The Rice Mother (59 page)

Mother was downstairs, wearing this very dress. She was going to a party. I saw the Roman living room clearly, with its impressively grand flower arrangements and big crystal bowls full of fruit, the floor, the crystal chandelier, the lamps, the banisters, the cream Victorian daybed, the mahogany dining table, the nest of large sofas—all polished and new, without the dust, the dirt, or the animal droppings. It was gorgeous. While my mother waited for Daddy to return home from work, she was arranging flowers on the dining table and crying silently.

Snip, snip, snip, she went with the scissors. She was making an arrangement for the dining table. Blood-red roses were teamed with kangaroo’s paws.

“Why are you crying, Mommy?”

The memory faded, and I was left staring at my subtly altered self in the mirror. I went downstairs in my mother’s clothes. I not only looked different but felt different. The air was mild and peaceful, and I felt at home, but soon it would be dark, and there was neither electricity nor gas in the house. I spotted the pair of ebonized blackamoor statues standing on either side of the staircase, covered in dust and cobwebs, holding a candelabra each, and began hunting around the kitchen for some candles.

The fridge had been cleaned out, but the cupboards were full of old tinned food. Packets of instant noodles, tins of powdered milk, cans of sardines, empty boxes of cereal overturned by the rats, and jars and jars of homemade pickled mangoes. In another cupboard there was a bottle of wild honey that had separated into a solid dull gold base and a thick dark brown liquid. I found the candles. Then I noticed a bunch of keys. One of them fitted the back door. I gave the door a hard shove, and it burst into the darkening evening. The sun had set behind the tall red-brick walls encircling the garden. In the half-dark of dusk I stepped out and walked along a short stone path almost completely overgrown on either side with wild plants. The garden was quiet. Wonderfully so. The sounds of the traffic seemed far away, and the oncoming night was just beginning to dress the trees and grounds in subdued shades of purple. Because of the decay and the complete seclusion inside the high brick walls, I experienced the delicious pleasure of having left the world behind and discovered a fabulous secret.

What is paradise but a walled garden?

I passed a small vegetable plot long colonized by hardy grasses and large-leafed weeds. Like the skeletons of American Indian wigwams, sticks weathered to the pale color of birch bark had been stuck into the ground in a circle and tied together at the top. Once, rambling vegetable plants had been trained on them. Now the top of each wigwam skeleton was studded with mauve-and-gray snails, curled up together in groups, content to remain motionless high up over the riot of wild vegetation. Closer to the brick wall a mango tree’s flowers had hardened into small green fruit. The knobs of pale green hung in low clusters. A tattered hammock hung from a mango tree. I had a memory of the hammock, brand-new and swinging slowly in the hazy shade of the tree. Somebody was in it. In the soft breeze I heard a small laughing voice cry, “Race you.”

I turned around, but there was no one. The stone path died suddenly, and I found myself standing on springy moss. To the left there was a small brackish pond with a statue of a moss-laden Neptune rising out of it. By it a small shrub had flowered, and a lone pinkish white flower, nearly as big as a small cabbage, hung heavy from a twig. I bent close to smell the flower and had a fleeting vision of bending over the pond and seeing another face in the clear waters. A smiling, dark, triangular face. The vision was gone as quickly as it had come. The pond was quite dead now. A brown spotted toad stared suspiciously at me. I walked farther down the garden.

At the end of it, almost completely hidden by creepers, was a small wooden shed. Orange roof tiles that had not fallen off lay hidden under large, glossy, heart-shaped ivy leaves. The leaves covered almost the entire doorway and threatened to bring down the whole roof with the sheer weight of their abundant growth. I pushed some foliage aside, squatted outside the door of the shed, and peered within. In the darkening light I could make out a table and a chair and what looked like a small bed or a wooden bench. It looked far too dangerous to go in. Inside might lurk snakes. In the dark I thought I saw the glint of gold on a finger and fancied I saw, passing in the shadows, that same triangular face that I had seen earlier in the pond, split into a big smile.

The face was old, and the eyes were kind. There was something memorable about the face, a dark green tattoo of small dots and diamond shapes that started on the forehead from the middle of each eyebrow and worked its way like a star constellation down the temples and onto the high cheekbones. A child giggled uncontrollably. The old lady with the tattoo was tickling her stomach. I strained to look further into the shadows, but nothing else moved. The old lady with the gold ring and the giggling child must have been made out of tea biscuits, for they vaporized into the darkness of the dusty shed like biscuit crumbs sinking into a mug of tea. The darkness was complete. I stood up and walked back slowly, retracing my steps past the pond. The tattoo. Who was she? All of a sudden I knew. Dear, darling Amu.

Back in the kitchen I locked the door and stood at the doorway until my eyes got used to the deeper darkness inside the house, and then I lit a candle and, carrying it in one hand and the box of unlit candles in the other, went back into the hall. One by one I stuck the candles into the candelabras. I dusted away the thick shroud of dust and cobwebs and lit all the candles.

The blackamoor boys looked grand lit up, their handsome ebony faces glowing like smooth black stones under a full moon. They put little dancing yellow lights on the walls and threw mysterious shadows in the corners. I did not remember their slightly surprised expressions but knew without a doubt that their names were Salib and Rehman. Once I had been no taller than they. The candlelight woke the ceiling. The plump nymphs, coy-faced women, and perfectly proportioned, curly-haired males were alive. The house and everything in it had been waiting for me. Perhaps the house
was
haunted, but I felt quite unafraid. I was surely at home and far more comfortable in the crumbling, deserted house than in my cool, luxurious flat in Damansara, but as the corners of the room darkened into blackness, I realized that though I didn’t want to leave, I must, for the delicate tapping of small claws on the marble floor grew nearer and bolder. I had no desire to make acquaintance with the rats that apparently lived in my house, so I put away Mother’s dress, blew out all the candles, locked the door securely behind me, and left with a heavy heart. As if I had left something important behind.

