Akhil Sharma - An Obedient Father

His steps sounded like a shuffle. Leather rubbing against stone. There was something forlorn to the sound. Rajinder, Rajinder, Rajinder, how are you?

First the head: oval, high forehead, handsome eyebrows. Then the not so broad but not so narrow shoulders. The top two buttons of the cream shirt were opened, revealing some hair, a white undershirt. The two weeks since I last saw him had not changed Rajinder, yet he felt different, somehow denser.

"How was your day?" I asked, while he was still in the stairwell.

"All right," he said, stepping onto the roof. He smiled. His helmet was in his left hand. In his right was a plastic bag full of mangoes. "When did you get home?" The you was informal. I felt a surge of relief He will not resist, I thought.

"A little after three."

I followed him into the bedroom. He placed the helmet on the windowsill. The mangoes went in the refrigerator. I remained silent.

Rajinder walked onto the roof to the sink on the outside bathroom wall. He began washing his hands, face, neck with soap. "Your father is fine?" he asked. Before putting the chunk of soap down, he rinsed it of foam. Only then did he pour water on himself He used a thin washcloth hanging on a nearby hook for drying. When I am with him, I promised myself, I will not think of Pitaji. It's much more than seven years since Pitaji touched me.

"Yes."

"What did the doctor say?" he asked, turning toward me. He was like a black diamond.

"Nothing."

I watched Rajinder hang his shirt by the collar tips on the clothesline. I suddenly became sad at the rigorous attention to details necessary to preserve love. Perhaps it is easier for other women, I thought, women who are braver, who have less to be afraid of, who have more trust. That must be a different type of love, I thought, in which one can be careless.

"It will rain tonight," he said, looking at the sky.

The eucalyptus trees shook their heads from side to side. "The rain always makes me feel as if I am waiting for someone," I said. Immediately I regretted saying it, for Rajinder was not paying attention. Perhaps it might have been said better. "Why don't you sit on the balcony." The balcony was what we called the area near the stairwell. "I'll make sherbet."

He took the newspaper with him. The fridge water was warm. This slight disappointment was enough to start melancholy pooling. I gave him the drink. I placed mine on the floor near his chair,

then went to get a chair for myself. A fruit seller passed by, calling out in a reedy voice, "Sweet, sweet mangoes. Sweeter than first love." On the roof directly across, a seven- or eight-year-old boy was trying to fly a large purple kite. I sat down beside Rajinder. I waited for him to look up, because I did not want to interrupt his reading. When he looked away from the paper to take a sip of sherbet, I asked, "Did you fly kites?"

"A little," he answered, looking at the boy. "Ashok bought some with the money he earned. He'd let me fly them sometimes." The fact that his father had died when he was young was encouraging. I believed one must be lonely before being able to love.

"Do you like Ashok?"

"He is my brother," he answered, shrugging. With a sip of the sherbet he returned to the newspaper. I felt Rajinder had reprimanded me.

I sat beside Rajinder and waited for the electricity to return. I was happy, excited, frightened being beside him. We spoke about Kusum going to America, though Rajinder did not want to talk about this. Rajinder was the most educated member of our combined family. After Kusum received her Ph.D. she would be.

The electricity didn't come back. I started cooking in the dark. Rajinder sat on the balcony with the radio playing. "This is Akash-wani," the announcer said, then the music like horses racing which plays whenever a new program is about to start. It was very hot in the kitchen. Periodically I stepped onto the roof to look at the curve of Rajinder's neck. This confirmed the tenderness in me.

Rajinder ate slowly. Once, he complimented me on my cooking, but he was mostly silent.

"What are you thinking?" I asked. He appeared not to have heard. Tell me! Tell me! Tell me! I thought, shocking myself by the urgency I felt.

A candle on the television made pillars of shadows rise and collapse on the walls. I searched for something to start a conversation with. "Pitaji began crying when I left."

"You could have stayed a few more days," he said, chewing.

"I did not want to." I thought of adding, "I missed you," but that was not true. Also, he had not indicated he missed me.

Rajinder mixed black pepper with his yogurt. "Did you tell him you'll visit soon?"

"No. I think he was crying because he was lonely."

"He should have more courage." Rajinder did not like Pitaji, thought him weak-willed. "He is old. Shadows creep into one's heart at his age." I felt as if he were telling me not to be hindered by my doubts. The shutter of a bedroom window began slamming. I stood to latch it.

I washed the dishes while Rajinder bathed. When he came out, dressed in his white kurta pajama with his hair combed back, I was standing near the railing at the edge of the roof I was looking out beyond the darkness of our neighborhood at a distant ribbon of electric light. I was tired from the nervousness I had been feeling all evening. Rajinder came up behind me. "Won't you bathe?" he asked. I suddenly became exhausted. Bathe so we can make love. The deliberately unsaid felt obscene. I wondered if I had the courage to say no. I realized I didn't. What kind of love can we have? I thought.

I said, "In a little while. Comedy hour is starting." We sat down on our chairs with Gopi Ram's whiny voice between us. This week he had gotten involved with criminals who wanted to go to jail to collect the reward on themselves. The canned laughter gusted from several flats. When the music of the racing horses marked the close of the show, I felt hopeful again. Rajinder looked very handsome in his kurta pajama.

I bathed carefully, pouring mug after mug of cold water over myself till my fingertips were wrinkled. The candlelight turned the bathroom orange. My skin appeared copper. I washed my pubis carefully so no smell remained from urinating. Rubbing myself dry, I became aroused. I thought how abject all this was. I put on the red sari again. I wore no bra so my nipples showed through the blouse. As I dressed, a strange emotion began filling me. I was clenching and unclenching my hands. As I noticed I was doing this, I started shaking. The feeling was close to panic, but not exactly that. I wanted to

run toward instead of away. It was not some form of love either. Even one afternoon of loving let me know that. The emotion was like anger.

After a few minutes, I went out. I stood beside Rajinder. My arm brushed against his kurta sleeve. Periodically a raindrop fell, but these were so intermittent I might have been imagining them. On the roofs all around us, on the street, were the dim figures of men, women, and children waiting for the first rain. "You look pretty," he said. Somewhere Lata Mangeshkar sang with a static-induced huski-ness. The street was silent. Even the children were hushed. As the wind picked up, Rajinder said, "Let's close the windows."

The wind coursed along the floor, upsetting newspapers, climbing the walls to swing on curtains. There was a candle on the refrigerator. As I leaned over to pull a window shut, Rajinder pressed against me. He cupped my right breast. I felt a shock of desire pass through me. As I walked around the rooms shutting windows, he followed behind, touching my buttocks, pubis, stomach.

When the last window was closed, I waited for a moment before turning around, because I knew he wanted me to turn around quickly. He pulled me close, with his hands on my buttocks. I took his tongue in my mouth. We kissed like this for a long time.