Thrity Umrigar Read online

  Mummy and I walk behind him, trying to keep up with his long, angry strides. He flings open the car door and asks me to get into the front seat. ‘There’s your chocolate,’ he says, pointing to the brown, gooey pile in the middle of the dashboard. The sight of the melted chocolate fills me with unbearable sadness and a sense of betrayal. I am unsure whether I am the betrayer or the betrayed but there is a sense of a promise broken. I want to explain all this to my dad but I can’t. My grief is muddy and opaque and I can’t talk through it. All I can do is wail and the nasal, high-pitched sound I make feels absurdly satisfying.

  Dad slips into the seat beside me. Gesturing to mummy, he says, ‘Get in.’ She looks as if she is about to argue with him but something about the tightness of his face shuts her up. She gets into the front seat, so that I am sandwiched between the two of them.

  My father puts the car in reverse and the uncharacteristic violence with which he shifts the gears stuns me into silence.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

  ‘We’re going home,’ he answers. ‘Turning back. The day’s been ruined anyway. Satisfied now?’

  I cannot speak. I dare not speak. This is worse than any punishment he could’ve thought of. The lump in my throat is so big that it hurts to swallow. Disappointment, guilt, shame, regret, all compete to occupy the innermost chambers of my cold heart. My eyes fill with tears but I blink them away, not wanting to draw any attention to myself. I want to fold up my body like the origami the older girls make at school, to make myself as small and invisible as possible. Over my head I can feel my parents glowering at each other and this only makes things worse. I want to take back every wail, every misguided shriek that emitted from my throat. The chocolate, sitting on the dashboard like mud, repulses me now. I do not feel any sense of kinship or responsibility toward it any more. I look at it as objectively as someone waking up from a dream. What had I gotten so hysterical about?

  At home, I creep up the stairs and cringe as my dad rings the doorbell. Mehroo’s surprised face makes my misery even sharper.

  There will be other picnics over the years—field trips from school, outings with neighbours, days spent at the beach with friends and other family members. But never again will it be just the three of us spending a Sunday afternoon at Hanging Gardens. Like a candy bar in the sun, the days of summer will melt away and never again will it be just the three of us, a girl and her parents spending a Sunday afternoon at Hanging Gardens.

  Two

  MEHROO IS DESCENDING THE STAIRS and already I am on the balcony to wave her goodbye. I wait with bated breath until she comes down the stone steps that lead from the lobby of our apartment building to the street. As soon as she reaches the street she looks up to where I am waiting on the second floor balcony and waves to me.

  I blink back my tears and smile, a wide, clown-like smile that I hope my aunt can see from two storeys below.

  I am seven years old and it is the second week of summer vacation. At ten a.m. the sun is already a snarling beast, raining its hot breath on the people below. I know that by the time Mehroo walks the short distance from our lane to the main street to catch her bus, she will already be covered in sweat, her soft, cream-coloured cheeks flushed bright red.

  Despite the dazzling brightness of the day, inside the house it is dark. I know that as soon as I leave this balcony after my ritualistic waving goodbye, I will enter a dark and frightening and lonely world. I will spend the hours of the day waiting for Mehroo or my dad or some other adult to come home and rescue me from my mother’s wrath. I don’t know exactly what awaits me today but I know it won’t be good. There will be some swearing, some threats, some accusations about spending all my time with my nose buried inside that damn book. There might be the familiar sound of the cane swooshing through the air before it lands on my bony body. The thought of that makes me wince.

  Mehroo has barely left the house and already there is a lump in my throat the size of China. I had wanted to go to the factory with her today, maybe stopping at Jaffer’s on the way to pick up a novel for me to devour, but mummy said there was homework to do. Mehroo had tried protesting that it is only the second week of vacation, that there would be plenty of time for schoolwork later in the summer but mummy told her that in that case she should take over my schoolwork too, since she’d already taken over everything else and stolen her only child away from her. Then they had their daily morning fight and were quiet only when dad raised his voice and said he was leaving for work without any breakfast because he craved peace more than eggs. ‘Not even eight in the morning and already I’m tired,’ he cried. ‘Like a towel that’s been wrung out dry, that’s how I go to work everyday.’ They were quiet as he got dressed hurriedly and raced down the stairs to his car, his face red and excited. As he got into his car, Mehroo yelled at her brother from the balcony, ‘Please be careful. Calm down. Drive safely.’ Mummy stayed in her room.

