Blue Jasmine (2 page)

That evening, I found out that Raju wasn't the only one who wanted me to stay in India.

During dinner Kaka said to Pappa, “Take Mela to America with you, but leave Seema here with us.”

Dadaji agreed, saying, “Suman, I think it is a good idea. The plant flourishes best in its own soil. Mela is too young and needs to be with you, but leave Seema here.”

“How can you ask us to leave Seema here?” Pappa wondered.

“Why not? Uma and Seema are the same to me. Both our daughters will be raised the same,” Kaka said. I
shuddered. I loved Kaka, but his ideas and Pappa's ideas were as different as teeth and tongue. Kaka was as hard as teeth and would never change his opinion, while Pappa was as supple as a tongue and always open to ideas.

“I know Uma and Seema are the same to you, but who knows how long we will stay in America? Seema should come with us,” Pappa said. I noticed he hadn't touched his
khichdi
, a mixture of mung beans and rice served with curried potatoes and spinach. It was his favorite food.

“Once you go to America, you will not come back,” Kaka warned.

“I . . . we're not sure what we'll do,” Pappa said.

“You will stay in America, and if you stay there, then it's even more important to leave Seema here. That way she can grow up in our culture and go to America after high school,” Kaka said.

“What kind of talk is this? Seema belongs with her Pappa and Mommy. If they go to America, she goes to America; if they go to Africa, she goes to Africa. If they go for a year, Seema goes for a year; if they go for five years, she goes for five years,” Dadima declared as she crumbled a piece of millet bread in a bowl of milk. Lately, for supper, she only ate millet bread soaked in milk.

“Isn't Seema our granddaughter? I say she stays here,” Dadaji said.

“I want to go with Pappa and Mommy. I don't want to
stay here.” Before I'd realized it, the words sprayed out of my mouth.

“Listen to her! It's important for our children, especially our daughters, to have Indian values. My Uma wouldn't dare talk back to her elders. You've already spoiled Seema, and once you take her to America she will forget our culture and become too independent. I can tell you now that you'll lose a daughter,” Kaka said.

“
Bhai
,” Pappa said, “I know you love us and you're concerned about Seema, but she is my daughter and I have to take her with me.”

“And you should,” Dadima said. “I know Aruna and you would be unhappy if you left Seema behind. Besides, she's growing up and she needs her Mommy more than ever now, and Aruna will need Seema's help in America too.”

I glanced at Kaka. He was silent, but I could see that the anger had spread in his body and stiffened it.

Dadaji asked me, “Do you really want to leave us all behind?”

I looked around. All eyes were watching me. Even Mela was quiet. “I . . . I don't know what I want to do. I don't want to leave you, but I . . . want. . . I have to go. I . . . I want to go with Pappa and Mommy,” I blurted, trying to curb the rush of tears.

“Then you'd better start packing your bags,” Dadima
said, putting her arm around me. She turned to Kaka and added, “There is no reason to discuss this anymore.” And to Dadaji she said. “Don't make Seema miserable by asking such questions.”

Dadaji nodded a sad smile. I wondered what Mommy and Kaki thought of all this, but they were quiet as rose petals.

That night I kept thinking about our conversation. Even . though we slept in the back courtyard, it was warm under the Mosquito netting. Once in a while a slight scented breeze carried the smell of jasmine to me. The stars smiled like jewels in the museums: I could see them and admire them, but could never touch them.

Dadima pulled up a chair close to me and began singing a Sanskrit
shloka
, a special prayer. “May everyone be happy, may there be peace for everyone. May good things happen to everyone, may no one suffer any pain.”

For a while her singing soothed me, until I realized that once I went to America, Dadima wouldn't be there to ease my sadness.

T
he day after we got our visas from the American Consulate, our neighbors came to say good-bye. My friend Akhil, Raju, Uma, and I sat on the swing and gently rocked back and forth. The heat and humidity of the summer were building, and only the monsoon would break them. But before the monsoon came, I would be in America. I was thinking about how the monsoon would feel in America, when Akhil asked me. “Which state are you going to?”

“Iowa,” I replied.

