THE SIKH PATIENT---Chapter 5---OPERATORS... (continued)

THat’s Me in my Study in the Basement

I have a bookshelf behind me that is overflowing with books, more than I can ever read in one lifetime.

OPERATORS (continued)…

As I left them and headed for the bathroom it occurred to me that I am so amazingly moronic that I’m leaving my grieving family to care for a chronic wedgy that is entirely self-inflicted.  If I washed my clothes every now and then I would have tons and tons of panties at my disposal because I have a lot of panties.  So I went into the bathroom stall and tried to adjust myself and I thought about calling Mona and telling her to stay with me at the hospital.  I thought about telling her to pick up some panties on the way.  I mean she could stop by at TJ Max and use my sister’s discount and get me some goddamn comfortable underclothes.  But the only problem is that she would be so sympathetic that it would irritate me, and then I would hate her.  She might bring Khalid, and he would be forced to be nice to me and then I would want to tell him to stay away from Mona because no one needs a man who feels sorry for women.  And then they would hate me because I can’t appreciate compassion.

So I went to the pay phone and called her.

“Mona?” I whispered into the receiver. 

“Yaz, where are you?” she almost yelled, I had to put the phone a little away from my ear. 

“I’m at the hospital…she’s really sick…I think she’s gonna…die.”

“What?  I can’t hear you, you’re not speaking into the phone,” she yelled and I realized that I had never moved the receiver back to my head.

“Can you come here?” I said in a whisper, with the phone actually in the right place.

“Yaz, you’re talking so softly, I can’t understand what you’re saying!” she said even louder this time.

“Please come here, my underwear is riding up my ass!” I screamed.  An elderly man began to shake, I mean I wouldn’t say he had Epilepsy, but I was in a hospital and I’d never really seen someone shake like that before.  A woman with curly hair and two little sons stared at me with her mouth dropped open, her crusty orange lipstick dripping from the corners of her mouth. 

“Please deposit seventy-five cents,” the operator chanted.

“Mona, Mona please come to the hospital,” I said in the most normal voice that I could concoct at that moment.

“Of course, are you OK….” 

The line got cut. I didn’t have seventy-five cents.

                                                            *        

My mother came to the hospital and brought us dinner.  Her creamy skin had small wrinkles, but she didn’t resemble the walls.  Her arms held me as she handed me roti.  “Eat bachi.”  Nobody wants to eat when they’re in the hospital.  It’s too hard to want to sustain your life.  It seems easier to die.  And my mother wore her purple silk Kurta and stood above my grandfather, trying to convince him to eat.  She had gone home to make some food.  But we all knew why she really went home.  To see him: my incompetent, depressed, and decomposing father.  She probably went home and yelled at him for not coming to the hospital, for not caring that her mother was dying.  And he probably shook his head or maybe he cried, maybe he ignored her.  I didn’t think he would yell at her about this.  And no one judged her for loving him so much because none of us loved him any less now.  I wanted to reduce whatever I felt for my father, I wanted to make it less because he was so much less now.  But I can’t add, and I can’t subtract and it seemed like if this were a mathematical story problem it would require division.

            Mona finally showed up and as I expected she brought Khalid.  “Hey, how are you doing?” she said in an actual natural tone.  A tone that let me know she understood that I didn’t want pity.  She hugged me, but in a slow way, the way you hug someone you know is not sure they want to be touched at that moment, but need that contact whether or not they desire it.  And Khalid was wise enough to know not to touch me.  But he looked through me for a moment after Mona let go of me. 

            “How’s it going?” he said with no irony and this was notable.  It was one of the few times he spoke to me in a way in which I believed he actually wanted to know how it was going.

            “Not well,” I said and this was the first time I said what I meant and meant what I said to him. 

            “I’m sorry.”  He said it like a statement.  There are many ways of saying you’re sorry.  There’s a way that’s horribly condescending, and Khalid can be that.  There’s a way to say it that simply provokes self-pity in the person it’s spoken to.  But the statement, the statement was I’m sorry and there was no opinion about that sorrow.  It was just an acknowledgment that he felt it too. 

               So after we finished the necessary formalities that surround the dying family member; and after they spoke to my family with genuine concern and support; I took Mona aside for a moment.  I had to speak to her.  It was urgent.

            “I need some underwear,” I kind of whispered behind the nurses’ station.  Of course, nurses are always listening because I know we provide them with great entertainment. 

            “OK.”  That was all she said.  She didn’t ask me why and that’s what I decided was the reason she was my best friend.  I mean it was around twelve a.m., and it was crazy that I needed underwear.  But she kind of got it; it seemed to make a lot of sense to her.

            Khalid drove us to the Big K, which is the Big Kmart, that’s open twenty-four hours a day.  I told him I needed feminine products and usually, that statement makes men kind of just get in a car really quickly and turn on some music.  There was no tape player in his old van, so we listened to the radio.  Boy George was singing, “I know all there is to know about the crying game….”

