“Because that would make it too special!” said Rasi, rolling her eyes.
“She walked out into the garden, plunged the sword right into the ground, and walked back inside.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. It seemed possible that maybe Archer had given her a sword, but if he had, where was it? When friends of relatives in Bengal got married, the father of the bride presented the groom with a sword, which was displayed proudly in the front room of their house. I must have been only four or so when I saw it and was very impressed. Maybe this was the sword Sanjay saw, but how did it get from Bengal to our island? It made no sense. He was making it up.
“She’s a magician,” said Sanjay, folding his arms against his chest.
We did know about the fakes. A practiced charlatan will pay a dishonest iron wallah or pot mender to tell him a few details about a certain family. Had there been a death recently, an old history to elicit a bit of gossip? The charlatan would not act on the information immediately. He’d wait a few months, then casually stroll into the courtyard.
“Amma, can you spare some change, and I’ll tell your fortune?” he’d say.
Grandmother usually chased such cheats away, but others, like Mrs. Gupta, were not so lucky.
Mrs. Gupta lived a few houses down, with a grove of banyan trees in her backyard. Her daughter had run off at fifteen to live with an American sailor, a good-for-nothing who ditched her as soon as she got too eager, the fortune-teller said. We wondered what she was eager for. A taste for the sea itself? Who wouldn’t want to set sail on salty water, look at an expansive horizon, and not know what the next port would hold? To see dolphins and jellyfish frolic on the water, to sleep soundly even though there might be a shark or two lurking nearby? In our storybooks, pirates were not always so bad, and could prove quite helpful, and we knew to eat plenty of lemons and oranges to prevent scurvy. Too bad he ditched her—we literally imagined her in a ditch, cast off, like Ariadne by Theseus. Lucky for Ariadne that Dionysus came along to rescue her. I don’t know who might have rescued Mrs. Gupta’s daughter. The charlatan didn’t seem to think anyone did. Let’s hope she became a pirate herself, wore tall boots and smoked a pipe; let’s hope she learned to tie good knots, fend for her supper. Let’s suppose she mended her heart, found many friends and a fulfilling life. Who doesn’t have the right to a happy ending? Especially one brave enough to follow her heart.
The days right before the wedding—how spacious they seemed, filled with possibility. We followed Meterling like lambs, running after her, tumbling on the grass, pulling at her sari. “Indulge us, indulge us!” we’d cry, and she’d patiently wipe a tear, fix a hem, get the splinters out. Meterling was like a rose that kept blooming, long after everyone thought it couldn’t bloom anymore. Unfurling like a flag, like a song, like joy, like love itself.
She was beautiful in her height, her face a calm, round moon. Her hair was also calm, affixed in a knot or twined around in a braid. In one photograph, she is on a scooter, her plait falling jauntily down one shoulder, sitting sidesaddle (because this was old Pi) and laughing at the camera. Before Archer, before the thought of a baby. Another was taken when she was my age. She sat wearing a pretty frock, her ankles crossed and tucked in, but her body coming a bit forward, her hands on her knees. She is almost laughing, her face full of joy, her tight braids seeming to dance for the camera. Only one photograph shows her discomfort, a school picture, where, even seated, she is a head above everyone. She slumped in her seat, and I knew she was trying to make herself disappear.
When ice cream dripped down Meterling’s arm, she licked it up to savor each drop. This is why we loved Meterling so, she was our difference among all our tight-lipped sad women, the ones who could not take a walk in the dark, the ones who let horoscope and superstition rule all of their destiny, the ones who had no music in their feet. Tall, bold Meterling—all of us wanted to grow up and be just like her. We’d stretch our limbs, stand on tiptoe. We had to stand on each other like acrobatic clowns and still could not reach the ceiling. She couldn’t touch it, either, but she was closer to it than anyone.
Most nights, Meterling went to sleep early. She drank a cup of hot milk laced with saffron threads that turned a dark orange, russet, that stained her milk with exquisite scent. With her milk, she ate a butter biscuit; she dunked her cookie in her milk, relishing the flavor, the spongy texture, the soft taste. Lately, in this her third month, she craved nursery foods, like bread thickly spread with butter, sprinkled with sugar. She wanted pale baby food. She craved rice and ghee, mushy peas and chopped-up boiled carrots.