  I feel miserable because I have caused this fight. If only I had not asked to go to the factory, none of this would’ve happened. So that when mummy accuses me of creating friction between her and her husband, I silently agree.

  And now, my aunt has also left the house and there’s only me and mummy at home. I pray that the doorbell will ring and some visitor—perhaps her brother, perhaps a neighbour—someone will arrive. Someone who will deliver me, save me from the long stretch of the day.

  My aunt is now a quarter of the way down the lane and already she has turned back and waved to me three times. This is our daily ritual, but still I hold my breath in anticipation of every turn and wave. Turn and wave. Will she do it again?

  Will she wave now? Or will something, somebody, distract her? Will she run into one of the neighbours, will they walk part of the way together and will she forget to wave? Forget me? Or will she see the 64-number bus approach and will she run the rest of the way to catch it, in the process forgetting her niece, who is standing on this balcony believing that her very life depends on being waved to?

  Everyday, my sentimental aunt faithfully, diligently, waves.

  Deep inside, I know that this ritual, this public display of our love, is every bit as important to her as it is to me. And yet, I’m always afraid. Everyday I trick myself; scare myself by creating more and more implausible scenarios of why she may not wave to me on that particular day. Each day, I hold my breath and feel my stomach muscles clench and relax to the rhythms of her waving. Daily, I dread the moment when she reaches the end of the lane and makes the left turn onto the main road. That is the moment of reckoning, when I have to return to the darkness of the apartment.

  But not yet. Mehroo has reached the end of the lane. She stops, turns back and waves. She even blows me some flying kisses. I wave back frantically, standing on my toes to make sure she can see me. Then, she turns the corner and is gone.

  But my heart doesn’t dip yet because I know what is coming.

  This, too, is part of the ritual. And yet, for all its familiarity, it still feels like a miracle when I spot Mehroo again. She has walked a few paces onto the main road and then returned to the corner. She waves some more. My heart singing, I wave back.

  Three times. Four times. She disappears and returns. Is gone and comes back. My love feels so thick and heavy, it tastes like blood. Or grief. For the rest of my life, they will feel the same, this thick love, this thick grief.

  I never know which will be the last time that Mehroo will come back and wave, before the adult in her remembers she has a bus to catch, that she’s needed at the factory where she does the book-keeping for my dad. So I stand on the balcony and wait and with every passing second, the sting of her absence, of her really being gone, gets sharper. Somedays, I wait there an entire five minutes, hoping against hope for her return, scarcely believing that she has really left me. Somedays, I wait several full minutes and am on the verge of moving away from the balcony, when her familiar small figure appears in the distance, as miraculous as the sun on the horizon. That evening,
she will tell me of how she was at the nearby bus-stop and when she was convinced the bus was nowhere close, she asked the next person to keep her place in line and darted to the corner to wave to me one last time. Because she knew that, like the dog on the recording label of His Master’s Voice, I would be waiting.

  This is how I come to know love, from my sad-eyed, excessively sentimental, self-sacrificing, hypersensitive, spinster aunt, who raises me as if I had been born of her small hips, as if I had fed on her tiny breasts. So that I never think of motherhood as a biological concept; so that I understand that the bonds of motherhood are formed daily, by acts of kindness and affection and devotion. This is Mehroo’s legacy to me and despite her straight-arrowed, unwavering devotion, it is a mixed legacy, filled with yearning and ambiguity and loss and longing. In some ways, it would scar me for life, make me old at sixteen, unable to trust the simplistic declarations and easy, glib depictions of love that I saw all around me. No easy promises for me, because I had experienced a love as brilliant and pure and sharp as a diamond. Forever more, love would be something to be fought for and won, something exalted to reach for, something hard but promising, like religion, like talking to God.

