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    of 14
    no Manhattan Music Goings riding a bicycle in the green plains of Sri ay). Tjlow on the mudguard of her bicycle. Did pred in older, though, and a few threads of gray showed in she called again. He didn't curn. She stared out at a hot, filled with sand, She saw the new water tower shan oo thirty feet tall, built by an architect whose crane oa ture in the hills of San Rafael made him overly sensitng sures and inhi eal he designed a water tank ou of alg two-hundred-year-old house builtin the old Kerala 4 n, bang;bang.” Tong verandss, Dutch doors, and courtyards acs Fie pumped hs knees up and down on The tank casta shadow on the mulberry plant thats wid table, which Sandhya’s grandmother had ac downy its Teg squat, teak top and sides covered contemporary woman, precisely the same age us Shalini Shalt-Thanu whatever, caught us, the She bent to do obeisance, bent down, mind you, courtyard, right by the window of Nunu’s wing, a bedeg ing room and bathroom attached, Nunu, my only aa 4 plastic lest the turmeric sauces drop through and She was probably lying there staring out of the wing Feamient table on which he had sometimes lain as a breathing out, asf all of time had contracted to the p [Chandu's energy. she willing her body to be a part of nature, like the gold G Stop oF I'll drop something and then Chellama will gnd you'll getno tea. I swear. No chai for you. No vadai tain in the back garden or palmyra leaves swirling on the g sobbing? Sandhya strained forward, till she was sitting ing tion. Then she blew out her breath, saying, “Chandu, Chan crooning the syllables as if to comfort herself, till the manag wnt to let the little speech pass unapplauded. He at the round table, facing the TV, narrowed his eyes andl ‘and moved his well-built body forward to turn the ‘There was something in his gaze that made her nervous, at her so? the overweight vina player dressed in a white sari caught Chandu’s cool voice cut in, With the TV down, Sang Hiking, melancholic air, Doordarshan funeral music, vowel ite-walled room. Sandhya focused in on the strings, on ‘All this Chandu-ing. Bolo? So his body got blown up) F the vina player. How absurd they seemed, little welts of “Nor quite little bits.” Boecen. Yet they made the music come and go, they She was feisty now, facing him, turning around in here and the soft flesh beneath the nails caressed the wires Al right, all right then, face blown off, guts slipping of “eaps of melody, She shivered a little, thinking of flesb the Tamilian—that MLA, Janaki something-or-the other, lesh that reached out, flesh caressed, flesh burnt, flesh jivji, Rajivji,’ I'l know him by those shoes. Shoes, sneak bloody particles. biglogo on them. orro Lorro!” ithe next day the TV screen was filled with the state fu Chandu snorted, an odd intake of breath, as if the work Shan was doing a continuous shoot. Every two hours, to him some effort. Then he started laughing, There was’ om the electronic vision of May heat in Delhi, packed head, just beneath the thick glossy hair. Looking at hit jough the dust haze risen above the Imperial Delhi Luy: denly felt hot. It was just like when they were children: he ge ‘the music came on, Sandhya bit her lip. She was glad that bang:bang-bang. She wiped her face with the end of her! srof bhajans who held the hour. That voice, those words, to his voice going on. 3 fa to come closer, always reduced her to tears. Whatever “Only the nostrils lef. Imagine that. Only the nostrils. ‘was always a terrible distance between the singer and of his face. That's because of the suicide bomber, Shalit whatever-her-name, last seen before Sriperumbadur i Manhattan Muse ‘would feel he had won, Won outright. It didnt strike her ag stilshought of winning of losing with him, frst, second, Lay sort of childish thing. Once he had plucked out a frog from the and, as if in afterthought, started tormenting it il she gu ila—no, no," covering her eyes with both hands but peepings parted fingers as the hard pebble struck a quivering green gy ‘webbed thing tore soundlessly She never made to move his arm away, or stay his hand, coward that she was, crouching on black rock. What was it he had said the other day? “New York has made you soft.” That was it ‘Sandhya, Sandhya mine, New York City has softened you y left in you, Just tepid Hudson water.” ‘And he brushed his hand against her cheek, just to make h was a joke, paying absolutely no heed to her protests. So g “You don’t know what that city is like now. Killing fields, Asphalt, barbed wire, a demilitarized zone.” But her voice sounded tinny, unreal, even as she spoke, Why know of those burned out blocks except in the eyes, the tight those she saw on the subway, or at the edge of the sidewalks reaches of the Upper West