By I.R. Brown
The world always finds its way through even the tiniest crevices.
Preface
The weight of the world was slowly settling on my eyes with fatigue and boredom while I was reading the local newspaper uninterested. It was a humid Midwest summer’s day when a particular piece of news caught my attention. A young Indian woman had taken her life in a small town nearby. I finished reading the article, motionless, as if a sudden blow to my head had struck me and left me speechless with a throbbing bruise. It wasn’t the fact that she had killed herself that haunted me—it was the way she did it. I remember then, struggling with feelings of isolation. Many times, I felt disconnected from the rest of the world, immersed in my own confusion as a recent immigrant striving to adapt to my new surroundings. This news stirred my insides with fear and left me disturbed with speculation.
I was thirty-five at the time and she was only in her mid-twenties. Why did she do it? I kept thinking.Was I in danger of doing the same? It was such a trifling report. No one talked about it, which bothered me all the more. It seemed like even whispering what had happened with my friends threatened to burst the bubble we all lived in, so I stopped trying. Nothing was ever investigated further and the news quickly faded into the town’s collective oblivion.
It has taken me a few years to write about this horrific incident. I decided to create a fictional story about it to help me find some type of closure and give a proper burial to my endless thoughts. Was she brave? Was it unavoidable? I kept thinking how fragile we are when we are alone, trapped and lost; how insignificant such tragedy could’ve been to some, but to me, it was an awakening. This event simply cut through the noise in my life like a deadly arrow, opening the flesh on my chest and poking right into the bullseye of my racing heart. To die so young, so alone, and to be forgotten so easily, reminded me of the horrors some of us at times withstand in silence, while we get lost pondering in stagnant thoughts. But Silpa was different. Her death dwells in my memory like a mental souvenir, an old friend who reminds me of the crucial things we once shared together, which slowly and at times rapidly, carved out who we are today.
…
On a warm summer afternoon, Silpa was twenty-five when she arrived to Calm Springs —a small farm town on the outskirts of the city of Flatlands. Coming to the United States all the way from India to live in the deep Midwest was her best chance of uncuffing herself from the social chains that for years had been slowly biting off small pieces from her heart. Back in her hometown, Silpa had become too old to still be unmarried. There wasn’t anything wrong with her, except maybe she had always been a daydreamer, too busy paying attention to the wrong things.
One time, a young man came back to visit her hometown after spending years in America, and all three of Silpa’s sisters followed his welcoming caravan providing him with flirtatious smiles and soft hands full of presents. He was single, handsome and had an American education. Great husband material, as Silpa’s mother would say. At home, all the sisters were telling their mother how handsome he was, how he looked at them, how there was a future for sure when they met his eyes. Silpa did not join the conversation but stayed behind sitting on a chair pensive. The mother noticed and said, “Silpa, why aren’t you saying anything… did he look at you?” Silpa sincerely responded, “I don’t know, mother. I wasn’t paying attention. I was looking at the butterfly that was flying behind his carriage. It was so beautiful. Didn’t any of you notice it? It wouldn’t fly away.” And the sisters looked at each other and started laughing so hard it became a repetitive joke among them to mention seeing a butterfly whenever there was a situation no one could clearly understand. Silpa laughed so hard, the sisters gathered around the chair and hugged her. Silpa was the lucky one who could see a butterfly when no one else could. Her sisters loved her for that.
But the years had gone by faster than she could’ve imagined and now judgement followed her around like a shadow, bullying her soul at every step .
None of this would be a surprise to Silpa’s mother. The instant Silpa was born her mother took her in her arms with tears in her eyes knowing her daughter would have a difficult life. Her child was doomed with very dark skin, a mark that would linger over her like a storm pushing away any chance of ever seeing the sunlight … or finding a husband. At twenty-five, Silpa was still single, and her three sisters of lighter skin color, were married off. Silpa had become incredibly shy and hopeless.
But an opportunity parachuted from the skies and landed on Silpa’s lap softly and accurately. Raj, an Indian man in America was available to marry her. She was saved by her mother’s cunning matchmaking skills and unyielding focus on finding Silpa a husband, no matter the consequence. Her family rejoiced by giving loud thanks to the skies, while she sat in a corner petrified with joy. She remembered the butterfly joke and her gentle lips formed a smile that she hid behind her tea cup like a prisoner who had finally figured out a way out.
