Guardian of the Dawn, page 18
I might have begged Wadi and Sofia not to reveal anything, but I suspected that my supplications would only tempt their further cruelty. My weakness will confirm to them they were right, and end any chance I may still have at happiness with Tejal.
So it was that I began to avoid them both, scuttling away like a crab at the approach of their footsteps. Over the next few months Sofia and I never talked once as brother and sister.
I thought all the time, of course, of the boyhood adventures I’d had with Wadi, but hindsight is an effortless liar. How could I be certain about my past feelings when they were veiled by years of distance and all the experiences I’d had since then? I saw only one thing clearly: the secrecy and stealth Wadi and I would have had to employ in order to conceal any physical bond between us would have undone me. I’d never have voluntarily given him the means to cause my destruction – and to create so much shame for my father. So he would have had to overpower me.
Had he ever considered bending me to his will when we were alone at Indra’s Millstream? Was that the animal-like danger I sometimes scented on him?
How close had we been to leading a double life?
At the center of the ever-expanding world of sin and doubt around me was a single memory: Wadi giving me a leering smile and reaching for his sex when he first spoke of Sarah. He’d told me not to be jealous. I hadn’t understood that he’d meant of Sarah – just as I hadn’t understood Sofia’s accusation at first. The connection couldn’t be accidental. Maybe Wadi had given me signals for years that he wanted our relationship to move along a different path.
Did Sofia yet suspect that her accusation of jealousy ought to have been made to him, not me?
How frustrated he must have been that I didn’t understand his desires, though maybe he believed that I sensed them easily enough and denied him on purpose. If so, then he must have convinced Sofia to accuse me in order to exact revenge. Wadi hadn’t needed to shoot an arrow at me that day in our garden: Sofia had done it for him. And she had very good aim, after all.
Or was I inventing his motivations now in order to comprehend a final betrayal I could not otherwise explain, to write the end of our friendship as a story where I was the victim? Did Wadi’s nature still elude me completely?
Papa summoned me into his study one day in late March to say how troubled he was by my disintegrating relationship with Sofia, but I couldn’t even begin to explain what had taken place between us without revealing the nature of her feelings for Wadi. My fear of what she could do to me certainly made up the greater part of my silence, but I also wanted to show her that the brother she persecuted was still morally her superior.
“We’re growing older and growing apart,” was what I said instead, which was true enough. “But I think we will come back together in the end.”
With a resigned look, Papa accepted my reply, which – at the time – I half believed myself, since I was unable to imagine that all our years of caring could come to nothing. In fact, as I uttered my prediction, I realized that Wadi would undoubtedly soon reveal a secret of hers, or commit some other treason, forcing her to wake at last from her romantic daydreams. It seemed the only possible outcome of a friendship with him.
I only hoped she wouldn’t be too wounded by him, in part because I’d undoubtedly have to be the one to care for her in the months of loneliness to follow.
As I reached the door, Papa stilled my hand. Panic swept through me: I sensed he was about to ask me about what had happened between me and Wadi.
“Ti, I didn’t want to have to speak about certain things with you, but now that your relationship with your sister has deteriorated … How strongly does Sofia love your cousin?”
“For how long have you known about them?” I asked, relieved that I didn’t have to talk about myself.
“Since the time Sofia asked to stay in Goa for a few weeks. But I was sure only when you began your own life in earnest – without worrying so much about her.”
“She loves him deeply,” I said.
Deeply enough to let herself be convinced that she had to choose between us, I wanted to add.
“And does he love her?”
“I think so.” Unless, I thought, he has taken up with her just for the pleasure of destroying our family’s harmony.
“I’ll have to have a serious talk with Isaac about this very soon.” Papa heaved a great sigh.
“Maybe not.”
“Why?”
“I have my doubts that it will last.”
“Go on.”
I could not speak of Wadi’s betrayals of me without damning him in my father’s eyes – and risking my cousin’s revenge against me. So I referred instead to how quickly he’d tired of Sarah.
“Do you think it will be a good thing for him to fall out of love with Sofia?” Papa asked.
“Neither good nor bad,” I answered, feeling that all the important things in life were beyond our control. “Just the way it will be.”
Tejal was able to get permission to visit us during the Easter holidays because Nupi was her great-aunt and had promised her parents she’d look after her. One night, after everyone had gone to sleep, she and I sat on the verandah. It was the kind of perfect evening that India weaves out of a whispering breeze, with every star in place and all the sounds of the forest seeming to come out of an age long past. Yet I was restless. I felt as though the Lord of the Old Testament might appear at any moment and force me to fight Wadi to win back my identity.
I hadn’t the courage to explain to Tejal why I was no longer on friendly terms with my cousin and my sister – and why I’d been so quiet during her visit. A wall – built of my deep fear of being rejected by her – had grown up between us.
