Jasmine Skies (24 page)

‘Maybe it’s for the same reason that you love to dance’ I say.

‘Are you defending him?’ Priya asks mischievously. I feel my face flush so I get up and walk around the tiny room. There are a few books on the high shelf too, mostly English
language books and a few hardbacks that look, from their covers, as if they might be about carpentry. There’s also a copy of the
Mahabharata
and the
Ramayana
and a collection of
poems by Tagore.

‘You should read Tagore’s poetry, Mira,’ I hear Grandad’s voice in my head. ‘Our monsoon poet. If you study Shakespeare, then you must study Tagore also.’

When I was young, just starting to read, Grandad bought us an edition of the
Ramayana
epic, written in Bengali, and I used to love looking through the pictures whilst Grandad read them to
me. My favourite was the one where the king of the monkeys, Hanuman, led an army against the demon king Ravana. But the bit I really didn’t get was when Sita, after everything she’d
been through, had to step into the fire to prove her innocence.

At the end of the bed, in a hollow in the wall, is a tiny shrine. Inside is a carved figure of a god; in front of it is a little copper bowl with a candle in it and a scattering of jasmine
flowers.

Priya follows my eyes. ‘He carved that Lord Vishnu himself,’ she says, placing the statue in my hands. Now I remember Rama the hero was really Lord Vishnu in human form. This carving
is so intricate it must have taken him years. I don’t think anyone would make such a thing if they didn’t believe in all this. I put it back carefully. Priya takes some matches from
Janu’s desk and lights the candle. Then she picks up a single jasmine flower from the bowl.

‘Did you know that jasmine is the flower of luuurve?’ she says, turning to face me.

‘Really?’ I pretend to be serious for a moment before we both dissolve into giggles. Then Priya switches track, as if she’s hearing music in her head. She raises her arms in
the air and starts rapping.

If the music that’s in her head was blaring out, Priya could set any stage alight. She probably will one day soon. She’s one of those tiny people who become a giant
when she performs.

‘Give it up for DJ Prey!’ She dives on to the bed and collapses with laughter. ‘Phew! Even for me this heat’s too much.’

‘Shall we go?’

‘No hurry, let’s chill here for a bit longer.’ She lies back down on the bed.

All I can think of is how embarrassing it would be if Janu came back to find me in his room. I’d feel like a magpie stealing into his nest. I stand up and walk back towards the shrine. The
candle casts an amber glow over the walls, and the memory of Janu and me locked in each other’s gaze in the crumbling house fills my mind. I watch the flame flicker and my thoughts turn to
Jidé. I don’t want to hurt him, I don’t want to hurt him, I don’t want to hurt him, I say over and over in my mind as I blow out the candle.

‘It’s the jasmine.’

I almost jump out of my skin at the sound of Janu’s voice. I turn to the doorway, feeling slightly panicked. But Janu is smiling and doesn’t seem angry at all. Somehow he looks
different with his hair loose. He’s leaning against the door frame, holding a freshly picked vine of the white flowers. He steps into the room and nods towards Priya, who has fallen
asleep.

‘Jasmine,’ he repeats. ‘It can make you sleepy. It’s why I come here sometimes after work, to relax.’

I try to smile casually and hope that I’m hiding my thudding heartbeat. It feels like anything I say at this moment will be wrong, so I stay silent.

Janu goes over to Priya. He places his arms under her, lifts her off his bed and carries her back down the wooden steps to our room. I follow behind him.

Once he’s lain her on the bed, he turns to me. ‘Here!’ He hands me the tendril of jasmine. ‘Priya doesn’t need it.’

‘Thank you,’ is all I can say. I look down at my feet, and when I look up again Janu has closed the door quietly behind him.

Under Jasmine Skies

I watch Priya’s face as she sleeps. It’s strange to see someone so animated sleeping because she looks so peaceful now. It’s as if all the energy she
harnessed for the gala has drained out of her.

I turn on the lamp next to the bed, tiptoe over to the desk and find the paper and envelopes I’ve spotted tucked away in her drawer. The packet hasn’t even been opened. It’s
like Priya said: ‘Who writes letters these days anyway?’

I sit down at her desk and write Jidé’s address on the envelope, because that’s the easy bit. There is nothing Jidé and I don’t know about each other, and I
can’t start lying to him now. So, even though this is a million miles away from the love letter he joked I should send him, I have to find a way of telling him the truth.

As I write a leaden lump is forming in the back of my throat.

The smell of jasmine wafts through the window, as if to goad me into feeling even more guilty than I already do. It’s no use. I can’t say this to him in a letter.
Words are too brutal, too final. Now I’ve made up my mind not to send this I feel more settled, because I know that this letter will never be sent, and that frees me up to write whatever I
want, just to get it all out. I realize how much I’ve missed talking to Jidé, telling him everything, sharing every silly thought that passes through my head, like I usually do. The
way I clam up around Janu is the total opposite of who I am with Jidé. I don’t know how Jidé will feel when I get home and talk to him, but maybe if he met someone and felt
about them the way I do about Janu, he would know that what we really are is the best friends ever. I carry on writing, trying to find a way to make sense of everything and calm myself down.

