the consul's wife

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The Consul's Wife

a story by Ranbir Sidhu

He looked peaceful, Parvati thought, the way Arjuna was drowsing, coiled so tightly around the clawed base of the hall lamp. The previous week, when Krishna, Parvati's husband, had told her he was retiring, she had thought of Arjuna, of whether he might like traveling to India. Since then she had studied Arjuna's scales more closely, trying to gauge his moods, his desires, trying to decide whether India would really be the place for him. He seemed so happy here, though, so unperturbed and unperturbing.

He seemed especially happy where he lay, and this made it worse, because she would have to pick him up, this minute. She would have to hide him from the evening's guests. She didn't want to disturb him, to hide him in the hall closet like so many times before. But she knew that if she waited until later, the afternoon, perhaps, or the early evening, it would just be so much more difficult. He would be more lively, harder to control. No, it was better while he drowsed in the morning air. If only Krishna had given her time to prepare the house and dinner. He managed it before — before he announced the retirement. He was the one to call the caterers, often weeks in advance, the maids, etc. Now it was too late. Next time, she decided, she would call the service.

Ever since he said it, that he was leaving the Foreign Service, he had been like this, acting on whims, doing things he would never have done before. Now sometimes he brought her flowers when he came home. Sometimes they drove down the winding coast highway to the Monterey Aquarium and spent a long, lethargic dinner in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Parvati found it all very tiresome. She had grown used to his absences, the demands of his work. Now he was like a new child, and she simply didn't have the time or temperament to be a mother again, or to be, even, a young bride. And now this round of dinners. Tonight was only the first. He needed to say goodbye - he said, Adieu - to all the men and women he had worked with, the diplomats from other embassies, the officials in the various Federal offices. Only the beginning, thought Parvati, yawning.

She nudged Arjuna, the python, with the point of her stockinged foot, and then bent down and tried more forcibly to wake him. The cool silk of his scales passed across her palms and she found herself instead caressing his silent body, as if paying homage to some deep ancestral memory of her own. Uncoiling him from the lamp, she picked him up, tightly gripping his belly with her slender fingers. He was heavy and he bounced like a water-filled rubber innertube in her arms.

There was no reaction. Arjuna was dead.

This fact surprised her. Not because she was unaccustomed to death. Parvati had reached an age where death had become an annual event, and each year she guessed which among her friends and acquaintances would go next. But because dead, Arjuna had not changed. There was no discernible difference from his living self, except on prodding him roughly, his body only moved as far as her fingers pushed it. It was perverse, she thought, this similarity of life to death. There was not the usual slight shiver which would run the length of his body, a wave, the slightest hint of animation.

Parvati had spent her life following Krishna along the various trajectories of his diplomatic postings. Though she had been born in India, and was, by the necessity of her husband's position as a representative of that country, forced to call herself Indian, she no longer felt any attachment to that country. It had always been her job, she felt, to assimilate. Her husband was the Indian, the one representing Indian interests abroad. In Spain, while it was natural for him not to learn Spanish, the artifice of the translator allowing for both diplomatic distance and a sense of mutual control, it became equally natural for her to speak it fluently, as though she were a Spanish wife. The same was true in Germany, and even later in Japan, though she never did manage to master a fluency in Japanese, however much she tried. With each country, she changed costumes. Though every outfit in her wardrobe carried with it a hint of that old country, that now almost ancestral India, she always tried, as she put it, to go native. She wore kimonos fringed with paisleys embroidered in gold silk, or smart, European jackets with diminished collars, hinting at the old Nehru shirts.

Now, though, that Krishna had told her he was retiring, that soon they would be going back to India - Back? she questioned - she simply didn't know what she would do, what she would even wear? This was one transformation her life had not prepared her for. The day he told her, she sank into a shallow depression. Not a deep one. She knew that her position as a diplomatic wife did not allow her to do anything deeply. She sat in her blue funk for two days, barely noticing the comings and goings of her husband, but later, when she thought back to that mood, she couldn't remember what specifically depressed her. There must have been something, she felt, however small, some moment, some sight, some thought. Everything, she felt, was born of a recordable event, however ephemeral. But this mood of hers seemed to have none, as though it had grown either out of something so old she could not remember, or something so new, she had not yet recognized it. She tried not to think about it anymore. In any case, Arjuna was dead. And therefore something had to be done.

