Sunitha fell off her forbidden bicycle and ripped her school tie in two. She held it in her hands delicately, as if it were an injured bird, and wondered if there was any way she could fix it without her grandmother knowing. The tie was more than just a tie to her father’s mother, her only family now; it symbolized the return of some much-needed luck, and her grandmother would read deeply into its tattered message, especially if she learned of the bicycle accident.
Every night before bed, her grandmother rubbed Fair and Lovely cream over Sunitha’s face and pulled a comb through her long, straight hair and told her that people forget about the past as long as you give them something to admire in the present. Keep your shoulders covered. And your shirt buttoned to your neck. And do not ever, ever meet eyes with any of those schoolboys or you will bring more shame to this family. And in this way Sunitha was presented to the village of Batticaloa as someone to be admired for all she was rising above.
Without the tie, Sunitha’s uniform suddenly looked shabby. Her grandmother would be the first to point out her disreputable appearance, but her teachers would certainly express disappointment, too. Then the scolding would begin. Her grandmother would remind Sunitha that she was not allowed to ride the bicycle—her dead mother’s bike, no less—because no decent men marry girls who break their skin early riding bicycles and can’t bleed on their wedding night. Especially lower-caste girls. But mostly her grandmother would mourn the tie itself, the good luck it had promised when she first discovered it, bright and new, in a box of crumpled secondhand uniforms. Sunitha could already hear her grandmother’s reprimands. It is your vanity. You must have shown your pride.
A girl from school approached Sunitha. She helped Sunitha right the bicycle and dust off her uniform. “But my January tie is ripped,” Sunitha muttered as the girl picked up her overturned bag.
The girl stood next to Sunitha, almost a full head taller than she was. She wore a prefect badge on her uniform; she was one of the smart girls in their class. “What’s a January tie?” she asked.
“Oh, that’s what my grandmother calls it. Because it was one of the better ties, the ones usually reserved for the January selection. We don’t get to pick up my school supplies until February, when they’re discounted.” Sunitha felt embarrassed; she hadn’t wanted to say “secondhand,” but she knew the girl would hear the implication and link it to other things Sunitha knew were talked about: That although many of her classmates had several ties and white dresses, Sunitha had only one of each. That she had a grandmother instead of parents. And the girl would probably have heard why this was so.
“Well, you’re welcome to my extra.” The girl pulled a tie out of her schoolbag. It was wrinkled, but quite new. “Mine are always falling into my food, so my mother usually sneaks a few extra from the supply pile each year.” She seemed embarrassed, too, but made up for it by talking quickly. “We’ve got so many extra ties, my mother uses them to dust the house. She even threatens to make quilts out of them.”
Before even saying thank-you, Sunitha wrapped the new tie around her neck, smoothing the wrinkles and offering herself up for inspection. “If you were my grandmother, would you see the difference?” she asked.
“I don’t know your grandmother. Does she wear glasses?”
“Do you know any grandmothers who don’t?” Sunitha laughed. “My grandmother is nearly blind, but she notices everything. She’ll certainly notice the wrinkles.”
“We can iron it out at my house if you want. It isn’t far.” The girl climbed on her bike and led the way to her house. On the ride, she would introduce herself as Nilanthi.
SUNITHA AND NILANTHI became friends because neither was jealous of the other. Nilanthi never called Sunitha beautiful, never expressed envy over her friend’s slender nose or sage-colored eyes. And because Nilanthi was big boned and clumsy, it was easy for Sunitha to ignore her friend’s prefect badge and the fact that she was entering the O-levels with the highest marks of the ninth grade. Their classmates, most only slightly pretty or somewhat smart, had a difficult time befriending either girl, so Sunitha and Nilanthi were relieved and comforted by their unexpected friendship, praised one another’s luck quietly, and mapped out their futures in whispers. Nilanthi would become a doctor, and Sunitha would marry a wealthy businessman who would take her far away from the village of Batticaloa.
Sunitha and Nilanthi rarely saw one another at school. Over two thousand girls attended their regional school, often traveling from distant villages to study there. Because it was made clear early on that Sunitha would never make it past her O-levels, she was placed in the home science and dance classes to “improve her other strengths.” Most of the girls in her class were quiet, meek girls from the lower castes, most of them pretty and delicate, while the less pretty girls were placed in the agriculture track and often left school early to work in the tea estates. The higher-caste girls like Nilanthi took literature and biological sciences. For them, university was at least a possibility, and if not, there were the teacher-training colleges and a suitable husband not too far in the future.
