"She looks like an Indian peasant," I hear her say. "What happened to that pretty dress I bought for her?"
"She prefers the sari," Bapa answers. "Now hurry. She is waiting in the car."
"I can't," Parvati says. "My head hurts. I'm going to lie down."
As Bapa protests, I silently close the door.
In the car, he says, "Your mother has a hole in her head, and will not be coming."
Biting my tongue, I wonder if it's a mistake in his English, or if he hates her as much as I do. On the drive to school, I manage to bend each one of my twenty-seven bangles.
Releasing the unconscious grip on her left wrist, Sitara stretched out her arms. She focused her eyes on her fingernails and then turned her hands over and made an offering with her palms. She could feel the strain through the muscle just below her left elbow. Pulling back with her right, as if tightening a bow, she shot a burst of tension along her sore arm and out the window. Unintentionally, she hit a twig as it whirled itself to the ground. Sighing, she remembered that she'd always had good aim. She'd learned early by practising on her mother. At first, the things she flung at Parvati were made of stone. But later, as her resentment grew, they were made of words, which stung much harder.
"Sitara, I am here. In Halifax. At a hotel," her father had told her during his early morning phone call. "There are many things I want to tell you," he'd said with a crack in his voice that reminded her of calling India—reminded her of Chacha, who always told her that he loved her, even though as a child she knew that adults only loved each other.
Startled by the telephone, she'd knocked a book off the table beside her bed, tipping both a mug of cold tea and the iron candleholder Carrie had given her for late nights of reading in bed.
"Listen, I have to go," she'd said to her father, while kicking off the blankets to escape the heat.
"Sitara, I have come a long way." It had been four years since they'd spoken.
"I can meet you after work. Where are you staying?"
"The Westin on Hollis Street, by the train station," he'd said, in a voice that sounded as grey as his hair. "Is it far?"
"Yes, quite far," she'd told him, although it was only a few blocks away.
She dropped a handful of leaves into a bamboo strainer and filled her cup with hot water. Then, sitting full-lotus on a small woven rug, she deepened her breath and waited for the tea to steep. Slowly she lowered her gaze to the floor and tried to let the space between her eyebrows soften. Memories boiled like burned dahl inside her, turning over and over, releasing their potent juices. She swallowed to wash the taste away.
"Sitara," she told herself, "it is only dinner with your father. You've done it a million times before—almost once a day for eighteen years. How hard can it be?"
Feeling the rough wool of the rug beneath her toes, she rocked from side to side to reposition her weight and then let her back and neck curl slightly forward before straightening her spine again. After a deep breath, she heard the rustle of clothing in the waiting room. Standing abruptly, she grabbed the corner of her desk until the blood rebalanced itself in her brain. Rafqa was more than an hour late.
"Namaste, Sitara," a voice called to her. "Do not be afraid."
Sitara stepped into the waiting room.
The woman had four arms. "Your bapa waits for you," she said. She was holding a cell phone and a jar of cardamom.
Sitara pressed her hands into prayer and sank to the floor. She recognized the dark green choli and the rich burgundy sari with the lullabies embroidered in gold.
"You are not a little girl anymore," the woman said. "Do not play one for me, and do not play one for your bapa. When you go to him, show him who you are, not who you used to be. Accept him and he will accept you."
Still on the floor, Sitara reached out to touch the silky coconut milk of the woman's sari. "Sarasvati, I haven't seen you for so long. How are you?"
"It is not your worry."
A cloud passed between the sun and the two angled skylights in the ceiling of the clinic. The image of the deity paled.
"Sarasvati, please. Don't leave. I can treat you."
"I am not the one," her voice shimmered as she faded away, "who needs your attention, Sitara. It is you."
Closing her eyes, Sitara parted her lips and exhaled.
chapter 3
Flying over the tiny speck of a Portuguese island, Sara let her head fall back. The headrest smelled of cheap perfume. With her camera lying casually in her lap she closed her eyes. Her mind was focused on the water below.
click
Blue-green water spotted with small sandy islands, like the brown flecks in a blue eye.
"You see, the thing is," he had started talking at the airport, before the plane had even left the ground, "we sell them by the boxful—square boxful." He was laughing. "I sell round rubber rings in square boxes." More laughter. "Of course, everything is standardized, organized by size." His shoulder touched hers. His blue linen suit was too heavy for the heat of Spain. She could see the sweat stains around his cuffs. "Do you know how many rings fit in a box this big?" His pudgy white hands showed no sign of tan. "One hundred and fifty. And the market is expanding. Modeque has come out with a new design for their ‘Elite' line of faucets that demands our product. Wherever one is installed, we gain a new customer. Our rings have revolutionized kitchen sinks. We've begun a whole new era of dripless faucets that truly don't drip. And it's all as simple as that." He pulled one out of his pocket to demonstrate.
Sara turned her head slightly and produced a small nod. Wisps of white cloud had formed so that she couldn't see the ocean. With her left hand, she pulled down the blind.
"These little devils are the reason I'm alive. They've given me the house, the pool, the tennis courts. Hell, I'm even building a golf course out the back." His chest was shaking with the kind of exaggerated laugh that proud men show in public. Overrun with the momentum of his own sharing, he searched his breast pocket for a photo of his four-year-old boy. "Adorable, isn't he? And handsome." The boy's fingers were covered in rings. "He plays with them like toys," the man said, "but someday they'll be made of gold." He put his photo away. "First time in Malaga?"
Sara shook her head. "No," she said.
"You know, Spain's rubber market is virtually untapped. It's a miracle, really. It was here all this time and we just didn't know about it. Of course, they don't know they need us yet, but I have a feeling that's all about to..."
Absently, Sara reached into the pocket of the seat in front of her and pulled out the in-flight magazine. She wanted to read, to ward off the suit with a mouth that she was stuck next to, but the print was small and, no matter how she angled the bulb, the overhead light was not bright enough. Flipping through the glossy pages, she found a photo of one of the mosques that had been part of her own recent assignment. This version was badly cropped—or perhaps badly photographed.
click
A mosque with half a minaret.
Sara closed the magazine.
"...he always says the same damn thing to me, but I still don't buy it! The last time I was in Missouri I didn't even bother to look him up. I just don't do business that way. Our base price is the best I can do. I offer the same deal to everyone. That's what makes it fair, and if he doesn't like it, he can..."