(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
Mrs. Bridget and Gogol shared a cab to his apartment. Bridget excused herself to use the bathroom and when she emerged, her wedding ring was absent from her finger, and this gave Gogol to vaguely understand her present mental state. When they were together, he was ravenous ; it had been a long time since he'd made love. And yet he couldn't think of involving her to satiate his urge, for he'd heard of her husbands commitment to her, at length. Only twice a week, the nights the review class met. did he look forward to her company. They didn't have each others phone numbers.He didn't know where she lived. She always went to his apartment. She never spent the night. He liked the limitations. He'd never been in a situation with a woman in which so little of him was involved, so little expected. He didn't know, nor did he want to know, her husband's name. Then one weekend, when he was on the train to Massachusetts to see his mother and Sonia, a south bound train sliced by, an he wondered if perhaps the husband was on the other train, on his way to see Bridget.
From time to time his mother asked him if he had a new girl friend. In the past she broached the topic defensively, but now she was hopeful, quietly concerned. She even asked once whether it was possible to patch things up with Maxine. When he pointed out to her that she had disliked Maxine, his mother said that that wasn't the point, the point was for him to move on with his life. He worked to remain calm, during these conversations, not to accuse her of meddling, as he once would have done. When he told her that he wasn't even thirty, she told him that by that age she'd already celebrated her tenth wedding anniversary. He was aware, without having to be told, that his father's death had accelerated certain expectations, that by now his mother wanted him settled. The fact that he was single didn't worry him, and yet he was conscious of the degree to which it troubled his mother. She made a point of mentioning the engagement and wedding of the Bengali children he'd grown up with in Massachusetts, and his cousins in India. She mentioned grandchildren being born.
One day when he was speaking to her on phone, she asked him if he might be willing to call someone. He had known her as a girl, his mother explained. Her name was Moushumi Mazoomdar. He remembered her vaguely. She was the daughter of friends of his parents who had lived for a while in Massachusetts, then moved to New Jersey when he was in high school. She had a British accent. Always with a book in her hand at parties. This was all that he remembers about her ; details neither appealing nor unappealing. His mother told him that she was a year younger than he was, that she had a much younger brother, that her father was a renowned chemist with a patent to his name. That he called her mother Rina Mashi, her father Shubir Mesho. Her parents had driven up for his father's funeral, his mother said , from New Jersey, but Gogol had no memory of them there. Moushumi lived in New York city these days, was a graduate student at NYU. She was supposed to have been married a year ago, a wedding that he and his mother and Sonia had been invited to, but her fiance, an American, had backed out of the engagement, well after the hotel had been booked, the invitations sent, the gift registry selected. Her parents were a bit worried about her. She could use a friend, his mother said. Why didn't he give her a call ?
Gogol had no intention of calling the girl whom her mother referred to ; his exam was coming up, besides, as much as he wanted to make his mother happy, he refused to let her set him up with someone. He refused to go that far. The next time he was home for the weekend his mother brought it up again. This time, because his mother insisted on noting down her number, he did it so, still with no intention of calling. But his mother persisted, reminding him, the next time they spoke, that her parents had come to his father's funeral that it was the least he cold do. A cup of tea, a conversation - did he have no time for that ?
Finally Gogol called Moushumi, suggesting to meet at a bar, in the East Village as was selected by her. It was a small, dark, silent space, a single square room with just three booths against one wall. She was there, sitting at the bar reading a paperback book, when he arrived, and when she looked up from the its pages, though it was she who was waiting for him, he had the feeling that he was interrupting her. She had a slender face, pleasingly feline features, spare, straight brows. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and boldly lined on the op lids, in the manner of 1960s movie stars. Her hair was middle-parted, gathered into a chignon, and she wore stylishly narrow tortoiseshell glasses. A gray wool skirt and a thin blue sweater clung suggestively to her sides. Opaque black tights covered her calves. A collection of white shopping bags lied at the base of her stool. On the phone he'd not bothered to ask what she looked like, assuming he could recognize her, but now he was no longer sure.
"Moshumi ?" he asked, approaching her.
"Hey there," she said, closing the cover of the book, and kissing him casually on both sides of his face. The book had a plain ivory cover, a little written in French. Her British accent, one of the few things he clearly remembered about her, was gone, she sounded as American as he did, with a low, gravelly voice that had surprised him on the phone. She had ordered herself a martini with olives. Beside it was a blue packet of Dunhills.
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