The Rice Mother (32 page)

The past is like an armless, legless cripple with crafty eyes, a vindictive tongue, and a long memory. He wakes me up in the morning with dreadful taunting in my ear. “Look,” he hisses, “look at what you have done to my future.” And yet I wait behind doors expecting her to burst through. “Papa,” she will cry, “I think I found a green malachite.” My shredded heart has done this for twenty-three years. And every evening when she doesn’t rush through the doors, the sunset will seem that little bit duller, the house that little bit stranger, the children that little bit farther away, and Lakshmi that little bit angrier. It was the war. It took so much away from everyone. Not just me.

I am not a brave man, and everybody knows that I am not a clever man. In fact, I am not even an interesting man. I sit on my veranda all day long, dozing, dreaming, and staring into nothing, but by God, how I hate the Japanese. The mean yellow faces, the cold black slits through which they watched her die. Even the sound of their language can turn me cold with murderous rage. How could God have made such a cruel people? How could He have let them take the one thing of value that I had ever had? Sometimes I can’t sleep for all the thoughts of the different tortures I would inflict on them. Piece by piece, their limbs I hang from trees, or a mouthful of needles I feed to them, or perhaps I offer a small friendly fire at the soles of their feet. The smell of their toes burning. Yes, they keep me awake, these fiendish thoughts. I toss and turn in my big bed, and my rare butterfly mutters under her breath with irritation. It is what the war did to us. It made us hungry for what is not ours.

A
nna got wet in the rain on Friday evening. By Saturday she had a mild cold. I put her to bed, rubbed her chest with Tiger Balm, wrapped her up in blankets and gave her a drink of hot coffee with an egg beaten into it, but by Sunday her chest was tight with phlegm. When I heard the beginnings of that terrible rattle, I was filled with fear. Anna was showing the first signs of the disease that made Mohini unable to bear her ordeal with the Japanese brutes; otherwise they would have returned her broken body as they had Ah Moi’s. I ran to Old Soong’s house.

“The red-eyed rat,” I cried breathlessly to his cook. “Where can I get it?”

The pregnant red-eyed rat arrived in a cage. Ayah refused to even look at it. He tried to dissuade me, but my mind was made up. “She is going to swallow that animal,” I said tightly, my eyes flinty.

Anna looked at the rat with perfect fear in her eyes.

“Ama, actually I think I am much better today,” she announced, smiling brightly.

“Really? Well, come here then,” I instructed. I put my head to her chest and heard the horrible rattle. “Sevenese, pound some ginger for your sister,” I called out.

Anna walked back to the bedroom, her shoulders slumped. Why did everybody behave as though I was doing something that would hurt them? I wanted my daughter well again. I regret with all my heart that I did not give the newborn rat to Mohini. If I had not listened to my husband’s paranoid arguments, she might still be alive now. The rat was almost due to give birth. The main thing was to swallow the baby in the first few moments of birth, just after removing the sac. I watched the mother rat very closely. Often she regarded me with clever, shining eyes as she scuttled about in her cage. I wondered if she knew that I wanted her babies. I kept the floor of the cage very clean.

The rat gave birth. Before she could even begin licking her babies with her disease-carrying tongue, I pulled one tiny, reddish pink rat no bigger than my thumb out of the cage. It made a tiny, tiny movement with its legs. Quickly I wiped it on a clean cloth. Anna was looking at me with an alarmed, incredulous expression. She began to shake her head and walk backward. I followed her until she stood with the bed behind her.

“I can’t, Ama. Please,” she whispered.

I dipped the head of the tiny rat in honey. “Open your mouth,” I ordered.

“No, I can’t.”

“Lakshmnan, bring the cane.” The cane arrived very quickly.

She opened her mouth. Her face was pale, and her eyes were glazed in horror. “Ama, it’s moving,” she cried suddenly. “Its legs are moving.” Her mouth closed with a snap.

“Open your mouth now,” I ordered. “It has to be swallowed immediately.”

She shook her head and began to cry. “I can’t,” she sobbed. “It’s still alive.”

“Why do I have such disobedient children? All the Chinese people cure themselves like this. Why are you making such a fuss? This is all your father’s fault. The way he spoils you all. Okay, bring the cane, Lakshmnan.” Lakshmnan came forward. He raised his right hand, and his sister half opened her mouth with a whimper. I grasped her chin.

