Don't Let Him Know (15 page)

‘Yes, yes,' said Romola.

Mohan unbuttoned his shorts, glanced around and then pulled them down. For a moment, he looked at her and hesitated and then, dropping his eyes, quickly pulled down his cotton underpants to his knees. Romola stared at him. All her bravado had trickled out of her. She stared at the dark brown of his thin legs held together by the well-washed, yellowish-white strip of his underpants. She dragged her eyes up from his dark knobbly knees to his thighs. Her view was partially obscured by his shirt dangling in front of him.

‘Eeesh,' she said in a small voice. ‘You have hair there.' She could see the hair – little strands around his penis that hung limply like a shrunken wrinkled finger. It reminded her of a tamarind pod, the kind Bela-di dried in the sun to make sour pickles.

‘You will too, one day,' he said.

She looked at him shocked but did not say anything.

‘I can't see it properly,' she said trying to move his shirt out of the way. He smacked her hand away but held his shirt up so she could see.

‘It looks silly,' she said. She tried to remember what Ranjana from Class Six had told her about how this thing went into a woman's secret place to make babies. But it seemed too far-fetched an idea. She realized she had not shown Mohan her secret place. But he did not seem to care.

Just then an airplane passed by. Startled, Mohan dropped his shirt as if the passengers flying overhead could see him. He turned his back to her and pulled up his underpants. When he turned around his lips were pinched tight. Right at that moment Dipti-mashi called out, ‘Mohan, Romola, are you up there? Come down now.'

Silently he headed towards the door. He did not look back to see if Romola was following him. But she was right behind him. As she came down the stairs, Romola could see Dipti-mashi there.

‘Romola,' she said slowly as if she was spelling the words out in case she did not understand. ‘We need to go home now. Your mother called. Romola, my dear, I have something to tell you. But you must be a brave girl because your mother needs you.' Romola glanced at Mohan. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking at her. He smoothed down his shirt and touched the front of his pants to make sure it was all buttoned.

Romola did not cry when she saw her father laid out on the bed. The last time she had come to the sick room, her mother had said, ‘Ogo, look, it's Romola. Open your eyes.' And he did slowly as if it hurt to open them.

Romola had perched herself warily at the edge of the bed. Her father had put his hand on Romola's hair and, with a great deal of effort, tousled it. Then he took her hand in his and closed his eyes again as if the strain had worn him out. Romola looked at the vein on her father's forehead. It was throbbing and seemed the only thing about him that was alive. After a minute she glanced at her mother. She nodded and Romola gently extricated her hand and scuttled out of the room.

But today the smell of medicine and Phenol disinfectant was gone. The pile of dark bottles and shiny silvery foil strips of tablets had been removed. His stainless steel tumbler of water covered with a coaster that always stood on the little table by his bed was missing. Instead the room only smelled of flowers – her father was covered with wreaths of bluish-white rajanigandha and gladioli, his eyes closed, his skin pale as if he had been powdered and dressed up. She could see some of the dark wet green leaves had come off from the wreaths and were lying on the floor being stepped on by all the people milling around. She had never seen so many of her relatives together before. There was a pile of their slippers outside the room. Even Dahlia-pishi who lived all the way out near the train station, and whom they perhaps saw once a year, was there. Her mother was sitting at the foot of the bed. She stood up as she saw Romola. Then she opened her arms out and Romola ran straight into them and hid her face against the folds of her sari. She could feel the cold metal of her bunch of keys against her cheek and it felt indescribably comforting. She peeked out – her father seemed asleep, his eyes shut. He was wearing a crisp white cotton kurta with fine white embroidery – Ma had given that to him for his birthday that year but he had not had a chance to wear it.

‘Romola,' said her aunt. ‘Touch your father's feet and ask him for his blessings.' Still clutching her mother's hand, she did as she was told but she didn't actually touch the feet. The toes sticking out from under the thin sheet covering him scared her.

‘Such a brave girl,' she heard Dipti-mashi say in a low voice to another woman. ‘I had to tell her. And she took it so bravely. No tears. Just said, “I want to go to Ma.”'

