Ultraviolet

  ULTRAVIOLET

  ALSO BY SUZANNE MATSON

  NOVELS

  The Tree-Sitter

  A Trick of Nature

  The Hunger Moon

  POETRY

  Durable Goods

  Sea Level

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2018 by Suzanne Matson

  First published in the United States in 2018 by Catapult (catapult.co)

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-1-936787-95-1

  eISBN: 978-1-936787-96-8

  Catapult titles are distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West

  Phone: 866-400-5351

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017964532

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Joe, Nic, Henry, and Teddy

  CONTENTS

  Coda

  Ultraviolet

  Your Best Yet

  Pie

  Gain a Child

  Everyday Happiness

  Flexible Flyer

  The Flight of Ivy

  A Century of Progress

  Vegas for Beginners

  Interstate

  Gravity

  Inside Passage

  The Big Goombah

  Centennial

  Coda

  Acknowledgments

  ULTRAVIOLET

  CODA

  Boston, 2015

  On the fifteenth day, her mother’s breathing comes in little fish gasps, mouth ajar. Samantha angles her toward the window to catch every flash of birdwing, every thin ray of winter light. She sits on the edge of the bed and holds her mother’s hand, silky warm. The good eye is open its slit. Once in a while Samantha says something, some commentary on the still and unchanging world outside, or some encouragement that her mother can go when she is ready, follow whatever new thing is revealing itself. She also says ordinary things like, the boys will be coming home from school now, they’ll be letting the dog out.

  Samantha rises to change position. When she turns back, her mother’s face is dark, the gasping stopped. Samantha grabs her hand; after all these days it can’t be only this, can it? But Kathryn’s last breath, a breath not taken in but released, comes next: a large sigh, a letting-go, and with that something in the room—the spell, the cord knitting them together—is cut. Or no, that can’t be right, either.

  In the days to come, waiting to claim her mother’s ashes, she sorts objects. She packs away the flowered housecoats Kathryn died in, one day at a time. Will keep the carved elephant from India. And the dentures: They were her mother’s smile, her mother’s bite. What, in the end, do you do with the teeth?

  ULTRAVIOLET

  Dehradun, India, 1930

  Rahul, their regular driver, has a toothache. He always smiles in his friendly way as he opens the door to the hired sedan. He teases Kathryn in his half-English and half-Hindi, making her laugh. He drives purposefully but carefully down the mountains. Though swinging around the curves usually gives Elsie a sick feeling, with Rahul at the wheel she can expect the least amount of discomfort. But Rahul is looking after his tooth, so Manoj, their houseman, accompanies them down the paths to the motor road to confer with the replacement, a tall Sikh. Elsie hasn’t seen him before. But if Manoj thinks he is suitable, the arrangement will have to do. J.N. is still in the plains and not around to decide things.

  Elsie, after three children, trouble with her circulation, and an ever-thickening waistline, is no longer a good walker in the hills, and on steep paths has to be borne in a dandie, a fact that perpetually embarrasses her. Kathryn skips along beside her sedan chair, nimble as a young goat. Manoj keeps Kathryn from straying too near the edge and also keeps an eye on the porter toting their lunch hamper. It is a cumbersome, hour-long procession, down three or four miles, and the lurching of the dandie makes Elsie irritable in her discomfited state.

  After glancing once at their approach, the Sikh driver doesn’t look at them again. He and Manoj stand off to the side and discuss arrangements in one of those mysterious Indian conferences that make Elsie feel passive and dependent. She is too far out of earshot to know if they are talking in Hindi, or Punjabi, or a mix. The number of languages in India, hundreds of them, is a fact perpetually astonishing to her. Her own children can rattle on in simple Hindi or fluent Chhattisgarhi, acquired without effort from their ayahs and their Indian playmates in Dhamtari.

