Island of a Thousand Mirrors (22 page)

He tells us of the years in London. All of them crowded into a flat where they slept
head to toe, turning in unison like a row of grilling chickens. The early days when
he spoke to no one and only watched the other adolescents, calling them names in Tamil
under his breath, Moon Face, Whitey, Ugly. Days of deprivation and bad food. Later
a sort of foolhardy teenagehood, fueled by what was happening in the back of his head,
on the island, in the north.

The arrack makes us light-headed. A slow subsiding into silence. Companionable solitude,
the hum of insects, loud in our ears. When, hours later, they go off to bed hand in
hand, I drown in the sudden and sheer panic of loneliness.

*   *   *

In the mornings La takes me to the school. There are thirty children, each missing
either one or both legs. They squeal in pleasure as we cut and color. At first it
is heartbreaking, but with astounding quickness I learn their strengths, see that
they are not destroyed. There is Asanga, who hops up to me on his crutches, holding
up a crayoned rooster, fiery red in the comb, iridescent green-blue plumage. Shy Nirmala,
who only draws stick men in boxy tanks riding mayhem over other broken-limbed stick
people. Asoka, who throws his arms about my legs each time I come within reach. They
sleep in two long rooms, neat cots made every morning. They ask me questions about
America, is it true that everyone has a car there? And also, does everyone really
have a gun to shoot everyone else on the street? One little girl sits on my lap, she
says, “I wouldn’t go there.” But then, looking down at the curved stump of her left
knee, she says, “But maybe they could send me a leg?” They know that the prosthetics
come from India and America. They make my heart contract, these beautiful unbroken
children. They make me forget myself. They have big brown eyes that have witnessed
too much. Big brown eyes that shine with ferocious, unqualified, unrepentant hope.

Afterward La and I wander through the hot, dusty marketplace where squatting women
offer us small red onions, fat green chilies, heads of garlic and ginger, twists of
newspaper holding curry powder and turmeric. We walk through alleyways, heads reeling
from the odor of bleeding fish twisting their death throes in the sunlight. Inexpertly,
we choose seerfish and plump red shrimp. We go home jostling and laughing in a trishaw
that veers madly through traffic, narrowly missing head-on collisions more times than
we can count while the plastic marigold garland around the front mirror dances to
the Hindi film sound track. We pass Colombo in a swirl, the crowds, the noise, and
turn into the quiet lane that leads to the house. As we swing into the courtyard,
the fierce sunlight switches off, dark clouds open, and we must duck our heads under
newspaper, run into the house, laughing, breathing deeply, the freshly sluiced earth
as seductive and potent as the scent rising off a lover’s thighs.

We banish the crone who rules the kitchen and set to work, knives in a flurry through
onion and chili, fingertips tugging fat shrimp out of their briny armor. I crush garlic
under the flat of my knife, free the cloves from their parchment skin. La sets pots
on the fire, scatters cumin and cardamom into the fragrant coconut oil. Outside, the
afternoon is dark as twilight, the scent of rain and earth entering through the open
windows, fluttering the flimsy white curtains like the wings of ghost insects. Rain
falls inside, a small puddle forming on the red-waxed floor like a pool of molten
sealing wax, melted lipstick. I go to close them, but she holds my arm. “Let it be,”
she says with that familiar raised eyebrow, that quizzical teasing look. I return
my knife to the garlic. The scent of rain mixes with our spices, fills the kitchen.

Saraswathi

There is going to be an election rally on Galle Face Green. The traitor will be there.
He will be surrounded by people, heavily bodyguarded, of course. But those men cannot
protect him from me. I will push through the crowd. I will carry a garland of jasmine
to put around his neck. I will be so close, close enough to touch.

Yasodhara

We drive through quiet Mount Lavinia lanes until we are in front of a red gate. Shiva
beeps the horn once and when a small, dark girl appears to open it, I am suddenly
swimming in the past. La, twisting in her seat, giggles at my expression and says,
“No, it’s not Poornam!” We get out and are surrounded by a pack of dancing, delightedly
drunken dogs. Then I am caught in my aunt Mala’s overflowing embrace, the breath squeezed
out of me, like being hugged by an enthusiastic octopus, like coming home. She is
laughing and pushing away tears, saying, “Let me look, girl, let me see you.” She
holds me at arm’s length and rakes my eyes until I must drop them, her gaze too knowing,
too far-reaching. She says, “Come, come inside,” and sweeps us into the house on the
wings of her teal-green kaftan.

