Free Sleeping On Jupiter by Anuradha Roy Page A

haldi-coloured sari that her husband had given her long years ago when they went on the Badrinath pilgrimage together. “Fire on the mountain,” he had called her, as he photographed her in that sari against the white snow peaks. In the picture she looked daring and shy and delighted all at once.
    *
    Two doors away from Gouri, Latika lay on her back, staring at the pale, translucent lizard glued to the ceiling by its belly, looking back at her upside down. It moved a fraction, its eyes now fixed on something she could not see. It had a streak of grey going down its back and although it was high above her, she shuddered to think of its skin: rubbery, cold, possibly damp to the touch. She remembered the time her daughter when still a toddler had stumbled towards a lizard before anyone could stop her and poked it with a pencil. It slithered away into hiding behind a cupboard but left a part of its tail on the floor, a fragment of beige flesh that wriggled and twitched before it fell still. Her daughter would not have slept a wink in this room. She would have summoned half the hotel’s staff to drive out the lizard.
    Latika turned on her side, wishing she had not complained in the train about her daughter’s need for pasta and wet wipes. Why had she said all that to Gouri and Vidya, what need had she to talk so much? “You have no loyalties,” her husband had said to Latika once in bitterness. “You’ll say anything for a laugh. All you want is popularity.” She could not remember what had brought on this particular caustic jab. He was often that way with her, especially in front of other people, reducing her to long, shamed silences.
    She turned on her side again. An alarm clock by the bedside lamp counted the seconds. She had set it to 4.00, for a brief siesta to recover her energies. In the evening they were to go to the temple. It was their second day in Jarmuli. That morning, she had gone for a long walk on the beach, all by herself, and her ankles and calves still ached from the unaccustomed ploughing through sand. Vidya had predicted this would happen, and would tell her she had told her so. How was she going to survive the walking they would have to do this evening? She had heard the temple was enormous – a perfectly preserved medieval town – and that was the only reason she was going. She was not religious, not like Gouri in her sanctuary of gods and goddesses, meditating and chanting all the time. At times she wished she had her friend’s faith – it must account for Gouri’s tranquillity, she thought, her way of saying, “Oh well, whatever will be . . . What’s the point of worrying?” Latika wasn’t made like that. Her husband called her a high-tension wire, humming with faint vibrations, even when apparently still. Her flaming-red hair matched how she was inside, she thought, even if the red came from a bottle.
    She stretched her legs, trying to rid them of the pain, then got up from her bed.
    The three of them had rooms connected by a verandah that ran the length of the side that faced the sea. Latika opened the door to the verandah and a gust of wind plastered her hair to her face. Walking on the beach that morning, she had seen that their hotel was one among many set along the seafront. Next door was an opulently unobtrusive five-star, half hidden in foliage. On their other side was a shiny glass and stone building shaped like a boat with a vertical red sign going down its front saying, Pure Veg Meals, No Onion, No Garlic. Further along, the beach was fenced away by more hotels, and between the hotels now and then, like tiny rowboats stranded among cruise liners, were shuttered old houses whose owners must have refused to sell. She could hear the faint cries of children from the beach now. She smelled fish, and a spicy scent she could not place. Perhaps the blossoms on the tree that was on the other side of the verandah.
    She walked past the windows to Vidya’s room and then Gouri’s.