She of the Mountains by Vivek Shraya Page B

elephant?
    I have not … Uma has always said that I am special.
    You are. You are.
    Shiv closes his eyes, bows his head, and then begins the tale of how he cut off Ganesh’s head. He tells the story with as much detail as he can summon as penance.
    I want to hold his hand. I want to hold Ganesh’s hand. I want to place their hands in each other’s.
    I study Ganesh’s face. It is calm and unshaken, with no lines of doubt on his forehead, his eyes clear and gleaming. It is hard for me to imagine that once he had a different face, that once this face, this face I love, belonged to a demon.
    What happened to my other head? is Ganesh’s first question after Shiv finishes, reading my mind.
    We buried it, Shiv says.
    Where?
    Here, actually. Under the tallest tree. Parvati, your Uma, insisted that since we had taken something from the forest, something had to be returned.
    Please take me to it.
    Shiv guides us solemnly through the trees that sway around us until we reach it. I recall the tree by the colour of its bark, a hint of maroon, though it is no longer the tallest of its companions.
    This is it.
    Ganesh bends down and puts his head to the fallen leaves and wet earth.
    Then he begins to sing. I immediately recognize his song—the notes too high, the melody too beautiful.
    I stand over him and sing with him.

Home is a painting. A painting purchased from IKEA.
    Do you think it’s in bad taste? IKEA art?
    Who cares? It’s beautiful.
    It was.
    It was a painting of Manhattan in black and white and from the sky’s perspective. All the grandeur and busyness of a big city captured and unusually still.
    They had hung the painting over their bed. On some mornings, after he would leave for work, she would linger under the duvet, look up, and reminisce about their travel adventures. And whenever he was distracted while he read, he would stare at it to ground him. He dreamed names and lives and quests associated with each apartment light. He even reserved a small window light in the right-hand corner just for them.
    Wouldn’t it be great to live in New York for a year? she had said.
    It would.
    We could really experience the city. Not just as tourists.
    Yeah, but there is no way they are going to let two brown people move to New York.
    Especially not with your beard.
    They chuckled.
    The painting became a fixture of their bedroom, as vital as the bed itself, and over time, he couldn’t imagine their home without it.
    Now, they had the unimaginable task of drawing a line between their possessions, to be divided into her boxes and his boxes. As his hand touched every object and fixture, it re-awakened a unique memory, a precious history that was embedded in each.
    one painting
    one bed
    one TV
    one couch
    one recliner
    four bar stools
    four mugs
    eight plates
    four bowls
    two frying pans
    one bottle of ketchup
    one bottle of soy sauce
    one bottle of Patak’s pickle
    one box of pasta
    two towels
    two dish towels
    one bottle of Windex
    two sets of bed sheets
    one clotheshorse
    one stool
    two lamps
    two bookshelves
    one alarm clock
    one desk
    one cutlery set
    He was certain his heart would literally break and often crossed his arms over his chest to keep it intact. But he was profoundly wrong. He discovered that a home could break, but a heart could not. That their home could break, but his heart would not despite how much he wished it would. His heart could actually withstand the dissolution of his home, and this was where the pain came from. Pain was his heart bearing and bearing and bearing and bearing and bearing and bearing and bearing and bearing. Pain was the sound of his relentless heartbeat, pushing forward as though nothing was changing. Pain was knowing that he was the cause of her pain, the reason why her eyes were without their sparkle and wonder. Pain was not knowing if he was making a monumental mistake, wanting to reach out to her and say, I’m sorry, I’ve changed my