“Borrow them if you want,” Raj told her. “I’ve killed them already.”
Asha knew just what he meant. She’d already demolished the few books she’d brought along. They were dead, at least for a while. Certain stories could come back to life on the second, third, and even tenth reading if you gave them enough time between encounters. While she waited for her own favorites to recover, she was making her way through the books on her grandfather’s shelf. But she missed the pleasure of a light read. Taking her time, she chose a handful of titles. Then she joined her cousin on the floor.
Raj was sitting cross-legged, shuffling the deck of cards again and again. She waited for him to deal them, but he didn’t. Instead he placed the pile of cards on the floor and leaned back against the wall. From the expression on his face, Asha knew it was time to keep silent.
She waited.
“You’re so lucky to be a girl,” Raj blurted out finally.
She was so surprised by his words that she couldn’t help responding. “What?”
“Girls don’t have to become engineers, or doctors, or professors because ‘those jobs are so prestigious.’ You can stay home and relax. You don’t even have to go to school while you’re here. They’d never let me get away with that.”
He looked up, and Asha instinctively averted her gaze to focus on his hands, which were clenched.
“I’m—I’m a good cricket player, Osh.” He punched both knees with his fists, hard enough to make Asha wince.
For the first time during this visit, he’d called Asha by name, and she knew it was time for her to speak. “You are good,” she said, telling the truth. She’d learned from experience that truth was nonnegotiable for a secret keeper.
He leaned back again, sighed, and stretched out his legs. “But I have no chance to try and play for a living. Never. You’re the oldest son, Beta. You have to support the whole family someday, Beta.” He looked away. “Sometimes I get so angry I can hardly speak.”
A retort was whining in the back of Asha’s mind: You think YOU’VE got it hard? You don’t know the first thing about life as a girl. But that line of argument was suddenly silenced. Studying the angles of her cousin’s cheek, she felt the bleakness of his future, the narrowness of his choices, the weight of responsibility he carried to provide for his grandmother, parents, sisters. “It’s a heavy load,” she said.
After another silence, Raj picked up the deck of cards again, and shuffled them a few times. “I’ll teach you to play twenty-nine,” he offered, his voice steady again. “You were too young to understand how trumps and bids worked last time.”
“Baba already taught me. You need four players, though, don’t you?”
He started dealing the cards. “We can practice with two.”
“Sounds good. Raj, who is that strange person next door?”
“His name’s Jay, but I don’t know much more than that. When they moved in last summer, I went over to introduce myself—and to see if he was any good at cricket—but he hardly said a word.”
“How old is he, then?”
“Twentyish. No friends. No sisters or brothers. Keeps to himself and mostly stays in his room.”
“What does he do up there?”
“I don’t know. Why are you so interested, anyway?”
“Oh, he stares over here a lot.” She didn’t add the words “at me,” figuring her cousin would probably react in shocked disbelief. A man . . . staring at dark, skinny, flat-chested Asha Gupta? Besides, she didn’t want anybody to find out that she’d been escaping up to the roof.
Raj shrugged. “Don’t worry, he’s harmless. Come on, Tuni, let’s play a hand or two and challenge my parents after dinner. They’re undefeated in the neighborhood, but it would be so fabulous if we beat them.”
After she and Raj had been soundly trounced by Auntie and Uncle in a couple of games of twenty-nine and the little girls had enjoyed a good long romp, Asha lit a candle and propped her feet in her sister’s lap. The small cousins were already asleep, nestled against each other like a pair of spoons.
“You win,” Reet said, pouring baby oil into her palm. “Raj talked to us both nonstop at dinner and during the card game. How’d you break the spell, you sorceress?”
“It’s called the magic of sports, Reet.” And the power of secrets, she thought. “Focus on the arches, will you?”
NINE
THE NEIGHBORHOOD’S INTEREST IN REET DIDN’T SEEM TO BE waning. Every afternoon, ignoring the mud in the lane and the rain falling on their umbrellas, admirers gathered near the gate. They stayed there until Uncle stalked out grimly to put on the big padlock, signifying that the household was closing down for the night.
