Monsoon Summer (28 page)

“What was inside?” Amma asked.

“Well, this is the wonderful thing,” Glory continued, her finger in the air. “And the dreadful. Before the war, Daisy's father was a rather good artist. He studied at the Slade, then went to Paris, was taken around all the studios, met all the gang. So . . .” Another
long pause. “What we found was a pile of pictures in this very dusty room. They were leaning against a wall. Now, does the name Picasso mean anything to you?” She slid her eyes up at Appan.

“Of course.” He was slightly exasperated. “Square ladies with round heads and all such things. One of the most famous artists in the world,” he explained to the aunts.

“Well, behind two very ordinary seascapes, we found one of his.” The table let out a collective gasp.

“And when we picked it up, the whole thing crumbled in our hands. Heartbreaking—woodlice, wood worm, who knows? As I said, Daisy is not the world's best housekeeper. So I wrapped up all those shards, and I took them to a restorer in Cirencester.

“He looked at them, said, ‘Terribly sorry, they're beyond hope.' I begged him to try and save them, but all we could salvage were bits of hands and feet, a skew whiff of a smile, and then tantalizingly the name Picasso, beautifully preserved.” She gave a small sigh, then collected herself.

“So how did this situation resolve, and you get here eventually?” Appan the practical wanted to know. My mother looked confused for a moment.

“Oh, I took the chap back to the house, and we found one or two other bits and pieces. Minor artists, nothing special. So we took them to an auction,” my mother continued. “Got some money for them, all very exciting,”—my mother's smile was flung about the table like a sunbeam—“but it delayed my trip. Some of the money helped pay for my journey.”

“Your friend was kind to give you the money,” Ponnamma said. “It was her house. A very good friend to give you the money.”

“That's true,” my mother replied. “But don't forget, I found the extra room.”

In the applause that followed I was in awe of her: her verve, her daring. It was good to see her smiling too and the haggard, hunted lines of her face soften, at least for now.

Was the story true? No idea. Honestly none. She'd never divulged to me the origins of the “little windfall” that had brought her to India, and I hadn't dare ask. And then again, if she was embroidering the truth, I thought Picasso was a mistake—too obvious, too unlikely—but if she wasn't, why hadn't Daisy, who'd reported fully on mother's pneumonia, mentioned a shred of it?

-
CHAPTER 38
-

W
hen Anto saw Amma go into the garden after lunch, he followed her down the garden path and towards the potting shed. He knew her well enough to know that lunch with Glory had been an ordeal—this exotic hybrid appearing from nowhere, needing knives and forks, and special conversation. And then the linked thought of how much easier—more fun! more profitable—it would have been with Anu in her place, and Vidya sitting beside him.

“Hello, stranger,” she said, when she saw him. She was on her knees planting an orchid.

“Hello, Amma,” he said. He sat down on the bench. “Thank you for lunch. I know these things aren't easy for you.”

“Did I show it?”

“No, you were kind.”

“Kind.” She examined the word as she settled the new plant into its bed of bark and soil; a trickle of moisture from her jug colored the gray earth red.

“This one's called lady's slipper,” she said at last in a tight voice. “Appan sent it to me from Madras. It came from Mr. Xavier, my specialist grower. He said, ‘If anyone can charm flowers from buds, you can, Madam.'”

“Well, it's true.” When he touched her hand, he saw her eyes fill with tears. “People bloom here too; it wouldn't happen without you.”

She brushed her tears away with a quick efficient gesture.

“What else can I be but polite?” She gave a little gasp. “Life happens to you, you can't control it.”

She put away her trowel, and they walked down to the bench facing the water. They watched the sun gild the water with shining bars of light and slowly melt behind the trees in a fiery glow. Across the lake, early evening fires were being lit outside the scattering of huts. The thump of drums came from the Hindu temple, and voices singing evening prayers.

“Just like old times,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, her face golden with reflected light, “but not really.” He wanted her to add something comforting but her expression was both sad and proud.

He knew he confused her now: the jokes, the deep reserve, the uneasy look he gave her before he answered simple questions, as if trying to filter out what would offend her.

Over lunch, he had looked at Glory through Amma's eyes and known what she'd be thinking. A strange kettle of fish that one: so confident, so instantly vivacious, so ever slightly flirtatious. Skinny too—must be ill—and very, what was the word? Slippery about her own past. But where was she from? Why had she stayed away? Where was her family? Underneath Amma's enchanted gaze these questions would have seethed.

“Your father seemed to like her,” she said now.

“Yes.”

“But men are like babies like that: feed them the sugar of flattery and they bloom too.” She smiled to show she didn't care at all.

