“It will be if you can’t work.” His father took a deep breath. “I took out a big loan to finance your time overseas. Bateman promised to help with your fees. But you know, once he got back he had other priorities, and of course this family is top-heavy with women. That’s why I’m working night and day.”
“I’ll find a job, I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Thank you, son.” He’d never seen his father look so blank, so obedient. “Don’t tell the others what I am telling you.”
A tray rattled outside the door. Amma with their nightcap: chamomile tea for Appan, Vetiver for Anto, just as in the old days.
“Good night, Antokutty, good night, Mathukutty. I’m going to bed, son. Don’t forget to say your prayers.” When her cry woke a crow, which squawked from a tree outside, his father, who was superstitious, made the sign of the cross.
“And you, Ammakutty,” Mathu replied. “Good night. God bless. Leave the tray outside the door, we’re busy.”
Anto took a deep breath. “Father, could you call her in for a moment? There’s something I need to say to both of you. I’ve been putting it off.”
Amma brought the tray in looking sleepy but pleased.
It was then he told them that Kit had to start work soon. It was work she was paid for.
“Where?” His father’s voice was suddenly sharp—tears and sentiment tidied away.
“At a home for expectant women in Fort Cochin.”
“How will she get there?” Appan’s face was rigid with surprise.
“We’ll have to use the car, until we get our own place in Fort Cochin.”
His father’s frown deepened. Amma was staring down at the tea, which lay untouched in the cups. “Who will pay for the car?” his father said after a lengthy pause.
“Kit will,” Anto improvised. “She’ll be paid sixteen pounds a month.”
“Is she nursing?” A dark note had appeared in the old man’s voice.
“No . . . I mean to say . . . I think her duties are mainly administrative. That was the work she was doing in Oxfordshire. They are doing an important survey on infant mortality here, and how it can be reduced.” He noticed he had swerved around the words midwife or even midwife training and was not proud of the fact. “Look, I’m sorry, I know it’s not what you want, but she has to do it.”
“What do you mean, has to do it? She is your wife now. Do you let her dictate?”
“It’s not a matter of dictating. I want her to do it too.” Even to himself he sounded unconvinced.
Appan sighed deeply. He shot a quick look at his wife, who was trembling and shaking her head, but he did not ask for her thoughts.
“What will happen if I say no?” His father stared into the cold tea.
“Don’t ask that question,” Anto said grimly. “I’ve only just come home.” He heard his mother give a small groan.
“Make sure she pays for the petrol,” his father said at last. His face had taken on some of the greenish color of the lamp, and when he raised his exhausted eyes and looked at Anto, they were so full of frustration and foreboding, he might as well have added, This woman will ruin your life.
- CHAPTER 19 -
He came to our room that night, lifted my nightdress, and made love to me as if it were our last night on earth.
“I love you, Kit, I love you.” He said it over and over again. My head was jammed against the headboard. “Never forget it.”
“I won’t.” I was startled by his tone. “I love you too.”
“This is hard for you,” he said. “You’re being brave. Do you trust me?”
“Of course I trust you. Now pass me a glass of water and let’s get the mozzie net properly tucked.” I was trying to make things sound normal because he sounded different in a way I couldn’t put my finger on. When he didn’t respond, I put out the oil lamp, squirted the deet, and tucked the net around us.
He said in a muffled voice and without turning over, “I’m going to sleep now.”
He went off quickly, while I lay awake feeling the heat bear down on me like a soft, soggy cloak. I was getting more and more confused by him. When he woke in the middle of the night, I was still up. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Anto, something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
He didn’t turn over. “Nothing’s wrong.” His back was a drum I could feel words through. “I just meant to tell you that Appan said you can start work whenever is right for you. He thinks it’s good for women to work.” He might have been reading from a report. I was even more confused. “Anto.” I pulled on his shoulder. “Was it that easy? What did you say?”
“Nothing. It’s just that I may have to travel soon. I must get a job.”
“Of course, that’s what we planned, and then we can get a house of our own.”
“We’ll try.”
I felt my own life being organized behind my back and I hated it.
