On her first morning in Bombay, Rani woke to find Meera already sitting at the kitchen table. A blue and white dress hung loose on her aunt, and sunlight caught the gold cross that dangled from her neck. Rani imagined a photograph of the two of them, how Meera would be in focus and she distorted. She was still exhausted from the long flight from New York the day before, but her stomach tangled in excitement. She was finally going to celebrate a friend’s wedding in the only city she wanted to call home.
Siya, who couldn’t have been older than Rani, brought out a cup of milky coffee and a chapati with eggs. Rani’s American discomfort of domestic help pulsed and for a moment she was glad her partner Max wasn’t there. She didn’t want to explain cultural norms and class issues she didn’t quite understand.
“Is your mummy coming?” Meera asked. “Shilpa said she was coming.”
“I’m Kesari’s daughter.” The hot mug warmed Rani’s palm. “I’m sure she’ll visit soon,” she added quickly. Rani didn’t know if that were true, but she felt bad that her aunt was the only one of her mom’s sisters left in Bombay.
Rani took a sip of her coffee and looked around the room. A painting of Christ—body pinned to the cross, head fallen in pain—hung above the table. The image was jarring, a morbid reminder every time you ate. Max, a devout atheist, would have been surprised by the religious paraphernalia scattered around the apartment. Religion was like a memory to Rani, another thing her family had tried to hold onto that sifted through their fingertips when they came to the U.S.
“Do you want to go to mass on Saturday?” Rani asked. Her mother had said that church was one of the only places her aunt went.
Meera smiled, revealing a small gap between her teeth. A few minutes later, she turned off the fan and shuffled to her room. Rani moved to the sofa and swung her legs onto the coffee table. Without the fan’s low buzz, a warmth gathered around her.
Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket—a text from Max asking how the flight had been. She pictured him in their apartment, finishing dinner or watching a favorite show. One day she’d show him this city but right now she was glad not to be responsible for his impressions. She sent him a photograph she’d taken on the flight and said she’d call later.
Rani was surprised to see that the apartment looked the same as it had when her family lived in Bombay sixteen years ago. Photographs of Rani and her cousins, and a few books her aunts left behind, lined the top of a shelf. Above the sofa hung a large painting of a face partially obscured with heavy strokes. She was drawn to the colors and the boldness of the image. She couldn’t remember if it had always been there.
She heard Meera shuffle in her room. What did her aunt do all day? Her family had visited Meera often when they lived in Bombay. Rani knew something was different about her, but nobody talked openly about it. Once, when her aunt Shilpa was in town, Rani and her mom spent the night in Bandra. The two sisters went out on the small balcony, and she stayed at the table with Meera, studying for a maths test. The apartment was alive then; the night wind rushed past the fluttering curtains.
Her aunt leaned over and said, “I know where they go at night.”
Rani looked up. “Who?”
“Your mummy and everyone.” Meera held her gaze, dark eyes wide. “They leave to meet men every night.”
A small laugh escaped Rani. “What do you mean?”
“They leave to meet men in the middle of the night after we go to sleep.”
Rani didn’t mention anything when her mother came inside a few minutes later. She couldn’t tell what was more embarrassing: the idea of her mother leaving each night or that Meera believed that. The sincerity in her aunt’s eyes sent a shiver to her fingertips. She kept the conversation to herself; if she told someone, Meera’s illness might be more real.
A couple hours later, Rani went to her friend Veda’s apartment for lunch. She was comfortable navigating cities—she’d been living in New York for nine years—but Siya insisted on calling her a rickshaw. Cars and motorbikes zoomed past, each one winding through traffic before slamming on the breaks as they hit a light. Rani settled onto the fraying fake leather seat of the vehicle. The sun warmed her arm as she leaned over to snap a photograph of the markets they passed.
The rickshaw slowed down in front of Veda’s building. The driver turned to her and said something she didn’t understand. Rani shook her head. “I don’t speak Hindi.”
“But,” the driver pointed to her face, “Indian.”
She forced a laugh, glad having a conversation about it was impossible. She gathered her coins and pushed them into his hands, knowing she was overpaying. Waiting for the elevator in the building, she shoved her camera into her bag. The shame of not speaking an Indian language warmed her cheeks. The reason was a combination of their family losing its mother tongue when they left Goa, mixed with an upper middle class desire to be Western. No one wanted to hear that though. A colonized history still felt like a personal failing.