“Wider,” I commanded.

Her mouth widened fractionally, and I lowered the tiny rat inside. I thought that if I put it as far down her throat as I could, it would be easier for her, but I saw its legs scratch her tongue, and the next minute her eyes closed and the face under my grasping hand became a dead weight. She had fainted. I was still holding the rat by the tail when she fell back onto the pillows. My husband, who had been watching at the doorway, pushed forward, grabbed the rat from my hand, and walking to the window, flung it as far away as he could. He looked at me with great sadness, then held Anna in his arms and fanned her gently with an exercise book that was lying by the bedside.

“Lakshmi, you have turned into a monster,” he said quietly as he rocked her. “Bring some warm water for your sister,” he said to no one in particular. Lalita ran into the kitchen and came back with the water.

I returned the rat the next day, and Anna has suffered from asthma ever since.

You are shocked, but there is worse to come.

Lalita wanted a coconut bun when the bread man came around one afternoon. Fifteen cents, a coconut bun cost in those days. I opened my purse and could tell at a glance that some money was missing. I counted it carefully and mentally calculated every single thing I had bought in the market that morning, then I counted it all again. Yes, one ringgit was definitely missing. I had 39,346 ringgit in the bank, 100 ringgit under the mattress, 50 ringgit in an envelope tied together with Mother’s letters, and 15 ringgit and perhaps 80 or 90 cents in my purse. I asked my children one by one if they had taken the ringgit. “No,” they all said, shaking their heads. The bread man and his buns left our neighborhood. No one was having anything until I got to the bottom of the disappearing ringgit mystery.

Only Jeyan was still not home. I knew it was him. It had to be. How dare he help himself to the contents of my purse! Did he imagine I wouldn’t notice? My blood began simmering.

“It must be Jeyan.” Lakshmnan echoed my thoughts.

“Could you have made a mistake, Ama?” asked Anna.

“Of course not,” I answered, greatly irritated. I looked at the wall clock. It was three in the afternoon. “Bring me some tea.” I walked outside and sat down to wait. From the veranda I could see the clock inside. The tea arrived, and I drank it. I looked at the clock. Thirty minutes had passed. The rage grew. A monster serpent that lived inside me awakened in the terrible heat. I shifted tensely in my chair. My own son, stealing money from me. I had to teach him a lesson that he would never forget. I looked at the time. It was four o’clock. I stood up and paced the veranda restlessly. From the corner of my eyes I saw the children nervously upright in their chairs. I leaned against a wooden post and saw my dear Jeyan hurrying down the path, guilt written all over his square, stupid face. I watched him come up to the house. He slowed his walk into a sort of shuffle. Didn’t he know that prolonging the inevitable confrontation would only make me angrier still? As dumb as a lumbering beast. Everybody knows you have to brand a bull to teach it anything. I would brand him.

“Where have you been?” My voice was deadly calm.

“To the pictures.” It was to his credit that he didn’t lie.

“How did you pay for the entry?”

“I found a ringgit by the roadside.” His voice trembled and shook with fear, but what an effect it had on me. I lost myself in my fury. The monster in me took over. There is no other way to explain it. The last thing I remember myself saying was, “How did you pay for the entry?” That was me, beloved mother, but after that the monster took over, said and did the things I could never have said or done. I stood silently by and watched everything the monster’s cold fury did. It wanted to see him suffer and beg. I saw it take a deep, controlled breath. It was incredible how calm the monster was.

“Lakshmnan,” the monster called coldly.

“Yes, Ama,” my eldest son answered eagerly.

“Take your brother and tie him to the post in the backyard and beat him until he tells us where he got the money from,” it instructed.

Lakshmnan moved quickly. He was a big, strong boy, and in minutes Jeyan’s skinny limbs were firmly tied. The serpent stood at the kitchen door and watched Lakshmnan take off his brother’s shirt. That eldest boy of mine showed a whole lot of unexpected initiative. Dark skin gleamed in the sunlight. I stood at the kitchen window and watched Lakshmnan run to fetch the cane. I watched from afar as the cane vengefully struck the skinny back. Very clearly, in between frenzied screams, came the confession.

“I took the money from your purse, Ama. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it again.”

