The Rice Mother (40 page)

“There’s money inside the porcelain elephant in the showcase. Take fifty ringgit with you,” Mother called from the bedroom. Mother liked her, you see. She was pleased with her new daughter-in-law. Unlike Rani, Mother liked Ratha from the moment she met her.

Ratha took the money, did the marketing and returned with the exact change. Mother was pleased. “See? I was right to trust her.”

In the kitchen Ratha set about turning the market produce into exotic meals. She was like an alchemist. She took some meat, spices, and vegetables and turned them into sumptuous meals that clouded your senses and drugged you into asking shamelessly, “Is there any more?” Her genius was undeniable. She prepared jars of ginger marmalade and tomato chutney that followed you into tomorrow and next week. Unflinchingly she beheaded adorable wood pigeons and unsuspecting wild fowl, marinating the dark meat in papaya skins to tenderize them. They melted in the mouth like butter.

When we sat down, it was to little steamed Chinese dumplings filled with sweet pork or river fish stuffed with lime, cardamom, and cumin seeds. She thought to scent rice with
kewra
essence before steaming it inside the whitened hollow of a bamboo stem, and to cook snake gourd with tamarind and star anise so it tasted like caramelized sugar. She knew how to bake chicken inside green coconuts and all about the secret taste of spicy banana flowers cooked with pomelo rind. For hours she gently boiled bamboo shoots until all the fine hairs fell off, and she was left with the most delicious accompaniment to her glorious purple eggplant mash. She smoked mushrooms, sautéed orchids, and served creamed, spicy durian paste with salt fish.

The marvel of the woman. She was too good to be true. How did she do it all?

How lucky Jeyan was!

Mother was beside herself with pride that such a daughter-in-law should enter her home. “Watch her and learn,” she whispered harshly to me, looking critically at my uncombed hair. “If only Lakshmnan could have acquired a wife such as this, he could have made something of himself,” she sighed wistfully.

At five o’clock every evening Ratha appeared, bearing a platter filled with Rajastani cakes made with ground almonds, honey, and butter, or succulent milk balls in rose syrup, and sometimes the most delicious deep violet cookies, or, my favorite, sweet and spicy sprig-like cakes made from nuts.

“Where did you learn all this?” Mother asked, truly impressed.

“A dear neighbor,” she said. As a child she had befriended an old woman who was the great-granddaughter of one of the sixteen celebrated cooks in the court kitchens of Emperor Dara Shukoh, Shah Jehan’s eldest son. Emperor Dara Shukoh was a man proud of his sumptuous style, and only the most luxurious and refined could be sent from his kitchens for his approval. From torn pages and loose sheets, relics of the once great Mughal Empire, the old woman taught Ratha the secrets of Mughal cooking.

Ratha once fashioned a pomegranate for Mother made entirely from sugar, almonds, and fruit juice and glazed with syrup. Mother broke it open, and it was all there—the kernels, the seeds, and the tissues between the seeds. It looked so real that I saw profound admiration and respect creep into Mother’s eyes for the skill of the girl. For me she replicated a loaf of sweet bread with roasted almonds on the top. It was too beautiful to eat, so I put it into the showcase. For Anna she made a mynah bird. So clever and so pretty. Of course it was too beautiful to eat.

“Come and sit beside me,” Mother invited once more.

“Just this one last thing,” Ratha replied, going to scrub under the box where the coal was kept. No one had cleaned that spot for the last twenty years.

When finally there was truly nothing left to do, although I think she would have liked to clean the stove again, Mother said, “Leave it. Have a little rest beside me.”

So she came reluctantly and sat, pulling her simple housecoat down low so that it almost covered her ankles. She kept her eyes downcast. Mother smiled encouragingly at her favorite daughter-in-law. Inside Mother’s brain was the question, “Why were you crying?” but from her lips came questions about Ratha’s past. The girl answered dutifully, carefully. You couldn’t accuse her of being cunning or obtuse, for she answered everything honestly without hesitation, yet you were left with the vague impression that you were being meddlesome. From the slightly questioning look in her eyes, you felt her demand again and again, “And what business is it of yours?”