After school, Nilanthi would ask Sunitha about her lessons as if they were mysterious secrets kept from the O-level girls. When Sunitha described a cooking lesson or a traditional dance, her voice took on a seriousness to match her friend’s interest. Sunitha began to see how these feminine skills granted her a certain expertise and authority. Although Sunitha had always thought of them as less important than the O-level subjects, Nilanthi had given her pride in her studies. And even though she wondered sometimes if Nilanthi was merely acting curious in order to construct a balance between them, Sunitha tried to shrug off her doubts and made her lessons sound as grand and complicated as she possibly could.
SOON AFTER HER bicycle accident, Sunitha was at Nilanthi’s house, teaching her how to make proper roti over a fire. The monsoon winds had begun a few days earlier, and despite the heavy air and threat of rain, Sunitha made Nilanthi fetch wood while she gathered fallen twigs and crumpled old newspaper in the backyard.
“I don’t understand why we have to make a fire. Can’t we just use the gas burners?” Nilanthi complained as she fought against the tangled bushes. Her socks were caked with dirt and she had scraped her left knee.
Sunitha felt momentarily sorry for her friend, who was struggling with a dried bush, but she took on the voice of her home science teacher and mimicked her stern instructions. “Gas is growing expensive, and besides, the wood creates a smoky flavor that isn’t possible with gas.” Sunitha liked the authority in her voice and was proud she knew more about something than Nilanthi did. “Here, let me.” She gently pushed Nilanthi aside and snapped off a few twigs.
“You always make things look easy,” Nilanthi said with a sigh, examining her scratched hands.
“It’s not easy. It takes practice,” Sunitha answered without looking up. “Like geometry, I suppose.” She smiled at her friend. “We’re just good at different things.” As Sunitha stood, she saw that Nilanthi’s hair had tumbled out of her braids, and her forehead was glistening and streaked with dirt. “You’re a complete mess,” she scolded.
“Well, it’s your fault if I am.” Nilanthi frowned and wiped her forehead with a handkerchief. “Let’s just go in and start cooking.”
Sunitha had heard a growing impatience in her friend’s voice. She wished she had been more encouraging just then, but sometimes she just got carried away at playing the expert. As she followed Nilanthi into the house, she reminded herself that she mustn’t act too proud; she couldn’t afford to push her only friend away.
Once inside, Sunitha moved the rice cooker and teapot out of the way, clearing a spot on the stone surface. “You see,” she said, “this space was once meant for fire stoves.”
Nilanthi nodded, but Sunitha could tell she was restless. “How long is this going to take? I’m starving.”
“We’ll be done in time for the film, don’t worry,” Sunitha assured her. They had planned to watch Bewafai this afternoon on the TV Nilanthi’s father had recently brought home. So far, Nilanthi’s brothers had let the family watch only cricket matches. Luckily the boys were off with their uncle on a boating adventure this weekend.
Sunitha grabbed an apron and tugged it tight around her. She placed her hands in the gentle curves of her suddenly accentuated waist. She pursed her lips, attempting to mirror her teacher’s perfect O, touching the shapes of her face and lips as she blew steadily against the fire. “Like this,” she instructed. “Come here and help me.” She gently rested her palm against Nilanthi’s back as the two of them watched the wood crackle with flames.
WHEN NILANTHI’S MOTHER arrived home, she greeted the girls, who sat transfixed in front of the television. “What smells so good in here?” she asked. Without taking her eyes off the screen, Nilanthi handed her mother a plate of rotis with onion-chili sambal on the side.
Sunitha liked Nilanthi’s mother. She was a calm, friendly woman, smart like Nilanthi, but more graceful. On the day of the bicycle accident, when Nilanthi’s mother first saw Sunitha, she had let out a gasp. Her face registered some sort of understanding, and Sunitha braced herself for what she correctly anticipated was to come next. “You look just like her, my God,” Nilanthi’s mother had said. At those words, Sunitha had fallen silent and remained so for much of that afternoon. She worked hard at following her grandmother’s instructions, encouraging others to forget her family’s past, but people were always telling her how much she looked like her mother.
Lately, Nilanthi’s mother seemed to have settled into Sunitha’s presence in her house, and only every once in a while would Sunitha catch a lingering glance, a sympathetic but troubled look.
Sunitha often sensed Nilanthi being cautious around her, too. She always let Sunitha take the lead in conversations, decide how much and when she chose to reveal things about her family, her life with her grandmother, the rumors that circled them whenever they walked through the village center. Sunitha was relieved by her friend’s consideration and she tried to do small things for Nilanthi in return. She would help Nilanthi pick out new ribbons for her hair or act as Nilanthi’s practice audience when she was getting ready to perform a poem for the English Day competitions. Sometimes she just sat and kept Nilanthi company while she hung her head over her biology text or a particularly difficult math problem. She hoped that her presence soothed Nilanthi as much as her friend’s quiet company comforted her.
