Page 88 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Let Mariah know that her uncle Jack is healing well now. He’s out of the woods at last.

Jill

Dear Jill,

Hope you’re having fun. I got a great score on my latest paper and feel very proud of myself. I feel like I’m living a dream and hate the idea of coming home, ever, honestly. I’ve learned so much about food and cooking and how to feed people. Zoish has been teaching me how to cook so many things, and it’s weird how much I love it. We don’t cook at the restaurant, of course, because I kind of get the impression that it’s not really done, that men are the ones in charge there.

But she cooks at home. Her mom died two years ago, and the whole family has been pretty sad about it. Zoish is the oldest daughter, so she cooks for her siblings. Her brother is the oldest, but he’s not really around that much when I’m there. He’s studying architecture and studies or works all the time. He’s polite when he’s around. We had a good conversation about how art deco was a response to the Victorian model of excess, and it didn’t really change my mind, because I love the Victorian thing in Denver so much, but he made some good points. He said that Bombay is known for its art deco designs, that Zoish should take me and show me.

So we might do that.

In the meantime, she lets me cook with her. Spicing is so important in Parsi cooking, like other forms of Indian cooking, which varies a lot according to where you are. I’m learning how to use goat and lamb, which are in everything, like hamburger at home.

Gotta go study.

Love you,

Rachel

Postcard: Chowpatty Beach

Jill,

Doing some great exploring with some of the Brits in classes. Spent a day here, eating food from all these different places.So good!They have a festival where they carry Ganesha (the elephant/man god) to the ocean. It’s so dazzling my eyes hurt. Letter coming. xoxox

Dear Jill,

I got your letter and I am not brave at all—I’m a big messy noob, wading out into the world and getting dirty.

Of course I make a fool of myself!All the time!But it’s worth it. If somebody gets mad at me, I just figure I can make it right by learning more. Apologize later!

Anyway, this is the letter I promised in my postcard. I had such a great day. I’m so sunburned I look like a lobster, but it was such an interesting time. Zoish, Darshan (her big brother, the architect student), and I did a tour yesterday of some art deco sites in Mumbai. There’s a whole block of apartmentbuildings along a beach that are built in that style, and it’s impressive to see them.

I loved seeing all the architecture, but I just liked being in Bombay with people who know it, who could point things out like the art deco apartments, and the best chai wallahs, these little bakeries, and certain kinds of food. I’m learning to eat so many new things—dosas, which are a very thin crispy bread or like a crisp crepe, a tiny bit sour and just so interesting. There are so many kinds of chutneys, some with the familiar things like tomato and onion and coriander (cilantro, which was so confusing at first! The whole plant is called coriander here, not just the seeds like in the US), but also a million other kinds (mint! mango! carrot! beetroot!). The multitudes of chutneys remind of me of the trucks all painted and decorated with flowers and altars—why not add more?

I have been thinking lately I don’t want to study liberal arts anymore. I’m still in love with Indian history and poetry (I’m sending you a book of poems by Kamala Surayya that I think you’ll like.) but maybe that’s not where my work is. Maybe that’s something I love but don’t have to center my life around. Remember when you went crazy for Marco Polo? (Or maybe that was me. Haha. The explorers and the silk road and people who were writing gorgeous things thousands of years before Cleopatra). I definitely don’t want to teach—I’d have to kill people—and I don’t think I have the right personality for university life anyway.

What I might want is to do something with food. Not cook, exactly. I like it, but that’s a really hard road. But maybe when I come back, I’ll go to culinaryschool and try a bunch of things on. Do you think mom will be super mad?

I’m glad you’re so happy with Jack, Jill (ha!). I wish I could meet somebody more like some of the guys I know here. They’re respectful, and not so ... I can’t put my finger on it. Like, they’re nicer. It doesn’t feel like they’re trying to figure out how to put the moves on you all the time. (Because they aren’t, probably!) Families still arrange marriages for kids, and they laugh if you start getting freaked out about it. Zoish said, “it’s not like we’re married off to some evil duke who will beat us forever. We get to meet the boys and get to say which ones we like.” Not like Western people have the marriage record to be proud of.

Love,

Rachel

Dear Jill,

That party sounds like a blast. You’re so good at hosting! I can’t wait to try a booty cocktail. (Haha!!)

It’s getting hotter by the minute, and I have to admit it’s kind of hard sometimes. On days with some wind, it’s bearable, but then you’ll get a day where there isn’t a single breath, and the air feels like a solid block, like something you could cut. I’m so tempted to cut my hair off, but then I’ll be cold when the snows come next winter, so I’ve just been twisting it off my neck. So much hair. Too much. I never appreciated how much it weighs before.

School is good. I got an A+ on a paper exploring the Victorian gingerbread and how it reflected society vs. the art deco movement, which freed people up ina strange but undeniable way. Darshan helped me track down the right research, and we’re getting a lot closer. He is so handsome, Jill! The most soulful eyes, dark dark dark, but not black, because you can see his pupils, and the longest lashes I’ve ever seen on a guy. And he always smells so good. I don’t know if it’s soap or cologne or what, but it just kind of gets under my skin. When he leaves a room, I can smell it lingering, like his body leaves an aura.

It’s really not done here, but we hid behind some trees at this park and kissed. I wanted to faint! It was so powerful, like our souls have been waiting for us to meet again at last. I said that, kind of, and he pressed his forehead to mine and said, “Yes, I remember.” So romantic!

We talk and talk and talk, about everything, home and time and history and books and lots of architecture and colonialism and everything. We talk and walk and eat. I feel like he gets me, like he knows what I’m going to say before I say it.

I don’t think I’ve ever really been in love before, but I just live for the moments when we are together—not very often! Never enough! It’s strange to want somebody so much and know we can’t do anything about it. It’s weirdly sexy, I don’t know why.