Bindi Read online

  Soon Mrs. Nair came to him, carrying with her one of the red plastic chairs from her kitchen. He was digging a hole in the dirt now. The legs and back of the chair bowed slightly under Mrs. Nair’s weight as she sat down in front of him. He knew he should go to her, comfort her and be comforted, but he kept digging, finally pressing the shard firmly into the little hole he’d made.

  “Birendra?” She dabbed at her eyes with a dish towel. Tears began to fall from his own eyes, though he hadn’t known he was about to cry. “I’m going to need your help with something.”

  He wiped his eyes and prepared to stand, but she motioned for him to remain seated where he was.

  “Your uncle and aunt are living in London, yes?”

  “Yes,” he said, and the word caught in his throat after so much silence.

  West London, he thought, hearing the way his mother would say it. He looked down again and pressed the mound of dirt until it was flush beneath his palm. Did Mrs. Nair want to contact his aunt and uncle? To tell them about his mother? Or maybe, he thought, she was looking for a new home for him because Mr. Nair would not let him stay. Would he go to London after all, without his mother? He had so many questions, but he only wanted to pose them to his mother, and since he could not, he asked nothing at all.

  “I’m sorry Mr. Nair is upset,” he said. “I’ll be good. I promise not to get in his way.”

  Mrs. Nair opened her arms wide now to receive him. He stood and dusted himself off, then climbed onto her lap, remembering how the chair had buckled under her weight, then forgetting as he was pulled tightly into her warmth.

  “You don’t have to worry about Mr. Nair, dear one. He can’t help himself. We will contact your uncle and aunt. And you will stay here until they can come for you.”

  These words made him feel sick. Sick with the fear of leaving home and sick with an overwhelming relief that he wasn’t going to be alone after all. But London, West London, was so far from everything he’d ever known. He’d never imagined he would go there without his mother. He thought of the letter she had written to his aunt just the other day, the one he’d sent on his way home. He could write one now and impress his aunt and uncle with his English skills. It would be difficult, much more difficult than a brief greeting or a little drawing. Difficult because of the news he would have to share, but he would try his hardest. Surely they would come for him when they learned what had happened to his mother. They had invested in his education. The letter would show them how much he’d learned. And the Nairs could not write it, knowing neither Hindi nor English. They would have to ask someone else in any case.

  “I could write them a letter,” he said.

  Mrs. Nair turned him in her arms and studied his face carefully.

  “Do you think you could do that?”

  “Yes,” he said, trying to smile, preparing himself to stretch the truth. “Amma and I wrote them every month. Please, please, let me write it.”

  Mrs. Nair wiped his cheeks dry with her thumbs. She began rocking her head and he knew she would let him. A smile came more easily now.

  “Perhaps that would be best,” she said. “They will want to know you are safe.” She pulled him close once more. “And who could resist you, dear one?”

  Back at the kitchen table, Mrs. Nair placed a notepad and a pen in front of Birendra. The blank page made him nervous because he wanted so much to impress his aunt and uncle but also because he didn’t know how to tell them what had happened to his mother. He hated to cause such pain. He knew how close his mother was to his aunt, how much she loved her. He heard his mother’s voice as they’d worked on his family report: Your uncle is kind; your aunt is clever, just like you. He was writing to family members who cared for him even though they were far away. He would try his best to write a good letter. And though he hadn’t been able to tell his mother, perhaps he would one day tell his uncle and aunt that Mr. Mon had singled Birendra out to commend him, and they would be proud. He would continue his education in a school where they lived in England. He might even be able to join a reading club there, where every book would be in English.

