Invisible Lives

by Anjali Banerjee

  “When you come to the States next month, don’t fill up your suitcase with all those saris,” Chandra goes on, speaking to her ma again. Her mother, a meek woman who looks at the ground most of the time, nods.

  “She has married this American artist, and already she has lost everything,” Dr. Chowdhry says. “Every bit of her mother tongue.”

  “Sam doesn’t understand. It’s rude to leave him out.” Chandra rubs his back in a provocative way, then his thigh, and they give each other looks fit for a porno movie.

  I cringe on behalf of my grandmother and hope her cataracts obscure her view.

  “We are hoping you will both come to India for a proper Bengali wedding?” Nona says in her gravelly voice.

  “Bengali wedding?” Chandra snorts out through her nose. “But Sam’s Catholic. Or at least, his family is. He’s gone atheistical on everyone. And who can blame him? Do you know what those Catholic nuns do to kids in those schools? They rap their knuckles. Capital punishment.”

  “He’s an atheist, not atheistical,” I say, and it occurs to me that I don’t know Nick’s religion.

  Ma glances at me.

  “Whatever.” Chandra slurps her tea. “Anyway, we had this really cool eco-friendly wedding out at Rabbit Park north of the city. My friends all brought their bikes to the ceremony and we had a vegan cake.”

  Part of me admires her for her dedication, and yet I can’t warm to my cousin, my blood.

  “We were hoping you and Sam would come here for a proper Indian wedding,” Auntie Bee says. “All of the family would like to celebrate.”

  “Are you kidding?” Chandra reaches across the table to grab another cookie. “What a pain in the ass.” Nona flinches again. “I mean, we have family all over this damned country. We’d have to invite every single one of them and all their friends, and if we forgot to invite one person, everyone would be in a huff and nobody would talk to us ever again. Not that they talk to us now anyway. But the whole Indian thing, everyone knowing everyone—I can’t stand it, don’t know how I ever could. In America, you don’t have to know anyone if you don’t want to.”

  Chandra’s parents droop across the table, their Vulcan ears seeming to fold upon themselves. When we pile into the car to leave, there’s a hush, a kind of stunned silence as if we’ve all been struck by the same bolt of lightning.

  “Completely corrupt, that girl,” Auntie Bee says. “What’s America done to her? Did you see her parents?”

  My grandmother shakes her head, clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “We must not speak of others this way.”

  Auntie Bee, Kolkata’s biggest gossip, can’t keep her tongue from flying. “She’s forgotten bangla, and you see the way she speaks to her mother. Oh-la! I’ve nearly had a heart attack.”

  “You’ll have one anyway with the heavy yogurt you’re eating every morning,” Ma says, frowning.

  Auntie turns to her and narrows her eyes. “So America has you on exercise and low-cholesterol kicks as well?”

  Ma laughs and pats her sister’s knee. “Health and exercise are good in any country, Bee. Even here. There are some wonderful things about America—”

  “What wonderful? What’s Chandra done marrying this strange man with the—hair. Did you hear his tone of voice and attitude?” Auntie says. We’re all silent, and I think of Nick.

  I clear my throat. “I’m sure he’s a good man. You just don’t know him yet.”

  The driver is silent, staring ahead as if he doesn’t hear us, as if he’s not here.

  “Chandra’s merely finding her way,” my grandmother says, and Auntie purses her lips. “She knows not where she belongs, but she will learn.”

  Auntie picks at the fingernail of her index finger. “I’m worried about her parents, poor things, always listening to Chandra. And those clothes—those pants. Where do they come from?”

  “Auntie,” I laugh. “Everyone wears clothes like that in America.”

  “But we are in India. She is from India. Bangla is her language.”

  Bengali is my language too, now rusting and derelict in the storage room of my mind, but Ravi brought out the mellifluous language again for me. Isn’t language the heart of the homeland, the heart of where we belong?

  On the way home I’m sweating, but I’m slowly growing accustomed to the heat. The thick, wet air breathes through me now, becoming one with me.

  Marry me.

  Sam’s atheistical.

  No Indian wedding.

  Speak in English.

  Marry me.

