I Am an Executioner (16 page)

Savitri had been impressed with the lesson, although she would never admit to believing it. She corrected herself whenever an evil thought rose to her consciousness. She’d had many occasions to remind her own daughter of the possible consequences whenever Radha spoke ill, gossiped or conjectured, used an infelicitous euphemism, or in anger wished some bad fate on her parents.

Savitri hadn’t thought about such things for years, but as she stood over her husband’s contorted form, she understood that her evil nature had finally caught up with her. She saw it clearly
for a brief, terrible moment: her husband was dead and she had killed him. All was panic and pressure, and then she found herself in the kitchen, cooking.

Now, hours later, with the outline of events deepening its imprint on her mind, a feeling of overwhelming fear and guilt returned. Savitri thought through her tears, If only Radha were here. Together we could figure out what to do. Radha doesn’t have any sense, but she has one thing, she’s brave.

Savitri wiped her eyes on the back of her hands and inhaled loudly to clear her nose. She picked up the living room phone and dialed her daughter’s dorm room.

“Hello,” a girl’s voice said.

“Radha, it’s Mummy,” Savitri said. “Radha, you have to come—”

“Mrs. Vee …,” the girl’s voice said. “Mrs. Veeraghavan. This is Lisa.”

“Oh.” Savitri hesitated. I must compose myself, she thought. I mustn’t let Radha’s roommate know what it is that has happened here, what it is I have done.

“Lisa?” Savitri said in a voice barely controlled. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Lisa, tersely.

“Going home for the holiday?” Savitri was trying now so determinedly to act cheerful that she smiled at the receiver.

“Yeah,” Lisa said.

“I’d like to meet you sometime, Lisa,” Savitri offered. “I don’t know why Radha never brings her friends home. I could cook you some of our Indian specialities.”

Lisa was silent.

“Lisa, can I please talk to Radha?”

“Radha’s at the library,” Lisa replied.

“Studying? But tomorrow is holiday.”

“Well, that’s where she is,” Lisa said.

Savitri paused. “I want to know where she is,” she said, her
voice now serious. “If she is there, give it to her the phone. If she is gone to somebody’s house for the weekend, give me the number there, please.”

“With all due respect,” Lisa started, inauspiciously, “you call her, like, five times a day. It’s not normal. You have no right to control her.”

“Lisa,” said Savitri, maintaining her composure, “I am her mother, isn’t it? And this situation is different. Tell me where she has gone.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

“Is she gone to some boyfriend’s house?” asked Savitri, her voice becoming gradually unsteady. “Has she left already? Tell me what is the number there. Just give it to me the number, Lisa.”

“I don’t know.”

“Darnit!” Savitri yelled. “Lisa, this is an emergency. A big-time thing, you know? Concerning her daddy. Will you tell her please to call me? Just ask her to call me.” Savitri fought to keep from crying.

Lisa again was silent.

“Lisa, you will please do that, won’t you? Do that please. Promise me.”

“What happened?” Lisa asked.

Savitri calmed herself. “Nothing, nothing happened. Don’t worry. Just tell her I called.” Savitri remembered that she should behave normally, and she added, with desperate sweetness, “Hey, sorry I yelled, Lisa. Don’t forget to come over some weekend, okay? I’ll cook you my sambar.”

When Savitri hung up the phone, she instinctively braced herself for what her husband might have been about to tell her: “Why you always worry over Radha? She’s a good girl.” Radha was Ravi’s pet, and he refused to have even the slightest suspicion of her. He believed, honestly, that when she graduated from college she would marry someone he would approve, a
Brahmin boy from a good family. Ravi couldn’t see that Radha was already very far away from this way of thinking. But Savitri heard the impatience in the girl’s voice whenever she had to speak even a few words to her parents.

Radha hadn’t always been like that, distant and rude. As a child, Radha amazed her mother. She was outspoken, sometimes out of control, but fearless. She had been a smart girl, too, and good to her parents. When Savitri applied for her first job, Radha had helped her to write the cover letter. Savitri felt that she and Radha shared a special bond, because they understood things that Ravi never would.