“Anto,” I said, “something’s wrong. I know it is. I can feel it.” But he was gone, as quickly as if someone had stuck a chloroform mask over his face. I got up, knelt beside him, and in the slatted, silvered moonlight studied him: the curve of his cheekbones, his lips, his fine soft skin. Was it a simple case of lust that had led me here? Before him, I’d never known the matchless intoxication of sexual attraction, how it powered you with an energy you could neither predict or control. If another man had asked me to take this journey, would I have been more clear-sighted, less idealistic, less delusional?
* * *
For the next few days, I had the sense of him drifting away. He left early, going for every job he could find, and then one day there was a note, saying he’d had to leave suddenly: he had a job interview up north. He wasn’t sure he would get it, but he had to try. He was sorry not to give me the message in person, but would I stick to our agreement of staying for another two weeks at Mangalath?
Mariamma handed the note to me at the breakfast table, with the possibly kind embellishment of “And he said we were to look after you, and have lots of fun.”
“How far north?” I was trying not to look as shocked as I felt. We’d never once discussed the possibility of his working up north, plus it was so unlike him to leave without a word, a kiss, some reassurance.
She patted my hand, said, “Bombay, I think, but dinna fash yourself, the men in our family are always on the move. This morning I am going to show you how to tie a sari.” She had Anto’s quick and irresistible smile. “A surprise for Anto when he gets back.”
Threatened now by the shapeless days ahead, I was grateful for any kind of plan.
After breakfast, Mariamma’s little girl Theresa, a sweetly solemn, plump child with huge brown eyes and the early beginnings of a mustache, sat on the veranda staring at me without a word until Mariamma came downstairs, her arms covered in stoles and saris.
The saris smelled delicious. Mariamma explained how depending on the time of year, she and Amma would take them out and refold them with different herbs: jasmine in spring; attar of roses, lemongrass in summer; mitti, or lavender, during the monsoon. She laid them out for me over the wicker chairs, explaining that the chatta and mundu, the simple white blouse and soft white skirt she and Amma wore every day, was “more or less the Nasrani woman’s uniform.” The more elaborate jeweled and colored saris were usually for weddings or for kitty parties, when all the women got together for fun and gossip. God save me from one of those yet, I thought in a panic.
“I hear you are starting official duties with a charity soon,” she dropped in casually, giving me the feeling she had been part of a family discussion I hadn’t been party to. “So this would be most suitable and cool.” She held up the Nasrani outfit: the white draping skirt with the pleats at the back, the simple cotton blouse. Her smile was friendly, her hands busily folding, stroking, unfolding saris, tucking one or two in the tissue paper she explained was acid-free and prot
ected them from termites, from sweat.
I liked Mariamma: she was was funny and affectionate, and proud of her Scottish sayings and her bookishness. If she felt any sibling protectiveness about Anto and me, she hid it well.
And as she wrapped the sari cloth around me with neat and practiced hands, part of me was thinking, This must be what it’s like to have a sister—getting fizzy about clothes, rolling our eyes about boys, confiding things—for when she told me about Anto earlier, she’d added, “As a boy, he was always sneaking off. He was quite a solitary soul.”
“Really?” I’d said, thinking of our all-too-brief courtship at Wickam Farm and how we’d craved and plotted for more time together.
“We used to play tracking games.” She wound the cloth tighter. “I would leave a trail of clues in the trees, the flower pots, on the jetty, once behind the donkey’s ears. Anto and his friends would follow them, for miles sometimes, by canoe or by bike. They had wonderful fun. They were so free.”
“I bet you loved that.”
“I stayed home with Amma,” she said serenely. “My job was to set the clues. I enjoyed that too,” she added, a little defensive. “From an early age here, we’re in training to be good wives.”
It was tempting to ask how this fitted with her two years of intoxicating freedom at university. But she, focused, serious, was lifting a sari from tissue paper and putting one end of its length on my shoulder.
“So has he changed much since he was away?”
“Very much,” she said.
“In what way?”
“He’s more serious. He makes a lot of jokes but he’s sadder.”
