Before We Visit the Goddess (3 page)

One evening, gathering her sari from the clothesline at the far end of the backyard, she noticed a narrow winding staircase, rusted in places. She climbed it—perhaps from a desire to escape. It led to a terrace, empty except for water tanks marked with pigeon droppings, a place where no one came. She made it hers. Each night after dinner she escaped to it, careful to ensure no one saw her. She looked at the stars and imagined them shining on her family. She finger-traced words onto the twinkling vastness of the sky, the things she would have written to her mother had Durga been able to read. Sometimes she wrote things she needed to believe:
I'm lucky to be in Kolkata, getting an education. How many girls get this opportunity? Soon I'll get a great job. I'll earn enough money so my family will never be hungry again.
Sometimes she whispered into the dark the saying Durga had quoted before bidding her goodbye:
Good daughters are fortunate lamps, brightening the family's name.
There was a second part to the saying, but Durga had left that out. When she said goodbye to her daughter, her eyes had glittered like broken glass. To send Sabitri to Kolkata, she'd had to fight all their relatives, who warned her that she was sending the girl to her ruination. Remembering that gave Sabitri the strength to go down to her cheerless room for another long night of study.

Granddaughter, this is the truth: if you are uneducated, people look down on you. To survive, you are forced to accept crumbs thrown from a rich man's table. How can such a woman ever brighten the family name?

One morning when Sabitri came to the passageway, there was no food. She ventured through the door to find out why. The kitchen was in an uproar. Leelamoyi had ordered the cook to make rasogollas for a luncheon, and so he had. But something had gone wrong. The soft round balls that should have been floating in syrup had exploded into hundreds of pieces. There was no time to make another batch. How shamed Leelamoyi would be if the guests had to be served store-bought sweets! Cooks had been fired for less.

“I won't be going alone,” the cook was shouting. “I'll make sure you all come with me.” He transfixed Sabitri with a terrifying frown. “What do
you
want?”

Don't meddle
, her wiser side warned. But she heard herself saying, in a small voice, that maybe she could fix the problem. The cook glared at her effrontery, but then he waved her in. Her hands shook as she boiled milk, sweetening it with jaggery syrup. She shredded the exploded balls into tiny pieces, remembering how her mother did it. She added them to the milk, along with ground cardamom and chopped pistachios. She was late for college already. But the mixture needed to be stirred, constantly, gently, so it would not stick to the bottom of the pan. She could not abandon it.

By the time she got to the college, she had missed her first three classes. Even in the others, she was distracted. Her friends joked that it was because of the new Maths professor. Their regular professor was in the hospital with a lung infection, and the university had found a substitute, a recent college graduate, a lanky young man with an Adam's apple that bobbed up and down when he got excited about what he was teaching. Sabitri didn't pay her friends—or him—much attention. Was Leelamoyi angry because her menu had been changed? Or did she like the new dessert? If she did, the cook would probably take full credit for it.

But how Sabitri had enjoyed cooking! At home she would grumble while helping Durga. This morning, though, when the milk had thickened perfectly, no ugly skin forming on top, she found herself smiling as she had not done since coming to Kolkata.

“Look at her grinning,” her friends whispered. “Ei, Sabi, are you in love or what?”

Upon her return, she was summoned by Leelamoyi. She climbed the stairs with some trepidation. One never knew what pleased the rich, what affronted them. But Leelamoyi, reclined on her bed—did she ever do anything else?—chewing on betel leaves, was all smiles. The guests had loved the dessert. Even her husband and son had asked for second helpings.

“From now on when I have company,” she said, with the air of conferring a great favor, “I want you to make the dessert.”

Though she hated herself for it, Sabitri's heart ballooned at Leelamoyi's approval. But what about her studies? She had copied her classmates' notes today, but she had not understood them well. If this happened often, how would she pass her classes?

Leelamoyi gestured to Paro, who walked over to the mahogany almirah with a face like she'd just bitten into a bitter melon. From the bottom shelf she removed two saris and handed them to Sabitri. Sabitri held her breath, marveling at the slip-shiny feel of the silk, trying not to show her excitement. She had never owned a silk sari. And these, though not new, were far more expensive than anything her family could afford to buy her.

