Saree

by Su Dharmapala

  ‘Excuse me? What?’ Madhav asked as he heard his name being called.

  ‘When are you going to take your money to the Khans for the saree?’ Mr Govinda asked.

  ‘In a fortnight,’ Madhav replied. ‘We need extra locks fitted here at the rectory before I’ll bring that saree back to the temple.’

  ‘Good, good. We don’t want your saree to be stolen,’ Mrs Vasundaram said.

  ‘It is not my saree, Mrs Vasundaram. It is a saree for Saraswati Devi.’

  ‘No, puttar, it is your saree. You raised the money, it is for you to do as you wish,’ the Reverend Shastri said. ‘You are the one buying this saree for Saraswati Devi and it is your contribution to this temple.’

  Madhav smiled weakly. Perhaps the gift of the beautiful saree might persuade Saraswati and her fellow gods and goddesses to come back and commune with him once more.

  Feroz Khan and his wife Fatima were as different as two people could be. Feroz was a taciturn man, quite content to live and work in rural New South Wales. Indeed, he’d been eager to get as far away from civilisation as possible. It had been in Cooma in New South Wales that the Khans had met another South Asian family, the Gamages from Sri Lanka. Albert was an engineer on the project along with Feroz. Drawn together by a shared cultural heritage, they’d found comfort in each other’s company as they explored a strange new land and new way of living.

  ‘You cannot imagine how glad I am that Anoja met another Asian woman,’ Albert often said to Fatima. ‘I was surprised as anyone when I received the telegram from my father-in-law saying that I was the father of twins! And Anoja certainly needs your help with them! Especially since her own mother died not a month after they were born.’

  ‘Yes, this is good practice for you when your time comes. If you can cope with my twins, especially Marion here, then you can cope with anything,’ the vivacious Anoja added. She often left the twins in Fatima’s care before she went off to some party or other. It was just as well that Fatima had no children of her own, for she could not have mothered the twins so well if she had – and the poor things needed her.

  But unable to cope with the isolation of rural New South Wales, the Gamages had decamped to the bright lights of Sydney within just a few years. By then Fatima had become so attached to Ryan and Marion that she’d make the five-hour trip to Sydney every three months to visit the children.

  Eventually, though, it came to the point that Fatima could not bear the bitter cold winters of Cooma and drudgery of carrying all her spices and Asian provisions on the train for the five-hour return trip. ‘If you want hot chapatti, you can drive to Sydney and bring the atta flour yourself!’ she had said to her husband. ‘God help me, but this is the last time I explain to someone on the train what I use aniseed for!’

  ‘Shall we move to Hobart, then?’ Feroz had suggested.

  ‘No! I want to go somewhere where there are other Indians! People like us.’

  Melbourne had been the compromise. It wasn’t as busy as Sydney but it certainly wasn’t quiet like Adelaide. Mostly Feroz had definitely not wanted to move anywhere in the vicinity of Anoja Gamage. Albert was a good friend, but Feroz could not bear his vulgar wife. Fatima, on the other hand, found Anoja amusing, and her love for the children meant that she was willing to overlook some of their mother’s more irritating behaviours, in order to maintain the friendship.

  The year the twins turned seventeen the family came to Melbourne in the September school holidays and stayed with the Khans for a week. It was a shock for Fatima to see how much older and taller they were and how grown-up they looked, and she realised that they weren’t children anymore.

  ‘Here, Marion,’ Fatima said fondly, opening a trunk full of fabrics several days after they’d arrived. ‘I think you’d love this saree.’ She pulled out a length of bright blue fabric and draped it on the girl.

  Marion had grown up into a serious young woman. Tall, dark and willowy, she looked nothing like her parents. ‘She takes after Anoja’s late sister, Nila, but I can’t explain the height,’ her father had laughed.

  ‘My brother Manoj is tall,’ Anoja would snap. ‘But it’s a pity all that height is wasted on Marion instead of Ryan. My darling Ryan is smart, though – if only he will score well enough to get into medicine!’

  ‘You should go and make a vow at the Hindu temple in Ferntree Gully,’ Fatima suggested. ‘They say the pundit there is a miracle maker. Feroz is giving them one of his father’s most valuable sarees to use in the Navaratri celebrations.’