I was quietly devastated to hear this, and she, glancing quickly at me, changed the subject, lifting up a sari of gossamer-fine, white silk gauze with a gold border that sparkled like sunlight on water.
“This was for my wedding,” Mariamma said. “I was covered in gold jewelry too.” Her eyes gleamed at the memory. “Such a wonderful day: feasts, fireworks, the wedding parties arriving by boat, and the jetty, the garden, all lit up with flaming torches—so beautiful you wanted to cry. The servants loved it too. I wish you’d been there,” she added politely. “What did you wear for your English wedding?” The question I’d dreaded.
“Nothing fancy.” Thinking of the freezing registry office, the curled sandwiches, my mother’s expression, Daisy’s frantic efforts to compensate. “A tweed suit, a hat.” The look of pleasure in Mariamma’s eyes turned to one of disappointment, even disapproval.
“Did Anto mind?”
“No.” Thinking, Liar. I didn’t know anymore. “Clothes are still in very short supply in England.”
To cover the awkward pause, Mariamma, wafting rose water, made me try on a sari. Usually I hate the feeling of being dressed—I remembered Ma smacking me, spitting on her hanky, saying brooches out, belts in—but Mariamma’s expression was gentle as she patted me, moved me around, and adjusted a fold here and there.
“What sort of clothes you are wearing in England as a very little girl?” She smiled over my shoulder at Theresa, who was watching us with rapt attention. “Our Scottie governess wore tweeds even in the heat.”
“Anything Mother chose—usually in wool,” I answered. “Yes, even woolen bathing suits. Mother knitted them, and they had buttons on the front, and when we went to the seaside and they filled up with water, I looked like a larva on legs.”
“A larva!” Mariamma started laughing, and when she flapped her arms and translated this lam for Theresa, the little girl cackled and threw herself around, and we were all laughing. I was hungry and could smell spices and herbs coming from the kitchen. I was thinking I could be happy here.
“Yes,” I continued, mainly now for Theresa’s sake, “woolen hats, very prickly, woolen knickers, one woolen skirt in tweed.”
“Woolen food also?” Theresa spoke in English at last. She beamed, showing her sharp little teeth.
“Definitely woolen food: woolen sausages, woolen potatoes.” A stream of words followed from Theresa.
“She wants you to come to the ladies’ party next week,” Mariamma told me. “She says you’re . . .” She stopped and drew in her lips. Amma had just entered the room, so quickly she may have been watching us all along.
“Of course, we must ask Amma first,” Mariamma continued smoothly. “We start with a lot of prayers, which you may find boring, so maybe for later.”
Amma didn’t say a word, just took a long appraising look at me, half-draped in a pale-pink sari, another kind of larva about to shed, or add, a skin.
“Can you walk in it?” she asked at last, trying for a smile.
I tried, a sort of graceless hobble to begin with, and then remembering how Mariamma did it: smaller steps, greater awareness of posture. Theresa clapped her podgy little hands.
“How does it feel?” Amma’s face was expressionless.
“Quite different,” I said, which was true: I felt taller, more womanly, and, once I’d got the walk right, almost stately. I also felt bandaged, swaddled, held in, like someone in a three-legged race but thought it best not to mention this.
“She looks pretty?” Theresa closed one eye, screwed up her funny little face like a Paris seamstress. When I looked at her I imagined the children I would have with Anto—though, please God, not yet.
“Very pretty,” said Amma faintly.
“We were thinking Kit could wear this for work.” Mariamma held up the plain white outfit.
“For work, yes.” Amma was sort of smiling and sort of frowning. “Anto says you start next week. Are you happy with that?”
“Yes.” I tried to sound humble but clear, sure of myself but not obnoxious.
“Good,” Amma said drily. “So you got your own way at last. You do know I’m not happy about it, don’t you?”
“I sort of guessed,” I said. “And I’m sorry.” Her expression froze. Later, when I was walking back to my room, she stopped me in the corridor, pinched my arm, and glared at me, a hard, bright look full of intent.
“You must never discuss your work within the family,” she said. “That’s one thing I must insist on. Do you understand?” I told her I did, but I didn’t, not properly, not yet.
