Vidya, who came with me from Guntur to Springfield in the Spring of 2004, had to be transported back in a coffin. It might as well have been me instead of her had the assassin’s bullet taken a slightly different trajectory that fall afternoon in Darwin Hall, and she died protecting me when Mike Rolla stormed through the campus on a shooting rampage.
The Indian Media and the International community were calling Vidya a martyr. But, I’ll never be sure if Vidya is a martyr – though in all my accounts, I have claimed that she fell while trying to cover me. Sometimes, when I’ve had a drop too much, the version changes: having spotted the killer approaching the table underneath which we were hidden, she sought to escape to the other side of the room. There were no security cameras inside the room. And since the killer shot himself, forensics wasn’t a detailed affair. In any case, I doubt any detective in the world would’ve been able to establish Vidya’s final intention with certainty.
I admit, at first, my roommate’s absence was intolerable. Habits don’t change overnight, even after the worst shooting massacre of the century. After the haze of being sedated by the EMS folks, being transported to Holy Angel Hospital and back, to finding out through Facebook that Vidya had died – the hospital had reached out to her closest kin, a cousin in Arkansas, who’d posted: ‘RIP be-loved Sis’, accompanied by a childhood photo of himself and a child in dentures with a red teddy bear, I didn’t know where to begin feeling alive again. I spent all night on her Facebook wall, wondering which emoticon would be most appropriate. I even made a small list, to help me reason better – after all, one doesn’t get to post a reaction for a murdered roommate every day.
like: disadvantages: disrespectful, nonchalant, feckless … on the other hand, it might convey my own fatigue – perhaps better to follow it with a comment saying, ‘I can’t believe you’re gone’. The ‘like’ should not be misconstrued as liking the massacre but liking the post for informing … no fuckit … no ‘like’.
love: more poignant than ‘like’ – but again, what would people think I am loving?
care: I almost clicked this, but it would establish the cousin’s loss was superior to mine.
anger: safe. appropriate. Conveys solidarity with the community though to be honest, I wasn’t angry. I wanted to be angry but I wasn’t. Fuck that though – it’s good to show you are angry. Shortlist ‘anger’.
laugh: now this was the most sincere reaction to what I was feeling – poor Vidya cribbing about Walmart bills gets shot hahahahaha Vidya who is afraid of USMLE wasn’t afraid to die hahahahaha Vidya who spends two hours buying a toothbrush has now run out of time hehehehehe Vidya who fought over hair oil has now left it all to me hahahahaha.
I finally chose ‘anger’.
*
Two days after the massacre, the Indian Community of Springfield held a candle-light march. Since Vidya had saved my life, I had to be there. It was the first time I was seeing that many faces by candlelight. Many were swollen from crying; the impact was devastatingly beautiful. I had to restrain my impulse to take a selfie with the other candle-marchers. I could hear it often said in Telugu: what a pity, came to save lives and had hers taken … couldn’t have happened to anyone nicer … died trying to save….
Suddenly, it occurred to me that I wasn’t crying. I had the same look on my face as I did when I was with Vidya strolling through Six Flags. I almost heard the words in my head, ‘You are not at an amusement park!’ In fact, it dawned on me right then that Vidya had had no friends except me. The sole burden of this memorial fell on my shoulders. When the Chairman of the community asked me to make a speech, I felt as if I was back in the classroom, facing the shooter. With a tremendous effort, I brought myself to say a few words: ‘Vidya was my best friend. She was like my sister. She came here to become a doctor but that dream ended before it could begin. I will always remember her.’
There was much sniffling in the throng. Everyone looked at me as if I had forgotten to say the most important thing. I stared back blankly, moving from one foot to the other, when the Chairman leaned close and whispered into my ear: ‘Amma, shouldn’t you thank her for saving your life?’ And then I resumed, ‘I am sorry, I forgot … I’m … I’m still in a state of shock. Vidya was … is a hero. She saved my life’. This seemed to satisfy everyone. A small prayer was uttered, then I returned to the apartment.
*
When Vidya was alive, she was the best indicator of my menstruation cycles. Whenever it was that time of the month for her, it would be mine precisely a week later. This was the case even though it was never at the same time for her every month. And once, when she missed her periods, I missed mine too. I wasn’t sure if Vidya was dating anyone. She wasn’t my best friend as I had confessed during the candle-light march. We never talked much about our love-interests. We didn’t have anything much in common, except that we came from Guntur. I was interested in surgery, she, in paediatrics. She preferred Indian classical music, my taste was in Hip-Hop. She smoked American Spirit Cigarettes (after coming to Springfield), while I was a non-smoker – this had led to considerable fights when I had to enter a dingy bathroom filled with smoke. It now seems ironic that I once told her after returning frustrated from eight hours in a dish room: why do you want to kill me you fucking bitch?
Another time, we fought all night when she accused me of stealing her hair oil. Some secret recipe that had been passed-on down her family. The argument ended at around three in the morning with her having the last word: ‘I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.’ I thought of these words long after the massacre … if I should give her the benefit of the doubt that she was indeed my saviour?
