Chapter 18

Voicemail from Lita, 10:17 PM AST

“Mija. I talked to your grandmother this morning. Not the Sri Lankan one, the other one, me, your real—okay we are both your real grandmother, that’s not what I meant. The point is we agree. This woman almost kissed you in a monsoon, mija. A monsoon. Pito says that only happens in the movies and I said exactly, that’s exactly my point. Call me. I lit another candle. Don’t say anything about the candles.”

[End of voicemail]

***

Voicemail from Dadi, 7:03 AM IST

“Kaalia. It’s Dadi. Your grandfather and I have been discussing and we have decided you are being very stupid. You said she almost kissed you in the rain and then she didn’t and then you said never mind it’s complicated and hung up. That is not never mind. That is not complicated. That is a woman who wants to kiss you, Kaalia. Omal! Tell her. He says you’re being stupid also. We are united on this. Call me back. You sound thin again. Eat more biryaani. Are they feeding you enough?”

[End of voicemail]

***

But after only a day of reading Priya’s poetry, my head was so full of her romance I could barely think of my own. Aadhya had been right: a ghost of a lover lingered within these pages, someone who couldn’t possibly be Priya’s dead husband. 

Someone who couldn’t possibly be a man at all.

She was softly shaped. Her smooth, bejewelled hand. The wisp of her saree, always a shade of purple. Lilac, lavender, violet. Silky straight hair where Priya’s was curly. And her eyes, lily-pad-green, were everywhere. In everything. In the landscape. In the cresting summer sea. In the ceiling above her head, pocked among the plaster, watching her fall asleep and following her into her dreams. She was never present—not quite. Her edges never fully formed, her face never clear enough to make out. But she was missing. And that missing-ness was so painful it made everything around it jagged at the edges, blackening and curling in on itself like paper around a flame.

By the end of my first day of work, I had followed Roman’s Google calendar to the minute and ended up with twenty annotated poems I felt could be a part of their own book. The work was intense, relentless, and all-consuming. But so bright. There was no other word for it. Bright like a wildfire, like an eclipsing sun, the words—the woman, the lover, her absence—blazed across the page, stinging my eyes, leaving nothing but hot, heavy smoke in their wake. I often felt myself gasping for air, reaching for long swallows of water, as if I really were in the midst of a blooming fire.

Aadhya had chosen the study as our workspace. A sage green room with elaborate, antique gold trim, overlooking the garden outside. The wood of the long, large desks framing the three walls was a beautiful mahogany colour—when I could see it, at least. Mostly, it was covered by sheets of poetry, scribbled with my handwriting, along with torn notebook pages, also scribbled with my handwriting. By the second day, it had become a war zone. Pens catapulted across the room. Discarded notes crumpled by the garbage. I had dissolved three erasers and was nearing the dregs of a fourth. Pen ink and highlighter smudged my hands.

Most unexpectedly of all, Priya sat next to me while I worked, cross-legged and barefoot in a kurti with pants. She read old Malayalam fiction books with a steaming cup of tea in front of her, appearing out of nowhere so completely, so naturally, it was as if she had been there all along, even on the first day. At first, I was so nervous to be beside her I could barely read. My hands shook holding the first poem to the light. Was she watching me? Was she judging the way I analyzed her poems? 

“Kaalia,” she said.

Shocked by the fact that she had said my name, I turned to glance at her. She slapped my cheek. 

Not hard. Not with any force, really. I had been slapped countless times like this by Lita. It was less about anger and more about getting me to pay attention. But I couldn’t believe Priya had slapped me. I blinked. Mouth falling open. 

“What—why—” 

She turned back to her book and flipped a page. Her glasses slid down her nose. “You are hardly reading. I was promised you were a good editor. What are you so afraid of? The poems aren’t going to bite. But I might.”

I fell into a rhythm after that. It felt natural—I hadn’t been this gripped by poetry since reading M. Jacqui Alexander’s work. I read, edited, and interpreted her work with the sharp, analytical (obsessive, really) eye I’d honed throughout years of schoolwork. I’d finish a poem and slide it to her side of the desk; after a few minutes of reading her book, like she couldn’t be bothered to pause for something so trivial, she’d take a look at what I’d written. Sometimes she said nothing. Sometimes she made a sound like a hum. Perhaps it was her way of showing approval, however vague. But she didn’t ask me to stop, so I kept going.