“Iowa? I've never heard of it. It must be Ohi-o.”

“No. We're going to Iowa.”

“Are you sure you remember the name right? We have many relatives and friends in Ohi-o and I know all about
it. I don't think there's a state called Iowa, or I'd have heard about it.”

I didn't know what to say. I looked to Raju, but he was gone. Before I panicked, he'd returned with a roll of paper and spread it on the floor. It was a map of America. I hadn't known Raju had a map of America. “Akhil, Seema's going to Iowa. It's right here, west of the Mississippi River,” he said, pointing to Iowa. “Ohio is over here. And it's called Ohio, not Ohi-o.”

After that Akhil didn't ask me any more questions. When he left I asked Raju, “When did you get the map of America?”

“It's not mine. I borrowed it from Sarla. I wanted to see where you're going.”

“When I come back from America I'll bring you your own map,” I promised.

He smiled.

For a few days Mommy, Pappa, Mela, and I went to see my other grandparents. Nanaji and Nanima. They lived about eighty miles away in a town called Atul, a quiet place surrounded by mango, coconut, guava, and tamarind trees. Every summer we went there for two weeks, and sometimes Raju and Uma came with us. But this time we were visiting to say good-bye.

At the railway station I wondered when I would see
Nanaji and Nanima again. Nanima had made me a blanket out of her cotton saris and covered it with blue silk satin. Mommy asked me to put it in the bag, but I carried it in my hands. It was as soft as a peacock feather. When we took our seats on the train, Nanaji and Nanima stood on the platform extending their arms through the window. I kissed their hands.

“Seema, take good care of my saris,” Nanima said.

“I will,” I vowed, clutching my blanket.

I tried not to cry, but when I heard the train's shrill whistle and it began to move in a
chook-chook, chook-chook
rhythm, the tears flooded my cheeks.

When we got home in the evening, Raju said, “One of your friends from school came to see you. Guess who?”

“Anita?” I hadn't seen her since the last day of school.

“
Na
.”

“Nalini? Mita? Urvashi?”

“
Na, na, na
.”

“Who then? Tell me who came.”

He waved a small package in his hand and laughed. “Can't you smell who?”

“Mukta?” I said. “Why did she come?” Mukta was in my class, but she was not my friend. The year before we had shared a bench together, but that was because our teacher had assigned our seats. If I had had a choice I would have
sat as far away from Mukta as possible. She was not mean and she was a good student, but she smelled like an overflowing gutter in the monsoon. Her uniform stank and her braids stank and even her hands stank.

Raju shrugged his shoulders and gave me the package. As I unwrapped the newspaper, Raju teased, “Be careful now. It might be one of her tiniest pencils, and if it rolls under the bed you'll never find it.”

“Raju, quiet,” Uma said.

As I opened the package I wondered why Mukta had given me a gift. She was not part of our circle, and Raju barely spoke to her. In class he sat far away from Mukta. I was assigned to sit next to Mukta, but I tried to speak to her as little as possible. The worst was sharing a book with her. I hated her scooting close to me and holding my book with her fingers.

In the package was a soft muslin handkerchief with my name embroidered in one corner. I stared at the water-blue of my name surrounded by sprays of yellow and pink flowers against a white background.

“It's beautiful! Don't you like it?” Uma asked.

“Smell it,” I whispered, handing her the handkerchief.

“We can wash it with sandalwood soap and the smell will go away,” she said.

When the handkerchief was washed and dried I put it in my suitcase. I thought about visiting Mukta and thanking
her, but I didn't. There were always more pressing things to do and more important people to visit.

Two days before we were to leave for America, Mommy and I went to the market. While Mommy was paying the shopkeeper for socks and calamine lotion, I heard someone calling, “Seema, Seema. Over here.”

I glanced across the street. For a few seconds I saw only a man carrying a bale of cotton, but when he walked away I spotted a scrawny little girl flapping her arms and calling my name. Mukta? I wondered. She came closer and I saw that I was right. At least in school she wore a uniform like everyone else, but today her clothes were so threadbare that I would've taken her for a beggar. She cut across the sea of shoppers and vendors that lined the street and came to me. “I thought that was you, Seema. When are you leaving?”

