The Girl in the Garden

by Kamala Nair

  “You have to understand how difficult this thing you’re asking me to do is, particularly for me. I’ve spent the last half of my life trying to forget, and then you come along with your sweet words, bringing it all back, as fresh as if it happened yesterday,” said Amma.

  “It’s in our power to do what we want now. Our families can’t control us anymore. We have a chance to be together, to—”

  “I know, I know! Don’t you think I’ve considered all of this?” Amma’s voice rose to a shriek.

  “Shhh, Chitra, keep your voice down. We’ll be heard.”

  “I’m sick of keeping my voice down, I’m sick of hiding, always hiding.” Amma’s moan sounded muffled, as if she had buried her face in Prem’s shoulder.

  “I know, but this is your chance to come out of hiding, to be the woman you were meant to be. Just say yes, please, say yes.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  There was a long silence before Prem spoke. “You love him, don’t you?”

  “He’s a kind man, Prem, and he’s been good to me.” Amma’s voice faltered. “But I don’t love him the way I love you. I was bound to you from the day I was born. I belong to you.”

  “Then say yes.”

  “I have my daughter to think about.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? I’m always considering her welfare, always. I wouldn’t have sent for you until I knew I could provide for a family. I have a full-time teaching job in Trivandrum now and I’m making decent money. It may not be what you’re used to, but it’s enough. The house I’ve found is small, but it’s beautiful. The windows are large and they face west, and there’s a small garden with a pond in the yard….”

  Amma laughed—I couldn’t tell if it was bitter or happy.

  “Chitra, it’s all there, ready and waiting for you. You’ll love it, I know it. We’ll be happy there, finally.”

  I heard brisk footsteps coming down the hall.

  “I don’t know if it’s that easy,” Amma said.

  “Say yes, you know it’s the right thing. Say yes now.”

  The footsteps grew louder.

  “This is so hard.”

  “I know, but we have to do it. We must make up for the mistakes we’ve made. Say yes, please. Say yes now, I need to hear you say it.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” said Amma, and I felt myself going cold all over, from my head to the tip of my toes.

  There was a sharp rapping sound on Amma’s door.

  “Chitra, are you in there? I need you.” It was Sadhana Aunty.

  “I’m here, I was just resting. I’ll be right out,” called Amma, then in a lower voice, “Wait here for five minutes after I go out, then you should be able to slip out without anyone seeing you.”

  I remained at the window for a long time after Amma and Prem had both left the room, my entire body trembling. All summer I had been disturbed by Amma’s relationship with Prem, but I kept hoping that once we went back to Plainfield she would forget him and life would somehow go back to normal. After what I had heard, it was clear she was not going to forget. Amma had already betrayed Aba. Now she was planning to betray me, too.

  Late that night I heard her sobbing through the wall. Wrenching sobs that made my own eyes water with their intensity and caused all the rage I was feeling toward her to melt away into the darkness. In the months leading up to our trip, I used to hear Amma weeping at home, but it had always been soft, subdued, somehow more bearable than this. I felt sick listening to her—I could stand my own sorrow, anyone else’s sorrow, but not Amma’s. Yet as much as I wanted to go to her, to climb under the sheets and put my arms around her quaking body, to tell her it was time to go home, I couldn’t move. So I remained awake for much of the night, terrified and stiff as a mummy, listening to Amma weeping, and thinking about the knife, stained with my blood, which I remembered I had left trapped under the pile of roots outside Tulasi’s garden.

  Chapter 14

  When I found myself standing again before the garden door, I looked down in search of the knife and with a pang of relief saw that it was still embedded beneath the roots, a barely visible sliver of blade, untouched. I knelt down to retrieve it and then, superstitiously, stood up and decided to leave it there, its sharp point facing out toward the forest like a guard.

  “Good morning,” came Tulasi’s voice from the other side.

  “You didn’t tell Sadh—um, your teacher about me, did you?” I said.

