As Sweet as Honey (15 page)

Simon seemed to enjoy seeing his parents. He went on walks with his father, trailing a stick in his hand. His father was friendly with all of us. Simon got him to try our coffee, and the hotter foods. His mother stuck with tea. I liked them well enough, although they made me shy. They kept asking what standard was I in, never remembering the answer. His mother had once been an accountant, and his father worked for the family company. In the evenings, they sat with Meterling and Simon and Oscar, as the trees rustled with the breeze, and the perfumed jasmine wafted across the veranda. Simon’s mother held Oscar in her arms, cooing. At first, she seemed afraid of him, but later told Grandmother, “Well, a baby is just a baby.” Still, I noticed that she looked at Oscar,
stared
at him, really, and her face crisscrossed with vying emotions. I overheard her crying, asking Simon, “But you will have children of your own, won’t you?”

It didn’t make sense to me, this obsession that children had to be born of the mother and father, that adopted children were somehow less. Our family had it, and now it seemed Simon’s family had it, too. Simon’s father seemed to mind less. “I’m a grandfather, and you can’t take that from me,” he said, softly humming, boarding the ferry that would take them back to the airport in India.

In a week, my mother would visit. It had been a year since I had seen her, and I was excited. Now she would get to see how tall I’d grown, and my school projects. Maybe she would come with me to school. She would be able to meet Oscar and Simon, too. Then again, I wondered if she would want to do any of those things. As it turned out, Simon was in England when she came. After the registered wedding, Simon still lived in the guesthouse, and Meterling with us, where the aunties, despite their teasing, were still taking care of Oscar. It seemed a perfectly fine arrangement. But now Simon was scouting their new life abroad, and my mother was to come scout out mine.

We met my mother at the harbor: Nalani, Uncle Darshan, Uncle Thakur (who was on leave from his office), Rasi, Sanjay, and me. I wore a nice frock, which came with shorts attached that my mother had sent to me for my birthday, and my hair was painfully pulled back in two braids. Every now and then, I’d tug at the ribbons to loosen them. From where we stood, we saw the boat dock. Crowded with people waving and shouting to us on land, the small boat was majestic in a way. Soon the passengers descended. There she was! My mother, in a very bright green sari, holding a big purse. Uncle Thakur kept me from running to the door to meet her. At the arrivals building, then, we waited for her to clear customs, and finally my mother swept me up in her arms. She hadn’t forgotten me, as I secretly worried; she knew who I was.

While we waited for her luggage, my mother told us about the flight. She described the meals they had been served, the passengers next to her, and the hard candies the stewardesses brought in trays. Opening her bag, she distributed almond cookies wrapped in beautiful paper from the Italian airport. She described the way the plane rocked through a lightning
storm, which was called “turbulence.” All the while, I clung to her, as if I were five years old instead of ten.

We crammed into the Ambassador van Uncle Thakur had hired, and drove home. Outside, green rice paddies flew by, and silvery lakes. Coconut trees rippled their fronds lazily, and my mother pointed out a man climbing up one, using a small piece of rope to help him ascend.

“There is nothing like this in the U.S.,” she said. “All the coconuts are in supermarkets—but at least there are coconuts! But no fresh coconut water. I miss that.”

So Uncle Darshan immediately asked our driver to stop at the next roadside stand, where a woman hacked off the tops of green coconuts, scraped the soft white flesh inside, and handed us each one, with a straw and a scraper. The driver said he didn’t want one, and went off a ways to smoke. Happily, we drank and ate. Once we finished, we handed the nuts back to the vendor, who scowled and smashed them into a pile behind her.

“Everybody wipe your fingers—no stickiness in the car! Okay, now let’s drive fast, because they will all be watching the clock,” said Uncle Darshan as we got back in.

Everyone was waiting on the veranda. Aunt Pa rushed toward the car door as we spilled out, and hugged my mother fiercely.

“
Vare-va
, look at your hair,” she said, smoothing my mother’s short pixie cut.

