“Okay.” Sujata clutched the spoon tightly, as though it were a weapon to fight off an intruder, and began her mission. Stationing herself at the other end of the counter, Aloka worked some sugar into the fresh cheese, glancing over occasionally at Sujata. So much unfinished business to discuss, yet such iciness between them. At last, unable to bear the tension any longer, she said, “Did it bother you that Thakurma and I went to lunch?”
“No surprises there. You’ve always been her favorite. All I ever heard was, ‘Aloka is so beautiful, so personable, so kind.’ During mela you always got the bigger doll.”
Aloka kept slicing the cheese into tiny pellets. “Funny you should say that. We did discuss the will. The tea plantation—which she is giving to you, by the way-—is much bigger in value than the house.”
Sujata clanged the spoon on a spoon rest. Bubbles of milk from the back of the spoon drizzled over the counter. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you that the plantation also comes with bigger problems? Like losing money for the last seven years?”
The milk came to a rolling boil, white clouds threatening to overflow the sides of the pan in a revolt. Aloka caught Sujata’s eyes and pointed. “Stir!”
Sujata picked up the spoon with a careless hand and stirred without enthusiasm. She stood sideways to the stove, steam misting her right cheek.
“Do you know we’re both acting terribly childish?” Aloka set the cheese pellets aside. “I don’t care if Thakurma gives you more property. That’s not the point. I come home in a world of pain from a failed marriage and I don’t get even a word of consolation from you.”
“You took Pranab away from me and you want my sympathy?”
“It was this way long before Pranab, ever since we were kids. You never seemed to care about me, you didn’t talk to me, you wouldn’t go anywhere with me. I had many friends then, but it used to crush me to think how my own sister acted like a stranger to me.”
“I felt like I was behind you in every respect, Aloka, and I thought less of myself because of it. How could you expect me to be close to you when all you did was make me feel inferior? I still can’t walk in your venerable shoes, nor do I have the patience to stir milk for an hour, but I have other strengths now. In any case, if I seemed to have neglected you these past few days, don’t take it personally. It’s because I, too, have a lot on my mind. The thought of taking over the tea plantation is really intimidating. And then there were issues with Mreenal … .”
“He wasn’t too tickled about the tea estate, was he? Well, he is a city boy, after all. I understand both sides of that issue.”
“But do you really understand a single woman’s problems? After all, you were married for a number of years.”
“You have the nerve to say that, knowing how my marriage turned out? Thanks in no small part to you, I might add!”
“Would it have lasted if I hadn’t been around?”
Her words, like a large, ominous bird, swooped down on Aloka and startled her. She stepped toward the window and stared out blankly into the vast space beyond. Sujata had cut straight to the center of the issue. Her incisive observation had merit, though Aloka could only curse her for it.
“Oh, Aloka, please forgive me—I had no right to say that. I’ve caused you enough grief already.”
Aloka took a few moments to gather herself. When she sneaked a look at Sujata, it shocked her to see the crumpled face. Sujata bit her lip, squeezed her hands, and flexed her feet inside her sandals, like she used to do as a child when she was upset. Aloka felt a surge of affection toward Sujata, the usually tough woman, suddenly so vulnerable.
“When Thakurma asked me if I’d help you in the kitchen, at first I had reservations. Then I thought if we spent some time together we could resolve our differences … .” Sujata’s voice trailed off.
“I’ve always thought that we’re very different, too, but maybe we aren’t. After all, we both fell in love with Pranab.”
Sujata laughed ruefully. “You know, it wouldn’t have worked for me, either.”
“Pranab thinks he’s still in love with you.”
“He doesn’t seem real to me anymore. All that went on between us is just memory.”
“I know practically nothing about what went on between you two.”
“Do you really want to know, Aloka?”
“I do, once and for all. I don’t want any hidden issues standing between us, so we can start with a clean slate and be real sisters. Besides, I have a right to know.”
“You were away on that spring day when it started,” Sujata began haltingly.