  “No, I did not. You were right. It is perhaps best we keep your visits a secret—just in case Teacher does not approve. She seems rather tense these days. I would be so disappointed if she prevented you from coming. Did you bring a rope?”

  “Yes.” I held the rope uncertainly. “What should I do with it?”

  There was silence on the other side.

  “Tulasi?”

  “I thought you might know what to do,” she admitted.

  “I don’t.”

  “Try throwing one side of the rope to me and I will secure it to the trunk of the Ashoka tree. Then you can climb over.”

  I began to uncoil the rope, while at the same time eyeing the wall that I was about to scale. The stones were unevenly stacked, with pockets of moss in between that I decided would serve as makeshift steps.

  The first time I attempted to throw the rope it simply grazed the top of the wall and tumbled back down to my feet in resignation. I backed up and tried again. On my third attempt I managed to successfully get half of the rope over to the other side.

  “I have it,” called Tulasi. I heard her rustling around and grunting a little with the effort of securing the rope in a tight knot around the tree trunk.

  But as soon as I tugged at my end of the rope, it slackened, came loose from the tree, and fell back over to my side of the wall.

  “I don’t think the rope will work,” I said.

  “What shall we do?”

  I had to get over somehow. “I’m going to climb the wall.”

  “Can you do that?”

  I thought of the many trees I had climbed down by the ravine in Plainfield. My skinny arms and legs were stronger than they looked. “I think I can!”

  I dug my fingers high into the muddy spaces between the stones, feeling the dirt and clay seep under my nails. I placed my foot upon a protruding stone and tried to hoist myself up, but felt my body sliding back down, my palms scraping against the stones. I sat on the ground and looked at my hands, which were now covered in dirt and traces of blood where the skin had broken.

  “Rakhee, are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m going to try again.” I shifted down to another section of the wall, wiped my hands on my dress, and once more clutched at the stone. This time I made it halfway up the wall before I fell.

  Finally on the third try, I made it to the top of the wall, which I clambered over with my back facing the garden. I gave one last look at the forest before I lost my balance and dropped down, landing on my bottom in a patch of soft grass.

  “Hello.” Tulasi was leaning over me and once again I saw her face. But this time I was not at all afraid. I was mesmerized.

  A dusky pink cloud obscured more than half her face, beginning at the bottom of her chin, spreading up the right side of her cheek, and blurring into the hairline. Her upper lip was interrupted by a triangular gash that rose up to meet her nose and exposed her yellowish teeth. She was dressed in a simple beige cotton tunic and loose, baggy pants; and her hair, which was straight and black, hung down her back in a long braid. I had never seen anyone who looked like her before.

  After a few seconds I realized I was staring, but just as I was about to turn away and apologize, it struck me that she, too, was staring.

  I got to my feet and we stood face-to-face.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “How interesting. You said you are an American, no? Is this the way all Americans look?”

  “Um.” I blushed, unsure of what to say. I couldn’t believe that between the two of us
, I was the one whose appearance was being scrutinized.

  “Oh forgive me, Rakhee,” she said quickly, sensing my unease. “I don’t mean to embarrass you. It’s only that I have not seen very many people—all I know is what I have learned from books, so anytime I meet a new person I am fascinated. You are indeed lovely.”

  Tulasi took my hand in hers, and an unexpected warmth flooded my limbs. She guided me down a narrow cobblestone path winding toward the cottage. Blue-andwhite flowers shaped like conch shells bordered the path, and their satiny petals brushed against my ankles. The heady fragrance of frangipane lingered in the air. A rainbow of butterflies circled above our heads. The cottage’s thatched roof winked under the sun. The peacock was lying on the front step, docile and languid as a Persian cat. He lifted his head to meet Tulasi’s outstretched hand.

  “This is Puck,” she said, stroking his feathers.

  “Aren’t you afraid he’ll fly away?”

  “No, Puck would never do that. He’s just as bound to this garden as I am.”