Grandmother pushed past Ma and Auntie to shut the curtains firmly, but that didn’t prevent Reet’s fan club from tossing flowers through the bars onto the path. Or singing love songs at the tops of their not-so-tuneful voices.
“Fools, all of them,” Grandmother said, and Asha heartily agreed.
Her own watcher’s interest wasn’t abating, either. She fumed in her corner of the roof as he gazed at her from across the way. I’m not budging, S.K., she told her diary. I’m NOT losing the only place I can be alone because Some Monk is obsessed with watching me write.
As for Ma, the brief thrill of her older daughter’s debut in the neighborhood was soon subdued once again by the pressure of living under a roof that wasn’t her own. She was getting quiet again, and the girls knew exactly who was closing in for the kill. In desperation, Reet proposed a jaunt of pleasure shopping. “Puja season starts in a couple of months,” she said, ignoring Grandmother’s frown.
“I suppose you’re right,” Ma said hesitantly. “You girls must have some decent festival clothes to wear if your father . . .” . . . doesn’t send for us by then. Asha finished her mother’s sentence in her head, her stomach twisting. It had been almost four months since Baba had left for America. Had he passed that engineering test? How much longer would they have to wait?
“And how will you afford such a purchase?” Grandmother asked.
“Bintu left us enough money for clothes,” Ma said haughtily. “He likes to see me and his daughters looking nice.”
Grandmother sniffed but didn’t pursue her interrogation, and they took her silence as permission. Raj rounded up two cycle rickshaws and brought them to the gate. Auntie and Ma took Sita and Suma with them, and Raj, Reet, and Asha squished into the other.
Asha wished fervently but uselessly that she could stay home with Grandmother. War refugees blanketed the pavements, and too-skinny children made Asha’s heart ache with helpless pity. But if she had to be honest, even more than interacting with destitute children, she hated the thought of trying on clothes in front of so many critical eyes.
Her sister’s admirers were already gathering as the family departed. They goggled at Reet as she eased herself into the rickshaw, then looked disappointed as they drove away, like ticket holders who’d just been told the performance had been canceled.
“Shoo, why don’t you,” Raj said as the rickshaw passed the young men. But his tone was flat and hopeless.
The wiry rickshaw pullers had to stand on the pedals, lugging the Gupta daughters-in-law and their offspring from the southern outskirts of the city to the main shopping center in Gariahat Corner. Beggars crowded around the women as soon as they climbed onto the sidewalk. Raj escaped the outstretched hands and whining voices by ducking into a bookseller. Asha was about to follow him when she saw Ma beckoning furiously from the front of a saree shop. Sighing, Asha turned from the lure of the books and trudged over to her mother and sister. Auntie and the cousins were already trooping inside.
A clerk greeted them, his excitement at welcoming a pair of suburban housewives shaping itself into an expansive grin. “How might I serve you ladies?” he asked, rubbing his palms together.
“Sarees for festival season,” Ma announced. “Silk only, please.”
Ma pushed Asha forward, and the clerk beg
an trying a series of different silks against her skin.
“Stand still, Tuni,” Ma said sternly, once she and Asha were behind the curtain in the small alcove.
Reluctantly Asha obeyed, putting up one arm, then the next so Ma could tuck and fold the long piece of cloth around her. Locked in her one-armed pose while Ma pleated the front of the saree, she was reminded of the card Baba had sent with the picture of a statue standing in New York’s harbor. “I look like the Statue of Liberty, Reet,” Asha called through the curtain. “Isn’t she wearing a saree, too?”
Ma sighed. “I suppose we’ll take the mustard-colored one. It’s the only one that suits your complexion.” She pulled open the curtain.
Asha didn’t bother looking in the mirror; she could tell how she looked by the expressionless faces before her. Reet was smiling, though, so Asha straightened and put up one arm again to hold an imaginary torch.
“Go stand in the Atlantic right now,” her sister ordered, and they laughed.
