Fluent Essays

We want to like Mrs. Dutta, Sr.  There is a Mrs. Dutta, Jr., Shyamoli.  We can like her, too. This is an immigrant story.   It is an examination of unsuccessful cultural assimilation. Students new to the country say it parallels their experience in several ways.  They often report that their parents or grandparents feel the same.  Please understand that this experience is not unique  to the United States.   This work is seminal to the course.  It is human. It has human short sightedness.  It has deflated enthusiasm.  Clearly, Mrs. Dutta, Sr. is uncomfortable to the degree that her ego entraps her.  She is trapped in her way of doing things.   She also has had little help in adapting. You can dislike the children, if you wish.  You can dislike their parents, the neighbor, and even Mrs. Dutta, but UNDERSTAND their motivations from their perspective. Toward this end, please offer c. 100 words of crisp, focused support of Shyamoli or the neighbor. Title in the subject line.  Lead with a direct, targeted thesis.  Offer detail and proof. Do not trip yourself.  See the perspective. Return to the Table of Contents. A P R I L 1 9 9 8 The online version of this story appears in two parts. Click here to go to part one. HEN Mrs. Dutta decided to give up her home of forty- five years, her relatives showed far less surprise than she had expected. "Oh, we all knew you'd end up in America sooner or later," they said. She had been foolish to stay on alone so long after Sagar's father, may he find eternal peace, passed away. Good thing that boy of hers had come to his senses and called her to join him. Everyone knows a wife's place is with her husband, and a widow's is with her son. Mrs. Dutta had nodded in meek agreement, ashamed to let anyone know that the night before she had awakened weeping. "Well, now that you're going, what'll happen to all your things?" they asked. Mrs. Dutta, still troubled over those traitorous tears, had offered up her household effects in propitiation. "Here, Didi, you take this cutwork bedspread. Mashima, for a long time I have meant for you to have these Corning Ware dishes; I know how much you admire them. And Boudi, this tape recorder that Sagar sent a year back is for you. Yes, yes, I'm quite sure. I can always tell Sagar to buy me another one when I get there." Related feature: � Facts & Fiction: A Woman's Places An Atlantic Unbound interview with Chitra B. Divakaruni. Go to part one of this Mrs. Basu, coming in just as a cousin made off triumphantly with a bone-china tea set, had protested. "Prameela, have you gone crazy? That tea set used to belong to your mother- in-law." "But what'll I do with it in America? Shyamoli has her own set" Page 1 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm story. A look that Mrs. Dutta couldn't read flitted across Mrs. Basu's face. "But do you want to drink from it for the rest of your life?" "What do you mean?" Mrs. Basu hesitated. Then she said, "What if you don't like it there?" "How can I not like it, Roma?" Mrs. Dutta's voice was strident, even to her own ears. With an effort she controlled it and continued. "I'll miss my friends, I know -- and you most of all. And the things we do together -- evening tea, our walk around Rabindra Sarobar Lake, Thursday night Bhagavad Gita class. But Sagar -- they're my only family. And blood is blood, after all." "I wonder," Mrs. Basu said drily, and Mrs. Dutta recalled that though both of Mrs. Basu's children lived just a day's journey away, they came to see her only on occasions when common decency dictated their presence. Perhaps they were tightfisted in money matters, too. Perhaps that was why Mrs. Basu had started renting out her downstairs a few years earlier, even though, as anyone in Calcutta knew, tenants were more trouble than they were worth. Such filial neglect must be hard to take, though Mrs. Basu, loyal to her children as indeed a mother should be, never complained. In a way, Mrs. Dutta had been better off, with Sagar too far away for her to put his love to the test. "At least don't give up the house," Mrs. Basu was saying. "You won't be able to find another place in case ... " "In case what?" Mrs. Dutta asked, her words like stone chips. She was surprised to find that she was angrier with Mrs. Basu than she'd ever been. Or was she afraid? My son isn't like yours, she'd been on the verge of spitting out. She took a deep breath and made herself smile, made herself remember that she might never see her friend again. "Ah, Roma," she said, putting her arm around Mrs. Basu. "You think I'm such an old witch that my Sagar and my Shyamoli will be unable to live with me?" RS. Dutta hums a popular Tagore song as she pulls her sari from the fence. It's been a good day, as good as it can be in a country where you might stare out the window for hours and not see one living soul. No vegetable vendors with enormous wicker baskets balanced on their heads, no knife sharpeners with their Page 2 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm distinctive call scissors- knives-choppers, scissors- knives- choppersto bring the children running. No peasant women with colorful tattoos on their arms to sell you cookware in exchange for your old silk saris. Why, even the animals that frequented Ghoshpara Lane had personality -- stray dogs that knew to line up outside the kitchen door just when the leftovers were likely to be thrown out; the goat that maneuvered its head through the garden grille hoping to get at her dahlias; cows that planted themselves majestically in the center of the road, ignoring honking drivers. And right across the street was Mrs. Basu's two- story house, which Mrs. Dutta knew as well as her own. How many times had she walked up the stairs to that airy room, painted sea- green and filled with plants, where her friend would be waiting for her? What took you so long today, Prameela? Your tea is cold already. Wait till you hear what happened, Roma. Then you won't scold me for being late -- Stop it, you silly woman, Mrs. Dutta tells herself severely. Every single one of your relatives would give an arm and a leg to be in your place, you know that. After lunch you're going to write a nice letter to Roma telling her exactly how delighted you are to be here. From where Mrs. Dutta stands, gathering up petticoats and blouses, she can look into the next yard. Not that there's much to see -- just tidy grass and a few pale- blue flowers whose name she doesn't know. Two wooden chairs sit under a tree, but Mrs. Dutta has never seen anyone using them. What's the point of having such a big yard if you're not even going to sit in it? she thinks. Calcutta pushes itself into her mind again, with its narrow, blackened flats where families of six and eight and ten squeeze themselves into two tiny rooms, and her heart fills with a sense of loss she knows to be illogical. When she first arrived in Sagar's home, Mrs. Dutta wanted to go over and meet her next-door neighbors, maybe take them some of her special sweet rasogollahs, as she'd often done with Mrs. Basu. But Shyamoli said she shouldn't. Such things were not the custom in California, she explained earnestly. You didn't just drop in on people without calling ahead. Here everyone was busy; they didn't sit around chatting, drinking endless cups of sugar- tea. Why, they might even say something unpleasant to her. Page 3 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm "For what?" Mrs. Dutta had asked disbelievingly, and Shyamoli had said, "Because Americans don't like neighbors to" -- here she used an English phrase -- "invade their privacy." Mrs. Dutta, who didn't fully understand the word "privacy," because there was no such term in Bengali, had gazed at her daughter- in- law in some bewilderment. But she understood enough not to ask again. In the following months, though, she often looked over the fence, hoping to make contact. People were people, whether in India or in America, and everyone appreciated a friendly face. When Shyamoli was as old as Mrs. Dutta, she would know that too. Today, just as she is about to turn away, out of the corner of her eye Mrs. Dutta notices a movement. At one of the windows a woman is standing, her hair a sleek gold like that of the TV heroines whose exploits baffle Mrs. Dutta when she tunes in to an afternoon serial. She is smoking a cigarette, and a curl of gray rises lazily, elegantly, from her fingers. Mrs. Dutta is so happy to see another human being in the middle of her solitary day that she forgets how much she disapproves of smoking, especially in women. She lifts her hand in the gesture she has seen her grandchildren use to wave an eager hello. The woman stares back at Mrs. Dutta. Her lips are a perfect painted red, and when she raises her cigarette to her mouth, its tip glows like an animal's eye. She does not wave back or smile. Perhaps she is not well? Mrs. Dutta feels sorry for her, alone in her illness in a silent house with only cigarettes for solace, and she wishes the etiquette of America did not prevent her from walking over with a word of cheer and a bowl of her fresh- cooked alu dum. RS. Dutta rarely gets a chance to be alone with her son. In the morning he is in too much of a hurry even to drink the fragrant cardamom tea that she (remembering how as a child he would always beg for a sip from her cup) offers to make him. He doesn't return until dinnertime, and afterward he must help the children with their homework, read the paper, hear the details of Shyamoli's day, watch his favorite TV crime show in order to unwind, and take out the garbage. In between, for he is a solicitous son, he converses with Mrs. Dutta. In response to his questions she assures him that her arthritis is much better now; no, no, she's not growing bored being at home all the time; she has everything she needs Shyamoli has been so kind. But perhaps he could pick up a few aerograms on his way back tomorrow? She obediently recites for him an edited list of her day's activities, and Page 4 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm smiles when he praises her cooking. But when he says, "Oh, well, time to turn in, another working day tomorrow," she feels a vague pain, like hunger, in the region of her heart. So it is with the delighted air of a child who has been offered an unexpected gift that she leaves her half- written letter to greet Sagar at the door today, a good hour before Shyamoli is due back. The children are busy in the family room doing homework and watching cartoons (mostly the latter, Mrs. Dutta suspects). But for once she doesn't mind, because they race in to give their father hurried hugs and then race back again. And she has him, her son, all to herself in a kitchen filled with the familiar, pungent odors of tamarind sauce and chopped coriander leaves. "Khoka," she says, calling him by a childhood name she hasn't used in years, "I could fry you two- three hot- hot luchis, if you like." As she waits for his reply, she can feel, in the hollow of her throat, the rapid thud of her heart. And when he says yes, that would be very nice, she shuts her eyes tight and takes a deep breath, and it is as though merciful time has given her back her youth, that sweet, aching urgency of being needed again. RS. Dutta is telling Sagar a story. "When you were a child, how scared you were of injections! One time, when the government doctor came to give us compulsory typhoid shots, you locked yourself in the bathroom and refused to come out. Do you remember what your father finally did? He went into the garden and caught a lizard and threw it in the bathroom window, because you were even more scared of lizards than of shots. And in exactly one second you ran out screaming right into the waiting doctor's arms." Sagar laughs so hard that he almost upsets his tea (made with real sugar, because Mrs. Dutta knows it is better for her son than that chemical powder Shyamoli likes to use). There are tears in his eyes, and Mrs. Dutta, who