Where Earth Meets Water

By the time their car pulled up to visitors’ parking, ambulances and police tape had cordoned off the graveled lot. Scuba tanks were stacked together in a pile near one of the medical vans, and medics scurried about, stricken, possessed, mumbling into walkie-talkies.

“Park’s closed, sir,” a ranger said, directing their car. “Please turn around and go back the way you came.” Karom couldn’t believe that the ranger wore a hat just like on Yogi Bear. He spoke to the absurdly flat brim.

“What happened?”

“Wave.”

Karom hesitantly put his hand up and looked around before he realized that the ranger wasn’t instructing him to gesture to anyone. He put the car in reverse. While Karom fiddled with the AM radio to find a local channel, Gita plugged in the address of their hotel into the GPS that would lead them out of the park and back toward the highway.

“Tragedy struck at Acadia National Park today as a giant wave crashed over Archer’s Rock, claiming the lives of dozens of hikers and picnickers. Body count is still unknown as medics and scuba divers continue to comb the rocky coast to recover up to 50 park visitors who are expected to have been on the rock. Accounts confirm that a rogue wave such as this one hasn’t struck the area in nearly 40 years, the last similar tragedy occurring in 1971.”

The trees rushed by them, faster and faster, a blur of green in ascending brightness past their windows. They flew by the distinct odor of skunk and a tiny manicured graveyard, past which Gita held her breath. The two-way road was narrow and Gita was glad that Karom was driving. She felt nervous driving in situations where the car might graze against the side of another. She panicked easily in tunnels.

Karom pressed the button to clean the windshield, the blades scraping dully against the already clean glass. Gita pressed the window down and a small spray of window cleaner struck her cheekbone. Karom pulled the car to the side of the road, though there was no shoulder there. He leaned down to the steering wheel and rested his forehead in the center of the wheel, little bleeps emitting sporadically from the horn like a suffering goat.

“Karom,” Gita said, rubbing his ear. “It’s not the same thing. Look at me, baby.” He didn’t move.

“Baby, look at me. It’s a completely different situation, okay? I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You’re fine. You’re safe. I’m here.” She grabbed his head, the hair in the back where it had grown long and scraggly, and pushed it into her shoulder. She could feel him slowly disintegrate against her body, his long sobs penetrating through her thin windbreaker, his breath forcing muffled gasps and soggy exhalations. They sat there like that, allowing cars to whiz by their window, first a few at a time and then the ambulance they had seen in the parking lot, an underwater detection van and then another slew of cars. It became dark in the trees before Gita finally tapped his leg and Karom moved away, averting his face in the embarrassing dance of drying his tearstained face.

They traded places; Gita slid into the driver’s seat, put the car into drive and navigated the rest of the way to their budget hotel while Karom leaned back in his seat, one arm swung over his eyes to shield them from the glow of the dashboard.

* * *

In the rickshaw, Gita forced herself to remember that while their trip to Agra had been uneventful, without epiphany or excitement, that was what had made it a success. She forced her hand back into his and snuggled against him, turning her back to the beggars and hawkers in the road.

* * *

“Hang on,” Gita says now, as they sidestep two dogs sleeping in the middle of the lane. “When Ammama prays, is it in Hindi? English?”

“Definitely not English,” Karom says. “But she says my name. Repeatedly.”

“May-be,” Gita singsongs, pressing her body against him, “she’s praying for you to propose to me.”

“Ha.” Karom steps slightly away from her as they pass through the gates of Ammama’s compound.

“Oh, get over it,” she exclaims, grabbing his hand.

Karom stiffens. “Not here, Gita.”

“Of course here,” Gita insists. “It’s the birthplace of the Kama Sutra. Romance was practically invented here.”

But there is a sense of decorum in India, regardless of the historical ramifications of one dusty volume of intimate positions that sex shops like to pass off as exotic and sensual. Karom understands that the things that they take for granted back home in New York can never be accepted in this land so easily. The idea of boyfriends and girlfriends and dating, of sleeping in the same bed, even of traveling together, are all acts that had he grown up here, he himself might have frowned upon.

