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Mima, on the other hand, saw no difference. She hugged and spanked us both at the same time. Mima’s policy was if one child was naughty, the other one got spanked, as well. It was a preemptive measure, a disciplinary vaccination, to ensure the misdeed did not reoccur in any shape or form. The same applied to hugs: always a double shot.
Mima’s child rearing defied all logic, but she had no patience for logic. “Everybody mind your ways, otherwise there will be trouble for all,” she would hiss fiercely, her eyes narrowed. Even my uncle Robi was terrified. He sat tucked into the sofa like a tiny brown cushion and looked at us sadly through his fat, foggy glasses. He was sympathetic, but of no help.
I fitted easily into Mima’s boisterous household and all its bosomy comfort. My tragic childhood was all but forgotten. Bits of my past emerged at times, pieced together by gossip and a significant amount of embellishment thrown in by Moon. She was fed stories by their garrulous housemaid, Rekha, a wisp of a girl with gap teeth splayed out like the fingers of a hand, through which the gossip of the entire neighborhood flowed.
“Your mother was a madwoman and you are a Banana Bride,” Moon declared. We were both around six years old and playing in the backyard. “I wish I could marry a banana tree,” she added wistfully, and then with complete irrelevance, “but I have a doll that vomits and you don’t.”
I did not care about being a Banana Bride, but I badly wanted a vomiting doll.
“You can marry a banana tree anytime,” I said. “Why don’t you?”
Moon sniffed with scorn. “Don’t talk like a donkey. Azzifff you can marry whomever you like. Your parents have to propose for you.”
“Then ask your mother to propose for you.” Nobody would dare turn down Mima’s proposal, least of all a banana tree.
“I told her I wanted to marry a banana tree and she got very angry. She wanted to know who had told me things about you. I said, ‘Rekha told me everything.’ Then Ma went into the kitchen and screamed, ‘If I ever hear you talking to the children about any of this, I will throw you out like a dirty rat and you can go back to your village.’ Rekha was crying and begging. Then Ma turned and yelled at me, ‘I will throw you out, too, like a dirty rat, if you tell Layla anything.’” Moon looked at me ruefully, absentmindedly pulling on a corkscrew curl. “I am not supposed to talk to you, about the banana wedding, your crazy mother, or anything.”
Moon was so enthralled with my tragic childhood that our favorite pastime became to enact the macabre little drama in all its gory details. Our favorite character was my mother. We took turns playing her, tearing out our hair and sneezing our brains into a handkerchief. Nobody wanted to play Baby Layla the Banana Bride, because all she did was sit under the tree and cry. Instead we dressed up Moon’s vomiting doll in a red dishcloth and stuck her under the banana tree while we concentrated on elaborate wedding rituals, throwing rice and pretending to make conch sounds by blowing on a rock. The doll was then made to switch roles and become my mother. We sneaked out the plastic bucket from the bathroom and floated the doll facedown in the water. Moon and I became the professional mourners, throwing ourselves on the ground, beating our chests and wailing.
Then one day we got caught like two stricken cockroaches under a flashlight. Mima came looking for the bucket and found us wailing and saw the doll floating in the water. She knew exactly what was going on and gave us both the spankings of our lives. She said she would throw us both out of the house like dirty rats if she caught us playing the game again.
Many years later, I realized that all that role-playing must have been cathartic at some level, because my real-life tragedy had become woven through with imagination, a colorful fable to be accepted, elaborated upon and embraced, until—to the wonderment of it all—I could let my past go and fly free.
* * *
Moon and I spent our holidays in Dadamoshai’s house. Every summer, Mima’s family packed up and took the ferryboat across the Padma River from Sylhet to Silchar. Here we stayed for two lazy, sun-dappled months in paradise.
We loved Dadamoshai’s huge, dilapidated house with its creaky, lopsided gate leading into a big, rambling garden with its birdbath, sundial and sleepy snails that waved their feelers up and down the garden wall. It was a peaceful time. Mima became cuddly and warm and threw discipline to the winds. She got foot massages and snoozed on the veranda. Moon and I climbed the mango tree, demolished anthills, mothered baby crows and challenged Dadamoshai’s brain with obtuse and difficult questions.
