He didn"t want to reply to Dr. Ben-Aharon yet. He was too full of emotion. He signed off from the computer, paid his fifteen rupees, and walked out onto the hot street again.
The nearby shopping district was crawling with customers as usual. As he approached a fruit stall, he saw the barefooted proprietor, one foot propped on the bottom tier of his display, catching papayas tossed to him from the back of a truck parked at the curb. After receiving each papaya, the man arranged it on an upper tier of the display, and turned to catch the next. Abhay watched as the driver tossed and the fruit man caught maybe fifty large papayas and arranged them in neat rows. Abhay kept expecting at least one of the melon-size fruits to end up in an orange and black splatter on the sidewalk, yet none did. The two men had a steady rhythm, tossing the weighty fruit across the sidewalk despite the people milling around.
Abhay felt astonished. None of the other customers seemed to take any notice, and probably this same scene, this same miracle, repeated itself at fruit stalls all over India. This fruit vendor was happy with his life, tending his little stall day after day, catching fruits, arranging them in beautiful rows and pyramids, haggling over prices.
Abhay walked past a store that sold batteries and plugs, past gla.s.s cases displaying trays of white, pink, and silver sweets. People worked in all of these places and were apparently happy with their lives, and Abhay was going to join them. He was going to be happy with his life. He was going to choose one path now and leave the others behind because, after all, there would be pa.s.sages up ahead, leading out from that first path, and he would never encounter those further ways unless he started forward.
Abhay rotated his shoulder-the pain was gone. He lifted his arms and tilted his head back and forth. He had a full range of motion.
He strolled past a sewing machine on the sidewalk, powered by the thin dark foot of the man who sat behind it. A plump woman was settled on the granite slab of sidewalk next to the machine, ripping the seam out of a piece of clothing. A metal cabinet behind them apparently held all their supplies. As Abhay pa.s.sed, he heard the man humming while he worked.
Toward evening, he made his way back to his grandmother"s house. His aunt let him in and whispered, "Someone is here to see you."
Rasika. She"d come back to him.
When he entered the living room he saw not Rasika, but her brother Pramod, who stood up and held out a hand. Abhay hadn"t seen Pramod in months-probably not since Amisha Menon"s reception-and hadn"t really talked to him in years. Pramod looked solemn and asked if there were any private place to talk. It would be getting dark soon, so the walled garden would be closing. Abhay suggested a restaurant. Pramod shook his head. "I don"t feel like being in public."
There was no private place in the house or in the yard. Abhay led Pramod outside the gate, where they stood under the glaring streetlight as cars and autorickshaws and buses rumbled and honked and rattled past.
"Is Rasika OK?" Abhay asked over the jangle of traffic.
"No." Pramod rubbed a hand over his face. "She"s had an accident. It"s a miracle we even found her. She fell out of an autorickshaw near Commercial Street. She banged her head on the sidewalk"-Pramod knocked his knuckles against the side of his head to indicate the site of injury-"and became unconscious."
Abhay felt as if his own head had been smashed. He pressed his hands to the sides of his head. "Oh my G.o.d. How did you find her?"
"A street vendor saw the whole thing. Someone tried to contact an ambulance, but the ambulance services are private, and I don"t know how they can even get through the traffic. So this street vendor flagged down a car, and the driver of that car took her to a nearby hospital. This man looked through Rasika"s purse, found her cell phone, and saw our phone number. He called us."
His head throbbed in response to Rasika"s injury. "I didn"t know-"
"She left the house this morning," Pramod shouted over the traffic. "My mother was having one of her usual fits, and Rasika left. We figured she"d be back, so when she didn"t return in a few hours, we tried calling her. There was no answer. Then my mother sent me out to look for her. How do you find one person in this gigantic maze of a city?"
"She came to see me this morning." Abhay still clutched his head. "We talked. I thought I had convinced her to go home and face her parents." He put his hands down. "I didn"t know she was so distraught when she left. I should have-"
"Yuvan"s brother came over today and showed us the photo of you and Rasika. I didn"t know you were even in India. I contacted your parents in Ohio and found out where you were staying. My cousin is telling everyone that Rasika had a relationship with you and that she"s in love with you."
