Secret Keeper

by Mitali Perkins

  “You did. Come, Asha. Let’s go.”

  Asha followed her sister upstairs, dreading this confrontation even more than she had her conversation with Jay.

  “Explain,” Reet commanded as soon as they were in the bathroom. She turned the water on full force so nobody could overhear them.

  “He wants to marry you,” Asha said, glancing quickly at the mirror to see if her secret was revealed in her reflection.

  But her sister saw right through her mask of calm control. “No. He wants to marry you. I won’t do it, Asha.”

  “It’s too late. You have to. You saw Ma’s face. She cried for the first time, Reet.”

  Reet was silent. Then she punched the wall as hard as she could. “Ow!” She bent over her fist, cradling it with the other hand. Asha reached over to help. “Get back,” her sister said. “Don’t touch me. I hate you, Asha Gupta.”

  “Don’t say that. This is the perfect solution. And you’re perfect for each other.”

  “Don’t lie to me! You adore him, and he must care just as much about you. Why else would he agree to this stupid plan? Oh, how could you do this to me? I thought you loved me.” Reet’s face crumpled. “Get out. Get out of here.” She threw open the door and shoved her sister so hard that Asha almost fell backward into the hall.

  Asha banged on the closed door. “I promised Baba I’d take care of you!”

  No answer from inside.

  “He’ll be a brother to me, Reet. I promise. Didn’t you see the lock I put on the door a couple of weeks ago?”

  No answer.

  Raj came out of his room. “Shut up, Osh. Do you want the entire world to figure out what happened?”

  “She hates me, Raj.”

  “She’ll get over it.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Come in here,” he said, leading the way into his room.

  “Did I do the right thing?” she asked, flopping onto the floor in a heap.

  “What else could you do? I tried my best to get another proposal for Reet around here, Osh. I even went to that first idiot you trounced on the court and begged him to ask again, but he just laughed. Oh, he enjoyed seeing me grovel after what we put him through.”

  “You did that? For us?”

  “None of my friends are old enough to get married yet, although four or five of them volunteered for the position. They think your sister’s . . . well, she’s still pretty enough, even after what she’s been through.”

  “I hate that a boy is supposed to be six or seven years older than the girl before they can be matched. Who started that stupid tradition?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, the two of us can’t change some customs no matter how hard we try,” Asha said sadly.

  For the first time in their lives, the sisters didn’t speak before they went to sleep. Reet’s body was as stiff as a fence beside Asha’s. Once, Asha tried to touch her sister’s shoulder, but Reet jerked back so harshly that it felt as if Asha’s fingers were covered with splinters.

  THIRTY

  NOBODY BUT RAJ NOTICED THE COLD WAR BETWEEN THE Gupta girls. Not only was the house abuzz with the new proposal, but events outside the walls were also changing fast. The prime minister was in trouble, accused of fraud, and Uncle’s radio blared news about the possibility of her being overthrown by the opposition.

  Meanwhile, Auntie, Grandmother, and Ma were in a frenzy of preparation for the upcoming visit from the family next door. Three days. Two days. Tomorrow. Asha tried to prepare herself to see Jay through sisterly eyes. Could she do it? She’d have to; she had no choice.

  Reet was going through the motions, but the few times Asha caught her sister looking at her, the expression on Reet’s face made Asha’s stomach coil like a snail. What had she done? Was she making the biggest mistake of her life? Was she going to lose both Jay and Reet forever?

  S.K., what can I do now? I can’t stop it. We have to move forward. He’s coming here to ask for my sister’s hand. He’ll come to love her in time, I know he will. What man in his right mind wouldn’t? And he’s so irresistible she’s bound to love him. But can I bear watching them fall in love, especially from right next door? What’s going to happen to me, S.K.? I’ve kept my sister safe, but what about me? What happens to my happily-ever-after?

  Ma made her wear the green salwar kameez on the day of the meeting, even though Asha resisted. “Why do I have to get dressed up, Ma?” she asked.

