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Mehroo has stopped going to the factory almost
completely now because the sawdust makes her condition worse. She
still looks over the cloth-bound business ledgers at home but dad has
hired an accountant at the factory. Mostly, she is confined to the
house and that means that there are more fights between mummy and
her. Whereas she could once escape to the factory during the day, she
is now trapped in the house with a nemesis who seems unable to go
beyond a day without a fight.

Between the coughing fits and the fighting,
Mehroo's strength is being sapped, daily.

As soon as mummy opens the door I take in her
flushed, sweaty face, the heaving of her bosom, the mad, bloodthirsty
glint in her eye. I decide to go on the offensive before she tries to
suck me into her world of ancient resentments and enmities.

‘I could hear every word that you were
screaming from two floors down,' I say. ‘All the
neighbours are gathered downstairs listening to your bhea-bhea-bhea.
For God's sake, keep your loud voice down.'

She turns on me with the manic energy of a young
bull. ‘Not even home for a minute and already siding with her,
are you?

Only my voice you hear, is that it? Why don't
you say something to your beloved Mehroo with all her screaming and
shouting? This is my reward for carrying you in my stomach for nine
months, feeding you, taking care of you when you are sick, so that
you side with everybody except your mother. But that's what
happens when you give birth to a snake instead of a daughter.'

‘Toba, toba, toba,' Mehroo says,
tapping her cheeks three times in the ritualistic way. ‘What
kind of mother talks like this to her own daughter? God forgive you.'

My opening salvo has re-energized mummy and she
does not let up, directing her pent-up fury at me, following me from
room to room, calling me names. I recoil from her words but I am also
relieved that I am shielding Mehroo from mummy's barrage of
bullets by taking them myself. I see my body as a wall that I have
erected between mummy and Mehroo, to protect the latter. I figure I
can take it because when mummy attacks Mehroo or my dad, her curses
carry more venom than a cobra. But even though she says terrible
things to me, her attacks don't devastate me as much because I
tell myself that deep down she doesn't mean it, that she is
posturing, that despite her mad, hateful words, she really loves me.

Still, I have had a long day at college and I am
tired of her yelling. I want to end this fight right now. I raise my
voice to cover up hers, like putting a lid on a pot of boiling water,
but I am no match for her. Her voice gets thicker and thicker, like a
soup that's been simmering on the stove for too long, and then
I can't take it for another second. I rush towards her and grip
her wrist in my hand and hiss at her to shut up, just shut up, to
keep her damn voice down because all the neighbours have their
windows open and they can all hear every word of what she is saying.
I feel like a madwoman myself, completely out of control, but now she
is once again turning the tables on me because she is inching towards
the open window in her bedroom, dragging me along with her, and now
she is screaming at the top of her lungs that I am hurting her, that
I am holding her prisoner, and I am so stunned by her treachery, by
the extent of her deceit, and so intent on wanting to keep her voice
down that I try cupping her mouth with my other hand but now she
calls forth some demon-like strength and in one swift stroke she is
out of my grip and then I watch with horror as she turns her fingers
into a claw and pulls them down the length of my right arm, taking
with her flecks of my skin, leaving behind faint but long lines of
bloody scratches.

I yelp. You're scratching me, I say,
watching her handiwork in amazement. Then I look up to her face and
there is such a look of controlled excitement, of deep satisfaction,
of pure, unadulterated madness on her face that my heart begins to
pound with fear. She is crazy. My mother is crazy. And right at this
moment she looks as if she hates me even though I don't want to
believe that, despite everything that has just happened.

I rush out of her room. Already, I can tell that
there will be scars where her fingers have dug into my flesh and I
hurry to put on a long-sleeved shirt so that none of the other adults
can see what mummy has done. This will be another one of our many
secrets.

I wear long sleeves for the next several weeks.
But one day Jesse somehow catches a glimpse of the scratches on my
forearm. ‘How the hell did that happen?' she asks.

‘Oh, I was just playing around with Ronnie
and he scratched me a few times, that's all,' I lie.

