Claudia knew without being told that her horoscope entered its inauspicious period the very moment that lizard fell on her back while she was sleeping. She had been waiting for more than two years already, long lonely nights interrupted by sporadic moments of great felicity. From the USA to Spain and then to Hyderabad, she converted all the apartments she stayed in the most perfect scenario, with adequate props for his theatrical representations. She was the only character in his plays with no defined role. He gave her no wings, no chances for a dramatic scene. One time she disobeyed his well-timed exits, and became pregnant. He had landed in Mumbai the previous night to visit his parents. She dared to pick up the phone; she was impatient for this new scene in his play.

“I won’t take responsibility, Claudia, you know as much as I know that we cannot have that baby. It is not the right time, please, don’t ruin my life,” Ishan said right away, frightened.

“Grant me this and we will live as we always dreamt of. We will make the happiest couple in this world, you’ll see. I am ready to face the gossip. Moreover, I can do it by myself,” Claudia pleaded, half-surprised, half-confirming her suspicions, all sad.

“Please, don’t cry. You know how my heart craves for that moment to come, but only when it is the right time, not now. I have always dreamt of resting in bed with you huge with baby, exhausted with happiness the day I am to see that baby girl, a cross-eyed replica of you, my sweetheart. Moreover, what are you going to do with your Ph.D? You haven’t even finished writing the dissertation. There is so much ahead for you, you’ll be so successful, don’t spoil your future.” His words seemed to be part of a calculated speech written for this concrete act, but the tone of his voice revealed a hint of excitement and sorrow blended together.

“Bas, Ishan, bas,” Claudia said almost convinced.

“We’ll find a way out of this. I will take the first morning flight and we will sit to talk about it. Don’t worry now and go to bed, tikh-he?”

Claudia emptied of all worldly desires, disconnects the phone, and feels she is ready to die. She sits in lotus position and starts chanting Om until there are no thoughts, no feelings, no baby, no hard words, only Om.

Om ... mmm ... mmm.

* * *

Ishan does not take the first morning flight the next day. Instead he approaches his mother and confesses his sin.

“Is this true, Ishan? Is this true? What did I do to deserve this?” Ma shouts at Ishan wanting to inflict pain on this foolish, ungrateful son. “That white shameless girl! Doesn’t she know you are a married man? Who knows whose baby that is. You throw her and that bastard out of your life or I will be forced to deny you as our son.”

Ishan cries with all his heart, but Ma drags him off the bed and pulls him to his father’s room where she slaps his face repeatedly, willing him to deny the accusation, say something, anything. Baba intervenes with expected wise statements, forgetting that his son is an improved version of himself.

“You won’t even respect a dying old man. Did we give you an education to behave like this? You have a great job in California, a magnificent house, a decent Indian wife waiting for you there, and instead of being truthful to her, you get involved in an affair with a stranger whose family we don’t know about. Your mother is right, she is a white out-of-caste woman. You should never forget that you come from a respectful Brahmin family, with royal Kerala blood. And what is worse, you believe that is your baby. Have you lost your head?” In Baba’s eyes Ishan could sense a wide range of ambivalent feelings, something that Ma could not see, never saw. Words seemed to contradict his vague look. Ishan felt guilty, as if he were the one killing his own father, not cancer.

“It’s all my fault. Don’t blame her,” Ishan says, head bent as he used to do when he entered old churches with Claudia. For a second, his mind escaped to the scene of both of them holding hands at University of Chicago. It was flickering, and the chapel’s bells were tolling. “I am an atheist Hindu,” Ishan confessed. “And I am a non-confirmed Catholic,” Claudia replied with complicity. They both laughed and walked away from the church, back to her apartment where once more they loved each other, searching, discovering, enjoying.

“Get out of our house right now. Right now. Out!” Ma screamed, and as her body staggered, Ishan’s memories wobbled.

* * *

A few hours later, Ishan sat up in Claudia’s bed decided to make arrangements for that baby not to be born, but when he touched her there was no room for recriminations, only sensation and exhilaration and longing, and a deep deep ache because everything was so wrong yet felt so good.

“Stay with me forever. Come to me,” Claudia begged when she opened her tired eyes, holding him tight. “I want to tear the curtains, the walls, all this stage down. I just want us to share our lives, all of us, that’s all. Not only a few days every four months, but day-and-night-day-after-day till our eyes are definitely closed.”

“Oh, Claudia, but ...”

“What is it? Give me your hand.” Ishan was shuddering at the touch of her growing belly. “Don’t you like me the way I am now? I just wanted you to feel us. I just wanted to see your eyes after feeling it.”

“There is so much I planned to say during the flight. But words don’t come to me, not any more, not the way they used to when we wrote to each other those long e-mails, before the troubles began with my wife and family. Then, my frustration was your frustration, your ache, mine. This is way too ...”

“What are you trying to say? Are you breaking up with me, is it only because of the baby, is it ...” Claudia anticipated his decision with a thousand and one questions, not sure about the dénouement of the play.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for yesterday afternoon. You should sometimes not listen to me. It is not my love for you which is confusing me. It is just fear. Fear of taking a wrong path, fear of facing babbling mouths at work, in the streets. Fear of losing ...”

“Losing who? I thought you did not love her the way you love me,” Claudia interrupted.

“No! Don’t say that, you tonta!” Ishan said, turning his head swiftly, covering Claudia’s mouth with his hand. “It is not her who I fear losing, you know that. It is that ... I never expected to be a father this soon, before I get divorced so that we can get married.”

Claudia ran her fingertips through his hair. She could feel his exhaustion. She was exhausted too.

“Gaja will be her name,” Ishan held her close as he said that, his mouth pressed against her mouth.

“Gaja Candela should be just perfect. Earth and Fire,” Claudia replied in tears and an open smile, as if happily rescued from her own wrong predictions.

In less than ten minutes they were asleep, warm breath fanning both necks, their legs tightly intertwined. That night Ishan dreamt Claudia’s body was taking shape under his palms. Her flesh warm, malleable to his touch. There was not previous family then, only Claudia and himself, and a promise for a normal life. The very moment he woke up, he felt relieved, content, a dream come true. He kissed Claudia’s forehead and went directly to where he left his mobile. Twenty-four international missed calls, ―“it must be Her,” he thought with remorse―, none from Mumbai.

“They will understand, they must understand ..., even if it is impossible to forget, it shouldn’t be impossible to forgive,” Ishan was whispering as he wandered around the room. his glance disappeared through the window.

“What are you saying, mi amor? Come back to bed, you work to much in America and with such a long flight, the jet lag and all that you need to rest. I will cook something for the both of us, well, for the three of us!” She giggled. “Don’t forget to call your dad though, to ask how he is doing.”

Ishan considered those words the most innocent ones he had ever heard. Sometimes he felt the urge to shake her up and yell at her ―”wake up, I am married!” Most of the time, he just wished he had met her before, before he condemned himself to a death in life.

“I will ... I will ...,” he nodded looking through the window, so that Claudia could not see how he was silently sobbing, ashamed of his weakness, overwhelmed by obligations and desires.