Sister of My Heart (16 page)

Pishi examines the photo of the bridegroom, the long lean body, the dark skin, the plain face, the slightly receding chin. “He’s not too ugly for our Sudha, is he?” she asks.

“Nonsense,” says my mother. “I’ve seen far worse.”

“His eyes are kind and intelligent,” Gouri Ma says. “He’ll know how to appreciate Sudha. That’s the most important thing. Why, they’ll all love her sweetness and sense of duty.”

If only she knew how bitter I feel, how undutiful. My chest is on fire, as though I have swallowed a nestful of red ants. I think I am going mad.

Ashok, where are you? Have you forgotten me?

Because I don’t know what else to do, I go looking for Singhji. He helped me once. Perhaps he would do it again.

After lunch when the household sleeps, I throw aside the eau de cologne–soaked cloths and rise from my bed. I tiptoe past the soft snoring sounds, and the drone of ceiling fans. In the downstairs hallway, I freeze for an instant when I hear a cough. Then I am outside, running along the gravel driveway to the small gatehouse, where our gatekeeper—when we had one—used to stay. On the afternoons when Singhji is not needed, more and more nowadays since Gouri Ma rarely goes to the bookstore, he rests there. Gouri Ma had offered to let him have the room permanently, but Singhji declined in his polite, taciturn way. Perhaps he liked the distance, the ability to shrug us and our troubles from his mind when he went home at night.

I knock on the door. My heart beats heavily, out of rhythm. It
is most improper for the daughter of the house to knock on the chauffeur’s door, even if he is old enough to be her father.

Singhji’s shocked face mirrors my thoughts when he opens the door. “Sudha Missybaba, you shouldn’t be here, especially now that your marriage is being fixed,” he says as he tries to tuck in the ends of his turban with fingers that shake a little. I notice the furrows cutting into his mottled, fire-slicked forehead, the way he holds on to the door, for a moment, as though dizzy. “Someone might say something bad.”

What had I thought he could do for me, this poor aging man whose brief rest I have disturbed?

The afternoon smells of honey from the trumpet flowers that have spilled over the wall of the gatehouse. It is unfair that there should be so much beauty in this world when my heart is breaking. I can no longer control the tears I have been holding back so long.

A look of distress passes over Singhji’s usually expressionless face, and he puts out his hand as though he would like to touch my arm. “Don’t cry, beti,” he says finally. “Crying does no good. I learned that when I lost my family.” He looks past me into the air, and I wonder if he is remembering the child he once had. Perhaps that is why he called me
beti
.

“No, crying does no good,” says Singhji again. “We must make a plan.”

TODAY THE SANYALS
are coming to see Sudha.

I was afraid because I didn’t know how she’d take it. She’s been acting strange ever since their proposal came in. Sometimes she’ll lie with her face buried in her pillow, so still that she could be dead. Sometimes she’ll stare blindly at the pipal trees for a whole hour. She still won’t let me talk to Mother about Ashok. On the rare nights when I can get her to sleep in my room, I’ll wake to find her pacing back and forth, twisting the edge of her sari into a rope. When I tell her she’ll drive herself crazy if she keeps doing this, she’ll push me away impatiently. “I wish I were that lucky!” she’ll say in a bitter, not-herself voice.

Sudha’s prospective mother-in-law didn’t give us much notice. She called the night before and said they were coming to Calcutta on some business and would like to stop by in the afternoon for a few minutes. We were not to worry about a meal or any such formalities. They just wanted to see the girl.

But of course Aunt N wouldn’t have any of that. “It’s a test!” she insisted. “I’ve heard of things like that! And later they’ll complain that we didn’t show them respect. It’ll give them an excuse to mistreat my poor Sudha—or maybe break off the wedding.” I wanted to say in that case maybe we shouldn’t be thinking of getting Sudha married there, but since Mother’s illness I’ve been trying not to cause trouble.

Aunt wouldn’t rest until she made Mother call them back, and after a lot of back and forth it was decided they should stay for
tea. The rest of the evening the household was in turmoil. Aunt set the servants to cleaning everything, just in case Mrs. Sanyal decided to take a little walk around the house. Once she and Pishi finally reached agreement on the tea snacks they should serve, she dispatched Singhji to the evening bazaar to get the freshest ingredients.

Then there was the matter of what Sudha would wear. Aunt wanted something extra fancy, with lots of zari work, while my mother felt that simplicity was best. They had Ramur Ma bring down whole armloads of saris, which Aunt draped around Sudha one after the other. I was afraid Sudha would explode after the eighth or ninth time—I would have. But she sat there silently, with a sleepy-looking smile on her face. “See,” whispered Aunt to Pishi, “she’s already dreaming of her husband-to-be.” But I knew my cousin better, and that smile worried me. What worried me even more was that when I questioned her about it when we were alone, Sudha wouldn’t answer. She only gave me a hug and said, “Not yet, Anju dear. Talking about it might bring bad luck. I’ll tell you later.”

