Before We Visit the Goddess (24 page)

The paramedics check us for damages, the ones that can be gauged with instruments. They tell us we're lucky. Most of what we're feeling is shock; we don't need to be hospitalized. Appropriately bandaged and medicated, we're driven to the police station, where our statements are taken. Mine barely makes sense. My mind is full of Meena, her still, pale body on the hospital gurney, her long hair falling over its edge like sorrow.
My wife clung to her, weeping
, Dr. V had said.
But I couldn't touch her. I felt I didn't have the right.

The police must have contacted the university, because here comes the chair of the Economics Department, huffing with apologies. He's going to take Dr. V to the airport and try and get him on another flight. He glares at me as he stashes Dr. V's suitcase in his trunk. Dr. V explained to him that the accident wasn't my fault, but I've a feeling I'll be looking for a new job pretty soon.

Dr. V turns to wish me goodbye. I only have a moment.

“Thank you for telling me about your daughter,” I say. I want to add something about how I feel now, not better exactly but less alone. But words would spoil it.

“No,” he says. “Thank
you
.” And then, “Go back to school, Amma. Don't give up.”

He holds my gaze until I nod.

The chair clears his throat. Dr. V gets in the car. They're gone.

Waiting outside the station for a policeman to give me a ride, I heft my handbag, and suddenly that temple smell is all around me. I unzip the bag. The paper cone has burst. A fine gray ash coats everything: wallet, lipstick, keys, fingers. I lower my face and breathe it in, but all it does is make me sneeze.

How much do I have in the bank? How much do I have in me? Can I stick with it this time? Just thinking about the effort it'll require exhausts me, all that information I'll have to ingest and spit back out.

My head's aching like crazy, like someone's tightening a spring at the base of my skull. It's the kind of pain that requires some serious tending to. I'm out of Valium, but I still have a quarter bottle of emergency vodka in the back of my closet.

I realize that I've forgotten to rescue the stolen shawl. It's gone, towed along with the car. Like so many things in my life, I won't see it again.

My teeth are chattering. Delayed shock or withdrawal. How much longer is that idiot policeman going to take?

I consider going back into the station to complain. I'm a citizen. I have rights. But then a memory sideswipes me.

At the entrance to the temple, Dr. V informed me that we had to remove our shoes. Grudgingly, I pulled off my boots. The bricks of the wide courtyard were scorching-hot. They seared my feet. I hurried on tiptoe toward the temple door, trying to get inside the building as quickly as possible. But Dr. V called me back.

“Before we visit the goddess,” he said, “we must cleanse ourselves.”

There was a spigot beside the doorway, a green hose attached to it. Dr. V turned it on. His own feet must have been scalding, too, but he aimed the hose toward me. Water pooled over my feet and under my burning soles.

That cool silver shimmer in the blazing afternoon. That small benediction. How can I forget it?

T
he first time I met her was the night David left me.

After the front door clicked behind him, I needed to get out of the house. I headed to the grocery, the fancy one next to the independent bookstore where I was the events coordinator. I filled my cart with items he disapproved of. I bought ice-cream sandwiches, a six-pack of Budweiser—regular, not Light—and a family-sized package of chicken nuggets. But he had ruined me. I found myself reading the backs of the boxes, how many calories per serving, how much cholesterol. I wondered what kinds of hormones the poultry had been injected with. I pronounced the names of the preservatives—potassium nitrate, erythorbic acid, L-cysteine—as though memorizing a dangerous chemistry lesson.

I was surprised to see Lance, the manager of the grocery, working the checkout counter. His shirtsleeves were rolled up. His forearms glistened. A cashier had quit all of a sudden, he explained. He cocked an amused eyebrow at my purchases.

“What's up, Kenneth? David out of town?”

I made a noncommittal sound. It surprised and embarrassed me that he knew our food habits so intimately.

I liked Lance. David and I ran into him once in a while at a pub or a café, and he would come over to say hello or introduce the man he was with. He was good at telling jokes. Though David said he was a show-off, I enjoyed his quirky humor. But I wasn't about to discuss my situation with him.

I was no longer hungry by the time I got back to the apartment. Still, I put the nuggets in the oven. I searched in the closet for the video games I had put away soon after David moved in. I dusted off my N64 and loaded my old save from
GoldenEye
. I was pleased to discover that although I had not played for a year and a half, my reflexes were as good as ever. When the nuggets were done, I ate a plateful. It was novel, even enjoyable, to eat something that tasted different from the organic-Euro-Austin-gourmet cuisine that I had grown used to with David. After dinner, I planned to delete David's number from my cell phone. I planned to get on Facebook and change my status to single. Maybe even block him from my page. But when I fished out the phone, it seemed like too much effort. Instead, I went to the fridge and took out a Klondike bar. My mother used to give them to me as special treats during my childhood. I bit into it, hoping it would rekindle in me a feeling of goodness and self-worth. It did not.

Someone was at the door. I turned off the TV to make sure I wasn't hallucinating from loneliness. No. A key scrabbled against the lock. The doorknob rattled. There were thumping sounds, obscured by the pounding of my shameless heart. I threw the Klondike into the trash and covered it up with a used paper towel. I composed my face into forgiveness.