  She smiled serenely and opened the door, leading me inside the most wonderful room I had ever seen.

  “And this,” she said proudly, “is my home.”

  The room was circular and divided into sections—a sleeping area with a carved wood wardrobe and a fourposter bed, which was veiled in wispy white mosquito netting, a sitting room with elegant wicker furniture, a polished, compact kitchen, and an arched door leading to the bathroom. The most striking feature of the cottage was the sheer quantity of books. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined nearly half the curved wall, and they overflowed with books. Books sat stacked in neat piles on the floor near the bed, on the coffee table, on the kitchen counter. The other half of the wall was taken up by windows—great, wide windows curtained in a gossamer material that let in swatches of warm morning light. A cozy window seat was piled with velvety fabrics and plush cushions.

  “Shall I prepare tea?” said Tulasi.

  Amma did not allow me to drink tea yet, only warm milk. “Sure.”

  She went into the kitchen and began to rummage around in the cupboard, pulling out a white china tea set, rimmed with a border of bright pink roses.

  I watched as Tulasi, humming to herself, brought the water to a boil and poured it into the teapot. She fussed about the kitchen gathering milk, sugar, and spoons, and placed an orange tiger lily across the side of the tray with an artistic flourish.

  “I never pluck flowers from the garden. I wouldn’t dream of doing that,” she assured me, “but I found this poor lily lying on the ground, and Puck might have trampled over it had I not rescued it first.”

  She seemed to derive intense pleasure from attending to these small domestic details. Carrying the tray over to the round wicker coffee table, she motioned for me to sit down on one of the chairs. Her hands were small and deft, at one moment capable and utilitarian, and the next graceful as a pianist’s. She seemed so comfortable with herself, so self-assured. Taking in my surroundings, I noticed there wasn’t a single mirror around the place, including in the white-tiled bathroom, which I poked my head into. Even the spoon she used to stir sugar into my tea was made of a dull, unreflective brass. Whoever had built and furnished this cottage had deliberately ensured that Tulasi remained ignorant of her appearance.

  “So, how long have you lived here?”

  “I have always lived here. Ever since Teacher found me as a baby in the temple.”

  “She found you in the temple?”

  “Yes. You see, as I was telling you before, I am not like other people. She found me swaddled in the leaves of the tulasi plant, my mother. Teacher told me I was a special present from God and so I need special care. I cannot live in society like everyone else.”

  “So you have never left this place?”

  “No, but I have no desire to leave. The idea of what lies beyond these walls frightens me and the thought of what would happen to me if I left is even worse.” Tulasi shuddered.

  “But aren’t you even a little curious to see what it’s like in the real world?”

  “Oh, I admit I do get lonely from time to time. But really, I want for nothing—I am grateful that I even have this much. I feel safe here, secure and comfortable. Anything I need to learn, I can learn from Teacher or from my books. It’s a peaceful existence.”

  “So what do you do all day?” I could not fathom staying cooped up in one room forever, to be a willing prisoner of your own house. I thought of the caged mice in Aba’s lab.

  “Teacher visits me every day to bring me food and go over our lessons. Otherwise, I work in the garden or read or play with Puck.” She noted my face contorted in dismay. “You mustn’t think I am unhappy, Rakhee. I enjoy my life. I have never known anything else, and I do not wish to.”

  I continued to probe. “So, who comes to visit you, besides your teacher?”

  “Well, usually it is just Teacher. I believe there used to be some other ladies who cared for me when I was a baby, but I cannot recall their faces—they are such shadowy memories, I may have even imagined them. Sometimes Teacher’s brother comes around—he brought me Puck actually when he was only a chick, and I raised him myself. I named him after the narrator in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is my favorite story—you must read it. It’s written by a fellow named William Shakespeare. I asked Teacher if he had written anything else, but she said he hadn’t, as far as she knew. Anyway, Teacher’s brother always seems so sad when he comes here, I don’t think he likes it very much. Then there is Teacher’s sister. She is very beautiful, like a princess. But she also seems very sad.”