Veda and Molly were talking on the balcony when Rani arrived. She embraced her friends with both arms. The smell of their shampoos took her back to college dorm rooms when they’d huddle to watch movies around a laptop. Molly’s hair was pulled into a loose bun that spilled over her head, her barely crushed shirt tucked into her jeans. She’d always had this effortless feminine beauty to her, even after a long flight apparently. Veda’s dress swayed as she walked, her silver earrings shone against her black hair. Five years after graduation, they both looked more womanly, settled in themselves. Rani hoped she did too.
Veda’s large family gathered in the dining room. Dishes of dhal, curries, and rice covered the table. Steam escaped a plate of freshly made rotis when Veda removed its lid. Rani devoured the meal while the family quizzed Molly on what she thought of India so far.
“I’ve wanted to visit ever since I met Veda,” Molly said. She delicately mixed the rice and curry on her plate.
A flutter filled Rani’s ribcage. She should have been used to the idea that Bombay was Veda’s hometown, and yet she wanted them to see her connection to the city. If she could convince her friends that she was from there too, maybe she could believe it herself.
Veda’s fiancé Nirav arrived late, and the women joined him on the sofa with their food. Nirav looked more boyish than the photos Rani had seen. Hair scattered across his forehead. A crumpled button up hung on his thin frame.
Veda rubbed his shoulder and introduced them. “It’s Molly’s first time in India,” she said.
“I love it!” Molly said. “Haven’t seen much but it’s so exciting to be here.”
“What about you?” Nirav turned to Rani. “Have you been to India before? You live in U.S. too, right?”
“I do.” Rani put down her plate, a few grains of rice still stuck to the edges. “I was born here though. In Bombay.”
“You left when you were a baby?”
“I was eleven.” Rani hesitated. She explained that her family had lived in a number of cities before moving to Chicago, but Nirav’s eyes wandered around the room. He excused himself and went to talk to someone else. She glanced at Molly to see if she noticed his strangeness, but her friends were deep in conversation.
She took her plate to the kitchen and drifted to the window. The apartment was on the twentieth floor of a high rise, overlooking the bandstand promenade. She imagined her grandparents walking through the same streets with her mom and aunts. She took out her camera and photographed the road. The picture felt impersonal and distant, so she focused on the geometric shapes of the other buildings instead.
Molly came up behind her and draped Rani’s arm through hers. “I’m so happy we’re here,” she said.
Rani moved her camera to her side and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder. She was too.
After lunch, Molly and Rani walked down the hill to Meera’s apartment. Rani draped her camera over her neck and through an arm to secure it against her body. The air warm on her face, she was pleased to be away from the Brooklyn winter for the week. She photographed women stringing flowers together and men in stalls selling hot snacks and masala chai, trying to keep their faces out of the photographs. She didn’t want to be a tourist exoticising anyone.
They walked through streets that had lived in her memory for so long, the details finally coming into focus. They passed a stand like one where her grandmother would buy bright orange laddoos for her. Was it the same one? She’d been thrilled when she found a shop in New York that sold the sweets, but when she bought a few for Max, the sugar was too intense for him.
“They could use some more sidewalks around here.” Molly stepped over a big crack in the cement. She looked up from the map she was following on her phone. “We’re supposed to turn left.”
Rani stopped walking and looked around. The roads were familiar and yet she didn’t know the way home. She could have sworn they needed to go straight. But Molly was right. They arrived at the small building a few minutes later, and walked up the two flights of stairs. A small Ganesha sat on a table outside a neighbor’s apartment. A sandalwood flower garland hung around the entrance. Their last name was painted into a piece of wood on the door, the curves of the letters difficult to read. Meera’s apartment across the hall had an old welcome mat—as though no one lived there in comparison. Rani suddenly regretted saying they could stay with her aunt. Molly had suggested a hotel but it seemed unnecessary since Rani had family there and the flight was expensive enough. Besides, this way Molly could see where Rani came from too. She hoped her friend wouldn’t be disappointed.
Siya opened the door for them. Meera was sitting at the table, a sketchbook in front of her. She gripped a pen between her fingers and was drawing something Rani couldn’t make out.
Rani introduced them and Molly awkwardly shook Meera’s hand.
“Thanks for letting me stay here,” Molly said.