The families got together and immediately began planning the wedding. There was no time to lose and this would be quick and subtle. Silpa meticulously studied the photographs she had of Raj, her future husband. With a magnifying glass she reviewed every hint the photos could give her of his life. After hours of research, she concluded that he looked handsome, smart and mysterious — qualities that felt promising. She forcefully ignored how much older he looked and convinced herself Raj looked younger than what he really was. Eighteen years difference was really not an issue. The thrill of convenience was running through both families’ veins like a wild river full of fish and hope and it was a time to rejoice, not to digress.
Some could say Raj was a faulty son, just like Silpa, always out of focus, daydreaming and falling behind. It was clear they were a perfect match for each other. In his case, his dreams had taken him far away from his hometown and into a world he loved. For fifteen years he had been working in the Flatlands after graduate school and living in Calm Springs, comfortably Americanized and resisting at every corner the Indian ways of marriage. He enjoyed looking for love like any American would, at a bar or at work. After getting his heart broken a few times—one time because his family didn’t allow him to marry an American girl he loved, and the second time because he was the one rejected by an American family—he still hadn’t found love and was now forty-three.
None of this really mattered to Silpa’s family. He could’ve been fifty-three, she was still going to marry him. They wanted their darkest daughter to find a stable life with a good provider and have children. Raj needed to demonstrate to his family he was still a worthy son. Having a wife and children was the answer.
Deep inside of Raj he believed that he was meant to have an American wife, but he gave in and accepted the allotted bride, unexcitedly. He was tired of waiting for the right one. At the end of the day, Raj could have Silpa as his wife, have children, and on the side still pursue his American dream of finding love through serendipity.
With such few prospects in her life, she would have no other choice than to accept this. Maybe this was Silpa’s destiny. Her name meant in Hindi, to be a decorative ornament or sculpture, and that was exactly what she would become. It was better to be a little fandangle than an old maid. But in the pictures Raj looked so happy surrounded by his American friends in his American world, playing pool, skiing, and hiking, that she thought joining his life would be an incredible adventure. She imagined herself in these photographs by his side and her chewed up heart began to heal and was quickly filled up with joyful expectations.
Raj lived in Calm Springs, one of Flatlands’ rural suburbs with barely three thousand residents, mostly lower-middle class hardworking families that preferred to live a quiet life—isolated from the rest of the world and all of its worries. People could work the land, or commute to Flatlands and come back to a place where they wouldn’t find a single trouble, other than what was left in their minds after grinding their thoughts in silence all evening.
It was a peaceful life, or so they wanted to believe. Mostly nothing ever really happened there. It was like living inside a bubble that was sold to provide blissful safety. If anyone wanted to have a private life away from Flatlands and its slow urban transformation, Calm Springs was a great place to hide from the world. It suited Raj perfectly.
Most neighborhoods were made up of weathered homes or abandoned farmhouses that were demolished and replaced by new cookie-cutter houses. They were erected from the ground in less than a month and were beautiful, but like papier-mâché, a tornado could crunch them at any time, effortlessly. Some of these new-carpet-smelling houses were in small neighborhoods made of two or three new streets with names like Greentree Lane, Country Court, Pine Drive, and Creek Street. Ironically there were neither many green trees, nor the true feeling of country living. There were no pine trees anywhere near, and even fewer water springs or creeks, what counted was the much-needed belief that these new homes inspired a life surrounded by nature inside their bubble.
What was actually undeniable was the immense sky, free and unrestrained that gave a breathtaking roof to these houses. In the distance, the horizon looked back at them flat and heavy, cutting through the landscape like an endless thread pulled straight out by an invisible tyrant needle. The backyards of these new houses were perfect green squares, delineated by cornfields that crept up through the summer sky like green walls intensifying the feeling of isolation.
For some, it was heaven. For others, it was a desolating view of cornfields to the right and soybean farms to the left. No businesses or signs of modern life were seen for miles. Nothing exciting happened in the small town of Calm Springs. There were hardly any noises except for some small birds perching here and there on the only trees that were recently planted and had barely grown. Sometimes, strange gusts of winds could be heard cutting through the flat farms, howling through forceful swirls reminding everyone of the problems they were purposefully ignoring — whatever they were. Raj loved the comforts this life had given him through the years—indoors, cheap, new, and private.
Silpa arrived during the summer after their wedding, clad in all of India’s customs gleaming over her clothes, her shiny face, her long dark hair, her small voice, and her shy movements. She came alone and had no friends or family waiting for her to help her start her new life, but that was alright. This was the start of what felt like a great adventure. She was meant to do things differently than expected and she was enjoying it, at last. Silpa didn’t speak a lot of English and improving it was too much to ask at this incipient stage of settling in.