had not dared to hope that he would find her story so amusing, feels gratified. When he takes off his glasses to wipe them, his face is oddly young, not like a father's at all, or even a husband's, and she has to suppress an impulse to put out her hand and rub away the indentations that the glasses have left on his nose. "I'd totally forgotten," Sagar says. "How can you keep track of those old, old things?" Page 5 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm Because it is the lot of mothers to remember what no one else cares to, Mrs. Dutta thinks. To tell those stories over and over, until they are lodged, perforce, in family lore. We are the keepers of the heart's dusty corners. But as she starts to say this, the front door creaks open, and she hears the faint click of Shyamoli's high heels. Mrs. Dutta rises, collecting the dirty dishes. "Call me fifteen minutes before you're ready to eat, so that I can fry fresh luchis for everyone," she tells Sagar. "You don't have to leave, Mother," he says. Mrs. Dutta smiles her pleasure but doesn't stop. She knows that Shyamoli likes to be alone with her husband at this time, and today, in her happiness, she does not grudge her this. "You think I've nothing to do, only sit and gossip with you?" she mock- scolds. "I want you to know I have a very important letter to finish." Somewhere behind her she hears a thud -- a briefcase falling over. This surprises her. Shyamoli is always careful with it, because it was a gift from Sagar when she was finally made a manager in her company. "Hi!" Sagar calls, and when there's no answer, "Hey, Molli, you okay?" Shyamoli comes into the room slowly, her hair disheveled as though she has been running her fingers through it. Hot color blotches her cheeks. "What's the matter, Molli?" Sagar walks over to give her a kiss. "Bad day at work?" Mrs. Dutta, embarrassed as always by this display of marital affection, turns toward the window, but not before she sees Shyamoli move her face away. "Leave me alone." Her voice is low, shaking. "Just leave me alone." "But what is it?" Sagar says with concern. "I don't want to talk about it right now." Shyamoli lowers herself into a kitchen chair and puts her face in her hands. Sagar stands in the middle of the room, looking helpless. Page 6 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm He raises his hand and lets it fall, as though he wants to comfort his wife but is afraid of what she might do. A protective anger for her son surges inside Mrs. Dutta, but she moves away silently. In her mind- letter she writes, Women need to be strong, not react to every little thing like this. You and I, Roma, we had far worse to cry about, but we shed our tears invisibly. We were good wives and daughters- in- law, good mothers. Dutiful, uncomplaining. Never putting ourselves first. A sudden memory comes to her, one she hasn't thought of in years -- a day when she scorched a special kheer dessert. Her mother- in-law had shouted at her, "Didn't your mother teach you anything, you useless girl?" As punishment she refused to let Mrs. Dutta go with Mrs. Basu to the cinema, even though Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam, which all Calcutta was crazy about, was playing, and their tickets were bought already. Mrs. Dutta had wept the entire afternoon, but before Sagar's father came home, she washed her face carefully with cold water and applied kajal to her eyes so that he wouldn't know. But everything is getting mixed up, and her own young, trying- not-to- cry face blurs into another -- why, it's Shyamoli's -- and a thought hits her so sharply in the chest that she has to hold on to her bedroom wall to keep from falling. And what good did it do? The more we bent, the more people pushed us, until one day we'd forgotten that we could stand up straight. Maybe Shyamoli's the one with the right idea after all ... Mrs. Dutta lowers herself heavily onto her bed, trying to erase such an insidious idea from her mind. Oh, this new country, where all the rules are upside down, it's confusing her. The space inside her skull feels stirred up, like a pond in which too many water buffaloes have been wading. Maybe things will settle down if she can focus on the letter to Roma. Then she remembers that she has left the half- written aerogram on the kitchen table. She knows she should wait until after dinner, after her son and his wife have sorted things out. But a restlessness -- or is it defiance? -- has taken hold of her. She is sorry that Shyamoli is upset, but why should she have to waste her evening because of that? She'll go get her letter -- it's no crime, is it? She'll march right in and pick it up, and even if Page 7 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm Shyamoli stops in mid-sentence with another one of those sighs, she'll refuse to feel apologetic. Besides, by now they're probably in the family room, watching TV. Really, Roma, she writes in her head, as she feels her way along the unlighted corridor, the amount of TV they watch here is quite scandalous. The children, too, sitting for hours in front of that box like they've been turned into painted dolls, and then talking back when I tell them to turn it off. Of course she will never put such blasphemy into a real letter. Still, it makes her feel better to be able to say it, if only to herself. In the family room the TV is on, but for once no one is paying it any attention. Shyamoli and Sagar sit on the sofa, conversing. From where she stands in the corridor, Mrs. Dutta cannot see them, but their shadows -- enormous against the wall where the table lamp has cast them -- seem to flicker and leap at her. She is about to slip unseen into the kitchen when Shyamoli's rising voice arrests her. In its raw, shaking unhappiness it is so unlike her daughter- in- law's assured tones that Mrs. Dutta is no more able to move away from it than if she had heard the call of the nishi, the lost souls of the dead, the subject of so many of the tales on