It was easy to see Mother’s dissatisfaction, discomfort. She looked at Ratha and saw the picture of a pretty, neat, clean, smiling girl, yet between her and the pretty picture was a remarkably polite but invisible barrier. There was something very wrong, and Mother was determined to find out what it was. She never did. Ratha had strange toilet habits about her. She disappeared into the bathroom with a wooden-handled brush with steel bristles and came out pink and glowing. Yes, she said, surprised that we were surprised, she exfoliated her skin with it.

Jeyan skulked about, watching her covertly, as if she belonged to someone else. He slipped out of their shared room like a thief. His eyes caressed her, moved over her, rested on her, and stroked her. All his carnal intentions stood tapping their feet impatiently. Sometimes you saw him try to catch her eyes, and you had to quickly avert yours in sheer embarrassment for the pleading in his. My brother was intoxicated with his new bride. Then on the fifteenth day came an invitation from Rani. The newly married couple were invited to dinner.

“See you soon,” they said to Mother on their way out.

“Return home safely, my children,” she bade.

Later that night Jeyan returned home alone.

“Where is your wife?” Mother queried anxiously.

“She’s still at Rani’s. In fact, Rani has invited us both to stay at her house for a while, and she has sent me home to fetch Ratha’s things.”

“Where will you both sleep?” Mother asked in a tone of bafflement, considering Lakshmnan and Rani’s one-bedroom house and the surprising turn of events.

“In the living room on the floor, I suppose,” Jeyan said shrugging, impatient to take his wife’s belongings and be gone.

“I see,” Mother said slowly. “All right, take her things.”

Jeyan hurried into the spotless room he had shared with his wife for fifteen days. He threw all her belongings into a pathetically small bag and carried the bag onto the veranda, where Mother sat silently. There he stood uncomfortably until she said, “Well, go on, then.”

He threw me a hasty look full of relief and shot down the stairs, the small bag banging against his thin legs. Mother sat on the veranda, watching him leave with the strangest expression on her face. Even after he had turned into the main road and could no longer be seen, she sat staring hard at the horizon.

Ratha’s wooden-backed brush with its hard steel bristles sat on the ledge outside the bathroom. In his haste, Jeyan had missed it. I picked it up and ran the sharp bristles over my skin, recoiling with shock at how sharp and harsh they actually were on my bare skin, amazed that someone could use such an object on their own body. Why, it could have been an instrument of torture.

Once I saw her in the market, a basket tucked into the crook of her elbow. Slender green beans and a bushy reddish brown squirrel’s tail leaned gently out of her basket. She was standing by the man who sold coconut water looking forlornly at the poor monkeys in their cages. She looked so tragic, I squeezed back and let the tall stacks of gunnysacks full of rice at the side of a stall hide me. She was truly an intriguing creature. So full of sad secrets. All of a sudden she turned her head as if conscious of my scrutiny. Maybe she saw the shadow of me, but she pretended she hadn’t. I saw her hurry away from the monkeys, who screamed and threw themselves angrily at the wire cage. I imagined her, lips slightly pursed, cleaning Rani’s house from top to bottom and then starting all over again while Rani sat with her imaginary swollen feet resting on a stool. Perhaps too she would replicate in sugar an eggplant or a bunch of okra for her new hostess.

Two months had passed since Jeyan and Ratha had gone for dinner and mysteriously not returned. Life went on as before. Jeyan came by in the evenings, but he always seemed in a hurry to rejoin his wife. I know Mother was hurt that Ratha had left without even a proper good-bye, but she all said was, “I am happy as long as they are happy.”

Then one day Jeyan came bursting through the door in a frenzy of panic. His face was twisted with some unfamiliar emotion. It was nearly nine o’clock, and Mother was waiting for the wrestling to start. She never missed it, got really involved, rooted loudly for her favorite wrestlers, and even today still believes all those kicks and punches are for real. I don’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. I know my mother; she would feel cheated, and the match would lose its appeal. Anyway, that night when Jeyan came, he was breathing heavily and almost incoherent with panic. “Rani has given us twenty-four hours’ notice to get out of her house!” he cried.

In those days, when government servants did something unpardonable or really terrible, like stealing, they were given twenty-four hours’ notice to leave their quarters. And laughable as it seemed, Rani had taken it into her head to issue the same official-sounding notice to her brother-in-law and his wife.

Inside Mother’s chest I could hear the sound of wheezing. “Why?” she asked.

