Jasmine Skies (31 page)
Authors: Sita Brahmachari
As Anjali reads this she smiles at Priya and scruffs up her pixie hair.
In my cards and letters I told you that I had a house filled with pet monkeys and as the years went on we loved to make up stories for each other, so that after a
while it was difficult to know what was real and what was pretend. When I was a little girl what I hated most about home was that, except for Ma missing Baba, our family seemed to have all we
needed. But there were other people, living side by side with us, who had nothing.
Whenever I would pass people in the street who had no food, no clothes, no fresh water, people living in the gutter, I’d feel ashamed. So over the years, as I
wrote to you, Uma, I invented a different reality for our family. You can do that in letters. I told you that we ran a refuge for the poor and that we lived in a house with no servants.
It’s taken me a lifetime to make that a reality. Anyway, you and I got to know each other through the pictures we painted in our letters and when we were fourteen years old, as our
daughters are now, you flew to India for the first time. For you it was a real culture shock. But I was so happy to meet you. We were like long-lost sisters, weren’t we? But you kept
asking questions about people who lived in the streets, or servants who worked in the house, or where the refuge was . . . and I came to feel like such a fraud.
Remember how every day we used to climb the stairs, right to the top of the house, to visit Dida? I had never seen her so happy as when we danced and sang together on
her balcony of fruit trees. It was such a beautiful house.
By that time grandmother was very weak, but she loved to take her saris out of the cupboard and share stories of when she’d worn each one, telling us what
occasion it was, or who she had inherited it from. Her mind was so sharp. Sometimes we would take a sari out and she would remember three or four new tales about a day when she wore it. She
would even let us dress up in them and dance; we just thought it was good fun. This much you probably remember.
She stops reading and reaches out to the table where my painting sits.
‘It’s a shame you won’t be able to finish this before you leave,’ she says, running her eyes across the scenes I’ve painted and glancing down at my broken arm. ‘But then maybe nothing’s ever finished.’
‘Maaaaaa!’ Priya groans. ‘You can’t stop there!’
‘OK, OK.’ Anjali takes a deep breath as if she’s trying to find new strength to read this part of
her letter to us.
This is how I remember it. It was Christmas Day and we were already feeling sad at the idea of being apart again soon. As we watched the servants patiently folding
away the saris we decided that it wasn’t fair that grandmother had so many beautiful expensive saris while so many of the people on the street below had practically nothing to wear. So
when she slept we took the saris out of the cupboard, wrapped them up as presents and distributed them to people on the street. Remember their faces? Some of them couldn’t believe that
we were giving them away. They thought it was a trick, and the police would be waiting to arrest them!
‘And you say
I’m
crazy!’ laughs Priya.
‘In the letter you said it was Mum’s idea,’ I blurt out.
‘We encouraged each other. We were
both
responsible, I was just angry with your mum, because she could go away and
I
had to stay and face the consequences . . .’
‘But, Ma, it wasn’t that big a deal. They were only saris,’ says Priya.
‘Not to Dida they weren’t. We didn’t know it at the time, but what we did was steal her memories.’ Anjali turns back to the letter.
We should have known it, Uma. We should have thought it through, but we were so young and how could we have known how it would end? Dida could hardly move her body,
but whenever she took out one of those saris her mind was alive with stories full of colour and texture and detail. They were the way she mapped out her life. They were her ma’s wedding
day, her own wedding day, the days her children were born and married, the day she went to Ma’s first dance gala. You know how it is, Uma – we understand now what we never did
then, that sometimes old people find it easier to remember the distant past than what happened yesterday. They were her memories, her past, and we took them from her and gave them away.
Imagine what it must have been like for her seeing some woman in the street walking in her wedding sari. Dida couldn’t understand why we would hurt her like this.
Her words get all choked up as the tears roll down her face.
‘Don’t cry, Ma!’ says Priya, sitting up and wrapping her arms round Anjali.
And the next days, after you went home, were the most painful. I resented you because I was left behind to watch Dida slipping away from us. Every day I would go up
to see her and she would just stare and stare at her empty sari cupboard, not talking, not laughing, not telling stories any more. Ma would ask me to dance for her and she wouldn’t even
look up. That childish moment of madness between us pushed Dida to a place where no one could reach her and she never really spoke again. Her memories seemed to drain away until all that was
left was an empty shell of a person. She didn’t leave the house in Doctor’s Lane again, she just sat in her room and faded away.
Anjali folds the letter and places it back in the album.
‘The rest of the letter is only for Uma. You won’t read it?’ she says gently, tying the album together.
‘I promise,’ I whisper as she hands Mum’s letter album back to me and kisses my cheek. I feel so relieved that, after everything, she’s putting this trust in me.
‘Maybe she would have lost her memory anyway,’ Priya says.
‘I don’t think so.’ Anjali shakes her head. ‘Not like that.’ She has a faraway look in her eyes.
‘But Ma! I don’t understand – if you loved the house so much, why did the family sell it?’ Priya asks, jogging Anjali back to the present.
‘After Dida died Ma had to go and care for my other grandparents. I think that’s why she won’t even think about moving in with us. She’s spent so much of her life looking
after everyone. You know she had a dream to set up a dance school but she was always too busy. We moved from one family home to another but Shudi Uncle stayed on there for many years doing his
carpentry until it all got too much for them, just him and Anishka in that enormous house.
‘When I married Dinesh we fought hard to set up the refuge there, but the authorities would not give permission, so . . . the rest is history. Those scoundrel developers bought it, and all
they do is wait and watch until the building is so old and decrepit it is ready to fall down itself, or someone burns it down, whichever happens first, and then they can get permission to build
something new. So, now their wish has come true. It breaks my heart when I think of how beautiful that house once was, and now it’s all gone.’
