The Worlds Within Her (13 page)

Nothing awakens the irrational more than a wet night spent alone in a darkness relieved only by lightning creeping closer. I became convinced that my mother-in-law was orchestrating every gust of wind, every roll of thunder.

The following morning, despite having been soaked through, despite sleeplessness, I set to work rubbing and scrubbing and
wringing out the clothes. My hands quickly grew tired and sore, but I kept on, the labour fuelled by thoughts of revenge: Wait till he gets back, I kept thinking. Just wait till Ram gets back, he'll be so furious …

But of course, when he got back, he wasn't. He was restless and distracted. There were other things on his mind, grander things. He was not indifferent, mind you, just incapable of … Moreover, of course, it was probably too late. We had already settled into a workable peace. I told him what had happened, and although his lack of indignation disappointed me at the time, later on I was relieved that he had simply let things be. I came to realize that fresh confrontation would have changed nothing. Change would have meant finding our own house to live in, and that was unthinkable, nothing short of a complete breaking up of the family.

So this is what our confrontation was about, Mrs. Livingston. Power and control, respect and distance, about the apportioning of loyalties: the son's to the mother, the husband's to the wife, the wife's to the husband, the daughter-in-law's to the mother-in-law. She won, of course, but only because I knew I could not.

Celia? No, she was never subject to such treatment. Many would suggest it was because she was white, and therefore intimidating to my mother-in-law, or perhaps even an object of secret veneration. I believe the explanation was simpler. I believe that, because she was not of our world, Celia in an important way did not count. My mother-in-law expected nothing from her, whereas from me she expected everything. I was the one who had to acknowledge her power, just as she had had to acknowledge the power of her own mother-in-law and so on —

Cruel? No. In fact, it is likely that, as a young bride, she had had to endure beatings — yes, physical beatings — from her own mother-in-law. Yet she never laid a finger on me. But cruelty is
relative, isn't it? After all, she did alter for good my friendship with Celia. Even though I had to wash Celia and Cyril's clothes only a few more times — the point made, my mother-in-law lost interest — the fact was that neither Celia nor I could ever see each other in the same way. I had been obliged — and you must forgive me for being graphic, Mrs. Livingston — to scrub Celia's panties clean of her menstrual discharge. After that we were never able to look each other in the eye with the same frankness as before. You see what I mean …

And what about you, Mrs. Livingston? How did you and your …

Oh, but I keep forgetting. Your husband's mother died before you were married, didn't she. Hmmm … How thoughtful of her.

PENNY, SEEKING TO
change the subject, says, “Vernon use to think his cheeks were too fat, remember that, Cyril? When he was small, people was always pinching them. And as soon as somebody pointed a camera at him he use to suck them in, to give them a more sculptured look, he use to say.”

Cyril says, “And his hair was very, very fine. Not like yours, Yasmin. Use to fall all over the place. So he started using Bryl-creem. And not just a little bit either —”

Penny laughs. “He use to buy these big jars, scoop it out with two fingers and rub it in his hair. We had to tell him not to use so much, his hair was sticking flat-flat to his skull.”

“He wasn't able to see himself, you know,” Cyril says. “We
had to make sure he dressed properly. And as for the hair —”

“One day somebody tell him the way his hair was falling down across his fore'd —”

Her pronunciation briefly startles Yasmin: It is so peculiar — and so familiar.

“— he was looking like Hitler. Is then he got the Brylcreem and began slickin' it back — and end up looking like a match-head instead.”

“And for a short time he had a Stalin moustache. Is Shakti who shave that one off herself, not so, Penny?”

“Yeah, right. Remember she said she wasn't goin' to sleep next to no man who had a scrub brush under his nose?”

Hairstyles, moustaches: glimpses of vanity. Yasmin finds herself smiling.

And yet the feeling persists: that she is among strangers with whom conversation does not come easily; with whom, in the uneasy game of picking from the storehouse of memory, the rules are not defined, the traps not marked. She feels herself defenceless before words whose weight she cannot gauge.

AS SHE AND
her mother settled in at the table — unfolding the silk napkins, running approving eyes over the candle-lit dazzle of Jim's place settings — Yasmin examined their reflection in the picture window. Against the darkness broken only by swatches of light from the expressway, she saw a painting as it might have been done by Titian or Rembrandt, a wealth of
detail subtly focused by a rare sharpness of line, colours rich but unspectacular in the warm light. She saw serenity luminous against an intimation of mystery.

Jim, having removed the soup bowls, returned from the kitchen and placed a plate before her mother. New potatoes with sprigs of parsley, asparagus lightly bathed in a raspberry coulis, petals of red pepper sautéed in olive oil and garlic, all arranged around a complete lobster steaming from the pot.

Her mother said, “Oh, my, what a beautiful plate, Mr. Summer-hayes. You have a talent and I, happily, have no cholesterol problem.”