which she grew up. "It's easy for you to say 'Calm down.' I'd like to see how calm you'd be if she came up to you and said, 'Kindly tell the old lady not to hang her clothes over the fence into my yard.' She said it twice, like I didn't understand English, like I was a savage. All these years I've been so careful not to give these Americans a chance to say something like this, and now" "Shhh, Shyamoli, I said I'd talk to Mother about it." "You always say that, but you never do anything. You're too busy being the perfect son, tiptoeing around her feelings. But how about mine? Aren't I a person too?" "Hush, Molli, the children ... " "Let them hear. I don't care anymore. Besides, they're not stupid. They already know what a hard time I've been having with her. You're the only one who refuses to see it." In the passage Mrs. Dutta shrinks against the wall. She Page 8 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm wants to move away, to hear nothing else, but her feet are formed of cement, impossible to lift, and Shyamoli's words pour into her ears like fire. "I've explained over and over, and she still does what I've asked her not to -- throwing away perfectly good food, leaving dishes to drip all over the countertops. Ordering my children to stop doing things I've given them permission to do. She's taken over the entire kitchen, cooking whatever she likes. You come in the door and the smell of grease is everywhere, in all our clothes even. I feel like this isn't my house anymore." "Be patient, Molli. She's an old woman, after all." "I know. That's why I tried so hard. I know having her here is important to you. But I can't do it any longer. I just can't. Some days I feel like taking the kids and leaving." Shyamoli's voice disappears into a sob. A shadow stumbles across the wall to her, and then another. Behind the weatherman's nasal tones, announcing a week of sunny days, Mrs. Dutta can hear a high, frightened weeping. The children, she thinks. This must be the first time they've seen their mother cry. "Don't talk like that, sweetheart." Sagar leans forward, his voice, too, anguished. All the shadows on the wall shiver and merge into a single dark silhouette. Mrs. Dutta stares at that silhouette, the solidarity of it. Sagar and Shyamoli's murmurs are lost beneath the noise in her head, a dry humming -- like thirsty birds, she thinks wonderingly. After a while she discovers that she has reached her room. In darkness she lowers herself onto her bed very gently, as though her body were made of the thinnest glass. Or perhaps ice -- she is so cold. She sits for a long time with her eyes closed, while inside her head thoughts whirl faster and faster until they disappear in a gray dust storm. HEN Pradeep finally comes to call her for dinner, Mrs. Dutta follows him to the kitchen, where she fries luchis for everyone, the perfect circles of dough puffing up crisp and golden as always. Sagar and Shyamoli have reached a truce of some kind: she gives him a small smile, and he puts out a casual hand to massage the back of her neck. Mrs. Dutta shows no embarrassment at this. She eats her dinner. She answers questions put to her. She laughs when someone makes a Page 9 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm joke. If her face is stiff, as though she had been given a shot of Novocain, no one notices. When the table is cleared, she excuses herself, saying she has to finish her letter. Now Mrs. Dutta sits on her bed, reading over what she wrote in the innocent afternoon. Dear Roma, Although I miss you, I know you will be pleased to hear how happy I am in America. There is much here that needs getting used to, but we are no strangers to adjusting, we old women. After all, haven't we been doing it all our lives? Today I'm cooking one of Sagar's favorite dishes, alu dum. It gives me such pleasure to see my family gathered around the table, eating my food. The children are still a little shy of me, but I am hopeful that we'll soon be friends. And Shyamoli, so confident and successful -- you should see her when she's all dressed for work. I can't believe she's the same timid bride I sent off to America just a few years ago. But Sagar, most of all, is the joy of my old age. ... With the edge of her sari Mrs. Dutta carefully wipes a tear that has fallen on the aerogram. She blows on the damp spot until it is completely dry, so the pen will not leave a telltale smudge. Even though Roma would not tell a soul, she cannot risk it. She can already hear them, the avid relatives in India who've been waiting for something just like this to happen. That Dutta-ginni, so set in her ways, we knew she'd never get along with her daughter-in-law. Or, worse, Did you hear about poor Prameela? How her family treated her? Yes, even her son, can you imagine? This much surely she owes to Sagar. And what does she owe herself, Mrs. Dutta, falling through black night with all the certainties she trusted in collapsed upon themselves like imploded stars, and only an image inside her eyelids for company? A silhouette -- man, wife, children, joined on a wall -- showing her how alone she is in this land of young people. And how unnecessary. Page 10 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm She is not sure how long she sits under the glare of the overhead light, how long her hands clench themselves in her lap. When she opens them, nail marks line the soft flesh of her palms, red hieroglyphs -- her body's language, telling her what to do. Dear Roma, Mrs. Dutta writes, I cannot answer your question about whether I am happy, for I am no longer sure I know what happiness is. All I know is that it isn't what I thought it to be. It isn't about being needed. It isn't about being with family either. It has something to do with love, I still think that, but in a different way than I believed earlier, a way I don't have the words to explain. Perhaps we can figure it out together, two old women drinking cha in your downstairs flat (for I do hope you