The Girl in the Garden (28 page)

I would go into Amma’s room, dark and hot with dandelions of dust floating in the air. “Prem’s here,” I would say, trying my best not to breathe in the stuffiness.

Amma would sit up and regard me blearily as if I were a stranger for a few seconds before a light of recognition set her eyes aflame.

“Tell him to wait for me in the sitting room,” she would instruct before springing out of bed and vanishing into the bathroom. After emerging more than half an hour later, fully dressed, her long hair swishing behind her back like a horse’s tail, she would hurry to the sitting room, leaving behind a sharp scent and a trail of wet footprints.

One afternoon as Krishna and I sat fanning ourselves with comic books on the verandah swing, the sound of someone walking up the steps that led up to the lawn and opening the creaky front gate punctured the restless sobs of a baby goat alone in its pen. Slow, rhythmic footsteps, not fast and eager, so I knew it wasn’t Prem, who took the stairs two at a time, just like Aba, which I hated to acknowledge.

I got to my feet when I saw Veena Aunty walking across the lawn toward us. Veena Aunty hadn’t been around much since Muthashi’s funeral, so I still hadn’t had a chance to talk to her. I had a feeling Amma didn’t want me to see her. A few times I asked for permission to go over to their house for a visit and she said, “Why do you want to go and bother Veena Aunty? She hasn’t seen her family in a long time.”

“How are you, dear?” she said in a distracted tone, and then without waiting for an answer, “Where is your mother?”

“I’ll get her,” I told Veena Aunty, and started to go toward Amma’s bedroom. But she put a hand on my shoulder.

“No, let me,” she said.

She slipped into Amma’s room and closed the door. Of course I followed and pressed my ear against the warm wood, but they were talking so quietly that I didn’t hear much. Only at one point did I catch anything as Amma gave out a frantic yell:

“Don’t you call him, don’t you dare call him!”

“He needs to know, Chitra, he’s your husband. Let us help you.”

“No!” cried Amma, and then everything was silent again.

I tried to catch Veena Aunty on her way out, but she was even more distracted.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, dear,” she said in a hurry, as she passed me by, but then she paused, came back, and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay, dear, I promise.”

One day Dev, Vijay Uncle, and Sadhana Aunty filed into the sitting room, shutting the door and locking it behind them. It was daylight when they went in, and the door didn’t open again until sunset, when Sadhana Aunty emerged with sweat on her cheeks and called for Janaki to bring them a jug of water. Taking the proffered jug, she went back in and closed the door.

Amma appeared after a while wearing a dingy white housedress, her hair loose and tangled, and, after grilling us about who was in there, began to pace back and forth outside the locked door.

“Why are they in there for so long?” she asked nobody in particular. Once or twice she tried to rattle the doorknob, but it didn’t budge, so she gave up and went back to pacing.

At nightfall I heard a loud crackle and the lights went out.

“The current,” said Krishna.

Janaki hurried around the dining room lighting candles, and everyone, even Meenu and Gitanjali, gathered around the table.

After the candles were lit, Janaki went and stood behind Amma and said: “The children must be fed.”

Amma squinted at her, as if she didn’t quite understand.

“The children,” said Janaki in a louder voice. “They need their dinner.”

“Oh yes, of course,” said Amma, her eyes widening. “Go ahead and feed them.”

“But madam.” Janaki looked down at her scuffed feet, then shifted her weight from one to the other, her anklets jingling. “I don’t know what to give them. Sadhana Chechi usually gives me instructions.”

Amma pressed her palm to her forehead and closed her eyes. “I don’t know, Janaki, give them whatever is in the kitchen, give them anything!”

Eventually we fed on the afternoon’s rice coated in a dal so bland and soupy I suspected Janaki had watered it down to make sure there was enough to go around.

“What in the world could they be doing in there?” complained Nalini Aunty, as she shoveled the tepid mixture into her mouth. “I understand that Dev and my husband have business to discuss, but why must Sadhana Chechi involve herself? It’s simply not ladylike the way she interferes with the hospital business.”

