The Rice Mother (47 page)

The blood pounded in my ears. My toes curled in my shoes. And still the kiss went on.

When finally he let me go, I stared into his face in shock. The suddenness of his passion astounded me. It came out of nowhere and then disappeared. It was as though a different person lived inside Luke, a violently passionate person whom he normally kept in check with cold-blooded precision. For one second he had escaped and showed himself to me. My mouth felt swollen. He looked out to the lake. I closed my mouth and tried to compose myself. He turned back and smiled. The transformation back into cold-blooded precision was even more marked. Whatever battle he had fought with himself had been won. He bent down and picked up the fallen diamond.

“Yes, I definitely should insure this stone,” he commented lightly. “Come, I will drive you back,” he said, taking my arm. His hands were warm. I couldn’t speak. I followed him, confused. How could he switch off just like that? I gave him a sidelong glance, but he stared straight ahead.

When I let myself in through the front door, Mother was waiting. I could see immediately that she was furious. She was sitting ramrod straight in her chair, her hands clenched stiffly, but when she spoke, she sounded so nice that I thought perhaps she was angry with Papa.

“Where have you been?” she asked me.

“To the park with Anita and Pushpa,” I said nervously. Mother in that mood frightened me. She was like a volcano getting ready to erupt, and I was so close, I could feel the blast of hot vapor and smelled the acrid smoke.

“Don’t lie to me!” she roared, suddenly springing up from her chair and advancing toward me with big, fast strides. For precious seconds I could only wonder what had happened to her arthritis. It seemed miraculously cured. She stood before me, breathing hard. “Where have you been?” she repeated. “And don’t even think of lying.”

I hesitated, frightened. It was a long time since I had seen her this angry. That time when she suspected Papa of flirting with the Malay girls next door while he was doing his press-ups in the backyard . . .

“Well, I have met a man—”

“Yes, I know. A bloody Chinese bastard. Everybody at the park saw you kissing him like a whore in broad daylight.”

“It wasn’t like that—”

“How dare you shame our family name like this? This is the last time you will see that yellow-skinned bastard. Which nice Ceylonese boy will have you if you carry on in this shameless way? Is this how you were brought up to behave?”

“I love him.” Until I said those words, I hadn’t been sure of it myself, but now I knew it as I knew every month brought blood out of my body. I did love him. Ever since I had met him, flowers grew in my heart.

She was so angry, she wanted to hurt me badly. I saw it in her thin lips, but in the end she settled for one blow to take the edge off her fury. She slapped me so hard I went flying. The strength in her hands never fails to astonish me. She glared at my sprawled body with disgust.

“You are only nineteen years old. Don’t you dare cross me on this. I shall lock you in your room with no food for as long as you persist in this childish absurdity. What do you think that Chinaman wants from you, eh? Love? Ha! You are a very stupid and stubborn girl. Does he love you as well?”

I thought about it. It was true he had never said he loved me.

“Yes, I thought so too. So who is he then, this sly bastard?”

I said his name.

Mother took a step back in shock. “Who?” she asked.

I repeated his name. She turned away from me quickly so her expression would be hidden. She walked over to the window and with her back to me said, “Tell me everything, and start from the beginning.”

So I told her everything. I began with the ice cream and ended with the diamond. She asked to see the stone. I took it out of my little beaded, tasseled purse, and she held it up against the light and looked at it for a long time.

“Get up,” she ordered. “Go and make some tea. I have terrible pains in my knees when the weather is like this.”

We drank tea together in the living room.

“The only way this man will have you is if he marries you. You will not meet him in the park or go out unchaperoned with him again. I want you to bring him home for dinner, and we will all sit like adults and decide the future together.”

That night Mother told Papa. He blanched and took a step backward.

“Do you know who this man is?” he asked Mother incredulously. And then, without waiting for an answer, he shouted, “He is one of the richest men in this country!”

“I know,” she said, hardly able to conceal the excitement in her voice.

“Are you both mad? He is a shark. He will use then discard our daughter when it pleases him.”

“Not if I have my way,” Mother said in a hard, cold voice.

“He is corrupt and dangerous. Don’t let Dimple get involved. Besides, she must finish her education. There is no way she is not going to university. I won’t allow it.”

