“You are the one who told my granddaughter that there were,” said Nirmala.
“Me? I never talk to that brat. What use talking to a dumb thing?” She held her heart and allowed the tears to drown her eyes. “All my life I have done things for people, total strangers too, and now look how I am treated in my own house.”
After lunch, while Ammayya napped, Putti had stolen her mother’s keys and found the coat wrapped in an old sari stored in a corner of the cupboard. She had quietly handed it to Nirmala. Now, up on the terrace Putti leaned against the wall and swept all her hair to one side. It was a Sunday and she had indulged in an oil bath. The combination of the thick mustard oil melting into her body and the hot water that she had used to wash it off made her feel soft and drowsy. A pleasant breeze cooled the back of her neck. Far below, in the garden, she noticed Nandana near the mango tree. The child had captured the cat and was playing with it.
“Like dark clouds her ringlets tumble,” called a voice from the neighbouring terrace.
Putti looked up startled to see Gopala standing there, in a singlet and striped cotton shorts. She knew it was indecent of him to expose his body like this to an unmarried woman, but she felt her belly flutter with excitement.
“Her face is a moonbeam shining through,” continued Gopala, leaning against the parapet and giving Putti a deep, meaningful glance. “Her eyes like twin stars beckon.” Now his own eyes touched her breasts decorously covered by the pallu of her sari, and to her horror she could feel her nipples harden inside the stern cotton Maidenform brassiere, which, like the rest of the lingerie in Beauteous Boutique, was built to last several decades. Putti blushed, embarrassed by her wayward body.
“Shall I come and carry you away my moonbeam?” called Gopala, and made as if to leap across the gap separating the two buildings, and Putti turned and fled into the safety of the house. She was so agitated she did not know what to do with herself. The last thing she wanted was to face her mother just now. She sat down at the top of the stairs, her heart thudding with fear and excitement—Gopala was like a film star, Putti thought. But, she reminded herself, he was also an unscrupulous, ruthless man. He was dangerous. Nevertheless, the thought of him tainting her safe, clean world was wildly exciting.
And to complicate matters, next week the mental asylum therapist was arriving to see her—the fellow who had been touted as such a marvellous catch by Gowramma. Putti did not know what she would do if he agreed to marry her. Could she refuse? Or would Ammayya find something wrong with the fellow as she always did with every prospective groom? Restlessly she went into her brother’s bathroom one floor down, and splashed some cold water on her face. Then, having composed herself, she went to her own room hoping her mother would not be there.
But Nirmala’s students had left, and Ammayya was regretting her quarrel with Putti. She looked up eagerly at her daughter.
“My darling, isn’t it exciting, next week my new son-in-law will be arriving?”
“I am not married to him yet. We are only meeting for the first time,” snapped Putti sweeping past her into the bedroom.
“I have a good feeling about this one,” sang Ammayya, rocking happily on her chair. “A really good feeling. And I saw four crows in the backyard this morning. You know what that means?”
“No.”
“Of course you do, my darling. I only taught you the rhyme. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for letter, four for boy! Now do you remember?”
Putti settled in front of the Belgian mirror and brushed out her long hair tangled by the breeze.
“Why you are not speaking to your old mother, my pet?” begged Ammayya.
“I have nothing to say.”
Ammayya looked fondly at Putti who was staring at the mirror as if she had never seen it before. A small spiral of doubt unwound in her mind. Once again, she noticed, Putti was standing transfixed before the glass. The old woman moved closer and tried to see what her daughter was looking at, but there was nothing except the two of them in the corroded silver.
At six that evening, after the dance students had dispersed, the family went to the temple. Nandana looked unfamiliar in a long, green cotton skirt and matching blouse instead of her usual jeans. Nirmala carried the fruit offerings in a silver platter—fresh bananas, a single apple (as apples were far too expensive now), a small bunch of grapes coated white with some pesticide that wouldn’t wash off, a coconut with its fibre still intact (it was inauspicious to get rid of that tuft before the coconut was offered to God). A couple of a garbatti sticks and a string of flowers completed the picture. When Sripathi’s father was alive, the offering was much grander and included out-of-season mangos, pomegranates, even a silver coin or two.