  He took the pen in hand. Mrs. Nair settled in beside him and began to dictate. He tried to translate her words from Malayalam into English, using his most careful penmanship. She asked if he shouldn’t write in Hindi, as his mother had, but he insisted that his aunt always spoke English to him when they talked on the phone. Mrs. Nair suggested phrases he simply didn’t know how to write in English. But he remembered Mr. Mon’s “3-C” rules—clear, concise, correct—as he struggled to transcribe Mrs. Nair’s meaning, if not her words. It took a fair bit of thinking and more than one false start for Birendra to complete the brief letter. He wrote:

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Bhatia,

  I’m sorry to write with terrible news. Your blessed sister is with God. She died 16 November 1993. Please come for your Birendra. He is waiting for you.

  This final sentence was his own. He read the letter silently, and he thought his teacher would be proud. He read it aloud to Mrs. Nair, and she nodded, but he knew she did not understand the words. He signed it from Mr. and Mrs. Nair, but he wanted his aunt and uncle to know the letter’s true author, so he added a postscript: Written by your loving nephew.

  Mrs. Nair appeared relieved when he set the pen down. She retrieved an envelope he recognized from his mother’s room, one of his aunt’s letters. Setting it down beside a blank envelope, she asked him to copy the address. They should post it right away, she said, so it would arrive as quickly as possible.

  His aunt’s return address was complicated, a combination of letters and numbers written in his aunt’s cursive, which wasn’t precise, like his mother’s. But he did his best to copy each shape exactly as it was on his aunt’s envelope, regardless of whether he knew its meaning. He tried to ignore Mrs. Nair’s anxious pacing. She kept looking at the bedroom door. Was she afraid Mr. Nair would awaken from his nap and disapprove? But he couldn’t worry about that right now. He had to focus and take his time. Was that a 1 or a 7? An S or a 5?

  At last it was ready, and he lifted the letter into the air, as if it were an offering, then folded it carefully in thirds before placing it inside the envelope, licking the flap, and sealing it closed, as his mother had so often allowed him to do. He was eager for the letter to reach London. Mrs. Nair, he could see, was excited as well. Did she know, he wondered, that it took two weeks for a letter to arrive? Mrs. Nair now retrieved her wallet, took out one note, then another. She paused and looked at Birendra. He had forgotten he would need money and looked away, embarrassed.

  “Do you know how much it costs?” He did know this. He could imagine the stamps his mother would let him lick and paste—there were two and they were different—but suddenly he couldn’t remember their values. “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  She told him to wait there; she would be back any moment. It wasn’t right for him to leave the house. He was in mourning. She would go to the neighbors and ask someone to post it on their behalf. From the window, he watched Mrs. Nair hurry down their narrow road. He wasn’t accustomed to seeing her move so quickly. It made her look younger than she was, despite her silver hair. She disappeared around the bend and didn’t return for several minutes. When he saw her again, her hands were empty. The letter was on its way. He remembered the price of the stamps just then and could imagine the man in the window placing the postage in one corner and then, with his square rubber block, imprinting the words by air mail below his aunt and uncle’s address. It felt as if a part of him were sealed along with the letter in that envelope. They would both embark on the long journey away from home, away from Mr. and Mrs. Nair and the house next door that was no longer a home. The rest of him would follow before long, he thought. For now, he would have to wait.

  IV

  It was another Tuesday night, and Nayana was still pretending to have a class to teach. It had been two weeks since she’d last met Daniel at the hotel. They were slowing down. N
ayana’s dress more casual, her makeup subdued. In her pocket she once again carried a key to the hotel room, though she had yet to contact Daniel. She knew he would come as soon as she called. Ramesh was at the other end of the hallway, his hands resting on his hips. Nayana watched him from their bedroom door. He was stretching his back, looking up at the ceiling. He complained of stiffness in his neck and shoulders as well, and this had only gotten worse lately with the stress of work. Years of planning, and the tunnel’s first test run was just over a week away. She didn’t know how she felt about being in a train under water for so long, but to know that she would be leaving England for France might just make it worthwhile. Now he rubbed his knees, which he said creaked when he stood. She could see he was tired. He placed a hand on his belly, which he always said was slightly larger than the last time he was fitted for a suit. The aging process had begun to accelerate as he tumbled toward forty. Nayana assumed that he was making excuses for her, for the distance she kept; that he was afraid he was getting too old for a beautiful wife, seven years younger than he. He often told her she was too beautiful. And when he made this claim, she assured him he was being ridiculous and always replied, “You’re as handsome as the day I met you.” She had no trouble saying this. It was true, because he was a handsome man and because the most handsome part of Ramesh would never spoil with age. It was his goodness, his love for her. It was etched in every feature as though in marble. Ramesh had the remarkable ability to always remain himself. What she couldn’t admit to him was that it was she who had changed so much that she was no longer certain she could remain.

