Free Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page B

whispered lullaby.
    Not that I can even imagine sleep.
    I’ve been to the cinema a few times before—to educational English films with Gouri Ma and, with my mother, to the sentimental Bengali movies that always make her cry. But I’ve never felt this excitement, this tingling that starts in my toes and fingertips and rises hotly up my body to my throat, my cheeks. To my lips, until they feel swollen and pleasantly sore, as though they’ve been kissed (but here I have to rely on imagination) by a man’s rough mouth.
    Part of the reason is our new clothes. Anju stopped in the bazaar next to the cinema and bought us each one of the forbidden kurta outfits. “We can’t go to see the movie in our school uniforms,” she’d said, quick-thinking as ever. “Everyone would know we’d cut class. They’d be sure to stare, and then someone might recognize us.”
    “Where did you get the money?” I asked, watching the wad of notes that had appeared, miraculously, in her hand.
    “It’s my birthday money,” she said, laughing. “This year I didn’t buy books with it. I had a feeling I’d need it for something else.”
    And so in the damp, dimly lit jenana bathroom we changed into the bright kurtas that lay light as wings on our skin. I looked down at my legs in tight-fitting churidar pants, and marveled attheir shapeliness. I couldn’t take my eyes from my breasts, how they rose and fell under the thin fabric colored like pomegranate flowers. How rapidly the pulse in the hollow of my throat beat above the oval neckline of the kurta.
    “Final touch,” said Anju as she took from her schoolbag a black eye pencil and—yes, a lipstick. From where ? But I didn’t ask. I was learning that my cousin had her secrets too.
    We darkened each other’s eyes with inexpert fingers and outlined each other’s mouths with the lipstick, which was a rich maroon quite unsuitable for young girls. But we were reckless by now, giggling as we loosened our braided hair to fall in waves around our flushed faces. When we turned to the mirror to admire ourselves, I was shocked at how grown-up we looked, as though we had crossed over a threshold into the house of adulthood. As though there would be no turning back.
    “Oh, Sudha,” Anju breathed. “You look stunning. People will be looking at you instead of watching the actresses on the screen.”
    “Don’t be silly,” I replied, giving her a little push. But I was pleased. We stuffed our uniforms into our schoolbags and went to get our tickets.

    We are lucky: We have good seats, with an unobstructed view of the screen, and though the theater is crowded, there’s an empty seat next to mine where I thankfully drop my schoolbag. I had been nervous about who I would have to sit next to. Whenever we went to the movies with the mothers, they sat on the outer edges, buffers between us and the world. For a heartbeat, I miss their protective presence.
    But the hall is so fascinating with its high ceilings and cornices embossed with plaster flowers, the rich red velvet of its stage curtain, its aisles that give off a sweetish smell like the zarda that women chew after meals. And the people. Even after the start ofthe film, which is marvelously romantic and sad, just as I had imagined, I can’t stop watching them. The light from the screen casts an unearthy glow on their rapt faces, wiping away lines, lifting away years. As they smile, or touch a handkerchief to their eyes, they appear strangely, heart-catchingly innocent. And yet so mysterious. Even Anju, in the seat next to mine, emotions flitting like moonlit clouds over her face, seems like someone I do not know at all.
    Then a male voice says, “Excuse me, is someone sitting here?”
    Just my luck! The last thing I want is a strange man sitting next to me, ruining my pleasure in the movie by whistling or making crude kissing sounds during the romantic scenes. I’d heard schoolmates complaining of such things. Maybe I can tell him that a