Vine of Desire

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  Don’t worry about Anju’s anger. Whether she wants to or not, she can’t hate you. You are too much a part of each other. Can the left hand hate the right?

  Yours

  Pishi

  Palo Alto

  October 1994

  Notice is served herewith to all concerned that Sudha Chatterjee is to be whisked away at 5:00 P.M. this coming Friday for several hours of dangerous fun.

  Lalit

  Santa Clara

  October 1994

  Sudha,

  If you really want to see me before you go, take the 4:00 P.M. BART train to Daly City this Saturday. I’ll wait for you in the parking lot. Come alone.

  Anju

  Berkeley

  October 1994

  Dear Sara,

  I’ve written many letters to you, over and over, in my mind, though this is the first actual one. Yesterday I called Lupe to tell her I was leaving America, and she gave me this post box number. But she warned me that it’s an old one, and that she hasn’t heard from you in quite a while.

  I feel a great need to connect with you before I leave, to close the loop that began with my seeing you in the park, high up in the swing, the way I never would have dared to, because in my world a grown woman didn’t do such things. You made me realize that even when everyone around you is saying no, you can say yes.

  Not that I think you’ll get this letter. Or that you’ll reply. Sometimes I dream that you’ve returned to your family. Or that you’re dead.

  Still, writing it is enough, like releasing seeds into the wind.

  I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last year, Sara, and might be leaping into another. I’m returning to the country I’d been in such a desperate hurry to quit. I’m leaving behind in America a charming man, one who is determined to make me happy in spite of myself. (Only, no one can do that for another person, can they?) So many people are convinced I’m doing the wrong thing, tying my life to the caring of an old man. But Mr. Sen’s son would never have allowed him to go on his own. So perhaps finally I’m being of use to someone. It won’t make up for destroying my cousin’s marriage, but it is a small reparation.

  And my one chance to be free.

  Wish me well, Sara. Tomorrow I must meet Anju. For the first time since I made love to her husband. I’m so afraid.

  Sudha

  Sixteen

  Lalit

  what I said

  Did you change your mind yet about going to India?

  what you said

  Where are you taking me?

  what I said

  Depends on whether you’ve changed your mind or not.

  what you said

  Are you going to act like this all evening? On our last date?

  what I said

  Our last date? Excuse me?

  what you said

  Well, unless you plan on coming out to Jalpaiguri—

  what I said

  I just might do that. (And was surprised to find that I was actually considering the possibility.)

  what you said

  Come to think of it, even that wouldn’t work. Dating isn’t allowed over there.

  what I said

  Another reason for you to not go.

  what you said

  So how come you didn’t call me all these days? How come you wouldn’t even return my calls?

  what you didn’t say

  Was it what you heard me tell Ashok? Did it shock you?

  what I didn’t say

  Yes, partly it was that. I was shocked at how shocked I was. I hadn’t realized I’d been nursing one of those purer-than-pure-Indian-woman fantasies about you. That one of the reasons I was attracted to you was that you seemed so different from the desi girls brought up here, with their free-and-easy ways. And I was jealous. I was burning up with jealousy just thinking of—

  what I said

  I was playing hard to get. Learned it from you.

  what you said

  Hmmm. So what’s this dangerous fun you promised me?

  what I said

  What, being with me isn’t fun enough? And dangerous enough? In that case—(And I swung the car south and headed toward Great America. And after we’d strapped ourselves in and shot up to the highest height and been plunged down deeper than despair and you’d screamed louder than you thought you could ever scream and I’d held you longer than I’d ever held you and you’d slapped away my hands and said, Quit, and I’d said, Why d’you think they designed these scary rides—and all the while I was thinking of you going so far away, all the things that might happen, what if the old man didn’t treat you right once he was on home turf …)

  I said

  I’m serious about it, you know. Coming to India. To see you and Dayita. (You went very silent.)

  so I added

  Did you think you’d get rid of me so easily? I’m planning on corrupting your daughter with Hershey’s Kisses and the latest Barney videos, and then there’ll be two of us working on you to come back here. (You leaned your head lightly against mine.)

