Nights Like This (8 page)

Anjali put her head in my lap. I lay my hand in the warmth of her hair and moved my fingertips until she fell asleep. I fell asleep sitting up against the headboard, careful not to disturb her. I felt that for all that I could not give her, I owed her the comfort of just this one night.

That is how we slept through the night, Anjali lying in my lap, me sitting up and not moving. The DVD finished and went back to the main screen. The disc spun infinitely upon itself, just as we were all spinning in our lives, certain that by going in circles, we would somehow move forward.

 

 

 

Since the next day was a Monday, Anjali had left the apartment by the time I woke up. I awoke to stale sheets and silence. After I brushed my teeth and washed my face, I walked into the kitchen to find that she had left me a grilled cheese sandwich covered with a plate to keep it warm for as long as it would stay.

As I ate my sandwich and made imported Italian coffee, I thought about calling Vanessa. I remembered clearly that I had promised the world to Anjali the night before.

But I wasn't going to sleep with Vanessa. Vanessa had said so herself. And I wouldn't spend the night out with her again. But wasn't I allowed to have friends? I mean isn't that what Vanessa and I were starting to become anyway? After all, Anjali had friends. Anjali had Ish. I picked up my cell phone and dialed Vanessa's number which I had spent time memorizing. It embarrassed me now to realize I had deliberately spent time getting to know the digits of her number, had closed my eyes and repeated sevens and zeros and then ended abruptly with “sixty-nine.” I could have just entered it in my phone but there was some novelty, something almost risqué about memorizing it, keeping it secret from the rest of the world. So after some practice, the end result was that I knew her phone number and as I dialed, I became increasingly nervous.

“Hey, baby,” I said as nonchalantly as possible when she answered.

“Hey?”

“You know who this is?”

She was silent. I felt my stomach twist into a knot. Had she dismissed me before or after I had left her life? Had she forgotten my voice in minutes or hours? Had our conversation meant nothing to her although she had said it meant something, that she was scared of loving me?

“It's Jess,” I said almost apologetically.

“Oh, hey, what's going on?”

At least she remembered. But had she really displaced me?

“Did you not know who I was?”

“Like you remember every woman the morning after when she calls?”

“No,” I said, “But this is hardly the morning after.”

In the silence that followed, I didn't know what to say. I felt betrayed.

“Listen, I'll give you a call later. I have some things to do right now.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Talk to you sometime tonight,” she said, “Take care. Bye.”

After she hung up, I stared at the phone for a while. I wondered what Vanessa was doing today. I wondered whom she was going to see, whose voice would make her laugh. I wanted to be the one talking to her while walking beside a fountain. I wanted to notice her and touch her and contemplate her movements. She made it sound as if all we had shared was a bed but hadn't we talked and laughed through the night? Hadn't we had a connection that superseded just a lay? Hadn't we spoken of love and belonging and the Universe? Had it all meant nothing?

But then I thought of my conversation with Anjali. What had she said?
“I want you, Jasbir Banerjee, to be my girl. I want you to be completely faithful…”

I threw away the rest of my sandwich and coffee. I then showered and put on some jeans and a GAP tee shirt, went to my room and looked through my drawers. Under piles of meaningless papers both blank and filled with information about bills and exam dates and school, I found my leather journal. I opened it to the first page and it was blank. A slip of paper, smeared with vermillion, fell at my feet. I picked it up. If I rubbed hard enough, my thumb would still be stained red. I marked the powder upon my forehead gently so as to bless myself without leaving a mark. I unfolded the paper slowly. It was a letter from my parents written shortly after my father's heart attack. I read it again looking for the place where my mother's smooth cursive changed to my father's shaky and almost illegible handwriting. It read:

 

Dear Jasbir,

 

How are you beta? Hope medical examinations are not keeping you up too late at night and that you will surpass the rest. Here, we are getting ready for terrible heat and a bad monsoon. I had gone to Kali Mandir to pray for you. I have placed some sindoor on this letter. Bless yourself and put some on your forehead. You will see…you will be a medical student soon. Your father is dying to write so I am giving him the pen.