  I head back into the house and a feeling of dread trails behind me. Mummy is in her room, going through things in her closet and I can tell by the way she mutters to herself that she is in a bad mood. I head directly for the bathroom, intending to stay in there for as long as I can. It is only when the latch clicks in place that I feel safe.

  My respite is short-lived. Mummy bangs on the bathroom door and tells me to come out immediately. ‘I know all your tricks, you lazy girl,’ she says. ‘Trying to avoid your studies at all costs. If you’re not out in two minutes flat, you see what I’ll do to you.’ She hits the door with her switch for good effect.

  My mother has long, thin, crooked fingers and most of the time they are curled around one of her many switches. Sometimes, after a cane has worn away, she makes me accompany her to the small shop where she buys her supply. I watch while she handles different canes, some long, thin and tapering, others that are shorter, thicker and blunter. I hold my breath while she picks them out, testing them with one hand on the open palm of the other. The longer ones make more of a swishing sound than the others.

  My mother tutors many of the kids in the neighbourhood and most of them are older than me. During summer vacations, instead of going to the hill-stations or the beach, they gather at our house to study to get a jump-start on the following term.

  I love having them over because it takes the focus off me and because many of the savvy older kids kiss up to me because I am the teacher’s daughter.

  There is this one girl, Pervin, who is several years older than the others. She is a bit slow and it is rumoured that she has repeated several grades, which makes her an object of pity and silent derision. ‘Stupid Pervin’ I hear my mother call her behind her back. But she makes up for her slowness by her good-nature and perpetual cheerfulness. Pervin’s face is covered with acne and it is my particular misfortune that Pervin has taken to making public displays of hugging and kissing me every chance she gets. Part of it is genuine affection but surely part of it is mere posturing, trying to get in the teacher’s good books by sucking up to her only child. I run and hide from Pervin every chance I get because I am repulsed by her rough, acne-filled face as it brushes my smooth cheek. One day, I am eating porridge for breakfast when I glance in the bowl and realize that it looks and feels like Pervin’s face. I stop eating porridge after that.

  Most of the students my mother tutors are children of parents who are lower middle-class and who are grateful that my mother does not charge them much. Also, my mother is known throughout the neighbourhood for her dedication as a teacher.

  Unlike other tutors, she never looks at the clock while teaching, so that during the summer months, her students spend nearly the whole day at our place. The grateful parents never question my mother’s teaching methods, just as they never question the red welts on their children’s hands and legs when they return home. The smarter male students start wearing long pants to protect their legs from the sting of the cane but my mother complains about this lack of free access to their legs and their parents make them wear short pants again.

  But today, it is just me and mummy at home. I want to ask where the others are but mummy has threatened to beat me if I look up from my textbook. I am sitting on the black velvet chair in her room with my left leg tied to the leg of the chair.

  She is forced to do this because I have a short attention span and get up too many times to go to the bathroom.

  The day wears on. Finally, at one p.m., the doorbell rings.

  It is one of our neighbours, a woman who always moves at lightning speed and talks so fast I have trouble keeping up with her. Her son, Bomi, is with her. Bomi is a nervous looking boy who is one of my mother’s students. He is short, chubby and he smells faintly of the coconut oil that his mother uses to slick down his black hair. The oil runs down his forehead, so that it is always shiny. He is just a little younger than me and my mother loves him because he is so obviously terrified of her. My mother claims to love children and she does because they don’t fight back, because on their smooth, tender bodies she can leave her signature—the red welts that proclaim, ‘I was here.’ Because on their blank psyches she can leave her thumbprint, like black smudges that proclaim, ‘I exist.’ Unlike the adults in her life, the children she can control, manipulate and dominate. I can’t articulate any of this but I know it somewhere deep down within me.

