As Sweet as Honey

by Indira Ganesan

  “Nah, there’d be nothing for me to do, then.”

  This was Larry McGuire, who had run the place for the past forty years, before, as he put it, “it went designer.”

  Simon quickly made introductions, which led to more appraising looks at Meterling and the baby, and the foreman led them through the rooms containing copper stills, the purification processor, and, finally, the room of botanicals. Here, they were experimenting with bearberry, bayberry, and coriander for a Christmassy blend. The scents were strong when oak cask lids were lifted.

  “Take a whiff of this, lass,” said Larry, offering a handful of coarse brown seeds, which he crushed in his palms. His hands were nearly as brown as the seeds, Meterling noted as she inhaled the fragrance. They reminded Meterling of something on the edge of her memory—not merely the coriander, but the scent of wood and fire. Was this smell familiar to her even in childhood?

  They were offered gin mixed with bitters in the sampling room, and Meterling and Simon, with Oscar, took their drinks to a patio that overlooked the Tittleton River.

  “When I was pregnant, I craved to taste a martini.”

  “Hmm. You’re sure you can drink while feeding?”

  “In moderation, and I’m only tasting.” She took a second sip. “This is delicious, Simon. I had no idea. I see now why people want to drink.”

  “It’s good stuff.”

  “I could live here,” said Meterling. She took another sip and pushed away her glass a few inches. “Oh, I know I can’t really, but this is so lovely, Simon, the beauty here.”

  She looked at the river rushing past, the meadows beyond.

  “You do have three fields.”

  “And a manor house somewhere.”

  “And a manor house somewhere,” repeated Simon, “that you haven’t yet seen.”

  “Not yet, darling.” She sighed. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’d feel I was trespassing. Let’s wait a while longer.”

  31

  Nearly every fine day, Meterling packed a small lunch and took Oscar out in his pushchair to the Serpentine, where they watched the exotic ducks. She ate her cheese sandwich with chutney on white bread neatly, while Oscar gurgled with delight, his belly full. There were other women with children, and at first Meterling was enchanted, thinking how multicultural England was, with so many black and brown women birthing white children. It dawned on her pretty quickly that they were nannies, working like ayahs to feed their own children left home with a grandmother. She supposed she was taken for a nanny, too.

  She remembered in her first week, struggling to take the stroller up the stairs, and closing the gate behind her, an elderly woman walking by the building had answered her smile by inquiring brightly, “Do you own or rent?” Meterling had stammered out the truth, the resentment dawning later. Other women might have handled it differently—lied perhaps, or asked what business it was of hers, or pretended not to know the language. At the Madras airport, she had seen a woman who had cut into the line at security by stealthily shoving her Louis Vuitton luggage with her foot. No one had said anything; airport security would remain lax for two more decades. The woman left her place, wandered away, and returned to claim her luggage in the line. When confronted by a guard, she claimed blithely, nearly theatrically, not to know the language, any language, and maintained a face of innocence. Everyone knew she was lying, but what could be done?

  She finished her sandwich carefully. She watched as businessmen and women walked briskly by, perhaps from the Mall, using their lunch hours for errands or assignations. One or two glanced at her, but most walked quickly, striding in the way those who needed to be somewhere did. She had never known such a place for speed, aside from the loitering teenagers, tourists with cameras, and women like her watching their children. She sighed. Too much English. Maybe she should have stayed in Madhupur. Maybe Archer’s spirit would have been appeased, and she would not be dreaming of him at night.

  She wondered if Oscar, too, missed Pi; if he was aware of the change in environment; if the way Grandmother’s sari smelled like old silk and cardamom, the scent of roses from the garden, and the jasmine she always wore in her hair had already faded from his memory. Could babies know nostalgia, as she did, deep in her bones when she was alone or in the park sometimes, nearly brimming over with those wretched tears? Could he understand that this place was thousands of miles from where he was born, that the very salt in the ocean, and therefore the very air, was different?