Jasbir!

She will not let me have any sweets including the prasad offered in prayer at the temple. She makes me eat bland food and take many medicines. When will you come and rescue your Baba? Come soon, ok? And while you study, have some fun also. You are in New York City!

With love,

Ma and Baba

 

I had, at one time, taken everything I had ever written and shredded it away. But somehow I could never throw that letter away. That afternoon, standing alone in Anjali's apartment in a soundless melancholy I cried. I would return someday. But when? How? To what end? With whom? I couldn't do it alone, could I?

I wanted to write something no matter how trivial, no matter how meaningless it would be. I wiped my eyes and took the leather journal and smelled the cover. It was reminiscent of late night writings and sunrises watched as I scribbled words on napkins at random cafes. But that had been a long time ago. Ironically, when I had invested in a journal, I realized I had nothing to write. The pages stayed stark just as my soul stayed blank, devoid of heart, devoid of words.

I left the apartment knowing I would bring my journal back as blank as it was. I took the subway to the Starbucks on Astor. I ordered a Venti coffee and chose a table under the slanting glass windows. I sipped the coffee and opened my journal. I took a pen from my pocket and held it in the air above the paper, waiting for words, even empty words, to flow onto paper. Nothing came. I drank more coffee. Nothing.

I sat back and thought of Vanessa. I wondered what she was doing and whom she was with. I took out my cell phone. I pressed the top button to make the Eiffel Tower appear and then, realizing I had no calls or texts, put it back into the pocket of my jeans. I tapped my sandals on the floor, thinking of what I wanted to do. I wanted to see Vanessa. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to talk to someone. I took my phone out again. I scrolled through my phone book. I closed my phone again.

I looked through the glass. Outside, I saw what I always saw. People I did not know walking to destinations I did not know. I wished that I had to work that day. I was off until Thursday and I didn't want to stay home, wanting Vanessa and having Anjali. I felt my phone vibrate. My heart beat harder and faster. I fumbled in my pocket and finally took it out.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jess.”

“Hey what's up, Anjali?”

“You feel like going out for drinks tonight?”

“Where?”

“Ish called and she asked if we'd like to go out with her and Katherine.”

I swallowed hard. “Sure.”

“Where are you?”

“Starbucks.”

“What are you doing?”

“Fantasizing about you.”

She laughed. “That's bullshit and you know it.”

“Yeah well I thought it was better than saying I'm doing nothing. Which is what I'm doing. Nothing.”

“Have fun just be home by seven, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I hung up and was relieved that I had plans for the evening even if they involved Ish. I didn't want to be home alone with Anjali. I didn't want Anjali to gallivant around New York City with Ish. And I didn't want to wander alone. For all these reasons, I was happy that Anjali had arranged something. It was always she that arranged dinners and drinks. I don't know if I was lazy or just not aware but I seldom took any initiative to get together with anyone. The ease with which she called people and arranged to get together sometimes annoyed and sometimes surprised me. But most times, I was merely grateful because if it weren't for her, I would be nothing better than a hermit.

I thought about how the evening would go, whether Anjali would use the entire evening to talk about the unfinished engagement. I thought back to last winter when she had thrown a party at the apartment. The more she drank, the more insistent she had been in touching my arm, my face, finally kissing me. It was as if she was proving to everyone in the room that we had a solid relationship, no matter how convoluted.

Looking back, I don't think Anjali was trying to prove our love to anyone else more than to me, more than to herself. And while I hadn't deflected her advances, I remember I certainly hadn't invited her touch either. I wished at that moment that I had been better about it, but instead of bolstering her belief, I had, ultimately destroyed it and, in doing so, destroyed her.

