Sister of My Heart (7 page)

TODAY’S A SPECIAL
day, our thirteenth birthday. When Sudha and I come home from school, Mother gives us each a slim packet of rupee notes and the permission to buy whatever we want with them. The top of my head goes all tingly with excitement because we’ve never been given any money before.

Aunt N frowns. “I don’t think you should put cash into children’s hands like that, Didi,” she says. “Who knows what they’ll be up to.”

“You forget, Nalini,” my mother replies, smiling. “They’re no longer children, they’re women now. It’s time we started trusting them.”

Aunt mutters something darkly about what happens when a mother lets her daughters dance on her head.

I wish Mother would say something sharp and stinging back to her, but she only smiles again.

“Don’t worry so much,” she says. “They’re good girls. They know what they’re allowed to do.”

“I hope you’re right,” says Aunt N, but from the look in her eyes as she fixes them on me, I can tell she has no hope at all.

Sudha and I are just finishing up our homework when Ramur Ma comes by to say Mother wants me in her bedroom, alone. No, she doesn’t know why.

I’m so pleased I run all the way up the stairs. Mother’s usually so busy managing the household and the bookstore that I hardly ever get her to myself. I love those rare times when I get to sit next to her in the big double-armchair in her room while she asks me what I learned at school. She’s not so stern at those moments, nor so worried, and when she cups my face in her hands and tells me how proud she is of my achievements, I feel my whole body softening with happiness, all the rebelliousness melting out of it. Maybe today she’ll take that ancient leather photo album from her almirah again and point out my various ancestors to me. I really couldn’t care less about all those faded faces with their pince-nezs, their silver-tipped walking sticks, and their crimped dhotis. But I’ll pretend a fervent interest just so I can lean against her arm and breathe in the sandalwood scent that rises from her skin like the smell of goodness.

When I get to her room, Mother asks me to close my eyes. Then she puts into my hands something at once hard and velvety. It’s an old jewelry box, and opening it I gasp at the pair of bird-shaped earrings inside, sparkling against blue silk. They’re beautiful—even I can see that. Usually I’m not the least bit interested in jewelry. I’d rather have a good book, as I’ve told all my relatives, not that they listen. But these earrings—I fall in love as soon as I see them. They’re made of filigreed gold as delicate as a web, and studded with tiny diamonds. Even before Mother says anything, I know they’re meant to be part of my trousseau—as they’d been hers. From now on, she adds, each birthday she’s going to present me with a piece to match—bracelet, ring, ornamental comb—just as her mother had done.

“They look very nice on you, dear,” she says when I try them on. “But I’ll have to put them back in the vault for now. You’re too young to wear them.”

“Wait, first I have to show them to Sudha,” I say. “You know how much she likes jewelry. I bet she’ll want to try them on too.” I can already see the pleasure on her face as she runs her fingers over the gold curve of a bird’s neck. She’ll adjust each earring in
her ear with a frown of concentration. And then she’ll give a small, satisfied smile, because the earrings will make her look even lovelier.

I need to see that smile. Because something’s wrong with Sudha lately. She’ll hardly talk to me, and she’s been avoiding the mothers as well—especially Pishi, who I always thought was her favorite. What’s more puzzling is that Pishi hasn’t questioned or scolded her for her sullenness, as she usually would have. She’s only watched Sudha with an expression I can’t figure out and given me extra chores, almost as though she wanted to keep me away from her.

Whenever Sudha thinks she’s alone, she gazes into the distance with her great dark eyes, and sadness seeps over her face like a stain. I must’ve asked her a hundred times, Sudha, What is it, what’s wrong? But all she’ll say is Nothing. Then she’ll make an excuse and go to her room, and if I follow her she’ll say she has a headache and wants to lie down.

I want my Sudha back. I want her to swing her head so the diamonds flash in the sun, to say, You’ve got to let me wear these the first day of Durga Puja. I want her to cajole me into trying on whatever her mother’s given her—a pair of chappals, a sari—polishing the buckles, adjusting the anchal over my shoulder, buttoning me up and laughing when I complain that the blouse doesn’t fit me right. It’s our special birthday ritual, all the way back to when I’d take her my dolls who could open and shut their eyes and she’d tie back my hair with her satin ribbons, or take a shiny bindi from the box where she kept her few ornaments and stick it carefully in the center of my forehead.

It never bothered us that I got a lot more gifts than Sudha, or that hers were a lot less expensive. We thought of them as joint property and never hesitated to rummage through each other’s almirahs for whatever we wanted. The mothers didn’t seem to mind either, though once in a while Aunt N would grumble when she found a mud stain or a tear on one of Sudha’s frocks
that I’d worn, because I never could learn to be as careful as my cousin.

But today when I’m about to rush to Sudha’s room, my mother says, “Anju, maybe you shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t what?” I say in surprise.

“Show her your earrings.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe they’ll make her unhappy.”

“Why?” I demand. “Why should they make her unhappy?” I can feel the anger beginning to flare like a fire spark inside my skull even before Mother says another word.

I’ve never seen Mother look embarrassed before. “Because her mother doesn’t have such costly things to give her,” she finally says. “And it’s going to get worse from now on, as you grow older and I start putting together your dowry jewelry. I love Sudha, and I’ll try to buy her something each year, but I just don’t have the money to get her this kind of gift.” She looks down at her hands, and I wonder if she’s thinking how she’d always insisted to me that people mattered far more than possessions, or how she’d always said that there was no difference between Sudha and me as far as she was concerned.

