The Rice Mother

  The terrible battle in my family began. He demanded money and threatened to break open Mother’s chest and help himself to the money and jewelry inside. His eyes flashed angrily behind his thick glasses.

  “See if you dare,” Mother challenged, eyes glittering dangerously. Roaring, he stormed out of the house, kicking the doorpost as he went out. As soon as his salary laced his hand, he could disappear for the weekend and returned unkempt and broke. The black threats would resume once more. One payday I saw Mother stand in the living room and stare sadly at the mess of cigarette butts. I knew what she was thinking. “Where is he?”

  She decided she would find him and see for herself the new mistress that held her son so tightly in her embrace. She took a rickshaw into town, entering the area she had never set foot in before. She walked up a set of stone steps toward a coffee shop and asked an old man perched over a till for directions, and he silently pointed toward the back of the shop. She went through a dirty curtain and down a narrow corridor. There were the sounds of children talking and laughing coming from the curtained doorways along the hallway. A small Chinese girl with a thick fringe that nearly covered her eyes poked her head through one curtained doorway and smiled shyly at Mother.

  Finally Mother found herself standing in front of a tattered red curtain. Another world lived behind that curtain, a world so shabby and shameful that her hands shook as she pushed the unclean strips of cloth apart and looked into a large, very dirty room. The walls were thin planks nailed together, the roof a mesh of zinc sheets, and the floor gray concrete. A sideboard was stacked high with unwashed plates, bowls, and chopsticks. Not even for the purpose of dining could the gambling be stopped. An ancient woman, hunched and almost bald, was slowly clearing away the mountain of dirty dishes. There were five round tables where men and women with glazed, obsessed faces sat. The air was uneasy with the stale smell of cigarettes and the sweet aroma of roasting pork from a kitchen somewhere close by. And in that filthy gambling hall, Mother’s unhappy eyes alighted on her beloved son, bespectacled, erect, and handsome. For a moment there was searing pain, the knife of betrayal. As she watched in disbelief, he shouted out, “Mah-jongg!” and laughed greedily, a gambler’s laugh. Look at the unholy light in his eyes. Look at the concentration.

  Shocked, she took a step toward him. She would change him yet. But then he made a quick, almost vicious movement with his hands that was so bafflingly foreign to her that it chilled and stilled her. The gesture was understood and quickly copied by another player, and she knew he was lost to her. He lived in a world denied to her. She stood there frozen, staring at the hell her beautiful, wonderful, errant son had fallen into, and an image from the past so sharp that it actually hurt flashed before her. Ah, she had been so young then. Humming to herself, swirling her hand in a blue basin of hibiscus petals waltzing softly in hot water. It must have been that moment when the water had turned the right color of magic rust, for she picked up her gurgling, bright-eyed baby boy and gently lowered his kicking legs into the carefully prepared bathwater. How he laughed and splashed. How wet he made her! How curly the hair on his little head. How very long ago that was, and how many hopes had painfully crashed on the rocks of life since then. She stepped back through the dirty curtain and made her way down the filthy corridor.

  She could not forget the greedy laugh. He had smiles only for the pale chips that lay on his side of the table. She felt lost and afraid. If she had relented before and given him money for the sake of peace, she refused point-blank now to lend him even a single ringgit. She hid her own money and jewelry and confiscated my bank book so I could not be persuaded or bullied into parting with any of my savings.

  The house became a war zone. Petty things exploded in your face. Once the thorny side of a durian skin came flying through the air straight toward my surprised face. Thank God I had the presence of mind to duck. The holes that the durian skin made in the kitchen wall are still there. Then, unexpectedly and suddenly, things calmed down when Lakshmnan began to help Mother in her efforts to marry me off. It was during this time that he became familiar with the practice of dowry.

  It was like a blast into his brain. Marriage equals dowry.