  She’s lost her culture, that Chandra.

  Do you believe in love at first sight?

  What decision should I make? Should I fall into Ravi’s arms and let the sea of my culture, my destiny, close in around me? Tomorrow we’re taking the train north to see Thakurma, my father’s mother. Perhaps the answer lies with her.

  Twenty-seven

  On the train, our carriage car is respectably packed with middle-class travelers. But the rift between rich and poor is so stark here. These women wear expensive silk saris, diamond studs in their noses, and the men wear pressed suits and chat quietly on cell phones.

  I sit near the window. Ma has no trouble falling asleep next to me with her chin on her chest. Although she’s touching me, no images come through, no trace of the occasional white mountain on which she is standing, her breath rising in wisps of condensing steam. I never know why she’s standing there, but the image persists.

  The dry dust of Kolkata pollution still coats the inside of my nose, my bronchial tubes all the way to my lungs. The elephant face of the Hindu god Ganesh watches us from doorways, windows, even painted on the front of a photo store called Anjali Cameras. The contours of India, its bustling, compressed culture and chaos, weave tangled webs in my brain.

  Eventually, the hills rise in the distance, shrouded by a silvery mist, and the valleys fall away behind us in a mirage of black and blue, tiny rooftops painted on the surface. The train winds up along treacherous cliff edges. We reach the station four hours later, and Ma jolts awake. The air outside must’ve blown down from the cold, clean side of the moon. Its stark wind shifts over us, bringing the scents of moss and smoke and decaying leaves. The people here have ruddy complexions, clothe themselves in colorful, thick-knit sweaters and tight hats. My teeth chatter as we climb into the rickshaw with our luggage and bounce along the road into town.

  Ma pats my leg. Her hand feels warm and radiates contentedness and hope. That’s my mother, hanging on to simple thoughts and dreams. Tears glisten at the corners of her eyes. “This is where I used to come with your father, to visit your Thakurdadu and Thakurma, before you were born. Before Thakurdadu died.”

  The driver whisks us along rocky roads to Thakurma’s bungalow. Radha, Thakurma’s cook, lets us in. She’s in a red cotton sari. She hugs Ma, pinches my cheeks, and says in Bengali how much she’s missed us. She has buck teeth, a ring through her nose, and a wandering left eye, but her voice has a quiet musicality.

  The aromas of spices drift in from the kitchen, and someone’s descending the stairs slowly, wearing a wrinkled cotton sari, the glasses slipping down her nose. Thakurma! She embraces Ma and me, holding us with tears in her eyes, a glint of my father falling into her face, then disappearing. She ushers us into the living room for tea and biscuits. There are pictures on the walls, ghosts of the past living in the black-and-white worlds long past and silent.

  “Ah, Lakshmi—since I last saw you, you’ve come to resemble your father!” she says. “But a much lovelier version.”

  “Thank you, Thakurma.”

  Radha brings us tea.

  “Now tell all that you’ve been doing, all that is not in your letters.” Thakurma coughs, takes a slurp of tea.

  We talk of insignificant things, the shop, the weather.

  “Come, Lakshmi,” she says. “I want to show you something.” We go upstairs into a bedroom stuck in time, Baba’s old room. Every time we come, Thakurma tells us
the same story. “This was your Baba’s room—when he left for America with you and your ma you were just a baby—I kept his room in case he should return. Guests use it now and then, but essentially it is the same.”

  I nod and murmur as if seeing the room for the first time. The bed is made with a woolen spread and a newly washed pillowcase on a flattish pillow. A single bed pushed up against the wall, and through the window, the garden unfolds. There’s a cricket bat in the corner, a knit sweater over a chair. A teenage boy’s sweater. My father’s. A bottle of an English aftershave. A fountain pen on the desk next to a bottle of black ink. And in an old dusty bookshelf, volumes and volumes of books—poetry, fiction, physics—most of them written in Bengali.

