Same Sun Here (12 page)

December 5, 2008

Dear River,

I hope you are having a nice day. The weather here has been very cold.

It is hard to write this. But Ms. Bledsoe said I should get my feelings out.

Dadi has died.

I have said it out loud three times but this is the first time I’ve written it. Every night since we found out I have dreamed of me and Dadi walking past Jabberkhet, up to Flag Hill. We sit under the banj trees and lean into each other and we don’t say anything. We watch the fog drift. I can hear her breathing and I can smell the
amla
in her hair. Once, in the dream, she laughed. She sounded like a little bird. When I woke up, I could still hear her laugh in my ears and I felt happy. But then I remembered.

She died on 20 November but we didn’t find out till 23 November when my cousin Anjali called Daddy at work. She’d gone to see Dadi and found her lying on the floor with a fever. Dadi had been grinding corn, which is very hard work. She didn’t recognize Anjali, kept calling her Mee-Mee. Oh, River. She was looking for me.

She was always there when I needed her. She always took care of me, even when my own parents and brother left and went to America. It was Dadi who loved me and fed me and made sure I was not alone. But I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. I am feeling so bad.

Anjali took her to Landour Hospital, but she needed medicines they didn’t have, so Anjali hired a car for Dehradun. It is a very long drive to the city. Anjali said Dadi kept her face pressed against the window all the way down to the valley. She was looking at the mountains. She was saying good-bye. At the hosptial, Dadi went unconscious. Anjali held her on her lap because she didn’t want to put her on the floor. Anjali is skinny like me. They sat like that for seven hours and Dadi died in Anjali’s lap, and only then did the doctor come. He said Dadi had an infection that had gone into her heart. She was 58 years old.

I keep thinking about Gopi, our neighbor’s cow. She is pretty, with a long white tail, and she is very spoiled. Every day she waits for Dadi at the corner of Char Dukkan and they walk together to Sister’s Bazaar. She will not understand why Dadi doesn’t come. She will be standing there, swishing her tail and waiting for Dadi. She will have to walk home alone.

We were not able to go to the funeral. It is too much money for the plane, and we would not reach there in time because it is such a long journey. Poor Daddy is having a lot of trouble. We have not seen him yet, but when I talked to him on the phone, he could not stop crying. I have never heard him cry before. It scared me. Dadi is his mother. I cannot remember if I told you that before. Mum knew Dadi the whole of her life, too. She was their next-door neighbor, and Dadi was the one who encouraged Mum to be a teacher. She always said, “Teachers are the seed.” The thing that makes it harder for Mummy-Dadddy-Kiku is that they have not seen Dadi in nine years.

I used to want to be a poet but now I want to be a teacher. That is what Dadi wanted to do more than anything in the world. She learned reading and writing, but it made her sad that she couldn’t do it as well as she cut grass or cooked or climbed a mountain. She said she would never be able to do it without thinking, the way I did. One time when I got a bad grade at school, Dadi told me how much it hurt that she was not able to go to school as a child. All her brothers were allowed to go but because she was a girl, her father said she didn’t need to learn. She went with her mother into the forest and worked. She used to try to read her brother’s books, but she could not understand them.

Once when Dadi was pregnant with my uncle, a man cheated her out of 300 rupees. The man took her money and gave her a piece of paper. He said it was a prescription that would make her baby strong. But when she brought the paper to the pharmacy, they said it wasn’t real. All the paper said was, “This woman is stupid.” Dadi had kept the paper all those years and she showed it to me. She said she was cheated because she could not read or write. She said she did not want something like that to happen to me. I have never gotten a bad grade since she told me that.

I am angry. For many days I was sad. But now I am angry. I am angry at Anjali for only visiting Dadi once a week. I am angry at Landour Hospital for not having medicine. I am angry at Mummy-Daddy for moving to New York. I am angry at New York for being a place people want to come to. I am angry that Dadi died in a city waiting for a doctor. I am angry at myself. I knew something was wrong when she didn’t write a letter that week. She must have been sick then. I should have asked to borrow Mrs. Lau’s phone. I should have called Anjali then.

