Disowned

by Tikiri

  If I hadn’t moved every year or so with my parents in East Africa, then moved by myself to India as an adolescent, I would have had a hard time adjusting. But by then, I’d lived in so many cities and countries, and acclimatized to new people, environments, customs, and ways of doing things, that Toronto just became another place I needed to learn to live in. This meant I went about my day and did what I had to do, just like I did when my family moved to a new country and I had to step into a new class and continue with my schoolwork.

  In Toronto, I spent my days scrubbing the long granite counter in the kitchen, mopping miles of tiles, and cleaning the three bathrooms, each with a bathtub large enough to soak an elephant. I even cleaned the cars and the garage. I didn’t get to bed until one in the morning, and that was on my first day. Days became weeks and weeks quickly became months. My life at Grandma’s had prepared me well for this assignment. While Mrs. Rao’s words were short and sharp, she didn’t slap me like Grandma used to, and usually left me alone to do my work. So I cooked and cleaned, and scrubbed and polished, every day. And whenever I had any time on my hands, I got lost in Mrs. Rao’s library.

  Mrs. Rao never used her library, but it was there I found a treasure trove. When I slipped my fingers along the books on that first day, I discovered dust on every shelf. No one had touched these books for months, if not for years. It was the same with the mountains of fancy magazines she left strewn over the coffee tables and floor, still in their plastic dust jackets. I ripped off the covers to these magazines—ranging from travel to home decor to fashion to gourmet cooking—and devoured them in the kitchen, while waiting for a cake to rise or a broth to boil. Whenever Mrs. Rao said I was being lazy, I’d tell her I was only looking up new recipes. This was, in fact, the truth and seemed to satisfy her, especially when she saw the results at suppertime.

  And this was how I discovered Chef Pierre. His baking magazines had beautiful, mouthwatering photos for every recipe, and his articles were written with so much warmth, it was like reading letters from an old friend. Chef Pierre’s magazines slowly became my baking and cooking bible, from which I tried every recipe I found.

  Chef Pierre was a renowned pastry chef with luxury cafés around the world, cafés that catered to royalty—both true royalty and those of the film and fashion variety. I flipped through his glossy magazines, enthralled at the pictures of beautiful guests, red awnings, tables draped in white-and-red tablecloths, and plush red chairs. The photos of his cakes looked so genuine I felt I could lick the icing off the pages.

  In the photos, Chef Pierre looked like someone I’d bump into at any corner bakery, a rotund man with a happy and friendly baker face that said, “I’m the best baker in the world. Come on in and have some sweets.” How could anyone resist? I dreamed of meeting this man who’d begun with nothing and become everything I wanted to be: independent, free, and appreciated for my culinary creations.

  He came from a poor background, just like me. He was born into a family of coal miners in southern Belgium. His mother had died when he was born, and it was his grandmother who’d taken care of him. I wondered if she’d slapped him around, like mine had. It was when Chef Pierre discovered his passion for baking and cooking, he changed his predestined path that would have led to the dirty, dank mines where his father worked. I consumed his story, his pictures, his recipes. If he can do it, why can’t I? One day, I told myself. One day. Just you wait, world.

  Very soon, I began to experiment, blending my mother’s recipes with ideas from Chef Pierre’s magazines, creating blends of East and West. I sprinkled cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and nutmeg into my batter to get those earthy flavors my mother used to create. I learned to make spiced-up creations of all kinds of sweets, from maple-vanilla ice cream and strawberry-and-cream tarts to lemony cheesecake and triple-chocolate red-velvet cakes. I loved to bake. Mrs. Rao loved to eat.

  Mrs. Rao entertained every Saturday night. When she had dinner guests, I had to wear a uniform of a short black dress and a white apron. Being only five feet tall and ninety pounds, everything was usually too large for me. But this uniform was clearly made for someone exactly one size larger than me and it looked used, which made me wonder if someone else had done this work before me.

