Читать книгу Jaya and Rasa. A Love Story - Sonia Patel - Страница 11
ОглавлениеSoon after Shanti turned three, Kalindi began to go AWOL more and more. Often without leaving her four children money.
Rasa tried to make ends meet. She borrowed. Accepted handouts. Earned. But as soon as employers found out she was only twelve, they let her go. Not that a minimum wage job would cut it anyway.
Weeks went by. Whatever food she got, she gave to her siblings first. There was usually very little left for her. Rasa’s dresses began to look more like ponchos as she got thinner and thinner.
She’d drag herself through days and lay awake at night. Staring into the darkness, she knew something had to give. But what?
Rasa couldn’t figure it out.
So she and her siblings spent more of their waking hours on the beach. Anything to forget their rumbling tummies and hankering for Kalindi. It was late in the afternoon one such day of sweltering sun, shore, and sea when they staggered back into their shack. Rasa tucked her siblings in, then lay down next to Shanti. She shut her eyes, visualizing her short free-dive. Short because her run-down body couldn’t hold its breath more than twenty seconds these days. Still, she’d been suspended in the quiet of the thick turquoise water…
She drifted off. A minute later the loud bark of their neighbor’s dog startled her awake. She shot up, practically panting. She got her bearings, then glanced at her siblings. They were still asleep.
Wide awake, she rolled off the bed. She sank to the floor and stretched out prone. She examined the covers of the six library books she and her siblings had borrowed yesterday. The close-up of a shiny black spider captured her attention. As did its title—Dangerous Arachnids.
She turned to the first chapter on black widows. There was a photo of a female black widow spider eating its mate. Its thick, black legs angled and hovered over a light brown mass of crumpled legs. Her eyes shifted to the paragraph below. She read about the defining red hourglass shape on the abdomen of females, their power over males, and how they sometimes killed and ate the males.
Rasa stared at the eerie yet awe-inspiring female predator. Ach’s nasal breathing became a lullabye. Her mind slowed. The book slipped out of her hands as her eyelids drifted down. Her head drooped onto the floor. She fell into a dream.
A woman with long brown curls took Paul’s hand. She led the way and they glided through a shadowy passageway. Her head turned back in slow motion. The light from the dagger-shaped red candle in her hand illuminated her face. Kalindi. The black walls ebbed and flowed like the tide and then turned into dense strands of white silk. Suddenly Kalindi and the floor vanished. Paul fell into a dark void. The wind swooshed by making his blond hair stand straight up. Below, someone saw the blur of his limbs pedaling the air. It was a woman whose face was cloaked by darkness. Her body flickered like an almost burned-out lightbulb. Then she was gone. In her place was a glossy black spider. The eight eyes on her head looked up at Paul’s falling body. In an instant her head changed—into Kalindi’s.
Rasa was lost in her dream, so lost she didn’t hear the knock at the door. Her eyes jerked open when the knock became a constant pounding.
The dream. Kalindi.
She was groggy as she hopped up and stumbled to see who it was. Maybe it was her mother. But why would Kalindi knock?
It was Paul.
“Kalindi’s not home, huh?” he asked as if he already knew the answer.
Rasa shook her head. “No. I thought she might’ve been with you. I’ll tell her that you…”
Paul cut her off. “And the kids?”
“They’re napping.”
A devilish grin spread across his face. “Looks like you need company.”
Before Rasa could say anything, he forced a plastic CD jacket into her hands. It had an image of a naked baby in a pool. “It’s for you,” he said. “But we have to go to Kalindi’s room to listen to it.” He wrapped his arm around Rasa and led her to her mother’s bedroom.
Rasa pried apart the CD jacket. She was counting the blue squiggles on the shiny disc when Paul fished it out of her hands.
“It’s an oldie, but you’re gonna love this,” he promised. He dropped the disc into Kalindi’s boombox, then pressed play. “Better than your mom’s hippie music,” he said, winking.
Rasa wasn’t so sure. The word “Nirvana” printed over the squiggles sounded pretty hippie dippie to her.
But then an intriguing guitar melody floated out of the speakers. Five seconds later a barrage of harsh bass and drums blasted through the room. Rasa had never heard anything like it before.
“Nirvana is one of my favorite bands,” Paul bellowed. He turned the volume down. “Wouldn’t want to wake the kids.”
His half smile creeped Rasa out a little, but she nodded and smiled back. “What’s this song?” she asked, tapping her foot to the beat.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit,” he said with a weird look on his face. He walked to the bed. He plopped down, then leaned back on his elbows. “I got the CD for you.”
“Thanks.”
He nodded. “You’re welcome.”
“I like this song.”
“Cool...” He paused, then said, “Hey Rasa, you look tense.”
She shrugged.
He patted the bed next to him. “Come here.”
Rasa parked herself next to him.
“You’re so stiff. Loosen up, girl. I’ve got an idea. Lemme give you a massage.” He reached behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. He began kneading. “I’ve been told I’m pretty good,” he said with a chuckle. “Does it feel good?”
Rasa nodded.
One of his hands meandered down her back. “Stand up for a second,” he said.
Rasa stood.
“Face me,” he whispered.
She did.
He gripped her small wrists and pulled her onto his lap.
And though she didn’t say yes, she didn’t say no.
She didn’t resist when he peeled her clothes off. She didn’t reject the advances of his rough fingers and cracked lips on her soft body. And though the pain was sharp, like the stab of a knife, she mimicked her mother and melted into his body. Like caramel and vanilla soft-serve in slow motion.
After, while Kurt Cobain screamed the lyrics to Stay Away, Paul stood up. Facing the wall he pulled up his pants. He buckled his belt then reached into his pocket for his wallet. He thumbed through the bills and plucked one out. He turned to Rasa. “Bet you’re hungry,” he said. He put the cash on her bare thigh.
She didn’t hear him or notice the money. Her eyes were fixed on his glistening sculpted torso. She was sticky with sweat herself. She ran her hand over her tummy and inspected the clear fluid on her fingers.
“The money’s for you,” Paul said. He was pointing at her thigh. “You’re hungry, right?”
She looked where he was pointing—a crisp hundred-dollar bill.
Something clicked in Rasa’s mind. Her hungry eyes danced in visions of plate lunches. The thought of watching her siblings enjoy the kalbi and mac salad she planned to buy made her forget the piercing pain down below. She grinned. “Starving,” she said, licking her lips.
“Oh, and here’s twenty more,” Paul said. He motioned with his chin to the bright red blood stain on the beige fitted sheet. “You’re gonna need new sheets before Kalindi gets back.”
Kalindi.
Rasa nodded without looking. This was more money than Kalindi ever got.
That evening Rasa let her siblings eat their fill first. Only after they’d finished did she dig in. She closed her eyes to more fully enjoy each slow chew of tender meat. She breathed deeply the way she’d seen Kalindi do during meditation.
The dream from that afternoon popped into Rasa’s mind.
Kalindi, the black widow spider.
Rasa took a sip of passion fruit juice. As the sugary liquid went down, she connected the sweet and tangy dots.
Maybe I can do what Kalindi does too.
That would make life easier for Ach, Nitya, and Shanti. Rasa pictured them with overflowing takeout containers. Ample school supplies. New clothes. New slippers. Maybe even shoes.
It wasn’t long before Rasa, who at twelve looked sixteen, transformed her hunger and her worry for her siblings into hustle.
She discovered that Kalindi’s black widow prowess was also part of her own DNA.
And so Rasa became the junior black widow of Hau’ula. She preyed on older men. High school boys who tried to crawl onto her web with their ten or twenty bucks didn’t cut it.