“Rani Ma wants you to have them,” Paro said with her bitter-melon mouth.

In her room, Sabitri tried on the saris, wishing she had a mirror. The first was pomegranate-red with a border of green parrots. She would wear it to college tomorrow, even though she knew it was too showy. The second sari was more expensive, evening-sky-blue with a thin gold border. Where could she wear it? Certainly not to the kitchen, where no doubt Paro was fanning the waves of resentment by telling everyone of these undeserved gifts. But she couldn't bear to take it off. It was smooth as water against her skin, lighter than she had imagined a sari could be. She decided to go to the terrace.

Once there, she walked up and down the way she imagined a great lady would, steps tiny and elegant, the sunset breeze rustling the silk. She became a rich heiress who possessed two entire almirahs of saris like this. Her diamond nose ring sparkled as she promenaded.

But she was not alone! In a corner behind a water tank stood the young man who had helped her upon her arrival at the Mittirs', smoking and watching. Leelamoyi's son. From overheard kitchen gossip she knew his name: Rajiv. He was studying to be a doctor so that he could take over the family business, a hospital. There was a smile on his face—derision, no doubt. She rushed back to the staircase.

“Please don't run away!” said the young man, and when she didn't listen, “Stop, I insist!”

Granddaughter, at that, I stopped. Perhaps a part of me believed that, charity case that I was, he had the right to command me. But a part of me wanted to stay because he was young and handsome and had been chivalrous. My heart beat unevenly as I turned to face him, and not just out of fear.

She looks down at the page. What made her write this foolishness? She crushes the sheet in her fist, as though to crush the memory. Then she smooths the paper out again. She is not equipped to advise Tara, she knows this. But perhaps, if she shares her life, the girl might see something there. For the first time, she feels hopeful.

How long did they speak that time, and the next, and the next? And of what? Later she would only remember fragments, torn clouds drifting in front of the moon. When she told him, shyly, why she was in Kolkata, he listened with careful attention. Then he talked about himself, disarming her with his self-deprecating honesty. He hated medical school: the stink of illness, the pus and the vomit, the dark, jaundiced urine of the patients. But it wasn't something he could tell his parents, who were counting on him. The terrace was his escape, too. He loved playing the flute. Would she like him to play for her one night? But already she knew he would never do that. They could not risk anyone finding out.

Days passed. How many? It is hard to keep track of such mundanities when one is balanced inside a fairy tale. After some time, he brought up an old red quilt, so they could sit in comfort as they spoke. One moonless night, he lay down on it so he could point out the constellations to her. Here is Kalpurush with his shining, here are the seven wise rishis. She was impressed. She hadn't thought a city boy would know the names of stars. Maybe that was what made her lie down next to him on the worn malmal, though her mother's warnings buzzed in her ears like mosquitoes. She told him her dreams: she would dress in a starched sari and teach history to schoolchildren, stories of conquerors and despots. Her students would be obedient; she would never need to cane anyone. She would become a principal with tortoiseshell glasses, the entire school standing at attention when she entered the assembly hall.

He nodded. She would make a great principal, he said with conviction. He wound a finger softly around a lock of her hair, which he had persuaded her to unbraid. That was what made her fall in love, finally: his belief in her, and his gentleness.

But even as she confessed her dreams, they were changing.

That first night, their conversation, so hard to break off, had continued beyond safety. She rushed to her room to change the magical sari that had summoned her prince for an old cotton one. She was frighteningly late for her meal. But no one noticed. They were chattering about how the young master had been tardy to dinner. Leelamoyi had scolded him severely when he finally showed up. She demanded to know where he'd been. He wouldn't tell her, though. The servants guessed it was at some nightclub with his no-good friends. Didn't he look like he'd had one too many to drink? The older retainers decried today's youth, their lack of filial respect. The younger ones grumbled because now everyone would have to stay up late. Sabitri could barely swallow her food as she listened, her throat dry with guilty excitement, her heart hot and swollen with a secret power.