  ‘I am not giving it to them, dear, I am selling it to them,’ Feroz corrected.

  ‘Well, I don’t know why you just don’t give it to them. We have enough money for our needs and we don’t have any children to leave an inheritance to!’

  ‘I do not believe it is appropriate to give such a valuable garment away for nothing. People don’t appreciate these things unless they have to pay for them,’ Feroz said.

  ‘Uncle Feroz, can I have a look at it?’ Marion asked.

  ‘Of course, my dear,’ he replied as Fatima unlocked the trunk.

  ‘Don’t you get any ideas,’ her mother butted in when she saw Marion transfixed by the beautiful saree that was emerging from the depths of the trunk. ‘Can you imagine, Fatima? She wants to study fashion design and she’s been begging us for the past year to let her transfer to a technical college!’

  Unbeknown to her parents, Marion often took the train into the city to visit the New South Wales Art Gallery. It was one of the few places she’d found peace in her life, wandering the quiet rooms, looking at the paintings on the walls, no critical voice sneering at everything she did. It had been an exhibition on South Asian textiles that had sparked the short-lived debate about going to art school.

  ‘It is nursing for you, girl! Three years of a proper university education is all we’ll pay for!’ Anoja had snapped.

  ‘Anoja, she does have a gift for drawing,’ Albert mumbled now, and glanced at Fatima, wondering if she might back him up. Nearly eighteen years of marriage had almost completely cowed him.

  ‘What gift? What utter nonsense!’ his wife said.

  ‘Here,’ Feroz said, holding the saree up and breaking the tension. ‘Here it is.’

  Marion was spellbound. The jewels on the saree sparkled in the morning light as she came forward to touch the fabric reverently, her eyes drinking in the beauty and fingertips absorbing the magic. There was something aching familiar about this saree. It was almost as if she had seen it before.

  Madhav was on tenterhooks. He kept fingering the tatty fabric pouch in the front knot of his sarong, feeling for the edges of the piece of paper. It was the cheque for fifty thousand dollars, the hard-earned money of thousands of pilgrims donated to buy a glittering saree for the goddess Saraswati.

  ‘We’ll bring the saree to the temple ourselves,’ Fatima Khan had assured him on the phone last night. ‘I have some friends who want to make a vow at your temple for their children’s education.’

  ‘Friends of yours will always be welcome here! And don’t worry about bringing anything for the pooja. I will do it for free,’ Madhav had promised.

  But they were running late. Fatima had promised to be here by nine in the morning but it was already half past ten. Madhav had wanted them to come early because he planned to keep the saree from everyone until the day of the Navaratri pageant and have a grand unveiling. He’d especially wanted to keep it from the lunatic Nila, who’d pawed and fingered the sarees donated for the goddesses Mahalaksmi and Durga-Amman.

  ‘Get your filthy fingers away from that silk,’ Madhav had finally growled in frustration.

  Nila Mendis had slunk away then, looking quite sad and withdrawn.

  She was out in the courtyard beyond the temple now, though, playing with Brendan, and seemed happy enough. It would seem that Brendan had been evicted entirely from school and spent his days wholly at the temple, going home at night only to sleep.

  ‘Me mum don’t care,’ he’d
mumbled.

  ‘My mother does not care,’ Madhav had corrected him perfunctorily. ‘But you can’t live here. This is not your home.’

  ‘It’s a lot more quieter than home,’ the boy had replied evasively.

  ‘How are things at home, puttar?’ Reverend Shastri had come right out and asked. The old man’s keen eyes had taken in the boy’s second-hand clothes and grubby skin.

  ‘It’s all good!’ Brendan lied glibly.

  He spent much of his time at the temple with Nila. She put up with him far more willingly than Madhav did – in fact she seemed to enjoy his company – but she insisted that he read to her every day and work through some maths problems. But Madhav never understood how she persuaded the little boy to do things, as she never spoke.

  ‘Where are they?’ Madhav grumbled under his breath as he saw Nila and Brendan walk into the rectory to stay out of the sun. ‘Typical Sri Lankans. Always late!’

  He walked into the shrine room and took out the cheque to look at it again. It had taken the teller at the ANZ branch in Croydon a good hour and a half to count the money. But every dollar had been accounted for. Madhav smirked remembering the scene at the bank.

