Tania James - Atlas of Unknowns

The voice poured through the speaker and swept through the room like a foreign wind, growing around Bird, gathering her up to the very heart of its lament. The woman seemed to bleed as she sang, as if singing were the last act before surrender. There were times when, in a spectacular throe, the voice rent itself with a wail and then continued on, this tearing and welding greater than the body from which it came, miraculous, invincible: Should I bring him down? Should I scream and shout? Should I speak of love, let my feelings out …

Eventually, Bird’s gaze came to rest on Gracie, who had folded her legs beneath her. She was staring at the floor with her copperbright eyes, and it seemed to Bird that this was not the first time Gracie had sat with this song, almost leaning into the sounds, as if the music were a wall she could rest against. The album spun and the world spun with it, but between the two of them was a precious stillness that Bird had never felt in the presence of anyone else.

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR became a household favorite, particularly Mary Magdalene’s song. Worried that the record would be ruined from overuse, Gracie made another trip to the book stall and returned with The Sound of Music , whose angelic Julie Andrews the housemates preferred. Bird and Gracie still favored Mary Magdalene, so they saved her for rare occasions.

At dinner, Gracie always made sure to sit by Bird, though other actors did most of the talking. Chummar, with his ridiculous stories of the elephant who fell in love with his animal trainer. Raman, who claimed to have had a secret affair with Zeenat Aman that went awry because he was Hindu and she Muslim. At times Bird thought it tiring, listening to people who never seemed to leave the stage behind.

Some troupe members began to call Gracie “Bird’s understudy,” knowing well that if talent did not keep Gracie from a dramatic career, her father would. Such was the way with “good girls,” they said, citing a goodness that had more to do with wealth than virtue. Ghafoor encouraged the friendship wholeheartedly, as if Bird’s befriending of Gracie were simply part of the larger strategy to gain her father’s favor. “Keep it up!” he said. “Who knows what he’ll donate by the time we reach Kottayam!”

But Bird would never drop the hints that Ghafoor wanted her to drop. She had no such designs on her friend, whom she secretly felt was far better than herself, though not because of her wealthy father or her pedigreed mother. In fact, Gracie readily admitted her dislike for her family, especially her father, who had refused to pay her college fees because the education of women was something he considered a waste. A generous dowry he would supply, but not tuition. She had wanted to study nursing, which could have taken her to Dubai or London or even New York. Like Bird, Gracie had always wanted to travel. But her father had looked down on the nursing profession and the women who daily studied and touched the ailing bodies of naked men. Sometimes Gracie said things that surprised Bird altogether, as when she added: “He has no problem studying and touching his secretary.”

In spite of her parents, Gracie was confident in a way that did not apologize for itself or exact humility from others, wholly unlike any woman that Bird had ever met. She rarely wore saris, claiming that they limited her stride. She kept her toenails and fingernails a bright, raw red. She rejected the gold bangles her mother gave her in favor of a rose-embroidered ribbon or a length of lace that she pinned around her wrist. None of these details alone made Gracie beautiful; it was the easy, elegant manner in which they were carried out.

And her openness encouraged the same in Bird, who told of her early days in the industry, which to most people held a dark allure. Nothing Bird revealed from her past was shocking or repulsive to Gracie, not the motel rooms or the promotions that followed. That Bird had made her own way filled Gracie with admiration.

Sometimes they pushed their beds together to talk in the evenings. Gracie had improved her English through movies and magazines that she had collected from various booksellers, hoping one day to use the language in Europe or America. She showed Bird two copies of Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem, one in English and the other in Malayalam, which they studied side by side. Gracie even memorized some of the simpler lines, whispering each word in the dark: “And sometimes God sends you a plain, ordinary passenger, the lively sort that likes to talk. And talk. And talk.” And so they did through the warm, unraveling night.

Slowly Bird began to believe in the broader reaches of love. Romantic love or physical love, these were small provinces in a boundless terrain, and the love between women friends was no less than any other. There were some loves that put a period to the end of one’s life, which from then on was lived primarily for the benefit of others. But Bird’s was a love that thrilled her with what lay ahead, even if she could not see very far.

IN THE APARTMENT, Bird encourages Anju to hang things on the wall, so as to make the place her own as well. But Anju has nothing to hang, unless she were to take some of the sketches from Linno’s sketchbook, an act that, despite her previous takings, would feel now like tearing pages from a Bible. Her favorite is an ink-pen drawing of the annual Vallankali races — two long peapod boats filled with dozens of rowers, their oars digging water beneath a sun that radiates spokes of light. Though Anju loved the boat races, her exhilaration always seemed somehow incomplete, as if she would never quite reach the nucleus of all that excitement and fervor. From the shores she watched along with thousands of onlookers, the shiny backs and curved spines of rowers, working men in their daily lives now heroes for the day, singing and plowing the water:

Kuttanadan punchyile, kochupenne kuyilale ,

(Little girl, cuckoo bird of the Kuttanadan paddyfields,)

Kottu venam!

(We need drums!)

Kolu venam!

(We need drumsticks!)

Kurava venam!

(We need horns!)

There were always one or two slower boats of women in white saris, thick arms and black buns, but Anju always imagined herself the cuckoo bird of Kuttanadu, a whole boat serenading her in passing while she watched from the shore, her nose attracting a sunburn.

If then she felt close to some center of importance, now she feels a world away. Back home, she had assumed that one’s very presence in New York would have a levitating effect on the spirit, but her feet drag in her heavy shoes. Perhaps this is what it means to be homesick, though she resolutely believes that such a sickness should be hidden, especially if Bird is to treat her like an adult.

Anju tries to think of her future methodically and mechanically, mapping the coming months. Bird recommends that she complete her high school degree through an online course. “No use in stopping your learning. A high school diploma will probably help when you apply for a green card. It will make you look like …” She tries to remember one of Rajiv Tandon’s English phrasings. “An attractive applicant.”

“But who will give me a diploma after I was expelled from school?” Anju asks.

Bird waves away her concerns. “Even a convicted felon can get a degree so long as he studies hard and pays the fees.”

Unused to having felons for peers, Anju hesitates. “But the tuition …”

“That I will pay for. You never would have messed with that Tandon if not for me. It’s the least I can do.”

Quietly, Anju thanks her.