Don't Let Him Know (6 page)

My mother said your father passed away suddenly. My condolences. Perhaps it was all too much for you. I don’t know. I was hoping somehow that you would be waiting for me in America. Remember we told each other that all we needed to do was find our own way there and then no one could stop us from doing what we wanted.

I wanted to surprise you by telling you I had finally secured admission to graduate school in the United States. I guess the surprise ended up being mine, getting your wedding invitation. I was hoping that once we were there
away from the prying eyes of families we’d be able to live the life we dreamed about during those evenings in Calcutta.

Now it tastes like dust in my mouth. I feel betrayed that you couldn’t be stronger. Couldn’t you have waited longer? Or did you feel, since whatever we had was a secret anyway, we could just carry on as before? Hadn’t we promised to be together, the world be damned? Did you think it was just a phase we’d outgrow like children do with their clothes?

I never asked you to tell the world. I just hoped you might wait for me. I wrote and rewrote this letter three times wondering whether I’d ever send it. I don’t really expect you to reply.

Yours

Sumit

Sumit, she read the name over and over again. What kind of name was that? No one had ever mentioned a Sumit to her. That’s a man’s name, she told herself. Sumita, maybe it was meant to be Sumita. But what kind of letter was this? Who was this Sumit? What was he talking about? It’s some kind of silly mistake, she thought. It’s some kind of joke. Avinash will explain it all.

Outside the rain had stopped. The sun was finally breaking through. Romola sat at the dining table feeling her heart slowly turn cold inside her. She held the letter up to her nose as if trying to breathe in the Calcutta air trapped inside it, as if she could unread the words. In her head she retraced her steps down the stairs, down to the mailbox. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself again open the mailbox, look at the pizza coupons, leaf through the furniture sale catalogues and come upon the letter from India. This time she didn’t open the letter. This time she saw Avinash’s name on it and she just laid it down on his pile of mail. If only she didn’t open it, everything could stay the same. Today was Saturday. Today they would have pizza and watch a film. Avinash had said
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
was playing. She had wanted to see that. She really had.

She put the letter down with shaking hands. Then she picked up the pages and turned them around as if she could rearrange the words to say something else. Four times she lifted the receiver to call Avinash. Four times she put it down.

‘You are lucky,’ her mother had told her the night before she got married. ‘You don’t have to worry about making your mother-in-law happy, like we did. You can just honeymoon with your husband like a modern couple. You can do what you want – there’s no one looking over your shoulder.’

Romola wondered if she was in India what she would have done. Would she have gone home and talked to her mother? Would she have called her cousins? Would they know what to do? Could they fix him? Could they teach her how? Her thoughts rattled inside her head like a window shutter banging in a storm. ‘I need to be calm,’ she told herself. ‘I need to think.’

She had wanted things. She had wanted to travel in America with her husband. She had wanted an album of photographs – of her in front of the Statue of Liberty or the Golden Gate Bridge.

She sat and stared at the neatly arranged spices and tried to remember the English for methi. Maybe she should just write ‘Methi’. She wondered what would happen to her now. How much did a one-way fare to India cost? She sat and watched one television programme after another, letting the images drip meaninglessly in front of her. When Avinash came home she was already in bed.

‘It’s only seven-thirty,’ he said. ‘Are you angry? I am sorry, I got stuck. We can still make the late show.’

She didn’t answer him. Her eyes were wide open memorizing the wall beside the bed, tracing every crack, every bubble in the paint, etching it into her head – a relief map of her American life. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

‘Are you all right?’ Avinash asked anxiously.

She lay curled up on her side, her fists clenched in her mouth to prevent herself from screaming. She buried her face in the pillow and tried to summon up the old familiar smells of home.

‘Turmeric, coriander, cumin,’ she whispered fiercely as if in exorcism.

But all she could smell was the happy lemon-lime spring-fresh smell of freshly laundered sheets. She buried her face deeper, trying desperately to go home.

She felt him approaching the bed.

