Sevenese took up the study of astrology and started telling fortunes. He practiced on his friends, and they dropped in with their charts clipped under their armpits. Before he left on his trips, he gave me envelopes full of his interpretations for his friends to pick up. It turned out that he was so good at telling fortunes that strangers started to appear at our door with their charts in their right hand.
“Please,” they pleaded. “My daughter is getting married. Will this boy be a good match?” The pile on his table grew and grew, but I realized that the deeper he delved into that shadowy world, the more he drank, the deeper his despair, the more cynical his disposition, and the more savage his charm became. He did not want to marry and settle down. Women were sharp-eyed playthings and children perpetuators of a disgusting species. “Man is worse than beast,” he said. “Crocodiles will climb out of the water during severe droughts to share the lions’ meal, but man will poison his neighbor before he shares his.”
He drank far too much and returned home late, staggering and muttering to himself, his eyes red and his hair tousled. Sometimes cheap perfume lingered. I did not need to ask where he had been. There used to be a dark place called the Milk Bar in town. He had been spotted going through the swing doors by ladies from the temple. Gaudily painted women, not so young but still smooth-skinned, smoked outside the establishment. Too often he lost his keys and banged on the door well past midnight, singing drunkenly in Malay for Lalita to open the door, “Achi, achi buka pintu.”
I feared he had become an alcoholic.
Jeyan had not even attempted to take his Form Three exams. He knew he couldn’t pass. He became a meter reader with the Electricity Board. When the time came for him to marry, Rani, who had taken up the practice of being a marriage broker of sorts, sent word that she had found him a wife. There were still no takers for Lalita. She was thirty years old. Almost too old to be married.
Lalita
When Rani found a bride for Jeyan, Mother took him to see the girl. She returned full of good humor and high spirits. The girl was fair and comely. Mother said in his last life Jeyan must have earned excellent karma to deserve such a girl in this life. Ratha was an orphan, brought up by a kindly spinster aunt who had managed to set aside a dowry of five thousand ringgit for the girl. It was a very paltry sum to negotiate with, but Mother was so determined to have the girl for Jeyan that she would have agreed even if there was no dowry on the table.
I watched Jeyan sit in a chair, looking at Mother mutely, blankly, as is his way. He could have been listening to her, but I know my brother too well. With the delight of a child he took out once again and carefully examined the precious memory of a reckless sidelong glance all for him. He thought only of a pair of hennaed feet that took turns to delicately burst out of the pleats in the middle of a green-and-red sari, and a pair of small hands that had served him tea and shyly passed the soft cakes around.
Behind his inattentive expression blazed a kind of suppressed excitement. An awareness of the essence of the woman was already in his being. He was dreaming of gleaming musk on tumid breasts, skin covered with silky down, and a body that moved beneath him like a gliding swan. He was dreaming of a sweet life with Ratha.
The date for the wedding was set. It was decided that it would be a small, simple temple wedding. It was really Mother who decided this. The girl had no relatives, and Mother was not inclined toward showy displays of wealth. A small wedding seemed logical. We locked the house and went to stay at Mother’s cousin’s home in Kuala Lumpur. His house was small and filled with savage children. All day long they rushed about screaming and shouting, falling over adults as if they were pieces of furniture. They fought each other, cried, then sang, and tumbled down the stairs as if they were not flesh and bone but India-rubber balls. From that house we were to leave for the simple ceremony planned in the temple.
On the big day my brother stood in the hall, resplendent in a white veshti and his bridegroom’s headgear. He stood straight and tall in front of Mother to get her blessing. For once his square face looked eager and animated. While Mother stood there savoring the pleasure of having secured such a lovely bride for her dull son, a small boy whooping like a Red Indian dashed into the hallway and promptly slipped on a patch of spilled oil. As we all stood and watched, he skidded across the floor like a bizarre giant eel with arms and legs. The eel crashed straight into my brother’s ceremonial preparations. A large silver platter of kum kum went flying into the air, red powder rising like a red mist before it plunged to the ground, rolling noisily, scattering fine powder all over the floor. The noise of the platter falling and rolling endlessly on the tiled floor was deafening. Mother’s smile fled and her face became a mask of stunned disbelief.
