Jasmine

Back in present-day Iowa, Jasmine is talking to Darrel on the phone. He sounds increasingly frustrated and upset. He needs Bud to approve him for a loan to keep his farm going. Jasmine notes that suicide is the method of escape for farmers who have no other way to operate their land profitably, but increasingly, it is the choice even for those whose farms are in the clear.

Jasmine encourages Darrel to go to Dalton and speak further to the men who want to buy his land and build a golf course on it. Darrel talks about getting away from Iowa altogether, but when Jasmine tells him to do so, he accuses her of saying “I’m running away from my problems” (140). She decides to plead Darrel’s case to Bud. She thinks of how after five months in Flushing, she abruptly packed her belongings and left, wanting something else in life, but not knowing what that something was.

During Jasmine’s time in Flushing, her husband’s professor, Devinder “Dave” Vadhera gave her a place to live. Jasmine calls him Professorji. Professorji lives with his elderly parents and his new 19-year-old wife Nirmala, whom Jasmine takes special care not to antagonize or seem to compete with. Despite being in America, living with Professorji’s family means following all the rules associated with Indian culture.

Jasmine helps as a caretaker for Professorji’s parents, and as a cook and maid in the home. She slowly finds herself stifled and trapped by the familiar paradigms of Indian society, including the one where, as a widow, she must remain on the sidelines and out of sight. Unhappy and depressed, Jasmine gains weight and sobs uncontrollably when no one else is home.

One day, Professorji comes home early and catches Jasmine crying. She confesses that she wants a green card because a “green card was freedom” (147). When Professorji points out that a green card is expensive, Jasmine bursts out, “I’m dying in this limbo” (149). In honor of her husband, Professorji agrees to purchase the green card that Jasmine will make payments on, although it is a matter that he tells her must stay between the two of them.

One afternoon, Professorji’s father cuts his head on a faucet, and Jasmine, uncertain of the man’s immigration status, chooses to call Professorji at his school first before calling an ambulance. But when she calls every school in the area to search for him, there is no one by his name employed there. Jasmine finds an address for Professorji’s school at Nirmala’s sari shop —only to find that there is no school and he is not a professor. He is an importer of human hair that he sells to wigmakers.

Professorji decides to call a family friend who is a doctor to stop by and bandage his father’s cut. He is angry at Jasmine because she has found out his lie, although she tells him she will still pretend to talk about his science lab and his assistants in front of his wife. Professorji offers to purchase Jasmine’s hair when it reaches 24 inches, for $3,000: “He was buying my silence for his shame, and I felt the shame as well” (152). The next week, Jasmine reaches out to Lillian Gordon’s photographer daughter for help.

Jasmine discusses Du’s aptitude for engineering and electronics, noting his ability to create beneficial technologies around the house. She calls Du “the son Prakash and I might have had” (154). Bud is not as impressed with Du’s skills, noting that what Du showcases is an ability to scavenge and adapt, precisely the skills that helped him survive in a refugee camp.

When Jasmine asks Du where he learned engineering, Du claims his skills are innate, like Bud’s ability to manage money, and Jasmine’s to manage Bud. They share a moment where they both admit that, as refugees, they both have struggled, and they both have killed.

Bud calls Jasmine from a conference in Des Moines: After Bud gave a speech, a man threatened to kill him, fastening a pamphlet to Bud’s wheelchair that said, “Jews Take Over Our Farmland” (157). This incident is one of many characterizing a dangerous and changing landscape in Middle America. Jasmine figures Bud must be crying in his room, something doctors referred to as a post-traumatic syndrome. Bud tells Jasmine, “Things weren’t always this ugly, Jane” (158).