The Sanyals arrive a whole hour late.

“That’s nothing,” Aunt N will say later. “I’ve known of cases where the boy’s family decided to arrive a whole
day
late—all the food spoiled, the girl’s family going crazy, and the bride-to-be weeping and wailing, wondering if someone had slandered her, and will the match be broken off. It’s just to show who’s in control.”

If something like that happened to me, I’d be so mad I’d break the match off myself. Why should the boy’s side always be the one in control?

Mrs. Sanyal’s good at control. I can see it in the way she handles her entourage, which consists of Ramesh, his younger brothers, and three or four female relatives whose exact relationship
to the family isn’t quite clear. It’s very subtle—a glance here, a little cough there. And suddenly the female cousins would stop in the middle of a less-than-refined joke, and the boys would put back the singaras they’d heaped onto their plates. Even Ramesh would stop staring at Sudha and begin a polite, if somewhat boring, conversation with my mother.

I’m not sure how I feel about Ramesh. He must be very capable—else how could he hold such a high governmental post?—but I’m not taken with his thin sharp nose, his hair slick with Brylcreem and combed down too precisely, his mouth, which is set in worried lines—except when he looks at Sudha. For he’s quite smitten. We can all see that.

I’m not surprised. Even when she was a scab-kneed girl in an old frock, there was a radiance about Sudha so that men couldn’t stop themselves from looking—and looking again. Women too stared, whispering behind their hands, and more than once a well-meaning aunty warned the mothers “to keep an eye on that one, so much beauty’s bound to land her in trouble.” And today in her dark blue dhakai sari, with a thin gold chain that gleams at her throat, she’s irresistible. Little tendrils of hair curl around her face like a halo as she pours the tea and takes it over to each guest. Her anklets tinkle like wind-bells. She answers Mrs. Sanyal’s questions without a trace of the irritation I’m feeling for her: what was her favorite subject in school (embroidery), what is the proportion of sugar and water in rasogollah syrup (one to two), what she thought should be a woman’s most important duty (taking care of those she loved).

Mrs. Sanyal’s so impressed that she says she has no more questions, we can be excused. As we leave we hear her telling Aunt N it’s clear how much effort she’s put into raising her daughter. (I almost laugh aloud at that.) She sees no reason to delay the happy event. Why not have the pandit look for an auspicious day next month?

Sudha must have heard her too, but not a tremor crosses her face. Not even when we reach my room and I tell her, “I just hate
the way women are paraded in front of prospective grooms—like animals at the fair. How could you put up with all those stupid questions so calmly?”

“Because I had to make sure Mother would be pleased with me. And because I know I don’t have to marry Ramesh,” says Sudha. She pulls me up and whirls me around the room, then bursts out laughing at the look on my face. “Don’t worry, dear dear Anju. I haven’t gone crazy. I just got a letter from Ashok—”

“But how?”

“Singhji told him about the proposal. Yes, our Singhji! He found out where Ashok lived and went and met him. He’s been such a support—I can’t thank God enough for him. Anyway, Ashok wrote that he really loves me, that he’s been anxiously waiting to hear from us. Yes, he persuaded his parents, and they sent us a proposal quite some time back. But my mother”—here Sudha’s lips twist in bitterness—”must not have thought it good enough for our illustrious family. Anyway, we’re going to meet tomorrow, and he’ll figure out what to do.”

I sit down hard on the bed, at once terrified for Sudha and amazed that she’d taken such a bold step. I’m also confused, and that makes me angry.

“I thought you said we had to wait for Ashok to act, that we couldn’t help him!”

“But we
didn’t
help. I just got the news of my troubles to him, like the princess Rukmini did with Lord Krishna, remember that story? Ashok’s doing all the rest.”

I fight back a pang of jealousy. All our lives Sudha had looked to me to plan things for her. Now that usurper in a white shirt had taken my place. But mostly I feel sad. Even if they met (where?) at such great risk, what solution could they come up with? By now Aunt’s probably orchestrated the entire wedding, from flowers to food to which musician would play the shehnai and who would take the groom-gift to the Sanyals the day before the ceremony.

“We’ll meet at the Kalighat temple early tomorrow morning. I’m going downstairs right now to tell Mother that I’d promised the goddess I’d pay her a visit, alone, before my wedding. She’ll be in such a good mood, I know she’ll say yes.”

Luminous with her faith in her prince, Sudha kisses me on both cheeks and runs down the stairs, leaving me to cross my fingers for luck and hope to God they don’t think up something too crazy and dangerous.