Tremors When The Patient’s Hands Are Held Out
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March 1998
They have grown into each other like two sun-exhausted creepers; a combination of indistinct markings. An outsider might wonder if these are the original patterns, or if there has been some constant irritation to produce this blurring together of striation.
Once they were young and strong enough to stand with stiff shoulders. They never looked at one another except to grieve that the other was still there. You, their eyes said as they snapped themselves apart like press-studs.
Their children have gone into other lives. Tarani, now forty-one, is living in Boston. Sunila is relieved; at least it’s not India. Until this year, when Tarani became pregnant, Arjun didn’t speak to her much. He knew she disliked him when she was growing up, but she seems to like him now. Maybe the anxiety of a late pregnancy has softened her. Arjun believes that a lot of people dislike him for reasons he will never understand. He lets his small hesitancies drop here and there, like elderly rose petals.
Murad left England for Cairns, Australia, to work as a tourist guide. He is now forty-four. Just imagine, Sunila with her palm to her cheek. A grown man, slightly more than middle-aged, even. He owns a kayaking shop, whatever that is. His accent changed: a gradual lengthening of vowels as though he stretched into another culture. It takes some adjustment of the ears to speak to him on the phone when he calls from this other world. They marvel at their once silent child’s business acumen suddenly flowering in a strange, hot place where they have Wollemi pines, tea trees, mud crabs and something called a queenfish.
They show their visitors the map of Australia in the World Atlas. Cairns is an orange smudge on page seventy-six and the sea next to it is a rich, deep blue. The visitors admire the colour combination and note the Great Barrier Reef. Arjun and Sunila nod proudly as though Murad owns the Great Barrier Reef too.
They feel they ought to be more entertaining, but have lost the energy. They look about as if the energy might be lying under sofa cushions, or snagged on curtain hooks.
They talk about their children much more now that they are gone. It is the way of parents. They argue with barely enough energy to contradict each other. Sunila osing touch 133 remembers Tarani’s hair was long. Arjun recalls it was short. He knows this is so since it shocked him. He had not thought she would ever get her hair cut so short. He shakes his head wonderingly; it was as though she had suddenly changed sex. When she visits, he marvels at how it’s grown long again.
Even now they fight each other with their exhaustion. Arjun wills himself to wake at six, to crumble into clothes as fast as his disobedient hands will let him. He can do very little alone. Soon he will do less and Sunila will be forced to bathe him, take him to the toilet. She will wonder how long she can keep it up, this attendance on every little thing he wants.
The early spring sun shows petulantly behind breaking clouds as they walk slowly to the local shops; Arjun with his walking frame, Sunila with the pull-along bag. His walking frame catches on the smallest pebble, the tiniest crack. A dog ambles by and stops to sniff his shoes. He is delighted with the insult. ‘See this fellow? He has no respect. Get along with you, you old tramp.’ His voice is fond over this attention. The dog salutes him with a cocky glance and a half-laugh, coral tongue dragging out of the left side of its mouth. It trots off, its liver and white markings jogging under the deep green of the privet hedges flanking the road.
Even now they fight each other with their exhaustion. Arjun wills himself to wake at six, to crumble into clothes as fast as his disobedient hands will let him. He can do very little alone. Soon he will do less and Sunila will be forced to bathe him, take him to the toilet. She will wonder how long she can keep it up, this attendance on every little thing he wants.
The early spring sun shows petulantly behind breaking clouds as they walk slowly to the local shops; Arjun with his walking frame, Sunila with the pull-along bag. His walking frame catches on the smallest pebble, the tiniest crack. A dog ambles by and stops to sniff his shoes. He is delighted with the insult. ‘See this fellow? He has no respect. Get along with you, you old tramp.’ His voice is fond over this attention. The dog salutes him with a cocky glance and a half-laugh, coral tongue dragging out of the left side of its mouth. It trots off, its liver and white markings jogging under the deep green of the privet hedges flanking the road.
