‘There are enough girls amongst us if you want to marry is all I said. I said that to you too. But you did what you wanted. He could have done the same—married his Mussalman girl.’ Anima is tired. ‘Mussalman girl’ hurts her ears. ‘I sit here talking to you, but not a word out of your mouth. You’re his elder sister. You never thought to demand an answer from him. How can you treat your mother like an enemy?’

‘Her name is Nasreen.’

‘Whose?’

‘The girl Ashesh didn’t marry.’

‘So? Who she is means nothing to me.’

‘But she has a name. She's doing very well. She's highly regarded in Europe.’

‘I am not interested. All I was bothered about was my son's welfare.’

When Ai is angry, she has a way of retracting her lips that makes her teeth look longer. It reminds Anima of Ambu Aunty whose frizzy hair she has inherited. Ambu Aunty's teeth stuck out so much that they were practically parallel to the ground. The family says they had diminished her chances of marriage. Single and lonely, Ambu Aunty found herself a vocation. She became possessed by a goddess on all family occasions. The family called it ‘Ambu's little farce’ and kept a watchful eye on her while a marriage or thread ceremony was going on. The moment she began showing signs of possession, she was whisked off to a faraway room—there to go into a frenzy of whirling, her hair flying, her teeth protruding more than usual, her eyes staring. Some people would stand around to cluck soothingly at her till she stopped whirling and broke into a sweat. When Ai did her take-off of Ambu Aunty, everybody, including Anna, would roll on the floor, feeling terribly sorry and guilty at the same time.

The smell of raat rani wafts in on the breeze, soothing Anima's ruffled spirit. ‘Come, let's take a turn in the garden,’ she suggests. But Ai sits motionless. ‘I am so alone,’ she says. Anima glances quickly at her mother, anxious and moved. She looks feeble. Her voice is weaker.

‘Aren’t you feeling well?’

‘Nothing's the matter with me.’ The answer comes quick as a whip. She is proud of her health. She's never had to swallow a tablet or take an injection in her life except for a while because of the complications after Ashesh's birth.

Anima gets up. ‘Come, Ai. Let's go out to the garden.’ She holds her hand out to her mother. Her mother does not take it. Instead, she hoists herself up with the help of the chair. Anima sees that her legs are slow to steady. She follows Anima into the garden and immediately sits down on the bench. Before them stands the Gandhi mandir that Anna built with the house. ‘You don’t have to worry about my health,’ Ai says. ‘Dr Bhaskar drops in to see me every day.’

‘Who's Dr Bhaskar?’