There is something terrible trapped inside me. I think if I open my mouth to say anything, even “Hello,” that terrible thing will come out. So I have not been talking. Nobody has. We are all sad and quiet. Mum called in sick to work for two days and Kiku stayed home from school to be with her. She hasn’t eaten anything but grapes and crackers. When I came home from school the other day, she was in bed, staring into space, holding a cup of tea. The tea was completely cold. She must have been sitting like that for a long time.

I feel like a different person. I guess anger and sadness are things that settle in your bones and become a part of you. I am still wearing my watch set to India time. I will never take it off.

December 8, 2008

It is three days later. This afternoon, when Mum came home from work, she called Daddy. On Mondays, Daddy’s shift doesn’t start till late, so he and Mum have a chat. I made Mum a cup of tea and she sat in the bed under the covers, and she and Daddy told stories back and forth about Dadi and what she was like when they were young. Kiku wasn’t home yet and I got so sad listening to Mum’s side of the conversation. I wanted to hide. But there is no place to be alone in this city. It is not like home where you can walk out into the trees. I know you will say this is weird, but I will tell you about it anyway. I went into the closet by the front door and sat on the floor. I don’t know how long I sat in there, but when Kiku came home, he opened the closet door and found me. He looked down at me and sucked in his breath like he’d been punched in the stomach. Then he shook his head and took my coat off the hanger and held it out for me to put my arms through. He said, “Come on. I’ll show you something.”

We walked east on Delancey past the men selling Christmas trees and the Golden Chariot Bakery and the boutique that sells winter booties for dogs. It was so cold we could see our breath in the air. When we got to the F train entrance, Kiku put me through on his MetroCard. I followed him to the Downtown side. It was about 6:00 p.m., rush hour, so it was really crowded.

I stopped walking, near the benches, because there was a woman playing the trumpet. But Kiku said, “Keep going,” and took my hand and pulled me farther down the platform. We had to squeeze around people and we kept getting separated and finally Kiku picked me up and carried me, because it was easier that way. Normally I would be embarrassed but today I didn’t care. I put my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes and listened to the trumpet. I don’t know what song it was, but it matched the feeling in my heart.

Kiku kept walking until we were at the very end of the platform next to the little red traffic light and the mouth of the dark tunnel. Then he put me down. I had never been to the end of the platform before. It always looked so far away and scary.

We could still hear the trumpet. We watched a rat running on the tracks. We looked across the platform at the people waiting on the Uptown side. The trumpet kept playing. After a while, we saw the two big headlights of the subway far down the tunnel, like yellow eyes in the darkness. Everyone on the platform who was sitting stood up. Everyone who was standing moved closer to the track. The sad trumpet kept playing. Kiku put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Just watch me and do what I do, OK?” I felt like something really crazy was about to happen.

The lights of the train got closer and brighter and then the tracks began to rattle and all of a sudden we could hear the train, and the sound got louder and louder and it swallowed the song of the trumpet, and then the train came roaring into the station and I could feel the wind of it, so hot and smelling of old nickels and quarters, and I looked at Kiku and he looked at me and then he opened his mouth really wide and squeezed his eyes shut and started screaming. I couldn’t hear him. I couldn’t hear anything but the subway. But I could see that he was screaming as hard as he could. The veins in his forehead popped out and there were tears coming from his eyes. So I started screaming, too. As hard as I could. I couldn’t hear myself but I could feel that terrible thing inside me coming out. I kept screaming and screaming and the train flew by, the cars blinking so fast, and all I heard was the subway and its roar.

We screamed until the subway slowed down and got quiet and stopped. Then the doors opened and all the people inside rushed out and all the people outside rushed in and the doors closed back up and the train pulled away. Me and Kiku stayed where we were and screamed at the next four trains that came into the station. Not a single person heard us. It felt good and we both lost our voices. Poor Mum thinks we have caught a cold. She has such dark circles under her eyes. I am going to make her some of Dadi’s
pakoras
tomorrow. I hope she will eat them.