One afternoon, when Nilanthi’s brothers had usurped the television, Sunitha and Nilanthi volunteered to go into town to pick up groceries for Nilanthi’s mother. A family friend, Dinesh, had just returned from India and would be joining them for dinner. Nilanthi kept the shopping list crumpled in her fist, while Sunitha had the whole thing memorized. Pumpkin. Green beans. Eggs. Rice flour. Jackfruit. Curd. Jambu. She hoped she’d be invited to stay for dinner. Briefly, Sunitha thought of the emptiness of her own house, her grandmother sitting alone, her food barely visible under the light of the oil lantern on their table. The image made her both sad and angry. She was tired of feeling the weight of other people’s mistakes and guilt. She wanted to sit under electric lights, in front of large platters of dal curry and egg hoppers, the rice flour in crisp contrast to the half-cooked egg.
As the girls bought the vegetables at the produce stall, Sunitha felt the vendor’s eyes assessing her, the same way she did every time she went to the market. She had momentarily hoped that with Nilanthi alongside her, she might escape the usual attention, but Sunitha sensed that the old woman was already preparing gossip for her friend, the tea seller. Nilanthi didn’t seem to notice the vendor’s curious gaze as she handed over a twenty-rupee note, but as they walked away, Sunitha suddenly blurted out, “That old woman always whispers things to the tea seller just loud enough for me to hear.”
“Like what?” Nilanthi asked quietly.
“Well, some days she pities me. Poor girl, what bad luck she’s inherited.” Sunitha imitated the old woman, making her voice sound haggard. “Sometimes, though, she’s less sympathetic. After the spectacle her parents made, you’d think she’d walk with less pride.” Sunitha tried to meet Nilanthi’s eyes, but her friend was deliberately gazing forward, and she suddenly wished she could take her words back. She never talked about these things, not even with her grandmother. She hadn’t meant to burden her friend with the market gossip.
Nilanthi looked at Sunitha. “We don’t ever have to talk about these things if you don’t want.”
In this one gentle sentence, Sunitha understood that Nilanthi knew, just as everyone else in the village knew, her family’s story, but instead of feeling the usual rush of blood to her face, Sunitha felt calm and steady. And she realized there were things she wanted to tell Nilanthi, but she wasn’t quite sure where to start. She had been surrounded by so much gossip most of her life, she didn’t know where her own memories ended and the village fictions began.
She had one clear memory that often arrived unexpectedly. One afternoon when she was about seven years old, she had walked into the tea halt to give a message to her father. From the doorway she watched her father with his companions. “Kapila,” he said with a chuckle to his coworker. “The reason you never want to go home is because of that woman who waits for you there. Is she your mother or your wife? With that rice belly of hers, it’s hard to tell them apart these days.” Though her father had laughed loudly at his own joke, the other men grew quiet.
“We can’t all be as lucky as you,” Kapila muttered. Even at seven years old, Sunitha could see the envy and hurt in the man’s face.
As they approached the fruit vendor, Sunitha suddenly wanted to tell Nilanthi about how her father’s laugh had gotten him into trouble. “My father was often envied for his good luck,” she said, as if she were continuing a conversation already begun. “My grandmother tells me that men envied both his beautiful wife and his management position at the tea estate,” Sunitha explained, leaving out the part her grandmother always included—that it was a job far more powerful than one from their caste deserved. “He spoke perfect English, so the tea estate hired him for export correspondence. It was an easy job. He translated letters and printed faraway addresses onto labels. Now he is in India, I think.” Sunitha tried to sound nonchalant. “It’s been a while since his last letter. My grandmother says that he spoke too loudly of his good fortune and that is what changed his luck forever.” Sunitha was afraid to look at her friend; she worried she had said too much again.
But Nilanthi responded without even a pause. “It’s hard when people go away. My mother’s brother took his family to India last year and now my mother paces the kitchen until the postman arrives. Usually he doesn’t bring any letters from Kerala, but still my mother is hopeful every morning. Perhaps a lot of letters are lost on the ferry, both your father’s and my uncle’s.” Nilanthi smiled at Sunitha and whispered conspiratorially, “You know, we have some change left over.”
“Ribbons or ice cream?” Sunitha grinned slyly.
“How about both!” Nilanthi grabbed Sunitha’s hand. As they dashed along, Sunitha could almost ignore the trailing glances coming from the old vegetable vendor. But even though she held Nilanthi’s hand tightly in her own, her neck prickled from the woman’s stare.