‘Why didn’t Mum tell me all this?’ I ask.
‘That’s why I’ve written it all out from the start. Uma couldn’t tell you the story, because she never really knew what happened after she left. I refused to answer any
of her letters, and eventually I think she gave up trying. Your Grandad Bimal also shielded her from the truth. He came over when Dida died and my ma told him what had happened. Even though she
said that no one blamed us, I think he still felt responsible somehow, because after that time he never came back to Kolkata. That’s why Ma went to see him when he first fell ill . . . to
make peace.’
I feel numb, trying to take everything in. Anjali gets up and walks over to the sari cupboard and lovingly runs her hands over its carved edges. ‘It used to have doors and a little silver
key. But the doors came off the hinges somewhere along the line and the key was lost.’
There’s no point trying to tell Anjali and Priya about my dreams . . . that my Great-Grandmother Medini
did
press the key into my palm. And that Grandad sat by my side watching over
me.
‘Are you feeling OK, Mira?’ asks Anjali, frowning at me.
‘I think I need to sleep,’ I tell her.
She nods and strokes my cheek. ‘I was so afraid that history had come back to haunt us when you were unconscious and you couldn’t remember anything, not even your name.’
I lie down and Anjali covers me with Nili’s quilt.
‘So you must give this old sari to Uma, as a present from me. Tell her we bought it in the same Park Street shop we went to with Ma all those years ago,’ she says, gathering it up
off the bed. I nod and smile at her.
‘Cholo, help me fold,’ Anjali orders Priya, walking to the far end of the room. The fine silk wafts between them, like a wave. Anjali and Priya both begin to gather and fold, gather
and fold, their bodies twisting and turning, dancing together as the cloth closes the distance between them. I shut my eyes and see lengths and lengths of the brightest-coloured sari cloths
unfolding. As I’m drifting off something slips from my hand and wakes me.
‘Anjali!’ I call to her, as she and Priya are leaving the room. I reach down and pick up the tiny piece of carved wood. ‘This belongs to you!’ I say, holding it out to
her. ‘Acha,’ she says, kissing me softly on the forehead.
‘Maybe Janu can mend the cupboard now,’ I whisper.
‘Maybe he can.’ She smiles as she closes the door behind her.
Janu
The rain has stopped, the streets are drying out, and Anjali and Priya have gone off to buy presents for my family and a new suitcase for me take all my things home in.
This silence feels so strange after the constant roar of the monsoon rain. I sit on Priya’s bed, not quite believing that in a few hours’ time I’ll be on a plane back to
London. I listen to the birds singing in the Kadamba tree and I wait for Janu.
There’s a knock on the door. I stand up and go to open it. It feels like so long ago that we stood by the river and kissed, half of me wonders if it will be like opening the door to a
stranger. But here he is with his warm smile, reaching out towards my good hand. He leads me through the flat and up the marble staircase to his balcony. It’s so good to see him.
‘Hold on!’ I tell him. ‘Can you please go back and get my painting?’ I breathe in the sweet scent of jasmine as I wait for him.
The balcony is washed clean by the rain. Everything smells fresh and new up here. Janu returns and opens the turquoise door into his room. The jasmine vines cascade through the open window
making tiny water droplets, like tears, drip on to his carving table.
He gestures for me to sit down and places my painting on the table to the side of the window.
‘It looks like it’s
meant
to be there,’ I tell him. ‘Anyway, it’s for you!’ I say as he studies the painting, spotting Chameli in the flower market,
and then the two figures running through the crowd.
‘You and me?’
I nod. ‘But it’s not finished.’
‘I think you are right. It is not finished,’ he looks from the painting to me. ‘Will it hurt, if I kiss you now?’
‘Probably!’ I say, leaning towards him and meeting him in the gentlest of kisses. He takes his arms and wraps them round my waist and holds me to him. My head rests in the indent of
his neck. We sit still like this for ages just listening to the birds singing. Being this close to him makes my heart ache at the thought of leaving Kolkata, and Janu.
‘Did you see the house come down?’ I ask him.
‘I stood beside Sunil. He cried when the bricks fell. You should have seen him with the street children. It made quite a spectacle, the way they floated that heavy door, like a boat, all
the way to the refuge. It’s going to be our new front door, you know.’
I remember Great-Grandmother Medini’s words: ‘
That door will last for longer than this house.
’ The strange thing is, it’s not long ago that I learned her name and
now I feel as if I’ve met her.
‘And what will happen to Sunil?’
‘I’m not allowed to tell you that!’ Janu smiles. So he’s in on the secret too. ‘You’ll find out soon! But here – Sunil asked me to give you this.’
Janu reaches under his bed and brings out a thick medical book I’ve seen before. I open the front page to find the name ‘Bimal Chatterjee’.
‘He told me to tell you, only one page is missing,’ Janu says. ‘I have a present for you too. Close your eyes.’
I hear him move around the room and then he sits back down beside me.
‘OK, you can open them!’
‘I don’t even have a photo of you,’ I sigh as I look up into his beautiful eyes.
‘I’ll send one.’ He smiles. ‘But I think this is better to remember me.’
He has something cupped between his palms. I start to peel away his fingers, one by one, to reveal the bright turquoise and orange feathers of an exquisitely painted wooden kingfisher.
I trace my fingers over the carving of the little head and the delicate detail of the wings.
‘You like it?’ he asks, kneeling down and looking up at me.