Jim, grinning, winked at Yasmin and lit the burners under their butter bowls. “Yasmin told me you like seafood.”

“Crustaceans, yes, but as for fish, only the freshwater variety.”

It had been his idea to invite her mother to dinner. He'd said, “Maybe if she gets to know me better she'll stop calling me Mr. Summerhayes.” The notion, as endearing as it was silly, had prompted gentle laughter from Yasmin.

“Does it come naturally,” her mother continued, “or is it the result of your gourmet-cooking course? Don't look so surprised, of course she's told me.”

“The course, I'm afraid. Plus eating in too many fancy restaurants.”

Her mother raised her wineglass, only half filled at her insistence. “To your talents, Mr. Summerhayes.”

The shells had been deftly cracked, the meat sliding out with ease.

Her mother said, “Don't you have a cat, Mr. Summerhayes?”

“Yes, Anubis. She tends to get a little nervous when there are visitors. I slipped a little something into her food. She'll sleep the night away.”

They ate in silence for some minutes. When Yasmin complimented Jim on the choice of wine, he said, “It's one of the wines we tried at the wine-tasting, don't you remember?”

“You kidding?” she said with a laugh.

“Tell me, Mr. Summerhayes —”

“Jim.”

“— did you boil them alive, the lobsters?”

He nodded. “It's the best way to bring out all the flavour.”

“And did they scream?”

“Pardon?”

“Did they cry out for mercy to Jehovah or Allah or some such fellow?”

Jim was amused. “To the best of my knowledge, no. But they'd have been underwater, you see.”

“Yes, indeed,” her mother said thoughtfully. “I suppose the plea would have been gurgled, wouldn't it.”

In the laughter that followed, Yasmin thought she had rarely seen her mother so relaxed. And in the vigour with which Jim broke open a claw, she saw the easing of his tension.

Her mother, dipping her fork into the butter, said, “Would you describe yourself as a religious man, Mr. Summerhayes?”

Yasmin glanced at Jim to gauge his reaction to the question, but his face betrayed nothing.

“Religious? No. I've always felt that was one more thing Marx didn't get right. Religion isn't an opiate. It's a placebo for a chronic condition. Like alcohol or tobacco or recreational drugs. One of the ways we survive our fragile moments. We need it, don't we? This belief in something larger than ourselves, and eternal.”

Her mother thought about this for a moment. Then she said, “Very eloquently put, Mr. Summerhayes, but you haven't really
answered my question, have you. What about you? What do you believe in?”

“I believe in light,” Jim said without hesitation.

“Light.” Her mother repeated the word, considering it, turning it over in her mind. “What in the world do you mean?”

“I mean that, for me, light is a living entity that, in turn, creates life. I enjoy playing with light, discovering its properties, looking for ways to mould it. We would die without light.”

“The same is true of air, isn't it?”

“Yes, but imagine finding yourself alive in a world of perpetual darkness. Hardly seems worth it.”

“The blind might not agree with you.”

“Ah, but the blind can feel the light. Its warmth, even its movement. They know it's there. Even the blind need light.”

Yasmin said, “He dreams of designing buildings just for the light, Mom, buildings that would appear to be practically made of light.”

Her mother, nodding slowly to herself, turned the concept over in her mind. “Good,” she declared finally. “The human belief in divinity — it's a weakness, you know. Merely a way of diminishing the sheer wonder of humanity.”

Later, after dessert, when her mother had gone off to “use the facilities,” Jim said to Yasmin, “You don't expect that kind of thinking from someone her age. That kind of courage. Or is it arrogance?”

“I'll tell you something about my mother,” Yasmin said. “If she finds out that anything exists beyond this life, anything at all, she'll be utterly unconsolable. That's been her strength. There's nothing after this life, so she takes what this one brings her and does her best with it.”

Jim shared the last of the wine between himself and Yasmin. “I envy her,” he said.

THROUGH DOUBLE DOORS
thrown open to the balcony, Yasmin confronts a midday sunshine sufficiently harsh to wash sharpness of line and colour from the distant greenery; sufficiently harsh to suggest that it alone has seared the concrete balcony floor clean of the green paint that still fringes the edges like dried spills.

She has been offered the chair at the head of the table, facing those open doors. On her left sits Penny, on her right Cyril. And across from her, at the far end of the lengthy table, sits Ash: silhouetted against the light of the doors, shadowed and silent, only peripherally part of the passing of dishes, the clink of cutlery, the serving of food.

Amie's rubber slippers flop softly on the polished wooden floors as she brings another dish to the table.

Cyril says, “Amie, I have to say — you gone and outdone yourself for our guest.”

Yasmin, taking the cue, says, “Thank you so much, Amie. All this food. Must've taken you all morning.”