So Kiku has figured out a way to be alone in the city. All you have to do is stand at the end of the subway platform and scream as the train comes into the station. I think some of my anger is gone. I keep thinking about it hanging in the air above the F train platform. I hope it doesn’t go inside anyone else. Before I got in bed tonight, I gave Kiku a big hug. He is just like Dadi in his kindness. But he does it in his own Kiku way.

Today in history, Mr. Orff was talking about the New Deal and how if FDR had waited even one more day to start it, many more people would have starved to death and suffered. He said, “Don’t forget that every moment counts.” When he said that, I thought about Dadi. I wish I could have just one more moment with her. I miss her hands. I miss the gap between her two front teeth. I miss the way her knees creak in the morning. I miss everything about her.

You have not written in so long that I think you do not want to be friends with someone who commits perjury. Maybe you are not writing because something is wrong in your life. I hope not. And I hope you hug your mamaw extra tight tonight.

Bye,

Meena

11 December 2008

Dear Meena,

I am so so so so so so so so so so sorry. There is nothing else to say. But I’ll try.

I cannot imagine Mamaw dying. It seems like the whole world would shut down, so I know how hard this must be. I will be praying for you. Some people I know say that I am a sinner since I never go to church anymore, but who are they to judge me? Don’t tell anybody, but I still talk to God all the time. I pray every night, mostly that Daddy will come home from the Gulf Coast and that Mom will stop having such terrible headaches and that Mamaw will be OK.

Sorry about that last part. At first, I wrote it without thinking and then started to delete it because I thought it might upset you worse, what with your own mamaw passing away and all. But then I thought, no, I know Meena, and she would want me to write what is on my mind.

But now the more I write, the more I feel like I might be making it all worse instead of making it better. So I’ll just close by saying that I’m sorry, again. I felt like Dadi was somebody I knew, too, so I was sad for that reason. But I guess the main reason I am sad is because I hate to think of you being sad, and hurting.

There are only two other things I want to say:

1. I am glad you want to be a teacher. But you can be a poet, too. My teacher Ms. Stidham is the best English teacher in the world, but she is also a poet. She doesn’t like to talk about it at school, but one of her poems got published in a magazine, and another teacher at school, Mrs. Sherman, was so proud of her that she had the secretary announce it over the PA system. Ms. Stidham’s cheeks got blood red, and when we all clapped too long she didn’t even get mad like usual, but just laughed and kept putting her hands out as if to tell us to stop, but we didn’t, and I think she might have cried a little, too. We begged and begged for her to read her poem to us but she wouldn’t. So you don’t have to choose one or the other. You can be both, like Ms. Stidham.

2. I liked the part of your letter about Kiku carrying you and then you two screaming in the subway. He seems like a real good brother. I wish I had one. And I bet the screaming will help you to not feel so mad anymore. Mamaw says that sometimes it’s real good to get mad, that it’s just what a person needs to do. But you can only stay mad so long without it making you feel bad. That’s what I think, at least.

I hope you know that I am thinking of you and hoping that things get better. Oh, and right now I am loving the Clash. I’ve listened to all of their songs on YouTube. My favorite is “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” I couldn’t help but to dance to it, so I got up and danced all over my bedroom, bouncing on the bed and jumping all over the place. When the song went off, I was sweating and breathing hard. It felt good, like I had gotten some frustration out in a good way.

Sincerely,

River

December 10, 2008

Dear River,

I was so happy to see your letter in the mailbox. It’s been lonely without you. I thought you didn’t want to be friends anymore. I think our two letters must have crossed in the mail.

How are you doing? You must be so worried. Is your Mum still in hospital? Is she going to be OK? That was all really scary to read. I will not tell anybody that you cried. I would have cried, too.

It is very good that you and your mamaw were there for your mother when she needed you. I loved what you said about the mountains. That was so beautiful and true.

In ten days it will be one month since Dadi died. I think about her all the time. I try to remember everything I can about her. I am afraid I will forget. Mum is eating again but she has not laughed in a while. Kiku is finding it hard to concentrate on his homework.