  I said to myself

  Careful! Don’t read too much into it. Maybe she’s just dizzy from the ride.

  and you gave an enigmatic smile and said

  You can go ahead and try.

  Seventeen

  She turns the key but the car will not start, not even when she pumps the accelerator, not even when she pounds the dashboard. She leans her forehead on the steering wheel and tries to remember what the man who used to be her husband did on such occasions. She checks her watch. Her hands are trembling. She feels the prickle of sweat in her underarms. Mustn’t panic. Mustn’t. She’d given herself a bit of extra time to reach Daly City because she’s a nervous driver, and the Bay Area traffic is so bad, even on the roundabout scenic highway she plans on taking. She can feel the minutes falling through the gaps between her fingers. As though time were water in a cupped palm in a desert. She whispers the words, feels the vowels begin to calm her. To distance her from crisis. Language does this for her, even now. She removes the key, rubs it on her jeans, tries again. The engine gives a reluctant cough and turns over, and Anju is on her way to meet her cousin.

  Sudha stands on a platform of the North Berkeley station, shivering a little—more from nervousness than from the cold. She looks up at the sky, which is the color of faded jeans today. There’s a hint of mist in the air, and through it the softest of lights brushes the tops of the yellow poplars. Sudha, chewing on her lip, sees and doesn’t see. She had to leave Dayita with the old man because there was no one else. “Are you sure you can manage?” she’d asked over and over. He had nodded, rolling his eyes in mock exasperation, waving his hands in dismissal. “Go on, go!” He had even demonstrated his ability to change a diaper. “Now are you satisfied?”

  The platform vibrates ever so slightly under her feet, the earth getting ready for upheaval. No. It’s merely the train approaching. She counts on her fingers. She has kept their lunches ready on the kitchen table. The diapers and wipes are by his bed. Dayita’s blanket. She’s made a little bed for her on the floor of his room in case he can persuade her to nap, and lifted her out of her walker because the old man won’t be able to do it by himself. She has kissed Dayita on her forehead and told her, in a fierce whisper, to be good. She has left Lalit’s cell phone number in case of emergency.

  The train’s automatic doors swoosh shut behind her. A scattering of leisurely midmorning people on the benches. She finds a seat by the window, across from an oldish woman wearing several sweaters, an enormous, scruffy backpack and a gap-toothed smile. Is she homeless? Sudha smiles back warily. When she was a child, her mother used to tell her, “Stay away from bad-luck people. Misfortune is contagious.” Outside, patches of yerba buena, a clump of waving Queen Anne’s lace blurring into seashell silver. Once she said to the old man, “No matter where fate saw fit to throw me down, it always gave me someone from whom to learn the names of plants.” He nodded. “When you know the names of th
e green things around you, you’re no longer a stranger.” Already he has begun telling her of the trees she will find in his garden in Jalpaiguri: mango, jackfruit, shiuli, the champak with its gold and velvet fragrance.

  The train is entering a tunnel. She blinks in the sudden dark. Small red emergency lights stud the tunnel like jewels in some underworld cave. In the window, her face is as pale and lovely as Persephone’s. She lifts a hand to the perfectly formed cheekbones, the beauty she both loves and hates. There are no wrinkles to show what she has been through, no circles of suffering under the eyes. How then will she convince Anju of her regret?

  “Come here,” he says. “Come on now. Don’t be naughty. Let me check that diaper.” He reaches for her but the child toddles away, laughing. This is a new game, and she likes it. She’s glad to be out of that confining walker, the horrid cacophony of its wheels that echoed inside her head even after she stopped moving. She resolves to scream very loudly if her mother even thinks of putting her back in it. She flings her arms out in a burst of ecstasy, loses her balance and lands on her behind. She considers the situation for a moment, then decides to cry.

  “My poor baby!” the old man says. He can’t bend very well, so he lowers himself to the floor stiff-hipped, one limb at a time, holding on to the bed. “Bad floor!” He strikes it with his cane.

