Sister of My Heart (47 page)

(There, I can speak of it now, without feeling as though I’m sinking into quicksand, my mouth filling with mica and grit.)

The other thing I’m beginning to painfully admit to myself is
that I’m a coward in the things that matter the most. I couldn’t tell Sudha not to come to America after I’d begged her to do so, but now I’m afraid of what her presence in my home will unravel. Nor have I had the courage to ask my husband whether that handkerchief, folded so carefully into the Kashmiri box, is the forgotten remnant of an old crush, or proof of a continuing obsession.

All these thoughts go around and around in my brain like the bullocks they use in villages to turn the water wheel. I’d go crazy, but fortunately I run out of time. The plane’s arriving this morning in an hour and a half—miraculously on time in spite of the heavy rains we’ve been getting since daybreak. I must be ready to leave in twenty minutes, Sunil yells from the other room. I pull a tray of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven—they’ve puffed up nicely and are only a trifle overdone. I take a last look at Sudha’s room. The monstrous black eyes of the Mickey on the crib mobile bore into me until I shut the door.

“Are you dressed?” calls Sunil.

“I am,” I yell back. Looking down at my jeans and too-loose shirt, I wonder briefly whether I should dress up more for Sudha, then shake my head. Nah, such silly things have never mattered between us. What would I wear anyway? I’m too thin for most of my clothes. I still have trouble eating. I know it’s my fault, I should try harder, but everything seems to harbor a faint antiseptic odor. Maybe when Sudha gets here.

That’s how a lot of my sentences have been ending nowadays.
When Sudha gets here. Everything will be better when Sudha gets here
.

At the airport Sunil pushes his way through the packed crowd outside the customs area—mostly Indians like ourselves, waiting for family members. I follow a little behind him. There’s no sign of any passengers.

“What’s wrong?” Sunil asks the plump mustachioed man standing next to him. “It can’t be that the plane’s late—we called before we came.”

“I hear immigration’s been very picky lately, asking lots of questions,” says the mustachioed man. “Why, they even denied entry to someone last week, some kind of a fraudulent visa. I heard it from my friend’s mother-in-law—she came on the same flight. She was telling us about the poor young woman, crying and crying as the authorities took her away. Apparently the girl’s husband was already here, but she lied about it in order to get a quick tourist visa.” He clicks his tongue pityingly. “What some people won’t do to try and bypass the legal channels.”

My mouth is dry as I listen, and my stomach churns. What if the authorities suspect that I too am planning for Sudha to stay on in America? Would they—? Oh, I’d die if I had to return to the apartment without my cousin.

The crowd presses up against me, smelling of hospitals. Outside the glass walls of the airport, the sky has coagulated into a steely gray. I’m suffocating. I’ve got to be alone. I catch Sunil’s eye and motion toward the rest room, then push my way through the wall of bodies. In the rest room I gulp in deep breaths and splash cold water on my face. When the trembling in my hands is a little better, I make my way back.

The first passengers have begun to trickle through the doors, and the crowd surges ahead, waving and calling. I manage to edge in behind Sunil. He hasn’t noticed me yet, and I’m just about to put my hand on his arm when I see Sudha. How lovely she looks in spite of the exhausting flight, her silk sari molded to her slender body, her fine hair escaped from her braid and curling around her face. Even the circles under her fragile eyes add to her charm. She carries a bundle and pushes with her other hand a cart loaded with two enormous suitcases that are entirely too heavy for her to handle. There’s a lost look on her face as she swivels her head, trying to locate us. I want to call out, to run to her and gather her to my heart, but my throat is clogged with too much emotion—
love and thankfulness and that old desire to protect. Now she’s seen Sunil—a look of relief comes over her face and she stops to wave. Sunil waves back.

“Your wife?” asks the mustachioed man.

I wait for Sunil to explain who she is, but he says nothing. His silence is a block of ice in which I’m trapped. From where I stand I can see the slight smile on his face.