Auntie ignored this sisterly exchange. “Too bad Tuni got your husband’s dark complexion,” she said, shaking her head in that annoying figure eight. “And she’s all muscle, too, built like a boy. Quite the opposite of you, Sumitra. And our lovely Shona, of course.”
Asha closed her lips tightly. She couldn’t take any more of this “dark” stuff. What did a person’s skin color have to do with anything? Especially beauty, of all things. An angry lecture was taking shape in her mind, and she was just about to spew it out when, behind her, the “lovely Shona” began to hum.
“My turn!” Reet said brightly. “Osh, why don’t you go and find Raj? He’ll have to round up some rickshaws soon, won’t he, Ma?”
“Take the parcel with you after the clerk wraps your saree, Tuni,” Ma commanded, taking a gold-embroidered saree and Reet into the curtained alcove.
Auntie nodded and the twins squealed in delight when Ma pulled open the curtains this time.
“She’s perfect,” Auntie said. “Absolutely gorgeous.”
“Shonadi, you look like a film star!” Sita cried.
“Yes, your younger sister is looking quite nice in that one, madam,” the clerk told Ma, handing Asha the bulky parcel that was her new saree. The cousins giggled. Auntie quickly set the clerk straight, but Ma was already pulling open her bag to buy the magic saree.
TEN
MOST OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD WAS RESTING WITH THE CURTAINS closed against the heat. When the rains held back for a day or two, the earth steamed like a panful of rice. Asha was alone on the roof, writing furiously, drops of sweat smearing the words on the page. Jay the Hermit was spying on her through the slats of the shutters, but for once she didn’t care. She had to write, she had to be alone, she could hardly believe what was happening.
Inside the house, the servants, Ma, and Auntie weren’t napping as they usually did. They were preparing the house for the arrival of a guest so important that Uncle was coming home early. The house sparkled with an extra measure of polish, and Grandmother had splurged on some special sweets from the corner shop.
Asha could hear the twins waking from their nap and clattering downstairs to play hopscotch on the front path. They didn’t know that this was an unusual day—the first time a girl in their generation would receive a wedding proposal, a herald of changes to come.
Uncle had received a message from another man in the neighborhood. Apparently this fellow had a nephew who was so besotted with Reet’s charms that he could no longer wait to secure her as his. A formal proposal would take place today over tea, with the two older men meeting for a private discussion.
Oh, S.K., if only my sister weren’t so gorgeous. It’s always getting her in trouble, and now the worst has happened. At first I thought the whole thing was a joke, but now I’m not so sure. Ma was eighteen when she married Baba, and Auntie was seventeen, Reet’s age, when she married Uncle. He was twenty-six or so, just like Reet’s Lusting Idiot.
I’m NEVER letting them marry my sister off. Especially not to someone who proposes without knowing anything about her except what she looks like. In America, girls our age are standing up for their rights, marching in protests, changing the world. But Reet and I aren’t in America. Not yet, anyway. Come on, Baba, COME ON!
Maybe Uncle’s just going through the motions for courtesy’s sake. But why doesn’t Reet tell him straightaway that she has NO desire to get married? She’s already calling this suitor Y.L.I. for “Young Lusting Idiot” when the two of us are alone. So why doesn’t she speak up for herself?
But I know the answer to that question, don’t I? Her lack of protest, as usual, is for our mother’s sake. The Jailor loosened the chains when the attention first started, but that didn’t last long; now he seems to have retreated quite a bit. Ma talked a mile a minute yesterday and this morning, bragging to Auntie and Grandmother that she herself had received twelve proposals before the age of twenty. I wanted to scream. She’d never bothered to tell Reet and me that particular detail about her past. Is that some fantastic accomplishment? I don’t think so. Anyway, I’m sure Uncle isn’t taking this seriously. At least I hope not. But if he IS trying to marry my sister off, he’ll have to deal with ME first.
The pencil snapped in half because she was clutching it so tightly. Suddenly she slammed her diary shut, stood up, and twisted like a cobra about to spring.