  When it began to drizzle, she held out her tongue to see if she could taste hedgerow and lavender, but quickly pulled it back, realizing she might taste the urban grit. Then she stuck it out again. Big Ben, the houses of Parliament, the curried eggplant someone was cooking, the river Thames—was this what was being caught on her tongue? The myriad of urban greens, in a country where not one inch was spared cultivation, where even the wild was carefully planned? She loved England, the idea of it, but the reality of England? Where did she fit when it was just she and Oscar, without Simon? She was censured in Madhupur, she knew, but she felt censured here, too. Because she was trying not to think about it, she thought about it. So many glances tossed her way, men staring into her eyes. (“Those are merely poor sods, Meti—don’t look at them,” Simon advised.) How could strangers know what she had done? Bringing to life a child conceived out of wedlock, marrying her late husband’s cousin? A cousin close enough to be a brother? And Archer—no, she would not think of Archer, it was ludicrous.

  Oscar was “such an easy child,” which was the phrase Simon’s mother had used. Meterling kissed his belly lightly. At four months, he gurgled and sounded “ba” at different pitches. Meterling and Simon had hung black and white geometric discs above his crib, as a baby book advised. They read and sang and whistled to him. But too soon, too soon, because to leap five and a half years was an easy enough thing to do, Meterling thought, he’d go to the nursery they passed on their walks, where they’d teach him new words and songs. He’d wear a little uniform—at least, she thought he would, or did they do that in kindergarten? Soon, he might start saying, “I’m British,” refusing all other prior heritage, all family back home.

  She had so much family who would gladly take care of Oscar, family who would not confuse him because their skin color and hair color would be like his. He would not feel too different on the outside, like she always had. Moving to the UK made her more aware not only of her skin color, but of her deeply submerged feelings of patriotism. Every time she saw a South Asian woman, she wanted to catch her eye, but no one did. To be South Asian was not an anomaly to these women. Mostly Meterling saw white. Yet London was a world city, so why was she seeing only the majority white? There were all around her South Asians, British Africans, Middle Easterners, and Asians, but she saw white. It was hard enough being tall; now, she was prominently brown as well.

  Anyway, Oscar was not simply island, he was Archer, too. But if he were on Pi, he’d learn Tamil songs, pick up Hindi, not just English, always English. When he was old enough, four or five years old, he’d undergo the rite of Vidyarambham, the official start to his studies. Wearing a silk veshti under his freshly ironed shirt, he’d hold a palm leaf, inscribed with Sanskrit verse, ready for his first day of preschool. Of her own vidyarambham, she remembered the school floors filled with puffed rice—but that could not have been true. The teacher must have distributed some, and maybe she spilled hers on the floor. She was already tall, although they had been sure she’d stop growing by age twelve. What they hadn’t counted on was her height at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. The tailor kept having to sew strips of cloth to the bottom of her skirts and sleeves. She ran around in flip-floppy thong slippers, those being the easiest to buy every six months. How proud her grandmother had been, standing her against the wall, to measure her, Grandfather, too, before he died. He’d wanted her to be a pilot, but Grandmother hoped she’d be nicely settled and not have to work at all. What had been her parents’ wis
hes for her? How short she must have fallen from their expectations!—yet this was what she chose: Oscar, Simon, London.

  It was the silence in the flat that unnerved her while Simon was at work, the lack of trivial questions and comments constantly around her, the way Rasi, Sanjay, and Mina would be on her heels all during her pregnancy with a favor, a demand. They once had wanted to know if she practiced magic—so seriously they stood in front of her, waiting for her answer before scampering off. England lacked homeliness, that particular South Asian word denoting not plainness but coziness. They made her into a tall tale, sometimes, the way the family had a habit of doing with everyone. Here, too, as she looked around the park, stories could be made about the rheumy old man wrapped up in his red scarf, walking his schnauzer, erupting with great coughs, the skinny woman in a nurse’s uniform checking her watch, smoking a cigarette. She was inside a Beatles song, “Penny Lane,” all around her British and calm. She, Meterling, was in Britain. She, Meterling, was in London. Again and again, she surprised herself with this thought. Her heart ached. Of course, Simon and Oscar—here she scooped him up to her lap where he reached for her breast—made all the difference, were the difference, but why could she not keep the blue away? Think pink, she told herself, think pink. Her toes began to tingle.

  “You look beautiful.”

  She started, and looked around.

  No one.

