Read Online Arranged Marriage: Stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Free Book Online
Authors: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
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up. We only have each other , she often told you.
“So?”
“She lives in a different world. Can’t you see that? She’s never traveled more than a hundred miles from the village where she was born; she’s never touched cigarettes or alcohol; even though she lives in Calcutta, she’s never watched a movie.”
“Are you serious!”
“I love her, Rex.” I will not feel apologetic , you told yourself. You wanted him to know that when you conjured up her face, the stern angles of it softening into a rare smile, the silver at her temples catching the afternoon sun in the backyard under the pomegranate tree, love made you breathless, as though someone had punched a hole through your chest. But he interrupted.
“So don’t tell her,” he said, “that you’re living in sin. With a foreigner, no less. Someone whose favorite food is sacred cow steak and Budweiser. Who pops a pill now and then when he gets depressed. The shock’ll probably do her in.”
You hate it when he talks like that, biting off the ends of words and spitting them out. You try to tell yourself that he wants to hurt you only because he’s hurting, because he’s jealous of how much she means to you. You try to remember the special times. The morning he showed up outside your Shakespeare class with violets the color of his eyes. The evening when the two of you drove up to Grizzly Peak and watched the sunset spreading red over the Bay while he told you of his childhood, years of being shunted between his divorced parents till he was old enough to move out. How you had held him. The night in his apartment (has it only been three months?) when he took your hands in his warm strong ones, asking you to move in with him, please, because he really needed you. You try to shut out the whispery voice that lives behind the ache in your eyes, the one that started when you said yes and he kissed you, hard.
Mistake , says the voice, whispering in your mother’s tones.
Sometimes the voice sounds different, not hers. It is a rushed intake of air, as just before someone asks a question that might change your life. You don’t want to hear the question, which might be how did you get yourself into this mess , or perhaps why , so you leap in with that magic word. Love , you tell yourself, lovelovelove . But you know, deep down, that words solve nothing.
And so you no longer try to explain to him why you must tell your mother. You just stand in the bathroom in front of the crooked mirror with tarnished edges and practice the words. You try not to notice that the eyes in the mirror are so like her eyes, that same vertical line between the brows. The line of your jaw slants up at the same angle as hers when she would lean forward to kiss you goodbye at the door. Outside a wino shouts something. Crash of broken glass and, later, police sirens. But you’re hearing the street vendor call out momphali, momphali, fresh and hot , and she’s smiling, handing you a coin, saying, yes, baby, you can have some . The salty crunch of roasted peanuts fills your mouth, the bathroom water runs and runs, endless as sorrow, the week blurs past, and suddenly it’s Saturday morning, the time of her weekly call.
She tells you how Aunt Arati’s arthritis isn’t getting any better in spite of the turmeric poultices. It’s so cold this year in Calcutta, the shiuli flowers have all died. You listen, holding on to the rounded o’s, the long liquid e’s , the s’s that brush against your face soft as night kisses. She’s trying to arrange a marriage for cousin Leela who’s going to graduate from college next year, remember? She misses you. Do you like your new apartment? How long before you finish the Ph.D. and come home for good? Her voice is small and far, tinny with static. “You’re so quiet…. Are you OK, shona? Is something bothering you?” You want to tell her, but your heart flings itself around in your chest like a netted bird, and the words that you practiced so
“So?”
“She lives in a different world. Can’t you see that? She’s never traveled more than a hundred miles from the village where she was born; she’s never touched cigarettes or alcohol; even though she lives in Calcutta, she’s never watched a movie.”
“Are you serious!”
“I love her, Rex.” I will not feel apologetic , you told yourself. You wanted him to know that when you conjured up her face, the stern angles of it softening into a rare smile, the silver at her temples catching the afternoon sun in the backyard under the pomegranate tree, love made you breathless, as though someone had punched a hole through your chest. But he interrupted.
“So don’t tell her,” he said, “that you’re living in sin. With a foreigner, no less. Someone whose favorite food is sacred cow steak and Budweiser. Who pops a pill now and then when he gets depressed. The shock’ll probably do her in.”
You hate it when he talks like that, biting off the ends of words and spitting them out. You try to tell yourself that he wants to hurt you only because he’s hurting, because he’s jealous of how much she means to you. You try to remember the special times. The morning he showed up outside your Shakespeare class with violets the color of his eyes. The evening when the two of you drove up to Grizzly Peak and watched the sunset spreading red over the Bay while he told you of his childhood, years of being shunted between his divorced parents till he was old enough to move out. How you had held him. The night in his apartment (has it only been three months?) when he took your hands in his warm strong ones, asking you to move in with him, please, because he really needed you. You try to shut out the whispery voice that lives behind the ache in your eyes, the one that started when you said yes and he kissed you, hard.
Mistake , says the voice, whispering in your mother’s tones.
Sometimes the voice sounds different, not hers. It is a rushed intake of air, as just before someone asks a question that might change your life. You don’t want to hear the question, which might be how did you get yourself into this mess , or perhaps why , so you leap in with that magic word. Love , you tell yourself, lovelovelove . But you know, deep down, that words solve nothing.
And so you no longer try to explain to him why you must tell your mother. You just stand in the bathroom in front of the crooked mirror with tarnished edges and practice the words. You try not to notice that the eyes in the mirror are so like her eyes, that same vertical line between the brows. The line of your jaw slants up at the same angle as hers when she would lean forward to kiss you goodbye at the door. Outside a wino shouts something. Crash of broken glass and, later, police sirens. But you’re hearing the street vendor call out momphali, momphali, fresh and hot , and she’s smiling, handing you a coin, saying, yes, baby, you can have some . The salty crunch of roasted peanuts fills your mouth, the bathroom water runs and runs, endless as sorrow, the week blurs past, and suddenly it’s Saturday morning, the time of her weekly call.
She tells you how Aunt Arati’s arthritis isn’t getting any better in spite of the turmeric poultices. It’s so cold this year in Calcutta, the shiuli flowers have all died. You listen, holding on to the rounded o’s, the long liquid e’s , the s’s that brush against your face soft as night kisses. She’s trying to arrange a marriage for cousin Leela who’s going to graduate from college next year, remember? She misses you. Do you like your new apartment? How long before you finish the Ph.D. and come home for good? Her voice is small and far, tinny with static. “You’re so quiet…. Are you OK, shona? Is something bothering you?” You want to tell her, but your heart flings itself around in your chest like a netted bird, and the words that you practiced so
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