  Though she took some trouble to learn Hindi when they’d arrived years ago, sitting through her course at Landour and repeating the phrases with the rest, she never gained a secure hold on the language. She can say the necessary things to the cooks and knows how to tell the servants this and that about changing beds or washing floors. House Hindi, she thinks of it. But even half of that is gesture, not to mention English filtering in, since the servants seem to pick up her English much faster than she manages their Hindi. J.N. is fairly fluent, so matters outside the house have always been left to him.

  But Manoj has been with them from the beginning and she trusts him implicitly. Finally, the Sikh inclines his head to show it is finished and all is understood. He stares neutrally into the middle distance as he holds the car door open and Manoj loads the hamper in the back between them. Kathryn bounces a little on the seat with excitement.

  “All is settled, Memsahib,” Manoj says, bending slightly to speak into their open door while the Sikh assumes his place behind the wheel.

  “He knows we’re to be at the doctor’s by eleven thirty?”

  “Yes, Memsahib.”

  “And he’s familiar with the address in Dehradun?”

  “Yes, Memsahib. This driver knows Dehradun very well.”

  “Does he speak any English, Manoj?”

  Manoj angles his head toward the driver. “Angrayzi?”

  The driver from his seat replies something without turning his head.

  “He says a little, Memsahib. Do not worry. We will be awaiting your return here in the afternoon.”

  “Shukriya, Manoj.”

  She attempts no exchange with the driver as they set off; he’s acknowledged nothing further about them, and his statue-like bearing makes her even shyer than usual. If it were Rahul, she would inquire after his family and make small talk in a mix of Hindi and English about the long stretch of hot days or the coming monsoons. He might remember that it had been Kathryn’s birthday a week ago. His wife and daughter had come by to drop off some sewing, and they’d been offered leftover slices of cake. Kathryn and Vasati had eaten outside while playing jacks on the warm flagstones.

  As the curves unspool, Elsie has the funny feeling that the brakes are out, not on the automobile but on the trip itself, and that she has no way to control it. Perhaps the tension of not knowing the driver is taking a worse-than-usual toll on her stomach. They swoop with the bends in the road, lurching a little with each downshift, and she glances over to see how Kathryn is taking it. Her daughter is turned away from her, chin tilted up to watch the passing of trees and sky out the window, her poor little arms swathed in bandages over the eczema. She seems to be fine, so Elsie thinks it unwise to mention her own distress lest she plant the seed in Kathryn’s mind. The warm wind comes in through the driver’s open windows, but even the fresh air isn’t helping.

  The more Elsie tries to repress the sick feeling, the more it wants to well up, until she doesn’t know what to do. Ask the fellow to stop? But where? There are no pullouts, and even if she does get him to stop a minute, she is more afraid of resting at the side and being in the way of other autos barreling do
wn the mountain than of simply proceeding. She tries to follow Kathryn’s example and fixes her attention on the passing view. She hears her husband’s pulpit voice: He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increases strength.

  “Look, Mamma, is it a hawk?” Kathryn points. The broad wings float over the empty space alongside the road drop.

  “No, a vulture, I think,” Elsie murmurs. Then the sulfurous smell from Kathryn’s ointment seeping through the bandages coupled with a sudden vision of the vulture waiting for something beneath it to finish twitching and go limp—maybe a cow that had stumbled off the embankment—brings the bile up.

  “Stop, please!”

  Kathryn looks up in alarm. “What is it, Mamma?” Then, to the driver in her small clear voice, “Stop!”

  He pulls over, not a good spot, not much room in the road, and Elsie wrenches open the door, bending her thumb awkwardly in the process. She leans as far out as she can manage, losing her breakfast: tea with milk and sugar, toast that had been spread with the preserves sent from her sister’s farm in Illinois. Some of the mess gets on the running board, and even splashes a little across the lower portion of her white cotton lawn dress. She feels the Sikh’s expressionless eyes upon her in the mirror as she fishes for her handkerchief to daub her face and mouth.

