A Time to Dance (7 page)
Authors: Padma Venkatraman
Dr. Murali removes most of my bandages.
My cuts and bruises are healing.
He says I can go home with my right leg still bound,
stitches still in.
“Maintain good posture.
Bad habits are hard to break,” Jim reminds.
He guides me one last time,
up and down a flight of stairs and through the corridor.
He stays at my side.
I hobble behind Ma, Pa, and Paati,
glad I'll soon be free of innumerable pairs of nurses' eyes.
Scared I won't be near Jim's caring arms,
won't hear him say, every day,
“You're doing great.”
Near the main doors, I see two nurses, heads together,
sharing my story
in too-loud voices.
“She was a dancer, that one.”
As though I'm a star in some sad soap opera.
Not “was.”
Am. Am. Am.
I move past the nurses, my crutches tick-tocking on the tiles
like the pendulum of an old clock.
Not quite a dance rhythm.
Yet.
to
NORMAL
Squashed between Paati and Ma in the backseat of a taxi
speeding farther and farther away from the hospital,
my stomach shrinks fist-tight with fear
as a bus overtakes us,
passing so close by I could touch it if I reached out the window.
My palms feel wet.
Sweat, just sweat. Not blood.
A lorry honks, coming at us,
speeding on the wrong side of the road.
Dust clouds fly into my eye through the open window.
The smoke makes me gag.
I tense,
though I feel Paati's fingers massaging the back of my neck,
trying to calm me.
I hear Ma say, “Please drive slower. Be careful.”
“Don't worry, madam.
Ten years I've been driving in Chennai city traffic.”
The driver screeches to a halt
in the middle of the concrete jungle where we live.
Our apartment building looks unwelcoming as I enter.
Clutching my crutches, I stand at the bottom step,
thinking through the motions of climbing on crutches.
Feeling alone. Frightened.
Far from Jim's encouraging voice.
Missing his strength, his support.
Missing the safety of the hospital.
Pa says, “Veda, would it be easier if you leaned on me
and left your crutches behind?”
Maybe,
but I say, “No.”
Ma pulls anxiously on an earlobe.
Her diamonds scatter the sunlight.
Paati nods. Her nod says, “You can do it.”
I plant my crutches on the ground,
propel my body upward.
My leg reaches the first step.
Then, my crutches join me.
Pa says, “Don't worry. I'm behind you.”
“How is Veda?” Mrs. Subramaniam shouts.
I want to yell,
Ask me. The accident didn't damage my ears.
Her shout brings other neighbors out.
They crowd on the landings or lean out their doorways,
watching me labor up the steps
of our shared staircase.
They make me feel as if
I'm the star attraction
at a freak show.
GHOST CRABS,
and
REGENERATION
Lumbering at last into the bedroom I share with Paati,
I collapse on my bed.
A gecko stares at me,
its large eyes almost popping out of its sockets.
Waving its yellow-brown tail from side to side
like an admonishing finger,
it chirps, “Th-th-th.”
I shake a crutch at the gecko. “Shut up!
I'm going to dance again!”
Clucking with fear, it turns tail and scurries
toward the open window.
Before racing onto the branch
of the pipul tree that brushes against the windowpane,
the gecko drops its tail on the sill.
Feeling slightly sick, I watch the dismembered part
seesawing up and downâas if aliveâ
while the tailless gecko disappears up the tree.
Once, at the beach, when I was a child,
Ma pointed at tiny ghost crabs scuttling along the seashore
and said, “If one leg is bitten off by a predator,
crabs can regenerate that lost leg.”
Pa added, “Geckos can regrow their tails.”
I thoughtâhow magical,
how wonderful.
Paati comes in and places my Shiva statue
on the table between our two beds.
I want to throw it out of the window
at the gecko that's chirping loudly
as if to brag about powers
it has
and I lack.
of
LAUGHTER
Chandra drops in,
apologizing for having been away so long. “I was busy.”
“Busy doing what?” I demand.
She sighs. “Okay. I wasn't busy. It's just
I don't know if it helps when I visit.”
“I don't know either.”
“I feel I should come.”
“Coming to see me on my sick bed is your duty?”
“So what if it's a duty?” Chandra shakes her head. “Don't friends
have a duty to each other? Don't you see I want to help?”
“I hate seeing you walk,” I say.
It's a relief to finally confess that.
And relief to hear
Chandra snap, “Fine. Sit and stew in your self-pity.”
But then, softening her tone, she goes on,
“Sorry. I understand how you feel.”
“You can't understand, Chandra.”
“True. I guess I can't imagine
being in your
shoes.”
