in a voice that sounded as grey as his hair. "Is it far?"
"Yes, quite far," she'd told him, although it was only a few blocks away.
She dropped a handful of leaves into a bamboo strainer and filled her cup with hot water. Then, sitting full-lotus on a small woven rug, she deepened her breath and waited for the tea to steep. Slowly she lowered her gaze to the floor and tried to let the space between her eyebrows soften. Memories boiled like burned dahl inside her, turning over and over, releasing their potent juices. She swallowed to wash the taste away.
"Sitara," she told herself, "it is only dinner with your father. You've done it a million times before—almost once a day for eighteen years. How hard can it be?"
Feeling the rough wool of the rug beneath her toes, she rocked from side to side to reposition her weight and then let her back and neck curl slightly forward before straightening her spine again. After a deep breath, she heard the rustle of clothing in the waiting room. Standing abruptly, she grabbed the corner of her desk until the blood rebalanced itself in her brain. Rafqa was more than an hour late.
"Namaste, Sitara," a voice called to her. "Do not be afraid."
Sitara stepped into the waiting room.
The woman had four arms. "Your bapa waits for you," she said. She was holding a cell phone and a jar of cardamom.
Sitara pressed her hands into prayer and sank to the floor. She recognized the dark green choli and the rich burgundy sari with the lullabies embroidered in gold.
"You are not a little girl anymore," the woman said. "Do not play one for me, and do not play one for your bapa. When you go to him, show him who you are, not who you used to be. Accept him and he will accept you."
Still on the floor, Sitara reached out to touch the silky coconut milk of the woman's sari. "Sarasvati, I haven't seen you for so long. How are you?"
"It is not your worry."
A cloud passed between the sun and the two angled skylights in the ceiling of the clinic. The image of the deity paled.
"Sarasvati, please. Don't leave. I can treat you."
"I am not the one," her voice shimmered as she faded away, "who needs your attention, Sitara. It is you."
Closing her eyes, Sitara parted her lips and exhaled.
chapter 3
Flying over the tiny speck of a Portuguese island, Sara let her head fall back. The headrest smelled of cheap perfume. With her camera lying casually in her lap she closed her eyes. Her mind was focused on the water below.
click
Blue-green water spotted with small sandy islands, like the brown flecks in a blue eye.
"You see, the thing is," he had started talking at the airport, before the plane had even left the ground, "we sell them by the boxful—square boxful." He was laughing. "I sell round rubber rings in square boxes." More laughter. "Of course, everything is standardized, organized by size." His shoulder touched hers. His blue linen suit was too heavy for the heat of Spain. She could see the sweat stains around his cuffs. "Do you know how many rings fit in a box this big?" His pudgy white hands showed no sign of tan. "One hundred and fifty. And the market is expanding. Modeque has come out with a new design for their ‘Elite' line of faucets that demands our product. Wherever one is installed, we gain a new customer. Our rings have revolutionized kitchen sinks. We've begun a whole new era of dripless faucets that truly don't drip. And it's all as simple as that." He pulled one out of his pocket to demonstrate.
Sara turned her head slightly and produced a small nod. Wisps of white cloud had formed so that she couldn't see the ocean. With her left hand, she pulled down the blind.
"These little devils are the reason I'm alive. They've given me the house, the pool, the tennis courts. Hell, I'm even building a golf course out the back." His chest was shaking with the kind of exaggerated laugh that proud men show in public. Overrun with the momentum of his own sharing, he searched his breast pocket for a photo of his four-year-old boy. "Adorable, isn't he? And handsome." The boy's fingers were covered in rings. "He plays with them like toys," the man said, "but someday they'll be made of gold." He put his photo away. "First time in Malaga?"
Sara shook her head. "No," she said.
"You know, Spain's rubber market is virtually untapped. It's a miracle, really. It was here all this time and we just didn't know about it. Of course, they don't know they need us yet, but I have a feeling that's all about to..."
Absently, Sara reached into the pocket of the seat in front of her and pulled out the in-flight magazine. She wanted to read, to ward off the suit with a mouth that she was stuck next to, but the print was small and, no matter how she angled the bulb, the overhead light was not bright enough. Flipping through the glossy pages, she found a photo of one of the mosques that had been part of her own recent assignment. This version was badly cropped—or perhaps badly photographed.
click
A mosque with half a minaret.
Sara closed the magazine.
"...he always says the same damn thing to me, but I still don't buy it! The last time I was in Missouri I didn't even bother to look him up. I just don't do business that way. Our base price is the best I can do. I offer the same deal to everyone. That's what makes it fair, and if he doesn't like it, he can..."
click
The insides of a man's mouth—three shiny fillings on the lower right side, a large dry tongue, slightly-chapped lips.
"...‘That's just downright poor form,' I told him, ‘I think you should retract that statement,' but he butted his cigarette out in my face and told me he'd already switched to my competitor. Some things aren't sacred like they used to be, I can tell you that, but to—"
"Please shut up," Sara said under her breath, keeping her face towards the window.
"—cut a man off in the middle of a business deal. There isn't any justice in that. Hey, you alright lady? You're awfully quiet over there!"
The plane hit an air pocket and the bump temporarily shut the salesman's mouth.
Sara sighed. She was thinking of an old boyfriend who had given her a small rubber ring to "keep her safe" on her journeys. At their final parting, he'd tied it to her camera bag with a thick black thread. She'd held it intermittently—smooth and soothing between her fingers—for almost a year before it was torn off in a small skirmish with a conveyor belt. She began drawing a mental map of his face just as the salesman next to her cleared his throat as if to speak again.
Sara closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.
After a short cab ride from her apartment in Halifax's south end, Sara stood at the understated front doors of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design where, for four years, she had studied photography.
Walking up the familiar stairs, she half expected to recognize the people she passed. But, of course, her friends had graduated years before. She had lost touch with most of them, since she spent so little time in the city. Opening the
