The next thing I knew it was morning. The kid had rolled over and his arm fell across my face waking me up. I got up and stretched a little. I felt different. I felt good. Today was Monday, the start of a new week. The kid got up next and rubbed his eyes with a clenched fist. He must have forgotten all about last night because he looked at me sleepily and smiled his lopsided smile. I patted his head and smiled too.
“Come on, kid. You ready to go home?” I don’t think he was expecting to leave or something because he just looked a little sad. “Don’t worry about a thing. You remember what I told you and you’ll be okay.” I swung him off the bed and put his cap on. I opened the door to leave but the kid was standing in the middle of the room staring at me. “What is it?” I asked.
The kid pointed at the bag full of fortunes. “Can I still have those?”
The tears threatened to come again so I cleared my throat. “Sure. Sure you can. Didn’t I tell you they’re yours?” The kid nodded his head and picked up the bag, even stopping to gather the ones that were still scattered on the floor.
I remembered his father’s wallet and pulled the driver’s license out to see the address. I wasn’t surprised to see that he lived in the good part of town. It probably wasn’t a smart idea to take him home myself, but I wanted to make sure he got there all right. I took alleys and stayed low until I was a block away from his house.
“That your home? The brick one with the leaves all over the wall?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at it uneasily.
“Hey, you’re gonna be all right. Just fine. You’re tremendous, remember?” The kid nodded and clutched the bag close to him. A lump formed in my throat so I turned quickly down the alley. “Go home now, kid.” But he didn’t. When I looked over my shoulder I saw him standing in the same position, staring at me with an odd expression on his face. With a final wave, I turned the corner.
The wallet was still in my pocket. I pulled it out and tossed it in a garbage can instead of dropping it somewhere so it could be found and returned. That guy didn’t need his credit cards or cash or eelskin wallet. He didn’t know what a fortune he had anyway.
FORBIDDEN FATE
Sujata DeChoudhury
The air bit at my skin, inching its way through the tangle of the saffron sari wrapping my body. I tugged at the clinging garment with the sole of my dusty Bata sandals but to no avail; the cloth fervently held its grip. The deserted dirt path I walked along in Amalya, a tiny village north of Calcutta, reeked of urine and cow feces. Shops and offices lining the street welcomed my ambling visage with steel, caged faces and signs that screamed in neon letters: XMAS SWEETS and HAPPY XMAS. Brilliant multicolored lights glittered in the doorways beckoning travelers and tourists to savor the sweet sensation of roshogollas—curdled balls of sugar and milk—or the spiciest samosas—tangy triangles filled with peas and potatoes. A passengerless rickshaw tottered past, the rickshaw valla emaciated yet muscular as a result of the heavy loads he’d been hauling since his fifteenth birthday. I knelt down and examined the blister on my left big toe as he passed and then hurried toward the Banerjee bahrow bahr—the enormous house of my ancestors.
The deteriorating mansion came into view as I crept around a haggard cow standing in its own dung. Visitors to the house marveled at the immense space of the quarters—five hundred rooms made up the grand total. It must have been beautiful two hundred years ago when weddings flooded the center courtyard gardens and poojas brought together Durga Ma worshippers from many kilometers away. I closed my eyes and imagined the squeaking of my chotis on the polished wooden floors, the intoxicating smell of fresh white paint on the outer wall of the house drifting in through the high windows, scrubbed and thrown open, and the energetic beat of Hindi songs bouncing in and out of every room, while well-wishers of the bride and groom flirted and feasted in the midst of prosperous families.
The thought made me shudder; for in three days I was to be the decorated wife dressed in the traditional bright red sari and weighed down from head to toe with 24-carat-gold ornaments. Head lowered, lips trembling—I was being sacrificed to an ancient stranger who had met me only once. Five days before the date deemed by the astrologer as an auspicious one for the wedding, I met my future husband—Dr. Sitesh Bhattacharya. Thirty years old, he smiled shrewdly as his beady eyes swept over my still developing frame, never once making contact with mine. Thinning black hair and random silver strands were carefully combed back with noxious hair oil. My grandparents could not be happier; they had raised me since the age of five with a fixed look toward the day when I would submit as a bohw—the polite, obedient wife. I showed indifference at this meeting, although I was supposed to show shyness and frailty.
