Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

The subtleties were lost on Akhil, who rolled over with such a thump that the couch shuddered a little.

Kamala peered at her son as though he were a jar of something unidentifiable in a fridge. “At least he’s eating.”

It was an understatement. The sheer amount of food Akhil put away each night at dinner was nothing short of phenomenal. Mountains of rice, stacks of chapatis, flotillas of idlis, and entire chickens disappeared during meals. Amina saw him go through a bag of oranges in one sitting.

At the end of the third week, Kamala perched on the sofa arm. “And what,” she asked Amina, as though they had been in the middle of a conversation, “does he say about it?”

“About what?” Amina turned the page of her book, guilt emanating from her upper lip, her armpits.

Kamala pointed a squiggling finger at the space over Akhil’s head. “This sleeping-all-the-time business.”

“He doesn’t say anything about it.” This was true. The three times she had tried to bring up his new sleeping pattern, Akhil had either turned up the radio, ignored her, or accused her of trying to “get more fucking money by making shit up.”

“You think he’s depressed?”

“He’s always depressed.”

“Not true! He’s always angry .” Kamala pulled a piece of fuzz from his eyelashes, studied it, and flicked it away. Akhil did not move. “Has something bad happened to him recently?”

“You mean other than Salem?”

Kamala’s lip curled inward, her nostrils flared. She blinked at Amina several times before saying, “That didn’t happen to Akhil.”

“No, I know, but we just—”

“Not Akhil. Not you.” Kamala walked to the chair Amina sat in and bent down, surprising her with a kiss on the head.

“You both are fine ,” she said, squeezing Amina’s arm quickly before heading to the kitchen.

Strangely, saying the words out loud changed something in Kamala. As week four turned to five and the holidays rounded the corner, she was lighter suddenly, bustling about the kitchen, making tins of cookies and halwa that Akhil would devour by the handful before passing out, crumbs lining his lips. Once, when she caught Amina hovering over the couch, she prodded her away, saying, “Enough,” like Amina was pinching him.

“Maybe he’s fucking possessed,” Dimple suggested on Christmas Day, channeling Mindy Lujan to the best of her ability, though the holiday had wrenched them apart for an entire twenty-four hours. She and Amina stood in Akhil’s room, looking down at his sleeping body. “What does your dad think?”

“He’s been really busy with work. And it only really happens in the afternoon like this, when Dad isn’t around, so it’s really just me and Mom who see it.”

“And what does Our Lady of Supreme Intolerance say?”

“She thinks he’s fine because he’s not depressed.”

“Cool.” Dimple’s eyes wandered toward Akhil’s window. “Do you know where he hides his cigs?”

But it was not cool. As the cars of the Kurians and the Ramakrishnas receded down the driveway, as Thomas mumbled about needing to make rounds and Kamala divided the leftover idlis into Ziplocs for freezing, Amina sat in Akhil’s beanbag, peeking at her snoring brother over the pages of her book. The next week she grew more agitated. Was it normal for anything that wasn’t a cat to sleep for sixteen hours a day?

“I think he’s sick,” she announced loudly after dinner the following Monday. Enough was enough. Winter break was over, and Akhil was getting worse instead of better, heading for the couch like a drunk rushing to the bottle the minute they came home.

“You said yourself he is doing fine in school,” Kamala said, scrubbing the stove with gusto.

“Look at him, Ma. Does he look fine to you?”

They looked at Akhil. Truthfully, Akhil did not look un fine so much as uncomfortable, one arm folded under him, the other hanging bent over the edge of the sofa.

“This isn’t normal,” Amina said.

Her word lingered in the air, spreading like the smell of smoke. Amina saw her mother’s shoulders dip and rise. Kamala went to the kitchen, picked up the phone, dialed.

“Come now! Your son is sick and won’t wake up!” she announced after a beat. She slammed the phone down.

It rang back almost immediately. She listened.

“No ambulance!” She slammed the phone down again.

Half an hour later Thomas gunned down the driveway in a whirl of dust. He left the car door open and the lights on, running in the front door.

“Where is he?” he asked Kamala, not breaking his stride.

“The living room.” Kamala, Amina, and Queen Victoria followed him down the hall.

“What exactly is wrong?”

“He won’t wake up.”

“How long has he been out?”

“Not out, sleeping! Since he got home!”

“Did he suffer any kind of head trauma today? Falling, getting hit, anything like that?”

Kamala looked at Amina.

“Not that I saw,” Amina said.

By now they had entered the living room. Thomas took a sharp breath and knelt down on the shag rug. He shooed away the dog and pulled at Akhil’s eyelids, revealing the white, swirling custard of both eyes. He grabbed a wrist.

“Akhil?” His voice was loud.

Akhil rolled over. “Mnff.”

“Akhil, wake up.”

Akhil frowned but didn’t open his eyes.

Thomas looked at his watch. “Pulse is steady and breathing looks fine.” He placed his hand under Akhil’s nose, then reached into his pocket, pulling out a thermometer. He placed it in Akhil’s ear. “So he’s been asleep for about five hours?”

“No, he was awake for dinner,” Kamala said.

“I thought you said he’s been asleep since he got home.”

“He woke for dinner and then went right back to sleep,” Kamala said. She leaned forward, whispered knowingly, “Maybe drugs.”

“Did he have a healthy appetite? What did he eat?”

“Five helpings of chicken curry, nine chapatis, two spoons of salad, one bowl of rice and dahl, one bottle of RC Cola.”

Thomas’s eyes widened. “Really? All of it?”

“What, all of it? He likes my cooking.”

“And dinner ended when?”

Kamala glanced at the clock in the kitchen, held up her fingers calculating. “Two and a half hours ago.”

“He’s not on drugs,” Amina volunteered.

The thermometer beeped and Thomas pulled it out, looking at it for a long moment. “So he was totally coherent during dinner?”

“Not at all,” Kamala said with the barest note of triumph in her voice. “I said ‘Good for Star Wars,’ and he said nothing!”

Thomas looked at Amina for translation.

“You know, Reagan’s new defense-policy thing. Mom said she supported it, and Akhil didn’t argue.”

Amina watched this information filter through her father’s mind, his brow growing heavy. “Kamala, you do realize I was with a patient.”

“And?”

“And this could have waited.”

“I’ve waited two months! How much longer should I be waiting?”

Thomas pulled the stethoscope from his neck, placing the white tips inside his ears. Amina and her mother stood still as he cocked his head, shut his eyes. When he was done, he pulled the earpieces out and rocked back on his heels, taking in the room. He looked at the book bags flung on the floor, the shoes and papers covering the carpet, the television broadcasting game-show applause. His eyebrows raised slightly at the “snackument”—a tower of crackers and spray cheese that Amina liked to build and eat — before landing on Vanna White turning over a row of white s ’s.

“Well?” Kamala asked.

Thomas stood up, pulling a big antennaed block out of his pocket and setting it on the table in front of the couch. “We’ll just have to see.”