Darjeeling

by Bharti Kirchner

  “I say so.”

  Nina turned her face away. Her eyes fell on a black-and-white shot of Aloka on the wall. Seated on the railing of the roof, Aloka had allowed her sari to flow about her like a river. Generally, for a picture-taking session, she preferred a sit-down pose. She could express her innate grace and harmony better that way.

  “I’m worried about Aloka,” Nina said. “She loves her younger sister. And she loves Pranab. This will be the biggest blow in her life. Somehow we have to shield her from all this.”

  Bir snorted and his head quivered in disgust. “The rumors are already flying. It’s only a matter of time before Aloka finds out. Better she hears it from us.”

  “Aloka is big-hearted. Perhaps she’ll forgive him. And she’ll keep the engagement, I’m sure—”

  “Better for us to cancel the marriage,” Bir said.

  “We can’t do that.” Nina realized that a hint of desperation had crept into her tone. “Aloka would not marry anyone else. Maybe, with Sujata far away, Pranab would come to his senses. And speaking of that, what if Sujata doesn’t want to go abroad?”

  “Mother, she has no choice. And you should be the one to tell her that. She’ll only listen to you. Besides, if I have to do it …” A threat was left hanging in the air.

  Bir fixed his gaze on Nina, who stared back at him. So! He was leaving the fate of the family in her hands. As the matriarch, the one who’d handled many decisions, she’d expected that. In this case, though, her heart was splintered in two. Fairness for one granddaughter would result in misfortune for the other. Nina, who so keenly believed in family solidarity, now had the task of tearing it apart.

  “Very well, then,” Nina said after a while. “Much as I care about my granddaughter, you are her only parent. I’ll have to accept your decision and act accordingly.”

  “And I’ll take care of Pranab.” Without waiting for a reply, Bir sprang up and stalked out of the room.

  Nina sat alone for a long time with the frustration of a mother who couldn’t control her own son, much less the fate of an entire family. Finally she got up and stood before a portrait of her husband, taken soon after they’d first moved to Darjeeling. In this portrait, as in real life, he appeared young, generous, and full of hope. Just seeing that expression revitalized her. She asked for his guidance and blessing.

  “Hold a little kindness in your heart, even when you’re at your angriest,” he seemed to say, this genial man who was loved by all.

  As she bowed away, Nina wondered if a thousand acts of kindness could atone for what she was about to do.

  nine

  An hour later Nina let herself into Sujata’s room and quietly closed the door behind her. She wanted to catch Sujata before she left the house, this being precisely the hour when she did so on a regular basis.

  Sujata was standing sideways by the window, primping in front of a bamboo-framed hand mirror. For an instant Nina pitied her as the type of woman for whom time spent before a mirror was futile. Then Nina looked closely. In preparation for what must be an important rendezvous, Sujata’s customarily unkempt hair was neatly combed. Her cotton-and-silk-blend Jamdani sari was well pressed, its blue undertone softening her dark complexion. Blue, Nina recalled the ancient tale, was the color worn by a maiden tiptoeing out of the house to meet her lover in the blackness of night. And from the way Sujata held herself, her entire physique seemed to be blossoming, like a crocus in spring. Ah, young love, Nina reflected, which erases the words “ugly” or “impossible” or “later” from its vocabulary. She herself was that way once, when only a vague thought of Bimal sent a jolt of electric power through her emotional core. But, Nina reminded herself, this was not the time for romantic nostalgia.

  The footsteps must have startled Sujata. Concealing the mirror behind her, she jerked around, her eyes widening in surprise. “Thakurma!”

  The high-pitched voice, young and trilling with merriment, momentarily weakened Nina’s resolve. She steeled herself. “I want to talk to you.”

  Sujata pushed a chair over to her, but Nina shook her head in refusal and fired Sujata with a glare. Nina hadn’t come to engage in a dialogue. That would imply equality on the part of both participants. She was here to issue an ultimatum. Yes, an ultimatum, even though not of her own choosing. Nina had come to act on the wisdom and insight of many generations, which decreed that for a woman to give her love away except under socially approved conditions was grievously wrong. “Kill the love or kill the woman,” the saying went, and Nina had come to destroy.

