Inheritance (14 page)

The poet lived a few blocks from us. She was a woman in her forties who was famous for her female lovers. Her books of poems were dedicated to them. To Kavita with Love. To Lalitha with Devotion. To Radha, My Happiness. She produced dozens of these slender volumes, hand-printed by our local press. My mother was not a lover, as far as I knew, and no poems had been
dedicated to her. But she and the poet had been friends a long time; I think they went to school together.

I imagined the two of them in early evening, on deeply pillowed couches, sitting in Sapphic splendor, sipping tea. Maybe they traded romantic anecdotes, revealed secret conquests. Maybe they braided each other’s hair and massaged each other’s backs, I supposed they read poetry to each other. My mother always came back peaceful and dreamy, and holding flowers from the poet’s garden.

But where did my mother go when she returned with no flowers? Where else did my mother go? There were places she roamed that I had no idea of. Sometimes she was gone for hours, sometimes for an entire night. Maybe she had trysts in the city. Maybe she met a handsome playboy, a man who drove her around in a spotless white car, who would take her out to a meal at a five-star hotel. She might be dressed in her finest, her mouth lipsticked and bright, her lids heavy with shadow. Or maybe she lounged in the arms of a vegetable seller, the two of them drunk on rum, sprawled on a sidewalk. But this was harder for me to imagine, I could not see her with a man without money, only with someone who would make her forget herself for a while. But, and this might have been closest to the truth, I thought she was usually alone. She was brave enough to walk anywhere she pleased, I could see her drinking alone under the stars, waiting for the pink tinge of dawn to usher her home.

In this town, my mother was granted special status that let her walk unpestered through the streets. No one flicked a greeting her way; no one invited her to talk about the weather or someone’s baby. They denied her the closeness of people tied up in bystander talk, the contact of eyes, perhaps a brush of fingertips on the arm, a good-natured laugh that unites us with our fellow men well within the strictures of propriety, a bond that promises nothing and demands even less. Sharing a few words about the rain doesn’t oblige anyone to issue dinner invitations.

But rapists could still get to my mother. They could grab her breasts in the darkness, knee her apart, tear off her sari. Hoodlums could take their pleasure with my mother, although I was certain that they were afraid of her. She would claw at their eyes, she would curse their lives, she’d kick their groins hard. My mother was nothing if not tough.

At night, I asked my grandmother to tell me stories. She told me the story of the Pole Star. She said that there was once a king who had two wives. The first wife bore him a son of whom he was very fond, but the second wife was very jealous. She persuaded the king to banish the first wife and son from the kingdom, and so much under the power of the second wife was he that he complied with the request. The first wife and her son lived in a hut at the edge of a great forest. When the child was seven years old, he asked his mother to tell him who his
father was. When she did, he asked her where his father dwelt. When she told him, the son wished to visit his father and set off. The king was delighted to see his son again and embraced him many times. But the minute his second wife entered the hall, he hastily set down his son. The son was so hurt by this that he quietly crept away from the palace and went home.

At home, he asked his mother if there was anyone stronger than his father.

Yes, replied his mother, it is the Lotus-Eyed.

And where does the Lotus-Eyed dwell, Mother?

She told her son that the Lotus-Eyed lived in the heart of the forest, surrounded by tigers and bears, hoping to discourage her son from seeking him out. But that night, the son arose and kissed his mother softly goodbye. He walked through the forest, not knowing whom he was seeking but knowing his name. So simple was his desire and so innocent, that he had no fear in him. He did not expect that anything could harm him.

In the forest he met a tiger and asked, Are you the Lotus-Eyed? The tiger said no. He met a bear and asked, Are you the Lotus-Eyed? The bear said no.

Finally a sage came by (and, you know, this was God himself) and said, “To find the Lotus-Eyed, you must chant his name aloud.”

And so the boy chanted. And by chanting, he discovered God within himself, as well as the knowledge that he contained his father. He became the Pole Star,
and he now guides others on their travels and their quests.

My grandmother stopped speaking. The sky had filled with stars, and I felt as if I’d never seen them before, so bright were they. I held my grandmother’s hand and together we waited for my mother’s return. We both fell asleep.

Sixteen

My mother returned at dawn. She said nothing to my grandmother and me. She walked past us. Later I heard my grandmother scolding my mother with exasperation and concern. But my mother’s replies were muffled. I ate my breakfast and listened to the radio. Later, I sneaked into my mother’s room and stole some of her poetry books. I thought I might find out something about my mother by reading her friend’s verse. I kept on telling myself that she deserved to have such treatment from me if she refused to address my needs. Guiltily, I looked at the books. They were beautiful, worn and weighty when I placed one between my palms. The lettering was embossed, and some of the gilt was worn.

There was no picture of the poet on the back of her books. I imagined her with wild, unruly hair, a faraway
expression in her eyes. I wondered what it would be like to kiss a woman. Soft, I guessed, feather-light. I kissed my arms to see if I could tell, but I knew it couldn’t be the same. Maybe women were better off with women; they were more alike. I opened my mouth and kissed my hand slowly and sensually, imagining the poet’s mouth on mine. It made me shiver.

I began to read. Her poems began simply, strings of images attached with threads of herbs, fragrant jasmine, lush rose. Then this string was stretched taut, and the herbs gave way to polished stones. Pain and conflict skidded on the surface, dug deep like needles piercing, drew blood, tears. Lovers were listed, cast off, abandoned, cheated on.

