‘Why didn’t you tell them I was a model?’ Aunt Anita laughed.
‘Didn’t want to,’ Reena mumbled, not in the best of moods after the name-calling she had endured all day, but glad her aunt was happier today. The attention Aunt Anita got from men always lifted her spirits. Personally, Reena thought it would annoy her after a while, having men stare at her all the time. But what did she know? She had never experienced it, except by proxy when she was with her aunt.
‘So how was your day?’ Aunt Anita asked Reena, waving at the security guard with two fingers like the film actresses did on TV. The security guard shone and swivelled his chair to follow their progress, as they walked down the steps, past the pool and towards their block of flats.
‘Okay,’ she mumbled. She had ignored everyone, but having to pretend that it didn’t hurt had cost her. Divya had joined in as well and that had hurt most of all. She knew why Divya had done it of course—to be one of the crowd. Suddenly she understood what Aunt Anita had meant when she said that sometimes it was easier to go along with something rather than take a stand. Reena hoped she, Super Sleuth Reena Diaz, was different—more courageous, not a coward.
‘Shall we sit here for a bit?’
Aunt Anita indicated the shady spot by the pool where Reena and Murli sat sometimes.
‘Okay.’
Reena dropped her bag and flopped down. She shut her eyes against the sun and focused on the blurry ‘cell figures’ dancing across her closed eyelids. She was going to take a stand for Aunt Shirin, she promised herself.
Super Sleuth Reena Diaz: Not afraid of anything or anyone.
‘You were right, you know. What you said. About Shirin… A wise little thing you are… And brave. Like her.’
Reena opened her eyes and stared at her aunt. How did she know what I was thinking? Her aunt was playing with her book, her beautifully polished nails the pale pink of prawn shells against the sand-coloured book edge. Based on her aunt’s reaction the previous day, Reena hadn’t expected her to bring Aunt Shirin up again. She had spent her time at school, especially during Kannada class, thinking up ways to pursue Plan D: How best to ask her aunt about Shirin without antagonising her? And now, Plan D was looking to be a success with precious little effort on her part. Either the art of detection was very easy or she was extremely good at it…
‘I’ve been thinking about it all day. Perhaps it’s time.’ An odd note crept into Aunt Anita’s voice. ‘And you…’ For the first time since she’d mentioned Shirin, her aunt looked right at her, still thinking aloud. ‘You’re old enough to understand; well, not fully perhaps…’
Stop treating me like a child. Of course I’m old enough, Reena screamed in her head.
‘I really ought to talk to Deepak… Try once more.’ Aunt Anita said.
No, thought Reena, her father’s face and the blatant lie he’d told her swimming before her eyes: ‘You know I’ve just got the one sister, your Aunt Anita.’ Somehow she knew that if her dad got wind of this, the photograph would be confiscated, the topic banned, and they would all go back to pretending Aunt Shirin had never existed. Please, Aunt Anita, please don’t. She didn’t dare say it out loud in case her aunt, perversely, went straight to her dad. In her experience, especially since finding the photograph, adults were not to be trusted. And—hang on a minute; Aunt Anita had said, ‘Try once more.’ Did this mean she had tried before and failed? Was it her dad Aunt Anita was afraid of? How could that be? Her dad adored Aunt Anita. He had been true to his word and had not lectured her about her impending divorce.
Her aunt was still thinking out loud, ‘But will Deepak…? He can be so…’
Yes, it was her dad. Had the rift, Shirin being disowned, been something to do with him? No, please let it not.
Aunt Anita glanced at Reena, nodded her head, having reached some sort of decision. ‘At the very least, you deserve to know about Shirin. And I’m aching to talk about her. What was it you wanted to know?’
If what she was thinking was right, if it implicated her dad in some way, should she find Aunt Shirin? Or forget she existed like the rest of them and ‘go with the flow’ as Aunt Anita had said. Divya calling her a freak, teasing her about her boyfriend. No, I am not like that. I refuse to be a coward.