“What are you staring at?” she demanded of the shutters across the way.
To her surprise they flew open, and so did the window behind them. Their neighbor leaned out. “What are you writing?” he retorted.
“None of your business,” Asha answered, checking quickly to make sure the coconut trees barricaded them from sight. If anybody saw them talking, her reputation in the neighborhood would probably be tarnished forever. Not that I care, she thought, noticing for the first time that her watcher’s hair was longer than that of most young men his age. He was wearing only an undershirt, and she felt a twinge of irritation that his arms were more muscular than any recluse deserved. “I don’t like to be spied on,” she added with a scowl, folding her arms across her chest.
“I haven’t been spying on you,” he said. “I’ve been studying you.”
That made her even madder. “Oh. Studying. And just how is that different than spying?”
He swallowed, hesitated, and took a deep breath. “I want to—I’d like to . . . paint a portrait. Of you.” The last five words came hurtling out of him like arrows, making her feel even more like a bull’s-eye.
“Well, you can’t,” she said. “How dare you paint me without asking my permission?”
“I haven’t started yet. I have been sketching, though, and trying to gather the courage to ask.”
“Well, I don’t give it to you.” She turned to go.
“Wait!” he called. “I’m not a beginner, if that’s what you’re worried about. I studied art in Moscow for a year. A couple of gallery owners in Delhi and Leningrad who like my landscapes have been wanting me to try a portrait, but I haven’t found anybody I want to paint. That is, until now.”
“So that’s why you’ve been spying on me. Well, I don’t want anyone watching me or anybody in my family; I don’t care if it’s for the greatest masterpiece on the planet.”
“Oh, I see. You’re angry about the rabble on the corner. Listen, I’m sorry on behalf of my sex, but I haven’t joined in their pastime, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’ve got better things to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.”
A paper bird soared over the space between their houses and landed at Asha’s feet. She wanted to stomp on it, but somehow she couldn’t. She didn’t bend to pick up his gift, though, and neither she nor the painter spoke for a few moments.
“Let me paint you, Osh,” he said finally, breaking the silence. “Please?”
She ignored the question. “You know my nickname? What else have you discovered about me?”
“I’m sorry. Our houses are so close, and your sister
calls your name when she wants you. Don’t tell me you haven’t found out everything you can about me. But that’s okay, it’s going to help the painting to learn as much as we can about each other. By the way, my name’s Jay Sen.”
“I’m absolutely not interested in finding out anything more about you,” Asha said, wondering why she didn’t just leave. But something in his face was making her stay, and she could sense that he was telling the truth—a practice she always appreciated.
“Just think about it before you say no,” he said. “Take the sketch. Look at it. Give us a chance, Osh. Please. Give our painting a chance.”
She groaned. He’s not shy, she realized. Just odd. And persistent. But harmless probably, like Raj said.
Downstairs, Uncle’s voice was calling out a hearty welcome to his guest. It was time for the proposal. Picking up the paper bird, Asha quickly tucked it into her diary and left the roof without another word. She wanted to be sure she was in place in time to eavesdrop.
ELEVEN
ASHA CREPT DOWN AND PERCHED ON THE HALL STAIRS BESIDE her sister, who was already sitting there. Raj emerged from his room and joined them. Only Uncle was in the living room; Grandmother, Auntie, and Ma were in the kitchen, and the twins had been sent next door to play with a friend. Auntie occasionally bustled out to refill the teacups or add biscuits to the platter of goodies. She was too distracted by the momentous occasion to look up and spot the three extra listeners.
The Lusting Idiot’s uncle got to the point almost immediately. “Your two nieces have been staying under this roof for quite some time now. I’ve heard the older one is a lovely girl. Might she be interested in considering my nephew’s proposal, as we discussed yesterday?”
Uncle didn’t hesitate. “My nieces and their mother are transferring residence to New York,” he said importantly. “The president of the United States recently opened the door to Indian professionals, haven’t you heard? My brother is there now, securing a job.”
Secret Keeper Page 5