My eyes are full of your jet-black hair

It chokes my dreams and your sweet tongue releases berry juice in my mouth

I aim for the milk in you

Stars scatter at your footstep

The moon loses itself in your skin.

She spoke of anger, betrayal, and whispered apologies.

When Krishna fled from Radha, she turned to her own playmates for comfort

What could the blue-skinned god give in place of the soft hands of her friends as they undressed her?

I stopped reading. I stretched and sensed the world as if through a fog, yet aware of my own movements. Everything seemed peaceful, dreamy. I had read some poems and felt good. They hadn’t told me that she liked poetry. I walked out of my room, which suddenly seemed cleaner and better than before. I felt like I could kiss everyone. Richard was away; let him be, I thought, maybe he will discover something worthwhile. Meanwhile, I had a day at my disposal. No wandering around town aimlessly, no need to rush urgently to his apartment, seeking his arms. No need to wish violently for something that wasn’t mine to have.

But what to do? No one was at home. Grandmother was visiting a friend with whom she played Parcheesi. I decided to apply polish to my toenails, which occupied me for half an hour. Then I called up C.P.’s cousin and asked him if he wanted to visit. He agreed and brought over a book for me to read. We spent the afternoon talking about school and the movies and told stupid jokes without exhaustion. We went for a bike ride, and then he left and I fixed myself a snack and waited for my grandmother’s return. It seems all I did was wait for someone else that summer.

Then idly I wondered if Richard had found someone in Africa. A dark Ethiopian beauty. How old would she be, I wondered, suddenly bitter, angry, choking on my imagination. Would he caress her as he had done me and all the others before me? Would he make pancakes afterward? I tried to concentrate on something else,
nearly crying from the strain of it, but even if I just chanted zoology, a litany of what I had memorized out of a textbook, Richard came up all over again. He was a distraction, an error, a wrong turn, and
why
did he leave me? Was it my color? My age? The impossibility of loving an Indian island girl with a horrible family? Instantly I was ashamed—not horrible, merely eccentric, odd. Was he embarrassed by me? Was he ashamed of me, in the final analysis, in the distant and full picture? I wept all night against my pillow after the lights were off.

He had left because of his mother. That much was clear. But in his absence I began to think and therefore undermined myself. Would he come back to me? Was I worth coming back for? More to the point, was he worthy of me, headed for Radcliffe and my own job in Africa? How dare he go to Ethiopia before me? It was my dream he had supplanted,
I
wanted to see the Transvaal, the Serengeti, Deep deserts and indomitable plains. Rushes of sunset in the sky, rhinos outlined against the horizon. And giraffes. And leopards and gazelles, swifttooted and tame. If I was a gazelle, what was Richard? A lion? Or merely a man whom I missed to distraction?

The next day my grandmother took me to the bank. Ahead of us in the queue was an American man with his young son. Watching him I was struck with an understanding that had escaped me most of my previous life.
Watching this stranger, this American father, his hands in his pockets, his feet shod in sneakers, as I stood in line with my grandmother, I looked at the larger picture. My grandmother, who only meant kindness, asked for the third time if I did not wish to use the rest room, which filled me with humiliation—as if I were five! As if I didn’t understand my body. Instead of thinking of something else to say, I could only wish to be someone else. There stood the American, confident and knowing, his watch sparkling, his shoes scuffed.

I realized that I could never have that, that American symbiosis with the world, the ease of knowing that if life was indeed a river, he was part of it, not helpless, not alien, but part of it. It was something I could never have, no matter how hard I tried; I would never be able to cut myself loose from my family. It was my aunts, my uncles, my great-uncle, my grandmother, all of them in their noisy, quarrelsome ways, their pettiness, their awkwardness, that would burst out of my seams, no matter what my affectations.

My mother tried to escape it. She tried to dress differently, to use her beauty to make up for not being white or rich or cultured, to use her sexuality to make up for having the natural self-consciousness of our family. And as for me with Richard, I saw not only the man, but more: I saw ease, something that had to do with eating hot dogs, with sports, with the strength to lift a hammer as well as throw a Frisbee, with animal casualness, with
American confidence. He was everything that no one in my family was; it was everything I wanted to be. But simple association wasn’t enough. Even if I were smarter and prettier than an American girl, even with my youth, it would be the American girl who would be welcomed into Richard’s relatives’ houses, it would be she whom they’d understand. Even if we were to be married, I’d never gain admittance into his extended family, his family who were tied to memories of Thanksgiving dinners, backyard baseball, first dates and first cars, roots that I didn’t have. Being half American wasn’t enough. I remembered the Joyce story “Araby,” where the narrator suddenly realized some truth about himself and sees himself for a vain and horrible creature; I recognized the vanity in myself thus, standing in line.

But my grandmother did a surprising thing. She clicked open her handbag, and taking out her sunglasses, she gave them to me. I was forced to regard her. “These are for you. They are to chase foolish thoughts away from your head,” she said. I inspected the gift. They were RayBans from abroad, from London or America, maybe Australia. I tried them on, and although they were loose about my head, I saw things differently through them. The American noticed me and smiled, and I, despite my alienation, smiled back. My family had triumphed again.

Seventeen