Not all members of our staff are English or American. We have Germans, French, and Chinese, with a few Indians (from India, not American Indians—such a change for me!) thrown in. One doctor was really nice to me. His name is Guenter Schrader. He asked me to dance, and I did. He’s not much taller than I am, but he’s definitely muscular. Reminds me of Travis a bit in build, though he’s very blond and his face is oval instead of square. He has long white eyelashes and blue eyes. He looks German to me (as if I know how a German is supposed to look!). One of the nurses said we were made for each other with our matching hair. After that I didn’t dance with him anymore. I don’t want anyone but Travis, and Clarissa stole that dream.
As Mridula promised, the white clapboard house was easy to find. It was tall and thin, squeezed between a bakery and another house as though it were an afterthought to use up the space. The windows were small and square, set evenly along the stretches of peeling paint. There was a narrow balcony on the second floor, and they could just see parts of the red tiled roof. Several feet out from the house was a cast-iron fence that Liana did not recognize. However, the balcony looked familiar. Her eyes returned to the second floor.
“What is it, honey?” Clarissa asked.
Goose bumps rose on Liana’s neck and arms. “I remember that balcony. I remember seeing people below. It was off my parents’ room—I think.” She took a deep breath and rubbed her chilled arms. “It’s so hard to remember.”
“You were only four. That’s as early a memory as anyone has.” Clarissa reached out to the cast-iron gate. “Come on. It’s open.”
“I don’t think there was a fence or a gate here before.”
“It’s been twenty-five years.”
Of course. Things never stay the same. Liana’s heart worked overtime as they approached the door. The chills were replaced by a heat that was more in keeping with the weather.
Someone had attempted to plant grass in the two feet of space on either side of the walk, but the yellowed and wilting blades were sparse. Several brightly colored toys lay on the grass, signaling the presence of a child or children somewhere in the house. Liana was glad.
A young woman with short red hair and a thickly freckled face answered their knock. Clarissa explained their mission, while Liana stared past her. The door opened up into a room with a piano and several chairs perched on an exotic rug. It seemed familiar, but in a dollhouse way, as though everything had shrunk in the intervening years. There were stairs leading to the second floor, and Liana imagined herself climbing them as a child. The image superimposed itself with the reality, disorienting her, and she reached out to steady herself on Clarissa’s arm. Clarissa placed her hand over Liana’s.
“You’re very welcome to come in,” said the woman with a British accent. “Of course, there aren’t any boxes of things lying around, but there is an attic—with a lot of junk crammed inside. I’ve only been up there a few times myself to store some of my son’s baby things. In fact, I might as well take the opportunity to get those boxes now. I don’t know if Dr. Raji told you, but our time here is up and we’re going back to England. My brother and his wife, too. They share the house with us.”
“I hear they’re going to make it into a children’s ward,” Clarissa said.
She nodded. “Good thing, too. We need one.” She held out her hand as they entered. “I’m Jane DeCamp, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Jane.” Clarissa shook her hand warmly. “As I said before, I’m Clarissa Winn, and this is my daughter, Lara.”
Liana didn’t even flinch at the name or make a correction. She was Lara, especially here. Maybe it was time to accept the name. She shook Jane’s hand absently, her attention on the black railing by the stairs.
“It’s up there,” Jane said, seeing Liana’s stare. “Come on. I’ll show you.” She led the way up the steep staircase.
Liana followed last, fingering the black wood of the banister, brought to a dull shine from the oily touch of many hands. Strange that this house was all so new yet somehow deeply familiar, as though she had dreamed about it, not actually lived here. Ahead on the landing, Jane and Clarissa were talking, but Liana couldn’t concentrate on the words. They began climbing another flight of stairs, and this time she didn’t follow.
Jane and Clarissa paused halfway up the stairs. “Lara?” Clarissa said.
“I—that used to be my room, I think.” Liana pointed to an open door in the middle of the hall. “The other was Mom and Dad’s. That one was our sitting room. And that end one is the bathroom.”