  Thakurma brings a photo album off the shelf, a book I’ve never seen before. The spine is cracking. Inside are images of my father as a baby—it must be him—in fading black and white, with a young version of my grandfather pushing him on an old-fashioned bike. Pictures of friends and family members I don’t recognize, and as I turn the pages, my father gets older and older, and then there are pictures of him with his college chums, that glint of mischief in his eye. And he’s standing with a man who looks like Ravi—Ravi’s father! With the Himalayas in the background. And near the back of the book, there’s a picture of young Ravi, his father, and my father.

  “Your father and Ravi’s father, Dilip, were the best of friends,” Thakurma says. “They knew each other from when they were little boys. They played horrible jokes on the Ayah—once put a harmless snake in her bed. Sent her off crying until I forced them to apologize. When your Baba nearly died of typhoid fever, Dilip slept outside his door. From the beginning, God has placed the Gangulis in our path. Dilip married and had a son, Ravi, and your father doted on the child, became his godfather so to speak….”

  “Go on, Thakurma.”

  “Then your father met your ma and you were born. They went to America. By this time, Ravi was nearly six.” She pats my knee. “I should love to go abroad again, but I’ve become much too infirm for such jaunts. My doctor says I’ll live a bit longer if I rest, nah?”

  I put my arm around her. “Thakurma, don’t talk that way. You have many years—”

  “Not the case, I’m afraid, Lakshmi. But I’ll not stop tending my garden.” There’s a light of hope in her eyes. Then her gaze catches my necklace. Somehow, the gold ring slipped out and dangles outside my blouse. “What is this?” she whispers, holding the ring close to her face. “The etching—”

  A chill goes through me. “Do you recognize it, Thakurma? Nick—The ring turned up when we had the sink fixed in the shop. The ring was stuck in the pipe.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes grow bright. “I know to whom this ring belongs.”

  My heart races. “How can you know, Thakurma? He—I—found the ring in America.”

  “This ring belonged to a young woman I once knew,” Thakurma says. “Known to our family, in a way. And known to your ma. This woman, Jamila Tarun, went to America. But best not to mention her—”

  “Why? Why did she go to America?”

  “Best not to speak of such things—you must not wear this ring.”

  “But Thakurma—I already asked Ma about it.”

  Her eyes widen. “And what did she say?”

  “She told me nothing.”

  “It is fate that you found this ring, although I wish it had not been so. Wait here.” She leaves the room and returns with a small, dog-eared address book. She writes a Bellingham, Washington, address on a slip of paper. “This is where Jamila Tarun lives, last time I knew. Not to mention this, nah?”

  I nod, tucking the address into my pocket, my mind full of questions. But Ma’s coming up the stairs, standing in the doorway with unbearable sadness in her eyes.

  “Now!” Thakurma says with fake joviality. “We shall have a lovely afternoon.”

  “Yes!” I say, getting up.

  “Fate has brought you and Ravi together. When I learned of your match, my heart overflowed.”

  “We are so glad, Thakurma,” Ma says.

  “And it is only fitting that the two of you should marry,” Thakurma goes on. “I pray my heart will last long enough to watch Lakshmi and Ravi exchange garlands.”

  “Thakurma, we haven’t yet…I mean, I haven’t—”

  “I’ve not had much to live for these past twenty years, but your marriage to Ravi shall bring me great joy.”

  Twenty-eight

  On the train back to Kolkata, I let the scenery roll through me, and I think of the ring and my grandmother. What secret does Jamila Tarun hold? How did her ring fall into the sink? Why should I keep my knowledge of her a secret from my mother? What if Jamila has moved?

  And oh, Thakurma, is it true that you’ve been waiting all this time for my match to Ravi? And yet you’re tentative—ephemeral, as if you might dissipate at any moment.

  Oh, my grandmother who sends me gifts of gold and silk on my birthdays, whose airmail letters link me to India, who sends pictures of the cousins as they grow older and wiser. Your resonant voice sings in my dreams, and I can’t imagine losing you. I remember you as you were when you ruled the family with your eyebrows, still took the stairs two at a time, bunching your sari up in front of your thighs as you climbed. You would never fade, never wane. You were an eternal flame, my faith, but now—

  All of this—these terraced gardens giving way to valleys of mustard fields, the vast, dusty sky—reminds me of you. This land of my birth, of Ravi’s birth. When I look into his eyes, hear his voice, I know that he is my country, my culture. If I am to stay in America and yet stay Indian, is he not the right person for me?

