As Sweet as Honey

by Indira Ganesan

  “I don’t know. She’s protective, just like Archer. But Oscar—doesn’t he deserve to grow up with his cousins?”

  “They’re all a decade older than him … Meti, I don’t understand, aren’t you happy here?”

  “I’m happy with you. I’m happy with your family. I’m glad I’m getting to know Dr. Morgan—”

  “Weren’t you surprised when her partner turned out to be a woman?”

  “Her receptionist. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Simon, don’t get me off track.”

  “I don’t want to live in Madhupur.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not my home. This is my place with you, with us. My job, everything.”

  “And how am I to cope, without my family? Your uncle had a mistress from Pi.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? I don’t understand, you were so passionate just a while ago, and now you’re so upset.”

  “Do you think that woman had a chance to say no? If she was working for him, and the boss wanted her, what power did she have to refuse? She might have even been married, with children.”

  “It’s such an old story, Meti,” said Simon, rolling onto his back.

  “But it explains Susan’s anger toward Pi.”

  “C’mon, don’t worry about all that.” He tried to put his arms around her, but she shrugged him off. “Didn’t I promise you I would always hold you tight when you needed it, be your strength as you are mine?”

  “It’s just odd. I never thought of your family as having anything they’d be ashamed of, except, well—”

  “Us? You mean the only strange thing is us.” He paused. “My family has owned a gin distillery for over two hundred years, which I know to you is not a great deal of time, since you yourself are descended from one of thirteen original sages a millennium ago—”

  “Shut up!”

  He kissed her ear. “The thing is, our history is wretched. We’ve led masses of people to ruin their lives with alcoholism, we have twisted personal lives—there are stories!—and we continue on. Our lives are messy. Everything is messy, you know that. By the way, what was that poem about? Is Neela in love with you?”

  “She’s in love with everyone. She’s protective, too. Simon, who’s Mouxx?”

  “What?”

  “There was a postcard—look, it was stuck in this book.”

  “God, I thought I threw that out years ago.” He frowned. “Archer—it was a long time ago,” he replied, shutting his eyes again.

  “Tell me.”

  “Archer wanted to marry her—decades ago. She was a banker’s daughter, slumming in the East End. I was awestruck when I first met her—earrings down to her shoulders, very high heels; she looked just this side of a call girl. I thought she was fantastic.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I was thirteen. I pretty much thought any girl over twenty fantastic.”

  “So Archer wanted to marry her.”

  “But his mother disapproved. She moved to Paris, and he never heard from her again.”

  “But the postcard?”

  “I found it years later. After all that time. I guess she did get in touch, but my aunt must have hidden it. You know, she could have easily tossed it in the fire, but she stuck it in a book. Maybe it helped her conscience.”

  “To think—”

  “—if Archer had wanted to read Conan Doyle instead of Miss Marple.”

  “Simon, it’s not funny.”

  “I know. I was furious with my aunt at first, but when I found the postcard, Archer was happily ensconced on Pi, and seemed to have forgotten her. I don’t know what happened to her. Probably went back to Bombay.”

  “Bombay … Bombay? Why?”

  “Her family was there, and she was born there, too.”

  “So she was Indian.”

  “Oh yes, though she tried hard to shed her roots.”

  “So Archer was in love with an Indian girl before me.”

  Simon was silent.

  “Your entire family is fixated on South Asian women.”

  “It was a good dinner, darling.”

  “Don’t change the subject. Maybe we should move back to Pi.”

  “Tomorrow … let’s talk about it later.”

  “Simon, do you think Susan will tell Oscar about Archer?”

  “No. Susan might be crazy, but she’ll always put Oscar’s interests first.”

  “What if she decides it is in his best interest to know the truth?”

  “That his mother once slept with her brother and then married him to cause him to die?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Meti, let it go. I know it’s easy for me to say, but you have to let the past rest, and stop blaming yourself.”

  “Susan?”

  “Susan is mourning her brother, she’s not mourning his marriage. And no, she will let us tell him the truth when he’s old enough.”

