Asha read it three times, pain searing through her like a sword. She put her head down on her knees and wept in the daylight, trying her best to be quiet so nobody would hear.
The windows across the way opened slowly. “Osh, do you need me?” Jay asked, his voice gentle.
She wiped her nose and eyes on her scarf and looked up. Slowly, she nodded. “You’ve got to help me, Jay. I have to take care of Ma and Reet. I promised my baba.”
“I’ll do anything, Osh. Anything. Just tell me and I’ll do it.”
“For now, stay here for a while with me, will you?”
He did, sitting by the open window and letting her cry, and cry, and cry.
Finally she stood up. “I have to show Reet this postcard, but I think it might kill her. It’s the last one he wrote.”
“Jay! Time for tea!” It was his mother’s voice from below, and he gave Asha one last encouraging smile before they each went to their respective downstairs.
Reet took Baba’s card and read it silently, but even then she didn’t cry. “Can I keep this one?” she asked Asha. “You’ve got seven; I’ve only got six.”
Asha nodded. The day before they had divided up Baba’s postcards like jewels; it was the most extensive discussion the sisters had had since the news had come. Reet was using fewer and fewer words as the days went by. She’d nod, shrug, or shake her head; it was as though the Jailor were squeezing her tongue between two iron fingers.
The days plodded on into October, and then November, but the family wouldn’t participate in any festivals this year. No birthdays, holy days, or other celebrations. In mourning, the family also had to relinquish meat and fish for a month, and the cook grumbled over the extra cleaning of the utensils to ensure a vegetarian kitchen. Ma, according to custom, was supposed to give up meat and fish forever.
Asha made herself chew and swallow lentils, eggplant, rice, potatoes, noticing that her sister was eating next to nothing. Ma was eating, but automatically, as though somebody else were in charge of what her hand was bringing to her mouth. No sign of tears from either of them, but by now Asha was crying enough for forty daughters, mothers, and wives. She shared the job with Grandmother, who wept ferociously in front of her gods and goddesses day and night.
The balance of power in the house was shifting so fast that Asha sometimes wondered if the old building itself was actually tilting. Grandmother was fading, dwindling, disappearing for hours with her inconsolable sorrow into the prayer room. Auntie, meanwhile, soon stopped pretending to grieve. Asha didn’t mind that; after all, Raj’s mother had hardly known Baba. What the girls did mind was the way she began treating Ma. Gone were the days of giggling and gossiping as if they were friends, or trying delicately to cajole Ma back into a better mood. Now it was: “Stop sulking, Sumitra. You’re a bad example to my girls.” Or: “Can’t you remind your daughters to make the bed upstairs after they get up? The servants are complaining about how lazy they are.”
Ma never answered Auntie back or argued. In fact, she hardly spoke at all. The few times she talked to the girls or answered one of Grandmother’s direct questions, she didn’t use the high Bangla of the upper-class Delhi circles that she’d perfected. Now only the village version of the language came out of her mouth, as though she’d lost the desire to pretend along with her status as Baba’s wife.
Asha kept going only because of the promises she’d made to Baba. But how could she keep them? She felt more powerless and lonely than the girl Jay had sketched on the roof. The strange sight of Ma without makeup, bangles, or any color adorning her face and body was enough to make the tears come again. Not to mention her sister, sitting silently in a dark corner with all seven of her postcards spread across her lap. Reet’s curves were slipping away like the tides of the sea, the bones in her neck and shoulders jutting out like rocks.
Asha tried taking her diary up to the roof but stopped writing once Jay appeared. Then she’d start to talk while he listened, telling him story after story about her father. After a while, they even laughed over some of the funny things Baba had said and done, both of them with tears in their eyes. She could see Jay’s eyes because he leaned so far out of his window, almost as though he were trying to reach her. But the houses, close enough for conversation, were too far for touching.
