Blue Jasmine (13 page)

“You don't understand. Every time we move to a new place Dad stays in his office until late and Mom gets busy wallpapering and buying pillows and curtains for the new home. I always feel that the job and house are more important to them than I am. Every time we move I have stomachaches from being nervous about going to a new school, making new friends. There is no one to talk to.”

I couldn't imagine moving from one place to another and changing schools all the time. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I never realized how difficult it was for you.”

“How could you? I was the one making you miserable, until . . .”

“What made you stop? What happened?”

“While I was sick I had lot of time to think about how I
was going to take my revenge. You were the one I thought about the most while I was sick. When I first started school, I'd watched you so intently that I could remember everything about you as if you were right there in front of me. When I got the card that the class had made, the first thing I did was to see if you'd signed it. And you had. You even wrote a message! I realized that if I moved again after a year or two, you'd be the one I'd be thinking of the most. It made me wonder if you and I could be friends. The thought had never occurred to me.”

“But why did you pick on me? I hadn't spoiled anything for you so why were you so mean to me?”

“I guess I was scared.”

“You? Scared? I remember that way you walked in the cafeteria, your eyes sweeping over us all. Your hair so pretty and such bounce in your step. You looked fearless.”

“I wasn't fearless. I picked on you because I heard your heavy accent and I knew you were an easy target. I was hoping that other kids would join me and make fun of you too.”

“Like Danny?”

“And Ria and Jennifer.”

“Ria and Jennifer are my friends. How could you think that they'd be mean to me? And how could you pull my hair that day?”

“It was a dare. I was standing with Danny, Sam, and a
couple of other boys when I saw you walking by. I said, ‘I bet I can go and touch her braid and she won't even notice.' No one believed me, so I had to prove I was right.”

“You didn't touch my braid, you pulled it.”

“It all happened so fast.”

“If we had those instant replays like in football, then we'd know how it happened,” I whispered.

“Then we could watch it from many angles.”

I was quiet for a minute. “Forget all the angles.” I said.

“Okay,” she sighed. “Tell me more about Mukta.”

“All my friends and I kept a distance from Mukta. Even though she and I shared a bench for a year, and she was thoughtful and friendly, I never considered her my friend.”

“Why not?”

“Because she was different. She had one uniform that she wore all week long. Even at the beginning of the school year she'd come to class with sandals held together with ten nails.”

Carrie was quiet. I heard the murmur of the trees as if they were listening too. I continued, “Before I came here Mukta gave me that handkerchief I showed you. When I visited her family I realized how little they had and yet how thoughtful and generous they were.”

“The embroidery is so beautiful,” Carrie said.

“It is. After I came here I began to understand Mukta and how she must have felt, because I was going through the same thing, trying to fit in with everyone.”

“I can imagine that. Whenever I change schools I get so scared that I try to . . .” she trailed off.

“Thanks for inviting me,” she said, her voice heavy, but soft.

“I'm glad you came,” I replied, and I realized I meant it.

We were the last two to get up the next morning.

A
fter my birthday I had a friend in my class. The rest of the school year moved fast and then came summer vacation. I went to a public library and enrolled in a reading program. Reading was fun, but what I was really looking forward to was my first Fourth of July celebration for which I wanted to wear something red-white-and-blue. I asked Mommy if I could buy a new T-shirt with an American flag, and she agreed. Before we had time to go shopping, on the morning of July first, the phone rang at five o'clock, shaking us all out of sleep. It was Kaka. It was late afternoon in India. Dadima had had a stroke earlier that day and she was in the hospital.

“Is Dadima going to be all right?” I asked, battling my tears.

“I think so,” Mommy said, looking at Pappa. He sat there as if someone had hit him with a can of chickpeas.

“Suman, you must go as soon as possible,” Mommy said to him.

“What about the three of you? Mother would want to see all of us, not just me.”

“If we can get the tickets we can all go; otherwise you must go alone,” Mommy said.

When Mommy talked to Grandma Milan she said, “Don't worry about a thing here. I'll take care of the house as well as the garden.”

