A little shadow came to her, she had told Munniamma. With little hands it opened Amma’s eyelids one by one. Then it stood by watching Amma fall asleep.
‘Your mother is not well,’ Munniamma told me.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Shadows follow her.’
Sometimes Amma offered to go to the market with Munniamma to buy vegetables. But once she was there she didn’t know what to get; she had forgotten the colours: tomatoes seemed blue to her, aubergine, red and the beans, a passionate pink.
And the little shadow whispered to her:
Red tomatoes.
Purple aubergine.
Green beans.
On her way home she walked close to the compound walls of houses, and now and then looked behind to see if the shadow on the wall was following her. Come on, come on, she would say to it, wondering why it always lagged behind. Sometimes she turned around to reprimand the shadow; the shadow disappeared behind her and lay flat on the road. When she turned towards the road the shadow crept up the wall. Don’t play games with me, Amma would say, her index finger recycling the little air around it.
It had started with colours first, and then even brightness turned to darkness. Those were Amma’s colour-confused days; they happened once in a while and then more frequently. Soon she would mix up sounds: the milkman’s cycle bell sounded to her like a dog barking; gentle raindrops made the noise of an avalanche; birdsong became the shrill whistle of the new pressure cooker in the kitchen.
And the little shadow whispered:
That’s the milkman.
Look, the rain.
The bird is singing.
On such days when confusion ruled her mind Amma remained in her room sewing: swish-swish-swish. She brought down the curtains, cut them into pieces and then sewed them all over again. She did the same with bedsheets, towels, her old sarees and anything else she could find. She did things in reverse. She started reading her books again. As Amma read them, she told Munniamma, it occurred to her that her own life, like those of the Leonies or Barbaras, or Judiths or Horatias, had been a long succession of acts of weakness and compromise. Amma felt sorry for them; she felt sorrier for herself. She was leading two lives, hers and theirs, and now she was truly tired and frustrated by this and the routine of daily tasks, daily thoughts, daily worries and concern that fitted into the everyday structure of living a daily life.
One evening Amma looked out of the window at the little shadow climbing the ladder against the wall. Amma said: you shouldn’t be out. It is the time for mosquitoes. Now say mosquito. Mus-mus-ki-ki-toe. Mos-ki-toe. You must beware of the A-no-phee-lees mosquito. Repeat after me – Aa. No. Phil. Liss. Aa. No. Phil. Liss. The shadow moved down the ladder. ‘Don’t go,’ Amma pleaded to the shadow.
I am not going anywhere. I am right next to you.
When Munniamma told me all this, I didn’t know what to make of it. Something had gone terribly wrong with Amma’s Fibonacci Sequence. If only I had paid more attention I would have known the pattern of things to be, and of things to come.
***
One night I heard Amma singing a sweet song, sadly. I crept up to her room and found her on the windowsill. She had on a petticoat and blouse and the moon on her face, specks of moonlight in her eyes. This would be the time of the day that Amma liked most, when cloaked by darkness she could travel in her mind and roam unshackled, to find the dearest one she had lost, the one she would think of again and again, forever, ever: innocent like the beginning of all things, blameless and pure like the moon that shared its light. The night would share its dark shadows with her. And the night would have gotten darker but Amma wouldn’t notice this. All she would hear was the little shadow on the ladder singing to her in the glimmer of the moonlight.
Even as I watched from the door Amma lifted her legs one after the other and dangled them out of the window. I was terrified she was going to jump out. But I stood still; my thoughts still, Tara’s breath still. Only the other day when I was in Vishnu-thatha’s house and I smacked my hands together to drive away a pigeon, Vishnu-thatha told me I was never to do that, as it would scare the bird and it could die of a heart attack. That night I left Amma alone. But in my dream she jumped out of the window. Then with white wings, and silver bells on her ankles she flew ting-ting ting, with dreamlike purpose, feeling what she had never felt before: lightness, sudden release; the silence she so longed for. There was moonlight in her eyes as she flew all the way to Para-dies.