TWENTY-ONE
WHEN BABA’S ASHES WERE BROUGHT TO INDIA A MONTH AFTER his death, it was the girls’ duty to take them to the Ganges River. Uncle and Raj went with them, but as was the custom, Ma, Grandmother, Auntie, and the little girls stayed at home. Their uncle and cousin led the way in one rickshaw and the sisters rode in another, the carton from America cradled in Reet’s lap. A priest met them on the cement stairs that descended into the river, built for just this purpose, and a crowd of strangers gathered to watch.
Uncle stood on the top step, water sloshing around his shoes, and opened the box. He handed Reet the large urn that was inside, and then he and Raj waited while the girls climbed down four more steps. Reet’s saree floated around her knees; Asha’s salwar became so heavy it felt as if the current were trying to drag her downstream. Maybe she would let it if it tugged fiercely enough.
The sisters didn’t look at each other before reaching in to pick up handfuls of what was left of their father. As they scattered his ashes over the river, Asha heard her sister finally beginning to cry, a high-pitched sound of sorrow rising above the horns of the passing barges. Asha wept, too, and her tears this time weren’t for Baba, but for the two of them, desolate as the water flowed around them, taking Baba’s body away from them forever.
When they got back, neighbors were gathered on the corner outside the house, obviously in the middle of a gossip session. Ma was waiting just inside the gate, which was unusual, as she’d rarely ventured outside the house since their arrival in Calcutta and had never left it once the telegram had arrived.
The neighbors stopped in midsentence as the Gupta girls disembarked from the rickshaw.
“Wonder what they’re talking about,” Asha said dully as their mother opened the gate to let them in. “Did I wear the wrong colors or something?”
“No,” Ma answered, taking the empty urn from Reet. “You girls are dressed appropriately. I’ve been through this before, remember?”
It was an obscure reference to the Strangers. Asha pictured a younger version of Ma strewing her own father’s ashes, and then her mother’s, over a faraway bend of the river as it curved down from the Himalayan foothills.
“I know what they’re saying,” Reet said as the gate closed behind them. “It’s about Baba.”
Ma stopped. “What about him?” she asked. “What have you heard, Shona?”
“They’re saying that it wasn’t an accident, Ma.”
“What?” Asha asked.
“The gossip—the gossip is that Baba couldn’t find a job. That he lost hope. That—that he jumped on that track because he gave up.” Reet’s voice broke and she began to cry again. Ma handed the urn to Asha and put her arms around her older daughter.
Clutching the empty container tightly, Asha kicked the gate as hard as she could. She didn’t care that the neighbors were gaping at her. “It’s not true!” she said. “He wrote that last card just before it happened and said he was sending for us soon. Besides, Baba would never do something that terrible to us.”
“Your sister’s right, Shona,” Ma said, steering Reet slowly toward the house. “They don’t know your father; we do. He would never have left us like this. Never.”
Conviction rang in her voice, and Reet’s sobs slowed. “I knew they were wrong, but when the cook told me what she’d overheard, I couldn’t help being afraid. I’m sorry, Ma. Osh. You’re right. We know Baba.”
Head high, Asha strode down the path behind her sister and mother as the neighbors watched them go.
Inside the house, Ma fell silent again, but Asha clung to the memory of her brief reappearance at the gate when they’d needed her most.
The age-old ritual at
the Ganges had helped Reet to start grieving, and her tears flowed freely now. Asha was beyond grateful, because seeing Reet in a stupor had terrified her; she’d felt as though her sister, too, had left her.
Weeping reminded them that they, at least, were still alive, and the sisters began to do a lot of it. They locked themselves in the bathroom, or stayed hidden under the mosquito net, talking, reminiscing, and crying until they fell asleep, curled up so closely it felt as if Reet’s heart were beating inside Asha’s body.
“Why don’t you eat, Reet?” Asha asked one night. She tapped on each rib through the skin on her sister’s back.
“I can’t. I try, but I feel like vomiting with every bite. I’ll have to get some new clothes. Nothing fits anymore.”
“Your bra hangs on you like a boy’s kurta.”
“And I’ve stopped bleeding.”
“What?”
“My period hasn’t come in two months, Osh.”