WHEN THE GIRLS returned, they joined Nilanthi’s mother in the kitchen. After Sunitha was invited to stay for dinner, she asked if she could be in charge of two dishes; she was hoping to try out some new recipes. Nilanthi’s mother tied her apron around Sunitha’s waist. “Less work for me,” she said as she cleared a space for Sunitha to carry out her tasks.
Sunitha was busy grinding coconuts as Nilanthi watched over the rice, adding mustard and coriander when Sunitha advised it. As she scraped the excess coconut off her fingers, Sunitha watched Nilanthi’s mother rhythmically chopping onions and chilies on the cutting board. Both Nilanthi and her mother hummed while they cooked, and Sunitha settled into the comfort of the warm kitchen.
By now, Sunitha had grown accustomed to eating dinner with Nilanthi’s family. Her grandmother had stopped pestering her about being left alone, and Sunitha suspected she was secretly pleased that Sunitha had been welcomed into such a respectable home. At the end of each dinner, Nilanthi and her youngest brother, Lalith, would escort Sunitha to her door and wave good-bye, never setting foot inside Sunitha’s house. This was one of the imbalances in their friendship: Nilanthi had never been in her home. Sunitha had never invited her, thinking it might be better this way. Whenever she pictured Nilanthi coming inside, she heard her grandmother asking prying questions and making too much fuss, and she knew the house would appear dingy and dark. There was no way Nilanthi would feel comfortable there.
Suddenly, Nilanthi’s father interrupted the gentle motions of the kitchen. “When’s dinner?” he called out as he pushed his friend ahead of him. Dinesh was weighed down with a stack of wrapped gifts.
Dinesh placed a pot of curd on the counter. “For dessert.” He reached over to tousle Nilanthi’s hair and quickly glanced at Sunitha, his expression curious. Sunitha offered a small smile, then felt embarrassed and returned her gaze to the shredded coconut. When she looked up again, the men were making a big show of sniffing the air and rubbing their bellies before leaving the kitchen for the sitting room.
Nilanthi’s mother leaned toward Sunitha. “They’re still like schoolboys when they’re together,” she whispered.
Sunitha stepped back toward the sink. She filled a bowl with water and started to squeeze out the juice. She took charge of the lentil curry, adding extra cinnamon and cloves as she stirred. Alongside the simmering lentils, she inspected her green bean and chili dish.
“That smells delightful.” Nilanthi’s mother rested her hand on Sunitha’s shoulder. “You must teach me the recipe sometime soon.” Sunitha felt the warmth of Nilanthi’s mother’s hand travel over her neck. She wanted to lean into the heat and stay in this kitchen alongside Nilanthi and her mother for as long as she could.
But soon it was time to serve dinner. Lalith and his two older brothers delivered the trays to the table while Dinesh and Nilanthi’s father praised the smells drifting out of the serving bowls. As everyone ate, Sunitha sat quietly while her dishes were complimented, her eyes lowered toward her plate. All the attention left her feeling embarrassed and on display. She remembered Dinesh’s earlier curiosity, and she particularly avoided looking in his direction. If she met his gaze, she expected to see the usual pity or hostility directed at her, so instead she found Nilanthi’s eyes. But despite her friend’s smile, she wondered if she detected a flicker of irritation or perhaps jealousy in her expression.
AFTER DINNER, DINESH brought out the presents. He was a smiling, talkative man who waved his hands about as he spoke. Occasionally his gaze lingered on Sunitha, who suddenly recognized the look. It was different from the old market gossipers’ scrutiny of her. It was a gaze she had begun to associate with men and older boys, a gaze that took in the whole of her, assessing her with some pleasure. Sunitha bristled under these observations, but at the same time, she recognized a power growing in her. Bewitching, the Bollywood characters called this quality that she guessed she had. Perhaps her mother had had it, too.
As Dinesh handed out the treats he had brought from India, his voice grew serious. “I was lucky to have returned when I did. Yesterday they shut down the Jaffna ferry.”
“Really?” Nilanthi’s father asked. “I didn’t know things had gotten so bad.”
“Perhaps it’s just a precaution,” Nilanthi’s mother offered.
“Yes, perhaps,” Dinesh answered, but his tone was unconvinced. He handed Nilanthi’s father a handwoven sarong. Sunitha appreciated its quality. Unlike the batik sarongs available in Batticaloa, this one was laced with silky threads in rows of blue and yellow that increased in thickness from top to bottom. She let herself wonder, briefly, if the problems with the Jaffna-India ferry were the cause of her father’s recent silence. It had been five months now since she had last heard from him, and it occurred to her that she really had no way of knowing if he was safe or if she would ever hear from him again.