Side where she lived, Except, heard gunshots, and stabbings sometimes occurred even in the How could Chandu be expected to understand? Te was ten m years since he had taken his MBA at Columbia and since then! been further west than Berlin, where his chemical business to year. Fertilizers, wasn’t that what he did, with some import-em knows-what on the side? Nothing too illicit, she hoped. Sudden she couldn't think straight anymore. All the thoughts in her young woman's flesh, tearing up our once and furure leadet ‘That was what the inane old man they had brought on asa kept repeating as a mantra, "Our once and future leader.” kind of future he had in mind, Sandhya could not imagine, state-run TY station thought it was doing bringing an ancient ‘on, chatting, chatting away about Nehru and Mrs. G. and Rajiv's childhood, and how this alone was India, this pasted-up, marked tion, its handsome leader bloodied, blown into the fragments a child in Saberkantha district or Quilon district could see on the Going a3 "gout of the comer of her eye, Sandhya noticed he was Mere behind the TV, black wires that linked up with the wit the house, wires they had to disconnect when it electricity tore into the set It troubled her alittle that Soe in the house, the many-roomed, mlti-verandaed sining itself without their help, stone floors, rosewood Syindows with carved shutters, double doors, Dutch: wind, Mn Joe was in the dining room, in the southern quar Heehe courtyard? Who could she cry out to? Who would hear i was in the Mission Hospital down the road, in Room 18, per lay struggling to breathe. yrer breath sharply. It was then that she heard the voice, ‘lear, calling her. Nunu, she thought, Nunu, The name a lite shock. Something suppressed, catching the light, il left loose, a snitch of raw breath, Her little sister B that was i, locked in as was her habit. Though if you she might open the door a crack and peer out. do to myself what they do to me” was her explanation, va had asked her about locking herself up, and the response ty that satillin the tangle of weeds and flowering shrubs, Sof the ornamental palm that jutted by their faces, as the two ‘on white wicker chairs they had drawn out into the garden sda ditleft Nun She seemed to have refined it though, lock- in her bedroom with the set of intricate bolts she had asked install. In Nunu’s room were ancient posters of Pat Boone and above her bed a poster of a contemporary evange- Srted a fifties hairstyle. A Tamilian who operated out of Texas the name of Pirabhakaran, selling the Gospel in honeyed jek and white and Indian alike. Under the image it said in bold shed Pirabhakaran calls you, in the Name of the Lord Jesus, the letters in the legend was a different color, bright primary pplease a preschooler. Pirabhakaran—who looked like a cou- red of the Rev. Al Sharpton, same plump cheeks, same ad, mustache shaved into a fine Dali-like line—had dressed Poster photo in a Western coat of many colors: stripes 114 Masthattan Mt Going ayy rounded over his belly, buttons ready to burst, alu 4 slowly passing her hand over her own face sul pied on glossy pape and shipped ale scribers to Mult-calored Gospel, the evangelical yen ves, yes Present-day Belie “a 5 ined her head to Present-day Believers produced. reac no longer, she craned her head to look Num, her eyes glassy from the pills she took tree outside, bark coated with dirt keel, led her older sister into the room, a Baad bones.” ‘Look, look,” she said proudly. "They sentitto herself up and walked away, taking jagged, you like i?” a G aumns akimbo, by the poster of Evangelist Pira Iclooks American. Who is he?” Pirabhakaran, a convert from an oute sounded mocking in Sandhya’s tired ears, an ste coy ‘They keep it quiet in America. They speak of him in, gould scarcely catch of the last of the lost tribes of America Eforeign recurned.” ‘Native American, you mean’ : g know that,” Sandhya said sofly. Nunu stared back ater sister, taking. the tired fay eee fallen free of the band in which she had set it. Her gg milkman crying out, the crows tearing their over the handloom skirt she wore, bunching up the fi i, the lilting sounds of a new film song, turned ‘Well, black, really. A black man from the lost tribes Recent civee “Ahh.” E Sandhya gazed at her sister’ dilated eyes and kept own mind she rejected the jovial rejoinder that had eg erly exhausted. Home is where, when you go .. she must be a Malayali really, not Tamilian, all that e prxemained unfinished in her head. ‘wasn’tin it. There was no need to say anything, And to put out her armor so soon, buttress herself against two years since they had last met The fan worked the air in the room into litle ripple edges of the posters, the sheaf of papers, the little Bl placed all in a row by the windowsill, their acrylic the