They have to cross the road to get to the shops. He tries to move quickly to avoid traffic. Sunila waits on the far kerb while Arjun takes too long to stumble across the street to safety. How far it is. Once he would have taken a few strides and confidently stepped up onto the opposite pavement.
There was a time when the mountains were familiar with his quick, tireless stride. There were mountain streams he stepped across. The freezing water slapped against his legs making him gasp as he waded quickly, jumping onto the mud-warm bank.
There was facile movement and no pain. Perhaps this is why so many of the elderly are Christians. A land fairer than day where there is no pain is obviously unreal.
What does she think of, this old woman with the white puffball hair, as she tries to walk slowly so that the husband can keep up? Does she remember how he once moved like a jungle cat across the squash court, the speed and accuracy of his shots, how the crowd gasped when he made a daring snatch at the ball seemingly out of reach? How he used to hold her hand in the cinema in Bombay, how his fingers gently curled around hers? She watches the walker inching along, closer, closer.
As the old man reaches what he now thinks of as the shore, a car turns a nearby corner. He stops to glance at it and the woman bends forward and tugs at him. ‘Get up on the pavement before you kill yourself.’ She catches him off balance and he stumbles. She drops the pull-along bag and grabs at him, hoisting him onto the pavement. She steadies him and retrieves the walker. She picks up the pull-along and trundles away into the greengrocer’s.
The cold air carries traces of car exhaust, something fried and, just barely, the woody smell of the small trees planted alongside the row of shops. Does he think about going into his garden later? Perhaps he might dig in the earth, his fingers loosening the soil. He won’t want to plant seeds. The climate is too cold for cacti. His beloved tiger lily, planted in the spring last year, has yet to flower. A succulent? Something pink and green, perhaps. He will think about his succulent, gently lowering it into the soil, adding the water, tamping down the earth around it. His strands of white hair will form antennae in the breeze and his nose will run.
The old woman comes out and beckons the old man to come into the greengrocer’s. She wants to know what fruit he wants.
She waits in line behind a huge dyed-blonde perm. The perm turns around and the old woman smiles brightly, says ‘Good morning.’ The perm cracks a reluctant smile as the greengrocer calls a greeting, asks after the husband. Others also nod and call to the old woman and she happily replies, ‘He’s doing very well.’ The English tolerate immigrants who don’t complain.
The old man hears this good news about himself as he inches his way in. They have lived here for forty-four years and have achieved that nodding acquaintance of respectability that has been the woman’s life’s goal since they arrived in England.
He steadies himself on his walker, smiles his nervous smile, nods quickly at those who greet him, is grateful to those who overlook him. He would rather be in his garden with the new baby succulent. Perhaps he will talk to the plant as he gently sets its delicate pink and green in the earth.
A small cabbage is set beneath a flourish of carrots under a gaudy display of lights. Since this looks a little like a succulent, the old man turns his nervous smile on it. His smile softens and he transforms the bed of ice around it into dark, moist earth, like Christmas cake. The night stars will look after his succulent, will make sure it’s comfortable in its bed, that nothing disturbs it.
The old woman has noticed his glance and gives the grocer her order. The old man watches his baby torn up by the roots. His smile freezes. He will have to eat cabbage. The old woman continues her order: carrots, tomatoes, onions, bananas. Someone says something about a pineapple. The greengrocer says something about Tony Blair. There is laughter.
The old woman enjoys the neighbourly chit-chat, delighted with her idea to make cabbage fougard and plain white rice. Pilau is nicer, of course, but more time consuming.
The old man is still staring at the empty indentation where his succulent once was. He tells himself, it is only a cabbage. There is a memory of something else torn away, as though he is an old catalogue. The ice patch has a semicircular impression, a half-smile. Ridicule or regret?
Sandra Hunter is a prolific short-story writer. She has won the H.E. Francis Short Story Award, the Arthur Edelstein Prize for Short Fiction, and been a finalist for numerous short-story prizes, including the Pushcart. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She teaches at Moorpark College, California.
Losing Touch is her first novel.