# 7. The Resurrection, Part 4: Exodus
Dying is an art like everything else. We seem to do it exceptionally well. We do it so it feels like Hell! I threw the Plath she taught us not so long ago, right back at her. Oh, the look on her face!
If you would like to read Parts 1, 2, and 3 of The Resurrection, you can find them in the archives!
PART 4.
Inside me something was brewing. I guess you could call it a plan. I looked straight at Sister Tracy and when she looked back, I gave her the Hell Eyes. Not obscured today under her usual layers of beige fabric, she wore a pista green skirt and blouse, cream headscarf, and white nylon stockings. Sweet Jesus and What the Heck? I had to leave Sara, still floating dreamily on the river of ancient dirges, to find out what this was all about. What’s going on, Sis? I asked Sister Tracey, patting her jiggly upper arm and giving it a little squeeze. Interestingly, she didn’t flinch at the touch as was her custom, but put her hand tenderly over mine and said it was good to see me. To see me alive, did you mean, Sis? I asked with a wink and a smile. At which point her lips trembled and her other hand flew up to her mouth so violently, I thought her teeth would break.
Dying is an art like everything else. We seem to do it exceptionally well. We do it so it feels like Hell! I threw the Plath she taught us not so long ago, back at her. Oh, the look on her face! But I had bigger fish to fry. I left Sister Tracy to her blubbering and slipped out the back, with a nod at Sara to follow. Before we exited I looked over at Maya who looked over at me. I don’t know what made the little twerp heave her collection of marigolds into the air, get off her grandmother’s lap and pile into the back of my little blue jewel bug, but that’s what she did.
Lying down on the back seat she took off her shoes and socks and placed her steamy little toes on the glass. Sara and I stood around outside, waiting for nightfall, sending smoke signals up to the skies at Jeet and Malini courtesy the shitty bidis we bummed off the crematorium’s watchman. As we spoke about pink rubber gloves, Layla-Majnu and my bubbling desire to crack open that Amstrad CPC 464 and let its stinky yolk run over us all, no one, not even Abhijeet the Hutt, came looking for Maya. I guess the smoke signals worked. The stars aligned. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. Witch 1, Witch 2, Witch 3. There we were. Upon the heath. Waiting for the hurly-burly to be done, by doing it our own damn selves.
If Meena the maid was surprised to see Sara and I trailing young Maya behind us that night, she didn’t show it. Well-versed in don’t-ask-don’t-tell, she fed us and returned to her room behind the kitchen, sitting cross-legged on her mattress in white fluorescent light, a mound of rice in her thali, to catch the tail-end of some horrorshow or other on cable TV about evil mothers-in-law. Or maybe it was evil daughters-in-law. Either way, her mouth was on fire from whole green chillis and onions, eaten too fast and agog.
Maya flitted around Sara’s poky Mira road flat, engrossed. What did she make of its smallness, its grubbiness, the way the kitchen opened into the living area? The way Meena the maid was Mother Superior and that she hauled up a basket of vegetables from the seller on the street using a rope? Every window here faced a neighbour’s window, a mirror of eternal reflections of human flesh and folly. From Maya’s mother’s bedroom on Malabar Hill all those years ago, we saw banyan, peepul, false badam, coconut trees, and fish-tail palms; red-vented bulbuls, mynas, golden orioles, rose-ringed parakeets, Malabar grey hornbills, fruit bats, and three-striped palm squirrels. Nestled in a clutch of wildness surrounded by a moat of her father’s thirsty green lawns and topiaries, we saw peacocks roam around the family temple where two priests were employed to chant sacred verses, around the clock.
Maya fell asleep before we reached the graveled driveway to her home. The nightguard looked at us through the bars of the tall black and gold gates, coming out to the street for a closer look before he waved us through. Inside, by the fake Tuscan fountain, was Sangeeta, wringing the end of her dupatta, grateful no one had yet noticed the missing child. How does no one in the family notice a missing child? Sara asked the maid, to which she said nothing because there was nothing to be said. That’s the thing about the Exodus. They think they can fix it but they can’t. It’s not like it’s going to show up in a blood test! Can’t un-crumple a crumpled post-it. And really, that’s all there is to it.
Last year it was Divya and Franey. Franey stopped eating. Poor skinny freak thought she was fat. The year before that it was Moira. Seema exited right after graduation. The formal goodbye was on the evening of the excellent rave at Karjat so Sara and I didn’t go. I would have liked to see Seema in all those flowers though! Seema was dark and clever. The kind of hot that Indian men rarely notice. The kind of hot that a handsome young Frenchman, or handsome young Frenchwoman, may have fallen deeply in love with. “Jean / Jeanne Jacques Perrier, mineral water tycoon posing as poor musician weds promising Indian artist on secluded beach on The Konkan”. Or some such.
That night, parked on a hill, in grass up to little blue’s windows with the river Ulhas below, Sara and I entertained each other with alternative endings for Seema. Seema the architect, toying with Tokyo. Seema with multimedia, burning up Berlin. Seema the genius seamstress, with a needle in all their throats. We talked and smoked and smoked at talked as laser lights outperformed the stars and DJs shook the earth.
PART 5.
A couple of years ago, Sara and I met Malini at Priyadarshini Park. She wore pale pink velour and tourmalines and glistened in the sunlight the way only very rich women can. As Sara and I sat on the rocks by the sea, stroking the velvet ears of the two Basset Hounds that showed up at five-thirty pm every day, she walked by. The transformation when our eyes locked was spectacular. Her shiny black ponytail, glossy lips, bright stony eyes, and mare-like gait fell away from her like someone huffed and puffed and blew her house down. I felt a bit sorry for her, to tell the truth. She did a great job holding the universe together and who were we to take it all apart? After an awkward minute, she invited us back to her mansion where we saw Thelma and Louise on her new VCR while Maya stayed up too late and Sangeeta followed her around with a plate of food. Looking back, we should have guessed then, that things were beginning to unravel…
© Tara Sahgal
The Resurrection - Part 5, the rest of, Coming Soon! You could read Parts 1, 2, and 3 in the archives if you like. Do like, share, comment, opine… I’d love to hear from you!
Haunting and beautiful !
Love the way you've spilt your imagination onto paper/computer, T... I feel I'm sitting crosslegged there and watching Sis Tracy's arms jiggling and feel her sadness ...