For a few seconds nobody moved. Even the little boy who had caused the big bang froze in fear. He lay on the floor and looked up at Mother’s terrible expression with big, frightened eyes. Mother stared at the mess on the floor as if it was not cheap red kum kum that you could purchase in any provision shop but a pool of blood collected from the bodies of her slain children. I stared at Mother, surprised, as she shook her head.
“Why, oh why did that stupid boy have to come here, of all places?” she muttered shaking her head. “It is a bad omen, but it has come too late. There is nothing to be done but what is already planned.” And with those words her face became like stone. She moved quickly. The gods had spoken, but they had spoken too late: the wedding must go on. She helped the stunned child up, shooed him away sternly and instructed a girl hovering nearby to clear away the mess, and then she stepped forward and blessed her son. “Go with God,” she said in a firm voice. Then Father stepped forward and blessed Jeyan.
The bridegroom got into a car decorated with blue-and-silver ribbons, and everybody else squeezed into any available vehicle. I walked beside Mother; her face was like granite, her steps as determined as a marching soldier’s. In the car she sat ramrod straight, saying nothing and staring blankly out of the window. Once she sighed softly, regretfully. It felt as if we were heading for a funeral house in inappropriate clothing, Mother in her mango-colored sari and me in my royal blue sari edged with the brightest fuchsia.
Secretly I thought Mother was overreacting, although I didn’t dare open my mouth to say as much. It was an accident, pure and simple. That it didn’t happen earlier was the miracle. Outside the temple the car slowed to a stop. Jeyan climbed out. In the midday sun his new white costume was blinding. Someone straightened his headgear for him. He was king for the day. He nodded. He was nervous.
Inside the temple, Mother smiled at women layered in jewelry. They stopped gossiping to smile back. As she passed, they resumed their talk, their lips alternately busy or pursed, but their dark eyes were forever alert, roving and weaving through the crowd. I was sure they looked at me pityingly.
We stood by the dais and watched the bride, escorted by her elderly aunt and friend. I thought she looked very beautiful in a dusky pink sari with small green and gold dots and an intensely embroidered gold border. She was slim and graceful. Indeed, Jeyan was extremely lucky. At the dais she folded her legs beneath her and slipped into place beside my brother. She did it with such natural grace that I wondered anew why someone so pretty would agree to marry my brother. She wore a lot of jewelry, but I guessed a sizable proportion was costume. We knew she was poor. As I contemplated her situation, I suddenly realized that from her downcast eyes unchecked tears were trickling onto the expensive sari that Mother had chosen and bought for her. A small dark patch was spreading steadily on her lap. Astonished by the sight of the salty stream, I quickly glanced at Mother, who had not missed the tears. She seemed as mystified as I was.
“Why is the bride crying?” Low voices buzzed. For sure, those were not tears of joy. The girl was crying her heart out. Within the huge pillars of the temple the small crowd that had gathered to see an occasion of marriage began to whisper and twitter.
“Look, the bride is crying,” they whispered among
themselves. As we watched, baffled, the bride’s elaborate, press-on nose stud slipped from her nostril and landed on the darkening stain in her lap. Silently she picked it up and refastened it on her wet nostril. Nobody missed that. The murmur in the small congregation became louder, and a veil of red settled on Mother’s cheeks. She was embarrassed by what looked like the bride’s apparent distress or reluctance. But no one had forced her. Mother had spoken directly to the girl. She had been willing. “Yes,” she had nodded, dropping her head.
The drums were loud when Jeyan turned toward his bride and tied the ceremonial thali around her neck. I saw him start when he noticed his bride’s tears. Confused, he turned to seek out Mother’s eyes, but she nodded as a sign for him to carry on. Reassured that a bride’s tears was another mystery that he was not privy to, he turned back and finished tying the all-important chain that would bind them as man and wife forever. The ceremony was over.
At the reception Mother couldn’t eat or drink anything. The sight of food made her feel sick. We left for Kuantan immediately. The journey was silent. Mother was morose and unhappy. Why was the bride crying? Why had the little boy come from nowhere to kick to smithereens the very things that symbolize a happy marriage?
