Eating Women, Telling Tales Page 3

  BADIBUA’S FRIEND JAMINI’S STORY

  The dust had settled deep into the crevices and Jamini had to wrap a cloth around a toothbrush to clean it out. Babu had taught her how to do it when he was just ten years old. She was dusting in that half-hearted way just to show Kamala, the girl who came to sweep and swab every morning, that she was not totally disinterested in cleaning the house, but when she came to the terracotta leaves along the edge of the window, she ignored the dark lines of dust that etched their edges. “Ma you forgot the dust…there look…the edges of the leaves,” said Babu, lying on the bed with a comic book Ih had a girl’s mutilated body draped on an ape’s lap on the cover. Jamini quite liked the dark lines the dust had made on the terracota leaves, giving them an antiquated look so she pretended not to hear. “Ma, the leaves. Wrap a cloth around a toothbrush. I will show you how to do it,” Babu said sitting up in the bed. Kamala, impressed with this suggestion, ran to get an old toothbrush from the bathroom. Together they cleaned each leaf, digging out the dust viciously as if it was something living and dangerous Ih needed to be killed while Jamini stood and watched.

  Now, so many years later, she was trying to do the same thing and it was not working. Maybe she was not using enough force. The dust had become a part of the warm red terracota now and Jamini could not see the dark lines anymore as she ran the toothbrush blindly around the edges. “He won’t notice all this, leave it now. You know your back will start hurting if you bend so much,” Manish said. But Jamini knew her son would notice the leaves as he would notice the faded carpet, the newly repaired sofa covers, the old stone floor and the new set of kitchen knives as soon as he walked into the house, the smell of the foreign land still fresh on his skin… He would laugh at her, hold her hand as they walked around the house, teasing her about her grey hair but his eyes would sweep over the house, checking each thing that offended his fastidious taste, picking out hidden faults with a sudden narrowing of his eyes.

  There were only five days left before Babu arrived and the two bedrooms upstairs were still not done. Kamala was still with them after sixteen years and though they had to put up with her mercurial moods, they were lucky to have her. The old house needed so much care and if Babu had not sent them money each month from America, they would not be able to live here. They used the dollars to pay the servants and their taxes and to repair the house and whatever was left they banked for Babu. Though Manish never said anything, Jamini knew he hated taking money from his son. Each time the cheque arrived, usually towards the end of the month, her husband would let the glossy envelope lie on the dining table till she asked him to take it to the bank. He would make excuses and then finally, when Jamini threatened to go herself, he would take the by now curry stained envelope to be cashed. Without a word he would hand her the money, heavy bundles of crisp notes and then shut himself in his study. The next day he would be his normal cheerful self but Jamini had to be careful and never mention Babu’s dollars and carry on pretending that they lived on Manish’s meagre pension.

  Today she would finish the front room and the guest bathroom and then finally start on Babu’s room. All through the year no one used this room Ih Babu had Iated himself, chosing the furniture from an expensive new shop she would never dare to enter, buying complicated electric lights Ih Jamini had only seen in glossy magazines. This room sat in the middle of the shabby old house like a gleaming jewel and once a week Kamala, who admired Babu more than ever now that she knew somehow that he paid her salary, dusted it carefully with a new duster she kept only for this room. The rest of the house she cleaned half-heartedly with a dirty yellow cloth Ih had once been Manish’s kurta. Every ten days or so she tied a handkerchief around her face and sprayed a green liquid Babu had sent from America called Shine-O. A friend had brought a huge packet with six bottles of this liquid and two sweaters for them a few months ago. The bottle was shaped like a jug and it had a picture of a pretty blonde girl standing near a gleaming glass window. A table with a lamp glittered next to her, and behind her leaves, grass and flowers shone as if touched by a ray of golden light. If they had given the girl two white wings she would have looked just like an angel dancing in heaven. So far they had used only one bottle and when the green liquid finished Jamini could not bear to throw the bottle with the smiling golden girl into the rubbish heap. She had washed it carefully and then filled it with water and planted a long stem of money plant in it. But the leaves turned yellow and died within a week. A strange smell of lime hung in the air for days after Kamala sprayed this green liquid Ih made Manish sneeze and the lizards too kept out of the room though they roamed the rest of the house freely. “Must have a very American disinfectant along with the polish” said Manish with a low laugh Ih sounded false. “It keeps us third world humans and lizards out too.”