  In the silence Sujata’s expression went from bafflement to defiance and, finally, to panic.

  “You will stop seeing Pranab immediately.”

  The sharp-edged words cut the air and their scandalous implication seemed to stain the walls. Hurt and shame contorted Sujata’s face. She half turned toward the window, as though seeking light. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You very well do.”

  This shameless girl actually needed convincing that she’d done anything wrong? In Nina’s time such indiscretion on a woman’s part always resulted in her committing galai dori, hanging herself by her neck with a rope.

  “Listen.” Nina’s voice lashed the air with a sharp whiplike tone. “Do you really think for a minute Pranab loves you?”

  “Yes!” Sujata cried. “He does. He has said so many times.”

  “Stupid girl.”

  Sujata trembled. A wisp of hair curled up waiflike at the corner of her eye. Nina wanted to embrace the poor girl, fragile as a kokil bird, lost in a wilderness of human emotions. She experienced a sharp stab of pain along her ribs at the agony in Sujata’s eyes.

  “Pranab has an eye for beauty,” Nina went on coldly, “something you don’t have. When he grows bored with you, and he surely will, silly girl, he’ll go back to Aloka.”

  “He wants to call off the éngagement.” An almost frantic note had crept into Sujata’s voice.

  “What you might not know is that lately Pranab’s parents have been hinting about marriage. Pranab and Aloka have been engaged for over a year now and they adore her. They’re terribly flattered at the prospect of having such a lovely and considerate girl in their house. When Pranab’s mother was hospitalized last year, Aloka spent days and nights by her bedside. Where were you then? No doubt they also hope that Aloka will one day inherit the tea estate and she’ll ask Pranab to manage it. Just like your grandfather and I did.”

  Sujata seemed to have turned to a stubborn, unthinking, stonelike mass. Though Nina was crying inside, she pressed on. “Not only will you break this off, you will leave this house.”

  “But Thakurma, you can’t throw me out of my own home.”

  “Yes, dear, I very well can. I will keep this family together—that comes first. You will leave for Patna immediately. I have friends there who’ll take care of you until your uncle Kumud in British Columbia can arrange your immigration papers for Canada. When I told him about your banking experience he said that you’d be able to get a job there easily. He’s lived there for twenty-five years, so he should know.”

  Sujata’s sobs sounded like mournful little waves lapping up on a beach. She tilted her head up. “Why should I give up Pranab? None of you understand him like I do. He’s selfless; he’s a revolutionary. He wants to make this a better world for the weak and the oppressed. He needs me to fulfill his dream. And 1 love him with everything I have.”

  “Your love is wasted, my dear, and as for his dream, if he’s not careful, it’ll lead him to an early grave. You’ll give him up for everybody’s sake, but especially for Aloka.”

  “Aloka!” Sujata spat the name out as if it were an epithet.

  “Lately you two have stopped liking each other. She was the big sister you once looked up to. Do you remember? I might also add that your love for Pranab is but a passing attraction, a sinister and damaging passion, and I will not allow it to destroy our family. Aloka’s love for Pranab is total—body and spirit
combined. She has the more legitimate claims to him.”

  “Thakurma, please. This is the first time I’ve met somebody who appreciates me. I can’t live without him.”

  “You can and you will. There is no other choice. This is my order. Start packing your bags.” Nina turned to leave. “Don’t let people call you nemak haram—one who takes the salt of the house, then breaks the window.”

  Nina stomped out. Back in her own room, she shut the door with shaky hands and crawled onto her bed. She felt like killing herself and perhaps she partially succeeded, for in the next few days she existed in a sort of formless limbo, in which her senses were dulled and days were joyless. Her mind couldn’t discern any meaning no matter what the endeavor was.

  It was Sujata’s last day in Darjeeling. It fell to Nina to lead Sujata into the drawing room so she could bid farewell to the extended family, some fifty somber people. In soft, trancelike steps Sujata walked, as though she’d lost all claims to touch the floor. Nina’s eyes followed Sujata’s as she scanned the faces before her. Aunt Toru, shedding tears and covering her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief. Aloka, who had been called from Kalimpong just for the day on the pretext of a family emergency, had arrived only minutes ago and was huddling with a throng of relatives by the window. She appeared pale, possibly the result of a bouncy ride in a jeep for several hours. The moment her gaze fell on her sister, she threaded her way through the room. Evidently she was still ignorant of the true circumstances of Sujata’s hasty departure.