I had slept with a beautiful Brazilian woman that night. She was visiting from California and someone, I don't remember who, had brought her to the party. What I noticed about her was her eyelashes, thick and long and flirtatious. I had opened a beer bottle for her and she had whispered to me in a thick, erotic accent that she found me irresistible. I remembered taking her to my room. I remembered her being a savage lover, a hungry lover. Most of all, I remembered Anjali's face, the defeat in her eyes when she had opened my door the next morning to ask me if I wanted breakfast. I had expected her to yell or to at least give me a lecture. Instead, I watched her eyes as they welled with tears. In almost a whisper, she said, “No more. Aar paari na.” Then she quietly shut the door and left.

We never spoke of the incident thereafter and although time blurred some of it, I felt Anjali's pain never left her but became buried under more trespasses on my part, more hurt, more disregard for who she was in my life.

I had brought many lovers into Anjali's life. And at Astor Place that day, for the first time in all the years that I had, I felt uncomfortable. I was consumed with restlessness when I looked back. Tonight, I thought, I would let her win. I would let her have her way and if she insinuated we were engaged, I would smile and kiss the top of her head. I wouldn't agree but I wouldn't disagree either. I had promised to try and I would. And silence was the best I could do so I would offer that to Anjali.

My thoughts turned and I wondered if Vanessa was with a savage lover as I sat and sipped coffee. Not that it mattered. “
You do your thing and I'll do my thing
,” she had said. But I didn't have a thing. I felt as if I had nothing but efforts to grasp at something elusive. And whether that was Vanessa or Anjali, I didn't know anymore. I felt invisible, like people walked through me to the other side but never saw me.

“The problem, Jasbir C. Banerjee,” I said aloud to a half empty coffee cup, “is that you have no conviction.”

After having said it, I wondered if it was true or just another bullshit sentence I had uttered, hoping that it would find meaning after I heard it. I decided I didn't want to know.

I finished my coffee and decided I wanted to leave, empty journal or not. Before I left, I stood in line to use the bathroom. As I waited, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and, to my surprise I saw a face I recognized.

“Hey, Jess.”

“Hey Aldo!”

I hugged him long and hard.

“At least you didn't forget your first boyfriend,” he said smiling.

I looked at him and he was still slightly too thin, his hair always begging for a haircut. What I remembered most about Aldo was that he smelled like Halston and it was a cologne that since I had known him had always made me close my eyes and feel safe.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I'm great. How are you?”

“I'm doing just fine. I live in Chicago now. I'm just visiting for the week.”

“Yeah? So how are things?”

He smiled and shrugged. The shrug was a gesture that defined Aldo. The shrug with either thumbs tucked into the front pockets of his jeans or the shrug with palms up, hands outstretched, arms bent at the elbows. Either way, Aldo owned the expression and it suited him, as if “I don't know” were his mantra. And it was.

“Things are fine. What about you? Still into the women?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said without any hesitation, “I do. Her name's Anjali. She's sweet and kind and beautiful and I love her.”

I meant everything I said but I also felt I should get some award for saying it. As if Anjali should be hiding somewhere, should jump out and say, “Good job, Jess!” Nothing of the sort happened. But Aldo's face contorted, formed a smile and was expressionless all in less than a minute. He looked at me as if he had a question stuck in his throat.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Just so strange that I arrive in New York, shower, come out for coffee and the first person I see is you. I thought of you this morning. And here you are.”

I looked into his clear blue eyes. Aldo had been, more than anything, the friend who had held me when I left him, his heart sinking into the ground way past his feet, past earth, into a place he could never reach to retrieve it again. And yet he never complained, was never bitter, never angry. Aldo was the kind of person I could call in the dead of night and expect him to be wherever I asked him to be by morning. His voice startled me from my thoughts.

“I always meant to ask you,” he said, “and I guess I might as well.”

“What's that?” I asked although somewhere within me I knew what he wanted to know. And I knew what I would say.

“If you weren't into women, would you have stayed with me?”

The answer was no. The answer was that as sweet as he had been, I had cheated on him with his best friend Bobby while Aldo was visiting his family in Chicago and before I had discovered Bobby's sister, Julia. The answer was I had fallen out of love with him because he was plain and boring and I felt trapped with him. But Aldo was, despite everything, a simple man. And I would not take that away from him, even if the truth was that he had lost me because he was who he was.