Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page B

street. Goodness, I’d better take you home right away. Oh, just wait till your mothers hear of this!”
    And, enormously elated, Sarita Aunty grips our arms and holds on, as though she is afraid we might dissolve magically into the ammonia air of the bathroom and deprive her of the season’s best gossip story. Her steely fingers dig into our flesh all the way home.

WE’VE BEEN sent to our separate rooms in disgrace, to wait until the mothers have decided on a fitting punishment. I lie on my bed staring at the ceiling. The watermarks left there by years of seeping rain usually distract me, they’re in so many fantastic shapes—forests and fortresses and the winged beasts which peopled the fairy tales Sudha and I used to act out. It was on this bed, too, that we lay together and dreamed of our futures. I would have a brilliant career in college. It would enable me to visit all the countries I wanted. And Sudha would have a magnificent marriage and wear silk saris every day if she wished. Her children would be beautiful as moonbeams. But today I can’t think of anything except how much trouble I’ve landed us in.
    It seems like an awfully long time before Ramur Ma comes to summon me to the office room. All my bravado is gone by now. But at least I’m glad I didn’t give in to tears. Otherwise she’d have seen the traces, and the gossip would have traveled through the servant mahals of the old Calcutta houses faster than diarrhea germs in the height of summer: Wonder what terrible thing the Chatterjee girls have done this time to make Anju Didi break down like that .
    I stand outside the office room, gathering the courage to knock. Then I hear Sudha’s soft step behind me. Her hand clasps mine, clammy but firm, telling me we’re in this together. Our footsteps ring on the cold mosaic floor as we walk in. Shadows dip and swerve against the bookshelves like frightened bats,and the portrait of our great-grandfather, painted in the gloomy oils popular in his day, glowers down at us.
    Beneath the portrait the mothers sit so still on the old velvet sofa, they could have been painted too. Pishi stares into the dim air beyond our shoulders, her mouth a thin, pained line. She hates scenes as much as Aunt N loves them. Aunt has worked herself up already. I can feel self-righteousness rising from her pores like sulfur gas, ready to explode. And my mother—her eyes are in shadow, I can’t read her mouth. But when I see her silhouette, the head bent as if it’s too heavy for her neck to hold up, I wish with a pang that I’d listened to Sudha.
    “Here they are,” says Aunt N. “Look at them sauntering in, hand in hand, the shameless hussies. Do they care that all of Calcutta is talking about their escapade? Of course not. Do they care that they’ve smeared blackest kali on our faces? Of course not. Do they care that in this one afternoon they’ve undone everything we’ve been trying to build up for years. All those hours and hours of hard work you put in at the store, Gouri Di”—here I feel a tremor go through Sudha’s hand, but Aunt, unaware or uncaring, continues—”and all my scraping and bowing to women from the important families of the city? Of course not. Do they care—”
    For heaven’s sake, I want to say. We just went to the cinema. You’re making it sound like we went and got pregnant.
    But the least I owe my cousin now is not to make matters worse.
    Then Pishi speaks, surprising me because usually she’s a silent watcher at Aunt’s scold-sessions. “They behaved badly, I agree,” she says. “But must you be so hard on them, Nalini? Look at their faces, I can tell they’re sorry about—”
    “With all due respect, Didi”—Aunt’s voice is chill and black, like the inside of a coal cellar—”you’ve done enough harm already, filling their heads with old romantic stories. Please don’t interfere in this business between mother and daughter.”
    How well Aunt knew each of our weaknesses.