One year, two crow chicks fell out of the nest in the mango tree. Moon and I adopted one each. Two days later, Moon woke up to find her chick dead. She burst into tears, shoved me hard against the wall and ran howling through the house, looking for Dadamoshai. She found him writing peacefully at his desk on the veranda.
Dadamoshai was the appointed mediator of squabbles. Unlike Mima, who would have either smacked or hugged us, depending on her mood, Dadamoshai listened to both sides and was always judicious.
In between angry sobs, Moon told him that her baby crow had died because of my bad luck.
Dadamoshai pushed up the glasses on his forehead and rubbed his eyes wearily.
“What is bad luck?” he asked innocently.
“When somebody dies because of somebody else.”
“Explain to me, please. I am too old to understand,” said Dadamoshai, looking round-eyed and befuddled. I was incredulous. Did he not know what bad luck was? Why, he sounded like a numskull.
Moon puffed with importance. She stood stoutly with her hands on her waist, looking like a mini Mima herself. “See, Layla is bad luck—everybody knows that, right?”
“Really?” Dadamoshai looked astounded, as if she had just told him the chicken had laid a square egg.
“Yes, yes.” Moon shook her curls. She was getting tired of our grandfather’s feeblemindedness. “Layla is very bad luck. Maximum bad luck,” she added for emphasis. Moon’s new favorite word was maximum. “Her father died because of her, her mother died because of her—let me see...who else? Oh, and now the baby crow died because of her. So see?”
“Whose baby crow died because of whom?” Dadamoshai asked.
“Mine, because of her.”
“But if she was the bad luck, would not her baby crow die instead of yours?”
Moon looked confused.
“Am I bad luck?” Dadamoshai asked her, looking timid and fearful, as though something was going to bite him.
“Ufff-ho! No, no, why should you be bad luck?” Moon retorted irritably. “Her! Her! She!” She pointed an accusing finger as I cowered behind Dadamoshai’s chair, feeling like a lowly insect. But Dadamoshai did not turn around to look at me.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Dadamoshai lamented sadly, shaking his head, “I think I am very bad luck, too. My wife died, you know, very young, and my daughter. My father died, too, and my mother died...a cat, also, some chickens, and so many cockroaches I can’t even count. But sometimes my clogs have a mind of their own and do very bad things.”
“Oh-ho, Dadamoshai! You are confusing anything with everything! Making a big kheechoori. Don’t worry—you are not bad luck. Layla is different.”
“How? I don’t understand.”
Moon sighed noisily. “Dadamoshai, you are too old. You don’t understand anything anymore,” she said and stuck out her lower lip, glowering at the floor.
“Okay, come here, you two,” Dadamoshai said, suddenly very alert and businesslike. He capped his pen with a smart click and closed his journal. He motioned us over to the sofa and scooped the sleeping cat off with the newspaper. “Sit down. I want to show you something.” He was tossing around a heavy glass paperweight in his hand. It had blue swirls and glass bubbles suspended inside. “See this paperweight?” he said. He held it up to the light with his thumb and forefinger. We could see the palm trees and sky through it. He positioned his hand above the coffee table and looked as if he was about to drop the paperweight on the glass.
“If I drop this and break the glass, is it good luck or bad luck?”
“Bad luck,” we said in unison.
“If I drop the paperweight, but catch it with the other hand before it breaks the glass, is it good luck or bad luck?” While he waited for our answer, Dadamoshai dropped the glass ball, which he caught expertly with his other hand, an inch before it hit the table. We gasped.
“Good luck or bad luck?” he repeated, looking at us both. His eyes were bright like a chipmunk as he tossed the orb around in his hand.
