The meal over, Suzy stepped outside and looked up at the velvet sky. The crescent moon radiated a faint soothing light and the billion stars glittering in the inky blackness wrote an unreadable script. The droning of an airplane prompted her to envision what it would be like to fly home. All at once emotions of joy, pain, and uncertainty swelled deep in her interior and she struggled to get hold of herself. Then, as she made her way to the parking lot with Eva, she saw the trip as an assessment of her years abroad: Where she had been, what she’d become, where she was destined to go.
The Bengali word pratikkha surfaced in her mind. Waiting that was long and painful, but mixed with hope and devotion. Her pratikkha for Pranab had finally come to an end.
thirty
Nina sat at the lawn table with Mreenal. She was becoming rather fond of the fellow, so recently returned from America, and had to keep reminding herself that he was actually a man of forty. Namro—that Bengali word described him well: gentle, unruffled, and restrained. His mien and build weren’t particularly striking, but his eyes sparkled and his dark skin still had a youthful glow. Most importantly, he seemed to accept his own appearance without judgment. Today he was clad simply in a blue-checked shirt and khaki slacks, though he surely could afford to dress better considering the salary he received at Comsys, the company in Seattle where he worked. In respect for her old age, he was keeping his feet tucked well beneath the table, unlike most foreign-borns, who usually stuck their feet out and, as if that weren’t enough impertinence, fluttered their toes. Even after all those years in the West, Mreenal had retained his reverence for the elderly, which, Nina bemoaned to herself, was a trait fast fading from Indian society. Mreenal didn’t seem to mind taking tea with an old lady, and in fact he appeared to thoroughly enjoy Nina’s company.
He’d arrived several days ago to visit his great-aunt Tami and unwind in this mountain town. During their first encounter, Nina had discussed Darjeeling and its history. Mreenal had been particularly interested in Nina’s firsthand account of the emergence of the Gorkha separatist movement decades ago, the curfews, the bandh, the disruption to daily life, and the eventual settlement with the state government, lamenting that he could get almost no details about it in Seattle. During his second visit, Nina had showed him family photos and talked about entrepreneurial Sujata. Nina had noticed how his eyes lingered on Sujata’s images in the family album. At one point Mreenal had even admitted, in his characteristically understated manner, that he’d like to meet this Gupta girl.
This marked his third visit to Nina’s house. Today, however, he sat hunched in his chair, and even with the back glow of the sun a shadow played on his face. Was he simply waiting for her to spark the conversation? Nina wouldn’t mind that. She had plenty to find out about the man: When would he settle down, and where? Did he prefer dashing out as a pair on a date to spending time in a group? Did the frenetic pace of modern America suit him, or did he long for a slower, more conventional life with time for loved ones, family, neighbors, and rituals?
So now, her expression neutral, Nina leaned forward. “What do you want?” She asked what she believed was a serious question. Then, noting the bewildered expression on his face, she added, “In life.”
He surveyed his empty plate, bereft of even a single crumb, and privileged her with a disarming smile. “What do I want? More patishaptas, of course.”
“Of course.” Nina felt exhilarated. A man who relished home-cooked food was likely to make a good husband. And though he hadn’t answered her question, she prized the cleverness of his reply. She was about to call Reenu when the maidservant appeared, an aroma of freshly grated coconut and thickened milk drifting up from the platter in her hand. Reenu placed a mound of stuffed rice-flour crepes on Mreenal’s plate as gently as though she were putting an infant in its cradle. Though Nina had long since given up afternoon snacking, she could still revive the taste of these crispy sweet lacy-thin delicacies on her palate. She sipped her tea in silence as Mreenal rolled up a crepe and popped it into his mouth.
A blissful look stealing over his face, he swallowed and looked up at Reenu. “Ah, you put gur in it.”
Reenu beamed. “You got it, Mreenal-babu. The first of the season.”