The monster turned away. The confession was not enough. Deadly calm, it walked to the bottle with the orange top. It shook some of the fine, red powder into its cupped palm, and then it went outside. It stood before Jeyan’s writhing body. His upturned face twisted with pain and fear begged, “I’m so sorry, Ama. I’m so sorry.” Tears ran down his face in little rivulets.

The monster stared at him emotionlessly.

“I promise I’ll never do it again,” he whined frantically.

While I was gone, the raging monster looked deep into my little boy’s pained, frightened eyes and was suddenly livid once more. It bent down and, without warning, blew hard into the palm of its hands. A cloud of red powder rose into the air. He closed his eyes, but not fast enough. The effect of the chili powder was instantaneous. It made him scream hysterically, his whole body jerking convulsively, his fingers clawing the air around the post uselessly.

Stunned by the monster’s ferocity, Lakshmnan stared at me frozen, then he returned to his appointed task of whipping his writhing brother mercilessly. I walked back into the house and out to the veranda. The screams became almost delirious.

“Ama!”
Jeyan shrieked for me.

On the veranda of the snake charmer’s house stood his thin wife, looking at me.

“Ama!” Jeyan screamed again.

All the other verandas were deserted, but curtains twitched.

The monster sat down. A gentle breeze was blowing.

“Ama, help me!” Jeyan yelled, and suddenly, as if shaken out of a dream, I woke up. The monster was gone. I turned my head, and a tearful, terrified Anna was staring at me.

“Tell your brother to stop,” I cried.

She dashed out to the back, shouting. “Stop! Ama said to stop! Stop, now. Stop beating him. You’re going to kill him.”

Lakshmnan came in, dripping with sweat. His hands were shaking, but his eyes were wild with a savage excitement. I saw the footmarks the devil had left on his wet forehead.

“Go and have a bath,” I told him, avoiding his eyes. His glittering eyes saddened me. With the monster gone, I felt strangely hollow.

Then Lalita came out from under the table, the missing ringgit resting in the middle of her palm. It was I, I who had dropped the money under the table. My heart hurt. He hadn’t taken the money. I had got carried away. I had gone too far. Where had I learned such cruelty? What had I done?

Outside I saw Anna washing her brother’s eyes and cutting him down. Like a limp rag doll, he fell to the ground. A dark mess on the sand. I picked up a bottle of sesame seed oil and went outside to give it to Anna.

“Rub some on his back,” I instructed. There was a catch in my voice. Anna’s hands were shaking. I turned my eyes to the trembling body slumped on the ground. Jeyan’s skin had peeled off in places, and strips of raw flesh were visible. I took his chin in my hand and looked into his badly swollen, red-rimmed eyes. His face felt wet and feverish. Angry red veins had flowered all over the whites of his eyes, but he would survive.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and saw in the narrowed, purple blackness of his eyes such hurt that I felt a strange pain in my heart.

The evening sun was setting, and the orange glow looked near enough to reach out and touch. The sky was the most delightful pink, like a baby’s bottom slapped hard. Mother used to say that a pink sky meant a good shrimp catch for the fishermen. I closed my eyes, and in the sky were Mother’s long, beautiful eyes. They were wet and sad. What have you done? I felt my own tears prick the back of my closed lids. I heard her voice say from far, far away, “Have you forgotten everything I taught you, my willful, rebellious child? Have you forgotten the beautiful pregnant queen with the cruel heart?” No, I had not forgotten. I remembered every word.

“She was so evil that after she had eaten her fill of the sweet honey mangoes, she rubbed sand into the flesh she did not eat so that the stray pregnant dog watching her could not even eat her leftovers. She sniggered into her cupped palms, but her cruelty did not go unnoticed. You see, my darling Lakshmi, no cruelty ever goes unnoticed. God is watching. When the black-hearted queen’s delivery date arrived, she gave birth to a litter of puppies, and the mongrel dog to a prince and a princess in the palace gardens. The king instantly understood what had happened. He was so furious he banished his queen from the palace and adopted the children as his own.”

I walked back into my wooden palace. My husband would be home soon, and I prepared myself for the silent censure in his small, sad eyes. I promised to guard the ferocious monster inside me better. And for a while he stayed silent, but we both knew he was waiting to get out, take over. Sometimes I felt him pounding in my veins, thirsting for blood.