  Every Saturday afternoon, I found myself designing menus, cooking, baking, prepping dishes, and setting the table. When Mrs. Rao buzzed me from the dining room or the patio on warmer evenings, I’d bring out the dinner plates, two by two, for the seated guests. I lived for their oohs and aahs. I didn’t speak with anyone, no matter what they asked or how much they cajoled. “Just nod and smile,” had been Mrs. Rao’s strict instructions. One particular guest had a nose like the proboscis monkey of Borneo and liked to pinch my behind whenever I walked by him. “My cupcake girl,” he’d say with a glint in his eye, oozing sleaze. I always made sure to stay a foot away from him, even if it meant reaching across another guest and making them duck under my hot dishes.

  Once Mrs. Rao’s guests began eating, I had nothing to do but wait in the kitchen. I browsed the foodie and travel magazines, listening to the sounds of corks popping, glasses clinking, and cutlery tinkling in the dining room. Sometimes, when three or four bottles of wine had been opened, things would get loud quickly and I’d hear drunken laughter from the men and high-pitched giggles from the women. I’d wait in the kitchen, poring over recipes until the second buzzer summoned me. This was the signal to have chai tea and sweets ready to serve. After dinner and dessert, the guests would retire into the massive living room, where they’d open decks of cards and bottles of whiskey, and the games would begin.

  One night, while I was cleaning the dinner table, I peeked into the living room through a crack in the door. Everyone was huddled around the coffee table, some guests lounging on cushions on the floor. Mrs. Rao was pouring glasses of port for her guests and the proboscis man was smoking a cigar. Everyone had cards in their hands, and there were piles of paper notes in the middle of the table. This was real money, and from the color of the bills, I could see they were not small denominations.

  When I finally heard the engines of the Cadillacs, Mercedes, and BMWs rev up and pull out of the driveway, my next tasks began. I emptied the dishwasher for the third time, took out the garbage, and vacuumed the dining room, the living room, and the kitchen. By the time I’d finish, it would be two in the morning, and Mrs. Rao and Mr. Raj Kapur would be sound asleep upstairs. This was my life now. Housework, and sticking to house rules.

  Mrs. Rao had four house rules. One, I couldn’t leave the house grounds without an escort, which meant her. Two, I couldn’t speak with any of her guests at any time, even if they initiated a conversation. Three, I couldn’t pick up the phone.

  Mrs. Rao had two handsets, one in her bedroom upstairs and the second in her office den near the library. The telephone rang incessantly every day, and she always ignored it. On my second day, the phone rang while I was vacuuming her bedroom, and I glanced over to see the words “West End Collection Agency” scrolling on the telephone’s display. I paused for a minute. That name sounded familiar. Then, I remembered. One of my jobs was to empty the shredding machine in the library, and right next to it had been a pile of letters from the West End Collection Agency. But the ringing soon became background noise.

  The fourth house rule was the strangest. I had to stay in my bedroom with my windows and curtains closed whenever Mrs. Rao asked. It took me a few months to realize she only asked me to do this once a month, on full-moon nights.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Hiccup!

  I looked up. Where did that come from?

  I’d just finished washing Mrs. Rao’s Cadillac and was wiping it down with a terry cloth. She had two vehicles: the beautiful black Cadillac in which she’d picked me up at the airport, and an enormous white Land Rover I had to climb up high to get into. The Rover was for winter driving, she’d said, but I had to clean it every week, even when it hadn’t been driven at all. Her cars were her pride.
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br />   I’d been at Mrs. Rao’s house for ten months, and as immense as her home and yard were, it had begun to feel claustrophobic. It was heaven to be outside, to feel the wind on my face, to hear the birds chirp, and to see squirrels chase each other across the lawn I’d just mowed. Car cleaning was a relaxing job, almost like meditating.

  And I daydreamed as I cleaned. One day I’ll have my own shiny new car, I told myself as I wiped a wet spot off the Cadillac. When I become famous like Chef Pierre, I’ll buy a car just like this and take Preeti and Aunty Shilpa driving across India. I was lost in my thoughts, fantasizing about going in my own fancy car through the streets of Goa, seeing the astonished faces of my old classmates and the admiring looks of my teachers, when I heard the hiccup. It was loud enough to startle me out of my daydream.