On the third day, she started bringing me a steaming cup of tea as well. Our matching mugs sat next to each other, parallel to us behind the desks. She finished her thriller book and moved on to a romance: two famous Bollywood actors graced the cover in a fierce embrace. She didn’t say more than five words to me in the hours we sat there. But I felt something shifting between us anyway. A friendship forming. Or maybe something warmer, softer. More grandmotherly. I read her work with the gentle, graceful care it deserved. And she took care of me right back.

“I told you,” Roman said to me after dinner on the third night. “It was something you did. I’ve never had a client so disagreeable—well, agree that fast. Whatever you said to her on the porch changed her mind. This is all because of you, Kaalia.”

I kept shaking my head. “But I didn’t say anything to her.” We had spent the hour almost entirely in silence. The rocking chair swung gently back and forth. We stared at the rain. 

“I don’t know what you did. But you did something.”

I remembered the tear that had slid down Priya’s soft, wrinkled cheek. What had made her cry? What had she been thinking about that had changed her mind? I didn’t have time to mull it over. Or even talk about it further with Roman. My Google-calendar-timed workday ended at around four in the afternoon, but Roman remained on the phone with lawyer after lawyer, day after day. While I worked on poetry, she paced the garden and argued with important people, directly in view of the study’s window. Aadhya informed me she had planned this, so I could pine after her, yearning from within the study like a bedridden, heartstruck Victorian mistress.

To spite Aadhya, I focused even more resolutely on Priya’s poetry. For the most part.

At night, Roman paced the hallway between our rooms. Her shadow danced under my door. Her sweet, clear voice sounded almost always pinched with tension as she argued with her lawyers. She said goodnight to me, a little wistfully, but never more. Jazmine’s words echoed in my ears. I was second to her work already. And we had only just agreed: what happens in Kerala stays in Kerala. 

On the fifth day, Aadhya barged into the study only five minutes after I’d started. 

“Stop doing whatever you’re doing,” she demanded.

Priya glanced over. Her expression held a hint of amusement, her lips quirked just slightly, as if she were mildly entertained by Aadhya’s antics but not surprised. 

“Um, you mean working through this poetry archive and cross-referencing decades of work? Because if so, I have news for you. Roman’s schedule doesn’t have a minute to spare.”

Roman was right outside, wearing a hole in the grass with her pacing. She had been on the phone since seven a.m. Even if she could see Aadhya and me through the study window, she was too distracted to pay attention and see my minute-long discrepancy.

“I don’t care about Roman’s schedule. I care about this.” With a dramatic twirl of her hand, she flung a handwritten spreadsheet onto the desk. It landed over the poem I had been working on and read: OPERATION MAKE THEM KISS.

“What is this?”

“What does it look like?”

“This better not be what I think it is.”

“I think it couldn’t possibly be anything other than what you think it is. The title makes that clear.”

“Remember when you said my namesake goddess is the goddess of death and destruction? Well—” 

“Save your empty threats, pyaari. Look at the sheet.” 

A few sentences caught my eye. Reason: Better WiFi in the kitchen. Archive room has the best light. Move: Lock the door and leave?

I closed my eyes and counted to three, practicing inner zen. “Are you engineering reasons for Roman and I to share small spaces so we kiss?” 

Aadhya beamed. “Yes. I’ve been hiding it inside a British cookbook.” 

Of course no one would open a British cookbook. “Why are you showing me this? Even if I did want you to do this, which I don’t, you’re making me complicit.” 

Priya flipped another page of her book.

“I’m showing you because it hasn’t worked. Nothing has worked. It’s been days and you and Roman are so—so boring. I’m trying to get you two into small spaces. I tried pushing you into a closet with her. I turned off the power so I could trap you in the basement together—”

“What? When?”

“—I unscrewed all the lightbulbs slightly so they would be dim and you would be forced to get closer to see each other better.”

“That’s what that was?”

