Oleander Girl

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  Her hands begin to shake. The tone, the words, the ridiculous name he’s given Korobi—they push her over the edge. That scheming, deceiving girl—and now he’s taking her side against his own mother?

  The words have been waiting all day. They explode out of her like soda from a can that has been violently shaken.

  “Oh, really? If you two are that close, you must already know what your papa called to tell me today. The truth about your darling Cara’s father—surely that’s your business, too, what Mitra is using to blackmail us? No? Looks like she forgot to mention a couple of little facts.”

  I step outside the airport terminal into the early morning, the sky just lighting up, surely a good omen. Bahadur is waiting with the car. He glances at me and glances away. I see, with a lurch of the heart, that he doesn’t recognize me. Is it just my hair, or some deeper sea change I’ve undergone? I put a hand on his arm and smile. His leathery face breaks open in an astonished grin.

  “Korobi-baby! Welcome home! We’ve all been waiting for you to come back. The house is like a graveyard without you. But you look like a little girl!” He lifts my suitcase, struggling a little, and looks scandalized when I take it from his hand. “You shouldn’t do that, baby. That’s my job.”

  I smile and put the case into the trunk, help him shut it.

  As the Bentley speeds down the still-sleeping streets, I’m amazed at how different the city appears. I’ve taken this road from the airport every year upon my return from boarding school, have looked at the same scenes. But today it’s as though a cover has been whisked away. The piled garbage leaps out at me; the street dwellers lighting cow-dung fires next to gleaming apartment buildings seem at once pathetic and brave; outside soot-streaked temples, flower sellers hang up their bright, hopeful garlands. And the smell of the city, even this early, overwhelms me: incense sticks lit by shopkeepers before they start the day’s business; oil heating in woks outside the street shops for frying samosas; dust and phenol as sweepers clean the entrances of banks. Did any place in America assail me with such larger-than-life odors?

  Layer upon unseen layer, how this complicated city holds me. For better or worse, I’ve chosen it over the cities of America. I’ve decided to fulfill the promises I made here. Love rushes through me as I think this—and worry. I’m not sure the city will love me back. That it will accept the secrets I’m carrying. At the airport, Vic held my hands tight and said, “Come back if there are problems. I’ll wait for you.” But I know there’s no going back to some things.

  All the way in the airplane, I fidgeted, unable to sleep. I pictured the look on Rajat’s face when I tell him who I really am. But his face, it kept changing, like water in wind. I want that trial to be over as soon as possible. I call Grandmother from the car to tell her that I’m going to visit Rajat first, before coming home.

  “Of course. Your first responsibility is to your husband and his family.”

  I don’t agree. My first responsibility is toward whoever among my loved ones needs me most. Today it’s Rajat. Tomorrow it might be Grandma. If at another time it’s my father, I hope I can go to him, too.

  But this is not a time for arguing. So I only say, “I’m not married yet! And after I talk to Rajat, who knows what will happen?”

  “Don’t think bad-luck thoughts!” Grandmother says, but she sounds nervous. I called her about the illegitimacy before leaving America. I think she’s still in shock. “I’ll let Jayashree know you’re on your way.”

  I lean back and close my eyes, rehearsing what to say to Rajat. Every speech I construct sounds wrong. I’ll just have to offer him the unadorned truth. Better to spend this sliver of time remembering how much I love him. How, when Grandmother told me about the accident, I felt as if I were about to die myself. That was when I knew for sure, at last, that we completed each other. When I realized where I needed to be.

  Grandmother is back on the phone. “Something’s very wrong! When I told Jayashree you were on your way, I thought she’d be all excited. Instead she told me they didn’t want to see you. I was so shocked I could hardly speak. When I asked what the matter was, she said, ‘Ask your deceitful granddaughter.’ Then she hung up on me.”

  The car is like a boat on a stormy sea, rising and falling, making me nauseous. Just as Mr. Desai feared, Mitra must have contacted the Boses, preempting me.