Next morning Amma had disappeared. Amma had taken to disappearing. It would happen in the morning or late afternoon. She would be in her room and then not in her room, not in the house, and not in the garden. She would disappear from the house sometimes for several hours, or go away in her mind for days. Was she having an affair? I saw her leave the house one afternoon. I followed her to the market. She stood at a bus stop. Buses arrived and moved away, but Amma stood still, waiting. Not far from her Swami was squatting on the ground eating a banana. Just then a man in a safari-suit, briefcase in hand, walked to the bus stop with a young girl. Amma rushed to the girl, grabbed her arm. The man reacted fiercely: he clasped his daughter’s arm and yanked her to the other side of the bus stop. Swami turned to the man and snarled: Bloody Motherfucker. Soon a bus arrived and the man got into the bus with his daughter. Amma called out to him, and when the bus began to move she waved to the little girl. Then she sat down on the ground next to Swami.
The manhole in front of them leaked and smelly water had collected on the road. Swami picked up a stone and chucked it into the puddle. Whore, he shouted. Amma plucked a stone and flung it into the puddle. Whore, she screamed. Then again: Bloody Slut. Bloody Slut. Sisterfucker. Sisterfucker. Mother’s Cunt. Mother’s Cunt. A taxi sped down and shrieked to a halt beside the bus stop. A wave of dirty water curled up from its tyre and drenched both Swami and Amma. Swami let out a stream of abuse and Amma laughed. She laughed and laughed.
Then I saw Munniamma approaching from the market. She pulled up Amma by her arm. Amma pointed to the shadow in the puddle of water, and she said, ‘Why did you have to go?’
The shadow replied: One, two, three… count to a hundred and you’ll have no after.
And Amma counted aloud: one, five, nine, eight, eleven …
She had forgotten how to count.
***
People were saying a lot of things. Poor woman, she’s gone mad, they said and when they saw me, you poor boy, they clucked and shook their heads. There was talk in George Gibbs Institute. Poor fellow, the fellow scientists said. Appa was totally bewildered. He was more so when he found Amma in his study one evening. A number of books lay open on his desk. She had on his spectacles and she rocked back and forth repeating the word, Wolbachia. She pushed the spectacles down her nose. Then she looked up at Appa and spoke these words in a gruff voice: Wolbachia is bacteria that infect fruit flies. The Wolbachia-infected mosquito can only make babies after drinking human blood. Because it needs fat for her babies and human blood has more cholesterol. Because the Wolbachia bacteria needs fat to grow so it eats away all the mosquito’s fat stores. So the mosquito has to bite fat people for more fat. It’s only for her baby mosquito.
Later that evening a man came to the house to talk to Appa. He was thin, tall and had on a slightly crumpled safari suit. Under his arm was a black umbrella and held in his other hand was a cloth bag; drumsticks and leaves of spinach pushed out of it. Appa led him into the hall because the man had told him he wanted to have a private word with him. The man came into the room and stood silently even though Appa had signalled to him to sit down. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. Appa asked him to sit down again. The man remained standing, speaking in low tones. Appa hissed like a snake when he heard what the man had to say. I had never seen him so angry. The man shrugged and then walked out of the room. Appa rushed up the stairs.
‘Who was that man?’ Patti asked me.
‘He was the man from the bus stop.’
‘What bus stop?’
‘39.’
‘Which man?’
‘The man in a safari-suit with the little girl.’
Patti held my arm and we climbed up to Amma’s room. Amma was dressed in a blouse over two layers of petticoats. She had draped a silk saree around her shoulders and on her head was the old threadnet bonnet. She was standing by the window seemingly looking out of it. But the cut-and-stitched curtains were drawn.
Appa stood by the door. He said carefully, ‘Mallika…’
Amma turned to face Appa. ‘For the lord’s sake what?’
‘Mallika, don’t go to the bus stop again,’ is all Appa said.
It was then that Amma let it all out. ‘Life’s so easy for you. You go through each day as though there’s nothing wrong. Nothing. The sun rises and the sun sets. You arise and you rest. There’s nothing wrong for you. But everything is wrong for me. I can’t go through a single day. There is no sun or moon. It is dark all the time and each day feels like years.’
Appa was bewildered. ‘Nothing is easy. I have problems too, you know,’ he started.
‘Be it as it may,’ Amma lashed out. ‘It’s because you are the cause of all the problems.’
‘Now what have I done?’