  ‘What are you going to buy?’ the teller had asked. ‘A car? A caravan? A massive diamond ring?’

  He’d been evasive. ‘Oh, with the price of things now, fifty thousand isn’t going to buy much.’

  Madhav was so lost in his reverie that he didn’t realise that Fatima had arrived with her friends until she tapped him on his shoulder.

  ‘We are here,’ she declared proudly.

  ‘Oh, welcome! Welcome!’ Madhav cried.

  ‘And here is the saree,’ Fatima said. She turned to a tall, dark, willowy girl in the background, who stepped forward, right into the spot where the skylight shone a beacon of daylight into the temple. She was carrying the saree.

  ‘No need to finalise the transaction so fast!’ Madhav insisted. ‘You mentioned something about a pooja. Let’s do that first and then we’ll settle things. Who are we doing it for?

  A diminutive woman bustled forward. She was attractive, though inappropriately dressed for a temple visit, in tight leopard print leggings and a rather revealing top. In the foyer beyond, Madhav could see the spiked stilettos she’d left behind.

  ‘It’s for my son, Ryan,’ she replied, pushing forward a pudgy youth with a pudding bowl haircut. ‘We want him to get into medical school.’

  ‘Don’t forget Marion,’ Fatima insisted, pushing the willowy girl forward. ‘She’ll be doing the exams too.’

  ‘Let’s start, then. I’ll need the children’s birthdates and places,’ Madhav said, turning to light some camphor for the sacred fire. And as he turned, he saw Nila and Brendan walk into the shrine room through the back door.

  ‘Quick, give me the saree,’ he blurted to Marion, snatching the box from the girl’s hands and striding into the inner sanctum of the shrine room, where Nila could not and would not follow. Taking it out of Nila’s sight and grasp the answer to all her unspoken questions. Definitive proof that her beloved husband Raju did not die.

  A sudden gust of wind roaring through the Dandenongs extinguished all the lamps in the temple. The great chamber was plunged into a profound darkness except for the single beacon of sunlight where Marion stood. An unnatural silence fell.

  ‘Rupani?’ an unfamiliar voice called from across the large hall.

  Madhav turned around to see a look of untold terror cross the face of Fatima’s friend. ‘Come, we must leave at once. Now!’ she shouted, grabbing her son and daughter by the arm and running out.

  Nila ran after them, but the great length of the large hall gave Fatima Khan and her friends a head start. By the time she stumbled down the steps, they were already seated in their car and about to drive away. Nila flung herself onto the boot of the sedan, trying to stop them from reversing out of the car park.

  ‘You have to go!’ Anoja screamed at Fatima. ‘Now!’

  ‘How?’ Fatima demanded.

  ‘Just drive over the gardens!’

  As the car lurched forward over the newly landscaped gardens, Nila fell to the ground, but she picked herself up and stumbled after them, running down the hilly road until she could no longer keep up, then collapsed onto the side, screaming and wailing.

  ‘Come back!’ Madhav screamed at Brendan, who’d given chase after Nila. ‘She’s crazy!’

  ‘She’s not crazy!’ Brendan screamed back. ‘I know crazy. I live with it!’

  The nine extra pusaris arrived in Melbourne and Madhav met them with great ceremony at Tullamarine Airport. ‘Welcome, welcome!’ Madhav rushed forward with garlands.

  After the initial introductions, everyone moved en masse to the cars, the nine men separating into vehicles according to their levels of seniority. The older pundits got the plum seats in the better cars while the younger ones had to be content with Kumar’s rust bucket.

  ‘Please,’ the right honourable Srinivasan said to Mr Ananda, whose front seat he was graciously offered, ‘I would prefer to ride with young Madhav here. After all, he was the best student I had at the seminary in Mumbai.’

  ‘So, Madhav, how are you settling into Melbourne?’ the Reverend Srinivasan asked as soon as they cleared the parking tollgate. ‘I was worried when I sent you over here to Melbourne but I have heard rumours that you are quite respected as a miracle maker. Is that correct, puttar? Have your prayers to the gods been answered?’

  ‘Of course they have, sir,’ Kumar replied for him. ‘Why just last month we heard that a woman who could barely walk for years is now taking up swimming.’

