| FALL 2002 |
flashquake Fiction |
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Rani watched her husband's garden through the window. Weeds had overcome the herbs, but tomatoes still glowed on the vine. Strange how the word had no Bengali translation, she thought. TO-mah-to, they called them in Calcutta, with the accent on the first syllable, making no distinction between singular or plural. It was time to harvest them again. Last year, when she'd done it alone for the first time, the bags she'd filled had grown soggy with juice, the tomatoes soft and squashy. She'd thrown them away. She fingered the pleats of her white saree. Her children had convinced her to wear Western clothes during the week, but on Saturdays she folded and tucked this traditional widow's uniform around herself, her fingers automatically recalling the complicated maneuvers. Why didn't her son call? She picked up the receiver and replaced it again, remembering how she'd lean over his crib to catch the warm breaths on her palm. She'd stopped leaving messages, picturing his roommates mocking her accent. 
Ela, at least, used to phone once a week. That was before Rani had told her not to bring the black man home, his hands stained from the pots he shaped and sold. The memory of those clay-splattered hands made Rani cover her head with the loose end of her saree. The phone shrilled. She threw off her makeshift hood and fumbled for the receiver. "Sanjay? Is that you?" "No. It's me, Ma." She was quiet. "I have to see you." Hope rose high in her throat, and she couldn't keep it out of her voice. "Did you leave him, darling?" There was a pause, and Rani waited, crushing the hem of her saree into her fist. "No, Ma. Ben's right here. But I'll come alone. Can I?" Rani glanced at the tomatoes bursting with juice. "Come, then," she said, before she could change her mind. She hurried to the garden, empty paper bag in hand. Stooping and harvesting, she escaped into the safety of days already lived, when her skin was smooth as milky tea, her hair black as a crow's wing. She sent Sanjay to call them to dinner while she took off her apron. He was with Ela as usual, pushing her high on the swing. She could hear him reciting a sing-song poem and her daughter's high-pitched squeals. The doorbell rang and she went inside, carrying a full bag of tomatoes. Five feet from the door, she glimpsed a silhouette through the frosted glass panel. It was shaped like the bulky water jug her mother-in-law had given her, the one Rani had always hated. When she finally opened the door, her daughter stayed outside. Rani's eyes hungrily took in the familiar high forehead, the curved nose, the pointed chin, the long, elegant neck. Ela's shoulders were as bony as her father's had been. But further down, gender erased any resemblance between father and daughter. Inside the curved container of her daughter's womb, a stranger was growing. Generations of high-caste Hindus, with their hatred of dark-skinned untouchables, hurled accusations inside her mind. "You were too permissive," they sneered. "It's your fault." She could barely hear her daughter. "Say something, Ma," Ela was begging. "Please." Rani kept her eyes on the ripeness of her daughter's belly. "You dishonor your father's memory," she said, obeying the voices. "Daddy would have rejoiced with me." Ela was right, and they both knew it. Suddenly, Rani was furious. At him. At her daughter. At that old feeling of being pushed outside their intimate circle of two, even now, when he was gone. "Your father's dead," she said, and closed the door. Framed in the frosted glass panel, the squat outline waited, dwindled, and then disappeared. Rani stared at the bag she was holding. Juice was starting to leak from it, staining the hall carpet, but she couldn't bring herself to go and throw it away.
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