She woke at three one morning, resolved to make her own ghee and not wait for Shanti-Mami, our cook. From the icebox, still a luxury in the neighborhood, she removed a cold slab of butter. She placed it in a stainless vessel and lit the stove. The butter began to melt quickly, accompanied by the sound of rain, thick, splashing rain. Soon, the storm let up; the smell of rich, buttery, nutty ghee permeated the room. She thought of how, when she was a child, her mother would let her swipe the ghee leavings on the pan with her finger, after the ghee was transferred to a clean jar. No one was to know, because there were so many pollution rules governing the kitchen, and there was no licking of pots done in the open. But it was a secret relish the two shared, licking up the ghee, sometimes surreptitiously dipping their ghee-brown fingers into a small plate of sugar.
That edge of something so unusual to be forbidden was compelling, like Colette with her burnt chocolate at school.
She savored early the idea of what could be left after the main show, what remained in the bowl.
Returning to the ghee at hand, Meterling watched as the melted butter began to clarify, the solids resting at the bottom, the clear yellow-gold liquid floating to the surface. I am the clarification of butter, Krishna had said to illustrate his divinity. Soon the pot was full of golden ghee.
Was this when the tremendous midnight cooking began, with that first ghee, followed by rice and sesame, then honeyed badushas, then plump eggplants filled joyously with spice, until she was banned from the kitchen for being too pregnant? Almond kheer, buttery pooris, crisp jalebis that were like slender fingers, followed by perfect coffee already waiting when we awoke? Meterling told us that a famous author named M. F. K. Fisher had once described a good cup of coffee as being “intelligently made.” She loved that description, but we could think only of the name Fisher. I say it again and again: there was so much in those days that was lost on us, us children, but more that we could intuit, sense and get.
Some nights found my aunt unable to sleep despite the hot milk. Her body ached, and she woke, displaced and disgruntled. She tried to calm her body by setting up a chair in the dark, to let the night air cool her face. It was difficult. Just as she began to fall asleep on her chair, she’d move to her bed, hoping to carry the sleepiness with her. She would lie awake. Mornings would find her having napped a bit, her left side aching, and her cheek creased by pillow folds, her nerves raw and on edge. Sleep was what she wanted—sleep and Archer.
7
Folded fortunes made of paper. Nalani was very quick in making them. She’d put down words like happiness, wealth, joy, peace, yes, and no, but Rasi never had much time for them. Too easy, paper fortunes, she said.
One of our uncles always used a coin to decide whether he was going to get another coffee, or would it be tea, the Madhupur News or the Albitar Accent. Both papers were dailies and owned by the same person. But the editors were rivals, ready to best one another. The News featured Moon Lieutenant, a very funny commentator who wrote piercing articles poking fun at the Madhupur City Council. At the Accent, it was the Silver Bullet, who systematically ridiculed the Moon’s article from the day before. Uncle Raj, our neighbor, took one paper, Uncle Darshan took another, and the two compared notes over betel. Neither the Moon nor the Bullet, of course, they liked pointing out, held a candle to the late, great wit and publisher of Tamil Nadu, Kalki himself. Kalki, they said,
had written it all, before it had even needed to be written.
Every evening it was the same. The uncles would settle on the veranda with a silver box holding the paan leaf and betel nuts between them. Carefully they would attend to the matter of creating plump rolls of paan. This was done in silence. Then, chewing carefully, they would each let out their own thick red spit into the garden. Then one uncle or the other would comment on the dailies. Another stream of paan laced with tobacco followed. Then a sigh. And finally, one uncle or the other would speak of Kalki. And a third or fourth round of paan would commence.
I always watched fascinated and repulsed all at once at the thick red stream of spit.
