East Into Upper East (20 page)

As for her, she had nothing to look forward to. It was like that time when the old man had first resigned his office and they had had to give up the perks and pleasures of power that she had begun so much to enjoy; and the silent years that followed and her lonely solitude as he withdrew more and more. Now that he had even stopped singing his Vedic hymns, the silence was total; whenever she went up there, she found him perched on his bed, his head sunk low and to one side, like a sorrowing bird. Some days he did not eat his food, but she was too depressed to rally or scold him. There were times when she neglected to take her bath and sat on her crumpled bed with her grey hair hanging loose. At night she wandered around the house, and when she thought the old man was asleep, she went up on the roof. She found him lying on his side with his knees drawn
up. She had no thought to spare for him; she came to look over the parapet, not at the river or the sky, both shining and beautiful, but over the other side at the terrace of the dance school. She saw the white mosquito nets standing in a rank that was serried and unbroken. There was no movement, no sign of life, but she knew that under each net a figure lay stretched out, chastely asleep.

But one night there
was
movement. A net in the middle of the row of beds stirred; a leg was cautiously thrust out, then a man emerged—although everything was flood-lit by an almost full moon, she was too far away to make out whether it was one of the old teachers or a young one. It may even have been the stocky, pockmarked Kathak master who had replaced Ram. She watched him glide past the other beds—perhaps he was only going to the toilet? But the way he moved like a thief he seemed intent on a less innocent excursion; once he stopped stock-still—maybe one of the sleepers had stirred, and he stood there with one foot still raised in the air. Then he continued, crouching low now. She wanted to shout out a warning—was it to the others, or to him, to let him know that someone was watching him? He reached the stairs leading down into the house and disappeared. She waited; if he had only gone to the toilet, he would return. She waited and he did not return.

She continued to stand by the parapet. Her eyes were still fixed on the row of white nets, but in her mind's eye she was following the other's stealthy progress—out of the house, down the lane, into the next lane; tonight he would have to be very careful because of the moon. When he reached his destination, there would be someone to let him in. And then what? She let her imagination roam, beginning with what Ram had told her—the brocade sofa and the bottle of whisky: until suddenly she was plunged into her own ocean of memories, and it was not the girl and Ram she saw, but herself and the old man—Prakash! In their marital bedroom, with the door locked and the electric fan whirring furiously but unable to cool their hot bodies; his hand was over her mouth to muffle her irrepressible laughter.

She left the parapet and went to him where he lay curled up on his side. When she touched his shoulder, he sat up immediately, as if he had not been asleep at all. She said, “Why didn't you eat your food today?” There was something in her voice that made him raise
his drooping head. “If you don't look after yourself,” she said, “what will happen to you? . . . And to me?” She touched his face: “And when did you last shave?” She spoke severely but bent down to his cheek, brushing the grey stubble with her lips. He smiled, toothless, blissful. She sat on the ground by his rickety bed, leaning against it; they talked together and were silent together. Although it was very late when they parted, he was up at dawn and he was singing again. This is what he sang:

            
As bees pile honey upon honey

            
O Kama! Thus in my own person

            
O Kama! Let honey flow

            
Let lustre, brilliance flow and strength!

UPPER EAST

B
EAVER
S
TREET, OFF
W
ALL
S
TREET
, N
EW
Y
ORK
C
ITY

THE TEMPTRESS

All the young people Tammy knew in New York had odd family backgrounds, so it was not necessary for her to give much thought to her own. And unlike many of her friends, she did have a home, or a base, even if there was no one in it except herself and Ross, whom she had inherited from her mother. Again unlike many of the people she knew, Tammy never really felt lonely or adrift: maybe because she was always either looking forward to or looking for something, so what was actually happening in the present wasn't of overriding concern to her.

In earlier years, when they had been college room-mates, her friend Minnie used to say that Tammy's serenity came from never having had to worry about money. But now that Minnie too had money—a poor girl with a lot of personality, she had married a rich man—she herself had not attained serenity; on the contrary. When her marriage broke up—her husband had turned out to be a rotten bastard—Minnie was tremendously restless and traveled all over the world, first for pleasure to places like Venice and San Raphael, then further east for enlightenment. Tammy had sometimes joined her on both kinds of expedition and had enjoyed them much more than Minnie. But it was Minnie, all by herself, who found and brought home Ma—though it was Tammy who inherited her, as she had inherited Ross.