‘By Jove, of all the things to say, what have I done? You killed Tara.’
‘How did I kill Tara? Tell me, Mallika.’
‘Just like you killed me.’
‘I killed you? How did I kill you?’
‘I dare say the same way you killed my mother.’
‘Why is Amma speaking funny?’ I asked.
‘It’s all the funny books she reads,’ Patti said.
The next day Amma disappeared for several hours. It was evening and she had not returned. Patti grew anxious and sent for Appa. We were on the veranda steps. It was getting dark; the stars were out. Appa sighed with relief when Amma walked through the gates. But he didn’t go to her. He was afraid of how she would react. Amma walked up straight to him. The light shone on her face and I realised she looked different: her lips were painted red, like Rukmini-aunty’s, and her cheeks wore a pinkish blush. Amma ran a hand through her hair. ‘I cut it,’ she said smiling. ‘See, Raman, I look just like Elizabeth Gibbs.’
It was the first time she had addressed Appa by his name. Until now she had addressed him cryptically: Listen. Look here. See.
Amma turned to me. Her face was vacant: she didn’t wince nor did she display any sort of recognition. I wanted to rush to her but a gush of fear locked my knees; I couldn’t move. Amma reached out and ran her fingers through my hair. ‘You should have a haircut, it has grown so long.’
Then Amma noticed the dead moth on the veranda floor. She watched the swarm of ants around it disentangle the insect’s legs and pull it towards a hole in the wall. Amma spoke aloud to the lifeless moth: men are like ants. They will clip our wings so we can’t fly anymore. Remember, it is a burden to be a woman. Large rocks are tied to our back and we sink deep into dark waters. The shadows on the floor rippled like water. The wind howled: oowata-oowata-r-wate-r. ‘I am coming,’ Amma said to the shadows, ‘wait for me. I am coming.’
‘Is Amma mad?’ I asked Appa after she had gone up to her room.
‘She’s not mad. She’s like that old vacuum cleaner in the prayer room,’ Appa said. ‘From outside it seems okay but inside it there are a lot of little parts that are broken and so the machine doesn’t work properly.’
‘Amma is broken from inside?’
Munniamma who had come up behind us burst into tears.
21
She was enormously fat. Her reddened hair was knotted at the top and floweradorned. Several necklaces covered her ample bosom and her kohl-lined eyes were large and weepy. She was Savitri, the local keener. She chewed paan. ‘Just twenty minutes is all she needs,’ Munniamma told Patti. ‘She will make Mallika-ma cry out all her grief and happiness will shine inside her like the sun.’
Munniamma and Savitri followed Patti to Amma’s room. Amma was on the bed, her eyes fixed on the shadow on the windowsill. Savitri removed her necklaces one by one, and then the flowers in her hair. She let her hair down and spread it around her face. She stood still for several minutes, her eyes closed. And then taking a long and deep breath, she wailed – a long, single wail, like the opening note of an orchestra. Her shoulders grieved, her breasts drooped; she beat her chest rhythmically, again and again, gasping. Tears ran down her face with rivulets of kohl. She wailed. For half an hour she wailed. Amma still stared at the sill, tearless. Savitri knotted her hair and put the flowers back. She adjusted her breasts inside the cups of her bra, put on her necklaces one by one. ‘It’s no use, ma,’ Savitri said wiping her face and neck with the end of her saree. ‘Her grief is too deep. Only Lord Ganesha can help her now. He will destroy her grief and remove the obstacles in her life. Bring her to the prayer room.’ When they were in the prayer room Savitri lit the lamps and burned incense sticks. ‘Look at our Lord Ganesha,’ she said to Amma, ‘talk to him, tell him your woes and he’ll help you.’
Amma looked at the idols of the Gods, fresh flowers surrounding them, and the bowls of fruits and milk set on the shelf. She stared at Ghandiji, the Vacuum-Cleaner-God, and the clay idol of the snake goddess that Patti had brought back from Chiroor. The Goddess’s face was black, as was the snake coiled around her body. Her eyes were algaegreen and the tongue sticking out of her mouth was bloodred. The plaster of Paris idol of Rama, the Lord of selfcontrol, gleamed in the lamplight. His lips were postbox red, his teeth Colgatewhite; he wore a permanent holysmile, a somewhat mocking grin. Amma’s body shook and her breath came out in a tiny gasp. She grabbed the bowl of milk and poured it over the idols and threw the fruits at them, one by one and with every throw she screamed. ‘You killed Tara.’ She banged the empty bowl hard on the idols. The clay and plaster of Paris idols cracked, crumbled bit by bit, and fell – a holy head here, a sacred hand there, the snakehead in that corner, the bloody tongue in another, and at Patti’s feet, the permanent pious smile.
