Collapsing Intimacies

In the last three years, Eka has only been intimate with two men. One is a pattern cutter at the garment factory that employs her, the other, an expat who doesn’t seem to be employed but lives like a minor monarch, rents a four bedroom that overlooks the cleanest section of the bay making her hometown a tourist attraction. 

To woo her, the expat would fry onion rings (a delicacy his country of origin has made popular) whenever she visited his home, in a shallow-bottomed, stainless steel pan, and while the onions cooled down on three-ply paper towel sheets layered over a ceramic serving dish, she would listen greedily to the words coming out of his mouth, words she had to decipher and decode, three-ply paper towels, bicoastal living, a dialect that sat heavier in her indigenous mouth than it did in his foreign-born one. 

They’d devour the greasy slices on his balcony, often unclothed. With him, she ate at least two medium-sized onions a night, perhaps more, her cheeks full of the silky bands. The salty moisture in the air, the way he’d hand feed her batter-fried onions with the gravitas of a priest dispatching communion wafers, the hazy outline of fishing boats in the heat-warped distance, made Eka ductile. She thought it romantic, if not a little strange, his unchangeable loyalty to the onion. 

Intercourse would often take place outside, on the balcony that was larger than her entire flat, mosquitoes whining by her earlobes, her ribs pushing against the wrought-iron guardrail preventing them both from toppling over, falling to their deaths. And the prospect of dying that way, water lapping at their kicking legs, their bodies pressed together like two stacked spoons, made the sex even more scintillating, for her especially. He’d come, sometimes on her back or her calves or into the waves lashing aggressively below, sometimes inside of her, his oily hands roaming the overspill of her hips, all ten fingernails digging into his favorite part of Eka, her bum. 

Whether he ejaculated in her or not, she made sure to have morning after pills on hand, and her birth control prescription. The expat was frequently lethargic post sex, wanting to be horizontal immediately after, his head resting on her breasts, one of her nipples slipping in and out of his mouth, but the great big threat of pregnancy made Eka conscientious. Before they retired to his bedroom to watch black and white comedy reruns (the humor painfully dated, borderline racist) she would wash her contraceptives down with the sparkling water he always kept stocked. He’s the only person she knows who likes drinking water that tastes like fruity static.

Only then would she relax beside the spent expat in his king-sized bed, her eyes unfocused on the muted television bathing their bodies in bluish light. And she’d shut off her prone-to-wander mind, forgetting the responsibilities swarming outside his moneyed bubble, the backbreaking, eyesight deteriorating factory work, the dire state of her refrigerator. In his company, she wasn’t calloused internally, creased from a life of austerity. No, she too could be butter-soft, relishing the comforts he was accustomed to: uninterrupted electricity, professionally laundered sheets, not abrasive like her own hand-washed, synthetic linens dried on a fraying clothesline, air-conditioning so crisp it raised goose pimples on her forearms and thighs. She’d fall asleep, belly-down, contented, soaking up privilege, the contraceptive dissolving in stomach fluid long before the credits rolled. But one of those pills must have been a dud, a placebo made of melting sugar and pink starch.  

#

Her pattern cutting coworker lives as close to the austerity line as she does, closer even. More people rely on him, a host of dependents, their hands perpetually stretched out for alms, their lips fastened to a drying up teat. His wife, their three children aged six to one, his senile mother-in-law and infirm father, his cousin who lost a leg in a lorry accident, his amputee cousin’s two children and wife. 

The pattern-cutter drinks still-water out of clear sachets, and would never fry up an entire onion, at least not by itself. Definitely not with the expensive cold pressed olive oil sold at the artisanal supermarket close to the expat’s flat, the supermarket only expats can afford, with their nebulously acquired income. One tangerine in the place costs as much as four would at the shops serving the likes of Eka and her pattern-cutting colleague, native sons and daughters of impoverished soil. He would never use any kind of oil that way. Grapeseed, sunflower, soybean, poured liberally and discarded after the job of frying is done. He knows hardship and economy, and so she knows him. Knew him. There is no goodwill between the two of them these days. 

#

What they had was an inelegant thing, ugly, difficult to keep alive, but it was hers to endure, and a part of her enjoyed the act of endurance. He knew this, had always known it, since they were children. They’d been even closer then, both motherless and a little feral, tearing through the primary school they attended like little beasts, their uniforms wrinkled, filthy hours before the half-day bell pealed in its tower, their pockets full of dead insects and slugs he’d collected. And he was far more beastly than Eka, cruel at times, knocking other children over, taking things from them, inconsequential things. Skinny bars of lead inside their mechanical pencils, neon stickers on their school bags and expensive water bottles, cheerful notes from their very much alive mothers in lunchboxes that always smelled vaguely medicinal, Have a great day Mimi xoxo. You’re mummy’s special star Stella, hugs and kisses. 

