“I’ll be back in a minute, Sunil. I want to show you my father’s copy of Woolf,” says Anju. She rests her hand on his arm. Already it is an intimate gesture. “Sudha, I’ll meet the two of you in the jasmine arbor.”
Her footsteps fly over the gravel. Her voice is happy as bird-song. I’d been afraid she would ask me why my face is so flushed, but she’s far too much in love.
Sunil has noticed, though. “Are you okay?” he asks as we walk toward the bower. “Maybe it’s the heat.” He has a kind voice. “Here, lean on me.” He guides me to the bench inside the arched bower of jasmines, a place I’ve always loved. But today the scent of the flowers is too sweet, dizzying. The ground is full of black pocked mouths, opening to swallow me. No matter what I do, I will be the cause of pain. If I run away, I will break Anju’s heart. If not, I will break Ashok’s. I shut my eyes, stumble. “Careful,” says Sunil, and grabs my arm.
What ill karma have I performed that I should be plagued with having to make such a choice?
Then it comes to me. It’s not my karma I’m expiating, it’s my father’s. My charming, thoughtless father who brought heartbreak to the Chatterjee household once already.
It is only right that this time it will be his daughter’s heart which breaks.
We’re sitting on the bench now. I take deep breaths and try opening my eyes. My head has cleared a little. I am deeply embarrassed. Then I notice that Sunil’s hand is still on my arm. His face is too close to mine, and he is staring at me with an intent, dazed look.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says in an altered, sleepy tone. “I’ve never seen anyone like you, either in India or America. If only I’d met you before I met your cousin—”
And suddenly, in a whole new way, I am very afraid. “Please let go of me,” I say. The words come out scratchy and hoarse, almost inaudible.
In slow motion, as though he is underwater, he drops his hand and moves to the other end of the bench. There is a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. His chest heaves like a runner’s. “That was unforgivable,” he says, pressing his fingertips into his eyes. “I don’t know what came over me.”
I see that he means it, that he is as startled by his act as I am. Somehow this makes me feel worse, as though I were to blame.
My lungs hurt when I try to breathe. My throat is too dry for speech. What could I say, anyway? And then I hear Anju’s footsteps, light and rapid. “Sorry it took me so long,” she calls breathlessly. “I’d misplaced the book. Hey, Sudha, don’t tell me you’ve been sitting here all this time without speaking a word!” To Sunil she says, “She can be shy at first, but once she gets to know you, you won’t be able to shut her up!”
I hear Sunil say, formally, “I look forward to that.” Is it only I who hear the catch in his voice? I’m afraid to meet his eyes, to see if they still have that drowning look in them. I feel absurdly guilty as I tell Anju I have a bad headache, I want to go and lie down.
“Will you be all right?” she asks. “D’you want me to go with you?” But already she’s sitting down next to Sunil, her shoulder touching his, and opening her book. I do not blame her. I know how it is when your blood keeps exact pace with a man’s blood-beat, when you cannot think of anything except the fact that he is there next to you. All you want is to be alone with him, forever. Your only memories are of the satin heat of his lips, the flight of his hands over you like blackbirds, the wild, thorny smell of his body, which is like no one else’s. Did you have a life before him? You don’t know. All you know is that if you did not see him again, you would die.
I am happy for Anju, truly I am.
“I’ll be fine,” I say. “Don’t worry about me.”
I walk back to my room, my chest filled with splintered glass.
With each step, AshokAshokAshok, I am learning the landscape of loss.
That night I write the letter, explaining to Ashok why I cannot elope with him, not even after Anju is married. The next morning I give it to Singhji along with Ashok’s ring, which I have taken from Anju’s drawer without her knowledge.
“Are you sure?” asks Singhji. He looks unhappy.
I nod and feel the burn of tears start again down my cheeks. I am thankful that in front of Singhji, at least, I need not hide them.
