He would never come around, I realized sadly. I would have to sacrifice the granddaughter to keep the lover.
Needless to say, Vinay was shocked when I called him. It was just not done, but to his credit he stammered only a few times before saying, yes, he would be at Minerva at 11 A.M. sharp.
“He said okay? Really?” Sowmya asked, her fingers trembling on the piece of ginger she was holding.
“Yes, he did,” I said, and stripped some curry leaves from their stem. “What will you say to him?”
Sowmya resumed grating the ginger. “I don’t know, but I am sure I will be inspired once I sit in front of him. You will be there, won’t you? All the time?”
“Yes,” I said, and popped a peanut into my mouth.
“I can’t believe it is going to happen. Marriage!” Sowmya sounded excited. “But I want to talk to him before I say anything to Nanna. Otherwise . . . life will be a waste, you know.”
“You’ll leave this house, your parents. Do you think you’ll miss it?”
“I think so,” Sowmya said, looking around the kitchen. “I like this house. It is nice and cozy. The tenants upstairs don’t make too much noise; Parvati comes regularly, more or less, and yes, I am very comfortable here.
“But I am ready for the change,” she said, and paused. She looked around to make sure no one was listening and then whispered, “You have had sex, right?” just as I put another peanut into my mouth. I all but choked on the nut.
“What?”
Sowmya gave me a look laden with curiosity. “You have, right? You live with this American and . . . you have, right?”
“I . . .” This was an intensely personal question, but she seemed so eager to know that I nodded.
“How was it the first time?” she asked.
I shrugged. I was mortified.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
I watched her put a wok on the gas stove and fire it up. She poured oil into the wok and looked at me expectantly.
“I don’t remember,” was the best I could do on short notice. Sowmya gave me a “sell me another bridge” look and I grinned, embarrassed. “I . . . it was fine.”
“Was it with this American?” she asked.
“Yes.” Good Lord, this was not a conversation I was prepared to have.
Sowmya threw some mustard seeds in the wok, and they spluttered in the oil. Some sprang out and landed on the stove and counter. She stirred the mustard seeds for a few moments and then dropped some curry leaves with black and yellow gram dal into the wok and let them sizzle for a while. Then she broke two dry red peppers and plopped them into the oil with crackling fanfare.
“Oh, give me those pachi marapakayalu.” She pointed to the green chilies by the sink, which I was leaning against.
She put green chilies inside the wok as well and sighed, spatula in hand. “I always wondered about it. And now it will actually happen. I am scared and excited.”
I had never seen this side of Sowmya before. This was a dreamy Sowmya, not the practical mouse I had grown up with.
She piled a deep-bowled steel ladle with yogurt and thumped the handle of the ladle on the side of the wok to drop a dollop of yogurt in it. She dropped another dollop of yogurt alongside the first and stirred hard, forcing the thick yogurt to liquefy and mix with the spices already sizzling in the oil.
“I always liked curd rice,” I said, as the familiar smell of burning yogurt filled the kitchen.
“This is the best thing to cook for breakfast,” Sowmya responded. “Fast and easy and I can use all leftovers. Pass me that rice, will you?” She added the rice left over from dinner the previous night to the wok and started to stir hard again, mixing everything into a Telugu breakfast staple.
“Do you think he will say no because I am being so bold?” Sowmya asked, almost as if she were wondering aloud.
“If he does, to hell with him,” I said.
She nodded, smiled, and turned the gas off.
Breakfast was ready.
Everyone in Ma’s family drank filter coffee in the morning. Instant coffee was okay for any other time of day but for mornings it had to be filter coffee. The coffee was made in a steel filter where hot water was poured onto rich ground coffee and filtered to make a thick decoction. The decoction was then mixed with frothy, bubbling hot milk and sugar. I remembered waking up every morning to the smell of decoction. I never got hooked on coffee but I always drank it when I was at Thatha’s house. No matter what Ma said about all filter coffee being the same—“You mix coffee decoction with milk, what skill do you need for that?”—Sowmya’s coffee was way better and she didn’t complain when I added five spoons of sugar to my coffee tumbler either.
