The Two Krishnas (32 page)

He felt the churn of apprehension in his belly, the kind of gravitational pull that occupies one right before a disaster. He had never been in the least bit psychic but if there had been a moment when he could have sensed doom, this was it. There were, after all, moments in everyone’s life when an uncanny clairvoyance invaded, and for just an evanescent moment, the future was hinted at, like the dimming of lights before the final plunge of an electrical failure.

“I wish we could stay like this forever,” he said, not looking at Rahul.

Rahul put his hand over Atif’s and gave it an understanding squeeze. “Sooner or later we have to get back to the real world.”

“I wish you would tell me something else. That nothing will change. That
this
is the real world.”

When they were off the freeway, Rahul still drove slowly, as if to keep their parting at a distance, and as their world slipped into the past, he took Atif’s hand and held it tightly. Atif was transported to a memory in his childhood, that of the warmth of his father’s fingers from which he ate a little hillock of
daal
-drenched rice as they sat cross legged on the kitchen floor, Atif holding his little rotund belly, saying, “
Bas,
Papa, enough. Enough, Papa…”

“
Arre
, if you don’t eat, how will you grow up,
hunh?
Eat! Eat! And I will tell you about the angels,” Abdul Rahman coaxed him. “There is Jibreel, he brings the messages from Allah to the Prophets. And you know the Alkatabah, they do all the recording and they are always with you, always recording whatever you are doing and saying, sitting on your shoulders, here and here. And there is Meekaaeel, and this angel is in charge of the rain and all the rivers and all the sea and he is also in charge of forming the babies in the womb, making sure they get all their provisions. And then Israfeel—” and here Atif shook his little head vehemently at the mention of the angel of death.
“Hanh,
you are frightened now,
hunh?”
his father would laugh, parceling more food into his mouth. “Come on, eat!”

With Rahul’s hand clasped in his and looking out the window, he wondered now whether his father had ever blamed Meekaaeel for the way he had turned out.

When they were finally parked close to Atif’s Mazda, by a wall at the end of the parking lot of Elton’s, Rahul was still holding his hand and rubbing the back of it gently with his thumb. Now he put his arm around Atif and drew him close to him and Atif rested his head on his shoulder, trying to smile so they could part pleasantly, reminding himself to be strong and grateful, so that Rahul wouldn’t think once again that it was best for Atif if they separated.

The world never felt so despairing as when you’ve had the chance to hold it in your hands,
Atif thought.

Feeling his sadness, Rahul lifted Atif’s face by the chin, noticed the glistening in his eyes, and gave him the same ritual of kisses that Atif always did—first on his eyes and then on his lips, holding them to his for many seconds.

* * *

The Sonali that showed up at Pooja’s door on Monday afternoon was a remarkably different woman. Instead of speaking in that exaggerated way of hers, where she sucked in her breath, spoke through a clenched mouth, and delivered carefully selected words aimed at elevating herself, demoting others, or doing both, Sonali was palpably nervous.

They sat in the living room, not a drink or savory in sight, and the words had tumbled out of Sonali’s mouth, a scrabbled, almost incoherent litany. “I’m so sorry, Pooja… I saw them…in the parking lot… I couldn’t believe my eyes…. It was Rahul…there was this boy with him…they were, oh, God, Pooja, they were kissing…
kissing,
Pooja… Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” All Pooja could think was,
Why is she speaking this way?
And she felt disappointed in Sonali’s sudden lack of poise. It was as if the powerful words had transported Pooja outside of her body, allowing her a little bit of time before the full impact destroyed her.

Dimly, she was aware of the gardener and his son outside carrying on a conversation in Spanish, then the sound of the lawnmower. She began to realize that this was also the first time she had heard Sonali apologize for anything. Now that Sonali had regurgitated the crushing news, she kept doing it over and over again, as if to provide the cushion of apology, lessen the blow. She felt embarrassed for Sonali and looked at her strangely.

