The Girl in the Garden

by Kamala Nair

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

At once a powerful family saga and a compelling personal odyssey, Kamala Nair’s debut novel tells the story of a haunted young woman who, in an effort to seek clarity about her impending marriage, confronts one fateful summer from her childhood.

When Rakhee Singh is just ten years old, her world is shaken irrevocably when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her father and their Minnesota home to visit her ancestral estate in an Indian village untouched by the centuries. It is there that Rakhee meets her enigmatic relatives for the first time, seeks adventure with her three cousins, and learns the devastating truth about why her mother fled the childhood home she loved. During the course of that scorching summer, Rakhee will discover in the mysterious jungle behind the house a walled-up garden holding a terrifying secret. It is a secret that will expose long-hidden family skeletons and forever influence her beliefs about fidelity and love.

Kamala Nair brings enormous powers of description to her first novel, infusing scenes with potent emotional depth. Lush and sensual, The Girl in the Garden is a dark, grown-up fairy tale that will enchant and resonate long after the last page has been read.

Release date: June 15, 2011

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 320

Sample

“[An] accomplished debut​…​a satisfying coming-of-age tale with smooth prose and a lustrous backdrop.”

—Publishers Weekly

“It’s destined to be a classic; a fascinating book that will hold the attention of a 14-year-old, a 28-year-old, or a 56-year-old.”

—Philadelphia Inquirer

“Well-crafted​…​The unexpected twists and dark secrets lurking make it difficult for readers to put this engrossing story down. A strong cast of well-developed characters will further capture their emotions. Fans of The Secret Garden (the author was inspired by this childhood classic) as well as lovers of family dramas and Indian fiction will find a new favorite in Nair.”

—Library Journal

“Lush and mysterious, THE GIRL IN THE GARDEN casts its spell from the first page. Kamala Nair weaves an intricate tale of family bonds, buried secrets, and the pain that comes when we must leave the innocence of childhood behind. This is a deeply satisfying novel.”

—Kelly O’Connor McNees, author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

“Kamala Nair has crafted an evocative, passionate, tragic novel about love, loss, and the terrible cost of family secrets.”

—Thrity Umrigar, bestselling author of The Space Between Us

“[A] powerful and unforgettable novel​…​a lush, exotic setting and a passionate, beguiling central character​…​a captivating coming of age tale with some surprising, memorable twists.”

—BookPage

“An auspicious first novel, set in India, featuring a delightful young heroine/sleuth.”

—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Charming individual moments are sprinkled throughout…​Nair gently packs the story with plenty of commentary about Indian domestic life, mythology, and, most of all, its sexist culture.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Nair explores [the] notion of facing demons (both imaginary and real), skillfully​…​Rakhee becomes a brazen sleuth. She is fun to follow.”

—Hyphen magazine

“Shimmering, brave​…​[A] lush, lovely first novel​…​part coming-of-age novel that combines elements of myth and gothic romance, in a combination that is deliciously compelling​…​a taut book that still manages to have many overlapping stories and mysteries. The threads of these stories are beautifully woven by Nair, who traces the past, while rendering the present​…​Every once in a while​…​there is a book that ensnares me from the very beginning​…​I felt this with THE GIRL IN THE GARDEN.

—NewWorldReview.com

“A daring fairy tale of a story, Nair’s first novel audaciously tackles issues ranging from puberty to friendship to abuse, providing plenty of adventure as well.”

—Booklist

Chapter 1

By the time you read this I will be flying over the Atlantic on my way to India. You will have woken up alone and found the diamond ring I left on the bedside table and beneath it, this stack of papers that you now hold.

But for the moment, you are sleeping peacefully. Even when I lean down, touch my face to yours, and inhale your scent, you do not stir.

Watching you sleep, my heart aches. I have done a terrible thing.

I would like to say it began with the letter I received two days ago, but it goes back much further than that. It goes back to the summer I turned eleven, when Amma took me to India and everything changed. Anyone who knows the full truth about my past, and there are not many who do, might say I have emerged unscathed from the events of that summer—in a few weeks I will graduate with a master’s from Yale School of Architecture and begin a promising career at a design firm in New York City; I have a good relationship with most of my family; a wonderful man has just proposed marriage to me—​but I haven’t overcome any demons, really. I may have wrestled and bound them beneath my bed, but they have clawed their way free, as I should have known they eventually would, and I cannot marry you until I’ve banished them.

