Good Indian Girls: Stories (7 page)

“It doesn’t matter either way,” he said. “Do whatever you want.”

What a flood of memories! She wanted to talk about all of them. She wanted to tell Ian. Perhaps he would understand, he would see her clearly, exactly as she was, and let her go, because how could you kill someone you saw clearly? She would tell him about the time when she was four, or was it
five? Oh, it mattered! If she couldn’t remember the age, how could she remember clearly. No, she was five. She knew it now. Walking down the street, lost, her parents disappeared, and an old man appearing out of nowhere and terrifying her with his old hands and his old face. The light of the afternoon seemed to jump away from him and left them both in a circle of darkness. That’s what she remembered. That circle.

A first drunken kiss in a high school bathroom with Jeremy Drake who had not washed his hair in a month. She kissed him out of pity, terror, curiosity. Everything she did seemed to grow out of those three emotions, the primary colors painting her world. Except she could not remember the last thing she had done solely out of curiosity. Should she tell Ian about the icy arguments that reigned throughout her childhood, how they formed her, an only child, sitting as if on the periphery of a battle she had no part in except as spoils of victory?

Ian’s pulse beat through his fingertips and against her wrist. She closed her eyes. She was only a year old when her father, laughing giddily, threw her up high into the air. Oh, it was like jumping over the moon! Up high, then down. Whoosh! He caught her with such confidence. Oh, how she loved that! Then up again, high into the spinning, beautiful air! To be held like that again by Papa!

Could she tell Ian that? Would it melt his heart?

But she wasn’t a killer. How did she know who killed and why, and what stopped them? She opened her eyes. He had not moved. His head remained tilted back, staring at the ceiling.

“Should I put music on?” she said. Her voice was thin and weak.

“I don’t like music.”

“What do you like?”

“I don’t like things. I thought I did once. I had aspirations to liking things. I thought I could walk out the door, see the sky, and say to myself, That’s a pretty sky. Or see a girl walking along, and say, That’s a pretty girl. Or just walk, walk down the street, and say, How good it feels to walk down the street.”

His grip tightened again and Lovedeep stifled a scream.

After a minute, he relaxed the pressure and continued, “I’d say it, all those things, every one of them. Then one day, it hit me. Every word I said was a lie. I didn’t feel one thing. Good, bad, ugly. I felt nothing. For years I’d been walking around lying to myself. Doesn’t that make you sick? A man who spent his whole life lying to himself. What a miserable creature.”

“I think you’re a good man,” Lovedeep said. “A man who knows what he wants.”

He released her wrist and stood and pulled the camera from its case. It was a handheld digital with a fold-out viewfinder. His right arm was shaking violently.

“Does it always do that?” she asked.

“Since I was a kid.”

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “This helps.”

She pointed to the camera.

“Do you have the others on there?” she said.

“The last.”

“Can I see?”

“I’ll plug it into your TV. The picture’ll be better.”

It occurred to Lovedeep that she had grown calm, and she did not know why. As Ian fussed with various cords and
connections, she asked herself if this was what her whole life had been building toward, her test, her proof, her vindication? She would look death in the eye, she would not flinch.

“Here it is,” he said.

They watched in silence. The woman’s face did look peaceful. She remembered it from the glimpse at the happy hour bar. And beautiful. Ian was right. It was as if the dead woman had witnessed a final secret. A blissful peace wrapped her features and Lovedeep hoped she would look as pretty, as rested, as
completed
, as this woman did in the video. But what had she ever done? She felt suddenly small and stupid, that her life was coming to an end and this was all, this wasteland of an apartment, this unmarried life, childless. Who had she ever cared for? What accomplishments did she leave behind, what unspoken mercies done for strangers? She remembered the instructor at the class that evening. Lovedeep suddenly wanted to go to India, she wanted to go to many places. Maybe she could make a deal. Travel six months, a year, come back to this very room, exactly as they were here. She wanted so much to leave something behind. But no. All hope left her. If she had never done anything, how could she expect to now. Ian, she knew, understood this.

Lovedeep was crying again. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse.

“Time to take off the belt,” Ian said.

She stood shakily and untied the belt from her waist and held it out, feeling stupid, her knees weak, thinking how surprisingly gentle he was, that such a gentle man could not be about to kill her. But that if he did, and she was sure he was going to, for why else was he here, she would die at the hands of a gentle man, this man.

“You don’t hate me, do you?” she said.

He was tearing open the plastic wrapping of a new videotape.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.” He added, softly, “Don’t take it personally, it’s women.”

He pressed a button on the camera and the old tape popped out. He replaced it with the blank one.

“I like using a fresh tape. Nowadays these tapes go on for hours. I only use a few minutes. It’s a waste. I’m just no good at breaking habits.” He turned to her, eyes blank. “I’ll use the belt. I haven’t done that in a while. The last two I used my hands.”

She liked the idea of his hands. It was intimate. Perhaps he would change his mind at the last moment.

“I’ll be on cable,” Lovedeep said, then she let out a low-pitched scream and dropped to her knees.

He stared down at her with disinterest. “I thought you were going to be a good girl.”

Lovedeep pressed her fingers into her mouth.

“I’m sorry. I will. I’ll be a good girl. Promise.”

He held out a hand. “Here.” He helped Lovedeep to her feet. He wrapped an arm around her waist and rested his face against hers. She could feel the hard brush of his stubble and smell him. He smelt of glue and something burning, a fire, old ashes.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll be over quickly. You’ve been good so far.” He added, “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve been the best. I’ve never had one like you. I couldn’t dream of a better one. Your parents raised you well. It’s a shame.”