When Raj drove her in from the Flatlands’ airport to Calm Springs, she observed the vacant landscape from Raj’s car. The straight and never-ending country roads and strict traffic grids with slow-moving cars, the little and few scattered trees on the sidewalks, and the look-alike houses with perfect green lawns. All of this embodied her new life, like a strange dream. She had never experienced such a plain, structured, and colorless view. Everywhere she looked she found an infinite flatness waiting for her in the distance, with barely a trace of people, no sounds, except for a few black crows cawing over nothing, just to startle the uncomfortable silence and fill it with misery. It all felt odd, ill, and lifeless. She could barely take it all in and accept this was her new reality, but still, she was hopeful.
On Saturdays, Raj would show her around a bit, so she could at least see the towns. But after she saw that construction in the Flatlands area looked like it was made out of paper and red bricks—old buildings looked depressing and haunted, strip malls were identical in every town with nothing unique, fast-food restaurants were the only restaurants, and the towns were desolated on the weekends, looking like ghost towns with empty sidewalks—she stopped getting in the car. There was nothing to see and Raj felt relief.
Silpa was even more resolute to stay confined to the house when one day she asked Raj to take her to the Flatlands mall. There she found a dozen eyes staring at her colorful saree, layered in beautiful Indian fabrics that wrapped her body elegantly. They stared at her bindi, or red dot, between her eyebrows, centralizing her humble facial expression and destabilizing everyone in its path. Her exposed brown feet in shiny sandals and heavy eyeliner contouring her brown eyes were not welcomed. As she walked alone, ten feet behind Raj, she passed a hundred staring faces. Silpa felt all the weight of the world pressing over her shoulders, reminding her that she didn’t belong anywhere—neither in India nor America. The adventure was quickly fading away, and a new shadow was slowly settling in. She was alone again.
Back in the house and more appreciative of the walls that protected her, while Raj was at work, Silpa spent her days in a house she didn’t understand or like, looking out through the windows and staring at the cornfields, waiting for her husband to come back from work so she could serve him. At least he brought her everything she needed to cook delectable Indian food that made her proud. That was the only relief she could find to keep herself calm again among this foreign land. It scared her to be outside of the house in the vast emptiness of her new neighborhood, so she remained indoors at all times, cooking, cleaning, and avoiding speaking English. Each week a couple more pounds showed through her saree. That was the least of her worries.
After a few months living in her new home, Silpa knew everything that was inside the house and what it was used for. Raj would bring in the groceries, and she would put everything away, aligning the food cans in perfect rows just like the cornfields, stacked to perfection. Raj liked it that way. He would always bring her a candle that smelled very masculine, she thought, so she could light it up to keep the house smelling the way he wanted, like him. She didn’t like the smell, but she enjoyed taking out the matchbox and lighting the candle to please him.
He would mow the lawn and take care of the garden while she cleaned and cooked, always indoors. Things were comfortably functional between them and that’s when Raj started to leave the house for days in a row. He would travel with his friends and then back at the house, show her the photographs he had taken. She was happy for him although she had thought at the beginning that she was going to be standing next to Raj in these pictures smiling back at the American dream she once longed for.
There were other Indian families close by that Silpa wanted to meet, but Raj was not interested in developing friendships with them. They argued about this once, and that was the end of it. He didn’t want Silpa to socialize with these families because he didn’t want to feel pressured into doing things with them, like celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, planning cookouts, or building bonds he didn’t want to nourish. All this bored Raj and he needed his freedom to do other things. Silpa knew she was just an inferior being to him. Her only purpose was to serve him and not complain. It was obvious Raj didn’t like her unless it suited him, like when she was cooking. These moments were sincerely special to Raj. He loved her cooking because it made him feel whole again, somehow, but then he would suddenly leave and run back into the arms of his American dream, always coming back with photos that showed the same white woman standing next to him among the group of friends.
Months had flown by and Silpa was certain she didn’t want to have a life in Calm Springs. She didn’t like her Americanized husband. They slept in separate bedrooms, and the distance between them had grown even greater than the hallway that kept them apart. Raj was in love with another woman, an American woman, the one in the pictures. They had been on and off even before the wedding, but it was now obvious they were now steady. Raj didn’t even try hard to hide it from Silpa. He would talk on the phone with his lover in English, walking all around the house, laughing and acting flirtatiously, while ignoring Silpa cleaning around him pretending to be naïve and invisible.