windows was open a crack and Sandhya could 4 rippec-up desolation mango leaves, dark green cut with lighter-colored veil adu started running, across the courtyard to- brushed against, leaves she had once bitten and tasted. fruit and then the curved chin of a new mango swung When the door finally opened, in response to Sandhya started to put her hand out, to touch Nun, all Sandhya and Chandu could see inthe half fingers trembling, She clasped her hands back behind b [curtains blowing and the fan turning slowly, was oor, her blue-eyed doll in her hand, One of the peryard, with its brilliant light, hurt Sandhya’s eyes. ‘open again as sunlight tore in, flooding her. courtyard, not even a torn white sheet left over feers of her childhood. Somehow the momen: fa small certitude in a landscape filled with ‘How is Appa? How? How is he? You saw him, voice tripped up and up. Obviously she too found the sil ‘You stopped at the hospital, didn’t you? Tell me.” | She gripped her older sister roughly by the fore back, startled at the strength in Nunu’s pale fingers. xdhya heard herself repeating, All she got was ‘Those snails,” she heard her sister say. “The Going 16 Manhattan Music s from New York City’s sk crows really got them, eh? Nature's cruelty, Sis, Thav'g yf shattering glass from New York City’s sky Nunu’s fingers moved restlessly through the dolls bes es saw those crows,” she added, needlessly as what Piral st out of his head. He was to think of it as Por azing down at the swifily lowing water aeveald come to cast themselves into the river pe yy off heir glistening bodies inthe light, ery Sandhya could not bear to look at her sisters face sharply away. Through the open window she sw pg between two blossoming trees, a powder blue, then her siste’s door slammed shut, and Sandhya waeiy of the adjoining bedroom, next to Chandu Later that evening, Chandu, perhaps to distract hen of the chemical sales he had in mind, inchding some q tomake with Ravi, cousin Sakhi’s husband. Perhaps they port of Kerala goods. “What?” Sandhya queried, teyingy from worry about Nunu. “Rubber, coconut products. Coir, that sort of thin be quite a market in the States for coir rope and mat is fairly well-placed in ATT and has business contacts th doing, by the way? Not waiting for his cousin to respond, Chandu an tion: Sakhi was involved in some feminist stuff: He said abouthim, his handsome nose jutting out, asif there slightly off about the notion, “Like jasmine that’s gone) plained to Sandhya, who sat without opening her mou ‘After all, my dear, what are women for but to fill the male species—with their exquisite fragrances?” When she remained still, hardly seeming to listen, bet that Pirabhakaran Nunu’s so taken with inine adorers, women who cater to him, No harm in ‘At this, Sandhya turned away, her face a mask. Wat of the room, Chandu thought how finely she was ‘was wasted on that American chap whose name, qui kept forgetting. Someday he would meet him, and Little did Chandu know that just a month later Pirabhakaran. A conversation would start up betw the subject of America, with Chandu listening in karan’s grand plan of burning up the garbage dumps! Poet’s Café (Draupadi) And when you came toward me, your face uplifted, it really was transfigured by fire, wasnt it? —Jean Genet, The Balcony While Sandhya was in India, I gota call from Anthonys formance piece,” he said. “Something that involyes ef it by a riverbank, Imagine us all, black, white, ye down, leaping into water.” laughed gently. “Not quite in the mood,” 1 told hi with me and I agreed. I needed work that could keep i Things were hard with Rinaldo. And though | hardly was the only home I had. There was a heat in my calf my guts I couldn't control. I stood for hours staring 6 Rough water and sky entered my soul. Timagined the air Melville breathed, different from side my Westbeth window. Ahab taking shape in monumental whale of desire sharpening its teeth. dreams of a man racked by longing for islands, cent camaraderie chuck each other under the chin piles of ambergris in celebration of the all-American i Imade notes on a scrap of paper. I thought of mé ‘America, my newfound land ...” But the voice stopp The copy of Walden I pinched from the high sd caught my eye. I thought of HDT, who refused f0 pai ment that had undertaken the task of being “the rel Poet's Café on enslaved. I thought of Hartiet Jacobs, who Brinda Brent, a woman escaped from bondage, atic, peeping at her chikiren, Oh, the longing eet her arms. Oh, the longing for freedom! Mammerica, surely i's our fantasy of freedom that off arms, legs, ears. Sackfuls of sleep it guz. ‘whirlpools of death. ae dream of Cathay, the route eastward to Gacific waters working particles of salt that shim- smed into angels. sipping clear water to take away the hurt writing