            “So it’s really crazy,” I said to both of them I guess, but more to Mona.  “My ass of an Uncle has just not shown up at the hospital.  The thing is, I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t want to see her, I think he’s scared to show his face around my family. So it’s kind of everyone’s fault for being so mean to him because he totally ignored my grandparents but then it’s his fault for being so weak and just not showing up at his own mother’s deathbed.”

            “Maybe he just can’t deal with death, maybe it’s too hard for him,” Khalid said as he took a risky left turn and a red mustang honked at him. 

            “I don’t care if it’s too ‘hard’ for him.  It’s not hard for us?  Who is it not hard for?  How could he do this to his own mother?  Doesn’t he want to see her before she dies?”

            “I don’t think he does.  No.  I don’t think it’s because he’s a bad person though.  I just don’t think he wants to see her die.”

            “I don’t want to talk to you about this,” I said and stared out the window at the soft iridescent glow of the street lights and then the large red light beaming from the Kmart sign.

            We walked inside and Mona put her arm around me.  I have this on-again-off-again feeling about people touching me when I’m emotionally unstable.  I hate it, I love it. Then I want to physically harm the person who’s showing me affection.  This of course makes me think I have aggression issues and I should seek help.  It was growing on me though, her arm around my shoulder, as we passed the toothpaste aisle and then the electronics.  Mona took Khalid to some music/video game aisle and left him there so we could search for some undergarments.  In the background, I noticed the diaper aisle, the one from which my dad told me he bought me.

             Surprisingly, Kmart has some semi-decent lingerie.  But I didn’t want lingerie.  I was momentarily frightened by the thought of it, considering the pain I was experiencing while I was leafing through the lacy satin panties.  Then I saw it from afar, the pastel colors, green, pink, and yellow.  Hanes Her Way.  Completely cotton. Completely large.  Covering everything almost up to your breasts.  I walked over to the little packets of three in a plastic wrapper.  Of course, I didn’t know what size I wore in Hanes Her Way, and since I’m not good with measurements and numerals, I couldn’t figure out what my hip/waist ratio was.  So I just picked a size.  Six sounded like a good number.  I picked six.  Mona was busy looking for real undergarments that she could actually wear in the presence of males.

            Yeah, it did occur to me, more than once, that my grandmother is dying and I’m at Kmart buying pastel Hanes Her Way briefs. My grandfather and aunt were back at my apartment because my mother wanted to stay at the hospital alone that night.  As we stood in the check-out line I thought about getting Darji some Tic-Tacs.  I don’t know why.  I didn’t because it seemed like the most meaningless gesture or token, or thing I could ever give to someone whose wife is terminally ill. 

                                                                        *

            I stood outside the door to my bedroom and listened as my aunt cried in whispers.  They stayed at my apartment because it was near the hospital.  My grandfather sat on the blue couch, took off his turban, and didn’t speak.

            So I went into the bathroom and ravished the red and white Kmart bag containing the briefs.  I ripped open the plastic, barely able to contain myself.  The thought of comfort had a new meaning.  I threw down my thongs and wanted to rip them up also but I thought that one day I would probably use them for some sexy endeavor that would inevitably be uncomfortable.  But I am vain, and I knew they looked good.  They were just so fucking rough on the skin.  As I opened the first pink panty, my mouth dropped a little.  This cotton brief was the size of a small rug.  I don’t know if that’s a good analogy.  It was the size of two of my heads.  It could have fit around two of my heads.  I’m trying to say that it was really big.  I had to laugh, silently because if anyone heard me laughing tonight they might think I’m mocking, I don’t know, Cancer, death, grandmothers.  I mean big is what I was aiming for, you can’t really go wrong with big in terms of comfort.  I would have to wear big pants, so the underwear wouldn’t show on top of my jeans.  But hey, I’m going to the hospital tomorrow where underwear is apparently a luxury.

            It was when I was in the bathroom, lifting the underwear up my legs that the phone call came.  I had to quickly put on my pants and run.  I almost missed the call.  It was two thirty in the morning.  It was my mother. “You better come here.”

            “What’s wrong, what happened?” I asked.

            “She doesn’t have much longer.  Call Amar Uncle,” she whispered.  I didn’t cry.  This was the moment that I stopped crying.  I just felt respect, and I have no idea how a person can feel respect, but I felt respect for Nani.  In Hindi, the word for respect is Izzat.  It doesn’t just mean respect though; it means every feeling that encompasses respect.  It means love.  I wanted to tell Nani she was beautiful.  She used to tell my mother that I never got angry.  She didn’t know that I got mad at other people; I never found a reason to be angry at her.  She was the kind of person God herself feels Izzat for.  I know, you idealize people who are about to die…but I don’t care if I’m being ordinary …right then she was perfect…she was a perfect person dying.

            So I walked into my room on the seventies shag carpet and saw my aunt asleep.  I listened to her breathe and wanted to just let her do that for a little while.  Because there’s this whole movement in America that says people don’t know how to breathe.  This is how bored we are.  There are legends that in India people held their breaths for years to extend their life because they believed that you are not allowed a certain amount of time on Earth, but you are allowed a number of breaths.  I woke my aunt up, “Auntie, mom said to come to the hospital.”  I lightly patted her arm as I spoke.  Her round eyes shot open as if she was never asleep.  I realized she was fake sleeping.