The boys’ rowdy enthusiasm interrupted Sunitha’s thoughts. Lalith proudly held up an autographed photograph of cricketer Sampath Mahinda. “Did you see him play?” Lalith shouted. “Did they pound Pakistan?”
“Your hero did his team proud, Lalith.” Dinesh laughed. “One hundred twenty-one runs, I think.”
“See? I told you,” Lalith taunted his oldest brother. “He is better than Jayasuriya.”
While the boys argued over cricket statistics, Dinesh handed Nilanthi a parcel holding two embroidered handkerchiefs with her initials sewn in pink. Sunitha thought her friend’s hands looked thick and clumsy against the delicate fabric as she handed them to Sunitha. “They’re lovely,” she whispered, trying to smother her jealousy. Sunitha lifted the gauzy cotton to her nose and breathed in smoky incense smells.
As Sunitha inhaled the foreign scent, she tried to picture her father, walking into shops that burned this incense. If he ever came across such pretty handkerchiefs, he certainly never bought them. Instead his gifts were always drab and practical. Even in the colors and textures of the fabrics he sent home to her and her grandmother, she could sense him choosing against his memories, as if he were picking out the very things Sunitha’s mother wouldn’t have liked.
Sunitha struggled out of her thoughts. The most beautiful gifts were being offered to Nilanthi’s mother—an emerald-green sari with gold flowers pressed into the fabric, and a pale lavender one with hand-painted yellow and blue leaves falling across its surface. “When will I wear these, Dinesh? They’re so grand,” Nilanthi’s mother said.
“To my daughter’s wedding the week after the Festival of Lights!” Dinesh said, beaming.
“May the goddess Lakshmi bring your daughter much good fortune. Why did you wait so long to tell us? No one should keep good news to themselves for so long,” Nilanthi’s mother gently scolded her guest. As she got up to congratulate Dinesh, Sunitha examined the saris left next to her. She let the silky fabric slip through her palms, and she admired the delicate stitching.
“If I had known there’d be another guest here tonight, I certainly wouldn’t have left her empty handed.” Dinesh smiled at Sunitha.
His comment had startled Sunitha and now she felt the eyes of the table fall on her. She quickly released the saris, one of which slid to the floor. She couldn’t read all their expressions: Pity? Concern? Discomfort? She suddenly wanted to leave the table, but she couldn’t move.
Sunitha felt the gentle weight of Nilanthi’s hand on her shoulder. “Amma?” Nilanthi asked. “Perhaps Sunitha and I could go to the bakery and bring back a cake to celebrate Dinesh’s good news.”
“What an excellent suggestion!” Nilanthi’s mother handed over a fifty-rupee note. “Buy a butter cake and some ice cream, too.”
NILANTHI AND SUNITHA walked in silence to the bakery. Nilanthi had asked Lalith to join them, and Sunitha realized that this was Nilanthi’s way of telling her that if she wanted, they could just walk her home. It was, in fact, what she wanted; she didn’t want to face Dinesh or the pile of presents again tonight. He had made her feel like a stranger there, not entirely unwelcome, but he seemed to point out her difference. She told Nilanthi that she was feeling a bit tired and maybe it was time to go home.
After Nilanthi and Lalith dropped Sunitha at the door, she went quickly to her room. There, she opened a box full of letters and discarded gifts from her father, smelling them for traces of where he might be. She tried hard to picture him in some sort of everyday task, sipping tea, buying vegetables. She wondered if he had any friends or if he felt that it was safer and easier to remain alone.
Sunitha tried to picture him in the markets of India, selecting the fabrics and sweets he sent home. Although his gifts were never as grand as Dinesh’s had been this evening, Sunitha looked forward to the packages and to her father’s thick signature at the bottom of his letters. He always signed his name in English, a graceful line of black ink below his name. He sent heavy cotton fabric that her grandmother sewed into housedresses and skirts for temple. Unfamiliar money was folded into the materials, damp and dirty looking and always seeming more substantial than it turned out to be. It took Sunitha’s grandmother a day to travel from Batticaloa to a money exchanger, so she would let the Indian rupees pile up in her jewelry box until it seemed worthwhile to make the journey. She always returned from these trips looking frayed. Sunitha offered on several occasions to go in her place, but her grandmother replied, “A young girl journeying on her own? People will think you a cadju girl and you will bring more shame to the family.”
