| Nan Leslie |
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| Dama E Cavaliere Pramila loved all things Italian: exquisite Murano glass beads and pendants, Barocco paper mache masks, and Venetian hand blown figurines with ribbons of 24 K gold flowing down the breast pockets of sixteenth century evening jackets and the décolletage of Queen Victoria gowns. Her collection lined the shelves of a monkey wood curio cabinet purchased on a whim at the Tiki Tiki resort gift shop in Maui after a 10 day cruise to nowhere. Rajnikant was only too happy to indulge his young wife, such little things really, he thought, licking drops of sweat shimmering like glycerine off her neck as they thrashed about the bed. Always her body never enough, she had become saintly to him, sleek and wild in her lovemaking. For each occasion he added a work of art until her collection dominated the fireplace mantel, the credenza, the antique doilies on her bedroom dresser rivaling the inventory at their gift shop. They had settled in Monterey Peninsula's Carmel, with beech trees and opaque powder sands fading to pink vistas paved with cobblestone and all manner of artists sipping espressos, eyeing visitors with years of hardened hope in their eyes. Rajnikant a Ph.D. in neuroscience, a professor at Monterey Peninsula College, living in a bungalow of southwestern architecture with a clay bread oven and Sierra Neuva sunsets, the little painted terrace where they sat even now, and all that remained before them spread out in long linen days. And, yes, they had their art, sweet opera, Andrea Bocelli's tenor richly fluted as in the purling of a castrato but deeper, soaring above their little garden bower, silver-blue needles brushing elbows as they held egg-shaped cups fashioned by the armless artist down the street who painted pottery with his toes. And all that remained now were the words to come tumbling out of his mouth. But as much as he knew, he could not bring himself to tell her--fool enough to set fire to those café eyes, to risk exile? When he'd found her, all the rules of the past had meant nothing. He had bent his will to have her, slivered indiscretions to confetti. In the past, she'd kissed his shadowed likeness above the jagged Big Sur coast, touched ripe olives to his lips, and traced the underside of her finger round his mouth. As a child, Rajnikant was always the smallest, his handsome mother wrapped in a silk sari, the mark on her forehead proclaiming her place in the world. For a time he had believed all people would embrace him as a mother. But children had pummeled his twisted back--the steel brace--oh, how he had hated that brace, until one day flinging it off into the ocean. He would grow straight and strong, he would learn to play the piano, feel the touch of a woman. Only now it seemed to Rajnikant a sudden atrophy of the senses just to hear his wife say his name. Pramila turned the cup around in her hands, circling her inner palm against the fired clay while she spoke. They would often sit here late into the night breathing in vanilla flames flickering against the stars. "I've added two Murano vases to the inventory. I can't keep them in stock they sell out so fast." Rajnikant nodded dumbly. "What do you think? Should I order more?" Pramila took hold of her long black hair and moved it to one side in front so she could braid it before settling into the hot tub for a long soak. "Raj, are you listening to me?" Even when she was annoyed her voice never rose in pitch, it only deepened. "What? Sorry. I was thinking of something else." She sipped the last of her espresso. "We don't have to talk shop now. We'll deal with it in the morning." Tomorrow was her birthday. He'd ordered the most charming pair of Movado figurines, gabardined and gowned, slippered and booted, the first of a special series entitled, "Dama e Cavaliere," for a surprise. And now this new surprise, in of itself not terribly earth shattering, but taken in the context of his deceit, or remission, depending upon your character, a consideration for which he had little to say in his defense. Which is precisely why he stroked his mustache with maniacal intensity, his mind whirring at the speed of a powerful modem, frantically extracting some bit of information he may have unintentionally imparted in the past. This was Rajnikant's favorite time of day: these moments just past sundown, when the earth held its breath and even the sounds of his close neighbors had faded to kitchen clatter. He glanced at his wife, her long legs extended to a graceful point, Americanized in a designer blouse and skirt of flaming-red silk that only she could pull off. "What's with you tonight? You seem...quiet." She shifted slightly in her lounge to face him. Fortunately it was too dark to read his face. In the morning he was scheduled for a supervised visit with