I snort with laughter. “You mean my one
shoe?”
Chandra looks frightened.
I giggle and tell her,
“You look as scared as that night Paati told us a ghost story
and you had to run to the bathroom three times.”
“Five times,” Chandra corrects.
A mist-thin giggle escapes her.
My ribs must be healing.
Laughing doesn't hurt.
That realization sends me into another peal of laughter.
Our laughter thickens
into a fog
filling the room.
It's a little forced, a little hysterical, but it's good to feel
connected.
I lock the door to my room.
Balancing on my crutches, I open my dresser.
Inside, neatly folded, sit my school uniforms:
Western-style blue collared shirts to go with gray skirts
or embroidered cotton
kurti
tops with loose
salwar
trousers.
Can't dress or undress standing,
so I sit on the bed, wriggle into salwar trousers,
hop on my crutches and force myself to look
at something I've avoided so far:
my full-length reflection
in the long mirror on our wall.
A one-legged girl stares back.
She isn't me! a voice screams in my head.
She isn't me!
Letting my crutches clatter to the floor, I fall back onto my bed.
Not me!
I punch my pillow.
Not me!
Punch. Punch. Punch.
Not me!
A new voice whispers,
Be grateful you can still stand.
On crutches I face my mirror-self.
Dare to stare
lower down.
One trouser leg flaps emptily below my bandaged limb.
I try on my long school skirt and my bandaged limb
juts out below the hem.
I whip my skirt off. Crush it. Fling it on the floor.
Toss all my school uniforms on the ground.
In an open drawer, I see
the blue batik skirt Chandra and I bought
before my accident.
I brush my cheek against it. The skirt still smells new.
Haven't worn it once.
My tears soak into the silky fabric.
Paati knocks.
Trying not to think how good the skirt
would have looked on me,
I shove it in the bottom drawer.
Pile my other suddenly too-short skirts and dresses on top.
Wipe my face dry with the back of my hand.
Unlock the door.
Paati casts a look at the crumpled heap of clothing.
Picks up a skirt. Examines it.
“I could let out the hems,” she offers.
“Your skirts can be lengthened quite a bit.”
“Thanks, Paati. Thanks so much. Thank you.”
She pats my cheek. “You tell me
when I should shorten them back.”
I nod
sure she'll never need
to shorten my skirts again.
Pa begs to escort me to the bus stop
although I've been riding the public bus to school
alone every day since I was ten.
He worries
drivers won't stop long enough
for me to get safely in and out.
He wonders if we should arrange a taxi.
As if we can afford taxis on a daily basis.
I reason with him. “We're at the end of the bus route.
The bus is always empty when I get in.”
Ma says, “Veda, please, we don't want youâ”
“You don't want me doing things by myself anymore?”
That gets me my way.
When I arrive at the bus stop,
a little girl bounces over, her pigtails bobbing.
She addresses me politely,
calling me older sisterâ
akka.
“What happened to your leg, akka?”
She looks too young
to realize her question is rude.
“Accident.” I thrust my crutches as far ahead as I can,
distancing myself from her wide-eyed curiosity.
A man with a pencil-thin black mustache
leans out of a window.
“What happened to your leg?”
My throat hurts as if a thorn's stuck in it and I ignore him.
The bus's steps look steeper than I remember.
I hesitate on the ground,
trying to picture Jim standing next to me,
his cheerful voice teaching me how to climb on crutches.
An old woman
greets me from her usual place in front,
“Girl? How did you lose your leg?
An accident? Or a disease?”
“She's not telling,” the man says.
“So rude she is being. In our day we always
answered our elders.”
The woman sighs. “Very true. Very true.”
As fast as I can,
I get away from them, to the back of the bus.
Stare out the window,
sensing innumerable eyes staring at me.
Someone taps me on the shoulder.
The khaki-clad bus conductor.
He's seen me in his bus nearly every school day.
I wait for him to ask
the question.
He only says, “Good to have you back.”
Hands me my ticket and moves on.
I want to hug him.
The bus jerks onto the road.
A temple elephant lumbering along in a procession
obstructs traffic.
I'm thankful it slows the bus down
at least for a short while.
Soon the bus is hurtling madly
through crowded streets.
I press back into my seat,
clutching my schoolbag.
Sweat plasters my skirt to my thighs.
My stop feels light-years away.
By the time we arrive, the bus is packed.
“Let the lame girl through,” a lady shouts as I struggle to push
through the crowd.
She sounds as though she's trying to be helpful.
My face flushes
hot with shame
as I navigate carefully
down the steep steps
and out of the bus.