“Are you sure?” Clarissa asked gently, coming to stand beside her.
“Not really. But I think Mamata slept downstairs. And upstairs was someone else—two nurses, maybe. I used to play with my doll here in the hall.” Liana looked down at the dark green carpet. “I don’t remember carpet. I think it was wood.”
Jane descended the stairs. “Would you like to see the rooms? They’re a little messy because I’ve been packing—my husband and I have this floor. My brother and his wife are downstairs. Until recently, we had some nurses staying upstairs, but they moved to a new apartment complex a few streets over.” She grinned and added, “It’s a box, but they have air conditioning, and we don’t.”
Liana was feeling rather warm but knew it had nothing to do with the temperature. She moved as if in a dream. “I would like to see the rooms,” she said.
“Go right ahead. They’re empty anyway. My son is with his dad.” Jane took a step forward and then stopped. She glanced at Clarissa and then back at Liana. “Why don’t we wait here for you?”
Not wanting to be troubled by idle chatter that would block out any impressions or memories, Liana was desperately glad the other women stayed behind. She went into the sitting room first, but either it was so changed that she didn’t recognize it or the room had not made an impression upon her as a child. The room that was her parents was also unfamiliar, except the balcony. Quickly, she crossed to the double glass doors and opened them.
“Be careful, dear. Don’t climb on the railing. You don’t want to fall.”
“I won’t, Mommy. I just want to sit here with my doll.”
“Why don’t I come out with you? We can watch the people passing.”
“Oh, can you, Mommy? Oh, wait! There’s Daddy. Let’s run down to him. Do you think he’ll take me to see the horses again? He said maybe one time we could ride them.”
“Maybe tomorrow. You do remember what tomorrow is, don’t you?”
“My birthday!”
Liana shut the door as the memory faded. Horses? She hadn’t remembered any horses in India—not until that moment. The memory was clouded and very distant, but now she did believe they had gone to see horses for her fourth birthday. Did they ride them or just pet them? She didn’t know.
Liana walked with steps slowed by dread to the room she had saved for last. Would she recognize any of it? Would it bring out another forgotten memory? Or would it be completely foreign to her?
As in the other rooms, brown cardboard packing boxes littered the floor. A brown crib stood where her bed had once been, and the walls were now blue with a midway border of colorful stenciled trains. There had been flowers before, she remembered. All colors of flowers against a background of the palest pink. Disappointed, Liana walked to the freestanding closet that was made of the same black wood as the banister on the stairs. This she remembered. She had put her clothes inside. Liana opened the double doors, feeling excitement. Yes, she had used the little shelves on the left side for her pants and shirts and the rod on the right for her dresses. In the wider drawer below she had put her shoes. There were several shelves above the cupboards and a rod that she didn’t remember but couldn’t possibly have reached anyway at age three or four. Her mother must have used it for other things. The closet now held clothes and memorabilia from another child. But Liana remembered something more.
Shutting the doors, she went around to the side of the closet. Sure enough, scra
tched into the wood was her name in messy letters. L-I-A-N-A. Or was it L-A-R-A? The letters were so wobbly and malformed that she couldn’t be certain. Had her insistence at being called Liana resulted from her own poor handwriting? Whatever the conclusion, she had left a permanent mark in the house, something that told her she had once belonged here.
“What have you done?”
She held the bent hanger behind her back. “I was practicing.”
Mamata looked at the scratches on the side of the closet. “So I see. Indeed. You wrote it just as I taught you. Very good. I’m proud that you remembered. What a good learner you are!”
Liana smiled, dropping the hanger and putting her arms around Mamata’s neck. She had been so excited to write her name on something that was hers. But when she’d seen how the scratches wobbled, she worried someone would get mad. But Mamata wasn’t angry, and she would talk to Mommy and Daddy, and then they wouldn’t be angry, either.
“Come now, dear. Let’s get you something to eat. I made rasgullas for you.”