Moon and I looked at each other. “Good luck,” we agreed. “Because nothing got broke, thank God,” Moon added, crossing her heart. I followed suit. That was the new thing we had both learned watching a nun at the Sacred Heart Convent, where Dadamoshai had taken us for a charity sale. Crossing our hearts was high on our list of priorities. We crossed our hearts several times a day. Sometimes Moon substituted it for “touch wood” or “bless you” when a person sneezed, or “don’t mention it” when someone said “thank you.” She was a prolific heart-crosser.
“So tell me, who is making the luck happen?”
It was a trick question.
“You?” I ventured.
“Are you sure?” Dadamoshai pinned me with his magistrate’s eye, sharp as a pickax.
Moon skipped gingerly from one bare foot to another. “Maybe yes, maybe no,” she said ambiguously.
“Layla is right,” Dadamoshai said. “I am in control here. I am making luck happen. Now listen carefully, you two. All of us can create our own luck, good and bad. We cannot make luck happen for anyone else, understand? This simple truth of life is called Karma. Now I want both of you to go and think seriously about what I just said.”
We both walked off feeling slightly muddled.
The very next day, as if to prove Dadamoshai’s luck theory right, my baby crow died, as well. By then we were too confused about luck to know who or what to blame.
* * *
Later that night, Moon was asleep and I was tiptoeing to the bathroom when I heard the adults talking on the veranda. Both Mima and Dadamoshai were smoking cigars and enjoying a brandy, while Uncle Robi voiced his displeasure with tiny coughs of disapproval.
“She will get a hiding for this,” Mima said. “I have warned Moon. I can’t believe she said Layla is bad luck.”
“Don’t blame your daughter, Mitra,” Dadamoshai said. “Small towns do not let people forget their pasts. In Sylhet, Layla will always be the madwoman’s daughter, the bad-luck child. She will hear it until, sadly, she starts believing it herself. How will she survive? That girl will grow up to be a beauty. Have you noticed how people stare at her? Do you think you can prevent men from taking advantage of her? They will only mislead her, abuse her trust and marry someone else. I know the double standards of men in our society only too well, Mitra. I cannot bear to see anything bad happen to Layla...that child has been through too much already.”
A chair creaked as someone shifted their weight. My uncle coughed. He usually had nothing to add to conversations.
“Dada, what you say is true,” said Mima softly. “It makes me sad, really.” I heard her blow her nose. “I try my best to protect Layla, but I may not be doing enough. I don’t know what else to do.”
“I have been thinking about it,” Dadamoshai said slowly. “Layla is better off here in Silchar than in Sylhet. No one knows of her past here. People will talk and eventually find out. But I have clout in this town, and nobody will dare take liberties with her. She is safe with me. At the very least, I can make sure Layla gets a good education and learns to stand on her own feet.”
Mima laughed. “If anybody can give that child a future, it’s you, Dada. But how will you manage? A young girl needs a mother....”
“I have Chaya. She is a good-hearted, nurturing woman, and she will take care of Layla’s needs,” said Dadamoshai. “And I will be counting on you, Mitra. You have been a wonderful mother to Layla.”
Then, to my surprise, my uncle piped up. He was always so quiet that it was strange to hear his voice. “It will be for the best, Mitra,” he said, in his thin, raspy voice. “But I will miss Layla. She is like our own daughter.”
Mima sniffed. “I can’t imagine our family without her. And what about Moon? Those two fight like crickets, but they are good for each other.” Her voice broke.
“Think about it, Mitra,” Dadamoshai said softly. “Moon will marry someday and leave home, and what will become of Layla then?”
“Moon? Marry?” Mima gave a funny broken laugh. “I have no high hopes, Dada. As long as that child stands on her own feet and bulldozes her way through life, I am happy.”
“I want to take over Layla’s care—as soon as possible,” said Dadamoshai. “These are impressionable years. It will only get harder as she gets older.”
“But she is only seven years old, Dada!” Mima cried. “What am I going to tell Moon? She will be hysterical!”
“Tell her the truth.”
“I can’t do it, Dada.”