Patti grabbed Amma’s hands. She gritted her teeth, swung her arm back and slapped Amma’s face, hard.
That night Amma disappeared.
***
Appa and Vishnu-Thatha looked for Amma everywhere: the market, the bus stop, on the beach, in the woods. Two days later Appa filed a Missing Person report with the police. The police came to the house and questioned the rest of us: Patti, Munniamma, Mani and me.
When is the last time you saw her?
Did something happen in the house to upset her?
Does she have any close friends?
Has she done this before?
Did you notice anything unusual about her?
When the police asked me these questions I said ‘No’ to all of them except the first. To that I told the truth: Amma was in the prayer room. And I didn’t tell them about the man at the bus stop. Not-telling was not lying. Had Amma gone away with him?
Patti was miserable. She bought a number of replacement Gods and prayed to them each day. She went to the Shiva temple each evening and offered flowers, a coconut, ten rupees, a bunch of homegrown rastali bananas, to Lord Shiva with light in His eyes. Appa was disconsolate. He would go up to Amma’s room after he returned from work and stay there until Patti called him down for dinner. During the meal he would talk about Amma constantly:
‘She made the best puliodhare. She was the Puliodhare Queen.’
‘She liked only white flowers.’
‘Did you know she was ticklish on her nose?’
‘I could always tell when was going to be angry. Her left eyebrow would have a strange tilt to it.’
‘Sometimes when she was fast asleep she didn’t snore but she whistled a tune through her nos
e.’
‘Why did Amma go away?’ I asked.
Appa looked at me for a long time and then he smiled. ‘Funny, your mother often answered a question with a question. Why did you go away? She would have said: why does the monsoon not stay?’
I was convinced that Amma had gone away because of me. So I prayed to God, week after week, in all the languages I could speak: English, Tamil, some Hindi, a spattering of learnt-by-heart Sanskrit. I even sent a silent thought prayer to all the Gods-in-One to bring her back. Patti had told me for important matters it was always better to address all the Gods at once. I waited until the end of the month, until the prayers would have reached Those addressed. Then in my dream one night Tara’s voice was sweet like the note of a flute. Hand in hand, like two lost children, we wandered together in the woods. We stood on a cliff looking down at the sea. The rock cracked below Tara’s feet. She tripped and fell; her voice cried out to me. I lunged towards Tara and grabbed her hand just before her body was pitched forward. I could see her face contort, horror in her eyes. I tightened my fingers around her hand, but I couldn’t hold on. Tara fell into the sea. She swallowed more water, more water and sank to the bottom.
Amma came up behind me. She screamed. ‘You killed Tara.’
I woke up. I felt an overwhelming fear. I had a memory of something soft and zigzaggy, like melted tar with tyremarks. My eyelids seemed to be glued together. I rubbed my eyes hard, opened them wide. The window was a square of light. I leapt out of bed and ran up to Amma’s room. It felt empty even though it was full of things: trunks, suitcases, utensils and heaps of magazines. I looked in the steel almirah. Amma’s clothes were still in it. I took a saree out of the shelf and buried my face in it; it was soft, as soft as Amma’s skin, and it still smelled of her. I pulled out the trunk from under the bed and rummaged through it. At the bottom I found a photo album. I opened it carefully. On its first page were the words: My Tara. On subsequent pages were photographs of girls cut out from magazines and newspapers. Under each of them were written: Tara 6 years old. Tara 7 years old. Tara 8 years old… There were also pictures of flowers and food, captioned: Tara likes roses. Tara likes ice-cream. There was a photograph of a mother holding her daughter. The mother’s face was not visible. Amma had captioned it. Amma and Tara.
IF YOU LOOK FOR ME, I AM NOT HERE Page 20