  “Oh, you foolish girl!” Grandmother cries when I explain. “What are we going to do now? You should have listened to Mr. Desai. Thanks to your stubbornness, you may have ruined your future. Once trust is broken, it’s almost impossible to repair—you know that yourself! Tell Bahadur to bring you home. The only thing we can do now is to wait for the Boses to calm down.”

  I think longingly of the beloved familiarity of 26 Tarak Prasad Roy Road, the old house waiting to shield me from the unjust angers of the world. I want it so much. For so long I’ve been a stranger in hostile places. It would be a relief to collapse into Grandmother’s arms, into my childhood. But I know I must see Rajat right now, in his anger. If he isn’t willing to listen when I tell him the truth, if his love can’t overcome the mistrust Mitra has ignited in him, if he’s unable to accept me as I am, there’s no future for us.

  SIXTEEN

  I ring the bell of the Boses’ apartment twice before Pushpa opens the door. Instead of greeting me effusively as on other days and leading me to the living room, she asks me to wait at the door—like an unwelcome salesperson. I don’t allow myself to get upset. I’m playing a game of strategy, and I can’t allow Maman to defeat me even before I step into the arena.

  After a long time I hear Maman’s voice asking Pushpa to send me in. I step into the chill quiet of the hall, and there she is on the couch, wearing an elegant silk designer robe that makes me newly conscious of my crumpled state. Rajat is nowhere to be seen. I realize with a sinking heart that Maman has appointed herself gatekeeper. In response to my hello, she merely looks at me, eyes pausing for a second of additional disapproval on my hair. No teacups are set out, no snacks, not even a glass of water in spite of my long journey. A tribunal of one, she has already judged me guilty.

  Resentment rises in me, but I can also see the circles under Maman’s eyes, the new wrinkles etched into her face. Since I saw her last, she seems to have aged years. Some of this is due to me.

  “I know you didn’t want to see me,” I say, “but I have to talk to you—and especially to Rajat—and explain things. After that, if you want me to leave, I will.”

  “Rajat isn’t well. The shock of discovering your duplicity was too much for him. He had a relapse and suffered all night with a terrible migraine. Finally he took sedatives and is sleeping now. I can’t wake him just so you can weep on his shoulder and try to gain back his sympathy.”

  “Maman, I’m sorry Mitra broke the news to you before I could. I know that has upset you—”

  “Don’t call me Maman. You no longer have the right.”

  The harshness of her words is like a punch to the stomach. It takes a moment before I can steel myself to continue. “I only discovered my father’s identity a few days ago. And the fact that my mother never married him—I learned that from him even later. Please try to imagine how devastating it was for me. My entire notion of who I am was shaken up. I felt betrayed. Unworthy. I didn’t know how to tell something so big to Rajat over the phone.” Even to my own ears, the words sound stilted. They convey nothing of my complicated desperation.

  “And so you decided not to tell him at all.”

  “That’s not true. I planned to tell him everything the moment I got back. That’s why I was coming here.”

  “Why should I believe you? You’re only saying this because we already know your secret. Where’s the proof that you weren’t just planning to hide this information—these things that could affect future generations of our family—from us?” Maman’s voice grows strident. “I think you were hoping to trap Rajat into marriage before the truth came to light.”

  That sti
ngs. “I’m not that kind of person. You know it!”

  “I know nothing of the sort.”

  There’s a movement in the corridor. It’s Rajat, holding on to the wall, pale and haggard, the large white L of his cast intersecting his body.

  “What’s all this noise?” He asks, his voice groggy. Then his eyes widen—I’m not sure if it’s with joy or with astonishment at my effrontery at being here.

  “It’s me, Rajat. I came as quickly as I could.”

  I want to run across the room and throw my arms around him, to touch the bruises on his forehead, the hard foreignness of his cast. I’d returned because I thought he needed me. Now I see I need him just as much. But an invisible electric fence has been erected between us.

  Maman hurries to Rajat’s side and helps him to the sofa. She calls to Pushpa to fetch a glass of water and a quilt.

  “You shouldn’t be out of bed, Son. Don’t you remember how dizzy you were last night, and weak with vomiting?”