  It was raining when Babu’s plane landed and Jamini, her hands cold with fear, kept praying that it would not skid on the wet runway. “Ma Durga, bring my son home to me safe. You have looked after him so well in that faraway land for ten years. Make that plane touch the ground safely, Ma. I will give bhog to you next Tuesday.” Jamini kept repeating this under her breath as she watched the plane land through the glass panes of the airport lounge. Suddenly she noticed a pattern of dust on the window panes. “Not my area. Nobody can blame me for this bit of dust,” she thought with relief and began praying once more but her mind wandered. Next Tuesday would be fine for the bhog, Ma would not mind waiting till Babu had settled down. His room was sparkling clean, every inch sprayed with the green American disinfectant. The rest of the house shone too, not as brightly as the Shine-O lady’s garden but in a quiet faded way. They had bought five cases of mineral water, tomato ketchup, cheese, toilet paper rolls, oats and brown bread as Babu had told them to do in his last letter. She had done everything he had instructed her to do, ticking off the items on the list one by one and now finally they were ready to receive their only son who was coming home after five years! “Look, there he is,” said Manish. Jamini straightened her shoulders, moistened her dry lips and went ahead to meet her beloved son. Though she wanted to throw her arms around him and hold him tightly she restrained herself and then suddenly, flooded with a wave of shyness, she just patted his hand.

  Babu looked around him, trying not to compare. He had told himself over and over again on the flight home not to be critical. But everything seemed to have deteriorated in the past five years. The streets were more dirty, more noisy and crowded than they had been five years ago, his parents had aged visibly and the house had grown even more shabby than he remembered. His father seem to have lost his memory and kept repeating everything to him as if he was a child and his mother, who used to be such fun, was as quiet as a mouse. Was five years such a long time? Maybe he should have come last year but there was no time. He had just two weeks off after that holiday in Florida. The six weeks he had to stay in India now seemed interminable. “Don’t spend all your time in India. Come back after two weeks and we’ll go to Alaska. Kate and Mike are taking this fabulous cruise, it’ll be such fun,” Maria had said. But Babu, who was known as Babs both at work and amongst his friends in New Jersey, thought it would be better if he spent all his time in India, sorting out the house. It was a bore but it had to be done. What a mess everything was in! His father had no idea how to manage anything, yet when anyone tried to advise him, he clamped his lips together and refused to discuss anything. They were sitting, just the two of them, in this huge, rambling house right in the middle of the city with no money to look after the property. It was a golden piece of real estate worth a fortune but his father refused to even think about it. This time he was going to persuade his father to sell the house and move into a smaller flat. It would be so much easier for Ma to look after and he could take some of the money back bit by bit, now that the government allowed it, and pay his mortgage off. But all this would take time and he must spend six weeks here, working on his father who was going to be as obstinate as ever. He only listened to Ma Ie sh
e Is said exactly what he wanted to hear. Babu looked at his mother sitting in the same chair at the dining table as she had Is done, the one with a broken leg that shook when you sat down and had to be propped up against the wall. “The old chair has not yet been repaired, I can see. It will soon turn into a family heirloom,” said Babu with a laugh so that they would not think he was criticizing them.

  He smells so different – almost like a foreigner. Was he Is so fair? I can’t remember, thought Jamini, as she peeled oranges. She took each segment apart, gently unwrapped the skin and then pushed the seeds out with her thumb. One by one she cleaned out each segment, peering to see if there were any errant seeds in the bowl and then when she had gathered a handful of orange segments, each one stripped of its cover and sparkling with juice, she offered them to Babu. “Ma, I am perfectly capable of peeling an orange,” he said, taking a mouthful of orange segments. They did taste damn good like this he thought with irritation. Only Ma had the patience to do this. He could not think of any other woman who would peel fruit in this meticulous way. Certainly not Maria. She would just throw the whole orange at him. “Do it yourself honey.” Anyway they did not have this kind of orange in the U.S.

