Hema and Kaushik

Hema and Kaushik은 인도계 미국인 작가 줌파 라히리의 연작 단편입니다.

Once in a Lifetime

Hema와 Kaushik의 어린 시절 이야기를 담고 있습니다. 낯선 곳에서 나를 찾아가며 성장하는 여정이 어려운 것은 두 주인공이 인도계 미국인이어서만은 아닐 겁니다.

“I would find you, when I came home in the afternoons, always at the same end of the sofa, the toes of your thin bare feet hooked around the edge of the coffee table, reading books by Isaac Asimov that you’d picked off my father’s shelves in the basement. I hated Doctor Who, the one show you liked on television.

I did not know what to make of you. Because you’d lived in India, I associated you more with my parents than with me. “

Year’s End

대학생이 된 Kaushik의 시점에서 이야기가 계속됩니다. 어머니가 세상을 떠난 뒤 재혼을 한 아버지의 새 부인이 데려온 두 어린 여자 아이들을 본 Kaushik은 자꾸만 어린 시절 자신의 모습이 생각납니다.

“I felt separate from them in every way but at the same time could not deny the things that bound us together. There was my father, of course, but he seemed to be the least relevant in a way. Like them I’d made that journey from India to Massachusetts, too old not to experience the shock of it, too young to have a say in the matter.”

Going Ashore

Hema와 Kaushik은 성인이 되어 로마에서 다시 만납니다. 두 사람은 어떤 모습으로 서로를 기억하고 있을까요? 어떤 인연으로 남게 될까요?

“Turning onto their street, Kaushik noticed a woman standing on the sidewalk, long hair concealing her face, staring down at a map. ‘Signorina, dove deve andare? he asked.

The woman looked up, confused, and he realized, in spite of her dark hair and fitted leather coat, that she was not Italian. That in fact she was Indian. That he needn’t have used the polite form in addressing her, that her face was one he’d known.”