Read Online Arranged Marriage: Stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
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next to the bedside extension. You picked it up on the very first ring, struggling up out of layers of sleep heavy as water to whisper a breathless hello, the next word held in readiness, mother . But it was never her. Sometimes it was a friend of yours from the graduate program. Mostly it was for him. Women. Ex-girl-friends, he would explain with a guileless smile, stressing the ex . Then he would turn toward the window, his voice dropping into a low murmur while you pretended sleep and hated yourself for being jealous.
She always called on Saturday morning, Saturday night back home. The last thing before she went to bed. You picture her sitting on the large mahogany bed where you, too, had slept when you were little. Or when you were sick or scared. Outside, crickets are chanting. The night watchman makes his rounds, calling out the hour. The old ayah (she has been there from before you were born) stands behind her, combing out her long hair which lifts a little in the breeze from the fan, thesilver in it glimmering like a smile. It is the most beautiful hair in the world.
And so you grew less careful. Sometimes you’d call out from the shower for him to answer the phone. And he would tease you (you sure now?) before picking it up. At night after the last kiss your body would slide off his damp, glistening one—and you didn’t care which side of the bed it was as long as you had him to hold on to. Or was it that you wanted her, somehow, to find out? the voice asks. But you are learning to not pay attention to the voice, to fill your mind with sensations (how the nubs of his elbows fit exactly into your cupped palms, how his sleeping breath stirs the small hairs on your arm) until its echoes dissipate.
So when the phone rang very early that Tuesday morning you thought nothing of it. You pulled sleep like a furry blanket over your head, and even when you half heard his voice, suddenly formal, saying just one moment, please , you didn’t get it. Not until he was shaking your shoulder, handing you the phone, mouthing the words silently, your mother .
Later you try to remember what you said to her, but you can’t quite get the words right. Something about a wonderful man, getting married soon (although the only time you’d discussed marriage was when he had told you it wasn’t for him). She’d called to let you know that cousin Leela’s wedding was all arranged—a good Brahmin boy, a rising executive in an accounting firm. Next month in Delhi. The whole family would travel there. She’d bought your ticket already. But now of course you need not come . Her voice had been a spear of ice. Did you cry out, Don’t be angry, Mother, please? Did youbeg forgiveness? Did you whisper (again that word) love? You do know this: you kept talking, even after the phone went dead. When you finally looked up, he was watching you. His eyes were opaque, like pebbles.
All through the next month you try to reach her. You call. The ayah answers. She sounds frightened when she hears your voice. Memsaab has told her not to speak to you, or else she’ll lose her job.
“She had the lawyer over yesterday to change her will. What did you do, Missybaba, that was so bad?”
You hear your mother in the background. “Who are you talking to, Ayah? What? How can it be my daughter? I don’t have a daughter. Hang up right now.”
“Mother …” you cry. The word ricochets through the apartment so that the hanging shivers against the wall. Its black center ripples like a bottomless well. The phone goes dead. You call again. Your fingers are shaking. It’s hard to see the digits through the tears. Your knees feel as though they have been broken. The phone buzzes against your ear like a trapped insect. No one picks it up. You keep calling all week. Finally a machine tells you the number has been changed. There is no new number.
Here is a story your mother told you when you were growing up:
There was a girl I used to play with sometimes,
She always called on Saturday morning, Saturday night back home. The last thing before she went to bed. You picture her sitting on the large mahogany bed where you, too, had slept when you were little. Or when you were sick or scared. Outside, crickets are chanting. The night watchman makes his rounds, calling out the hour. The old ayah (she has been there from before you were born) stands behind her, combing out her long hair which lifts a little in the breeze from the fan, thesilver in it glimmering like a smile. It is the most beautiful hair in the world.
And so you grew less careful. Sometimes you’d call out from the shower for him to answer the phone. And he would tease you (you sure now?) before picking it up. At night after the last kiss your body would slide off his damp, glistening one—and you didn’t care which side of the bed it was as long as you had him to hold on to. Or was it that you wanted her, somehow, to find out? the voice asks. But you are learning to not pay attention to the voice, to fill your mind with sensations (how the nubs of his elbows fit exactly into your cupped palms, how his sleeping breath stirs the small hairs on your arm) until its echoes dissipate.
So when the phone rang very early that Tuesday morning you thought nothing of it. You pulled sleep like a furry blanket over your head, and even when you half heard his voice, suddenly formal, saying just one moment, please , you didn’t get it. Not until he was shaking your shoulder, handing you the phone, mouthing the words silently, your mother .
Later you try to remember what you said to her, but you can’t quite get the words right. Something about a wonderful man, getting married soon (although the only time you’d discussed marriage was when he had told you it wasn’t for him). She’d called to let you know that cousin Leela’s wedding was all arranged—a good Brahmin boy, a rising executive in an accounting firm. Next month in Delhi. The whole family would travel there. She’d bought your ticket already. But now of course you need not come . Her voice had been a spear of ice. Did you cry out, Don’t be angry, Mother, please? Did youbeg forgiveness? Did you whisper (again that word) love? You do know this: you kept talking, even after the phone went dead. When you finally looked up, he was watching you. His eyes were opaque, like pebbles.
All through the next month you try to reach her. You call. The ayah answers. She sounds frightened when she hears your voice. Memsaab has told her not to speak to you, or else she’ll lose her job.
“She had the lawyer over yesterday to change her will. What did you do, Missybaba, that was so bad?”
You hear your mother in the background. “Who are you talking to, Ayah? What? How can it be my daughter? I don’t have a daughter. Hang up right now.”
“Mother …” you cry. The word ricochets through the apartment so that the hanging shivers against the wall. Its black center ripples like a bottomless well. The phone goes dead. You call again. Your fingers are shaking. It’s hard to see the digits through the tears. Your knees feel as though they have been broken. The phone buzzes against your ear like a trapped insect. No one picks it up. You keep calling all week. Finally a machine tells you the number has been changed. There is no new number.
Here is a story your mother told you when you were growing up:
There was a girl I used to play with sometimes,
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