On their first night in Ammama’s flat, Karom had reverently touched her feet as he knew she would appreciate and asked, “Where will I be sleeping?” and then “Where will Gita be sleeping?” before placing their backpacks in the appropriate rooms: Gita sharing her grandmother’s double bed, Karom on the wooden pallet in the sitting room. He wondered if Gita asked her grandmother if she could sleep in the bed away from the door or away from the window, whichever it was that she was most worried about. Most women had a side of the bed, the right or left, but for Gita it was the side that she felt least vulnerable in. If they stayed in a hotel room, it was the side farthest away from the door; if they were on the ground floor in a room with garden access, it was where Gita felt intruders would be least likely to enter.

“It’s because if someone were to break in, I wouldn’t be the first thing they’d see,” she’d explained to Karom.

“But I would,” he’d snorted. “And I’d be the one they mauled or kidnapped or beat up. That’s okay with you?”

“No...you would protect me,” Gita had said. “My big strong man.”

He’d shaken his head. It was a stupid argument, but still he couldn’t help feeling slighted by her selfishness. He wondered if Gita was okay with her grandmother falling victim to hypothetical marauders in her second-floor flat in the suburban residential colony in East Delhi.

* * *

When they return to the flat later, after a long afternoon of shopping, Karom steps hesitantly through the door. But Ammama isn’t focused on him; she tells Gita that she has something to show her. While Gita slips behind the curtain that serves as the door to Ammama’s room, Karom busies himself with taking his purchases out of the bags and laying them out on the sofa: Calvin Klein shirts, a Kenneth Cole suit, all gathered at severely discounted prices. He holds up a shirt and breathes it in. It is so reassuring how much the fabric smells like India, like the mustiness of cardamom and mustard and mothballs all in one. He hears jingles and snaps and coos and sighs before Ammama slides the curtain open and beckons shyly at him. Karom follows her into the bedroom.

The bedroom is dimly lit: Ammama has drawn the curtains against prying eyes and sunlight is poking in at the corners of the windows. Gita is sitting on the bed with what appears to be a heap of gold in front of her. She sorts through it, trying on a large chandelier earring with curlicues and licks of rubies in her right ear while an enormous jade hoop perches perkily in her left nostril.

“Wow,” Karom breathes. “What is all this?”

“My trousseau,” Ammama says, pushing aside some of the tissues that had protectively padded the jewelry. “I want Gita to choose something. Help her decide.”

Karom sits gingerly on the edge of the bed. He picks up a string of pearls and lets them slide through his fingers. Gita is wrapping a thick yellow-gold necklace with braided chains around her neck.

“Close this?” She turns around and Karom snaps the clasp at the nape of her neck. “What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful,” he says. “It’s all so delicately elaborate.”

“You have first pick and then your sisters can choose when they come next,” Ammama says, taking a step toward the door. “Take your time. I’ll make tea.”

“Her family must have spent years collecting all this. Imagine how long it took to put it together,” Karom whispers.

“Here, I need help with this headpiece.” Gita aligns an emerald stone that glistens like a giant waterdrop in the center of her forehead, glancing in the mirror to make sure that the chain falls neatly into the parting of her hair. “What do you think?”

“It seems so sad to break up the set that symbolizes the start of her new life as a bride. But I guess she’s passing on the legacy.”

“Trust me, she doesn’t want the memories. They’re not happy ones. Besides, I’m here, Karom. She wants me to have something. What do you think of these?” Solid gold bangles cuff her wrists, glinting in the dim light.

“They’re nice. I’m going to...” Karom nods toward the doorway and slides off the bed. In the kitchen, Ammama is pouring tea into the Bodum pot Karom has brought her. Her hand shakes a bit as the last drop fills the strainer. “I hope you like the teapot. Gita told me how much you like your tea. ‘Once in the a.m., once in the p.m. and once before R.E.M.’ Right?” Gita had also told him that Ammama would trot it out while they were there and then rewrap it in its original box and place it in the back of a cupboard until visitors came.

“It’s beautiful. You shouldn’t have wasted so much money,” Ammama says. Karom places the pot on a tray along with the small ceramic box of sugar and a matching pitcher of milk. Gita appears at the doorway, wearing a heavy yellow-gold necklace. It droops down nearly to her midriff, rubies and emeralds twinkling brazenly. The inner strands are unpolished grayish oblong seeds rather than the now seemingly artificial perfect globes of pearls Karom has seen the ladies wear with Chanel suits on the Upper East Side. Gita doesn’t look very comfortable, but she sticks her chest out and says, “I want this one.”