Liana kissed the wrinkled brown cheek. “I love rasgullas! They’re so sweet. Mmmm. We have to save some for Daddy. He likes them, too. They’re coming home today, right? Let’s hurry, my stomach’s talking—it wants to eat!”
Mamata laughed, but her eyes were strangely sad.
Liana slumped down next to the closet, her arms clutching her knees. It wasn’t until the next day that Mamata had finally told Liana why her parents hadn’t come home, why they would never come home again. Now she knew why the old woman hadn’t been angry at her mistake. As for her parents, they never had the opportunity see her literary endeavor. Tears leaked from her eyes as Liana sobbed, unable to hold back the emotions.
She was glad she had come to India—fiercely glad. The memories brought pain, yes, but they also reminded her how much she had been loved. She hadn’t always been the one on the outside looking in; once she had been in the center of a family.
Until it was gone.
The tears slowed, and Liana opened her purse, rummaging for her compact. She wiped the mascara from under her eyes and dabbed on a bit of powder. She knew she couldn’t completely hide the fact that she’d been crying, but at least she could minimize the damage.
“Thanks,” Liana told Jane when she emerged from the room. “I was so young, but I remember more now.”
Yet one thing certainly had not become clear, and that was the scene from her nightmare. Was that the day Mamata told her about the crash? She seemed to remember that, though. The disbelief, the crying that welled up from the empty place inside, and holding onto Mamata, begging not to be sent to America to the aunt and uncle she didn’t know—didn’t care to know. The memory did not match the nightmare.
“You’re quite welcome,” Jane said gently in her British lilt. The woman couldn’t have missed Liana’s reddened eyes, but neither she nor Clarissa commented.
“Could I see my sister’s old room?” Clarissa asked.
“Of course.” This time Jane led the way, and Liana lingered in the hall as Clarissa walked inside and opened the doors to the balcony.
“Wake up, sweetie. It’s okay. It was just a dream.”
“Don’t leave me, Mommy. Please don’t leave.”
“I won’t. I’m here.”
“Sleep with me. Don’t leave. Please, Mommy?”
“I said I’d stay. Of course, I will. I’ll always be here for you, sweetie. Move over. I’ll put my arm around you. Is that better? Hush now and sleep.”
Liana was puzzled at this new memory. The voice was her mother’s, and she was comforting her after the nightmare. The nightmare or a nightmare? Liana couldn’t remember.
“I think my sister would have loved that balcony,” Clarissa came from the room saying. “She loved watching people, even as a little girl.”
“I must confess that I do, too.” Jane shut the door behind them and resumed her course up the stairs.
On the third floor, Liana followed Jane to a small closet that held a pull-down ladder leading into the attic. While Jane occupied herself carrying boxes of baby clothes down to the third floor, Liana and Clarissa checked dozens of other boxes and the two large trunks. The attic space was short, and they had to crouch near the boxes so they didn’t hit their heads on the support boards that made up the ceiling. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, and it wasn’t long before they began sneezing.
“Nothing here but a bunch of old clothes,” Clarissa said, shutting the lid to one trunk.
Liana sighed. “Same with these boxes. Clothes and some knickknacks.” Holding up her skirt, she duck-walked past an old metal highchair to another slew of boxes, wondering if the chair had been hers. Probably. Or did Mamata have children? She asked Jane if she knew.
“I think she had a daughter,” Jane said. “But she would have already come and taken anything of value.”
Clarissa rubbed her nose, leaving a streak of dust. “That would explain why there are no pictures or jewelry or nice furniture.”
“I bet those trunks are worth something.” Liana shut the boxes she was searching in disgust. Broken dishes, old menus, catalogues—why had Mamata kept them?
“Lara, come here, quick!” Clarissa’s voice was excited. “I might have found something. Baby clothes—a few tiny ones. More that are bigger.”