“Savitri, come in here and help prepare dinner,” my grandmother greeted me in Bengali as I crossed over to her stool, bent down, and brushed my chapped lips against the tender skin of her cheek.
“Where is Dadu?” I asked as I began to mold and knead the dough she had expertly mixed, bits of flour rising from the generous hump.
“He is watching the television,” she replied. Perspiration met in tiny spheres and rolled down the wrinkles around her eyes as she leaned over the firing stove and added ginger and cardamom to the small chunks of goat meat floating in thick curry sauce.
I grasped the burnt wooden rolling pin and proceeded to roll out about twenty circular portions of dough. The deep frying pan sizzled as I dropped them in one by one and watched the luchees grow and fluff with air and grease bubbles. A drop of oil jumped innocently from the pan and landed hotly on my neck. I let out a small cry, but quickly stifled it when Dida turned around.
“It is almost done—go fetch your grandfather.” She peered at me, her wizened, judging eyes filled with irritation, thinking that a girl of seventeen, let alone a bride in three short days, should be able to cook a simple meal without injuring herself.
Ashamed, I slid out of the fiery chamber and traversed the long, dark corridor, passing empty ghostlike rooms congested with inches of dust and relatives of rats. I detected the mutating glimmer in a square box as I meekly approached the living room. The scrawny servant boy, Arun, who appeared to be some years younger than me—about fifteen—scurried by swiftly carrying a half-empty jug of filtered water. His thin arm brushed mine on his way out the narrow door and drops of water from the clay jug spotted the cloth of my sari. He mumbled an inaudible apology, and my initial disapproving face softened as he lifted his gentle brown eyes framed by never-ending black lashes. I watched through the doorframe as his back vanished into the same prehistoric corridor. He sometimes stayed over when the house was busy with chores and errands to run.
“Dadu, it is suppertime,” I said, speaking loudly but gently as I edged closer to the body in the creaking chestnut-colored chair.
“Yes, Savitri—help me up from this broken old chair, will you, please?” he said. His wide black-rimmed glasses hid the softness of his eyes but his voice portrayed it perfectly. The skin under his chin hung over the tight collar of a worn plaid shirt.
I reached over, holding his bony hand tightly as he rose, and we walked arm in arm through the grimy hall and into the kitchen. We perched on the pastel plastic chairs along the edges of the mahogany table that was gradually filled with delicious delectables. Taking Dadu’s plate, I piled it with luchees and patah, the curry sauce of the goat meat seeping into the fried loveliness of the bread. After doing the same for Dida and myself, I settled on the lilac seat and began breaking off bits of my luchees and sweeping up patah, letting the spices tingle in my mouth until, fully satisfied, I had swallowed the entire scrumptious dish. Arun sat inconspicuously on a straw mat in the corner of the sweltering room, gobbling up the food on his plate as if he would never have the chance to eat again.
Through the cracked glass of the window, we heard the playful cries of neighborhood boys whacking a ball of thread with a wooden stick—their revamped version of cricket. The boy at bat dreamed of being the next Sachin Tendulkar, a livin
g legend and master batsman on the Indian cricket team. While at bat, the lanky boy forgot about his hunger, put aside the chill of a December night without the comfort of a warm blanket, and the shrieks of his mother urging him to do something useful like beg outside the nearby Ram Krishna mission.
I stared out at the boys and reveled in their freedom, in their looseness and impishness. I felt confined in the cloth that pulled around my waist, and trapped in a towering house that radiated images of eroded memories. I closed my weary eyes and breathed in the floating scents of sandalwood, incense, and tired grandparents.
• • •
When I was born, my mother cried with tears of glee at the granting of her secret wish to bear a female baby. The first words out of the sneering mouth of Uncle Giri, my mother’s brother, were, “Oh, how dreadfully disappointing to have a girl as the firstborn. Now you have to think about dowries, finding a suitable man who will have her, and paying an exorbitant amount of money for her wedding.”
My beautiful mother, with round black eyes and long, straight black hair flowing to her lower back, instantly replied, “Well, she doesn’t have to get married now, does she?”