The lady nodded and wiped her eyes with her sari and said, ‘So, will she, I mean, do the last rites?'

‘Oh no,' Dipti-mashi said. ‘She's too young. I think Ramen-babu's younger brother will do them.'

When they took her father away Romola gripped her mother's hands. That was when she noticed her wrists were bare, the red and white bangles gone. She watched wordlessly as six men lifted her father on their shoulders. The women started to weep. Dahlia-pishi began ordering everybody around.

‘
Hari bol, balo Hari
,' chanted the men. Romola shrank back, afraid her father would roll off their shoulders and fall to the ground. But he didn't and soon the men had borne him out of the house and turned the corner and they were gone scattering handfuls of puffed rice behind them to keep away the bad spirits.

‘Keep that oil lamp burning till they come back from the cremation ground,' instructed Dahlia-pishi. Romola's mother did not say anything, her eyes still fixed blankly on the corner of the street where the men had turned with her husband's body. So Romola nodded instead.

That night Romola's mother said, ‘Do you want to sleep in my room, Romola?'

Ever since she had turned four, she had to sleep in her own room in her own bed. Only on special treat nights Ma and Baba let her sleep in their big double bed. Romola would pretend some nights to be scared of shadowy monsters and try and crawl into their bed but soon they would shoo her back. After Baba got sick and started sleeping in the sick room, Ma would sleep alone in the big bed.

The bed felt so big, like an empty playground, as Romola crawled into it with her own blanket and bolster. She lay there looking up at the ceiling. There was a little crack near one corner. She remembered Baba talking about needing to fix that before it got bigger. She wondered if anyone would fix it now. She glanced over at her mother to see if she had fallen asleep.

‘Ma,' she said softly. ‘When did Baba, you know, die?'

‘Around one-thirty in the afternoon,' her mother replied, gently stroking her hair.

She lay quietly for a while and then said, ‘Ma?'

‘Hmmm?' she said sleepily.

‘Ma, Dipti-mashi said that Baba can see me from heaven. Do you think that's true?'

‘Yes, dear. I hope so. Now try to sleep.'

Romola looked out of the window. Through the leaves of the neem tree outside she could see a patch of the night sky above the serrated edges of apartment buildings below. She could see a couple of stars twinkling faintly. She thought of her father looking down at them from the sky and felt her heart grow cold. She wondered if it took some time for a soul to go to heaven or if they went right away. If father died at 1.30 would he have been able to see her at 3.30? She felt sick to her stomach.

‘Even when I am at school? Or at Dipti-mashi's house?'

‘When you are what at Dipti's house?'

‘You know, can he see me when I am at Dipti-mashi's?' But without waiting for an answer, she started to cry, great hot tears welling up from her stomach and trickling down her face.

‘Shh, shh,' said Ma wiping her eyes. ‘There's a good girl. Don't cry, my love. Your father can always see you – he will always watch over you wherever you are.'

VII

The Gifts of Summer

When Amit came back from school and rang the doorbell, instead of Mangala’s usual shuffle, he heard the sound of running feet. A young girl’s voice shouted, ‘I’ll get it, Dida.’ He heard the door unlatch and saw a girl standing there. He had never seen her before. She was skinny, wearing a yellow frock with little blue flowers, the sooty darkness of her skin making the frock almost glow. The dress was too small for her, thought Amit. It seemed tight around her armpits and her bony knees showed. Her jet-black hair glistened with oil. It had been tied into a tight braid with a red ribbon. Amit noticed she had a tiny silver nose stud.

She stood staring at him with her hands on her hips.

‘Who are you?’ Amit asked.

She stared a few seconds more and then grinned, her teeth flashing against her skin.

‘Why, I am Durga, of course,’ she said. ‘You are Amit. I remember seeing you when you were very young. Grandmother used to have to clean your bottom after you did potty.’

Amit flushed but she seemed to find the memory hilarious.

‘Who are you jabbering with?’ said Mangala, coming into the room and wiping her wet hands on the edge of her old cotton sari. ‘Oh, Amit’s back from school. Remember my granddaughter Durga?’ Then she turned to the girl and said, ‘Go on, take Amit’s school bag upstairs and tell his mother he’s home. I’ll go warm his milk.’

