| Resume | Solitude | Stories | The Water Element | The Spell | Before I could be born |
Summer Serenade
The sand on the beach was particularly dark that day. What was it that the
strong surf kept washing out to the shore? Did the sand turn black in mourning
of the fisherman they found laying there motionless
with his protruding belly full of water? They stood above that, which
used to be a man, staring at the white chart-marks of the dried up sea salt on
the tightly stretched skin of his stomach. His loin cloth washed
aside, a small limp piece of flesh rested on his contorted left limb. His eyes, two bulging black cherries open wide.
The eyelids tacked tightly under the arch of the eyebrows, as if the
ocean wanted to look into the fisherman's eyes. As if it was pushing and pulling against the two little flabby skin curtains, till they receded from the eye balls, back into the head itself, covering, protecting the inner eye from witnessing the horror that was happening to him. "Somebody should call the police," the woman called out to the passing by Indian man. It was seven a clock. The sand was still cool. They went out for a walk before their breakfast, looking forward to the nice day to unfold before them. Foaming waves splashed against their calves. "My little angel, you were so brave, running inside the surf, deeper then I
liked it, or could stand without getting frightened for your beautiful young
life. Your copper hair brilliantly
shining in the august morning sun, you laughed at my anguish.
"No, no , madam, police is trouble," answered the man, avoiding to look into the direction of the drowned man. "You call the police, madam, for us, big trouble," he said, hurrying away. The woman ran to the nearby hotel, to alert them about the drowned man.
We stayed at Mammala Puram. The new hotel didn't have a restaurant. "Next year coming, madam, the
servant said. " He could have been thirty at most, dark complexion, slim, in a blue checkered shirt tucked into the matching blue dhoti, that he wrapped around his waist.
He used to come to our room without knocking.
"Breakfast coming ," he
announced. His bear feet leaving moist footprints on the light green
tile floor as he was thumping toward the table, he held up a beige plastic
tray.
He never looked straight at me, or you, but I sensed his
burning coal eyes branding my body.
Sitting on the balcony, we ate the soggy toasts with butter and jam, and drank a pot jar of Darjiling tea with milk.
And you said: "We should have brought our bathing suits with us." You were right, we should
have. You put on a pair of white shorts and tied a tee shirt
across your chest. How much I enjoyed looking at you that
summer. We strolled along the beach, exposing our pale legs to the flagellation
of the sun.
When I tired, I lay down on the sand, near the water, so that the
waves could come up my legs, stroking my belly, flooding my breasts, and tickling my
neck.
Sometimes the water splashed across my face enveloping me in a cool salty embrace.
You played in
the water, waiting for the surf, jumping on it, or bending down, hiding underneath, letting the surf slide over your suntanned little back. When we
couldn't stand the heat any more, we covered ourselves with our dhotis, and
ran toward the restaurant called Golden Sun.
We sat at the same table every day ordering the same food, talking to the same waiter.
The pury
was crispy, hot and fresh, the potato masala greasy, spicy and delicious, as
was the young Indian waiter from Bombay, who served us every day.
"Your daughter
is so shy," he said, "very unamerican". It was a compliment, and I took it.
He stayed
there with us for a long time, chatting about Bombay, about his
family, and about the evening swims, they organized with the other waiters
after dusk. "We strap some bottles of beer to our waists, "he said, "and we
swim far out into the ocean. It is completely dark, and we stop and talk, and drink
beer where the water is calm. Then we swim again, sometimes we don't know
where we end up, because we see only the light of the Maha
Bali Puram tower, and we swim toward it. Sometimes we have to walk for miles to get back. But we
like it, it's nice."
The waiter smiled with curled up lips, showing his dark pink gums and a row of healthy white teeth.She also noticed his soft pink tongue surging inside his mouth as he formed his words.
.
She wondered about the
little scar above his right eyebrow. His curly hair oiled, his complexion
chocolate brown, smooth and soft, standing there, smiling at the woman, with his
hands behind his back, politely, in his unbuttoned white shirt and black pants,
quite unfit for the heat of the Indian sun.
"Would, you like to come?" He asked the woman.
"Would you like to swim with me one evening?"
"I wouldn't dare," the woman
chuckled, covering up her excitement.
"I would take care of you," he said.
"I don't trust my body. I am too weak," the woman countered.
"I wouldn't let you drown." The man promised.
"I know, I know," the woman conceded lowering her eyelids, covering her face
with her left hand. Her long slim fingers ran up her cheeks into her dark brown
hair. Then her hand ran down her neck behind her ear,
down to her shoulder, and across her chest, to the right shoulder. And there it
remained.