Sonali, having investigated the matter, went on. “He works at the bookstore, at Elton’s, you know, in Brentwood. Some Indian boy called Atif or something. Oh, God, Pooja, what are you going to do?”

A boy? What does she mean ‘a boy’? She must mean a woman. A boy?
For just a brief moment, when the words finally reached her, as if through a thick wall, so much congealed that she felt as if the room had started spinning around her, and she had to grasp the armrest of the sofa she was sitting on.
No, this couldn’t be. This is some kind of sick joke. Sonali has finally gone completely, stark, raving crazy…

But then she gave a short laugh, and suddenly got up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sonali. How dare you come in here with this…this filth? You’re talking about my husband!” Pooja glared down at her, her body convulsing with rage. “Do you know how long I’ve been married to Rahul? Hunh? We’ve been married twenty-one years. Twenty-one years, Sonali! There’s nothing about him that you can tell me that I don’t already know.”

Sonali looked up at her with pity, alarming Pooja even more. She began to say something but Pooja cut her off. “Don’t come around here anymore, Sonali. Please, you just go…”

Pooja walked to the door and held it open for Sonali, who got up, but without haste and miraculously still maintaining a pained look of sympathy on her face even as she was being thrown out.

After she had closed the door behind her, Pooja returned to the kitchen, and for what seemed like a long time continued to prepare dinner mechanically, as if nothing had happened. Sonali’s words came in and out of her consciousness and she felt suddenly as if language had lost its meaning or something in the circuitry of her mind had gone terribly wrong so that she knew there was something she had to react to but was unable to respond.

For hours after Sonali left, Pooja wrestled with her thoughts, but like Kalya, the serpent king that Krishna danced upon, each time she severed one head off with a reaffirming thought or a memory—of their courtship, their years together, the birth of their son—another head reared up, hissing at her. By the time Rahul returned from work, early for a change, she had managed, at least temporarily, to convince herself that none of it was true.

She watched Rahul stretch out languorously over the sofa as she brought him a steaming cup of
masala
chai and a stick of Walker’s butter cookie. She reminded herself that this was the man she loved more than life itself and suddenly she had the wild urge to fall at his feet, cover them with kisses. Rahul drank his tea quickly, leaving behind just a sip out of habit. He went up to their room and when he returned, in sweats and a t-shirt, so strong and masculine, Pooja observed him, trying to detect if there was anything different about him.

He settled back on the sofa and as he talked with their son about starting college under an undeclared major, she watched him, infused with pride. Suddenly, she wanted to laugh at the ludicrousness of it all.
Look at him! Look at him!
she said to herself.
There is nothing about him that is odd or resembles the kind of depravity that Sonali was accusing him of. Why would she say such things? How does she dare!

She knew about those kinds of men. They were effeminate, imitating women’s gestures, painting their faces. They didn’t marry women, father children. They were either scorned or sympathized with, always met with an extreme response, unable to earn societal indifference. They were not like Rahul who was looked up to, admired by everyone.

As father and son moved the discussion over to the dinner table where she laid out the meal she had prepared before Sonali’s inauspicious visit, she thought,
This is just what Sonali is trying to destroy, something she doesn’t have. She has never liked Rahul, always been jealous of us. She is a lonely, bitter woman and I will not let her spew her venom into my life.
Suddenly, she became unnaturally elated again and joined their discussion enthusiastically.
“Hanh, hanh
, you can manage all the rap star artist and
altu-faltu
bands you want, but you still need to be a businessman for that,” she chimed in concernedly. “Look at your father, look, he didn’t get to where he is by becoming something undeclared. You can take a business major, then you can do whatever you want to do.”

Ajay made a propitiatory sound, a tongue-click followed by a half-sigh. “I know, I know—”

“Hanh, hanh,
everything you know.”

