Read Before We Visit the Goddess for Free Online Page B

best wife and mother to them.
    â€œYes, you can have three scoops,” she said. “Just don’t throw up afterwards.”
    It was the happiest moment of her life.
    She wants to write all this to Tara, but she is so tired. Her fingers are cramping. They’ve been cramping for a while, she realizes, even the fingers of her left hand. It’s almost dawn, the jackals long vanished, a couple of overeager roosters beginning to crow. She must lay her head on the table; it’s grown too heavy to hold up. She places her cheek against the gouge and remembers, suddenly, its genesis. Bela had slashed the wood with her favorite Parker fountain pen, which Sabitri had saved for months to gift her with when she entered college, ruining both pen and table. This, because Sabitri had insisted that Bela stop seeing the man she was in love with, a man who would later entice her into running away to America. Who would not let her see her mother again. A man who—Sabitri had known this in every vibrating nerve of her body—was utterly wrong for her.
    â€œYour father, Tara,” she whispers. “That was him. And now he’s abandoned you both, hasn’t he? Is that why you’re dropping out of college? Why you won’t talk to him?”
    Oh, this mess, it’s beyond her powers to fix. She longs to close her eyes; she’s finding it hard to focus. Who is that in a dark corner? Is it her granddaughter? And behind her, could that be Bela? Shadows with blank ovals for faces, waiting for her wisdom—as if she had any to give! Or was it her dead baby, the boy she had named Harsha, bringer of joy, hoping he would buy her a second chance? But no. He had left her long ago.
    Sleep. She hungers for it with her entire being.
    But first she must write something, because finally she knows what she needs to say. She forces her hand forward, grasps the pen.
    But that moment in the car wasn’t the happiest moment of my life. Just like it hadn’t been so on the starlit terrace with Rajiv. My happiest moment would come much later. After Bijan’s drinking problem, my widowhood. After baby Harsha flew away. After all my troubles with your mother. I had opened Durga Sweets by then. How Leelamoyi would have writhed in rage if she knew that she’d been the one to plant the idea in some secret chamber of my being! It had been tough going, the first few years. But with the help of Bipin Bihari—ah, what a support he had been—I’d finally managed to turn the store into a profitable concern.
    One day, in the kitchen at the back of the store, I held in my hand a new recipe I had perfected, the sweet I would go on to name after my dead mother. I took a bite of the conch-shaped dessert, the palest, most elegant mango color. The smooth, creamy flavor of fruit and milk, sugar and saffron mingled and melted on my tongue. Satisfaction overwhelmed me. This was something I had achieved by myself, without having to depend on anyone. No one could take it away. That’s what I want for you, my Tara, my Bela. That’s what it really means to be a fortunate lamp. . . .

    In the car, Bijan asked Sabitri, “Do you feel better, now that you’ve seen Leelamoyi?” She could feel his breath, warm on her hair. “Will it help you forget?”
    The solicitousness in his voice brought her close to tears. She nodded, unable to speak.
    Bela said, “There was a man, downstairs. He kept crying and kissing Mamoni’s hands. Mamoni, why was he kissing your hands?”
    Bijan pulled away his arm and sat up straight. In the dead silence that took over the car, Sabitri was aware of the driver’s curious eyes in the rearview mirror.
    â€œJust someone I knew long ago,” she said, speaking to Bijan. “He doesn’t even live in this house anymore. I hadn’t expected to see him. We met by the merest chance as I was leaving. He means nothing to me.” The words tumbled