The Cosmonaut named Her

I live in a house with two men. I wake up and they are still here, in the house. Vijayananda and Sandipto. Sometimes, I wake up and they are not in the room. More often, Sandipto locks the room from outside, keeps the key in the back pocket of his tight jeans, to protect me from Vijayananda. Every time I wake up, pull myself up, push the eyelids open, wilfully break a dream, I hope the door will be open and I will be alone. I am not alone.

Vijayananda is staring at me. He is on the bed, next to me. Sandipto is watching us from the door, leaning against the green door frame, arms crossed, waiting. Vijayananda pushes his hand under my neck, lifts my dream heavy head and pushes it onto his arm with the other hand. Sandipto comes to the bed, yanks Vijayananda away. An arm is pulled from under my head and I wake up. Sandipto covers me with a blanket, over the sweat drenched pajama suit and caresses my forehead. Vijayananda is standing on the other side of the bed, leaning on the frame of the bed with his knees arched forward and a smile on his lips. I smile at both of them and go back to sleep. I hope I will be alone when I wake up.

I hear Sandipto turning the key in the lock on the outside of the door. Vijayananda stinks of sweat when he tries to cradle my head on his arm. I am fascinated by the variety of stinks. Live with someone long enough and their smells become familiar. Like habits. You don’t mind the stink of their armpits, or the wetness. Your nose makes peace with that stink, in particular, and crumples against a stranger stink. Your nose learns. You learn, accept the cage, the bars of stench, an embrace of the inevitable. Human body sweats when it works. You hate idlers, and so you learn to live with the stink, the kind that becomes familiar.

I am not used to Vijayananda’s stink, not yet. I am worried it will wear on me. Or worse. I will learn it. I am waiting to be alone again, but I am scared to wake up in an empty bed. I smile every time I wake up and there is someone next to me. I knock on the door. Sandipto uses the key to open the door. I am tired of his name. Let’s call him Auro.

Auro uses the key to open the door. He is him and him is he. He is him and he is him. He is a man and I don’t want to commit the sin of generalization. I eat the toast sprinkled with sugar and drink a cup of lukewarm tea made by Auro. I go back to bed. Vijayananda slips into the room. I think he can smell sugar. I worry he will learn it.

Book your tickets. Go back, I order. You have stayed enough. You must have work to do.

Why are you sending me away?

I have a husband. He will come back soon. He does not like other men in the house. When he is here.

What about you? You like men?

No. They are boring. You are a man. You are boring.

And Sandipto?

Who?

Auro? And Auro?

The one with the new name?

Yes. Him?

I gave him the new name.

And I? I am still Vijay…and..

Duh. Auro locks the door. He keeps the key.

Yes. He protects you. Even from me.

I don’t need protection. I need to feel weak and vulnerable, sometimes. He lets me. He facilitates. From this morning, I sleep alone. Auro does not need to lock the door anymore.

A man who wishes to be a man locks the door. He offers his arm and when your head sleeps on it, he pushes you towards his side. An Adam trying to pull Eve back inside his rib-cage. Another will give you more place. You can make his biceps a pillow and the bed a cosmos. You can move and expand and implode. You can stretch, dangle a foot outside the bed and spread. Or you can bend your knee and knuckle the man into a corner. You can pin him down with your thoughts, or the things that happen in your head when it is on his hand.

You can churn the bed, drink the nectar like aamras, sticky with summer and bee-stung lips.

Like smells, like habit, like a dormant seed holding the potential of life, you learn instincts. To mother.

When a woman wishes to be a woman, she also wishes to be a mother––sometimes. When you want to feel like a woman, this mother, you take his head on your arms. The responsibility is the heaviness of his head and the weight pinning you down. You can try to feel good. For some time. One night is too much. Often an hour is too much too. A man, this man on this bed, does not feel like feeling like a child. He becomes him again in a few minutes.

Your arm is free again. You are free to navigate the universe like a cosmonaut unhitched from the mothership. Untethered, eyes fill with the gaze of wonder, light and floating towards the end. Happy till the oxygen lasts. The cosmonaut named Hawa. You are you till the oxygen lasts. Not enough to dangle the foot outside the edge of the cosmos. Enough to experience the thrill of solitude, the similitude, and the fear that comes with being alone and free.

The door is not locked. There is a knock from the outside. I wake up. It is not Auro. It must be the man.