“Milk-and-cinnamon, hah! Dirty nappies, dripping with pee and worse, that’s what babies smell like,” said my unmaternal cousin. But perhaps she felt a little better, for she threw an arm around me and went to sleep.
I couldn’t sleep, though. The morning’s thoughts kept ricocheting in my head, all I would lose when I gained Ashok’s love. Anju’s arm, soft with sleep, circled my neck. Regret welled up in my mouth, bitter as the quinine Pishi used to dose us with. I, the renegade daughter. Would I even be allowed to see Anju again?
Now Anju frowns in her sleep, battling the demons of her dream world just as she has always fought, in her waking life, anyone who will not let her be herself. I smile a little, but inside I am crying. O my Anju, you who have never learned to bend with the wind, what will happen if you marry the wrong kind of man?
Carried from afar by the night breeze, I hear chimes. It is the clock at St. Paul’s Cathedral, beginning to strike twelve. And suddenly we are plunged into total darkness, an ocean of ink. For a moment I am startled into terror. But it is only one of the power outages that plague us throughout the year in Calcutta.
The darkness is a cresting wave. It sweeps me up out of my body until I float among the stars, those tiny bright pores on the sky’s skin. If only I could pass through them, I would end up on the other side, the right side, shadowless, perfectly illuminated, beyond the worries of this mundane world.
I hear the clock again. Its relentless chimes force me back into the cramped confines of my body. Midnight is almost gone. I search the sky desperately. Then, on the last strike I see it, a flash to the left, a small scar of light, already healing, my falling star.
But only one.
One star for one wish.
Opposing desires battle in my heart for Anju and me, pulling me this way and that. But finally I ask for a wonderful marriage for my cousin, a husband whom she will love with all her being. I know I will have to pay for my wish, for that is the way of this world on the wrong side of the sky, where there is never enough happiness for all of us.
Ashok, Ashok, cries a receding echo in my heart.
Still, I am glad that I gave my wish to Anju.
On the breath-end of that wish, just as the star burns out, comes a startling thought. If only Anju and I, like the wives of the heroes in the old tales, could marry the same man, our Arjun, our Krishna, who would love and treasure us both, and keep us both together.
It is a ridiculous wish, maybe even immoral. But before I can take it back, I am interrupted by Pishi’s heavy steps as she pants her way up the stairs, scolding us all the while for being here by ourselves, under the clammy night dew that is sure to make us sick, when all good young women in Calcutta are fast asleep in their beds.
OUR STARS must be really well aligned this month, Aunt N keeps saying. First Sudha’s marriage is all set, then I get a proposal, and now someone wants to buy the bookstore.
Her optimism’s somewhat misplaced. Sudha’s marriage is all set, yes, but not in the way she imagines. I shudder to think of what’ll happen after the elopement, all the scoldings I’ll have to face—because of course they’ll blame me too. But for Sudha’s sake I’m willing to put up with it.
As for my marriage proposal, it hasn’t progressed far. My maybe-in-laws are waiting for His Highness to arrive from America. There’s been some kind of a crisis at his computer company, and he has to take care of things like defective chips and malfunctioning motherboards. As soon as he gets here, his family assures us, we’ll have a bride-viewing and they’ll let us know his opinion.
I’m in no hurry. He can take the slowest boat back, for all I care. And as I’ve said to Sudha, they can call it a bride-viewing all they like, but they’d better realize that it’s a groom-viewing as well. And if I don’t like what I view, you can bet your life my opinion’s going to be known too.
The bookstore is, indeed, being sold. One of the other booksellers in Calcutta has made us an offer. It’s a poor offer, and he’s only going to pay us half the money up front—but Mother accepted it. I begged her to hold out, but I could see in the smoky hollows under her eyes how afraid she was that she wouldn’t be around by the time another offer came.
The buyer wants an inventory done before he takes over, and I ask Mother if I can help Manager Babu with it. It’ll give me a chance to see the place I’d woven so many dreams around one last time before it becomes someone else’s.