Aloka learned that the lovers kissed each other three times when they met, that the kisses signified love, everlasting love, and love only for each other, and that they had many secret “love nooks.” Sujata appeared to speak from a tearful interior, her voice still so young, and her hand sadly expressive in the way it made shorter and shorter circles over the milk, finally stopping altogether.
Aloka took a jerky breath. “Did you two ever talk about me?”
“Oh, yes! You were in our minds constantly. Pranab gave you the name Sundari, the beauteous.” Sujata recounted how they called Aloka gorgeous and foolish behind her back. Aloka never came between them or cast a shadow over them; she was more like an abstract figure of speech, a symbol of their transgression. They’d even made plans to elope, leaving behind only a note for Sundari. “This is to inform your beauteousness that …”
The words struck her like bullets. Aloka kicked the stool and made a dash for the door, but Sujata rushed after her, arms outstretched, and clasped her in a desperate embrace. It took Aloka a moment to come back to the present and feel the poignancy and regret in Sujata’s trembling body. Then, abruptly, Sujata let her go. “Oh, no. The milk is burning.”
That announcement and the acrid smell escaping the pot dissipated the sisterly closeness. Aloka hurried over to take a closer look, one hand turning off the stove with an emphatic click as she went. Sure enough, the edges of the milk had begun to turn deep brown and the skin on top had taken on a paper-like crispness.
“You haven’t been stirring, that’s why. What a pity. Now we’ll have to throw it out and start all over again.” Aloka concluded with, “Just what I was afraid of.”
Sujata, visibly embarrassed, seemed to shrink in stature as she stepped aside. “Once again I’ve made a mess of things, it seems.”
Aloka emptied the pot into the sink. The steaming liquid sizzled as it hit the stainless steel surface. She began scrubbing the pot furiously, listening to the tap-tap-tap of the dripping faucet, as she tried not to dwell on the difficulty of removing burned milk residue from a metal surface. Her inner arm began to ache from the strain. By the time she finished, her fingertips were pink and crinkled from the long immersion in hot water. How terribly wronged she felt.
“Please try to forgive me, Aloka, if that’s humanly possible.”
Inwardly Aloka struggled to muster every bit of kindness and understanding she was capable of. Forgiveness, as she knew from previous experience, was often a liberating emotion, a rainbow of hope, relief, and sorrow. It would not come all at once, but rather in numerous small acts of daily life. From now on she would trust Sujata with her confidences, be genuinely glad to spend time with her, offer her support when she needed it, lend her the cherry lipstick that they had fought over as children. With that notion clearing her head, Aloka added fresh milk and cardamom to the newly cleaned pot, turned on the stove, and began to whisk. The repetitive motion helped calm her. Another revelation dawned on her.
“You can finally rid yourself of the guilt you’ve been carrying, Sujata. In the final analysis you did nothing wrong. I was the one standing in the way of a great love.”
Sujata’s eyes were filled with gratitude. Her face glowed for an instant, then became softly reflective. “Yes, great love is what I truly felt for Pranab. But in retrospect, I don’t regret being forced to leave home. Unhappiness would surely have come to me if I’d sta
yed. In a way I’m grateful it was you who married Pranab.”
Sujata’s confession had rendered the atmosphere heavy and still. And yet truth has a way of freeing one’s energy. Aloka busied herself cleaning the counter with a rag, then went back to stir the milk vigorously.
“I admire you for being such a big-hearted person, Aloka. You’ve listened to my story without hitting me or screaming. I wouldn’t have been so understanding.”
“We’ll never know, will we, bontee? Now, would you mind stirring for a while?”
“I promise not to take my eyes off it.” With a confident hand, Sujata made perfect circles on the surface of the milk, breaking the film on top and dipping down to the bottom. The churning sound seemed to entertain her. When the milk came to a rolling boil, she lowered the heat and stirred quickly like an expert till the foaming subsided. She radiated the contentment of a sailor navigating a calm waterway.