“She is pretty like her mother,” said my understanding father, nuzzling against his miraculous offspring. They named me Savitri on that blissful day—after a strong woman who had followed her heart in popular Indian folklore.
I vaguely recalled the first six years of my life—most of the memories evoked by torn black-and-white pictures taken by relatives and my parents. I was their only child, which drew much cynicism from the village elders and youth alike. Who would take care of the house after they passed away? Obviously a girl child had no right to property or money. Baba and Ma blatantly ignored pleas to bear another child for the sole purpose of producing a male.
I was lavished with gifts: Cadbury chocolates greeted me on Sunday mornings when I awoke; on the way to my all-girl Montessori school in Rughanam we often stopped by the Kwality ice cream store; little monkeys playing percussion instruments and white-skinned, yellow-haired dolls lined my stuffed shelves. Baba worked for the Congress Party—he usually left at eight in the morning and did not come home until after nine at night. Ma stayed at home and reveled in the gift of a daughter. Her favorite activity involved dressing me up like a little Indian Lady, mixing henna paste and adorning my chubby hands and feet with elaborate patterns of leaves and curves, stirring white paste and decorating my forehead with numerous dots, attacking me with her gold and diamond jewels—shining nose ring, diamond necklaces, colorful bangles, dangly earrings—and cloaking me in gold-trimmed beaded miniature saris. After concocting the perfect Indian Lady, she posed me on the bed and snapped picture after picture, dress after dress, roll after roll.
One Saturday morning, Baba took a surprising day off from work and ushered us to the Calcutta Zoo. As a naïve five-year-old, I cried when the black and brown Bengal tigers roared and the hungry parrots squawked, but giggled when I patted the goat with a beard like my cousin Deepu and laughed when I held the tiny turquoise parakeet that tickled my sweaty palm. Ma had gone to the toilet room and Baba and I were looking for some foochka vendors when he released me from his caressing arms and I spotted a fleeting squirrel disappearing into the trees. I teetered after it and found myself surrounded by bushes and greenery. Suddenly alone, I screamed and screamed until Ma rushed through the darkness and swept me into her arms; Baba followed and promised never to leave me alone again. Never.
One month, two weeks, and three days later, the zoo incident long forgotten, Ma and Baba dressed themselves in their best clothes. Baba had been offered a new job with a growing firm outside Darjeeling and the executives wanted to treat them to dinner in an expensive five-star hotel. They left me home with three of my cousins, two twisted at the ages of fifteen, and the other a simple four-year-old. In a lovely silk fuschia sari and a matching teep placed between her eyebrows above the bridge of her long straight nose, Ma glittered like the actresses she showed me from the pages of Stardust magazine. A navy blue suit and a maroon tie spotted with white dots completed Baba’s debonair appearance. I lost them that night in a freak car accident where a bungling lorry driver crashed and transformed their dwarfish Maruti jeep into an even tinier automobile. I didn’t understand that I would never see them again. Ma’s parents reluctantly took in the only child—a helpless, pathetic girl—and raised me in the bahrow bahri from that day forward.
• • •
I opened my eyes and found Dadu and Dida staring into my face, concerned, so I did not bother them with my thoughts. Feigning exhaustion, I bid them sweet dreams, headed to my room, and began to disrobe into my dressing gown. I lay on my bed after climbing into the moshari that protected me from bloodthirsty, malaria-stricken mosquitoes who ruled the night. Sweat poured from my skin and the heat overtook my senses even though the creaking fan blew cool air around the tiny room and through the net. In an intoxicated daze, my brain simmering from the warmth, I slipped out of the net and tiptoed from the sweltering cubbyhole.
Candles lit the spiraling staircase I could have traveled blindly. A sharp tiny rock stabbed my foot but I descended without wondering about the gash. I had one destination in mind at this solemn hour. My breaths came fast and hard as I shuffled through the dirt toward the bank of the unused bathing pond that resided within the walls of the sprawling mansion, yet remained open to the starry night. The tiny pebbles massaged my callused feet as I approached the murky wetness. The moonlight captured every ripple in the black liquid. I released the tight braids from my long black hair and shook out the unnatural curls that framed my face. My crisp white nightgown, drenched in dampness from the dull humidity, fell to my ankles, and I waded into the shallow coolness that engulfed me with a welcoming chill. On my back, I floated and stared at the moonlit sky, so vast, so free. I dove under and stayed until my lungs filled beyond their capacity; after finally racing to the surface, I coughed and spattered until the water had drained from my body.
