Read Online The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Tags: Literary Fiction
Ads: Link
was looking for. Because something is twisting inside, telling me I am losing him, the one man whose heart I could not read.
And then.
“I’ll be seeing you,” says the lonely American, and smiles a rhinestone smile. As though he really means it. As though he too will be waiting.
After the lonely American leaves, I wander the store, aimless-sad. Dissatisfaction, that old poison I thought I’d been cured of, bubbles up thick and viscous in me. I cannot bear to lock up. Barring the door would be to admit that he is really gone. Outside, streetlights blink on. Men and women turn up the collars of their coats and disappear underground into the dim clank and clatter ofthe subway. A yellow fog fills the deserted streets, and in the distance sirens begin to wail, reminding us how fugitive happiness is. But of course no one listens. I am looking for a spice for him.
“Different spices may help us with different troubles,” the Old One told us after she had taught us the common cures. “But for each person there is one special spice. No, not for you—the Mistresses must never use the spices for their own ends—but for all who come to you it exists. It is called
mahamul
, the root spice, and for each person it is different.
Mahamul
to enhance fortune, to bring success or joy, to avert ill luck. When you do not know how else to help someone, you must go deep into your being and search out the
mahamul
.”
Lonely American, how shall I begin, I who have always prided myself on the quick remedy?
I roam the shelves.
Kalo jire? Ajwain?
Powder of mango-gingerroot?
Choon
, the burning white lime that is wrapped in betel leaves? Nothing seems suitable. Nothing feels right. Perhaps the fault is in me, in my distracted soul. I Tilo who cannot stop thinking about those eyes dark as a tropical night, as deep, as filled with peril.
And why do I persist in calling him lonely? Perhaps even now, even as I stalk discontented down the aisle of lentils, as I plunge restive arms elbow-deep in a bin of
rajma
and let the cool red pods roll over my skin, he is turning a key. The door opens, and a woman with hair like gold mist rises from the couch to take him in her—
No. It isn’t so. I will not let it be so.
He enters and turns on a light, flips a switch, and the sound of a
sarod
fills the empty room. He leans back against a Jaipuricushion—for he loves all things Indian—and thinks about what he has seen today, a store smelling of all the world, a woman whose ageless eyes pull at him like-Idle wishing. Idle, riskful wishing.
“When you begin to weave your own desires into your vision,” the Old One told us, “the true seeing is taken from you. You grow confused, and the spices no longer obey you.”
Back Tilo, before it’s too late.
I force my mind to emptiness. I will trust only my hands, my hands with their singing bones to know what the lonely American needs.
The store stands unbarred, lucent crystal vial under the poised boot-heel of night. The doorway swarms gray with mothwings. But I cannot tend to it now.
I enter the inner room and close my eyes. In the dark my hands glow like lanterns. I trail my fingers along the dusty shelves.
Phosphorous fingers coral fingers, I wait for you to tell me what I must do.
In his bedroom the lonely American kicks off his shoes, turns down the silk covers of his bed. He shrugs off his shirt and lets it fall to the floor. Candlelight plays liquid on his shoulders, his back, the hard, muscled swell of his buttocks as he lets his pants fall too and stands straight, lithe, made of ivory. In a moment he will turn—
Fluid fills my mouth in a hot sweet rush. In all my lives before, fortune-teller and pirate queen and apprentice of spices, I have never seen a naked man, never desired to see it. Then my hands shudder to a stop.
Not now, hands, not now. Give me just a moment more.
But they are immovable, adamantine. Mine and not mine. Fisted around something hard and grainy, a pulsing
And then.
“I’ll be seeing you,” says the lonely American, and smiles a rhinestone smile. As though he really means it. As though he too will be waiting.
After the lonely American leaves, I wander the store, aimless-sad. Dissatisfaction, that old poison I thought I’d been cured of, bubbles up thick and viscous in me. I cannot bear to lock up. Barring the door would be to admit that he is really gone. Outside, streetlights blink on. Men and women turn up the collars of their coats and disappear underground into the dim clank and clatter ofthe subway. A yellow fog fills the deserted streets, and in the distance sirens begin to wail, reminding us how fugitive happiness is. But of course no one listens. I am looking for a spice for him.
“Different spices may help us with different troubles,” the Old One told us after she had taught us the common cures. “But for each person there is one special spice. No, not for you—the Mistresses must never use the spices for their own ends—but for all who come to you it exists. It is called
mahamul
, the root spice, and for each person it is different.
Mahamul
to enhance fortune, to bring success or joy, to avert ill luck. When you do not know how else to help someone, you must go deep into your being and search out the
mahamul
.”
Lonely American, how shall I begin, I who have always prided myself on the quick remedy?
I roam the shelves.
Kalo jire? Ajwain?
Powder of mango-gingerroot?
Choon
, the burning white lime that is wrapped in betel leaves? Nothing seems suitable. Nothing feels right. Perhaps the fault is in me, in my distracted soul. I Tilo who cannot stop thinking about those eyes dark as a tropical night, as deep, as filled with peril.
And why do I persist in calling him lonely? Perhaps even now, even as I stalk discontented down the aisle of lentils, as I plunge restive arms elbow-deep in a bin of
rajma
and let the cool red pods roll over my skin, he is turning a key. The door opens, and a woman with hair like gold mist rises from the couch to take him in her—
No. It isn’t so. I will not let it be so.
He enters and turns on a light, flips a switch, and the sound of a
sarod
fills the empty room. He leans back against a Jaipuricushion—for he loves all things Indian—and thinks about what he has seen today, a store smelling of all the world, a woman whose ageless eyes pull at him like-Idle wishing. Idle, riskful wishing.
“When you begin to weave your own desires into your vision,” the Old One told us, “the true seeing is taken from you. You grow confused, and the spices no longer obey you.”
Back Tilo, before it’s too late.
I force my mind to emptiness. I will trust only my hands, my hands with their singing bones to know what the lonely American needs.
The store stands unbarred, lucent crystal vial under the poised boot-heel of night. The doorway swarms gray with mothwings. But I cannot tend to it now.
I enter the inner room and close my eyes. In the dark my hands glow like lanterns. I trail my fingers along the dusty shelves.
Phosphorous fingers coral fingers, I wait for you to tell me what I must do.
In his bedroom the lonely American kicks off his shoes, turns down the silk covers of his bed. He shrugs off his shirt and lets it fall to the floor. Candlelight plays liquid on his shoulders, his back, the hard, muscled swell of his buttocks as he lets his pants fall too and stands straight, lithe, made of ivory. In a moment he will turn—
Fluid fills my mouth in a hot sweet rush. In all my lives before, fortune-teller and pirate queen and apprentice of spices, I have never seen a naked man, never desired to see it. Then my hands shudder to a stop.
Not now, hands, not now. Give me just a moment more.
But they are immovable, adamantine. Mine and not mine. Fisted around something hard and grainy, a pulsing
Similar Books