Meera’s gaze shifted between the two women. Back in college, Rani had mentioned her aunt’s condition, though she was vague. She couldn’t remember what she’d said—something about mental illness, out of it, keeps to herself—a combination of words she’d heard her mom use. She didn’t say schizophrenia, though it was technically the diagnosis. The word had too much weight and she wasn’t sure how her friend might respond. If they were still in college, sitting on Molly’s bed, Rani might have told her that she wished everyone would talk more openly about her aunt. She knew there was something there but the silence seemed intentional.
Sita came into the room holding a tray with metal water cups. “Do you want food, Rani?”
“We just ate.” Rani took a cup. “Thanks.”
Molly’s hand hovered over the tray in mid-air. “It’s filtered, right?”
“Of course.” A flicker of annoyance passed over her. Rani couldn’t drink unfiltered water either.
A couple hours later, Rani put on a purple dress for mass that fell gingerly to her knees. She dropped her wallet into an empty purse which swung at her shoulder. She watched as Siya helped Meera comb her hair and pin it back with two clips. The talcum powder Siya smoothed on Meera’s face speckled her eyebrows. She brushed it off.
Siya followed Meera to the front door. “Should I come?” The concerned look on her face made Rani uneasy.
Rani said they’d be fine. She threaded her arm through Meera’s. They shuffled to the squeaky elevator and down the road to St. Andrew’s. She hadn’t thought much about the church, and as they reached, the memory of the building shifted into focus. Large trees with bright orange flowers nearby, the graveyard in front of it. Inside were a few stained glass windows, bare wooden kneelers, the loud buzz of fans. Meera confidently walked to the front, crossed herself, and sat. The church was full of only Indians; no tourists wandered through. Without Molly, Rani didn’t stand out. She belonged. Her parents had married there. Her grandparents buried in the cemetery. She’d found a kind of home.
Rani’s family had gone to mass weekly in India, but it quickly became a holiday obligation in the U.S. She had always liked the consistency of Catholic mass—the same no matter where they lived. Identical words in slightly different intonations, sometimes sung, sometimes said. As a child, she’d take the pamphlets—filled with songs and readings—and recite them to herself at home with a candle. She created small rituals for herself to stay connected to something that could last multiple moves.
As mass began, the congregation alternated between standing, kneeling, and sitting, as though in a unified dance. Meera remained seated the whole time. Rani couldn’t predict the movement but she tried to follow the people around her. She felt the warmth of being near her aunt in a place of family history, to participate in a ritual she didn’t need to create.
She followed Meera to the communion line, bowing her head slightly and joining her palms in front of her like she was taught to do many years before. A few steps in, a clammy hand grabbed her shoulder. She turned to find a middle-aged woman staring at her.
“Excuse me,” the woman said, wide-eyed. “Catholic?”
Rani nodded, flustered and motionless, as though the smallest movement might knock her over.
The lady seemed unconvinced, but she turned away when the line inched forward. The people behind them looked confused. Rani focused on her feet as she continued to the altar, flinching each time someone walked by. What made the woman think she wasn’t Catholic? Her youth? Her darker skin? The arm holding? Maybe she thought Rani was Meera’s nurse or maid. She shook, upset that she didn’t get angry at the woman immediately for singling her out in the middle of the communion line. She always let her desire to please control her. At Rani’s turn for communion, the priest met her eyes and placed the chalky wafer on her tongue.
Rani kneeled on the hard-wooden stand next to Meera, the wafer melting in her mouth. She dug her nails into her palms and tightened her eyes in silence. She tried to pray for her aunt and her family, but the woman’s face lingered in her mind.
Molly had already left for Veda’s when Rani and Meera returned home. Rani called Max from the bedroom. Saturday morning in New York. He looked half asleep, lying in the bed they usually shared. She told him about seeing Veda and Molly, about her unease at the wedding festivities. The words came toppling out of her, as if she hadn’t spoken in days.
“I stick out here and am somehow invisible too.” She pulled a blanket over her legs. She told him about the rude woman at church.
Max listened patiently. When she paused to take a breath, he said, “But you’re not really that Catholic though, right?”
“What?”
“You don’t fully believe in God, I mean. It’s weird for her to say that, but—”
“Of course I am,” Rani said. “You don’t have to do something all the time for it to be part of your identity.”
