Читать книгу A Darker Light - Heidi Priesnitz - Страница 9

With the window and the early-morning rush of Halifax traffic at her back, Sitara raised her hands from prayer to temple—elbows pointed down, palms pressed hard together. Balancing on one leg with the other tucked into half-lotus against her supporting thigh, her belly-expanding breath was deep and even. Standing in a self-made temple did more than calm her mind and regulate her breathing, it connected her consciousness with her body—something she needed now more than usual.

After moving through a flow of postures, she rested for a moment before sitting on a small Persian rug. With her pelvic bones balanced evenly on the ground and her hands upturned on her knees, she let her eyes softly close. The emptiness she searched for was beginning to fill her head.

Following a long period of meditation, Sitara stood up. In the bedroom, she slid off her black drawstring pants and looked for some jeans. After finding a pair that was fading from black to grey, she pulled a small black t-shirt from her drawer and slipped it on.

For breakfast she sliced an apple that was past its prime and dipped it in almond butter straight from the jar. To lift the sticky residue of the nuts and rinse away the mushiness of the fruit, she chased the meal with a glass of grapefruit juice.

Stepping into the bathroom she brushed her teeth with cinnamon and baking soda. It was dry and gritty and didn't leave her mouth feeling clean. Spitting it out, she decided to use the remainder of the jar on the grimy scum around the drain.

As she cast a quick glance at a belly-high mirror, she grabbed a book she had been reading the night before, and let herself out the door.

On the bike ride to her clinic, she cut off several cars and almost hit a pedestrian waiting at a crosswalk. Sighing, she thought, Maybe meditation doesn't work.

The sun flashed through twenty-four empty bottles before disappearing again behind a cloud. Jasmine, cinnamon, ylang ylang, cedar. The lavender was in her hand.

Three drops of oil fell into a shell.

There were two patients waiting in the lobby. Sitara was more than an hour behind. She set the shell on the windowsill next to the row of coloured glass and inhaled deeply from the bottle that was still in her hand.

Her father had bad timing. She'd always known that—her mother had reminded her every day. Parvati was forty-one when her husband made her pregnant. That was her opinion—that he'd made her pregnant, as if it was fully his fault. She'd married him on the condition that he wouldn't and, of course, he hadn't intended to. Even as the years went by, she accepted no responsibility for her baby's birth. Sitara was ill-conceived, and her mother never let her forget it.

Hearing the restless shuffle of clothing in her waiting room, she put the bottle down, smoothed the white sheet of her examination table and checked the bedside drawer for cotton swabs and needles. Then, opening her office door, she smiled intentionally and motioned for her next patient to come in.

Patrick sat down in the chair across from her, barely touching the wood. Like a bird, he fluttered every extremity. His eyes darted and fled. Every time he entered her clinic, he brought a wave of motion with him, but today it made her queasy.

Forgoing her usual pleasantries, she invited him to lie down. Glancing up at the Meridians of Chinese Medicine poster framed above the bed, she listened to the flow of blood through the veins on his wrist and legs and asked him a series of questions.

"How have you been sleeping?"

"So-so."

"How are your bowels?"

"Fine."

"What about headaches?"

"Same as usual."

"Why did my father choose today?"

Patrick started to fidget and Sitara looked away.

Sarasvati beckons to me with three of her four arms. I crawl into the kitchen cupboards to see her. She hides next to the sink, where my parents keep the spices. When I close the door I am surrounded by a darkness that is rich and raw with scent. I reach for the cardamom pods, thinking they are her favourite because they are mine. I try to crush them with my fingers, but they are awkward and tough. Instead I use my foot. Finally the papery shells burst open, and the strangely shaped seeds dig into my heel. When I find her, Sarasvati is warm and aromatic. She speaks to me in Sanskrit and I understand. It is our secret code. Holding the cardamom jar tightly in my hand, I ask her to sing. Parvati, my mother, has been gone for hours and I am alone.

Sitara rolled her shoulders back and straightened her spine. After she turned eleven she no longer fit into that cupboard, although she tried, by not eating, to stay small. For the next few years she hid in her room or locked herself in the bathroom. But her father always caught on. By age thirteen, her hiding places were no longer in the apartment—she slept in parks or on other people's floors. An old woman at the temple sometimes "forgot" to lock the door.

"Do you not care where she has been?" Bapa asks.

Parvati stares at him. "Has she been somewhere?"