  They were quiet after that, immersed in their own thoughts until exhaustion hit and they slept.

  43

  As they had planned, Meterling and Oscar met Susan at the park to eat lunch together about a week later. Meterling had not seen Archer’s ghost since the day of the party, although once, at the grocery store, she thought she’d caught a glimpse of a white-suited man, but decided it was her imagination. Maybe he had gone away for good, as Simon hoped. Susan had brought Japanese takeaway complete with chopsticks, and taught her how to use them, but after a while, Metering just used her fingers.

  “I found out about Mou,” said Meterling.

  “Moo? Oh, God, Moose. Or Mouse. That awful woman who never ate.”

  “I thought you never ate.”

  “Oh, I eat.”

  “Your family doesn’t seem to have luck with islanders, or Indians, much—”

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “Forget it, Susan. There’s so much in our lives to discover that is far better than raking up the past.”

  “Hmm. What will you do about the land, Meterling?”

  “The fields? I thought I’d plant vegetables, and make a garden. I could lease some of it to farmers. Simon and I are going to keep the house. We’ll redo it and make it lighter. I think it will be good to have a family home in the country for all of us.”

  “Archer …?”

  “He will always remain in my heart, Susan. He is half of Oscar, he’s part of Simon.”

  “So many of my friends, well, they didn’t understand …”

  “Back home, hardly anyone understood or approved. Some stopped talking to my family.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “It was awful—neighbors we’d known for years, my distant relations. It was because I was a widow, and it was because I did not mourn enough. As if anyone knows what it is to mourn, as if you could assign a time period to grief.”

  “Aunt and Uncle wanted you both to wait a year, I remember.”

  “In the name of decency. But what was decent about Archer dying? What was indecent about falling in love with Simon? I didn’t plan it, I didn’t scheme—”

  “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. They always say that in the end, those who stick by you—well, I’m one to talk.”

  “But at least you gave me a chance—you didn’t close the door completely. You are trying to teach me to use chopsticks.”

  “Well—” here Susan smiled a little—“Oscar is my nephew.”

  “John was the first to accept me completely, without question. I will always remember that. In all those snide remarks, those little glances people threw at us, he just accepted us.”

  “Well, Meterling, if you want, now you’ve got me as well.”

  “Got you?”

  Susan took a breath. “Got me as someone who can try to be a better sister-in-law.”

  Together, they sat bundled up in the park, in the weak sunlight of autumn, and looked out at the horizon.

  PART THREE

  Returning

  (Nine Years After)

>   The great revelation never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.

  —To the Lighthouse

  44

  Oscar kept an eye out for the ferry. His mother had warned him it might be late. When he had taken the ferry, he had nearly gotten sick, the waters were so choppy. His father told him to look at the horizon, which helped, because he had not vomited. He liked the word “vomit” better than “throw up.” He kept a list of words he liked, and next to each entry, he listed its synonym that he disliked. “Demolish” was better than “break,” “tiffin” better than “tea,” and “British” better than “Paki.” He had been called “Paki” a lot walking home from school this past year, but he’d ignored the taunts. He had discovered if he looked at the name callers, they would beat him up (better word: “pulverize”), so he kept his head down.

  What he did not want was for either his mother or father to find out, because if they caused a commotion, he was certain he’d be annihilated. Only villains in his comic books were annihilated by heroes—poof!, they were gone. In the real world the villains, it seemed, usually won. He had one friend, Asha from India, who knew karate. She rode the bus, and told Oscar he had to convince his mother to let him take lessons.

  “I don’t want to fight those goons.”

  “That’s the thing. You just know karate and it gives you this, I don’t know, aura of confidence.”

  “What’s an aura?”

  “Like a magic thing. My mum can read auras—mine is purplish, which means I’m a warrior.”

  “What color do you think mine would be?”

  “I don’t know—maybe pale blue, which is very good for an all-round best friend. But we’d have to ask my mum.”

