Tania James - Atlas of Unknowns

Bird had had her misgivings about such a lifestyle but found it fit her rootlessness. From her days in the hostel, she was used to living in close quarters with the patchwork family that came of traveling and working together, all the gentle bickering and comfort that accompanied it. The troupe was small enough for a degree of intimacy but large enough not to care when she wanted to be left alone, and no one took offense at her stretches of silence.

She discarded all her hopes of rising to Bollywood status, having grown bored of staring at the back of each starlet’s head. And though she had never acted in a play before, she thrilled to the immediate energy of the audience, their rapt silence as loud as any applause. Regardless of her age, their appreciation remained taut and unconditional, so much so that Bird was able to renegotiate her contract with Ghafoor, increasing her advance as well as her salary to one thousand rupees per show, except for the first and the seventh shows, whose profits went to the company’s upkeep. Fan mail began to follow Bird again, most often from men who tried to smother her with feeling, calling her eyes the color of brandy, loading her arms with bouquets and cakes, peering over their gifts with exquisite pain and ardor. She was used to such shows of affection after a performance, but in the heat, the flowers withered quickly, and with them, her interest.

HALFWAY THROUGH THE SEASON, the Apsara Arts Club suffered a setback at the hands of Vishwas, an actor who often played comic relief in the form of an undesirable woman. Though he never complained about being cast as a woman, it seemed to inspire in him a latent belligerence when drunk. On this particular evening, he got into a brawl at a local tavern, which sent him to the hospital with a broken leg. To replace him, Ghafoor brought to rehearsal a nineteen-year-old girl named Gracie. “Boy, girl, no matter,” he said. “What matters is the acting.”

Gracie was a mechanical actress. She had come to rehearsals with her part memorized, but Bird could see the lines passing through her mind before she uttered them, like ill-timed subtitles. She also had a terrible habit of leaning into someone else’s words, as if waiting to pounce on her own. But she was from a wealthy family, vacationing with her aunt in Kochi, and Ghafoor had promised the aunt that he would grant the girl a small part, that of a servant boy. It was a strategic move, as doing so would insure a small patronage from the aunt, but it irritated Bird to think that someday, perhaps three years hence, she would be replaced by just such a girl for whom life was as smooth and innocent as the ribbons in her hair.

Her first few lines were opposite Bird. “A strange lady is waiting at the door,” Gracie said. She paused for Bird to fill the silence.

Bird stared at the girl, her confidence, her ribbons, then addressed Ghafoor, who was nodding with encouragement. “Aren’t you going to correct her?”

Gracie hesitated. “Did I lose my place?”

Bird spoke before Ghafoor could interrupt. “Your line is this: ‘A lady is waiting at the door. A stranger.’ Not ‘a strange lady.’”

“Yes, okay, thank you, Bird,” said Ghafoor.

Bird ignored him. “You have to think when you speak. The lines come from your thoughts, not your memory. And you should be here, in this moment, not thinking two steps ahead—”

Ghafoor intervened by clapping his hands. “Okay, lesson over. Well done. Time for lunch.”

THAT EVENING, the new girl claimed the only remaining bed in Rani’s house, next to the Woodwinds. Upon Ghafoor’s insistence, Bird found her to apologize. “Gracie Kuruvilla is the daughter of a donor,” Ghafoor had said. “Not your protégée. And you, Bird, are not some guru of the dramatic arts! May I remind you that your last film was called Boy Friend ?”

“I’m sorry if I was rude,” Bird said to Gracie, taking a seat at the foot of her bed. Gracie was sitting on the floor before her narrow suitcase, sorting through her clothes. “I get carried away when I meet such young talent.”

Gracie gave her a sly, skeptical look. Her irises were as bright as new coins. “We both know I was terrible.”

“You were nervous. You’ll improve.”

Distracted, Gracie slowed her folding of an underskirt. “I always thought that an actor steps outside of himself to play a character, but I watched you today. You were yourself and someone else, both, entirely.” She made one final fold, pressing the underskirt tight as a package, and looked up. “It takes compassion to be that woman.”

Over the years, Bird had earned her share of fawning remarks, but none so earnest as this. After first reading Kalli Pavayuda Veede , Bird could not believe in a woman like Neera, no matter how many times Ghafoor had proclaimed her to be “real.” Bird had never known a woman to do what Neera had done, to renounce her own children, to leave an upstanding husband who was not an alcoholic or a gambler or a wife-beater. But that was the fresh thrill of acting, to descend inward to some common space from which she could understand a total stranger.

“Hah, what do I know,” Gracie said. “All I know is I’m no good.”

“You’re not leaving, are you?”

“No, no. I need the adventure. Life with my aunt is too boring, and by this time next year, I will be married.”

“You are engaged?”

Gracie quickly shook her head.

“Then how do you know you’ll be married?” Bird asked.

“My father says eighteen, nineteen, this is a normal age for marrying.”

“Hm.” Bird nodded. “Then I am not so normal, am I?”

“No,” Gracie said, shuffling through her clothes. “You are lucky.”

With a slow smile, Gracie unearthed an album from her suitcase and held it with both hands. She stared at the cover, her face filled with light. “Now we both are lucky.”

Gracie handed the album to Bird. To her, it did not look lucky but old, the corners worn, heavy with the weight of two records. On the cover was a circular symbol of two angels praying, and above this, a title that made Bird frown: Jesus Christ Superstar .

“Are you one of those Pentecostals?” Bird was annoyed. They had only just met and here the girl was trying to convert her.

“No,” Gracie said, puzzled. “Are you?”

“My mother was Hindu. My father was godless. It’s the only thing he and I have in common.”

Gracie raised her eyebrows. “You believe in nothing?”

“I believe I will not like this music.”

“Listen, I found it on a bookseller’s table. Usually they sell religious music but maybe the cover fooled them. Just as it’s fooled you.” She rose, pulling Bird up by the elbow. “I saw there was a record player downstairs.”

Bird began to protest that she had other things to do, though nothing specific came to mind. Promising just one song, Gracie led her along, already moving as if she knew the whole house. Bird followed her to the sitting room with its wall full of Reader’s Digest books, the abridged versions of legendary novels whose maroon and blue spines colored an otherwise muted room.

Just as Gracie claimed, there was a record player in the corner, beneath a sprawling spider plant. Gracie put the plant aside and opened the lid. She skimmed the dust from the record player with a velvet roller the size of a lipstick tube. When she was finished, she took the first record from Bird, keeping her fingers to the edges, and slid it onto the spool.

The machine hummed. The album began to spin. Gracie dropped the needle and sat in the armchair across from Bird.

They listened to both records from beginning to end, each song building upon the next, so that even if Bird could not understand all the words, she could glean the path of the story and its players, the voices that worshipped and fought, that loved in secret and died in disgrace. Sometimes, to Bird, the men sounded like yowling cats, but Jesus and Judas sang from a plane above the others, seething with frustration. The songs were often electronic and explosive; Bird did not enjoy them all. And yet there was one that held her as soon as the woman began to sing. Mary Magdalene was her name.