  She launches a dagger glance at me. “As you can see, you’ve done us enough harm. Please leave. Now.”

  I fight against the guilt piling up like cinder blocks on my chest. I address myself to Rajat. “I was going to tell you everything, Rajat. You must believe me. But I needed to do it face-to-face. I needed to hold your hands and look into your eyes and make sure my race and my illegitimacy hadn’t changed things between—”

  “It’s very convenient for you to say that now,” Mrs. Bose cries, “now that you know Mitra has given you away. I say it again—you cannot prove it!”

  I ignore her and place all my attention on Rajat. “Remember what I said when I first told you that my father was American? I said that I refused to go through life with a secret hanging between us, separating us. Do you think I’d lie to you now about something so huge that the weight of it would crush our love? Because if you do, then it’s all been for nothing—my giving up my father and rushing back to be with you.”

  Rajat holds his head. His eyes are tortured. “I don’t know what to think! Korobi, do you realize that Mitra’s trying to blackmail us now because of this?”

  “If she really intended to tell us,” Maman says again, “there must be some proof. Ask her for it.”

  My head is pounding. My throat is so dry I can hardly speak. “If you don’t trust me, Rajat, if you need proof, then it’s over between us.”

  “She’s threatening you with an ultimatum because she doesn’t have anything else,” Maman declares.

  Rajat looks away. “Maman is right. If you didn’t intend to deceive us, you must have evidence of that. And if you do, why should you mind being asked to share it?”

  There’s a rushing noise, like waves crashing inside my head. I hold on to the back of the chair. I will not faint here. I will make it to the car. I’m Korobi, Oleander, capable of surviving drought and frost and the loss of love. I pull the engagement ring from my finger, set it on the table. Good-bye, Rajat. I walk, one precise foot after another, to the door. When I reach it, I say, without turning, “Call Desai. He’ll tell you.”

  In the kitchen of 26 Tarak Prasad Roy Road, Sarojini is teaching Korobi to make singaras. The cauliflower has been chopped and sautéed, along with diced potatoes and fresh green peas. While this filling cools on a large stainless-steel platter, Korobi writes down, in a blue notebook she has purchased for this purpose, the precise combination of spices—cloves, coriander, black pepper, cinnamon—that has been roasted, ground, and added into the half-cooked filling. Next, Sarojini demonstrates how to roll out the skin: thin flour circles to be shaped into cones and stuffed, then fried in hot oil, then drained on newspapers. When the oil sputters, Korobi jumps back, and they laugh.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Cook says. “Look how many burns I have on my arms. That’s the only way to become a good cook. See, see, this one has come out perfect, all puffy and golden. Quick, drain it with the slotted spoon. Why, I couldn’t have done better myself!”

  The cooking lessons are part of the self-improvement regimen that Korobi has resolutely busied herself with since she came back from the Boses’ apartment and spoke those death-knell words: “I’m not getting married.”

  Sarojini had remonstrated with her. Rajat was ill. He was in shock. They were both in shock. Korobi shouldn’t have reacted in such haste. “Let me ask him to come over, talk out the misunderstandings. I’m sure things would work out if you—”

  Korobi lifted her face, blotchy from the tears she had shed in the car, but her voice was steady. “If you contact him, I’m going to leave.”

  And she could leave. Sarojini knows she has options. Rob Lacey phones Korobi every couple of days. After finding out how matters turned out with Rajat, he invited her to come to America to study. Her grades are good enough for her to gain admission at his university. He’ll get her a campus job, help with the expenses. Vic, too, has phoned several times. Korobi doesn’t tell Sarojini the details of those calls, but Sarojini can guess.

  It is only love and stubbornness that keeps Korobi here, Sarojini guesses. Love for her grandmother, and a stubborn desire to succeed in spite of the Boses. To that end, she contacted the principal of her college. Sarojini listened to the conversation from the other room, marveling at the easy roll of Korobi’s voice—neither abject nor overly confident—as she explained her situation. The girl Sarojini had seen off at the airport could never have managed it.