This is why I am leaving behind the diamond ring you gave me, which I never should have accepted in the first place, not when there are still these secrets between us. Until I have gone back to the place where it all started, and told you everything, I cannot wear your ring or call myself your wife.

You know the basic facts, but I have never filled in the details. I haven’t even told you about Plainfield. You still think I grew up in Minneapolis, and when you ask why I never take you home I tell you Minnesota has nothing to do with who I am now. I left when I was eighteen, built a new life for myself, and have never looked back. For a long time I convinced myself this was the case. Aba has kept quiet as well, even though my father has met you on numerous occasions. He doesn’t think it’s his place to say anything, but I know he disapproves of my reticence. I remind him of her.

Once while searching through my desk drawer for a pen, you found the old family portrait I keep. Amma is wearing a blue silk sari and her hair is loose and long. You told me my mother was beautiful and that I look like her. I took the photo from your hands and tucked it back into the drawer under a pile of papers. No I don’t, I said, and went back to my sketching, even though I felt a swell of pride and longing at your words.

It is no secret that I have been writing back and forth to India for years, though whenever you asked whom I was corresponding with, I lied and said it was a lonely relative I felt sorry for, nobody significant. When I called on the phone I made sure you were not around to hear the conversation. If I had told you the truth, then the whole story would have had to come out.

But once you asked about my mother. Do you ever write to her or call her? When I answered no, that was not a lie.

This letter that I received the other day was from a person in India whom I have not seen or heard from since that long-ago summer. But I immediately recognized the handwriting on the old-fashioned aerogram stamped Par Avion, and I had to sit down on the bench in the lobby. The doorman asked if I wanted a glass of water.

I drank the water, went upstairs, and locked myself in my little art studio with its paint-splattered walls. I sat on the floor and read the letter. I read it over and over again.

That night I dreamed I was in a garden surrounded by shriveled, coal-black flowers. The only hint of color was in the branches of a giant tree studded with red blossoms. An Ashoka tree. My mother was sitting underneath it dressed in the white cotton of a widow.

Amma, I called out, and she stood up and began moving toward me. Her face seemed not to have aged—she could not have been much older than I am now—but her body had shrunk to skin and bone. As she came closer, I stretched out my arms, but she glided past me as if I were invisible. I turned to find her leaning over the edge of an old stone well sheathed in moss. It took me a moment to realize what was about to happen, but when I opened my mouth to scream No! it was already too late. She had dived off the edge and, in a fluttering arc of white, disappeared into the well. I ran over and looked down into the hole, hoping to catch another glimpse, but she was gone, swallowed up by the dark water.

I woke up and booked a flight to India right then and there. I met you for dinner later that night, but I of course kept my trip and my dream a secret, like so many other things.

It has been this way between us since the beginning. Not long after we met in drawing class our first year, you told me about your parents’ divorce and of your conflicted relationship with your father, who left when you were a child, and how you had vowed never to be like him. I listened and nodded, and my heart pulsed with the first stirrings of love, even though I hardly knew you then. Still, I could not share my own story. As much as I wanted to tell you everything, I was paralyzed. Keeping secrets had become second nature, an inheritance passed down from mother to daughter like an heirloom. But one night, the night of our big fight, you refused to let the subject of Amma drop. You kept asking questions.

What was she like?

Where does she live?

Why don’t you speak?

Is she even alive?

I got that panicked feeling that used to plague me as a young girl during piano recitals, sitting on the hard bench with my foot trembling on the pedal and my fingers forgetting their hours of practice. I gave a few vague, stumbling answers about how she had gone back to India when I was young and she was no longer in my life and that was that, but you were not satisfied.

Look, obviously this is something that still bothers you a lot. Why won’t you talk to me? Maybe I can help.

You placed a hand on my shoulder and something inside me closed up.

There’s nothing to talk about, I said, and changed the subject. We made stilted conversation over dinner, then I excused myself and left early.