“Look, all I’m saying is, I need some time to decide what I want to do and there’s lots of people who don’t declare their…”

A boy, she had said. He was kissing a boy,
thought Pooja.
But kissing him how? What kind of a kiss? Was it just a kiss, a little peck, the way he would have kissed Ajay? Just saying goodbye? Or really kissing? But did men, friends, kiss at all?
Pooja brought a jug of
nimbu pani
to the table and filled up their glasses, still milling around, unable to sit down, the thoughts driving her into a frenzy.
Maybe she just misunderstood what she saw. It’s so typical of Sonali to blow things out of proportion, to sensationalize everything. Maybe it was just a friend he had bumped into, someone he works with at the bank, and they were saying goodbye and they must have hugged, just an innocent goodbye, and now that horrible woman, with her poisonous mind, is convoluting the whole thing!

“Sit down already,” Rahul said, pulling the heavy teak chair out for her. “We have everything now.”

Pooja squeezed his shoulder. “Just Ajay’s chicken,
ek
minute,” she said, disappearing into the kitchen and father and son resumed their conversation. Bent over the microwave oven, she watched the lightly seasoned slabs of chicken breast rotating on the plate.
But what was he doing at the bookstore? Oh, why don’t I just ask him? So, maybe he was just buying a book, something to do with work, maybe another cook book for me, a surprise, and if I ask him, I’m going to ruin it!
From the window behind her, Pooja heard raucous laughter coming from Sonali’s kitchen. She shrank with horror, assuming that Sonali was broadcasting this malicious lie over her network of gossipers. Pooja turned around but when she looked out the window, she saw that Sonali’s kitchen was engulfed in darkness and indeed it looked as though nobody was home.
Oh, God, I’m losing my mind
, she thought.
What’s happening to me? Do I actually believe this? Why am I giving it so much credence?

“Everything okay, Poo?” Rahul asked, suddenly standing right next to her.

She looked away from him, feeling the urge to cry. “Yes, I’m coming.”

He reached out and tucked a wisp of her hair behind the ear, revealing the mole on her lobe. He touched it with his finger sensually. It was the lightest touch yet she felt it go through her like an electric current, charged with all the things he meant to her. “You okay?”

She threw her arms around the strong girth of his waist and rested her head against his chest, seeking desperately to banish her thoughts. She knew what it was she must do and it terrified her.
I can’t go there
, she thought.
I will not go there. I don’t want to know anything about this boy. He doesn’t exist. What if my suspicion, my question, brings him to life? And the lie becomes the truth?

“Poo?”

She shook her head against him, as much to her thoughts as to his inquiry, closing her eyes tightly shut, reminding herself that this was her husband, her Rahul, and that she knew him perhaps even better than he knew himself. “I’m just glad you’re home.”

They heard Ajay groan. “Are we eating tonight or what?”

“Come now, let’s sit down. Let’s eat.”

Rahul enveloped her in his arms, feeling a pang of guilt shoot through him. Although he said nothing more, he kissed her reassuringly on the top of her head, just inches away from the parting in her hair, from that trail of red vermillion that bound them for lifetimes to come.

Pooja went to bed, desperate to end the day and the thoughts with it. Rahul stayed downstairs for what seemed like hours with Ajay. Everything seemed so perfect now, her husband and son filling the house with their chatter, that she wished she could have found a way to go on with life as if the conversation with Sonali had never taken place.

Lying on her side, she watched the moon in the arms of the old jacaranda tree outside the window and invoked Krishna over and over again under her breath.
If only it were another woman,
she thought.
Even then I might have been able to do something, to come to terms with the fact that at a certain point a man just needed, wanted, a new body. But another man? How can it be another man? What does it mean?

What worried her most was the she knew Rahul had never been the sort to be dominated by his lust. Other men, yes, Pooja had known the sort. But what had drawn her to him in the first place was the pure, discreet complexion of his affection. Rahul was not, and never had been, a womanizer, someone who sought to reinvent himself through new conquests. What had changed in him now?