The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing: A Novel (5 page)

Thomas’s nostrils flared. He said quietly, “We’re not going. I told you I didn’t want to meet with him, I don’t want to meet with him. That’s it.”

Ammachy raised her eyes from the oilcloth, eyelids half-mast in a way that might have been mistaken for boredom if not for the drilling gaze underneath them. She shrugged. “Fine. I will cancel.”

“Amma, you can’t just—”

“I said I would cancel.”

Thomas, body angled forward for the full impact of a fight, wavered in his chair. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t thank me,” Ammachy said icily. “I’m doing you no favors.”

“Okay, Ami!” Kamala said a little too cheerfully. “You ready to go to the zoo?”

Amina nodded, pushing her mostly full plate to her mother and waiting for one of the adults to protest over how little she had eaten. No one did.

“They can grow to be sixty feet! And they kill elephants in one bite! And they growl like dogs!” Amina told her father at tea that afternoon,
while her mother and brother slept upstairs. “And when they get mad, like really mad? They can puff out their hood and it’s bigger than an umbrella. Like, you or I could stand under it in a rainstorm and not even get wet.”

“Wow, really?” Thomas looked impressed.

Ammachy set a small dish of mixture on the table with a clack.

“And …” Amina racked her brain for the details Akhil would have wanted to tell. “It was a female! A girl cobra! But it’s still called a king. I think. And it had built a nest even though there was no mate and no eggs!”

“Stop shouting.” Ammachy winced, sitting down. “Did you comb your hair at all this morning? Why are you looking so grubby all the time?”

“And,”
Amina said, ignoring her grandmother, “it almost got free and attacked us.”

“Goodness! What did you do?”

“Don’t encourage her, Thomas.” Ammachy frowned. “Such spoiling I’ve never seen.”

“Akhil and I stayed calm, but Itty pulled out, like, half his hair.” Amina looked down the hall to the door of Itty’s room. “Where is he, anyway?”

“Gone to the bank with Sunil.” Ammachy brushed her fingers over the tablecloth, which had been changed from oilcloth to lace since the morning. “They will be back after they leave the papers.”

“What papers?”

“The papers for the house,” Thomas said. “I signed it over to Sunil.”

“Oh.” Amina nodded, confused.

“My father left a portion of the house to both of us,” Thomas explained. “I gave my part to Sunil.”

Amina looked up at the high dining room ceiling, the peeled paint around the base of the chandelier. “This house was yours?”

“It’s still both of theirs,” Ammachy muttered.

“It’s Sunil’s,” Thomas said firmly. “He’s the one who lives here and keeps it up. The papers were just a formality.”

“Doesn’t matter. You can sign whatever you want to, but this will always be your home.”

Thomas shushed her and Amina felt strangely disappointed. She hadn’t known that any of the house belonged to her father. She wondered now which part did. The upstairs rooms? The roof? The doorbell rang before she could ask.

“Aha!” Ammachy pushed herself to shaky legs.

“I’ll get it, Amma.”

“No, no.” Ammachy waved Thomas down. “You sit.”

But Thomas was already walking out of the dining room. Ammachy followed at a gasping pace behind.

“Thomas … I said …”

Amina, sensing something much more exciting than tea, followed. She stood in the middle of the hall as Thomas threw open the door, letting in the flat haze of late-afternoon sunlight cut by a tall silhouette.

“Hello?” a voice inquired.

“Hello?”

“Goodness, Thomas, is that you?”

The figure stepped into the hallway, no less magnificent for its sudden definition. With light-coffee skin and a short buzz of white hair, the man standing in the doorway hardly looked like he could have emerged from the same Salem that Amina had ridden through just hours before, his white linen pants and pink shirt crisp as cut apples.

“Dr. Abraham,” Thomas said, backing up quickly. “How nice to see you, sir! I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Chandy.” Ammachy beamed. “So nice of you to be able to meet us! I hope it wasn’t too much of a bother?”

“No botheration at all!” Dr. Abraham exclaimed, walking through the doorway and into the foyer. He nodded agreeably at the walls. “Glad to come.”