After that night I avoided you for a week, turning off my phone and ignoring the doorbell. I skipped all my classes and stayed alone in my apartment. The first two days I lay in bed, unable to move. The third day I got up and showered, then went into my studio with a pot of coffee and began to paint. I think I might have gone temporarily crazy in those days, painting in a frenzy. I don’t even remember if I slept or if I ate. All I remember is painting and the feeling of relief it gave me, like taking a drug, and also the feeling of not wanting to lose you. Finally I stopped. I packed up all the paintings, threw on my coat, and ran outside into the winter night. I ran all the way to your house, clutching the portfolio.

You looked shocked when you opened the door and found me standing there, out of breath and contrite. I can only imagine how wild I must have appeared, and you had every right to hate me after the way I behaved, but in spite of everything you let me in. You let me in.

I went over to the kitchen table, set down the portfolio, and began pulling out my paintings, one by one.

This is Amma’s magenta parka that I still keep in my closet.

This is the daffodil cake she baked for my third birthday.

This is the canopy bed she convinced Aba to buy for me when I was seven.

This is her orange pill bottle.

This is the oil lamp she lit in the hall closet when she was praying.

This is a rose from her prizewinning garden.

This is her hair covered in snowflakes.

This is the scar on her right shoulder from a snakebite.

You looked at each painting and listened. When I got to the final one I hesitated. It was of a magnificent white bird against a bright green background.

And what about this one? you asked.

I looked up at you.

I’ll tell you about this one another time, I promise.

For then, it was enough. But I knew it would not be forever.

So I began to write it all down, partly for myself, and partly for you.

For months I wrote feverishly, late at night while you slept, and though I felt immense relief when the story was complete, I still locked it up in a drawer.

I am finally ready to share it.

I hope that when you are finished reading, you will understand why I have left like this with no warning, no explanation, no good-bye; only this story, the ring, and an address in India where you can find me.

Most of all, I hope I am not too late.

Chapter 2

For the first ten years of my life I lived with my parents in a big, airy house on a hill in Plainfield, Minnesota. Our neighborhood was known as Pill Hill because all the doctors resided there in fancy brick houses built on neat green lawns, high above the rest of the town and surrounded by rippling cornfields. Aba was a cardiologist at the Plainfield Clinic, where he conducted experiments on laboratory mice. Amma had a part-time job in a department store at the Chippewa Mall, but she spent most of her time at home, gardening, cooking, and caring for me.

I would be giving the wrong impression if I said our domestic life was idyllic, but it was at the very least comfortable. I took my parents’ relationship for granted, content in the belief that if I loved them and they loved me, they must love each other.

School was another story. I was shy about my dark skin, unruly hair, and thick glasses, which separated me from most of the other kids at Plainfield Elementary with their blue eyes, hardy frames, and Lutheran church, whose vaulted ceiling soared above their golden heads every Sunday morning.

But at home I felt safe. As long as nothing disturbed our routine—Aba worked in his study or tended to his mice at the lab, Amma cooked or crouched over bulbs in her garden, coaxing them to sprout, and I read, sketched, or played with my dog Merlin—I was secure.

Looking back, I see that things were far from okay; the disturbances in our household were obvious, even before those months leading up to India. But like most children, I believed the world revolved around me, and I was oblivious to the signs that indicated otherwise.

One icy winter afternoon when I was in fifth grade, Amma received a letter.

That day my heart felt particularly heavy. Lindsay Longren was having a birthday party and she had invited every girl in our class but me. Lindsay had made a big show of handing out invitations on the ride home, calling out names, one by one, and making each lucky recipient stand up and walk down the aisle to collect her pristine pink envelope. This enraged our bus driver and added an even more dramatic flavor to the ceremony. When Lindsay had reached the bottom of the pile she looked at me with her pale blue eyes and said, “Oh, Rakhee, I think I have an invitation here for you,” and a surge of hope filled my chest. A few seconds later, she handed out the last envelope. “Never mind, I guess not,” she said with a light shrug, and my face felt as if it had burst into flames. I took my tattered copy of Arabian Nights out of my backpack and buried my nose in it for the rest of the ride, anything to hide the tears that had begun to sting my eyes.