at Poet's Café, Tongues shoot out of my head. freadlocks askew, then wipes his eyes. Mago with his Bork Salsified,” he cries in delight. The Fifth Avenue Pher gigolo screams as Anthony, squinting to sce if isin place, tips over her knee, his “Free South Africa, it tight over his chest. She bobs and her blue hair th. 1¢ hennaed hair and orange silk suit—they brought enue where the Mafioso roves—cries without stop. isters forward, three of them, one Black, one Anglo, fhey start swaying, arms linked, singing the words | 3, all exiles, heads flaming! Listen to them roar!” srough his microphone. fem all. For Simon Escobar and Juan and the woman agram in the Bronx; for the Fifth Avenue matron and Bony and the group of kids from the barrio who were a “Postmodern Unit for the Propagation of Poe- m0 Man Poet's Café a2 whose mouths sprouted perfect mustaches, others whose Jad in a brown body suit mimicking skin, color of ripe pomegranates such as Cavafy might have kg peatin faker: ened alleyways of Alexandria, gr from the | performed for the young woman who woke up ep ithe Indian cymbals cut fr l Mother, I am burning!” and her dead mother rushed gag red using the words that came to me: where the sun rises and put our the flames that were egy breasts, thighs, the purple blotches on her arms from the fiery. One of my dancing sisters turned into Tawana Braviey, self up in plastic, smearing excrement on her dark Forty-second Street subway stop started up. fom conch shells and rosewood. tart tjsten 10 me. I's my rega thing, 1 am making it up like an might a his America sa wild iderless thing. All the pres of ours, the presidents’ women too. a se would drive us mad. setting white feathers on her flesh like the white men def mbiography else the blue expanse wo mothers. Then she crept into the plastic garbage bag, “She of ie bodies of Apaches, the broken bodies of slaves thrust whether her own hands did it or not,” we sang, arms linkeg Spnis is how we reach the blue expanse, the sublime va ‘Then another song turned in my head. A song of Para _ x space. Staring into water he longed to escape. Gimme, gimme, go-go, Dottie sings a the shelter dogg | shall live in Paradise House for ever more! wand cart through the woods and put a man I loved into the oman [loved into the left, [would be flush with water. I started crooning it, doing a double take in my head, fg sted by so much body weight, the flood of Walden pond could use that song for the show at Lincoln Center I was f the outdoor bandstand with the lime trees all around and Ethnicity-Gender-CrossTalk thing everyone's 50 hot into. things this rising into Asia flesh that's crossed, wires and all. I know this as I hang the drink the pure water of the Ganges. My hat slips to my nose Mama’s picture in it round my neck and feel the lace under through the arms of the man and woman I love, We dance south drenched with sweat. Tam making up my own act, rehears along, and it’s all have 3 Music thickens. Mago with his Bwango Band comes 4 ‘Congo Boys, Congo.” He turns to the girls: “Say Pwangg Pwango.” The girls, one touching fifty, lean up, wiggling d shirts decked out in squares of black and blue. They grind taxevader, inspirer of Gandhi, who inspired Martin fr, make a blessed ring for us with your dancing {a break to wipe my chin, run a comb through my hair, fix ‘out their hands, and the marimba calls. f practiced moving my arms in a low swirl as 1 imagined Anthony's eyes screw my back so tight I walk dead upg ia. | continued: through the muscles in my back, it’s a wise muscle that knows] to get himself off the lapdog’s leash. “Come, come tonight ‘Then the wind blew and door flew open: Santosh Blissfi, (es ‘of Spain. " tered wrapped up in silks. He blew me a kiss and suddenly lJ land Lady, you have driven the Jews out of Spain, and driven Rinaldo. Wanted him bad. I was sick of his voyages, to Ital too. Now give me leave to sail westward to India, wherever Fiats are sold. : Hthat loose fish for Christendom, and return, souls aplenty ‘No peace then. I had to put on my skintight thing, do myg iy boat. I'll bring sackfuls of pepper, trunkfuls of gold. Manhattan Music Poet's Café It was the Pope who replied: Blank space, snare it, old CC. Only all heathens there, You! our flag where you can Hear me, girl?” pail” My vOICe rose, rat aughing a that. “Funny name fora gel with Pe over here, Drops, Dropti” Bie oald the cage door tight. I was glad I had the bars be- I stopped, breathing hard, then went on: Columbus struck America and called it India. It was India py a new name for me. “Bette,” he called me. “Bette, very end, when mad, bound raving to the bottom of hic P Some over here, slow, take it slowly now.” And he shipped in chains to Spain. “O India, my newfound land,” he cries fout with a lump of sugar in it as if he were