I was watching her rereading Papa’s folktales, the comforting weight of her head on my shoulder, when the moon, freeing itself from a cloud, lit up her face and hair, giving me the strange impression that she was an eternal being – and would be with me for only a very short time unless I acted decisively. It was one of those moments when we believe in revelations and fortune. I sensed that we were destined to be married and that she’d give me invincible strength if we were. My mind took off on fantasies after that, most of them silly, but on one of them I realized that declaring our engagement would solve all my problems. I could then laugh off any accusations of shameful desires. Our love made this the ideal solution. If only I could convince Papa that a Hindu girl could be my bride.
“I want to marry you,” I said.
Did I change into a being of careful strategies as I spoke these words or had I simply never seen my own tactics so clearly before?
“What did you say?” Tejal asked, sitting up, her face showing alarm.
“I suppose we might need a year or so to prepare everything. I’ll have to talk to your parents, though I have no idea what will be expected of me. And somehow we’ll have to convince Papa that – ”
Her face twisted with distress and she dropped her manuscript.
“What’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy.”
“Oh, Ti, I cannot leave the convent school just because you want me to. The whole village has contributed to my education. They are counting on me. It is impossible – so impossible that I cannot even think of how to reply to you.”
I leaned down to pick up her folktales. “But I want you to finish your studies and to work at the Royal Hospital. I’ll move to Goa. I’m sure my uncle will hire me.”
“Ti, my father is only a fisherman. We own nothing of value. If you found a Brahmin girl, you would – ”
“Why are you trying to insult me?” I interrupted. I spoke more harshly than I needed to; I wanted to prove I was not hiding any ulterior motives.
“Insult you?” she questioned despairingly.
“By implying that I want a Brahmin bride. I am happy your father and mother are from Benali. I love it there.”
“You do?”
“I was Ganesha there, remember? Anything can happen in your village.”
She flung her arms around me. In my naiveté, I hadn’t realized how our different backgrounds had caused her constant worry since we’d met. Now, the caste system seemed cruel to me in a way it never had before. It was as though it symbolized all the traps the world set for us.
Wriggling free of my kisses of reassurance, she jumped up and announced she wanted a wedding by the seaside – with only our parents and close relatives in attendance. I insisted instead on grand festivities – sitar and tabla players, dancers from Kerala, and so many flowers that we’d attract clouds of bees and honey-birds.
Announcing our love as loudly as possible will be useful, I thought, and I felt my strategy – like a mill wheel – giving its first complete turn.
She bit her thumbnail, afraid to agree. “Do you think we could?” she asked, kneeling next to me.
It delighted me the way her gestures were so graceful and childlike at the same time. I felt giddy having such a girl want me and pressed my lips to hers, holding her face between my hands. It was a kiss of desires openly declared, and after a time she pushed me away.
“Ti, no,” she protested. She jumped up, angry, brushing off her sari as though it had become soiled.
“Is it wrong to want to be with someone you love?” I asked. After I stood up, I showed her what I meant by lifting a fold in my dhoti.
“Ti, stop!” She turned away. “This is not like you at all. If my father knew …”
I gave a small laugh to make light of what I’d done and tucked myself back in.
“You can turn back now,” I said. “See, all gone!”
I whirled my hands around like a fakir making his mouse disappear, but Tejal didn’t smile. Indeed, she looked close to tears.
“The villagers will expect a big wedding since they contributed to your education,” I argued, eager now to change the subject. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”
She stared at me without replying, her face adult and serious. Then she reached out and touched the straining outline of my sex.
I gave a little moan. When she squeezed, I felt all of me flowing out toward her. I stepped closer. Her breathing was warm on my chest.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “I promise I’ll never hurt you.”
I felt I was winning myself back by swearing that.
I kissed both her cheeks and licked her ear playfully, which made her shiver.
“I love you,” I whispered, “so don’t be scared.”
She reached under my dhoti and ran her hand slowly up and down my hardness as though testing the length and breadth of her own will. I suspect she was also confirming that she could own me through so simple a gesture; dark triumph slowly lit up her eyes.
Imagining the warm moistness of her, my heart seemed to tumble. When she took her hand away, I pressed myself into her hip insistently.
“No more, Ti,” she said gently.
She slipped out of my embrace and sat down. When she reached up for my hand, I gave it to her. She brought it to her lips. Then, smiling enigmatically, she stared off into her thoughts as though she’d forgotten me. I was unsure of what to do.
“Maybe we can get Sofia and Arjuna to play Ganesha like they did at the festival,” she said, turning back to me with a hopeful look.
I kissed her lips, but gently this time.
You’ve proved what you had to, I was thinking, so don’t risk pushing her away …
“I don’t think anyone will be able to play Ganesha at our wedding,” I said.
“Why?” she asked, clasping my hand between both of hers, which was a gesture she made when she was unsure of how to proceed.
“We both know that Papa adores you, but you’re a Hindu.”
“I cannot believe it will bother him so much.”
“By Mosaic law, the children of a Hindu woman cannot be Jewish, even if the father is. Papa will want you to convert. Just as my mother did.”
We spoke for a time about what that would involve, and Tejal said she didn’t think she could swear that there was only one God, which is the very first mitzvah – commandment – of Judaism.