“But all you do is work. Typical Americans. Tell them, Dadi.” 

A low hum emanated from Priya’s throat.

“Traitor,” I said to her. To Aadhya, I said, “You don’t understand. Roman is a workaholic. And she’s insane about how I work, too. A control freak. The one time I suggested we not follow her calendar, we had a huge fight.” I stared at Priya through my periphery. “Which your grandmother promptly used as evidence that I was in love with her.” 

Aadhya’s eyes lit up. She covered her mouth with one hand. “That’s it. I get it now.”

“What?” 

“I know what to do.” 

“What are you talking about?” Aadhya spun and ran from the room. “Wait. Get back here! Do not do anything matchmaker-y!”

Priya flipped to another page.

“Really? You’re just going to let her mess around with me and Roman?” I demanded in Tamil.

Priya turned the next page and responded in English. “I couldn’t possibly stop her.”

After a week had passed—a week in which I barely saw Roman and did, in fact, turn to pining after her through the study window as Aadhya had hoped—Priya demanded to show me something. I had started working only five minutes ago when she stood. The wooden floors creaked. The teacup, still full, clattered. Without checking the page of her romance book, she let it fall onto the desk and flap shut. She looked at me the way she always looked at me: like she had already decided what I was and was waiting for me to catch up.

“Follow me.” 

“What? Why? Where are you going?” 

Priya scraped her chair back and strode from the room without looking back. Roman was outside. I could see her through the study window, phone pressed to her ear, gesturing sharply at nobody. I watched her for a second longer than I needed to.

“Kaalia. Now.”

I scrambled to steady my papers, hop out of my chair, and chase after Priya.  She moved deceptively fast for such an old woman, her bare feet soundless on the marble tile, her kurti a blur of pink cotton, her braid swinging in that slow, pendulum way. She looked back at me only once to make sure I followed her. Curly baby hairs escaped her braid and wisped against her cheeks. I had learned, in the past week, that Priya Banerjee did not wait for you. You either kept up or you didn’t.

“Priya,” I whispered, speeding to catch up with her. I wasn’t sure why I was whispering. The hallways were sun-bright and full of birdsong. Nobody could hear us. “Roman is going to kill me.” 

“That would involve you being in a room together,” she replied in Malayalam. I’d learned enough words since being here to piece that together.

Which we haven’t in almost a week, I finished for her. Roman had stopped eating meals with us two days ago. Our alone time had dwindled to almost nothing. When she wasn’t on the phone, she was contorted like a pretzel into the strangest positions, feverishly typing away on her laptop. I’d looked into her room once and seen her upside down with her feet on the wall, holding her laptop in the air above her face. The curtains in her office had started to make more sense.

In her newfound absence, I’d started dreaming about her again. I chased her through bamboo forests as she slowly morphed into a giant panda. When I caught her, I’d ask why she’d become a panda. Was it on purpose? Did it mean something? 

“I was a panda in another life. Don’t you know that’s why you like pandas so much?” 

“What? How do you even know that?” 

“We were both pandas.” Her big, glossy, panda eyes gazed into my soul. “We were panda wives. And we had panda babies. You really don’t remember?” 

“No—wait—”

“Shame on you.” Her snout twitched with wrath. Ten panda cubs materialized in her furry arms, all crying. “I’m taking our panda babies and we’re leaving you.” 

“Wait—don’t do this—I’ll be better, I swear—”

She sniffed. “Better isn’t good enough.”

Priya stopped suddenly. I almost crashed into her back. 

She scowled. “Stop daydreaming. Watch where you walk.” 

“Priya,” I said, quietly. “What are we doing here?”

We had paused at a door I hadn’t noticed before. Which was saying something, because in a week I had become obsessed with this house—tracing the carved wood, counting the paintings, learning which floors creaked. It was a small door. A forgotten door. It had the look of something that didn’t want to be opened. Priya fumbled the key into the lock. Her eyes met mine, large and glistening.

“You’ll see,” she said, in English. Her version of that phrase had a flatness to it, like she wasn’t so much offering information as withholding it on purpose. I had started to suspect she was withholding many things on purpose. I had started to suspect a lot about Priya that her poetry only half-confirmed.

