The Big Soap

Jaroslaw Dash, forty-four, looked at the gooey translucent liquid in his bucket. He had worked on the formula for years and now, now he had succeeded. He would finally make a soap bubble that would last long, maybe even longer, or at least outlast some others, he thought, as he shoved the wide metal hoop at the end of his rod into his bucket and filled his cheeks with air, strong athletic cheeks. He had exercised them too. They were not yet sagging as with some of his friends. He got the hoop out of the detergent and pursed his lips like a trumpet player. That’s when his mates would call him Louis, because he indeed looked like Louis Armstrong when he was in the act. His big bloated eyes watched the bubble swell under the jet stream of his mighty breath. ‘What a blow, what a size!’ he thought. This one was his own bubble, not a cheap copy. All bubbles were named. In the 1930ies one scientist eventually got the Nobel Prize for the millennium achievement of providing a chemical substance added to the soap that would create lettering on the shiny surface of people’s bubbles. At first there had been only red as a labelling colour, but the chemical was developed further, so people could now buy all sorts of colours from their local Wal Mart, or wherever. The wonderful thing was that those societies, which had originally been founded for the preservation of old or ancient bubbles, now pledged to pay for the lettering of those very same old and ancient bubbles, so anyone, or even a child, could immediately recognize what kind of bubble you were talking about. This was important too, as ever since the origin of modern man, many bubbles had been made, lots of them still in tact, or as I mentioned, being kept rolling by fleets of chemists, and, as was common, these bubbles clotted to merge into super bubbles, some so large their sizes extended over miles and miles of countryside, and any onlooker would not necessarily notice they were bubbles. I mean you couldn’t easily make out the thinned lettering due to expansion and there were these oily reflections like mirages of all the colours of the rainbow that interacted with the colours of the letterings. There were people who had been trained to teach others to discern the soft coloured patterns of the letters. Eager students flocked into open spaces, parks and town squares, lead by these intellectuals who would then point out the patterns like stars in the sky as astronomers do on warm summer nights. You might then be able to just about make out the lettering of some big ones, like ‘Democracy’, or ‘Capitalism’. There were of course some smaller ones, often within the big ones, like ‘Microsoft’, or ‘New Public Management’, or just ‘Football’, and they, because of their smaller size, were perkier to the peeking eye. I once spoke to one of the chemists who was in charge of a maintenance unit that kept the ‘big balls’ rolling. He told me that you needed to know the basic ingredients to the soap involved. And of course due to the merging of bubbles over time you had these basic recipes changing. ‘Democracy’ today for example was based on the strong raw soap material of ‘Financial Stability’, itself based on a steady influx of carbolic soap from the poorer regions of the earth. While in the early days it had been basically just the Palmolive of ‘Brotherhood’ and greasy ‘Greek Intellectualism’, for it excluded women and slaves. He had a colleague, he said, from university who claimed that huge soap bubbles like ‘Christianity’ were based on nothing but ‘Fear of Death’ and that all religions, be it ‘Islam’, ‘Buddhism’, or the amalgam of ‘Esotericism’ were basically made up of the same DNA-like string of ‘Fear of Death’. Apparently, it was just a matter of blending the individual sequences of that DNA to establish some contrast from the almost combinatorial diversity of soapy religious combinations. Yes, it was the blending of the soap that created distinction, and the beauty. But of course there were the American fundamentalists who still claimed that this notion was complete ‘bullshit’, or ‘bull soap’, as they liked to put it for euphemistic reasons. ‘Life was not merely a cheap soap!’ they eagerly denied. After all anyone could perceive that there was intelligent making in the world, for ‘How then could you explain the existence of the really big bubbles?’ But those were not the people who might upset a Jaroslaw Dash, as he looked at his bubble that had now reached the size of a house. He was proud of the Siamese blue colour of the lettering which read in original true type Copperplate Gothic Bold letters:

“The show must go on!” 

 

Best wishes

Gary

Priya’s Pursuit

Priya expelled a breath as she pulled into her parents’ driveway with fiancé Rishi. Her mother stood at the front window; glass cleaner in one hand, motionless paper towel in the other. Muttering, Priya yanked the key out of the ignition, slammed her door.

“What’s the matter?” Rishi walked over to the driver’s side, placed his left hand on her waist, caressed the jeans-shirt junction.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother, still at the window, hypnotized by his hand at her waist.

“Nothing. It’s just….my mom, hovering. Right now, ‘What will everyone think of this public display,’ is going through her mind. And if my grandmother were here, she’d yell, ‘Aiyo, Swami Ramachandra. God! No shame, no shame… those two should keep their hands to themselves. They are not even married yet!’”

“Priya, stop. Focus!” Rishi sounded urgent. “Remember your mission. Focus.”