“So that’s why I haven’t seen any rags but mine and Ma’s hanging on the line. The twins haven’t started yet; lucky them, and I think Auntie’s done.”
“That’s been the only good part—not having to wash out those disgusting rags.”
“Tell Ma; maybe you need to see a doctor.”
“What good will that do? It will just worry her even more, and she doesn’t have money for a doctor—she used the last bit Baba left her for those sarees. And I hate to ask Uncle.”
“I know. We’re totally dependent on him now. Oh, how I hate it.”
“Maybe Baba left some money behind for us, but how do we find out?”
“I have no idea,” Asha said. “We can’t ask Ma. The Jailor loves it when someone brings up money in front of her.”
But Uncle brought up the subject himself one afternoon over tea, clearing his throat and taking a deep breath as though he needed extra courage for what he was about to say. “Bintu didn’t leave much behind,” he told Ma. “The last bit in his bank account paid for the memorial.”
“So we have nothing left?” Ma asked, eyes wide.
“You have the girls’ dowries,” Uncle said gruffly. “We would never touch those. And you have us. This house is your house as long as I’m alive. And then my son will provide for you.”
Raj chimed in: “I will, I promise. And the girls, too.”
Auntie was frowning down at her cup of tea but didn’t say anything.
Grandmother shook her head. “How we’ll manage, I don’t know,” she said, wiping her eyes on a corner of her saree again. “We’ve barely kept this house running after Bintu stopped sending money from Delhi; our own savings have gotten quite low.”
Auntie’s head flew up. “My husband makes enough to support his family,” she said sharply.
Nobody spoke.
“We’ll have to get rid of a couple of the servants,” Uncle said finally. “We can’t do without the sweeper or the washerwoman, so Babu and the cook will have to go.”
“And who will do their work?” Auntie asked.
“We all will,” Grandmother answered.
“I can cook,” Ma said quickly.
“And Asha and I can take over most of Babu’s work,” Reet added. “We can make the beds and burn the garbage.”
“No!” Grandmother said sharply. “I won’t have any member of our family doing such a low job as garbage burning. We can afford to hire a boy who lives by the river to do it. And Sumitra, we’ll all cook together. I won’t have the neighbors accusing me of exploiting you.”
“I’ve never cooked in my life,” Auntie said. “My father employed a dozen servants and two cooks.”
“Well, you’ll learn now,” Uncle said dryly. “It’s never too late.”
Raj made a restless sound. “I’d better go study,” he said, and left the room.
Asha guessed he was weighing the new load of providing for six women instead of three.
TWENTY-TWO
IT HELPED TO WORK AROUND THE HOUSE, SO WORK THEY DID. Reet made the beds so perfectly you could bounce a spoon on them; Sita and Suma tried it and actually caught a spoon in the air. And once the cook had left, Ma spent long hours in the kitchen, grinding spices, chopping onions, kneading luchi dough, and stirring up curries that were more savory than anything the cook had ever produced.
“This eggplant dish is delicious,” Uncle said over dinner, ignoring his wife’s sour expression.
“I suppose you cooked in your village,” Auntie said.
“Every day,” Ma answered. “My mother taught me how.”
“Oh.”
The word was innocent but the two-syllable tone dripped with meaning, and Asha was peeved on behalf of one of the Strangers.
Ma’s face didn’t change. She answered when spoken to, was polite, and still made sure her daughters were properly dressed and groomed. But there was no anger in her expression, or sadness, or laughter. Her face was like a mask that robbers put on to disguise their true identities. She never argued, or scolded the girls, or offered an opinion. The only signs of grief were the dark half-moons under her eyes and the deepening lines on her forehead, which had never been there before. She was wearing one of Grandmother’s old white sarees; Asha knew their mother would never ask Uncle to buy her a new one, and he didn’t offer. But the saree wouldn’t last forever, unlike Ma’s time to mourn.
Asha couldn’t figure out how she could help earn her keep around the house. “I’ve got to find a way to make myself valuable,” she told Jay one afternoon.
“You’re extremely valuable,” he said.