will rent it to me on my return) while around us gossip falls -- but lightly, like summer rain, for that is all we will allow it to be. If I'm lucky -- and perhaps, in spite of all that has happened, I am -- the happiness will be in the figuring out. Pausing to read over what she has written, Mrs. Dutta is surprised to discover this: now that she no longer cares whether tears blotch her letter, she feels no need to weep. The online version of this story appears in two parts. Click here to go to part one. Chitra B. Divakaruni received the 1995 American Book Award for fiction for Arranged Marriage, a collection of short stories. Her most recent novel is The Mistress of Spices (1997). Illustrations by Gérard Dubois Copyright © 1998 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; April 1998; Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter; Volume 281, No. 4; pages 88- 97. Page 11 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter (Part Two) 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta2.htm Return to the Table of Contents. A P R I L 1 9 9 8 When Mrs. Dutta decided to give up her home of forty- five years to go to America, her relatives were less surprised than she had expected. Everyone knows, they said, that a wife's place is with her husband, and a widow's is with her son by Chitra B. Divakaruni The online version of this story appears in two parts. Click here to go to part two. HEN the alarm goes off at 5:00 A.M., buzzing like a trapped wasp, Mrs. Dutta has been lying awake for quite a while. She still has difficulty sleeping on the Perma Rest mattress that Sagar and Shyamoli, her son and daughter-in-law, have bought specially for her, though she has had it now for two months. It is too American-soft, unlike the reassuringly solid copra ticking she used at home. But this is home now, she reminds herself. She reaches hurriedly to turn off the alarm, but in the dark her fingers get confused among the knobs, and the electric clock falls with a thud to the floor. Its angry metallic call vibrates through the walls of her room, and she is sure it will wake everyone. Related feature: � Facts & Fiction: A Woman's Places An Atlantic Unbound interview with Chitra B. She yanks frantically at the wire until she feels it give, and in the abrupt silence that follows she hears herself breathing, a sound harsh and uneven and full of guilt. Mrs. Dutta knows, of course, that this ruckus is her own fault. She should just not set the alarm. She does not need Page 1 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm Divakaruni. Discuss this story in the Arts & Literature forum of Post & Riposte. Go to part two of this story. to get up early here in California, in her son's house. But the habit, taught her by her mother-in-law when she was a bride of seventeen, A good wife wakes before the rest of the household, is one she finds impossible to break. How hard it was then to pull her unwilling body away from the sleep-warm clasp of her husband, Sagar's father, whom she had just learned to love; to stumble to the kitchen that smelled of stale garam masala and light the coal stove so that she could make morning tea for them all -- her parents- in- law, her husband, his two younger brothers, and the widowed aunt who lived with them. After dinner, when the family sits in front of the TV, she tries to tell her grandchildren about those days. "I was never good at starting that stove -- the smoke stung my eyes, making me cough and cough. Breakfast was never ready on time, and my mother- in- law -- oh, how she scolded me, until I was in tears. Every night I'd pray to Goddess Durga, please let me sleep late, just one morning!" "Mmmm," Pradeep says, bent over a model plane. "Oooh, how awful," Mrinalini says, wrinkling her nose politely before she turns back to a show filled with jokes that Mrs. Dutta does not understand. "That's why you should sleep in now, Mother," Shyamoli says, smiling at her from the recliner where she sits looking through The Wall Street Journal. With her legs crossed so elegantly under the shimmery blue skirt she has changed into after work, and her unusually fair skin, she could pass for an American, thinks Mrs. Dutta, whose own skin is as brown as roasted cumin. The thought fills her with an uneasy pride. From the floor where he leans against Shyamoli's knee, Sagar adds, "We want you to be comfortable, Ma. To rest. That's why we brought you to America." In spite of his thinning hair and the gold- rimmed glasses that he has recently taken to wearing, Sagar's face seems to Mrs. Dutta still that of the boy she used to send off to primary school with his metal tiffin box. She remembers how he crawled into her bed on stormy monsoon nights, how when he was ill, no one else could make him drink his barley water. Her heart lightens in sudden gladness because she is really here, with him and his children in America. "Oh, Sagar," she says, smiling, "now you're talking like this! But did you give me a moment's rest Page 2 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm while you were growing up?" And she launches into a description of childhood pranks that has him shaking his head indulgently while disembodied TV laughter echoes through the room. But later he comes into her bedroom and says, a little shamefaced, "Mother, please don't get up so early in the morning. All that noise in the bathroom -- it wakes us up, and Molli has such a long day at work... " And she, turning a little so that he won't see her foolish eyes filling with tears, as though she were a teenage bride again and not a woman well over sixty, nods her head, yes, yes. AITING for the sounds of the stirring household to release her from the embrace of her Perma Rest mattress, Mrs. Dutta repeats the 108 holy names of God. Om Keshavaya Namah, Om Narayanaya Namah, Om Madhavaya Namah. But underneath she is thinking of the bleached- blue aerogram from Mrs. Basu that has been waiting unanswered on her bedside table all week, filled with