Her hands were shaking.

I noticed this before I noticed anything else, the way a small sound in a very quiet room became deafening. Her hands, which I had only ever seen perfectly still—steady around a teacup, firm on a book spine, unhurried as she turned page after page—were shaking.

The door clicked open. The room was barely more than a closet—large enough to fit only one small table, a chair, and a mini square of a window. The table had one drawer, which, as Priya slid open, revealed an enormous stack of thick paper envelopes. Each one tied with a faded purple ribbon. I had the sudden, overwhelming feeling that I was witnessing something I shouldn’t be. That I had walked into a room where something sacred lived and nobody had thought to warn me. 

“What is this?” 

Priya looked at me. Her expression was impossible to read. 

“Something I should have done years ago.” 

There must have been hundreds of envelopes. Maybe more. The ribbon had been a deep, rich purple, once—the colour of late evening. Now it was the exhausted shade of something that had survived too much time in shadows. 

Priya did not hand them to me. She lifted them out of the drawer and held them in both hands the way I imagined you might hold a heart: tightly, blood dripping between your fingertips; the pulsing, fleshy mass tender and wont to escape from your palms. She looked at them for a long time.

Then she began to talk.

She spoke in Tamil, Malayalam, and English, sometimes switching mid-sentence, sometimes losing words and finding others. I had enough Tamil to follow most of it. The Malayalam I pieced together from context, from the way her voice moved up and down over certain syllables. I had learned, in my years of studying language, that words were only half of meaning. The other half lived in the body, the breath, the hands, the space between sentences.

I understood Priya perfectly.

Her name was Kimaya. 

She was from Priya’s village. They had grown up in the same red earth, under the same mango trees, in the same monsoon rain that came every year like a returning relative, loud and unannounced and entirely itself. Priya told me that as children they used to stand in the fields with their arms out and their faces tipped to the sky, mouths open, drinking the rain. That they used to dare each other to climb higher and higher in the same tree until one of them lost her nerve, and it was never Kimaya. That they had a favourite rock on the edge of a field where the grass grew tall enough to hide two girls from the rest of the world, and they used to go there in the long afternoons and tell each other everything, and the telling of everything felt, Priya said, like the first language she had ever spoken fluently. Like all the other languages she had tried—obedience, silence, performance, prayer—had been borrowed ones, ill-fitting, someone else’s mouth-shape. But with Kimaya she spoke without translation. Without effort. With the ease of breathing. 

Kimaya had straight hair where Priya’s was curly. She wore purple always—lavenders and violets and lilacs, cycling through them like a devotion. She had a way of adorning her hands with small rings, and coloured thread, flowers tucked into her fingers on temple days, as if her hands were worth decorating. Priya noticed her hands before anything else. Noticed them for three years before she admitted to herself what it meant, that she noticed them. 

Kimaya’s skin was a deeper brown than Priya’s and her eyes were the colour of lily pads. Green and still and full of depth. Priya said this plainly, as a fact, the way I’d describe the colour of the sky or the sea. 

From the age of sixteen, they loved each other.

That was how Priya said it. From the age of sixteen. As a date, as a coordinate, as something with the permanence of geography. She did not say I think or perhaps or it was something like. She said we loved each other with the same matter-of-fact certainty she said she wore purple and she never lost her nerve in the tree. As if love were simply another thing that had happened, fixed and verifiable and real. As if the sixty years between then and this locked drawer had not softened the fact of it at all, had not blurred its edges or made them negotiable. It had happened. It was still happening. Some things, Priya seemed to understand, did not stop happening simply because you stopped permitting them.

Four years of this. Four years of stolen hours. The kind of time that existed only in the margins of other people’s days—the hour before sunrise, the hour after prayers, the walk to the well that took a little longer than it should have. Hands held under a shared shawl at the temple so nobody would see. Poems written on whatever paper was available, traded like contraband, like the most dangerous thing in the world, which Priya said they were. An entire private language built in the space between two people who had no other language available to them. A language with no name and no alphabet, spoken only in proximity, in the held breath before a hand found another hand, in the particular way Kimaya said Priya’s name when they were alone, lower, softer, the syllables rounded with something that meant only you, only ever you. 