“I wore that on my wedding day,” Ammama says, smiling. “Beautiful choice. If you’re sure, I’ll take the rest back to the safe-deposit box at the bank.”

They sit in the living room, the overhead ceiling fan making wide, useless circles as the tea cools. Karom nibbles absently on a stale biscuit.

“You’ve left your visits until the last minute,” Ammama says. Gita looks down shiftily and traces a pattern on the stone floor with her toe. “I only hope it’s convenient for your great-aunts and uncles that you come tonight.”

“You’ll come with us, right, Ammama?” Gita asks shyly. “It’ll be fun.” Gita has obligations, she’s told Karom. To see family members who remember her better than she knows them, but these visits make them so happy and they make Ammama happy, too.

“I’ll make an early dinner and we can call a rick to take us. I missed my nap today,” Ammama says, her eyes twinkling. “I hope I won’t be too cranky.”

* * *

The evening is crisper than the previous days have been. Karom borrows a pale blue sweater from the empty closet that once belonged to Gita’s grandfather. He puts his arms through the sweater sleeves and his nose to the fabric.

“Why do clothes in India always smell like this?” he asks. “It’s so reassuring, such a comforting scent.”

“Probably because all the dhobis use the same detergent,” Gita says sarcastically. “And let the clothing dry in the air to pick up the subtle undertones of coconut trees and cow dung.”

Ammama sits by the door in the sitting room. Karom doesn’t understand the name for this room; no such place exists in Western-style homes. It is a room for receiving, for watching, for preparing, but never simply for sitting. It is the first time he has seen anyone be still in this room since his arrival.

Ammama is wearing a dark maroon sari with a paisley border. The previous summer, she distributed all her bright saris and those with gold or silver thread to the twin neighbor girls upstairs. They are both in their forties, living with their parents. One of them was married, but on her wedding night, her husband raised his hand to her and she retaliated, striking him on the bridge of his nose. Stunned, he told her to pack her things and go, and she responded in kind, returning to the flat upstairs. At least, that’s what Ammama has heard.

Gita told Karom about a ritual she loved as a child, first arriving at Ammama’s flat in the summers, tearing open her wardrobe door, running her hands across the yards and yards of silk, brocade and crepe-de-Chine saris, burying her head into the fabric to breathe in that familiar smell of India and begging Ammama to take out “this one. This one is my favorite.” Gita’s allegiances changed each time she visited, her tastes maturing and then reverting as trends came and went. In her tomboy years, she chose only the blues and reds, and when she finally embraced her girlhood, she lovingly pulled out more pinks and purples. Upon arriving at the flat a few days ago, Gita had flung open the wardrobe door and cried out softly as she sank back onto Ammama’s bed.

“They’re gone,” Gita said. “What happened?”

“I’m too old. I can’t wear those bright-bright things now,” Ammama replied. “And the zari work was too fine—I couldn’t iron them constantly. So I gave the whole lot to the girls upstairs. They needed some color in their lives.” Gita twisted her mouth, saddened by the gaping holes between the lonely, dismal saris that remained. But you need some color in your life, she thought.

Ammama’s apartment building is set back in the compound, and the motorized auto-rickshaws buzz about like flies only in the main road. Karom goes to fetch one while Ammama walks carefully behind, holding her cane in one hand and Gita’s forearm in the other. Gita can see Karom in the distance with his arm up in the road as the little black rickshaws scurry past him.

“I like him, Gita. I really like him.” Gita holds Ammama’s hand as they take dainty steps together. “Do you think you’ll marry?”

“I hope so, Ammama,” Gita says, looking down into Ammama’s eyes. “I really hope he gets things together. I really hope he can move beyond his past. Because I love him, I really do. And I think we could be happy together.”

“Give it time, child,” Ammama says. “Not everything happens overnight.”

“It’s been years, though,” Gita sighs. “And he’s taking such baby steps that I worry he’ll never—” She stops and looks up toward him. He is standing too far into the road, extending his arm out as if he were hailing a cab on Broadway. He is getting impatient, pushing the hair out of his eyes and wiping his brow on his shoulder. He takes one more step into the road as an angry rickshaw driver shouts at him, gesticulating wildly. Panic rises and jets out of Gita’s nostrils.