  Mother had set aside ten thousand ringgit for me. Surely he could command at least that as a bridegroom. He began to make his calculations, but custom dictated that he could not be married before me. An impatience grew in him, but custom had to prevail. The eldest daughter must be married first. Diligently he went on all the husband-finding journeys and eagerly sang the young men’s praises. He saw the good in all of them, and Mother saw only the bad, until a proposal from a surveyor from Klang fell into her lap.

  The prospective suitor who had managed to impress Mother with his qualifications set a date to “see” me. There were set rules to such an occasion. The parents and their son visit the bride, and while they are talking, she will bring in a tray of tea and cakes. All polite conversation will cease, and they will scrutinize her, often very critically. The poor girl will then nervously pour the tea and hand out the cakes, saying as little as possible before disappearing in the direction of the kitchen. She is allowed to smile shyly at the prospective in-laws.

  I was not nervous about that day. I had played the game a few times before, as Mother had already turned down a few hopefuls. I had liked one of them, but I trusted Mother’s judgment implicitly. She is like a bear. She can smell from miles away the smallest token of rot, even if it is carefully hidden away in the deepest recesses of a person. At that point I didn’t really know what a surveyor actually did; it was not as grand a profession as that of a doctor or lawyer, but I had neither the qualifications nor a dowry large enough to attract one of those. But, my farsighted mother believed Malaysia was a growing country, and it was only a matter of time before good surveyors would be in great demand. One day she hoped a small fortune for my husband and me. More than anything else she wanted a clever man for me. She said that she knew life with a stupid man and wanted something different for us.

  I hoped my suitor’s standards would not be too high. I sat in front of the mirror and saw nothing remarkable. Beauty had been defined by Mohini. I only had to remember her magnolia skin and bottle-green eyes for my own looks to pale into mediocrity. I never wore makeup in those days because Mother didn’t think it suitable, although both Lalita and I wore copious amounts of powder. Sometimes Lalita splashed so much onto her skin that she emerged from the bedroom looking very much like a white-faced capuchin monkey. Poor Lalita was the epitome of all Mother’s fears. If Mother had sat down and made a list of all the things she didn’t want in a daughter—Father’s wide hips, flat bottom, chicken legs from God knows which side of the family, a pair of wide-set small eyes, and a fleshy nose—she would have come up with a picture of Lalita.

  “Anna!” Mother called.

  “Coming,” I replied, and ran off to the kitchen to help to cut out the coconut cookies that I would later serve to our guests. It was a very simple recipe, but it had a secret ingredient that made it taste better than normal coconut cookies—ginger flowers. It was a hot afternoon, and Lalita was sitting outside on the grinder, drinking coconut water straight from a green coconut. Her skin was already too dark. It was time she stopped spending so much time in the sun. I called to her, and she ambled in obediently.

  “Stop sitting in the sun so much, or nobody will want to marry you,” I admonished gently.

  “Mother says nobody will marry me anyway. I wish I was as good-looking as you.”

  “Don’t be so silly. You know very well that she only said that when she was in a temper. Of course you’ll get married when you’re older. There’s someone for everyone. Now cut the cookies, and I’ll arrange them on the tray.”

  We worked quietly while I tried to imagine my husband-to-be. I hoped he was fair. When we were finished, I showered and changed into a pretty blue-and-green sari, which suited my coloring well. I plaited my hair and threaded a few jasmine flowers into it. Then I smoothed p
owder on my skin and painted my forehead with a small, perfectly round black dot. My friend Meena assured me that if I only would wear a touch of lipstick and a drop of kohl in my eyes, I would be very attractive indeed, but I was too frightened of what Mother would say if she caught me with carmine lips and elongated eyes. I wondered what she would say if she knew my nickname in school was MM, short for Marilyn Monroe. It was the sway in my hips that was responsible for the insulting nickname. In our old-fashioned town nice girls didn’t become actresses. To start with, the job desired a girl of easy morals, and such a one as Marilyn—why, she was surely a slut.