news from home. Someone robbed the Sandhya jewelry store. The bandits had guns, but luckily no one was hurt. Mr. Joshi's daughter, that sweet- faced child, has run away with her singing teacher. Who would've thought it? Mrs. Barucha's daughter- in- law had one more baby girl. Yes, their fourth. You'd think they'd know better than to keep trying for a boy. Last Tuesday was Bangla Bandh, another labor strike, everything closed down, not even the buses running. But you can't really blame them, can you? After all, factory workers have to eat too. Mrs. Basu's tenants, whom she'd been trying to evict forever, finally moved out. Good riddance, but you should see the state of the flat. At the very bottom Mrs. Basu wrote, Are you happy in America? Mrs. Dutta knows that Mrs. Basu, who has been her closest friend since they both moved to Ghoshpara Lane as young brides, cannot be fobbed off with descriptions of Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge, or even with anecdotes involving grandchildren. And so she has been putting off her reply, while in her heart family loyalty battles with insidious feelings of -- but she turns from them quickly and will not name them even to herself. Now Sagar is knocking on the children's doors -- a curious custom this, children being allowed to close their doors Page 3 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm against their parents. With relief Mrs. Dutta gathers up her bathroom things. She has plenty of time. Their mother will have to rap again before Pradeep and Mrinalini open their doors and stumble out. Still, Mrs. Dutta is not one to waste the precious morning. She splashes cold water on her face and neck (she does not believe in pampering herself), scrapes the night's gumminess from her tongue with her metal tongue cleaner, and brushes vigorously, though the minty toothpaste does not leave her mouth feeling as clean as does the bittersweet neem stick she's been using all her life. She combs the knots out of her hair. Even at her age it is thicker and silkier than her daughter- in- law's permed curls. Such vanity, she scolds her reflection, and you a grandmother and a widow besides. Still, as she deftly fashions her hair into a neat coil, she remembers how her husband would always compare it to monsoon clouds. She hears a sudden commotion outside. "Pat! Minnie! What d'you mean you still haven't washed up? I'm late to work every morning nowadays because of you kids." "But, Mom, she's in there. She's been there forever... " Mrinalini says. Pause. Then, "So go to the downstairs bathroom." "But all our stuff is here," Pradeep says, and Mrinalini adds, "It's not fair. Why can't she go downstairs?" A longer pause. Mrs. Dutta hopes that Shyamoli will not be too harsh with the girl. But a child who refers to elders in that disrespectful way ought to be punished. How many times did she slap Sagar for something far less, though he was her only one, the jewel of her eye, come to her after she had been married for seven years and everyone had given up hope? Whenever she lifted her hand to him, her heart was pierced through and through. Such is a mother's duty. But Shyamoli only says, in a tired voice, "That's enough! Go put on your clothes, hurry!" The grumblings recede. Footsteps clatter down the stairs. Inside the bathroom Mrs. Dutta bends over the sink, fists tight in the folds of her sari. Hard with the pounding in her head to think what she feels most -- anger at the children for their rudeness, or at Shyamoli for letting them go unrebuked. Or is it shame she feels (but why?), this Page 4 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm burning, acid and indigestible, that coats her throat in molten metal? T is 9:00 A.M., and the house, after the flurry of de- partures, of frantic "I can't find my socks" and "Mom, he took my lunch money" and "I swear I'll leave you kids behind if you're not in the car in exactly one minute," has settled into its quiet daytime rhythms. Busy in the kitchen, Mrs. Dutta has recovered her spirits. Holding on to grudges is too exhausting, and besides, the kitchen -- sunlight spilling across its countertops while the refrigerator hums reassuringly in the background -- is her favorite place. Mrs. Dutta hums too as she fries potatoes for alu dum. Her voice is rusty and slightly off- key. In India she would never have ventured to sing, but with everyone gone the house is too quiet, all that silence pressing down on her like the heel of a giant hand, and the TV voices, with their strange foreign accents, are no help at all. As the potatoes turn golden- brown, she permits herself a moment of nostalgia for her Calcutta kitchen -- the new gas stove she bought with the birthday money Sagar sent, the scoured- shiny brass pots stacked by the meat safe, the window with the lotus-pattern grille through which she could look down on white- uniformed children playing cricket after school. The mouthwatering smell of ginger and chili paste, ground fresh by Reba, the maid, and, in the evening, strong black Assam tea brewing in the kettle when Mrs. Basu came by to visit. In her mind she writes to Mrs. Basu: Oh, Roma, I miss it all so much. Sometimes I feel that someone has reached in and torn out a handful of my chest. But only fools indulge in nostalgia, so Mrs. Dutta shakes her head clear of images and straightens up the kitchen. She pours the half-drunk glasses of milk down the sink, though Shyamoli has told her to save them in the refrigerator. But surely Shyamoli, a girl from a good Hindu family, doesn't expect her to put contaminated jutha things with the rest of the food. She washes the breakfast dishes by hand instead of letting them wait inside the dishwasher till night, breeding germs. With practiced fingers she throws an assortment of spices into the blender: coriander, cumin, cloves, black pepper, a few red chilies Page 5 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm for vigor. No stale bottled curry powder for her. At least the family's