Watching my mother, I see something else that I’ve been too busy or too thoughtless to notice. Or maybe it’s just that she’s always been good at hiding what she doesn’t want us to see. Her face is pale, and her skin, usually a warm brown, looks mottled, like a frostbitten flower. I remember how she’d stayed up very late all of last week because there had been a crisis at work. What it was I didn’t know; she liked to keep these matters to herself. Looking at her tired face, I feel ashamed of all the times when I’d wondered why she couldn’t do better with the business. I want to hold her and tell her it’s okay, neither Sudha nor I want expensive things, she doesn’t have to drive herself so hard. Times have changed. A dowry isn’t going to be as necessary for us. After all, we’re both going to college. And as soon as I’m a little older, I’ll start helping her in the store.

But Mother’s next words change all my sympathy to fury.

“At some point,” she says, “Sudha’s bound to start comparing herself with you and feeling some envy.”

“How can you say that?” I say fiercely. “You know Sudha’s not like that. She doesn’t have a jealous breath in her—”

“And it’ll make Aunt Nalini more discontented—”

“Aunt Nalini’s always discontented about something or other. Anyway, I’m not going to show these to her. Only to Sudha.” And before my mother can say anything else, I hurry out.

I find Sudha up on the terrace, which surprises me. Aunt N doesn’t like her to be up here in the daytime because she says all that sun will make her dark, and Sudha’s usually so obedient. And ever since the time she ruined all those mangoes, she’s tended to avoid the terrace. She won’t even come up here with me in the evening, after Ramur Ma washes down the bricks, and the cool breeze brings up the smell of jasmine. I miss that. It used to be our private time, when we could talk without fear of eavesdroppers.

Sudha’s leaning against the balustrade, staring out at nothing, dejection clear in every curve of her slumped body. When I call her name she jumps, and when I show her the earrings she gives a wan smile and says they’re nice.

“Don’t you want to try them on? Don’t you even want to hold them in your hand?”

She shakes her head, a gesture that tries to be nonchalant but ends up only being sad.

“What else did you get for your birthday?” I ask, but inside I’m wondering if Aunt N’s said something to upset her. Aunt has a tamarind-and-chile tongue and isn’t shy about using it on my cousin.

Sudha tells me that Aunt N gave her a bedspread with an
elaborate design traced on it, and a boxful of silk embroidery thread with which to fill it in.

“Don’t tell me—it’s to be part of your trousseau, just like these are part of mine, right?”

Usually when I say things like this, Sudha rolls her eyes and bursts into conspiratorial giggles. But today she merely looks at me. Then she says, “Anju, don’t compare us all the time. We’re not the same.”

Her voice is so emotionless it sends a shiver through me. “Why d’you say that?” I ask. “What’s wrong? No, don’t say
nothing
.”

Sudha’s silent for such a long time that I begin to wonder if Mother’s right. Maybe things,
objects
, have indeed come between us.

“Sudha,” I say, grasping her hand. “Look, will you do something for me? Take these, okay?” I put the earrings in her palm and close it up. “I want to give them to you for our birthday.” I’m not sure what I’ll tell Mother, how angry she’ll be. I’ll worry about that later. Right now I have to take care of Sudha. Because her eyes look as if she’s drowning, as if in a minute she’ll be deep underwater, beyond my reach.

I think Sudha’s going to throw her arms around me, like she always does when I give her a gift, but she says, in a cold, newly adult voice, “I don’t want your gifts. Or your pity. My mother and I might not have a lot, but at least we have self-respect.”

I gasp. The words are like a slap so hard that for a minute it stuns the flesh. There’s a coppery taste in my mouth and my palms are clammy with a sick rage that makes me want to hurt—really hurt—my cousin. I hear myself spit out, “If you’re so full of self-respect, how come for the last thirteen years you and your mother have been eating our rice and taking up room in our house? If you’re so full of self-respect, why don’t you go tell your mother to find a home of your own?”

From the sudden pained flush on Sudha’s face, I know my taunt has hit home.

And then I’m sobbing, detesting myself. Ever since I’ve been old enough to understand such things, I’ve known how ashamed Sudha’s been of the way Aunt N goes around acting proprietory about everything in this house when we all know she has no right to any of it. It’s the one topic we’ve always been careful to avoid.

I grope for her hands, crying.

“Sudha, I didn’t mean it, I swear I didn’t. This is your house as much as mine, you know that. Sudha, I’m sorry, I said it only because I was so angry, only because I love you.”

I think she’ll pull away, or fling the earrings over the ledge onto the busy street below, to be crushed under a lorry or snatched away by street children. That’s what I would have done. But Sudha only says, in a cool, thinking kind of voice that amazes me even through my tears, “Anju, why do you love me?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Tell me, Anju.”

“I love you because you’re my sister, you know that.”

Sudha turns the earrings over and over in her hand. I can tell she isn’t even seeing them. “Suppose I wasn’t who you thought I was, suppose—” She bites her lip. Then she asks unsteadily, “Would you still love me?”

I start getting angry again, this time because I’m scared. There’s a certain note in her voice—as if she knows something I don’t. “That’s a stupid thing to suppose,” I say.

“Please,” Sudha says. Her eyes have gone slate-black, and I can see she really needs me to give her an answer.

I try to think of a Sudha who’s different, a stranger Sudha perhaps who’d come into my life by chance and would pass out of it the same way. I try to judge whether I’d be able to love such a person. But my entire being is so tied to my cousin’s, I can’t even imagine it.