Amina tugged on her father’s hand. “Who is it?”

“Will you have a bit of tea with us, Doctor?” Thomas asked, oblivious to her. “We were just starting.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.” The man turned to Ammachy. “Miriamma, you’re looking well. We miss you round the hospital, you know.”

“Oh,
pah
.” Ammachy looked pleased.

“And how is Sunil doing these days?”

“Fine, fine.” Ammachy led the way to the dining room, where Amina saw that someone—Mary-the-Cook?—had sneaked in, placing an array of sweets and savories on the table, along with a fresh pot of tea and clean dishes. “Dentistry will always be needed, as you know.”

“Though less so since the Brits left.” Dr. Abraham waited for the laugh, and Ammachy supplied it, pouring a cup of tea.

“Sugar?”

“Yes, please. I can never get enough of sweetening.” Dr. Abraham ladled four spoonfuls into his cup, stirred, and took a sip. “So, Thomas, what brings you back?”

Thomas nodded as though this was the first of many questions in an oral exam. “Just a family visit, sir. My wife hasn’t seen her sisters in too long, and of course, we want the children to know the family.”

“Ah, yes! The children.” Dr. Abraham looked down at Amina, who stared back, mute. “And who is this?”

“This is my only granddaughter, Amina.” Ammachy poured tea into her own cup. “She’s eleven years old, and top of her class back at home. Champion of spelling itself.”

“Really?” Dr. Abraham took a sip of tea. “And what next? Are you going to be a surgeon like Daddy?”

“I’m going to be a vet for puppies and kittens only,” Amina said.

“I see,” Dr. Abraham appeared unfazed. “And how are you finding India?”

“It’s good. It’s hot. Today we saw a cobra and—”

“You’ve met Thomas’s son, Akhil?” Ammachy passed the doctor a bowl of plantain chips.

“Yes, yes, I believe I did on Thomas’s first trip back. How old was the boy then? Six!”

“Four. He’s fourteen now,” Thomas said.

“And he is back in the States?”

“No sir, he’s just upstairs with his mother napping. Sorry not to have him down to meet you, but I didn’t—”

“Nothing doing! No problem at all. It’s a big change for the children,
no? But they recover quickly, I find. I think they know it’s home, yes? Physiologically speaking, of course. What’s the expression?” He paused, and Amina wondered if he was really waiting for an answer or just asking himself more questions out loud. “Ah, yes, they know it in their bones! Don’t you think, Amina?”

He looked at her expectantly, and Amina nodded because it seemed better than not nodding.

“And how have you been, sir?” Thomas passed a tray of neon sweets. “Are you still splitting your time between here and teaching at Vellore?”

“No teaching at the moment. Everything has taken a bit of a backseat to getting this rehabilitative center into tip-top shape.” Dr. Abraham set two plump balls of ladoo down on his plate as though they were baby chicks. “I would feel sadly if I didn’t think the work was vitally important, of course, but what an opportunity … your mother has told you a bit of what we’re doing?”

“A bit, yes.”

Dr. Abraham nodded encouragingly.

“It sounds very interesting,” Thomas offered.

“I’m so glad you think so!” Dr. Abraham smiled. “Of course it’s not a neurosurgical wing, as I’m sure you’re aware, but we are putting together a first-rate facility for trauma and recovery.”

“Yes.” Thomas looked vaguely panicked. “What a nice project for you all.”

“You remember M. K. Subramanian from your class? He is in the process of interviewing the physical and cognitive therapists, while I am recruiting doctors from round the country. And what a stroke of luck that you are here at the right time! When your mother called, I could hardly believe it. Perhaps you’d like to meet with him tomorrow?”

Thomas smiled, clearly pained. “Well, now, you see—”

“Perfect! Tomorrow is perfect.” Ammachy placed a pakoda on the doctor’s plate. “We were planning on going to the hospital anyway in the late afternoon; we could stop and meet you both then itself.”

“Fantastic. I would love to show you the facilities, and have you
meet a few of the staff.” Dr. Abraham tucked his napkin into his shirt collar. “Doesn’t this look delicious!”