Life was confusing, but Silpa didn’t know what else to do other than to perform her role as an Indian cook and maid and overlook her husband’s double life. At least him being away kept her from having to serve him for sexual pleasure or having to light the nasty smelling candle every day. Only on the weeks when the American lover would kick him out of the house, would she have to deal with his annoying erection. Silpa thought there must be something wrong with her because she wasn’t feeling anything when he laid on top of her, only pain. The American movies must be all wrong. The only things crossing her mind while she waited under him was how boring and uncomfortable sex was and why he had to put such a tight plastic bag over his male organ each time. How could five minutes of this painful motion inside of her create any pleasure? They had never kissed.
She needed to be thankful for this sporadic pain, as this would be the only way that she would get pregnant sooner than later, that she knew well. Even as she hated this foreign and empty land where she would rather not bring up her own children, being an older mother would cast another shadow over her as a reminder that she was not a normal young mother. Maybe if she got pregnant Raj would learn to love her, she thought. The white woman was for sure just a temporary thing. She would be the forever wife and give him children soon.
But having children with Silpa was not in Raj’s immediate plans—maybe a few years down the road if things with the American woman didn’t work out. Both families were putting pressure on them to get pregnant, always blaming Silpa, of course, for not doing something about it. He laughed and assured them everything was alright and that children would come in time. Silpa was not asked for her opinion, even though her head was full of screams that made her eyes and lips ache with forced happiness.
When Raj started to disappear for weeks, Silpa became worried her forever-wife plan might be in jeopardy. She stared at the flat horizon from the living room window tortured by the silence. In the vast and quiet countryside, rested the weight of the world, pressing over her shoulders once more. She had reached out to her family explaining her heartache and how unhappy she was, and they responded with a wave of insults that only reminded her of why she had left India in the first place: It was wrong for her to complain. She was in America now and married to a man with a stable job. What more could she want? Any twenty-five-year-old unmarried Indian woman with such dark complexion would give anything to be in the position she was in!Soon, children would come and her life would finally have a purpose. Her family would feel proud of her as she fulfilled her duty as a daughter. Please don’t forget to keep putting on Fair and Lovely, and lighten up that dark face of yours. She was lucky on one hand, and forsaken on the other, and this ambiguity troubled her during the long and lonely hours that filled her domestic life.
Silpa carried on with her new life through the harsh and long Midwestern winter and the short spring that followed. It was summer again and before the warmth would disappear again, she decided to finally step outside of the house and walk into the cornfields near the neighborhood. The newlywed bride noticed how the corn plants had grown tall as she walked towards them, how they had become a never-ending green labyrinth. She stepped in and felt amazed by such organized chaos, with thousands and thousands of tall corn plants surrounding her in perfect rows. Her lips formed a small smile once again that she could barely recognize because it almost felt like joy, a now distant friend. She kept walking slowly letting the corn leaves caress her skin. They felt like the nicest thing that had touched her in months. The sunlight was filtering in through the leaves and warming up her face. She suddenly felt how much she missed the farms back home—the smell of essential oils and spice that lingered in the air, so sweet; the many fruit trees that sprung up everywhere with juicy and ripe fruit ready to be picked by her small hands. Here, nothing smelled of anything but sterile air and new plastic. The fruits that Raj brought home from the supermarket were always dry and tasteless.
Daydreaming had become her favorite diversion alone in the house. She imagined herself getting a divorce and speaking English fluently with an American accent—by means of an overnight miracle. She pictured herself falling in love with a kind white man that would take her away from her husband’s house. She visualized her new life as a movie starring herself, escaping, flying first-class back home, and becoming famous for her bravery and disobedience. She dreamed of being a girl again and playing with her sisters barefoot on the sandy dirt of her mother’s backyard. Daydreaming for hours was her only escape from the bubble she lived in, which always ended up in a long nap in the middle of the day.
Sometimes she would stay alone for weeks in the house until she ran out of food. She would wait in tears for Raj to come back with groceries, but he didn’t. Maybe this was the best way to lose weight in this condemned land. The lack of dialogue with another human being had become unbearable. The shadow following her every step had fully matured into a heavy burden. She was beginning to forget how to articulate a simple conversation, how to put together a thought, and pronounce it through her small lips. If this was her lucky life, she didn’t want it.