the child, who he had never before laid eyes upon, who was all of eight years old, molded by his mother and her husband, the child's adopted father. The call had come to Rajnikant's voice mail at work, a harried-sounding social worker up to her eyeballs in bureaucratic, spell-speak. Sign here, sign there, sign everything or be condemned to the deserted father aphorisms nailed across tree lined suburbias from Seattle to Tijuana. Almost as bad as a child molester. Deserter. It sounded so...anachronistic. The girl had been young--hell--he'd been young, still in school, and the only thing imminently clear to both of them was the decision not to marry. Her family left town, she left town. Years later he received a note, now stuffed in a sock toe in his dresser, "Now married. The child adopted." That was it. And yes, he had breathed a sigh of relief, not for the money it saved him, but because by now Pramila had joined her life to his, and he wanted nothing to mar their perfection. They had talked of children once. He'd convinced her that a child would not fit into their lifestyle, that Chopin etudes and swordfish kabobs with sun-dried tomatoes, wine-tasting parties and theater openings would not suit a child. He catalogued a list of domestic chaos: her quiet days at the store gone, nothing but hard time, immersed for the next two decades in ketchup soaked wieners and runny noses. He had so thoroughly freeze-dried Pramila's mothering instincts she'd vowed never again to broach the subject, his admonitions enough to quell any sporadic hormonal urges. "Sometimes I forget how young you still are." He reached for a bottle of Dewars, filling a rocks glass with ice and the fiery amber liquid. "I've never spoken to you of other women." "I never thought you were a saint, if that's what you mean." She had already settled back in her chair, rubbing her feet together and affecting an oversized yawn. "We've been married four years. I remember thinking at the time that I had robbed you of your youth, certainly of motherhood." All of a sudden he wished he had a good cigar to smoke. He'd given up cigarettes in the sixth grade after Father Ambrose had caught him in the mens room and stuffed the rest of the pack into his mouth. Catholic Schools--what they got away with--in public school some mercenary lawyer would have sued and gotten enough money to keep him in Havanas until they killed him. But he was digressing again. "I was working on my dissertation, five years' salary borrowed for postgraduate study, when a young woman I'd been seeing got pregnant." He downed the rest of his glass and reached for the bottle. "Pregnant?" Pramila was interested, her head at attention. "We weren't in love and neither of us saw any reason to marry. She moved away and I never heard from her again except to tell me she'd remarried and her husband had adopted the baby." "You have a baby?" He heard an accusatory pre-empt in her voice, estrogen flavored and already jealous. "Yes." "So now what? You want visitation rights, what?" "The boy's parents are dead. Car accident. I got a call today from social services. Seems the original birth certificate was in her safety deposit box along with my parents' address. The woman I spoke to said we don't have to take the boy. He was legally adopted. But there's no one else. If I refuse he'll stay in a foster home until they can place him in a permanent facility." "How old is he?" She was standing up now. "You don't trust me." "He's eight. It wasn't a matter of trust. He already had a father." "This is just like you. Convenience for convenience sake." Pramila bent over the beverage cart and came up with a bottle of Amaretto di Saronno, even her taste in liquor ran European. "I don't believe you--all this time--" "He had a father--" "You're his father." "I want this to be our decision." He tried to put his arm around her but she shook him off. "Tomorrow's my birthday. I'll be twenty-two." "So young." He whispered the words. "I want a baby." His heart sank in an instant, the flatness in her voice giving him no choice or reason to deny her. In the morning they would drive over to Pacific Grove, sign the paperwork, and schedule the first of many visits, until the agency deemed enough time had passed and the boy felt comfortable in his father's presence. After all, he was a gentlemen. He paid his debts. He watched his wife rearrange herself on the chaise, lying back with her eyes closed, one hand still on the glass, and he knew what she was thinking. Tomorrow night they would sit across from each other at their favorite Japanese restaurant and exchange bites of sushi and cake. He would toast her birthday and present her with his gift and she would cradle the glass figures in her hands and smile, knowing that night they would try to make a baby. |
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