The next day the newly married couple arrived at our home. There were to stay with us until they could afford to buy a house of their own. Mother had offered to contribute some money toward their new home. From the window I saw Jeyan’s new wife alight gracefully from the car. She looked tranquil and composed. The tears were gone. Mother went out of the house to welcome the new bride with a tray of yellow sandalwood paste, kum kum, holy ash, and a small pile of burning camphor. Ratha fell at Mother’s feet, as the custom required. When she rose from the ground, I saw for the first time my sister-in-law’s eyes. They were blind with sorrow even as her mouth smiled politely and accepted Mother’s blessings. No sooner had she been shown to her room than she was out once more.
She looked for detergent and began to clean.
She cleaned the kitchen, washed the bathroom, wiped down the kitchen shelves, dusted and mopped the living room, rearranged the contents of the spice cupboard, swept the backyard, and cleared the weeds growing around the house. And when she was finished, she began all over again. The moment she was free, she volunteered to wash the clothes, clean the drains, or do the cooking.
Her beautifully tragic face smiled away help. “Oh, no, no.” She could manage. Not to worry, she liked cleaning. She was used to hard work. She spoke only when spoken to. In her cleaning rounds she found a dirty old basket under the house. Once my doll had lived in that old basket. Triumphantly, silently, she cleaned it and stood in the living room with it tucked into the crook of her elbow. “I can do the marketing,” she offered hopefully.
“There’s money inside the porcelain elephant in the showcase. Take fifty ringgit with you,” Mother called from the bedroom. Mother liked her, you see. She was pleased with her new daughter-in-law. Unlike Rani, Mother liked Ratha from the moment she met her.
Ratha took the money, did the marketing and returned with the exact change. Mother was pleased. “See? I was right to trust her.”
In the kitchen Ratha set about turning the market produce into exotic meals. She was like an alchemist. She took some meat, spices, and vegetables and turned them into sumptuous meals that clouded your senses and drugged you into asking shamelessly, “Is there any more?” Her genius was undeniable. She prepared jars of ginger marmalade and tomato chutney that followed you into tomorrow and next week. Unflinchingly she beheaded adorable wood pigeons and unsuspecting wild fowl, marinating the dark meat in papaya skins to tenderize them. They melted in the mouth like butter.
When we sat down, it was to little steamed Chinese dumplings filled with sweet pork or river fish stuffed with lime, cardamom, and cumin seeds. She thought to scent rice with kewra essence before steaming it inside the whitened hollow of a bamboo stem, and to cook snake gourd with tamarind and star anise so it tasted like caramelized sugar. She knew how to bake chicken inside green coconuts and all about the secret taste of spicy banana flowers cooked with pomelo rind. For hours she gently boiled bamboo shoots until all the fine hairs fell off, and she was left with the most delicious accompaniment to her glorious purple eggplant mash. She smoked mushrooms, sautéed orchids, and served creamed, spicy durian paste with salt fish.
The marvel of the woman. She was too good to be true. How did she do it all?
How lucky Jeyan was!
Mother was beside herself with pride that such a daughter-in-law should enter her home. “Watch her and learn,” she whispered harshly to me, looking critically at my uncombed hair. “If only Lakshmnan could have acquired a wife such as this, he could have made something of himself,” she sighed wistfully.
At five o’clock every evening Ratha appeared, bearing a platter filled with Rajastani cakes made with ground almonds, honey, and butter, or succulent milk balls in rose syrup, and sometimes the most delicious deep violet cookies, or, my favorite, sweet and spicy sprig-like cakes made from nuts.
“Where did you learn all this?” Mother asked, truly impressed.
“A dear neighbor,” she said. As a child she had befriended an old woman who was the great-granddaughter of one of the sixteen celebrated cooks in the court kitchens of Emperor Dara Shukoh, Shah Jehan’s eldest son. Emperor Dara Shukoh was a man proud of his sumptuous style, and only the most luxurious and refined could be sent from his kitchens for his approval. From torn pages and loose sheets, relics of the once great Mughal Empire, the old woman taught Ratha the secrets of Mughal cooking.
Ratha once fashioned a pomegranate for Mother made entirely from sugar, almonds, and fruit juice and glazed with syrup. Mother broke it open, and it was all there—the kernels, the seeds, and the tissues between the seeds. It looked so real that I saw profound admiration and respect creep into Mother’s eyes for the skill of the girl. For me she replicated a loaf of sweet bread with roasted almonds on the top. It was too beautiful to eat, so I put it into the showcase. For Anna she made a mynah bird. So clever and so pretty. Of course it was too beautiful to eat.