But he outgrew his cruelty or learned how to conceal it better. He stopped the petty theft and the bursts of random violence, became an altar boy when they turned sixteen. And this suited him better, godliness. In his starched stiff cassock and surplice, the adolescent who would grow into a pattern-cutter seemed sacrosanct, a head taller than the other pimply servers, not handsome exactly, no. Magnetic. A sexual being almost, but she kept this thought to herself, squashed the blasphemy down until she could examine it closely in the privacy of her bedroom at nighttime, one shameful hand rubbing between her legs, the other clutching her sheets, perspiration coating her warm face. 

Eka would watch his mouth at Mass, the pink flash of his wet tongue running over his upper and lower lip at intervals, his clean hands with fingernails trimmed far too short. Hands that had fractured noses and cut lips open now restrained in the service of a god she had been at odds with since her mother passed. His pair of previously violent hands occupied themselves with gleaming candlesticks, incense, liturgical books, carrying the holy items carefully, reverently. The homily would flow from one of her ears to the next, nothing sticking, rectoral instruction evaporating before each service’s end. 

They wouldn’t start a physical relationship for years, not until he married and had his first two children, stropping boys, two boys that look nothing like him; they resemble their mother more, in visage and temperament. She has the face, the personality of sourdough, but he married her, has a soft spot for impossibly plain things, unspoiled things. It is the pious part of him, not the feral, motherless adulterer. He married her, put children into her completely ordinary uterus, the saint that he is, doing the Lord’s work.

And there Eka was, orphaned, no mother and no father eventually, spending more hours in the garment factory than she did in her flat, a diligent workhorse stitching together patterns that would be sold in western department stores. After the diligence (fifty hours’ worth of diligence per week), her mind grew porous, and a porous mind is a dangerous mind. It leaks dopamine too quickly, lets other less desirable things in, the awkward thoughts of her own worthlessness, too honest to confront sober-minded. To staunch that porosity, she would bloat herself with throat-burning spirits, at nightclubs and pubs run by expats much like the one she is sleeping with, an ocean of subsidized alcoholic beverages, on weekends she barely remembers now; how she propelled her body from point A to point B and back, a mystery, a minor miracle. 

#

The pattern cutter’s fucking her, was it primarily an act of kindness? She worries sometimes that it was out of pity, his charitable deed of the day, screwing the orphaned drunkard, but none of that even matters now, weighed down as she is with a rapidly growing cluster of cells either he or the expat deposited in her. 

At work, he was never doting, before the inaugural fuck. He hardly behaved like he’d known her in troubled adolescence. She was furniture, one of the factory’s decrepit chairs, less interesting than the imported Singer machines, the green measuring tape always draped around his neck, its numbers fading with age. And it was truly awful, his deliberate indifference. She had hoped they’d resume their closeness, that it would mature, as they had, into something illicit. Eyes meeting over bolts of fabric, fingers grazing in the factory’s canteen, smoke breaks spent together, one cigarette passing from his mouth to her waiting one. But none of that happened, not then. No shared cigarettes, no tales of before-times swapped. The pattern cutter kept to himself, would only speak with other factory workers, the textile designers, the button stitchers, never to her, nothing beyond a brisk good morning or an enjoy your evening. 

It was around this time that Eka started seeing the expat. He’d approached her at a pub near her flat, one face out of many in an alcoholic haze, except his was a little different, wasn’t it? Smooth, untested by economic trials and tribulations. He wanted to dance. She remembers exactly what he said. You are too exquisite to look this miserable, dance with me. Fucking ridiculous, the presumptuousness of a foreigner, but she had misery burning peppery holes in her chest, misery that apparently was tangible. She let the expat lead her into the sweaty knot of bar patrons gyrating to techno music between swiveling stools and high-top glossy tables. 

The expat had been drinking coconut brandy. She recognized its sweet-smelling odor, and the scent was nostalgic, a reminder of stolen sips of liquor at the pattern-cutter’s house, liquor from his father’s drink cabinet. When the expat kissed her, she tasted the meat of artificial fruit, essence of coconut, and the remnants of whatever meal he had just eaten. Something vegetal. There was a song playing, a western song she’d never heard but he knew well, and he sang along lustily, his cheeks reddening as he bellowed the lyrics. 