But when I get there, I’m not so sure it was a good idea. All the old employees come up to me to say good-bye. They call me Anju Didimoni, little sister, little jewel, and reminisce about how I was just a girl in pigtails when I started coming to the store with Mother. They wipe their eyes on their dhotis and wish me luck with my marriage. Awkwardly, they ask about my mother, whom they call Rani Ma. They tell me how she’s been a mother to them all these years. How she gave Jiten the money for his father’s eye operation. How when Palash fell from the bus and broke his leg and had to stay home for two months, she didn’t cut a paisa of his salary. And when Manager Babu suggested that she let go old man Manish, who’s just about blind, she said she couldn’t fire someone who’s given the store fifty years of his life. Listening to the stories, I begin to understand all those late nights when she sat with the account books, trying to squeeze a little more money from them, and I’m ashamed that I thought I could do better than she had.
The new owner wants to change the name of the bookstore, so today the big red and yellow board that has said Chatterjee and Sons Fine Books for over seventy-five years is coming down. I watch the workmen struggling with ropes and ladders. Someone loses his hold, and the board falls with a crash, cracking in two. I try to stay calm, as Mother would. It was being sent to the go-down anyway, to be chopped up into firewood, I remind myself. But when the new board goes up, I can’t bear to watch. I climb onto a chair and furiously begin to pull down books from the science and technology shelves, the section of the store I care least about.
That’s when the man comes into the bookstore.
He’s elegantly dressed in a traditional kurta with gold buttons, refreshing at a time when so many young men are wearing skintight pants and glittery disco shirts. His gold-rimmed spectacles are charmingly old-fashioned and intellectual-looking, and when he asks me if we stock any books by Virginia Woolf, he wins me over completely.
Woolf’s been a favorite of mine since the time I stumbled upon one of her books at the store. It was a beautiful old leather-bound volume, printed in England, with an intriguing title: A Room of One’s Own. When I put my nose to the thick pages, they smelled totally unlike our Indian books with their sweet rice-glue binding. I thought of it as the smell of distance, of new thinking. That smell stayed with me a long time. It stood for something I wanted but didn’t know a name for.
When I took the book to my mother, she held it for a while without saying anything. Then she told me that my father had ordered it a few months before he died. I could have it if I wished.
I spent many afternoons reading and rereading the book, which was a long essay rather than the stories I usually preferred. I understood only a little of what the author was saying. But I felt her sadness and her fire. I could see her standing in front of a hall filled with women—for the preface said the essay was originally a speech—demanding that they cast off their blinders and stand up for their rights. She would not have raised her voice, but the passion in it would have pierced each woman’s breast like a shaft—as it did mine. It surprised me that my father would have wanted to read such a book. I imagined his hands holding it as he lay in bed late at night, long after Mother fell asleep. I saw the warm light from the lamp falling onto his fingers as he turned the pages. Maybe he’d frowned, turning the ideas over and over in his mind as I was doing. Maybe he’d drawn his breath in sharply, in sympathy and indignation. For the first time in my life, I found I could think of him without bitterness.
When I got older, I persuaded Mother to order all of Woolf’s novels, and whenever
she allowed me to accompany her to the store, I’d go into a corner and devour them. I was afraid someone would want to buy one before I finished it. But they were never popular with our Indian literati, who much preferred Dickens and Hardy and E. M. Forster.
Now I bring down the full set and start extolling Woolf’s virtues. I talk of her style, which is like a river with unexpected turns. Her perceptiveness. Her symbols. Her women with their doomed artistic souls who are unlike any others I’ve met—in life or in books. I hope I can find a good home for at least one or two of them before the new owner condemns them to some termite-filled storehouse. And this intelligent young man with laughing eyes would appreciate them, I can feel it.
When I pause for breath he tells me that my eloquence has convinced him to buy the entire set!
I wrap them up for him inexpertly but proudly. I try to act cool and professional, like a real salesperson, but when he asks me if I’m one of the staff, I burst out laughing. Manager Babu gives him a severe look designed to put people in their place and informs him that he’s been talking to Miss Anjali, the owner’s daughter.