  The child likes this, too. “Bad floor!” she says, hitting the wood with her palm, though the words come out sounding different, as if her mouth were full of Froot Loops. And with that thought she’s hungry. No, she’s starving. She pulls at the old man, but the fine, wrinkled skin on the back of his hand distracts her. She picks up a soft fold and lets it drop. Does it again. She straightens out his finger, then curls it inward into his palm. Straighten, curl up. Straighten, curl up. Why, he’s more fun than a whole boxful of toys! Then she’s starving again. “Eat,” she says emphatically, pointing to the kitchen. But she waits for him to get to his feet, creaking like an ancient tree. She lets him hold her hand.

  The parking lot looks very large to Anju as she pulls in—larger than it really is. And very full. It seems to her that there are no spaces, that she will have to circle it forever. The tracks glitter faintly. A train is pulling in. Anju shades her eyes and looks. Is that her? Suddenly she cannot remember what Sudha looks like. Even the Passenger-Loading-Only-Driver-Must-Remain-with-Vehicle-at-All-Times spots are full. Anju parks illegally at a bus stop and watches her rearview mirror with some anxiety for the meter maid to whir up, avenging-angel-like, in her blue cart. From experience, she knows her parking karma is poor.

  And so she doesn’t see Sudha until she reaches the car, until she taps, tentatively, on the window. As she leans over to unlock the door, the thought comes to Anju that her cousin’s hand, with its slender, ringless fingers and unpainted nails, resembles a white lotus.

  They sit in silence for a while. Anju stares at the windshield, clasps the steering wheel, then puts her hands in her lap. She tries to regulate her breath, four counts in, pause, eight counts out, pause, as the instructor in the yoga class she has started taking advised, but she is having trouble drawing in air. She gropes near Sudha’s foot for her water bottle, but it’s rolled to the other side of Sudha’s legs and she can’t reach it.

  “Here,” Sudha says. Their hands touch as Anju fumbles for the bottle. Sudha’s palms are damp with nervousness.

  “Your palms are sweating,” Anju says.

  “Yours, too, I notice.”

  They wipe their palms on their jeans, and one of them—it’s not clear—begins to laugh, a thin sound like an ice floe cracking. The other joins in.

  “Don’t tell me you were afraid of meeting me,” Anju says.

  “Not afraid,” Sudha says. “Terrified.”

  “Me, too.”

  They laugh again. Then comes the pause they feared, taut as a rubber band stretched to breaking. Sudha clears her throat, coughs.

  “Want some water?” Anju asks.

  Sudha nods, takes the bottle from Anju, drinks. When she hands it back, Anju drinks from it, too. Her lips touch the mouth of the bottle where Sudha’s mouth had been just a moment earlier.

  “Anju,” Sudha is examining her nails, “are you still mad at me?”

  Anju looks out the window at two blackbirds fighting over an abandoned container of French fries. She wonders if the fries will make them ill, if she should get out of the car and shoo them away. But the birds look tough and feisty, with impudent sequin eyes. They’ve probably been living on French fries and onion rings their entire lives. She hears herself saying, “No,” and is startled to find that it’s the truth.

  “I want to tell you what really—”

  Anju shakes her head. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Anju says, her voice firm. “It took me a long time to close that door. Don’t start opening it again.”

  “But unless you know, you’ll always blame me—”

  “Whatever happened,” says Anju, her whole being focused on trying to find the right words for what she’s feeling, “I tell myself that it’s like the dream I had last night. What does it matter if it was a good dream or a bad one? Neither kind is going to help me live my life today, is it?”

  Sudha frowns. She isn’t comfortable with this line of reasoning. She isn’t sure she understands where it leads. “How about me? How do I fit into that life? Or don’t I?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m not even sure how I fit into my life.”

  “Oh, Anju!” Sudha says. She takes Anju’s hand in both of hers and strokes it as one might an injured child’s. “I wanted so much to help you, but I’ve done just the opposite, haven’t I?”

  Anju shrugs. “I could say the same thing.” But she leaves her hand in her cousin’s.

  There’s a rap at the window. Sure enough, it’s the meter maid—or man, to be exact. He twirls his pen and gestures at them to lower the window. “This is all very touching, ladies,” he drawls, “but unless you want a ticket, you’d better move the car.”

  “As soon as you step back, Officer,” Anju says in syrupy tones, revving the engine. “You wouldn’t want me to run over your foot, would you?”