  Grasping and releasing the train of her sari, Aloka implored in all sincerity, “Why do you always have to go away, bontee? Be sure to write to us often, will you?”

  Sujata’s eyes were roaming the room, searching in vain for Pranab. But even in this she was doomed to disillusionment, for, on Bir’s orders, he’d been sent to a tea auction in Calcutta. Nor was Bir anywhere to be seen, having left by taxi that morning for Siliguri to meet a tea buyer from Calcutta. Sujata’s bhagya—her karmic fate—must have conspired against her. She was leaving town without her father’s blessings.

  Aunt Komola cast sideways glances at Sujata. “It’s just as well that the younger one’s leaving,” she whispered within earshot, observing that Sujata was a loner, a bit outspoken, not good at small talk, clumsy at the table, and “too hard to handle.”

  Did Komola have to be that cruel?

  The driver’s hand gesture indicated that the luggage had been stored. Without delay, Nina escorted Sujata outside. A sharp high mountain wind struck Nina full in the chest and numbed her flesh. She watched as Sujata, eyes low, climbed into the backseat. Hardly anyone waved at her. Then, as the car sped away, Sujata seemed to be peering out the car window for one last view of her cherished tea garden. Nina could picture how swirls of drifting mist would conspire with the tears welling up in Sujata’s eyes to obscure that vision.

  Nina looked up skyward with a prayer to the gods to protect Sujata. Then she turned hack with regret. An era had ended for the family.

  With Kabita’s wedding over and Aloka due home in a matter of days, harmony returned to the household, though not to Nina’s heart. She missed her youngest granddaughter. She traipsed into the girl’s room often and pictured her. Sujata moving about restlessly, then settling into a chair by the window for the view of the Kanchenjunga she so prized. The windowpane seemed etched with a faint outline of Sujata’s face; her unfulfilled wishes agitated the air. Nina told the maidservant not to disturb the room.

  Days passed. Nina put on a courageous face, but her health suffered. Her body became anarchy as it were with eyes, knees, liver, and heart abandoning their duties in grief. Overcome with exhaustion, she spent most of her time lying in bed, where she reflected on who had been most at fault, who had paid the heaviest price, and why love had exacted such a heavy ransom.

  ten

  On Aloka’s first day back home after six weeks in Kalimpong, she was looking forward to spending time with her father in the evening and catching up on the family news. In the afternoon, filled with vigor and buoyed by a cheerful mood, she swept into the kitchen and began preparing balushai. She worked ghee into the dough, which she formed into balls, then deep-fried them till they were almond-hued. As she worked, she smiled at the image of her father’s childlike delight at the sight of the tender rounds, flaky to the touch, with a dimple in the center. Bir could never stop at one or two.

  How much Aloka had missed him and the whole family, including Sujata. How disappointing that Sujata had left again. For Canada, this time. But then, she’d always been unpredictable. Aloka planned to dash off a letter to her sister soon.

  One by one she dropped the deep-fried pastries into a simmering pot of sugar syrup and waited for them to rise to the surface. The worst part of being away had been her separation from Pranab. What a pity that they’d spoken so few times on the phone and that he’d failed to attend Cousin-Sister Kabita’s wedding. Didn’t he miss Aloka? Why did he seem a bit reserved on the long-distance conversation? He answered her queries about what kept him busy at work with a minimum of words and didn’t venture into any topic of his own. He was to return from Calcutta tomorrow. He was constant in her ruminations, alive and full of power, from when she first awoke in the morning to the time she went to bed, and every waking hour in between. Her feelings for him became woven, in a sense, into whatever she happened to be doing. Hers was a long, constant, deep affection.