This shame, always this shame, Sunitha thought now as she gathered her father’s old letters onto her bed. She had always worked hard to follow her grandmother’s advice. Even when the market vendors eyed her, she tried to replace an image of misfortune with an image of grace instead. She neither bowed her head nor met men’s eyes. She kept her clothes clean and pressed, her voice even and humbly polite, her feet barely making a sound on the sandy village road, as she aimed for a balance between gaining others’ approval and achieving invisibility.
But Dinesh’s words, his attention to her, had seemed to unmask her. She had suddenly felt exposed, as if her parents’ story had encircled her and all everyone could see was the image of her mother’s red sari, her painted face, and her father pushing her out the door. And although Nilanthi had come to her rescue, just as she always did, Sunitha wondered if Nilanthi was hoping she wouldn’t return with them tonight. If Nilanthi might prefer to stand alongside her mother in the kitchen, just the two of them, as they washed the dinner plates.
IT WAS TWO weeks before she and Nilanthi met again after school. Sunitha had been avoiding her friend but all the while missing her intensely. It was Nilanthi who broke this silence, cornering her after dance class and inviting her over for dinner that night. “There’s a cricket test match on, and I can’t bear to be around all those shouting boys by myself. Please?” she had asked. Sunitha happily accepted the invitation.
Now Sunitha and Nilanthi were in the kitchen, making tea for Nilanthi’s brothers, arranging cream crackers and chocolate biscuits on a large platter. Nilanthi nibbled on a biscuit. Her fingers were growing sticky with melted chocolate, and her smile had turned into a ghoulish fudge-stained mess. At moments like these, Sunitha almost couldn’t believe she and Nilanthi were the same age. This clowning girl wasn’t at all like the Nilanthi who strained over her textbooks or practiced her oration with fierce concentration. Perhaps this was Nilanthi’s way of attempting to lighten the mood around them, to erase the discomfort from their last visit. They could both be so serious in their ways.
“What did you learn in dance class today?” Nilanthi asked.
“Kandyan dancing,” Sunitha answered. “You know what’s funny? At the beginning of the lesson, Miss Champa always inspects our hands. If we have any flour left over from home science, she makes us use nail scissors to dig out our fingernails, or she offers us lotion to rub away the coconut-husk scratches.”
“Really?” Nilanthi offered Sunitha a biscuit; she was already getting distracted. “Should we bring the platter out to the boys?”
“Oh, they can wait a bit longer.” Sunitha took the plate out of Nilanthi’s hands and set it on the counter. “Let me show you the steps we learned today.”
“All right,” Nilanthi said as she pulled up a chair. “Pretend I’m part of the crowd at the Kandy Perahera.”
As Sunitha cleared a space on the kitchen floor, she thought about her dance teacher and the Kandyan music she played on an old record player when the electricity was working. During power outages, she sang melodies instead, her plump torso rising and falling with each heavy breath. She taught the girls how to pinch their thumbs into their index fingers, making perfect circles, their other fingers spread out wide, elbows at right angles, as they extended their palms to an imagined audience. As she pictured her teacher, Sunitha started to mimic her movements. She took small, delicate steps, flexing her feet, her heels hitting the floor. She tilted her head coyly to the side, lowering her left shoulder, then her right.
“You look like a peacock!” Nilanthi laughed.
“I do not!” Sunitha felt insulted. Her voice strove for seriousness, but she heard a whine instead. She wanted Nilanthi to see the point of the dance—to entice, but to remain poised and respectful. She wanted her friend to understand this balance, that it was possible if you worked hard enough at it.
Nilanthi laughed again.
“You don’t know what you’re laughing about. Never mind. Just go give the boys their biscuits,” Sunitha said.
Nilanthi took the platter off the counter. “I was just teasing, you know.” When Sunitha didn’t respond, she added, “I’d like to see more of the dance when I get back.”
Sunitha shrugged. She didn’t like making Nilanthi feel guilty, but she had felt mocked and criticized and wanted her friend to know it.
When Nilanthi returned, she wore an apologetic expression. “Do you want some tea?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
Sunitha quickly reminded herself that it had been Nilanthi who had waited for her after class today, who had invited her home, who was always doing all the hard work to make Sunitha feel welcomed and appreciated. She pushed her hurt feelings away and asked Nilanthi if her mother would let them try on her saris.
Nilanthi turned from the teakettle, a smile spreading over her face. “I’ll go ask!” she shouted as she dashed out of the kitchen.
NILANTHI’S MOTHER WOULDN’T let the girls wear her new saris, but she let them try on some of the older ones. Sunitha had to help her friend into the long piece of yellow fabric. She wound it three times around Nilanthi’s waist, the third time pleating the material five times, then folding four pleats into the train, pinning it onto Nilanthi’s left shoulder. Sunitha stepped into the sweep of a green silk sari with hints of gold in its border. She kept the train long so it almost grazed the floor. In front of the mirror, Sunitha felt regal and tall.