“Hanuman has always protected me, Ti. I do not think it would be right to deny Him in favor of another God.” Seeing my distraught face, she caressed my cheek. “Don’t worry, I will have a long talk with your father about us,” she said in a voice that seemed surer than I’d ever heard from her. “I know I can convince him to help us.”
What gave her such confidence? Maybe she’d been waiting for me to ask her to marry me since that first evening in Benali.
Biting her lip, as though rising to a challenge inside herself, she reached under my dhoti and played with me again. “If your father lives with Lord Shiva guarding his doorway,” she whispered conspiratorially, leaning into my ear as though we were talking about forbidden lovemaking and not a powerful god, “then he is more willing to make compromises with a Hindu girl than you think.”
She gripped my stiffness and jiggled it in her hand as though testing its weight.
She is getting used to the feel of me, I thought, knowing that this was what I’d wanted for many years.
The next morning, Tejal told Papa that she wished to speak to him before I started my lessons with him. He agreed, and I accompanied the two of them to the library, where she put her hand on my chest and shook her head, “No, Ti, let us talk alone for a time.”
When the door was closed behind them, I thought, She’ll have to be very agile to avoid his traps.
I kneeled down with my ear to the keyhole, but after only a few moments the door swung open. My father stood there grinning in triumph, his hands on his hips, leaning back like a pasha.
“Did you lose something on the floor, young man?” he asked.
I heard Tejal’s laughter behind him.
“Very well, I’ll go,” I said in defeat. “But please just listen to what she has to say. And remember that you’re not obliged to think up every possible objection.”
As I turned to leave, I saw Nupi peeking in on us from a window in the sitting room. She saw the request in my eyes and gave me a signal with her hand.
“Negotiations with Tejal will begin when I see that you have gone out to the garden,” Papa bellowed. “And don’t bother to ask Nupi to come around here snooping for you,” he added, loud enough for her to hear. He lifted his nose in the air like a happy puppy. “I can smell her fennel seeds a mile away.”
*
A half-hour later, Tejal came out to the garden, gazing down despondently, her steps unsure. I reached out to steady myself but found only air.
“Oh, Ti, nothing is wrong. I was only acting. I’m such a silly girl sometimes!” She embraced me so hard – her head pressed against my bare chest – that it seemed as though she wanted to enter inside me. “I’m sorry, so sorry! You must forgive me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, breathing in the reassuring scent of her.
“Your father and I thought we would make it even better for you by making believe things went wrong. But when I saw you go all pale, I just couldn’t do it.”
“Then they haven’t?” I asked, sensing for the first time that Papa’s comic instincts and Tejal’s acting talents were about to become a dangerous combination for me.
“No, your father and I have agreed on everything. He will give me lessons in Judaism and we will read the Torah together. If, after that, I still choose not to convert, I will not have to.”
“He’s agreed to abide by whatever decision you make?” I asked in disbelief.
When Tejal nodded, relief spread through me like a warming ocean; Wadi and Sofia would no longer have any power over me. Through Tejal and my father, God had granted my prayers. Everything would go well now.
“Your father also told me something about Lazarillo de Tormes,” Tejal said, holding herself apart from me and grinning girlishly. “He says the hero of the book is Hanuman!”
“Tejal, I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“A mischief-making god isn’t only a Hindu tradition,” she said emphatically. “That’s the secret of the book, he told me. Lazarillo is a trickster. I will be permitted to believe that Hanuman is a part of the Lord if I decide to convert. In fact, I must believe it!”
She tugged me to the verandah so that she could explain herself while we sat together.
“Your father told me that all the birds and trees and snakes we see, and everything we feel and even dream … it’s all a reflection of God. Devi and Lakshmi and even Vishnu are aspects of the Lord of the Torah. His different forms are called the sephirot in Judaism, he said. The Creator who appeared to Moses has wings and an elephant head and a papaya in his tail and everything else we can imagine. So I can continue to believe that Hanuman watches over me. In fact, your father said that it’s a secret, but that Hanuman helps to protect each of us from the moment we are born and even before that. Because we all have a trickster inside us. And it’s a good thing that we do!”
I knew then what Papa had meant about God being in the most obvious place in the book.
“He never told me anything like that,” I said, a bit resentful.
“Maybe he will when you are old enough to understand it,” she said, laughing.
Something so astonishing occurred to me then that I remember feeling as though Tejal and I were being watched by the trees and bushes, by the blue sky and distant horizon: I suddenly knew Papa must have been aware of Wadi and Sofia’s threats against me. He was more observant than I’d ever guessed and was telling me I had to meet their treachery with equal cleverness. That was why he had given us Lazarillo.
The window to his library squealed open at that moment and he looked up to the heavens, his head bowed as though he’d been crushed by fate. This was for our benefit, of course, and was to become another of his comic routines in the months ahead. “May the Lord forgive me,” he said, his voice quivering with mock fear, “but I can refuse that girl nothing she wants.”
I was sure that all would be happy and calm from then on, but Papa’s agreement with Tejal made Sofia even more resentful. One morning after Tejal had gone back to Goa, while I was having my haircut in Ramnath, my sister swept into Papa’s bedroom as he was dressing and stated that she could take no more.