Liana hurried to the second trunk where Clarissa crouched, trying fruitlessly to keep her pale blue skirt off the dusty wood floor and search at the same time. She moved over as Liana approached. Inside the trunk on one side sat a large cardboard box that had seen better days. The box was full of baby clothes, a jumble of lace and pink ruffles. She held the newborn outfits up one by one to see them better. The material had been protected in the trunk, but the lace was yellowed and slightly brittle.
Carefully, Liana laid the tiny dresses on top of the books and magazines that filled the other half of the trunk. Right below these outfits were much larger ones, belonging to a toddler at least. There were stains on them, and some bore the result of many washings. As she dug deeper, the outfits increased in size until at last her hand fell on one she remembered. A blue polka-dotted dress, with yellow lace that had once been white. She held the dress close to her face, but the only smell remaining was of mothballs and dust.
An arm of a doll caught her attention. Quickly removing the few remaining outfits, she grabbed the doll. “This was mine,” she said. “Oh, Mother.”
With tears in her eyes, Clarissa patted her daughter’s arm, though the mother Liana called for was not her. “Look,” Liana said, pointing to several letters, still in their envelopes. With a brief glimpse at the return address on the first one, she handed them to Clarissa.
“My letters,” Clarissa whispered. “She saved them all these years.”
Liana saw the journal then—a small blue book with a puffy cover. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart lurched. She had braced herself for not finding anything after her disappointing visit with Dr. Raji, so this discovery was far more than she’d hoped for. Reaching for the journal, she saw pages and pages of neat handwriting. My mother, she thought. In here is my mother. It was all she could do not to sit down and begin reading right then. But it would be better if she waited. Then she could savor it in more comfortable circumstances, without watching eyes.
There wasn’t much more in the box, except some papers in a language none of the women recognized. “My father was from Romania,” Liana reminded Clarissa. “It could be Romanian or Russian.”
“Maybe Jane knows.”
“I think it’s probably Russian,” Jane said when they asked her. “It’s certainly not Hindi or German. I’m very glad you found what you came for.”
“Thank you so much.” Liana was still clutching the journal and her doll—a soft-bodied thing with a white plastic face, dark curly hair, and bright blue eyes framed with long black lashes. Its long white dress, trimmed by once-white lace, and the soft white leather slippers brought a feeling of nostalgia. I once
had a matching outfit, she remembered. The doll had obviously been well loved but also well cared for. Reluctantly, she repacked the box, setting the journal and the doll on top and closing the lid.
“We should check the rest of the boxes, just to be sure,” Clarissa said.
They began another search, but the only thing they uncovered were some dresses that may or may not have belonged to Liana’s mother and a moth-eaten suit that could only have belonged to Mamata’s husband, who had preceded her in death long before the Schraders had come to live with her.
After leaving the attic, they used the bathroom on the second floor to clean the dust from their hands, faces, and clothes. “We’ll have to change,” Clarissa said, wrinkling her nose at a stain on her skirt.
“I’m ready to call it a day, anyway,” Liana replied. “I’m exhausted.”
“Jet lag. Our bodies think we’ve been up all night. It’s almost seven in the morning back home. Maybe we should visit the store for a few things to eat tonight and tomorrow morning.”
Liana nodded. “Good idea. I’m too exhausted to eat out. Even my mind feels numb.”
“Let’s ask Jane if she knows where a nice grocery store is.”
Jane not only knew but offered to drive them there. “I need a few items myself. On the way back, I’ll drop you off at your hotel. You said Suddar Street, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but we’ll accept only if it’s not out of your way.” Clarissa’s hopeful look made Liana remember with amusement her assertion of wanting to experience India. Apparently she was already willing to abandon the local transport and restaurants.
Jane’s smile caused her many freckles to merge into one another. “It is out of the way, but I have nothing planned for tonight. My husband is in England to see about arrangements, and he took our son so I could pack up here. I’m missing them dreadfully, but since my brother and his wife will be at Charity Medical until late, it’s just me and boxes to fill. A little break will cheer me up.”
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