Ma was in her sixties: an ordinary Indian housewife with extraordinary powers. By feeling a person's pulse, she was able to locate a sickness anywhere in the body; she had a clear view over past births, reaching back many centuries, as well as (though this was a power she used sparingly) future prospects in this birth; she could cure
snakebite by transmitting a verbal talisman over the telephone; and a number of other such specialties, which however were all secondary to her main work. This was to give peace to people who came to her in need of it; or spiritual enlightenment to those who felt themselves ready for it, as Minnie did. On one of her excursions into India, Minnie had been taken to Ma's New Delhi home in a row of whitewashed structures, their balconies overhung with a lot of washing. It was a government housing colony, Ma's husband having been a clerk in the Ministry of Disposal and Supplies; and after his death, no civil servant dared turn Ma out of these quarters, for by that time she had reached something of the status of a holy woman, though without ever laying claim to it. She said she was there for her friends, that was all; that they should feel free to visit and sit with her and talk with her and occasionally to sing and rejoice with her. And that was what happened in her house: people came and, leaving their shoes on the threshold, sat on a sheet spread in her living room, while she spoke sometimes of quite mundane matters, like the quality of the year's mango crop, and sometimes of higher things. It was not for what she said but for the effect of her personality that people came to her: at first only a few friends from the neighborhood, then more from other neighborhoods, and as news of her spread, they came from farther away, until she was so well-known that even foreign tourists were brought to see her, Minnie among them.

On her return to New York, Minnie told everyone about Ma; and the way she spoke of her, her friends too longed to come within Ma's aura. Minnie tried to describe this aura, but words failed her except for common ones like fantastic, and out of this world. That was exactly what being with Ma was, Minnie insisted: like not being in this world at all but in a completely other, different one. At that, Tammy could not repress a cry: for it was exactly what she herself was always wishing for, to get out of this world into a completely other one. Minnie described how, when Ma had laid her hands on Minnie's head, the effect had lingered for days, for weeks, and it was still there, she said. So then all the friends agreed that Ma must be brought to New York, and it did not take them long to collect her fare and other expenses; she would of course be staying with Minnie, who had first claim on her. Ma herself was surprisingly compliant with all their plans for her, which she said came from above.

Minnie had described her as a homely, comfortable, housewifely figure, but when she arrived, they were all surprised by the way she glittered. It was as if she had done herself up the way a star would, when on tour for a series of gala appearances. She had repossessed herself of all the gold jewelry—the bangles, the bracelets, the earrings, the hair ornaments—that she had had to lay aside as a widow; her cotton saris were replaced by effulgent silks with huge borders of gold thread; no traces of grandmotherly grey remained in her hair, which shone black as night except for the parting adorned with henna. Her manner was effusive, brimming over with gratitude for all their kindness to her. She called them her children, her little ones; she read wonders in their palms; she told them all the old stories, about Krishna teasing the milkmaids and Vishnu churning the ocean. She also laid her hands on their heads, the way Minnie had described—but though they waited expectantly, nothing happened. The fact was, Ma fell flat; she was a failure; by common consent, Ma was a bore.

Meanwhile, Minnie was stuck with her. She had installed her in the master bedroom, which had once been her own marital chamber (“Don't remind me,” said Minnie). Minnie herself slept in the second bedroom, but this turned out to be too close to Ma, who got up at dawn and sang very loudly, giving Minnie a headache that lasted the entire day. Ma was moved into another, smaller bedroom, and from there farther away to the maid's room at the back of the kitchen, but still Minnie's headaches continued. For it wasn't only Ma's song that pervaded the place, it was her smell too—“All that scent she uses,” Minnie complained to Tammy, “and twice a week she has an oil bath, smearing herself from head to foot in some ghastly stuff that makes me want to puke—” “Sh,” warned Tammy, for at that moment Ma entered, radiantly bearing a plate of very greasy fritters she had just fried for them. She thrust her offering at them, smiling with pleasure at the pleasure she was giving them. But Minnie drew back—“No thank you,” she said. Ma's smile gave way to an expression of such disappointment that Tammy felt she had to take one of the oil-drenched balls and, with Ma's eyes fixed on her expectantly, to chew right through to the slice of raw onion inside and then to swallow that as best she could.

