SECRET KEEPER
Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Author’s Note
Tuntuni and the Wicked Cat A Bengali Folktale
Glossary
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Mitali Perkins
Copyright
For Sonali and Rupali
ONE
ASHA AND REET HELD THEIR FATHER’S HANDS THROUGH THE open window. The train picked up speed slowly, and Baba jogged, then ran alongside it. As his fingers slipped from their grasp, the girls turned and watched him dwindle and disappear into the Delhi haze.
“Watch your head, Osh!” Reet cried suddenly, pulling her sister inside before the train sliced into a tunnel.
The train swerved in the darkness, and Asha grabbed her sister’s arm. Usually their mother would have issued the warning long before Reet had. But sometimes Ma was in the clutches of the Jailor, the girls’ label for the heavy gloom that often fell over her like a shroud. Was she already so remote that the possibility of her daughter’s decapitation couldn’t rouse her?
When the train chugged out of the tunnel, Asha could hardly believe what she saw. Their mother’s face was buried in her hands, and tears—wet, salty tears—were staining her powdery cheeks in widening brown stripes.
What was happening? This had to be a mistake—there was no way Sumitra Gupta could be crying. The girls had seen their father get choked up many times, even while Ma or Reet sang about rain, grief, or heartache. But their mother never cried, retreating instead into stony silence that could last for hours, days, weeks. Even months, as it had after she’d read the telegram telling of her own mother’s death.
But now Ma was crying. She was actually crying. The girls exchanged shocked looks. Then Reet sat down and gathered their mother in her arms.
Asha watched in amazement. This was Ma, who had ruled their household—and the entire social circle of Bengali families in Delhi—for years. To see her weeping on Reet’s shoulder felt like watching a fortress crumble into a million pieces. And yet there was Reet—holding and comforting Ma as though their mother had become someone else altogether.
Asha sat down on the other side of her sister, an unusual sensation of pity softening her heart. Although she didn’t touch Ma or say anything, she could feel the ache of missing Baba drawing them together.
She remembered Baba’s last-minute request the night before: “If your ma gets like, well, like she does sometimes, I’m counting on you girls to lift her spirits. Promise me you’ll take care of your mother and each other until you join me.”
“We will, Baba,” Reet had said, but her voice had sounded as doubtful as Asha felt.
“Keep this money and use it to buy her favorite sweets, Tuni,” Baba had added, handing a small purse to Asha, who tucked it into her bag. Tuni was her childhood nickname, short for Tuntuni bird, the hero of a host of Bengali folktales.
Once the train was far out into the countryside, Ma pulled away from Reet’s arms and sat up. She wiped the last trace of powder from her cheeks with one end of her saree and tucked loose wisps of hair back into her bun. “Forgive my sorrow, girls,” she said in a low voice, still not looking at them. “I’ve only been away from your baba twice since our marriage day.”
“We understand,” Asha said.
Reet nodded. “This is the worst thing that’s happened yet,” she said, shifting the conversation from Bangla into English. The girls had fallen into the habit of speaking English to each other, like most Bishop Academy students. “Why couldn’t we have all left for America together?”
“That would have been wonderful,” Asha said wistfully. “I wouldn’t have minded losing the flat, or selling the furniture, or even saying goodbye to the school if we could have gone to New York straightaway with Baba.”
“Leaving school was hard, though, Osh,” Reet said. “You looked heartbroken when Baba told us we couldn’t afford the tuition anymore.” Osh was Asha’s nickname at school, and Reet had taken to using it. Asha, too, called her sister Reet, which was their schoolmates’ way of shortening the more formal Amrita.
“Don’t say anything about money in front of the relatives,” Ma said sharply, sounding like herself again and yanking the conversation back into Bangla. “Your father will find a job soon; there’s no use worrying your grandmother.”
The word was that while England was flooded with Indian job candidates, American companies were just starting to hire foreign engineers. Asha only hoped that people all the way on the other side of the world realized that the Indian economy was in shutdown after months of strikes and protests, and that being jobless for four months wasn’t Baba’s fault. She wasn’t sure she could survive a long stay in Calcutta with her father’s side of the family. This would be their third visit from Delhi, the first without a scheduled departure date—and none of Baba’s jokes to smooth over the tension.
Judging by the heavy silence, Reet and Ma were also imagining the bleakness of a Baba-less visit to Calcutta. One glance at Ma’s face told Asha that the Jailor was threatening to close in again. Quickly she leaned forward, using Bangla so she could give her mother an honorific “you” to convey an extra measure of respect. “Why don’t you tell us how you and Baba met, Ma? He tells his side, but we’ve never heard yours.”
To Asha’s relief, Ma nodded, slipped off her sandals, and settled herself into a cross-legged position. Their mother’s toenails were painted pale pink, matching the tiny flowers embroidered on the border of her saree. Her sandals were gold, echoing the thread that made the silk shimmer with her graceful moves. She certainly looked the part of a refined, prosperous, urban housewife; any traces of a village girl had disappeared long ago.