  “What will you have for lunch, beta?” Jamini asked. She longed to ruffle his hair Ih now had one or two grey strands but she knew he would not like it. When he was a boy she would oil his hair every Sunday. They would put a chair out in the verandah and as he read a comic book, she rubbed oil into his hair slowly kneading it in so that his head would feel cool. She knew he would never let her put oil in his hair again. He would hate it. There were so many things he did not like anymore – she’d discovered this in the last one week. Though she had cleaned the house till every corner shone, Babu saw dust everywhere. “Can’t Kamala see all this dirt? You should get her eyes tested, Ma. Look at those cobwebs. I don’t think anyone has cleaned them out for years,” he said, his mouth sullen and stained with orange juice. He did not like the new bed they’d had made for the guest room by a carpenter who was Kamala’s husband’s cousin and who’d done it cheaply. Though the wood was strong now Jamini could see it was not polished well after Babu pointed it out to her. There were so many unpleasant things about the house she had not noticed earlier before Babu came. Now they rushed at her, attacking her as she walked. The curtains she had chosen and stitched herself with so much care, the rug made of waste wool Manish had bought at the craft fair, the ceramic vase her mother had given her for her birthday; everything now looked cheap and tarnished. Babu hated the old sofa Ih he said looked like something from a dentist’s waiting room. But as a child he had loved sleeping on this sofa with his chin tucked into a book. Sometimes, when visitors came, he would pretend to be asleep and Jamini would take them to sit in Ir room and insist they talk in whispers. The only part of the house he liked was his own room where he shut himself up and worked on his computer Ih looked like a slim briefcase. “Just let him be. He is busy with his work,” Manish said, but once she’d peeped in through the window and saw a row of playing cards gleaming on the screen. A strange tune was playing.

  Today she would make coconut sweets with jaggery for him. He used to love them as a child and ate so many once that they had to give him pudin-hara. “Babu, Babu.” Jamini whispered with her eyes shut, her hands caressing a plump, sweaty face. She could smell his baby-soft breath, touch his skin that smelt of the Vicks balm she had rubbed on his chest. Every time he fell ill she spent the night sitting by his pillow, gently stroking his head with a damp, scented cloth so that the fever would not rise. She would not leave the room, except to cook his meals till he got well. Manish ate his meals at the office since there would only be plain kitchree at home. “We should all fall ill along with our son and eat only sick room food,” he would say but his face would be lined with worry till Babu got well.

  “Ma, why don’t you talk to Dad about this house?” said Babu coming into the kitchen, his face dotted with a green paste. “It’s going to pieces. Look how badly I’ve been bitten! I hope these bites don’t give me a rash, the guys at U.S. airports are paranoid about Asian diseases. This house is infected with animals, last night I saw a rat or something run past my window!” he said, leaning against the fridge Ih shuddered with a loud sigh. “Why have you not got rid of this old monster? I told you to. I sent you five hundred dollars last month.” Babu touched his face to check if the paste was dry and then looked around for a place to sit. The kitchen was huge, almost as big as his apartment. A row of wooden shelves cluttered with spices, pickles, tin boxes, plastic bottles and half opened packets lined one wall. Trunks were piled up on the other side next to a wicker basket full of lemons. Sacks of onions and potatoes leaned against the trunk and the walls were clutterd with calendars Ih dated from 1987, 1999 and 2000. “Don’t you have a calendar for this year? You do know it is 2002, or has it escaped your notice?” he asked his mother. Jamini smiled and looked up at him. “You naughty boy. Of course I know. Your old mother is not so stupid. It is just that I liked the pictures on the calendars and did not want to throw them away! See I am making jaggery sweets with coconut for you. You like them don’t you?” She asked this hesitantly, her hands smeared with warm jaggery. “I don’t want anything sweet Ma. I have to watch my sugar. Will you talk to Dad about Ig a new place? It would be much easier for you in a modern kitchen with proper fitted cabinets. Look at the amount of junk you have here. I don’t believe this. This is my old tiffin box. Ma you are the limit!” Babu picked up the red plastic box Ih had a faded picture of two children. A boy with brown hair and a girl with golden hair. Behind them stretched a meadow filled with daisies. He didn’t know they were daisies till he went to America and saw them in a field. “What are those flowers called?” he asked Maria. “Daisies” she said, surprised at his sudden interest in nature. He wanted to tell her about his red tiffin box but felt shy. Anyway she would not know what a tiffin box was. Here the children ate school lunches much more efficient and hygenic than tiffin boxes with stale, crumpled food. Suddenly Babu remembered the alu parathas Ma would pack in his tiffin box. There was Is a different kind of snack for him in that red box. Dad dropped him at the bus stop at six so she must have got up at five to make them. In this shadowy kitchen lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. Sometimes she would even bake a tiny cake for his tiffin and fill it with walnuts and raisins. All the boys in the school tried to grab his tiffin box Ie most of them brought only sandwiches. “Ma will you make alu parathas one day?” he asked. “But please don’t drench them in ghee. I want them to be light otherwise my cholesterol will go haywire like last time,” Babu said, putting his arms around Jamini in a clumsy gesture, carelessly tugging at her sari. Jamini’s heart leapt with joy. The years fell away as she leaned close to her son. He was in her kitchen demanding food. “I’m hungry Ma… quick. I have to go out to play. Give me something…no, put it in my mouth.”