I cringe, thinking that she notices him only because they share a bed.

"She has been gone three nights."

"Oh." My mother shifts back to her book.

"Parvati, Sitara would like to speak with you."

I try to broaden my shoulders, lengthen my spine, make myself large enough for her to see. She lifts an eyebrow but does not raise her eyes.

With too much force, Sitara pushed a needle into Patrick's leg. He winced and clenched his fists. She'd missed. Slowly, without looking at his face, she withdrew the needle and reinserted it into the proper place.

Slinking off to my room, I hear Bapa say, "You should pay some attention to her. She needs a mother."

"She has you."

"Parvati." He lowers his voice. "She is a woman now. There is only so much I can do."

Ashamed, I close the door, knowing that he has seen the blood stains on my bed.

"I'm sorry," Patrick said, pounding his chest and trying to swallow a cough.

Sitara smiled. "Let it go, if you want to. A trapped cough is like a caged animal. The more you hold it back, the more angry it gets. There's a reason it wants out."

Eagerly, Patrick sat up and coughed and coughed and coughed.

"Maybe save a little for later," Sitara added, as his throat went dry.

He stopped.

"Lie down again. There's one more thing I want to do."

Using her dark, slender hand, Sitara pulled a new needle from its plastic sheath and positioned it at the midpoint of Patrick's collarbone. She had been treating him for depression, but all she could think of was releasing the phlegm that was clouding his heart.

Just after dinner someone knocks on the door. Standing up, Parvati coughs loudly and Bapa escorts me out of the room. I know the cough is a signal, because my bapa always responds the same way. After closing the door of my room, he sits down next to me on the bed and places his favourite book gently on his lap. The cover is stained with oil—"pakora pee" he calls it—and the binding is coming undone. He tells me he has had it since childhood—the one treasure he was allowed to take with him when he left home. Although I know this already, he reminds me that he is the eighth of nine children, and the only one who moved away from their province.

Proudly he lifts open the grease-marked cover and shows me the inscription inside. He reads it in Hindi before he says it in English. Then he takes my hand and helps me run my fingers over the tiny letters. I try but, unlike him, I cannot feel the surface of the ink. I think maybe it has worn down and that all he feels is a memory. Impatiently, I beg him to move on. Smiling, he does. On the first page there are a lot of words that I cannot read. He translates some, with embellishments I think, because it's different every time. But it doesn't matter what he says—I'm busy feasting my eyes on the long hair, radiant skin and beautiful saris of the full-colour goddesses. In total, there are sixteen illustrations—nine gods, seven goddesses—and I have memorized them all. To me, Sarasvati is the most powerful because she is also on the front cover.

In the next room I can hear laughter. I ask Bapa, "Who is out there?"

"Some people from your mother's work."

"But who is laughing?"

"Your mother," he says.

I'm surprised because I've never heard her laugh like that before.

Repeating the same fast movement, Sitara removed each of the needles from her patient's skin. They were still humming as she dropped them into the sharps container next to the bed.

"We're done," she said. "When you're ready, you can get up."

Scratching his head, Patrick sat up and swung his legs several times before he jumped down. As Sitara wrote out a receipt, he shed more energy by unfastening and refastening his watch-strap. She could see that she was still running more than forty-five minutes behind.

"Shall we book another?" she asked.

"Yes, of course. Same time next week."

Like clockwork, she thought. Something to write in his book. "Try this," she said, handing him a bottle of herbs. "It will help to resolve your phlegm."

"I will, I will. Thank you." He jittered out the door.

Sitting briefly before admitting her next patient, Sitara lifted the lid of her teacup. There was no steam, but still she took a sip. Hot, green tea is bliss, she thought, cold, it is piss. She could no longer recall his face, but a professor at college had spoken it repeatedly—his own personal mantra. Even with its lid, her thin porcelain mug couldn't keep things permanently warm.

Standing again, Sitara looked out the window. There was a breeze on Hollis Street—she could see the bare-branched trees swaying—although no air moved through the clinic. For months she had been meaning to buy a fan. Lifting the brown and white shell from its place on the windowsill, she took one last long breath before leaving her office. Cool lavender to soothe her childhood heat.

Her next patient was an eighteen-month-old baby who had been waiting, more or less quietly, on the lap of her frizzyhaired mother. The toddler suffered from severe allergies, and visits to the clinic were becoming routine.

"Come in, Liz. I'm sorry you had to wait so long."