The man doesn’t appear to be put in his place. “Ah, Miss Anjali, no wonder you’re so well read,” he says. “Are you in college, studying literature maybe?”
I can tell from Manager Babu’s expression that he thinks such a question is terribly forward. He’d like to send the young man on his way, but just then someone yells that the new board’s dangling precariously from a hinge, and he has to rush outside.
I tell the young man no, I’m not in college, though that’s what I wanted more than anything in the world. I try to keep the sadness out of my voice, but I think he hears it.
“More than marriage, even? I thought that’s what most young women your age dream about.”
“I don’t have to dream about it,” I say acidly. “It’s going to happen to me any day now, probably as soon as Mr. America gets here.”
“Mr. America?” He lifts an eyebrow.
I explain to him about Sunil and his malfunctioning motherboards. I know I shouldn’t, but there’s a certain sympathy in his gaze that makes me want to confide in him like I’ve never confided in a man before.
“Oh dear,” he says. “He sounds awfully boring.”
I’m struck by the ridiculous desire to grab the sleeve of his kurta and say, “Don’t go.” Or even, shamelessly, “Marry me.” For surely a man like this one would allow me to continue my studies. I could go to one of the all-women’s colleges. That would be proper enough, even if I were married. Maybe we could even read Woolf together.
Yes, Anju. And maybe the moon will turn into a monkey and fish will fly in the sky.
I slide the package across the counter to him. But instead of taking it, he puts his hand over mine. I’m shocked. Did he read my mind? What if someone sees us? But he smiles such an open, friendly smile that I don’t snatch my hand away.
“I know your name, Miss Anjali,” he says. “Don’t you want to know mine?”
I stare at him. A suspicion makes my heart leap. But surely not. I couldn’t be that lucky.
“It’s Sunil. Yes, Mr. America himself! No, don’t be embarrassed.” He gestures at his clothes. “Forgive me for the deception—I had to see you for myself—you as you really are, not at some unnatural bride-viewing ceremony, swathed in silks and jewels, sitting silently with your head lowered. Though now that I’ve seen you, I don’t believe you’d ever sit silently with your head lowered, would you?”
I laugh with him, but uncomfortably. I’m not sure if he means it as a compliment.
“May I tell you,” says Sunil, with a funny little formal bow, “how taken I am by your vivacity. You deserve every one of your dreams. If you do me the honor of marrying me, I’ll try to make them come true.”
The blood pounds through my skull in wild elation. I can’t think of anything to say. I, whom the mothers always scolded for being the talkative one!
“Shall we shake on it?” asks my American husband-to-be. But it’s a statement more than a question. His voice is smooth like new molasses. And confident, as though no woman has ever turned him down.
I can understand why they wouldn’t.
I clasp his hand as firmly as I can—otherwise I’d surely float away, my heart is so light. Now that he’s discarded his glasses, I see his eyes have little flecks of gold in them. Already I adore his crooked eyebrows. I look forward to the evenings when we’ll read To the Lighthouse to each other.
As soon as I get home I’m going to apologize to Sudha because she was completely, absolutely right. Love happens, and so do miracles.
ANJU’S IN-LAWS have come over to set up the details of the wedding. It is not really a bride-viewing, because everyone knows that the bride and groom have met already—the whole servant mahal has been buzzing with the gossip, and not just in our house.
Sunil’s mother, a sweet, ineffectual woman who gestures a lot as she speaks, is extremely apologetic. “Our Sunil, he had to take things into his own hands! Didn’t even inform us ahead—or else I’d have begged him not to do it. But he just asked around and found out where the bookstore was. That’s what happens when you live in America for so many years, I guess! I should be thankful that he even agreed to marry a Calcutta girl.” From her tone I can tell that, in spite of his escapades, or maybe because of them, she is immensely proud of her son.