Then Priya’s family had debts they couldn’t pay.

Then there was a man.

Then there was a wedding. 

Kimaya came to stop it.

Priya said this simply. The way, I had come to learn over the past week, she said everything. Her voice, over sixty years, carried enormous things without audible strain, the way a river learns to move over rock, smoothing itself, wearing the sharp edges down. She said Kimaya came and I understood in those two words an entire journey: Kimaya walking to the wedding, Kimaya who had always been braver in the tree, Kimaya who loved purple and had lily-pad eyes and had spent four years in stolen hours and had finally decided that some things were worth being seen. Kimaya who had arrived and been met by Priya’s brothers and been driven from the village and had never come back. 

“I don’t know what happened to her after that,” Priya said. “I have never known.” 

She said this in Tamil. Her voice did not break. She had a way of saying devastating things in the register of someone recounting the weather, something distant and documented, as if she had long ago separated herself from the feeling of the words. As if the feeling had been drained out of them somewhere along the way, slowly, over decades, the way colour drained from a ribbon kept too long in a drawer. Left behind in a locked box with a key worn against her chest every day for sixty years because she could not leave it anywhere else. Could not leave it. Could not put it down. 

“I wrote to her every year,” Priya said. “For sixty-four years. Whenever I thought of her. On the anniversary of the day we first said it aloud. What we were to each other. What we felt.” 

She looked at the envelopes again. Sixty-four of them in that stack for every anniversary they had missed. I tried to understand what that meant. Sixty-four mornings Priya had woken up and known what day it was and sat down with paper and written to a woman she didn’t know was alive. 

“I never sent a single letter,” she whispered in Malayalam. “I was afraid she would think I had forgotten her by living. I thought she might look at my life—my children, my house, my name beside a man’s name—and believe I had moved on. That I had chosen this. That it had been enough.” 

Rain had started outside, soft and insistent, the way it always started before it became something larger.

“But I had not,” Priya said, switching to English. Not for my benefit, I thought, but her own. As if some things needed to be said in the colonizer’s language precisely because it was cold and borrowed and therefore bearable. As if saying it in Malayalam—her language, Kimaya’s language, the language of the rock at the edge of the field and the shawl at the temple—would be too much. Would make it too real. Cost her something she couldn’t afford to spend. “Nothing was ever enough, without her.” 

She paused. The rain tapped the window. The ceiling fan moved the warm air around without cooling it. 

“You asked me to apologize to Roman,” she said, “and I refused.” 

I said nothing. 

“I have not apologized to anyone since the day of my wedding.” She finally looked at me, and her eyes were dry and enormous and very old, full of something that was not grief exactly but the place grief went after sixty years, the sediment of it, the settled weight. “When I told Kimaya I couldn’t run away with her. That I couldn’t stop it. I got on my knees in the dirt outside the temple and I told her I was sorry and she looked at me and said nothing and then my brothers came.” A breath. “That was the last time. The last time I have been on my knees for anything.”

She looked back down at the envelopes. 

“Nothing has been worth it since,” she said. “Nothing has been worth the cost of those words, in that dirt, with her looking at me like that. Like I had already become a stranger. Like she was memorizing a stranger’s face.” 

The rain outside became something larger. Heavier. 

“So you understand,” Priya said, her voice returning to its usual flatness, the temperature of stone, “why I did not apologize to your Roman. It is not that I did not mean to. It is that the last time I meant it, it changed nothing. It did not stop a single thing from happening.” 

She retied the ribbon. The same careful hands, still slightly shaking, coaxing the faded purple into a bow with the practiced steadiness of someone who had done this a hundred times before and would do it again next year and the year after, until she couldn’t anymore.

She locked the drawer and slipped the key onto the chain. Then fastened the chain around her neck, the key settling back against her sternum, where it always lived, warm from her skin.

I remembered sitting with her on the porch swing in the rain. How I’d stood and left, while a tear snaked down her cheek. This time, I found it was me crying, unabashedly, uncontrollably, as she left the room and didn’t look back.

***

Thoughts? 

Love,
Meera