Mem-saab bows her elegant head and smiles. His lease has been till the end of each month for four years now.
“I have been told I will be posted back to Washington after that.” He takes a sip, puts down the cup.
Mem-saab smiles again. “How nice.”
She has not understood. “Posted back to abroad?” asks Damini.
He looks at her then. “Yes. Tell her I will be posted back to Washington—say, to America—after this month.”
Damini mouths his words to Mem-saab. Mem-saab smiles again, her expression tinged with dread. “I see,” she says.
He accepts a piece of sponge cake but declines the crisp tubes of jalebis oozing their red-gold sugar water.
Now who will stop Aman—or Timcu, if he arrives—from putting their belongings or padlocks downstairs? The judge said everything must remain the same, but change cannot be decreed away. Four years ago, Mem-saab could ask her English-speaking sons to place an advertisement in The Pioneer saying “foreign embassy people desired” so she didn’t have to lease to an Indian tenant. Indians can rarely afford to pay the rents embassy people pay and it can take a generation in court to evict them if they refuse to leave. But now … ?
Newspaper saabs won’t listen to this old amma. How can I ask them to write in their English paper that Mem-saab doesn’t want an Indian for a tenant?
ANU
MONSOON RAIN MUTES THE CLAMOUR OF STUDENTS ON their midday break in the quadrangle as Anu climbs the stairs to Sister Imaculata’s office on the second storey of St. Anne’s Convent. Sister was welcoming on the phone, but Anu’s mouth is dust-dry; she can’t even murmur namaste.
What if Sister says she’s not serious or faithful enough? That she should find an agency—governmental or non-governmental—to take her, or go home. Anu has no home.
“Anupam, dear girl.” Sister Imaculata takes Anu’s hands in greeting. Her pale skin is almost translucent over her angular features. Those blue-green eyes twinkling from beneath sand-blond brows, are as kind as Anu remembers, her gaze as direct as a sunbeam. The puff of hair between her square forehead and her veil is grey, now. She exudes poise and dignity. No one would ever hurt, hit or rape a woman like her.
A prickly flush suffuses Anu’s neck and face. Will Sister Imaculata see any use for her?
Imaculata looks lit from within. “The good Lord has shown you the way here,” she says.
After she spoke to Vikas from Adventure Travels, Anu spent two nights in a guesthouse near the airport, checking in with her aunt every few hours. Then she called Mr. Gurinder Singh to say she was resigning. He said, “I hope you will return after your baby is born.”
“Sir, I’m not expecting,” she said. “I just have to leave work.”
Mr. Gurinder Singh’s voice dropped to a whisper, “Your husband is not allowing you to work, na? Please send a relative to do your job.” He seemed to believe data entry skills were genetic.
Anu didn’t have time to correct him. “If my husband calls,” she said, “please say you do not know how to reach me.”
“I will. Call me if there is anything I can do.”
Now she’s here in the same office where she first met Sister Imaculata. In the sixth standard, condemned by another nun to writing ‘I will not read poetry in Geography class’ one thousand times, Anu had, in a tiny act of rebellion, omitted the not on the 554th line. Which brought her before Imaculata, who could not hide her amusement and simply told her to memorize Yeats’s “The Second Coming” as her punishment. And who listened, enchanted with nostalgia as Anu ploughed through the poem, accenting all the wrong syllables.
“What have you done to your face, my girl?” Imaculata’s white skirt and stockings swish as she crosses over to a rattan-back chair before a coffee table. She turns her back to the walnut desk that takes up half the room and angles her chair beside Anu’s. “Was it an acid-attack?”
“No, Sister—a car accident.” Anu touches the leaf-shaped scar that sits across her right cheek. “What’s an acid-attack?”
“Our sisters in Bangladesh and Pakistan say they’ve been treating women burned and blinded by sulphuric acid flung in their faces. Mercy me, but it’s a cowardly way to take revenge on women who refuse or challenge men. It hasn’t happened in India—that we know of—but they say it will.”
She leans over and slides her fingertips down Anu’s face from temple to jaw.