“In two days.”

“I'm glad I got to see you before you left.”

Mommy had paid the shopkeeper by now and stood next to me with a question in her eyes. “Mommy, this is Mukta. We went to school together.”

Mommy smiled at Mukta and said, “Seema was thinking about visiting you, but it has been very hectic.”

“Please, come now, I live right over there,” Mukta said, pointing toward a snack shop.

“We have so much to do, I can't,” I said.

“Just for a few minutes, please. Come and meet my family.”

I glanced at Mommy, hoping she'd help me avoid visiting Mukta's family, but instead she offered, “Seema, why don't you go with Mukta, and I'll pick up our dry cleaning order down the street.” She looked at her watch and added, “It's almost five; I'll meet you here in half an hour.”

“In ten minutes?” I asked.

Mommy lifted her eyes in surprise and said, “In twenty minutes.”

“I'll bring her back in twenty minutes,” Mukta promised, as if she were borrowing a doll to play with. She held her hand out to hold mine, but I kept them safe in my skirt pockets.

“I came to see you last week, but you were away. Raju was there. He told me you went to visit your Nanaji and Nanima. Somehow I thought you'd leave right after visiting them. I'm so glad that I met you today.” Mukta jabbered away.

“I wanted to thank you for the embroidered handkerchief you made for me,” I said.

“Did you like it? I did all of it myself without any help from anyone. I wanted to make you a set of three, but. . .”

She didn't finish the sentence.

Mukta went up the steps of the shop.

“I thought we were going to your house,” I said.

“This is our shop and we live right behind it,” she explained. She introduced two men, one sitting behind a frying pan and another kneading dough, as her father and her
kaka
. I'd never seen a snack shop from this close. The frying pan was as large as an elephant's head, and the smoke coming out of it was as gray and thick as elephant skin. My eyes began to sting. I wondered how Mukta's father could sit on a wooden bench all day, every day, and fry savory snacks. It was much warmer inside, and both men wiped sweat away from their faces with a rag every few seconds.

We crossed the shop, and through the rear door we entered Mukta's home. It was one small room. In it, a woman was nursing an infant and another woman was shelling a mound of peas, with the help of a girl about six years old. There were no windows, and the room was dark except for a ray of light that streamed in at an angle through the back door. Dust particles danced in that light. I had seen many poor and homeless people before, but I'd never known anyone so poor. Mukta introduced me to the two women, “Mommy, Kaki, this is my friend Seema. Last year we sat next to each other, but this year she's moving to America.”

Mukta's mother stopped shelling peas, stood up, and
spread the sisal rug on the floor, saying, “Come, please sit down.” Her voice was sweeter than the tinkling silver bells in the temples.

While Mukta talked I surveyed the room. There was no couch, chair, or even an old
charpoy
, or bed. A kerosene-burning stove hissed with a yellow-blue flame like a wheezing child with a runny nose. The large aluminum pot on the stove was tilled with water and was starting to bubble. I wondered what it was for. On the blackened wooden shelves three brass pots and six plates shone brightly. The walls were covered with a layer of grime, and the room reeked with the smell of burned oil, spices, sweat, and . . . something else.

As I was wondering if the unfamiliar smell might be that of infant's urine, a sweet smell of jasmine wafted by. The breeze from the back door had carried the scent, and when I looked out I saw jasmine planted in oil tins covered with double white blooms that were beginning to open up.

Mukta's father poked his head in. He offered fried chickpea noodles and warm potato patties on a newspaper.

“Have some,” Mukta's mother urged, but I couldn't pick up a single noodle. The little girl scooted next to me and picked up a noodle. I thought she would eat it. Instead she offered it to me. “Here, eat. It's good,” she said.

How could I refuse her?

“Let Mukta and her friend talk. Come and sit by me,” Mukta's mother said. The girl didn't move. She took one noodle at a time and handed it to me. I nibbled on each one as long as I could. I don't remember what Mukta and I talked about.

Walking home. Mommy asked, “What's the matter? Are you all right?”