The woman stood, brushed some of the crumbs off her warm, creased lap, and carried her daughter into Sitara's office.

"How are you, Bella?" Sitara asked.

"Her runny nose is still bad," Liz answered. "And the only thing she'll eat right now is banana."

"Actually, banana is another food you should try to avoid for awhile."

"I'll try," Liz said, putting her daughter down on the examination bed.

"Alright Bella," Sitara whispered, as she reached for the baby's small hand, "let's see if we can toughen you up some more. Show me your tongue."

Bella turned away and buried her face in her mother's shoulder.

Liz laughed. "I saw plenty of that tongue this morning, believe me—every time I tried to give her a spoonful of anything. She just doesn't want to eat."

"Is it still swollen?" Sitara asked.

"Yes."

"Do you think she'll lie down?"

"It's possible, but I wouldn't count on it." Liz turned to Bella. "Hey sweetie, it's sleepy time. Do you want to lie down and look at the stars?"

"Uh-uh." Bella shook her head.

"It would be a big help to Mommy."

"Ahhhhhhh." Bella grabbed her mother's hair.

"Alright, maybe we'll try it like this." Liz climbed onto the white-covered bed beside her daughter and, sitting cross-legged, lifted Bella into her arms.

Sitara opened the drawer and pulled out a fresh packet of needles. The baby's skin matched her mother's perfectly—identical texture, hue, freckledness. They looked like they belonged together, as if one would be incomplete without the other. Sitara swabbed at the spot where she wanted to place the first needle, while Liz sang quietly to her squirming daughter.

Sarasvati wraps two arms around me. With a third, she smoothes my licorice hair, and with a fourth, she draws spirals like smoke rings on my cheeks. I hold her sari in my hands. It is burgundy and green—smooth and silky as coconut milk. There are old Sanskrit lullabies embroidered with gold thread in rows along the border. She sings them for me as she rocks me to sleep, her breath sweet with the smell of halvah.

As Sitara placed the first needle, the baby began to scream. Bella's pale skin was irritated and impressionable. Every time Sitara held her, she made a red blotch with her thumb.

"I'm sorry, little one," she said, trying to make her work as gentle as possible. "This won't take long." Still trying to clear the baby's congestion, Sitara inserted another needle.

I take a deep breath in, although only one of my nostrils is clear, and then breathe out fast and hard trying to flap the white paper tissue that hangs over my nose. Unsatisfied, I try again. I want to make the bird fly. The tissue is a white swan and I know that if I try hard enough, it will fly back to Sarasvati, with me tucked safely under its wings. I have been sniffing for as long as I can remember. Today is the first day I can breathe without having my mouth hang open. Bapa has just given me a steam bath because in the night I kept him awake with my snoring.

"Sitara is sick," I hear him say to Parvati.

"What do you mean?"

"She has a sniffle."

"She's a child," Parvati says. "They all get sniffles. Tell her to go to bed."

And so my bapa leads me back to bed. I complain because it's Saturday and he promised to take me to the park. But he is afraid of my mother and says that we can't go out. He offers to show me his book, but I dive under the blankets and hide there until he is gone. Then I slink over to the window and, using my dresser as a chair, I look out and watch other kids playing on the street.

Sitara removed the needles from the baby's small body. Bella was tense from screaming and Sitara wondered if any of her treatment would actually help.

"Let me know what happens," she told Liz. "And call me if you need anything. My answering machine is always on even if I'm not here."

"I thank you, even if Bella doesn't," Liz replied.

"She'll be fine." Sitara smiled. "She's strong and she'll find more strength in how much you love her."

"I can only keep trying."

"You're doing great, Liz." Sitara put her hand on the woman's burdened shoulder. "Goodbye Bella."

Liz smiled but Bella hid her face again and played at being coy.

"She really does like you. She sits by the door waiting when she knows it's time to come here."

"It's alright," Sitara said, laughing. "I've always been someone people love to hate."

"Thanks again," Liz said. She and Bella slipped out the door.

Following their path to the waiting room, Sitara prepared to accept her next patient, but there was no one there. She double-checked her calendar and confirmed that Rafqa had a three o'clock appointment. It wasn't often that her patients were late, especially when she herself was running behind. Distractedly, she went back into her office and sat down. The wind whipped a maze of brown leaves past her window—they tumbled like the half-digested chunks of almonds in the pit of her stomach. She stood up and plugged the kettle in to make more tea.

