His home and cellphones were disconnected and that worried her (she would get the PI on it if she had to) so she stopped by his WeHo rental. She’d never even been there, and that fact alone made her feel derelict as a sibling, the desire to help him redoubling. The landlord, a warm and welcoming girl who Joan suddenly remembered was the daughter of Don Knotts, told her Chester had moved out, her tenant said his mother had been sick—“Is she OK?” Karen asked dolefully, with big brown empathic eyes—Yes, said Joan, doing much, much better—and that Chester said he was moving back to the family place to take care of her.
Joan thanked her and fibbed: Yes, her brother was coming home, and Karen said something about him going on a scout, a 2 week scout in the Rockies. How stupid of me, said Joan. Now I remember. It’s just — we’ve been so overwhelmed. I know you understand. She touched Joan’s arm, inviting her in for coffee. Joan politely declined. What a sweet, sweet woman.
She probably did more for Chess than I ever did.
Joan called the PI and told him what was happening — her brother was gone. He said he would find him. This is the guy they shoulda sicced on Osama.
SHE drove to the City of Industry. This time she didn’t need the Woman to lead her. This time she didn’t go to the liquor store for Diet Coke, cigarettes, and chips. This time she didn’t wait outside but went straight upstairs to knock at the door but no one answered. Then her heart seized as the dog jumped from nowhere and barked, he leapt on the couch and butted against the window its snot and wild eyes, the television was on but
XC.Ray
the cousins made a terrible scene.
Ray sat insensate.
All the dreams she had were true, but true for her and the baby — not for her Bapu, not for her Raj.
The night his daughter had come visiting, the night Joan came and went (he knew because she’d left a note), Big Gulp felt what she thought to be pangs of labor: towels of blood and clotted cousinpanic ensued and the paramedics took her away. An hour later the doctor said the baby was dead but she would have to wait for it to come, they would give her drugs to break it apart but could not open her up without endangering her life, none of it made sense to the old man but he was no doctor, he even tried to call Detective Lake to see if it sounded sensible but couldn’t find him, the medics said Big Gulp might even have contractions — in an hour, in a day, a week or a month — a month! — forcing lumpen drowned nacreous soul into the hands of surgical-gowned death-maidens and the fresh mocking air, failed goddess who could not sculpt life from Her offal.
His Ghulpa could not fathom stillbirth, it wasn’t easy for Raymond either to think of such a beautifully wrapped package, the gift they’d been waiting an eternity for, already dead, on top of it now they wanted her to hang fire! Was this Purgatory? He had always heard that Purgatory was a waiting room, yes, why not, they wanted them to wait for the delivery of something dead and broke apart by drugs. God knows what it would look like when it was delivered.
Ghulpa said Durga killed her baby. This is what she said over and over and over again, that Durga was astride her now and would take her soon as well. Ghulpa said she was the buffalo and the drops of blood in the field, she could smell the monsoon sharp in her nostrils and she told Raymond (it seemed with some relief) that never, ever would she leave this hospital, Raj, I am returning to Calcutta for the rains, he was surprised to hear her entertain that, even in febrile delirium, wet rag upon broiling head, cooing and softly urging her not to talk, useless, his Ghulpa said she was going to the Hooghly on a flatbed and could smell the ruthless ovarian force of monsoon, hush my darling, don’t fear my darling, but the beast hadn’t yet snatched their baby! it was the waters, tiny lungs had aspirated sacred waters — his Lionel! already drowned and fallen into the City of God’s treacherous manhole, tradition bade them keep the lids off to help drain the floods, BG told him that, when they 1st met at the pier, of the place she was born where the lids came off during monsoon but the waters rose and crossing the street you couldn’t see the holes that concealed deadly currents beneath and people fell in while wading across the shambolic, fecal-billeted roads of West Bengal, electrocuted in shantytowns, 50 inches of rain in 2 hours’ time, down down down they disappeared, 30,000 goats and sheep and buffalo too, all their poor child — Chesterfield! — had ever known was water, life-sustaining purveyor of death (and Ray with his excess fluids congestive arrhythmias and pulmonary edemas), here now his Ghulpa taking in water, death-sustaining eddies, manholes and womanholes too. You’re cruel, she Tagore-sang — remedial Calcuttan memory keen now, Krnsa disguised as a ferryman (while the cousins wept)—Lord of the lonely dark, so far away in Mathura. In whose bed do you sleep? Who slakes your thirst upon waking? — the cousins grew inconsolable—Where are your sun-colored clothes — lost among the trees? And your crooked smile? Whose necklace gleams on your neck? Where have you thrown my wildflower chain? — cousins hysterical wailing—my golden love for whom I bloom unseen, you rule my emptiness, my endless nights. For shame, black-hearted one — you’re coming with me.
That girl is suffering.
The cousins yowled and tore their hair—
Raymond backs away as she calls him to
XCI.Chester
morning and they go outside, alarmcocked rousing in Time to smells and chaotic embracing stunned-light of Mumbai but the mellow people gathered at the coffeeshop near Mahalaxmi Temple — seekers and pilgrims from Australia and Brazil and England and Italy and Finland and Russia — most call it “Bombay” so that’s what Chess starts saying too. (Easier than moom-bye — Bye, Mom!) Some of the old hands tell the American couple the most important thing: look both ways before crossing the street because the cars will kill you. And make sure bottled water caps are not subtly broken cause they fill em for resale and you’ll get sick. (He decides to stick with Coke in a can.) The Breach Candy Swim Club has a pool in the shape of India and that you must see. It’s private but if you want to have lunch there we can get you in.
They sat with their tea and Chester felt new-specie’d gladness sauntering past Mahalaxmi, hundreds in line at the temple, women so beautiful, spectacular saris, even the homeliest of the homely, cops and colonial buildings saturated with a bliss he could not fully absorb or recognize, no syntax, everything degraded and dustily decayed/wedding cake layered edible, if you looked hard enough you could find — thrust against skyline — as mathematically complex as anything cubenses had shown him — structures of enormous imagination and wealth, private homes like found objects, puzzlepiece jewels within holy impoverishment grid, the entire city like that, a living archaeological dig concealing walk-in walk-out tombs of prosperity, don’t be fooled by cliché and nonsense, that obsessive, corny, corrupt Western dream of destitution, yes there was disease/disfigurement, though this too: the ancient sacerdotal sussultorial seat of the imperial armies who guard Her, She, and those lucky enough to see they are Her students.