beckoning dom safeliest when with one man manned ...” He would have said more except that, unable to bear hig igery straight, gripped the bars of the cage. “Draupadi!” | longer, they were forced to gag him. Then old CC heard musi nd clear then, with my hands free, [did alittle dance. "Call played by creatures with silky black hair, dwellers of Hip beauty had dazzled him. He could not believe those were the fi ‘corner of my eye I saw Santosh Blissji clapping for me. half-bestial creatures he had once been led to expect. apseven a whole week lace, I returned to Poet's Café. Iwas [pre shut my eyes, took in the applause, stepped back d after a phone call from Rinaldo. He called from Dhah- India were all around. I might have slipped and fallen exegs scould hear the luggage carts, the voices boomingiin the back- thony stuck a drink into my hand and called on my danci mance space was empty now but I needed to touch guided me to my seat so that I could sit a while before my Hi in. The cage was standing in Poet's Café. Anthony must eee ae pked good as part of the decor. Isat with my back against it Thad told Anthony I needed help, so he brought on this n the bars comforted me. I sat there and wrote to my love. Ray. The man had wandered in, in search of work. From [put at the top, Avenue B. So he would know where I was lor Perugia or somewhere grand and old world, but right North American ferment: like he was part of some mil the cage door fe once that your reading of Nabokov drew you to America, Not ir- aps is thatthe nimble genius of butterflies, White Russian fllen fom in print he had to invent America inorder to make Lolita that work ‘They put me in an attic to save my life. I could hardly brea tiny hole to peer through. shall never bow down to Dr. Flint, that cruel man. have to invent mein onder olive here, Rinaldo? I need to know. No I started coughing and Anthony, seeing my trouble, quickly to help. “Try something else,” he whispered. As if Ray, that gaunt blond man, made his own thing up. j He stuck his fist into the cell door and offered me an of of tearing my composition into little bits, then smearing “Who are you?” 4 its. Instead, I found a scrap of wall. [stood straight, a lean “Who?” I stared at him. He had no lines there. {aressed in black, scrawling with black-cased Revlon: Tcannot stand those voices in my ear #Buck the Fathers” program in my head, do you know, Rinaldo? Manhattan Music Rinaldo dearest, q Lest we forget. You picked me up when Ivvas a young thing and got me int e Paradise House program. You are an old man with a hot cack, Spit on yout Draupagy Stoning 4 ear, dear Rinaldo, Down with sorrow. Up with fucking, We are all herein the present perf, should not be addressing myself to you any more. My thumb up your F : Your Beloved (She who has no name. Who stood ina cage. Whose skin isn chosen life in the new world. Sakhi Karunakaran put out her foot : eee eee sdded a stone. It was hard to move, and her toc hurt. She drew back | Draup jz Perhaps there was a base to the stone, perhaps it extended hun Gs of feet ito the depths of the continent. On smooth bits of it, buried Funder topsoil, native peoples might have etched a sacted knowledge. could have a petroglyph under her feet. And there she was, with her je picket fence, in the town of New Brunswick, living off the fat of the ‘No, not in a mobile home or trailer, rather enjoying all the spoils of ‘country, She breathed hard. Watched the car speeding out of the ay past her. Waved at her neighbors and was struck by the profile of F man in the backseat, so like Sandhya, a little lighter in coloring per- q ] ‘but tose same high cheekbones. The Costas’s niece, she thought, ging away from the hard stone, toward the trickle of water that ran over ing cobblestones she had set in place just a year ago. There was a slight mound in the earth and the trickle ran around it, ling up in a patch of mint. The soil around the roots absorbed all the : fer. The stalks of mint were etched with scars from ice and snow, win- jounds, but underneath the hard nubble the new green leaves were sting to push out, tiny whorls of green. Sakhi wished she could stop, tout her fingers, smooth them against her cheek. What a long time it taken her to learn to plant her own garden. ‘She had never worked soil into her hands as a child. But on long sum: holidays, before the monsoons fell, when heat rose from the green 5, mak-ng it hard to breathe, she and Sandhya had watched the gar- hers carrying bucket after bucket of water to Sosa’s precious orchids, In ie afternoons her aunt would take the car and driver and vanish into hillside, fifty-odd miles away, returning with bushels of the fleshy, fra 126 Manhattan Musi grant flowers co replenish her stock, The back of the car was all g in soll, and Sosa’s sari drenched with