  “This is a special occasion, meeting your Shala for the first time. A brother-in-law and his wife’s sister have a special relationship. You can tease him if you like once they’re married, Tuni. You’ll have a sweet friendship if it goes well; he’s supposed to take care of you always. Until you’re married, that is.”

  Asha put the salwar on but left off the ankle bracelets and asked Ma to tie her hair in a short braid instead of leaving it loose. Meanwhile, Reet was wrapping herself in a shimmering blue saree, the same one she’d worn on the train here. Asha noticed that the extra evening meals had brought back enough of her sister’s curves to fill out the blouse decently. How could Jay resist her? But while Reet looked beautiful on the outside, her eyes were icy.

  “When you serve him tea, Shona, don’t look up,” Ma warned. “Wait until somebody urges you to do it. Your auntie will probably be the one. Remember that it isn’t proper for the girl to look first. Let him have his turn, then you’ll get yours.”

  “All right, Ma,” Reet answered.

  Ma gathered her oldest daughter in her arms and held her close. “Oh, I’m so proud of you, Shona. How happy your baba would have been on this day! He would have made them so welcome, like family right away. I’m counting on you, Asha, to do your part.”

  “I’ll try, Ma,” Asha answered.

  “Now, cheer up, girls. Why, what’s wrong with the two of you? This is supposed to be a happy day. Shona’s not leaving us yet, and when she does, she’s going just next door. Imagine how nice that will be. The two of you can see each other every day.”

  Sita and Suma came dancing in, dressed in identical frilly blue frocks. “They’re here!” they crowed. “Oh, Shonadi, you’re so pretty!”

  “Girls, I’m going down,” Ma said. “Come, Asha.”

  Jay was wearing the same kurta and pajama he’d worn to Baba’s memorial, and sat stiffly between his parents on the sofa in the living room. All three stood up when Asha and her mother came in.

  Asha noticed that his hair was cut shorter than she’d ever seen it. He didn’t look her way.

  “Sumitra, Tuni, come say hello to our guests,” Uncle said. He introduced Jay’s parents first. “You already know Mr. and Mrs. Sen, our good neighbors.”

  “Namashkar,” his parents said, palms together in greeting.

  “Namashkar,” Ma answered.

  Asha bent to give them the expected pronam.

  “And this is Jay, their only son. He came to the memorial; you might have seen him there.”

  Jay gave Ma pronam, still not looking in Asha’s direction at all.

  “Sit down, sit down,” Uncle said, gesturing to the sofa again.

  They sat. Asha perched beside her mother on the hard couch in the other corner of the room. Auntie, Grandmother, and the little girls came bustling in, and the whole namashkar-pronam routine repeated itself, one generation bowing to the other like marionettes. Asha tried not to notice how Jay moved, and how his fingers looked when he tugged on the twins’ blue hair ribbons, sending them giggling to their father’s knees.

  “Bring in the tea, Shona,” Ma called.

  Almost immediately, as though she’d been waiting outside the door, Reet carried in the full tray.

  “Ohhhhh!” gasped Jay’s mother. “Such a lovely girl. The gods have heard my prayers.”

  Reet served Mr. Sen some tea, and then Mrs. Sen. Next the tray was lowered before Jay. Asha couldn’t help watching as Jay gazed at her sister’s downturned face, the way a prospective bridegroom was supposed to. But he looked awa
y quickly, and his eyes flickered for a split second over to where Asha was sitting. Did anybody else notice?

  Apparently nobody had. “Look up, Shona, look up,” Auntie trilled. “Don’t be shy.”

  Reet looked up, straight into Jay’s face, and then she, too, turned to look at Asha, much sooner than she should have. This time, everyone noticed that she hadn’t done it right.

  Ma tried to cover for her daughter. “It’s hard,” she said. “She’s shy. And she’s so close to her sister, you see.”

  “He’s a good boy,” Jay’s mother told Reet, concern in her voice. “He’ll take care of you.”

  “The people in Delhi tell me he’s a genius,” Mr. Sen added gruffly. “A genius! Imagine that!”

  “Oh, and I’m taking that job in New York,” Jay announced. “That is, if my—my bride approves.” He looked up at Reet.