“But, beti, why? You needn’t be afraid—Ashok Babu has planned every detail perfectly. He’s the kind of young man who can be trusted—a true pearl, as we say in the Punjab—”
I trust him with my whole heart, I want to cry. But it’s best that Singhji believes I am doing this out of fear for myself. There must be no hint, no whisper, that could get back to Anju and make her suspect the real cause.
“Please go now,” I tell him. “And don’t bring back a reply. I’ve made up my mind.”
When I enter her bedroom that evening, Anju is sitting by the window, gazing out into the darkness. All day I’ve been teetering on the cliff-edge of that thin laughter whose other name is tears, and seeing her there almost sends me over.
I have to call her name twice. She turns to me with a vague smile. I do not need to ask who she’s thinking of. She reaches for my hands, her movements slow, dreamlike. I make myself smile as I grip her fingers.
“How brightly the stars shine tonight, Sudha,” she says. “I feel like I’ve been asleep all my life, underwater, like the princess in the palace of snakes. I might have stayed that way forever—about as alive as a mollusk!—if fate hadn’t sent Sunil into my life. And to think he loves me! Me! Isn’t that the greatest magic of all?”
“Yes,” I say. What other answer is possible? Then I add, “I’ve decided not to elope with Ashok. I’m going to marry Ramesh instead.”
“What are you saying?” Anju’s whole body goes rigid with consternation. Her eyebrows draw together like the fuzzy caterpillars we used to find in the garden when we were little. “You love Ashok! How can you even think of living without him?”
Sweet Anju of the caterpillar brows, you who have just learned what passion is, your words scald me like lava. Now comes the hardest part—for you must not know the truth. You who are going to have a difficult life already, I fear, with your father-in-law whose bloodhound nose can sniff out every indiscretion, and your husband who thinks I am the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. You who would never let me give up Ashok if you knew it was for your sake.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” I tell her. “You’re right. The risk is too great. What if things don’t turn out the way Ashok says they will? My life will be ruined. It’s better I marry the man the mothers have chosen for me.”
“To marry someone else when you love Ashok—to think of him touching you”—a shudder goes through Anju’s entire frame—”if I were in your place, I could never, never, do it!”
Her words are like bullets exploding in my chest. It takes all my willpower to form a smile. “Maybe I’m learning to be more practical, like you told me to be!” What I am learning is deception, how to joke while I dig a hole deep enough to bury my heart. “Didn’t you always complain because I was too much of a dreamer?”
Anju looks into my face questioningly, and my insides tremble. Will she see my lie, as she has so often in the past? But slowly the lines on her forehead fade. Blurred by new love, today her mind cannot fix itself on anything except Sunil—the surprising warmth that wells up from under his skin when she touches his arm, the way the hollows under his cheekbones hold an entire chiaroscuro of light and dark. She runs a hand distractedly through her hair and says, “I don’t know, Sudha. When I told you not to elope, I wasn’t in love myself. Now that I am, I see things differently. It’ll be safer for you this way, but will you be happy?”
I nod. I’ll be happy in seeing you happy, dear Anju.
“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” Anju asks one last time.
“I am,” I say. I am righting my father’s wrongs.
Earlier today Singhji brought me back a note from Ashok.
I was angry, but S
inghji said, with unusual vehemence, “I couldn’t just hand him your letter and turn tail like a dog, not when I knew the boy needed someone to talk to.”
I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t stop myself. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘She can’t mean it. She can’t play like this with my life, with her own life.’ Then he threw the letter at me and yelled, ‘Tell her this is carrying generosity for her cousin too far.’ He paced up and down for a while, then he added, ‘How does she expect me to live without her? Does she think love’s a tap to be turned on and off at will?”‘
I could see his face, the way he must have ground his fists into his eyes as he spoke. No, Ashok. Love is not a tap. It flows and flows like blood from a wound, and you can die of it.
“Finally he said, with a rough laugh, ‘I never thought Sudha’s cousin would become my rival for her love. I never thought that if that happened, she’d win.’ Then he wrote you that note. Beti, if you could have seen how he was hurting, you’d change your mind. And you still can. It’s not too late. Things will work out for Anju Missybaba, I’m sure.”
