Sharma Akhil - Family Life

This seemed to imply that she was open to being my girlfriend. I was relieved. “My parents don’t like me getting calls either. Except from boys.”

“I don’t want anyone to know I have a boyfriend. Somebody might tell my mother just to cause trouble.”

“Me, too. People gossip.”

“Studies come first.”

I nodded quickly. “For me also. Marriage and love can come when studies are done and one is established in one’s profession.”

“We can talk,” Minakshi said.

“But only if we are alone and nobody can overhear.”

“I don’t want sex until I’m married.”

“I don’t want to kiss.” Raising the standards of what was proper was a way of making myself more appealing, more trustworthy.

We stopped talking. The air was cold and smelled of moist earth, and this seemed wonderful. We came to a street corner and crossed. On the other side, Minakshi said, “If you had a dog, what would you name it?”

In the past, when I had thought about having a dog, I had imagined that possessing one would make me white, like one of those boys on TV who hugged their pet when unhappy. I had given this dog an American-type name like Scout or Goldie. Now, imagining a dog within the context of having a girlfriend, it seemed disloyal to give the dog a white dog’s name, as if then I would be giving affection to a white dog instead of an Indian one, and so would not be acting adult and proper. “Something Indian,” I said.

“Me, too.”

Minakshi became silent. The road we were on began to curve away. After a moment, Minakshi said, “I’ll be your girlfriend.”

“Good,” I said and stopped. “I have to turn back.”

“Don’t call me,” she said. “My parents will get upset.”

“OK. I won’t. You don’t call either.”

WITHIN A FEW weeks Minakshi and I were kissing. When I tried to get us to start doing this, I wasn’t sure how to suggest it without appearing like I was going back on my word. I therefore pouted and hinted vaguely at Birju being sick so Minakshi would try comforting me.

Behind our school was a football field bordered by a track. Beyond this were woods. The woods, mostly maples and crab apples, were where students who did not have places to make out went. Minakshi and I walked into the woods one afternoon. The day was very cold and the fallen leaves reached our ankles. When we had gone far enough for the school between the trees to look distant, we stopped.

I was excited to kiss for the first time. I also felt that I was taking advantage of Minakshi. To me, it seemed that the only reason she was coming into the woods with me was because she was trying to soothe me, that she felt no desire of her own.

Minakshi was wearing a long blue parka that came to her knees. I was wearing a blue ski jacket. We hugged. Our coats squeaked. My heart was racing. I brought my face down to hers. The warmth of her body, the smell of spices from what she ate surprised me. She felt real and mysterious in a way that took me aback.

I believed that proper kissing required not breathing on the person one was kissing. We kissed and kissed. I held my breath. Blue sparks floated before me.

School ended at 2:35, and the nurse’s aide left at four. I had to get back before then. I walked home. The sky looked somehow new. I was so happy that my pace kept speeding up. I had the feeling that everything would be OK for me, that one day everything would be fine.

Birju was lying on his exercise bed beneath the chandelier. Seeing him, I remembered our apartment in Queens, how the intercom would ring when his girlfriend was downstairs. I remembered Nancy’s long black hair. I wondered what had happened to her.

MINAKSHI AND I kissed every day. Once, it was raining and I didn’t think we could go out, and she said, “I have an umbrella.” When she said this, I thought I had misheard her. The fact that she, too, wanted to kiss was hard to believe.

I had meant to be like Amitabh Bachchan with Minakshi — silent, mysterious. I found, though, that I could not stop talking, that when we were in the woods and I would pull away from her to breathe, I would immediately start speaking, that I wanted to talk as much as I wanted to kiss.

At first I said the sorts of things that would stir up pity or portray me as brave. I told her about how smart Birju had been. I told her how I bathed him in the morning and how, often, after we put him back into his hospital bed, Birju, warm and relaxed, tended to piss on himself. After a little while, though, I began telling her things which were so awful that I had somehow managed not to acknowledge them.

When Birju had gotten pneumonia, he had had a series of convulsions. These had caused more brain damage. Before the convulsions, if there was a loud noise, he would swing his head in the direction of the noise. Now when there was a noise, he wouldn’t react — he’d remain smacking his lips and looking lost in thought. Earlier Birju had been able to sit mostly straight in his wheelchair. Now, when we sat him up, he began slumping. To keep him upright, we had to put his arms through a vest of sorts. The vest was missing a back but had long straps on the sides. We used these to tie Birju to his wheelchair.

I did not normally spend money on the vending machines in school. Spending money made me anxious. After I told Minakshi about this additional brain damage, I went back into the building and bought an ice cream. I think telling her was like releasing some enormous stress and the ice cream was like how one sits down after a shock.

I found myself falling in love. Minakshi seemed kind and wonderful. Her small body, how I could gather it up in my arms like a bouquet, seemed the most extraordinary thing in the world. Loving her, I was scared. There were certain things I didn’t tell her because they were humiliating — my father’s drinking, my mother’s irrationality and meanness. I expected to be judged based on my family, and not telling her about my parents, I felt as if I were pretending to be better than I was.

SOMETIMES, COMING HOME from kissing Minakshi, I would see Birju on his exercise bed and get upset. I couldn’t understand why everything wasn’t better. I wanted to hurt someone or something. The only thing I could find to hurt was my relationship with Minakshi.

Priya was taller than I was and very skinny and had a nose like a beak. We were in biology class together, and I had spoken to her only a few times. I knew, though, that her father was a doctor and she was very smart. Also, she sat with Rita and the white girls.

I began telling Priya I loved her. Passing her on the staircase, I whispered this. I slipped little strips of paper into her locker. On the strips I wrote poems. I did this four or five times, and then Priya came up to me in biology class. I was standing in the back alongside the bulletin boards.

“Did you write this?” she asked, holding out one of the strips.

The class had not yet begun, but most of the students were already there. I was conscious of their presence. I thought of Minakshi finding out.

“No,” I said.

Priya laughed. “I heard you told Rita you loved her.”

I didn’t say anything.

Sometimes on weekends my parents went to temple or a prayer ceremony and were away for the afternoon. Minakshi came over then. First she would stand in Birju’s room and say hello to him. When she did this, she looked serious. Afterward we went upstairs. We would lie on my bed fully clothed. We would kiss and rub against each other. I couldn’t believe I was getting to do something so wonderful.

Minakshi seemed the embodiment of a future. The possibility of escape made me more impatient with my mother instead of less. She and I were now bathing Birju most mornings. Nearly always we fought as we did this. One morning in Birju’s room, perhaps inspired by how eunuchs in India show up at people’s houses and demand money and begin taking off their clothes to show they will do anything unless they are paid, I started stripping. I had just finished bathing my brother, cleaning his ass with a bar of soap, and my mother had been telling me that she knew I hated him, that whatever I did for him I did because of guilt and not because of love.