“Ammama, wait here.” Gita props Ammama against a low-lying parapet. Gita takes off at a gallop. It seems so filmic, her hair bouncing and her shawl flying behind her, as if she is running in slow motion to catch up to the man she loves. But as she approaches him, she catches hold of his wrist and swings him back into the ditch that follows the sidewalk along Ammama’s lane. Angry shouts erupt around them, rickshaws nestling close together like black beetles attacking a crumb to allow them through.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Gita asks, panting.

“Getting a rickshaw. What does it look like? Gita, let go. That hurts.”

“You’re standing in the middle of the road and you know it. This isn’t Manhattan, where the cabs will actually stop. This is Delhi, Karom. People die.”

“Stop being so melodramatic, Gita. No one’s filming right now.”

“No, you stop it, Karom.” Tears prick the edges of Gita’s eyes as their voices rise to be heard with the thrumming and honking of the vehicles that speed by. “This is neither the time nor the place. Please don’t do this. Not now.” A honking interrupts them. Ammama pokes her head out of a rickshaw that pulls up alongside them.

“Found one,” Ammama says. “Come on, get in.” Gita climbs up on the other side of her grandmother and Karom piles in the opening closest to him, his long, spidery legs nestling against the back of the driver’s seat. As the rickshaw speeds by on the newly paved highway, though they are landlocked and miles from the ocean, somehow the air fills their nostrils with the tangy, briny scent of the sea.

* * *

In December 2004 his family had gathered on Poompuhar Beach: a reunion. Karom had final exams in Boston and his parents were adamant that he see the semester through. His friends had all finished their finals and started packing up for Christmas break, but Karom was enrolled in a few master’s classes that ended later than the undergraduate program.

“I can take makeup exams,” he’d complained. “Besides, I’m graduating next semester. All the important stuff is over. This is the first time I am going to see all my cousins together. And Naani and Nana and Ajja and Ajji will be so upset I can’t come.”

“They’ll be upset that you are shirking your studies,” his father had said. “You can join us after the exams are over.”

There were games, snacks, many opportunities to get to know one another over the course of two days. Some members of the family were traveling thousands of miles to meet one another, some for the first time, some after a long time. Karom imagined them as he sat with his head against the frozen window, snow melting softly in the courtyard of the library. Now they were probably having strong hot South Indian coffee. Now they were probably telling stories of his parents as youngsters, of their sweet but short courtship when he had wooed and won her. Now they were probably singing folk songs that would only—could only—be passed down by his generation, and if he wasn’t there to learn them, who would bring them to America? Now they were probably sitting on the beach, under colorful tents they’d have rented to stave off the relentless sun. Karom followed them in his mind, fabricating their activities, picturing their smiles. When he packed up his laptop case and closed the door to his dorm room, ready to jump into the cab that would take him to Logan Airport, he thought his heart might burst.

Unlike most of his friends, who would joke about the tribulations of forced holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, Karom enjoyed spending time with his family. This included his wise father, who had been the director on a television commercial starring his ageless, timeless, classically beautiful mother. And of course his mother, who doled out advice the way other mothers pass out homemade cookies. His cousins, whom he’d met piecemeal over the years, and their parents—his aunts and uncles whose stories his own parents had regaled him with for years and years and whose reputations spread far and wide from silly to sober—equally amused him. Both sets of grandparents, whom he saw dutifully every two years, servants his parents had grown up with, vendors who knew more about him than he would ever know about them. All of these people made up a life that was separate from the snowy, blanketed college he was leaving now, forlorn and empty, devoid of true familial love even when the campus was full.

The cabdriver was talkative, which surprised Karom. He thought he’d have to combat surliness and tip heavily for a fare on Christmas Day.

“Where you headed? Your family doesn’t mind you’re missing Christmas?”

“India. We’re not Christian,” Karom said, hugging his backpack to his chest.

“India? Is that safe? You hear about that storm?”

“You must mean the monsoons. They happen in the summer all the time. They’re used to them over there.”

“No, not a storm,” the cabdriver said, shaking his head. He leaned over and turned on the radio. “It’s this freak wave. It’s biblical.”

