Part 15 (2/2)

*Kate, is that a pose from the Kama Sutra?' Mark asks, gaping at the naked man, whose legs are wrapped behind his own neck.

*Can you pay attention, Mark? We are lost,' I say, examining the hand-drawn map of Palkhot village more closely. *According to this map thing we should be at Gandhi Road but...' I look around. We are at the edge of a summit overlooking snow-capped mountains. There are no signs or roads here, only unmarked, muddy paths. *Maybe we should ask someone for directions.'

I've been told that the only way to find a place in India is to ask an Indian.

As if on cue, a sadhu wearing a tiger-print skirt comes towards me. He dips his hand into the copper pot he's carrying and sprinkles ash in my direction.

My hand immediately goes to my protruding belly.

He says something in the local language. I shake my head and reply, *No Hindi.'

His eyes glaze over before he says in English, *This protect baby.' He glowers at Mark-who is still clicking photographs of that naked man now rocking gently on his stomach like a boat-and whispers, *Light eyes bad for baby. Leopard, cheetah, hyena, all light eyes, all dangerous, all animals. White husband, light eyes, bad omen.' He shoves his silver trident between Mark and me, and adds, *I protect you from white husband for small fee.'

*He's not my husband,' I say, trying to redeem myself.

The sadhu now glowers at me.

I realize my mistake. I am brown. Mark is white. We are in a small Indian village together. I'm pregnant and unmarried. This is not something I should have declared to a stranger, a holy one at that.

I dig inside my khaki pockets and thrust a hundredrupee note into his hands; he deserves it for his tenacity. By the time I finish blinking, several beggars surround me. Their outstretched palms-crooked, albino, fingerless-shove me around. I hear boisterous pleas, *One rupee, give only one rupee.' My body becomes numb against the will of so many. I feel my feet-for shoes are not allowed inside this holy place-step on something soft and squishy: cow dung.

At that time a singular thought comes to my mind: why am I here?

It's because of Walter Scott, the editor of Who! magazine in New York City and my boss. Two weeks ago he'd issued me an ultimatum: *You've covered nothing but geriatric tea parties. You don't have the drive to be a good reporter and-'

This was my fifth job in six years. I begged Walter for a month more to prove my worth.

*Remember, Kate-' he called after me as I left his office, and I mouthed what I knew he was going to say, *-sensation sells.'

But I had nothing to prove myself with. Then Mark found an online article about a woman who was going to perform sati in India.

*This is your story, Kate. We should go to India and meet this sati lady,' he said.

I gave Mark a sidelong glance, not because he'd said *we' but the way he'd said it, unsure and pretentious, as if it was a word he'd just discovered.

*That's too gruesome,' I told him. *Let's keep looking.' In truth, I didn't feel ready to leave New York to go to India.

A week later I had no other leads.

Walter sanctioned what he called *Sensational!' but not on generous terms-I was to leave immediately after getting a visa and go alone, without the courtesy of even a staff photographer. This gave Mark a valid excuse to insist on coming along.

That's why I'm here. I begin to wheeze.

Suddenly, a strong hand yanks me out of the mob. I gulp a mouthful of air, straighten my body, and turn to my saviour-a man with a monkey perched on his right shoulder.

*Thank you,' I say, extending my hands, before quickly retracting them into the folds of a namaste. It's frowned upon if women and men touch each other in public here, our cab driver from Delhi airport had warned us, and I have no intention of sparking a controversy in a place where small things can trigger riots.

*Hotel?' my abiding saviour asks, in a way that suggests he already knows the answer.

I nod my head gratefully, and peel Mark away from the naked man, who has untangled himself, and is now collecting a fat smile and a fat fee from Mark.

The monkey-man leads Mark and me without a word, walking briskly into the growing darkness. His monkey bares its teeth at us, and begins to dig through its owner's hair. After finding a louse-which quickly disappears into its mouth-it clutches its owner and watches us warily.

The monkey's clinginess reminds me of Mark, who I'd met on some Monday morning on my way to work. We were standing next to each other in the subway when I noticed him staring at me. I looked back but he diverted his gaze. It was only after we had crossed from Fulton station to Grand Central that he asked, *Excuse me, miss. Are you from India?'

I replied curtly, *Why do you ask?'

He blushed before saying, *It's just that the pendant you're wearing is beautiful. I read somewhere that a trident symbolizes the Indian G.o.d s.h.i.+va and protects the one who wears it.'

Already taken in by his British accent, deep-set blue eyes and medical books, I tilted my head to the left and smiled. Knowing he could now see my dimples, I added flirtatiously, *Really? I never knew that.' My mother had given this pendant to me on her deathbed, when her brain had already become delirious. I hadn't had the time to ask her what it signified.

Mark opened a door to me that my father should have; but my father was too busy living the American dream: he bought a four-bedroom house and promptly left my mother and me to marry a twice-divorced middle-aged American woman, his colleague at the accounting firm. As a divorcee-considered a *failure' among her Indian peers-my mother developed an unwillingness to go back to India or to stay in touch with her fellow countrymen. So we moved into a rented studio apartment. She took to silence and eventually cancer, while I, at twelve, took to raising myself.

Mark's father, on the other hand, was Indo-nostalgic, having served in pre-independence India as a British soldier. Mark had grown up hearing endless stories of ivory, peac.o.c.ks and saffron. In spite of being far removed from anything Indian, I was a culmination of fantasy and romanticism to Mark.

In his clipped voice, Mark would read aloud Rabindranath Tagore's poems to me and sing Bollywood songs. He'd sign off each email with a Gandhi quote. He'd harp on about the benefits of Ayurveda, celebrate Diwali and cook chicken tikka masala. For thirteen months I used him to fill my unsteady gla.s.s of ident.i.ty, drop-by-minuscule-drop, till I was full.

*You deserve to be taken care of, Rani. Marry me?' he asked one day.

If he hadn't called me Rani, hadn't clung to me, I may have said yes.

*I'm twenty-eight, Mark. I can take care of myself.'

It was time to end things.

I had just started looking for my own apartment when I found out that I was almost two months pregnant. I couldn't believe it at first. I cursed Mark and myself for not being more careful. And I was horrified at the thought of being a mother; after all I didn't even have any benchmarks for good parenting. But once the idea settled in, an unexpected maternal desire gripped me. I realized that I wanted to keep the baby.

So I stayed put with Mark, consumed by my own indecision, while he remained, as always, oblivious to my state of mind; mulling over Indian names for our baby.

*Manya,' he exclaimed loudly one morning, a month later, in our Brooklyn apartment. *Manya is what we'll call our baby girl.'

I was cooing softly to our baby, who was now closer to my heart than anyone else.

*What if it's a boy?'

*It will not be. I deserve another Rani in my life.'

It's been four hours since we arrived in the hotel room. I am tending to my feet, which are swollen, probably due to the long trip, and also smell of cow dung. Mark-in his excitement-has gone out to investigate if there's a way to meet the sati lady.

He comes back soon enough; his blonde hair is damp with sweat, and his clothes reek of woodsmoke. His pale skin is scarlet from excitement. I have never seen him so happy.

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