In the Convent of Little Flowers (9 page)

I am still standing looking down at her. There is no chair in the room, and I will not sit on the floor so
she
can look down at me. But after so many years of not seeing me, so many years when she must have thought about me, wondered where I was and how I was doing, she talks of her skin.

Laughter bubbles inside me, forcing its way through the lump in my throat. Look at the color of my skin, she says.

So I look. And I see the dark withered brown of chocolate gone bad. I see flecks of skin peeling from her arms. Deep lines furrow her thin face. I see her lips, dry and drawn over teeth that did not stand the test of time. These are her sins. She now wears them for everyone to see. They have come up from inside her, where she has hidden them for years. She has gone bad from the inside.

But the expression in her near-opaque eyes has not changed. And from that comes a brief memory of a time long past when she was still young. From when I can remember she has worn this white. So I did not know him, the man she had married. But her pale skin always glowed, gold with sandalwood and turmeric, tinted pink on her cheeks with a dusting of the vermilion she would wear in the part of her hair. This last, defying the color ban on widows. Vermilion was a sign of marriage, married women wore it in their hair, but she, clad in white, ears bare of diamonds, fingers ringless and slender, wore vermilion in her hair and pearls around her neck.

Only she knew where to find me when I escaped from all of them. Under the staircase, behind an
almirah,
inside an
almirah
—the smell of mothballs and neem leaves swirling among the neatly folded silk saris—or hidden in a corner of the many balconies. Payal, her voice would ring loud and strong through this house of many rooms. Payal, come down from the champa tree. Girls do not climb trees.

I always listened to her. Then she would clap her hands and one of the not-yet-pregnant maids would materialize with a plate of sweets. In many colors. Purple-tinted coconut
burfis,
flakes sprinkling the tray; slow-simmered chickpea flour
mysore pak,
a rich brown and drowning in ghee;
gulab jamuns
the color of rust, oozing cardamom-scented sugar syrup; silver-foiled cashew squares, taut from the fridge yet melting on contact with my tongue; semolina flour
laddus
rolled into balls, their uneven curves carrying the imprint of the cook’s fingers.

She rewarded me with those sweets when she called for me. That was why I always came. Now looking at that brown hand in mine, I taste the sweet-sour curd flavor of
mishti dohi
in my mouth. These fingers, blackened by hatred, had once dipped into a bowl of
mishti dohi
and fed me.

We had a bond, this woman and I, even though we were years apart in age. She seemed to know what I was thinking, why I was thinking. She seemed to know what I wanted. And then after Kamala was born, she no longer knew who I was. It was as simple as that.

Why so long to come, Payal?

I meet her eyes.

How can you even ask, bitch? I speak in English, a language she is not comfortable with, but I know she understands. I will not give her the pleasure of speaking in Tamil, even though what I have to say will be so much more effective, so much more terrible in that tongue. I use antiseptic English.

Kamala. Her voice is soft; I have to lean over to hear it.

Yes, Kamala. Because of Kamala. You know it is because of Kamala.

In this house of many people, someone or the other was always having children. There was always a baby crawling around, bottom bare, peeing where it wanted, wallowing happily in that pee. And a maid mopping up when she could, or when my mother yelled at her. I never really noticed the babies, except as pesky, snot-nosed, bawling-mouthed, teary-eyed creatures. Or I should say, I pretended very hard not to notice them in case some auntie found my interest charming and left her precious little god with me while she went off shopping.

So I was an unencumbered ten years old when Kamala was born. To my mother.

It was during the summer holidays and the house seemed full of people, hiding in cool, dark corners from the heat. All of
my
hiding places. I spent that whole vacation in the champa trees, watching the squirrels protest at my presence, watching a bright snake nestle in the branches, drawn by the sweet smell of the flowers. And then Kamala was born. Small, squishy, indeterminate features. A mouth that rarely cried.

That intrigued me. How could a child possibly be so silent? But I still stayed on the periphery, skirting around her, watching from afar. Until my mother forced me to go see her properly (it is only polite, Payal, she’s your sister). I think my mother had forgotten I existed for a while; she had had
a difficult pregnancy, and then after Kamala came, she was busy with the visitors.

Kamala lay on a sheet on the floor following me around the room with her brilliant eyes. I think she actually smiled when I slid the gold bangles (that my mother gave me for her—a gesture of protection from an older sister) onto her tiny arms. When the holidays ended and I came home daily from school, I went to her, and she looked for me. I would lie beside her on the floor, and Kamala would grab my hair with her hands and put it in her mouth. Or she would try to entertain me by kicking her legs in the air, silver anklets trilling with each movement, the sound always seeming to take her by surprise. It was her quietness that pervaded my world. Her contentment when I held her—some auntie screaming I was to put a hand under her head for it had not set yet—her first smile, and that not for gas.

Kamala, she says again.

Her free hand, the one I am not holding, rises to touch her hair. And I know what she wants to say.

Kamala of the doe eyes, large, liquid, edged with a sweeping fan of eyelashes. We all grew up modern. Western. The aunties cut our hair short, bangs in the front, a straight sweep just above the shoulders in the back, but Kamala, dreamy, tranquil Kamala would not let them touch her head. When she was three, that inner fire burst into flames and she said no. The word frightened the whole house immeasurably, for she had not spoken yet. Not one single word. They thought, we all thought, she was mute.

She told me later she felt there had been no necessity to speak, for everything in her life so far had progressed as she had wanted it. No ripples, no waves. But when some auntie came to her with the scissors, Kamala said no. Just once. There were no arguments, no cajoling, no scolding, nothing. Just that simple no.

