Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee Page A

room. "It must have been something we ate at the coffee shop. It came over her suddenly."
    Her father said, "Please don't worry. She is a healthy girl. We're not hiding any medical history."
    Her mother added quickly, "On both sides of the family, extreme good health. No sick leave, ever. As for Anjali, except for the usual jaundice, measles, and typhoid, she is in the pink of health."
    Anjali returned, in T-shirt and jeans, her gesture of defiance, but she kept her head bowed. She wouldn't look at the monster or at her parents. She would not collaborate.
    Mr. and Mrs. Bose begged him to stay for dinner. Even in remote Bihar, where the big river carp were harder to come by, Bengalis knew how to cook the traditional fish curry. Mrs. Bose had gone to the Bengali market especially for fat, fresh rui, and Mr. Bose had ranged beyond the usual sweet shops featuring ersatz rasmalai for something authentically Bengali.
    Still looking down at her lap, Anjali said, "Mr. Mitra said he has to get back to Asansol tonight. Eight hours—he should be making his move."
    "Your daughter is correct, as usual," he said. "I should be going. You'll be hearing from my father, I'm sure."
    Anjali's parents didn't know how to interpret her interjection. Was it tender concern for the boy's feelings? A desire to get rid of him? She admitted to more stomach distress and a need to sleep in the dark in the back room, and left the parting formalities to her parents.

5

    From the back room she could overhear the front-room language of marital negotiation: "Of course, it is all subject to your father's approval ... But you and she got along beautifully, anyone can see that..." And her mother breaking in: "Poor girl, you got her so excited she can't keep her food down..." And the laughter, between her father and Subodh—whose very voice brought out murderous thoughts—joking over dowry claims: "My father's a really sharp businessman, so don't let him demand too much. I want this marriage to go through smoothly," met with laughter. "We do too!" her father said. He suggested that maybe a Japanese watch and a computer would close the deal. "Yeah, maybe he'll go for the gold watch—Swiss, not Japanese—a set of matched golf clubs and an American computer and an imported laptop for me—a PC, Toshiba or Dell—and a selection of games and movies," and her father laughed. "We'll have to see about that."
    Lying in the dark after Subodh had left, staring at the slowly revolving ceiling fan, timing her inhale and exhale to the
thumpa-thumpa
of its wobbling orbit around the oily, dust-webbed post, she remembered the echoes of an earlier melodrama. "
I will call
—thumpa—
astrologer. I will call
—thumpa—
printer. I will write
—thumpa—
boy's father.
" And in this room five years earlier, behind this door, in this very bed, she remembered Sonali's screaming, "Just give me the knife!" until she'd submitted, then apologized.
    Her mother slept in the same room, on the same bed. Anjali, eyes closed, feigning sleep or exhaustion, waited for an opportunity to break the silence. She would have spilled the beans on Mr. Mitra, but her mother had simply collapsed on her bed and fallen asleep. Apparently, there was nothing of interest to discuss, not even a giddy welcome to the world of soon-to-be-married women—no "Hello, Mrs. Mitra! He's so handsome! You'll be so happy!" In the front room, just minutes after closing the door on Mr. Mitra and wishing him (if she heard correctly) "Godspeed" back to Asansol, her father dropped his trousers and began rattling the shutters with his snores. Just as though the world had not stopped.
    She had expected to be assaulted by dreams. Alone in the bedroom, she'd been afraid to close her eyes until her mother came to bed, but when the rustling of the dress-sari and sleeping-sari was over, and the snoring began, she opened her eyes again. In her childhood, she'd felt the presence of ghosts. She'd often felt their weight on her bed.