Dreamy Nalani and her paper fortunes. There she was at the window, her hair in a loose plait down her back, and in a soft loose cotton gown we called her Juliet dress. She had a whole trunk full of such gowns, one for every day of the week, in soft purples, greens, yellows, pinks, and creams. Nalani, always sunny with her smile if you caught her by surprise. But at the window, her eyes were on her future, and she folded and unfolded the paper frogmouth she had made. Joy, peace, love, happiness.
Rasi said she should put in some other words, like misfortune, or dire straits, but Nalani has no use for words like that. She wanted a good life. Sometimes joy, sometimes peace. Mostly she wanted love, like Meterling had had, to share her heart with someone, romantic love, deep love, divine love.
“Shouldn’t they learn French?” our aunties wondered aloud. “They are running around like wild pigs.”
Their most focused talks had been about landscape. Archer had been an amateur naturalist. That was one thing his father, the Gin King, hadn’t taken away. So as he traveled for his father’s company, inspecting bottling facilities and such, he always took one day to appreciate the scenery.
“That must sound dull,” he said, “but we so often take it for granted.”
He described what he’d seen: enormous mountains stranded in mist, the vapors rising, magically, ghostlike.
He told Meterling about California, a green wonder in America, where orange groves perfumed the air, where the Pacific crashed wave after wave against the reddish-tan cliffs.
“Fat sea lions line the harbor, and pelicans roost in the rocks. Whales migrate each year—it’s a sight, Meti. A sight we should see.”
And so they had planned a honeymoon, a quiet trip to visit all the oceans, all the shores, all the mountains he had seen. And then a trip to all that he hadn’t seen, scenery and landscape they would discover together. They’d pack a few clothes, some lotions and potions to ward off sunstroke, bug bite, and nausea. They would be easily equipped for adventure.
I wondered if Meterling had even wanted a baby. How would they have traveled? Her belly was growing. Her body began to perceptibly change, and things became heavier. She felt as if water sloshed under her skin. Everything seemed puffy. There was nausea. Some mornings, she heard birds cry out and her eyes began to fill with tears. Her arms trembled. They were the part of her body that hurt the most. Not her legs, not her back, but her arms. So much was held in, held up.
Archer had given up the gin business, but he still held the title of VP of Distribution. As heir, he could not give it up, although in reality a legion of assistant VPs and sub-VPs did most of the work. His family’s company made its fortune on Black Cat O’Malley gin, named for a real cat back in 1670, when patrons at High Tom Spirits on Holburn Street in London lined up for a shot of medicinal gin. The chief attraction at the pub was a mechanical cat that held a spout from which the publican poured a shot of gin straight into the customer’s mouth. The Forster family’s dram shop grew to a gin palace, and the original, highly guarded recipe stayed the same until Archer’s great-great-grandfather decided to open a distillery in Madhupur. He added cardamom and coriander to ten other still-secret plant oils, as well as asafetida to his gin, calling it Mulligatawny Black Cat. “Add Spice to the Kick!” was the advertising slogan, and the British colonials drank it up to ward off malaria. It was local, it was cheap, and it was British.
There was an old house on a hill station nearby to the distillery where Uncle Archer’s father stayed with his family when he became president of the company. As babies, Uncle Archer and his sister had an ayah, and then they were sent to boarding school in England. Susan loved England, and begged her father to let her stay with relatives in London instead of coming back to Pi. Archer was different. On holidays, he’d return to Pi, getting tanned and following his father to the plant. He was fascinated by the way the stillman, Mr. Peaks, ran the liquor through again and again, until he deemed it perfect. In another room, the rich smell of cardamom and the other plant oils wafted to the ceiling. Archer’s father hired about twenty local people in his plant, and as in the old days, the island workers were overseen by the Anglo-English, except for Mr. Prakash, who kept the books. On his holidays, Archer would often visit the Prakash family at their home, and plump Mrs. Prakash fed him sweets and savories. “Archie,” she would chide, “you’re much too thin. Do they not feed you at that school of yours?” In his hamper back to school, there would be lovingly made chutneys and snacks packed expertly by Mrs. Prakash.
