You Bring the Distant Near

The narrative moves ahead six months. Sonia founded an Equal Rights Club at Ridgeford High two years ago, but the only members are her and her best friend, a Black girl named Sahara. Lou Johnson, a Black student who’s a star on the varsity football team and a skilled ceramicist, asks to join the club. Although Sahara assures Sonia that Lou is sincere about his commitment to women’s liberation, Sonia is suspicious of the handsome boy. Sahara is worried that her friend has become judgmental since her father’s accident because she hasn’t allowed herself to grieve. Sonia still hasn’t been able to write since his death.

At a school assembly, the principal announces the winners of the Francophone Foundation’s annual essay competition, who will receive an all-expenses paid, week-long vacation in Paris. Sonia and Lou both won, and the principal interviews them about their essays. Lou wrote about his French heritage, Louisiana family history, and Catholic faith. Sonia wrote about how “[p]eople in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have a two-sided heritage from Europe”—a history of colonization and “a heritage of freedom” (122). In her essay, she traced connections between the French Revolution’s ideals and India’s independence from Great Britain.

Tara accidentally calls Sonia “Mishti,” which means “sweetie,” and is the nickname Baba called her. Tara’s grief shows in how she stops singing unless she’s rehearsing for a part. She attends Manhattan’s Academy of Theater Arts, where she earned a scholarship during her last year at Ridgeford. Sonia looks forward to starting her college career so that she can escape “this sad house, with a ghost of a mother wandering from room to room in her white widow’s sari” (124). Sonia feels as though her mother is imprisoning herself in their home by following Bengali traditions for widows. Starry (Tara) asks Sonia not to say anything that would upset Ma so she doesn’t mention that the other Ridgeford student going to Paris with her is a Black boy. In a rare gesture of affection, Ma kisses Sonia goodbye. Starry drives Sonia to the airport and clasps her hand warmly before saying her own goodbye.

In Paris, the trip’s chaperone asks students to pair up, and Lou and Sonia visit the Eiffel Tower and the Seine together. The teenagers discuss Sonia’s writing, her sister’s interest in drama, and Lou’s plans to study art at Princeton, where his father teaches sociology. Sonia hopes to enroll in Princeton’s English program. At the Louvre, they see Lorenzo Lotto’s Le Christ et la femme adultère, and Lou explains the Gospel story behind the painting. When she returns to her hotel room, she writes a diary entry in which she tells her father all about her first day in Paris and Lou. Over the next few days, she feels increasingly drawn to the kind, charming boy. Sonia and Lou take shelter from a sudden rainstorm in the cathedral of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. Looking at the crucifix, Sonia recalls the stories Sahara has told her about Christ’s resurrection and wonders what it would be like to see Baba again. After six months of being unable to shed a single tear, she begins to weep. Lou gently holds her hands.

The narrative moves a few years forward in time. Tara flies to Bangladesh, and a young American-born Bengali man named Amit meets her at the airport. Months ago, Big Harm introduced them, and they dated before Tara turned down two proposals from Amit. Although Tara likes Amit and feels as though she could one day grow to love him, she dreads the thought of marrying a Bengali man because she doesn’t want to be like her mother. As Amit massages her shoulders on the verandah of his penthouse, she tells him how Sonia and Ma fight about her sister’s relationship with Lou every time Sonia comes home from college. Their conflicts influenced Tara’s decision to move back to Flushing. Amit offers to drive Tara to Poshora so she can see the jute farm that Baba’s family used to own and lost because of the Partition. Amit’s valet throws Tara a disapproving look when Amit embraces her, and she pulls away and tells Amit good night.

The next morning, Amit gives Tara a beautiful green sari. She’s never worn a sari before and has conflicted feelings about the garment. Since her father’s death, she dresses in plain black and white blouses and skirts, but she decides to wear the colorful sari because Baba would have liked it. Amit compliments her appearance and tells her that she looks like her mother. Tara acts grateful even though the comparison makes her cringe inwardly. Tara pours her father’s ashes into a tributary of the Ganges without any crowd or ceremony. During the drive to Poshora, Tara sings along to one of Baba’s favorite Rabindra Sangeet songs, “Por ke korile nikot bondhu,” which means “you bring the distant near” (157). Apart from performances, Tara hasn’t sung in years. Amit says her singing reminds him of his mother, and she stops with another feigned smile. Tara purchases gifts at a market, and some of the people there think she must be a Bollywood actor.

The Das family’s old house is a bungalow with faded green shutters surrounded by purple bougainvillea, a fruit orchard, and jute fields. The Muslim man who answers the door is initially suspicious of Tara and Amit, but he invites her to meet his family when she explains that she’s a Das and simply wants to visit before returning to America. Tara gives sweets, toys, and pocket money to the children and a sari to a recently married young woman. The women assume that Amit and Tara are married, and she doesn’t correct them. Tara cries when the oldest of the women kindly tells her, “It’s a perfect name for you—‘star’! Be blessed, my daughter” (164). All of the photographs and papers that the Das family left behind were burnt long ago. Tara rinses out Baba’s urn and gives it to the man, who says that he will use it to water the fruit trees. Strolling through the orchard, Tara remembers the stories her father told her about his childhood. She picks a mango with Amit’s help, summons her courage, and kisses him. Amit embraces her and kisses her back.

The narrative moves to 1981. Sonia graduates from Princeton, gets a job with the New York Times, and elopes with Lou. The young couple moves to Harlem to be with Lou’s family, and Ranee stops speaking to Sonia. Three years later, Ranee walks through her empty New Jersey home and thinks of when she was happy and her family was whole. She recalls how owning the home brought her husband such joy, restoring the sweet man she knew at the start of their marriage before miscarriages and money worries embittered their relationship. After she read Sonia’s diary back when her daughter was 15, she tried to be kinder to her husband. Tara and Amit are living together in Flushing, and she considers accepting their invitation to move near them. She tries to maintain Baba’s beloved tomato plants, but she lets the produce spoil. She still wears the white clothes that symbolize widowhood. Sonia pays her mother an unexpected visit. Seeing that her daughter is pregnant, Ranee tells her, “You dishonor your father’s memory” (174). Sonia answers, “No, Ma. I don’t. But you do. Baba would have welcomed all three of us” (174). Ranee knows that Sonia is right, but she tells Sonia that her father is dead and closes the door in her face.