            “Oh, oh God, let’s go.  What did she say?”  Her tiny body lifted from the bed and I noticed that she didn’t change her clothes to sleep.  She wasn’t wearing a sari.  There’s a passion and pain in silk saris.  There’s so beautiful and so tight.  I’m scared I’ll suffocate one day in a maroon silk sari with gold embroidery.  Wrap me in that when I die, please.  Nani, I know you want me to wrap you in your sari and not these sad cotton robes.  I would have bought you a dress.  But they won’t let me and you don’t wear dresses, but I do and you told me once that I was pretty. 

            “Nothing, she just said to come.”  She was still wearing the blue pants and pink sweater she had on for the last two days.  I wanted to tell her that it was time to change her clothes, it was time.  I remember in school when my professor commented on my word choice.  But I didn’t choose the right words then, when I needed them the most, words all of a sudden didn’t seem like they were created for us.  There are no words that can say “death.”  There’s nothing to say when we meet death; it becomes the air in the room and the color of the walls.

            We woke up my grandfather and he slipped on his nice black pants, his turban, and his trench coat in five minutes and sat on the couch waiting for us.  These were his minutes, we hurried because this wasn’t our time, it was his, and we were stealing it.  I called my uncle.  Sarena Auntie picked up the phone, “Auntie, did I wake you?”

            “No,” she lied in a syrupy voice.

            “My mom said to come… hospital.”  I didn’t finish or begin sentences anymore. 

            “I know, she just called.  Amar Mama (uncle) Ji is on his way.”   Ji is what you put after anyone’s name whom you respect.   I understood; Sarena Mommy(auntie) Ji couldn’t come to the hospital because she had small children.  But I wanted to force her to come.  I wanted her to see the look on my uncle’s face; I wanted her to see Nani die.  I wanted it to be her fault.  And what about Amar Uncle, what had he said to my Aunt?  After I hung up Devi Auntie called Amar on his cell phone, while he was driving to the hospital.  She told him that Nani wanted to stay at his home before she died.  Amar said she couldn’t, his wife threatened divorce, remember?  It’s not his fault.  Then he said the words about his mother, words we will remember, he will remember.  He said, “It’s her fault.  She didn’t let me marry Rimmi.  Look what I have now.  This is all her fault.”  My aunt hung up on him while he was making the hour-and-a-half drive to the hospital.  My aunt told us what he said and my grandfather didn’t move.  He didn’t move much after that.

            I sat next to my grandfather on the couch.  I wanted to turn on the television and see if there were any old Westerns on.  This man from the old country enjoyed watching Westerns and anything that had a good chase, a good guy, and of course a bad guy.  We all wanted a bad guy.  We wanted to say Nani would never have died if Amar Uncle didn’t say those words.  When we sat in the lap of death and waited for it to drop us we wanted to know who was holding a gun.  We wanted to blame death on one of us.  It was betrayal, Amar’s betrayal.  The betrayal from our mother, the betrayal from God.  Our mother brings us to life, even though we have to die.  And then one day she dies on us and this is God’s fault.

            Auntie walked out of the bedroom and dropped her jaw wide open.  “Where are my keys, do you have my keys?”  I shook my head.  My grandfather sat completely still.  I didn’t have a car and I was all of a sudden so angry that my cheap father never bought me a car in college.  My grandfather just kept practicing his statue moves.

            “I’ll help you look for them,” I said as if I was doing her a favor.  I wanted to pretend that I was useful, that I was worthy of ever having a grandmother. 

            We looked everywhere, while my grandfather sat on my blue flowery couch.  If I didn’t find the keys, I was considering dropping out of college.  I started opening the drawers in the kitchen and got excited every time I saw metal.  Of course, it turned out that these were metal forks and metal spoons.  I picked up a few forks because maybe the keys were in between the forks.  My aunt paced and looked at the dirty white linoleum floor.  My grandmother would have dropped down this minute and cleaned the floor with her hands.  Then all of a sudden my grandfather said in a monotone voice, “I’ll walk there.”  

            “Dar Ji, you can’t.  There’s ice outside; you’ll fall.  Even if you could it would take you half an hour,” I said in the most sympathetic voice I had ever heard come out of my mouth.  “I’ll call a taxicab.”  Why didn’t I just say “cab”?  Why was I wasting time?

            “OK, call a taxi,” my aunt said in a shaky frantic voice.  “I can’t believe I’m so stupid.  I can’t believe I can’t find my keys.”  I picked up the phone and I couldn’t remember the name of any cab company.  I didn’t even look for the phone book.  Yellow cab, if you asked me at any other moment in my life I would know the name of the cab company.  In fact, I think there is even a blue cab.  The names were meant for morons, but I just sat there on my gray kitchen counter.  I picked up the phone and was immediately annoyed that the long black cord was so tangled I had to fight with it.  I dialed the operator, “Can you give me the number of any cab company in Ann Arbor?”

To be continued…

By

Nina Kaur