“Do you mind him being away so much?”

“Of course I think he is working himself to death, but what can I do?”

Anto didn't have an answer.

“But I will tell you one thing,” Amma said, breaking the long pause that followed. “He and I agree about one important thing; so,
by the way, does her mother. We would like Kit to have more babies and spend less time at work.”

A swarm of confused feelings rose up in him at this: How to explain to his mother that this was all he wanted too, without being disloyal to Kit? How to explain to himself the resentment he felt at all these old biddies butting their noses into her reproductive life?

“When did this discussion with her mother take place?” he asked.

“We were alone, after lunch. You and Kit were upstairs with Raffie.”

“What did you say?”

“Well . . .” Amma began, innocently bland. “I began by saying, ‘Your daughter is a wonderful mother. I hope more are planned.' She said, ‘Amen to that. I'd like her to have tons of babies and give up that work she does. I think it's a horrible job.'”

Amma brushed invisible crumbs of dirt from her lap. “She told me she blamed the war for getting her into it. The war changed girls, she said, and not for the better: it got them almost addicted to danger and responsibility. When it ended, she'd begged and begged Kit to stop. Don't look at me like that! You asked me what she said, I'm telling you.”

When his mother finished her outburst, with a firm closing of her lips, he felt a moment of dull rage on Kit's behalf: addicted to danger! to responsibility! What insulting claptrap, and what a reduction of her spirit and her bravery and her dedication, of the other nurses too. But he said nothing: the two grandmas were talking, they had found common ground. For everyone's sake, this truce must be preserved, for the time being.

“So you covered a lot of ground.” He shifted away from her.

“Not really. It's probably the only thing we have in common.” She gave a bitter smile and put her trowel in the pocket of her garden apron. “I'm tired, you know. I'm going to go to bed early.”

-
CHAPTER 39
-

“I
s there anything you'd particularly like to do while you're here, Mummy?” I'd said when she first arrived, thinking there must be an old school, a village, a district she'd want to visit; one that might bring the big blank of her past alive, not just for her, but for me too.

“Not really, darling,” came the disappointing answer. “You decide for me, unless there are some amusing people here you'd like me to meet.”

When she said this, I could feel myself sinking into the bog of her inertia, her disappointment, the lack of concrete plans I'd dreaded as a child. But then I'd be ashamed of my meanness: the shadows under her eyes were growing and, in the mornings when I opened her bedroom door, she often looked as still and dead as a wax dummy. Then I'd hear her labored breathing, or the long coughing spells that were frightening to listen to. During one of our early days together, Anto took the day off and borrowed the family car from Appan so we could tootle around Fort Cochin. She was perfectly polite about its churches, the monuments, the covered market, the Chinese nets, but when we stopped for a lemonade overlooking the harbor, and when Anto was out of earshot, she said to me, “It is quite a limited little town really, isn't it? And the pong! Why doesn't their new lot do something about it?”

* * *

After ten days, I couldn't bear these drifting hours any longer, and one afternoon, told her I had to go back to my two shifts a week at the Moonstone.

The house was running smoothly now, and Kamalam would be a willing supplier of tea and toast—the only thing Glory ate in the morning. I'd come home for lunch and in the afternoons we'd be together.

To my surprise, she made no protest. Instead, she stroked my fingers and said, “It's nice being together again, isn't it?” And I wished with all my heart I could say, “Yes, it's nice,” and mean it.

* * *

On my first day back, there were thirty women waiting outside the clinic, many of them new patients. After clinic, Dr. A. drew me aside to tell me they were dangerously short-staffed and I was to write to the Oxford group to ask for funds for a new trainee midwife and two nurses. I felt discouraged: I wanted to function as a midwife now, not as a cash cow.

I wrote the letter, raced home down the seafront, arrived breathless, only to find my mother peacefully knitting (knitting!) in a patch of sunshine. Raffie was playing with his colored blocks nearby, with Kamalam looking on.

She didn't ask about the Home and I said nothing. Instead she showed me an out-of-date copy of the Army and Navy catalog, which she enjoyed despising.

“Urgh, look at this.” Her perfectly buffed fingernail stabbed at a tweed shooting skirt. “You'd have to pay me to wear this.”

“You won't get much,” I teased her. “Not a big run on tweed since Independence.”

“Silly asses,” she murmured softly, “kicking us out.” I looked at her in silent amazement. Had she completely forgotten who she was, or half was?

“Oh, darling, forgot to tell you.” She looked up and frowned. “A
funny little lady came while you were out this morning. She wanted to talk to you. She seemed in a bit of a state.” She picked up the magazine again.

