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The tension in the car is palpable and
instinctively I try to chisel away at it. ‘Ae, daddy, want to
hear a new joke I learned?' I say, leaning forward from my back
seat. I tell him the one about the porcupine and the peacock and my
reward is a faint smile in the rearview mirror. But his mood is still
dark as he glances frequently at my mother, as if

expecting her to do or say something that will
relieve the tension. But my mother looks resolutely outside the
window and it is clear that no apology for tardiness will be
forthcoming.

This calls for more drastic action. I know that
nothing improves my father's mood as quickly as spending money
on his family, so out of the blue I say, ‘Daddy, I want a
chocolate.'

Sure enough, he brightens up. ‘Done,'
he says and stops at the next convenience store we pass. He removes a
ten-rupee note from the front pocket of his shirt. ‘Now, go
into the store and ask for the kind of chocolate you want,' he
says. ‘Make sure you get the change.' I walk into the
store feeling tall and important, clutching my ten-rupee note. I
stand before a glass cabinet, selecting the chocolate I want. A
salesman hovers overhead. ‘Who are you with, beta?' he
says. ‘Your mummy-daddy are with you?'

‘My daddy is waiting in the car,' I
say. ‘He sent me in to buy a chocolate. I can count change,'
I say proudly.

I leave the store with a large Cadbury's
orange chocolate.

Once in the car, I hand my dad the change. He lets
me keep the chocolate but the ruse is up. I don't really want
to eat it at this time. ‘Mummy, I'm not hungry right
now,' I say. ‘Can you keep this for me?' My mother
gives me a quizzical look but takes the chocolate from me and tosses
it on the dashboard.

We keep driving.

I can tell by the tight expression on both their
faces that my parents have exchanged words while I was in the store.
I want to help but suddenly, I feel overwhelmingly tired and sleepy.

I curl up in the back seat and fall asleep. As I
drift into sleep, I hear a steady murmur of words from the front
seat. They are having another fight.

‘Thrituma, ootho,' I hear my father
say. We are at Hanging Gardens and I thrill at the thought of
climbing inside the Old Woman's Shoe and the other structures
based on children's nursery rhymes. I have been to Hanging
Gardens only once before and am thrilled beyond belief about being
back.

We have walked a few feet away from the car,
carrying our little bag of chicken and chutney sandwiches, when I
remember the chocolate. ‘Daddy, my chocolate. I want to eat it
after lunch.' He immediately turns back to the car but when he
returns, he is empty-handed. ‘Forget the chocolate,' he
says with a grin. ‘It has totally melted on the dashboard.
Mistake leaving it there.'

I look at him open-mouthed. Suddenly, wanting that
chocolate is the most important thing in the world. ‘But I want
it,' I say. ‘I saved that chocolate for later.'

‘I know, Thritu,' he says. ‘Don't
worry, I'll buy you another one at the restaurant here. It's
no problem.'

I feel something akin to panic. He is totally
misunderstanding what I'm saying. My heart feels wild and
untamed, as if I've swallowed an ocean. ‘No, no, no, I
don't want another chocolate. I want
my
chocolate, the
one that's in the car.'

He sighs impatiently. ‘Don't be
silly,' he says. ‘I told you, the chocolate is all melted
onto the dashboard. You will need a fork to eat it. It has dirtied
the whole dashboard. Come on, let's eat our sandwiches and then
I'll buy you another one.'

A wail starts somewhere so deep within me, it
feels like it's originating from my knees and carrying upwards.
‘I want my chocolate,' I say. ‘The same one. I
don't want another one.'

‘This is exactly like what she did with the
sara cake,' mummy says and I know immediately what she means. A
few months earlier Mehroo had brought home a sara cake, a chocolate
pastry, from the small bakery my family had opened as a side business
a few years earlier. She had offered it to me after dinner but I had
said I was too full. ‘Okay,' Mehroo said. ‘You'll
be hungry in one or two hours. Eat it then. Nice and fresh it is.'
But I refused, telling her I didn't want it. ‘Are you
sure, Thrituma?' Mehroo asked. ‘Sure you won't
change your mind later?' And I shook my head no.