“I look like I’m playing dress-up and you look ready to go to a wedding,” Nilanthi said as she admired her friend’s reflection.
“You study algebra; I study how to look good in the clothes of a wife.”
“You can be other things, too,” Nilanthi said.
Did her friend really believe this? Sunitha wondered as she approached the closet. Nilanthi’s mother had what seemed like hundreds of saris, lined up by color, light to dark. Sunitha stroked the ends of a red sari of thick cotton, starched as if it had been worn only once or twice. The memory of her mother arrived so swiftly, she didn’t even realize she had begun speaking. “It’s the last image I remember of her. My father had forced her to put her homecoming sari on, the one that had announced the success of their wedding night. It was bright red, like her lips. Her face was painted with makeup, her eyes lined in black.”
Nilanthi sat silently, playing with the ends of her sari train. She met Sunitha’s eyes and nodded.
Sunitha took the red sari out of the closet and draped it over her shoulder. The memory was taking a clearer shape—her mother clutching the bedroom curtain to prevent Sunitha from seeing her, begging Sunitha’s father not to make her watch this. “My father just kept on yelling, saying how she had made him into a fool and that she was a whore.” Sunitha looked at Nilanthi. “He kept using that word.”
This was the story that had circled Sunitha for years. In some rumors, she had heard her parents’ story begin with her parents’ marriage, far more showy than was appropriate to their caste. Her father was able to provide a feast of vegetable cutlets, lobster and shrimp, three kinds of rice. There was arrack and wine and even coffee brought in from Colombo. Though her mother had only a very small dowry, her father had bought her a silk sari with pearls up and down the train—the most beautiful sari for the most beautiful woman in the village, he was said to have announced at the ceremony.
“But I think the story starts with the envious men.” Sunitha looked carefully at her friend. She wanted to be sure that it was all right to tell her, that she could share this secret, which wasn’t really a secret, knowing that once it was spoken, it might change things between them. Nilanthi nodded again and Sunitha continued. “They played a trick on my father to punish him for his boasting. They knew his jealous nature, so they spread rumors about my mother. They accused her of infidelity, of sharing the bed of a retired army colonel.”
Sunitha paused again. She was trying to keep the story straight. It had come to her in so many different forms over the years, in so many strangers’ whispers, that she wasn’t sure of the exact truth, but the story was taking shape on her lips. It suddenly felt as if it belonged to her. The gossip about her mother must have wound its way through the village and the marketplace, down to the temple, beyond the bus stand and the school, and eventually to the tea estate. Sunitha took a deep breath. “My father didn’t bother to confront the army colonel or the men at the estate who brought the rumor to him. Instead he returned home.”
Here is where her own memories overlapped with the rumors. She always struggled to keep them separate, keep what she knew from what she had heard. But now they had blended into one story, partly borrowed, partly remembered. “My mother was surprised he was home early. She must have looked guilty to him, her eyes large and fearful of bad news. I was seven years old. He took her by the elbow and they disappeared behind the bedroom curtain.”
Sunitha fumbled with the train of her sari. She could feel her neck burning, but she wanted to finish telling Nilanthi the whole of it. “I didn’t follow them out of the house, but I’ve heard about what happened next from village gossip. My father brought my mother to every door in the village, informing the neighbors of her infidelity.” My wife is little more than a cadju girl. She offers herself to an old colonel in exchange for who knows what paltry gifts. She has shamed me and our family. Sunitha had heard that their neighbors looked on until a large crowd began to follow her parents through the village. For several hours they walked, until Sunitha’s mother was barely able to stand on her own, her husband’s arm around her in a half embrace.
Sunitha was certain Nilanthi had heard all this before, even though she had been careful not to mention it. She wanted to release both of them from their silence. “My mother drank poison a few days later. When I returned from school, her body was already gone; my grandmother was in her place, preparing the afternoon meal.” Sunitha remembered that the air had smelled of burnt lentils and the rice tasted like dust.
Her grandmother had helped her into a white frock and braided her hair into two neat plaits. “My grandmother told me, ‘You can cry for your mother today, but from tomorrow it will be your job to separate yourself from her and the past she leaves you with.’ ” Sunitha replaced the sari in the closet and tried to meet her friend’s eyes. Was this too much of a burden for Nilanthi? The weight of all this memory?
Nilanthi took Sunitha’s hand. “And what about your father?” she asked.