  I picked up one of the books lying on top of a stack on the floor beside me. It had a navy blue cover with Grimm’s Fairy Tales written across it in gold lettering.

  The books beneath it were Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Panchatantra, Aesop’s Fables, and Arabian Nights. All the books I used to read with Amma and devour with the aid of a flashlight long after she left me alone in the darkness. I got up and began to wander around, casually perusing the rest of the books in the cottage. They were all the same—fairy tales and magical stories. I wondered if these were the only books upon which she had built her conception of the real world, a world inhabited by witches and mermaids, a world where men beheaded their wives and animals spoke.

  “Tulasi.” I went back to the sofa and sat down. “You know how you said you couldn’t live in the world like other people? What exactly did you mean by that?”

  She looked at me and did not say anything. She took a sip of her tea and I took a sip of mine. The hot brown liquid scalded my tongue, but I swallowed it anyway.

  “If I leave my garden,” she said in a hushed, reverent tone, “then I will die.”

  “What?”

  “We are dependent upon each other, the garden and me. That is why I spend so much time caring for it. As long as the garden stays alive and healthy, then so will I. But if I forsake it, then we shall both perish.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Who told you this?”

  “Teacher. She waited until my eleventh birthday to tell me, but I believe I have always known it. I have always felt the connection between myself and the garden. When I was a child, she helped me care for it, but now that I’m grown, it is my responsibility.”

  Tulasi lowered her eyes and began turning her teacup around and around in the saucer.

  “So, what kinds of things do you learn in your lessons?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

  “Oh, all kinds of things.” Tulasi’s face brightened. “Teacher is extremely clever. I’ve learned three languages—Malayalam, Hindi, and English. We read a great deal of poetry and stories together. Or she assigns me readings and we talk about them. She has also taught me some arithmetic and a little bit of science, but not much. There are certain topics Teacher does not like to tell me about and I am not sure why. I ask her so many questions but she avoids them. I am sure there is a good reason why. Teacher knows what is best for me.�
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  It was getting late. I realized it was time for me to leave and I gulped down the rest of my tea. After promising Tulasi I would return as soon as I could, I ran back to Ashoka.

  The house was just starting to rise when I slipped into my room to put my nightclothes back on. But instead of going to the dining room for breakfast, I got into bed. I wasn’t hungry at all, and besides, I couldn’t face the grown-ups just then. I couldn’t shake the fear that they would know that I knew. They would take one look at my guilty face and the secret would be out.

  So I lay there, replaying Tulasi’s story over and over again in my head. She genuinely believed the tulasi plant was her mother and that she would die if she ever left the garden. She was so certain, and that otherworldly garden and Tulasi herself were so removed from anything I had ever experienced that I almost believed her, too.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Rakhee, my mother is asking for you. She says to come out for breakfast.” Even though it was only Krishna, I sighed with annoyance.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” I said, climbing back out of bed and slipping on my sandals.

  I wondered if Amma would even be at breakfast. All that crying the night before might have given her a headache; perhaps she would spend another day in bed with the curtains closed.

  I hoped the crying was a sign that she had been lying to Prem when she said yes. She had said yes but really she had meant no. And even if she had meant yes, Aba would never let Amma take me away to live with Prem in some house with a garden and a pond and windows that faced west.

  Everyone, including a swollen-eyed Amma, was gathered around the table. Sadhana Aunty, standing at the head with the tips of her long fingers balancing on the surface, looked dark and somber. Two slanting bones protruded, bladelike, above the hollows of her cheeks. Purple bags sagged beneath her eyes. Dev was standing just behind her with a serious expression on his face.

  “Muthashi is ill,” Sadhana Aunty announced in a crisp voice.

  Vijay Uncle’s mouth fell open and Amma let out a quiet sob.