Arms go around, arms lift. When the woman looks at the baby in her arms, the baby looks back at her with her color-shifting eyes, gray now, in the kitchen light. The irises are immense, like cat’s eyes, with hardly any white, the mouth impossibly gentle. Reggie doesn’t want to bless the baby because what good have her blessings done? She moves ice along the hot gums. It clicks against the nub of tooth. They are calm, the woman and the baby. Their silence is mammalian and warm. The woman can smell the milky skin of the baby, the baby can smell the humble soap and hand salve of the woman. It is she, perhaps, who should seek the blessings from this child, who will come to her when she, Reggie, is old, carrying an armful of fragrant lilacs. Placing the lilacs in a vase, as the old woman moves around the kitchen preparing tea. And the old woman draws strength and pleasure, yes, from the fragrant sight of the flowers, but more from the young woman’s strong, happy body, the length and gentleness of her limbs, the shine of her dark face.
That night they all eat at the table, they drink wine. It is not good wine, but it doesn’t matter. They begin to tease one another, and tell jokes, jokes to shock one another into laughter. Laughter tastes funny in their mouths, mixed with the bitter taste of the wine, then they warm to it. They tell stories of old lovers. Maya rests her bare feet against the legs of her chair, Mark looks at those feet: he would like to become a dog and lick them, and the fat bones at her ankle. A lover who only wanted to fuck in the bathrooms of moving trains, a lover who called for his mother as he came, a lover aroused by the sound of running water. A lover who always kept on his socks. Chariya: Mark would never say it. Crying after she made love, tears beading the small corners of her eyes. But not sad, she said, wiping her face and laughing. Not sad.
“I slept with a white man who kept asking me to talk to him in Hindi.”
“Did you?”
“Well, I don’t know Hindi. So I just started saying the names of dishes in Indian restaurants.”
“That’s bad!” says Reggie. “What did he do?”
“He came.”
The baby tires. Maya takes her and changes her and puts her to sleep. She stands tipsy in the dark room looking at the child with night-sharpened eyes. The child is curled, her fists, her feet, pulled tightly into herself, impenetrable in sleep. She looks fierce in her crib, giving the profound illusion of self-sustenance. Asking nothing from the young woman who looks down at her, and yet, the question posed anyway. Will she fly home with sleep knotted in her throat, go to work, and have drinks in bars, never marry, mourn alone? Will she remain in the company of these mourners, as the child grows more and more substantial and lovely, and learns the breadth and depth of her loss? She cannot face this question. She wants to wake in her apartment and shake this dream off herself like a wet dog, take a shower, drink strong coffee, and sit in the bright possibility of morning. But morning will never come to her like that any longer. Each morning she will wake with the metallic stain of absence on her tongue.
In the kitchen Reggie helps Mark put away the dishes. But she is suddenly exhausted, and all at once, the light in the room becomes white at the center and expands. The hand grasping the plate loosens and the plate shatters against the blue tile. She leans against the counter, until Mark’s arms come around her and she slumps into the bulk of him, half-awake, half-dreaming, apologizing through furred lips. She can smell his swallowed tears but does not have the strength to feel pity. There is a bright buzzing in her body, the sound of a train. He lifts her above the shards of the plate, stepping carefully around them with his feet in only socks, calm, murmuring to her as he would to a child, saying she’s very tired, she needs to rest. She has not been carried since she was a girl, Mark does it easily. For all her solidity and tallness she is light in his arms as he brings her to bed. He inspects each callused foot for embedded slivers of china, and when he finds none, asks her if she wants some water. No, she says, waving him away. She says sorry. “Sorry for what?” She doesn’t answer. Sleep hovers above her eyes with milky thickness. Then she has passed through it, without a dream to soften it.
“Did she drink too much?” Maya standing in the doorway.
“She hardly had anything. She’s just tired, I think.”
“Should we call a doctor?”
“She’s alright. Let her sleep.”
They return to the kitchen and pick up the broken plate, Maya collecting the fat shards in a bag, Mark vacuuming the kitchen’s corners. When the task is finished they leave the dishes where they are and open another bottle of wine. This bottle is better than the first, the bitterness is interesting to hold on the tongue. Maya’s teeth get a bluish tint from the wine, Mark can see it when she smiles.
“I remember the first time I met you. I didn’t like you.”
He is too tired to take it gamely. “Why not?”
“You seemed too golden. A little arrogant.”
“I’d never been hurt before.”
“But it’s not better this way. You’re not better. I wish you hadn’t been hurt.”
He says simply, “No point in wishing.”
“You were kind to her.”
She puts her foot on top of his foot under the table, and it’s cold, he can feel it through his sock. Then she drops her eyes. Her hand rubbing absently the stem of her empty glass. It is a different man she met, six years ago, dressed smartly in a suit. As he has made no effort to dress these last few days, he has made no effort to guard and compose his face. Unshaven, the rough skin of a man, with freckles and creases. She can see the pores on his cheeks. She looks into his face like a palm reader looks at a hand, and sees the future of the face, shock deepening into bitter anger. She sees love for the child spread thickly across the brow. The possibility of cruelty trembling in the tight corners of the mouth. She leans over the table and kisses the mouth softly. Please do not be cruel. The mouth is raw, as though she kisses a wound. For a second their faces hover apart, their bodies are still, as if considering. Then she climbs to him, kneeling against the table to press her body to his. The arms that take hold of her radiate from a desperate body. They go to Maya’s room, not Mark’s, and shut the door. She takes off the sweater that was Chariya’s and the skirt and lies down on the bedspread. Mark standing over her, looking tender and hostile: a stranger. Her body feels crazy. Please do not be cruel. Looking at her, and she lets him, but covers her face with the pillow. He pulls her to him and tugs her underwear down, looses the breasts from the bra, dark nipples bunched as they meet the blue air. Then he thrusts the smooth warm length of himself into her, slicked with her wet, and she is gripping her legs around him. He lifts her up to him, their bodies pressed together, no space, finally, between their bodies, but the tiny, infinite absence that stays between them. The space is a question the body asks and finds no answer. Why? and Where? and Chariya?
Maya’s eyes are open. She sees his ear, the curve of his head, the closed door. She can feel his anger coming through her like venom. But she will take it, his anger, and add it to her own. And warmth collecting at the center of her. She closes her eyes. Finds the body’s comfort in another body, the sweat that gathers where they touch. She puts a hand against the back of his head, buries her fingers in the springy hair. Can he feel it, this warmth at the center, gentling? He becomes calm, even as his body reaches the frenzy. The feeling is almost holy. Her hair, loose, the smell of honey coming all around him, falling over his shoulders. Her voice biting at his neck, building, building, then quieting. Joy from the body stumbles outward. They are stunned, scared by this joy. Yet each grasps it, holding it like a wild cat in the arms until it frees itself and bolts.