  Asha’s mother told him his aura’s color was aquamarine, and said that he was braver than he himself knew.

  “But he’s a really good friend to people, too, isn’t he, Mum?”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “Only I already said it.”

  He missed Asha, and summer in England, and Pibs. Asha gave him a small pink quartz in a nylon pouch before he’d left, saying it was a stone to protect him in his travels. If they’d stayed put, they’d have gone to Craywick, which is what they did for three weeks in July ever since he could remember. He loved Craywick, their country house, where he had a room with twin beds and a secret panel. At least, he was certain it was a secret panel because it moved when he pressed on it. They used to leave Pibs home, with a neighbor to take care of him, but because he was now a middle-aged cat, as his father said, they took him with them. Pibs was usually the first one in the car. Pibs couldn’t come to Pi, though, and Oscar tried to explain it to him.

  “It’s too far away, for one thing, and another thing—well, never mind the other thing,”

  The other thing was that he’d noticed right off that cats slunk around on the streets in Madhupur, but he hardly ever saw one in anybody’s house. Pibs was being taken care of by Oscar’s London grandparents. Aside from missing Pibs, Pi was not bad—he got many points in school when he said he was going to an island for the summer holidays. He liked Great-Grandmother’s big house, which had more secret-keeping rooms and parts than he’d remembered, plus the nice large swing on the veranda. And there was even a funny cat that slept much of the time, curling onto itself. His mother said that was the cat that his cousins had adopted when they were his age. There were as well three small dogs, who also slept a great deal, in a tumble of long fur and floppy ears. No, Pi wasn’t bad, but people kept pinching his cheeks, which sometimes hurt—old people did not know their strength—or kissing and cuddling him like he was a baby.

  They would probably read Treasure Island and make maps in the next school year, Asha had told him, as her class had done. She had burned the edges of the map as their teachers instructed, even as her mother stood watch over her like a hawk. He thought he might read the book ahead of time, but then there were all the Famous Fives, plus Swiss Family Robinson, and the comic books. His father had remarked that he was swimming in reading matter, but Oscar didn’t think so. He always worried he’d run out. Even to the doctor’s office, he took two books, not one; as he explained to his mother, there was always the chance he’d like to begin the other before finishing the first.

  Now he scanned the horizon. His father was looking at the schedule while his mother hovered nearby. It wasn’t that it was scary in the terminal; just that it was very busy. There were people rushing about, but there were also people who slept soundly on bits of blanket or suitcase, some passengers, some homeless. One man cleaned his teeth absently with a stick. Oscar had spent some time staring at him until the man looked at him directly; embarrassed, Oscar had looked away. His mother gripped his shoulder. There! The ferry was coming in.

  45

  We jostled our way down the ramp, hand luggage in hand. Rasi gripped my wrist and I held on to Sanjay’s shirt. We were like three little monkeys, I thought, inseparable, and now we were back on Pi. We had come specifically to see Aunt Meterling. We had meant to see Meterling years ago, but the years kept going by, despite our wishes. From America, Pi seemed distant and obscure, difficult to reach, as we fell into our American lives with a passion. We had returned once, but Aunt Meterling had been away in Kerala with her friend the poet, at an ashram, and only Simon and Oscar were at Grandmother’s house. It was during a Christmas break, and high school called us back before we had seen a glimpse of our favorite aunt.

  Now we were undergraduates, me in my sophomore year, Rasi, having skipped a grade, already a senior, and Sanjay a freshman. Our parents decided to let us go by ourselves this summer, thinking to join us later, or put off their trip until December. They thought it would be good for us, without them as interpreters and diplomats, as we navigated our way through family branches. “It is your country, after all, and you should get to know it, even as it changes,” said Aunt Pa. I suppose she meant as we changed.