“Come and sit beside me,” Mother invited once more.
“Just this one last thing,” Ratha replied, going to scrub under the box where the coal was kept. No one had cleaned that spot for the last twenty years.
When finally there was truly nothing left to do, although I think she would have liked to clean the stove again, Mother said, “Leave it. Have a little rest beside me.”
So she came reluctantly and sat, pulling her simple housecoat down low so that it almost covered her ankles. She kept her eyes downcast. Mother smiled encouragingly at her favorite daughter-in-law. Inside Mother’s brain was the question, “Why were you crying?” but from her lips came questions about Ratha’s past. The girl answered dutifully, carefully. You couldn’t accuse her of being cunning or obtuse, for she answered everything honestly without hesitation, yet you were left with the vague impression that you were being meddlesome. From the slightly questioning look in her eyes, you felt her demand again and again, “And what business is it of yours?”
It was easy to see Mother’s dissatisfaction, discomfort. She looked at Ratha and saw the picture of a pretty, neat, clean, smiling girl, yet between her and the pretty picture was a remarkably polite but invisible barrier. There was something very wrong, and Mother was determined to find out what it was. She never did. Ratha had strange toilet habits about her. She disappeared into the bathroom with a wooden-handled brush with steel bristles and came out pink and glowing. Yes, she said, surprised that we were surprised, she exfoliated her skin with it.
Jeyan skulked about, watching her covertly, as if she belonged to someone else. He slipped out of their shared room like a thief. His eyes caressed her, moved over her, rested on her, and stroked her. All his carnal intentions stood tapping their feet impatiently. Sometimes you saw him try to catch her eyes, and you had to quickly avert yours in sheer embarrassment for the
pleading in his. My brother was intoxicated with his new bride. Then on the fifteenth day came an invitation from Rani. The newly married couple were invited to dinner.
“See you soon,” they said to Mother on their way out.
“Return home safely, my children,” she bade.
Later that night Jeyan returned home alone.
“Where is your wife?” Mother queried anxiously.
“She’s still at Rani’s. In fact, Rani has invited us both to stay at her house for a while, and she has sent me home to fetch Ratha’s things.”
“Where will you both sleep?” Mother asked in a tone of bafflement, considering Lakshmnan and Rani’s one-bedroom house and the surprising turn of events.
“In the living room on the floor, I suppose,” Jeyan said shrugging, impatient to take his wife’s belongings and be gone.
“I see,” Mother said slowly. “All right, take her things.”
Jeyan hurried into the spotless room he had shared with his wife for fifteen days. He threw all her belongings into a pathetically small bag and carried the bag onto the veranda, where Mother sat silently. There he stood uncomfortably until she said, “Well, go on, then.”
He threw me a hasty look full of relief and shot down the stairs, the small bag banging against his thin legs. Mother sat on the veranda, watching him leave with the strangest expression on her face. Even after he had turned into the main road and could no longer be seen, she sat staring hard at the horizon.
Ratha’s wooden-backed brush with its hard steel bristles sat on the ledge outside the bathroom. In his haste, Jeyan had missed it. I picked it up and ran the sharp bristles over my skin, recoiling with shock at how sharp and harsh they actually were on my bare skin, amazed that someone could use such an object on their own body. Why, it could have been an instrument of torture.
Once I saw her in the market, a basket tucked into the crook of her elbow. Slender green beans and a bushy reddish brown squirrel’s tail leaned gently out of her basket. She was standing by the man who sold coconut water looking forlornly at the poor monkeys in their cages. She looked so tragic, I squeezed back and let the tall stacks of gunnysacks full of rice at the side of a stall hide me. She was truly an intriguing creature. So full of sad secrets. All of a sudden she turned her head as if conscious of my scrutiny. Maybe she saw the shadow of me, but she pretended she hadn’t. I saw her hurry away from the monkeys, who screamed and threw themselves angrily at the wire cage. I imagined her, lips slightly pursed, cleaning Rani’s house from top to bottom and then starting all over again while Rani sat with her imaginary swollen feet resting on a stool. Perhaps too she would replicate in sugar an eggplant or a bunch of okra for her new hostess.