  She waited for him to leave the hallway and retreat to his reading chair, then she went to the little table in the entryway. Ramesh must have picked up the mail after caring for Felix, a responsibility that would not last much longer. Beth would be back over the weekend. Where would Ramesh steal away then, if not downstairs? She was convinced it was how he managed his doubts and fears, maybe even an anger he never let Nayana see. She seized her sister’s letter from the bowl. He’d put it on top. As always, Nayana softened at the sight of her sister’s handwriting, then softened further as she turned the envelope over to find whatever message or decoration awaited her from Birendra: this month, Diwali greetings from your loving nephew. She placed the letter in her purse, hating that she still hadn’t responded to October’s letter while Aditi remained, of course, right on schedule.

  “We’ll read it later. I have to get going now,” she said, as much to herself as to Ramesh, and turned toward the door. She pressed the latch and opened the door.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to join you for that lunch after all. The dean has asked to meet.”

  “The dean?” he said, sounding impressed.

  “We’ll see,” she said, attempting to project her concern. She knew what was coming; she just didn’t know what she would tell Ramesh.

  The air outside was the coldest it had been this year. She enjoyed the shock of it as she unzipped her coat and loosened her scarf. Winter nights in Delhi could be like this autumn evening in London. But in Varkala, where Aditi lived, it would be warm as always.

  “Of course your letter would arrive today, sister,” she said aloud, looking up at the brightest visible star—or was that Venus?

  Star or planet didn’t matter, as long as it carried Nayana’s message of love and regret: a cosmic telegraph between twins, the way they so often communicated silently about their classmates at school. Or at home, where they spent whole weekends anticipating each other’s thoughts and actions, hiding places. Two decades later, on a walk that ostensibly led her again to a lover and an act of adultery, Nayana felt Aditi was still seeing right through her. She could hear her sister’s voice asking, Who have you become?

  The hotel was dimly lit by a single lantern above the door. It looked drab and uglier than Nayana remembered, more so than it had even earlier that day when she’d stopped in to pay for the room, averting her eyes from those of the man at the reception desk, though he’d never shown much interest in whatever she and Daniel were up to. Her legs felt heavy as she climbed the stairs to the room where, until two weeks ago, Daniel would have already been waiting for her. She felt an irrational fear that he was inside the room, that she would turn the knob and the door would swing wide—the frequently borrowed space appearing again like a stage for her poor choices—and Daniel would be lying there, naked as before, under a single white sheet, boyishly smoking a cigarette. He was handsome, yes, more handsome than Ramesh in some respects, but impermanent, mere plaster to Ramesh’s marble.

  But there was no one inside this time, no lover stubbing out a cigarette and beckoning her to join him. She was relieved to be alone. The curtains were drawn, and she left the lights off. The room was dark except for the glow of a digital clock that faintly illuminated the familiar floral print of the quilt, which shamed Nayana now from the bed. Being with Daniel in that bed felt so different from being with Ramesh. It was more than the hotel room: physically, there was nothing to stand between them and their desire. They surrendered to each other’s bodies with ease, their minds never getting in the way. When Daniel wanted her again, she simply knew it. And yet she felt no ties to the man inside. Not the thinking man, the colleague from school hallways and break room. She knew what she liked about being with him; they had no history, no shared loss. She didn’t care what he thought about her, only that he wanted her. She had no fear of disappointing him. With Daniel, Nayana was finally not a failure.

