The Enemy Within
 |
| Literary Fiction |
350 pages, 2016.
ISBN 9780-9877-484-2-3
Spanning three decades, set against the backdrop of Quebec politics, a
memorable portrait of a woman caught between worlds.
Synopsis
Sita
has always had men in her life. But they’ve always loved her less than she did
them. First, her father, a cold and distant man; then her husband. But things
change when she loses her baby girl, Sita sees clearly for the first time and
her heart hardens. As her children grow up, so does she. While at university
her professor, Julian Brannigan falls in love with her. But Sita is very
married so he keeps his secret. Then in Heidelberg, Germany, where Sita is
getting her postdoctoral training in Dr. Seidel’s lab, Miguel Santiago wants to
sweep her off her feet if only she’ll let him. To Sita, even a loveless
marriage is sacred. Spanning three decades and set against the backdrop of
modern Quebec politics, The Enemy Within is a memorable portrait of a woman caught
between worlds.
Excerpt
1995
Prologue
It was the first Friday
after the 1995 Quebec referendum and it dawned just like the other days before.
The same sun rose in the left corner of the kitchen window and shone on the
weeping willow in the front yard of 1000 St. Lawrence Ave in Quebec City.
Dressed in a Blue Jays T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, Sita Verma heaved a
cardboard box full of books into her Jeep. After a final shove, she stood for a
moment breathing heavily, her eyes flickering over the garden she had thought
of as hers until some months ago. It looked as it did every fall. A row of
orange plastic bags full of leaves leaned against the wooden fence and the
grass had a wonderful luminous sheen. Nothing marred its green perfection. If
there was one thing about Anup that Sita admired, it was his obsession with the
lawn. The edges were neatly trimmed-he even used the weed whacker diligently.
Sita’s
friend, Martha Johnson, from across the lake had once told her Anup and she
were as different as night and day: he the night, gloomy, a moody yo-yo; she
the day, full of light and sunshine. She didn’t know about the sunshine bit.
She considered herself an introvert. So any sunshine she had hoarded for
herself.
And lately,
they had been more at odds than ever before. This time, the silence seemed
deeper and longer. This time, she hadn’t stretched her hand over the widening
gap. Nothing would ever be the same again. Not after that night.
Was it still
rape even if they were husband and wife?
If I could be a tree, I’d choose to be a maple.
With leaves turning yellow or maybe russet and brown.
The afternoon
light was limpid and in the distance, clouds were billowing in, promising rain,
hail or sleet. Anything was appropriate at this time of the year. Five more
boxes and then she could hitch up the U-haul to her Jeep and drive away, never
looking back. Sita flicked a strand of hair from her eyes and fumbled in the
glove compartment of her Jeep for hair clips. She gathered her hair together,
gave it a twist and, holding it high on her head, secured it tightly with the
metal clips.
The sturdy
old maple, the last one to shed leaves, rustled softly in the wind whispering
the secrets of survival. Sita’s driveway was swept clean of leaves but the yard
next door was a carpet of yellow. Sunlight infused the air with yellow glow
too, against which the green of the firs and the pines appeared darker than
ever.
Over to the
other side, her neighbour, Sylvie Chabot, was raking leaves. From the slouch of
her body, Sita saw it was a half-hearted attempt.
Ah, my ‘pure laine’ neighbour. Lives in this big
beautiful country and has never stepped out of Quebec.
Sita waved
her hand to Sylvie.
‘Salut,’ Sylvie replied instead
of waving and came towards the fence.
Sita didn’t
want to talk to Sylvie. Sita was developing a strong feeling of resentment
against people who spoke only one language. Was that because she herself was in
danger of losing her mother tongue, Malayalam? Willingly she’d given up her
language while others were hanging onto theirs. Even though she loved Quebec
with all her heart, some of the insular attitudes were rubbing off on her. Why
should she make the effort to speak Sylvie’s tongue? Why was it so important
that Sylvie understood her?
Sita looked
at the ground.
So she wanted to talk.
Sylvie had
never used Sita’s name when addressing her.
Was it
because her name was too difficult? There were only four letters, for goodness’
sake! It wasn’t Sita’s style to indulge in pointless conversations. She
certainly wasn’t going to be civil to someone who referred to her as la noire.
After more
than twenty years in Quebec City as neighbours, she still thought of her as a
colour and not as ‘Sita.’
Sita had absolutely
nothing to say to her. Nothing at all.
