Sister of My Heart (12 page)

I look at her face, gone all intense and shiny, and don’t know what to say. I’d no idea she felt like this. She’s never spoken of it—and with good reason. I can just hear Aunt N shrilling, “A
Tailor! You want to be a Common Tailor and rub kali on your ancestors’ faces!”

Just the thought of it makes me mad. Why
shouldn’t
Sudha do what makes her happy? Why shouldn’t she at least dream about it? So I complete her dream for her. “And one day you’ll be selling to the movies. Stars like Rakhee and Amitabh will refuse to dress in anything but your designs!”

Sudha’s eyes gleam like the mirrors she wants to stitch into her clothes. “Don’t forget the diplomats. They’ll be wearing my kurtas and Nehru coats and embroidered saris to England and Africa and Japan.”

“And America, don’t forget America!”

“And America, of course!” Both of us are laughing wildly now, our current problems forgotten as we swing suspended in that delicious space between belief and disbelief.

If there is a mocking, answering laugh from the honeysuckle-weighted cornices, the Bidhata Purush’s attendants eavesdropping, or maybe the demons, we don’t hear it.

AND SO
the year passes. Sometimes the days are glassy and unmoving, as though I am suspended in a coma, waiting for my real life to resume. Sometimes they jerk ahead, halting and sputtering, reminding me that my brief freedom is about to end. Soon my world will be enclosed by these walls, these pipal trees. While Anju—how far she’ll go, leaving me behind. How dull I’ll seem to her when she returns from each day outside, bright as a sunflower that’s been drinking light. When the time comes for me to break out of my prison, will I have the strength? Or will I be like a too-tame house bird who prefers her cage to the vast frightening blue of the sky?

When I think this, I’m filled with heaviness. Did I give in too hastily? The lavish kindness my mother has started showering on me since I bowed to her decree is no comfort. They stifle me, all those evenings she spends teaching me to tie my hair in the newest styles, shaping my eyebrows into perfect arches, taking me to afternoon tea at the homes of her friends so I’ll know how to conduct myself in company. She has me listen in on their conversations, because she says that will teach me the ways of the world. But I am sickened by their always-same stories about the infidelities of husbands and the tricks wives must employ to hold on to them. Thank God Ashok is not like that, I think as I affix an engrossed expression on my face.

Although I haven’t spoken to Ashok since our meeting at the movie house, I have seen him. The first time was on our way back
from school. Singhji was driving while Ramur Ma sat next to him, ramrod straight with renewed importance. In the backseat we talked desultorily—we knew whatever we said would make its way to my mother. It was one of those heat-warped days when everything wavers in the airlessness—pavements, buses, even the face of the traffic policeman who raised his hand, bringing our car to a halt just before we turned into our street. So that when Ashok appeared not far from our car window, dressed in the same white shirt I’d last seen him in, I thought he was only a figment of my wishing. Still, I froze mid-sentence, and Anju, when she turned to see what I was staring at, froze as well. But she’s quick, my cousin, and in a moment she was talking faster, telling a made-up story about a scandal at school, a girl caught cheating during an exam, and how the nuns sent for her parents and told them they must take her away for good the very same day. Ramur Ma was listening avidly, her mouth fallen open, so I was able to turn to the window and give Ashok a smile. He smiled back. I noticed that one of his front teeth was slightly crooked, and at that an illogical rush of love filled me. Now he was taking an envelope from his pocket. A letter! I wanted it more than I had wanted anything in my life. But I closed my eyes to signal no. I think he understood how I felt, for as the traffic policeman blew his whistle and our car moved forward, he touched the letter to his heart. I put my own hand on my heart, and felt it hammer under my palm in exhilaration and frustration and fear, and then—shocked at my own forwardness—I raised my fingers to my lips. The car speeded up—had Singhji noticed? In the rearview mirror Ashok’s shirt gleamed like a small white flame until it disappeared. There was an aching behind my eyes, tears I must not shed. I slipped my hand into Anju’s, and though she must have been annoyed at the risk I had just taken, she held it all the way home.

I saw Ashok a few times after that, each time at a different spot along our route to school. He would be drinking coconut water from a streetside vendor, or getting his chappal repaired at a muchi’s stand, or standing in line for a bus, his bookbag slung over his shoulder. But I knew he was really waiting for me. There was never any opportunity for talk. Our eyes would meet for an instant, a kind of electricity would shiver up my spine, then Singhji would honk his horn at a rickshaw-puller or weave past a fruit seller who was crossing the road at the wrong place, and we would be gone.

So little. And yet, for my starved heart, so much.

Anju and I never spoke of these moments. She too must have seen Ashok. Even if she didn’t, she would have known by my distracted air, the way she had to repeat a question—sometimes two or three times—before I answered. Perhaps she didn’t want to give these flash encounters further solidity by acknowledging them. Perhaps she believed that if she ignored them they would dissipate into the fume-filled Calcutta air until eventually I remembered them only as one remembers a beautiful dream, with wonder and resignation and a mild, painless regret for what could never be.