She nodded, gave him her keys.

“Hi, Mom! Cleaning again?” She threw her handbag onto the couch as she entered.

“Priya, just let me do my work.” Sita turned. “Where’s Rishi?”

“I told him to take the car. He had errands to run. He’ll be back.”

Sita pursed her lips, held the glass cleaner close to her chest. “Go get a cup of tea. I want to finish cleaning. Your grandmother comes tomorrow.”

“Still scared of your mother-in-law, after twenty seven years of marriage?”

“She may be your Pati. But she is my mother-in-law. Besides, I like a clean house,”

The paper towel squeaked against glass.

“Mom? Rishi had a wonderful idea. We listened to Aunty Mala’s CD on the way here. He thinks it’ll be great to have her play at our wedding reception. Don’t you think that’s fantabulous?”

No answer. Sita wiped the windowpane again and again.

“Mom?”

“Why on earth did you get such an idea, Priya?” The words fell in a torrent. “I don’t think it is a good idea. Haven’t seen her in years.”

“Why not? She is family, she is my aunt.” Priya placed her hands on Sita’s shoulders. “Why not?”

Her mother seemed mesmerized by a smudge on the glass.

“How can I explain to you, brought up in the United States, about family life in India? Let it be. To mail her the invitation is one thing. That would be an information card. But to ask her to perform, that is….impossible. We will mail her an invitation card. That’s all.”

“Aren’t you the one who is always telling me you marry the whole family, not just the man? So what if my uncle Shankar died?”

“This request cannot be granted. Too many people will be upset. Your grandmother, your uncle Vishwa and Aunty Lalitha. You don’t want a reminder of your uncle’s death at your wedding, do you? It would be inauspicious.”

“Mom, get real! How many years has it been? Isn’t fifteen years a long time to grieve? What is it with you? Look at what my Aunty Mala has done with her life. She is a successful violinist.” She looked her mother squarely in the eye. “Do you and Dad get to decide who ‘family’ is and who is not?”

“Believe me, this one is better left alone!”

“I am 25! I am a professional! I am getting married and you still think I cannot handle this?”

Sita picked up her paper towel roll, walked out of the room.

Priya understood. This argument would have to continue later.

“What time is Pati’s flight tomorrow?” she asked. “I can pick her up. You can tell Dad to relax.” It felt good to switch subjects, diffuse the tension.

Sita’s strain showed through her smile.

Priya drove to the airport on Saturday afternoon. She caught sight of her grandmother walking toward the baggage claim area. She waved, ran toward her. “Pati, Pati, look here. Here!” she yelled.

Her grandmother, touched her hearing aid and looked around uncertainly. When she located Priya, she smiled, flashing her dentures.

She towered over her diminutive grandmother, to whom she was still Priya kutti, “little Priya.”

“I am glad you came to the airport to get me because your father doesn’t say anything except, ‘How are you? Were you comfortable on your flight?’ I’m always happy to see you…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m the favorite!” she laughed. She was the only grandchild.

Once they were on the highway, she brought up the subject. “Pati, Rishi and I’d like Aunty Mala to play at our wedding reception. What do you think?”

“Shiva, shiva, shiva,” Pati shouted.

Alarmed, Priya took her eyes off the road, faced Pati. “What?”

“Don’t even utter that woman’s name. She is a murderess! Aiyo, she killed my son. And keep your eyes on the road!”

Priya turned her attention back to the road. “You don’t mean that!”

“I mean what I said. She killed my son. My handsome, loving, charming son. She killed him. You don’t know how terrible it is for a mother to lose her son. I still grieve after all these years. I grieve more for my son than for my husband, your Tatha.”

Priya negotiated the car through traffic in a construction zone.

“It was your grandfather’s time to go. It was not Shankar’s time. You probably don’t remember your Uncle Shankar. You don’t know the truth.”

“Tell me, Pati. I want to know what happened.”

“He had a heart attack. And he died. Alone. No one was at home to help him. She, his wife, was not at home. But that was usual. Mala was chasing her career, at some concert or other. Not attending to her duties.”

“I travel, I work late. Don’t you think you are being unfair?”

“Don’t argue with an old woman. Mala was not a good wife. And, she took my son away from me.”

Pati fell silent.

Priya ran a hand through her thick hair. No one in the family accepted Aunty Mala. They thought she had been derelict in her duties as a wife.

Arriving home, she helped her grandmother unbuckle her seat belt. It baffled Priya to see her grandmother, who could turn a pineapple into expertly diced pieces, be defeated by simple technology.

*

“Vango, vango, Amma!” Sita ran out of the house to welcome Pati, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel.

An appetizing aroma from the kitchen greeted them.

“Mmmm…smells good, Mom! Where is Dad? I never see him any more. For crying out loud, is he at school again?”

