Oleander Girl A Novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Author:Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2012-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

On the way to Boston, Vic makes me practice my lies. Along the freeway bordered by chain stores whose names appear again and again as though I’m caught in a looping dream, I tell him how excited I am to be in America, where my wonderful new husband has promised to build me the house of my dreams. We pass gas stations that sell slushy coffee and empty fields patched with tired gray snow. I make shapes in the air describing the L-shaped family room that needs to open to the dining area because I plan to throw lots of parties, the inner courtyard I want to fill with oleanders. I know I need to focus on this, but from time to time, my errant thoughts flit back to our time together yesterday.

When we were at the Empire State Building, Vic asked, “So, how does Kolkata compare to New York?”

I was silent. I’ve never looked down upon Kolkata from up high, so I had no idea how far the city sprawled, which shape it took. On the ground, I knew its contradictions: lavish wedding halls behind which beggars waited for leftovers; red-bannered, slogan-shouting protesters marching by a house where a musician practiced classical flute. But Kolkata’s spirit, at once vibrant and desperate—I had no words to describe it to someone who has never lived there.

“It’s complicated,” I said finally. “Most Indian cities are. You must have noticed that yourself.”

“I’ve never been to India.”

“Never? Didn’t you want to see where your people came from?”

He shrugged, a bit defensive. “When I was young, we didn’t have the money to go. By the time we could afford it, I was a teenager and refused to waste my summers that way. I guess I really didn’t think of myself as Indian.”

“How did you think of yourself? As American?”

“Yes. Though after 9/11, I had some difficulties with that, too. Anyhow, my mother always asked me to accompany her, but she’d have to end up going alone. And then she died. Maybe one of these days, if I get enough money together, I might go visit her hometown. Might look you up in Kolkata, too. Though you’ll be a rich man’s wife by then and won’t want to see me!”

I had given him a pale smile. He’d hit too close to the truth. Once I was married, Rajat would make sure this chapter of my life was closed for good.

The lanes swell; the Boston skyline with its high-rises looms over us. We skirt the Common, with its statues of men in three-cornered hats. We pass colleges with stained-glass windows that, Vic tells me, are as old as anything white people built in America.

“You went to Berkeley?” I enunciate brightly. “Amazing! So did my mother! Did you happen to know a girl named Anu Roy?”

“Your voice sounds like you murdered someone and hid the body!” Vic tells me. “Say her name again and again until it becomes like any other word. Oh, never mind. Rest for a bit.

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