Ammamma didn't come watch us the next day either, and she didn't come to meals, or go walking in the garden. But the day after that, she did say she would visit with our guests who were coming that evening. The chemist, Suraj, had sent a note to Sanjay uncle, saying that his parents were visiting from Madras and would like to make our acquaintance. Since Suraj lived in the bachelor's apartments near the factory, his parents were staying at a company guesthouse nearby. The guesthouse had limited furnishings and staff, so Sanjay uncle said the right thing to do was to invite them here. He asked me if it was all right if they came to tea.
“Sure,” I said. Why not? I hadn't seen Suraj since the party.
“And you want to do this, you feel up to sitting with them and making conversation?”
Everyone seemed more interested lately in what I wanted. It was nice for a change. “Yes, it's fine, it's just tea, right?”
“Yes, tea and snacks. That's usually how it's done when we don't know them, dinner would not be expected.”
“Whatever you decide is fine.” My uncle and aunt had entertained countless guests, if they thought tea was the right thing, then it was.
When Ammamma was asked to be there, and she agreed, even though she'd avoided socializing all week, I should have noticed these were not regular guests visiting in a routine social way.
Even when Suraj's parents aimed their conversations and questioning at me, it didn't seem unusual. I had been getting a lot of attention, from doctors and visitors, so this seemed like more of the same. We sat in the living room; I sat between my uncle and my grandmother. Suraj hardly looked at me, while his parents were friendly and his mother especially wanted to know all about me. I answered question after question:
“I'm going into the eleventh grade next year, then I have college in two more years.”
“Maybe NYU, or Princeton, or University of Chicago, although Dad doesn't want me to go far away.”
“NYU and Chicago are not Ivy League, only Princeton is. But not every good school in America is in the Ivy Leagueâ”
“Yes, I'll work, I think maybe a lawyer or a diplomat. I'd like to live in Washington, D.C.”
“Dancing? Well, I'm taking part in Reema auntie's Onam dance. No, I didn't have a dance graduation, I never got that far, I haven't learned classical dance in years.”
“I can understand Malayalam, but I don't speak it that well. Hindi I never knew.”
“Children, yes, I like childrenâhow many? I don't reallyâ”
My grandmother interrupted, “Shall we have our tea now?”
I waited for Reema auntie to tell Matthew to bring in the tea trays. She turned to me, and said, “Maya, why don't you go help Matthew with the tea?”
Surprised, I got up and went to the kitchen. There was another surprise in the kitchenâMatthew had not made tea the way he always did, boiling the milk and water and spices together, pouring the tea back and forth between two steel pots like he was stretching a big piece of taffy, then pouring the steaming froth into tall clear glasses. Today, Matthew had taken Reema auntie's silver tea set from the cupboard, and repolished the pieces so they gleamed. Dainty teacups and saucers were on the tray, and they were unfilled.
Matthew gave me a china plate stacked with laddoos, and another with chili cashews. He stood behind me with his tea tray, and walked behind me back to the drawing room.
I put the plates I was carrying on Reema auntie's new marble center table, and reclaimed my seat next to my uncle. Matthew put the tea service next to the plates, bowed slightly, and left the room.
Reema auntie said in a casual voice, “Maya, please serve the tea.”
I knelt on the carpet in front of the table. I took the tea cozy off the teapot, and poured tea into the cups. The tea was translucent, and I realized Matthew had separately provided milk in a small pitcher. There were two sugar pots, one with white sugar, one with brown sugar that was rare here and that 1 had brought from the States at Reema auntie's request. I poured milk into each teacup.
“How much sugar would you like?” I asked Sanjay uncle, who was seated closest to me.
“Why don't you take care of our guests first, Maya?” Sanjay uncle said.
1 felt my face get warm. “How much sugar would you like, auntie? Which kind of sugar would you like?”
I mixed everyone's tea with the silver spoon Matthew had put on the tray. Because the milk had not been boiled with the tea, it congealed slightly in the teacup, the milkfat leaving a thin film on the top. I stirred again to break the film, but by the time I'd moved to the next cup, the milkfat had surfaced on the first. I gave up, and rising from my knees, walked across the room with a cup teetering on a saucer to give to Suraj's mother, then his father, then Suraj.
