of kohl and looks perfect in her skirt, veil, and chestband—all red.
When they got to the part about “Oh, is this my very first love? My darling, is this my very first love?” Mishti started singing along from the shower. Her voice when she sings in Hindi is so gentle and high-pitched it has nothing at all to do with the very abrasive English speaker she also is. I liked Mishti’s voice better than the poor bride’s. After only a minute she came out with big drops running from her new short hair down her new naked neck and stood in her towel in the center of the living room, dripping.
“How did you really put up with him?” she asked. I paused the movie.
“Tom?”
“Didn’t he just mope all over you all the time?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you wish he would wake up and do something?”
“Why is everyone always telling everyone to do something?”
You hate Mishti but you’d really like her.
“He could do something if he wanted something,” she said.
“I think he does want something, he’s just never needed anything, so it doesn’t come naturally to him.”
“What does he want? A unicorn of his own?”
The image of Tom’s long black mane beside his unicorn’s long white mane made me feel instantly and entirely relaxed.
“I think he wants to get a job.”
“He doesn’t know what jobs are.”
“That’s right.”
Mishti reached the height of her frustration with Tom’s elemental inefficiency and went back into the bathroom to get dressed. I pressed play.
“How beautiful this moment is!” They were singing. Mishti started singing again too. “Everything is changing! The dreams blend into reality.” I read along and wished that I could sing. Mishti emerged in giraffe-print pajamas and sat next to me on the sofa. The disowned son sang, “Is this bond between us centuries old? Is that the reason why I’m meeting you like this?”
Is this bond between us centuries old? Is that the reason why I’m meeting you like this?
Suddenly they were in water. I couldn’t tell if the water was near the pyramids or a new realm. His translucent blouse was now soaking wet translucent. The poor bride had changed into a turquoise sari that complemented the brown of the water mud. When she flung the veil back over her shoulder it smacked him in the face with a wall of spray and he looked as if he’d been waiting for that smack all his life. She kissed his Adam’s apple. I’d never seen lip kissing in Bollywood so the neck kiss felt supremely sensual. Now they were dry again. Now he was in turquoise. Now she was translucent. A fourth realm welcomed them with its large globular rock formations. I wanted to move between climates this simply. I wanted to wear turquoise and collect every desert weed, herb, and bud. Finally, the street market again. Mishti turned it off.
“I can’t tell you how much that movie means to me,” I said sincerely, but I understand why she thinks I was joking.
“Leave me alone. Do you want to stay over?”
I’d fallen back into the feeling of things as they were when I lived there and Red Hook felt as far as Kansas. I said yes. Mishti pulled a full-size bed pillow out from under the couch and threw it at me. It knocked the colander off my lap. We laughed.
“You’re probably right,” I said, “Tom should do something. I should do something. You’re the only one who ever does anything.” Mishti knew and liked this about herself. She said nothing. Then she said, “Carlo does too.”
I suppose one version of love is to match your nature with a similar nature. I can imagine that’s pleasing because if you like yourself, you like your partner just as much. Personally I find Carlo stiff, but if Mishti admires him, that’s more sustaining to her than coziness. Joan I could make you feel so cozy. My breath is always terrible but I will celebrate the innermost tenderness of you with a love you cannot picture and have never known before.
“What are you doing?” Mishti said. “Anything?”
“Don’t turn this on me.”
“I’m really asking.”
“I don’t know, Rachel would have set a new record for thallium binding if she’d, you know. I think—” Mishti’s face settled into real listening. For the first time since I got expelled somebody was looking at me as if I were about to say something plausible. “I think I want to see how fast I can detoxify ricin, or maybe even aconite, whichever works first, make