Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page A

am. Not. The maid.” She’s waiting, so I try to figure out what I am. “I’m your—caretaker, here to make sure you don’t fall down and break your hip.”
    Her lips tremble. “But I can’t eat without chapatis.”
    I consider telling her that I’m no good at making chapatis, but I’m afraid that revealing this vulnerability would place me at a strategic disadvantage. I dish out portions onto two plates. When she makes no move to join me, I eat, although it’s not exactly a happy meal, with her watching. After I’m done, I wash up, put her plate in the fridge, and say good night. She doesn’t reply. When I leave, she’s still standing at the counter.
    I’ve been looking forward to a relaxed, raccoon-free slumber in a bedroom all my own. But when I snuggle under the satin comforter that smells like lavender, I find myself thinking of the old woman: the razor-sharp curve her collarbones made under her skin, the way her arms hung at her side, as though they’d given up.

    Confession: I have been disingenuous. I did not inform my employers that on Friday—in a couple of hours—I must go to work. It is true, as Mr. Lawry would say, that they did not ask me about this. However, I feel guilty, and a little worried at having to break the news to Mrs. Mehta.
    She’s in the kitchen pulling out pots, making a great and unnecessary din. Of the uneaten dinner there’s no sign.
    â€œI brewed tea,” she tells me, “since you probably don’t know how. This morning we’ll have aloo parathas. You can boil the potatoes, then peel and mash them. I’ll mix in the spices.”
    â€œCan’t. I have to go to work.”
    I steel myself for histrionics, but she just looks at me, mouth slightly open. Her lower lip is ragged, like she’s been chewing on it.
    â€œOnly for a few hours,” I say. “You’ll be fine—”
    She sets down the pan. “I’ll come, too.”
    Visions of her sweeping through Nearly, her nose turned up, run through my head. (You work here? she’ll say, ruining the place for me.)
    â€œNo.”
    She grabs my sleeve. “It’s so quiet. Not one live person, not even on the street, to look at or wave hello. I feel like I’m being buried alive.”
    When my mother first moved from India to Northern California, she felt dreadfully alone. One winter day when my father was at work, she walked to a park and sat on a bench, just to get away from the dark, empty apartment. A storm started, but she didn’t move. She sat there in the freezing rain until my father came looking for her. He had to carry her home, her feet were that numb. He made her take a hot shower, rubbed Vicks on her chest, and forced her to drink her first glass of whiskey. In spite of that, she fell ill with pneumonia.
    She told me this after he moved out of the house. She said, “He showed me so much love. I wish I’d died then.”
    Mrs. Mehta senses me weakening. “I’ll take my knitting bag and sit in a corner. You won’t even know I’m there.” She scuttles upstairs to change her sari before I can forbid her.
    It’s only when we’re halfway to Nearly that I notice she isn’t carrying anything.
    â€œWhere’s your knitting bag?”
    She turns toward me a face as innocent as applesauce. “Oh, my goodness! All this excitement made me forget it.”

    â€œThis is not a crèche,” says Mr. Lawry. “This is not a senior center. This is a business.” His voice rises operatically. The entire population of the store—Blanca, Keysha, and two teenage girls who should have been in school—congregate around us. “People come here to buy.” He glares at the bagless Mrs. Mehta.
    I consider pointing out that fully three-quarters of our customers never buy anything, and that another 20 percent demonstrate a proclivity toward wandering