“You have mastered the art of payesh, it seems.” Aloka smiled with satisfaction at having passed this bit of know-how to Sujata.
“When I walked in,” Sujata said after a while, “you seemed like an empress of the kitchen, handling everything perfectly, and I started to feel inferior all over again. And you know I still feel like I can never measure up to you.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re about to take on a tremendous responsibility. You are accepting Thakurma’s offer, I assume. When are you going to give her the good news?”
“On the eve of her birthday.”
“Oh, and by the way, I was always a bit envious of you, too, Sujata. You were so far ahead of me when it came to tea. That being our family business, I was threatened as well.”
Sujata seemed to be taken aback by this admission. “Really? I had no idea you felt that way.”
Just then Reenu glided in, her eyes darting from one sister to the other, as though taking the temperature between the two. With obvious trepidation, she turned to Sujata. “Pranab-babu is here to see you.” She said this meaningfully and watched for their reactions.
“Can’t you see I’m busy cooking right now?”
“Let me take it over.” Aloka reached out with her hand, and for an instant they shared the spoon handle. The two pairs of eyes met knowingly. It had taken all these years and much unpleasantness to achieve this degree of understanding, to feel this sisterly intimacy.
“I’ll be along in a minute,” Sujata replied to Reenu, and waited till the maidservant was gone out of sight. Then she turned to face Aloka and relinquished the spoon to her. Aloka extended her arms, embraced Sujata, and stood clinging to her, the way she’d wanted to for a long time.
“It won’t be easy.” Sujata released her sister and began rinsing her hands under the spigot. “But I’ll have to tell Pranab one last time not to come to see me anymore. The servants will be told not to let him in.”
“He’ll feel totally lost, I’m sure.” Aloka held out a plush hand towel. “He’s always had one or the other of us to fall back on. Now it’s time for him to get his life together on his own. Will he able to handle that? We’ll just have to wait and see. He’ll have some serious thinking to do, that’s for sure.”
“So, you don’t want to see him at all?” Sujata asked.
“If I were to run into him again somewhere, I’d say hello, maybe chat for a couple of minutes, and then he on my way. When a love has ended, there’s really not much to say.”
Sujata returned the towel to the towel rod and straightened its sides. “A long time from now, Pranab will probably look back and think about both of us. He’ll see my relationship with him as a little poem scribbled on a scrap of paper that the wind has blown away. But he’ll see your life with him as a treasured book that he somehow managed to lose. He’ll realize he made by far the bigger mistake with you.”
“My very articulate sister,” Aloka sighed. “You’d better go see him now. He’s been waiting a long time.”
Sujata nodded in agreement. “I’ll be back. Watch the milk for me, will you?”
forty-seven
As she entered the living room, Suzy could barely make out Pranab’s features. His buff-colored cotton jacket faded into the background. Sitting in a meditative posture by the bookcase in a shadowy corner of the room, he was contemplating a bunch of long-stemmed blue irises in a vase. She weighed the subject she was about to bring up and almost stumbled, as one of her shoes snagged at the edge of the carpet.
He must have heard her, for he rose eagerly. “Ah! It’s you, Sujata! Reenu said you were in the kitchen.”
With the odor of burned milk still lingering in the air, the subject of cooking provided an opportune conversational gambit. She sniffed the air with mock exaggeration and flopped into a seat across from him. “Aloka and I are cooking together!”
“Well, I don’t want to keep you away from the fun in the kitchen. I came to see you one last time. I’m leaving this afternoon.”
“You’re not staying for Thakurma’s birthday?.”
“No, I really can’t.” He reached over and handed her a small box gift-wrapped in silver paper. “It’s time for me to go.”
“You caught me by surprise.”
“It was a difficult decision … .”
Suzy set her eyes on him, wondering.