In her mother, Radha had someone to laugh at the jokes she made at her poor father’s expense, about his embarrassing habit of going outside in his lungi to check the mail; about how he didn’t like to eat out anywhere but Pizza Hut and Indian restaurants; how he never thought of visiting anyplace in the States where there were not distant relatives or friends of friends from back home they could stay with. And Savitri hungrily sought her daughter’s opinions on many things, because the girl had knowledge that her mother lacked: what American clothes to wear to work, which books were good and which politicians worthless, how Savitri should respond to her coworkers’ confusing jokes and expressions.

They never should have allowed Radha to go away to college, but the girl had been so insistent about it, and so persuasive. Maybe Savitri had grown too reliant on her, had confided in her too desperately, had pried too frequently, but these days Radha behaved as if her parents’ very presence suffocated her. After she went to college, she became a different person. Strange boys began answering her phone, she took any excuse to avoid coming home. Savitri had married Ravi in a family arrangement at the age of nineteen, and now at the same age her daughter was having experiences Savitri couldn’t even imagine. Studying anything she liked, going to parties, dating handsome boys. What
must it be like? Ravi too easily believed the girl was simply busy with her studies. But Savitri saw how quickly Radha was growing away from them. She was growing away, and she was leaving Savitri behind.

The doorbell suddenly sounded its bright electric bling-blong, and Savitri’s mind filled immediately with panicked apparitions. She had been found out, she knew it. She hurried to the living room window and peeked carefully past the curtain. It was her neighbor, only her neighbor, Doug Naples.

She went to the front door and unlocked it, opening it just a crack, and stared at Doug, her heart pounding.

“Did you know your car is outside?” Doug asked. “It’s been sitting there for an hour, the engine running. I just thought I’d come tell you, case you forgot about it. It’s sticking out the garage.”

“Oh, yes,” said Savitri. “Forgot all about it. Thank you, Doug.” She was pleased to hear that her voice still sounded steady. She felt the panic and unease of moments ago dissipating again into a strange and calculating self-confidence. Doug clearly had no idea what had happened. Here he was at the door, talking with her as on any other day. She opened the door wider. She asked Doug, “How are you these days?”

“Oh, I’m all right,” said Doug. “I just thought I’d come by because, well, you never know. Types of people been moving in around here, somebody might just see that car sitting there, the keys inside, and decide—oh my Jesus.” He paused. “What’s up with Mr. V.?”

“What do you mean, Doug?” Savitri asked, stubbornly holding her smile.

Doug pointed to the floor behind Savitri. She turned around and saw her husband’s legs protruding from behind the love seat, skewed at awkward angles.

It’s finished, thought Savitri. I’ll just tell him. Spell it out very calmly and sensibly. Maybe Doug will help me, tell me what to
do. He’ll talk to the proper people on my behalf. He’ll confirm that I am not responsible for any of this.

Or maybe Doug Naples was not the best help in this kind of fix. Six weeks ago, Savitri remembered, he had offered to help Ravi repair the latch on their fence door. At Ravi’s insistence, even Savitri had grudgingly gotten involved, shuttling to and from the house with odd tools and cold glasses of soda. She could see full well they were only going to make a mess of things. And sure enough, the men had ended up inexplicably ripping out the entire length of wooden fence posts, leaving the lawn naked, the above-ground swimming pool exposed like a dangerous temple, an open invitation to a lawsuit. Any neighbor could probably sue them for intentionally endangering their hapless children, and for emotional distress, and on top of that for bad taste and poor landscaping and strange smells wafting out of their kitchen. Every day Savitri feared walking to the pool and finding the pale, bloated body of some little American child floating faceup among the leaves and dead insects. Savitri and Ravi would have a lot of explaining to do then.

So instead of telling Doug Naples the truth about Ravi, Savitri took a deep breath. She said, “Ravi is doing yoga. Yoga, Doug. That is, you know, one of the things we do in India. A very good thing.”

Doug raised his eyebrows and exhaled an impressed “Huh.” He nodded and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Yoga, isn’t that something. My doctor says I should do it, too. Good for my sore back. You know, I smelled that Indian food you were cooking, and there’s old Vee doing yoga. Isn’t that something.”

“Come over sometime, Doug,” said Savitri. “We’ll show you how to do yoga, too.”

“Sure,” Doug said. “That would be something. It sure smells interesting. And when he’s disposed, tell Vee anytime he wants
to take another crack at that fence, let me know. My nephew is here for the holiday, we would have an extra hand.”

“Thanks, Doug,” said Savitri. “I’ll tell him.”