My mother grinned, and touched Grandmother’s feet.

“Finally, finally. Why did you take so long to return?” my grandmother said as she held her foreign-gone daughter.

“And look at you, my dear,” said my mother, turning to Aunt Meterling, who was really her niece, to hug her. “Look at you. And look at this darling boy.”

•   •   •

The entire month she was home, I slept in her bed. My mother cuddled me, but morning usually found us facing out, back to back, deep in our own separate dreams. I asked her what her school was like. She told me the brick walls were covered in green ivy, which made me think of Sleeping Beauty. She was studying astrophysics, and said that her team was building a telescope better than any before. Sometimes, her team worked all through the night, taking naps on couches. She was helping with the lens, creating mathematical formulas to make sure the dimensions were right. She smelled good, like perfume and powder. She gave me extra kisses and hugs from my father, who was hard at work, she said. She let me wear her jewelry, but not her marriage chain (“One day you’ll have one of your own”), and showed me the clothes she’d brought for all of us: T-shirts and jeans, more dresses, and, best of all, sneakers. When I laced up mine, I felt I could run as fast as I wanted to, that anything was possible.

During the day, we went to temple, visited all the relatives and friends nearby and far, went to see silly movies, and, every day, got an ice cream at the beach. My mother laughed a great deal, and with her, both Aunt Pa and Aunt Meterling looked like girls. Or at least, they looked less auntie-like. We played with Oscar, who was fatter now, sturdy, and happy to cry whenever he felt like it. My mother brought him a stuffed tiger, the mascot of my father’s university school, with which he was delighted. She also brought baby clothes and soft rattles, and teething rings. My mother met Ajay, and promised to return for the wedding with my father. She squeezed Nalani’s hand, hardly believing, she said out loud, that Nalani was already marrying.

Late at night, she spoke with Grandmother and Aunt Pa about America, encouraging Auntie and the uncles to move to the States. She said we’d all get a good education. Aunt Pa was not that interested, but Uncle Thakur was. He was eager to see Rasi get an education in the U.S. Aunt Pa wondered if it wasn’t risky to leave a good job for one that didn’t exist.

“Life is an adventure, Parvati!”

“Life also means providing for your children.”

As they began to argue, my mother told Grandmother about my father. He was working on his dissertation, and would be going on job interviews. We would likely settle in New York or New Jersey, she said.

I was not certain of the move. If Rasi and Sanjay moved as well, it would not be so bad. Everyone wanted to go to the U.S., everyone. But what about Pi? What about Madhupur, and the beach? No coconut water—what else would there be none of? Already Meterling was going to London, and Nalani would be going to medical college while Ajay applied for jobs in the U.S. I worried my grandmother would feel lonely, for we would be abandoning her like a sinking ship. Why couldn’t she come too? But Grandmother had no desire to move. She liked Pi, her world, as she had known it from birth. Yes, the house might be quieter with all of us gone, but she would not move in with her daughters. Meterling begged her to come to London, but in the end, Grandmother said if she had to live with anyone, she would take on boarders. The house could be rented, providing an income, and kept open for us when we all visited.

27

A
n auspicious day was selected for Nalani’s wedding. Our family had spent months getting ready, securing the hall, the musicians, caterers, sending the hundred-plus invitations. Everyone was coming. Oscar was now almost three months old. I was so excited to see both my mother and my father that I could hardly contain myself with anticipation. Sometimes I just jumped up, feeling my skin would burst.

By now, the baby could roll onto his stomach. He seemed more and more a person. Simon brought all sorts of baby gear back with him from England, including soft little knitted socks from his mother. Oscar would get a tiny snap-on kurta for the wedding, with gold embroidery. Every time we saw it, Rasi and I would exclaim, “So sweet!” But far sweeter was Oscar, who gurgled happily and kicked his hands and feet for no reason. My grandmother had feared that Simon would be nonvegetarian, but he surprised us all by revealing he had been vegetarian since his college days.