“Any sort of idea what her name was?”

“Let me think.” Her finger stopped.

“Sorry, darling, it's gone . . . . Oh, hang on.” I watched a thought form in her head. “I wrote it down.” She picked up a scrap of paper and handed it to me.

“Neeta Chacko!” The woman Daisy had revered as a midwife; the woman Daisy said would greet me with open arms—except she'd disappeared into thin air when I'd got there. “Neeta Chacko! How strange. Are you sure?”

“Yes, at least I think so.”

“What did you say?”

“I said you were busy. She said she'd come back.”

“Any idea where she went to?”

“No, sorry,” and then, seeing my expression, she added, “Darling, in India you can't just ask any old Tom, Dick, or Hari in off the street, you must know that by now?”

* * *

Neeta Chacko was sitting in the baking sun on a wall in front of a vacant house when I found her. There were two cloth bundles in the dust at her feet. I'd seen a photograph of her at Wickam Farm, but had she not leapt up when she saw me, I wouldn't have recognized her.

“Ma'am, please, I must talk to you,” she said, her eyes frantic. “Somewhere quiet, not here.”

“Neeta!” I said. “What a surprise!” I'd heard nothing but praise about this woman: her energy, her tact, her competence. It was hard to connect her to the woebegone creature in front of me.

She looked like she needed something to eat. I decided on a modest fish café on the harbor, away from my mother and other
nosy ears. Ropes of colored beads covered its dark entrance, and a Bovril advertisement hung on the wall outside.

When we sat down at the wobbly table inside, Neeta, half covering her face with the end of her sari, glanced fearfully at a group of men at the next table drinking beer and eating sambals.

When I tried to wedge a piece of paper under the table leg that was causing the wobble, I saw her toes were scuffed and bleeding.

“Have you walked a long way?” I asked.

“Yes, ma'am, I needed to see you.” I ordered chai for us both, and when I asked if she was hungry, she shot me a desperate look, somewhere between shame and desire.

“Yes, ma'am,” she whispered.

“Please don't call me ma'am,” I said. “My name is Kit, we're colleagues.” But she could not meet my eye. She ordered modestly: rice and some lentil thing, and when I ordered two extra dishes, she whispered sorry again in instant gratitude.

“Please don't say sorry,” I said. “I'm glad to meet you; Daisy spoke so highly of you. I was disappointed when I came not to meet you.” I heard her take a deep breath.

When the men left and the café had emptied, she looked at me over her glass of water, her eyes brimming with tears, and talked about how much she'd loved her time at the Moonstone.

“I felt I was growing every day.” She wiped her eyes on her shawl. “I was learning in my profession, feeling part of our new country.”

I told her I felt the same. “It's a very special place.” And then I had to ask, “Are you ill, Neeta?” thinking this could be the extra cause of distress.

“No, ma'am.” She shook her head. “I'm back at my home now, because my family wanted me to leave. My son was badly hurt.”

“Where is your home?”

“Near here. Not far,” she answered, with a vague flap of her hand. “I don't want to say exactly.”

“Is your son better now?”

Neeta looked around the restaurant, then whispered across the table.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“So, do you want your job back?”

She backed away from me and shook her head. “No, ma'am. I can't pay the men the money.”

“What men?”

“I will tell you in a minute.”

Her desolate look brightened for a moment at the approach of two plates of rice with curried goat scattered untidily on top of it. A small boy placed vegetables and chutneys on the table beside them. When she'd eaten ravenously for a while, she wiped her mouth daintily and looked at me.

“My son was beaten by some bad boys. They came to see him last week. They think he knows more than he does because I used to work there. They told him there will be big trouble at the Home soon.”

“What boys? What trouble?” The rice I was eating sank like a stone in my stomach. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“They don't want you there. They want their money. When my son said he couldn't pay them, they beat him again. It's not safe.”

It took awhile for her words to sink in. “What do you mean, not safe? Are you talking about the Home in general or me in particular?”

“Everything,” she whispered.

“So who is paying this money?” I said. “And how much? And why are they bothering your son?”

She shook her head vigorously.

“I don't know. They don't believe him. I can't say any more. They are bad, bad men.” She pushed her plate away.

“So, we must tell the police,” I said at last.

“They won't care, they're part of it.”

I thought for a while. It was hot, very hot inside the café, which had a tin roof. My brains felt fried.

“My father-in-law is a lawyer, a very honorable man,” I said at last. “He might be able to help us.”

Neeta looked skeptical. “Ma'am, if you say these things, they will close the Home down.”

“You must tell me who gives the men the money.” I was pleading with her. “I can't keep asking for it if I don't know where it's going.”