“Your darling Dimple is already involved. She tells me she is in love with this corrupt and dangerous man. What can I do about that? It is not me that was seen by the whole of KL kissing him in the park,” Mother taunted.

“I will forbid her,” Papa said. “She will marry that man over my dead body.”

“It’s too late for all that now.”

“What do you mean?” There was confusion in Papa’s voice.

“They have gone all the way,” Mother replied dryly. How easily lies came to Mother.

“WHAT?”

“Yes, so now shall we talk about the future like adults?”

Papa sank into the sofa defeated. “She will regret it,” he whispered, his big arms flaccid with defeat. Then the thought of a man despoiling his daughter made him drop his head into his hands. He whimpered very softly. “These Japanese monsters. First they take my Mohini away, and now my daughter as well.”

Mother sighed elaborately. “You know, you don’t have to behave as if our daughter is dead. She could have done a lot worse. Besides, he’s only half Japanese.”

“No, you greedy woman, she could
not
have done worse. He will chew both of you alive and spit you out in the gutter, and I will have to sit here and watch it all happen.” There was so much anguish in Papa’s voice that I wanted to run into the room and comfort him. Tell him that the deed hadn’t been done. His daughter was still unspoiled. All that was needed was one sentence: “Papa, we have not gone all the way.” It was not too late to tell him, but then I would lose Luke. And more than anything else in the world I wanted Luke. Papa was wrong about him. In time he would see how wrong he was about Luke.

So Luke came to dinner.

He brought Mother a huge box of chocolates. Ribboned and imported. The sight of the thick creamy box and the velvet, hand-tied bow melted her grasping heart. She placed Luke at the opposite end of the table from Papa. Never had I seen her more animated, more sociable, than she was that night. In fact, I wouldn’t have thought she had it in her to sparkle in such a way. She played the hostess perfectly. There was not one thing wrong with the meal, the setting, the flowers, the topics of conversation that she smilingly introduced, her understated but elegant dress, and her complete mastery of the situation. Luke was charming and polite, but I could tell he was unmoved by Mother. It made me secretly glad that he was beyond her machinations.

He watched the whole scene as if it was a play put on for his entertainment and Mother was the key actress. His bold eyes missed nothing.

Papa sat woodenly, saying nothing. Behind his glasses he looked impotent and miserable. I was just beginning to think that we were all too unsophisticated for the likes of Luke when he caught my eyes. “Beautiful flowers,” he whispered.

I blushed, pleased that he had noticed my handiwork, but catching Mother’s sharp eyes, lowered my own demurely. I had a role to play. The shy bride.

“So, what are your intentions toward our daughter?” Mother asked after Bella brought in the dessert. Where had Mother learned to make lemon mousse like that? The room became motionless. Papa put down his spoon and leaned forward. Luke’s hand stilled.

“All honorable and all in good time,” he responded.

Mother smiled. “Of course, I never doubted your good intentions, but it pays to question the motives of our daughter’s suitors. After all, she is very young and
very
innocent.” I prayed Mother would stop there, and she did.

Luke’s eyes darkened. “Just so. It was her innocence that first caught my attention,” he said, so softly that I had strain to catch the words. Then he complimented Mother on the lemon mousse. “Absolutely delicious,” he said. Mother must give his cook the recipe.

Mother smiled smugly. After Luke left, Mother and Papa fought once more. Mother said that Papa had sat there like an idiot. “An ironing board would have said more,” she jeered.

Papa accused her of licking Luke’s boots. “Be careful,” he said, “Luke’s boots are full of bits from other people’s guts and intestines.”

Mother gave Papa a look of pure venom and opened her box of chocolates eagerly, just as if she had forgotten Papa and his pain. Incensed, he rushed toward her and knocked the box out of her hand. Startled chocolates jumped into the air. Bits of gold paper floated around Mother.

“You greedy whore. Can’t you see what you are doing? You are selling your daughter for a box of chocolates,” he hissed.