“He’ll be back soon. Why don’t you and Pati eat?”

Priya’s mouth watered at the thought of her mother’s cooking.

“Idli, sambar, chutney and some kesari. Just what Pati likes.”

Her father, Ramnath, walked in, jacket slung over one shoulder.

Sita spoke to him without looking up from her lunch preparations. “Please, don’t dump everything on the kitchen table….,” she stopped when Pati came into the room.

Ramnath greeted his mother with a small pat on her back, a gentle rub.

He was a big, burly man, whose size did not match his professorial, absent minded nature. A math professor at the local university, he was more at home in the world of numbers than with people.

Sita, served everyone before she sat down to eat. Priya licked some chutney off her fingers, reached for an idli with her right hand.

“Echil, echil,” Pati slapped her arm. “Aiyo, Haripriya, you just licked your fingers. How can you touch that dish of idlis with the same hand?”

“Oops, sorry! Like double-dipping, I know, I know!!”

After lunch, Pati reminded Priya, “Call your Uncle Vishwa, and Aunty Lalitha, in New Jersey. Tell them I have arrived safely,” she instructed.

Priya dialed their number in New Jersey. Aunty Lalitha picked up the phone.

“Hello, Priya,” her aunt answered. “Your Pati landed safely?”

“Yes, she’s here, she’s even had a chance to be mad at me. So, all’s well.”

“How’s Rishi? How’s your great romance going?”

Priya crossed her eyes and made a face. Her aunt grated on her nerves. She made her relationship with Rishi sound like some paperback romance. She quipped, “Oh, such torture! We just cannot stay away from each other. How we’re going to last until the wedding is beyond me!” That shut her aunt up.

“How’s Uncle Vishwa?” Her uncle was a workaholic who was never home. His absence was a major bone of contention in their marriage.

“He’s not home. These days I don’t even ask him when he’ll be back.” Her voice carried a dry tone. “I know he’ll want to talk to you, though, so I’ll tell him to call you when he gets home.”

Priya remembered something important. “Rishi and I thought it would be wonderful to have Aunty Mala play at our wedding.”

Silence.

“Aunty, are you there?” she asked.

“Yes, I am. Why can’t you pick someone local if you want a concert?”

“Rishi wants this and I think it would be perfect.”
“What did your mother say?”

“She didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“I don’t think it is a good idea either. Mala is a self-centered, selfish person. How Shankar ever put up with her is beyond me! All she wanted was her music.”

“Aunty!” Priya cried.

“I know her well; knew her well. We all lived together, as a joint family, for a while, after Shankar and Mala got married. Mala did not help in the kitchen, or around the house. Her delicate fingers had to be protected.” Sarcasm dripped through the phone. “She wasn’t much of a wife.”

“But that was her career! Without it, where would she be today? No husband, no career.”

“Priya, Shankar died of a heart attack. Mala was not there when he needed her most. I was probably the last person to see him ali…” Aunty Lalitha stopped.

“Having a passion for a career is not an offense.”

“Then you have to give up on family life. Night after night, Mala was gone… some concert or other. At first, Shankar accompanied her. Then he stopped. She practiced for hours and hours. I labored at home and in the kitchen all day. She did nothing!”

“What harm can Aunty Mala do now? She’ll be here for the wedding, then she’ll be gone. Back to her life.”

“Oh, Priya, Shankar’s death was hard on all of us. Seeing her will be like cutting into that old wound with a rusty knife.”

Priya rolled her eyes at such dramatization and said a hurried goodbye.

At the door to her father’s study, she leaned against the frame. He sat at the computer, hands dwarfing the keyboard, forehead creased in concentration.

“Hi, Dad!” she whispered.

He jerked his hands off the keyboard, smiled as if equations cleared from his overcrowded mind. “Priya, you startled me!” he said.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you,” she explained. “Want to go for a walk?”
“Okay.” He did not protest. “God knows I need the exercise.”

She linked arms with her father as she fell in step with his stride.

“Dad,” she began, “I want to talk to you. Rishi really likes Aunty Mala’s music. We would like her to play at our wedding reception. What do you think?”

“I know.” He nodded, turned to look at her. “Your mother told me. So, let’s assume we contact your aunt. We write to her and request her to play at your wedding. What makes you think that she will agree?”

“Of course she will!” She stopped.

“Think about it. After the way we have treated her, why would she want to have anything to do with us?”

Her father was right. She hugged his arm close.

*

Back home, Priya called Rishi on his cell phone. “Hey!”

“Priya! What’s up? Did you talk to your parents about your Aunty Mala?”

“Umm, yes.” Her voice slowed. “I don’t think they are excited.”

“Why not?”

“It’s family politics.”

“So, they won’t ask her?”

