported?” Akhil asked.

“Listen, he’s fine—”

“He is not fine! He’s sleeping all the time like some kind of infant! His brain is going soft! He’s turning into furniture! You’re too busy in the hospital all the time with your precious patients—strangers!—and here your own son is dying and you won’t even—”

“I’m DYING?” Akhil sat up.

“HE’S GROWING!” Thomas bellowed, his voice slapping the ceiling. “My God, Kamala, nothing is wrong with him. He’s a regular boy in the middle of a growth spurt! You and your ridiculous wringing your hands and good Lord, it doesn’t take a doctor to know these things—just
look at him
! LOOK AT HIM!”

Amina followed her father’s arm, an arrow of accusation tipped by a trembling finger, pointing straight toward Akhil. She looked at her brother. She really looked at him. And for the first time, she saw that his arms had grown thinner and longer as if stretched, knuckles grazing the carpet as he slouched into the chair. And his legs. Bulkier in the thigh, hard-looking, like twin benches attached to his torso. Her eyes moved up to his scowling face and saw that the acne had sucked back into his cheeks, leaving tiny craters in its place. And his cheekbones. They were too huge suddenly, swollen into arcs that hardened his face into a new, lunar topography. He blinked. He stood up. Amina backed up.

“Done?” Her brother’s voice was tight with fury.

“Yes,” Thomas said.

Akhil stalked across the room. Moments later, his feet trampled the stairs. A bedroom door slammed above them. Kamala stared at her husband. She opened her mouth to say something and then shut it.

“Kamala, you were scaring—”

The flat of her palm silenced him. She turned and left the living room, sari swishing against the bare floor. Another door slammed.

Thomas tipped the rest of the scotch into his mouth, swallowed. He walked over to the couch and sank into it. “Go if you want.”

Amina stayed.

Her father placed his elbows on his knees, his forehead in his hands. A face mask hung loosely from his neck. His scrubs were dotted with blood. He looked up at the television. “What’s this show?”

“
Wheel of Fortune
. They’re trying to guess a word.”

“Huh.” He looked confused.

“Or a saying. You know, like ‘tears of a clown.’ Or ‘from dusk till dawn.’ ”

She sat down next to him on the couch and turned up the volume, but her father had lost interest.

“What’s that?” she said, pointing to the box with the antenna.

“It’s a telephone.”

“Where’s the cord?”

“It doesn’t have one. It’s a new thing, a phone that can go where you go. Soon they say they’ll be making them for cars.”

“Why would anyone phone someone from a car?”

Thomas shrugged. “For directions?”

“Huh.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“What’s that?” he pointed at her plate.

“It’s a snackument. Ritz crackers and cheese in a can. You can eat it.”

“What kind of cheese comes in a can?”

Amina grabbed the can. “Hold out your finger.”

“The sun will come out tomorrow!” a cheery voice announced, and a flurry of lit tiles
ding-ding-dinged
on the television.

Her father held out his finger, and Amina decorated it with swirls of yellow cheddar. Vanna turned the lit tiles over. The winning contestant got a new car and a vacation to Phoenix, Arizona. When Amina was done, her father held his finger to the light, turning it this way and that so that it glistened.