“Maybe they’ll sell the stupid hospital,” said Gitanjali.

“
Chee
, don’t talk that way, you silly girl. The hospital belongs with the Varmas. Think of the prestige it has brought this family. But I do wish I could convince that husband of mine to be better about collecting payment from patients. He is so lenient. At least Dev has some business sense.
He
doesn’t treat people for free.” Nalini Aunty’s mouth curved downward. “Though we still never seem to have enough money. ‘The Varmas are a prosperous family,’ everyone told me when I was a young girl, but look at me now.” She fingered the thin brown material of her sari and sniffed.

A muffled shout boomed through the door.

Nalini Aunty clicked her tongue in annoyance, but I saw fear in her eyes. Amma didn’t say anything but she bit her lip so hard that a faint thread of blood trickled down from the edge of one tooth. Krishna and I exchanged looks.

A line of crudely crafted candles rose up from the center of the table like white fingers, and flames bloomed from their misshapen tips. Nobody spoke or moved. We sat glued to our chairs, waiting. There wasn’t anywhere else to go.

Finally Nalini Aunty spoke in a voice that sounded different—softer, shakier.

“Chitra Chechi, won’t you sing a song for us? I have heard stories about your voice. They say you sing like an angel.”

I turned to Nalini Aunty in surprise, and for a second I thought I caught a glimpse of the girl in the photograph, the one with the hopeful smile, the one who had long been erased.

“A song?” Amma stared uncomprehendingly.

“Yes, please, sing us a song. Won’t you?” Her eyes were wide and pleading.

Amma looked at Nalini Aunty and her face changed, as if, like Ashoka, the current had shut off inside her head for a while and then had been suddenly switched back on. “Of course,” she said, smiling. “Yes, of course.”

She took a deep breath, smoothed her hair, then folded her hands, like two pretty flowers, neatly upon her lap. As she began to sing, her sweet, clear tones wound a golden thread around the room, binding together its occupants, dissolving the thick tension, and replacing it with calm. She really did sing like an angel, my mother, and I
closed my eyes, pretending it was like old times and she was singing only to me. Janaki emerged from the kitchen and crouched beside the table, her head cocked to one side. We all listened, entranced, until at last the door to the sitting room opened and the thread snapped. Amma stopped singing, Nalini Aunty stood up, and we all looked at Sadhana Aunty, who leaned in the doorway.

“Well, you are all still up,” she said in a ragged voice. “Gitanjali, I must speak with you privately. Come with me, please.”

Gitanjali, looking both concerned and grave, stood up and, cupping a candle in her palms, followed her mother into her room.

Vijay Uncle and Dev emerged next, Dev with a spark of triumph in his eyes and that familiar bottle of whiskey squeezed in his fist. Vijay Uncle staggered as he approached the table, the rims of his eyes raw and red.

“What is it?” said Nalini Aunty.

“Janaki, f-f-f-fetch lime juice for the l-l-l-ladies, and two empty glasses for Vijay and m-m-m-myself.” Dev waved his hand.

Janaki jumped up and ran into the kitchen.

“Dev, I don’t know if this is a good idea. It is late. Perhaps it would be best if you… came back tomorrow,” Vijay Uncle mumbled, and stroked his beard.

“Nonsense, Vijay.” Dev slapped his back. “We must c-cc-c-celebrate this joyous oc-oc-occasion first.”

Janaki bustled back into the dining room with the drinks. I drew the cup to my lips and sipped, wincing at the sourness; Janaki had forgotten the sugar.

An anguished shriek came from the direction of Gitanjali’s room.

Dev, who was pouring whiskey into two glasses, glanced
up and for a second the triumph in his eyes was blurred by a look of profound sadness.

“Vijay, what has happened? What is going on?” Amma stood up and gripped the edge of the table. The blood had dried and crusted into a red petal just below her bottom lip.

At the sound of Amma’s voice, the sadness vanished, and Dev’s mouth twisted into a smirk.