When I switched off the tape recorder, it was two in the morning. Outside, a storm howled inconsolably. It rattled the balcony door like an angry spirit desperate to get in. I looked around at the luxurious things in my apartment and felt no regret. Their loss would not be felt. I had not put my heart into them. You get what you pay for. . . . Last week everything was different. In a week or so I would be like everybody else. I might have to go out and become a secretary somewhere. Buy my clothes from department stores, cook my own food, clean up after myself. I shrugged.

What mattered was uncovering the deep mystery surrounding my mother, solving the puzzle of the black marble floor that loomed, sinister, in my dreams, finding out why a dripping tap chilled me to the bone and why the combination of red and black was so gratingly offensive. Deep emotions were waking in me. I thought I remembered Great-Grandmother Lakshmi, but it was hard to equate the vibrantly young Lakshmi in the tapes with the old and gray woman I vaguely remember. Could she really be the same unhappy old woman in a rattan chair who always cheated at Chinese checkers?

I had been so involved in listening to the tape of Ayah’s story that I missed dinner. In the kitchen my maid had left a selection of dishes in covered containers, and I suddenly realized I was ravenous. I sat and ate furiously, out of character.

I stopped suddenly. Why was I behaving like this? Why the greed, the unseemly haste? I had a picture of a young boy vomiting into his own food. His name is Lakshmnan and his twin sister has just been taken away by the Japanese. “I can taste the food she’s eating!” he cries wildly to the old lady with iron-gray hair and betrayed eyes. But no, then Lakshmi must have had wonderful thick, black hair and bold, angry eyes. I pushed my plate away.

Restlessly I walked into the living room and headed for the balcony. Instantly, strong winds whipped my hair and pulled at my clothes. How I longed to be in Mother’s house. Mine now. The wind blew rain into my face, and I breathed its wild, wet smell. Thunder crashed very close by. The voices in my head clamored for attention. Finally, when I was very, very cold, I went in.

I came out of the shower warm and exhausted and dried my hair in front of the mirror. It was already almost four o’clock in the morning. Tomorrow I would go back to Lara. I wanted to make arrangements to move in straightaway. I switched off the hair dryer, and in the mirror my eyes surprised me. I stared at the green specks in my irises. Nefertiti was dead, but she had left her eyes behind, in me. I saw that the aloof glaze in my eyes was gone, and in its place glittered a strange, oddly feral excitement. I smiled at myself in the mirror, and even my smile was different.

“Sleep now, so you can leave first thing in the morning for your new home,” I told the glittering girl in the mirror. Then I lay down under the covers and listened to the frantic storm outside. I tossed and turned until finally I got out of bed, switched on the light, and pushed the button on the tape recorder that read “Play.”

I
sent a very simply written letter to Nisha at her father’s address, explaining that I was a relative from her mother’s side of the family. I noted that it had been impossible to be in touch with her before her father’s passing because he had forbidden us all contact with him or his daughter. Since the appearance of his funeral notice in the newspaper, I had wanted to meet her. If she was so inclined, could she please telephone.

When she arrived, my daughter showed her through to my favorite place in the house. My large kitchen. She was beautiful. She greeted me carefully, her eyes taking in my face, twisted on one side, and my scanty silver hair. I know I am a human gargoyle.

“Sit down, Nisha,” I said, my smile crooked. “Would you like some tea?” I offered.

“Thank you, yes,” the girl accepted. Her voice was elegant and cultured. If nothing else, Luke had given her poise. I decided I liked her.

I placed a small basket of eggs in front of her and said, “Eat.”

For a moment she looked at me expressionlessly, but I heard her thinking: Oh no, the old dear has more fat than protein in her brain.

My eyes full of mirth, I took an egg, cracked it against the plate, and broke it in my fingers. Runny white and yellow yolk did not flow out. The thing was made with cake, almonds, and custard. The shell, colored sugar.

She began to laugh, too. Of course, Ratha, the mistress of sugar. Today she has done something simple. She has made some eggs.

“This is a great talent,” she said, picking up the cake in her hand. Small white teeth bit into the cake, and her mouth declared it was gorgeous. “A brilliant, marvelous talent,” Nisha said.

I seated myself opposite her. “I am Ratha, your great-aunt, and I want you to know that your mother, Dimple, changed my life. I am old now, and soon I shall be no more, but I should like you to know what she did for me so many years ago. She was the most caring, wonderful person I have ever met in my life. One afternoon, twenty-nine years ago, I was sitting alone, icing a cake, when I heard someone calling at the door. Outside stood your mother. She must have been—what—fifteen years old then. Such a pretty little thing she was, too.

“ ‘I need to speak to you urgently,’ she said.

“ ‘Come in,’ I invited, surprised. I should have slammed the door in her face, because really I wanted nothing more to do with my ex-husband’s family. Liars, cheats, and thieves the lot of them. Each one a cruel hunter. But there was always something innocent, a little hurt, about that child. Her mother had always treated her very badly while I stayed with them. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know she was there to help me. I offered her juice, but she refused. ’Why don’t you love Grandma?’ she asked, plunging straight in.

“ ‘Well, it’s a long story,’ I began, with no intention of telling such a slip of a girl anything, and suddenly I was pouring everything out. I started from the very beginning when her mother, Rani, had come to our home in Seremban full of smiles, looking for a bride. You see, Rani lied to us. She showed me a photograph of her husband Lakshmnan and told me my intended husband looked just the same.

“ ‘They are brothers,’ the avaricious woman said, thinking of her commission. ’So similar, people are always mistaking one for the other.’