"I do love her." A particularly noisy truck rattled past. Abhay stepped closer to Pramod to be heard. "And, I believe she loves me. I came to India to see her. We ran into each other on MG Road one day. She asked me to meet her at Lalbagh. Mayuri was going to see her boyfriend there, and they wanted another man around."
"I suspected Mayuri had something to hide." Pramod scowled.
"Where is Rasika now?" Abhay asked. "What hospital?"
"We transferred her to Aarogya Hospital, which is one of the best in the city. People from the U.S. come there for surgery. I"ve been very impressed."
"Is she going to be OK?"
Pramod shook his head slowly. "It"s hard to tell. The problem is, she was unattended for maybe an hour or more. With brain injuries, it"s important to get treatment right away." Pramod"s face had taken on a look of professional competence. "As I said, I"ve been very impressed with the hospital," Pramod continued. "They controlled the brain swelling; they got her a CT scan and an MRI. Right now she"s awake, which is a good sign, and she sometimes responds to commands. She knows her own name, and she seems to recognize us, at least part of the time. So far she hasn"t been speaking much at all, which my father"s really worried about."
"I need to see her."
"It"s too late now."
"Tomorrow-"
"I don"t think that"s a good idea. My mother doesn"t leave Rasika"s side, and we"re having a hard enough time keeping Amma calm. If you show up, who knows what she"ll do."
The traffic screeched and rumbled past. Across the street, a plump woman wearing a blue sari and carrying a briefcase inserted herself into the mix and calmly walked toward them, as cars and autos and scooters veered past her.
"I need to get back," Pramod said.
Abhay stood with Pramod until he flagged down an autorickshaw. Abhay felt nauseated. After Pramod left, Abhay lay on his bed in the darkness. Through the open window a temple bell clanged, over and over, above the rumble of traffic. His heart was beating so hard that it felt like the bell was resounding inside his chest.
How had Rasika fallen out of the autorickshaw? Although the autos had open sides, once you were seated inside you were fairly well enclosed. Had she actually-jumped out? Or maybe she had changed her mind about where she was going and tried to get out of the moving autorickshaw? Drivers sometimes didn"t pay much attention to whether their pa.s.sengers were fully out or in before they jerked up their starting handle and rattled off.
As everyone went to bed and the house quieted down, Abhay"s mind continued to turn the situation over and over.
The next morning, Abhay couldn"t decide what to do with himself. He wanted to see Rasika, yet he didn"t want to cause more trouble for her. He didn"t know how to reach Pramod. He made his way back to the little secluded garden where he"d had his last conversation with Rasika. The garden was deserted. He stood near the bench where she had sat. Should he have agreed to marry her on the spot? It was only yesterday morning. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
His eyes were drawn to the wall behind the bench. A flowering vine spilled over the concrete, with unusual flowers, like little ears, or like funnels. He stepped behind the bench and touched the yellow and brick-red petals. Four long white structures, two pairs curving to meet each other at the top, nestled inside the petals. The flowers hung in chains down the wall, among the glossy long leaves.
There were so many flowers in India. Every day something new burst into bloom: rows of small purple blossoms along shrub stems, or bells of bright orange bedecking a tree. In sunny areas he"d seen profusions of the low-growing "touch-me-not," with pink puff-ball flowers and delicate fernlike leaves that folded closed when you touched them.
An image flashed into his consciousness-Rasika on the bridge in the j.a.panese garden in Portland. She"d looked like a flower in her yellow sweater, under the hanging branches of the tree.
He plucked one of the firm blossoms, and then another, and placed them on his palm. He needed something to carry them. He walked out of the garden to one of the little shops lining the street opposite, bought the first cloth bag he could find-a tan sack imprinted with ICICI BANK-came back to the garden, and filled the bag with the blossoms. Then, on the main road again, he hailed an autorickshaw and shouted, "Aarogya Hospital."
