Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page A

see that her face is tight with worry. How ironic that she, the valiant one who had initiated this adventure, should be afraid just when my own timidity has disappeared. “Let’s go, we still have to change into our uniforms. If we don’t hurry we’ll never get back to the school gates before Singhji arrives.”
    “Okay,” I say. But all of them—Singhji, the nuns at school, even the mothers with their inevitable anger—belong to another universe, one that has nothing to do with me.
    The young man speaks thoughtfully, musingly. “Sudha,” he says, and in his mouth my name takes on a sweetness, an elegance I have never thought it could possess.
    Anju draws herself up. “Please move out of the way so that we can get past,” she says in her best grown-up voice.
    “Yes, of course,” he says, courteous without being apologetic. As Anju pushes past him he says, “Sudha, I’m Ashok, Ashok Ghosh. What’s your full name?”
    Ghosh . The word tolls inside my head like a warning bell. I can hear my mother saying, in her most disapproving patrician tones, What? A lower-caste man? I squeeze shut my eyes, willing her voice to fade.
    “Sudha, stop, don’t say anything,” Anju cries, abandoning sophistication. “We don’t know who this man is, what he might do, whom he might tell.” She claps her hand over my mouth, but I move it aside. Ashok. The one who banishes sorrow . I know he’ll never use the knowledge of my name against me.
    “I’m Basudha Chatterjee,” I say, and I smile my most enchanting smile for him.
    Anju’s trying to pull me toward the door. The hall is almost empty and her voice echoes as she says, “Come on, Sudha. God, am I sorry I suggested coming to the cinema.”
    “It’s okay, Anju, don’t worry,” I say. A great tenderness fills me. Because she is my sister. Because she wants to protect me from harm. Because she is the one who brought Ashok and me together.
    “Don’t worry !” Anju’s voice is brittle with desperation. “Don’t worry, she says. How can I not, when you stand here like your head is filled with cow dung instead of brains? Someone’s sure to see you talking to a strange man, and then what’ll we do?” She yanks hard at me.
    “Wait.” Ashok extends an arm as though he would stop me. I wonder how his touch would feel, his fingertips electric, but warm also, like summer rain. But he hasn’t forgotten the proprieties completely. At the last moment he fists his hand and jams it into his pocket. “Don’t go so soon. Can I buy you a soft drink? Can we talk? Even a few minutes—”
    “No,” says Anju angrily. “Is your head filled with cow dung too? Didn’t you hear me say we’d get into terrible trouble at home if anyone saw us here with you? Please, just go away.”
    “At least let me call you a taxi—”
    “We’re going to take the bus,” Anju says as she pushes me to the door of the jenana bathroom. I look over her shoulder at Ashok’s fallen face. I wish I could tell him not to worry—we will surely meet again. But there’s just enough time, before Anju slams the bathroom door, to say, “We live in Baliganj.”
    “How can you be so stupid?” Anju bursts out even before theecho of the door fades. “You’re acting just like one of those silly lovesick girls in the movie. The first stranger you meet, just because he happens to sit next to you—”
    “Not just happens, Anju. Nothing just happens . I know—”
    But before I can say more, the door to one of the ladies’ stalls swings open.
    “Girls,” says a familiar voice. “Girls, is it you? I thought I recognized your voices, but then I thought, no, not possible. What are you doing here? You should be in school, isn’t it so? And what’s this I hear? A man? Sitting next to you?” The large, billowy form of Sarita Aunty emerges from the stall. She shakes out her sari pleats and stares at us, goggle-eyed. “ What are you wearing? And look at that stuff on your lips! Like women of the