So spectacular is this scene that it lures even Mr. McDougall's daughter back to the Big House, where she hasn't been seen for months. She shimmies up the tamarind tree to watch the sisters' progression with undisguised raptness. Hello, Aasha's tongue says—stealthy, busy as a worm behind her teeth in her closed mouth—welcome back! Aasha will not jeopardize the morning's miracle by speaking these words aloud, as fervently as she has hoped for Mr. McDougall's daughter's return; she will not even let Uma see her lips move. Stop it, Uma would say, stop your nonsense, and then the day would be ruined. If choose she must between the glorious good favor of her sister and the rekindled affection of her ghostly friend, Aasha chooses the former. Mr. McDougall's daughter will surely be back; she needs Aasha. To repeat her story to. To see herself in. To be fed crusts and crumbs by.
Even now, despite Aasha's half-snub, her jealous pink mouth whispers: Lucky Aasha. The only time anyone ever took my hand like that was at the mining pond, and that was only to...
But there Aasha stops listening. She loves Mr. McDougall's daughter's story for its sadness, its drama and color and lessons, but not this morning. She will not brook any comparison of this miraculous excursion with that ill-fated one, and wants no dark thoughts clouding this perfect morning.
Sorry, Aasha whispers inside her mouth. She knows she's already been forgiven.
On down Kingfisher Lane they stride, Uma and Aasha, hand in hand in the here and now. They turn onto the main road and pass the corner shop, with its stacked tins of Nestum and Horlicks, its clear plastic bins of Kandos chocolates and dried Chinese plums. Heat rises from the road in shimmering waves, as in a TV dream. Uma says nothing, nothing at all to distract from the day's soundtrack: sparrows' chirps, Cantonese love songs from someone's distant Rediffusion-tuned radio, the rumblings of lorries and schoolbuses and factory buses. But between Uma's soft, dry palm and Aasha's small, sweaty one is a glass egg growing heavier by the minute with the things they do not say. Remember when—? And you let me—And we sat on the swing and—That was what you sang. And this is what I thought the words were. Which made you laugh. And then we went inside and you made us sardine sandwiches on Sunshine bread and drew me a pink rabbit with cartoon eyes and a bow tie. Why do you—? I wish I didn't have to—This is how Aasha knows the glass egg is as precious to Uma as it is to her: for fear it will fall and shatter on the hot tar under their feet, she holds Aasha's hand more and more tightly, not letting go even when they get to the bus stop and sit down on its oily, blue-tiled bench to absorb all its disconnected confidences (on one wall alone: Azmi and Yuhanis forever! Jeya LOVE my dick. Shireen Sexpot brest size SO TOO BIG) and all the promises of its peeling advertisements.
Even as the number 22 bus jolts and rattles its way across town, farting black smoke that plunges trailing motorcyclists into dangerous coughing fits; even as Aasha watches a lone baby cockroach, still nakedly white, creep from one end of the window ledge to the other; even as they get off in front of the library to find themselves engulfed in a throng of factory girls (all murmuring and giggling and reeking of coconut oil, all skinny, all Indian, because, as Appa has oft explained to all who will listen, the Malays get all the government jobs, the Chinese have their businesses, and the stupid doonggu Indians are left empty-handed to slog in the factories and ditches and rubber estates), Uma clasps Aasha's hand tightly in her own.
On Kingfisher Lane, Anand's trance is in full swing by the time Uma and Aasha are in Children's Fiction, Uma pulling The Wind in the Willows off the shelf, handing it to Aasha, saying "Here, take this one," with a flutter of eyelashes some might interpret as impatience or distraction or dust in the eye, but into which Aasha reads a repressed, perhaps bashful, tenderness.