Inside, it is as if time has not passed: the same photographs hang on the walls, my
father, Mala, and their parents on the beach in Hikkaduwa. My father in short pants,
big eyes, his hand on the shoulder of that dark scallywag sister. Beatrice Muriel
looking stern and the Doctor in a sarong, his quiet eyes far away. Mala herself and
Anuradha on their wedding day, frothy veil and dark suit, luminous smiles. Photos
of Poornam at various ages. “She is my daughter, you know?” says Mala. “I adopted
her. Put her through school. She teaches at the university now … a professor of mathematics.
That girl always loved numbers.” There is heavy pride and possession in her voice.
“People said I was mad to take in a Tamil child. They said she would murder me in
my bed. But now they come with proposals for my girl. Come, let’s have lunch in the
garden.”

She leads us outside and it is the same as in all my dreams, fragrant with jasmine,
orchids spilling from trees to brush our faces, ferns uncurling tenderly, bird chatter,
and the unbroken line of coconut trees. Under the avocado tree, there is a table and
onto this, the servant girl places dish after steaming dish, red rice, pumpkin curry,
fried cabbage, fiery coconut sambal. We swirl our fingers in bowls of cool water and
lemon, and eat.

Much later, we are replete, ensconced in our chairs, entranced by the breeze in the
branches, when a deep-throated chuckle breaks the surface of our shared solitude.
A young woman, tall in a black-and-white batik sari, enormous eyes. A face that has
grown beyond my knowing. She carries a pink box stamped with the magic words, “the
Fab,” and says, “So who’s ready for ribbon cake?” It is Poornam. She comes and embraces
me and I know the scent of her skin. She sits with us. Long, elegant fingers and dark,
dark skin, as if she were really the daughter of Mala, who sits close to her, beaming.
I had not realized until this moment that I had missed these two women so acutely.

*   *   *

Life settles into a certain cadence. In the mornings La and I take a swinging, swaying
trishaw through chaotic traffic to the school. We spend our day with the children.
We teach them art, but also reading and numbers. We use old, tattered books, donated
paper, and cast-off clothing. As in so many places like this, there is a small ragtag
team of teachers armed only with dedication. There is always the threat that the scarce
money will run out, and then we spend hours on the phone, cajoling or begging. Some
days a rich benefactor will make a
dana
donation to accrue merit in the afterlife, and the kids sit on the floor in long
rows, cross-legged, scooping rice and curry into their mouths as fast as they can.
Sometimes there is ice cream, and then we are rewarded with enormous gap-toothed smiles.

In the evenings, we three gather for dinner. We frequent the
kothu-roti
shops on Galle Road where the cook’s heavy knives fall like crashing cymbals through
the vegetables and roti, making the most delicious mashup imaginable. We eat at a
rickety table on the pavement, the insects gathering overhead and all of Colombo swirling
around us. We take walks along Mount Lavinia beach, down to where the old hotel glimmers
like some remnant of a colonialist’s dream and the tourists gather to watch “native”
performances. At night we watch the news, there is always fighting in the north, always
a steady stream of bloodshed, but here in Colombo it is possible to pretend that all
of it is happening somewhere else, in some other, faraway country, while the only
thing affected here is the price of shrimp coming from the northern lagoons.

Late at night there are phone calls. I pick up the receiver as quietly as I can. It
is Siddharth. He sobs into the phone. He wants me back. He says he has left her. There
is only me now. Just come back, he says, and we can be like we were in the beginning.
I know he is lying, that she was present even in the beginning of our marriage and
will always be. But I still listen, something in me calmed just to hear the sound
of his voice over these broken lines. And then what shall I do when this trip is over?
It’s all well to live here in exile with my sister and her lover, but I can’t do it
forever. I must return sometime. And then what? Divorce? The word itself sounds like
a death knoll, so final, stinking of failure and remorse. If I do it I shall be the
very first in our whole long family line. I shall be outcast, solitary, outside the
pale. And then again there is the horrified thing in me that knows I do not love him
anymore, that I would only be returning out of fear. When I put down the phone, it
is to see La in the backlit hallway, her arms crossed, her head shaking. But she was
always the brave one, ready to sacrifice everything—reputation, family, security—for
love. I’m not like her. I turn away into my bedroom. Behind me I feel the cold weight
of her disappointment.