Now that the festival season had started, the temple was crowded with evening worshippers. Women swept by richly dressed in heavy silk saris, smelling of sandalwood, jasmine and incense. They, like Nirmala, carried platters of fruit and flowers. The men looked plain in comparison, as most of them wore white lungis wrapped around their waists and starched white cotton kurtas. There were rows of vendors outside the temple gates, shouting out their wares. More flowers, coconuts, fruit, betel leaves, piles of kum-kum powder in shades of crimson and pink, like mountains in a child’s dream—every possible thing that one might need to placate, honour or flatter the gods inside that great stone building with its soaring pillars and dark womb where the chief deity resided in tranquil silence.
They left their shoes with a young boy who gave them a token in exchange. For a small charge, he would guard their footwear from the thieves and beggars who always hung around the gates, waiting for alms or an unguarded pocket. The temple was already full of evening worshippers—people singing, bending before the various idols scattered around the echoing stone enclosure, or simply praying silently with their eyes squeezed shut. One man lay flat on the ground and repeatedly banged his forehead on the floor, his murmured prayers rising and falling with each movement of his head. In a far corner, leaning against a pillar, sat an old man with neat clothes and sparse hair. He clapped his hands and shouted in a rich voice that seemed to emanate straight from his belly, “All gone! All gone! O Lord of the Cowherds, only you are left for me!”
Krishnamurthy Acharye, the old priest who had presided over the ceremonies when Maya was born, during the annaprashna when she had her first mouthful of solid food, on her first birthday, and who had blessed her before she left Toturpuram, was waiting for them. He recited prayers for her soul and Alan’s, the latter in spite of Ammayya’s objections.
“You and I are old enough to know better than to make a fuss over all this nonsense, Janaki Amma,” he had wheezed. The priest was one of the few people who had known Ammayya long enough to address her by her first name. “Our gods won’t mind if we say a prayer for someone of another faith. I know, I have been talking to them for eighty five years.”
“But he doesn’t have a gothra-nakshatra, nothing,” quibbled Ammayya. “What was his family name? What stars was he born under?”
“We shall do it in God’s name, that will be enough,” said the priest. Ammayya had to content herself with eyeing the silver utensils that Nirmala had polished and brought along with the coconut, the flowers, the coins and the pieces of cloth that would be distributed to the poor after the rituals were observed.
“So cunning, did you see all the new-new things she has purchased? And she says that she has no money!” whispered Ammayya to Putti, who frowned at her.
“Those are her wedding things, Ammayya,” she said, disgusted with her mother for behaving so uncharitably on even this sad occasion.
It was a simple ceremony. Nirmala had insisted on that, and the family sat in deep silence for a few minutes after the priest had finished his incantations. The ancient rhythm of the words was profoundly moving, and Sripathi could feel the tears prickle behind his eyelids. He wouldn’t let them fall, though. To do so would be to acknowledge the finality of Maya’s death. To do so would be to absolve h
imself of all blame, and he couldn’t do that. Like a penitent he needed the harsh bite of guilt to keep memory alive.
Later that evening, Arun and Sripathi rode down to the beach with Maya’s ashes. It was full of people out for an evening walk, children racing through the waves screaming half-fearfully as the surf snarled at their bare legs, women with their saris tucked high between their knees, keeping a watchful eye on the children and shouting, “Be careful, be careful!” every now and again. Here and there in the twilight, Petromax lanterns gleamed where vendors sold peanuts and green mango cut into lacy spirals, spicy bhel-puri and sugar-cane juice, their voices hoarse from competition with the endless crashing of the sea.
“Let’s go farther up, over there,” said Arun, pointing to a narrow, deserted strip of sand hedged in by large, mossy rocks.
They emptied the urn, watching the flecks of grey float away on the foam and the breeze, or settle on the rocks from where they would be washed away as the tide surged higher. Sripathi could feel some of the dust settle into his hair, stick to the skin on his face. He brushed a hand across his hair, but could still feel the weight of those particles. His face, too, felt coarse, as if the ash had scabbed over it permanently.