“A decision that Aloka helped me make. She straightened me out over breakfast the other day. I had gotten it all wrong. I should never have had that affair with you. Both Aloka and you prospered from it, became stronger—look at you two now—but it ended badly for me. I’ve squandered years of my life; now I’ll have to start all over again. At first I dismissed what she had to say. Only days later did it all make sense. She really became my guiding light, my alok. So, now I’m going back to New York.”
“I thought you hated New York.”
“It’s ugly and gross, but over the years it has become an easier place for me to exist. No one there cares where you come from, who you are, or what you do. I sought friends like I had here and only met with hostility or disinterest. Curiously, being shunned like that gives you the space and solitude to grow. And New York offers more than one chance. Maybe I’ll find some other line of work. That’s the upside of a humongous city like that.”
The words that came in a burst had certainty in them. So, his years in the States hadn’t been a complete loss. He was finally pulling it together. He appeared stronger than the last few times she’s seen him, more in control. For a fleeting moment, he became the man she had fallen in love with right in this room, a king on that afternoon, his words her command to obey.
Then Suzy noticed that Reenu had tiptoed in and was hovering just inside the door. Sensing that she was intruding, the maidservant turned, as if to go back the way she came.
“Were you looking for me?” Suzy asked.
“The florist is on the phone,” the maidservant whispered. “Should I ask him to call back?”
“Please.”
Suzy appreciated Reenu’s tactful handling of the matter. Oddly, now that it had become clear she might never see Pranab again, she wanted to linger a bit. She finally saw him for who he was, neither a giant nor a despicable man, but rather an ordinary being, whose openness and humility inspired fondness; a man who had difficulty controlling his impulses, but ultimately was one struggling to make a decent life for himself.
“I want to thank you belatedly,” Suzy said, “for what you attempted to do for the tea plantation. My elders didn’t listen to your advice about paying attention to the tea workers’ grievances. They didn’t understand why you . were so interested in labor rights, what you were trying to achieve with that protest march. In retrospect, I can see that you had the situation figured out. Had you been able to steer my father in the right direction in a peaceful manner, he’d probably still be alive and we’d have fewer problems with labor unions now.”
“I didn’t handle things well, young firebrand that I was. When my high ideals failed me, there was nothing left but emptiness. I couldn’t pull out of that. Maybe I
reached too high, maybe we’re not all capable of greatness. From now on, I’m going to concentrate on small activities, like getting some young boy excited about Sanskrit literature. Perhaps it’s enough to influence one mind, not hundreds. As I get older, I am finding more satisfaction in simple pleasures. I guess I’ve finally accepted being ordinary.”
He rose from his chair. Then he seemed to reach an impasse, for he fell silent, and only after some deliberation said, “I wish you every happiness, Sujata.”
As she looked on, he gazed at her face wistfully for a long disquieting moment. Then he turned and quickly slipped out the door.
Now that the channer payesh was done to her satisfaction and the bowl was tucked away in the refrigerator, Aloka drifted out to the back lawn for some fresh air. The heat of the kitchen and the long preparation time had exhausted and somewhat disoriented her. Much to her elation, Grandma was standing at the back fence, looking out over at the glen just beyond the house. Hearing Aloka’s footsteps, the wispy woman turned. Her white sari flapped in the wind and caught around her legs. In her eagerness, she stood taller. “I’m just surveying your property,” she said mischievously.
Leaning against the fence, Aloka breathed in through the aroma of earth and wood and let it settle into her chest. Through the diffuse violet light of sunset, Mount Kanchenjunga loomed above them, massive and purple-black, its upper reaches still cloaked in snow. Just beyond the lawn where the conifers were wreathed in damp gray mist, a sunbird jumped out of its nest and poured out a jumble of clipped melodic notes.
“Remember when you and Sujata used to play out there?” Grandma indicated an area off to the far left that had become overgrown and junglelike.
Grandma was hinting at the need for constant upkeep of this huge property that Aloka would have to undertake long-distance. The clever woman was doing her best to make sure that Aloka stayed involved with the family on a regular basis. Aloka squeezed Grandma’s hand gently to reassure her in that regard.
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