I am dressed in a silky black sari that shines as much as my hair, which is pulled back softly with a gold-coloured clip. On my left wrist I have twenty-seven glass and metal bangles—almost two for every year. The high-heeled shoes I wear are borrowed from the woman across the hall and I have paper stuffed in the toes to make them fit. Bapa stands and admires me in the front hall. I think he is proud of me for graduating, but he says he simply wants to remember my beauty.

We are waiting for Parvati to finish on the telephone. She has been gabbing for over an hour. Finally I beg Bapa to rush her because I don't want to be late. He calls to me that they are coming, and says I should go down to the car and wait. Holding my breath, I open the door and pretend to go out.

"She looks like an Indian peasant," I hear her say. "What happened to that pretty dress I bought for her?"

"She prefers the sari," Bapa answers. "Now hurry. She is waiting in the car."

"I can't," Parvati says. "My head hurts. I'm going to lie down."

As Bapa protests, I silently close the door.

In the car, he says, "Your mother has a hole in her head, and will not be coming."

Biting my tongue, I wonder if it's a mistake in his English, or if he hates her as much as I do. On the drive to school, I manage to bend each one of my twenty-seven bangles.

Releasing the unconscious grip on her left wrist, Sitara stretched out her arms. She focused her eyes on her fingernails and then turned her hands over and made an offering with her palms. She could feel the strain through the muscle just below her left elbow. Pulling back with her right, as if tightening a bow, she shot a burst of tension along her sore arm and out the window. Unintentionally, she hit a twig as it whirled itself to the ground. Sighing, she remembered that she'd always had good aim. She'd learned early by practising on her mother. At first, the things she flung at Parvati were made of stone. But later, as her resentment grew, they were made of words, which stung much harder.

"Sitara, I am here. In Halifax. At a hotel," her father had told her during his early morning phone call. "There are many things I want to tell you," he'd said with a crack in his voice that reminded her of calling India—reminded her of Chacha, who always told her that he loved her, even though as a child she knew that adults only loved each other.

Startled by the telephone, she'd knocked a book off the table beside her bed, tipping both a mug of cold tea and the iron candleholder Carrie had given her for late nights of reading in bed.

"Listen, I have to go," she'd said to her father, while kicking off the blankets to escape the heat.

"Sitara, I have come a long way." It had been four years since they'd spoken.

"I can meet you after work. Where are you staying?"

"The Westin on Hollis Street, by the train station," he'd said, in a voice that sounded as grey as his hair. "Is it far?"

"Yes, quite far," she'd told him, although it was only a few blocks away.

She dropped a handful of leaves into a bamboo strainer and filled her cup with hot water. Then, sitting full-lotus on a small woven rug, she deepened her breath and waited for the tea to steep. Slowly she lowered her gaze to the floor and tried to let the space between her eyebrows soften. Memories boiled like burned dahl inside her, turning over and over, releasing their potent juices. She swallowed to wash the taste away.

"Sitara," she told herself, "it is only dinner with your father. You've done it a million times before—almost once a day for eighteen years. How hard can it be?"

Feeling the rough wool of the rug beneath her toes, she rocked from side to side to reposition her weight and then let her back and neck curl slightly forward before straightening her spine again. After a deep breath, she heard the rustle of clothing in the waiting room. Standing abruptly, she grabbed the corner of her desk until the blood rebalanced itself in her brain. Rafqa was more than an hour late.

"Namaste, Sitara," a voice called to her. "Do not be afraid."

Sitara stepped into the waiting room.

The woman had four arms. "Your bapa waits for you," she said. She was holding a cell phone and a jar of cardamom.

Sitara pressed her hands into prayer and sank to the floor. She recognized the dark green choli and the rich burgundy sari with the lullabies embroidered in gold.

"You are not a little girl anymore," the woman said. "Do not play one for me, and do not play one for your bapa. When you go to him, show him who you are, not who you used to be. Accept him and he will accept you."

Still on the floor, Sitara reached out to touch the silky coconut milk of the woman's sari. "Sarasvati, I haven't seen you for so long. How are you?"

"It is not your worry."

A cloud passed between the sun and the two angled skylights in the ceiling of the clinic. The image of the deity paled.

"Sarasvati, please. Don't leave. I can treat you."

"I am not the one," her voice shimmered as she faded away, "who needs your attention, Sitara. It is you."

Closing her eyes, Sitara parted her lips and exhaled.