  “She approves,” Reet said.

  “Shhh,” Ma hissed. “You’re not supposed to talk, Shona. We’ll discuss this later.”

  “But we thought you’d start your married life here,” Grandmother said. “With all of us around you.”

  “We can’t,” Jay answered. “The prime minister is thinking of imposing a state of emergency. We need to leave India and move to New York as soon as possible. It might not be possible once the emergency is declared and the country shuts down.”

  Uncle cleared his throat. “The boy’s right. It’s coming, no doubt about that. We may not be able to move or speak freely. Terrible times are ahead.”

  “Then we should leave for America right away,” Reet said.

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Jay answered.

  “But what about a wedding?” Ma asked, looking dazed.

  “We can’t wait until the year of mourning is up,” Jay said. “We’ll have to elope. Now.”

  “What?” At least four voices said it at once.

  “My dear boy, a couple only elopes if they don’t have their families’ blessings,” Mr. Sen said. “Both of you have that. You don’t need to elope.”

  “But if the country’s closing down in a few weeks, I want to leave for New York before then,” Jay said. “I’d like to take my wife with me.”

  Asha tried not to react. His cool, matter-of-fact demeanor was cutting her like a knife; each word felt as if she were being stabbed.

  “I can’t let my niece leave our home without a wedding,” Uncle said, frowning. “I owe it to my brother.”

  “You’re our only son,” Mrs. Sen added. “We have to invite everybody we know to the wedding.”

  “Ma, people elope in difficult times,” Jay said. “Our friends and family will understand.”

  “Besides, I don’t want a wedding anyway.” It was Reet again, disobeying Ma’s instructions to be quiet. “Not even when the year’s up.”

  “But . . . but . . . ,” Uncle sputtered. “I’ll pay for it, I told you, Shona. Don’t worry about that.”

  “What will people say?” Auntie asked.

  “I don’t care what people say,” Reet said. “I want to finish this quickly.”

  The strangeness of her statement silenced everybody except Jay.

  “I’m leaving in four days,” he said, detonating another bomb as though they weren’t already shattered. “My ticket’s booked. We’ll have to be married quickly at the temple if this is going to happen at all. I’ll get a ticket for Reet before I leave and she can join me as soon as possible.”

  His parents looked as if they were about to faint, and Asha’s own head was spinning. They were getting married this week! Jay was leaving and taking her sister with him. She couldn’t say anything; she was having a hard time breathing.

  “When did you decide this, Beta?” his father asked. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

  “I wanted to meet my bride first, and see if she agreed.”

  “I agree,” Reet said immediately. “What day and time?”

  “I’ll send a rickshaw for you on Saturday,” he said. Then he looked around the room, his eyes scanning every face except one. “Thank you all for understanding. Perhaps we can celebrate when we return for a visit next year. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to do to get ready.”

  He bent to give a farewell pronam to Auntie, Uncle, Ma, and Grandmother, then left the house without another glance in either Reet’s or Asha’s direction.

  “I’ll take these into the kitchen,” Reet said, gathering up the still-full teacups and disappearing also.

  Jay’s parents were talking at once, trying to make excuses for their son’s behavior, and Asha’s family was doing the same for Reet. The first meeting of bride and groom had been so jarring that everybody was embarrassed.

  After their guests left, Uncle slumped in his chair. “An elopement at the temple? With no marriage ceremony or celebrations in our homes? I don’t understand this, and I’m not sure Bintu would have liked it one bit. That boy still seems odd to me. Are you sure about him, Sumitra?”

  “I loved him,” Ma said right away. “He’ll never lie to her. And he’ll be loyal, too. I can tell. I’m sad they’ll be living so far away, but somehow it seems right for at least one of us to start a new life in America.”

  He’s loyal, all right, Ma, Asha thought as she wearily trudged upstairs. He keeps his promises, just as I do.