“Really?”

“I promise. I can’t wait to see your face. There’s nothing like it in the world.”

“I wish I could see it.”

Ian pulled away and handed Lovedeep a beer. “Last one,” he said. It was with great difficulty that she popped the can open. Her fingers felt like water. This time, it didn’t taste so bad. She almost liked it. Maybe she was finally developing a taste for cheap beer.

“My hand is shaking,” she said. “Like yours.”

“That’s normal.”

He reached forward and draped the belt around Lovedeep’s shoulders, then pulled one end all the way through the broad silver buckle until she found it difficult to breathe. The buckle caused her head to be forced back. To watch what Ian was doing, she had to strain her eyes as if looking sharply downward.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m just getting ready.”

Lovedeep dropped the beer at her feet. She bent her body forward to watch the liquid hiccup out through the narrow opening. What a mess someone would find with the spilled beer staining the carpet next to her body.

“Did something happen to you?” Lovedeep’s voice seeped out in tortured gasps. “When you were little?”

Ian was cueing the video camera.

“I don’t remember much. I had a mom. I guess I got beat up, I was a weak kid. I watched an old house burn. People were in it. Girls mostly. I did some rotten things. I’m not a saint.”

He placed the camera on the table and turned to Lovedeep and without warning, violently yanked at the free end of the belt and pulled it tight. Her head flew forward and she let out a strangled cry.

“I’ve never done an Indian before,” he said. His face was pressed up against hers. “I think I like it.” He grinned. “I lied. There are some things I like.” He pulled the belt tighter. “People always told me Indian girls were good. What did I know? I don’t go in for spiritual bullshit. Maybe I’m finally seeing the light.”

As Lovedeep crumpled to the floor, the last thing she saw was Ian’s arm. It had stopped shaking.

Sanskrit

IT IS PAST SEVEN WHEN ANU HEARS THE KEY IN THE DOOR
and a moment later, Hari’s voice calling from the hall.

“Don’t move,” she shouts. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I need to piss. I’m desperate.”

She appears, holding a camera in one hand and a silver cone party hat in the other. The camera is disposable. She picked it up in the city, when she left work early, afraid she wouldn’t find their camera at home. It makes no difference that she is the one who puts everything away, she can never find anything.

“Put this on,” she says.

Hari waves the hat away with an arm draped with a black overcoat. He drops his briefcase against the wall.

“I need to piss.”

“Darling.”

“Okay, make it quick.”

She straps the hat onto Hari’s head and kisses him on the cheek.

“Happy birthday.”

She steps back and snaps a photo.

“Did the flash go?”

“Yes,” Hari says. “Now . . .”

“It didn’t.”

“Fine, it didn’t. You had your chance.”

Hari walks past her, leaving the coat in her arms.

“What happened?” she calls after him.

“Bomb at Grand Central.”

“An explosion?”

“No, just a scare. A bomb scare. The place was evacuated.”

The downstairs bathroom door opens but doesn’t close. Hari enjoys taking a piss with the door open. It’s more intimate, more married somehow. Anu thinks it gross. She can hear him pissing.

“Whisky soda?” she asks.

“Sure.”

He is leaning against the doorjamb leading to the kitchen, his fly undone, the party hat still on his head.

“I needed that.”

“Here,” handing him the whisky.

“Kiss me,” he says.

“I have to change.”

“Change?”

“You didn’t think I’d dress like this.”

“How do you dress?”

“You’ll see.”

Hari takes a long drink and nods to the bottle. Anu refills his glass.

“And?” he asks.

“It’s a surprise.”

He winks theatrically. “I picked up something too.”

“What?”

Hari reaches into his inside jacket pocket and produces a rolled-up Ziploc bag. Raising it over his head, he unfurls it with a snap of his wrist.

“Pot,” Anu says, bringing her face up to the bag. “That’s cool.”

“Bolinas razorback. This is serious shit. Organic, hydroponic, the works.”

“Roll one, will you? I’m going to change. There’s a couple burgers in the bag.”

Hari spots the Wendy’s bag on the counter.

“Birthday dinner?”

“Go ahead, stuff your face. I’ll be in the bedroom. No peeking.”

He takes a framed photograph down from the wall, an enlarged black and white showing his father as a young man standing in a lush Ludhiana garden, wearing a suit and tie and holding an umbrella, both hands on the handle, tip pressed into the ground, like Steed in
The Avengers
. He sets the photograph on the coffee table, taps out a portion of pot onto the glass, and begins to press it through his fingers, sorting out the stems. He pulls a packet of papers from his pocket, Big Bambi, purchased at the corner store on West 40th, where he picks up his coffee mornings.

The phone rings as he finishes rolling the joint. He checks the caller ID before answering.

“Jack,” he says.

“I don’t feel motion, Harry, I don’t feel anything moving. Are things in motion? Are we moving?”

“There is motion, Jack. There is motion on several fronts.”

“I am walking inside a miasma. I am walking round and round in a vast circle. I’m going to walk and discover my own footprints one day. That’s how I feel.”

“It’s going around.”

“You’re a funny man. You should do stand-up.”

“We’re making an assault, Jack. Planning stages, there are
ground forces, there are recon teams. We have radar up and active, we have infiltration. We are on the verge of initiating first contact. Penetration is imminent.”

“Henderson?”

“Hawthorne.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“I rolled a joint. I hope that’s not against policy?”