Abhay carried his bag of flowers into the hospital. The lobby was lit by large windows. The walls were plain white, the floor shiny gray cement. The women at the front desk wore matching green saris. They directed him to the third floor. "Ultradeluxe room," one of them murmured. He climbed the wide stairs. His heart was beating wildly, and his palms were sweaty. At room 310 he paused. He could see, through the partly open door, that the room was full of people-Rasika"s relatives, no doubt. They were sitting in chairs and on a couple of sofas in one corner. He had expected a stark, plain room, like the rest of the hospital, but this one was paneled in wood, with curtains at the windows and blue carpeting. Ultradeluxe. He inched his way through the doorway. No one saw him yet.
Rasika was sitting up in bed. She wore a scarf around her head. He couldn"t see her hair. Maybe it had been cut short or shaved off. Her face looked blank. Her mother sat on a high stool next to the bed, holding a spoon in front of Rasika"s mouth. "You must eat, raja," her mother said. Rasika wasn"t opening her lips.
Abhay grasped the handle of his bag firmly and strode through the crowd. All eyes turned to him. Rasika"s father stood in the far corner next to her bed, plucking at something on the wall with a fingernail. Pramod looked up from the magazine he was reading. Abhay approached the bed and stood next to Rasika"s mother.
"What?" Sujata Auntie dropped the spoon and stood up. "Get out!"
Rasika"s face was bruised, but in her eyes he seemed to see a flicker of recognition. He spilled the flowers out onto the blanket, and she put out a hand and touched a blossom.
"Get him out!" Sujata Auntie shouted. "Take him away!" A couple of rough hands grabbed Abhay"s arms.
"Yes," Rasika said, very clearly, looking straight at Abhay.
Her mother put a hand on Rasika"s cheek. "What is it, raja?"
Rasika stared at Abhay, holding out a bloom in her cupped hands, like an offering. One of her hands had an IV taped to the back. Rasika opened her mouth and said, "Yes, I want to marry you."
The room fell into stunned silence. Pramod cleared his throat and stood up. His magazine splashed onto the floor. "This is a very good sign," he explained. "She remembers. She spoke a full sentence."
Rasika"s face glowed with light. Abhay stepped toward her. Sujata Auntie held up a hand, palm outward, at Abhay. "Get out," she said. She leaned over and, with both hands, slapped at the flowers strewn on the bed. Rasika grasped at several more blossoms and hugged them to her chest.
The hands pulled at Abhay. He shook them off. He didn"t want to create even more of a scene and disturb Rasika. He leaned toward her and whispered, "I"ll be back tomorrow," and strode out before he was physically removed from the premises.
Rasika watched Abhay grow smaller and then disappear as he stepped out the door. She was still holding the blossoms. She felt open and free, as though she had finally turned to the sun and bloomed.
Amma said to Appa, "She did not mean it. She does not know what she is saying. She is not in her right mind."
"I"m here," Rasika said in Tamil. "I know. Let me eat. Where"s the food?" She set the flowers on the blanket beside her.
Her father put a spoon in her hand, and she ate rice, dal, and yogurt. She asked, "Where am I?"
"We are in Bangalore," Appa said. "You are in a hospital. You have had an accident."
"I thought I was in Portland," she said. She told them about her trip. Amma shouted. Appa sat by her bed and held her hand and listened.
"Why am I in Bangalore?" she asked.
"Don"t you remember?" Amma asked. "We came here to get you married. And you had to go and ruin everything."
Appa put a finger to his lips and said, "Shh."
"But why would I come to India to get married? I"m going to marry Abhay."
Amma threw up her hands and retreated to a chair on the other side of the room. Appa put his hand on her forehead. "You rest now. We will talk about all that later."
She saw her brother standing near the window. "Pramod. Are we really in Bangalore?"
He stepped over to the bed. "Yeah."
"Then I want you to do something for me." She tugged at his sleeve until he leaned over, and she whispered her task into his ear.
It was so simple, now, to know what she should do. Why had she been so mixed up before?