“C-c-c-congratulate me, Chitra,” he said. “I have found the b-b-b-b-bride I was always meant to h-h-h-have. A young, beautiful g-g-g-g-girl, pure of heart, pure of b-b-b-b-body.”

“What?” Amma turned to Vijay Uncle. “What is he talking about?”

Vijay Uncle lifted the glass, tipped his head back, and drained it.

“It is true,” he said finally, his voice strained, as if he were being choked. “Dev has asked for Gitanjali’s hand in marriage, and we have given him our blessing.”

I dug my fingernails into my palms and pressed hard, the searing pain letting me know that this was not one of my nightmares.

Meenu’s and Krishna’s faces were blank.

Amma’s lips went white.

“I am to be married to the f-f-f-f-f-fair Gitanjali.” Dev took a sip of his drink, set it down on the table, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It is getting l-l-late, so we shall continue the celebration in the coming days. I wish to make her my b-b-b-b-b-bride as soon as possible. I do not believe in long en-en-en-en-engagements.”

Vijay Uncle, without looking any of us in the eye, followed Dev, saying, “I will fetch the torch and accompany you home, Dev. Perhaps I’ll nip by the toddy shop on the way back.”

Nalini Aunty’s chin wobbled as she watched Vijay Uncle, shoulders slumped, leave the room. She, too, got up and hurried out.

For a long time I had known something was “not quite right” about Ashoka, as Krishna had once told me, but the idea of Gitanjali marrying Dev was worse than anything I could have ever imagined.

The room had sunk into silence. Only at one point was it broken, when the door to Gitanjali’s room swung open and Sadhana Aunty called out something unintelligible. Janaki went into the kitchen and came out with a small brown bottle and a spoon, which she brought to Sadhana Aunty.

“What is that?” I asked Meenu, who was sitting beside me, but she did not answer.

At last Sadhana Aunty came out of Gitanjali’s room and dropped into a chair at the table.

“She is asleep.”

For the first time that summer, Sadhana Aunty looked weak and insignificant, dwarfed by the frayed wooden chair into which she sank. She encircled her dry fingers around one of the untouched glasses of lime juice and drank it down in slow, measured gulps.

When she had finished drinking, she cleared her throat, but before she could speak, Amma said: “You can’t do this. You
cannot
.”

“Chitra, please do not interfere. Haven’t you already done more than enough?” Sadhana Aunty said in a sharp, cold voice. Amma flinched, then rose and left the room without a word.

“I am well aware of what I am doing.” Sadhana Aunty addressed us now. As she spoke, her shoulders rounded and her spine straightened. “This is for my father and for
our family. Gitanjali understands, or at least she will come to understand why this union is necessary. What you girls must realize is that family is everything and sometimes we must shoulder burdens and make sacrifices for the sake of our family.”

“But why does Gitanjali Chechi have to marry Dev?” said Krishna.

“Dev Uncle,” said Sadhana Aunty. “Soon to be Dev Chettan, your brother. You are all too young, it is too complicated, and it is not a story for children’s ears.”

Meenu glowered at her mother. “You ask us to understand but you won’t explain anything to us.”

“It is not my duty to explain, it is my duty to protect you and to protect this family. I have never wavered from that purpose. Gitanjali is young yet, but I am not blind. She has never cared much for her studies, and do not think I know nothing of that foolish boy from her class. Do you know that his father is a driver? A driver! If that is the future she dreams of for herself then I am saving her from a bitter fate. You may not like Dev, but he can take care of your sister in a way that I am no longer able, and he can ensure that the hospital remains in the Varma family. That hospital is our future, your future, it is your inheritance. Without it, you are just like everybody else.” Sadhana Aunty paused and sighed. “Gitanjali will still be nearby, you will still get to see her often, and—I admit this is not an ideal situation, I never meant for any of this to happen. It was a last resort, but now it is unavoidable. So Gitanjali must make a sacrifice for this family. She must be strong and bear it and so must all of you.” I had never heard my aunt speak so freely before with that defensive edge to her voice. She pushed her chair back, stood up, and began clearing off the table.