Mustard, poppyseed,
methi
. She was drawing a ring of spices to protect herself.

She felt his hand on her forehead – cold and clammy. She flinched, shrinking away from his touch. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, his voice low. ‘What’s wrong? Can I get you something?’

Turmeric, coriander,
methi
.

Avinash’s hand was still stroking her forehead. Her nails dug into her palms as she tried to stop herself from swatting his hand away like a fly, a fly on a rotting ripe banana. Flies, yes, flies buzzing around her head.

Turmeric, coriander,
methi
.

Her mother in the kitchen...

Her father reading the newspaper...

Old Sushila chopping the fish...

Turmeric, dhoney, methi
...

Holud, dhoney, methi
...

III

The Games Boys Play

‘Do you want sugar with your tea?’ asked Sumit’s mother from the kitchen.

‘Of course I do, Ma,’ said Sumit, looking up from the newspaper. ‘I always take two teaspoons of sugar with my tea. Have you forgotten everything?’

‘Well, who knows what eight years in America have done to you. From what I read, over there everything is low-this, low-that, no sugar, no fat. You look skinnier than ever, anyway. Does the food there have any taste at all?’ She emerged from the kitchen with a cup of tea and set it down in front of him. ‘Tell me,’ she ruffled his hair. ‘Does it feel good to be back?’

He smiled and said, ‘Of course it does. It feels good to see you and all my aunts and uncles and friends.’

‘Speaking of friends, have you called Avinash yet?’

‘No.’

‘Aren’t you going to?’

‘Ma, I just got here last night. I’ll call him, I’ll call him. I am here to see you. Are you already shipping me off to do the rounds?’

‘No need to get upset. Before he went to America the two of you practically spent twenty-four hours together. And his mother tells me after you went to America you hardly ever wrote.’

‘I never was much of a letter writer.’

‘Still – at least you could have written something when I told you that he’d had a son.’

‘I meant to buy a card.’

‘Hmmph. Card. As if a card with your name scribbled hurriedly underneath can say anything except you are too lazy to write a letter. Anyway, why don’t you go to his house today?’

‘Today?’ he said uncertainly, stirring his tea.

‘Why not? It will be a big surprise for him.’

‘Ma, let me settle down. I am going to be here for one month. There is plenty of time. I haven’t even unpacked. I’m not ready.’

‘Ready? What nonsense. What’s to be ready? Well, actually, I met his mother in the market and I said you’d go over. And she said she wouldn’t tell Avinash and it would be a great surprise. Besides, he’s going away on tour on Wednesday.’

Sumit put down his cup, looked at his mother and said, ‘So you’ve already planned it all for me, anyway.’

‘Well if I didn’t, you’d be meeting him for two minutes on your way to the airport.’

Sumit seemed about to say something but thought better of it. Putting down the newspaper he said resignedly, ‘And what time have you told Avinash’s mother I would be there for this surprise visit?’

‘Oh, around six, six-thirty. I have to go to my Ladies’ Circle then. And I thought I could drop you off on the way there. The driver will be here at five-thirty. Now drink your tea before it gets cold. What do you want to have for dinner?’

‘Ma, I’m not even finished with breakfast,’ laughed Sumit.

Avinash’s house still looked the same except that it had been a dirty cream the last time he had seen it. Now it was yellow, its sun-bleached green shutters streaked with chalky white crow droppings. The wizened old neem tree in front of the house was still there, gasping for breath, as the shops all around seemed to crowd in on it. Sumit threaded past the gossiping maids and a loitering cow and rang the doorbell. A dog napping on the front step cocked its head and regarded him solemnly. There was no answer. One of the maids sitting on the porch, in a flowery synthetic sari, stopped in mid-story to inspect him. He pressed the doorbell again. Hard. He heard shuffling feet and an old grumbling voice.

‘Oof-oh. Coming, coming, I’m not deaf. Can’t you wait a minute? What is it now? Ringing the bell like the world is on fire.’

The door opened an inch and a wrinkled face peered out suspiciously.