“He knew quite well that if he brought back one of those American memsaheb wives, he wouldn’t have been allowed into the house,” says Sunil’s father, who is obviously the ruling force here. He crosses his scissor-thin legs, clad in dark, foreign-looking pants that Sunil must have brought for him, and eyes with disfavor the shell-shaped sandeshes Pishi has spent all morning preparing. He waves away the hot kachuris stuffed with spicy peas and shakes his head at the steaming milk-tea. He does agree to drink a glass of michri water, but only after he has been assured that the rock sugar has been bought from a reputable store, and the water is boiled. I am glad Anju will only have to live with him for a year—until her visa arrives—and not for the rest of her life.
Sunil, though, seems pleasant and thoughtful. He helps Anju take the teacups around to everyone. In America men must do things like that. Then he begins a low-voiced conversation with Gouri Ma. Promise, I overhear, and as much education as she likes. I see Gouri Ma’s thin face light up. My heart warms further toward my future brother-in-law, and when he looks up I offer him my brightest smile.
Sunil’s father, Mr. Majumdar, doesn’t like it when the conversation is not centered around him. He clears his throat loudly to ask Gouri Ma how her disease is progressing. I can tell from Gouri Ma’s face that she considers such a question inappropriate, but she says, politely enough, that she has a lot more energy nowadays.
“Perhaps it’s just the relief of knowing that both our girls are going to be well settled,” she smiles. She beckons to me. “Sunil, I want you to meet Sudha. She’s my other daughter, the sweetest child, and so talented with the needle, you wouldn’t believe.”
I blush. Praise from Gouri Ma has always meant so much to me. I join my palms to do a namaskar to Sunil, but he puts out his hand and says, “Oh no, you can’t be so formal. We’re going to be related, after all.” I feel awkward, but I guess this is the way they act in America, so I put my hand in his.
Mr. Majumdar clears his throat again—he would rather his son behaved in a more dignified, bridegroom-like fashion—and says, “Well, there’s just a few details to wrap up now. Since our son likes your daughter so much, we’ve decided to form the alliance here. Though to be frank with you, a couple of the other families—for example, the Bhaduris of Bowbajar—had offered a significant dowry.”
“Father!” says Sunil. “We agreed there was to be no dowry discussion!”
“Please don’t interrupt me,” says his father. “I said I wouldn’t ask for a dowry, and so I won’t. No doubt Mrs. Chatterjee, who comes from a fine background, already knows what’s fitting in this respect.
Anyway, a good reputation has always meant more to me than all the money in the world. That’s why I broke off talks with the Bhaduris. We found out there was some old scandal in the family, an unmarried aunt who committed suicide—you can guess why! I wasn’t going to be associated with any of that. Better a penniless, ugly girl, I said to my wife, than one whose family is stained with immorality. And there are far too many such families. You’d be amazed, Mrs. Chatterjee, at what we’ve been discovering—secret relationships, pregnancies, runaway girls brought back by force—”
I stare at his lips, the way they twist as he speaks. Terror opens inside me like a chasm into which, at any moment, my soul could disappear. I turn to Anju, but Sunil is whispering something to her. There’s a small, blissful smile on her lips as she begins to whisper back. I can tell she has not heard a single word Sunil’s father has said.
Oh, Anju, if only you hadn’t fallen so much in love. What will happen to you now if I run away with Ashok?
“Actually,” continues Sunil’s father, “our talks with the Bhaduris had progressed quite a bit. But as I told my wife, even the best match, I’ll break it. Even at the last moment. It’s a matter of family ijjat, after all. Even after the wedding, I’m prepared to send the girl back to her parents if I find something ugly, like—”
“Please, Majumdar Babu,” Gouri Ma interrupts. “Not in front of the children! Anju and Sudha, why don’t you show Sunil the garden? Anju? Are you listening, Anju?”
We walk out. I want to hold on to the walls, but they are undulating like waves. When we reach the garden, the sun is a parched emptiness in the sky because Sunil’s father will never let him marry a girl whose cousin eloped with a man she met in a movie house.