“We should have taken this to a river,” he murmured. “That is the proper thing to do.”
“I don’t think it matters. Maya would not have minded,” said Arun. “She never cared about silly details.”
Sripathi nodded, too full of feeling to say a word. Yes, she never cared about details such as her father’s reputation, Mr. Bhat’s anger, nothing. And he cared about nothing but. That was the problem. He had a sudden desire to see Raju, to borrow some of his calm strength, his good humour. “You go home,” he told Arun abruptly. “Tell your mother I will be back later.”
He stood by the water for a while, and then walked across the damp sand to the road where he had parked his scooter. He rode past Karim Mechanic’s shop, the Ace Tutorial building full of young men and women anxiously cramming for the SAT and GRE and GMAT exams, and the video store reverberating with the sound of the latest film music. Raju’s house, when Sripathi reached it, was a haven of calm, but his friend was strangely silent during their visit, distracted almost. He listened quietly to Sripathi’s complaints about the possibility of losing his job. And he nodded when he heard about the ceremony of the temple. “Yes, you need to close down some parts of your life without too much fuss,” he said. “Otherwise you will go crazy.”
But when Sripathi started grumbling about Arun, Raju gave him an irritated look. “Why are you always after that boy? At least he is with you when you need him. Look at me, my sons are strangers to me.” He stopped and gazed broodingly at his book before plunging into complete silence. Sripathi sipped uncomfortably at his tea, aware that something deeper than his sons’ attitudes was bothering his friend.
“Is something wrong?” he asked finally.
Raju hesitated. “No,” he said. “I am okay, just a little tired.”
“There is something,” insisted Sripathi. “You can’t hide from me, man. Come on, tell. I thought we were friends.”
Raju gave a faint smile. “Too much imagination you have, Sri. Nothing to tell.”
Poppu shuffled in with the tea and Raju shifted the conversation. “Why haven’t you brought Nandana to see me?” he asked. “Am I not her grandfather too?”
“Yes, I will,” said Sripathi. He wondered whether to tell his friend that the child would not speak at all. That she didn’t seem to like him.
“When? Tomorrow? I am fed up of my own company. Why don’t all of you come and have tea here? I will ask Poppu to make her famous maddur vadais. What do you say?”
“I say that you are trying to change the topic. I know there is something worrying you, and I am not going home till you tell me what it is,” Sripathi said firmly.
Raju fiddled with the pages of his book. “I am selling this place,” he said. “I can’t manage any more on my pension. I can’t handle Ragini by myself, and Poppu is getting old. We need to keep a nurse and I can’t afford it, unless I sell my house.”
Sripathi was too stunned to say anything for a few moments. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What would you have done? You have troubles yourself.”
Sripathi felt too ashamed to speak. Here he was going on and on, full of self-pity, always borrowing strength from Raju, never stopping to ask him how he was managing.
“You know, sometimes I dream of killing her,” continued Raju. “I imagine how it would be to put a pillow over her face when she is asleep, how easy it would be to get away with it. Who will ask questions? Nobody. Why should people care about a retarded girl who has been abandoned by her own brothers?”
“Don’t say things like that,” Sripathi remarked, unable to hide his shock.
“Why not?”
“You don’t really feel that way, I know.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” Raju said, giving Sripathi a tired look. “Sometimes I sit here in the dark and think, Suppose something happens to me, who will look after my daughter?”
Sripathi wished that he could say without any hesitation that he would. He wished that he had the courage and the niceness to do so. But he was silent and after a while, when Poppu came in to remove the tea cups, he rose to leave. “If you sell this house, where will you go?” he asked.
“Oh, I will still be here in this same place. The builders are giving me one flat as part of the payment for my property,” replied his friend. “Are you leaving already? Don’t forget, I want to see your Nandana. Bring her over the next time you come here. Yes?”
“I will,” replied Sripathi, “but on condition that you don’t think such nonsense thoughts about Ragini.” Once again he trembled on the brink of telling Raju that he would take care of the girl should anything happen to her father, that he would always be there to help, but the words wouldn’t come out. It was only after he was halfway home that he realized Raju had not said anything in response to his last sentence. This Friday, he told himself. This Friday he would talk to Raju again, assure him that he was there to help in any way he could. Perhaps he could sit with Ragini for a few hours while Raju took a walk to the beach. Or maybe they could go for a picnic with the girl.