“No, they won’t. Forget it Rishi.”

“Then you ask her. It’s your wedding after all.”

Her palms turned sweaty. “Me, me? You want me to ask her?”

“Come on, Rishi. How can I?”
“Easy. I have tickets to her concert. We are going to Berkeley.”

The phone dropped from Priya’s hands. She picked it up, said, “Hello, hello? Sorry, so sorry. What did you say, again?”

“She is playing here next week. In fact, I just ordered the tickets. Is something wrong?”

“But how did you find out?”

“Simple. I searched on the Internet. I found her web site and a concert schedule.”

“Rishi, now I know why you are considered a great researcher!”

“This one was easy.”

She heard the smile in his voice.

*

Mala Shankar sat on the stage playing Carnatic music, the classical music of southern India. Priya slid a quick, covert look at Rishi. His tall, well-built frame spilled out of the narrow seat, but he did not seem to notice the discomfort.

Priya did not recognize any of the ragas, or compositions. Still, she could see why the artist was considered a force to reckon with in Carnatic music. She watched Rishi’s head move in time to the music, observed his fingers move on an imaginary violin. At the end a hush settled over the audience before cascading applause.

Rishi turned to her, his voice urgent. “Are you going to talk to her? Don’t chicken out.” He gave her waist a quick squeeze. “I’m here.”

Mala Shankar stood on a Kashmiri carpet laid out on the middle of the stage. Wires crisscrossed around her from several microphones. Her violin positioned in an open box.

A few fans surrounded the musician, asking for autographs on CDs. She wore a steel-gray silk sari with a pink and gold border. A slim gold necklace graced her neck, the traditional diamond earrings sparkled in her ears. A pottu, a round black dot, marked her forehead. She had obviously chosen not to adopt the sign of widowhood, a blank forehead.

“We enjoyed your concert.” Priya’s voice wavered.

Mala said with a smile. “I’m glad you did.” It was a public relations statement and smile, polite and proper.

Then, stranger meeting stranger silence.

Rishi came to the rescue. He told her his name and that he was a doctoral candidate at the university.

He turned as if he just remembered his fiancée. “I have not been a gentleman. This is Haripriya Ramnath. We call her Priya. She is my fiancée.”

Mala looked long and hard at her, rubbing her left temple. A flash of recognition illuminated her face. “Haripriya? Priya Ramnath? Strange. I have a niece called Priya Ramnath. Haven’t seen her for years. Her father is S. Ramnath, a professor of mathematics.”

Priya twisted her handbag between nervous hands. “That’s me, the same Priya. I knew you wouldn’t recognize me.”

Mala did not pause for a thought. She let out an exclamation and enveloped her in a hug. “Priya, Priya kutti,” she said, using the familiar family name. “I am delighted to meet you. How lovely you are.”

Priya became tongue-tied.

Mala sounded apologetic. “I have to go back to my hotel now.” She hesitated. “But could you spend time with me before I leave for India?”

Priya hung her handbag over her arm, recovered. “Certainly! I would love to.”

*

The next afternoon, Priya met Aunty Mala at The Tandoor for lunch. Instrumental music played in the background, drowned by the buzz of conversation and laughter. She busied herself with her napkin, unfurling it, arranging it on her lap.

Mala adjusted her sari. “How are your parents, Priya?”

Priya munched on a piece of cucumber from her raita. “Sorry,” she said, swallowed. “They are fine.”

“Your uncle Vishwas and…Pati?”

A waiter came by with a basket of fresh naan bread.

Priya said, “Fine, they are fine.” She chewed on her food, did not taste anything.

Aunty Mala rearranged the food on her plate as if she was getting it ready for a photograph. The naan separate from the rice and the chole, set aside so it wouldn’t get moist and soggy.

“I am so proud of your success.”

“Thank you. But it came with a steep, steep price.”

Priya’s eyebrows rose.

“Think of that era, Priya. I was expected to follow a certain set of rules. But I had a career. I had to travel, I had to perform at night, I had to perform with accompanists who are men…all these things are not acceptable in many families.”

“But they knew you were a musician from the beginning, did they not?”

Aunty Mala laughed; a short, hoarse sound.

“Of course. Shankar wanted to marry me knowing I was a violinist. But everyone thought it was a hobby I could put away. Like some cross-stitch or crochet piece I could come back to whenever I felt like it.”

“So you continued to play.”

Mala looked pensive. Her untouched food sat in front of her on the neatly arranged plate.

“I was miserable. Priya, I am sorry to tell you this, but Shankar did not sustain me emotionally or financially. Pati was difficult, too. She is your grandmother, but she was my mother-in-law.” Priya heard a vague echo of her mother in that last sentence. “Your Aunty Lalitha, and I did not hit it off. But I found solace in my music.”