Aunt Anita cleared her throat and Reena realised she was waiting. ‘Everything. How she was, what she liked, her hobbies. I want to get to know her. She is my aunt too.’ Detectives cannot afford to shy away from the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
Aunt Anita closed her eyes. ‘I kept her letters, you know...’
‘She wrote to you?’ Reena sat up, her voice shrill.
Aunt Anita nodded. ‘Not after... You know... Before, when I was away, doing my pre-university course.’
‘Oh...’ Reena digested this information. There were letters, written by Shirin herself! What else would she find? And would her aunt let her...
‘I read them when I miss her desperately, when I ache to see her, talk to her.’
Reena nodded, not wanting to open her mouth lest the question that was on the tip of her tongue popped out involuntarily.
‘I have them with me now. You can borrow them if you like. Get a feel for the person Shirin was...’
At last, a breakthrough! Despite her worries about her dad being involved, Reena found herself behaving the way men did around Aunt Anita—grinning like an idiot, unable to stop.
Progress so far: There are letters—actual letters that Aunt Shirin wrote! Aunt Anita has promised to lend them to this detective to read. Plan D galloping ahead at full speed.
This detective thinks, based on something Aunt Anita said, that the person Aunt Anita is afraid of, who is perhaps stopping her from contacting Aunt Shirin, is her brother Deepak, this detective’s dad. This detective hopes that this is not the case as, despite everything, she does adore her dad. He has his faults, like his lecturing about status and family name, but he is the one who sneaks her chocolate when she is up late studying for exams and who still even now lets her sit on his lap sometimes and rests his chin on her shoulder where it tickles.
This case is too close for comfort and this detective is tempted to stop, but she is going to continue, as would all good detectives. Do not let emotions get in the way of truth.
Next Steps: Find clues in the letters as to the cause of rift.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rickety Old Rickshaw
‘Anita! Anu...’ Shirin called, before she could stop herself. She was in Wembley, shopping for saris.
The woman turned and Shirin’s heart sank. Of course it wasn’t Anita. What was she thinking? Perhaps it was seeing her picture on the computer—that gorgeous smile, that heart-stopping face: The Face of India. How she would have teased her! How they would have laughed! Ooh, Anu, Face of India now, are you? And: You married Uttam, became a model, both of which Ma was opposed to. Did she let you? Has she changed that much? Did she not launch into her usual, ‘No daughter of mine will swan around half naked in front of strangers. No daughter of mine will marry a Hindu...?’ Perhaps she did try to stop you, but you did it anyway. Good for you. And: Anu, why did you change your name to Sinha? I remember that time Michu Aunty got married, became Michu Machado, how you swore never to do that, to give up your identity so easily, take on someone else’s. You were adamant. And you always kept promises, even ones made to yourself. So what happened? What changed? And: Anu, why have you stayed away? I thought you, of all people, would understand…
‘I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else...’ she mumbled, not quite meeting the woman’s eyes.
‘That’s okay. Happens all the time.’
‘Does it?’ Shirin looked up, surprised.
‘No,’ laughed the woman.
It does to me, Shirin wanted to say. Every so often, she saw someone who looked achingly familiar, and befo
re rational thought set in, her heart leaped, making her hope for one brief moment that it was a member of her family come to find her, to bestow forgiveness, to take her home...
Once, she had seen a woman standing at a crowded bus stop in her rear-view mirror and something about her—perhaps it was the way she stood, stooping slightly, or the way wispy curls escaped her bun—convinced Shirin it was Madhu. It had been during the early years in the UK, when hope still flared. She ended up giving the woman—a Sri Lankan who could speak very little English but was determined to communicate, pleased that Shirin appeared to have recognised her—a lift to her destination, a one-bedroom flat in a block of council houses in Kenton. ‘You meet me Sri Lanka,’ she insisted. Shirin didn’t have the heart to tell her she had never been to Sri Lanka. ‘Come have tea,’ the woman said when Shirin dropped her off outside her block of flats. Shirin squeezed her hand and left, amid reassurances that she would visit another time.
