Interpreter of Maladies

small red circle was painted on her forehead, and the edges of her feet were tinted with a decorative red dye. I did not embrace her, or kiss her, or take her hand. Instead I asked her, speaking Bengali for the first time in America, if she was hungry. 
    She hesitated, then nodded yes. 
    I told her I had prepared some egg curry at home. "What did they give you to eat on the plane?" 
    "I didn't eat." 
    "All the way from Calcutta?" 
    "The menu said oxtail soup." 
    "But surely there were other items." 
    "The thought of eating an ox's tail made me lose my appetite." 
    When we arrived home, Mala opened up one of her suitcases, and presented me with two pullover sweaters, both made with bright blue wool, which she had knitted in the course of our separation, one with a V neck, the other covered with cables. I tried them on; both were right under the arms. She had also brought me two new pairs of drawstring pajamas, a letter from my brother, and a packet of loose Darjeeling tea. I had no present for her apart from the egg curry. We sat at a bare table, each of us staring at our plates. We ate with our hands, another thing I had not yet done in America. 
    "The house is nice," she said. "Also the egg curry." With her left hand she held the end of her sari to her chest, so it would not slip off her head. 
    "I don't know many recipes." 
    She nodded, peeling the skin off each of her potatoes before eating them. At one point the sari slipped to her shoulders. She readjusted it at once.
    "There's no need to cover your head," I said. "I don't mind. It doesn't matter here." 
    She kept it covered anyway. 
    I waited to get used to her, to her presence at my side, at my table and in my bed, but a week later we were still strangers. I still was not used to coming home to an apartment that smelled of steamed rice, and finding that the basin in the bathroom was always wiped clean, our two toothbrushes lying side by side, a cake of Pears soap from India resting in the soap dish. I was not used to the fragrance of the coconut oil she rubbed every other night into her scalp, or the delicate sound her bracelets made as she moved about the apartment. In the morning she was always awake before I was. The first morning when I came into the kitchen she had heated up the leftovers and sat a plate with a spoonful of salt on its edge on the table, assuming I would eat rice for breakfast, as most Bengali husbands did. I told her cereal would do, and the next morning when I came into the kitchen she had already poured the cornflakes into my bowl. One morning she walked with me down Massachusetts Avenue to MIT, where I gave her a short tour of the campus. On the way we stopped at a hardware store and I made a copy of the key, so that she could let herself into the apartment. The next morning before I left to work she asked me for a few dollars. I parted with them reluctantly but I knew that this, too, was now normal. When I came home from work there was a potato peeler in the kitchen drawer, and a tablecloth on the table, and chicken curry made with fresh garlic and ginger on the stove. We did not have a television in those days. After dinner I read the newspaper, while Mala sat at the kitchen table, working on a cardigan for herself with more of the bright blue wool, or writing letters home. 
    At the end of our first week, on Friday, I suggested going out. Mala set down her knitting and disappeared into the bathroom. When she emerged I regretted the suggestion; she had put on a clean silk sari and extra bracelets, and coiled her hair with a flattering side part on top of her head. She was prepared as if for a party, or at very least for the cinema, but I had no such destination in mind. The evening air was balmy. We walked several blocks down Massachusetts Avenue, looking into the windows of restaurants and shops. Then, without thinking, I led her down the quiet street where for so many nights I had walked alone. 
    "This is where I lived before you came," I said, stopping at Mrs. Croft's chain-link fence. 
    "In such a big house?" 
    "I had a small room upstairs. At the back." 
    "Who else lives there?" 
    "A very old woman." 
    "With her family?" 
    "Alone." 
    "But who takes care of her?" 
    I opened the gate. "For the most part she takes care of herself." 
    I wondered if Mrs. Croft would remember me: I wondered if she had a new boarder to sit with her on the bench each evening. When I pressed the bell I expected the same long wait