[...]
She had brought the blade from India, where apparently there was at least one in every household. "Whenever there is a wedding in the family", she told Eliot one day, "or a large celebration of any kind, my mother sends out word in the evening for all the neighborhood women to bring blades just like this one, and then they sit in an enormous circle on the roof of our building, laughing and gossiping and slicing fifty kilos of vegetables through the night". Her profile hovered protectively over her work, a confetti of cucumber, eggplant, and onion skins heaped around her. "It is impossible to fall asleep those nights, listening to their chatter." She paused to look at a pine tree framed by the living room window. "Here, in this place where Mr. Sen has brought me, I cannot sometimes sleep in so much silence."
Another day she sat prying the pimpled yellow fat off chicken parts, then dividing them between thigh and leg. As the bones cracked apart over the blade her golden bangles jostled, her forearms glowed, and she exhaled audibly through her nose. At one point she paused, gripping the chicken with both hands, and stared out the window. Fat and sinew lung to her fingers.
"Eliot, if I began to scream right now at the top of my lungs, would someone come?"
"Mrs. Sen, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. I am only asking if someone would come."
Eliot shrugged. "Maybe."
"At home that is all you have to do. Not everybody has a telephone. But just raise your voice a bit, or express grief or joy of any kind, and one whole neighborhood and half of another has come to share the news, to help with arrangements".
By then Eliot understood that when Mrs. Sen said home, she meant India, not the apartment where she sat chopping vegetables.
[...]
Jhumpa Lahiri
The Interpreter of Maladies
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