Adolescence found him hiking in the hills, often with just a rucksack and a friend or two. After university, after a brief stretch with the idea of becoming a barrister, he settled into a job at the family business. It was an easy jump to VP—who was there to compete with him? Evenings found him and his father nursing their tonicky gins, as the shouts of night cricket were heard outside their home. Archer’s father was rail thin, and liked to emphasize his points with sharp blows with a cane on any nearby object. The object had often been the back of Archer’s knees for misdemeanors and backtalk. Boarding-school masters were equally fond of the cane, but Archer swore he would never use one on any child of his. What was unnerving to Archer was to imagine his father voicing those same promises when he was a young man.
His father did not die on his beloved island. He died in London, on the floor of a bank, where an epileptic seizure led to his heart stopping altogether. Susan identified the body. Somehow, she blamed the island, even though it was irrational, but when is grief rational?—and at the same time, when is grief ever irrational? Grief for her needed a focus, something to blame. She was twenty-two. When Archer reached her, she was cold, withdrawn, because she knew Archer loved the island. After the funeral, Susan poured herself into her new job in advertising. Archer poured himself a drink.
Was this why he never dated much, in love with the bottle more than with any woman? A cadre of school friends dined with him regularly until one by one, they married. Then he became a guest, the needed fourth in bridge, the possible date for Anne or Lesley. At thirty-five, he went back for Mrs. Prakash’s funeral, and wondered why he ever left Pi. He moved to Madhupur permanently. His father’s house was too empty, so he sold it, and took a small bungalow. Without his drinking companions, he felt less inclined to drink. Mr. Prakash, eighty, took him along to ayurvedic steams and massage, made him consider yoga. Archer thought about it, but decided he found more pleasure in rasagullas than in chaturanga dandasana, sweets winning easily over yoga postures.
8
Meterling picked up the phone. It was an old-fashioned one, black, with a heft that, if it was hurled, could hurt someone. The cradle was heavy, too. She put the receiver back. She hesitated but did not pick up the phone again. The slip of paper was in her hand with the cousin’s number written in scrawled letters, haphazardly spaced, in black fountain-pen ink. She gazed out the window and saw that the goat was no longer in the garden. The sun lit up the coral jasmine tree, making the orange tongues of its flowers fire points. Momentarily dazzled by the sight, she looked away. She smoothed down her light cardigan. It was too large for her, and a thread was fraying near one of the buttons. She absently pulled at it, and then bent down her neck in an odd angle to bite it off with her teeth. She became ashamed of her own ferocity, and smoothed the sweater down again. She got up and
walked to the door, but changed her mind. She began to pace. There was something on the floor. It was one of our marbles. She picked it up and held it up to the light. It had a pale green tint, with a brown cat’s eye inside. Meterling wiped the marble in the paloo of her sari, and placed it in her mouth. She let it roll around against her teeth, bit down softly, and then spat it out again.
“I must be going crazy,” she thought. She looked out the window once again and began to cry. She placed her hands on her ever-bigger belly and shuddered with tears.
I saw her from the doorway and ran to her to hug her. My arms couldn’t reach around, but I had forgotten that. I wanted to take away her pain, moor her somehow, make it better.
Gin is made with juniper berries and a careful blend of other herbs. If Meterling was to inherit any of Archer’s wealth, she hoped it would be a field of coriander, a field of cardamom, and a field of turmeric. This was all she could handle, she thought, wanting no part of the great monstrosity of a house his father owned in England, with its dark, damp walls and sweep of staircase, its foyer so crowded with photographs of unsmiling relatives and white nawabs, a house that Archer said suffered from a lack of breath. There was no money, except in gin, but Archer’s family was going to see to it she got very little. Certainly there was no will; there had been no time for a will. But if there had been a will, she might have gotten three fields. That’s what she had wanted, after all. For Archer did talk of his death once, a night they took a boat around the lake as the sun burnt the water with crimson. He worried aloud that he might very likely go before her, leaving her a widow. She had laughed her twinkly laugh then and told him, looking straight into his eyes, “Then leave me three fields. One of rye, two of spice.”
As Sweet as Honey Page 4