Sita nodded
her head and looked past Sylvie’s shoulder towards the signs of the coming
winter visible everywhere. The bare hawthorn bush had spread its thorny limbs
through the links in the fence, offering fat bunches of red berries in its
arms. She wondered if she could make tea with the berries and squeezed one
between her fingers. It was hard as a pebble. A vine rambled over the walls and
down the fence, stretching its red-tipped fingers through the thicket, eager to
do some last minute creeping before falling into a long slumber. She had
planted it twenty years ago and watched it spread over the smooth walls and
inch towards the roof. Each summer, she’d trimmed the tendrils trying to build
a bridge cross the window.
Standing in
her driveway, Sita glanced at her watch.
Is it my imagination or are the streets quieter
than usual?
Where was the
four o’clock rush of cars? Why weren’t the children shouting and playing tag on
the way home? Everything looked the same as always. Yet it felt different.
Was everybody
else also feeling the effect of Jacques Parizeau’s words? Was it shock or
guilt? What an ass he was to blame the loss of the separatist vote on money and
the ethnic vote! Wasn’t she Quebecois? Wasn’t she paying taxes too?
Sita shook
her head as if to rid her mind of bad memories. She tried to ignore the cold
fear in the pit of her stomach and the clenching of her gut, as she carried the
boxes to the car. Even though she knew Anup was out of town, she was afraid
he’d walk in on her unexpectedly and somehow stop her. One word from his
punishing lips and all her defences would crumble.
An hour was
all it took to rupture almost a quarter of a century of life together. She
stacked the last of the boxes with her CDs and movies and went in the house
once more, stepping over Jupiter who lay like a golden mat before the front
door. He opened one eye lazily and followed her movement to the sink. The sound
of his water dish clanking against the tap in the kitchen brought him bounding
to her side. He sat on his haunches with his tongue lolling to the side as if
to convince her that he was really, really thirsty. She wiped her hands on the
towel and strolled through the rooms, her eyes avoiding the empty spaces in the
shelves.
And it was
all because she didn’t want to stay with Anup any more.
With a sigh
Sita turned to the small TV on the kitchen counter. It was tuned to the sports
channel where a Blue Jays game was being broadcast. They were playing the Indians.
It was the bottom of the sixth, with two outs and two on board. She didn’t even
wait for the pitcher to finish his throw. Right in the middle of his pitch, she
switched the TV off.
There were
other things more important than a game of baseball.
She
remembered a time when Anita, her daughter, had just begun to understand the
game. Together they’d watch the game, Anita cheering each time Sita yelled,
‘Hoohoo,’ when a Blue Jay got a base hit.
‘I know what
that man is saying,’ Anita had said.
Sita had
looked up from the dough she was pounding. ‘You mean the third base coach? The
one standing there?’
‘He’s telling
him to steal first base,’ Anita had replied proudly.
And then Sita
had spent the next ten minutes explaining the difference between stealing
second or third and walking to first.
Now her
daughter, like her son, was all grown up. Sita watched the games alone and
there was no one to ask, ‘What happened? What happened?’ when she yelled
‘Hoohoo.’
The tinkle of
the doorbell broke into Sita’s thoughts. Her heart began to thump hard. Then
she out a shaky laugh. Anup wouldn’t ring the bell! Plus, he was away. She
peeped through the curtains: two smartly dressed women clutching briefcases.
She sent the
Jehovah’s Witnesses off to convert other unbelievers, her usual pleasant veneer
cracking. She was not interested in saving her soul, she told them sharply. She
was a Hindu, she said, thrusting her religion at them.
Sometimes,
being different came in handy.
Sita took one
last look at the house. The stucco walls were in the palest shade of olive
green and the woodwork a deeper hue. In summer it was a pretty background,
setting off the lush green of the grass and jewelled dots of tulips and sweet
Williams, daffodils and delphiniums, hollyhocks and irises. In winter,
surrounded by dazzling white snowdrifts, it looked like an oasis of warmth.
Silently she said goodbye to the honeysuckle and clematis that snaked up the
sunny side of the house. Funny, she was more attached to the plants than to the
man who had lived beside her.
‘C’mon, boy,’
she said to Jupiter.
With a wag of
his tail and a deep wuff, he scrambled over the seat to the passenger’s side.
Slowly, she backed out, and drove off, her eyes dry but with a knot in her
throat.
Reviews
-Profound, heart-wrenching 4.5*
-An Intense and Beautiful Look at Life, Love and Purpose 5*
-Beautiful but heartrending 4.5*
-Heart-breaking 5*
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