Mother’s shocked face began to twitch. Soon she was laughing heartily, her laugh mocking and superior. Papa punched the wall in pure frustration and strode out of the house with a bleeding fist and his wife’s laughter ringing in his ears. Mother didn’t even glance at the crumbling indentation in the plaster wall. She basked in the prospect of a rich son-in-law—in fact, one of the richest men in Malaysia. I helped her pick the chocolates off the ground. She dusted them off and ate them at her leisure, starting with the strawberry crème.

I took Luke to visit Grandma, and they got on famously. I was relieved that she liked him. It was a nightmare with Papa. He refused to soften even slightly. When we were alone, he would warn me sadly, saying, “You will regret it Dimple.” And nothing I said or did would make him change his mind. Grandma told me it would be better when the children started arriving. The patter of little feet would soon change his mind. Grandma played Chinese checkers with Luke. I could see that she was cheating because I know her game too well, but she did it so cleverly that I didn’t think Luke noticed. She won almost every game they played. Luke was a good sport, though. He inquired solicitously about her health, listened carefully to her troubles, and agreed to make appointments with some top specialists in the city to try to relieve some of her ailments. I think he liked Grandma.

One Saturday Luke took Bella and me out shopping. Mother saw us off with shining eyes. Luke actually hates shopping, so he gave us each five hundred ringgit and told us to meet him in an hour at the coffee shop downstairs. He touched my nose. “Buy a dress,” he said with a wink, and then he was gone, out of the complex and into the cool confines of his waiting car.

I bought a white dress. It was rather short, but Bella said it looked cool. It had a little matching jacket that resembled something Chanel might have designed. In another shop I bought a pair of tan shoes. Bella went for a rather daring red dress with straps and another tube of bright red lipstick. We both decided to wear our purchases. I thought Bella looked simply stunning and wondered if Luke would think her prettier than me. She looked very sexy in her red dress and her masses of curls. Men stared at her.

She put her elbows on the table, and her wonderful curls fell forward. That was the moment when Luke walked in. He looked her up and down and laughed. “When you’re all grown up, you’re going to eat men, aren’t you?” he joked. Then he turned to me and said, “You look dazzling. I love the dress. Purity suits you.” He said it so thoughtfully that I forgot about looking sexy from then on. Luke, I believe, doesn’t like showy girls. He thinks I should wear white all the time.

“You look like a flower,” he whispered after the waiter had left, and Bella wrinkled her nose and disappeared into the ladies’. He watched her go, and I watched him watch her. He seemed mildly entertained by her. “Is she always like that?” he asked.

“Always,” I said, wondering with pathetic insecurity if he found my sister attractive. Men were so unpredictable, such a blank page to me. And there was so much I didn’t know about Luke.

The priest at the Scot Road Temple picked an auspicious day for my wedding. Mother wanted a big affair, Papa wanted no wedding at all, and Luke seemed indifferent to the proceedings. He wanted me to wear a white sari, but Mother nearly had a fit.

“What?” she screeched. “My daughter to wear a widow’s colors on her wedding day? The whole Ceylonese community in Malaysia will laugh off all their problems at such a spectacle.”

So she set about ordering my sari from Benares, where a small, brown boy would have sat weaving it in a tiny windowless room from five in the morning till midnight. He will have used a fine needle and rich gold thread to make the six yards of exquisite brocade that I will wear only once—blood red with a matching blouse.

When it arrived, wrapped in tissue paper, Mother was especially pleased with the heavy material. Hers was a dark blue, wonderfully grand brocade sari, and Bella, she decided, would look best in saffron. She had also ordered two sets of cream-colored dhotis for Papa and Nash. There was fine decorative workmanship on the high Nehru collar and on the hems of the long flowing top and the trousers. Invitations embossed in gold handwriting were sent out, and replies had begun to arrive. Hilton Hotel was the venue decided upon for the reception. A flawless Eurasian woman in a sharp suit and a crocodile-skin briefcase came to see Mother.

“From start to finish,” she said in a fake American accent, “we take care of everything.” Her efficiency was displayed in the precise line of her burgundy lipstick. And indeed she was prepared for everything. From the briefcase emerged swatches of material, price lists, and color-coded tags and a master floor plan with a little brown rectangle denoting stage space. She had lists of appropriate wedding singers, brochures of wedding cakes, florists specializing in formal flower arrangements. With consummate skill she vetoed Mother’s pink color scheme.