The garden temple is abuzz with delirium. The air is thick with fragrant smoke; behind the altar Mr. Balakrishnan's five different camphor flames crackle and hiss. This afternoon the heat seems to have surpassed all limits in living memory. "Not even a bit of breeze," the old ladies grumble, fanning themselves with cotton handkerchiefs and squinting belligerently at the sky, challenging it to produce the finest shred of raincloud or the faintest darkening over the horizon. Bare midriffs wilt and droop like old tire tubing. Jasmine and marigolds hang limply from greasy knots of hair. But Anand's performance more than annuls the heat's depressive effects on his audience's spirits. After the customary prelude—the buckling of his knees, the rolling back of his eyes in his coconut-heavy head—he's been doling out pieces of his five-year-old sister's mind to deserving parties left and right, not just those who have requested them. "Eh Govindamma," he's advised one aged aunt, "no more beating your poor husband with the broomstick! When he dies next year then you'll be sorry." And to a cousin too smug about his foreign-returned status: "Aiyo yo Kanagaratnam! There's a nice big heart attack coming for you in five years' time! Then will you be so proud of the diploma and the thirty kilos you brought back from Am-ay-rica USA?" And though no one in the crowd is immune to the comedic overtones of these unsolicited prophecies, solemn expectation still pervades the smoky air. Clearly little Amuda's spirit is in an unrestrained mood today. Will there be an incident, a fight, a fainting spell?
A vague line forms in front of Anand as Mrs. Balakrishnan stuffs laddoos and jelebis into his mouth to keep him happy. Mothers and grandmothers, worried uncles responsible for their dead brothers' children, fathers of marriageable daughters, all craning their necks and subtly jostling one another. But as greedily as they covet Amuda's auguries—every year they spend the evening after the trance jealously comparing the length and complexity of her recommendations to each one of them—they are also a little nervous. Which of them will she single out for ridicule? At whom will she spit bad news about which nothing can be done?
Anand rubs his eyes absently as he answers their questions, whining a little as if he needs a nap, and his suggestions are fit for playing doctor or throwing a doll's tea party:
— Boil durian seeds for eight hours while you sleep. When you wake your sores will have disappeared.
— Grind ginger with nellikai and spread the paste in your niece's armpits. She'll never fall ill again.
— Make your son collect his own urine for two weeks, spike it with saffron, and take his morning baths in it before he sits for that entrance exam.
Finally only three people remain in the queue: an old woman whose arthritis has left her lame, Kooky Rooky, and Chellam, who stands off to one side so as not to offend anyone with her presumptuousness. She's not part of the family, after all, or even a true invitee. She may not even be allowed to ask her question. But as Anand studies the old lady from head to toe and tells her to put twenty candle-nuts under her pillow, Chellam gathers her courage in meager fistfuls and wonders: What if—
What could her future possibly hold? Once she'd thought: more Big Houses after this one, more fractious old ladies with weak bladders and bowels, more trouble and less money. When she got to be an old lady herself, she'd move into the government old folks' home to eat plain rice porridge and shit in drains until she died.
But then Uncle Ballroom had arrived, and along with his five-ring-git-ten-ringgit he'd also handed out hope. Perhaps she would be able to save up for those spectacles after all, if she was clever and hid this side income from her father, if she got her eyes checked at the government hospital and chose the cheapest frames in the shop. And when Uncle Ballroom had left, pattapattapatta in the middle of the night just like that, and the snarling had begun, and the whispers, and the looks, that tiny seed of hope had sprouted within her and flourished in a most illogical way. For even in the best of possible worlds, what could a pair of cheap spectacles lead to? Still, and though she hasn't broached the subject of the eye checkup with Amma, they have become a symbol of greater things. What if? Don't servant girls get married sometimes? Even the ones whose fathers are too drunk to arrange their marriages with factory boys or road workers? Couldn't she meet someone while out on a Sunday errand, at the corner shop or the market, at the appam
stall or the roti canai stall? She's young; she can cook and clean and sew and have babies. There must be some man, poor or ugly or previously married, who would settle for a wife like her. Who would at first merely take pride in rescuing her and then, maybe, grow fond of her.
She waits patiently, already clearing her throat, trimming and smoothing her question in her head. They probably won't let her ask more than one. She knows what they've been saying about her; she's noticed the way the women draw back from her, huddle like chickens in the rain at the sight of her, and pull their pallus close around their shoulders so that no part of them accidentally brushes against her. The children shy away from her too, though they can't stop themselves from staring. And now, to make matters worse, people are getting hungry, their eyes wandering towards the long tables spread with newspaper and banana-leaf plates, their noses raised to sniff the ghee-fed air like dogs. She's an inconvenience—no, worse, she's a curse, because they're probably worried her presence will taint this auspicious day. Maybe she shouldn't take up their time; maybe she doesn't have the right. These people don't need another reason to hate her—but no, never mind. She must ask her question, she must. Suddenly she's as sure of what the gods are waiting for as if they'd spoken to her: a small show of courage, a nominal attempt to stand up for herself, and they will all rally around her. Ganesha with his protective trunk, strapping young Murugan, Mathurai Veeran with his gleaming blade raised to scare the snarlers and the whisperers into silence. They will color her future orange and gold; they will send the news of it spiral-ing out through Anand's mouth.