The next day we were on a flight to India. In the plane I thought about how suddenly everything had changed. Before the phone call I was worried about what I was going to wear on the Fourth of July, and now I was worried about Dadima. The clothes weren't important now. I remembered Dadima explaining a Sanskrit verse she used to sing: “Life is like a flow of water, constantly moving and changing its course. One minute it is flowing smoothly and steadily, and no sooner do you feel in charge of it than the little stones drop in, making splashes and ripples whose heads grow larger and larger.” I didn't want the head of this trouble to get any larger.

When I was four I used to tell Dadima, “When I get big, you'll get small and then I'll take care of you.” I was frightened now. I prayed, “Please God, let me keep my promise;
give me a chance to hold Dadima's hand, rub her Forehead, tell her stories, make her laugh, comb her hair, fold her saris, and let her win all the card games. Don't let her slip away before I have the chance to do something.”.

The monsoon had begun in Mumbai. As soon as we got off the plane I could taste the Arabian Sea, moist and salty. In the customs area the overhead fans whirled furiously. The sounds of familiar languages, the hustle-bustle of porters, and the tinkling of bangles whorled tingles down my limbs.

We reached muggy Vishanagar at eight in the morning. Raju ran across the garden and opened the front gate. The garden was lush after the first rains. I hugged Raju and then Dadaji, Kaki, and Uma, and then Raju again. We were all hugging and crying and talking at the same time. Kaka was at the hospital with Dadima.

“Can we go see Dadima right now?” I asked.

“As soon as you get ready,” Mommy said.

“And eat breakfast,” Kaki said.

“I'm not hungry. I'm ready to go.”

In the rickshaw I sat with Dadaji. Up and down it went on the pothole-covered roads. With one hand I clutched the rail and with the other I clasped Dadaji's arm.

As soon as we entered the hospital I Was overcome by the smell of rubbing alcohol. I remembered the smell because Pappa used rubbing alcohol in his lab to disinfect
the countertops. In the general ward I saw patients lined up in rows of beds and I thought of Mukta's
kaki
. Before I entered Dadima's room I stopped, took a deep breath, and pulled a smile on my face. When I saw Dadima, so frail and with an IV in her arm, my courage failed. As soon as she saw us her eyes gleamed like the quartz that we used to collect when we were little.

I took her hand in mine, but my words turned to mush in my throat.

Mela stood by the door and wouldn't come in.

“
Aav
, come, Mela,” Dadima said. Pappa picked her up and brought her close.

“Do you know who this Is?” I asked.

“Daddy's ma, that's Daddyma,” she said. We all laughed.

After a while Dadima whispered, “Your skin is lighter, Seema; I suppose you aren't in the sun much in the winter.”

“I'm much darker now than I was in the winter. In the winter, it's the sun, not me, that isn't out much. And even when it is, the days are so short that by the time I come home from school the day is done.”

“And now in the monsoon the days are longer?”

“There's no monsoon there. It can rain any time. In winter when it's very cold, it snows. Right now the days are very long and it doesn't get dark until nine-thirty.”

Dadima closed her eyes. She was tired and we quietly slipped out of her room.

I'd seen Dadima and she'd seen me and I'd held her hands. My prayers had been answered, but now I wanted more. I prayed that she would get better and come home.

While we were in the hospital it had rained, and when we came home the mugginess of the morning had disappeared. At lunch Kaka said, “Seema, you must be fluent in English now. While you're here I want you to speak to Raju only in English. He needs the practice.”

I glanced at Raju. He didn't say a word, but I noticed that he'd stopped eating. There was a pile of rice and a bowl of dal that he didn't finish.

After lunch Raju and I went to the garden. My eyes feasted on the salmon blooms of woody liana and the magenta blooms of bougainvillea and the rain-polished leaves of the mango tree. The swings were wet and the raindrops sparkled on the roses. Everything was fresh, new and familiar. And then I saw it. I saw a vine covering the bamboo trellis with elliptical leaves dotted with flowers. As I walked toward it, its sweet fragrance filled me completely. “Jasmine? Is this an angel-wing jasmine?” I squealed.

“Yes. Do you like it?” Raju asked.

I stood there admiring the white blooms as delicate as snowflakes.

“We never had an angel-wing jasmine in the garden before. Who planted this?”

“I did. Remember the surprise I told you about? This is it.”

“But why didn't you tell me?”

