who would love Sai?
When Sai had first arrived, Noni had seen herself in her, in Sai’s shyness.
This was what came of committing a sensitive creature to a mean-spirited educational system, she thought. Noni, too, had been sent to such a school—you could only remain unsnared by going underground, remaining quiet when asked questions, expressing no opinion, hoping to be invisible—or they got you, ruined you.
Noni had recovered her confidence when it was too late. Life had passed her by and in those days things had to happen fast for a girl, or they didn’t happen at all.
________
"Don’t you want to meet people your own age?" she asked Sai.
But Sai was shy around her peers. Of one thing, though, she was sure: "I want to travel," she confessed.
Books were making her restless. She was beginning to read, faster, more, until she was inside the narrative and the narrative inside her, the pages going by so fast, her heart in her chest—she couldn’t stop. In this way she had read To Kill a Mockingbird, Cider with Rosie, and Life with Father from the Gymkhana Club library. And pictures of the chocolaty Amazon, of stark Patagonia in the National Geographics, a transparent butterfly snail in the sea, even of an old Japanese house slumbering in the snow. . . .—She found they affected her so much she could often hardly read the accompanying words—the feeling they created was so exquisite, the desire so painful. She remembered her parents, her father’s hope of space travel. She studied the photographs taken via satellite of a storm blowing a red cloud off the sun’s surface, felt a terrible desire for the father she did not know, and imagined that she, too, must surely have within her the same urge for something beyond the ordinary.
Cho Oyu and the judge’s habits seemed curtailments to her then.
"Now and again, I wish I lived by the sea," sighed Noni. "At least the waves are never still."
A long while ago, when she was a young woman, she had gone to Digha and learned what it was to be lifted by the mysterious ocean. She stared out at the mountains, at the perfection of their stillness.
"The Himalayas were once underwater," Sai said. She knew this from her reading. "There are ammonite fossils on Mt. Everest."
________
Noni and Sai picked up the physics book again. Then they put it down again.
________
"Listen to me," Noni told Sai, "if you get a chance in life, take it. Look at me, I should have thought about the future when I was young. Instead, only when it was too late did I realize what I should have done long ago. I used to dream about becoming an archaeologist. I’d go to the British Council and look at the books on King Tutankhamen. . . . But my parents were not the kind to understand, you know, my father was the old-fashioned type, a man brought up and educated only to give orders. . . . You must do it on your own, Sai."
________
Once more they tried physics, but Noni couldn’t find an answer to the problem.
"I am afraid I have exhausted my abilities in science and mathematics.
Sai will require a tutor more qualified in these areas," said the note she sent home with Sai for the judge.
"Bloody irresponsible woman," said the judge, grumpy because the heat reminded him of his nationality. Later that evening he dictated to Sai a letter for the principal of the local college.
"If there is a teacher or an older student who provides tutoring, please let them know that we are looking for a mathematics and science instructor."
Thirteen
Not even a few sunshiny weeks had passed before the principal replied that he could recommend a promising student who had finished his bachelor’s degree, but hadn’t yet been able to find a job.
The student was Gyan, a quiet student of accounting who had thought the act of ordering numbers would soothe him; however, it hadn’t turned out quite like that, and in fact, the more sums he did, the more columns of statistics he transcribed—well, it seemed
When Sai had first arrived, Noni had seen herself in her, in Sai’s shyness.
This was what came of committing a sensitive creature to a mean-spirited educational system, she thought. Noni, too, had been sent to such a school—you could only remain unsnared by going underground, remaining quiet when asked questions, expressing no opinion, hoping to be invisible—or they got you, ruined you.
Noni had recovered her confidence when it was too late. Life had passed her by and in those days things had to happen fast for a girl, or they didn’t happen at all.
________
"Don’t you want to meet people your own age?" she asked Sai.
But Sai was shy around her peers. Of one thing, though, she was sure: "I want to travel," she confessed.
Books were making her restless. She was beginning to read, faster, more, until she was inside the narrative and the narrative inside her, the pages going by so fast, her heart in her chest—she couldn’t stop. In this way she had read To Kill a Mockingbird, Cider with Rosie, and Life with Father from the Gymkhana Club library. And pictures of the chocolaty Amazon, of stark Patagonia in the National Geographics, a transparent butterfly snail in the sea, even of an old Japanese house slumbering in the snow. . . .—She found they affected her so much she could often hardly read the accompanying words—the feeling they created was so exquisite, the desire so painful. She remembered her parents, her father’s hope of space travel. She studied the photographs taken via satellite of a storm blowing a red cloud off the sun’s surface, felt a terrible desire for the father she did not know, and imagined that she, too, must surely have within her the same urge for something beyond the ordinary.
Cho Oyu and the judge’s habits seemed curtailments to her then.
"Now and again, I wish I lived by the sea," sighed Noni. "At least the waves are never still."
A long while ago, when she was a young woman, she had gone to Digha and learned what it was to be lifted by the mysterious ocean. She stared out at the mountains, at the perfection of their stillness.
"The Himalayas were once underwater," Sai said. She knew this from her reading. "There are ammonite fossils on Mt. Everest."
________
Noni and Sai picked up the physics book again. Then they put it down again.
________
"Listen to me," Noni told Sai, "if you get a chance in life, take it. Look at me, I should have thought about the future when I was young. Instead, only when it was too late did I realize what I should have done long ago. I used to dream about becoming an archaeologist. I’d go to the British Council and look at the books on King Tutankhamen. . . . But my parents were not the kind to understand, you know, my father was the old-fashioned type, a man brought up and educated only to give orders. . . . You must do it on your own, Sai."
________
Once more they tried physics, but Noni couldn’t find an answer to the problem.
"I am afraid I have exhausted my abilities in science and mathematics.
Sai will require a tutor more qualified in these areas," said the note she sent home with Sai for the judge.
"Bloody irresponsible woman," said the judge, grumpy because the heat reminded him of his nationality. Later that evening he dictated to Sai a letter for the principal of the local college.
"If there is a teacher or an older student who provides tutoring, please let them know that we are looking for a mathematics and science instructor."
Thirteen
Not even a few sunshiny weeks had passed before the principal replied that he could recommend a promising student who had finished his bachelor’s degree, but hadn’t yet been able to find a job.
The student was Gyan, a quiet student of accounting who had thought the act of ordering numbers would soothe him; however, it hadn’t turned out quite like that, and in fact, the more sums he did, the more columns of statistics he transcribed—well, it seemed
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