As Sweet as Honey (7 page)

Nalani had a funny little finger, smaller than the usual small pinkie. It was a birth defect, a stub. We loved to hold it, and compare its littleness to our own little and littler fingers. Nalani had long, thick braids, and liked to wear chiffony dupattas over her skirts. We thought her laugh was like running water, all sparkle and stream. Nalani liked to paint on glass as well as fold paper fortunes; she was the artist in our family. She painted beautiful girls from the classical period, dancing girls and musicians holding tamburas and veenas, small drums and cymbals.
She went to Madhupur Women’s Art College, and took two buses to get there. There had been a row about her going, but Auntie Pa prevailed, saying that all girls should go to college; it was nonsense to think otherwise.

My own mother had gone to college, but many of my aunts had not. Nalani’s mother had been in a class of four, one of the first girls to go to the local Catholic college in 1951. In those days, families who sent their girls to college were made fun of. Why do they protest, our grandfather had fumed (so we’d been told); our girls would be skilled at economy, home science, at the arts, make better wives than those without a B.Sc. Others resisted any Catholic institution, and the kneeling that went on within those walls. All this fuss over a class of four.

“What’s the matter, don’t you want her to get married?” persisted the neighbors, worried he had gone crazy. But my grandfather maintained that an educated woman could educate her family, and college was the natural step to take. But though the band of four was brave, there were faculty who refused to teach girls, who said “they were unteachable, that it was immoral, and even the Gita had concurred.” The president of the college, versed in Sanskrit and no slouch, defended his actions, and threatened to dismiss faculty who would not cross the border. It was a bold step; in other situations, a man might say this, but in private—it would be understood that the threat would not be carried out. Clustering close and walking hand in hand in the corridors, where the men frankly stared, then hurriedly looked away, the four sought to absorb information quickly and become good scholars.

The following year, the enrollment for girls at the college dipped to two and the coed program was done away with. Then, in 1954, a new women’s college was built, and the compulsory Catholic prayer with kneeling was made optional, and families sent their girls in droves, or at least dozens. My mother
attended RKV Subalakshmi College and, together with her two best friends, Anu and Miriam, studied physics and chemistry. When Miriam told the girls she was going to become a nun, my mother and the other friend cried. “But, Miriam, what about your hair?!” was all they could think of to say, so shocked and hurt were they; but Miriam hugged her friends and said no shaving was involved, only a crop—“Think of Joan of Arc!”—which made the girls cry even more, followed by Miriam herself.

Everyone was full of stories about our grandfather. He had been posted to Malaysia, on assignment for the civil engineering project he was engaged in. He and a colleague subsisted on careful rations of rice, they were so poor. One morning his friend was so hungry, he ate the day’s supply, and Grandfather wouldn’t speak to him for the rest of the week. The friend apologized profusely, but my grandfather turned a stony ear. Years later, the friend married the daughter of a poet, and he asked his father-in-law to write a sonnet on a single grain of rice dedicated to my grandfather. My grandfather had the rice grain framed, and to this day, it hangs proudly in the house.

My mother adored my grandfather. She told me all the time about the good things he did. Even though his son-in-law had childhood polio, he never let him feel bad, so to this day, Uncle Darshan is the jolliest man we know. Grandfather married my mother off to a scholar who drank far too much espresso, who had too much brilliance for India, so he sent him to America. He was part of a crowd of men accused by India: Brain Drain! Sons abandoning Mother India! But even though Kennedy, a
young, smart man who once had said, Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country, did not govern America, he had once, and that spoke of hope, even if they had killed him. He was an American who was as good as Nehru perhaps, but maybe not as wise, “for really, who could be as wise as Nehru and Gandhi, Mina?” My aunties loved to tell me about Indian history, about Asoka and the Pallavas. My head swam with story, lived for story—“Then what? … Then what?” I’d ask. In my school, my teacher said she could not continue the lessons, for I would constantly erupt with questions. She gave me a notebook so I could write them down to ask her later, but instead, I began to draw.

10

M
eterling stood in an archway. She saw the sunrise in bits—bright orange low in the sky. She saw the clouds grow purple, saw the sun loom large, awake. She saw the sun loom large, loom large and become round, filling her view—making her round, filling her view of the sky. She walked in the path of the sun, thinking of her son, and smiling and grimacing at once at the interplay of words, at the poor pun, but then her mind calmed again—she saw in the sun’s progression her own limitations and saw also her son’s possibilities. She knew she would have a son. She saw the possibilities for her son, who, like the sun, would turn from round orange to transparent yellow to a blue steel—a silvery steel, climbing high before she knew it. Her son would see the world, travel through the sky. And with a mother’s intuition, she held
him strong in the womb, and gritted her teeth in anticipation of the childbirth months away.

She greeted the day each morning by walking her coriander coffee to the herb garden. The tulsi in the pedestal was lush; the thyme had begun flowering too early, because of the spate of recent hot days. The oregano stood tall and full. Only the lavender was slow, raising perfumed leaves to herald the still-green buds. The burst of lavender had always been significant to Meterling, ever since as a child she weaved wreaths from the flowers to shape into crowns. The day was overcast. A thundery day might well ensue. This time, she did not think of Archer for a full ten minutes. Her fingers were growing plump. She had long taken off the rings, thinking she would give them to her son to give to his bride. What would Oscar grow up to be? Would he have his father’s white skin, his blond hair? Would he be ridiculed in school? She placed her hands protectively over her belly. She would protect him, she would surround him with such love, and it would shield him from taunts and cruelty.