When I came to Suraj, he said, “Why don't you serve your grandmother first, Maya?”
I turned mid-stride and walked over to my grandmother, then saw I was carrying Suraj's one-and-a-half-sugars cup of tea in my hand, not my grandmother's no-sugar cup. I went back to the center table, put Suraj's cup down on the outer edge of the tea tray, making a mental note of where I had placed it, and then took my grandmother's tea to her. Then I went back to the table, trying to decide between serving Suraj next or my uncle. I looked at Suraj, and he inclined his head toward my uncle. I headed for my uncle who I feared would turn me away, but he acceded, then Suraj, then my aunt.
There were exclamations about the fine laddoos, also about the cut flowers Reema auntie had arranged in earthen pots and brass urns and crystal vases around the room. Reema auntie sent Matthew to tell the gardener to bring a few stems and root of the crimson orchid that Suraj's mother especially liked. Sanjay uncle asked about Madras, and Suraj's parents talked about how the city was getting more and more congested, in ten years' time it would be as bad as Bombay, they said. They talked about moving to Madras from Kerala years ago, they talked about their ancestral homes in Allepey and who their great-grandparents were and who their neighbors had been.
My aunt handed me the tray from the center table and I went around the room and collected everyone's dishes and crumpled napkins. My grandmother went to her room to rest, and we went outside, my uncle and aunt taking Suraj's parents to the far side of the garden, where there was a sweeping view of the hills across from us and the valleys between.
Suraj and I waited for them on the verandah. He said, “I think they like you.”
“Do they? That's good.”
“I didn't know how young you were, but I would wait for a few years. I'm not ready now either, but at least we'd know what to plan for. And it takes ages to get a visa and everything.”
What I had feared was happening really was happening. “Suraj, you hardly know me.”
“1 like you, Maya, and I know enough. I know that you're adventuresome and pretty, and the rest I can find out over time. We could have a good life together.”
“I can't believe I'm having this conversation.”
The cluster of adults headed back toward us, meandering through the garden. Suraj said, “How do you think these things are done, Maya? This is the way your family would want it. In the end, there's only a few right families out there; they know that.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Twenty-four. Of course we'd wait four years or so, until you're in college. We could have a nice apartment, so you don't have to live in some miserable hostel and eat bad cafeteria food. Just think about it, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I didn't know what else I could say.
“If my parents say things are working out with your family, I'll write to you. I've never been much of a letter-writer, but I'll try.”
We said our good-byes, and Suraj's family piled back in the car he had borrowed from the factory. “See you!” they shouted, waving from the windows, and we shouted “See you!” into the wind.
“How could you not tell me?” I said. I followed my aunt and uncle into my grandmother's room. The three of us sat on my bed and Ammamma turned over in her bed to face us.
“Not tell you? We specifically asked you before we agreed to meet them,” my uncle said.
“I didn't know what you were asking,” I said.
“I thought you didâI guess there was a misunderstanding. Well, nothing's been decided,” he said. “Amma, what did you think of them?”
Ammamma said, “They seem nice, the parents at least, I didn't have much of a sense of the boy.”
“It's easy for me to find out about him; he's worked here for two years. I can ask his supervisors in confidence.”
“Does everyone remember how old I am? I'm fifteen. Ammamma, tell them.”
“Of course we know you're fifteen,” Reema auntie said impatiently. “We're not trying to make a child bride out of you. We're just trying to look out for your future.”
“Can't we talk about the future in the future?” I said.
My aunt said, “Maya, we didn't ask to meet them, they asked us. And when your uncle and I talked about it, we thought it might be good to think about these things early in your case.”
“What do you mean, in my case?”
“Some good families won't be interested in girls who live in the States because they won't trust the influences you've been raised with over there. But this family is interested, and they are willing to wait. At least if you make a commitment to someone, then it will help guide your behavior while you are finishing high school and college.”
“My behavior? Sanjay uncle, are you worried about my behavior, too?”