  In the glass house, luncheon has been successfully concluded, with only minor damages—a plate that slipped from the old man’s hands, a few ketchupy handprints on the fridge door.

  “Nothing a bowl of good hot soapy water won’t take care of,” he says as Dayita wriggles down from her chair. “Hold still, Miss Naughtiness.” Amazingly, she does. He wipes her hands and mouth with a damp towel. His fingers shake a little. “Due to the excitement of being with you,” he explains. “Your mother will have to do the rest when she returns. Shall we change diapers now?”

  Twenty minutes later, he steps back from the bed, eyeing the lopsided diaper he’s managed to get onto her. “A fine job, if I do say so myself! I think your mother will be proud of us, won’t she?” The child smiles and pulls strings of half-words out of her mouth.

  “Exactly,” says the old man, wiping his forehead. “Just what I was thinking. Siesta time. There’s your little bed and blanket, on the floor, and here’s mine.” He lowers himself slowly onto his mattress, maneuvers his legs up under his quilt. He’s exhausted, though he’d never admit it to Sudha, not in a thousand years. He feels himself drifting off. He’s half-asleep when he feels the child pushing against his back with determined palms. He turns to make space for her under his quilt. She presses her back against his breastbone. She wiggles her head onto his pillow. It is slightly damp and smells, he thinks, of wild mustard greens. He takes a big breath and runs his fingers through the tangly curls. Under the softness of hair, the small, solid curvature of skull. When was the last time he held a child so close? He thinks, suddenly, of his wife, wrinkled and spectacled, in her red-bordered handloom sari, cutting brinjals in the kitchen for their lunch. In his memory, she looks up with a half-smile. She has a missing front tooth which she never cared to have replaced. Su
nlight glints on the wire rims of her glasses. Our grandchild? He is not sure whether he hears the words inside his head, or whether he speaks them. How disappointed she had been when Trideep informed them they weren’t going to have any children. He starts telling Dayita the story of how he met his wife on their wedding day. It was an old-fashioned marriage, even for those times. She was only fourteen, and he’d barely started college. Later, he’d climb the guava tree in the yard, pick her the best fruits from the top branches, just beginning to ripen. She liked to eat them with salt and chili powder. If they fought, she’d cry and say, I want to go back to my mother’s house. But then they fell in love. He’s trying to remember how it happened, but it was so long ago. She used to believe that the person you married in this life had been your spouse in earlier lifetimes, too. Just before she died, she beckoned him close and said, with that same half-smile, Wherever I’m going, I’ll wait for you. In the middle of telling this to the child, he falls asleep.

  Sunil is walking in a forest. (It’s really the Houston Arboretum, but he likes to think of it as something wilder, more adventuresome.) Green ash, water oak, maple, pecan. He sees a hedge with tiny red berries. He must look up its name. The pine trees startled him the first time. He hadn’t known any would grow so far south. Every time he comes here, he writes in his diary—he’s started that habit recently—I went for a walk in the woods. The path leads past a lily pond with frogs, a stretch of swampland, a wooden lookout platform. Then he’s in his favorite spot, a small lake with an island in the middle where migrating birds nest. He sits on the pier and listens to them calling to their mates. On the far bank, turtles are sunning themselves. One lifts its head to look, and he notices the thin red stripes by its ears, the greenish sheen of its neck. Sunil likes turtles, their (he writes) wise patience. Sometimes he smuggles in chopped green apples to feed them. The fields behind him are full of weeds. In spring, someone told him, the bluebonnets will bloom. I like weeds, too, Sunil said. He puts his chin on his knees and gazes at the water. Daddy longlegs skitter across, a small ripple widens and widens. The sun is warm on his shoulders. In his diary, he has written, In winter, the Houston sun is very sweet. Can this be the same killing sun of summertime? But why should this surprise me? Are people not the same way, in the different seasons of their lives? Sometimes he writes other things in his diary, aphorisms, jokes he made up himself. To her lover, a beautiful woman is a blessing beyond belief, to a monk, she is a distraction, to a mosquito, a good meal. And How does one learn patience? Very slowly.