The Vine of Desire by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page A
Authors: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
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mind whips about. East and west, east and west. I want my daughter to be loved by Sunil and Anju. I want her for myself alone. I want to help Anju get back to her old, strong self. I want Lupe to find me a job so I can escape this apartment. The river of my life is speeding toward an abyss. What shall I do? I want an existence iridescent as nail polish. I want sleep. I want to bite into the apple of America. I want to swim to India, to the parrot-green smells of childhood. I want a mother’s arms to weep in. I want my weather-vane mind to stop its manic spinning. I want Sunil.
Seven
Beyond the mouth of the bay, past where the slender rust-red bridge sways in a rare silence, the fog rises before dawn. Here the water is deeper, colder. Things go on below the surface—the willful tug of currents which want to take you beyond everything you know, the invisible smile of water creatures coiling and uncoiling.
The fog rises like a long exhalation and begins its journey. Over the white city lit in the last of the moonlight, its buildings dulling to old silver as the fog flows over them. Down the tangled skeins of 280 and 101, where lone cars leave tracers of light as they speed from one dream to another, newer one. Southward, the rail lines, the alleys flanking the stations of Palo Alto and Menlo Park, where men and women huddle under worn jute bags just a block away from five-star restaurants with French names. The fog touches their hair with its finger, leaving swaths of white behind. It passes the dark glass rectangles of office buildings where the lights are never turned off, looks in through the windows at programmers stretched out in restiveexhaustion under their desks, their heads filled with neon words: angel, beta, IPO. In San Jose, it moves through downtown parks strewn with newspapers and used needles, by-products of the Silicon Rush. In the underpasses, abandoned grocery carts, urine, a smell like burnt sugar. The fog circles the garishly hopeful banners of small stores in Vietnam Town; it sweeps its hem like a benediction over apartment buildings clustered like aphids along the freeway.
It is the year of random malice, the year the W4 worm will topple networks like dominoes around the globe, the year when drive-by shootings will account for 129 deaths across America.
Now the sun staggers into the sky, leaving yolky smears behind. Buses and garbage trucks groan and rattle, people blink into bathroom mirrors in disbelief of themselves. Anju and Sunil, too, Dayita and Sudha, they begin their awkward morning cotillion. KCBS announces that 237 is backed up all the way to Montague, and advises commuters to take an alternate route. Eating his cereal, Sunil swears. The alternate routes, he knows, will be just as backed up. He rinses out his bowl and wipes it with a dish towel. Leaving, he shuts the door behind him quietly. It is no use, he knows, to take out one’s frustration on the necessary objects of one’s life. In the bathroom, standing under a fall of warm water, Anju imagines a shower that will never end. Sudha knocks on the door, An-ju, An-ju , syllables drawn out in worry or impatience. Listening, Dayita slips her thumb into her mouth. Her eyes are as black as bees.
The fog witnesses all of this. It is breaking up, like the memory of an old promise you know you made but can’t figure out why. The last strips of it drift into the small, slit mouths of the mailboxes that wait in the entryway. Later, when Sudha comes to check, she will find two letters there.
One is an invitation on a heavy cream parchment, addressed to Sunil Majumdar and Family. The other is a pale blue aerogram, the black Calcutta postmark blooming blotchily over a stamp that bears Indira Gandhi’s haughty, surprised profile. Sudha’s name, in square, male letters, a handwriting that makes her draw her breath in sharply. The name on the back says Ashok. She holds it as though she cannot decide whether she should press it to her chest, or
Seven
Beyond the mouth of the bay, past where the slender rust-red bridge sways in a rare silence, the fog rises before dawn. Here the water is deeper, colder. Things go on below the surface—the willful tug of currents which want to take you beyond everything you know, the invisible smile of water creatures coiling and uncoiling.
The fog rises like a long exhalation and begins its journey. Over the white city lit in the last of the moonlight, its buildings dulling to old silver as the fog flows over them. Down the tangled skeins of 280 and 101, where lone cars leave tracers of light as they speed from one dream to another, newer one. Southward, the rail lines, the alleys flanking the stations of Palo Alto and Menlo Park, where men and women huddle under worn jute bags just a block away from five-star restaurants with French names. The fog touches their hair with its finger, leaving swaths of white behind. It passes the dark glass rectangles of office buildings where the lights are never turned off, looks in through the windows at programmers stretched out in restiveexhaustion under their desks, their heads filled with neon words: angel, beta, IPO. In San Jose, it moves through downtown parks strewn with newspapers and used needles, by-products of the Silicon Rush. In the underpasses, abandoned grocery carts, urine, a smell like burnt sugar. The fog circles the garishly hopeful banners of small stores in Vietnam Town; it sweeps its hem like a benediction over apartment buildings clustered like aphids along the freeway.
It is the year of random malice, the year the W4 worm will topple networks like dominoes around the globe, the year when drive-by shootings will account for 129 deaths across America.
Now the sun staggers into the sky, leaving yolky smears behind. Buses and garbage trucks groan and rattle, people blink into bathroom mirrors in disbelief of themselves. Anju and Sunil, too, Dayita and Sudha, they begin their awkward morning cotillion. KCBS announces that 237 is backed up all the way to Montague, and advises commuters to take an alternate route. Eating his cereal, Sunil swears. The alternate routes, he knows, will be just as backed up. He rinses out his bowl and wipes it with a dish towel. Leaving, he shuts the door behind him quietly. It is no use, he knows, to take out one’s frustration on the necessary objects of one’s life. In the bathroom, standing under a fall of warm water, Anju imagines a shower that will never end. Sudha knocks on the door, An-ju, An-ju , syllables drawn out in worry or impatience. Listening, Dayita slips her thumb into her mouth. Her eyes are as black as bees.
The fog witnesses all of this. It is breaking up, like the memory of an old promise you know you made but can’t figure out why. The last strips of it drift into the small, slit mouths of the mailboxes that wait in the entryway. Later, when Sudha comes to check, she will find two letters there.
One is an invitation on a heavy cream parchment, addressed to Sunil Majumdar and Family. The other is a pale blue aerogram, the black Calcutta postmark blooming blotchily over a stamp that bears Indira Gandhi’s haughty, surprised profile. Sudha’s name, in square, male letters, a handwriting that makes her draw her breath in sharply. The name on the back says Ashok. She holds it as though she cannot decide whether she should press it to her chest, or
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