“Well, then,” said Dadamoshai, “I will tell her. There will be tantrums, no doubt.”
I could hardly contain my excitement. I crept back to the bedroom. The dim light from the veranda fell over Moon as she lay sleeping. She was sprawled sideways across the bed, her limbs akimbo, round fists balled up as if for a fight. I pushed her to one side to make room for myself and whispered into her ear, “Move over, sister. This is going to be my house and my bed from now on. The next time you visit, you will be my guest.”
She flailed her hands and swatted at me. I was suddenly overcome with love. I wrapped my arms and legs around her and kissed her cheek. For the first time, I realized how very much I loved Moon, and how terribly I would miss her once we were no longer together.
CHAPTER 7
Shortly after Manik left for Calcutta, the monsoon broke with a fury. It poured like the bottom had fallen from the sky. Rain splattered in buckets from rooftops, turning into turbulent streams that raked up mud and debris and furrowed down past our house. The river overflowed its banks. Small koi fish jumped in the paddy fields and ragged children vied with one another to catch them in broken bamboo baskets. The sky was a deep asphalt-gray. Clouds darkened after a pause, only to gather forces for another deluge. Occasionally a rainbow throbbed in the sky, and sometimes the evening ended with a poignant, cloud-filled sunset.
Dadamoshai’s desk on the veranda was covered up with tarp, his papers moved inside. The blue elephant cushions on the chairs were wet and smelled of mold. Disheveled sparrows perched, puffed and glum, on the jasmine trellis, lulled by the downpour. Almost overnight, moss inched up the garden wall, and brilliant orange fungi sprouted in cracks. A chorus of cacophonous frogs ribetted through the evening.
When the rains paused, the air was so dense it was hard to breathe. Gone were the sparkling fireflies. Mosquitoes came out in angry droves. They attacked like suicide bombers, whining into ears, biting arms and legs, between toes and in the most unscratchable places.
I stayed home, nursing a monstrous cold, drinking ginger tea and staring at the calendar, watching the days tick by. Only five and a half months remained before Manik’s wedding day.
After four days, the postman finally resumed his rounds. I saw him lean his bicycle on the front gate and walk up the garden path, sifting through the letters. There was a small package for me.
It was professionally wrapped in brown paper, tied neatly with white string and fastened with red lacquer seals. There was a return label that read The Oxford Book Suppliers Ltd. and a Calcutta address. I opened it quickly to find a slim volume of Tagore’s poems, Gitanjali. It was a beautiful handmade book, bound in red silk with a gold-patterned border. It reminded me of a wedding sari. I flipped it open to a page that held a bookmark. The bookmark was cream-colored, die-cut of nubbly handmade paper with a block-printed gold paisley motif. The name and address of the bookstore was printed below it. I read the poem on the marked page, my heart beating wildly.
Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust.
I may not find a place in thy garland, but honor it with a touch of pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am aware, and the time of offering go by.
Inside the cover of the book, Manik had inscribed For you in an elegant scrawl that ran right across the page. It was signed with an M. Mysteriously obtuse, no names mentioned anywhere. Inside was a folded note.
Dear Layla,
I came across this book of Tagore’s poems and thought of you. Please accept this small gift as a remembrance of our talks together.
Manik
I could envision him scrawling across the page, the nib of his fountain pen catching slightly on the rough fibers of the handmade paper. Was it a coincidence that the bookmark had been on that particular page? Of course not! I chided myself. He was just a friend, nothing more. Yet what if...? Tiny tendrils of hope pushed through my brain.
That night I slept with the book and Manik’s handkerchief under my pillow. I had the strangest dream. Manik Deb was standing in a lily pond among the reeds and shaking out the pages of the silk-covered book. Hundreds of fireflies fell out into the water. They spun around in dizzy circles, sizzling like cumin seeds in hot oil before their lights extinguished one by one. At the far end of the pond, on the opposite bank I could see a small girl stretching out her thin arms toward him. “Look at me, Dada, I can fly!” she cried in a chirping voice. But Manik did not see or hear her. He just continued opening the pages of the book and releasing the fireflies.