Simon had located a flat within walking distance of his new job, with a small garden. The subletters of his old flat had decided to stay on. He showed us photographs. The building it was in was of a yellow-white stone, and you entered through a small wrought-iron gate. There were geraniums poking out of tiny pots behind the railing, and a gray cat snoozed nearby. You walked down the stone steps to a door painted green. Inside, there was a kitchen we eagerly pored over, it having a refrigerator, and a stove with an oven, a round wooden table with two
chairs. There were two larger rooms, and a Western-style bathroom with a big tub that stood on claw feet. From the kitchen, another door led into a small rectangular garden, growing roses, herbs, and some flowers we could not identify in pots. The street was above the garden, so it felt secret. Meterling liked the whole place, but I liked the garden the best.

There were more photographs of the street, of an Indian takeaway, a large grocery store called Waitrose, a pub, and a park. There was also a picture of Simon’s office, and some family pictures, including ones of Simon as a boy. He looked pretty cute, we had to admit.

Would Meterling like England? We played a game called L-O-N-D-O-N, but we didn’t know much about the city. Uncle Darshan brought us a picture book and we learned about various buildings, the Globe Theatre, Buckingham Palace with the Changing of the Guard, and the Parliament buildings. We all liked the map of the Underground trains. When we visited, we would use it a lot, we decided. Still, it was very different than Pi. There were no bullock carts, no motor rickshaws, no temples, no beach. No us.

“Sometimes I think he is too perfect, and wonder how I am blessed enough to have him in my life,” said Aunt Meterling, to which Grandmother always responded by saying that Meterling always deserved the best in life.

Simon finally met my parents, who hoped to go to a postdoc conference in London one day. They spent a long conversation about the city and its restaurants. We were gathered to see the saris Meterling and Nalani had bought for the wedding. They had bought saris for the groom’s family, as well as silk and gold thread dhotis for Ajay, his father, and his brother. They were appropriately appreciated, but what everyone wanted to see
were the saris for the aunties and Grandmother. Here was the real show. Auntie Pa received a lovely dark-brown gold-shot Banaras silk, with an extensive mango-design paloo; Meterling received a beautiful blue Banaras silk, the color of twilight when just the faintest hint of sun is on the horizon; and my mother and grandmother received Kanjeevaram saris, one red and gold, the other heavy emerald green, while Rasi and I received long silk skirts with matching tops, yellow-gold and pink, respectively. Our skirts had already been made, so we rushed to try them on and twirl. They didn’t flare out like our Western frocks, but billowed like bells.

Nalani had four saris: one six-yard in orange for the formal engagement; one six-yard in red for the wedding; one tissue-silk gharara in pale pink with an all-over pattern in silver thread for the reception; and one that would be presented to her by Ajay’s parents at the wedding itself, a nine-yard one into which she would change for the final ceremony. Ajay’s parents would also present her with a sari at their home. Nalani had chosen the first three. When coaxed to try on the gharara, she came out looking like a film star. All of a sudden, I felt like I was going to cry. I didn’t want Nalani to get married, go live in Ajay’s house, even if she did like him. My mother must have noticed, for she gave me a hug, and told Rasi and me to take off our new dresses before we spilled something on them.

All day and night, women sat stringing flowers together with needle and thread for the garlands. Cooks had been hired to make the wedding feast. Men who were champion sweetmakers set up shop with a seriousness that would have seemed almost funny if they hadn’t given us tastes when no one was watching. The man who made murukkus was famous throughout the town, because he could coax enormous spirals out
of the most delicious chickpea batter dropped in hot oil; his sons helped him make small ones for the reception dinner. A man delivered glossy plantain leaves that needed to be kept moist. Coconuts were being broken and shredded, vadas being fried, sambars and rasams were simmering, vegetables cut and peeled. A very strange concoction resembling mini-volcanoes were shaped out of sugar; they’d be present at the wedding ceremony, but would not be eaten.