The only time she ever saw Arjuna active was when she fed him. Though he was actually Krishna's snake, it fell to Parvati to feed him. Krishna had been given the python, nestled comfortably in a striking, ivory inlaid casket and complete with a manual on care and feeding, by a visiting dignitary. Parvati forgot the country. They all melted into a bland whole of foreignness to her, like the rows of tomato soup cans on supermarket shelves. On the outside of the casket, in bold, handcrafted lettering was inscribed "Python, family Boidae." The instructions required that Arjuna be fed on live meat. Small birds, mice, rats, etc. Krishna had no stomach for this. She always considered him one step away from vegetarianism, or worse still, from some brand of Hindu asceticism. She shivered at the prospect.

She enjoyed feeding Arjuna. It was one of the few truly sensual pleasures left to her. There was a large cage she kept outside, one usually used to house rabbits or hamsters, in which she fed him. The mouse inside would bounce from side to side, like a buoy on a rough sea as she opened the top to drop Arjuna in. The snake would slide down with the ease of a ship dropping anchor in calm waters and briskly squeeze all life from its prey.

Afterwards, she would let Arjuna out and sometimes take him with her into the main dining room. There, slowly stripping away each piece of clothing until she lay naked on the intricately patterned Turkish kilim, she would allow Arjuna to range over body like the silent breath of an illicit lover. The snake would pass over the wrinkled flesh of her thighs, pushing his way between her legs and then up onto her belly and breasts like an advancing infantry accustomed to the shifting undulations of terrain in desert warfare. As the snake's body pressed down on her face, Parvati sometimes lightly pushed out her tongue so that it's tip could caress the scales of Arjuna's underbelly. Sometimes she orgasmed, and these were the only times she managed that any more.

Still, she hadn't any particular attachment to Arjuna except when feeding him, and those rare, sometimes erotic experiences. The dinner party troubled her now. She searched through one of the upstairs hall closets where boxes and boxes of old clothes, long since out of use, were stacked. She emptied one. It was packed with kimonos, all different sizes and colors, all for different occasions. In a sudden fury, which came on her quite by surprise, she threw them onto the floor, tossing them from side to side then leaving them there, a bright, disordered pile that left her with both a feeling of pride and shame, though the source of either she could not discern. Instead, she took to the matter at hand, which was her snake, and she slid Arjuna into the box as if she were unwinding a long, especially thick length of pasta onto a plate.

Much of the morning had already drifted by and she still hadn't decided what she was going to cook. The light cast by the early sun had disappeared from the living room and was now creeping to the front of the house. A trip to the shops was still required, perhaps even one along the peninsula to purchase necessary ingredients. Parvati fussed nervously in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards for a clue to the main course.

When Krishna had been posted to San Francisco, Parvati had been delighted. They were both in Indonesia. He was discussing trade barriers, and she was purchasing sarongs, learning about the local dishes, watching Gamelan dances, practicing her vowels. She had never been to California. But some months after they arrived, she began feeling uncomfortable. There was not a specific manner of dress that she could adopt, there were not specific foods that she needed to learn to cook. When she asked people how she might become more Californian, they often laughed or told her to relax, to mellow out. She did not want to relax or mellow out, she wanted to become Californian. She felt troubled.

Instead of searching out what she thought might be the essence of California, the distilled elixir of its blood, she began to think back on her days in India. They seemed so long ago, another life even. She began to think of her childhood as an earlier incarnation. She had lived in a large house, her own steps always shadowed by those of servants. Sometimes, when Arjuna ranged over her naked flesh, she remembered she had never seen any snakes when she was growing up. It seemed a little absurd that she came from India and had never seen a single snake. But the servants always killed them or chased them away before they could find her, or her eyes. Sometimes, when she would push her tongue out until it touched the scales on Arjuna's body, she would think that she had finally caught India, its essence.

Arjuna lay curled on the kitchen table, wound into a squashed, square spiral by the shape of the box. Parvati, pushing the box aside to lay down cook books, considered momentarily whether Arjuna was at peace, having entered finally the rain washed undergrowth of some snake heaven.

Then she had the idea. Arjuna would be the night's dinner. She quivered with excitement as she contemplated it. Was it possible? Would Krishna be angry, or even notice? Would it be bad etiquette to serve a pet to guests? She dismissed these thoughts and concentrated instead on how appropriate a finale it would be to Arjuna's years of service to herself and her husband. What better place to end than on the tongues and in the stomachs of the couple that had fed him with such regularity, such care.