  Okay, Ravi Ganguli, I say to myself. I will marry you, and we’ll see what the future holds.

  Twenty-nine

  My family is giddy, as if they’ve all been riding a fabulous merry-go-round and jumped off happy and glowing and dizzy. Aunts and uncles and cousins emerge from all corners of the city to congratulate me. Auntie Bee has prepared a huge dinner feast for both Ravi’s family and mine.

  “You’ve made a wise decision,” Uncle Goola says, taking my hands in his pudgy ones. “I know this has been a difficult time for you, a time of reflection.” A few crumbs of pakora stick to the corners of his mouth. He’s always carrying remnants of his life, a tea or whisky stain on his shirt, bits of food on his face, dust bunnies caught in his hair. “We’ve just been speaking with Ravi’s parents, and they’ll arrange the date of the wedding.” Uncle Goola is my de facto father, but I feel a keen hollowness in my chest. My memories of Baba fade around the edges, his face a shadowy blur. Can I remember his voice, the deep rumble that soothed when he sang me to sleep?

  “Thank you for taking care of everything, Uncle.” I rub his arm affectionately. I watch Ravi move smoothly through the crowd, elegant and handsome in his red kurta and khaki pants, stopping to hold my mother’s hands and whisper in her ear, making her laugh. My life carries me on a fast-moving current, and I have nothing to grab onto.

  Cousin Meena rushes over and envelops me in a warm hug, then pats my cheeks. Close up, I can see bits of lipstick on her teeth and smell the faint foreign scent of spice and oil. “You’re looking pale as every bride-to-be, choto, but let me assure you, this is all normal. I was exactly like you. Nervous and uncertain.” She’s only a few years older than me, slim and rosy-cheeked, her eyes all aglitter. She points across the room to her husband, a robust man with a beard, glass in hand.

  “How did you know it was right?” I ask her.

  She stays close, her hand on my arm. “I didn’t know. Who ever knows? When I agreed to marry him, I vomited several times and stayed in bed for a week.” She takes a deep breath and presses the palm of her hand to her chest. Then she leans in toward me and whispers, “Make sure you wake up before your mother-in-law in the morning—”

  “We’ll be living in the States. Ravi has a job there.” And our bedroom door will have a lock!

  “Sooner or later, your mother-in
-law will live with you. At first I was getting no sleep, but now all is well.”

  I think of Rina, the timid woman who came into the shop looking for a sari that wouldn’t slip. I won’t have to worry about such things.

  “I sleep in a nightie,” I tell Meena. But will Ravi’s mother live with us? If so, will she make unreasonable demands?

  Meena goes on, “But now I’m in love, and the most wonderful thing about marriage is that it frees you to discover new things about each other that you couldn’t explore before, you know, when the family is always breathing down your neck.”

  “Our courtship has been rather formal so far,” I say. “And short.”

  “Absolutely normal. You’ll have plenty of time.”

  Ma glows as she flits through the crowd, and when Ravi comes to rest an arm around my shoulders, I’m nearly sure that I can do this. The buoyancy of family will lift my spirits, and I’ll float along on their happiness.

  “I’ll miss you until I can make it to the States,” Ravi says. “Just a little while.” He grins, the creases forming at the edges of his eyes. I search those eyes, his skin, for a sign of love, and I see the glow of promise. I’ll let it come.

  “My Lakshmi! Spending too long speaking with the groom!” Ma rushes up, pushing the elegantly embroidered pallu of her sari back up over her shoulder. It’s always slipping off. Prithi, Auntie Bee, and several other relatives converge on us.

  “The feast should be elaborate,” Ma says.

  “Roshogollas, jelabis, and sandesh,” Prithi says.

  “We’re not just having desserts all the time,” Auntie Bee says. She’s curled her hair in tight ringlets all around her head. I brought her a curling iron with an international plug, and I think it has short-circuited the breakers.

  “Biryani, fish curry,” Ma says. “The wedding must be here, where the family is.”

  “Of course,” I say. Maybe my friends will fly to India.