“When did this happen?”
Anu’s cheek tingles—she pulls back instinctively, then submits to the caring gesture. “Two years ago.”
“Plastic surgery can do wonders these days. I’m surprised it still shows.”
“I think this is the best that can be done right now in India, Sister.”
Following Anu’s accident, Deepak Lal sold half the parcel of land on which he planned to build his dream home, to pay for Anu’s surgery. Vikas, the modern Mughal, took full advantage of the old custom of accepting periodic “gifts” from a wife’s family. Once Dadu’s money ran out, and Indian surgeons were unable to go beyond the standard facelifts his mother required, Vikas didn’t offer to take Anu abroad. Anu knew better than to ask. Feeling has never completely returned to her cheek, and her face is still slightly asymmetrical.
A nun with Goan features pushes open the door with the edge of a tray. Imaculata greets and thanks her as if receiving a favour from a friend. She introduces her, but the nun’s name sails through Anu’s agitated mind as if it were foreign. A flowered china teapot, cups and saucers, a milk jug, a sugar pot and a tray of Marie biscuits array themselves before her.
When the nun departs, Imaculata says, “The good Lord must have saved you for a reason.”
“Yes, Sister.” Anu lapses into schoolgirl response. She is calm. Really.
“I was so surprised to hear from you. And that—”
“That I want to be a nun?” Saying her wish out loud may create the possibility.
“Well, yes. I didn’t know you’d been baptized. But praise be,” the sister says, crossing herself. “Lord knows how many times I wondered how your life was going, how often I prayed for your soul. We did discuss your becoming a Christian before you graduated from school, and as I recall you said you were not ready, then.”
“Yes, Sister.” Not ready, not yet, not now—diplomatic refusals, copied from her father’s bureaucratese. How she used to try to please.
Sister pours. “Sugar: one or two?”
“Two, please.”
Sister adds sugar and milk. “Father Pashan seems to have opened your heart to the Lord. You met him at Holy Family Hospital?”
Anu accepts a teacup and saucer. “When I was recuperating. And then at the Vatican Embassy.”
“Lovely man, Father Pashan. His heart is exactly in the right place, you know. He’s been assigned to the hills, I hear. Setting up medical camps, clinics, and dispensaries for the poor. Quite a change from the Vatican Embassy …” She offers the biscuits, Anu takes one. “And does your family accept your conversion? Sometimes there are problems …”
“Yes, my father was present.” At her hospital bedside, making his bargain with the priest.
Sister Imaculata raises her teacup, toasting Anu. “And how long have you known.”
“Known?”
“Known you have a calling.”
“Since my accident,” Anu says. “Father Pashan said I’d been saved for a higher purpose, and I began to wonder what that might be …”
Imaculata puts her cup down, and joins her fingertips as if holding a sphere. The ring on the fourth finger of her left hand catches the glow from the window. “And?”
“I heard the call, Sister.”
Oh to enter the convent and disappear—sweet revenge. Give me distance, give me separateness. Give me a second virginity and I will make of it my fortress. Subtract the whole burden of desire and creation. Become unreachable, unknowable. No longer be anyone’s wife. Liberate herself from this woman’s body. Shed this bruised and broken skin. Hide her face. Hide so no one wi
ll know what a failure you are. Yes, that too. Especially as a mother.
“What form did your call take?”
The gap between experience and explanation yawns. “A yearning, Sister. And then I met Father Pashan again.”
“God seldom summons twice.”
“Yes, Sister.” Anu nibbles her dry biscuit.
“Why do you not seek out an indigenous order? Why an international order?”
“Familiarity with this congregation. Your example inspires me, Sister.” The four Irish nuns who founded the Order of Everlasting Hope a hundred and fifty years ago also inspire Anu. She should remember their names, but today she just can’t.
“I would rather the Lord inspired you. But faith, it seems to me, strengthens as we do god’s work. We’re apostolic—that appeals to you?”
Anu gives Sister Imaculata a questioning look.
“Meaning we live a life of service, not contemplation and prayer.”
“That is what attracts me most.”