- CHAPTER 20 -
Terrified that I would oversleep, or that Amma would forbid it at the last moment, I hardly slept a wink before my first official day at work. I got up at four a.m., read for a while, and arrived an hour early at Alleppey, where, at seven thirty in the morning, the wooden jetty buzzed with fish sellers, coconut juice vendors, and a sleepy child selling fried crisps and wooden snakes.
I found Dr. A. sitting in a wicker chair outside a wooden fisherman’s hut looking very grand and impersonal, and not much friendlier than the first day I’d met her. The anxious-looking, bespectacled woman beside her, she introduced as Maya, “Our fully qualified midwife.”
Maya gave a wincing smile, and when she looked at me, I saw, underneath an impressive pair of men’s glasses, a fading green and purple bruise.
Our boat was a battered old rice boat with Moonstone written on its side in faded red lettering. It was a beautiful, romantic-looking thing with its gracefully curved lines and a bamboo roof which flung patterns of sunlight on the floor. Dr. A. explained to me, in a bored monotone, that its deck was tied together with rope coated with resin from cashew nuts and fish oil, and that the boat was both an urgent necessity—the only way they could visit some villagers—and “a serious drain on finances,” since it needed “complete restoration.”
While the boat was being loaded with boxes of medical supplies and cardboard signs for the midwife classes, Dr. A. settled back in her chair and withdrew into the magnificent citadel of her mind (either that, or she’d fallen asleep), and Maya, who had the sweet, shy smile of a child, became more and more animated as she hopped on and off the boat to show me around.
I
n a tiny squalid kitchen at the end of the boat, she pointed to a stove, “where you may cook your rice and chaya.” And then, pointing to a duck innocently floating by, she mimed strangling him. “For our dinner.”
When I asked what our plan for the day was, Maya beamed at me through her horn-rimmed glasses and produced a map from under the saucepans.
“Our first port of call,” she said, “is Champakulam, where we will have a confab with some local midwives to try and persuade them to do our training. Next we’ll go to see a postpartum mother who has had a big, big baby: twelve pounds, poor thing. The biggest ever in the village.” Query diabetes, I thought, but said nothing.
“We’ll also see a mother on the point of delivery.”
I was getting used to the lackadaisical rhythms of India by now—the chai, the chat, the hawa khana, which Anto had told me was Hindi for chewing air—but this seemed an awful lot of work to get through in a day, and I’d promised, actually sworn, to Amma I’d definitely be home that night. I tried to disguise the panic I felt.
“How long will it take?”
When she replied, “Oh, two days definitely,” my scalp prickled with alarm, and before the boat left, I had to jump ashore, yell for the driver (glares from Dr. A., whom I woke up), and scribble a groveling note to my mother-in-law, saying I might be delayed but no one was to worry about me. When our boat’s bell rang, I was hauled aboard by Maya’s surprisingly strong arms. Dr. A., frowning, watched me from the prow of the boat: a huge black shadow framed by the sun. But I soon forgot her and my other worries about Anto and Amma and all the rest of it, it was so wonderful being out on the river, and I was here, I was working. It ran like a song through my head all that morning. Plus, the first shy shoots of friendship had sprung up between me and Maya, whose general demeanor was sweet and friendly and whose English, like that of so many other locals, was excellent.
As the boat chugged through the narrow waterways, I felt a sense of relief: I was entering a wonderfully new and secret world, one that was separate from the Thekkedens with all their rules and expectations and disquiet about me. Around the first bend in the river I saw a whole family—parents, children, dogs, buffalos—washing in the water, and next, a row of rainbow-colored women walking in single files through rice paddies, with water pots on their heads—and there, colorful shacks and tiny, neatly planted gardens; hovels; a fierce old lady peeling her vegetables; a Hindu temple, so close its incense prickled my nose, with a temple priest waving at us from the bank. Around us were rice paddies and palm trees reflected in the water, and soft hills beyond that looked like clouds, and clouds that looked like hills, and families of ducks that virtually ignored the gentle splash of our boat. The flash of a kingfisher wing, the leap of a fish. I don’t think I had ever been so spellbound or so happy.
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