When I finally got off the bus, I rubbed my mittens across my damp cheeks before picking up the mail from the box at the top of our driveway as I always did. A letter on top of the stack immediately caught my attention. It looked different from what we usually received—bills, catalogues, flyers, magazines, an occasional greeting card. It was a simple blue envelope with the words Par Avion stamped across it in red ink and Amma’s name and address written in fine black cursive—Chitra Varma, 7 Pill Hill, Plainfield, Minnesota. I knew that Amma’s last name before she got married had been Varma, but no one ever called her that. I found it odd that it didn’t read “Chitra Singh,” which was her full name now, like Aba’s, Vikram Singh, and like mine, Rakhee Singh. Just seeing Amma’s name written like that, Chitra Varma, the name she held before either Aba or I came into her life, unsettled me. The flowery cursive handwriting was so unlike my fifth-grade teacher’s blocky print, or Aba’s illegible doctor’s scrawl.

Carrying the mail inside, I set it down on the table in our front hallway, and pulled off my wet snow boots. My dog Merlin bounded up, his backside wriggling, and almost knocked me off my feet in his excitement. The sharp, delicious scent of spicy vadas sizzling in oil wafted from the kitchen. Amma was singing along to a tape of romantic film songs in her native Malayalam language, the music punctuated by the sound of spluttering oil and the steady beat of her knife hitting the wooden cutting board.

I grabbed the stack of mail and walked into the kitchen, dropping it on the table. She had three different pans going and was chopping magenta onions. Even with tears sliding down her cheeks, she looked lovely.

I used to think Amma was the most beautiful woman in Plainfield, maybe even the world. She was young then, only thirty-one, with pitch-black hair that fell below her waist, skin the color of milky tea, and wide, dreamy eyes, deep and dark as a clear midnight sky. Even though she usually dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, just as the other mothers at my school did, when she walked among them she was like an exquisite rose surrounded by drooping daisies.

Her good looks made me proud and also gave me hope. At night I peered into the mirror and prayed with all my might that I wouldn’t always have to wear my big glasses, that my teeth would straighten out, and that my skinny, plain-featured, knobby-kneed self would one day erupt into a beauty as glorious as Amma’s. I would think about this for a while until a wave of embarrassment swept over me, and I would look away, blushing.

“How was school, molay?” Amma asked. Molay is an affectionate term for “daughter” in Malayalam, and Amma often called me that.

I sat down on a stool at the kitchen counter, in front of a cheese sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk. “Fine.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

Amma glanced up. “You can’t have done nothing all day. Don’t be silly, Rakhee.”

“A letter came for you, Amma. It’s addressed to Chitra Varma,” I said, trying to distract her.

It worked. She stopped chopping and moved to the sink where she began washing her hands. Amma’s hands were very small and shapely but covered in scratches from the many hours she spent gardening in the spring and summer. They always gave off a fresh, lemony scent. She wiped them dry with a dish towel, dabbed at her eyes, and went over to the pile of mail.

Amma picked up the letter and stared at it. A red flush began to burn across her face. She dropped it, gripped the sides of the table, and closed her eyes for a long time. Finally, she opened them and took up the letter again.

“Amma, what is it?”

“It’s nothing, just a letter from back home, from India, that is all,” she said, but her voice had changed. It was subdued and slightly haughty, as if I were a stranger who had made a nosy inquiry.

India. India. My curiosity was aroused, but Amma did not say another word; instead, she tucked the letter into her apron pocket and went back to cooking and humming.

After a quiet dinner, we sat together in the family room waiting for Aba to come home from the lab. Amma had left a covered plate of food for him in the microwave. I was doing my homework and Amma was reading a novel. At one point I glanced up to find her crying. It wasn’t the chopping-onions kind of crying. Her chest heaved, her hands shook, and tears coursed down her cheeks.

I hadn’t seen Amma cry in years, and the vision made my heart freeze. It made me remember a time when I was little and I would wake up to hear shrieks and shattering glass coming from my parents’ bedroom, or would walk into the bathroom to find Amma doubled over the toilet sobbing and retching. One day Veena Aunty, Amma’s cousin who lived down the street, came to look after me, and Aba took Amma away in the car. He returned alone.