“No, Singhji, you didn’t hear what Sunil’s father said. He’ll break off the marriage if there’s any scandal now. He’s already done it once, with another girl. Even after the marriage, he’d send Anju back—he’s capable of it. And Sunil—who knows if he’s strong enough to stand up against his father? No, Anju loves Sunil too much for me to take that risk. What I’m doing—maybe it’ll make up for—”
“Make up for what?”
“For things that were done to her before she was born,” I said, then sighed, suddenly tired. It was too much to explain, even to a sympathetic listener like Singhji. So although I could see from his distraught face that he wanted to talk further, I told him I was unwell and needed to lie down.
Now I take out Ashok’s letter, though I do not need to. I know it by heart already.
Sudha—
Did you believe I was going to be magnanimous, like the lovers in the old myths? Did you expect me to forgive you and wish you happiness with your new husband? Well, you’re wrong. This is what I’m going to wish for you: that you too will be let down by the one you love most. You too will be rejected for another. Your heart too will feel as though someone ground his boot heel into it.
Ashok, do you think my heart does not already know what that feels like?
Slowly I tear the note into tiny pieces. I hold my cupped palms outside my window until the wind takes them away into the darkness, like flakes of sloughed-off skin from the Bidhata Purush’s feet.
I focus on the sky with all my strength. Sometimes the pain is so deep, the only way to survive it is to keep one’s attention on something immense beyond human sorrow.
If there were a falling star now, I know what I would wish for. I would wish Ashok a new love, one that held no hurt in it. If there is such a thing.
CRAZY LOVE has turned my life upside-down.
Now that I’ll be a married woman in a week, the mothers have grown indulgent. I’m allowed to write to Sunil—every day if I want. I’ve bought myself scented paper, a purple pen. How I would have scoffed at such things earlier! For the moment at least, I’ve traded in Virginia Woolf for Elizabeth Barrett Browning. How do I love thee? I copy out painstakingly, in my best handwriting, more love-struck than Sudha ever was. Or have I taken on, in some strange way, a part of her nature? I thumb through Tagore’s poems to find lines to express the swallow-swoop of my heart: Aaji … mane haiteche sukh ati sahaj saral. Today I sense how simple happiness is. Every day I run to the gate when the postman comes. Sunil isn’t much of a writer. But when the mail does bring me a letter in his square handwriting, it’s like iridescent bubbles are bursting inside my chest. Perhaps because I’ve told him how much I want to travel, he usually writes about the places he wants me to see: Lake Tahoe, King’s Canyon, Baja. I whisper the names to myself at night before I sleep. They fall from my tongue like mysterious, alien jewels.
Even in my delirious state, I’m worried about Sudha. She’s gay enough as she goes through the day’s whirl with the mothers, choosing gifts for her in-laws, looking at jewelry patterns, getting her palms painted with mehendi. But every once in a while her laughter sounds brittle and too loud. There’s something desperate in the way she pirouettes in front of a mirror as she tries on a gold-worked shawl. And then I wish guiltily that I hadn’t listened to her. That I’d gone to my mother and explained about Ashok.
Once I tried to talk to her about it.
“Okay,” I said. “I understand why you didn’t want to risk everything by running away. But Ramesh isn’t the right husband for you. You don’t even like him—I can feel it.”
Sudha said nothing.
“Why don’t you wait a bit?” I begged her. “I’ll tell Mother to look for someone else for you. You don’t have to get married at the same time as me—”
Sudha cut me off fiercely. “I don’t care who I marry—they’re all the same to me. All I care about is not having to live in this house with all its memories once you’re gone.” As she swiveled away, she whispered something I didn’t quite understand: “How could I stand to remain here without you, Anju, when you’re my only reason for remaining here?”