“Did you consider working in Calcutta? Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity are very fashionable at present.”
“I did, sister. But simplicity in Mother Teresa’s order doesn’t mean doing without luxuries. It means often doing without food, clothing and even shelter. I can’t imagine owning only one sari. Or carrying all my possessions in a bucket.”
“Can’t live as the real poor do—yes. And I hardly think Indians need to be reminded to be fruitful and multiply, despite decades of Indian government family planning urging smaller families. We haven’t followed Mother Teresa in that, because the Earth must also be considered. But like her and the Holy Father, we hold life holy and condemn contraception and abortion.”
“Yes, Sister.” If she joins the Order, Anu won’t need contraception again, and certainly not abortion.
“Mother Teresa’s nuns don’t receive much in the way of old age pensions. Our nuns do—something to consider.” Imaculata takes a sip, returns her cup carefully to the groove of its saucer.
“I hadn’t, but I’m glad to know it.”
“So am I, these days. I mention it because my Provincial tells me I should groom a successor. Young women these days don’t seem to have leadership qualities. Oh—and another thing—you’re not a harijan, are you?”
Surprise silences Anu. Sister Imaculata has used the old term coined by Mahatma Gandhi for the lower castes. Anu would have expected her to use the term dalit, or oppressed—the term preferred by dalits—but Sister Imaculata is Irish and may not understand the distinction.
“It doesn’t matter to me, of course,” says the nun, “but it does matter to others sometimes, so I need to know.”
“I—I’m a kshatriya.”
“I thought so. Then let me stress that if you’re looking for a life of ease, this is not it. You will be required to clean your own toilet, wash your own clothes, make your own bed, cook when it’s your turn. Nuns do not have servants.”
“Yes, Sister.” Over the rim of her teacup, she searches Imaculata’s face for a clue to this detour.
“And as I tell women from lower castes, if you’re looking for someone to tell you what to do and how to do every little thing, this is not a place for you.”
“Yes, Sister.”
Sister Imaculata cannot know she’s describing paradise. It will be like joining an ashram or a hippie commune from the sixties. Without men. Except Lord Jesus.
Imaculata reaches for a biscuit, munches slowly. “We’re in a time of flux, you know—or more so than usual. I’ve spent fifteen years at this school, and now Mother General has given me a new role.” She gives an elaborate sigh. “Teaching young novices.”
“Congratulations, Sister.”
“Yes. Well—I’m leaving Delhi soon to become Provincial at our Shimla convent. Unfortunately, there are few novices and postulants to teach, these days. Four last year, only one postulant this year. You will be the second.” She picks her cup and saucer off the table and balances both on her knee.
“So I’d be living in Shimla.” Bobby’s accident was in Shimla. Bobby lay in a coma for a week in Shimla’s Snowdon Hospital. Anu’s hands go cold.
Imaculata nods. “To begin with. Then let’s see where the Lord’s work takes you.”
Obedience, obedience. You can’t refuse your first assignment!
She has already scaled the mountain of her marriage. God is giving her another to climb. And if he’s doing this, he’ll also show her the path.
“It’s almost impossible, now,” Imaculata is saying, “to find young Irish women with the commitment to serve god. Frankly, I’d like to find more young Indian women—they can stand the heat better—but most don’t have that fire in the belly we had.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“Always the distraction of family.”
“Oh, I have no family distractions,” says Anu.
“Anupam, in a country of nine hundred and fifty million people, everyone has family, and extended family and relationships and obligations—you don’t even have to be Catholic. I’ve been serving god in this country for nigh on thirty years and I am not stupid.”
“No, Sister. Of course, not.” Anu winds a corner of her dupatta around her finger, takes a deep breath, “But you may remember that my younger brother Bobby, my only brother, had an … acc-accident … while I was still in school.” She still has trouble saying it.
“Oh dear me, yes. I remember now.” Imaculata’s pale hand brushes Anu’s shoulder. “We said a special prayer for him at Assembly. And what of the rest of your family? Your father—wasn’t he posted in different towns?”