They danced. An hour, two hours, strobes of laser lights beaming down on them, fog rising from unseen vents, her head thrown back, her bottom snug against his groin, grinding lazy circles into him.  Around and around. Right there, on the congested dance floor, he slipped his left hand under her dress’s short hem, matching the circles she was making with two fingers, unpredictable circles. This is what you are, those probing fingers seemed to say, fruit on display, a glistening cut of fatty tenderloin. His overfamiliar touches, reminiscent of how Eka would squeeze mangoes, unripe plantains and recently butchered meat at the open-air market, feeling around for signs of subcutaneous rot. Around and around, slowly, until there! A ragged feeling, an ecstasy that seemed liquid, coursing from her nerve endings. Bongo drums, synth flutes, an electric guitar’s mournful wail would drown out the sound of her climax, the encouraging noises the expat was making close to her ear. 

She continued to see him after that. Always at his flat, hers was too small to accommodate the two of them, and he took up so much space, the height of him, the expanse of his transplanted personality, too large to fit in the four unremarkable walls of her flat. All of it was acceptable. Everything. The harrowing nature of their balcony sex, the greasy onion rings prepared with a misplaced sense of duty on his part, the domestic laborers trooping in and out of the flat on weekend mornings, cleaning up after her expat lover, restocking his refrigerator with the indigenous meals he could stomach. Rice and beans. Boiled yams and stew, no habanero seeds floating in the red sauce. Eka was content, in her own way, keeping his bed warm when she so pleased, drinking his fruit-static water, allowing his compulsive suckling as he drifted into sleep. In the mornings, her nipples ached, the skin surrounding the dark points tender, but she never complained. How could she? Every pleasure he extracted from her, she also stole from him. 

The pattern cutter must have sensed Eka’s contentment, could maybe smell it rolling off her breath when he handed over pieces of fabric shaped by his scissors, the scent of another person, filling the gap he had refused to plug up. But the gap began to appeal to him, occupied as it was, because it was occupied, she thinks now. It was so like him. Nothing had changed, had it? He was still the motherless beast, pilfering lead from pencils. And this should have upset her, she knows, but how could it? Wasn’t this the very thing she wanted? 

First, the reversal of roles. No longer was Eka flinging forlorn glances his way, no longer was she manufacturing excuses to be in the pattern cutter’s vicinity. He assumed the role of pursuer, and how he pursued! A single-minded pursuit, sneaking small treasures into her locker at work, treasures that could have only come from him, curios identical to the ones he had given her when they were children. Dead, beautiful things. Butterflies, moths, one-of-a-kind buttons she knew he collected, a thimble with such intricate filigree, she nearly wept holding it in her rough hands. Immediately, she slipped the thimble on a shaking thumb, and placed that thumb into her mouth, breathing in deeply. The taste of metal soothed her. Every gift, the dead ones too, extracted the forgiveness her pattern cutting colleague sought. 

Facing each other, upright in a mildewy broom closet at the factory, they would fuck for the first time, his forehead resting against hers, her fingers grasping for his, for whatever solid object she could hold on to, the closet’s doorjamb, the ledge of a nearby shelf, the back of his thick neck, dripping sweat. He made Eka feel so full, so replete, just by doing this natural thing other men and women had been doing for years, this ordinary dance of the two-backed beast, and it was frightening. When he came, soundlessly, his eyes seemed liquid in their sockets. Wet brown pools, so like a horse’s. 

She did not consider what she was doing as the wrecking of a home. Nor did she see the affair as a great act of disloyalty, to his wife and the host of dependents. What part of it was disloyal? Did they not own the bulk of his attention? Did the wife not sleep and wake to his face on most nights and mornings, making the meals he would eat, cutting his toenails, polishing his leather work boots and the brown sandals he liked to wear to his god’s house? Did the children not enjoy his company on the stormiest of evenings, playing board games with both parents, drawing pictures of their domestic haven on A4 printer-paper—mother, father, sons— as muggy water rained down from gray skies? 

And what did Eka have? Hardly anything solid. Hurried meetings that never seemed to last longer than an hour, two if he was being particularly daring, and these rushed appointments (because that is exactly what they were) would never fall on major holidays, which she expected. No Yuletide, New Years’ or Easter evenings spent together, eating turkey legs till they puked, sipping budget champagne, watching the town’s mediocre fireworks display on her box television set. Their relationship thrived in the absence of harsh light, every curtain of her flat drawn, overhead bulbs turned off, kerosene lanterns lit, casting slippery shadows in her bedroom as he made unprotected love to her. He fit in the space, wasn’t frightened off by water damaged ceilings, mosquito netting draped over her twin sized, or the dated kitchenette, nor was he afraid of the persistent centipedes crawling out of her bathtub’s ancient drain, fat and coppery. His own bathtub suffered the same invasion, and so it did not worry him. With a rubber bowl of cloudy water, he would rain vengeance on the multi-legged pests, and they would drown, slipping back down into the abyss where tangled hair and nail clippings had settled.

