Sister of My Heart (24 page)

But when Sunil’s father is around, Sunil’s mother turns into a different woman. She bends her head and speaks in a watery whisper, or hunches her shoulders apologetically as she rushes to fetch what he’s shouting for. He shouts a lot, Sunil’s father. I think he enjoys it. Just as he enjoys quoting derogatory passages about women from the Hindu scriptures. I’m still too new in the family to be a target of his outbursts, but I’ve seen him eyeing me once or twice as he says things like, “Women and gold are the root of all evil.”

I’m sitting at my dressing table, wearing a starched-stiff Bengal sari with lots of gold-work, trying to arrange the end in a veil over my head. The veil keeps slipping off, so I have to pin it on with
bobby pins. Once I went down to dinner in a flowery kurta that Sunil had bought me, but his mother rushed up and begged me to go and change before his father saw me. She looked so scared that I didn’t have the heart to argue.
Tyrant
, I think, as I clasp a fat jeweled chain around my neck. But as Sunil says, what the heck. I only have to put up with him for a year at most, until my visa gets here, and for Sunil’s sake I will. I smile at my reflection, imagining how Sunil will remove my clothes later tonight, his lingering hands transforming me not into the old, familiar Anju but a wild and magical woman.

That’s what marriage is, transformation into wondrous and terrifying selves we could never have dreamed.

In the dining room, Sunil’s father is already seated at the head of the mahogany table. I help Sunil’s mother carry in the dishes. We serve Sunil’s father first, then Sunil, who sits at the other end. Then we eat—except that she’s always jumping up to see if she can give the men a second helping of something or other.

Sunil’s mother is a fervent cook. Like so many women, cooking is how she expresses love. Her task would be a little easier if Sunil’s father weren’t so finicky. Still, she manages to create dinners that are works of art. Tonight she’s made a musoor dal with green mangoes, which Sunil’s father says is excellent for cooling the temper—not that it’s helped him any. There’s aged basmati rice (easy to digest), mashed potatoes with steamed bitter gourd (to cleanse the blood), and a curry of ladyfingers with sautéed ginger (to stimulate the digestive organs). I’ve also brought in a raita of yogurt and cucumbers (a rejuvenator) and a big plate of tangra fish, cooked crisp so they can be eaten whole (more calcium that way, says Sunil’s father). While I’m arranging all this on Sunil’s father’s plate, my mother-in-law hurries in with a small covered bowl, which she places next to Sunil. Then, looking absurdly guilty, she busies herself with serving Sunil.

None of this, of course, has escaped my father-in-law’s vulture eye.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“Nothing,” my mother-in-law stammers. “Just a little dish I made for Sunil, nothing you care for, that’s why I was putting it on this side—”

“Bring it here, Anjali,” says Sunil’s father. I consider disobeying him—but then he’ll just make my mother-in-law do it. I glance at Sunil for direction. He’s staring straight ahead, his jaw stiff, so I do as I’m told. Sunil’s father lifts the lid. We peer down together at the dark brown paste inside—it’s a tamarind chutney, rich and smooth, glistening with little flecks of chilies. It must have taken Sunil’s mother a long time to prepare.

In one swift motion Sunil’s father flings the bowl across the table at Sunil’s mother. There’s a fleshy thud, then a metal clatter as the bowl falls to the floor.

I stare in dizzy disbelief at the sauce spilled across the table, the dark stains spreading over Sunil’s mother’s sari. Nothing in my life has prepared me for this. What upsets me the most is the meekness with which she lowers her eyes and doesn’t even wipe her spattered arms.

“Haven’t I told you never to make that unhealthy stuff?” thunders Sunil’s father. “Haven’t I told you I can’t stand the smell? Who pays for the food you eat in this house? Answer me.”

Sunil’s mother’s lower lip quivers. How humiliating it must be for her to be treated this way in front of her new daughter-in-law. I want to take her away, to wipe her wet cheeks and soiled arms and shake some anger into her so she’ll never allow that man to do this to her again. But when I start toward her, the harsh ricochet of Sunil’s father’s voice stops me.

“Sit down, Anjali. Where d’you think you’re going?”

I’m about to tell him where, when Sunil pushes back his chair and stands up. The slam of his fist into the table is louder than his father’s voice. “Enough! I’m sick of you bullying my mother. Sick of you always insisting that we do what you want. As it happens, I was the one who asked her to make the tamarind chutney—”

Sunil’s father’s jaw falls open. He’s not used to rebellions.
Then he too stands up. The two men face each other across the table, their faces identical in twisted rage.

“So this is what you’ve learned in America, how to defy your father? Who was it that sent you there, I’d like to know? Who bought your ticket? Who paid all your expenses so that you could—”

My handsome, laughing husband whom I love so much stares at his father with pure hatred in his eyes. His face is murderous—if he’d been a stranger I met on a street somewhere, I’d have fled from him.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be happy to pay back every paisa and more,” he says. “I don’t want to live indebted to you, being reminded of it every day of my life. Like my poor mother. And let me tell you something, if I see you mistreating her one more time—”

“Quite the hero, aren’t you?” spits out Sunil’s father. “Want to impress your new wife, hunh? I wonder how impressed she’d be if she knew about your American exploits, all that drinking and whoring—yes, yes, don’t think the stories didn’t get back to me—”

But here my mother-in-law, who’s been frozen with shock until now, pulls me into the kitchen and shuts the door, so that all I can hear are muffled roars that remind me of bulls fighting.

