Lorrie Moore - 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories

The orderlies laid Pitaji on the cot in his bedroom and left. The room was small and dark, smelling faintly of the kerosene with which the bookshelves were treated every other week to prevent termites. Traveling had tired him, and he fell asleep quickly. He woke as I was about to leave. Ma and I were speaking in whispers outside his bedroom.

“I am used to his screaming,” Ma said. “He won’t get any greasy food here. But once he can walk…”

“He seems to have changed.”

“Right now he’s afraid. Give him a few days and he’ll return to normal. People can’t change, even if they want to.”

“What are you saying about me?” Pitaji tried to call out, but his voice was like wind on dry grass.

“You want something?” Ma asked.

“Water.”

As I started toward the fridge, Ma said, “Nothing cold.” The clay pot held only enough for one glass. I knelt beside the cot and helped Pitaji rise to a forty-five-degree angle. His heaviness and the weakness of his body moved me. Like a baby holding a bottle, Pitaji held the glass with both hands and made sucking noises as he drank. I lowered him when his shoulder muscles slackened. His eyes were red, and they moved about the room slowly. I wondered whether I could safely love him if I did not reveal my feelings.

“More?” he asked.

“Only fridge water,” I said. Ma was clattering in the kitchen. “I am going home.”

“Rajinder is good?” He looked at the ceiling while speaking.

“Yes,” I said. A handkerchief of light covered his face, and faint blue veins, like delicate, almost translucent roots, showed through the skin of his forehead. “The results for his exam came,” I told him. “He will be promoted. He was second in Delhi.” Pitaji closed his eyes. “Are you hurting?” I asked.

“I feel tired.”

I too felt tired. I did not know what to do with my new love or whether it would last. “That will pass, the doctor said. Why don’t you sleep?”

“I don’t want to,” he said loudly, and my love drew back.

“I must go,” I said, but made no move to.

“Forgive me,” he said, and again I was surprised. “I am not worried usually, but I get frightened sometimes. Sometimes I dream that the heaviness is dirt. What an awful thing to be a Muslim or a Christian.” He spoke slowly, and I felt my love returning. “Once, I dreamed of Baby’s ghost.”

“Oh.”

“He was eight or nine and did not recognize me. He did not look like me. I was surprised, because he was my son and I had always expected him to look like me.”

I felt exhausted. Something about the story was both awkward and polished, which indicated deceit. But Pitaji never lied completely, and the tiring part was not knowing. “God will forgive you,” I said. But why should he? I thought. Why do people always think hurting others is all right, as long as they hurt themselves as well?

“Your mother has not.”

I placed my hand on his, knowing that I was already in the trap. “Shhh.”

“At your birthday, when she sang, I said, ‘If you sing like that for me every day, I will love you forever.’”

“She loves you. She worries about you.”

“That’s not the same. When I tell Asha this, she tells me I’m sentimental. Ratha loved me once. But she cannot forgive. What happened so long ago, she cannot forgive.” He was blinking rapidly, preparing to cry. “But that is a lie. She does not love me because,” and he began crying without making a sound, “I did not love her for so long.”

“Shhh. She loves you. She was just saying ‘Oh, I love him so. I hope he gets better, for I love him so.’”

“Ratha could have loved me a little. She could have loved me twenty for my eleven.” He was sobbing.

“Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.” I wanted to run away, far away, and be someone else.

The sleep that afternoon was like falling. I lay down, closed my eyes, and plummeted. I woke as suddenly, without any half-memories of dreams, into a silence that meant that the power was gone, and the ceiling fan was still, and the fridge was slowly warming.

It was cool, I noticed, unsurprised by the monsoon’s approach — for I was in love. The window curtains stirred, revealing TV antennas and distant gray clouds and a few sparrows wheeling in the air. The sheet lay bunched at my feet. I felt gigantic. My legs stretched thousands of miles; my head rested in the Himalayas and my breath brought the world rain. If I stood up, I would scrape against the sky. But I was small and compact and distilled too. I am in love, I thought, and a raspy voice echoed the words in my head, causing me to panic and lose my sense of omnipotence for a moment. I will love Rajinder slowly and carefully and cunningly, I thought, and suddenly felt peaceful again, as if I were a lake and the world could only form ripples on my surface, while the calm beneath continued in solitude. Time seemed endless, and I would surely have the minutes and seconds needed to plan a method of preserving this love, like the feeling in your stomach when you are in a car going swiftly down a hill. Don’t worry, I thought, and I no longer did. My mind obeyed me limply, as if a terrible exhaustion had worn away all rebellion.

I got up and swung my legs off the bed. I was surprised that my love was not disturbed by my physical movements. I walked out onto the roof. The wind ruffled the treetops, and small gray clouds slid across the cool, pale sky. On the street eight or nine young boys played cricket. The school year had just started, and the children played desperately, as if they must run faster, leap higher, to recapture the hours spent indoors.

Tell me your stories, I would ask him. Pour them into me, so that I know everything you have ever loved or been scared of or laughed at. But thinking this, I became uneasy and feared that when I actually saw him, my love would fade and I would find my tongue thick and unresponsive. What should I say? I woke this afternoon in love with you. I love you too, he would answer. No, no, you see, I really love you. I love you so much that I think anything is possible, that I will live forever. Oh, he would say, and I would feel my love rush out of me.

I must say nothing at first, I decided. Slowly I will win his love. I will spoil him, and he will fall in love with me. And as long as he loves me, I will be able to love him. I will love him like a camera that closes at too much light and opens at too little, so his blemishes will never mar my love.

I watched the cricket game to the end. I felt very happy standing there, as if I had just discovered some profound secret. When the children dispersed, around five, I knew Rajinder would be home soon.

I bathed and changed into new clothes. I stood before the small mirror in the armoire as I dressed. Uneven brown aureoles, a flat stomach, the veins in my feet like pen marks. Will this be enough? I wondered. Once he loves me, I told myself. I lifted my arms and tried to smell the plantlike odor of my perspiration. I wore a bright red cotton sari. What will I say first? Namastay —how was your day? With the informal “you.” How was your day? The words felt strange, for I had never before used the informal with him. I had, as a show of modesty, never even used his name, except on the night before my wedding, when I said it over and over to myself to see how it felt — like nothing. Now when I said “Rajinder,” the three syllables had too many edges, and again I doubted that he would love me. “Rajinder, Rajinder,” I said rapidly several times, until it no longer felt strange. He will love me because to do otherwise would be too lonely, because I will love him so. I heard a scooter stopping outside the building and knew that he had come home.

My stomach was small and hard as I walked onto the roof. The dark clouds made it appear as if it were seven instead of five-thirty. I saw him roll the scooter into the courtyard and I felt happy. He parked the scooter and took off his gray helmet. He combed his hair carefully to hide the growing bald spot. The deliberateness of the way he tucked the comb into his back pocket overwhelmed me with tenderness. We will love each other gently and carefully, I thought.