  I twisted around in front of the mirror to check that my sari was well tucked into place at the back, and then I sat down to wait. Mother came in. In her hand she had a stick of kohl. Wordlessly she knelt before me, gently pulled my lower lid away from my eye, and applied the kohl. She did the same to the other eye. I sat very still, stunned. I had no idea she even knew how to use a stick of kohl. Then from the palm of her hand she unscrewed a soft pink lipstick.

  “Open your mouth,” she instructed. I opened my mouth obediently and, holding my chin with her left hand, she applied a layer carefully onto my lips. Critically she examined her handiwork before nodding with satisfaction. “Don’t lick your lips,” she advised. She stood up and left. She must really want me to marry the surveyor, for she had never done that with any of the others. I turned back to the mirror and stared at myself with amazement. Mother had transformed my face. My eyes looked large and beautiful, and my lips interesting and soft. Meena was right.

  Soon there was the sound of polite voices in the living room. Suddenly I was nervous. Pouring tea under the eagle eyes of strangers was a tricky business, but what made the butterflies inside my stomach flutter madly was the tension in Mother. She really wanted the match. What if they didn’t like the way I looked? What if they turned me down? She would surely be annoyed with me. From the living room came her voice. “Anna,” she called sweetly.

  I stood up, smoothed my sari carefully, and went into the kitchen.

  “There you go,” Lalita said, thrusting the tray into my hands. There was a giggle in her voice.

  I walked into the living room, head bent, the way a proper unmarried girl should, and putting the tray on the coffee table, poured the tea, handing cups to the parents first and only then to the prospective bridegroom. I did it all with eyes downcast. I saw trouser legs, two men’s feet (dark), a sumptuous lime green sari, and a pair of small ladies’ feet (fair). I lifted my head and passed the tray of cookies around. The parents were the usual Ceylonese type. The father reclined back, and the mother assessed and calculated. She had an imposing face with high cheekbones, very large eyes, and a straight nose. She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

  “You are a teacher,” she commented.

  “Yes,” I agreed softly.

  She nodded. There was much skill in the way she had tied her sari. Even while she was seated, the pleats remained sharp and distinct. I moved on to the dark hands that had taken the saucer and cup from my hands before. He was thin and, judging by the length of his awkwardly folded legs, tall. He had the curving lips of someone who laughed often. But that day his deep-set eyes burned enigmatically, staring into mine with an intensity that made blood rush into my cheeks. They reminded me of the way my mother’s eyes could burn. I looked away quickly. He was so black he was blue. My children are all going to be black, I thought, walking away from the living room, trying hard not to let my hips sway, knowing every eye was on my retreating back.

  Lalita was grinning widely at me from the safety of the kitchen. “Well?” she asked, eyebrows raised. I shrugged.

  Together we stood by the kitchen door, listening to Mother and the prospective in-laws in conversation. I hoped that she wouldn’t like the boy. He made me uncomfortable. The way he stared at me confused me. Also, he was far too dark.

  The guests left, and Mother came into the kitchen. “I like that boy,” she announced, her eyes shining. “He has real fire in his eyes. Real ambition. He will go far, mark my words.”

  “He’s a bit dark, isn’t he?” I ventured carefully.

  “Dark?” she queried. And that solitary word she cast as a net of disapproval. Struggle was pointless. “Of course he’s dark. He’s a surveyor. He spends all his time in the jungles.”

  And so the matter was decided. I was to marry Ganesh with the burning eyes.

  Mother and brother began to make plans. Lakshmnan fell upon the brilliant idea of a double wedding. “Eliminate an unnecessary expense,” he said, talking Mother’s language. Finally they agreed. Now he could seek his bride.

