Car Nicobar, 2004
by Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar and Sudha Balagopal
“We're late for the Christmas party,” Rahul says. “Where were you?”
Rita’s back from one of her therapeutic walks. Miles of coconut-tree-lined paths on the island of Car Nicobar, which has been home since Rahul was posted at the Air Force base here, six months ago. Today, the air outside seemed oppressive. Heavy like a held breath.
She doesn’t answer Rahul, changes from her sweat-and-rain-soaked clothes into a green sari. She hates officers’ parties—the drinks, the changing dance partners.
“Got orders to move back to New Delhi.” He tosses out the news as she lines her eyes with kajal.
A scourge of mosquitoes swarms the bulb above the dressing table. She sees that woman—Anita Rodrigues, her husband’s colleague back in New Delhi—in the mirror, looking over her shoulder, neck long, expression smug. Rita often sees that face in Rahul’s eyes or between their pillows. Last Christmas, the woman sipped wine from Rahul’s glass leaving lipstick stains, which he licked, unaware that Rita was watching from the corner of her eye as she talked to another officer’s wife. This year, the woman sent him a holiday card, which the postman delivered yesterday.
Rita’s fingers tremble as she pins errant hair into submission.
Flight Lieutenant Rahul complains about life on the island—centipedes nesting in the bathrooms, mosquitoes penetrating the net curtains, mold engulfing the shoes—but doesn’t broach their childlessness. It’s been five years.
In the car, Rita rolls down her window. “I'll miss the Indian Ocean.”
“Orders, Rita, we must go,” he snaps and points to the open window. “Damned bugs.”
She rolls up the glass, shuts the roar, the salty draft. The ocean within her roils. Beats and recedes.
When Ms. Rodrigues' card arrived, Rita's heart squelched as if crushed with a pestle. She shredded the paper, considered swallowing the pieces to flush the woman out.
A mosquito buzzes overhead. She opens the glove box, looking for the repellent. The tube sits on an envelope addressed to Ms. Anita Rodrigues, the circles over the “I”s inscribed in Rahul’s style.
At the party, Rahul dances with the Squadron Leader's wife, his hand warming her bare shoulder. A tremor worms its way into Rita's belly.
Later, in their bed, Rahul reaches for her. His fingers prick like brambles. Though she’s ovulating today, she moves away—the gap between them is too wide for a baby to bridge.
Outside, waves lash the rocks with vengeance as if the ocean feels her fury. On the clothesline, his pants bat her salwars, his shirtsleeves hit her dupattas.
She awakens suffocating, face covered with the collapsed mosquito net. Pots and pans fall, glass windows shatter, the floor moves as if it were fluid. Rahul is nowhere. She makes her way outside, holding onto doors, walls, curtains, anything her hands can grab.
The wind howls, trees crash, and the earth convulses. She falls face down, grabs the branches of an uprooted tree, wet earth filling her mouth.
“Samundar phat gaya,” a frantic voice yells. “The ocean has split apart.”
“Tsunami,” says another voice.
At a distance, Rahul stumbles, falls.
She spits the mud out, swivels away, toes sploshing on her familiar walking path, until she reaches a raised mound.
Below, the ocean opens her jaws. Swallows everything. Everyone.
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American writer. She is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee; her work has been published in MoonPark Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Barren Magazine, and also in print anthologies. She can be reached at twitter @PunyFingers.
Sudha Balagopal's recent short fiction appears in Split Lip Magazine, X-r-a-y Literary, and Pidgeonholes. She is the author of a novel, A New Dawn. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions, and is listed in the Wigleaf Top 50, 2019.