Mehroo took the chocolate pastry out of its paper
foil and held it between her thumb and index finger. She looked at it
for a second and then popped it into her mouth. The instant the
pastry entered her mouth, regret flooded my body. ‘I want it,'
I said. ‘I want that sara cake now.'

Mehroo stared at me aghast. ‘Shoo, now.
Ten-ten times I asked you and ten-ten times you said no.'

‘I don't care,' I wailed. ‘I
want my cake now.'

‘It's seven o'clock,'
Mehroo said helplessly. ‘The shop is closed. I'll bring
you another one tomorrow, I promise.'

‘I don't want another one. I want the
same piece now only.

Give me my cake back.'

At that time, mummy had chuckled at Mehroo's
distressed retelling of the story. Now, she is not amused. People are
turning their heads to look at us and my parents are aware of this.
Mummy grabs my arm as if she is lifting a chicken's wing and
starts walking. ‘Come on,' she says under her breath.

‘Acting like a baby in public. Policeman
will come arrest you if you keep this up.'

It is the wrong thing to say. I am out of control
now, refusing to move, demanding the same chocolate. ‘Make it
whole again,'

I tell my dad. ‘I don't want it
melted. I want it like it was before.'

He stares at me with horror. He has never seen me
like this, so out of control, and he must realize that there are
aspects to his daughter he knows nothing about. ‘Thrituma, be
reasonable,' he says but reasonableness has melted away, like
chocolate in the sun. Mummy takes over. ‘Keep quiet immediately
or I'll give you one tight slap,' she says, her lips thin
with anger. ‘Spoiling everybody's day like this.'

I am sobbing now. ‘I want to see my
chocolate,' I say. ‘I want to see it.' I am
thinking I want to say goodbye to it, like saying goodbye to a friend
whom I have insulted or hurt but it is impossible to convey all this
to the adults who are looking at me as if I am a monster they have
created. ‘You can't eat that chocolate, I told you,'
dad says, and for the first time there is real anger in his voice.

‘I don't care,' I scream. ‘I
want to see my chocolate.'

He moves quickly then. He spins around on his heel
and starts walking toward the car. ‘Okay, come on then. Let's
see your chocolate.'

Mummy and I walk behind him, trying to keep up
with his long, angry strides. He flings open the car door and asks me
to get into the front seat. ‘There's your chocolate,'
he says, pointing to the brown, gooey pile in the middle of the
dashboard. The sight of the melted chocolate fills me with unbearable
sadness and a sense of betrayal. I am unsure whether I am the
betrayer or the betrayed but there is a sense of a promise broken. I
want to explain all this to my dad but I can't. My grief is
muddy and opaque and I can't talk through it. All I can do is
wail and the nasal, high-pitched sound I make feels absurdly
satisfying.

Dad slips into the seat beside me. Gesturing to
mummy, he says, ‘Get in.' She looks as if she is about to
argue with him but something about the tightness of his face shuts
her up. She gets into the front seat, so that I am sandwiched between
the two of them.

My father puts the car in reverse and the
uncharacteristic violence with which he shifts the gears stuns me
into silence.

‘Where are we going?' I ask.

‘We're going home,' he answers.
‘Turning back. The day's been ruined anyway. Satisfied
now?'

I cannot speak. I dare not speak. This is worse
than any punishment he could've thought of. The lump in my
throat is so big that it hurts to swallow. Disappointment, guilt,
shame, regret, all compete to occupy the innermost chambers of my
cold heart. My eyes fill with tears but I blink them away, not
wanting to draw any attention to myself. I want to fold up my body
like the origami the older girls make at school, to make myself as
small and invisible as possible. Over my head I can feel my parents
glowering at each other and this only makes things worse. I want to
take back every wail, every misguided shriek that emitted from my
throat. The chocolate, sitting on the dashboard like mud, repulses me
now. I do not feel any sense of kinship or responsibility toward it
any more. I look at it as objectively as someone waking up from a
dream. What had I gotten so hysterical about?

At home, I creep up the stairs and cringe as my
dad rings the doorbell. Mehroo's surprised face makes my misery
even sharper.