  The principal must have been impressed by this new Korobi because she said she would make an exception for her, taking into account her good grades and the sudden tragedy in her family. If Korobi can study, on her own, the material she has missed, she’ll be allowed to take the half-yearly exams. If she passes, she can return to class after the summer holidays along with her batchmates. So Korobi has been poring over her textbooks and phoning classmates, asking to borrow notes. If, in between, Sarojini catches her staring into the distance with a bleak expression, if at night she hears muffled sobs from the girl’s bedroom, she holds back and does not interfere. Sometimes—she knows this from her own life—to get to the other side, you must travel through grief. No detours are possible.

  In the evening, they have an unexpected visitor—well, not so unexpected, perhaps, for Bhattacharya has taken to stopping at the temple each week. If he’s not too busy with election meetings, he stays over and has dinner. Each time he brings gifts—chocolate-filled sandesh from Ganguram’s Desserts, or hefty sprays of tuberoses, enough for the temple and for Sarojini’s bedroom so she can fall asleep to their fragrance. Sarojini has protested about such unnecessary lavishness, but he says, “Let me do it, Ma. My own mother died before I could afford to get her such things.”

  This evening he dines with them on fried eggplants, gram dal, fine basmati rice, and the singaras Korobi made a little while ago. “Wedding fare!” he exclaims, turning to Korobi. “What delicious singaras! I can tell you have an excellent teacher. It does my heart good to see a modern young woman taking the trouble to learn our traditional Bengali cuisine. So, when is the happy day to be?”

  Sarojini tenses. The girl has such obstinate notions about honesty. But perhaps out of consideration for her grandmother’s feelings, or some residual loyalty toward the Boses, Korobi only says, “We don’t have a date right now.”

  “Could you do something for me?” Bhattacharya asks Sarojini. “I’ve been trying to contact Mrs. Bose all week, but she hasn’t returned my calls. She’s probably preoccupied with that terrible accident. This city is becoming most unsafe—something I’m going to change if I’m elected. Could you tell her that I’ve decided that I don’t need to become a partner in their gallery? Too many complications. I’ll just loan the Boses the money they need—a private loan, with you as witness. No one else will know. They’ll have five years to repay it. Will that make you happy?”

  For a few moments, Sarojini cannot speak, she’s so taken aback. Finally she manages to say, with a smile, “Yes, my son. It makes me happy.”

  And it does.
In spite of that last disastrous meeting between Korobi and Rajat, and the icy silence from his end since then, Sarojini finds that she still loves the boy. She misses him, especially in the evenings, when he used to drop by to check on her. If the phone rings, her unreasonable heart knocks about in the hope that it might be him calling. She cannot phone him—not even with this welcome news—because of the promise she made to Korobi. But tomorrow morning she will send the Boses a courier letter.

  “Now you must let me do something for my own happiness,” Bhattacharya says. “Let me pay for the temple’s yearly expenses, as I mentioned earlier. And the repairs for this house. Please don’t say no. I’m doing it for myself, really, because I plan to visit you regularly, and I’m getting tired of having to use bucket water for washing up.”

  Sarojini stares at him with such astonishment—her genie with a bonus wish—that he bursts out laughing. It is an infectious sound; after a moment, Korobi and she cannot help but join in.

  It seems that the goddess has finally paid attention to Sarojini’s importunities and turned her grace-filled eyes on them all, for next morning, while Korobi is at the library and Sarojini is composing the letter to the Boses, the phone rings. It is Rajat. He sounds defensive as he greets Sarojini with a formal namaskar, but Sarojini will have none of that. She scolds him roundly for having ignored her all these days. “No matter what happens between you and Korobi, is that any reason to cut yourself off from me? Is that all I am to you, Korobi’s grandmother?”

  “No,” he says in a small voice. “You are my grandmother, too.”

  “And don’t you forget that. You come and visit me, you hear! I haven’t seen you since that night I spent with you in the hospital. If you prefer, you can come while Korobi’s at the college.”

  “Actually, I called to ask if I can come over this evening—to see her as well as you. Do you think she’ll agree to meet me? Will you ask her?”