The Girl in the Garden by Nair Kamala

Author:Nair, Kamala [Nair, Kamala]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9781609418533
Publisher: Hachette Book Group
Published: 2011-06-15T07:00:00+00:00

After lunch, Meenu and Krishna wanted to play foursquare, a game I had taught them, and which we played using an old basketball that Muthashi had brought back from her visit to Minnesota years before. It clearly had never been used and barely bounced. But they seemed delighted to have discovered a new game and were deterred neither by the ball nor by the fact that we were only three people, since Gitanjali rarely agreed to be our fourth.

But this time my heart wasn’t in the game. All I could think about was that I would finally be meeting Tulasi face-to-face. It was only a matter of hours now. This thought thrilled me but also filled me with a sense of my own disloyalty. My cousins bounced the ball back and forth, laughing, talking, teasing, as if nothing had changed. But things were different, so different now that their companionship seemed suddenly stale.

I also began to wonder what my real reason was for not confiding in at least Krishna. Was it because I didn’t think she would believe me, or was it because I wanted to keep Tulasi all to myself? I had been angry at Amma for not telling me her secret, and now I was doing the exact same thing. But in spite of my guilt, I still knew I would not tell Krishna, not yet, maybe not ever. I was not ready to share Tulasi.

When it became clear that one-third of the party was distracted, our game dispersed, and I retreated to my room where I would have the privacy to daydream. I had stowed the rope that Amma gave me under the bed; I pulled it out, sat down, and held it in my lap. I ran my fingers across the glossy, hay-colored bristles. The rope was heavy, and I imagined that it was not a rope, but a snake coiled upon my legs. I held it there for a second, then shoved it off onto the floor and slid it back under the bed with my foot.

I went to the window, leaned my elbows on the sill, and looked outside at the cloudless sky. A ray of sun shone like a spotlight through the tops of the trees, as if some rare gem was hidden deep inside the heart of the forest. I wrapped my hands on the window bars and pretended that I was in prison, a game I sometimes played when I was alone in that room. I was the prisoner and Muthashan was my jailor, watching over me from the black frame on the wall.

As I stood there, I heard Amma’s voice in the next room:

“Finally, we’re alone. I thought she’d never let us out of her sight.”

“Well, you can’t really blame her after what happened the last time we were left alone, can you?” said another voice that made me clench the bars so tightly my knuckles went white.

“Prem, don’t joke,” Amma said. “We only have a few minutes before she’ll notice I’m gone, and we have a lot to discuss.

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