“We were visiting relatives in Calcutta,” Ma started, keeping her eyes fixed on the blur of rice paddies outside. “One afternoon, I was on the veranda combing out my hair. It was long then, down to my knees, and thick as a shawl. I was singing; I remember the song still, it was a Tagore love song I’d learned only weeks before.”
She began to hum, and then sing in her low, rich voice: “Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light! Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth . . .”
The song trailed off, and Asha held her breath, motioning to her sister to be still. After a few moments, their mother gathered up the skein of the memory: “Suddenly I felt somebody’s eyes on me, and I turned quickly. There he was, holding his briefcase and staring as though I was . . .” The trai
n entered another tunnel, and Ma faltered, losing her place in the story.
“The ‘queen of his dreams,’ ” Asha prompted in the darkness. That was what Baba always called his wife. Asha counted, one, two three, and then risked it: “What happened next, Ma?”
“He fought for me,” Ma responded immediately, gazing at her reflection in the window. “His parents wept and pleaded, but he wouldn’t give in. They’d handpicked their other daughter-in-law; she brought teak furniture, jewelry, money, and sarees galore as her dowry, but they accepted the two silk sarees and half a dozen gold bangles that my parents sent. What could they do? It didn’t matter to their son that he’d graduated at the top of his class or that he was the son of an esteemed university professor, while I’d never gone to college. The second time I saw him, it was our wedding day. A bride is supposed to cry because she’s leaving her parents, but I couldn’t do it. Your baba had such love in his eyes as we exchanged garlands—”
The train burst into daylight again. Even though Asha flashed her sister a warning look, Reet interrupted Ma’s story. “But what about leaving your parents? Wasn’t that hard?”
Ma started, as though waking in the deepest part of a dream. She turned from the window, which was a square of sunshine now. “No use talking about the past,” she said briskly. “That life is gone.”
The conversation was over, but Asha could hardly believe that so much had been confessed. Her mother usually clung to secrets so tightly that nobody could pry them loose. Ma’s face was regaining its usual composed, confident expression; the thought of her crying on Reet’s shoulder seemed ridiculous now.
“I’m tired,” Reet said suddenly, moving to the empty bench on the other side of the compartment.
Ma took out a finely knitted scarf from her bag and rolled it into a pillow. “Sleep, Shona,” she said, passing the soft coil of wool to Reet.
“Shona” meant “gold” in Bangla, and it was what Ma and Baba had nicknamed their older daughter. They’d tried to train Asha when she’d first started lisping out words: “Shona Didi, call her Shona Didi.” “Didi” was the standard address for an older sister. But Asha stayed with “Reet” through the years, leaving off the honorific “Didi” altogether.
Reet stretched out on the bench, hands palm to palm between cheek and pillow as always, and fell asleep almost immediately.
Baba had paid double to reserve all six places in the compartment. Asha overheard him talking to Ma: “You have to be more careful than ever since I won’t be around. Especially while traveling with the girls overnight.” Asha knew what he meant; her sister had been attracting unwanted attention from men for three or four years now, and it seemed to Asha that it was getting worse by the minute. Just last month, an older man had pressed himself behind Reet on a bus and refused to move, even after Baba had asked, courteously at first, then stridently after the man pretended not to hear. Eventually Baba had punched the man on the jaw, much to the girls’ astonishment. They’d never seen their father that angry.
Asha stood up to make sure the door to their compartment was locked. Their father wasn’t around to stop unwelcome visitors, so she was taking on the responsibility. All that would change once a telegram arrived from America with the best news in the world:
FOUND JOB STOP COME SOON STOP
LOVE, BABA STOP
TWO
MA’S KNITTING NEEDLES BECAME RED-LOOPED BLURS, CLICKING and clacking to the rhythm of the train. She was making Baba a sweater for the cool spring nights in New York.
Asha felt herself relax; as long as Ma knit, she seemed better at keeping hold of her usual scolding self. Their mother, too, seemed to recognize the craft as a shield; her suitcase was stuffed with shawls and sweaters she was bringing as gifts to the relatives, designed and created in the long months since Baba had lost his job.
Asha sat back and looked out over fields drenched in sunlight. It was late April, the heart of the hot season, and cows, people, and stray dogs sought out patches of shade. Farmers, skin coal-black from hours in the sunshine, steered slow bullocks through rice paddies. Children raced each other, chasing tires with sticks down dirt lanes, ignoring the heat in the joy of play. Had her mother played like that in a village somewhere in the Himalayan foothills of North Bengal?
Ma had made the long trek back twice after her marriage, once after each of her parents had died, but had taken neither Baba nor the girls. As far as the sisters knew, they had no uncles or aunts on that side. The two of them tried to piece together a portrait of the Strangers, as they called their maternal grandparents, but Ma never revealed much. Baba couldn’t answer their questions, either, claiming he knew little more than they did.