It was then that I woke up.
* * *
It is hard to describe the emotional turmoil I went through in the weeks that followed. I felt hopelessly conflicted. There was so much I wanted to believe and so much I dared not. A streak of guilt coursed through my mind every time I thought about Manik Deb. Our society was bound by unwritten rules and I had overstepped an invisible line. Accepting a gift of love poems from another woman’s fiancé was as illicit as being kissed. Yet it was deliciously arousing and I felt hopelessly drawn.
I could have brushed off Manik’s gesture, put the book on my shelf and gone on with my life. Yet I clung to it like my last, slim, red-and-gold hope on earth. I caressed the silk cover, kissed the long pen strokes of his inscription. I savored every poem and swelled with the cadence of the lines and felt irresistibly connected to the heart where it was coming from. I knew it was the poet and not Manik who wrote the words but I wanted desperately to believe otherwise. Those were strangely melded days where I floated in limbo, an outsider to the world around me, a firefly baffled by daylight.
CHAPTER 8
Finally the rains abated. The sky gathered her dark, voluminous skirts and swept over the Himalayas into Tibet, leaving behind a drizzle like a sprinkling of fairy dust. Life returned to normal.
The ground was rich and moist. The earth turned a shrill and noisy green, vibrant as a parrot. The evenings felt lighter now, and on some days there was a lilt of autumn in the air. A river breeze flitted through the house, suffusing rooms with the scent of jasmine. Dadamoshai resumed his writing on the veranda.
It was late afternoon and I was reading in my room when I heard an unfamiliar voice calling out a greeting on the veranda. I parted the curtains a crack. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was Mr. Sen, Kona’s father. He was not a regular visitor to our house.
Mr. Sen was a portly, round-shouldered man, dressed traditionally in a white dhoti and a handwoven brown waistcoat over his long starched cotton shirt. His face was black and shiny as a plum. He had oily hair, bright, beady eyes and a neatly trimmed mustache over a small mouth that was pulled tight as a purse string. His small plump hands were weighted down with an array of auspicious gemstone rings—coral, tigereye, topaz—each promising some aspect of health or wealth to its wearer.
Dadamoshai was in the middle of his writing, and I could see he was distracted with a thought half strung across his brain. As usual, he looked like a preoccupied sage, surrounded by his books and papers, his snow-white hair unkempt, his glasses askew on his nose. He was barefoot, his worn wooden clogs undoubtedly lost somewhere under his desk.
“My dear Rai Sahib, I have been meaning to pay you a visit.” Mr. Sen leaned his umbrella against the post and held out his hands in an exaggerated gesture of effusiveness toward my grandfather.
“A pleasant surprise, Sen Babu, a pleasant surprise indeed!” Dadamoshai exclaimed, patting absentmindedly for the cap of his fountain pen under his papers and shuffling his foot under the desk to feel for his clogs. “Please, please, do have a seat.”
Mr. Sen gathered the pleats of his dhoti with care and perched on the edge of the sofa, like a plump sparrow on a windowsill. He watched with a beatific smile as my grandfather tried to get his bumbling act together. Despite all the cordiality between him and my grandfather, their relationship bordered on distaste. Mr. Sen’s visit was undoubtedly suspicious.
I strained my ears to listen to their conversation. Mr. Sen was talking about the preparations for Kona’s wedding. He dropped numbers here and there, pretending to bemoan the costs of things, but all the while seeking to impress Dadamoshai with how much money he was spending.
“You have no idea how much it costs to get a girl married these days. We are in the middle of wartime and every item is either in short supply or priced to make your hands bleed,” he lamented.
Dadamoshai was trying very hard to look engaged. “I must congratulate you, Sen Babu. You have indeed made a fine choice of a son-in-law in Manik Deb. He is an exceptional young man with a remarkable future ahead of him,” he said conversationally.