eating well since I arrived, she writes in her mind. Proper Indian food, puffed-up chapatis, fish curry in mustard sauce, and real pulao with raisins and cashews and ghee -- the way you taught me, Roma -- instead of Rice- a- roni. She would like to add, They love it, but thinking of Shyamoli, she hesitates. At first Shyamoli was happy enough to have someone take over the cooking. "It's wonderful to come home to a hot dinner," she'd say. Or "Mother, what crispy papads, and your fish curry is out of this world." But recently she has taken to picking at her food, and once or twice from the kitchen Mrs. Dutta has caught wisps of words, intensely whispered: "cholesterol," "all putting on weight," "she's spoiling you." And though Shyamoli always says no when the children ask if they can have burritos from the freezer instead, Mrs. Dutta suspects that she would really like to say yes. The children. A heaviness pulls at Mrs. Dutta's entire body when she thinks of them. Like so much in this country, they have turned out to be -- yes, she might as well admit it a disappointment. For this she blames, in part, the Olan Mills portrait. Perhaps it was foolish of her to set so much store by a photograph, especially one taken years ago. But it was such a charming scene -- Mrinalini in a ruffled white dress with her arm around her brother, Pradeep chubby and dimpled in a suit and bow tie, a glorious autumn forest blazing red and yellow behind them. (Later Mrs. Dutta was saddened to learn that the forest was merely a backdrop in a studio in California, where real trees did not turn such colors.) The picture had arrived, silver- framed and wrapped in a plastic sheet filled with bubbles, with a note from Shyamoli explaining that it was a Mother's Day gift. (A strange concept, a day set aside to honor mothers. Did the sahibs not honor their mothers the rest of the year, then?) For a week Mrs. Dutta could not decide where it should be hung. If she put it in the drawing room, visitors would be able to admire her grandchildren, but if she put it on the bedroom wall, she would be able to see the photo last thing before she fell asleep. She finally opted for the bedroom, and later, when she was too ill with pneumonia to leave her bed for a month, she was glad of it. Mrs. Dutta was accustomed to living on her own. She had Page 6 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm done it for three years after Sagar's father died, politely but stubbornly declining the offers of various relatives, well- meaning and otherwise, to come and stay with her. In this she surprised herself as well as others, who thought of her as a shy, sheltered woman, one who would surely fall apart without her husband to handle things for her. But she managed quite well. She missed Sagar's father, of course, especially in the evenings, when it had been his habit to read to her the more amusing parts of the newspaper while she rolled out chapatis. But once the grief receded, she found she enjoyed being mistress of her own life, as she confided to Mrs. Basu. She liked being able, for the first time ever, to lie in bed all evening and read a new novel of Shankar's straight through if she wanted, or to send out for hot eggplant pakoras on a rainy day without feeling guilty that she wasn't serving up a balanced meal. When the pneumonia hit, everything changed. Mrs. Dutta had been ill before, but those illnesses had been different. Even in bed she'd been at the center of the household, with Reba coming to find out what should be cooked, Sagar's father bringing her shirts with missing buttons, her mother- in- law, now old and tamed, complaining that the cook didn't brew her tea strong enough, and Sagar running in crying because he'd had a fight with the neighbor boy. But now she had no one to ask her, querulously, Just how long do you plan to remain sick? No one waited in impatient exasperation for her to take on her duties again. No one's life was inconvenienced the least bit by her illness. Therefore she had no reason to get well. When this thought occurred to Mrs. Dutta, she was so frightened that her body grew numb. The walls of the room spun into blackness; the bed on which she lay, a vast fourposter she had shared with Sagar's father since their wedding, rocked like a dinghy caught in a storm; and a great hollow roaring reverberated inside her head. For a moment, unable to move or see, she thought, I'm dead. Then her vision, desperate and blurry, caught on the portrait. My grandchildren. With some difficulty she focused on the bright, oblivious sheen of their faces, the eyes so like Sagar's that for a moment heartsickness twisted inside her like a living thing. She drew a shudder of breath into her aching lungs, and the roaring seemed to recede. When the afternoon post brought another letter from Sagar -- Mother, you really should come and live Page 7 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm with us. We worry about you all alone in India, especially when you're sick like this -- she wrote back the same day, with fingers that still shook a little, You're right: my place is with you, with my grandchildren. But now that she is here on the other side of the world, she is wrenched by doubt. She knows the grandchildren love her -- how can it be otherwise among family? And she loves them, she reminds herself, even though they have put away, somewhere in the back of a closet, the vellum-bound Ramayana for Young Readers that she carried all the way from India in her hand luggage. Even though their bodies twitch with impatience when she tries to tell them stories of her girlhood. Even though they offer the most transparent excuses when she asks them to sit with her while she chants the evening prayers. They're flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, she reminds herself. But sometimes when she listens, from the other room, to them speaking on the phone, their American voices rising in excitement as they discuss a glittering, alien world of