Nalani also spent a great deal of time in the garden. She liked to walk deep into the backyard, where there was a small clearing under the lemon tree. There, she could lose many minutes just staring at the green grass and breathing in the heady aroma of lemon blossom. She placed a small chair and table there, so she could sometimes sit with her feet up. One day she noticed a papery wasp nest deposited neatly on the table. It was so light and carefully constructed—a honeycomb of networking. As she tossed it away—it looked like there were some waspy remnants inside—she wondered how it got there. Three days later, a small bird’s eggshell was on the table. Two halves actually, beautifully oval and colored pale green. When the small strawberries arrived nestled on a mat of leaves, she knew that
someone was leaving her presents. She wasn’t frightened. She didn’t feel as if she were being watched or stalked—no pinprick of fear or agitation to suggest anything out of place. Only a sense of peace and a calm happiness. Soon, they would arrange a marriage for her, and she knew to whom it would have to be.

It was Sanjay, whom she finally caught in the act. Something to do, he shrugged.

Meterling was four months gone and ready to give birth any day. But Dr. Kamalam had said there were four months and twenty-eight days still to go. She wanted to take off all her clothes and float in cool water, anything to feel less weighted. She did not want to wear the bangles at the bangle ceremony when all the women would crowd around her and offer baby advice. She wished she could take a plane to England, run among those violets Archer always spoke of. She wished she could drink a martini. She had seen a picture of one in
Punch
and it looked cool and inviting.

Instead, she ate sugared sweets, round halvahs made of carrot and ghee; small balls of farina studded with almonds. Everything round to remind her of her round belly, her round baby. When she wasn’t eating sweets, she felt cross, magic Meterling, ready to break sticks, throw rocks, anything to get it all over with. Why had she been so hasty to sleep with Archer? Did she really think she could fool the gods? How could the baby brave a life with no father?

“Come to the concert with me,” coaxed Nalani. “The loud violins might please the child.”

“Can violins really be that loud?” wondered Meterling.

It was a local Carnatic group practicing for the winter music fests in South India. A flute player was supposed to be especially good, having studied under the great Mali. Forty violins would accompany her.

As it was, it was only four violinists, not forty. “Would that it were true, madam,” sighed the ticket master as he counted out their change. “What a celestial chorus that would be!”

The aunties had wondered if it were wise to bring Meterling to the concert, but Meterling was twitching. Uncle Darshan suggested she go to a scary movie, but Nalani thought violins would give more grace to the birth. “The child inside can probably no doubt hear everything,” she said, and then blushed for the frankness of her expression. Smitten with a college boy named Rajan, whom she secretly named Goat Herder, and no one else, Nalani knew that she was not wise in anything to do with the heart.

“But a baby, Nalani,” said Meterling, “has to do with the body, and sometimes—yes, only sometimes—with the heart as well. Archer and I didn’t think twice; we were caught up in the moment—there I was in his bed, with my sari coming undone. Who could have predicted it? Of course, we knew we were to marry—he’d asked already, but I hadn’t said yes, you know. I said yes only three days later, shocked by it all, of course …”

Nalani blushed at Meterling’s frankness, thinking of Rajan, whom she met at an intercollege outing. She could bind herself to him in one breath, after all.

“What does that mean?” Rasi would ask if she could hear her thoughts. What would it mean to bind oneself like that? Bind like a vine? Like a knot?

“Like a love knot,” I would reply, “like a love knot.” But those adult conversations were not part of our privilege, so I make them up now as much as I can.

They came back late from the concert, and Meterling was again in good humor.

11

M
eterling said we are all of us braver than she could ever be. I didn’t understand, because to me it was Meterling who was the bravest of anyone I knew. She was the one in the family who went outside tradition, the one whom the aunts scolded, the one who gave rise to so much talk. But Meterling said we were young and therefore would always be able to do more than her.

“I can’t even drive a car,” she said, “but you girls will drive as soon as you are able.”

“Why can’t you drive, Auntie? Aunt Shobana can.”

“I fear crashing, Mina, of hurting someone else with my hands. I fear panicking between choosing accelerator and brake. Perhaps I fear making mistakes. I worry about forgetting how to drive while driving. I worry I won’t know what to do at intersections. I know I need more experience behind the wheel to gain confidence, make left turns, merge into traffic, but I get scared. So if someone makes fun, says, ‘Take the bus,’ I think okay, yes, I’m not too proud to do that. But you, my dear, you will drive, and drive well, in all sorts of weather, at night, safely, securely.”

“I will learn to drive a motorcycle,” said Rasi.

“Of course,” laughed Aunt Meterling. “And why not?”

What she didn’t tell us: that with Archer came her chance to travel, that without him, she was moored, unable to drive, fixed.

Aunt Meterling herself had a friend, Chitra, who rode a
turquoise blue Vespa scooter, always with her hair in a braid, tossed like a scarf around one shoulder.