Kooky Rooky's turn comes first, because a paying boarder ranks marginally higher than a servant girl. Kooky Rooky leans towards Anand, tucks a hank of hair behind her right ear, and squeezes two questions into her one turn: "Tell me, will my mother have good health in the coming year? And when will I bear a son?"
Anand grins and tugs at his earlobe. "Sons all your so-called husband got plenty in his other house," he says. "I don't think he wants any more. Just ask him to share one or two with you. And your mother's dead, don't lie to me, you goat. You lit her funeral pyre yourself five years ago."
A fat, fair woman standing near Kooky Rooky covers her shocked mouth with the pallu of her saree. An unmistakable titter rises from the back of the crowd.
"Okay okay," Mrs. Balakrishnan murmurs, "don't worry, don't worry—" But before she can say more, Kooky Rooky has hurried away, across the garden and through the front door of the house (and then upstairs, where, after a brief cry into her pillow, she calls her husband at his hotel in Penang, only to find him not there).
In the garden temple Mr. Balakrishnan claps his hands and says, "Lunch will be—" And that is when Chellam steps forward, her bare toes curling on the hot cement. In one shaking hand she clenches a shiny twenty-sen coin for the coin box. She searches Anand's face. He licks his thirsty lips and pouts. I don't like you, he thinks. Anyone can see you're a dirty rubber-estate prostitute. And your saree's ugly. Then, without warning—so quickly Mrs. Balakrishnan gasps to see it—he grabs Chellam's fist, uncurls her tight fingers, and snatches her coin. He squints and scowls and breathes on her, too close, so close she can smell this morning's sweet rice and all the laddoos and jelebis and neyyi urundais fermenting on his breath, and all she wants to do at the sight of his squinting, glinting eyes is to turn around and walk away, back to the Big House, to clean up after Paati's latest accident and resign herself to an unchanging future of brown stains on white cotton, of veins that tie themselves in knots from too much scrubbing in too-cold water, of meals made up of other people's leftovers—chicken necks, backbones, bishops' noses, crusty rice and fibrous stems—of narrow beds in dusty rooms when you're lucky, and coir mats on cold floors when you're not, of unexpected tasks on supposed days off, of maddams who think doing nothing will make them happy, of masters who therefore (and with great relief) deem you responsible for their wives' well-being, of their children who condescend to be your friends as long as no one's watching and you remember your place, and until such time as they no longer need you. Of, in short, eternal servant-hood. Its doors are wide open behind her; all she has to do is to back carefully out through them into the familiar corridors beyond.
But the gods, who only help those who help themselves, are waiting to see what she's made of. She digs in her heels. She lowers her eyelids and whispers her question so softly Anand can hardly hear it:
"When will I marry?"
For three long seconds Anand just breathes, calm and slow and deep, as if he hasn't heard Chellam's question and is still waiting. In the distance Chellam can hear the slap-slish, slap-slish, slap-slish of the caterers' wiping down each banana-leaf plate with a wet cloth. The tinkling of wind chimes and anklets. A P. Ramlee refrain from the Malay house down the road, whose inhabitants have drawn their curtains against this all-out display of heathen superstition.
O O jangan tinggal daku
O dewi O manisku
(O O please don't leave me
O goddess, O my sweet one)
She lowers her shoulders, stands tall, prepares to repeat her question.
Then Anand covers his face and giggles. He rocks back and forth, his mirth gaining momentum, threatening to topple him. He throws his head back and guffaws, a slapstick laugh for outwitted villains and pies in the face. Then he begins his most vulgar dance to date: he grunts and gyrates and thrusts his pelvis at Chellam like a backup dancer in a Tamil film. But where are the lush green paddy fields? The coconut trees? The fat heroine with too much eye makeup and a beauty mark on her chin? Nowhere to be seen. There is only Chellam, chewing on her lower lip, holding back her frightened tears and waiting for little Amuda's answer.