“A coworker told my father that the rumors had only been gossip. My father tore through my mother’s possessions, searching her jewelry box, the back of her wardrobe, under the mattress. Nothing.”
Sunitha believed that her mother’s innocence became the weight of her father’s guilt, and he wasn’t strong enough to carry it. She finished the story quickly. “They can’t prove that he set the fire at the tea shop, but he disappeared soon after—to India, we found out, when his first letter arrived several months later.” Sunitha sank onto the bed next to her friend. She rested her head on Nilanthi’s shoulder.
For a while they listened to the sounds of the cricket match and the boys’ cheers trickling into the bedroom. Eventually, Nilanthi raised Sunitha off the bed. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go join the boys and have something to eat.”
Sunitha followed Nilanthi out of the room, though all her energy had drained away. A little while later, she was sitting on the couch between Nilanthi and Lalith. The older boys were sitting on pillows closer to the screen, and Sunitha heard Nilanthi’s mother humming in the kitchen. Soon the television was drowning out her thoughts as she let her attention turn to the cricket pitch, to the sounds of muted, faraway cheering, and to the plate of rice and curry on her lap.
Lalith leaned over to her. He had bisquit crumbs in the creases of his mouth. “You see, Sunitha? They don’t stand a chance against Mahinda.”
“Which one is Mahinda?” Sunitha asked.
Lalith groaned.
“Lalith can’t believe it when people haven’t heard of his hero,” Nilanthi teased, tickling her brother.
“Quit it!” he shouted, slipping onto the floor. “They shouldn’t let girls watch cricket,” he complained from Sunitha’s feet.
Sunitha and Nilanthi laughed until the older boys told them all to be quiet. Sunitha let herself be calmed by all these distractions. She let herself sink into the familiarity of this family, who had always welcomed her and made her feel a part of their everyday things. She felt Lalith’s small body relax against her leg and felt the warmth of Nilanthi’s arm resting on top of hers. When the cricket game ended, she knew she’d have to go home. She would return to her grandmother, who would always be there to remind her of who she was and where she belonged. But now here was Nilanthi, too, who knew her secrets and would still ask her back, making her feel safe and at home.
THE CRICKET GAME ended, leaving Lalith to sulk in his disappointment. The girls went to Nilanthi’s parents’ room to gather Sunitha’s schoolbag. As she gathered her things, Sunitha realized she wanted to offer Nilanthi something. When Sunitha had revealed her family’s story, Nilanthi had listened without judgment, without surprise. And by just sitting there beside her, Nilanthi had shown she would always be her friend. Nilanthi was always quietly offering her things, and now Sunitha struggled to identify something she could give her friend in return. She looked at Nilanthi’s clumsy hands fidgeting with her loosening braids and suddenly realized what she could offer. “Can I try to teach you how to dance? I can show you my lesson from today,” she said.
Nilanthi smiled and flipped on her father’s radio. A gentle mix of sitar and flute filled the room. “All right. You can try, but I’m certain I’ll be a disaster.”
Sunitha grabbed two saris from the closet and draped them over the two of them. “It helps if there is some fabric moving along with you.” Sunitha pressed Nilanthi’s fingers into position until her friend moaned and begged her to stop.
“You just need to practice,” Sunitha encouraged. “Let’s try the feet, then.” She stood behind Nilanthi and held her waist.
Nilanthi suddenly glimpsed Lalith in the doorway. “You sneaky little monkey! Always creeping up where you don’t belong!” She giggled, chasing her brother out of the room. “I’m hopeless, I’m afraid.” She laughed.
“You haven’t even tried,” Sunitha scolded, her tone good humored.
“If you force me to dance, I’ll have to force you to study algebra with me.”
“Not likely.” Sunitha grabbed her friend’s hands and spun her around the room a few times until Nilanthi stepped on Sunitha’s foot and both girls tumbled onto the floor.
Nilanthi stumbled up and raised the radio’s volume. “Dance for me,” she said.
Sunitha smiled and took a step back. She pressed her fingers into circles and cocked her head to the side. She saw that Lalith had returned to the room, half-disguised by the bedroom curtain; she gave him a private wink. Smiling broadly at no one in particular, she moved her hips and hands to the song’s melody. Her body felt light as she forced her heel onto the bedroom floor, bending and pivoting around the room while Nilanthi clapped to the music’s rhythms. And as her borrowed sari swept across her ankles, Sunitha performed not only for Nilanthi and mischievous Lalith, but for an invisible audience, for her grandmother and her father, for Dinesh and the envious men, for the market gossipers, and for her mother, allowing grace and beauty back into the place where shame had been.