I tried to calculate when Vidya would have her menstrual cycle wherever she was. For this I needed to remember my last menstrual cycle, then subtract a week. The date I arrived at was 5th to 10th of August. I waited till the 17th of August, then began to panic. My counsellor told me it was normal, considering everything I had been through, and owing to the anxiety medications. I was relieved for a day or two, then I began to feel as if I was in the classroom all over again, sweating under the desk, hand over my mouth and urine in my jeans. It hit me that I might never menstruate again because after I met Vidya, our cycles became linked. Since the dead cannot menstruate, I became sure I would never menstruate again. No, to think of it now, I think I became scared because in my heart, I was not ready to give her the benefit of doubt. I was sure that in my subconscious, she had abandoned me when the killer, Rolla, headed our way.
*
How do I believe she saved my life?
Shrink: you don’t have to.
I have to. I can’t afford an early menopause!
Shrink: this is just your anxiety talking.
Do angels menstruate?
Shrink: I … I have to look that up…
Will I know if Vidya is menstruating in heaven?
Shrink: What matters is if you believe you will know.
How do I believe that?
Shrink: Put yourself in her shoes, I mean … close your eyes and try to think it was you who was shot.
But how can menstruating women enter heaven when they cannot enter kitchens?
Shrink: That’s only in your culture.
*
The total expenditure for transporting a corpse from America to India was as follows:
Coffin: 2000 Dollars
Mortuary: 1000 Dollars
Hearse: 2,500 Dollars (optional)
Air Travel: 20,000 Dollars
NOC Charges: 500 Dollars
Embalming: 1000 Dollars
Make-up/Hair Styling: 500 Dollars
Staff and Handling: 2000 Dollars
Total: 32,500 Dollars
The university and the India Community’s donations totalled 30,000 dollars. The remaining 2,500 dollars had to be raised somehow or the body would be buried in Springfield (since it lacked any crematoria).
I had to think fast. And what was faster than Ikea!
Putting together the cupboard was the easy part. I stopped where I had to insert the shelves. Then, I lined the bottom with Vidya’s favourite shawl, which was still lumped on her bed from the time she was alive. Thus, without any expertise, I furnished a decent Swedish coffin. I folded my skirt, then carefully put one foot inside the Ikea coffin, and slid myself slowly inside till I felt at home. Also, it was in a craftsmanship of my making that my cycle resumed. As for the embalming, I offered to do it myself but I had to have a license. So, from my part, for ‘saving my life’, I added 500 dollars to the donation, plus the coffin.
*
Springfield was a quaint mid-Western town mostly known for three things. 1) Cashew Chicken 2) Birthplace of Brad Pitt 3) The Simpsons (though there are more than thirteen Springfields in the US). Now, it is only known for the shooting that claimed 87 lives: 78 Caucasians, 5 Blacks, and 4 Asians (3 Chinese, 1 Indian).
I still live in the same apartment, and Vidya’s room has remained empty ever since. Since I am a vegetarian, I cannot live with non-Indian room-mates. Sure, there are vegans and vegetarians from all over, but eventually, the way they cook vegetables smells like meat to me. Also, no Indian wants to live in Vidya’s room. Or to put it another way, no Indian parent wants their child to live in a room whose previous occupant met with such a ghastly fate. So since I now rent the entire two-room apartment, and since Vidya’s name is still on the lease, I feel it’s only fair to pretend Vidya still lives with me sometimes.
Before each shower, I turn on the shower for Vidya. I knock on her door before entering. I set aside a plate for her at dinner and drink to her health. I have acquired a taste for American Spirit Cigarettes though not for Indian classical music. I enter her room when it’s snowing outside her window, and whisper a thank you under the pillows. All my cycles are now regular. Recently, I purchased a bookcase from Ikea, but then used my skills to make a coffin out of it. I place it in the passage between my room and Vidya’s room and sleep in it without dreaming.
I still hear gunshots, no matter where I am. In the airplane to Bombay, I crumpled into a ball near the rear, where the food-trays are stocked. And for some reason, I cried for the first time since the massacre, 35,000 feet above the earth. I wanted to return to my coffin.
In Guntur, I was given a royal welcome by my folks. I was content to eat and sleep all day long but I knew I had to meet Vidya’s parents. As I approached the whitish house with crackling paint behind a goat farm, I felt my legs giving away. I still did not know what to believe about her having saved my life. In any case, I knocked on the wrought-iron gate and waited. An old lady who was watering the plants came up to me and asked what I wanted. I told her I was Vidya’s friend. She said Vidya didn’t live there anymore. That she was in America, a famous doctor who was earning a lot of money. Behind us, the bleating of goats was becoming deafening. I told her I was sorry … asked if I could enter. She opened the gate and we went inside a room with crackling green walls. A mangy dog was chained to a table, and hardly noticed my presence. There wasn’t a single photograph of Vidya anywhere. I drank the tea in silence, thanked my host, then made my departure.
*
Arjun Rajendran's latest poetry collection is One Man Two Executions; the second edition is forthcoming from Pratilipi. This is his first short story. He lives in Pune with his pups, Misha and Joan.