“I know—”
“It doesn’t matter if I go to mass, I can still take communion. That’s my family’s church.” Rani could feel the heat rising in her, from her stomach up to her throat. “You don’t understand. No one ever questions if you belong somewhere.”
“That’s now what I meant,” Max said. “You’re not listening. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, I’m just saying that the woman was rude but it doesn’t have to mean anything more.”
Rani shook her head and closed her eyes. They sat at opposite sides of the world; she could picture his days so clearly but he couldn’t do the same for her. “If you were here, you’d have seen it. Maybe if you were an outsider for once you’d understand.”
“You told me not to come.” His voice quieted.
“I knew you didn’t want to.” Rani searched his face but the pixilation blurred his expression. She was trying to pick a fight. None of this was Max’s fault, she knew, but she wanted him to not need an explanation. He was the one who should know her.
Max said he needed to sleep. They hung up. Being in this city was meant to feel like returning home, but Rani still felt on the outside. There was no inside for her. She could hear her mother’s voice, saying she was being too sensitive; she should be grateful for what she had and keep moving forward.
Rani closed her eyes and woke up a few hours later to find the lights off, Molly asleep in the cot next to her. She wanted to reach over and touch her friend’s arm, to tell her how alone she felt sometimes. Instead, she rolled onto her back. She hadn’t slept under a ceiling fan since she left India. She remembered staring at it when her brother slept on the other twin bed in their shared room, knowing the wings would continue to spin as she drifted into sleep.
Each wedding event slid into the next with little time in between for Rani to catch her breath. Molly chatted with Veda’s family members—each person asking about life in San Francisco. They buzzed around Molly while Rani often stood to the side, taking photographs. People were used to photos at weddings and she was glad to have something outside herself to focus on. The weight of the camera grounded her. She shot the colors, the people, Veda and Nirav beaming. She thought she saw a glimmer of apprehension in her friend. When you look at people through a camera long enough, you begin to see uncertainty in their eyes. Maybe she was projecting. She barely had a chance to talk to Veda though, her friend always surrounded by people. Her camera was the only way Rani could connect with Veda right now, though she wondered if she was accessing a depth of emotion she wasn’t supposed to notice.
The day of the wedding, the friends spent the morning on the sofa. Rani sat cross-legged and looked at photos on her laptop, wondering how she might create a series with them. Molly read a novel beside her, feet tucked underneath Rani’s thighs. It was as though they were back in college, the warmth of the other enough of a comfort.
“I can’t believe Veda’s getting married,” Molly said. “I wonder what your wedding will be like.”
“Not like this.” Rani laughed. She and Max had talked about marriage a few times, and she was embarrassed to find herself often daydreaming about their wedding. Molly asking about it made her feel less frivolous.
“I can’t imagine you doing all this,” Molly said.
Rani’s wedding would be much less traditional than Veda’s, though a part of her wished she had some traditions to count on. Her brother had a large wedding, but that was all from her sister-in-law’s side. When Rani and Max got married, she’d be the one bringing the traditions because she was the immigrant, the person of color, the woman whose culture had weddings down pat. But the truth was that the Pintos lost any traditions they might have had because they spent too little time anywhere to solidify them.
The women began to get dressed for the ceremony an hour later. Rani’s blouse barely clasped around her body, even though Veda’s tailor had measured them when they arrived.
“Breathe in,” Molly said as her fingers fiddled with the back of the blouse.
Rani sharply sucked in her breath. “It’s too tight.”
“Almost there.”
Rani took another deep breath, her body slightly shaking. She could feel her friend pull the fabric together and attach the final button.
“There you go.” Molly tapped her shoulder. “All done.”
Rani slowly let out her breath, afraid of popping the seams. The blouse dug into her side and she looked down at the bulge of her exposed stomach. Siya, who came in to help, wrapped the sari around Rani’s waist while she stood awkwardly with her arms outstretched, and then pleated the fabric like an accordion. Her hand movements were quick and confident.
As Siya moved to help Molly, Rani grabbed her phone and went to the mirror. She snapped a photo to send Max. The sari was stiff around her body and she looked like an Air India flight attendant.
“Scoot,” Molly said, approaching the mirror.