  When news reached my prospective in-laws that Lakshmnan was seeking a bride, they immediately sent word. What luck, they said, they had a daughter of marriageable age! They proposed an intermarriage. Although Mother was not keen on the idea, Lakshmnan insisted that they at least look at the girl. So Father, Mother, and Lakshmnan traveled all the way up to Klang to see the prospective bride. Mother said her heart literally dropped when they arrived at the address. A tiny house in a slum area, for some peculiar reason it had been draped with chicken wire so it resembled a giant chicken coop. She believed in the future potential of the surveyor, but the prospect of giving away her precious son to people who lived in that sort of house was impossible for her to digest. In fact, she wanted to turn around and leave straightaway, but Lakshmnan argued reasonably enough that they had after all come this far. “What is the harm?” he asked—words he lived to regret.

  When the bride’s mother came out to greet them, Mother saw her look past them toward the Wolesley before turning to assess my brother. Mother looked at Lakshmnan and saw what the bride’s mother saw. If not for his thick glasses he would have been perfect. With broad shoulders and a handsome mustache, he was quite a catch. Until one chanced upon his gambling habits, of course. They entered the chicken coop.

  The furniture was poor. The chair under Mother rocked unsteadily. Father looked uncomfortable in his chair. A girl walked into the room with a tray of tea. Mother swallowed her surprise. A match-maker friend had given the impression that the girl was good-looking. In fact, the girl was tall and angular, with broad shoulders and a disproportionately large chest. Her face was not soft and kind but fierce, with her mother’s high cheekbones, a large mouth, and eyes that were daring and sensuous. They boldly assessed Lakshmnan before turning to rest on his parents, softening into a shy maidenly gaze.

  Oh, but Mother was not buying. The girl was a madam. Mother saw instantly that she was trouble. Big trouble. It was in every line of her face.

  Mother sipped her tea, and into her conversation she slipped the fact that her son was a terrible, actually a compulsive, gambler. She told them that she didn’t want the responsibility of hiding that fact and ruining both marriages, and frankly told them that she did not believe in intermarriages.

  After Mother dropped her bombshell, there was a moment’s silence, but the bride’s mother had seen the car and the upright beauty in Lakshmnan’s face. Her daughter couldn’t do better. In fact, she probably didn’t believe Mother at all. She must have thought that Mother was lying because she didn’t want to give her son in marriage to their daughter. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” she assured Mother, her sharp eyes flashing. “My husband used to be an appalling gambler. Addicted to horse racing for years, and yet I had a happy life. I went short for nothing. My daughter is a clever girl, and I have confidence in her ability to handle the situation.”

  They were pushy, and thick-skinned as well. Mother sat there fuming but unable to leave because she didn’t want to jeopardize my match. She could well understand their eagerness for her son. Their daughter was no beauty; she thought the girl hideous, with rashes that disappeared into the sleeves of her sari blouse and ended God only knew where. Little did she know then that what in her time was angular and unattractive would today be universally considered good-looking—height, good straight shoulders, large breasts, long legs, slim
hips, and wonderfully high cheekbones. But she was certainly no soft, round-faced Indian beauty, and sitting there viewing the bride critically, Mother could never have guessed in a million years that waiting quietly inside the bride’s tummy was her favorite grandchild. That one day her son would rush home and announce with tears in his eyes, “Ama, Mohini has come back to us. She has come back as your granddaughter.”

  No, she will not marry my son, Mother thought to herself that day.

  The parents were shifty, and their lodgings so poor that Mother found it hard to imagine they could have a dowry of ten thousand ringgit sitting in any bank. Besides, if the girl really was a qualified teacher, as her parents claimed, why then was she not working? Either they were lying or the girl was unimaginably lazy. Either way it did not bode well for Mother’s plans and hopes. The girl simply would not do.

  Lakshmnan began grinding his teeth in the chicken coop. He had made great plans for the money, and Mother was spoiling everything. In his fevered imagination he had already doubled and tripled his dowry at the gaming tables. For so long now he had nurtured the intoxicating illusion that if he sat at the tables with enough money behind him, his luck would have to change sometime.

  They said their good-byes politely.

  In the car Lakshmnan announced abruptly, “I want that girl.”

  “But you’ve always wanted to marry a fair, working girl,” Mother said, surprised.

  “No, I like this girl,” he insisted.