As Sweet as Honey (10 page)

“What child?”

“Her child.”

“What?”

And then Akbar’s friend understood.

“You don’t mean Nalani. You mean the tall one.”

“Of course I meant the tall one. She is heavenly,” said Akbar, his eyes full of dream and stars. “Who are you talking about?”

“I am—no one. I speak of no one. Do you mean the tall one?”

“Yes,” said Akbar, “the tall one.”

“I don’t know her name.”

And his friend was quiet, and embarrassed. A pregnant woman. And a widow, he’d heard, too. Who would want to speak to her?

“Introduce me.”

“How on earth—”

“Introduce me.”

So his friend took him down several rows to where Meterling stood, with Nalani, at the end of the concert.

“Madame.”

Madame?
wondered his friend.

“My dear.”

My dear?
Now everyone was embarrassed, but if Meterling was embarrassed, she didn’t show it. She merely said hello, and made small talk. Her disinterest was clear. This Akbar walked away, crestfallen. Meanwhile, Rajan and his sister also joined Meterling and Nalani, and now the group became livelier. So lively, it was remarked upon by some neighbors. Word got back to Grandmother—how could it not? Swiftly, inquiries were
made, horoscopes were consulted, hurried consults were held, and a marriage date was settled.

We glimpse such a small part of our lives. Imagine a paper clip attached to a piece of paper—or better yet, three pieces of paper. We pride ourselves on our organization, we congratulate ourselves on our innate wisdom, but in truth, all we ever know at one time is the area contained by the paper clip, while reams of paper reside in us.

What became of Akbar? Whom did he marry in the end? No matter my beliefs about myself, I knew that all islanders had to marry. It was a part of the laws that were set down in ancient times, scratched on palm leaf. To break the laws—for island Christians, it meant the word we weren’t to say. For us Hindus, it would be a bad rebirth. We might become cockroaches. Yet it seemed to me even cockroaches must have their happy moments, their families and feasts. Maybe the townspeople were right—maybe something like widowhood was the worst life imaginable. Hunger, too, like the people who sat on the curbs begging for anything, the boys with broken limbs surrounding the tourists. We knew their fathers had done that to their children, to get more money. Then there were the girls younger than me who lived in shuttered rooms, who were sold to men, who never had the chance to simply go to the beach and breathe. One of Rasi’s teachers had told her, and when we asked Aunt Pa, she confirmed our fears. I had nightmares, certain that ghosts sat at the foot of the bed, ready to pull me to the curb, to the shuttered rooms.

Archer haunted Meterling’s mind quite a bit, surely, but our family only really knew of one—no, two, or three—actual
reported sightings. One time in the garden, when the washer maid was hanging up the wash, but that could have been a trick of light; she claimed she could hear whistling. Once by the baby Aston Martin, which was parked sadly in the garage, dutifully polished by the driver, at least for the first six months, then left neglected. Except for the headlights, which for some reason Sanjay liked to polish. Not insignificant, because on turning twenty, one of the first things Sanjay did on arriving at Grandmother’s house that summer was go to the garage and set about restoring the car. But someone reported seeing Archer there once. Sometimes he was seen in town, a round man in a white suit, but we thought it must be someone else. Meterling herself said no, there was no ghost of Archer lingering around, there was no such thing. Did she wish there were? Meanwhile, in the garden, deep where she thought no one could see, Nalani sobbed.

16

W
e asked Meterling once if it was true that there were magicians on the island, like Rasi said. She thought a moment and said, “There are thirty thousand magicians on Pi, if not more.” Who were they really? She said, “Cooks and maids, bricklayers, sages and artists, writers, musicians, architects, outhouse cleaners. The sorcery they practice is a deep one, akin to the healing arts. Doctors, too, and mathematicians. And engineers and carpenters. All such magicians and workers—not a charlatan in the bunch.” Gardeners? “Of course.” Teachers? “Yes, those too.” So they don’t wear hats and have wands? “No, not like Merlin from your storybooks.

“These magicians create transformations however they can. Heal a broken bone.”

“That’s not magic,” said Sanjay, deeply disappointed.

“It is. Remember when Auntie Shobana broke her arm, and she wore a cast, and then the cast came off, and the arm was healed? That’s magic.”

“That’s science, Auntie.”

“Well, who is to say science isn’t magic, too?”

“I don’t know,” said Sanjay afterwards. “I think Auntie Meterling is crackers in the head if she thinks science is magic.”

“Maybe,” said Rasi, also doubtful. “But maybe she just means there is no magic in the world except what we make of it.”

“Of course there’s magic,” said Sanjay. “Real poof-wow magic.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“What do you think, Mina?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I believe Aunt Meterling. She knows everything.”

“Not
everything
.”

“She does,” I insisted, and burst into tears.

“Mina!”

“Mina, come back—don’t run away!”

“Mina.…”

But I did run away, run from them, and run out of the compound to the pond where women washed their clothes. No one was around, because the heat was so strong. I didn’t care, I was upset, but I wasn’t altogether sure why. Reaching the end of the road, I planned merely to turn around and go home before anyone noticed my absence, but I saw my aunt. She stood in the middle of the pond, slowly swaying. Joy burst into my heart and I began to run toward her. Then I thought I’d surprise her,
and crept up quietly. I thought she meant to bathe her feet. But she sat down, and now my heart began to beat fast. I felt a wave of fear come over me, because something seemed very wrong. All of a sudden, I thought she meant to drown the baby inside of her. I rushed up to her, shouting all the while, my feet splashing noisily. She turned around, and her eyes were vacant. I was afraid she wasn’t going to recognize me, but she didn’t say anything, merely reached for my hand, and stood up, and together we walked home. I realized that I wasn’t quite sure what happened. Could water rush in through her belly button? Was that how it was done? But then, how could she take a bath? In the back of my mind, I knew that it was not only the baby she was trying to drown. I took my aunt’s hand, and did not ask her anything.