I did all the yelling and screaming on her behalf. I kept her behind me, away from the scissors. I hauled her up the champa tree when someone came calling with the barber my father used every second Sunday. I distracted the adults (they were easily distracted) by sprinkling sugar on the back verandah to beckon an army of red ants. It took them five days to get rid of the ants. Kamala just watched me, did not even say thank-you, for things were progressing as she wanted them. But one night, a few months later, as I was up late studying for a history exam, she came to the door of my room and just stood there. I looked at her in silence, knowing she wanted to say something, silent because she had taught me the value of it. Then she came in, reached up from the floor, put her little arms around me and laid her cheek against mine. We did not kiss much in this house; neither of us would have known how to do so. But that one embrace was enough. It was never repeated again. It did not have to be. For I knew.

So Kamala’s hair grew long and luxuriant. A gleaming ebony, catching multicolored highlights in the sun. Her hair seemed almost too big and too heavy for such a small face, a slender neck, a tiny child.

I envied that hair, the old woman says now, cleaving through my thoughts. Envied its length, its brilliance, envied as she bent over her books, her hair weighing down her neck. Envied that skin. Envied her silence. No one who was so silent was normal. She cannot have been normal. Look what she did later on.

My grip tightens on her hand. I see distress darken her eyes. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. She does not cry out. Does not ask for help as I squeeze her fingers, my knuckles crushed against hers.

Once I loved this woman. So much. She is my grandmother after all, my father’s mother. My mother and father were always at the edges of my affection. But she consumed my hours until Kamala came. There were boys in the house—born to continue the male line, to deposit genes, to carry the name. But she ignored them and favored me. Only a girl child. I slept in her bed until I wanted a room of my own.

She taught me nursery rhymes in English, stumbling over the words. Laughing at her mistakes. With a freedom she never showed to anyone else, not even to my father, who was her only son. She told me the pearls she wore would one day be mine. After. But there was no after in her thoughts, for she would never leave me. Once she was kind and gentle. If only to me.

When the extended family came to visit, to pay their respects, I would sit by her side. Watching as she was falsely gracious. And obstinate if they wanted something (usually
money) she would not give. And hurtfully sarcastic. When they left, she talked of these people who made claims on her, who thought they had claims on her. And she would smile. As though anyone but I could claim her.

Suddenly she asks, how is America?

You care how?

I always cared, Payal. Always wanted to know. It was hard, sending away one of ours to a foreign land. But you insisted, yelled to get your way, left us here alone. Went away alone. As though we meant nothing. As though you did not spend your childhood here, as though we were not family. Now it has been ten years.

Ours. Our. We. She means mine, my, I. There has never been a plural in her vocabulary, unless it included me. Stifled me. A long time ago, I had let her do this, free within her grasp, unfettered by her obsession. Until Kamala.

I was determined not to cry when I came here. But at her words, tears fill and blur my vision. I was sure I would never see this woman again all my life. Yet here I am, in this house, in this room, standing next to her. Outside the frosted windows of the room, the sun is setting now, golds and amber through insect-ridden glass. I put down her hand to go to the light switch.

She whimpers. Don’t go. Don’t leave me here alone, Payal.

The naked lightbulb sheds a harsh light over us. Suddenly, she is even smaller than she was when I came into the room. Her eyes move wildly, seeking me.

I bend over her again, my voice brittle and broken. Did Kamala ask for me? Did she?

Yes.

It is a small word, like the no Kamala said when they wanted to cut her hair. Yet filled with meaning. My tranquil Kamala asked for me, and I was not there. I sit down next to her, heavily, as though my bones are now as old as hers. I put my face in my hands.

Don’t, she says. Don’t cry, Payala.

Don’t call me that!

I am angry. But mostly with myself. Angry because I was selfish enough to leave when I was twenty-one for graduate school in America. Angry because I could not stay in this house anymore with its heavy secrets, with its quarreling women, with its squirrel rooms. Angry because I left, not thinking I was leaving Kamala behind in their hands. Kamala who never spoke unless it was necessary, who let things happen around her because I was there to fight instead, who in the end, did not know
how
to fight. Whose burnished hair shone like fire in the sunlight.

Fire.

Kamala brought a puppy home one day from school. I remember the dog squealing in her arms, licking her face until saliva dripped. I remember seeing her smile. A slow, content smile, like the one when she was a baby and I held her in my arms. The smile she had given only me. The clan gathered around to look at the puppy. Kamala stood in front
of them, small and slight, hair in a thick braid to her knees, the dog sitting quiet at her feet.

No, this woman said. Dogs are unclean.

Still Kamala stood in front of them, her eyes watchful, moving from one face to another. But
she
had spoken. This woman, who lies on the bed in front of me, sat in an old carved armchair. Envious of Kamala’s hair. I knew what she was thinking. Good girls keep their legs closed, good girls listen when told something by adults.

I jumped in, of course. Let her keep the dog. It’s only a dog. Let her keep it.

Then she slapped me. She got up from her chair, came to where I was sitting, lifted me up by my arms, stood me in front of her. And slapped me. Enough, she said. Enough of this nonsense. Kamala will not allow her hair to be cut, she said no to it seven years ago. She will not have this dog.

I was made silent by that slap. She had never even raised her voice to me before. When my mother scolded me, she yelled at my mother. No one in the house was allowed to reprimand me. No one was allowed to ask where I was, or whether I had done my homework, or studied for an exam, or come home from school on time. No one was simply allowed to do
anything
to me. Even she did not question me. Now she had slapped me and for once, I was dumb, unable to meet Kamala’s eyes.

Kamala must have been ten; I was twenty. One year from going to America. One year from leaving Kamala to these people.