  “Mamma, are you all right?” Kathryn’s small hand is lightly patting her shoulder over the hamper. It’s the way Elsie pats her when she’s not feeling well.

  Embarrassment and the relief of emptying her stomach put her back in charge of herself. She closes the door firmly, nodding to the driver, who engages the gear and proceeds.

  “I’m fine, Kathryn. Nothing but a stomach upset. It’s better now.” She takes a drink from her water flask but the acridness still burns in her throat. Several mouthfuls don’t make it go away. She pours a small amount of water on the handkerchief and uses it to make herself and the spots on her dress as neat as she can; still she detects a smell and a stain. She tells herself it is no matter. God provides. She’ll wash up at the doctor’s office. There is no sin in getting sick, but there is glory in feeling the returning strength of the body, and she is already better. She hopes the same for Kathryn—that the treatments will finally begin to take hold, that she’ll finally be able to do without the messy ointments and hot, bothersome bandages. That there will be no more itching, no more scabs. The hill climate will help; she knows that from experience. But the situation remains difficult and perplexing. One doctor said Kathryn must eat no eggs, another doctor said she must eat plenty of eggs. One doctor said no milk, another said milk three times a day. They must boil it first; Kathryn gags on the skin that floats on the top.

  After a time, the curves widen and flatten and the buildings of Dehradun spread out before them. She has no idea how to direct the driver; Rahul knew all. But this driver, too, seems to know his way. He makes a few turns among the bungalows and government offices, and arrives in front of the two-story hospital where Dr. Withers sees patients. Here are the ultraviolet lamps.

  Standing outside the car, she looks directly at the Sikh, which necessitates looking up at him, instead of levelly, as with most Hindu people. The Sikhs are a tall race. J.N. has always spoken highly of their discipline, their asceticism, but beyond that, she doesn’t know what they stand for. She knows the men have uncut hair coiled underneath their turbans, but she doesn’t know why. He probably doesn’t know why she wears her net Mennonite cap; they are at a draw there.

  “Here,” she says, pointing to the ground beneath their feet. “One hour.” She holds up one finger and then taps her wristwatch.

  He inclines his head in the way people in this country do, which usually means yes. Sometimes it doesn’t, she’s found out, after she’s expected a dinner to be ready at five, and it hasn’t even been started yet. Sometimes she has the feeling it means, I hear what you say and will take it under consideration. His direct gaze is unsettling compared to Rahul’s modest smile and eyes that flicker away. Kathryn is tugging at her hand.

  “Let’s go in, Mamma. I’m hot.”

  There is nothing to do but trust Providence that he understands what is required of him. Rahul would use the waiting time to clean the mess on the side of the car, finding a bucket of water and a rag. She thinks this fellow will probably consider the task beneath him. It is a perpetual puzzle—which servants think which tasks are suited to whom. Her brothers and sisters at the mission wouldn’t say that any task is beneath any person since all is God’s work. Though some things, building the school in Dhamtari, for instance, should absorb the missionaries’ primary energies if there are others on hand to do the everyday chores. And servants abound here. J.N. says it is a kindness to hire them; in one’s employ they eat better, provide for their families, get medicines when they need them, and are closer to the Word of God. This is how Elsie has come to be managing several natives to keep her household running, some of whom wouldn’t dream of scrubbing the dirty floors, and some who are apparently fit for nothing else. In her frustration at keeping all their restrictions straight she’d almost rather mop and sweep herself. It is the kind of vigorous work she enjoys and is good for her. She blames her stoutness on having servants. The year she’d arrived to marry J.N. she was so slender that the other missionary women clucked their tongues and scooped extra rice onto her plate.

  The hospital smells reassuringly of ammonia and other strict odors. English nurses bustle about in starched uniforms, and Indian nurses glide by in soft white salwars. White-painted signs with red lettering in Hindi and English point to Reception or X-ray or Laboratory. Elsie gives Kathryn’s name at Reception, and settles her daughter in a rattan chair with a book they have brought with them. Then she goes to the washroom she knows is around the corner.