  THIRTY-ONE

  AGAIN AND AGAIN SHE WENT OVER HER CHOICE IN HER MIND, but she couldn’t see how to make it turn out differently. Again and again she saw herself up on the roof, making her request to Jay. His fury. The proposal. Ma’s delight. Her sister’s cold anger. Their decision to marry quickly and move to New York. It couldn’t have ended differently. It was the only way she could have kept her promise to Baba. At least Ma was acting more like herself again, and Reet—well, Reet and Jay would be fine once she, Asha, was no longer around.

  It’s like a fairy tale without a happy ending for any of the characters, she thought as she read “Cinderella” to her cousins. Reet was already in bed, her back to her sister.

  “And they lived happily ever after,” Asha finished.

  “What a lie,” said Reet.

  “What?” Suma asked. “What do you mean, Shonadi?”

  “I mean that life isn’t like a story,” Reet answered.

  “For you it is,” Sita said. “You’re the princess and Jay is the prince.”

  That makes me the wicked stepsister, Asha thought, tucking the little girls into bed.

  Early Saturday morning, Uncle took Reet to the temple to be married. A few hours later, Reet returned to the Gupta household, even though she was supposed to move under her in-laws’ roof. Dutifully, Reet had offered to shift next door, but the Sens insisted she remain where she was until her departure as a gift to Ma.

  Now Asha heard her sister making the girls’ bed as she usually did after breakfast. Uncle had headed to the living room and switched on the news, which began blaring through the house.

  Asha stopped in the hall outside the bedroom. Ma was inside, approaching her older daughter hesitantly. “Are you married, Shona?” Ma asked.

  “Yes. I am. Till death do us part. The priest made it short and quick. My husband paid the fee, and now he’s home packing his suitcases for the trip.”

  “Well, this is not how I pictured it, but I’m so glad and proud, Shona.”

  Reet’s face softened; Asha could see it through a gap in the curtain. “Good, Ma,” Reet said. “And we can have some kind of a party when we come home for a visit. His parents want to arrange something, too, so their relatives won’t feel slighted, and he agreed.”

  Asha went to the bathroom in a daze, her head spinning. Her sister was married to Jay. Jay was married to Reet. It was done. Irrevocable. She’d have to live with her decision for the rest of her life.

  Jay left for New York without a word to Asha. After his departure, Raj didn’t wait for Asha to ask, he simply cut the lock on the door to the roof. Asha took her diary up there and wrote and wrote, filling the last pages of “S.K. 19
74” with tiny writing, even though the year had ended months ago. Now that she couldn’t talk about the constant ache of missing Baba with either Reet or Jay, she poured it out in her diary. Sometimes, though, she’d find herself sitting without writing, staring at the closed shutters across the way.

  She imagined Jay arriving at the New York airport, taking a taxi to the university, meeting his professor, setting up a studio, looking for an apartment. Trying to ready a home where he would bring his bride in a few weeks’ time. She wondered if he was picking out plates, sheets, towels, pillows, and what he was thinking about as he started his new life. Did the image of a girl on a roof ever come to his mind?

  The days passed somehow, and still Reet wasn’t speaking to Asha. Jay sent the plane ticket, and Reet and Ma began making shopping trips to prepare for Reet’s journey. Uncle offered some of the money he would have spent on a wedding to buy a trousseau.

  Ma and Reet accepted it and brought home new sarees, a winter coat, salwars, new underwear, a lacy nightgown, and twelve skeins of good-quality wool that Reet insisted on buying for Ma. Auntie and Grandmother fingered the nightgown and teased Reet about when she would wear it for the first time, but Asha could hardly look at it.

  Only Raj guessed what Asha was feeling, and his answer was to take her outside to play catch for hours. It helped. The thwack of the ball in her palm, the perfect arc of it as she threw it into the dusk and he caught it. Again and again, to and fro they moved in a rhythm that became a silent dance. Sometimes they picked up rackets and volleyed back and forth until they’d reached a hundred and were both drenched in sweat. That helped her forget, too. For a while.

  One day a letter arrived from Delhi addressed to Asha. She studied the engraved insignia in the upper left-hand corner before opening it; it was from Bishop Academy. Curious, she took it to the privacy of the bathroom to read.