Free The Vine of Desire by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page A

me are afraid of Sunil of earthquakes, flying insects, the sky at dusk, and the loss of control; Sudha of the silence that rises from furniture in an empty room at noon, culinary disasters , and the resurrection of desires she has put to death; Prem (yes, Prem) of dissolvement, the crying of bats and aborted babies, and my despair. Only Dayita among us is afraid of nothing.
    And me—to give you all the things I am afraid of, it would take an aeon. So I will write only of one: love. Love which gives you a taste of itself and makes you greedy for more. You hold it in your addicted hands, terrified by its frailty. It makes you lie incessantly. You would kill anyone—including yourself—to keep it from breaking. Then it breaks anyway.
    All the loves I’ve loved, I’ve lost them—except one. And this one too—I think I hear it cracking underfoot, like lake ice in a thin winter.
    Father, what was it you loved so much that you had to leave us for it?
    —Anju.
    He stands very still in the middle of the bedroom, his unbuttoned shirt fallen from his body. His chest does not rise and fall. He has forgotten to breathe as he stares at the woman and the child on his bed—which makes them, for the moment, his. He looks like a man struck dumb by a miracle.
    The frog video has ended and a static drone comes from the TV. To this dissonant music, Sunil walks to the bed. He looks down at Sudha, her slightly swollen lids, her hair tendriled over his pillow, the sudden excitement of her flared hips. At the child sleeping with her hand fisted around her mother’s finger.
    He kneels by the bed. He kisses her. A feather kiss on the mole on her cheekbone, a breath kiss on her left eye, then her right, and then he can’t stop himself. His lips take hers, her face is in his hands. He will crush her into himself, he will swallow her if that’s the only way for them to be together. This is the kiss he has imagined over a hundred unsatisfied nights. He breathes in the clove scent of her dreams, which will now become his.His arms crush her to him. Her skin makes him drunk with silkiness. He strokes her shoulder blades, the curve of vertebrae, each fitted to the other like pearls on a string. His lips move to the rise of her breasts. Does her body arch up, compliant? If only he could contain himself within this perfect moment, looking neither before nor beyond.
    Then she’s crying out, pushing him away, he cannot read the look on her face, he would like to believe that it is an ambiguous joy, or at least desire, but her words are not ambiguous, Let go of me, let go. She’s hitting out. To save himself from falling, he must take his hands from her, balance on his heels, kneeling by the bed. She sits up, clutching her sari to her face. Only her eyes, wide with shock, are visible above the bunched fabric. The child, too, awake now, stares—first at one, then the other, trying to decide if the situation calls for a smile. The man’s breath makes a crazy, whistling sound in his windpipe. Against the lean brownness of his body, the gleam of his belt buckle. His chest hairs are dark and curly. The child laughs as she reaches out to touch them. That laugh, that touch. They bring reality crashing down around Sunil like the door to a tiger trap.

    In the 7:00 P.M. bus, Anju holds on to the metal armrest of the seat, her thumb caressing its smooth, bluish sheen. She feels a wondrous, party-balloon lightness, as though she might float up at any moment to the roof of the bus. The letter she wrote is safely hidden between the pages of her thickest notebook.
    When she gets off, the rain hits her in immediate, wild sheets. The road has turned into a river, dull and evening-nickeled. Soaked, shivering, she hugs the bag to her chest, hoping the letter will stay dry. Rain falls on the lenses of hersunglasses, further dimming her vision. She is elated by blindness, by the mysteries of unseen puddles.
    In the parking lot Sunil swings open the door of the car where