  She set her coat and scarf on the chair, unzipped her boots, and stepped onto the dense carpet, one foot at a time. The silence and solitude were perfect. She would not call Daniel tonight. It was the guilt she’d wanted to experience again, not the pleasure. Actually, she would never see him again, not here, though this wouldn’t resolve anything, really. She set her arms free from the dress and slid it down to the floor. Unhooking her bra, she swayed under the sensitivity of lace brushing against her skin. She would miss lunch with Ramesh and her mother-in-law tomorrow, but it was not, as she’d claimed to Ramesh, because of the meeting with the dean, which would take place earlier in the morning. Her lunch conflict was an appointment with the gynecologist, though this was merely a formality. Nayana already knew that she was pregnant. And that the gynecologist would not be able to tell her, at least not tomorrow, what she truly wanted to know.

  The sliding closet doors were covered with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. She stared at her feet and worked her eyes up from there. She studied her body, which had extinguished the life that had tried to grow there. Twice. She was afraid to ask if this pregnancy was the product of her affair. She looked back at the bed, as if it might provide the answer. With Ramesh, in the years since her last miscarriage, she had learned to be precise, to keep track. Eventually, though, she’d assumed herself incapable of getting pregnant again. And so with Daniel there had been no precision or precaution. This thought now made her nauseated. And yet she could not help but wonder, if the child were Daniel’s, would that help or harm her chances of carrying to term? Who indeed has your sister become to even think such a thing?

  She pulled back the covers and lay down, setting the alarm for 9:00 p.m. Outside the window, she could see the flashing lights of a plane passing in the sky, and she apologized to it—as if to a star, to her sister, to herself, and to Ramesh. She would start there, with apologies, alone in no one’s room. She remembered the letter from her sister in her bag and fished it out, then turned on the bedside lamp. As she opened the envelope, she studied her nephew’s greeting again, noticing that his cursive had improved. He was growing older, and she was far away, missing out on that growth. She quickly skimmed her sister’s words, feeling the need to take in the letter all at once. How she missed Aditi. How she needed her now. Then she read each word slowly, stopping only to wipe the tears from her eyes. And then she read it once more in order to fall asleep.

  * * *

  Dearest Nayana,

  On this last day of
Diwali, I miss my sister as always. Birendra is here beside me. Tonight I told him the story about when you asked Baba and Maa if you could bring me gifts on this day so long ago. I could sense his little mind at work, wondering what happens if you don’t have a sister.

  I can already tell that he will want to follow in your footsteps one day, and we will finally join you in London. He has grand ambitions and a mind like yours—so clever. And he’s growing fast. He will want to go soon. And the truth is I’m lonely, Naya. But what will happen when I take him away from India altogether? I fear that his father’s memory, of which he already has so little, will fade, as it will for me as well. Will I ever be ready for that? Sometimes I feel guilty for marrying a man with an even smaller family than ours. I maybe should have married into a big family, for Birendra’s sake, but then he wouldn’t have come from my Srikant and me. Please know I don’t say any of this to make you feel responsible for being so far away. It is my own guilt I wrestle with. I try to comfort myself knowing that, when the day comes and we have to leave India, I’ll have my sister close again. For now, you’ll be happy to know I’ve finally done as you asked and put in a request for telephone service. Who knows how long it will take, but we will be able to talk more.

  Birendra wants you both to know that he’s written about you in his “family history,” a report for his English class. This week alone, he’s read three books in English. Sound like anyone you know? Please send more when you can.

  I didn’t want to press things when we last spoke, but you seemed a bit preoccupied. How is dear Ramesh? Please send my respects. With your work and Ramesh’s family, I guess you wouldn’t know loneliness there. Of course you can always visit. I won’t push you, but you are welcome. I want Birendra to spend time with his brilliant aunt. To have a model of life beyond the small world I can offer him.