During the ride to Logan, the cab was filled with snatches of dialogue, screaming, shouting, sobbing, as various news reports filled in the current events of a rogue wave that had been triggered by underwater earthquakes, badly affecting parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India.

“That’s enough,” Karom said at the sight of the exit ramp to the airport. “Please turn it off.” He paid the driver and stood on the sidewalk as trolleys and rolling suitcases maneuvered around him, punching buttons on his cell phone and hearing the Tamil operator prattle back hopelessly to him. There was nothing to do but stick to the plan to fly to Kanyakumari, where he would meet his parents and grandparents to witness one of the most breathtaking sunrises in the world at the very tip of the country, where the Indian Ocean met the Gulf of Mannar and the Arabian Sea. Except that all flights to India were stalled without further information of conditions there. The coastal states were in emergency: no one was going in and it was unclear who was still alive. Karom spent Christmas Day shuttling from the internet café in the airport to the gummy carpeted floor of Gate 17, where he sat slumped, tapping away at his cell phone.

Hours later he peeled himself up and took a bus and then the T and then walked the seven long blocks back to his dorm. The brittle leaves that still hung on the trees chattered together in a ghostly whisper as the wind swept through them. There was something beautiful about the snow that had settled there in his absence. It glistened cleanly, the crystals twinkling in the crisp morning. Karom felt bad making a path to his doorway, where he let himself into his room and opened the blinds where the sun glanced off the snow mounds, blinding him momentarily. His dorm-room phone blinked red with anticipation and he dropped his bundles, even his precious laptop, in a heap on the floor and jabbed the button. A muffled, weary voice filled the room.

“Karom, I’ve been trying your mobile, but it doesn’t seem to be connecting. This is Kishan Ramchand, your naana and naani’s neighbor in Cubbon Park. We live upstairs? I think you were meant to land just now, but I’m hoping to catch you. Karom, there was this huge wave yesterday that pretty much obliterated most of the southern and western coasts of India, particularly Tamil Nadu. Obviously, you know that’s where the festivities were being held, and nobody’s been able to get ahold of anyone from the party. We’re trying desperately, but as you can imagine, a lot of phone lines are down and it’s been impossible to connect with the hotel or anyone’s mobiles. Auntie and I are praying really hard here at home, but we’re not sure what’s happening. If by some miracle, you haven’t left already, please stay put. It’s a rather dangerous situation right now. Take my number and call.”

His entire family. All together. On one beach.

Karom listened to the message once again before he wrote the number down shakily. Then he opened the covers on his tightly made bed and got in. It was three days before he got out again. On the third day, he reached for his cell phone and dialed Kishan’s number.

“Uncle? It’s Karom.”

“Thank God, child. You’re okay. Where have you been?”

“College. My flight was canceled. Any news?”

“It’s not looking good. They’re reporting that phone and power lines have been restored at this point, as well as cell networks. If we—if we haven’t heard from them by now...”

“Look, you never know. What can I do? Should I come?”

“There’s nothing anyone can do at this point.” Karom heard Kishan slowly breaking down. A tear traveled down the bridge of Karom’s nose and plopped onto the worn wooden floorboard. The room was freezing—the heat had been turned off for the break, though Karom didn’t notice it at all. “And your parents were there,” Kishan wailed.

“They are there,” Karom said, wiping his face on the back of his hand. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Call me if you hear anything. On my cell. My mobile.”

Karom sat up in bed, staring at the wall as if in a trance. Suddenly, he broke off and opened his roommate’s closet. In here Lloyd kept a small pantry alongside his perfectly pressed cardigans and corduroy jackets. Karom wasn’t sure why Lloyd hid the snacks, as Karom had never deigned to take anything of Lloyd’s without asking—until now. There were saltines, granola bars, a large package of chocolate-covered mints and a fresh jar of peanut butter. Karom twisted the top off the peanut butter and pulled a gob of it onto his finger. He closed his lips over it, the sweetness making his mouth water and jerking tears to his eyes. He blinked the tears back and stuck his finger in again and again. His mouth was sticky and he ran his tongue over his teeth. What was that word? The word that when he heard it pulled gently on his stomach, in his throat, at the tips of his fingernails, making him think that it would never be him. It couldn’t be him.