Read Online The Vine of Desire by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Free Book Online Page A

herself against the fence of marriage hard enough to knock it down—and sighs as she glances at the clock. It’s only three. “Let’s clean Anju Ma’s bedroom, shall we?” she says.
    It is a surprising decision. Though she is vigilant about keeping the rest of the apartment spotless, Sudha never enters Anju’s bedroom (she thinks of it as his bedroom) on her own. Sometimes when Anju comes back from class, they lie on the bed in there, chatting, but that is only because Anju insists that it’s ridiculous for them to scrunch themselves onto Sudha’s tiny bed when her queen-sized one is sitting empty. Afterward, Sudha smooths from the bedspread every wrinkle that might betray she was there. Long before Sunil comes home, she is in the kitchen, safe behind a barricade of pots, veiled in fragrant steam.
    Armed with sponges and sprays, Sudha enters the bedroom. She moves hesitantly, with trespasser footsteps. “Oh, what a mess!” she exclaims to Dayita, as though in justification—and it is. The dresser is cluttered with medicine bottles and college textbooks that have pushed Sunil’s colognes into a corner. On one end is a small TV-cum-VCR in which Sunil has taken to watching, late at nights, movies that Anju would not approve of if she were awake. Blankets are balled up at the foot of the bed, and Anju’s nightgown and damp towel lie in a heap on the bathroom floor. The toothpaste tube, left open, has bled blue gel onto the counter. Sudha kneels and scrubs the grime-ringed tub. There is an absorbed look on her face as she plies the cleaning brush, as she scrapes crusts of lime from the faucet. This is what she has come to America for: to set her cousin’s life in order. As long as her body is contained by such necessary actions,she need not think beyond them to the blankness which is her future.

    For a while the child follows the movement of her mother’s arm, the way it bends and straightens, the way cleanser bubbles bloom at the end of the brush’s bristles. But she doesn’t like the look on her mother’s face, that faraway look, as though the child weren’t there at all. She pulls at her arm, making sounds of protest.
    “Just a minute,” her mother says, “I’ll feed you as soon as I’m done with the tub, okay?”
    It is not okay with the child. She’s more important than any stupid tub, and she knows it. She lets out a full-bodied, indignant howl.
    “All right! All right! I get it!” her mother says, washing hastily and unbuttoning her blouse. The child would prefer something more exciting, those crunchy cereal balls that the man lets her have from his bowl in the morning, perhaps. But she makes do with good grace. Actually, she rather likes the familiarity of her head in the crook of her mother’s elbow, the milk spraying warmth inside her mouth, its comforting smell, which is also the smell of the mother, the smell she would know at once, even in a dark room filled with strangers. She pounds on her mother’s breast approvingly.
    “Ouch!” her mother says. “Quit! It’s time for you to go into your crib.”
    The child has other ideas. She clings to her mother as she tries to lower her into the crib and emits a series of shrieks, each louder than the other. She doesn’t really like to do this—thesound hurts her ears, too. But what option does she have when her mother refuses to be persuaded by gentler means? This strategy has worked well in the past, especially when Aunt Anju is around.
    It’s successful today as well. “Oh, very well!” snaps her mother, hauling her back to Aunt Anju’s bedroom and plopping her—rather ungently, the child thinks—onto the bed. “Spoilt brat!” Perspiration lines her forehead. “I should smack you.” She narrows her eyes and raises her arm.
    The child stops her crying. There’s no longer a need for it, and she isn’t one to waste her efforts. She watches her mother with some curiosity—before today, no one has threatened to hit her. But