“Yes. Dadu kept pulling strings for the poor but wouldn’t pull strings for politicians, so he kept getting transferred.”
“Your dear mother would write to me every time she moved, to explain why you would be remaining in Delhi.”
“They had one posting of three years in New Delhi, and my mother is still hoping my father will someday be transferred here again.”
“Remind me—who did you live with here?”
“My Sharad Uncle and my Purnima-aunty.”
“Yes, I remember your cousin-sister, Rano Talwar—bright. Volleyball player. Not as studious. Your senior by a year?”
“Two, Sister.”
“Lovely girl. Last time she came to India she visited and told me how she met her husband. You know they used to meet every morning at the school bus stop?”
“Yes—we all rode together. He attended St. Anne’s School for Boys. I never spoke to him.”
“No, you weren’t as mischievous. Rano said they used to pass notes back and forth in the bus. And then his family emigrated to Canada but he kept writing to her saying, ‘Wait for me.’ And when his father asked him if he had any preferences, he told him only one girl would do and so his father sent Rano’s parents their offer—so romantic!”
Sister Imaculata is stirred by romance? Well, why not?
“Did Rano convert to Sikhism?” says Sister Imaculata.
“She added the ten Sikh gurus and their holy book to the Hindu pantheon,” says Anu. “Now she’s a Hindu-Sikh.” Just as Anu is a Hindu-Christian, but Sister Imaculata may not understand that.
“You’re almost thirty now—you must have been married,” the nun says. “If not, you must be one of the very few single women your age left in India. Excepting widows and abandoned wives, I mean.”
“I was married. But Father Pashan says canon law doesn’t recognize my marriage to a non-Christian.”
“Hmmm. He means a marriage between a Christian and a Hindu. Most marriages in India are between non-Christians, and the Church doesn’t consider those invalid. When you married, you were both Hindus, surely.”
“Yes, Sister. But …” Anu dips into her purse for her special dispensation order.
Imaculata holds her reading glasses halfway between her eyes and the dispensation, lowers them and looks at Anu. “And are you legally divorced?”
“Yes,” says Anu, and is
instantly struck with guilt. She is mentally divorced, but not legally divorced. She may not be technically divorced for years. But there’s no going back without changing Sister Imaculata’s impression of her.
“Find a safe place to stay,” Mrs. Nadkarni said, “and not with your family.”
The divorce action will continue for years. Anu’s savings account at the bank where Sharad Uncle works, now a substantial amount thanks to the power of compound interest, will be used to pay Mrs. Nadkarni to appear at court hearings on her behalf.
“Children?” Imaculata is asking.
“One. My daughter, Chetna.” Soft cheeks, those bow-lips just like Vikas’s. The little girl fills Anu’s vision. Her laugh, her high-pitched voice runs through Anu’s head and recedes, leaving her hollow with loss.
“And where is she?” Imaculata looks around as if the child might be hiding somewhere.
“Canada—Toronto. Rano has adopted her. You see, Rano—well, she can’t have her own.”
“Ah. I remember now. She asked me to pray she would have a child.”
“Yes—Rano always wanted children. And it seems best for my daughter.”
Does she sound uncaring? Will the child’s very existence disqualify Anu from entering the convent?
Imaculata drops her gaze and closes her eyes. The pause in conversation grows from semibreve to breve. Anu begins praying too, to Lord Jesus and all the gods. Because what can Anu do if Imaculata refuses to take her in?
Imaculata opens her eyes. Anxiety ripples through Anu.
“God answers prayers in ways we least expect,” says Imaculata. “Rano will be good for the child. I always liked her. Perhaps your daughter will be good for her as well. I like that children belong to all relations here, not only their parents. We were twelve, and my dear departed mother could have used a bit of co-mothering.”
She puts on her glasses, writes on a notepad, then looks up. “Father Pashan has also requested a dispensation from the Bishop of Delhi for the virginity issue related to your candidacy. These days, I’m sure that won’t be a problem—some of our most dedicated nuns enter our order after raising families. It’s rare in India, though.” She clears her throat and gazes at a spot above Anu’s head.