Just as he entered Big House, Sripathi spotted Mrs. Poorna sitting hopefully in her balcony on the look-out for her lost daughter.
“She will never return, you poor woman,” murmured Sripathi sadly. “The lost ones never do.”
He envied her her madness. In the secret corridors of her mind, Mrs. Poorna wandered around eternally hopeful. She had found relief in the delusion that her child had only gone out to play and would return any moment. He wondered whether it was comforting to be lost in madness. He longed for such oblivion from pain. Or for the strength to be completely detached from all creation, to achieve the state that the sages of the epics had attained through years of penance, fasting and meditation. As a young boy, Sripathi was warned never to stand too long in one spot on the wet sands by the sea. The sea would suck him in, he was told. But he would wait until that cunning mesmeric movement of sand began under his feet, a sense that he was sinking inch by inch, and then, with an enormous exercise of will, he would remove himself from the insidious pull of the sea and run across the sand kicking at the waves in an ecstasy of freedom. This grief that wrapped itself around him was like the sea. The longer he stood beside it, staring at the limitless horizon of it, the deeper he sank. It refused to let him feel anything for the child that Maya had left behind, refused to let him love anyone again. Perhaps he did not want to move away from that welcoming edge of darkness that yawned open every time he heard a shard of music beloved of his daughter, every time he heard a voice with the same timbre, saw a neat head (just like hers) turning in the marketplace, or a gesture reminiscent of her.
Her tooth came out on Wednesday morning, just before she got out of bed, in a great gush of blood that wet her pillow and frightened Mamma La
dy. Nandana was pleased, though. There would be some money under her pillow for sure. Now she could buy herself one of those bottles of green juice that all the other children purchased outside the school gates. Or the pink and black marble-shaped candy, so huge that it made your cheek bulge out and spit drip down your chin.
“So much of blood for such a little thing,” marvelled Mamma Lady, washing Nandana’s face and pushing her lip upwards to peer at the pink gap between two other wobbly teeth. “Ayyo! My baby, so small and sweet you are.” She leaned forward, her warm smell of pickles and sweat and talcum enveloping Nandana, and kissed her on the forehead. “Now a fine new tooth will grow and you can eat your food double-quick, no?”
She switched off the electric immersion heater that she had put into a bucket of water for Nandana’s bath, pulled it off and hung it from a hook high on the wall. It sizzled dry, the coil turning from a warm pink to white. Nandana had never seen anything like it. She was told not to ever-ever touch it while it was in the water or out of it. Now Mamma Lady mixed some cold water from another bucket and tested it with her fingers until she had it just right.
“Okay, today you can have a bath by yourself,” she said. “Don’t take too long.” She picked up the tiny, sharp piece of bone that Nandana had handed to her and waddled out of the bathroom. Nandana looked at the bath water. She watched from the bathroom door as Mamma Lady stripped away the blood-stained pillowcase and re-made the bed before leaving the room. She didn’t slide anything under the pillow, and so Nandana ignored her instructions to have a bath and followed her out, skipping excitedly. Maybe in this India place they gave you your money. Maybe there were no tooth fairies here to leave it under your pillow. Mamma Lady trundled slowly up the stairs to the terrace, out into the bright sunlight, and with one quick movement of her arm, flung the tooth on to the roof of the house. “There,” she said, “now the crows can take it away, and the evil spirits won’t know whose it is.”
She had thrown away the tooth? She hadn’t kept it in a special box like Daddy did? Nandana couldn’t believe her eyes. But still she stood there, expectantly, close to her grandmother who was now touching the clothes on the line, left out overnight, pulling off the ones that were dry. In a minute or two she would take out a rupee note from that wet place between her breasts and give it to Nandana. For sure. She trailed around after Mamma Lady, the sun warm on her bare arms sticking out from the thin cotton slip, sucking a strand of her hair.
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