He took a few steps forward and loomed above her.
“You filthy whore, you posed nude on a billboard? Are you that desperate for attention?”
Tara closed her eyes. Indignation welled inside her. “I was not nude. You are just angry because I look more beautiful than your whore.”
She heard him suck in air; a second later, a sharp shooting pain spread across her right cheek. She reeled, almost lost her balance in shock. He had actually struck her.
“Don’t ever call her that again.” He was a few inches away from her, a corner of his mouth dribbling fury. She clutched the edge of the counter for support, held the other hand over her burning cheek. She had never seen so much anger on his face before.
“Liz broke up with me today because of you and your filthy advertisement.”
“Was she jealous?” She looked at him squarely.
She felt another blow, this one was more vicious; it made contact across her ear and temple. She winced in pain, her ear rang, eyes watered. She looked at him again. He trembled in rage, yet her anger was stronger than her fear of him.
“The guys got talking about the billboard, and Avinash Godbole who had seen you at Target congratulated me, said he had seen my wife on the billboard—and Liz was right there. Right there. There was no getting away from it.”
“So, Liz didn’t know your wife’s in America and living with you? Too bad.” Tara laughed hysterically. She sounded, to her ears, like the hyenas from Lion King. “So, your double life got busted, huh?” She bent over in pain as she felt the impact of his shoe on her abdomen, then another. A series of blows rained on her face and head; she wiped the moistness off her upper lip and saw blood on her hand.
Suddenly, it dawned on her. She could die right there, a victim of Sanjay’s rage if she didn’t get away. She made a dash to the front door, tried to unlock it, but he was right behind her. He yanked her hand from the knob, twisted her arm until she screamed in pain.
“You are not leaving now. I am not done yet,” he barked.
“Sanjay, please. Don’t hit me, please,” she pleaded. “How is it my fault if Liz found out?”
“How is it your fault? Yeah, it was my fault. I felt sorry for you, allowed you to stay here, provided for you. Totally my fault. I should have sent you packing a long time ago, before you had the guts to drop your clothes for public entertainment. Do you even have the body to show off in public? Hijra! Eunuch! Yes, that’s right. Do you know that’s the first word that came to my mind when I saw you at Hartsfield–Jackson airport?”
The insult implied that she was unfeminine, the third gender. It stung. She fluttered her eyes shut as a rush of raw emotion clutched her throat. He moved away, flopped on the sofa, holding his face in his hands.
“Oh God, you destroyed me today, bitch. I’ve lost the only person I’ve ever cared for. She patched up with her husband and is packing her bags to leave for DC as we speak. I’ve lost everything. Everything.”
Tara said nothing. A thick silence followed, punctuated with sniffs and sighs from Sanjay. “You know what?” he said after a while, raising his head. “I think you better leave. I don’t think I could bear the sight of you anymore. I’m sorry I married you, I’m sorry I was kind enough to give you refuge all these years.”
He strode to the front door with purpose, walking past Tara who lay in a heap on the floor, and opened the door with a jerk.
“Leave.”
“Sanjay, please.”
“I said leave.”
“Sanjay, please, I have nowhere to go.”
“I said out, woman! If you stay, there’s no telling when I might be tempted to kill you.”
Tara picked herself from the floor. She walked up to the door slowly, hoping he’d mellow, change his mind. He didn’t.
“Take your purse with you,” he said.
Tara walked to her closet, found her bag, and walked to the front door again. For a second, she had contemplated locking herself in the bedroom, but she didn’t trust her instincts; her mind was too frozen to execute a plan. She pleaded again. This time, he grabbed her sore arm and pushed her out the door. She shuddered when he slammed it shut in her face.
She sat on the top step of the stairwell a long time, hoping Sanjay would open the door, but knowing she’d be too afraid to go back in there if he did. She tried to focus on what to do next. She rummaged through her purse, and luckily, found her cell phone which still had three bars. She tried calling Alyona at work, but got her voice mail. She contemplated calling Vijay, but decided against it.
Finally, it was time for the yellow-and-black school buses to drop off the elementary school kids back home. When the parents who walked down the stairs to receive their children gave her questioning looks, she pulled herself up and got out of the way. Such an ordinary day for so much drama, for her flimsy semblance of a life to collapse.
The sun bore down on her, scorching her sore face. Her head throbbed, and her limbs ached. She didn’t know what hurt more—the beating or his insults. She let her feet lead her; her mind was still too much in shock to think of recourse.
She found her way to the seventh pew, near the side aisle, where she felt as invisible as she wanted to. She had never seen the inside of West Hill Baptist Church before. The sanctuary was a large hall with rows and rows of pews, the backs of which held copies of the Bible. There was one right before her, with a black cover that she touched with light fingers. The pews faced a red-carpeted, two-level pulpit. The lower platform had a table, some chairs, and a lectern. She noticed a piano in the upper level. Her eyes scanned the raised levels, looking for a figure of Jesus on the cross or of Mother Mary with her son. She saw none, only a bare cross high up the wall.
Tara closed her eyes and found herself in her school chapel, where she had prayed ardently for her mother to be happy again. She saw the gentle face of Mother Mary. She saw Jesus, nailed to the cross at the wrists and feet, a crown of thorns on his head. Jesus who had suffered for everybody, who would make it okay for little Tara’s Amma.
She fluttered her eyes open. She saw no point in stepping back in time, but stepping ahead was a mystery too dark to see. The nasty ache in her head was an impediment to any clarity of thought. She focused on her breath, on the air that struggled to get to her aching belly and flow out of her burdened chest. The sanctuary smelled mildly of wood and candles, like harmony and warmth. The stained-glass windows, several of them around the hall, filtered the glare of the afternoon sun, bathing her in soft light. And so she sat, a lone lost bundle in the seventh pew, making no plans, thinking no thoughts. When she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder, then another, she was slow to open her eyes. It took her several seconds to remember where she was. Then she saw her—sparkling green eyes on a happy face, a crowning glory of cottony hair. She was peering down at Tara, a buoyant smile on her pink lips.
“Oh my goodness! Did I scare you?” Tara had heard the Southern drawl on TV, but never from a real person. She shook her head.
“May I sit beside you? Do you mind?”
Tara shook her head again. She almost wanted to take flight, embarrassed at being caught in a place where she didn’t belong, but something about the elderly woman—in the way warmth reflected in her eyes, in the glorious creases of her face, in the geniality of her words—made her stay.