Cherchez la Femme

Abstract

The words in my dreams purify slowly but I filter them like grace before every meal, like the Lord's prayer, I repeat them before bed, they guide me to do what I must. I have been trying to call her for months, her boyfriend answers, and I'd rather not talk to him ever again, his voice is deep and distant, like radio waves. I' ve seen his traces on her, the words she uses now that she didn't before, she's growing her hair long, it is lurking below her shoulders, this curtain she draws to conceal her profile, she could use a trim, a barrette, maybe. When we were seeing each other, regularly, not like this, not in under two hours, under the pretense of lunch, she would let me comb it, she would comb mine, it was a commitment, combing hair and buying fruit, kiwis and limes, warm sponge cakes, pots de creme, Arabian coffee, it was breakfast. Her mother, bulimic and widowed for the last decade, didn't know I was seeing her daughter, regularly, not like this, not seeing her across the street while she waits for the train. Her mother thought we were close friends, for which I am grateful because now, when I see her in church, I feel like killing her, and would rather she didn't know why, what it is that feeds my hostilities. She doesn't have to know why there's been a falling out, why I don't come to suppers anymore, why I sit and pray alone. I won't look at her, or if I do, I never smile, not anymore, even if I have to hand her the collection basket across the aisle like two Sundays ago. When we kneel, spines curved like shrimp, I have visions of shooting her with a poison-tipped arrow, watching her forehead thud against the pew in front of her, the congregation rising around her like popcorn as Father Chas - for he lets the teenagers call him this - takes command of the situation in Wagnerian slow motion, like in Apocalypse Now. Two weeks later he will lead us in her funeral services, an open casket dressed in lilies and carnations, and I will wear navy blue or gray, since pinks and reds are not appropriate, though these are the colors that suit me. I don't blame her mother, it's not her fault, really. She even gave me an engraved plaque for my last birthday, etched, under my name, all capitals, is the serenity prayer, cursive. Curious. That she would give me anything, me, the one who does the least talking at the dinner table. I started going to church because of Princess and she stopped coming when we stopped seeing each other, regularly, not like this, not promising to get together soon every time our metal carts bump and clang at the supermarket. It isn't because what happened made her lose faith in God, but that her boyfriend believes God is an overused icon, like Beethoven or Elvis. He must have some flair for the Orient, however, because Princess is easily conned by such types. Church gave me something to do in English on Sunday mornings. They loved me because I was a conquest - Princess brought me to them like a virgin sacrifice - they all thought we were just close friends. We sat with her mother then, when I admired Father Charles's clean face, his voice hushing me as I sat as one within many. Not that I didn't stand out, next to Princess's alabaster skin, her flushed cheeks, crisp dress, sharp lips, still, no one questioned my presence, they just hoped I would keep coming. I grew up in a family weary of conversion. They had seen what they called the worst of it, a Vietnam of religious warfare, a raping and pillaging over land, unparalleled displacement. My father's family, almost a guild, exported textiles from Kashmir, handwoven carpets on looms my mother's family constructed. Miles of jacquard, shawls with exquisite embroidery, indigo, wine, and emerald threads, so many majestic afghans woven from these yarns, wild silks. Every city must have its stitch, my grandmother used to declare, its own style of needlework, and you cannot compare, say, Kashmir to Lucknow, Rajasthan to Madras. …