Sowmya poured coffee in steel tumblers and put the tumblers in small steel bowls.
“Priya, I have a personal question,” Sowmya asked. She topped the glasses off with the coffee left in the steel utensil after she had filled up all the glasses.
Asking me if I’d had sex was not personal enough anymore? “Sure,” I said.
“Does it hurt a lot the first time?”
I shrugged. “Depends upon the . . . Sowmya, I can’t talk to you about this.”
“Then who should I talk to about all this?” she demanded. “Maybe your Ammamma would like to fill me in regarding the ins and outs of marital life. What do you think?”
I sighed. “It hurts, but it gets better.”
“Really?” she brightened. “How much better?”
“A lot better,” I said unable to keep a straight face any longer.
“But it depends upon the husband, right?”
“Yes.”
Sowmya nodded. “But I can’t test that.”
“Not in India, you can’t.”
Sowmya sipped some coffee from a glass and nodded again. “That is okay. It is going to be okay. Right, Priya?”
“Right,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what she was talking about being okay.
Minerva hadn’t changed, even a bit. It even smelled the same way it had seven years ago. My mouth watered at the sight of long crisp dosas and sizzling vadas. It was hard to get good south Indian food in America. The chicken curries and tandoori places were in abundance but the all-out vegetarian, south Indian food was almost impossible to find.
“I’m going to get a masala dosa,” I told the terribly nervous Sowmya.
“I am going to throw up,” she said, as soon as her eyes fell on her husband-maybe-to-be. “I have never been this scared before, Priya. This is a really bad idea,” she clutched my wrist. “Let us go back and we will pretend you never called him.”
I unclasped the death grip she had on me and patted the offending hand. “You don’t have to do this. But I think you need to, to be sure. It’s okay. I’ll be there.”
“You are more interested in that masala dosa,” she quipped nervously.
“Well . . . it is hard to get good dosa back home,” I said with a smile. “Come on. You know you won’t rest until you do this. And we have to get back by noon. Thatha wants me to let him know what my decision is.”
“And what is your decision?” Sowmya asked, still rooted at a safe distance from Vinay.
“We’re not here to discuss that,” I reminded her. I raised my hand and waved to Vinay. “Hi,” I cried out, and Sowmya closed her eyes.
She looked strange without her glasses. Vanity had taken over and she had abandoned the thick glasses for her seldom-used contact lenses.
“Namaskaram.” Vinay folded his hands and then gestured for us to sit down.
“Namaskaram,” Sowmya said. “Ah . . . chala, thanks, for coming here.”
“No problem,” Vinay said, and then smiled uneasily at me. “Would you like to eat something?”
“No,” Sowmya said, but I nodded and said, “ Masala dosa.”
Sowmya pinched my thigh and I stifled a yelp. “No, nothing, thanks.”
“Coffee?” Vinay asked, sounding as nervous as Sowmya.
“No,” Sowmya said, her head st
ill bent. “I . . . wanted to talk to you,” she raised her head and he nodded. Speaking of uncomfortable places to be, this one took the cake and the baker.
“So . . . is there a problem?” Vinay asked. “You don’t approve of the match?”
“I . . . I want to marry you,” Sowmya reassured him a little too curtly. “But I wanted to clarify a few things.”
“Sure, sure. I am very happy that you want to marry me,” Vinay said with a small smile.
Sowmya held my hand and almost broke my pinkie finger. “I want to work,” she revealed sincerely. “My father didn’t let me and they said that your family doesn’t approve. But I want to work.”
Vinay nodded. “No problem. I can handle my parents. I will explain to them. If you want to work, I fully support that and they will, too.”
Sowmya smiled and I felt and heard her sigh of relief. “And . . . I want to have my own house. I know you care for your parents, but . . .”
Vinay smiled then. “The house is big. There are two kitchens and two everything. Old house, though. My grandfather, he built it. We will live separate, but they are still my parents.”
