It was as deeply satisfying as if she were her mother, watching the way her eyes glistened when she reached for the pastry, how she broke off the sugary dough piece by piece, wanting it to last, and then nibbled the pieces with such pure and ravenous delight that Poornima nearly took her head in her hands, held it to her chest.
They flew into JFK in the dark early-morning hours, and just before they landed, Poornima leaned over Madhavi, sleeping now, and looked down. She saw a field of thick stars and she thought the plane must be upside down; how else could there be stars below them? But then she realized they weren’t stars, they were lights, and her breath caught in her throat, her chest ached, to think a country could be so alight, so dense and dazzling. Once they landed, though, they were herded into a long line for immigration, and when Poornima reached the border control agent, all her English left her. She stammered through her responses, barely understanding the man’s accent. She wondered if she’d even learned the right kind of English. He hardly seemed to notice her responses, though. He was bald, with the thickest shoulders Poornima had ever seen, and a stern face, and skin so white that Poornima could see the little pink pinpricks in his nose, and the blue and purple capillaries in his cheeks. He had the dainty rose lips of a baby, and Poornima thought his voice might be soft, but it was harsh, and deep, and he said, “How long are you staying?”
“Three weeks,” Poornima said.
“Where you headed?”
Headed? “Pardon me, please?”
“Where are you traveling?”
“Seattle, sir.”
He studied her face, and Poornima dared not look away, but she was suddenly conscious of her scars in a way she had never been in India. He stamped their passports and waved them through. The man at customs was the opposite of the man at immigration. He was so black he shone. Poornima could see the gleam of the fluorescent lights reflected in his face. He avoided her face, though, and said, “Anything to declare?”
This, Poornima understood. “No, nothing to declare,” she said triumphantly.
They took a small train, and then, as they were walking toward their next gate, jostled and harried, people brushing past them rudely, Poornima slowed to study the gate numbers. The crowds and the newness and the enormity of glass and light and sound were overwhelming, but just as they neared their gate, Poornima stopped in her tracks. Madhavi bumped into her from behind, and some man in a suit gave them a dirty look. “What,” Madhavi said. “What is it?”
But Poornima didn’t hear. She was looking at a glass case. Overcome, broken, by the bowl of fruits on top. One of them a banana.
She stared at it. Could hardly believe its beauty. The perfect yellow of the sun. The biggest banana she’d ever seen, and yet flawless in posture. Arced like a bow, her gaze an arrow.
She spoke.
Look where I am, she said to the banana. Look how far I’ve come. We were in Indravalli once. Do you remember? We were so young, you and I. And the words of a crow were our mother and our father. Look where I am. For you. For you, I’ve come this far. I’ve lost no hope. I take this girl from slaughter to slaughter—because of that hope. Because it’s made me cruel. But I have not lost it. Do you remember? We were children, you and I. And look at you now, unbendable and strong. Shaped like a machete, pointed at my heart.
She would’ve stood like that for days, but Madhavi nudged her, and two hours later, they boarded the last plane, the one bound for Seattle.
*
They landed in Seattle midafternoon. When they came out of the airport, Poornima took a deep breath and felt as if it were her first one in days. And though they had not been outside of the airport in New York, the air here felt colder and brighter. A car waited for them. Black and sleek.
Out stepped a man who glanced at each of them perfunctorily and then lifted their bags into the open trunk. He was handsome, Poornima thought, and though he was clearly Indian, he seemed unlike any Indian man she’d ever known. Too brawny, she thought, too sad. Though against his stature, his vigor, she imagined that she, with her burned face, and Madhavi, with her cleft lip, must look like circus performers, or carnival acts. And he their keeper.
They entered a wide road, and it reminded her of the road leading out of the airport in Singapore, and she realized, with something like awakening, like freedom, that this was the last road, the one that would take her to Savitha.
4
“What’s your name?” the man asked Poornima in Telugu, out of the silence. But no, it wasn’t silence. Poornima realized in that moment that music was playing, from the car’s radio, but the music had no words. It could’ve been a hum, carried on the wind.
“Poornima,” she said. “And she’s Madhavi.”
He nodded, or so Poornima guessed, or maybe he was just hanging his head with that awful sadness he seemed to carry in his eyes, around his neck. “What’s yours?”
His hand reached for the radio, and as he turned up the music, she saw in it such strength, such wholeness, that she almost took it. Held it in her own. And he seemed to sense it, because he looked over at her, and she saw in his face a fineness, a fallenness, that of great ruins, and he said, “My name is Mohan.”
*
Immediately, Poornima could tell two things about him. The first was that Mohan was an alcoholic. The signs were all there: the eyes rimmed with red, the barely submerged anguish, just beneath the skin, the hands that fluttered, or hung limp and useless, not knowing their purpose without a bottle in their grip, the gray skin, the gray gaze, the gray, celestial waiting—for the next drink, for the next clink of bottle against glass, for the next ethereal rising. The second thing she knew was that his heart was broken.
And these two things, she realized, were her best weapons.
Besides, she understood, in this new country, that she had to confide in someone, and Guru had mentioned only three people, and even then, only vaguely. The first was Gopalraju, the patriarch, but Poornima doubted that the man who commanded this vast network of apartments and money and girls would in any way lead her to Savitha. In fact, he would most likely do quite the opposite. She’d also once heard a brother mentioned. But who was he? What was his name? Would he be beneficial? It was impossible to know.
And so she chose Mohan. They hadn’t spoken any further on the drive from the airport; he’d driven her to a motel, brought her suitcase around to the passenger side, and said, “You’ll stay here until your return flight.”
Poornima remained in the car. “What a strange city,” she said, peering out the windshield. “From the plane, the islands looked like floating banana leaves, waiting for rice.”
He eyed her impatiently. “You coming?”
She turned her gaze to him, shook her head.
“You’re not leaving today, are you?”
“No, my flight’s in three weeks.”
“Three weeks,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “The shepherds usually leave in a day or two.”
She watched his hands, the sorrow he held in them, as surely and as firmly as he would a glass, a lover. “They’ve been asking more questions. At border control,” she said.
“On the Indian side?”
“Both,” she lied. “But I have a thousand dollars. Is that enough for this place?”