The Rice Mother

  And then without any warning they came to take her away. Just like that, they killed her, the child we had so carefully tended for years. Oh, these stupid tears. After all this time. That unbearable night when she came to me. Look at these stupid tears, they refuse to stop. I am like an old woman. Wait, let me get my handkerchief out. Give me a minute—I am just an old fool.

  I recall sitting in my bedroom with the lights off, my body on fire with fever. The shock of her abduction had brought on a bout of malaria. There was only a little light from the half moon in the sky. It was a hot night, and earlier I had heard Lakshmi bathing. I remember I was praying, my breath burning hot. I never used to pray. I tainted the holy with greed. “It is a fact,” I pontificated grandly, “that we pray for more.” I argued that even at the highest level a request for self-enlightenment was still a selfish want, but the truth was, I was too lazy to offer my thanks for the good fortune that had fallen into my lap. “God is inside the heart,” I declared. I thought I was a good man, and that was enough. After her birth I took it for granted that I had been born with a garland of good things, but that night, restless and full of foreboding, I raised my hands and cried out to God just like all the other despicable, needy human beings. “Help me, dear God,” I prayed. “Give me back my Nefertiti.”

  Inside my head there was no peace. A million visions desired entry, twisting and turning with grotesque grins and mean eyes. They were all unfinished and raw. I closed my eyes to chase the burning visions away, and quite suddenly, I saw Mohini escape through a door with a faulty lock. Perhaps I was hallucinating, but I saw her run down a long corridor, her bare feet noiseless but the asthmatic rattling loud inside her chest. She ran gasping past tall windows with closed shutters. There was a turn in the wide corridor that ended in a door left tantalizingly ajar. I saw it all, her face convoluted with fear and then the hope that illuminated as she raced toward the open door. Then I saw the guards. How they laughed!

  They laughed in her pale wheezing face. It was all a trick.

  I grabbed a blanket and huddled into it. I was cold. Cold. So cold.

  I saw a hand, thick and meaty, squeeze her chin, and a brutal red tongue appear from nowhere to lick her eyelids. I saw her fall to the ground, gasping desperately for breath. She called for me then, “Papa, Papa.” But I couldn’t help her. Shivering in my bed, I watched her turn blue and I saw them try to pour water down her throat. She choked and gasped. They stood back confused and helpless and watched her die. Ah, the cold in my heart.

  I saw her in a hole with her eyes closed, but then she opened them and looked directly at me. In my nightmare she was wearing her mother’s sari and standing in the middle of a jungle waiting to be married, but her unadorned hair was spread out over her shoulders like a grieving widow’s. The shivering grew worse.

  “It is the fever. It is only the fever,” I whispered wildly into my wet pillow, my teeth chattering wildly. I held my head in my hands and rocked so the pictures in my head would all blur and slowly fall out, and in their place would only be soft darkness. I rocked and I rocked until the pictures blurred and ran into each other like blood.

  “Oh, Nefertiti,” I whispered brokenly. “It’s only the malaria. It’s the shock. It’s only the shock.” I was going mad with cold. My own helplessness angered me. I hated myself. She was alone and scared. If only I had been home instead of sitting outside the chartered bank with the old Sikh guard, sharing a cheroot . . .

  The guilt. I cannot tell you how it pressed upon me that night. Why, why, why on that day of all days did I leave the house? Hopelessly I banged my forehead against the wall. I wanted to die.

  It was the beautiful, spoiled child of death from the moonlit night outside the death pit from years ago. He was annoyed that I had refused to play his little game. “Have me. Go on take me now,” I pleaded with the vindictive child. “But return her, return her, return her.”

  I chanted vaguely remembered mantras from my childhood. If I wished hard enough . . . If I prayed hard enough . . . If I went to the temple and made a vow to fast for thirty days, shaved my head, and carried a kavadi on my head on Thaipusam Day, would she come back?

  Lost in my black despair, I took some moments to realize that my head had cleared. I didn’t feel cold, and the terrible pain inside my heart had suddenly disappeared. I lifted my head. The room was still lit by bluish moonlight, but something had changed. Confused, I looked around, and a feeling of peace and calm flowed over me. All my cares, fears, and petty insecurities dropped away. So beautiful was the feeling that I thought I was dying. Then I understood. It was her. She was free at last. I told her to be happy. I told her I would take care of her mother, and I told her I would love her forever.

  Then the feeling was gone as suddenly as it had come. All the pain of her loss came crashing back. And what a blinding loss it was. I clutched at my chest, and the room pressed down on my freezing body like a wooden coffin.

  My poor life stretched out, long, dull, and profitless, in front of me. Inside my chest my heart was not a whole thing anymore but a mass of red shreds. The red ribbons flew inside my body and caught on the other organs inside me. They fluttered there helplessly. Even now they are there, caught between the branches of my ribs or lying crushed between my liver and my kidney or even curled around my intestines. They flutter like red flags of defeat and pain. She was only a dream.

  At first I could see the same raw pain in my wife and eldest son’s eyes, but then their pain turned into something else. Something unwholesome. Something I couldn’t understand. I would look into Lakshmi’s eyes, and something like hate would slither in the depths of them. She became ill-tempered and cruel, and he became vindictive. Fresh hate used to shine in his face when his mother asked him to help Jeyan with his math. He gritted his teeth and stared murderously at his younger brother, waiting for that poor boy to make a mistake so he could have the pleasure of hitting Jeyan’s head with a wooden ruler or pinching him until his dark brown skin turned gray. Once he struck, you could actually see him war with himself to withdraw his venom.

  One day I tried to talk to him. I motioned for him to sit beside me, but he stood before me, tall and strong, his limbs powerful and full of life. He was not a reflection of me. All my sons are a rejection of me. If poor Jeyan is like me, then it is certainly not through choice. In my slow way I talked for too long. He looked down at me from his contemptuous height sullenly. Not a word passed his lips. No explanations, no excuses. No sense of regret.

  Then I said, “Son, she is gone.”

  And suddenly a look of such shame and such pain crossed his face that he looked like a trapped, injured animal. He opened his mouth as if to draw breath and instead drew in a passing spirit. It was a furious, turbulent spirit that he swallowed. It caused the most shocking transformation. He prepared to lash out at me, his father. His shoulders clenched, and his hands bunched into hard balls, but before he could turn on me, Lakshmi walked into the room. Another astonishing transformation occurred; the uncontrollable rage escaped out of his open mouth. He dropped his head, his shoulders hunched, and his fists opened like a dead man’s. He feared her. He understood instinctively her power. The uncontrollable monster had a master. His master was his mother.

  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 m
an. 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.

  Lakshmi

  Anna 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 q
uickly. 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.