No one answered her. Sara was on a boat taking photos of the approaching shore. The technician was counting seconds.
"Are you alright there?" The nurse took Sara's limp hand. "We had quite a time with the needle earlier, didn't we? I'm still sorry about that. Her veins," she said to her co-worker, "are buried so deep."
The feel of the nurse's hospital-clean hands made Sara shiver. She was tired of the sterile world of doctors and medicine. She wanted the dirt of villages, or the blowing sand of the desert. She blinked as if to clear something out of her eyes just as the photographer closed the shutter.
"I know it's hard, but try not to blink."
When the photos were done, Sara let the nurse shuttle her into the hallway where Kyle was waiting to take her home.
It took twenty-four hours for the yellow dye to work through Sara's system. In the meantime, she sat alone in the dark of her apartment, waiting. When the phone finally rang, the receptionist at Dr. Porter's office said, "I've scheduled you for surgery a week from Friday."
"Already?" Sara asked. "Does this mean the test results were negative?"
"Listen, dear, it's not negotiable. It's the only time I can fit you in. Be early and don't come alone. Understand?"
"Yes," Sara stammered, "but what about the test results? I had injections at the hospital... a big camera... yellow dye... Dr. Porter said—"
"He'll need you here by three o'clock. For goodness sake, don't be late."
"Fine. Three o'clock." Sara hung up the phone. She was so stunned she didn't ask what type of surgery the doctor had in mind.
chapter 6
Walking back from a lunch-hour trip to the grocery store, Sitara was swinging her bags—not a fast, happy swinging, but rather a slow, solemn swinging brought on by deep thought.
"Bapa, why are you here?"
"To see you, Sitara... in case it is the last time."
The words kept swimming through her head. And each time she replayed them, they sounded more alarmingly final.
For many years, she had intended to repair relations with her parents—eventually. She thought the six thousand kilometres separating the two coasts would make picking up the phone easier, since she was safe from the obligation of dropping by. But the distance only made it easier to forget.
On her walk back to the clinic, she passed a used bookstore. There was a paperback in the window that caught her eye: Misplaced Indians, it was called. Only after reading the subtitle did she realize that it was written about Native Americans and not her parents.
"Are your parents still in India?" a classmate asks.
"No, they live in Canada."
"Are you going home for the break?"
"Probably not. I'd like to catch up on my reading—I feel a little out of breath."
"Won't you be lonely, since everyone else goes away?"
"Not everyone," I say. "Hannah and Devora are staying, and Paul can't afford to fly home this year. I'll manage."
I don't want to go home, but I no longer bother to say it. For others, I've discovered, Christmas is a week out of time, affected by neither the past nor the present. It's an island of forgiveness and pretending in the name of religion and tradition and gift-giving. Although smiles and feasting seem to come easily to my classmates, I don't have the heart or the stomach for either.
Walking up the stairs to her clinic, Sitara wondered what had happened to Hannah and Devora. In the six years since they'd graduated from college she'd lost track of them.
Leaving her groceries in a pile beside the desk, she checked her phone messages and then prepared her office for an afternoon of patients.
Slowly, her father's words were subsiding, but not without leaving a sticky trace.
After her last patient left the clinic, Sitara met her father again in the park near his hotel. He was sitting on a bench with an open magazine, watching some kids as they performed tricks on their scooters.
"Wow, this bench is cold," Sitara said, sitting down next to him.
"That is why I wear a kurta." He smiled.
"Well, perhaps I should too."
"No, women should wear saris."
"I know, Bapa. I know."
The children with the scooters—two boys and a girl—were jumping off a tall stone ledge and trying to land on both wheels. One of them had almost mastered it and the other two were trying desperately to follow.
"I have been watching them for over an hour," Raj said. "The little one is very agile, and most comfortable, I think, when he is in the air. Perhaps for some, the ground is too hard. Do you think about these kinds of things, Sitara, or is it a sure sign that I am getting old?"
"I can't picture you getting old, Bapa. Age is in the mind."
"And sometimes in the body," he added.
"Sometimes, but you seem strong. Maybe I should buy you a scooter!"
"It makes me think of something I had when I was young. Of course, the roads were dirt where we lived, so we needed bigger tires. It is not easy being the second youngest of nine. There is a lot of catching up to do, and I tried many things, including some questionable self-propelled automobiles!" He laughed.
Sitara could feel the energy between them healing. She was happy to hear her father's voice again, and to be surrounded by the generosity of his laughter. There are some holes, she thought, that we're not even aware of until they've been filled again.
"I have tea," she offered. "And some rather crumbly cookies."
"Yes, I would like some."
After pulling a Thermos out of her worn Guatemalan bag, she handed her father a porcelain mug.
"This is nice," he said.
"It's made by a woman who lives here in town."
"Town?" Raj asked. "I thought Halifax was a city."
"It is, of course, you're right. I suppose ‘town' is just an expression." She filled his cup. "Chai," she said, "with soy milk."
Looking doubtful, Raj took a sip and then considered it carefully. "It does not taste like chai. But," he said, after taking another sip, "I do not dislike it."
"I'm glad." She handed him a paper bag full of cookies.
Taking one, he said, "I think your hand slipped when you added the cinnamon. Chai should be heavy on the black pepper, cardamom and cloves, and more moderate with the cinnamon. Of course, many people will tell you differently, but that is because they do not come from my village. People from my village, they know about tea."
Sitara nodded in agreement. Her father's village was famous for many things—as he was very fond of explaining. Parvati, of course, believed none of it. Sitara, too, was skeptical, but she respected his need for roots and ancestry. It's hard to know who you are, she reasoned, without knowing who your people are.
The sun that had poured over the park, bathing everything in a forgiving light, was starting to set. Raj shivered first, but Sitara soon followed.
"Shall we get some dinner?" he asked.
"What do you feel like?"
"The one here is okay—I looked over their menu—and I am feeling rather Indian today."
Climbing the steps to the second-floor restaurant,