  “You have to actually think of me to see me.”

  The voice was too familiar.

  “Ah, here I am.” He materialized, because that’s what ghosts do, appear into view without preamble. White suit, pink tie, sandals. Fat and sweet as he had looked at their wedding.

  “Archer.” The name stuck in her throat like a piece of gravel.

  “Yes, darling. Look, you can see me even better. And that’s my boy …”

  She held the baby tight.

  “But—I don’t mean to upset you,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I just wanted to have a look at you and my son.”

  “You’re dead—you died, Archer.”

  “I’m sorry, my love, I didn’t mean to,” he said, sounding pained.

  “They buried you.”

  “Ah, but it was too late. I’d already fled the body, just to have one last look around the island. By the time I came back, the ship had, well, sailed.”

  “I’m imagining things.”

  “No, I’m here, in the unflesh, so to speak.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I told you, to see you. Make sure you are all right.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “I would never have brought you here. London is cold, it’s ruthless. You belong on Pi, with flowers in your hair, eating mangoes.”

  “That’s patronizing.”

  “I’m sorry, but Simon—Simon doesn’t know you like I do.”

  “Of course he does! Simon knows me better, Archer. He loves me and I love him. That’s enough. If he wants to live here, I don’t mind. Oscar can be with his grandparents …”

  “John and Nora? My parents are his grandparents, Meterling, not John and Nora.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t be angry with Simon. We helped each other. You died so suddenly.”

  “That’s why I’m here now. Those who die unexpectedly with unfulfilled desires return.”

  “Is that a British belief?”

  “No, Hindu.”

  “But you’re not Hindu.”

  “There was a cultural breakdown somewhere.”

  “I must be mad.”

  But just like that, he disappeared.

  Had she really seen what she thought she had? Had she really had a conversation with him? For a long while she sat staring at the space where he’d been. Oscar’s mouth had detached from her nipple, and he was fast asleep. Waking him, she burped him, and let him drift back to sleep. She must have been more tired than she realized. She resisted the temptation to pick up Oscar and go back home immediately. What if Archer followed her home? She shook her head. She must be dehydrated, and it made her delusional, that was all. She did not believe in ghosts.

  She purchased some Fanta at a kiosk. A peeling poster advertised a Nostalgia Ball. “God Save the Queen all over again,” it said.

  “How elegant!”

  Meterling stood still.

  “Exotic. Like a bird of paradise.”

  The voices moved away, and Meterling was relieved they had come from two well-dressed women walking arm in arm. Had she been the subject of these comments? It unnerved her how many people felt emboldened to comment on her appearance aloud; but mostly, if they felt so moved, they addressed her directly and told her about their last trip to India. They spoke of great-grandparents and such who used to live there and had developed a taste for kedgeree. Meterling didn’t know what kedgeree was, and never corrected them about where she was from. What use to say “I come from Pi, not India,” when they really just wanted to talk of their travel or great-uncle—or, as she had recently experienced when she did assert her nationality, a woman just tipped her head and said, “That would be in the Maldives, wouldn’t it?” before launching into a story about her daughter? She had expected the British to be standoffish, stiff-upper-lipped, and all she had heard, but strangers flocked to her. Strangers and ghosts. When she complained to Simon about the strangers, he laughed and told her to accept the compliment. He said it had to do with her magical attraction, a beam of light in a storm.

  “Your height is a radio tower, attracting the lonely,” he said.

  But she didn’t want the attention, and wondered if she should dress in more sober colors. Her saris were bright, pinks and greens and blues suited to the tropics. Maybe she needed colors to match the English sky.

  Archer must be lonely, too, she thought. He had spent one night with her, promised his life to her and had it removed from him. Maybe this was why the old customs did not allow widows to remarry—to keep the ghosts away.

  The sun had begun to go down, and she had hardly noticed. Hurriedly, she slipped Oscar into his pushchair, and headed home.

  At the flat, she tried to write letters when Oscar had his longer afternoon nap. “Vivekananda lived near to our flat,” she wrote to us. Her neighborhood was called Pimlico, which cheered us up; it was such a strange name. It reminded Nalani of “Pimpernel,” like The Scarlet Pimpernel. It didn’t remind me of anything, but I liked saying it aloud, “Aunt Meterling of Pimlico.” But it didn’t make her leaving any easier for us.