Sowmya smiled back and nodded.
“Anything else?” Vinay asked.
“And that is all,” she said.
“Now will you have coffee?” Vinay looked at me. “ Masala dosa?” he asked.
Sowmya nodded shyly and Vinay signaled for a waiter to come to our table.
During the auto rickshaw ride back home, Sowmya was flushed with happiness. “He is nice, isn’t he?” she said.
“Very nice,” I agreed with her.
“I can work,” Sowmya said almost giddily. “A job, Priya. A place I can go to every day, out of the house. I am so glad I did this. I feel so relieved. And”—she laughed softly—“I am getting married!”
“Congratulations,” I said, and kissed her on her cheek.
“What will you tell them?” she asked me when we got off the auto rickshaw.
“The truth,” I said easily. If Sowmya could take such a big chance to make a better life, I should be able to do the same. “I love Nick. I’m going to marry him.”
Sowmya laced her fingers with mine after she paid off the auto rickshaw driver and squeezed gently. “I will be with you all the time. All right?”
“All right,” I said. “I . . . am going to go and make a phone call.”
“Isn’t it late there?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Around midnight, but he’s usually awake late.”
“Okay, I will make an excuse for you,” Sowmya said and winked at me.
I couldn’t get ahold of Nick. His cell phone said he was out of range. I got our answering machine the five times I tried our home number and his work number said he was either out of his cubicle or on another line.
Panic set in! Had he received the email about my meeting Adarsh despite the server error and had just gone postal? Or maybe he had moved out of our home, changed his cell phone number and . . . didn’t pick up his work phone either? All sorts of unhealthy scenarios emerged in my head. To quell the feeling of misery that was welling inside me, I dialed Frances’s phone number from memory. I knew it would be really late in Memphis but if Nick had dumped me his mother would definitely know.
She was sleeping, but the minute she heard my voice she sounded wide awake.
“They’re forcing you to marry some Indian man and you want me to say good-bye to Nick for you,” she said as soon as she heard my “Hello, Frances.”
I laughed. “No.”
“Thank god, because my policy is that everyone does their own dirty work,” Frances said and I could hear her smile. “How’s it going, Priya?”
“I can’t find Nick,” I said, now feeling foolish for having woken her up. “I . . . thought he might be angry with me.”
“Angry? No, I don’t think so. I just spoke with him yesterday and he was fine. Was waiting for you to come back and get married to him,” Frances said. “And speaking of marriage, I found the perfect place for you both. It’s in midtown and it’s beautiful. The gardens are lovely. And I was thinking, if we did it in the fall, this fall, we could have great pictures of the foliage and—”
“Frances, I’m worried your son has dumped me. I don’t think I can even think about marriage,” I said, half hysterical.
“What’s one thing got to do with the other?” Frances demanded. “Find the right place to get married and I’ll make sure he shows up. He’s silly in love with you. Don’t you have faith?”
“Plenty,” I said. “Plenty back home. Here everything is murky and they made me go through this bride-seeing ceremony.”
“Like they do in the books? Was he a suitable boy?” Frances asked sounding excited. “Are you sure they made you go through it? Or did you want to?”
“Of course I didn’t want to and he isn’t suitable,” I said.
“Are you saying that a grown woman like you couldn’t stop something as simple as a bride-seeing ceremony?”
“I didn’t have the courage to tell them about Nick. Now I have and they all hate me,” I confessed.
“If this is all it takes to get them to hate you, you’re better off without them,” Frances said. “But they don’t hate you. They’re just mad and once they’re over their mad, they’ll be fine.”
“Really?”
“Well, I would be, if you were my daughter,” Frances said. “So . . . do I book this place for this fall or what? I was thinking early October. Not too hot, not too cold.”
“And then I can be knocked up by December?“ I asked sardonically.
“Would you?” Frances said. “That would be excellent. You could have a baby in September and . . . oh, that would be excellent. A September baby would—”
“Frances!”