“Because I wanted you to see your jasmine for yourself.”

“Is it mine?”

“It is,” Raju said. “After you left, Dadaji took me to the nursery on a Rakshabandhan day and asked me to pick out a plant that I could take care of. That way when you came back I'd have a gift for you.”

I picked a flower with a raindrop quivering in the center of its seven petals. I touched its petals with my lips. “Oh, Raju, jasmine doesn't grow in Iowa.”

“That's why this one is yours. If you stay here, you can enjoy your jasmine everyday.”

“I can't, Raju. I have to go back. Remember the picture of the blue flower I mailed you?”

“Yes, I remember,” he said.

“It's called hyacinth, but when I first saw it I called it blue jasmine.”

“Why did you call it blue jasmine?”

“Because its scent reminded me of jasmine. I have to go back where the blue hyacinths bloom.”

He walked to the swing, wiped it with his handkerchief,
and sat down. I sat down, too, and we watched the sky turn from light to dark and then from dark to light again. The monsoon sky and my mood shared the same hue.

“This is the place I missed so much. This is the place I dreamed of the most,” I said, looking once around the garden.

“I'd have missed people more than the garden. I, for sure, would've missed you the most,” Raju said, turning his face away.

“You know what I mean . . . I'm sorry, Raju. . . .”

He turned back and laughed. “Don't you realize that I'm teasing? No one teases you in America, so I suppose you're out of practice.”

I stared at him. “I'm sure that in the past year no one has played tricks on you, so you'll have to be careful, too.”

“I'm careful and I'm always ready to learn more tricks,” he said.

“Except for English, you're ready to learn.” I said.

As soon as those words spilled out of my mouth I wished I could mop them up. His face fell a thousand feet and his eyes turned elephant-gray.

“I shouldn't have said that,” I said.

“It's not your fault. It's Pappa. Ever since you went to America he's been after me to study hard. He insists that
I talk to him in English, and you know how hard that is, so I've stopped talking to him altogether. And the less we talk the more annoying I am to him.”

“I didn't realize that Kaka was so serious about talking in English,” I said.

“Oh yes, he is. He is obsessed with English—American English. Without that, he says, I won't succeed.”

“Why didn't you write to me about it?” I said.

“How could I have? You had to face so much more than I did. I avoid my pappa as much as I can.”

His words pinched my heart the way a tiny stone in a shoe pinches a foot.

I wanted to give Raju the maps I'd brought. He was so upset that I decided to wait a little longer until his anger had melted away. I wanted to show him Vermont and tell him about the fall colors. I wanted to show him where in Wisconsin Jennifer's grandparents lived. I wanted to show him the state of Georgia, where Mrs. Milan had lived for many years. Maybe later he'll be ready to see it all, I thought hopefully.

For the next five days I went to see Dadima in the hospital. Uma and Raju had school, so after they left in the morning I went and sat with Dadima. I wanted to visit Mukta and go to school with Raju one day, but I decided to wait until Dadima was better.

At night I filled up a new clay pot with water. By the
morning the pot had oozed out the heat and cooled and sweetened the water. Early in the morning I picked fragrant pink roses and cannas and arranged them in an old brass pot with, long
asopalav
leaves. Pappa made a thermos full of tea for Dadima. In a motor rickshaw, Dadaji and I went to the hospital carrying water, tea, and flowers.

As soon as we got there I helped Dadima with her tea. She was so weak that her hands trembled so I held her cup, tipped it enough for her to take a sip, and then wiped her face. I helped her change into a new sari and put some oil in her hair and then combed it into a bun. When I folded her sari the first time, it came out jumbled up in a ball. I tried again, and slowly I was able to fold it in a perfect rectangle. I read her the news from
Gujarat Samachar
. I hadn't read any Gujarati in the past year so it felt strange to see the Gujarati script, but soon it became natural to read it again. Some days I played cards with her and Dadaji, and she often won. Her mind was as sharp as ever, which made me feel better. I told stories about our past year in America. There were so many things to tell her and Dadaji that three visiting hours went by quickly. Dadima told all the doctors and nurses that took care of her, “My granddaughter, Seema, has traveled halfway around the world to be with me.” It made my heart glow like angel-wing jasmine.