She grabbed some money Raj had left her for emergencies and walked out of the house irresolute. Three miles down the lonely road was a gas station where she could buy some eggs, milk, and bread. She was shaking with just the thought of being watched over by the intimidating and immense blue sky above her. It was a long and hot road, and it felt like every step she took with her sandals was crushing her soul. She walked slowly, but steadily. But the road would not end, the gas station would not come up in the horizon. Her timid walk was only interrupted by a few trucks that drove by slowly to take a good look at her with confused and suspicious frowns.
The walk back home was even worse, with the weight of the grocery bags pressing over her knuckles and slowly drowning in her own sweat any strength she had left. The only thought that kept her going was the new candle she had bought at the store and how excited she was to light it to make the house smell like spicy vanilla and not a fake musky masculinity. She held the bags steadily and kept walking determined. Silpa was finally home, drenched in sweat. She walked slowly into the bathroom and soaked her bloody feet in a bucket of cold water and promised herself, she would never do this again. She needed the white women’s shoes if she would ever do this walk again; the funny ones they called sneakers or she would rather starve to death. She grabbed the matchbox and lit her new delicious-smelling candle. Through a deep and slow breath, she was at peace, once again.
One Saturday night towards the end of summer Raj was finally home. He sat Silpa by the dining table and told her the American woman was pregnant. She stopped listening and stared at the nothingness in complete silence. His voice sounded muffled and far away. There were some words he kept repeating, like divorce and go back to India, that buried her even deeper into her silence. It was all a blur of feelings. Her stomach felt cold, her eyes red and teary and her heartbeat pressing hard on her chest felt like it wanted to break her flesh apart and escape. He then put some money on the table and left the house, this time, with a larger suitcase for what was assumed to be a longer period of time away. Silpa saw him leave and remained on the chair, muted and petrified for the next several hours, as the shadows of the early evening darkened the house. She then walked to the couch and lay there doing what she enjoyed the most, daydreaming. She could not sleep.
After a few hours of pure joy fantasizing about the impossible, morning greeted her with the same little birds perching over the small trees. She stood up and walked to the living room window looking at the unchangeable horizon that lay flat in front of her. Everyone was leaving early to go to church, except her, of course. She waited while the cars backed out of their driveways quickly and left. The street was finally empty and quiet, except for a few crows in the distance that kept fighting over a piece of corn. She noticed the lawn in her front yard was tall and neglected. In the garage, Silpa grabbed the five-gallon plastic gasoline can that Raj used to fill up the lawnmower and opened the garage door that was steamy hot. The breeze that came in felt cool over her moist cheeks. It was bright outside, with clear blue skies and just a few scattered clouds. It felt good to breathe out in the open without anyone looking. She could certainly mow the lawn if she wanted to.
Silpa took the gasoline can and filled up the tank in the lawnmower, which was completely empty. Raj had definitely been away for a while. She was hot and immediately abandoned the idea of mowing the lawn – she needed air. The bride started to walk towards the corn that began right at the end of the street. Her colorful saree danced with a sudden breeze as she made her way steadily into the cornfield and quickly disappeared through the green natural walls. After walking for twenty minutes through the crops, she decided to stop. It felt good to be alone with nature once again, even if this was a simplified version of the rich nature that surrounded her back in India. In this moment, she still felt grateful. Plants and flowers would always feel more welcoming to her than any stranger talking in an unknown language and looking down at her like she was undeserving and strange. These crops did not judge her. Her shadow did not bother her. She felt happy among the tall and green plants, the sun rays, and the wide blue skies staring at her over her head gallantly. Suddenly a strong gust of wind shook her for a second or two and she held herself steady with her eyes closed to avoid the debris. With her dark hair moving up in the air, wild and free, and with a smile covering her small lips – she felt at peace.
The wind slowly vanished and the corn stems suddenly became still again. She took out from her saree her usual matchbox and threw it on the ground away from her. Then she opened the gasoline can she was holding in her other hand and poured it all over her head and body, smiling as she rubbed it thoroughly over her long black hair and dark brown skin. It looked as if she was enjoying a long-awaited shower, so fresh and invigorating. She put the can down, picked up the box from the ground and lit a match. She stood still and let the tall flames consume her rapidly. She did not scream, as the pain of her burning body felt less agonizing than the pain she had endured for the last twelve months of her life in America and the twenty-five years before that in India, trying to please everyone except herself. She calmly waited for her pain to end. I am free now — were the last thoughts that crossed her mind as she burned in silence.