And she had. She’d been shopping in Kenton, almost a year later, when an ungovernable impulse made Shirin decide to visit her—this stranger she had accosted at a bus stop. She drove to the block of flats, walked up the two flights of stairs, the poky stairwell stinking of urine and littered with Burger King wrappers and beer cans, and knocked on number 22—the doorbell was broken—remembering the way the woman had held on to her hand, pointing upwards in the general direction of her flat. ‘I live number 22. Come, have tea.’
Nobody had answered. Shirin had checked her watch. It was 7:00 p.m., a time when most people were home. She’d knocked again, louder this time. She was just turning to go when the door to number 20 opened and a black woman poked her head round the door.
‘If you’re after Tushara, she’s moved.’
‘Oh,’ Shirin had said, momentarily at a loss as to what to do next. ‘Where to, do you know?’
‘No. Kept herself to herself she did.’
‘Thank you for your help,’ Shirin had smiled at the woman and turned to go.
‘She couldn’t speak no English, didn’t know nobody. Not like the other Asians here, with their aunts and uncles and cousins all crammed into one tiny flat, you know what I’m saying? You the only one come lookin’ for her.’ She had looked curiously at Shirin. ‘What was it you wanted?’
‘Oh, nothing important. I gave her a lift once and she invited me in. I was busy then, said I’d come another time’
‘Too late now, darlin’.’
Too late... Shirin thanked the neighbour and made her way down the stairs, trying to picture the Sri Lankan woman—Tushara her neighbour had called her. She recalled a small lady with a closed smile, wispy hair escaping her bun, her joy at being recognised, the intense loneliness coming off her in waves. But when Shirin tried to picture her face, all she could see were Madhu’s familiar, much-beloved features, seared in her mind like a worn, much-used map.
She had never approached anyone else again, no matter how familiar they looked, except just now, when irrational impulse had hijacked sense.
‘I’m Malini, by the way,’ said Anita’s look-a-like, formally extending a hand.
‘Shirin.’
‘Nice to meet you, Shirin. Bet you will laugh about this with Anita when you see her next...’
If I see her... Shirin surreptitiously crossed her fingers. She thought of the email, even now making its way to Anita’s inbox. She had clicked on Anita’s picture, found a little bio for her, an email address in the contact details section, and before she could change her mind, had sent her an email. Had she seen it yet? Anita, laughing at something, saying to someone, Uttam perhaps, ‘Give me a minute, I’ll just check my email.’ And there, nestling among the spam and the agency circulars, From Shirin.Vaz @cstsolutions.org.uk: Hi Anu, It’s me. I’d like to talk. If you would, too, email me back. Love, Shirin, xxxx.
She had thought and thought about what to write, had composed a long letter filling Anita in on all that had happened during her eleven years away—nothing much when she got right down to it, her life these last few years spent wanting, aching, missing—asking Anita question upon question about everything she had missed, was still missing. And in the end, she had deleted it all, had written just those three sentences and run the email by Kate, who had said it was ‘just right’. Was Anita opening it just now, as Shirin went about addressing strangers by her sister’s name? Would she reply? What if she didn’t? ‘Ah, Shirin, don’t think that way,’ Kate had said.
A memory: Shirin is five years old. She wakes to Jacinta’s sobs. Her mother’s nightie is wet with sweat and she is breathing very fast as though she’s been running for miles between sobs. Shirin panics. She’s never seen her mother cry before. A frantic, dishevelled Madhu runs to wake Ananthanna next door. The neighbourhood dogs howl. Deepak sleeps, little snores escaping from between pursed lips. Madhu wipes Jacinta’s forehead with a muslin cloth, ‘It’s all right, ma’am. Ananthanna is coming with a rickshaw. Hang on.’ Ananthanna and his wife lead a hobbling Jacinta gently out the door. And Jacinta is swallowed by the night.
