Anuradha Roy - Sleeping On Jupiter

He would not say the words, but what he was pointing to were the round breasts on the tiny figure. It was a woman and not a child, there was no doubt about that.

“A midget then.” A straw-hatted man in the group said. “Not a child, just a midget who’s seen a lot.” The whole group tittered and the grey-eyed woman said, “They’ve all seen a lot more than you and me!”

“Some panel show children — but only playing.” The guide was upset by their levity and pointed with a vehement, jabbing finger. “In ancient India no barrier between life and love. Erotic is creation itself, so it is celebrated in our temples. Nothing wrong. Please understand!” A voice from the group was heard muttering, “You don’t say!”

The guide’s voice grew fainter as he and his group went further away. Nomi kneeled to look at the tiny figure at the bottom of the panel. No, it wasn’t a child, the guide was right. Were there any children at all in those scenes of abandon? She went from panel to panel, inspecting one spasm of ecstasy after another. She felt composed despite the fornication on the walls surrounding her. The certainty that she would be revolted must have steeled her. Not many children in this temple, the guide was right, and certainly no little girls being fondled by old men. If there was a child at all, it was in the arms of a maternal-looking woman.

She wondered what her foster mother would have made of this temple. Unbidden, a pang of remorse stabbed her. Two mothers. One she had lost and been tormented by a lifelong need to find; the other a woman she had found but never allowed close.

Just before the trip to India, she had gone from her own studio flat to her foster mother’s house to pick up some things. She had found her sitting alone in the living room with the T.V. soundlessly on. Her foster mother did not move from her chair. She sat watching Nomi go up the stairs, listening to the sounds of cupboard doors opening and shutting, yet she asked no questions and Nomi knew that her foster mother could not speak for the dread that she was going to India because she had found some trail she would not reveal. To her biological family? The air between them was taut with unasked questions.

Nomi was overwhelmed then by an unexpected rush of compassion for the woman in the armchair, and with a terrible weariness at the burden of all that she could never speak of. She went to the drinks cabinet and poured shots of Aquavit and glasses of beer as her foster mother looked on in astonishment. They never had a drink together except dutifully, at Christmas. She kept topping up their glasses until the old woman started to smile, said they should eat something too, and warmed up meatballs that she heaped onto the white and blue plates from years ago. Afterwards Nomi made coffee and even washed up. When she left they didn’t hug, but she had reached out and squeezed her foster mother’s arm and said a gruff “see you soon” before hefting her backpack and walking out at the dark rain.

It was all so far away: that cold rain, the darkness at noon, her foster mother. Here the sun was burning her head up and there were many shrines to get through. She decided to find Suraj, time she turned professional again. There he was, still dozing. When she called, he struggled awake. There was a gap between his decision to open his eyes and the act of it.

“Hey, why are you sleeping? Get up! Make some notes. Come with me.”

Understanding the meaning of her words, that too happened with a moment’s lapse, like talking on a bad international line. He said, “Been here, seen this, binned it.” An infinite slowness came over him. He watched a bird sail over them. A very white cloud inched sideways in the blue sky.

“Up.” She held out a hand. He looked at it. “Come on.” He put his hand into hers and she yanked him up, let his hand go, strolled ahead, then bent down to squint at a sculpture at knee-level. “Can you tell what this is?”

“Some kind of animal,” Suraj yawned. “With a football for a belly and moustaches. No animal that I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s a lion, can’t you tell? I saw one like this. . not exactly, but very like it. At the sculptor’s yesterday. He was telling the truth after all!”

He was surprised by her excitement. He heard her out when she explained how the lion on the wall was evidence of some unknown man’s claim that he was descended from the same temple sculptors. She would go back to him, she declared, buy something to prove she believed him. Suraj did not think it worth pointing out that local craftsmen everywhere made copies of temple art. Was she really so gullible, to believe everything she was told?

They climbed down the stairs and crossed the courtyard to go towards the tallest tower. The people already at its top looked to his smoke-filled eyes as if they were regiments of mice scurrying over a mountainous pile of stone. His head swam. He groaned, “Oh. . forget it. I’ve seen it before. It’s not such a big deal.”

A guide with a few Japanese tourists glowered at him and raised his voice. “It is one of the great wonders of the world, this renowned temple to the sun.” He went ahead with his group and Nomi said, “Come on, Suraj, it’s a temple to you. Let’s try and see it. You have the sun in your name.”

“I’ve been here with my parents. I can truthfully say that I’ve already seen it.”

Parts of the tower had high stone stairs etched into the sides of walls without railings or handholds in any form. Nomi stepped carefully, eyes on her feet.“That must have been years ago,” she said. “You don’t remember a thing. Not enough to write a report on it for a film company.” Suraj lost sight of the words he was about to say in reply, feeling a perilous, airy sense of vertigo, a feeling he had to fight, of letting his body fall, as he had in the sea that morning — to let go, to float and fall from a great height. He stopped and shaded his eyes against the sun. If he looked at Nomi now, following him up the steps, he saw the earth far below, the sky immeasurably remote. The steps were steep, she was struggling up, her camera equipment was heavy. He should give her a hand. Then he saw that her kurta was sliding off a shoulder again. He noticed a black mole on the bare shoulder. Tiny. Perhaps raised — you couldn’t be sure unless you touched it.

He leaned forward, a finger stretched out.

Even as he leaned forward, and Nomi put her hand out to him thinking he was trying to help her over the steep bit, he saw his mother’s friend, Latika, climbing the stairs further away. When she faltered, a tall man, much younger than her, held her hand as if they had known each other for years. Suraj shut his eyes, opened them again. They were still there. He was truly stoned. High as a kite. Seeing things. Had he popped pills too that morning?

Then he remembered, as if from a great distance, that his mother had been going on for some time about a holiday with her friends. He never listened with much attention when she was on the phone, her patter registered dimly if at all. Mostly he browsed the web as her voice went on playing in the background, like music he wasn’t really listening to. Once he had put the phone down in the middle of a call for a full minute to find his cigarettes and light one. He had been proven right: she had not noticed him being gone.

Hurriedly, he withdrew his hand and Nomi said, “What are you? Straight off the Sistine Chapel ceiling?” She took another step up.

Suraj was clambering down the stairs. He stumbled, almost fell, but then righted himself and ran down.

“Hey, you’ll fall, careful!” She watched him bewildered. “Where are you going? What happened?”

“I’ve got to go. Right now. Something’s come up,” Suraj shouted to her over his shoulder. “I’ll wait for you in the car, O.K.? Come to the car when you’re done.” No trace of his drowsiness remained, he moved down the stairs and across the courtyards so swiftly that he was gone before she could ask another question. She looked around, confused — what was he running from? There was nobody she could see following him.