The vibrant pink looked stunning on Molly. Her wavy blonde hair gathered beneath her ribs. White people in Indian clothes always made Rani uncomfortable, but she couldn’t articulate why. Molly was at an Indian wedding after all and Veda had bought them the saris. Still, Rani felt a discomfort run through her and she couldn’t tell if it was jealousy or anger.
Meera sat at the small dining table with tea and biscuits, watching as they hurried back and forth to the bathroom. “You’re leaving again?”
The irritation ballooned inside Rani. She didn’t want to feel guilty; it wasn’t her fault Meera was alone. She focused on the makeup she brushed on her cheeks, the warmth of the blow dryer on her hair. Droplets of sweat gathered on her face and she used a tissue to dab at them, careful not to remove her makeup.
They’d made an effort to leave thirty minutes late, but Molly and Rani were still among the first to arrive at the hotel. Garlands of flowers hung around the patio. A large bronze thali lay at the entrance, small white and yellow flowers floating in its water. Torches were staked into the ground near a large table covered in tea and fried snacks. They wandered the patio until guests started trickling in.
Once the party was full, a procession of Veda and Nirav, along with their respective families, paraded in. Everyone cheered. Veda wore an intricately embroidered red and gold gaghra, her forearms full of glass bangles. The mehndi they’d done a few days before was a deep auburn against her light brown skin. The procession moved slowly, pausing every few feet to dance. A group of drummers followed them. The wedding was just like what Americans imagined and Rani found herself disappointed. She realized she’d wanted to prove her friends wrong when they expected an Indian wedding like in the movies. The women in colorful saris and lenghas, men in kurtas. Molly’s eyes widened, taking in the scene. Rani tried to act unsurprised, but really the wedding was as foreign to her as to her American friend.
Veda’s mom approached them, her hair curled and pulled back, her sari a rich plum purple. “You look beautiful, behta,” she said, adjusting the fabric pinned to the side of Molly’s blouse. Veda’s other friends fawned over Molly, how lovely she looked in Indian clothes. She said she wanted to wear saris all the time. “They’re more fun and comfortable than anything I own.” Rani glanced at the women around to see who was rolling their eyes, but no one obliged. Someone said they’d take her shopping. Rani wished Max were there to tell Rani that she looked lovely too.
Rani shifted her weight from one leg to the other. She walked to the chai table and drank a cup of tea, the sweet liquid hot. A stream missed her mouth and dripped onto the front of her sari. She rubbed the fabric with her fingertips but the wetness had already seeped in. In the bathroom, the napkins she used to wipe off the liquid only widened the stain. The wide, spotless mirror reflected her in sharp focus. She looked like a child playing dress up. The humidity billowed out her short hair. The blouse was still too tight and the sari stiff. She pulled at the fabric and the safety pin popped open, unraveling part of the fabric. She was trying to re-fold and pin the pallu back when a few of Veda’s friends came in to fix their makeup.
“Are you enjoying the weekend?” one friend asked, carefully applying lipstick.
Rani laughed. “I can’t believe we’re only now getting to the wedding part.” She saw another frown in the mirror and regretted saying anything. The women’s hair waterfalled passed their shoulders, somehow perfectly styled despite the humidity. Their arms were waxed and eyebrows shaped. Clothes perfectly in place. Rani had always felt unfeminine around white women—a socialization that she couldn’t get out of her—but here, around exclusively Indian women, she again felt clumsy and masculine. Suddenly she had no excuse.
She followed the women back outside where the ceremony was beginning. Molly’s blonde hair and pink sari were easy to find. Rani leaned against her friend’s arm. They watched Veda and Nirav on a platform in front of them, sitting on large cushions next to their parents and a priest. The evening sun shone ahead. Rani held her hand to her brow, attempting to shade her face. The priest prayed in a mix of Hindi and Sanskrit. She couldn’t hear much of what was said. Rani watched their movements, their downturned heads. As the priest spoke, Veda and Nirav walked barefoot in a circle in the middle of the platform.
“What are they doing?” Molly asked.
“No idea.” Rani grabbed a handful of flowers from a bowl going around the crowd. They felt cool in her hand. She squeezed the flowers tight, breaking the petals in her palm. A few seconds later when people started to throw the petals, she threw hers toward Veda too. She wanted to see whether they’d reach her friend, but with all the flowers in the air—the reds and oranges and yellows a blur of color around them—she couldn’t tell which ones were hers.