“Maya, you're my baby sister's only daughter. I just want to make sure you have options. You may be fifteen, but the things you do now will have a lasting effect, that will be how people think of you, your reputation. It will reflect on the whole family, and whether or not we've raised you properly. “
“Why do you talk like I've done something wrong. Unlessâ” I looked at Ammamma. “Did you tell them, Ammamma, those things I told you when I was sick?”
“What things?” Reema auntie said.
Ammamma looked at me. “I'm hurt you are asking that. Of course not.”
“Tell us what?” Reema auntie said. “Amma, if you know something we should know, you must tell usâwe can't go making false representations to our friends. We have told everyone Maya has been raised under the close eye of her family, and that she has a good and unmarked character. If that's not true, you must tell us now before this goes any further.”
Ammamma sat up in bed, and she was angry which she was so rarely. “Reema, this is my granddaughter you're talking about. I know perfectly well how much good conduct matters to these society people you know. I would like to rest now and have some quiet.”
Reema auntie looked at Sanjay uncle, and he put his arm around her shoulder, saying to Ammamma, “Amma, you know we didn't mean harm, we love Maya too.”
Ammamma nodded wearily, closing her eyes. Reema auntie and Sanjay uncle walked out of the room.
I lay on my bed, thinking. Ammamma opened her eyes and looked at me.
“Maya, I went along with this because I thought you understood what it was. You don't have to do anything you don't want to doâyou know that, don't you?”
“I don't know how to make everything make sense,” I said. “I thought when you were telling me I'm allowed to be my own person, it meant I am allowed to make my own mistakes. But then you and Reema auntie and Sanjay uncle want to arrange my whole future for me so I can't make any mistakes. What am I supposed to think?”
Ammamma closed her eyes again for a few minutes. Then she opened them. “Sometimes when you ask things like that, I feel like 1 am talking to your mother when she was your age. I don't know what you're supposed to think. Everything is up to you ultimately. There are a lot of rules here, the way we live, and I think some of them probably should be broken. That might shock your aunt and uncle, but I've seen a lot more than they have. But you have to think hard about which rules to break, and you have to break them because you have a good reason, not because you're reckless. You will lose people, Maya, their understanding and their love, for the choices you make all your life. You have to know that, and you have to make those choices mean something.”
“Ammamma,” I said, beginning uncertainly, afraid to hear her answer, “Is it true in the Sita story that no one accepts her even though her bad reputation isn't her fault?”
My grandmother nodded slowly. “Yes, in that story even her husband Rama, an incarnation of our beloved God, he is blinded by the gossip and the rumors. But Mother Earth, she is the mother to all creatures, and she gives Sita refuge. That's what mothers do, Maya. They accept, even when no one else does.”
That night, Ammamma was having difficulty standing up, she said she felt her left leg giving out on her. Reema auntie and Sanjay uncle called a doctor to come the next day. They sent the driver to bring Rupa; it was too late for her to catch a bus. Rupa was to sleep in Ammamma's room, to help her if she had to get up in the night. They asked me if I wanted to move back to Brindha's room so I could sleep undisturbed, but I wanted to stay near Ammamma. Rupa slept on a pallet on the floor between our beds.
I was up most of the night, listening to the moans of Ammamma's troubled sleep. Rupa slept soundly. A couple of times, wondering if Ammamma was having a nightmare I should rouse her from, I called her name, in a loud whisper. But she didn't answer, her sleeping pills had taken her far from me.
I woke early, to a roomful of people. Reema auntie and Sanjay uncle were stooped over Ammamma's bed. Matthew, Vasani, and Rupa peered at Ammamma from the foot of her bed.
Ammamma couldn't feel anything on her left side, not her leg, or her arm, she said she had no sense of anything there, not even pain. Her eyes looked dulled, far away. Reema auntie worked at getting through to a doctor on our phone, and Sanjay uncle drove to the factory to call people from the phones there, to bring the doctor from the infirmary, and to try to find a larger car or van in which to take Ammamma to the hospital. Matthew, Vasani, and Rupa stayed in position at the end of the bed, not speaking, their eyes big.