Amit remembered then that his mother had said that Mangala’s granddaughter Durga was coming to spend the summer in Calcutta with her. Amit’s aunt Meena was also supposed to visit at the same time from Boston. ‘We must make Meena feel at home,’ his father had announced. ‘We practically grew up as brother and sister till they moved to America. When I first landed in America, her parents looked after me like their own son.’ Since Amit’s mother was looking for an extra pair of hands around the house, Mangala had suggested that perhaps Durga could help out.

Durga grabbed Amit’s bag and water bottle and sped off upstairs. ‘That girl is a hooligan,’ said Mangala, shaking her head. ‘Why don’t you teach her some reading and writing during your summer holidays? Maybe something will stick in her head.’

‘Me, teach her?’ asked Amit alarmed. ‘How can I teach her? She is older than me, isn’t she? How old is she?’

‘Fourteen or fifteen,’ said Mangala.

‘But I am only nine,’ said Amit. ‘What class is she in? Doesn’t she go to school?’

‘That school in the village is no good. It’s not like your school,’ sighed Mangala. ‘And her father thinks there’s no point teaching her much more, because she’ll probably end up in someone’s house sweeping the floors or cleaning dishes. Like me. But who knows – maybe you can teach her something.’

Meena-pishi came a few weeks later. Amit stayed at home while his parents went to the airport. For hours he tried to stay awake, fiercely rubbing sleep from his eyes. But by the time the car pulled up he had fallen asleep in front of the television. The sound of his mother’s voice woke him. The evening news was over and the transmission had ended for the night leaving only a crackle. He turned off the television and walked out to the head of the stairs and peered down.

His mother cried, ‘Durga, come get the bags.’ Looking up, she saw Amit. ‘Amit, you’re still up? It’s past midnight. Come down then and say hello to your aunt.’

Meena-pishi looked different from the old photographs in the family album. She was both fairer and plumper now. Her hair was cut fashionably short, unlike his mother’s. She wore a synthetic sari with a pattern of large magenta and yellow flowers. Amit noticed she used a lot more make-up than his mother. She smelled different as well – more fruity and expensive. She beamed at him and held her arms out.

‘Oh my,’ she said in English. ‘What a handsome young fellow.’ Even her English sounded different, the words smudged with an American accent. Then looking at Durga she turned to his mother and said, still in English, ‘Who’s this? A new maid? She’s very young, isn’t she?’

‘Oh not really,’ said his father. ‘Remember our old cook Mangala? This is her granddaughter. She was in the village all this time. She wanted to spend the summer in the city. So we let her stay in our house. In return she does a little housework.’

‘Very little,’ interjected his mother. ‘But Mangala has worked for us for so many years. We could not refuse her. Durga, what are you doing standing there gaping? Go on, help with the bags. Be careful. Don’t scrape them against anything.’

Meena-pishi had matching bags all as red as her lipstick. They looked brand new. ‘Doctor Basu bought them for me before this trip,’ she said proudly. Doctor Basu was what she called her husband.

‘Too bad he decided not to come this time,’ said Romola.

‘He’s so busy with his practice,’ said Meena-pishi. ‘And he’s just opened a new chamber. Right downtown, you know.’

Amit didn’t know. He had never met Doctor Basu and he had no idea what downtown even meant. But he nodded anyway.

Durga hoisted the big carry-all over her shoulder and started going upstairs. ‘Now go up, all of you. Amit, back to bed at once,’ said Romola. ‘Meena, you must be so tired after that long flight. Did they feed you on the plane? Are you hungry?’

But Meena-pishi just stood there looking around the house as if breathing it in. Amit found it hard to imagine that once she and his father had been children in this house. Her mother and his grandmother had been sisters and all the cousins played together in this house. His father said they had once written a play together and acted it. Their mothers had made them costumes and everyone had to pay one rupee to watch it. Meena-pishi had been the princess. His father had played a magician. Then her father had moved to America and the visits had petered off. All this Amit had heard from his father.