“Umm, you know, I don’t remember my Uncle Shankar. But everyone I’ve talked to tells me he was friendly, charming, handsome…”

“And so flirtatious,” Aunty Mala finished.

Embarrassment washed over Priya. After all, this was her uncle and this famous lady’s dead husband they were discussing. Fortunately her cell phone rang. She apologized, checked to see who was calling. “Flirtatious?”

“Yes! He had a special manner that made people feel they were important to him.” Mala inhaled deeply.
“Aunty Mala, somehow that doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“Oh, Priya, he was an attractive man… to others. But as a husband? At first, I was charmed by the man, but it wore off. How long can a marriage sustain itself when all a husband wants to do is party, have a good time? ”

“He was never home?”

“Priya, I needed a supportive husband at home and in my career. But he was always out with his friends. I couldn’t live with a part-time husband. Especially when I was supposed to be a full-time wife.”

The waiter stopped at their table to see if they had any special requests. “No, thank you,” Priya nodded, indicating he should leave.

Her relatives were being disassembled like pieces of furniture. She twisted this way and that in her seat. “I…well, I wondered,” she began. “Pati said you were away at a concert when Uncle Shankar had his heart attack.”

“Yes. You cannot imagine the number of times I have gone through the scene in my mind,” Aunty Mala continued. “I carried a lot of guilt.”

She had to strain her ears to hear her aunt. She wished the noisy group of about a dozen women, arguing about who should sit where, would lower their voices. “Sad you felt guilty for following your heart,” she said

“Priya, my husband didn’t understand that I had enough room in my heart for the music and for him.”

Touched that Aunty Mala would reveal so much to her, Priya reached across the table and put her hand over her aunt’s hand, and noticed the clipped fingernails. “Thanks for telling me your side of the story.”

Aunty Mala speared a tomato with her fork and nibbled at it. She replaced the fork on her plate. The music in the background was louder now. Aunty Mala rubbed her forehead as if in pain.

“Music too loud? Don’t you want to eat?”

“Sorry, I am not very hungry,” Aunty Mala apologized.

“Do you want to leave?”

“Yes, let’s go back to my hotel,” Mala answered with alacrity, as if she was waiting for just that suggestion.

Neither of them said much until they were in the hotel room. Aunty Mala drew the drapes back to let some sunshine in and sat down on the bed. She leaned back against the headboard, pulled her knees up.

Almost as if they had never left the restaurant, she continued, “Priya, when Shankar died, I got the message. I was to blame. They did not want to hear my side of the story.” Her fingers played with the chain around her neck.

“What would you have told them?” Priya asked.

Aunty Mala twisted the gold chain around her neck until it bit into her skin.

“I refuse to feel guilty for my husband’s death any more.”

“Absolutely!”
For a minute the air was pregnant with silence. A shiver went down Priya’s spine. Aunty Mala fingers worked on the chain in reverse now, one twist at a time.

“Let me tell you what happened that night,” Aunty Mala began. “I came home from the concert at about 10 p.m. I rang the doorbell, because my keys were lost at the bottom of my purse. But Shankar did not open the door.”

It was too quiet in the room. Priya almost wished they were in the noisy restaurant to make their silences less awkward. Perhaps she could turn the television on?

Aunty Mala continued after what seemed an eternity. “Finally, I found my keys and opened the door to the flat. Lights blazed everywhere. There was no sign of him. By now, I was in a panic; something was seriously wrong.” She seemed restless. She rose from the bed, poured herself a glass of water from the jug on the miniscule table. Then, she sat down on the little chair by the dinette, holding her glass.

“I ran around shouting out his name. When I entered the bedroom, I saw him on the bed, clad only in a pair of pajamas. I thought he was asleep. But there was something odd about that stillness. I shook him. He didn’t respond.”

She stopped.

“What happened then?”

“I screamed, opened the front door, ran outside still screaming. The neighbors came out. They called your grandparents and your uncle Vishwas. That was it.”
Something bothered Priya. “I believe there is more,” she said.

“I did not notice it at first. But I know your uncle was not alone when he died.” She whispered, “He was not alone.”

“Not alone,” Priya repeated, like a parrot, as if to confirm to herself she had heard right.

“The next day, I found a purse.” Aunty Mala held up a hand before she continued. “No, it was not mine. The purse was on the other side of the bed. I know it wasn’t there when I left that evening.” A wan smile crinkled the crow’s feet beside her eyes. “See, I was not that terrible on the home front.”

“What are you saying? Wait, wait. Go back. Are you saying Uncle Shankar had an affair?”
“What could I think? He was dead. I couldn’t ask him. But the purse was proof. It told me someone had been there with him.”

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “Whoever was with him could have saved him.”