  Elsie checks her face in the mirror for evidence of her sick episode, then splashes water on it and uses a clean corner of her handkerchief to pat it dry. The towel on the ring is grimed with use, even though the tile floor and porcelain are immaculate. Her cheeks have spots of high color. Blood pressure, nothing she can do for it except keep off the salt, which she does love. Despite the breezes from the open car, her hair is still tucked decently back in its bun under her cap, save one strand that she secures with a hairpin. Then she sees to the spots on her dress.

  Nervous that they might be called, Elsie rushes, not caring if she splashes extra water on her dress and arms. It feels good, and it will dry. Back in the waiting area, a fan rotates too slowly overhead to be of use. Fly strips hang in the corners but are mysteriously bare, while several obviously vigorous flies buzz about in the still, warm air. But the heat is nothing compared to what they left behind three weeks before, on the plains where J.N. still labors. Time at the hill station is her favorite stretch out of the year, though she feels guilty for enjoying it so much. The children’s health of course comes first, and as a mother it is her job to take them up to the cooler climate. But J.N. will stay trapped in the swelter for another two weeks, just as a great mass of Indian humanity is always trapped there, without relief.

  They wait another ten minutes, Elsie listening to Kathryn read aloud, until an English nurse, one they’ve had before, calls them, and they follow her down a corridor to an outpatient examining room.

  “How is Kathryn today?”

  Kathryn looks at her shoes. Elsie nudges her.

  “I’m fine,” Kathryn says, looking up. “Except my arms.” She says it with a degree of impertinence, as if the nurse should know very well how she is, since they have come for the express purpose of curing her. Elsie tries to give her a warning look, but Kathryn is still looking at the nurse, chin thrust up.

  “Well, let’s have a look, shall we?”

  The nurse helps Kathryn step up to the examination table and Elsie seats herself in the chair. The ultraviolet apparatus has already been rolled in on its cart. Kathryn doesn’t look at the lamp, though she’s told Elsie before that the rays don’t hurt. Gingerly the nurs
e unwraps each arm, then uses cotton balls to stroke away the salve.

  “Looks better, would you say?” the nurse asks.

  “Does it?” The possibility charges Elsie with hope. “I see it every day and find it hard to tell. I didn’t think there was that much change.”

  “Hmm.” The nurse looks at the chart, frowning. Elsie thinks she must be calculating, weighing the jottings from two weeks ago against what is presently before her eyes.

  “Well, we’ll just let the doctor have a look, then,” the nurse concludes, and Elsie’s hopefulness vanishes. The nurse has just been making pleasant talk.

  They are alone in the room a few moments, and though none of the tongue depressors or syringes or other instruments in the glass cabinet are for Kathryn’s ailment, they still have the power to intimidate. To distract her, Elsie asks, “Is that watercolor of the tiger new?”

  “No, it was here last time,” Kathryn says.

  “Interesting that the artist gave it green eyes,” says Elsie.

  “They should have given it yellow, like the ones in the tiger Daddy shot.”

  The villagers were pleased with J.N. for protecting their livestock, and J.N. was extraordinarily pleased with himself. He offered the skin to the village elder, but didn’t argue very hard—at all, in fact—when the elder insisted he keep it for himself.

  In Dhamtari, Kathryn likes to stretch out and read on the tiger skin. She would know what color glass was in its eye sockets. Sometimes she and the tiger lie cheek to cheek.

  Dr. Withers enters, a stoop-shouldered gentlemanly figure with a stethoscope looped around his neck. Elsie heard he’s spent his whole career in India, and wonders why. Still, J.N. might do the same, without ever calculating that he intends to. Time floats by here, days drumming away in monsoons, then the heat of the plains settling one into a deep drowse. He pauses gravely to shake Kathryn’s hand.