“We are only going to talk. If you don’t like Nadya’s offer, don’t work.” Alyona led a protesting Tara out of her apartment, down the breezeway, into her own kitchen.
Tara had seldom been to Alyona’s one-bedroom apartment; nine out of ten times it was Alyona charging, gregariousness and all, into hers. The apartment was surprisingly neat for somebody so whimsical. The living room was a cozy interplay of lace and dark wood. A large woven tapestry—a detailed hunting scene with four men and a dog—hung over the beige sofa. Assorted memories and keepsakes populated a bookshelf—a dainty gold-rimmed tea set, a gift from her ex-mother-in-law; four Russian dolls dressed in national costume; a vintage bottle of Coca-Cola; and several framed photos of Viktor.
Nadya sat erect, her expression grave, at the round, glass-top dining table, sipping hot tea from a dainty cup. She was tall, and her profile bore a straight nose with pride. Her hair was short and sandy blond. She wore a knee-length blue dress belted at the waist, and tan mid-calf boots.
“Hello,” she said, rising from the sofa, stretching her hand out to Tara. A faint smile touched her lips, and died before it reached her eyes.
“Hello.” Tara smiled nervously.
Nadya pushed a chair out for Tara, and then set about piling a plate with sushki cookies and dried fruit, which she placed before her. Alyona took the third chair, after she had brought Tara a cup of tea from the kitchen.
Tara nibbled on a dried fig as the conversation turned furiously Russian. She waited, a little bewildered, wondering what negotiations were happening on her behalf.
“Nadya does not speak much English. So let me translate,” Alyona said finally. “She can pay twenty-five dollars for two to three hours work per day, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. You help her clean offices near Lindbergh. She will pick you up and drop you.”
Tara cleared her throat. “Alyona, I told you, I haven’t discussed it with Sanjay yet.”
Alyona ignored her. “You make seventy-five dollars a week, three hundred dollars a month, then you go to Macy’s and buy nice clothes and new coat.”
“You look more beautiful,” added Nadya, patting Tara’s hand. This time, her smile reached her gray-blue eyes.
Chapter 9
Tara tried to be as still as possible in bed that night, not wanting to wake Sanjay, who lay on his back, snoring gently. But it was hard to stifle her need to toss and turn when her thoughts were racing in different directions. She felt constricted and conflicted. She was annoyed with Alyona. So pushy, so overbearing, she thought. Why couldn’t she just mind her own business. For some inexplicable reason, she was suddenly reminded of her first friend in Mangalore, a near illiterate Muslim girl, who rarely minded her business; who had also put anxious thoughts in Tara’s head.
Zeenat, the rickshawallah’s daughter lived in the Beary compound down the hill. She came every morning for a measure of cow’s milk, as did three other boys from the neighborhood. Amba and Ammi in the barn were full-uddered and bountiful, so Grandmother Indira dispensed her milk to those in need, like babies and guests, at a few paise a measure.
The first time Tara saw her, which was two days after their arrival at Shanti Nilaya, Zeenat had looked like a fairy in her long printed green skirt that flowed up to her ankles, white long-sleeved cotton blouse, and a purple voile veil over her head. She was very light-skinned and pretty, with pink lips and a pinker tongue, which she kept sticking into the gap between her front teeth.
Tara had said nothing to Zeenat because she appeared older and a few inches taller. Besides, she was strange, staring unblinkingly, first at Tara, then at Amma, then back at Tara as if they were fascinating fairytale creatures.
After Amma left for Dubai, when Grandmother Indira got busy in the barn, and Uncle Anand went out into town, Tara retired behind the wooden clothes stand in her room, hidden behind a wall of clothes, playing with her marbles. She stayed there for hours, lying on her stomach. This was her chamber now. She wished the oxide, red-bordered wall had a hole that led to a tunnel full of wonders. She remembered watching Tom and Jerry cartoons on the green clubhouse lawns with her friends Pippi, Leenika, and Runa. Sadness passed through her like a wave at the memory of her past life. She wished Jerry, the mouse, lived in a hole here. She would visit with him, have high tea with him in a miniature teacup with saucer, and keep him safe from Tom, the cat.
One day, hours after she had made herself comfortable in her hidden chamber, a face framed the foot-long gap between the wall and the stand. It was Zeenat on all fours, so cat-like that Tara almost expected a meow from her.
“Here you are. Hidden like a mouse,” Zeenat said in Kannada, the language Tara’s family spoke. “Your grandmother has been searching all over the house for you. Come out now. Don’t you want to have lunch?”
This was the first time the fairy had spoken. Her voice was too loud for a face so sweet, and her Kannada was accented because she spoke a different language, Beary Bashe, at home. Tara did not ask Zeenat how Grandmother Indira had allowed her in. She came out of hiding and ran toward the kitchen, leaving the fairy to stare at her back.
Zeenat didn’t often cross the threshold into the house, but sometimes, over the weekend, Grandmother Indira allowed her to use their spare granite stone to wash her clothes. The community washing stones in the Beary compound were continually reserved by older women.
From the verandah, peeping between the silver-painted grilles, Tara watched the fairy wash clothes on the granite block beside a clump of colacasias. Zeenat hummed Beary songs as she worked through a large mound of clothes, beating each suds-soaked piece of clothing on the granite block with gusto, wringing the water out of them, and dropping them into a pail of fresh water for rinsing. She often rewarded Tara with broad, toothy smiles. One day, late in August, Zeenat motioned Tara to come out and stand by her as she toiled on a dull yellow sari.
“How sad you are. Why did your daddy and mummy leave you behind?” Zeenat asked, with no salutation nor small talk. Tara felt ambushed; she had never been posed this question before.
“Because I have to go to school,” she said.
“They took your baby brother with them.”
“He doesn’t go to school yet.”
“I think they took him because he is a boy and they love him more.”
Tara kept her focus on a shiny black-and-yellow millipede that was creeping on the cemented area around the washing stones.
“You don’t believe me?”
Tara said nothing.
“Parents always love boys more. Girls are a burden on their parents. Boys look after them in their old age.”
“I will look after my parents in their old age,” Tara said defiantly.
“You will not. Your parents will spend all their money on your dowry. You are not fair like your mummy, so your dowry will be fatter. Then they will be left with nothing. Your brother will have to take care of them.”
Tara couldn’t let Amma and Daddy love Vijay more simply because they had to pay for her dowry. “I am not getting married,” she said.
“Yes, you are. All parents get their daughters married. It is their duty.”
Tara couldn’t argue, now that duty was involved, so she stared at the millipede instead, which was slowly working its way to where Zeenat stood, stopping a few inches away from her black rubber slipper-clad right foot. She was pretty sure she was not a burden on Amma and Daddy. Amma had never said that to her. Ever.