Power Rangers, Metallica, and Spirit Week at school, she almost cannot believe what she hears. TEPPING into the back yard with a bucket of newly washed clothes, Mrs. Dutta views the sky with some anxiety. The butter- gold sunlight is gone, black- bellied clouds have taken over the horizon, and the air feels still and heavy on her face, as before a Bengal storm. What if her clothes don't dry by the time the others return home? Washing clothes has been a problem for Mrs. Dutta ever since she arrived in California. "We can't, Mother," Shyamoli said with a sigh when Mrs. Dutta asked Sagar to put up a clothesline for her in the back yard. (Shyamoli sighed often nowadays. Perhaps it was an American habit? Mrs. Dutta did not remember that the Indian Shyamoli, the docile bride she'd mothered for a month before putting her on a Pan Am flight to join her husband, pursed her lips in quite this way to let out a breath at once patient and exasperated.) "It's just not done, not in a nice neighborhood like this one. And being the only Indian family on the street, we have to be extra careful. People here sometimes" She broke off with a shake of her head. "Why don't you just keep your dirty clothes in the hamper I've put in your room, and I'll wash them on Sunday along with everyone else's." Afraid of causing another sigh, Mrs. Dutta agreed Page 8 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm reluctantly. She knew she should not store unclean clothes in the same room where she kept the pictures of her gods. That would bring bad luck. And the odor. Lying in bed at night she could smell it distinctly, even though Shyamoli claimed that the hamper was airtight. The sour, starchy old-woman smell embarrassed her. She was more embarrassed when, on Sunday afternoons, Shyamoli brought the laundry into the family room to fold. Mrs. Dutta would bend intently over her knitting, face tingling with shame, as her daughter- in- law nonchalantly shook out the wisps of lace, magenta and sea- green and black, that were her panties, placing them next to a stack of Sagar's briefs. And when, right in front of everyone, Shyamoli pulled out Mrs. Dutta's crumpled, baggy bras from the heap, she wished the ground would open up and swallow her, like the Sita of mythology. Then one day Shyamoli set the clothes basket down in front of Sagar. "Can you do them today, Sagar?" (Mrs. Dutta, who had never, through the forty-two years of her marriage, addressed Sagar's father by name, tried not to wince.) "I've got to get that sales report into the computer by tonight." Before Sagar could respond, Mrs. Dutta was out of her chair, knitting needles dropping to the floor. "No, no, no, clothes and all is no work for the man of the house. I'll do it." The thought of her son's hands searching through the basket and lifting up his wife's -- and her own - - underclothes filled her with horror. "Mother!" Shyamoli said. "This is why Indian men are so useless around the house. Here in America we don't believe in men's work and women's work. Don't I work outside all day, just like Sagar? How'll I manage if he doesn't help me at home?" "I'll help you instead," Mrs. Dutta ventured. "You don't understand, do you, Mother?" Shyamoli said with a shaky smile. Then she went into the study. Mrs. Dutta sat down in her chair and tried to understand. But after a while she gave up and whispered to Sagar that she wanted him to teach her how to run the washer and dryer. Page 9 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm "Why, Mother? Molli's quite happy to ... " "I've got to learn it ... " Her voice was low and desperate as she rummaged through the tangled heap for her clothes. Her son began to object and then shrugged. "Oh, very well. If it makes you happy." But later, when she faced the machines alone, their cryptic symbols and rows of gleaming knobs terrified her. What if she pressed the wrong button and flooded the entire floor with soapsuds? What if she couldn't turn the machines off and they kept going, whirring maniacally, until they exploded? (This had happened on a TV show just the other day. Everyone else had laughed at the woman who jumped up and down, screaming hysterically, but Mrs. Dutta sat stiff- spined, gripping the armrests of her chair.) So she has taken to washing her clothes in the bathtub when she is alone. She never did such a chore before, but she remembers how the village washerwomen of her childhood would beat their saris clean against river rocks. And a curious satisfaction fills her as her clothes hit the porcelain with the same solid wet thunk. My small victory, my secret. This is why everything must be dried and put safely away before Shyamoli returns. Ignorance, as Mrs. Dutta knows well from years of managing a household, is a great promoter of harmony. So she keeps an eye on the menacing advance of the clouds as she hangs up her blouses and underwear, as she drapes her sari along the redwood fence that separates her son's property from the neighbor's, first wiping the fence clean with a dish towel she has secretly taken from the bottom drawer in the kitchen. But she isn't worried. Hasn't she managed every time, even after that freak hailstorm last month, when she had to use the iron from the laundry closet to press everything dry? The memory pleases her. In her mind she writes to Mrs. Basu: I'm fitting in so well here, you'd never guess I came only two months back. I've found new ways of doing things, of solving problems creatively. You would be most proud if you saw me. The online version of this story appears in two parts. Click here to go to part two. Chitra B. Divakaruni received the 1995 American Book Award for fiction for Arranged Marriage, a collection of Page 10 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm short stories. Her most recent novel is The Mistress of Spices (1997). Page 11 of 11Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter - 98.04 5/27/2009http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/dutta.htm