Garbo’s Faces

a Novel — Part 23: Snake Talk

I told Harriet I would have to return to work. She looked up from feeding Attra.

“When?”

“I have to be at work by next Monday, or I’ll probably lose my job.”

“You can stay here,” said Harriet.

“No,” I said. “I have to go back. I really like my job, but more than that, I’ve promised my clients…,” I stopped when I saw her expression. “Besides,” I added cheerfully, “It’s too hot here.”

Her face didn’t change its a little lost expression.

“What about,” she said and looked back at Attra, “him?”

“You are doing fine with him. I think he’s getting better and better.”

“I can’t talk to him.”

When I didn’t answer right away, she added, “I don’t know snake talk.”

I’m not sure how the strange solution to that problem presented itself to me so unbidden. But it did: “What you need,” I said, and my mind was still wondering how on Earth? as I said it, “is a monkey.”

“A monkey? Like Manini?” said Harriet, surprised but not incredulous.

“Exactly like Manini,” I said.

It took the three usual calls to reach Madhuri.

“Nachiketa,” she said. “You are fine?” Her voice was thick with concern. “And Attra?”

I admit I felt very remiss when I realized that I had not called her before now. In fact, I blushed from acute embarrassment.

“Yes, Madhuri,” I said. “We are fine. And Attra is doing well. Harriet is feeding him to distraction. He will become a rare thing,” I added. “A fat snake. If she doesn’t let up soon.”

“And Harriet?”

“She’s fine, too.”

There was a brief silence which told Madhuri more than I wished.

“But that is not why you called,” she stated a fact.

I blushed again, but answered, truthfully, “No.”

She waited.

“Harriet needs to learn snake talk.”

“Yes, I have thought about that,” she answered.

“And I was wondering,” I said.

“I will come,” she said.

“You knew?”

“I know you must go back to London, to your job,” she answered. “Besides, I wouldn’t mind seeing Attra,” she added. “I miss him.”

And then I realized I had misheard her. “Oh,” I said. “No. Well, what I meant was,” and halted.

“What you meant was what, Nachiketa?”

“I didn’t mean for you to come. I know how you hate travel. I was thinking about Esh, and about Manini,” I said.

The line went quiet for quite some time, that is, apart from the hundreds or so shadowy conversations that always hum in the background whenever you call India. “That is a good idea,” she said finally. “I will try to bring her.”

“Knowing Esh,” I said, “I have the feeling she might be bringing you.”

“I will go and see him,” she said.

“Can you find him?”

“There are other snakes here,” she replied.

“Yes,” I said. “That is true.”

My flight was booked for Saturday the 21st. That would give me a day in London to rest and get ready. Harriet was sad to see me leave, and said so. Attra slept most of the time and pretended not to care.

It was Friday, and around four in the morning, when they arrived. Harriet and I were both asleep in the sitting room, where we had been talking to each other and Attra. We had the windows thrown open, and, thank God, the weather had begun to cool.

I heard a noise, like voices, and stirred in my dream the better to hear. By the time I looked up and saw clearly, Athansor was gone. Only Madhuri and Manini were left, and they stepped out of Harriet’s bedroom.

“Madhuri,” I cried. A little explosion of sound, or at least so it felt to me. Loud enough to wake Harriet though. Attra stirred, but did not wake.

“Nachiketa,” she said, and smiled. “You look tired.”

“I was sleeping.”

“Nachiketa,” said Manini and bowed almost to the floor.

Harriet pieced things together quickly, and seemed to take things in very good stride. As if talking monkeys stepping out of your bedroom was pretty commonplace.

“Manini,” she said to the monkey.

Manini bowed again, “Miss Brown.”

“Welcome, Madhuri,” said Harriet to my grandmother.

“So sorry to wake you,” said Madhuri. Then she looked around the room, and out the window at the darkness, studded here and there by lit windows, many from high floors, shining like nearby stars. “So this is New York,” she said.

“And hello, Attra, I am so very glad to see you,” said Attra — who had finally awakened from the commotion — with a refreshing helping of sarcasm which spoke of recovery.

“I’m sorry,” said Madhuri, “So sorry, old snake. I am glad to see you.”

“I know,” he said.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Broken in two,” he said.

“Well, you were. Near enough.”

He didn’t reply to that. “How did you get here?” he asked instead.

“Same way you did,” she answered.

“Esh.”

“Yes. I think so.”

“And who did you bring?”

“Manini,” said Manini.

“Hello,” said Attra.

“I have come to teach the princess our tongue,” said Manini.

Attra nodded that this all made perfect sense, and that he was looking forward to helping.

I was still up when Claire came for the day. Tired, yes, but awake.

Now, Claire had had a big mountain to climb coming to terms with having a snake in the apartment, and a cobra at that. “They are poisonous,” she shared with Harriet in confidence. “I know,” Harriet replied. “So what is it doing here,” she wanted to know, and none too politely. “Recuperating,” said Harriet with that arctic voice of hers that signals ends of discussions.

For all, that is, except Claire, who still had a sentence or two to deliver about her fundamental disagreement.

In the end, though, she was reassured by both me and Harriet that Attra would never bite, and that he was a friendly snake, no threat. As reassured, I guess, as a Brooklyn housekeeper will ever be that a cobra can be anything but a threat to society.

When Claire arrived that Friday morning, it was as if we had put all her mountains back again. And added a few. Madhuri startled her to nearly screaming. Manini completed the job.

“What, what, what…?” was all she initially got out. Then, she simply shook her head and disappeared into the kitchen.

Harriet followed her, and didn’t return for quite a while, and I would not be surprised if Claire got a hefty raise that morning.

Harriet, on her return from pacifying Claire, requested, respectfully, that Manini not talk or appear to be anything but a monkey in Claire’s presence. That would simply push her over the edge, she said.

And that was the situation I had to leave on Saturday morning. I had no luggage, which surprised the cab driver. He fished for some sort of explanation on the way to the airport, but I was too tired to socialize, and he finally got the point that I didn’t want to talk at all, much less answer his questions.

I slept on the plane home, and arrived back at my flat around ten Sunday morning. It was now the 22nd of October, 1961.

Harriet was a quick study. I guess Attra helped, as well as Madhuri, but from Harriet’s letters, and from Madhuri’s phone calls, it was mainly Manini’s doing. And about three weeks after my return to London, Madhuri told me on the phone that they were going back to India. Harriet could manage now.

“But how is that possible?” I asked. “It hasn’t even been a month.”

“How is snake talking possible?” said Madhuri.

“Manini?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Madhuri. “She is a wonderful teacher, though she never says much. Of course, she doesn’t have to.”

Two days later Madhuri called me from India. She was back home, she said. Safe and sound. Manini had asked that Esh fetch them, and he came.

That is to say, Athansor came. And he brought them home.

© Wolfstuff