The situation became impossible for Minnie: she said Ma would have to be sent home. But Ma wasn't ready to go home. She felt she
was still needed here, also that she hadn't yet had her fill of shopping and nice restaurants and all the lights coming on in the theater district and the advertisements flashing and the many different cable channels and flavors of ice cream. Inside the tiny room that was now her lot, she kept as quiet as she could, even muting her morning hymn so as not to irritate Minnie. She never complained that no one gave any more dinner parties for her, nor that Minnie's friends had ceased to call on her. When they came to visit Minnie, she was as sweet with them as before, pressing the heads of those that would let her and maybe failing to notice that most of them now shrank away. Tammy was the only one who managed not to yawn when she told the beautiful old stories; and Tammy became her favorite—she recognized very special qualities in her, so that day by day it became clearer to her that her mission in New York lay with Tammy. Ma was grateful to Minnie for bringing her here, and for her hospitality and all her goodness. But Minnie was on a different path where she was unable to benefit from the help that Ma had come to give; and finally one day Ma had to break the news to Minnie that she could no longer stay with her but was needed at Tammy's.

Tammy's apartment on the West side was as large as Minnie's on the East side, but nowhere near as pristine. Minnie had hired an interior decorator for hers, also contributing some wonderful ideas of her own; but the rolls of wallpaper specially made for her in Paris had only just arrived when her marriage ended and she began to spend more time traveling around than living in the apartment. Tammy had inherited hers from her mother, and she left it the way she had always known it: sofas and ottomans upholstered in unraveling tapestry, a tattered wall-hanging of silk thread, the marble busts of early Presidents, the Venetian mirror with black spots on it, the collection of dead clocks handed down by a great-grandfather who had been an envoy to Russia. From time to time Tammy bought a plant to cheer things up, but it always died, and even the hardy desert ones drooped and collected dust in their fleshy wrinkles. There was only one other person living there, and that was Ross—“Is he your uncle?” Ma asked Tammy, who said no but didn't know how to explain him.

Ma asked a hundred questions about Ross: who is he? Why is he living here? Doesn't he have a wife? Children? What is his income? Why is he called Ross—is it his own or his father's name? The only one Tammy could answer was the last; she knew Ross was a corruption of something else: Rosenthal? Rosenbaum? He was a refugee of a vintage so outdated—so old hat—that no one wanted to hear another word about their stories of escape or survival. “Ross” was what Grace, Tammy's mother, had called him; sometimes she said “Rosie,” not affectionately but to tease him. As far as Tammy was concerned, he had arrived from nowhere: one year, when she had come home from school for the summer vacation, he was there. “I found him in the park,” was all Grace said by way of explanation. It may have been true; Ross spent a lot of his time, even now, sitting in the park. “How do you like my new beau?” was something else Grace said about him, but this was hard to believe. Grace had been tall, aristocratic, haughty; a ruin of great beauty. Ross was tiny and bald and spoke with an accent that was a compound of languages spoken in European countries with ever-fluctuating borders.

Grace's brother in Philadelphia—this was when they were still on speaking terms—used to warn her that Ross was a dangerous character out to bilk her of her fortune. It was true that Grace had a fortune, but it was safely buried in trust funds from where she was not inclined to dig it out for anyone. Ross had difficulty getting even his cigarette money out of her, and it amused her to make him beg for it—sometimes literally, holding it high above his head so that, looking up pleadingly, he resembled a pet dog standing on its hind legs for some promised morsel. But she must have been fond of him, for she let him stay with her for over six years—the last six years of her life, when she had quarreled with everyone else. They were each other's only companions, except when Tammy came for vacations; and in the last years, when Tammy started traveling, Ross and Grace were mostly alone, entombed together in the vast apartment in the vast old Gothic building. Tammy knew that he took care of her mother as far as anyone could; Grace had almost stopped eating, all the cigarettes she smoked and the vodka she drank must have killed her appetite. Of course he couldn't make her happy or contented—all he could do was hide her hoard of pills, though not successfully, for in the end she managed to get hold of enough to kill herself with an overdose.

When Tammy told her some of these facts, Ma put her hand to her cheek and cried, “Oh! Oh! Oh!” She almost blamed herself for not coming earlier to save Tammy's mother. But she now understood that the purpose of her mission (we move in one direction, she explained, and then we are moved in another) was to do whatever she could for Tammy. While engaged on this work, Ma settled in very nicely. That was one beauty of her character, that whatever her circumstances, she accepted them gladly. Never for a moment had she murmured when demoted to Minnie's maid's room; and she installed herself as equably into the dark, dusty, cavernous bedroom allotted to her in Tammy's apartment. She made it her own, spreading her ambience over the furniture—as roomy and gloomy as coffins—that had come down from Tammy's maternal ancestresses. Soon there were all the smells of incense and oil that Minnie had objected to; also little statues of gods that she tended and sang to with jubilant hymns; and the jingle of her bangles, and the silks of vibrant orange and purple in which she swished around the house.