  Most days—for she tired easily, she discovered—she put Oscar on the big bed and curled up right beside him. At first, she did not want to ask Simon if Oscar could sleep with them at night, wanting to spare him squeamish thoughts about Archer. But one night, he simply said, looking at her tired eyes, “This is what adoption means. Other people’s babies in your bed, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  And that was how she grew to love Simon even more, wanting to engulf him without drowning him. But the spaces to occupy herself without him stretched long, hours spent talking to no one but Oscar, who was more often than not content to quietly play with one of the toys Nalani had sent him. Briefly, she worried if he was autistic, and if it was her fault, for shouldn’t her depression before meeting Simon mark him somehow, cloud him unfairly in pain? Didn’t she deserve that? The doctor said the baby was fine, that she ought to be glad that he wasn’t fussy, launching into a story about another child. Dr. Morgan. She was efficient, composed, and looked Anglo-Indian. She only raised one eyebrow when Meterling walked in with Oscar, though the receptionist appeared startled at her height. She had thought she’d blend in more easily with the English, who were known to be spindly and tall, but it wasn’t always the case. Simon came to her forehead, but she still remained a half or full head above nearly everyone else she met face-to-face.

  She wondered if she could tell Dr. Morgan about seeing Archer�
�s ghost. She wondered what the doctor’s response would be, if she would merely shrug and say it was part of diasporic distemper, a common result of living abroad. She had been dehydrated, she reminded herself.

  32

  Soon it would be Diwali. Of course, she shouldn’t be celebrating Diwali; she was still a widow. Yet, she was also a bride, and a new mother, she wasn’t in Madhupur, and it would be her first Diwali with her new family. Simon was going to get sparklers, and she had bought tiny clay pots to fill with oil and wicks to line their terrace. She missed the children—Sanjay, Rasi, Mina—their voices, their brightness. She missed everything: little things like the clatter of the morning sweet-bun delivery, the way Grandmother lined them up for handfuls of spiced curd-rice, into which children and grown-ups alike dipped a thumb to create a well, to be filled with glorious spicy tamarind sambar. In the very same way, they’d pop a hole into a gol gappa, so that it could be filled with a thin sauce, before tossing it into their mouths.

  Stop, she told herself, stop, this was dreaming and living in the past, and what good did it do her?

  On Pi, Simon would … Simon would … Simon … Here her fantasy always stopped, because what would Simon do? Would he be as alien there as she felt here? And was it fair to him, he who had literally found her at the last moment, he whom she loved with both passion and devotion? And didn’t that Indian writer say no one could ever go back to his or her homeland again? That nostalgia by its very nature is imagination? In her letters from New Jersey, Mina’s mother, Jyoti, did not mention nostalgia; but then, her days were filled with science—that was how Meterling saw her, in a lab coat, peering into telescopes and test tubes, solving mysteries like Quincy, M.E. She was here, in London, with her two boys, and that was the reality.

  Her two boys. Simon did seem boyish, grinning with excitement as he lay underneath her, like a kid with a Christmas present, and if truth were told, he made her feel like a girl. That sense of tingling hormones that were allowed breathing space in Western dating and teenage coupling, the frantic stolen kisses as well as the we-don’t-care-who’s-watching near-copulations she witnessed on the streets, were not easily available on Pi. When Meterling’s impulses and desires were released, it was like a wave of rediscovery. With Archer, she had been shy, curious, nearly studious as she watched him examine her body, poring over her like a patron of the arts, murmuring soft moans of appreciation. Eyeing his body had filled her with apprehension, and she was certain they wouldn’t fit, that it wouldn’t fit in it. She didn’t mind so much that what they were doing was desecrating the ancient laws that forbid premarital sex, but she minded her apprehension. She didn’t fully understand his wonder over this coupling, until he released her pleasure, leaving her both surprised and shocked. As she felt her body softening, he—intercoursed—and she had gasped at the pain while he, breathless, withdrew, but not quickly enough. They had only done it that once, that impossible one-in-a-million chance of sperm meeting egg—result: Oscar.