“Exactly! I waited for a few days to open the purse because I was so shaken; I was in a daze. And when I did open it, I recognized the wallet, the key ring, and some photographs.”
“Whose was it? Tell me, please!” she begged, as she jumped up from the settee. She took two quick steps toward Aunty Mala and bumped against the table. Her aunt’s glass tipped over, water dripped down on to the carpet.

“Your Aunty Lalitha’s.”

Priya’s hands held tightly to the edges of the table as she leaned forward, her knuckles showing white against the black table top. It seemed to her as though the only sound in the room was the sound of her heart hammering away. Aunty Mala looked away, gazed outside the window.
“If I’d brought up the purse, she would have denied it. She would have said she left it behind on an earlier visit. Who would believe me? I was the outsider.” Her aunt’s lips curved upward in a bitter smile. “Only a guilty person would be in such a hurry to leave that they forget their purse, don’t you think?”

“Oh my God! Aunty Lalitha told me she was probably the last person to see him alive. I didn’t pay attention! I’m sure it slipped out unintended. Did she ever ask about the purse?”

“No, never. It’s strange. I wonder how Lalitha explained the missing keys and things at home. I’ve lived with unanswered questions for so many years.”

“It fits now. It all fits now.” She raised his fist, thumped it on the table. “But why would she have an affair with her husband’s younger brother?”
“It’s a complicated story. She got married and was smitten… by her husband’s brother.”

“Give me a break! She was married, for heaven’s sake!” Priya exploded.

Mala continued. “The moment she got married she must have realized her husband was completely wrong for her.”

“I would be furious! Why aren’t you?”

“I have been, Priya. After I found the purse, I broke quite a few cups and saucers. Not anymore.”

“I find it unforgivable! Her husband’s brother?”

“Priya, do you mean to say you have never heard of anyone in an unhappy marriage looking for excitement outside of it?”

“I’d just like to think affairs didn’t happen in my family.”

Aunty Mala continued, almost to herself. “I still have that purse. Perhaps Lalitha could have done something for Shankar. Perhaps she could have gone for help. I had no answers then, and I don’t have any now.”

“I wish we could confront Aunty Lalitha.”

“I know! I’ve wished and wished to speak to someone all these years, and you show up. Life closes its circles in mysterious ways…”

Priya stared at the two matching paintings on the wall behind the bed. She had sought all this out, she reminded herself, because Rishi wanted the violinist Mala Shankar to play at their wedding. She had not asked. Aunty Mala had no idea why Rishi and she had been at the concert.

“Hello, hello! Priya, where are you?”

Aunty Mala’s waving hands drew her attention.

“Sorry, I missed that. What did you say?”

“When are you getting married? Do you have a date?”

“Yes. In June, only two more months. And umm….”

“I have the perfect wedding present for you. I am here in the US for a concert in Los Angeles the first week of June. I will play at your wedding!” The next instant, Aunty Mala’s fingers hit her cheek as if to slap herself. “What am I saying? What about the family? What about Lalitha?”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about all that Aunty Mala.”. Priya grabbed her bag. Her keys jingled as she stood. “We’ll find out… when you come to my wedding.”  ///END///

Copyright© 2009 Sudha Balagopal

AUTHOR”S BIOGRPHICAL SKETCH: Sudha Balagopal was born and raised in India and has lived in the United States for over two decades. She has a graduate degree in Journalism and Communications from the University of Florida. Recently her short stories have appeared in Her Circle, Catamaran Magazine, Pax Americana, Literary Mama and Muse India. She has also been featured in the anthology In Pursuit of the Perfect Gourmet Garam Masala from Skrev Press (U.K.

The church had been built as an afterthought.  It was attached to the subdivision like the “amen’s” at the end of Father Domenici’s Sunday prayers.  He was a third generation Italian-American who had taken to the Church partly out of a fear of women.  He was close to them and yet his mother had been a force for which he had few defenses.  She had taught him to tie his shoes but also to fear her.  She would readily cuff him when his less-than-noble attributes shown through in his childhood behavior.  Thusly, he grew up fast, only slightly resenting his mother.  Her churlishness and his father’s absence had set him on a path in which he sought out acceptance through obedience.  He was only partly obedient to his fear.  The other part was his need for love.  It was not that his mother didn’t love him, but that she was single and had to split her time between her work and his five other siblings.  She had little time for tenderness though he always tried to show her what she couldn’t show him.

He was the youngest with five sisters.  They would tease him for his slightly bucked teeth and he was heavier than most of the other kids at school.  When he had decided to commit his life to God, the pounds had dropped off like so much guilt.  As a child, he wanted to please his sisters and had gone out for every sport practicable, given his weight.  But he was never a good athlete and this only brought more shame to and recriminations from his sisters.  He was soundly beaten in wrestling and feared standing naked before matches to be weighed.  As he walked out to the mat in his singlet, he felt the eyes of the crowd on him and imagined he could hear the whispers.  His coach later told him that he was on the team only as a joke, a kind of cartoon character that brought levity to the rest of the team.  They enjoyed watching him lose.