There will be other picnics over the years—field
trips from school, outings with neighbours, days spent at the beach
with friends and other family members. But never again will it be
just the three of us spending a Sunday afternoon at Hanging Gardens.
Like a candy bar in the sun, the days of summer will melt away and
never again will it be just the three of us, a girl and her parents
spending a Sunday afternoon at Hanging Gardens.

M
EHROO IS DESCENDING THE STAIRS and already
I am on the balcony to wave her goodbye. I wait with bated breath
until she comes down the stone steps that lead from the lobby of our
apartment building to the street. As soon as she reaches the street
she looks up to where I am waiting on the second floor balcony and
waves to me.

I blink back my tears and smile, a wide,
clown-like smile that I hope my aunt can see from two storeys below.

I am seven years old and it is the second week of
summer vacation. At ten a.m. the sun is already a snarling beast,
raining its hot breath on the people below. I know that by the time
Mehroo walks the short distance from our lane to the main street to
catch her bus, she will already be covered in sweat, her soft,
cream-coloured cheeks flushed bright red.

Despite the dazzling brightness of the day, inside
the house it is dark. I know that as soon as I leave this balcony
after my ritualistic waving goodbye, I will enter a dark and
frightening and lonely world. I will spend the hours of the day
waiting for Mehroo or my dad or some other adult to come home and
rescue me from my mother's wrath. I don't know exactly
what awaits me today but I know it won't be good. There will be
some swearing, some threats, some accusations about spending all my
time with my nose buried inside that damn book. There might be the
familiar sound of the cane swooshing through the air before it lands
on my bony body. The thought of that makes me wince.

Mehroo has barely left the house and already there
is a lump in my throat the size of China. I had wanted to go to the
factory with her today, maybe stopping at Jaffer's on the way
to pick up a novel for me to devour, but mummy said there was
homework to do. Mehroo had tried protesting that it is only the
second week of vacation, that there would be plenty of time for
schoolwork later in the summer but mummy told her that in that case
she should take over my schoolwork too, since she'd already
taken over everything else and stolen her only child away from her.
Then they had their daily morning fight and were quiet only when dad
raised his voice and said he was leaving for work without any
breakfast because he craved peace more than eggs. ‘Not even
eight in the morning and already I'm tired,' he cried.
‘Like a towel that's been wrung out dry, that's how
I go to work everyday.' They were quiet as he got dressed
hurriedly and raced down the stairs to his car, his face red and
excited. As he got into his car, Mehroo yelled at her brother from
the balcony, ‘Please be careful. Calm down. Drive safely.'
Mummy stayed in her room.

I feel miserable because I have caused this fight.
If only I had not asked to go to the factory, none of this would've
happened. So that when mummy accuses me of creating friction between
her and her husband, I silently agree.

And now, my aunt has also left the house and
there's only me and mummy at home. I pray that the doorbell
will ring and some visitor—perhaps her brother, perhaps a
neighbour—someone will arrive. Someone who will deliver me,
save me from the long stretch of the day.

My aunt is now a quarter of the way down the lane
and already she has turned back and waved to me three times. This is
our daily ritual, but still I hold my breath in anticipation of every
turn and wave. Turn and wave. Will she do it again?

Will she wave now? Or will something, somebody,
distract her? Will she run into one of the neighbours, will they walk
part of the way together and will she forget to wave? Forget me? Or
will she see the 64-number bus approach and will she run the rest of
the way to catch it, in the process forgetting her niece, who is
standing on this balcony believing that her very life depends on
being waved to?

Everyday, my sentimental aunt faithfully,
diligently, waves.

Deep inside, I know that this ritual, this public
display of our love, is every bit as important to her as it is to me.
And yet, I'm always afraid. Everyday I trick myself; scare
myself by creating more and more implausible scenarios of why she may
not wave to me on that particular day. Each day, I hold my breath and
feel my stomach muscles clench and relax to the rhythms of her
waving. Daily, I dread the moment when she reaches the end of the
lane and makes the left turn onto the main road. That is the moment
of reckoning, when I have to return to the darkness of the apartment.