  Hiccup!

  There. Again. I straightened up and looked around the yard, but saw no one. I peeked inside the garage. No one there either.

  “Did you just move in, my dear?” a slurred voice asked.

  I jerked my head up. The voice had come over the cedar hedge. Two wrinkled gray eyes gazed down at me.

  “Who…who are you?” I asked.

  “I heard noises, so I thought I’d pop over and see,” the eyes said. “Come to think of it, I’ve been hearing quite a lot of funny noises lately. More than usual.”

  I peeked through the seven-foot hedge. Either the gray eyes belonged to someone impossibly tall, or she was standing on something high.

  “How did you—?”

  “It’s called a stepladder, my dear. My gardener left it out. I thought to see what’s going on over”—hiccup!—“here.” The eyes roamed around, taking in Mrs. Rao’s front yard.

  Mrs. Rao’s yard was now a beautiful mosaic of fall yellows, oranges, and reds. The garden looked vibrant and alive, except for one anomaly. There was always a mysterious rusty shipping container at the end of the yard. This one had a faded decal plastered across one side with a picture of a basket overflowing with papayas, mangoes, and bananas. “Super India Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Exporters of Goa” read the colorful lettering. The container changed every month with different decals, but the name remained the same. It had taken me a while to notice that it changed on those full-moon nights when Mrs. Rao asked me to stay in my room—those nights when I’d imagine footsteps on the floor above my basement room.

  “If you ask me, Mrs. Rao needs to hire a professional landscaper,” the eyes said from above the hedge.

  “I try my best…,” I said.

  “Oh, I meant no disrespect, my dear. You’ve done a wonderful job. Um, a wonderful job indeed.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  I shuffled my feet and glanced over my shoulder. At the beginning, Mrs. Rao took her cars out of the garage herself. After a few weeks, she taught me how to move them, so she didn’t have to come outside every time. Some days, I’d see her portly shadow at a window on the second floor observing my work, but this afternoon, I knew she was fast asleep in her bedroom upstairs.

  I looked back at the eyes over the hedge. There was a mop of curly gray hair on the stranger’s head. Her forehead had a thousand wrinkles, and her eyes looked kind, smiling even.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I asked first,” she said, her eyes crinkling at the corners. She suddenly wavered. A pale bony arm shot out and grabbed onto the hedge as if she was trying to steady herself.

  “Oh my!” she said.

  “Oh my god!” I said, my hand on my mouth. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I am, my dear.”

  She sounded exactly like Mrs. Rao’s Saturday night dinner guests at around one in the morning, but this was just after lunch.

  “A few glasses of good Scotch never hurt anybody,” she said, as if reading my mind. Hiccup!

  I had no idea how to respond. “My mama always said water will stop hiccups.”

  “Oh, they’ll go away”—hiccup!—“eventually. Tell me now, where are you from, young lady, and when did you get here?”

  “Me?” I said, pointing at my chest. Silly question because I was the only other person in the vicinity.

  “Yes. You. Not that I’m saying you’re not from here. I mean, who’s from here anyway?” She laughed, a forced, embarrassed laugh.

  “India.”

  “O-o-o-oh.” The eyes opened wide. “How lovely. You must be Mrs. Rao’s niece, the one she’s been gabbing on about?”

  “I guess so. I mean, yes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  I hesitated. Franky and Mrs. Rao had been clear about the house rules. I looked back at the eyes. They looked friendly, and it had been months since I’d spoken with anyone other than Mrs. Rao, and I never had a proper conversation with her. She barked at me when things needed to get done or redone, and I, in turn, asked clarifying questions, only as needed. That was about it.

  “Asha,” I said.

  “What a pretty name.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m Jacqueline.” A hand came over the hedge carrying a short glass filled with a golden liquid. She raised the glass to me. It glinted in the sun.