He, as a result, poured out his feelings that no one would understand into journal after journal.  He would write until his hand cramped.  He avoided masturbation and this was the closest approximation that he allowed himself.  As a result, he felt attracted to and, at the same time, tormented by the nubile creatures that surrounded him at school as well as home.  Every so often his sisters got a hold of one of his journals though they weren’t so petty as to not return them.  But that would only be after exercising their glee amongst each other.  Once, they reported the contents of a journal to their mother and were soundly cuffed themselves for being childish.  They never did that again and Domenici was eternally grateful to his mother.

His family had not been particularly religious and he, as a child, had often wondered what it would be like to be a girl.  This was not an obsession; just a curiosity that further complicated his relationships with girls and later women and that would incline him towards celibacy.  The Church welcomed him as if he were its lover.  And he was.  He loved the Church with every cell in his body and his Masses were filled with a pathos he was sure rubbed off on his parishioners.  So when June Merrimack died, his requiem had been one fit for a queen.  He had loved her with an affection he imparted to few women but as a polio survivor, she also knew what it was to suffer.  And, she had been there every Sunday through his ten years at the Napa Valley parish.

“She may have only had the use of one arm,” he had said at her funeral, “but she lived to hold Christ up high as if she had the strength of Prometheus himself.”  He was fond of Greek mythology.

“And though bitterness could have fed upon her soul, like the eagle upon Prometheus’s liver each and every day, she was renewed by God’s love.  When the fire of love fades from your hearts, remember June who, with the strength of a Titan, brought light into our lives.  She has parted from us, yes, but lives on in our hearts just as the flame of this candle,” he gestured to the table beside him, which held several candles, “lights this very room.”

****

As the line of cars snaked down the highway to June’s burial, a brush fire had broken out on the median and the dry Azalea bushes were all aflame.  It was a thirty-minute drive to the new veteran’s graveyard.  Jim, her husband had been in World War II and so June could be buried for no cost.  Jim, when his time came, would be buried next to her.  When they arrived, the wind was blowing.  It was early October and unseasonably cold.  The family and others gathered in the small tent on the grounds of the new graveyard.  There was no landscaping yet and various bulldozers and other machines rested nearby.  Dust filled the air and the tent shook with every breath of wind.  Father Domenici kept his words brief and a few others, including June’s daughter-in-law got up to speak.

“She was a generous soul,” she said, “and she would talk to strangers as if they were old friends.  June loved everybody.”

The wind blew her hair awkwardly and she looked about embarrassed.  Soon June’s casket arrived on the back of a pick up truck and was rolled into the tent on a sort of gurney.  The wind kept moving the gurney and several people had to keep it from rolling out of the tent.  Flowers were laid on the casket that just as quickly blew off and then it was rolled back onto the pickup and driven away to be buried.  Mourners made beelines for their cars and began the long trip back through the flaming azaleas.  The traffic was horrendous and it was as if hell had descended upon earth.  For the time being, June was forgotten by all but Father Domenici.  As he drove slowly home in his Subaru Forester, he looked out upon the flames.

“What hath God wrought,” he thought.

He thought about the woman with the withered arm.  Something had withered within him by her passing.  He was more interested in life than he was in death.  He rarely thought of his own mortality, entranced as he was with God’s love.  It shined on his life with the magnanimity that his mother was not able to afford.  It was unconditional, or so he thought.  The requirements of his religion, the traditions and rituals, were to him a small price to pay for the sense of security they instilled in him.  In fact, he liked them.  He liked being in control.  He imagined it was similar to dancing, though he had never danced, with a partner of equal grace.  He liked holding people’s hearts and minds in his soft hands.  It was a control he never had growing up.  He not only held June Merrimack’s soul, but she gave it up to him with a willingness that was almost sensual.  And, though she was older than him, he felt a certain passion towards her that he couldn’t quite describe.  But now, she was gone, at least in the physical.  He tried to feel her presence as he drove past the burning azaleas.  Then, it was as if they spoke to him; you have given her the keys to heaven and blessed her passage; you have performed the work that you were ordained to do; you, and no other could have comforted her family and friends and it was your steady and loving hand that integrated life and death into one seamless wave that now breaks gently on the tranquil shores of their grieving; they are better for her passing and, as in all things, there is a lesson to be learned:  live well, die well.