Quietly Asha reached into her bag and pulled out a fountain pen and a small leather-bound book secured with a lock. She was wearing the key on a long gold chain that she kept tucked under her salwar. With as little movement as possible, she carefully unlocked the book.
This was the fourth diary her father had offered her, and it had “S.K. 1974” printed on the cover in her neat handwriting. Only Asha and her sister knew that “S.K.” stood for “secret keeper.” The other three diaries, labeled “S.K. 1971,” “S.K. 1972,” and “S.K. 1973,” were in the bottom of Asha’s suitcase wrapped in an old sweater.
In “S.K. 1971” Asha had mostly scribbled about squabbles with her now best friend Kavita. That was the year they’d fought their way into real friendship. “S.K. 1972” was where Asha had raged after her body betrayed her for the first time. In “S.K. 1973” she wrote about tests and exams as an upperclassman at the academy, and the mad crushes she’d had on brothers Vijay and Anand Amritraj, Indian tennis stars.
In this diary “S.K. 1974,” she’d already filled four months of pages with worries about money, concern over Baba’s chain-smoking, and frustration during Ma’s times of captivity in the clutches of the Jailor. It was also where she’d confessed her dream of what she wanted to do with her life. That entry was written just before she’d had to leave the academy in January, and she flipped to it now.
January 10, 1974
I know what I’m going to be, S.K., I’ve finally decided. When Mrs. Joshi explained the science of psychology in class today, she must have put a spell on me. I was mesmerized. “Psychologists explore the mysteries of the human mind, girls,” she told us. “A most valuable discipline. The challenge for Indians in the field is to master the best of Western theory and meld it with the realities of our own culture and society.”
That’s exactly what I want to do, I thought, as she kept talking. I could tell from the shivers on my skin that somehow I was designed for this job.
But India has only a few good programs here and there. Mrs. Joshi told me that I should probably think about going overseas to gain a foundation in the Western approach. The problem is that “good”Bengali girls like me don’t leave the country alone to study.
What to do, S.K.?
Her diary never answered her questions, but this time fate did. Right after that entry, Baba lost his job. Thanks to the economy shutting down, he couldn’t find another in Delhi or Calcutta, so eventually the call for engineers in America seemed like the only option. This was the main reason Asha wasn’t devastated about leaving India—in America, she’d still be under her parents’ roof, and she could study whatever she wanted. Even the science of psychology.
Ma stopped knitting so that the blur of red became two white sticks and a patch of wool. “I don’t see why your baba keeps giving you those diaries,” she said.
Asha had mastered the art of locking a diary fast and slipping the key next to her skin; she didn’t want Ma reading one word she’d written.
“They’re like your knitting,” she said. “Writing things out helps me survive.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me see it.”
Reluctantly, Asha gave the diary to her mother, who fingered the leather, turned the book over, and tried to open it before handing it back.
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p; “I still don’t understand why you lock it. If I had my way, this nonsense would stop, but that father of yours lets you talk him into anything.”
Asha stashed “S.K. 1974” safely in her bag. “That’s the design of the book, Ma. It’s supposed to be locked.”
Ma shook her head. “You scribble for hours, Tuni. Wasting time when you could be learning to sing, or dance, or play the harmonium. You’re sixteen now, and you have so few womanly accomplishments. Your grandmother blames me for it. She’s been complaining in her letters about how hard it’s going to be to find husbands for four granddaughters.”
“I’m going to college, Ma,” Asha said, carefully not stressing the “I’m” so that her mother wouldn’t take her words the wrong way. “Grandmother thinks that ‘girls who get a good education find good husbands.’ ” Asha left off the “usually” that Grandmother emphasized when Ma was around, implying that her own daughter-in-law was the exception to the rule.
Ma sighed. “I’ve heard that from her a thousand times, but she won’t pay for it. Don’t count on any more schooling until your father finds a job, Tuni. It’s too expensive.”
“I’ll study on my own, then,” Asha said stubbornly, twisting the cap of her fountain pen.
“Isn’t that the pen Kavita gave you?” Ma asked. “That girl pours out her parents’ money like water.”
“She’s my best friend, Ma. She wanted to give me a nice goodbye present.”
Ma snorted, but quietly, so that she wouldn’t wake Reet. “She doesn’t speak a word of Bangla. Couldn’t sing a Tagore song if you paid her.” This was one of the reasons Ma had never gotten to know Kavita well—Kavita was Punjabi and didn’t speak the Holy Language, as the sisters called their mother tongue. Ma mingled only with other Bengalis who lived in Delhi, of the same class and caste as her husband’s family.
“Who cares if she’s Punjabi, Marathi, or Gujarati?” Asha asked. “Or even British for that matter? She’s my friend.”
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