Mreenal’s eyes brightened, then seemed to sink deep into reverie. Once again Nina was impressed. The man who had spent years in the West and whose days were crammed with all manner of technical wizardry, whose taste had been tempered by hot dogs and burgers, and the gods only knew what other animal flesh, could still detect the presence of unprocessed palm sugar in a dish. He hadn’t lost his Bengali soul.
At length Mreenal sat up with a start and turned to Nina. “I think I understand what you’re really asking, Thakurma.”
How affectionately he addressed her. “Forgive me, please,” Nina said, “for asking such a personal question—”
“Not at all. Actually, I’m a bit flattered.” Mreenal paused, his attention apparently caught hy a mynah, which had launched itself from a nearby tree in pursuit of an unfortunate insect. “Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life.”
Out of the corner of her eye Nina caught a glimpse of the bird. Keen powers of observation, she told herself, another good trait in a bachelor. “I hope marriage is in your plans.”
“Marriage is easy; finding a mate, that’s hard. So far I haven’t found a suitable mate on my own, although I’ve come close a couple of times.”
“It must be lonely, so far away from home. How can you cut a limb out of a tree and expect it to form roots overnight?”
“Lonely, yes, at times, especially since most of my friends in Seattle are married. A few years back, when everyone was single, we used to throw great parties on weekends or go skiing as a group. Now my friends all have kids. They’re short on cash and have no free time, not to mention their houses are a mess. They envy my freedom and tell me, ‘If I could have even one day like yours, Mreenal …’ But to tell you the truth, I’m getting tired of my ‘wonderful’ days. I tell myself I’d gladly exchange my affluence and freedom for their comfort and security, even with its responsibilities. But then, would I?”
“Ah, yes, a good question.”
Mreenal glanced at his empty plate. “My mother doesn’t make patishaptas. What a special skill it is to transform ground rice into such delicate crepes.”
Nina smiled to herself. What a perfect afternoon this was turning out to be: Nina giving Mreenal an introduction to the Guptas, their style of living, their way of welcoming guests, even before Sujata arrived.
“The world can be cruel to singles,” Mreenal continued, “but I run into kindness, too. When I caught the flu bug a month ago, my landlady brought me a steaming bowl of soup. I don’t much care for soups, yet I sipped at her minestrone until I had finished it all. I imagined the care and generosity that had gone into it and I brimmed with the same feelings for her. Perhaps because of it, I got better quickly. For my landlady’s birthday, I bought her a pet rabbit. Now we chat all the time in the hallway about that rabbit. So, in a way, living alone has helped me grow.”
“My Sujata lives alone and she’s also changed a lot. I talked to her a few minutes the other day. Too bad you didn’t get to meet Sujata when you were in Victoria recently.”
A gentle afternoon breeze teased Mreenal’s hair and he brushed a few wisps off his forehead. “She’s quite elusive, that granddaughter of yours.”
“She’ll be arriving tomorrow. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding her here. Then you two can compare notes on the blessings of a single life … over more patishaptas, of course!”
“Wish I could, Thakurma, I very much wish that.” Mreenal ribbed his chin. “But I have to return to Calcutta tomorrow. My mother called this afternoon. She wants me back right away on an urgent matter.”
Nina fussed with her sari hem. The afternoon abruptly turned gray, dull, and soundless. All her planning had come to naught. What a wonderful opportunity the headstrong Sujata had
missed.
“Will you be able to attend my birthday celebration?”
“I plan to fly back.”
Nina heard a greeting and the slap of chappals on the pathway; she looked toward the house just in time to see Tami waddling into the yard. The train of her stiff sari, like a ship’s sail, created such a bustle that the happily fed mynah, now perched on a shrub, began to whistle and squawk.
Sighting his great-aunt, Mreenal rose and expressed his gratitude to Nina for the hospitality. Then, with a sorrowful expression, he said, “I have to go now, Thakurma.” He made his greetings to Tami and started toward the exit.
Tami waited until Mreenal was out of sight. She craned her neck toward Nina and whispered hoarsely, “I have some news.” She dropped into a chair and adjusted the veil of her sari. “I’m so sorry, Nina. It seems lately I only bring you bad news. Mreenal’s mother has found a match for him and she’s terribly excited. No one else knows it yet except Mreenal and myself.”