****

Back in the rectory, Father Domenici pulled a bottle of wine from within his desk.  He always drank from a silver goblet he’d gotten at seminary in Rome.  He filled it to the rim.  His eyes were tired and watery and still had a bit of the dust from June’s burial in them.  He was glad his words had been so consoling on this cold, windy day of sorrow.  With evening, the wind had died down.  He drank deeply from his goblet remembering the youthful camaraderie of his fellow seminarians in Rome.  It was there that he learned of all the variations of Italian wine and now he considered himself quite the connoisseur.

“In vino veritas,” he thought taking another gulp.

He remembered meandering through the streets of Rome on his Vespa, swallowing the thick air that came off the River Tiber.  Surrounded, as he was, by thousands of years of history, he felt his life as palpably as he had the grip of fatalism, which had oppressed him as a youth.  Sometimes at night, he would dream of Mother Mary, always clad in a clean white robe and she would welcome him into her home and feed him bread, always bread.  And it was good, tasting slightly of juniper and rosemary.  He would watch her as she refilled her oil lamps that cast smoky shadows.  The floor was always strewn with white and gray feathers and her light tread appeared to be as if she were walking on air.  There was never anyone else there and they never spoke.  He wanted to kiss her and wash her feet but her silence kept him seated cross-legged in the corner on the softest fleece of a sheep.

He put Bach’s Jesus, Joy of Man’s Desiring into his small CD player.  As he listened, tears formed in the corners of his eyes and then began to roll down his thin cheeks.  The dust of the day was washed out and he felt renewed by both the wine and his tears.  He had always been prone to tears in the face of beautiful music.  It was his own genius reflected in the music that made him cry and though he had no musical talent, he knew it was his words that sang.  He took his bible from the drawer and without looking at it, recited the Twenty-third Psalm out loud:

“He restoreth my soul…Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

His lips lingered on these final words and he wiped his eyes with a large handkerchief drawn from his back pocket.  He liked the feel of the pages between his fingers.  He poured another cup of wine.  June had been a small woman and though she had one withered arm, she carried herself erectly.  He had often seen her face alone among his flock.  To be honest, her penetrating gaze upon him had at times comforted him and at others disquieted him to his very core.  And yet, having learned the skill of introspection, he felt that she was in some way placed among his parishioners to aid him in his search for eternal truth.  She forced him to look inward as he stood before them, exposed as Christ had been exposed upon the cross, exposed, as he had been as a young wrestler waiting naked to be weighed.  She had seen something in him of whom he was not even aware, he thought.  He was still not quite sure what it was.  As their eyes would meet he experienced a fleeting sensation of insecurity and then, as if willed by God Himself, he felt the strength of his Father’s, the Lord God’s arms wrap about him.  His voice would rise up out of him across the crowded pews unto eternity itself.

He sipped more delicately at his wine this time and reached for his blood pressure medication.  Swallowing a pill, he felt fortified as if he would live forever.  He would die an old and happy priest.  He was tired now.

“I will just lie down for a moment,” he thought reclining onto his office sofa.

He closed his eyes.  His mother would have been so proud of him.  He always sensed that she was oppressed by a guilt born of his father’s early death.  He missed her now.

As the music ended on his CD player sleep came to him, the kind of sleep one sleeps after a long and fruitful day.  He meant only to lie down for a few minutes.  His handkerchief slipped from his grasp onto the floor.  The empty bottle of wine by his lamp cast a translucent shadow against the far wall and from the wall of one of his arteries a small piece of plaque loosened itself.  As his heart beat, it traveled up through ever narrowing passages towards his brain.  He was dreaming an odd dream.  He was young again in Rome.  He stood in St. Peter’s Square and in his hand, a note.  He was reading the words written in a woman’s hand over and over again.  But they were in Italian and he didn’t yet know it well enough.  He thought he knew what it said but he couldn’t be sure.  There was a slight breeze that riffled the paper as the shadow of the obelisk moved across the crowded square.  The obelisk had been silent witness to the Apostle Peter’s death and now rose up in his dream as if touching the white cumulus nimbi that wandered over a marine-blue sky.  Death, in its many forms, had now taken the shape of a great stone monument.  So much of it lay beneath Fr. Domenici’s feet as well.  So many martyrs had died, and for what?  What testimony do bones have?  He had built his life on bones and yet through him these martyrs lived.  They would live in his words and his communions and his parishioners.  They would live in June Merrimack until she was bones too.  Then there was a gust of wind and the letter fluttered from his hands into the crowd and soon, under their hundreds of milling feet, but not before his eyes caught the words “ti amo” scrawled at the bottom.  I love you, they said.  ///END///

AUTHOR BIO SKETCH:  Nick Harris graduated from Lakeside School in Seattle, WA. He has an Associate of Arts degree from Seattle Central Community College.  He is now a candidate for a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing at Seattle University.