She didn't want to tell him, what she was afraid of.
she just laughed instead, and avoided his warm black eyes, and immersed her hot summer lips in the cold ice - water he brought for her from the kitchen.
The water was filtered. She felt safe to drink it.
The man bent down to take the plate wich contained the remains of the hearty lunch she and her daughter just enjoyed. He moved slowly toward the back of the palm garden.
" Nice man," she said to her daughter. "Yes," the girl agreed.
"Do you want us to go to our room to take a nap?" The woman asked her child.
"Yes, let's go," the girl stood up from the red plastic armchair. Her tee shirt was still wet on her, and her curly hair still dripping.
"In the hotel room, you found a little lizard on the wall, and above that a larger one. You thought it was the mother lizard with it's baby trying to
reach her. You wanted to help the little one to get to its mother faster, and
you pushed it up higher. You thought the mother would be happy, when it turned
to what you thought would be welcoming it. A terrified surprise altered
your exquisite little face, when you saw the big lizard swallowing up the small
one.
You couldn't sleep that night. We sat on the balcony until early morning. I
drank Fisher King while you ate mangoes.
Listening to the strong throngs of the
ocean, I related to you stories from my life. You listened with shining chocolate
eyes. I may have repeated myself but you didn't
seem to mind, as long as I was willing to share."
"Let's go to sleep," you said, and hastily we slipped inside the room,
opening only a scar of the door, to keep the mosquitos out. The room was warm
despite of the fan running on high. We lay down beside each other on
the king size bed. You kicked of the hot sheets in your sleep. Your little mouth open, your thin legs comfortably spread, you slept. The air sturred by the fan kept lifting a strand of your hair. You were my little angel. I wanted to kiss you, but I didn't want to wake you up. I picked up a book, and started
to read about a miracle man. His name was Sai Baba. Suddenly a loud
thunder cracked the silence, disturbed the peace. You remained unaffected. An other thunder followed, shortly after the
first one, accompanied by bright lightening. I heard the trees weeping in the
strong wind, that twisted them unmercifully. Then I fell asleep too, completely
surrendering my life and yours to the miracle man.
It was seven PM, rush hour, the subway station half lit by cool white neon
lights. Rolling their laggage, they entered Time Square. "Home, sweet home,"
the woman laughed. She never felt this subway station to be so protective before.
She have never rejoiced this much in the security of the old walls and the solid ground under her feet. After sixteen hours in air, tired in body and soul, they
descended the staircase to the platform of the 2/3. They were going to catch
the express to 96th , and then transfer to the local .
The heat and the humidity were unbearable. The air felt suffocating.
The woman pulled out a cotton handkerchief that she purchased in Bombay, and
offered it to her daughter. The girl took it, lifted it to her face. At the
same time a terrible rumbling sound trembled the air. The girl looked at the
handkerchief . She held it up to her mother, showing her the red
splatter of blood that splashed out of her own body.
The tremor of the killer sound
kept echoing through the station.
"Call the ambulance," somebody yelled out.
The girl looked at the woman in surprise. Her slender body sank slowly to the ground. Her soft warm limbs hit against the dirty cement floor. The woman crouched above the girl, touched her face, held her chin, caressed her hair, took her slim brown arm into her hand, put it gently down, laid it beside her body. She ran her fingers through her own hair, over her own forehead, covered her own mouth, that was opening wider and wider, until her face became a grotesque grim. No sound came out of her throat. The girl's eyes remained wide open, as if scrutinizing the peeling paint job of the ceiling. Her cotton summer dress slipped up, revealing two slimm suntanned little girl thighs. The
woman gazed at the flowers on her daughter's dress trying to count them. They
were yellow with green leaves, lots of green leaves. They looked like little
dandelions, with tiger teeth. She noticed a thread hanging loose under
the right armlet. The woman tried to tear it of. The thread cut into her finger. She bent down, and tried to bite the thread . Her forehead touched the
warm armpit of the child. The woman sat on the ground, took her daughter's head
into her lap, kept caressing her hair, and caressing her face, and caressing her arms, her neck, her chin, her mouth, her nose, her ears, looking into her eyes, and her own mouth opened so wide, her lips hurt. But she couldn't do anything about it. She felt the sweetness of her own blood on her tongue, resulting from the corners of her mouth. But she couldn't change anything about it either. Just like she couldn't change anything about her young daughter laying motionless on the dirty floor with her brown curls on her mother's lap. And she noticed two small gray mice between the tracks, and then tears started
gushing from her eyes.
