The Vine of Desire by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Read Free Book Online Page B

primeval human dream made real: people with wings. And it hasn’t changed our lives.
    Once in India I scrubbed the color of marriage from my forehead, believing I was rid of it. But it comes back. Some mornings, my pillow seems faintly powdered with red. In my lap Dayita is making puckered, sucking sounds, dreaming of milk. I try to think of objects—that’s the safest. A slice of Langra mango, flame-sweet. A cool shower after a sticky Calcutta day, the separate, silver threads of water flicking my grateful skin. Currents of air which travel the earth, circling, rising, somersaulting back. Holding up cobalt wings against a cobalt sky.

Three

    S unil
    Come here, kid. Let me put my arms around you and my face against your chest. Delicate bird bones, your laughter like feathers. All day I’ve been waiting for this.
    I can hear your heart going like a runaway engine. When Anju was pregnant, I once asked the doctor, why do kids’ hearts do that? He gave me a very scientific answer, but I’ve forgotten it.
    So I’m just going to believe it’s because you’re happy to see me.
    Sit on my lap so I can see your eyes, so much like your mother’s.
    Forget I said that.
    Sometimes I feel I’m drowning—but not while I hold you.
    They say infants’ eyes look so wise because they still remember things from their past lives. If you could speak, I’d ask you what you remember. I’d ask you, Is it true, what they say about destiny being inescapable?
    If you said yes, it would give me permission.
    Kid, I’m so tired—and my struggle has just started.
    Enough of my troubles. It’s time for a story.

    Imagine pigeons—flocks and flocks of them, turning the screen white—yes, this is another movie I’m telling you about. I love movies, don’t you? So flat and rectangular, life simplified and contained, or at least made bearable.
    Imagine an angry man whose trained pigeon is taken by another. Imagine a quarrel, insults, old incidents brought up, honor needing to be avenged. Does this sound like a different time? A different country? Or are you thinking that here, too, people are the same?
    As I was saying, it was necessary to take revenge. So one of the men stole the other’s daughter and took her to a city far away to sell. They locked her in a dark room. There was another girl there, also kidnapped. The two wept together. Having lost their families, they thought of each other as sisters.
    Are you wondering why I’m telling you a story about two sisters?
    I’m not sure myself.
    Perhaps as I tell it, I’ll figure it out.
    The imprisoned girls—they were maybe twelve years of age—were quite docile. They ate what the woman in charge gave them. They went with her when she called. This made your Anju Aunty angry. She wanted them to slap away the hand that brought them food. She wanted them to bite and scratch. I said, But how could they? All their life they’d been trained to obey without question. Plus, they knew they’d be beaten if they fought back. Anju’s chest rose and fell with emotion. She said, I can still want, can’t I?
    That’s how she used to be, passionate about all kinds of things, even those that had nothing to do with her life.
    When I watched a movie with Anju, even a movie which I’d seen before, it changed. She forced me to see things I didn’t notice. Sometimes that was good, but mostly it ruined the movie, bringing in questions that no one intended you to have.
    But all this is ancient history. We no longer watch movies together.
    Enter a buyer. Her mistress needs a serving girl. She can’t decide between the two kidnapped girls—then she chooses the other one because her mistress wants a light-skinned maid around her. And our girl, the pigeon flier’s daughter, is sold to a high-class brothel.
    There are a lot of brothels in movies. Anju says it’s because of male fantasies.
    They change her name, she becomes a famous singer, known all over Lucknow. She’s desired by many men. Her name?