Afterward, they made their way to the buffet with the rest of the crowd. Rani had never seen so much cooked food she wanted to eat. The wedding was large but the buffet was larger. She wondered how much it cost, how shielded they all were from the rest of the city.
“I stick out so much here,” Molly said. She carefully ladled lamb curry onto her plate.
“Sure, but everyone loves you,” Rani said. “You’re Veda’s American friend. They don’t know what to do with me.”
The DJ played popular Bollywood songs after dinner and everyone danced. Bangles clanked together. Children, cousins, friends, and grandparents moved their arms and shoulders in unison. Molly was in the middle of the group a few times, copying the steps from a movie they’d watched in college. Everyone cheered loudly. Rani shuffled her feet, steadying her camera at her side, and tried to follow the people around her.
As the crowd moved one way, she moved the other. The music still pulsed in her chest as she wandered around the garden, documenting the festivities. The lingering light turned purple and the scene became hazy. Rani had trouble focusing her lens, but she took pictures anyway. Easier to focus on photographing people—their hands as they talked, the way they looked at each other—than insert herself into this world. She saw Molly dancing with Nirav and Veda, her shoulders bouncing to the music. Her white friend fit in better than she did. Indians were drawn to whiteness, she knew this, but acknowledging the politics didn’t change the way her belly crumpled at the aloneness she felt.
Molly left for the airport the next morning. With one more day in Bombay, Rani decided to visit her old neighborhood. She followed the route to the train station Siya had laid out and bought a ticket. She snaked her way through the crowded platform and stopped at a group of women. The long train staggered into view and the crowd pushed to the edge of the platform. Rani felt her heart pulse, anxious about being left behind. Before the train stopped completely, the women hoisted themselves up and pushed Rani along with them.
The train didn’t have doors so she gripped the sticky railing as tightly as she could. Warm air blew through the car as it crept forward. She watched the homes and trees as they passed. She’d always found comfort in the anonymity of cities, how no one noticed you nor cared whether or not you belonged. In this way Bombay reminded her of New York—it wouldn’t welcome you but it didn’t mind that you were there.
Rani had barely seen the Lower Parel sign before the current of people pushed her off. She stepped into a narrow vegetable market beneath the tracks. She knew she looked like a tourist but snapped photos anyway: a pile of drying chilies, plump green peppers, flowers strung together. The sellers called after her but she couldn’t understand what they said and kept walking.
She glanced at her phone to see the directions to the building. She walked up a hill, each curve a current moving her closer to her home until she finally stopped at her old street corner. A high-rise stood in place of the small building where they’d lived. Scaffolding blew in the hot wind and the gate was covered in dust. Rani could feel something tangle inside her like weeds. She used to play foursquare in the parking lot with the neighborhood kids, walk to the small corner shop with her brother—in matching blue and white school uniforms—to buy cigarette-shaped candy their mother would later confiscate. She waited, as if the building would turn back into the home she remembered if she was just there long enough. She took a photograph of the grey scaffolding against the bright sky. A passerby looked at where her camera pointed and mumbled something Rani couldn’t understand.
She quickly moved the camera back into her bag, the sun beating down on her. When she was a child, she belonged to the city in a way she never had to think about. The disappointment of returning home is the burden of anyone who leaves. There was nothing particularly unique about the feeling. And yet she was exhausted. Sweat gathered on her back and shoulders. Her heavy bag smacked against her hip as she walked.
Rani made her way back to the train station and stood with the women on the platform again. She pulled her sweaty hair into a small bun, strands barely staying in. Not wanting to return to the flat yet, she took a rickshaw from the station to the bandstand promenade. The grey water shimmered and children played along the path. She sat on a bench and watched the couples walking over the rocks into the low tide. She flipped through the photos on her camera, thinking about which ones she’d show Max when she got back. She had the urge to delete them all, distance herself from the whole week, when she heard a voice approach.
“Hallo, hallo?” An older woman in a pale orange dress walked towards her arm-in-arm with a younger woman.
Rani frowned. “Yes?” She quickly put her camera away.
“Are you Rosa’s grandchild? I heard you were here,” the older woman said. “I’m Aunty Clara. I used to live next door to your grandparents. Whose daughter are you?”
“Kesari’s daughter,” Rani said slowly. She had heard of Clara. How could she possibly have recognized Rani though?