Questions circle Shirin’s head, chasing sleep from weary eyes: Is her mother going to heaven? Will they only be able to visit her in the cemetery, stare at a wooden cross adorning a mound of mud and imagine it to be her, like they did old Mr D’Cunho? She closes her eyes tight, trying to shut out a world which makes no sense at all, a world where Madhu is the calm one and her mother the hysterical one, a world which turns upside down while Deepak sleeps and her grandparents snore. When she opens them again it is morning. Beside her, Deepak stirs. Sun slants in through the iron bars of the window, creating patterns on the wall. Sun shining this bright only means one thing. Deepak smiles. ‘No mass today.’ He rubs the sleep out of his eyes. ‘Why?’ And then, taking in the rumpled bed sheets and empty space beside him, ‘Where’s Ma? Has she gone to church alone?’ Shirin puts a finger to her brother’s lips and asks him to follow her into the courtyard. They squat under the guava tree, on the sweet-smelling bed of leaves and, with a mere tremble of her upper lip, Shirin says, ‘Ma is going to die. We’ll have to visit her in the cemetery. We are going to have to be very brave.’
Madhu comes looking for them. ‘Didn’t you hear me calling? Why are you hiding? Don’t you two want breakfast? I’ve made Sajjige Roti, and tamarind chutney to go with it.’ She peers closely at them, ‘Have you been crying?’ Shirin tries to smile but her mouth won’t do her bidding. ‘Is Ma going to die?’ Deepak asks. Madhu bends down, scoops them both up in her arms. ‘Of course not, silly boy.’ ‘I’m not silly, she is. She told me Ma is not coming back.’ Deepak buries his head in Madhu’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you worry about your mother.’ Madhu’s voice is tender, ‘She’s going to be fine.’
For the first time in her life, Shirin does not believe her.
Later, she sits on the little mound of earth by the mango tree where their compound ends and Ananthanna’s begins, from where if she looks really hard she can see the road and anyone turning into the little clearing that widens into the path leading to their house. She draws faces in the mud with a twig, Rex dancing circles around her, messing her sketches. She listens intently for the sound of an auto rickshaw signalling her mother’s arrival home—hope triumphing over the knowledge that weighs heavy in her chest: something bad has happened to her Ma. She watches the postman arrive on his bike, the menagerie of neighbourhood dogs keeping pace, kicking up dust, trying to nip at his ankles. He props his bike beside the bush by the clearing and, picking up a packet of blue envelopes—stamps peeking out—makes his way down the path, half whistling, half humming a Kannada blockbuster tune. He comes to a halt beside the mound where she is sitting. She refuses to look at his face, unreasonably angry with him for having turned up instead of her mother, staring instead at his long thin legs, clad in the khaki postman uniform, which is now the dark brown colour of mud. He’s wearing Bata chappals with blue straps, one of them held together by a
large safety pin. His feet are dirty and one of his toenails is missing. His long legs fold, bending gracefully into a V shape, and suddenly she’s looking into his gaunt, bespectacled face. His hair is wet, and when he smiles, his eyes crinkle, creating a busy network of lines along the sides of his face. ‘Hello there, little one, who are you waiting for?’ Rex, who’s been barking furiously, stops at the sound of the postman’s voice and tries to lick his face. Shirin bursts into tears, ‘My ma is going to die.’ ‘It can’t be possible! Who told you that?’ The postman rocks back and forth on his haunches, looking completely at ease in what has to be a very uncomfortable squatting position. His eyes are kind. ‘You don’t think she’ll die?’ ‘I don’t think God will let her! How can He allow a pretty girl like you to be orphaned?’ Shirin smiles for the first time that day, a warm feeling settling in her heart. No one has called her pretty before. People sigh when they look at her and say to Jacinta: ‘Good thing Walter’s in the Gulf. This one will need plenty of dowry,’ which makes frown lines appear on her mother’s forehead.
An auto rickshaw pulls up. And Shirin is running, pigtails flying, praying, ‘Please let it be my ma. Please, Mother Mary. I will be a good girl, I promise.’ Ananthanna gets out of the auto. Alone. Tears prick Shirin’s eyes. Ananthanna smiles when he sees her. ‘Shirin, go tell everyone the baby’s been born. Mother and baby are doing fine. The nuns said to visit in the afternoon.’ And Shirin, bent double from trying to catch her breath, her hair flying in all directions, laughs until tears track dusty streaks down her face.
Monsoon Memories Page 13