Suddenly I understand why Mum and Anjali are so angry with me for reading their letters. This letter is definitely ‘private property’, and the thought of anyone
reading it makes me feel sick. I fold the letter up, put it in the envelope and seal it closed. I go over to my bed and tuck it inside my pillowcase, with the little wooden carving. Then I lie down
and let the tears pour out of me until I think they are never going to stop. I keep remembering all the kind things Jidé has ever done for me, all the fun times we’ve shared together,
the feeling that we would always be Mira and Jidé.

I cry at the thought of having to tell him about how I feel about Janu, I cry imagining the hurt look on his face, I cry thinking what it will be like between me and him at school from now on,
but mostly I cry because I know now, no matter how much I fight it, the way it was between us is over. Something’s going to happen between me and Janu, and no matter how bad I feel, I
don’t think I want to stop it any more.

I walk into the little bathroom, turn on the light and look in the mirror. My eyes are puffy from so much crying and my skin is burning with salt tears. I splatter cold water over my face and
then dab myself dry with a towel.

I walk silently past sleeping Priya and then up the stairs to Janu’s balcony.

‘Janu?’ I whisper.

He’s still awake, sitting outside reading a book under his lamp. He turns at the sound of his name.

‘You are crying?’ He speaks so gently and looks so worried that I can’t help sobbing again. Why is it that when you’re really upset and you’ve just managed to pull
yourself together, someone being nice to you just sets it all off again? He gets up and comes over to me and goes to wipe away my tears, but I stop him.

He frowns, then goes into his room and returns with his bedspread.

‘When I have a problem, I stay outside,’ he says, lying down on the soft cloth with his hands behind his head. ‘You try!’

I sink on to the bedspread a little away from him and look up through the tiny jasmine flowers, to the twinkling stars beyond.

Janu breathes in deeply. ‘The smell is calming, na?’

And I do feel calm. I think I’m finally all cried out, but I’m grateful that he’s looking up at the sky and not at me. I have no idea what I expected him to do, or say to me. I
just knew I wanted to be near him.

‘So why did you come here?’ he whispers.

I shake my head, but I can’t talk. How can I explain that there’s something about him that makes me feel more like me than with anyone else I’ve ever met? He’s so
different to me. It doesn’t make any sense.

‘OK! Maybe it is time to stop hiding your feelings. I will trust you; then you must trust me.’ Janu turns to face me and I look back at him.

‘You know the meaning of
Chameli
is jasmine?’

‘Chameli?’

‘You met my ma at the flower market.’ He smiles, but with a certain sadness. ‘A young girl who can’t walk, with a baby in a basket, makes a good beggar.’ It takes
me a moment to realize that Janu is telling me his own story. ‘She was very young, only thirteen . . . and, you have seen, she cannot walk.’

‘They were married at thirteen?’

‘No . . . it wasn’t this way. She was not married to Ajoy at this time.’

‘So Ajoy’s not your dad?’

‘No. Let me tell. She was left by her family as soon as they knew she would not walk. Then the begging ring got hold of her.’ He shrugs off the thought in disgust. ‘Girls like
this have not much choice. Ma says the plan was to make her pregnant and carry her around with the baby – that way she would earn more money. But Ajoy and Ma made a plan to escape together,
and so he carried us to Anjali’s refuge a short while after I was born.’

‘You’re the carved baby in the basket, aren’t you?’

Janu nods and I see his eyes glisten. ‘I think we were the first family to arrive. They were allowed to stay till they were sixteen because they were only children themselves. They even
married at the refuge . . . my ma gave it the name “House of Garlands” because Ma was the first one teaching children how to make them.’

‘So you lived with Anjali from when you were three?’

‘Chameli wanted me to be educated . . . you know. She thought I would have more prospects, if I lived in the city and stayed with Anjali. Ajoy found work picking flowers and it was hard
enough for them to feed themselves. But Anjali has always taken me to the flower market or the village to see them. When I was little sometimes three times a week, and after Priya was born a little
less. So you can say I am lucky: I have two families.’

Janu stares at the sky, as if he’s still trying to make sense of his own story.

‘Now time for
you
to trust me!’ he says softly. ‘What is the problem?’

‘I don’t have any real problems . . . except for you.’

He looks me straight in the eyes, just as he did the very first day I met him, and he listens as I tell him about the letter I’ve just tried to write to Jidé and how I know I have
to tell him how I feel, but I’ll do it when I get home. After I finish talking Janu is silent for a long time. I’m so drained of all emotion, I let out a huge yawn. Janu sighs, puts his
arm under my head and pulls me closer to him. And even though I feel guilty, being in Janu’s arms feels like the most natural thing in the world.