She shut the door and watched Doug walk back to his house, where he sat at home all day, unemployed, and waited for his fat wife to come home. He was just the type of American her husband would attach himself to. Like her husband, Doug had the air of someone who had been dropped here from another planet, fascinated but flummoxed by the most basic practical processes, like how to fix a fence or find a new job.

Savitri walked out to the garage and parked the car. She took the milk and the turkey from the trunk and brought them inside. She put the milk in the fridge, and she wrapped the turkey’s cellophaned and bagged flesh in an additional plastic bag, cleared a space at the margin of the freezer, and slid it in, careful that it touched nothing else.

She saw now that she had the capacity to carry on as normal, that her guilt was not plainly visible on her face. She had only to pretend that nothing had happened, put it all out of her mind. No one knew that Ravi was dead, no one suspected that she might have killed him. If she allowed herself to ponder her situation, then the thoughts would overwhelm. Better to try not to think too much about it at all.

She walked to the living room, stopped, and drew a breath, but couldn’t avoid looking down again at her husband. Oh, she couldn’t bear to see him lying there, his mouth agape, his eyes wide open in the same naïve, uncritical, awestruck gaze he’d had in life. He was staring at the living room, as if to take in all the furniture, the old and ugly things. As if to say, I bought this all for you when we were young and dumb and content with each other, and this room was enough for us.

She had killed this innocent man, her husband, who loved her. She had thought of it, and it had come to pass.

Savitri walked hurriedly past him and into the bedroom, shutting
the door behind her. She stripped all her clothes off onto the floor, had the fleeting thought of taking a hot, hot shower, but instead crawled directly under the covers of her bed. She was so tired now, tired of thinking, of cooking.

Savitri remembered the only other dead relative she had seen, her grandfather, when she was ten or eleven. He had died of a heart attack at an old age in the old house in the village, and they had stretched him out on the bedroom floor to clean him. Then they wrapped him in white cotton and covered his forehead with sandalwood paste and white ash and red kumkum. They moved him to the sitting room floor and laid him there. His sons didn’t shave, the stoves remained unlit. The neighbors brought over simple foods. A vadhyar came to the house to pray over the body and prepare the soul for its journey. All her grandfather’s friends and neighbors came to pay respects, coworkers and former students, before they took him away to be burned.

Savitri had not witnessed her own parents’ deaths. Those had been “phone deaths” that happened while Savitri was in the United States. And now Ravi slept with his head on the carpet, still in his dirty clothes from work. Even death has become less, she thought. Was it her fault?

Where was Radha? She picked up the bedside phone and dialed her daughter again. The answering machine played some song, black music, as Savitri called rap music, and then Lisa’s and Radha’s voices, alternately. “Hi, this is Lisa … and this is Radha,” and then simultaneously, “do your thing at the beep and we’ll get back at you. Peace.”

“Hello, this is a message for Radha,” Savitri said. “It’s her mother calling. Hi, sweetie. It’s me. Listen, I’m not mad at you. Okay? I am not anymore mad. Call me. I just want to talk to you. I love you. There is one thing I need to talk to you, an important thing. Don’t be worried, okay? Something happened, wanted to ask your advice about it. Not—” She got just this far
when the beep of the machine cut her off. Savitri hung up the phone and closed her eyes.

Ravi should have been in the bed next to her now, or in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. She thought of his face, smiling. About two months ago, she remembered, they had been invited to a dinner party. Savitri had made Ravi change his entire outfit before they could leave. She made him wear one of his few nice shirts, told him to comb his hair with oil. And when she was through with him, she had been struck by how handsome he looked. Even Ravi seemed to enjoy the attention she gave him, despite the nagging that came with it. And at the party, Savitri found herself doing small things for him—refilling his coffee cup unbidden, complimenting him in front of the other husbands.

Why had she asked for his death? She still smelled his odor lingering in the sheets. When she went to the toilet, she should have found the seat wet from his washing, evidence of his presence. She missed his five-dollar haircuts and fifteen-year-old suits. She missed walking on Sundays side by side through the department stores, sullenly vetoing each other’s choices, the quiet but certain understanding they shared. She missed his messy way of eating, food oozing from his fist, his relish understated but evident. How other times he might take one bite and say, with simple sincerity, “Nice food, dee.” Why had she ever wanted more than this?