Two days before the wedding, Mother calls us to her room. I know it’s something important because Pishi and Aunt N are there too, looking tense. No one speaks when we enter, and Pishi draws the curtains and locks the door behind us. The heavy wooden bar gives an ominous creak as it slides into place. My mother struggles to sit up in the bed. There’s a small bottle of nitroglycerine tablets on the side table—she must’ve overexerted herself and had chest pains again. I imagine the burning, like red-hot fingers gripping her lungs. My usually sensible mother—oh, why’s she so stubborn about not undergoing the surgery she obviously needs? I want to rub her back with some of the root-and-herb oil which seems to help with the pain, but I know she hates having anyone fuss over her.
“Girls,” she says. “There’s something I must show you.” She takes a worn-looking jewelry box from the side table. It must be another one of those ugly heirlooms from my grandmother’s time—maybe a bulky armband or a fat, moon-shaped comb—which Mother’s been sending to the jeweler to be remade into something finer to suit our taste. Then she adds, “Perhaps you can help us decide what’s to be done with it.”
I’m amused that she’s even asking us because usually the mothers make all such decisions on their own. Do they think we’re wiser now, just because we’re getting married? Don’t they see that in my current love-struck state, I’m barely capable of rational thought? I look at Sudha to check if she’s got the joke, but she’s staring at the box, eyes flared and—yes, afraid.
When Mother opens the box, my eyes widen too. Because inside is the largest ruby I’ve ever seen. Even in this dim light the jewel shines redly, with an angry energy.
Sudha makes a small sound like a moan. She presses her knuckles against her mouth to cut it off.
“This is what your fathers left behind when they went off,” Mother says.
I feel dizzy, off-balance, like I’m being thrust back in time. Anguish stings the back of my throat like old sand. Anguish and rage. The rage which had made me punch the walls of my room because I had nothing to say when my schoolmates taunted me for not having a father. I hear myself saying, in a lost child’s voice, “How could he leave us like that?” How many times I’d asked Mother that, only to have her send me away without an answer. Today, finally, I know I can make her tell me if I want.
Then I realize something. I no longer want it. Even truth can come too late. My father’s motives mean nothing to me any more. I have Sunil now. My own man, more precious than any ruby, who’ll never abandon me.
Pishi and Aunt are watching Mother, who seems at a loss. It’s as if they’re waiting to hear what she’ll say. I wonder whether they each have a different story about what happened, and which of these—if any—is the true one. Is there ever a sto
ry that can capture the whole truth? I’ve a feeling that if I retell this one to my children, it’ll have transformed itself by then into something quite new.
Except I’m not going to. I’ve no interest in passing on the tale of two overgrown boys who went off adventuring without a single thought about what would happen to the women they left behind. Who thought excitement would taste sweeter than all the pleasures of home. If storytelling is how we keep alive those who are gone, then I enthusiastically condemn my father and uncle to oblivion.
But Sudha speaks into the shadowed silence of the room. “They went because, like all men, they wanted to win something amazing, something everyone would admire them for.” Her eyes are opaque as stormy water, and her face has gone blank, like a room where someone switched off the light. “It’s all true, then,” she says, in a strangely despairing voice.
Mother looks as if she wants to ask Sudha what she means, but finally she just sighs and rubs at her chest. “It happened a long time ago. If it weren’t for the fact that we can’t decide what to do with the ruby, I wouldn’t even show it to you at this auspicious time.”
“That stone’s brought us nothing but bad luck ever since the day it appeared in this house,” Pishi bursts out. “I say we get rid of it. I’ve been saying that all these years, but neither of you would listen. We should sell it and use the money for wedding expenses—God knows we need—”
“Now, Didi,” Aunt N interrupts excitedly. “You know we’d never get a fair price for it. Those jewelers, as soon as they see us women, they’ll know they can cheat us blind. I say we keep the ruby. It’s just a stone. How can it bring bad luck?”
I hadn’t expected Aunt, with her amulets and soothsayers and weekly pujas to keep the planet Shani from casting his evil eye on us, to turn so pragmatic all of a sudden. She must want this ruby badly.
Mother, impartial as usual, says, “My idea is to have the ruby cut in two and made into pendants for each of you girls.”