  With a slotted spoon, Aloka removed the delicately browned balushais, now glistening with a coating of the syrup, from the pot and allowed them to cool on a platter. It had given her great satisfaction to witness Kabita getting married. It was a lovely wedding, with a gigantic floral arch, twinklers, colored lights, boxes of presents, platters of sweets garnished with silver leaf, and Kabita, the delicate bride, presiding over it all. A pendant dangling on her forehead, sandalwood dots painted around her eyebrows,. chin upturned in elation, Kabita had exchanged a garland with the man of her choice. He had lifted her iridescent red bridal veil and brought his face closer to hers. With sixty people surrounding them, they gazed long at each other, signifying that they were, from this point on, each other’s universe.

  Aloka had pictured herself, equally jubilant, in a similar setting with Pranab.

  As she arranged the balushais on a platter in an artful pattern, she fantasized about her own impending wedding, which her friends had dubbed “Darjeeling’s most romantic wedding of the decade.” Local sweet shop owners and flower vendors had already sent her their proposals for catering arrangements. The girls in her school were trying to wheedle an invitation. The Darjeeling Planters’ Association had offered their large hall for her wedding reception. If there had been one exception to this enthusiastic reaction, it had come from a longtime school chum who had expressed concern that Pranab might be more interested in snagging a key executive position in the tea estate than in Aloka. This she had dismissed as pettiness on the part of the friend. In the next few days—Aloka now smiled inwardly, opening the gate to treasured sentiments—she’d give Grandma the permission to formally start the wedding preparations.

  Aloka carried the snacks and the usual glasses of limewater on a tray and stepped into the drawing room. As always, Bir was lounging on the couch, his eyes fixed at a point on the wall. He appeared somewhat restless, from the way his big toe tapped the floor.

  “Father!” Aloka cried happily. She hastened to settle herself in a chair.

  “Aloka, my dear.”

  In the next half hour Aloka furnished details on what had been going on in the extended family: Kabita’s husband seeking a job transfer to Darjeeling and how nice it would be to have them closer; Aunt Aparna flying to Singapore for a shopping spree; Uncle Govinda had stopped writing his travelogue again, this time echoing Tagore’s words as his excuse: “‘I have wandered far and wide, but haven’t spared the time to look out my window and observe a dewdrop on a rice stalk.’”

  Aloka couldn’t help but notice that Bir barely touched the ba
lushais and only sipped occasionally at his limewater.

  “Is something bothering you, Father?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.” Bir cleared his throat. “Will you close the door?”

  Aloka couldn’t remember ever having a private conversation with her father. She struggled to gather her poise, taking extra time to walk back the length of the room. Her feet nearly tripped on the front sari pleats as she returned to her seat.

  “There’s something I have to tell you, my child.” Bir’s lips were tightly compressed into a severe line. “It’ll not be easy.”

  “Does it have to do with Sujata?”

  Head down, his eyelids veiling his true expression, Bir nodded.

  “Is she all right? Could you tell me why she left home so quickly? I’m completely at a loss. She seemed so interested in the tea business and was spending so much time in the fields that I thought this time around she’d stay. I was just starting to get reacquainted with her. We’ve drifted apart in the last few years. Sorry to be losing my little sister again.”

  “My dearest child.” Bir pressed on the couch handle with his fingers. “What I have to say is going to be quite painful for you. I know how much you love and respect Pranab.”

  In a flash Aloka grasped the situation. A vision of Pranab entwined in an ardent embrace with Sujata, writhing in some secluded forest, emerged before her. They taunted and tortured her with the intensity of their shared pleasure as one. They looked up at her imploringly, as if asking her to leave. Now she lifted her eyes to Bir and saw a mortified face, as though he were privy to the same sight. She couldn’t think or speak, nor could she get up and run away. The lights in the room dimmed before her. Much like her, they seemed diminished by the magnitude of the betrayal.

  Bir spoke, far longer than he usually did at a stretch, painting in detail what had gone on. Several times Aloka touched the slippery surface of her glass bangles to impart in her a sense of what was real. After a while she no longer comprehended his remarks, only the feeling of shame and disappointment they conveyed. When Bir finished, a long empty silence ensued in which her mind echoed the questions: Why, Pranab? Where did I go wrung? Why? Why? Why? Life that had seemed so full minutes ago was looted of its treasures.