*   *   *

When the monsoon clears, we drive along the curving, sun-drenched, palm-lined coast
southward to our father’s home village, Hikkaduwa. We find a small hotel where each
room connects to a cool, immaculately sand-free corridor leading down to the sea.
We sit on the beach and laugh at the tourists. The Germans in their minuscule Speedos,
the corned beef–faced Brits, the fat topless French women.

But we know that we, too, are only a different shade of tourist, darker skinned than
these boiled lobster Europeans, and for this reason perhaps more deserving of scorn
from the sarong sellers, the coconut pluckers, the mango hawkers. We live in soft-bellied,
affluent places; we have forgotten our languages, our religions, our modesty. We lie
on the beach in strips of cloth, turning various shades of eggplant and ebony. This
obscene sun worship is a habit we have picked up in colder climes. It is unknown to
our ancestors, who haunt this place.

Late at night, when even the tourists are sleeping, we slide through warm ink-black
water, lie on our backs, and stare at the star-glittering sky. The sea is a bed on
which we are held aloft, the stars close enough to touch. When this pleasure is exhausted,
we swim to the glass-bottom boats of fishermen and tourist trips that are anchored
close to shore, clamber on, and each take a post. Lanka poised on the prow, her profile,
mermaid-ish in the way the wind takes her hair, throws it about, makes me remember
when entering her bedroom was to swim underwater, those blue-green walls.

We drink arrack and Coke, settle into the rock and pull of the little boat. My feet
rest against the cool glass, through which I feel the water run like a muscled thing.
We are lulled and replete, sedate, when Lanka exclaims, “Look!” We follow her slim
pointing arm and see silver arrows darting through water, leaping and falling, catching
the moon’s ghost sparkle, a school of flying fish. Under our boat the memory of a
young boy immersed headfirst in the sea, learning to swim from the fisherfolk, surrounded
by schools of silver flat flying fish, surges and falls.

*   *   *

On our last night in Hikkaduwa, we are perched on a fishing boat bobbing in the water
when it is discovered that the last Lion Lager has been drunk. La says, “I’ll go.”
We hear her splash into the water, wade toward the lighted shore. There is darkness
all around and Shiva is only a silhouette against the prow, his face upturned toward
the sliver of moon. We have rarely been alone together in these three long resplendent
months. We are silent for minutes. Then, his voice, disembodied, “Did you ever tell
her about the room?”

My heart thudding in my mouth, “What room?”

But he, with no time for subterfuge, snaps, “The blue room. Of course.” I shake my
head, will not turn toward him. It is quiet. The waves slapping against the boat.

Then his voice says again, as if from miles away, “You left, she came back. She was
all I had left of you. Of any of you.” The caring in his voice could break me if I
let it.

We hear La at the shore, entering the water. He says in a fierce whisper, “And I love
her,” and I, incredulous, hiss, “Never as much as I do!”

And then she is back, climbing onto the boat, shaking to shower us with night-cooled
seawater, laughing and bearing beer. We are again as we were, a perfectly balanced
triangle. The three of us. My sister, her lover, and I.

In the morning, when the tide is sedate, we bob, separate islands, weightless as cosmonauts,
faces turned toward sea-reflecting sky. This very morning on waking I decide that
I must return to America. Soon. Possibly in the next few days. Possibly so soon that
I will carry this water’s scent on my skin. By the time I reach LAX, it will be a
faint memory, washed away by the dryness of the air, the loud questioning of immigration
officials, and the glare of desert sun. The thought brings salt to my own eyes, it
runs down my face to the greedily licking ocean. I don’t know what I return to. But
I have to go. I have a life I need to resume. Students to teach, papers to grade and
write, exams to take. And yes, even a husband who cries and says he waits for me.
I dare not tell La, she will be so angry, questioning everything I say. She expects
me to fling it all away for the sake of freedom, but I miss the weight of that ring
upon my finger; I miss the weight of his body on mine through the night. It’s not
love, but it’s the closest thing I have to what she has found.