Jeyan threw his arms wildly into the air. “I don’t know. I think they argued. Lakshmnan has left the house in a rage, and Rani is accusing Ratha of being unsatisfied by one man. I tell you, she is a madwoman. Can you believe that she is sitting outside on the steps of her house, shouting loudly for all to hear that Ratha is trying to steal her husband? It’s not true at all. Ratha loves me. Rani is crazy. She is crying, screaming and saying crude, vulgar things, like Ratha wants both the brothers. In the kitchen Ratha is on her hands and knees washing the floor. I don’t know what to do. What shall I do? Shall I bring Ratha back here?”

“No, not here, because Ratha doesn’t want to live here, and I cannot have her back after the way she left, but there are rooms available in the shop-houses near the cinema. Go and rent a room quickly. The shops are open until nine thirty at night.”

“But the rent, the deposit—?”

“What happened to your dowry money?” Mother asked, her brows knitting.

“We don’t have it at the moment. Rani needed money badly, so she asked Ratha for it. She promised to give it back in the next few months, though.”

“When did all this happen?” Mother asked, in a very quiet voice.

Jeyan didn’t have to think. “Last Monday.”

“Didn’t your wife want her husband before that, then?” Mother sneered angrily, but poor Jeyan could only stare at her helplessly. He was only a man—no match for Rani, her dexterous tongue, and her scheming ways.

“Find out how much the room costs and I will give you the money,” Mother told Jeyan. “Now, go quickly. Otherwise I will surely end up paying for a hotel room.”

“All right, thank you.” Jeyan was already turning away, his face big with terrible worry. Mother’s door was closed to him and his wife. Rani was ranting and raving on her doorstep, and his wife was on her hands and knees brushing Rani’s floors. And now it seemed clear that even his dowry was lost to a scheming woman. He had never faced such a multitude of problems in all his life.

“We should never have gone to stay in her house,” he muttered to himself. Jeyan was naturally obtuse to the ways of women. Once Mother asked him, “Jeyan, do you know why your wife was crying on her wedding day?” He looked at her blankly, perplexed. Didn’t all brides cry with joy during their wedding? Later he asked Ratha and came back to report. “She won’t tell me,” he complained almost petulantly. “She says it’s not important why.”

“Call it nerves if you want,” Ratha said wearily, when he returned to insist.

So Jeyan and his bride moved to a cramped room on the first floor of a shop-house. They had to share a bathroom with ten other people, and there was plenty to keep Ratha’s cleaning instincts busy. She must have been very busy indeed, for she never came to visit. Mother was sure that Rani had completely poisoned Ratha against us while she had the chance.

Late one afternoon, Rani came to visit. She brought a small bag of grapes. The imported variety, she explained importantly. Mother thanked her, and I hurried to relieve her of her package. She eased herself into a chair. I washed the grapes and, putting them on a plate, offered them to her.

“How are you keeping?” Mother asked pleasantly. You wouldn’t think it to watch them, but I knew that she hated Rani and was perfectly aware that the feeling was returned in equal measure.

“It’s my joints,” Rani said, with an ache in her voice. She lifted her sari to show fleshy ankles. “Look how swollen they are!” she cried. I stared at her legs. Perhaps they did trouble her in the night, but during the day they certainly looked healthy. Delicately she threw the green sari back over her legs and reached for a handful of grapes. “I’ve come to explain to you about this whole mess with poor Jeyan and that terrible woman. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I took that girl in purely from the goodness of my heart. Honestly, sometimes I think I am too good. I help people, and they stab me in the back. I even bought her husband vitamins so he would be more vibrant with her. And what does she do? She tries to entice my husband, as if I wouldn’t notice. I’ve eaten more salt than she has eaten rice.”

She popped a couple of grapes into her mouth and chewed them reflectively. “I knew straightaway what she was up to. Whenever Lakshmnan was in the backyard lifting weights, she was in the kitchen pretending to clean. She doesn’t know that I can see her when I am sitting on the sofa in the living room. I can see the looks she throws out of the kitchen window. I’m not blind. She wanted him to think she was hardworking. Trying to make me look bad. I borrowed a measly five thousand ringgit from her. A teacher’s salary doesn’t go far. The children were hungry. There was no food in the house, and there were bills to be paid. Anyway, I have since heard that she is running around saying that I, can you believe
I,
who gave the ungrateful girl a roof over her head, have eaten her dowry.”