  We had left the mainland in sunlight, but midway across, a thick fog descended, so that we could see only ten feet in front of us. I had hoped we could watch the approach of the island from the deck, but we stayed inside until the fog lifted. When it did, other passengers began to crowd on the deck, and we joined them. There in the distance, in the otherworldly beauty of late afternoon sun, in a clarity made pronounced because of the previous fog, was the island, green and lush. The balmy air blew against our faces in small breezes as the ferry made its way to the harbor, amid a murmur of voices that seemed continuous, rising in pitch and sometimes distinct. The waves sloshed against the boat, and I could see, behind a wire fence, the faces in the distance, waiting to receive the passengers

  Getting visas at the Indian embassy back in New York, I thought we’d never make it, as a crowd surged and yelled at the slow officials. I made the mistake of glancing censoriously at someone pushing firmly to get ahead in line, saying, “No need to push!”—what gave me the right?—only to be yelled at by the man, who demanded, Could I tell him why his visa request had been denied for months and months? Could I, he asked, tell him why the embassy ignored him and treated him with disdain?, his voice pitching higher and higher as I froze, until Sanjay had the sense to pull me away. Now we had made it, our group of travelers—there, the mother with her baby, who kept up a monotone wail; the man dressed in khaki and expensive sunglasses, who looked like a journalist, but was more likely a banker; the trio of young women who were unbelievably lovely, blessed with similar long, honey-colored hair, ready to spend junior year abroad studying nonviolence—and we shared small smiles. What tales could we tell if we had lived in Chaucer’s time? Now we waited while getting our passports checked and luggage inspected. This was always the nervous part of travel, when worry didn’t just extend to us but to the luggage—had the Hershey’s Kisses melted? Had the sneakers we brought for Oscar made it past luggage pirates? Already, we had been traveling for twenty-five hours. Finishing at l
ast, we stepped toward the exit, past the security line, and I heard my name called out. Aunt Meterling!

  We raced toward her and fell into her arms.

  We rushed to speak at once.

  Aunt Meterling, whom we hadn’t seen in nine years, tall as ever, with gray now in her hair and full of smiles. She was only thirty-seven, but our family did always gray early. Aunt Meterling, who seemed full of the vital juice that seemed to belong to her alone.

  “Is this Oscar?” Rasi exclaimed.

  Oscar blushed as we hugged him.

  “He’s so big now!” I said. From five to nine years, a leap. He looked like Sanjay had looked as a little boy, all those years ago.

  “And now you have turned into beauties,” said our aunt.

  Sanjay made a bow.

  Uncle Simon joined us, bringing Aunt Meterling a bottle of water. More hugs, more exclamations. Our limbs relaxed. We had come home to our family.

  The island smelled sweet, as it always did at twilight. We walked as the sun dipped and threw orange-pink clouds across the sky. I could never paint it, nor did I want to, but the sunset looked like a painting, more Turner than Maxfield Parrish. Billboards depicting new film stars in new movies vied with the colors, as did advertisements for laundry soap and vanishing cream. Men lounged on string stools in open shops displaying rows of plastic beads and glass bangles pushed onto newspaper rolls; it never changed, the glitter, the glitz of the market. A toy store caught Oscar’s attention because a yipping metal monkey performed acrobatic tumbles, or maybe he was eyeing the wooden tops that could spin and flip over, still spinning. Vendors held open their palms, displaying small wonders, promising hours of entertainment. I gave Aunt Meterling another squeeze. It was glorious to be back with her, with us all.

  When Aunt Meterling first left with Simon and Oscar for London, we felt like our favorite toy had been taken away. I remember we moped around until we were scolded. Uncle Darshan, hoping to distract us, brought home three puppies, one for each of us. It was startling how quickly we adjusted after that. Poor Scrap slinked away to Grandmother while our attention was caught by these yipping dogs. They were cocker spaniels, and won our hearts. Uncle Darshan got them from a fellow teacher who had retired to breed them. Grandmother called them One, Two, Three, but we named them Amitabh, Hemamalani, and Dimple. Aunt Pa said that when they’d had dogs in the past, they were given English names, so they could say “Come here, Tommie,” or “Sit and stop barking, Reggie.”