  “Nice to meet you, Jacqueline.” I put my hands together and gave a quick bob of my head.

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” Jacqueline said. “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “I don’t have any. They…um…passed away.”

  “Ooh, I’m terribly sorry, my dear.”

  “It’s all right.” I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing else to say. I remembered my mother every time I picked up the cake mixer, and I remembered my father every time I opened a book. I still kept the red sandals they gave me as a memento, even if they no longer fit. That uncomfortable knot in my stomach after the car crash had never gone away, and there were nights I had trouble sleeping, but in my mind, my parents were in Tanzania, waiting for me to return, waiting for me to visit them at their graves. One day I will, I told myself every day. I will return. Soon.

  “Well then, it seems we have something in common. I’m a poor widow and you’re a poor orphan. My husband passed away from liver cancer five years ago. My children moved to the US and don’t care to visit me anymore.” A pause. “I have no one here now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I stared up at Jacqueline, wondering what the rest of her looked like.

  “You poor girl. You don’t want to listen to a lonely old woman commiserating about her misfortunes.”

  “No, that’s fine,” I said. “It’s nice to chat.” I didn’t tell her that I also felt like Alice in Wonderland having a conversation with the crazy Cheshire Cat.

  “Well then, what about the noises?” Jacqueline asked, her head bobbing over the hedge. “Does she make you work all night? Is that it?”

  “Not really,” I lied. “It’s quiet here.”

  “Really? So you don’t hear the noises at night?”

  I looked away. It was true I heard noises of cars coming in at the middle of the night or heavy things being lifted or dragged, on those nights I wasn’t allowed to come out of my room. Then again, I had an active imagination. My life had been too topsy-turvy and I’d read so many stories that sometimes, I was no longer sure where my imagination ended and reality began.

  I remembered a week ago, on a full-moon night, how I had to mop up muddy footsteps from the main hallway to the guest bathrooms. It looked like a herd of elephants had bathed in the tubs the night before. It had been a chore to clean it all and my sore muscles the next day confirmed I hadn’t dreamed that up. But I hadn’t dared ask Mrs. Rao.

  “Is Mrs. Rao having wild parties?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “except for her Saturday night dinners.”

  “Aah,” Jacqueline said, nodding wisely.

  “Tell me, little one, which school do you go to? Is she forcing you to go to that uppity private school down the road?”

  “No…er…I don’t go to
school.”

  “What? You don’t go to school?” She gave me a piercing look. “That’s scandalous.”

  “It’s only for a year.” I stopped, realizing I was saying too much.

  “Have you ever gone to school? Do you even know how to read?”

  “Of course I do.” I squared my shoulders. Does she think I’m an illiterate like Grandma? “I went to international schools in Africa. I also went to a girls’ school in Goa. I know how to read and write in English and Konkani. I also know a bit of Sinhalese and Hindi. And I’m pretty good at chemistry and maths. I’m going back to school when I finish my year at Mrs. Rao’s. I promised Papa I’d go to university, just like he did.”

  “My, my.” Jacqueline’s eyes grew wide. “What an impressive young woman you are. I speak only English, I’m afraid. My husband was French Canadian, always badgering me about learning the language. Pestered me for years, but languages are simply not my forté. Gets difficult as you get older, you know?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “Is that all you do then? Wash cars for Mrs. Rao?”

  “I cook and clean too.”

  “Just like the other girls,” Jacqueline mumbled, more to herself than to me.

  “What other girls?” There was something strange about Mrs. Rao and her house. I felt it in my bones. The dinner parties, the nighttime footsteps, the used uniform that was a size too big. A shiver went through my spine. “What other…”

  “What a busy girl you are,” Jacqueline said, as if changing topic. She took a sip from her glass, watching me thoughtfully. “What a very busy girl indeed.”

  I glanced quickly over my shoulder to make sure Mrs. Rao wasn’t watching. She should be getting up anytime now. “I’m sorry, Jacqueline, but I’ve got to finish the cars or I’ll get into trouble.”