He busied himself with spooning a generous amount of chutney onto the pakodas, so he did not notice how Thomas dropped his head between his hands, how he rubbed his knuckles against the side of his head as if ironing out knots.

“Are these from Sanjay’s?” The doctor raised a ladoo to his lips. “I do love their sweets, you know.”

“I remember.” Ammachy smiled. “I bought them especially.”

“You needn’t have gone through the trouble—”

“No trouble, no trouble at all.”

A mewl escaped from somewhere deep in Thomas’s throat, stopping the others as it turned into a full-throated groan. The doctor’s eyebrows went up and Ammachy’s back went rigid as Thomas pushed his chair back from the table.

“Dr. Abraham, sir, would you mind very much if we went for a walk in the yard?”

“Now?”

“Eat first, then talk!” Ammachy pushed a tin of mixture at the doctor.

“I’m terribly sorry.” Thomas looked slightly ill. “If you wouldn’t mind?”

“Oh. No.” Dr. Abraham looked ruefully at his plate. “Of course not.”

Thomas rose, revealing a damp
U
where the sweat had soaked through the back of his shirt, and walked straight out of the room. Dr. Abraham took the napkin from his collar and carefully folded it, nodding to Ammachy. Her mouth fell in a hard line as he followed Thomas into the garden.

And what were the men saying, under the shadow of the leaves? Amina watched them through the heavily slatted window, heads ducked to the onslaught of the white sun, arms tucked neatly over chests. They stared at the plants in front of them with such concentration that they might have been discussing fertilization or watering schedules. Dr. Abraham nodded once, curtly, and then again, a little
more heavily. Arms were uncrossed, hands clasped. The men walked toward the front of the house with slow steps, where the whinny of the gate latch and the roar of traffic soon gave way to silence. Amina waited for her father to come back and finish his tea. Minutes passed.

“Where did Dad go?” she finally asked.

Ammachy, who appeared to be studying the tablecloth very hard, did not answer. Amina was about to ask again when a tear ran down her grandmother’s cheek, as fast and unexpected as a live lizard. Amina panicked. Should she say something? Hug her? Both seemed equally impossible. Still, when another tear followed the first, Amina found herself holding her grandmother’s hand. It was thin and pale and cool as marble, the skin almost moist with softness. Ammachy took it back as Kamala entered the room.

“Oof.” Kamala yawned, sitting heavily in a chair and pouring herself a cup of tea. She stirred in sugar drowsily, finally glancing up at the full plates and empty seats. “Where did everyone go?”

Ammachy pursed her lips, as if to spit.

“Uncle and Itty went to the bank,” Amina explained.

Kamala blew on her tea. “And your father?”

“Dad went out with Dr. Abraham.”

“Really?” Kamala’s eyes flew to Ammachy. “When?”

Even not looking directly at her, Amina sensed how her grandmother seemed to ignite suddenly, a palpable flame ready to damage anything it could. She was silent for so long that Amina thought maybe she hadn’t heard Kamala’s question. Then she leaned across the table.

“Fat like one angel,” she spat. “Thomas was born so strong and fat, I knew he would become something. Engineer, head of the Indian National Army, best brain surgeon in all of America. He could have married anyone! Such dowries we were offered!”

Kamala looked at her stonily. “You should have taken them.”

“It was not my decision.” Ammachy stood up and cleared the men’s plates so that they clanged and jostled and threatened to break between her hands. She turned her back on the table, marching toward the kitchen with stiff shoulders. “It was not my decision at all.”

But where had her father gone? Now missing for more than six hours, Thomas had sent the house into tumult in his absence. Ammachy wandered from room to room, fighting with anyone who crossed her path. Sunil, having crossed her path twice already, found a bottle of toddy and was devouring it in the rarely visited parlor. Divya had tucked herself in a corner of the verandah. Itty ran circles on the roof. Kamala, Akhil, and Amina sat on the upstairs bed, playing their fourth game of Chinese checkers.

“Your move, Mom,” Akhil said.

“Yes.” Kamala glanced down at her watch and inched a blue marble toward a yellow triangle.

“What time is it?” Amina asked.