She nods. She has no reason not to believe me.

But others are less oblivious to what's
going on at home.

Although it was years ago, I still smart from the
memory of the conversation I'd had with Miss D'Silva,
when I was in ninth-grade.

Miss D'Silva was my elementary school
teacher who lived a few houses down from us and had consequently
known my family all her life. I continued to see her even after I
graduated from her class because often, when I missed the school-bus
because I'd overslept, Mehroo would wait downstairs with me and
when Miss D'Silva would walk by on her way to the taxi-stand,
Mehroo would request her to give me a ride to school. She always
agreed and we'd spend the time in the cab chatting about school
and other matters.

‘So, kiddo. Have a boyfriend yet?'
she'd always tease me.

‘What, no gora-gora nice Parsi young man
yet?' She had grown up around enough Parsis to know how much
most of them prized light skin.

‘Even if I did have a boyfriend, he wouldn't
be a Parsi,' I'd reply. ‘And he definitely wouldn't
be fair-skinned.'

Miss D'Silva, who had the burnt chocolate
coloured skin of a Goanese Catholic, would smile.

But on this day, Miss D'Silva looked
uncharacteristically serious. It was the first time I was visiting my
old classroom and that too, because Greta Duke had sent me on an
errand to pick up something from her class. Since I was now riding
the B.E.S.T buses, I had not seen Miss D'Silva in a long time.

I spent a few minutes chatting aimlessly with her
and was about to return to where Miss Duke was tutoring the other
kids in the library, when Miss D'Silva said quietly, ‘So,
kiddo.

How are things at home these days?'

I looked confused. ‘At home? Fine,' I
said.

I made to move away but Miss D'Silva put her
hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer to her. ‘No, I mean,
really. How are things between your mom and your aunties? And between
your mom and your dad?'

I suddenly knew what she meant and felt a wave of
embarrassment so thick, it could've knocked me off my feet.
‘Fine, everybody is fine,' I mumbled.

But to my mortification, Miss D'Silva was
not done. ‘Look, kiddo, you can talk to me. You think I don't
know what you've been going through all these years? Wasn't
that long ago when you were in this class. I remember, I used to
stand at this window and look out on the playground every evening,
when you were taking on—what was it?

Five? Eight?—of the girls at one time and
fighting them.'

‘Ten,' I murmured automatically. ‘The
all-time record was ten. I beat ten of them this one day.'

Miss D'Silva went on as if she hadn't
heard me. ‘Heck, why do you think I allowed you to fight all
those girls? By the time you got on the school-bus, you'd be
all banged up and bruised, looking like Muhammad Ali or something.
Sometimes I wanted to intervene but I never did because you had to
get rid of all that anger you had stored up inside you. I knew what
kind of home life you had.'

I stood before Miss D'Silva as if before an
X-ray machine, feeling totally naked and exposed. I wanted to say
something light and playful, wanted to deny her charges, but nothing
came to mind.

She helped me out. ‘Listen, you Mad Parsi,'
she said playfully. ‘I know you're plenty tough. But I
only wanted to say that if you ever want to talk to an adult, I'm
here.'

‘Okay. Thanks,' I said, my voice
sounding brittle even to my own ears. ‘Well, Miss Duke is
waiting, so I need to get going.'

I rushed out of her class, not looking back. I was
determined never to run into Miss D'Silva again. By the time I
reached the library, I had worked myself up into a fury. ‘What
the hell is she poking her nose into my business for,' I fumed
to myself.

‘Nothing wrong with my home life. As for
fighting with those girls, hell, I just enjoyed fighting. Just like
an adult to make more out of it than what it was. Making me out like
I was a charity case or something.'

But today, thinking back on the encounter with
Miss D'Silva, I wish I'd known how to ask for help. It is
my own special curse that I don't know how to confide in
anybody about how rapidly things are going downhill between mummy and
me, how she tortures me with her words and sometimes, with her hands.

For years, when mummy was saying something
particularly hurtful to me, I'd repeat to myself, ‘Turn
your heart into stone, turn your heart into stone.'

