Arranged Marriage: Stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Author:Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Short Stories (Single Author), Fiction
ISBN: 9780307476784
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2009-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

And so the wife knew nothing of what happened until she came home with her new baby, who was born full-term and healthy—which was more than people had hoped for—and was, besides, a boy. She was swept up into a flurry of congratulatory visits and general jubilation. (Even the aunt had only good things to say about her ability to mother such a charming, bright-eyed son, and with so much hair, too, just like his father when he’d been a baby.) But one afternoon she called the sister into her bedroom, where the new air conditioner which the husband had bought for the baby hummed comfortingly, and asked her what exactly had gone on while she’d been away.

The sister looked away from the wife’s eyes, their dark, penetrating gaze, to where the baby slept. She stared at his dimpled knees, his little fisted hands that twitched from time to time, his impossibly tiny, perfect mouth that was puckered as though ready for a kiss. She loved him so much already that every time she looked at him she felt a tugging pain in her chest. He was so defenseless. Without a father, he would be more so. And Khuku with her luminous, wondering eyes—she would lose all chances for a good marriage if the scandal of a broken home stained her life. And the wife herself, what future was there for women who, no matter how pressing the reason, left their husbands’ homes?

The night the husband dismissed the maid, the sister ran from the dinner table all the way up to the storeroom, where the maid was gathering her things.

“You’re not leaving tonight?” the sister asked, distressed, and then, “But where will you go?”

“I’m not sure,” the maid said, and for the first time her voice trembled. In the passage light her face looked young and afraid.

“I’m sorry,” the sister said, clasping the maid’s hand in her own. “I’m really sorry. I wish I could do something.”

“Nothing to be done now,” the maid said, gently disengaging her fingers. And the sister realized that the maid knew that she knew, and that she forgave her for not accusing the husband, for not using his lapse to help the maid’s case.

“Tell Didi …” the maid started, then broke off, so that for a long time after the sister would wonder what she had wanted the wife to know. About the husband’s actions? About her own fidelity to the woman who had taken her in? About injustice and ill chance? Whatever it was, she knew she couldn’t tell it to her sister. But she did tell her the last thing the maid said, with a sigh, before she disappeared around the corner of the passage. I wish I could have seen her one last time.

“I wish I could have too,” the wife replied. She wiped her eyes with the edge of her sari and, leaving her sleeping baby, went to the storeroom which no one had entered since the maid’s departure. Following her, the sister saw something she hadn’t noticed that night.

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