FINALLY IT’S HERE
, in a flurry of mango leaves and hot April dust. The day of our graduation. I run up to the terrace as soon as I wake. The sky’s a brilliant cloudless blue, emptied by some magic of Calcutta smog. I throw out my arms and whirl around, singing “Freedom, freedom, freedom!” Generally, I wouldn’t behave in this childish way, but today I can’t help it. It finally seems real that in less than three months—as soon as summer vacation is over—I’ll start in the English honors program at Lady Brabourne College. One of our older cousins who studied there has told me we’ll begin by studying the ancient epic
Beowulf
. I’ve already borrowed it from the library and read it. Sometimes I whisper the names to myself—Grendel, Hrothgar, the brave and beautiful queen Wealtheow in the mead hall, and the little hairs on my arm stand up for joy.

When I stop, breathless and sweaty, I hear someone clapping. It’s a desolate, out-of-rhythm sound. I spin around and see Sudha, sitting in the shadow of the water tank—she must’ve come up here even earlier. There’s a funny look on her face. But of course. For her today’s the exact opposite of what it is to me. Each hour that passes will be another nail pounding shut the door of her prison.

As the hot terrace bricks burn into my soles, I make myself a promise. From now on, I’ll be Sudha’s eyes and ears. I’ll teach her everything I learn. The world Aunt N’s depriving her of—I’ll bring it to her.

But I don’t have a chance to tell her any of this because Pishi calls us down for our baths. There’s going to be a special puja done for us to please the nine planets so they’ll bless us with success and pleasant surprises.

Ramur Ma isn’t in the car with us today as we drive to school because the mothers need her help with the dinner they’re giving to celebrate our graduation. Just a few close family friends—but as with everything in our house, it’s got to be done right. Such elaborate preparations usually make me impatient, but this time I must confess I’m excited. The gilt-edged invitations were sent weeks ago, and the gilt-edged responses have been carefully counted. The formal hall has been dusted and aired and new candles put into the chandelier. Aunt N’s had the heavy silver dishes from great-grandfather’s time polished. Pishi’s arranged bouquets of kena flowers in huge brass vases by the front entrance. An hour before guests arrive, Ramur Ma will sprinkle sandalwood powder on a lighted brazier and walk through the house so every room is filled with fragrance. My mother has to handle the hardest task of all: buying a gift for each guest, something small (that’s all our family budget allows) yet elegant—for that’s how the Chatterjees always thank visitors for their good wishes.

Not having Ramur Ma’s watchdog presence in the car makes me giddily festive. “Let’s make a list of all the great things about leaving school,” I say to Sudha.

“Okay. You start.”

“We won’t have to put up with Sister Baptista anymore, the way she says, ‘Ladies, La
dies
, this is
most
inappropriate,’ whenever we express an opinion that’s different from hers. Your turn now.”

But Sudha’s staring ahead, her hands gripping the back of Singhji’s seat.

There he is, in another of his infernal white shirts, standing by a bookstall, his eyes searching the road.

Why does this have to happen today of all days?

Before I can prevent her, Sudha leans forward and says, “Singhji, please, stop at the curb.”

I’m not sure what Singhji will do, whether he’ll listen to the pleading in her voice or turn the car and take us straight back to the mothers. This isn’t the same as when she used to give away her lunch sweets to street children. He could lose his job for this.

Singhji doesn’t say yes or no. I try to figure out what he’s thinking, but that bearded, scarred face is like a shuttered house. After a moment I look away. There’s a certain dignity about him which makes me feel it’s vulgar to stare.

We’ve almost passed Ashok—Sudha bites her lip, but she too has her dignity and won’t ask again—when Singhji pulls over to the curb with a quick turn of the wheel. “Be quick, Missybaba,” he says. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes meet ours in the mirror for a breath-space. How is it that in all these years I didn’t notice how kind they are?

Sudha’s already at the open window, her hands extended, and Ashok hurries over to take them. I’m amazed at how swiftly this happens, how neither of them hesitates the least bit. It’s as if they’ve known each other for years. They remind me of the stories Pishi told us about the great lovers of the myths, Shakuntala and Dushmanta, Nala and Damayanti, Radha and Krishna, how they’d appear to each other in dreams and share their deepest secrets. It’s impossible, of course. And yet when I look at Ashok’s face and Sudha’s, they seem changed. Ashok’s face is older and thinner, as though something boyish has been burned away from it by his longing. And Sudha—I almost don’t recognize my cousin in this radiant woman. She’s so calm, it’s as if she’s been ready for this meeting a long time. It’s as if she knew it would happen.