#

Ultimately, the spoiling of happiness came in the form of a misplaced menstrual cycle, or it spoiled what she knew as happiness. In those days, happiness was this: the expat’s bubble of prosperity graciously extending around her body, the adult dalliances with her married coworker, no witnesses to their affair but bathtub centipedes that were drowned soon after the act of witnessing. Happiness was fierce teeth, hers, digging into him, into her antithetical lovers. It was the ephemeral things both men offered, physical pleasures that soothed her ravenous appetite and ego, a libidinous balm cooling the unpleasantness that accompanies earning a meager living while others, the transplants upending her hometown’s ecosystem, sup on the fruit of their supposed lessers’ labors: native born sons and daughters of impoverished soil, i.e. Eka, the pattern cutter, the domestic workers making her expat lover and his ilk soft as clarified butter. 

Her misplaced cycle is something new, a stowaway as large as a lime now, a sedate lime. She forgets it is there every now and then, but it isn’t a thing that can be forgotten permanently, a baby. In six months, it will come. Maybe earlier. The expat thinks it is his, wants it to be his, and with his nebulously acquired income has made the child his own, has embossed the stamp of paternity on its unborn forehead. Eka doesn’t know whose biological material coalesced with hers to make this enduring mass that has only just grown organs. It could be the pattern cutter’s offspring, his fourth, might have his familiar features, nose, full set of lips, complexion, but none of it matters. She will not join the host of dependents waiting in line for alms, hands outstretched, baby on board, squirming in its amniotic sac. She will not, and he will not let her, so the intimacy between them has thoroughly collapsed. Things are as they were, almost. She is furniture, see through furniture, and his eyes pass over her body, thickening at the center. 

When the baby comes, it will be the expat’s. His first, he claims, but who can say? He has lived in many coastal towns much like her own, in other countries like hers, amongst other women with her exact same features. His tastes run diverse. Perhaps on the opposite end of the country, there is another Eka with a heavyset newborn that has a last name she struggles to pronounce, and skin that turns pink then red under direct and indirect sunlight. She doesn’t care, really. The expat says he will take care of them, Eka and her baby, possibly his. 50/50. He is a sentimental man, has always wanted a family, and why not with her? I’m not getting any younger, am I? No, he isn’t. The expat will not look a gift horse in the mouth, and neither will she. They will get the things they want, the two of them. His bubble of privilege will expand over her lime-sized stowaway. The child will grow, stretching Eka’s internal organs to their limit, and in six months, she will labor at the private hospital that services transplants and upwardly mobile indigenes of her hometown, all on her expat lover’s dime. The stowaway will come quickly, she hopes, not too much pushing, and it will breathe in filtered air. The child will have the expat’s last name. Eka has no intention of staining its birth certificate with her own.

These days, Eka cannot eat the expat’s onion rings. The smell nauseates her. Instead, they read literature targeting first time parents, partly clothed, on the balcony that is larger than her flat, and they predict the stowaway’s sex. The expat says he has fatherly bones in his body, and she believes him, yes, she must. What choice does she have? Her own bones lack the density required for healthy parenting. They eat the meals prepared by his personal cook, a woman who is the age Eka’s mother would have been had she lived. Eat up, the woman says, but Eka hears the sardonic slant of the woman’s command. Nothing maternal about it. Eat up, whore, is what she means, Eka thinks. And she cannot take offense to the woman’s unspoken character assessment. She literally cannot. The stowaway is sucking up all of the energy Eka has, what little of it is left.

She spends less and less time in her coffin of a flat, and a coffin is what it has become. There is a tightness to the place, the smell of dead intimacy lingers. He wants to watch over her, the expat, out of kindness yes, but also to protect his investment. You mustn’t lift a finger, he often says, playing the part of the doting papa. You mustn’t lift a finger, unless I permit it, he means. So, she keeps her hands unoccupied, mostly. He still has his needs, and she happily obliges, parts her legs when he asks, slips whichever nipple he wants between his waiting lips as they watch his bizarre comedy programs in his bedroom. 

 Eka calls herself “mother”, so the child will get used to the sound. Mother. It is not a word she uses much, but now she must make the title fit. She must become this unwieldy thing. Mother. Mother loves you. Mother adores you. Mother cannot wait to meet you, and it is like a game, these mantras that ring false in her ears, maybe in the baby’s ears too.