“Lucky chap!” says the man, clapping Sunil on the back. “Oh, there’s mine. I’d better go.” He hurries toward a spectacled woman who’s just as plump as he is, leading three plump girls in identical pink dresses.

Someone jostles me, releasing me from frozenness. I take a few steps back toward the glass wall—I couldn’t bear it if Sunil found out that I saw his brief, silent deception. My face is hot with shame, and that makes me angrier, because why should
I
be ashamed. But no, angry isn’t a good enough word for the emotion that’s bludgeoning my body.

Then Sudha’s kissing me, her free arm so tight around my neck that it hurts. I welcome the pain. “Anju Anju Anju,” she’s crying into my hair. Each syllable falls onto my heart like magic balm. The bundle is pressed up against my chest, not liking it one bit, I can tell that by the way it squirms and mewls.

I press my face against Sudha’s face and hold her, not wanting to ever let go. For one illogical moment I wish with all my might that the boundaries of our bodies could dissolve, that our skin and bone and blood could melt and become one.

Squished between us, the bundle lets out a long, protesting wail. When I look, its face is screwed up tight and turning mottled.

“Here, hold her for a minute, will you?” says Sudha.

The blood crashes in my ears, a red tidal wave. I shake my head and begin to back away. I’ve got to find the words—the words with which to explain to Sudha that it’s impossible.

“I really need you to,” Sudha says, rubbing her back with a
grimace. “After fourteen hours on the plane with her, I’m done for.”

No, I try to tell her. It would be disloyal to the dead. But she’s already thrust the bundle into my arms. I’m surprised by how heavy it is for such a small creature. Its solid heft belies its frail appearance. How natural the head feels nestled in the curve of my shoulder. I’d promised myself I’d never hold another baby with the arms that belonged to Prem, but this—this is so
right
. As right as the ruby—yes, I recognized it at once—around her throat. Even the way she butts her face against my breast—she’s hungry now—is more sweet than bitter. Inside me, love lets itself down in a rush, uncontrollable, like the milk when your baby cries.

Somewhere to the side, Sudha is greeting Sunil, telling him sorry, she didn’t mean to ignore him like that, it’s just that she hadn’t seen me for so long. He replies formally that of course he understands. But my ears barely register their exchange. I’m occupied by the way my body is unclenching, re-forming itself molecule by molecule, arranging itself around my niece like petals around a flower’s core. My forehead tingles as though a new fortune is being written on it. Who would have thought, after all the barricades I’d set up against Dayita in my heart, that in the span of a minute she’d make it hers?

“Babies are beyond explaining, aren’t they?” Sudha says in my ear. Her arm is around me again, her voice heavy with unshed tears. I want to tell her not to be sad—because I’m not. And Prem, who’s somewhere close, whose presence I feel for the first time since the miscarriage, brushing against my face gauzy as a dragonfly wing—Prem’s not sad either. I want to tell her about the nature of radiance, how I glimpsed it fleetingly in the pulse beating in her daughter’s throat. But it’ll be a long time before I can find the right words.

Instead I slip an arm around Sudha and support Dayita cautiously with the other. Sudha places her arm under mine, so we’re
both holding Dayita up. If a passerby who had the eyes to notice such things looked at us, she would see that we’ve formed a tableau, two women, their arms intertwined like lotus stalks, smiling down at the baby between them. Two women who have traveled the vale of sorrow, and the baby who will save them, who has saved them already. Madonnas with child.

Somewhere Sunil drums his fingers on the edge of the baggage cart and says we really should be going, but we don’t listen, not right away. There’ll be trouble enough later—like an animal I sense it prickling the nape of my neck. I’ll deal with it when it comes. But for now the three of us stand unhurried, feeling the way we fit, skin on skin on skin, into each other’s lives. A rain-dampened sun struggles from the clouds to frame us in its hesitant, holy light.

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