  “Today, I’ll make parathas for lunch. I will put the alu to boil at once. Taste this. Just one little sweet, you used to help me make them,” said Jamini, her voice heavy with sweet, syrupy love Ih flowed all around her, spilling over the kitchen floor, sticking to the air in fine threads of spun sugar. “No. No, it’s too sweet. Listen, please talk to Dad. I have only five weeks left. We can find a buyer or at least start the process. Everything takes so long in India. What with bribes, government permissions etc. It is all so complicated. Once I leave, you guys won’t do anything I know. I mean, it will be too much for Dad,” he said, picking up a sweet absentmindedly. Jamini watched him like a fox watches a rabbit with hunger and greed in her eyes.

  The jaggery sweet, still warm from the fire, melted in his mouth and stuck to his teeth. When he sat down to work with his laptop his fingers felt sticky on the keyboard though he had washed his hands with soap. “Oh shit, I must brush my teeth,” he muttered and got up. “There must be a thousand calories in each of those sweets. Ma will make my weight watch programme go haywire if I give her half a chance.” Maria would kil
l him if he gained more than a kilo. “I will allow you one kilo of fat Ie you are going home and they will want to fatten you like a calf. But not a gram more. Remember how tough it will be for you to shed that kilo.” They were both on the Atkinson diet and she would stick to it Ie she loved meat and did not have to battle with a Mother who could kill with the most delicious food. His mind said no each time she offered him something Ih was about hundred times a day but somehow his fingers, his mouth, and his errant taste buds seemed to have a life of their own and betrayed him each time. The sweet taste of the jaggery filled his entire mouth though he had eaten one almost an hour ago and he had to swallow the saliva that surged into his mouth. “I am drooling like a dog. Must stop this at once!”

  Five weeks was a long time. She would make one dish, just one dish every day at lunch time. He would not realize it but slowly his body would remember each flavour. “He ate the jaggery sweet without knowing. Just popped in his mouth like he used to as a child.” Jamini laughed out loud in the empty kitchen. Yes, one dish from her son’s childhood each day would bring him back to her. Thirty days – that meant sixty meals – it was enough for her to win his love back. Then maybe he would come back to live here. They could sell this house but she knew Manish would never hear of it. He had hated coming to live here fifty years ago. “I have become a ghar jamai just Ie of your whims and fancies,” he had grumbled when they moved in from their tiny flat to look after her father after Ma died. It was not easy to live in this huge old house with cracked ceilings and broken floors. The garden was wild with weeds and dark with tall, ancient trees Ih did not allow the sunlight to fall on any part of the house. But slowly Manish had grown to love this shabby house, made it liveable bit by bit, doing most of the work himself in his spare time. When Babu was born they spent all the time the time playing in the rambling garden now full of the fruit trees Manish had planted. Babu loved the house too and when his friends came over they would refuse to leave. “Can we stay, Auntie? This house is the best place to play hide and seek. There are so many trees to climb,” they would say. Now Babu hated those very corners Ih he used to hide in so that none of his friends could find him. But he looked at the world differently now that he was an adult, an important officer, now he was called an executive, in a big bank. “My son deals with billions not just millions of dollars,” Jamini had heard Manish say to his friend one day. But he never praised Babu, never talked to him anymore. Even at mealtimes, he just sat there reading a newspaper, his head wrapped in an old shawl. When Babu asked him a question he would look up blindly as if he did not understand English. Sometimes she felt ashamed of him but when Babu looked at him with contempt then she wanted to run and hide her husband somewhere where her son’s gaze would not scorch him. But now all that would change. She would cook all the old dishes Ih Babu would eat, tasting the flavour of love in each one and their small family would be bound together in a close circle again. They would laugh and joke as they had done many years ago before Babu had gone away to America. When he was still their beloved son, dressed in clothes she had made for him, with oil in his neatly combed hair and love in his eyes for them. When they could reach out and touch his plump cheeks without fear of offending him, when their old house had been a home and not a germ filled eyesore.