“I can't say; they will hurt me badly, and if you tell Miss Barker, she'll stop sending the money.” Neeta gave a ragged sigh. “She wrote to me, but I knew I must not reply.”

She pushed her chair back and raised her eyes to me. A drop of blood fell from her right foot onto the floor.

“So what would you do, Neeta? Help me. Tell me honestly.”

“I don't know, ma'am, you must say.” A gust of wind, warm and smelling of fish, slammed the café door shut, and Neeta jerked as if she'd been shot. “I can't stay,” she said. Scrabbling in one of her stained bags, she pulled out a piece of paper folded into four.

“My address,” she said. “Don't show it to anyone, and please don't fix my name to the information I have given you.” Her foot made a bloody print on the floor as she stood up.

“You're hurt,” I said. “Come back to my house, I'll dress it.”

“I can't,” she said. “I've got to go home.”

I gave her what I had in my purse—only a few rupees left over from paying the bill but enough, I hoped, to buy a little food or get her a rickshaw or bus home.

“One day,” she said before we parted, “I pray God will let me do the work I'm trained for.”

I wanted to shout, It's not God who bloody well forbids it, but instead said, “I'd back you up if you decided to go to the police. You know where I live now.”

She shook her head. “I can't do that. I give my blessings to Miss Daisy Barker and to you.” She bowed her head, put the palms of her hands together, and was gone.

* * *

Later, much much later, when I tried to piece this conversation together, I was amazed at how I could have been quite so stupid, ignored so many fire bells. Neeta had spelled the dangers out clearly, but in the two blocks it took me to walk home, I had decided to agree with her plan to do nothing. I'm trying to unravel this now. Why did I do that? One thing, but no excuse, was that Neeta's warning made me feel like a foreigner again, over my head and out of my depth in a country in a period of violent change, in a city whose deeper machinations I would probably never understand.

I was also, and maybe this was uppermost in my mind, now part of a family whose honor must be preserved. Any publicity about the Home with my name attached to it would be a social nightmare for them. We were also two weeks short of the government inspection Dr. A. had warned us about, the one that could close the Home down at a moment's notice. No, it doesn't wash, not really. I should have listened. Should have acted.

I was so deep in thought that I jumped when a boy leapt out at me. His skinny arm was festooned with bracelets: crude wooden things shaped like snakes with cheap-looking mirrors for eyes.

“Madam, Madam, stop!” he said. “I love you, thank you, please don't run.”

But I was running, down the path, under the banyan tree, and out into the sun, the tarmac burning through the thin leather of my shoes.

* * *

I thought about Neeta's surprise appearance on and off all that night and might have mentioned it to Maya the next morning except there was a new crisis brewing at the Home and it involved me. With only two weeks to go before our government inspection, two of the midwives stood up and announced they wanted to go home.

Suleka and Madhavi were both from small villages north of Trivandrum. Madhavi was a small, fierce, wiry woman with wide-set eyes and smallpox scars on her cheeks. Maya said she'd looked unhappy from the start, refusing to dance or to tell the stories of birthing that the other women enjoyed. That morning, during prayers, I caught her looking at me with a hard, blank stare.

During a morning session on birth control, during which we discussed sterilization as one extreme measure, Madhavi stood up in a fury, let forth a fusillade of words in Malayalam, and jabbed her finger at me.

“What is she saying?”

Maya held up her hand to stem the flow. “She is cross.”

“I can see that. What did she say? No soft-soaping.”

“It's nothing, Kit.” Maya blinked at me through her glasses.

“Come on, please.” My conversation with Neeta had made me more nervous.

“She thinks,” Maya said reluctantly, “you should go back to your own country and sterilize your own women there. She says this teaching is a government plot from your country and you are a spy.” Maya's expression was caught halfway between merriment and embarrassment, but for one brief paranoid moment, I wondered whether she wasn't expressing a thought that she'd had too.

“What shall I say?” The other women were staring fixedly at me, one or two muttering in a way which made me feel how quickly the mood could change here.

Maya, keeping a serene smile on her face, muttered to me, “Tell her that's poppycock.” She loved this word and used it as often as possible. I took a deep breath and faced the women.

“None of us are spies, that's a horrible thought, and nothing will happen unless we learn to trust each other. Let the men do the fighting.” Maya smiled encouragingly. “Also I am married to an Indian man, he is a doctor.”

They were still not convinced. Suleka, from Vaikkom, a stout,
self-righteous woman, stood up, jabbed her finger at me, and began a shrill rant that went on and on:
squeak squeak
,
rant
,
rant
, with Maya growling back when she could get a word in edgeways.