• • •
Before the fatal accident, Ma had declared that I was old enough to hear the legend of why relations had stopped swimming in this pond. Hundreds of years ago, my great-great-grandfather’s aunt, Karia, had taken her last swim here. It was the wedding day of the eldest daughter in the Banerjee House, Aloka, Karia’s sister. At fourteen, Aloka’s large black eyes portrayed the confusion of an innocent girl who didn’t understand why she had to leave the only home she had ever known, to live with a stranger and his family. She had provided no input; the astrologer and her parents arranged all the wedding plans and festivities. The older girl stayed silent throughout the entire ordeal while a twelve-year-old Karia spent every day until the wedding in Aloka’s room. The night before she was to sell her soul to the Chakraborti clan, Aloka quietly packed all her belongings—a worn stuffed elephant, a torn ratty picture of the Goddess Lakshmi, and her cherished red hair ribbons—and stole from the disapproving mansion without a trace and only a few rupees.
The Chakrabortis were furious—no shame like this had ever come to their proud established family. As Brahmins, they were members of the highest caste in India, and had been willing to marry into a lower caste because of the dazzling and much-talked-about beauty of Aloka Banerjee. The Banerjees were horrified by their predicament—they would be considered outcasts in Amalya if the Brahmins placed a curse on their family—and offered the thoughtful Karia in place of the missing bride. At this point, Rahol, the rejected groom, wished for nothing more than a luscious body in his wedding bed that night. With the consent of both families and the marriage astrologer, this new match seemed perfect. No one bothered to ask little Karia what she wanted.
In their twelve years together, Karia developed Aloka’s passion for books and they had spent many days under the hot summer sun reading stories from the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Her beloved sister had left and now Karia was to marry the man Aloka had cast aside. Karia felt trapped; she had wanted nothing more than to one day go to the sch
ool down the street and learn more about everything outside these walls. Her mind was filled with heartache for the loss of her sister, and she could not turn to her parents or her brother—they only thought of their good name in the community. She decided to pray to Gayatri Mata—a goddess who enflames the intellectual spirit—and found her body no longer communicated with her soul. In a dazed trance, her feet shuffled briskly toward the murky bathing pond in the center of the rambling palace. Oblivious to the chill of the water, her lithe prepubescent frame vanished into the dark abyss without a struggle. Gayatri Mata welcomed Karia into her magical kingdom with four open arms.
• • •
I glanced up and discerned a gray shadow standing very still behind the bars of the balcony. Who could be up at such a late hour? Was it the ghost of Karia? Only pagol lunatics and their wives stayed up past midnight, Dadu had told me. The face leaned over—in the darkness I saw the stark profile of a male. I started to ascend from the water, but hastened under the mask of black liquid when I felt the cold air on my naked shoulders. The figure seemed to awake from a dream and vanished just as quickly as he had arrived. I climbed out of the now-freezing water and lifted my nightgown over my head. Fatigue had finally consumed my body as I trudged up the stairs and into my room. I crawled through the mosquito net and collapsed into a comatose sleep.
The next morning, I awoke to find Dida, Dadu, and my Uncle Mithun—the reputable village physician—hovering around the foot of my bed. They had pulled down the protecting net and my uncle was staring intently at a thermometer that I guessed had been resting in my mouth a few moments ago. I peered out the mold-covered window and bright rays of sunlight streaked in—it must have been early afternoon. Arun strode through the door and placed a mug of purified water on my nightstand. His left hand carried a fan; he pulled up a pastel pink chair and began to disturb the heavy air. My grandparents had been concerned about my health since the night before when my thoughts had drifted during the meal and I had gone to bed so early. They grew even more worried when I had failed to wake up. After checking on me and concluding I had a terrible fever, they had called Uncle. The mustached man deduced that I was simply overexcited, an emotional sign of the upcoming wedding, and prescribed a day of bedrest and plenty of jawl—the water would drain my fever away.