When I opened the door, I did not find a repentant David. Instead, there was a disheveled woman dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater. I guessed her to be Indian or Middle Eastern, in her fifties. She appeared confused. At first she spoke in a language I did not understand. Then she said, “Why is my key not fitting? Why are you in my apartment?” Her speech indicated that she had been drinking.

I informed her that this was in fact my apartment. Disappointment made my tone sharp. I banged the door shut. I heard no more sounds.

I came back to the couch and turned on
Saturday Night Live
. That was a mistake. We watched
SNL
almost every weekend, curled together under a quilt. On those occasions, David would indulge my plebeian tastes and make buttered popcorn. Today, watching alone, I couldn't keep my mind on the actors. What was David doing? Who was he with? Breaking up, he had slid his apartment key across the table and said, “Kenneth, I'm sorry, we just don't fit well together.” As though we were jigsaw pieces from two separate puzzles. After I got over my shock, I thought it a plausible reason. Now, stranded inside a night lit only by the flickering TV screen, I was assailed by doubt.

David had taken his books. The few remaining volumes—mostly texts from my college years or freebies from the bookstore—lay toppled on the shelves. I had to tilt my head to decipher the titles.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
. Ellison's
Invisible Man
.
Civilization and Its Discontents
.
Cloud Atlas.
It dizzied me.

I considered getting another Klondike, but the thought of its intense sweetness made me queasy. Already I could feel the chicken nuggets roiling in my stomach, belligerent with grease. I decided to sleep. That was what I really needed. I had work tomorrow, for which I was thankful. I reminded myself that I enjoyed my job. I liked the bookstore. I liked my boss. I had flexible hours, intelligent customers, and medical benefits. I went into the bedroom, but it was congested with emptiness. I carried my pillows and a blanket to the sofa and lay down. I imagined David. I could not stop. I pictured him with another man, pinning him down—on a rug, perhaps, or a tabletop. David was adventurous with venues. He was smiling in a way I knew well, the side of his mouth quirking up. His hands gripped the man's hair.

The mind is a treacherous thing. Before I guessed what it was up to, it had pulled me back into our early days, when we used to lie in bed after sex, fighting sleep because we had so much to say to each other. Sometimes I traced the outline of his face with my fingertips until he laughed and said I was tickling him.

What is more painful, the misplaced past or the runaway future? I did not know.

To give myself something else to do, I went to the door and opened it. The woman was still there, sitting with her back against the passage wall. I asked if she remembered the number of her apartment. She stared at me. I repeated the question twice. At last she rummaged in her purse and came up with a sheet of paper. I saw that she was in twenty-eight, one floor below, the apartment underneath mine. Unsuccessfully, I attempted to explain this.

There was nothing to do but help her down the stairs and unlock her door. I instructed her to lock it from inside. I was not sure how much she understood. She did not look at me or thank me. I was surprised to find that I was not annoyed by this. I waited until I heard the click of the bolt.

I saw her a few days later in the apartment parking lot when I returned from the bookstore. She was struggling with a couple of grocery bags. When she noticed me, she looked away. This was how I knew that she remembered.

In my David days I would have ignored her. I heard his voice in my head, where it seemed to have taken up permanent residence.
Better leave her alone, Ken. It's easy to get tangled in someone's troubles but hard to cut free.

I introduced myself and offered to carry one of her bags. Perhaps it was an act of rebellion. Perhaps I merely wanted a reason to delay my return to my apartment. She appeared suspicious but finally nodded. The bag I carried contained an assortment of microwave meals and two bottles of cheap wine. I set it on her kitchen counter and waited. For what, I wasn't sure. Her face was blotched; there were bags under her eyes. Still, I could see that she had once been beautiful. When the silence rose to a certain level of discomfort, I said goodbye. I was at the door before she asked if I would like some chai.

The apartment was full of boxes, most of them unopened. Styrofoam pellets littered the floor. She rummaged around, finally locating a saucepan and mismatched cups. The tea was pungent with strange spices, nothing like the beverage I drank at the cafés David and I frequented. Had frequented, I mean.

Her name was Bela Dewan. Her story was not uncommon, at least the parts she told me. Some time back, she had had a difficult divorce. Last week she had moved from Houston to Austin, hoping to start over. She was looking for work.

What kind of work? I asked.

Mrs. Dewan confessed that she had no degrees or training. She had been a caregiver in a preschool, but that was years ago. “All this time I was a full-time wife and mother,” she said. “Now I've been fired from both jobs.”

Her prospects did not sound promising. But I told her I would ask around.

The next time I went to the grocery, I stopped by Lance's office to ask if he was looking to replace the cashier who had quit.

“I already found someone,” he said, “but if you want to come and work for me, I'll fire her right now.” Was this a joke? His eyes glinted in a way that made me wonder. His shirt was partially unbuttoned. I could see the hollow at his neck, the tanned, taut skin below. In his ear, he wore an iron stud, a foxy touch. Now that David was gone, I was free to notice such things. The thought filled me with a kind of desolation.

I told him about Mrs. Dewan.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don't hire people without experience.” I must have looked disappointed, because he added, “I'll talk to her since she's a friend of yours. But tell her not to get her hopes up.”