Late that night I lie in bed alone, my stomach hurting with hunger and distress. I can’t stand the idea of having to face Sunil’s father ever again. How can I stay in this house with him and Sunil’s mother, that poor, broken woman, as everyone expects me to, for a whole year after Sunil leaves? How can I reconcile the tender, caring Sunil I know with the enraged stranger downstairs, ready to smash in his father’s face?

But most of all Sunil’s father’s crude accusations tear me open with their malevolent claws.
Drinking and whoring
. I wish Sunil’s
mother hadn’t pulled me away before I could hear Sunil’s response. I wish that doubt didn’t shift its ugly coils inside me like a snake coming awake. I wish I had someone who’d know just what to make of this crazy evening with her cool, calm vision. I wish I had Sudha.

And with that realization I’m crying, my stinging salt tears soaking my bridal pillow. I haven’t allowed myself to think of Sudha for a whole month, since the moment I turned on her so unforgivably after our wedding. Haven’t called her, haven’t even asked the mothers how she’s doing. Every time the topic came up during my brief visit home, I changed it deftly. Deep in the core of my jealous heart, I knew she wasn’t to blame for that spellbound look on Sunil’s face—ah, but I can’t bear to think of it. That’s why I’ve kept myself drugged with the romance of his words, the passion of his touch.

This is how love makes cowards of us.

The door swings open. Sunil flicks on the light. I blink in its sudden glare and wipe my eyes quickly, not wanting him to see I’ve been crying. But of course he notices.

“Angel,” he says, putting down the packet he’s carrying to take me in his arms. “I’m sorry about tonight.” He holds me tightly. His hands stroke my hair. I burrow my face into his chest and smell the American cologne mingled with sweat, the best smell of all. We hold each other, comforting and being comforted. I press my lips into his palm, murmuring words that one might say to an injured child. The house of marriage has many locked rooms. Tonight we’ve opened one and entered in.

He’s kissing my eyelids now, his breath hot on my face. I open my mouth to him, shrug off my clothes and pull at his. My bones are remolding themselves to fit against his, our skins have melted together, seamless, to form a map of desire. We move in urgent harmony, cry out in unison, lie damp and triumphant in each other’s arms. How vulnerable he is after lovemaking as he nuzzles, infant-like, at my shoulder. How could I have ever been fool enough to doubt him?

Later, we sit cross-legged on the bed, eating. Sunil has brought me luchis and alu dum—all the way from the railway station because the neighborhood stores were closed by the time he and his father finished with each other. I take big starving bites of the crisp, fried bread and the spicy potatoes. I tell him it’s the best-tasting meal I’ve ever had. He catches my hand and licks my fingers one by one, and I shiver.

“You taste better,” he laughs, pulling me down to him.

I’m not unwilling, but first there’s something I must ask. “Please don’t take it wrong,” I start hesitantly, “but when you leave, can I go back to my mother’s house?”

For a long moment Sunil stares into space, his lips thin. Have I angered him? When he looks at me, though, there’s only sadness in his eyes. “Maybe that would be best,” he says. “I’d hoped—but—will you come and see my mother once in a while? She’s taken a liking to you, and as you’ve seen, there aren’t too many pleasures in her life.”

“Of course,” I say, relieved. I’m touched too by his concern for his mother. We decide I’ll visit her in the afternoons when his father is at work.

“Now that we’ve taken care of business,” Sunil says with a mischievous grin, “it’s time for pleasure!”

What quicksilver moods he has! But I’m equal to them.

“Pleasure!” I grin back as he nudges me onto the pillow and begins to kiss me, little kisses along my collarbone, then lower, until I gasp in shocked delight. Ecstasy has taken over my body. I’m cotton candy in his mouth, melting. I’m sweet wine, intoxicating us both. I’m the luckiest woman in the world.

IN MY HUSBAND’S
house, I am always the first to wake.

No one forces me to do this. Ramesh, who is not the sort of person to force anyone to anything, would rather have me stay warm under our platonic quilt until the alarm clock rings. And as long as I join my mother-in-law for morning tea so that we can go over the day’s plans, she’s satisfied.

But this early hour when I sit at our bedroom window, shivering a little in the cool air as I watch the sun rise over the pond, the mists shimmering off the bamboo grove—it is precious beyond words. It is the one time I have to ponder my life. To feel the shape of this new woman I am becoming. Who is this Basudha who applies to the parting in her hair, after bath each day, an unwavering line of sindur to ensure her husband’s prosperity? She puzzles me as she looks out from the mirror with her grave, grown-up gaze. A ring of keys weighs down the end of her sari, but she bears the weight well.

There’s a story behind the keys. A few days after the wedding my mother-in-law called me to her room. I went a little fearfully, for though she had been kind enough to me so far, already I realized she was a strong-willed woman and used to having her own way. I had seen her reduce servant maids to tears with a single glance. But all she did was take the ring of keys off her sari and place them in my hand. “Natun Bau,” she said—that is what they all call me in this house, New Wife—”this is your home now. You must learn to take charge of it.” The cool brass of the
keys in my hand was an astonishment, as was the look in her eyes—a mingling of reluctance and resolve. Giving up responsibility was something new for her, and difficult. But she was determined to do it. She must have steered her family through the rocky times that followed her husband’s death with the same determination.