Clara sat down on the bench, while her companion stood a few feet away, looking off into the distance. “Oh, good. I looked after Mummy and her sisters when your Nana was out. But they all left one by one. How is Meera? She lives on Hill Road?” Clara shook her head. “She was such a pretty girl.”
“She’s alright, Aunty,” Rani said. “I’m staying with her.”
Clara’s grey hair thin around her face. Rani tried to imagine how the woman looked when she was young, when she and Rani’s grandmother first became friends. Clara must have known her so well.
“I remember your mother. She was smaller and quieter than the rest of those girls, but she had an energy about her. She always had something on her mind.”
Rani glanced around her, looking for a distraction. She didn’t know what to say.
“You look like her, you know. Your Nana. You have the same eyes.” Clara smiled. “It’s good you came back. You’re a granddaughter of Bandra.”
The woman rose and began to walk down the road. She moved slowly as her companion caught up with her to guide her back home. Rani turned back to the sea. Dusk blended the sky and water ahead. A streak of orange in the grey above like an accidental brush stroke. She couldn’t remember the last time someone recognized her or knew her family. She didn’t have that in New York, not even in Illinois. They had no history in any of those places. She hadn’t realized it was something she missed.
Meera and Rani sat at the table for dinner that night. The apartment was still without Molly and the chaos of the wedding. Siya made fish curry and vegetable sabji with chapattis, much less elaborate than what she’d eaten with Veda’s family all week.
Siya brought out a bottle of Kingfisher and a glass. “I can pour for you.”
Rani felt uncomfortable drinking alone but she took the glass anyway, knowing Siya had bought the bottle just for her. The beer was too light for her taste, but she settled into it. Craft breweries were opening up across India, but she preferred the simplicity of what she remembered her parents drinking.
Meera’s hands shook slightly. “How was the wedding?”
“Veda was happy, I think.” Rani took another sip of her beer.
“I never got married,” Meera said. She looked up from her plate. “I’ll never get married.” Her voice was quiet and sad. Meera broke off a piece of chapatti with one hand, which she used to pick up fish, her fingers wet and red from the curry. They could hear Siya in the kitchen washing dishes.
Rani thought of Max, back in Brooklyn, waiting for her to return. He didn’t need her the way Meera did. He liked being alone and spreading out in their apartment, probably glad not to deal with Rani’s moods. Maybe she could move into this flat with Meera, leave behind her Brooklyn life. Bring the migration full circle.
“Maybe I won’t either,” Rani said.
Meera walked around the apartment slowly after dinner. Her sketchbook lay on the sofa and Rani asked if she could see the drawings. She flipped through pages and pages of faces sketched in black ink, some of them painted over with watercolors. Did Meera imagine these people or had she met them? Some of the drawings had clean strokes, while others had lines that Meera had gone over so many times so they looked like they were reverberating, almost not like faces at all.
Meera sat down next to Rani on the sofa and turned on the television. Rani complimented her drawings. Carefully placing the book back on the table, she asked, “Can I take your photo?” Rani rummaged in her bag for her portrait lens and stood across the room.
Through the viewfinder, she focused on her aunt’s face, the large painting a blur behind her. Meera looked directly at Rani, though she didn’t smile. The camera clicked as the shutter quickly snapped. She took a few more, each time trying to capture whatever was in Meera’s eyes. She sat back down and showed her aunt the photographs. Meera held the camera in her hands and leaned in close to flip through the rest of the pictures Rani had taken over the week. She smelled like talcum powder and coconut oil.
“How do I take one of you?” she asked.
Rani explained what button to press and moved across the room. Meera held the camera away from her face and squinted into the viewfinder. The shutter snapped and then she handed the camera back. Rani looked at the image of herself on the small screen. The picture was slightly blurry, but she could feel her aunt’s gaze through the camera. Rani blended into the apartment, as though she was disappearing into the walls and books around her. She put the camera down. They returned to the television, the Hindi words Rani didn’t understand blaring back at them.
Contributor Notes
Aarti Monteiro is a fiction writer and educator. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Rutgers University-Newark and her stories have been featured in Cosmonauts Avenue, Epiphany Magazine, and wildness journal. Aarti is currently working on a novel in stories that explores the effect of a double migration, the loss of home, and the stigma of mental illness on a multi-generational family. She lives in Chicago.