An auntie of mine once studied with Rukmani Devi at Kalakshetra, that famous dancing institute in India. One year and it changed her life, and charged everything she did with a dancer’s touch. She learned Bharata Natyam, the sacred dance. She learned mudras; she learned to tip her eyes and head. Like some girls, I grew frustrated I could not tilt my head back and forth like a true Bharata Natyam dancer. But I danced on the roof, in the kitchen, in the front room in and around the chairs, sometimes even out on the veranda. Rasi and Sanjay and I held hands by turns, trying to spin faster and faster, seeing who would lose their balance first.

A widow needs to grieve a long time before she thinks of dance again. In the old days, maybe one didn’t think to dance at all. But if life deals a hard turn, it seemed to me that the
thing to do then was to step away a bit, breathe hard and soft, and try to dance again.

One day, we got ladoos from the sweet shop. They crumbled at our touch.

“Enjoy ladoos. At a wedding feast, they are the prize. If you are lucky, you will get two by accident when the server forgets he has already served you, and you sit in the right spot where he has finished one batch from his plate, goes back to the kitchen for a refill, and hurries back, forgetting where he had stopped, forgetting the place, and gives you another. A double bonus. Lucky wedding guest, especially if you traveled from out of town, are tired and a bit weary of the events—look, there is the ladoo, shiny and round, glistening with ghee, in front of you. Your treat. Enjoy,” said Shanti-Mami to us one day, as we lingered in the kitchen.

“Remember always to eat well, no matter what you have on your plate,” Meterling wrote me, years later. She was transcribing her recipes on paper—writing at last! “No matter what life removes from you—and you know, life also replaces what it removes (like breath, say the yogis, in and out like breath)—remember to eat well. Savor what you have. When we get depressed, we forget to eat. Eat anyway. Eat yogurt, eat rice, eat carrots—anything. Fill your tummy up so that it roars quietly and then roars softly. Fill your belly when you can. Hunger for life,” she told us. “Make pancakes. Eat biscuits with tea. Eat noodles in broth. Feed your pain with nourishment, not more pain. There is no use for pain that life doesn’t provide already.”

In her collection of recipes, she would write, “Watch the ladoo break apart on your plate—just nudge it a little with your fingernail, and see the revealed jewels. Saffron. Whole cardamom. Raisins. A touch of camphor. Golden split pea, cooked in sugar and glistening ghee. The cashew half, nicely toasted, next to a plump raisin, and wonder of wonders, the pod of the cardamom, its seeds dispersed into tiny black bits and ground fine into powder. Yes, place a bit in your mouth. Suck the juice, rejoice, it’s the
rasa
that you first experience, what we call
rooji
—the essence of any food’s taste, the top notes of flavor. Roll the food particle on your tongue, so you can experience all of the parts, and know the whole. Drink the cream of what remains, the innate richness, the joy, the sensation of sweet, the satisfaction. This is dessert. The finish of a good meal. The start of a wedding supper.”

17

M
ostly, it was Rasi, Sanjay, and I. Everyone else was too old, in boarding school or college. We three walked to school together and walked back. Sometimes, the bullies troubled us. The loud louts who picked on us and made us afraid. Walking home from school should have been joyous in those idyllic days of our childhood, but it made us nervous. Sometimes, the bullies would purposely ram into us, making our books tumble from our hands. They were rougher with Sanjay, leaving him with scraped knees. They used their slates, which hurt him badly. With us, they pulled at our schoolbags. That’s why Sanjay, Rasi, and I stuck together. We looked out for each other. The days they weren’t there, I ran as fast as I could
back home, safe. We played races and counting games so we could be quick on our feet and outrun those bullies. And when we grew, and imagined bullies all around (and in truth, it was largely our imaginations that supplied us with fresh fear), our first thought was to run as well; whether it was from love or work or pain, we ran. It was a childhood habit that was hard to control and harder to get over, but we did—each of us, in our own way, got over it, or we thought we did.

Sanjay made jokes, and ran quickly. Rasi and I held our heads high, and sometimes held hands, two warriors. What was hard was not to snap out at the girls who teased us about Meterling. Sometimes we did snap back, choking—angry, hurt words that led to hair pulling and shrieks. Once my teacher came home to complain and Grandmother listened gravely, but never spoke of it again to us. It did not make sense.

“Don’t worry, my mother will punish us both,” muttered Rasi, but Aunt Pa said nothing. The schoolgirls had called our aunt Meterling a slut and a dirty pot in Tamil.

We always had to go to school, though, not like Sanjay who stayed home once after he was beaten up by a pack of boys. It made little sense. Our aunt was pregnant; she had married. Why should anyone care?

On the other hand, there were ceremonies that went with nearly every aspect of our lives. From pujas to holidays, there was always reason to celebrate, no matter how grim the world. During her fifth month, the aunties held a special celebration for Aunt Meterling and the baby-to-be, to help pave the way for an auspicious birth. It was held in another auntie’s house, because we were still in ritual mourning for Uncle Archer. For one year, we could only visit other people at their celebrations, have none of our own.