It occurs to me now that I have succeeded beyond
my wildest imagination.

Fuck.

What a dream.

I wake up from it in a sweat and my bed feels so
damp that for a confused second I think I have slipped back into my
old habit and wet my bed.

In the dream, I have gone to Villoo aunty's
home to plead my case. Villoo is my mother's older sister, the
one who used to scare me when I was little, with threats of how she
would tie me up in a dark gunny sack with roaches and rats, if I
didn't do everything she asked. I used to dread the times when
mummy would drop me off at Villoo's home because I knew that
even if I told mummy about Villoo's threats, she'd never
believe me. Luckily, dad was against my spending too much time there
because it was well known that the entire family yelled and screamed
at each other and he wanted to protect me from this. I was the
battlefield upon which my parents waged their private wars.

‘I don't want you dropping her off at
your family's,' he'd say. ‘You can spend your
whole life there, if you want. But all that screaming and fighting. I
don't want any of that poison to land on my daughter's
ears.'

‘Yah, if you had your way, you'd never
want her to see any of my family members again. First you tried
keeping me away, now her. Well, I'm the one who carried her in
my stomach for nine months, not you. I'll take her wherever I
want.'

In the dream, I have gone to Villoo aunty's
home to plead my case. My plea is simple: I want my mummy returned to
me. I want to explain to Villoo and my grandmother that their
neediness, their manipulative helplessness at not being able to
function in the world unless my mother helps them, has done untold
damage to my family. It has left my father without a wife; it has
left me without the attentions of a mother. All her energy is focused
away from our home; her moods rise and fall depending on what is
happening in the lives of her brothers and sisters. We bear the brunt
of all her frustrations. Time after time, she walks out on a fight
with her younger sister and comes home and picks a fight with Mehroo.

And I am tired of it all.

In the dream, Villoo opens the door with a mask on
her face.

‘Hello, Villoo aunty,' I say but she
pretends to be someone else and says she's never met me before
and could I please introduce myself. I play along for a few minutes
but as the charade continues, I grow more and more frustrated. ‘I
know it's you, Villoo aunty,' I shout. ‘Please,
just listen to me for a change.'

Just then my grandmother walks in, an
uncharacteristically solicitous look on her face. ‘What is it,
deekra?' she says in a kindly manner. ‘Come here, let me
console you.' She takes my head in her hand, as if she is about
to hold me to her bosom but then she moves and bangs my head against
the wall. I am stunned, reeling from pain. ‘Breaking a
coconut,' she says and the room fills with laughter. I suddenly
realize there are other people in the room.

Villoo ducks into the dining room and then
reappears with a bottle. ‘Here,' she says. ‘Here's
a gift for you.' I reach out for the bottle, thinking it is
iodine for my bruised head but she pulls it away from me and opens it
herself. I hear a sizzling sound, like the sizzle of tandoori chicken
when they serve it to you in a restaurant, and the next instant I
feel something wet and hot and burning on my face. It is acid. She
has flung acid in my face. I touch my hand to my face in disbelief
and stare at the layer of skin that pulls away. Even in the dream, I
marvel at the fact that the acid has not

penetrated my eyes and that I can still see. But
thankfulness is mixed with terror and I begin to scream in panic. But
the more I scream, the more Villoo and my grandmother laugh, until
both sounds merge into one and I can't tell if I'm
laughing or screaming.

I wake up with a start, shaking in bed. To calm
myself, I do what I always do after a bad dream—I try to
connect the dots, think of real-life events that may have wandered
their way into my dreams. The acid-throwing, I know, is probably the
result of a reading about a recent incident where a group of Muslim
boys threw acid on the faces of two college-going Hindu girls who had
turned down their overtures. The mask imagery probably came from
having read a Phantom comic strip before going to bed. But as for the
rest of it…even if I can logically trace the incidents in the
dream, I can't explain away the sad, shaky, desperate residual
feeling that is left over and that leaves me tossing and turning in
bed.