Parvati smiled to herself. She would do it. Already she felt some of that old thrill return, the intoxicating sensation of Arjuna's thick, rounded body mounting her flesh. Goose-bumps sprang up in a line along her back.

She had never cooked snake before, nor had she tasted it. She was sure it must taste like chicken. Everything unusual always did. Even if it didn't, everyone was bound to say it did simply out of politeness. Should she fry Arjuna like a sausage, perhaps garnished with cilantro, she wondered, or stir-fry him in small chunks in a large wok. Was snake-sushi possible? Probably not. She paged through the several weighty books she had pulled down from the shelf above the table. She searched under 'snake' in the index. Nothing. The books were also barren under 'Ophidia' and even under 'Squamata'. There was nothing under reptile. Not a single recipe. This was ridiculous, she thought. She would write to Good Housekeeping.

She remembered an eggplant recipe that had turned out tremendously. It was some Indian thing. She had been cooking Indian dishes more and more lately, having been unable to discover what was Californian in California cuisine. She was sure she still had all the ingredients to flavor it. She imagined Arjuna as an extended eggplant, stretched out long and thin on a vegetable torture rack. Her mouth watered at the prospect. Arjuna would be her savior.

First she had to bake him until the skin turned to a golden crispness, like leaves on a warm, autumn day. She placed the snake, coiled peacefully into a spiral, on the largest oven tray she could find. Even then she had to cut off his extremities, which she did with the slow precision of a young woman combing their beloved’s hair. When baked, she pulled him out and ran her fingers along the now hot, frangible body. Her nails caught in the brittle scales, which broke off readily like dead bark chipping away from an old tree.

She skinned him next. This proved more difficult than she expected, as if her longtime companion was being deliberately recalcitrant. The scales came away easily enough, but much of the skin remained intact, or pulled large portions of the snake's pulpy, white meat away with it. She scraped the meat free from these sections and out onto the tiled countertop, poking gingerly from time to time at the small masses of doughy flesh. She half expected them to react, unsure whether some remnant of the life force which had inhabited Arjuna still didn't exist. However, the meat remained motionless and numb to her prodding.

When most of the skin was off she began preparing the final form the dish was to take. Arjuna's insides would be suspended in a thick cream, forming the textured heart of the dish. The dish included fried onions and green chilies, finely chopped garlic, ginger, turmeric and fenugreek seeds, some amchur and a handful of salt.

It seemed perfect. She had not thought about it until now, but having Arjuna for dinner seemed a proper consummation of her own life. She would, in a sense, be returning India to herself. She smiled at this idea. She was not pleased about going back to the real India, but the essence of it she could take. If she could eat it, eat her past in a sense, then perhaps she might start over again, she might be able to become an Indian. It seemed suddenly ludicrous. She becoming an Indian. She laughed out loud. She kissed the decapitated head of Arjuna. Everything smelled so lovely.

Parvati pulled the top from the pan, her face arched high above it so that she would get the full cloud of steam as it rose flavorfully from the cooking. The dish was simmering. It was a striking orange color, like emergency road signs, she thought.

She couldn't resist. She plunged a finger into the almost blisteringly hot, bubbling mass and pulled it out, flinching from the heat, with a sense of what? she wasn't quite sure - almost a sense of victory, of having won a battle. But when she licked her finger, she almost retched and was filled from head to toe with a terrible sense of disappointment. It tasted horribly bitter, Arjuna's stale meat having corrupted the dish, not made it.

She stepped back, staring at the simmering, orange mess. Everything was a mistake. She couldn't remember why exactly she had wanted to cook Arjuna. He had looked so peaceful, dead. She felt tired, exhausted. Her mind felt tired. It was the same way she felt when Krishna had told her they were returning to India — tired — and this morning when he informed her of the round of upcoming dinners. No difference. It was a stupid idea, she thought. She should have known.

On the table, beside Arjuna's decapitated head, sat the now empty box, and she remembered all the kimonos thrown haphazardly onto the upstairs hall floor. She had no idea what she would do with them in India. Perhaps she might wear one. There could be no difference, she thought, between herself in Japan and herself in India. In fact, she would wear one that night and immediately, all the weight of disappointment vanished and she forgot Arjuna and finding him dead and cooking him and how it all turned into a beastly mistake. She would call the caterers right now, she would order platter upon platter of sushi, and she would descend the staircase when the first guests arrived dressed in a kimono. Yes, she determined fiercely, tonight she would be Japanese.

This story originally appeared in Other Voices.