  ‘I was wondering if I can drop Bomi off for the afternoon,’

  the neighbour is saying. ‘My mother-in-law has taken ill and I just got a call asking if I can spend the day with her. He would just be in the way. Besides, he needs help with his schoolwork.’

  ‘Oh sure, sure,’ mummy replies. ‘You go without a second thought. You know he will be safe here. We were just going to eat lunch. He can eat with us.’

  The grateful woman gives mummy a quick hug and leaves.

  After lunch, we sit down with our books again. Mummy begins to grill us on our spelling. We both do well until Bomi stumbles on a word. Mummy smiles benevolently and gives him a second chance. She throws him another word. But Bomi is now scared, and as often happens with him, his brain shuts down. He stares at my mother, a faint line of saliva trickling out of his open mouth.

  There is a bathroom attached to my parents’ bedroom and in a deceptively quiet voice, my mother asks Bomi to please step into it. His punishment is to stand in a corner of the bathroom on one leg.

  Bomi tries but after a few minutes, begins to shift his weight from one stocky leg to another. My mother notices immediately. ‘Do you have to do soo-soo?’ she asks in a kindly way.

  Bomi’s eyes widen. ‘No, aunty,’ he says, the weight of his body frozen on one leg.

  Her voice changes, becomes sharper. ‘Because if you have to do soo-soo, do it in your pants. That’s why you are in the bathroom. Otherwise, stand still.’

  Several minutes pass. I sit on the black velvet chair in her bedroom and pretend to read my book. I want to leave the room but don’t want to make any move that will draw attention to myself. I set my face in a sympathetic expression that I hope Bomi notices and my mother doesn’t.

  Finally, Bomi begins to cry softly to himself. I feel bad for him but another part of me is relieved that it is him and not me, who is the focus of this humiliation.

  The crying upsets my mother who is sitting on her bed. ‘Stop your crying,’ she says, reaching for the ever-present cane and bringing it down on the bed for emphasis.

  Bomi tries to swallow his sobs. ‘Come out of the bathroom,’ she orders him but Bomi is paralysed, his eyes wide with fear.

  ‘Are you disobeying me? Chal, come out right now,’ she repeats and this time there is a menace in her voice that I recognize.

  As if in slow motion, Bomi lifts his leg over the threshold of the bathroom and walks
around the bed to face her. I hold my breath.

  Whoosh! The cane leaves an angry outline where it touches his bare leg. And another. For a moment, Bomi looks too stunned to cry. Then he bursts into tears, his chest moving up and down.

  ‘No crying.No crying ,’ she orders and his lower lip moves like blubber as he tries to swallow his tears.

  ‘Hold out your hand.’

  I cannot watch. The cane to the legs I can handle but this voluntary holding out of an open palm, is the worst punishment. To do this you have to screw up all your courage, will your entire body into the gesture, enlist the help of every muscle, and then focus on the effort of not pulling your hand away at the last minute. Because it is understood that if she misses, if the cane hits open air instead of soft flesh, then there’s more punishment. Then, the original crime may be forgotten and the crime of insubordination must first be dealt with.

  If you do not pull your hand away, if you shut your eyes and hold your hand out steadily, if you prepare yourself for the current of pain that will run through your body at any second, still, the first whack comes as an insult, a shock to the system. Or worse, she will sometimes first tap the cane against your palm, as if to steady her hand, and just as you relax and let down your guard, the cane slices through the air and finds its deadly mark.

  So I shut my eyes as poor Bomi stands there flinching, his open palm ready to meet the landing of the cane. Then, at the last minute, as if I cannot avert my eyes from the train wreck about to happen, my eyes fly open of their own volition and I am in time to see the cane make an arc in the air. I wince but at the last minute my mother pulls back, like a fisherman deciding to uncast a line, so that the cane gently grazes Bomi’s fingertips.

  ‘No punishment today,’ my mother says but Bomi acts as if he has not heard her, his body still tense, his hand still outstretched.