Has little Amuda, too, heard the gossip about her? Have the gods also been savoring the rumors behind her back? For Anand is pointing at her with a crooked finger, and now he pulls at his hair and shrieks, "You! You dirty pariah whore, married, of all things! What kind of woman gets pregnant first and then looks around for a sucker to marry her? No, your only bridegroom will be four wooden planks and a roaring fire! For you the flames will be as high as my head, no, even higher, like a tree, like a tower, like a mountain! Yes, yes, he's coming for you very soon, that fiery bridegroom, no need to wait too long! Itchy whore that you are, you're impatient for his wedding-night embraces, aren't you? They're coming, they're coming, that mountain of flame will embrace you nicely, you'll see! But better tell your father not to spend too much on the wedding saree!" He picks up a pebble and flings it playfully at her shins. He spits flamboyantly in her face.
Silent, pressing their lips together, the crowd awaits further confirmation of their suspicions. Or (better yet) revelations, or (at the very least) a satisfying resolution. Will Chellam spit back? Will she wail or scream or lunge, and have to be led away?
No, it's Anand who's led away: before he can spatter more front-row spectators with his crotch sweat, Mrs. Balakrishnan grabs his elbow and pulls him across the garden and into the house, shushing him and cooing softly. She will give him a bath and a drink of barley water to cool him down. Then she will tuck him into bed and watch him fall asleep watching the ceiling fan. Mrs. Balakrishnan, barren for the twenty-six years of her marriage, loves having a five-year-old to look after once a year.
WHEN UMA AND AASHA walk through the front door of the Big House, Chellam has gone to bed.
"Pah, pah," Paati is muttering as they walk in, "how thirsty I am, what a hot day it is! Tell the girl to bring me a tumbler of water, I know she's back, call her, call her!"
"Enough of it," Amma says. "Be quiet for a minute. I'll go and see if Chellam—"
Then, as if the still-glowing miracle of the hand-in-hand trip to the library were not enough, Uma speaks. "I'll take Paati the water," she says in a rush. Amma darts her a sharp look and suddenly feels a little faint. The sweet warmth of infinite possibility floods Aasha's hands and feet, and oh, how overwhelming it is, this thought that Uma, the old Uma, might be coming back—cautious
ly, bit by bit, but nevertheless still coming—to stay. Even the specter of her departure for America has no time to dull this thrill, for already Uma is filling Paati's tumbler in the kitchen, and now she is striding down that long corridor, murmuring, in the measured monotone mothers use for sick toddlers, "Here, Paati. Drink."
Chellam doesn't stir from her bed for three days except for quick trips to the bathroom (during which Amma makes it a point to walk back and forth past the closed bathroom door, ears sharpened, breath held, already dreading the mess and the scandal and the call to the doctor, but she never hears anything, not a peep of pain, and admits to herself that anyway these bathroom visits are too short for the emergency measures she imagines). For now it's all new to them: Chellam's incessant sniffling in bed, the creaking of her bedsprings, the small, animal sounds that rise from her room and through the upstairs floorboards at night. The uneaten trays of food, the shallow, feverish breathing, the rancid-butter smell that wafts out from under her door. "What a wonderful thing," Amma says. "I hire a girl to be in charge of Paati and now I have to keep both of them on top of my head. Running from one to the other, bringing trays for Chellam and tea for Paati. One two hundred years old and the other in the family way or who knows what, both making my life miserable."
And Suresh smirks and whispers to Aasha, "Stupid Chellam. Acts like she's so clever sometimes, like she knows everything there is to know. Now look at her. One no-brains madman tries to frighten her and she locks herself up in her room and shits bricks. That's what these rubber-estate types are like, I tell you. Anything also they'll believe."
For the first day or so, Aasha is too giddy with happy memories and hope to care about Chellam's withdrawal. When Uma sits at the Formica table reading her library book, Aasha sits opposite her reading hers, which is replete with small wonders: Toad of Toad Hall's cravat, Mr. Mole's underground eyes like embers, the Irish bargewoman who has a bargepole for not touching things with. Although Uma now sits across the table with her face shut tight, turning her pages and never looking up, this book is a golden thread between her and Aasha. They share its delights without speaking: in the privacy of her head, Uma, too, must be thinking about what a dear Toad is even when he's pompous, and how soft Mr. Mole's forehead would be to touch.
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