Read Motherland for Free Online Page B

hit it with a straw broom and when it fell so its underside was exposed, she crushed it, folded it up in newspaper and took it away.
    I TOOK OFF the salwar pants and then the kameez top and then my bra and panties and divided them up among the hooks on the wall. I was glad my period had hardly started, just a few spots, hopefully I would sleep easily tonight and the cramps would only come tomorrow. Mist was still coming off the bucket of hot water. I turned the tap on (cold water came through the taps but not hot water) and ran cold water in a smaller mixing bucket. I scooped a few pitchers of the hot water into the mixing bucket until it was the right temperature. I poured water over my head, and it bounced off my shoulders and splashed against the walls, on the floor. I poured more slowly, there was less splashing, and water sluiced all the way down my legs. I had brought shampoo/conditioner from my hair salon, and when I squeezed some out in my hand, it had that familiar clean apple smell. I preferred separate shampoo and conditioner, sometimes 1 even shampooed twice and then conditioned for three to five minutes like they suggested on the bottle. But in India, I bathed quickly, in the fewest steps possible. The hot water brought from the kitchen never stayed hot for long, and there was never enough light: the black stone floor and the dark cement walls overwhelmed the dim overhead bulb and the modest porthole-size window. Waterbugs and beetles and mosquitoes—on the last trip, I’d even seen a watersnake in a bathroom—found this the most alluring part of the house. I let the shampoo soak into my hair, smoothing the hair back from my face so it wouldn’t get in my eyes.
    The Dove soap in my travel soapdish was already softening like chocolate in the heat. I scrubbed hard everywhere to get the airplane air and the teahill dust out. If I scrubbed hard enough, I hoped I would peel away that layer of Americanness that made me feel clumsy and conspicuous here; I wanted to unearth that other person who had felt at home here and known how to fit in. Now more than on earlier trips, I felt how hard and how exhausting it was to translate, even though we were all speaking English. There were so many ways of being and expressing myself that I had to leave behind, and so many I had to relearn.
    Then more water, my eyes shut tight, pouring so that the water and shampoo coursed behind me, a foaming trail snaking across the floor toward the drain in the corner. A few more rinses over my back, my chest, and soap bubbles were also rushing toward the drain, and as the trail of water got clearer again, I turned the bucket over, and poured the last of the water on my ankles and feet. 1 wrung the water out of my hair as much as I could and then took the thorthu and pressed it against my face. The thorthu was instantly soaked, 1 could feel the weave in the sheet like thin burlap. I rubbed down with the sheet, realizing I was still slick with soap in parts, but not caring. I put a fresh salwar kameez on to sleep in, a dark blue one that was big and loose so it didn’t show anything and I didn’t have to wear a bra. Even before I stepped out of the bathroom, I started to feel sticky again under my arms and around my stomach where the pants drew tight. My hair was wet against my back, the only cool part of me, and I left it like that, so the water could seep down my spine all night.
    Brindha was already sleeping, curled up on one side of the bed. I put her oil lamp out and then mine. Rupa’s sleeping form, coverless on her floormat, lay between me and my side of the bed. I remembered for a fleeting second the old superstition about how if you stepped over someone you would stop her from growing. But crawling around Brindha was too much trouble, so I leapt over Rupa and slipped into bed. I had forgotten to take out the insect repellent in my luggage. I pulled the sheet loosely over my head, hoping the mosquitoes