The next day Abhay came back, carrying a garland of jasmine flowers. He wasn"t sure he"d be able to enter the room. However, Rasika"s father himself ushered Abhay to Rasika"s bedside. "She has been talking about you," he murmured to Abhay. "I have explained to Sujata that you are helping her to recover."
Rasika"s mother barely acknowledged Abhay"s presence. When she saw the flowers she said, "You don"t need to bring a garland. You are not marrying her yet." But her father helped Abhay put the garland around her neck.
"It feels soft. And cool." Rasika lifted the garland to her nose and took a deep breath. "I love jasmine."
Her father placed a chair near her bed for Abhay. He sat down. He could feel everyone in the room looking at him: Pramod, Rasika"s parents, and an elderly woman sitting in a chair in one corner of the room, who looked like an older version of Sujata Auntie. She was knitting something, wrapping and pulling the yarn quickly and rhythmically, while keeping her eyes on Abhay.
"How"re you doing?" Abhay asked softly.
"Better, I think," Rasika said. "I"m remembering more, and the doctors say that"s a really good sign for my brain. I remember our trip to India, and seeing you at Lalbagh. And talking to you in that little garden."
"So you remember everything, it sounds like."
"I can"t remember how I got hurt, though. I went-after I left you-I"m ashamed to tell you-I went-" She put her hands up to cover her face.
"Don"t worry about it," Abhay soothed. He rubbed her upper arm, and she took her hands away and looked at him with a clear face. "Do you know what day it is today?" he asked.
"No. What day is it?"
"New Year"s Day. The first day of 2008. The first full day of our engagement."
Rasika smiled. "I"m new now, too. I feel like I"ve been born again." Rasika looked at her grandmother. "Pati," she called, and the old woman set her knitting aside and strode over to the other side of Rasika"s bed. Rasika put her arms around her grandmother"s neck and whispered something in her ear. The grandmother smiled, and then held out both hands across the bed. Abhay grasped her hands, which were warm and strong. "G.o.d bless you," the grandmother said in English. She gazed at him a moment longer, then let go and retreated back to her knitting.
"What did you say to her?" Abhay asked.
"I told her that you were the other boy."
"What does that mean?"
Rasika smiled. "I"ll tell you later. Now I want to give you something." From under her blanket she drew out a flat package and placed it on his lap.
"Your face is lit up with a huge smile," he said.
"I"m happy because we"re going to be together. Open it."
Pramod and Rasika"s father stood near the bed. Pati observed from her seat. Sujata Auntie, sitting on a sofa, held a handkerchief to her mouth and stared out the window.
Abhay removed the tape from the package and pulled out an embroidered silk jubba. "It"s beautiful. I love the color." He held it up to the light from the window behind him. "Usually these kinds of shirts are white. Is it blue? Or green?"
"It"s two colors in one," she said. "Looks different, depending on the angle. There"s a word for it. I can"t remember."
"Iridescent," said Pramod.
"Iridescent," she repeated.
"How did you manage to go shopping from the hospital?" Abhay asked.
Pramod said, "My sister"ll figure out a way to shop no matter what."
Everyone laughed, except Sujata Auntie.
"Actually, she sent me out to bring back a bunch of shirts from a little place we know about, and she picked this one," Pramod said.
Abhay refolded the shirt and laid it in his lap. It was the first gift Rasika had ever given him. He tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. It was no use. He accepted a hanky from Pramod, dabbed at his eyes, and cleared his throat. "So you"re really feeling better?" he asked Rasika.
"She"s making a remarkable recovery, really," Pramod said. "Her speech is improving so fast. The physical therapists are amazed at her progress."
"I"m going to stay in India with you until you"re ready to leave," Abhay said.
"Why?" Rasika asked. "You have important work to do. Go home, and I"ll get better and come to see you."
"I"ll study for my GRE right here and I can apply to graduate schools online. I won"t lose any time. I just want to be with you."
"What about your parents? They"ll be expecting you at home."
"I just talked to my mom and dad. They were shocked to find out about your accident, but they"re thrilled that we"re getting married. They"ve always liked you."
"I"m so happy that I"ll be their daughter-in-law."