moist earth, but no one sees care, Afterward the girls would stand by the well as Ayah washed sh off their arms with the sweet-tasting well water. Born within a week of each other, Sandhya and Sakhi had been yy to regard each other almost as sisters. Their mothers, who lived mies apart, had shared detailed news of their pregnancies: mornin. ness, the first flutter under the breastbone, tiny, racing heartbeat came the painful contractions, and after giving birth, the sheer del infants, their cries, the regularity with which they drank milk creted, their first steps. The two women also shared other bodily tions, how heavy their breasts felt, whether the nipples were sore, cial blend of oils needed to ease that soreness. They did not speak, enormous welling satisfaction as the child suckled, the sheer pleagy gave, though perhaps this was understood in the warmth of theire sation, the slow laughter that spilled out. How had it happened them the cousins had gone their very different ways? Sandhya was always dj into difficulty, while she, Sakhi, stood at the edge, watching. Hel she could, running away if she couldn't. And Nunu. Sakhi paused, ing in her breath, Where was the letter Nunu had sent weeks ago? If begun on a fairly friendly note, but turned bizarre soon enough: ‘The mangoes are thriving. Black pond snails attacked the garden. But the cr from the mango trees got them frst. My sister, Sandhya, has changed alot. She to mate sure I take my litle pills at night, but I threw them out the window. By th ‘way, Saki, Fhope you don’t mind my saying this, but why live in America? Da _you know it’s the country of high garbage? Soom they will burn al the garbage, Dy P. says. Have you met the Rev. Dr. Pirabhakaran? He believes in Rapture. All ‘worlds will end soon, he says, Asin Apocalypse 4 Sakhi had tucked the note away in a drawer and never written b What could she have said to Nunu? Of course your sister has changed lives in a different world now. As for garbage, I recycle whatever 1 have a small garden here and do all the work in it myself. The referen Pirabhakaran, the charismatic religious leader, she wouldn’t touch, that religion made Sakhi nervous. If only human beings could keep ti heads straight. She tried to imagine Sandhya and Nunu walking in the Tiruvella den. But those flower beds and carefully manicured lawns had all into disrepair. The crew of gardeners had vanished. There was bal Stoning 27 Fa money to keep the white walls painted, ties on the roof in good Sshaps if the house were to tumble down entirely, they would all ‘eolive in the forest. If all the houses were to tumble down! sient with her ponderings, Sakhi stared at the stone, its inch of Pee co, impenitent, through sol. She stamped her feet lean of ditt BF tro focus her mind, She would have a hard day ahead. Day by day, ee ceload as a social worker was increasing—more calls for help Epuldren forcibly kept out of school, married women being beaten sc ordinary root of evil in the human heart. Was that what it was? Bak knob of the mintin her garden came to mind, The gnarled cen: nk then the fragile newness bursting through. She could live for Bewness if she had to. ‘oped and plucked a few stalks of mint to take with her to work ld set the leaves in a glass of water and breathe in a little of the ring grance.A few hour ates cleaning outer ds, se found 3 1. A single line caught her eye Ps ee think of you back home,” It was a letter she had started gnahiya. Sakhi’s gaze took in the rough ending of the sentence she had hed. The word “home” scrawled asif the hand hadn't quite wanted to mowiedge it. Home,” where was that after all? Was Tiruvella, where mrents lived, “home” to Sandhya? Or New York? Sandhya had mar fstephen and crossed a border with him. Surely marriage meant set: Hap anew home? Sakhi tried to the get words right from an American she kad read asa child, A poem about an old woodcutter, a family pechaps, who had returned unexpectedly and the householder wife were debating what to do with him, Something about home and pgto “take you in,” No one could turn Sandhya away from Tiruvella, 2s for sure, though who knows, if Nunu had enough power, she tfiands in her desk drawer, turning over a pile of paper, Sakhi cast tind back to her dead mother. An unhappiness used to come over Alike mist over a summer morning, bathing her in a simmering mel- thoy. Shobha was in her early forties when her gloom seemed worst. ldsit by the edge of the bed, in the small house in Trivandrum, nig hair flowing about her, unable even to comb it. So Sakhi, who int have been more than eleven, would call for the maid. And under der combing Marya gave her hair, her mother revived a litle Hi want to go home, Marya,” she would whisper to her maid, who re-

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