  For the next hour Kumar extolled story upon story of people who’d had their dreams come true after Madhav prayed on their behalf.

  ‘My favourite of course is the little girl who was cured of blindness,’ he said.

  ‘To be clear, Srininvasan sir, the girl wasn’t blind. The doctors suspected early stage glaucoma. But it could simply have been an error in the test they did,’ Madhav muttered irritably.

  ‘Of course that would not be your favourite miracle,’ Kumar teased. ‘And we all know what you are most proud of achieving.’

  ‘I am not particularly proud of one miracle over another,’ Madhav retorted. ‘I am not even convinced I brought about any of these miracles anyway!’

  ‘Sure you did!’ Kumar said. ‘How else could we ever have got Nila Mendis out of the temple? The Ferntree Gully Sri Ganapathi Vinayaka temple is now a lunatic-free zone!’

  ‘What? What is this, Madhav? Have you driven a lunatic out of the temple? You know that is forbidden!’ the aged pundit demanded of Madhav.

  ‘I have not driven anyone out of the temple!’ Madhav cried. ‘She just hasn’t come back after she had an altercation with someone who came to the temple for a pooja.’

  ‘Nila Mendis versus a Toyota Camry – Nila Mendis scores zero and Toyota Camry scores one!’ Kumar laughed.

  ‘Stop it! The poor woman could have been seriously hurt. The gravel burns on her knees and hands were terrible. I am quite worried about her!’

  ‘Brendan’s worried about her too. He asked his mum if he could go visit her, but she said no,’ Kumar added.

  ‘Who is Brendan?’ the elderly pundit asked.

  ‘Brendan is the little Australian boy who sometimes comes to temple,’ Madhav replied.

  ‘Good, good! Good to know you’re bringing Hinduism to the people of Australia!’ the pundit crowed excitedly. ‘Many of our young pundits were little boys when they first heard the call.’

  ‘He hasn’t been coming much lately,’ Kumar pointed out.

  ‘When Nila Mendis stopped coming, Brendan stopped too,’ Madhav said with a heavy heart. Since the incident with Nila Mendis, Madhav had been feeling extremely out of sorts. If he’d felt he’d lost his way previously, he knew he had now.

  ‘Nah! Brendan not coming has nothing to do with Nila Mendis,’ Kumar said. ‘I walked past the house the other day on my way to the shops and
his mother has a new boyfriend. A real idiot. Told me to go back to where I came from. I doubt he’d let Brendan come. Bloody racist Australians!’ He glowered as he shifted gears to get up the steep hill. ‘They piss their money down the drain and take drugs.’

  ‘Most Australians are fine people,’ Madhav objected. ‘Good, decent, hard-working people who have welcomed us to this country. And someday Brendan will be like that. A good man.’

  ‘I doubt it – look at his parents. He’ll be just like them,’ Kumar smirked as he looked out the window. They were about to pass Brendan’s house now. Madhav had an awful premonition. The first sense of the divine he’d had in weeks.

  ‘Hey, there’s an ambulance parked at Brendan’s house,’ Kumar said. ‘Bet his mother has taken an overdose!’

  ‘Stop! Stop the car!’ Madhav shouted.

  Kumar pulled over as Madhav bolted out the door. ‘Don’t get involved! They are the Dalits of Australia!’ Kumar yelled as Madhav ran to the ambulance.

  ‘What? What happened to him?’ Madhav demanded as a stretcher carrying the young boy was wheeled out the front door. His mother came out too. She looked too drunk to stand up straight, although she was carrying a baby in her arms.

  ‘How am I supposed to leave these brats and come with youse?’ she demanded.

  ‘We’d much rather you not come, Miss,’ the ambulance driver said.

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ she demanded.

  ‘To the Monash Medical Centre. They are the best in the world at treating third-degree scald wounds.’ That was when Madhav looked down to see Brendan’s legs covered in bandages. Even through the thin gauze, he could see the raw burns, and where the white flesh was showing through.

  It was the night before the big Navaratri pageant and Madhav felt as if his head was about to explode. It had been nonstop ceremonies and events for the past seven days and he’d barely had time to stop to draw breath. Yet he had to do what he had to do.