‘What is it? Whom do you want?’ it demanded.

‘Oh, Mangala-di – how are you?’ answered Sumit.

Mangala adjusted her thick glasses and stared at Sumit. Then her jaw dropped. ‘Oh my goodness. If it is not our little Sumit. After all these years. I thought this old woman would never see you again. Bouma, look who’s here.’ With that she started sniffling. By the time Avinash’s mother emerged, Mangala’s eyes were streaming with tears as she stroked Sumit’s arm while the gaggle of maid-servants on the porch gaped at them, the thread of their gossip lost in the far more intriguing drama unfolding before them. Sumit knew that soon after he left Calcutta, Avinash’s father had suddenly died of a heart attack. Even so, seeing his friend’s mother in a widow’s plain white sari made him start. Like his own mother, her hair was more silver than black and she seemed to have physically shrunk. He had once been a little scared of her, the way she had ruled the household with an iron ladle. Now she seemed small, an old woman, faded and crumpled, crumbling into the old house itself. She smiled at him. A couple of teeth were missing.

‘If it is not Mr America-returned,’ said Avinash’s mother. ‘Do you still remember us ordinary people?’

‘Oh, what are you saying, Mashi?’ an embarrassed Sumit reached out to touch her feet in a sign of respect. ‘How could I forget you? You are like my own family.’

‘Let it be, let it be. You are just back from America. No more of these old-fashioned customs.’ But she did not quite stop him.

‘How tall he has grown,’ sighed Mangala, wiping her eyes. ‘Like a tree.’

‘Mangala-di,’ protested Sumit, ‘I was an adult when I left. I don’t think I grew any taller.’

‘No, you can’t fool your old Mangala-di. Then you were a boy. Now you are a man.’

‘So, where is the wedding invitation?’ Avinash’s mother stretched out her hand.

‘Wedding invitation?’

‘Oh my goodness, don’t you think it’s about time? What are you waiting for – till my last few teeth fall out? And think of your poor mother.’

Sumit smiled sheepishly and changed the subject. ‘Where is Avinash?’

‘He just got back from the office and is changing. Come and sit down in the living room. Mangala, go tell Avinash to come down. But don’t tell him who is here. And ask him to bring Amit too.’

Time seemed to have stopped in the living room. The old cuckoo clock that Avinash’s father had brought back from a trip to Europe was still there. The sofas still had the hideous bottle-green vinyl-like covering, now a bit shinier and balder with age. In the corner stood the dark wooden display case jammed with Avinash’s trophies and medals and little costume dolls from all over the world, most of them still cocooned in plastic wraps to protect them from the dust – diminutive Swedish Heidis with stiff flaxen pigtails crammed next to Rajasthani maidens with armfuls of silver bangles and swirling red skirts, their plastic bubbles turning grimy with age. A vase with plastic pink flowers tried to brighten up one corner of the room next to the telephone, with a burst of artificial cheer. Little half curtains with hand-embroidered flowers hung on the shuttered windows. Those were new. Sumit wondered if Avinash’s wife had made them. There was a side table with copies of
India Today
magazines, and the room had a new coat of paint – a rather bilious salmon. The only other thing that was new in the room was a big portrait of Avinash’s father looking very stern and professorial on the wall next to the cuckoo clock. It had a garland around it, the white flowers slightly wilting, the petals browning at the edges.

Noticing him glance at it, Avinash’s mother said, ‘It was so sudden. He had just come back from college. I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready. He said, “I’m not feeling so well. I think I’ll go and lie down for a bit.” And the next thing I knew Mangala was screaming, “Bouma, Dada-babu has fallen down.”’ She sighed and then said, ‘Massive heart attack’ with the air of a judge handing down a sentence. ‘Two days in intensive care but it was no use.’ She flung open a window and repeated, ‘Massive heart attack’ with an air of grim satisfaction. Turning back to Sumit, she said, ‘We had the best cardiac specialist, Dr Biren Chandra. People even come from America to see him. We did all we could, no expense spared.’