“No, I mean under this roof,” she said, stomping her foot on the cement for emphasis. “If all I’m doing is consuming and not contributing anything, I’ll have no power at all. At least Ma’s cooking for them now, even though Auntie’s ordering her around just like she used to boss Babu and the cook. Uncle absolutely loves Ma’s cooking, which drives Auntie crazy but gives Ma something, at least.”
“And your sister?”
“She makes the beds, entertains the twins, and sings when they ask her to. Plus she’s good at managing the sweeper and washerwoman. The servants are starting to come to her with questions now instead of Auntie; they’re scared to death of Grandmother.”
“You read to the cousins and tell stories,” Jay said. “I can hear your voice when we’re at tea. I can’t quite make out the words, but because the girls don’t interrupt I’m sure they’re listening.”
“They do like that, but I want to do something for this family that makes me indispensable. I can’t stand feeling like I’m the recipient of charity—like one of those beggars at the marketplace.”
Jay shook his head. “I tried to paint a beggar once, but it was too painful when I got to the eyes. I had to stop.”
“Then you see why I want to find something to do around here that they value.”
“I’ll try to think of something, Osh.”
For days, Asha wandered aimlessly, straightening the shoes on the veranda, dusting windowsills that were already clean, getting underfoot in the kitchen with her efforts to help until Ma and Grandmother scolded her out. She was useless at housework, she realized. But what could she do instead?
Her chance came when her cousin was studying in his room late one night. She heard him groan through the closed door as she walked by, and she hesitated, then knocked. “Raj? What’s wrong?”
“It’s this disgusting proof. I can’t understand one word of it.”
She walked in. “Let me see.”
He brought another chair into his room, and Asha sat down beside him at his desk. She explained the proof step by step until Raj’s eyes lit up. “I see it!” he crowed. “You’re good, Osh. Our professor never made it this clear. I actually understand it.”
“I can go over geometry with you anytime, Raj,” she said eagerly. “When’s your next exam?”
“Two weeks. If you help me, Osh, maybe I won’t fail this time.”
“Fail? You’re going to get top marks, cousin of mine.”
When the results came in, her prediction was proved right. Raj’s parents beamed as they perused the exam list, spotting their son’s name fifth from the top instead of smack at the bottom. “How can this be?” his mother asked in wonder.
“It was Osh,” Raj said immediately. “She studied with me. She’s a great teacher, Ma.”
Auntie’s eyes narrowed as she surveyed her niece, who was reading to Sita and Suma. “Really? Well, maybe she’d like to tutor my girls, too. What do you say, Tuni?”
“I’d love to, Auntie,” Asha answered. It was the first time in weeks that her aunt had asked her for something instead of commanding it.
Later, she overheard her grandmother talking in a low voice. “You would have had to pay for a tutor for that boy.”
“And for the girls, too,” Auntie answered. “That daughter of Bintu’s is a smart one.”
Asha smiled. It was a first step in her Baba-promise-keeping strategy—not a huge one, maybe, but it felt better than losing ground.
The twins, of course, were thrilled. They craved time with either of their cousins like extra sugar in their daily glass of milk. Now every afternoon they sat with Asha while she reviewed their schoolwork with them. And she made it fun, inventing games and coming up with small prizes to spur them on—ten more minutes to play hide-and-seek before bedtime, two of Reet’s uneaten biscuits from tea, an extra Grimms’ story, the chance to try any hairstyle they wanted on Reet’s head.
Sita was a bit better at math, while Suma seemed to have more skill with language, but both girls learned slowly, Asha realized. It took creativity and patience to help them grasp a concept, and when she couldn’t fall asleep at night, she found herself coming up with new ways to teach.
What with tutoring the twins and helping Raj study, she didn’t have as much time to go up to the roof. She’d seen Jay only briefly, bringing him up to date on her efforts to restore the balance of power under their roof.
One afternoon he had some news of his own. “I got a letter today, Osh,” he told her. “From a university in America. In New York, to be exact.”
Secret Keeper Page 10