Veena Aunty stayed in our guest room for a month, and when the month was over, Amma came back clutching a bottle of pills. She was a new Amma, a serene, sedate Amma who never screamed or cried. I remember when she walked in the door for the first time, I ran away, and she followed me, caught me, and hugged me close to her breast, whispering, “I’ll never leave you again.”

As I watched her crying on the sofa now, these memories came back to me in searing flashes. I willed myself to speak. “Amma, what’s wrong?”

She glanced up, and at first it was as if she didn’t recognize me. Her eyes focused and she cleared her throat, but didn’t bother wiping away the tears, which flowed freely. “I’m just reading a sad book, molay, nothing to worry about.”

But I was worried. When I walked behind her, pretending I needed a glass of water from the kitchen, I saw something blue lying flat against the pages of her book.

By the time Aba came home, it was late and both Amma and I had gone to bed. I stared up at the yellow frill of my canopy and listened to my father’s light, quick steps, still so full of energy, coming up the stairs. Merlin, who was curled up at my feet, lifted his head, and the tags on his collar jingled. Throwing off my quilt, I got out of bed, opened the door, and squeezed through a thin crack, leaving Merlin, who gave a breathy whine, behind.

Aba did not see me at first, and I watched him. He was thirteen years older than Amma. His hair had begun to turn gray in patches around his ears, and there were lines around the corners of his mouth and eyes, but I still thought he was a handsome man. Distinguished. Tall and thin, with black, deep-set eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles, thick, dark eyebrows, and a clean-shaven face. He was carrying a sheaf of papers under his arm.

“Rakhee, what are you doing awake?” Aba did not sound angry, only distracted.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why not? Is something the matter?”

I paused, uncertain of what I would say, or why I had even come out in the first place. “Um, no.”

“Well then, you’d better go back to bed. You don’t want to be sleepy in school tomorrow and let the others get ahead.” Aba patted my hair before he turned and disappeared into his study.

I went back into my room and climbed into bed. Merlin came to sit beside me and placed a heavy paw on my arm. The moon was huge and gold; it winked at me through the curtains. I didn’t want to go back to school tomorrow. I didn’t care if the others got ahead, like Aba said. I wished I could just stay there forever with Merlin and my books and my art supplies, and never leave.

I lay awake like that, stroking Merlin’s paw for a long time, and finally I heard Aba moving into the room he shared with Amma. Not long after that, the drone of his snores reverberated through the wall. The numbers on the face of my digital clock cast a green glow across the room and I stared at it. The numbers kept changing and changing until they began to blur and fade, and at last I fell asleep.

After that day our lives began to unravel quickly. A steady stream of blue envelopes addressed to “Chitra Varma” in that same flowery cursive began flowing into our mailbox. I never picked up the mail anymore because Amma always beat me to it, but all the same I knew they were coming. I found the blue shreds in the trash or ashes in the fireplace, which we hardly ever used; and Amma grew increasingly unpredictable.

Some days she behaved as she always had, but at other times she would float around the house singing Malayalam songs and smiling at nothing in particular, or she would lock herself in the bathroom and sob. Some mornings she would be up early running around the house cleaning and preparing a huge breakfast for me and Aba, and other mornings she would stay in bed with the curtains drawn, and she would still be there when I came home in the afternoon. Even when she was in a happy mood I was afraid. She had this new faraway expression on her face, and I felt that she had retreated into a part of her heart where neither Aba nor I would ever belong.

Aba was so preoccupied with work that I don’t think he noticed anything at first. But one evening I heard them arguing. He had invited a few of his most important colleagues from the Clinic to our house for dinner, and Amma had left a steel knife encrusted with lemon rind inside the elaborate cake she baked for dessert. The day before that, she had dropped me off at the dentist’s office and never picked me up. I ended up shamefacedly accepting a ride home from the sympathetic dentist, who later informed Aba.

 “Chitra, what is wrong with you?” Aba’s voice boomed into my bedroom. “I depend on you for certain things—to take care of our child and this house—I depend on you to do these things in order for me to focus on my work, and to provide you with all this.”

“I don’t care about al. . .