“But I was under the impression that his mother knows Mreenal spends a lot of time here.”
“I suppose she does. She also knows that I tried to get Mreenal and Sujata to meet in Victoria, and that it didn’t come off.”
“Call her back, tell her how much I enjoy Mreenal. What a fine young man he is.”
“Isn’t it a little late, Nina?”
“No. Mreenal and Sujata will meet tomorrow afternoon.”
Tami leaned forward in puzzlement. “But how? Mreenal’s leaving early in the morning.”
“No, he won’t. Just leave that to me, Tami. Just leave that to me.”
thirty-one
Aloka had just thrown on her overcoat when she heard Jahar murmuring from the other side of the room, “Why do you have to go?” The full, sensuous lips that had so tenderly murmured against the dimple of her cheeks only minutes ago parted as if to beckon her back. He extended a sturdy, well-proportioned hand toward her. “It’s not even six.”
“Tomorrow’s Monday and there’s work I absolutely must finish.”
“I’m making sukhe aloo for dinner,” he said in that hopeful manner of his.
She made a detour to the bed, where she bent and took his face in her hand, then kissed his lips to wipe out the pain of parting. “Save some for sukhe aloo for me, will you?”
Heading for the door, she sidestepped the Hindi comics and picture books on the floor for which Jahar had a decided fondness. She passed the shelf on the left where a silver-framed photograph of Jahar’s guru stood. Pausing, she admired the fragrance of the fresh marigold garland placed on an arc around the picture of Baba Muktananda. She respected his belief, though she wouldn’t adopt the same. On the right was the closet, littered with boxes, where Jahar was now searching for his clothes.
He wrapped the sash of a dingy bathrobe around his waist. “Why don’t I come to your place tomorrow?”
She switched on a demure smile. “My windows face north. You told me you like to see me in the light of the sunset.”
Only Parveen could come up with an excuse this charming, but she was running out of them fast.
“I don’t care about windows and sunsets,” Jahar pressed on. “I just want to see you walking from room to room, humming a song, your hair catching the overhead light. My mother says a woman is most beautiful when she’s surrounded by her own things.”
Aloka managed a weak smile. How much longer would she be able to conceal her identity from Jahar?
She couldn’t invite him over when her old Aloka self resided there, and Pranab did, too. Like the smell of the cigarettes he had started to smoke occasionally, traces of Pranab persisted there. The bed they’d shared, the furniture they’d shopped for together, even the books they’d selected for the study bore Pranab’s emblem. Until this evening, Jahar had displayed only mild curiosity about her place.
She waved from the door in a cautious but grateful gesture.
He smoothed his tousled hair with his fingers and gazed after her. Softly he said, “Until tomorrow.”
She carried an imprint of that loving expression with her as she exited the building and crossed Second Avenue. In front of her stood the delicatessen where they’d first met. A pigeon cooed a welcome from near the entrance. She checked the snipped flowers—roses, carnations, lilies, and daisies—wrapped in cellophane and arranged against the front wall, like a corsage for this dowager of a building. Golden melon cubes peeked out from plastic containers nestled attractively in a tub of crushed ice. She and Jahar had often shopped here together for fruit and flowers. Barely a fortnight had passed since that first encounter, yet, in thinking back, their time together seemed as full and complete as an entire season. She couldn’t remember precisely at what point their lives had converged, but it hadn’t taken long and this delicatessen had helped.
The truth remained, however, that she hadn’t given herself to him as fully as she had to Pranab.
Entering her apartment, Aloka bumped her hip on the edge of the table placed in the hallway. Oh, not again! she told herself in a flash of irritation. For some time now she had felt a vague dissatisfaction with the angular layout of this apartment, its narrow dark corridors, not to mention the high rent.
Lately, contemplating a move, she had checked out a few real estate ads and scouted for a rental unit in an enclave called Gramercy Park South. Such a move would cut down her commute time to her office. Or was she rationalizing an attempt to distance herself from Jahar? Was she afraid that Jahar would drop by unannounced and discover her real identity?