“I’ll tell Nick that you wanted to get in touch with him,” Frances said, sounding very satisfied. “But don’t worry about him. He isn’t going anywhere.”
We chatted for a while; Frances wanted to know how everything in Hyderabad was, including the weather. She had this romantic idea about India, the way it was shown in books as an exotic land. When I told her about the slums and the dust that settled on your entire body, even your eyelids as soon as you got here, she thought it was quaint. India was not just a country you visited, it was a country that sank into your blood and stole a part of you.
As an insider all those years ago I couldn’t see it, but now after several years of exile I could feel the texture of India. It was the people, the smell, the taste, the noise, the essence that dragged you in and kept you. I hated this country for a lot of reasons, the narrow-mindedness, the bigotry, the treatment of women, but that was all on a larger scale, on a day-to-day basis. India still was my country.
I felt light-hearted, confident, and on top of the world after speaking with Frances. That changed when I got to Thatha’s house.
I stepped into the hall and the earth shifted. This was classic Ma, classic Indian mother.
Ma and Thatha were sitting across from Adarsh on the sofa Ammamma frequented most.
“Priya,” Ma stood up nervously. “Adarsh is here to see you.”
“I can see that,” I said, my lips pursued. “Hi,” I said to Adarsh, and he nodded with a confused look on his face.
“Can you come with me?” Ma insisted, and then just in case I would say something contrary she grabbed my wrist and took me inside.
“We thought it best,” she said as soon as we were in the kitchen.
“Thought what best?” I was now very confused and very suspicious. It was always a bad thing when Ma started thinking about my best.
Ma took a deep breath, her potbelly jiggled and her hands landed on her waist in an offensive gesture. “We asked Adarsh to come here saying that you wanted to meet him one last time before you made a decision.”
I wanted to say something, anything, but the words were not forming. Each time I thought they couldn’t surpass their previous nonsense, they did.
; “We think you should talk to him and see what a good boy he is before you decide anything,” Ma advised.
I shook my head as if to clear the cobwebs that had settled in as soon as I saw Adarsh. “Ma, I’ve already decided. Actually, there is nothing to decide.”
“Just talk to him,” Ma cried out. “What do you lose?”
“Does Nanna know about this?” I asked.
“No. Your Thatha and I thought it was a good idea.”
I sighed. “I’ll talk to him, but not here,” I said even before she could let the triumphant smile form on her face. “We’ll go out and I’ll talk to him. You handle Thatha about that.”
“And you’ll be good to him? Right? Speak properly? No nonsense?”
I grinned; she had to push for that extra mile. “Ma, don’t you think I’m doing enough?”
Ma frowned and muttered something that I thankfully couldn’t catch. Thatha was called into the kitchen by Ma while I asked Adarsh if he wouldn’t mind going out.
“Sure,” Adarsh nodded and then followed me onto the veranda. I slipped my feet into the Kohlapuri slippers that I had just taken off. I had bought them a few days ago when I got home and they were already showing serious signs of wear.
While Adarsh buckled his leather sandals, I asked him if he knew of a place where we could have a cup of coffee and talk.
“Sure, we can drive,” Adarsh said, pointing to a black Tata Sierra parked outside the gate that I hadn’t noticed when I’d come back.
We didn’t speak as Adarsh drove to a chaat place.
“I love chaat,” he told me. “As soon as I got here I ate chaat.”
“I lived on chaat and ganna juice while I was in college,” I said. “When I got to the U.S. I was skinny. I looked like I was a refugee from one of those sad African countries.”
“Can’t bulk up just on chaat and sugarcane juice,” Adarsh concurred. “But if you add beer to the mix . . .” We laughed, almost companionably.
The chaat place was a small restaurant. Not your regular roadside chaat, this one was a step up. There were probably fifteen tables covered with red-and-white checkered vinyl tablecloths. Each table had a small plastic vase where a dusty plastic red rose stood upright proclaiming its artificiality.
The Mango Season Page 18