How would he react if he found out that she was a serious newspaper reporter undergoing a painful divorce, one who wanted her husband back? That would shatter his fantasy of the frivolous Parveen who dabbled in real estate to pay her bills. Aloka wasn’t Parveen, the whimsical woman of his dreams, certainly not twenty-four hours a day.
She dropped her purse to its designated place near the entrance, took off her shoes and jacket, snapped the barrette off her ponytail, and sagged into a chair in the living room. Jahar’s face flashed in her mind, that splendid profile etched with experience, the rough skin belying his inner friendliness. He was loving, courteous, generous, and protective. In the midst of the brutal chaos of the city, he’d created a small oasis and carved a nook for her in it. But what would her friends say about a man who didn’t attend City Arts and Lectures or hang out in the Theater District or at Spierman Gallery, one who couldn’t comment on Paul Taylor dances? Would Jahar find himself in a discomfiting situation if a colleague of hers asked his opinion about India’s balance of payment? Would her family approve of a man who hadn’t graduated from college?
He had fidgeted when she had taken him to the casually elegant Beacon on his birthday. The five-course dinner served by an exquisitely formal waiter in a white uniform had overwhelmed him. “Too many forks and spoons,” he had grumbled later. He seemed more at ease in the corner coffee shop where linoleum floors and careless servers were the norm, where the waitress sloshed coffee on his lap as she set the grotesque mug down on the table. That amused him. And now that she dwelt upon it, she hadn’t been to a gallery opening or attended an author’s reading since she met him. His cronies were taxi drivers, gas station attendants, and construction workers, who worked hard and preferred entertainment of a different sort at the end of the day.
“Got any beer?” they would demand as they settled into his living room for an all-night game of cards. She would curl up in a chair and watch them until finally, overcome by clouds of cigarette smoke, she would return home, coughing and repelled. In the long term would she be able to meet his needs and adapt to the simplicity of his existence?
Most important of all, she still believed she and Pranab would get back together once they returned to Darjeeling.
When Aloka next studied the clock on the wall, it said seven P.M. She pushed aside her thoughts of Jahar, rose slowly, went to her desk, and picked up a fat manila folder. This week her readers had sent quite a few cards and letters. She began
to run through them, choking on the smell of sautéing onions and ignoring the sounds of a shouting match that drifted up through her open window from the restaurant bar at the corner. Soon her consciousness merged with that of her readers and she entered a state where she could reply to them not only as a friend but also someone who had toured miles in their chappals. The first letter was neatly typed.
I speak English fluently, you know, like most asli desis, our compatriots, but no one seems to understand what I say. I repeat myself three, four, five times and more, and still I find people staring at me. The other day a colleague joked that 1 carry pebbles in my mouth. (Believe me, I don’t even chew gum.) And a sales clerk at the candy shop told me flat out, “Speak American, or I won’t wait on you.”
Pronunciation challenged
And on to the next.
Vegetarianism sucks in New York. My family in India hasn’t touched meat in the last hundred years and I am trying to continue the tradition, but I have had it with limp Caesar salad (like chewing on water), bean soup (the color of mud und the same consistency), and cheese-melt (the texture of glue). Still, merely entertaining the idea of eating meat makes me want to throw up.
Starving in Manhattan
Such routine letters.
Aloka found herself wishing to delve into a deeper problem, something that would reawaken her troubleshooting skills. Her eyes were nearly closing when she came across a handwritten note on lined, straw-colored paper. The script was uneven and awkward, with letters that veered off the line. Oddly, it reminded her of a clay doll from childhood, made by an amateur artisan in which the body proportions were comically wrong and laughably so, one arm twice as long as the other, one thigh considerably fatter. She had held the doll dear, until one day when her father made fun of it. “Bichchiri,” he had said, ugly, very ugly, whereupon she had hurled the toy against the wall, shattering it into pieces, then bursting into tears.
Darjeeling Page 21
