Inheritance (16 page)

There was a pond at the convent. During early evening prayers, I slipped off my clothes and slid into the water. It was delicious, enveloping. I bobbed up and down for a while and then ducked down to open my eyes. The interior was murky, greenish. My eyes smarted, and I surfaced. Dragonflies landed near me and buzzed overhead. Silvery fish darted away. I floated on my back, exposed and not caring. No one could see. I thought about Krishna and the gopis, how he had spied on them, laughing at their nakedness. How embarrassed they had been upon discovery, how quick their hands flew to cover themselves. But surely there had been one gopi who didn’t care, who didn’t blush and hide but floated like this to let the god appraise her, whose breasts rose like flowers from the water, whose hair glinted like a mermaid’s. A maid who challenged the god to look as he might, to understand that her body was hers alone, even if he possessed it, to know that her bathing was an act of
self. And I couldn’t help thinking that Krishna withdrew his eyes and turned to the others, who were flustered, who were angered, and that he let the brave girl alone. He didn’t dance with her or clasp his leg around her or cover her with blue-lipped caresses. The girl had met his boldness with her own and somehow proved a point. A girl who might have strolled like my mother out of the water without shame, let her body dry in the sun, and chosen any lover who pleased her. And perhaps her love was another girl, a creature she could mock and adore at the same time, whose hair she could plait, whose ears she could fill with song, knowing she had defeated Krishna himself. But her first kiss would be for the god who let her alone, who withdrew his eyes. And as she lay with her lovers, maybe she realized that she was equal to the peacock-feathered, blue-skinned flute player. But the poets never wrote about this.

I finished my swim and went back to the nuns.

After ten days at the convent, we received a phone call. I took it, expecting a scolding from my grandmother about the sweater I’d left behind. Instead it was my mother on the phone. My grandmother had died.

Eighteen

Arriving at Madhupur for the funeral was oddly easy; suddenly all the trains were available and on time. Jani and I traveled together, of course, and there were at once so many helpful people to carry her luggage and the food we packed. No one seemed to notice that we were unusually quiet and in a state of shock, because when we got the news, we acted normally, as if we were just making the trip back as scheduled.

My grandmother. My green hill. O, my grandmother, how could this happen? It must not have happened. If only I could do something to reverse it all. My grandmother. My grandmother, my dear, darling, lovely, brave, practical, doting grandmother. My eyes filled with tears,
my nose started to run, my chest began to panic. My body began to heave, although with a supreme effort, I held myself in, telling myself there was time for all of this later, that Jani and I needed to get back home so Grandmother … Grandmother … Grandmother …

Mandalas. I should have made more mandalas. I should never have stopped. In doing so, I had neglected my grandmother; I had neglected her by seeing Richard, by forgetting her health. My grandmother. If only I had made mandalas again, I could have filled a notebook and given them to her. She who loved anything on paper that I did. She who had taught me to draw. My grandmother, my mothering muse. My actions were misguided; I had spent all my excess energy on seeing Richard or mooning over him instead of drawing for her whom I adored.

So on the trip down I began to imagine mandalas, elaborate designs of connections, of cause and effect, of cycles, of the reason for all things, of the reason for my grandmother’s death. Why had she been taken from us? What purpose did it serve? What wheel in life was churning that could explain her death? She was still young, not even seventy. We needed her, Jani and I needed her. My mandalas became wheels and trees with mandalas of leaves and mango, mandalas of life. And at
the core was my proper grandmother, my bundle of hope.

At first Jani and I sat opposite one another, and turned our heads to look out the window at the same time. We had the compartment to ourselves. We barely spoke to each other, just used head nods and blank expressions. We both had taken baths with strong-smelling soap, as if to present a fresh-faced visage to the world was of utmost importance. We had packed the same way, with care, yet not addressing each other more than necessary. The compartment began to fill up, and two businessmen joined us. At this point, Jani moved over next to me and held my hand.

The power of her grasp. Strength poured out of her hand and surged into mine, so that the energy between us was palpable. Still we refused to look at each other, for any moment our held-in-check world might collapse. I remember reading the
Indian Express
one of the men held. The headlines spoke of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India. In three months, Indira Gandhi would be dead, and our nations—Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, and Pi—would be stunned into disbelief. But right now, the fighting was in the background, the world was occupied by other things. So I read a biography of a soccer player in the news, of fans rushing a stadium somewhere in England. All this I read from the back of the businessman’s
newspaper. Neither he nor his companion said a word, and if they noticed our grief, they were quiet about it. I remember being grateful that they were ordinary-looking businessmen in their suits and ties, with gleaming tiffintins at their sides. They helped us keep everything at bay.

We arrived at our station without incident. Great-uncle met us, something we didn’t arrange, but didn’t question. The only way I can describe our actions then is to say that we danced slowly to a choreographed ballet. Great-uncle had a taxi waiting for us, and we carried our luggage to it. Again, the entire ride was in silence. The cabdriver was kind, infinitely kind as he helped us down at our compound gate. He offered his hand first to Great-uncle, then to Jani, and finally to me. Island cab-drivers as a rule just open doors, and sometimes not even that, since everyone knows opening cab doors is not a great task. But this cabdriver acted as if he were escorting royalty. I think he even forgot about being paid because he was starting to drive off when Jani ran back and paid him through the window.

The family. The funeral. When we climbed up the stairs, my mother stood by the door. Her hair was tied back, her face as well-scrubbed as ours. She was wearing a pale blue sari; it was Jani’s, I remember noting.

“Good, You’ve arrived safely,” she said, surveying our luggage.

Jani and I placed our suitcases in the inside hallway and took off our sandals. Everything was quiet. My mother led the three of us inside where a meal awaited us. I remember eating an orange, all the while staring at a mound of rice at the center of the table.

One by one, other relatives began to arrive.

My sisters got there first. Ramani and Savitri, both with round bellies, one clutching the hand of my nephew, Suresh, the other followed by my nieces, Revathi, Usha, and Rukmani. Suddenly the house filled with chatter.

Behind a closed door, my grandmother lay on her side. Not sleeping. My mother began to tell the story.

“She was watering the garden. She was leaning over the marigolds with her hand full of water, a pail in her other hand. I was watching her because I loved to watch her, as you know.”

I didn’t know.

“She seemed to be admiring the flowers, sprinkling the water, the water catching the light, her hand scooping back for more water. I looked up to see a raven fly overhead. When I looked back at my mother, she was on the ground, the pail overturned, the flowers hidden.”

My mother told this story at least a dozen times over the next week, but it was this first telling that I recall with
such clarity, that day with my sisters and Jani. My sisters wept at once, scaring their children. Jani took the children to the kitchen to get them milk. My brothers-in-law entered bearing more luggage. My great-uncle went to telephone someone. Soon after that, the house filled with people.

Nineteen

Suddenly, in the absence of noise was noise. There were a great many rites to be performed. Things to do with food and water and smoke and fire. There were mourners to be dealt with, the tide of family and friends who swept through the house in waves. I stayed near the kitchen, suddenly shy. Vasanti gave me small tasks, like shelling peas, picking through the lentils. I helped make the dough for chapatis, while hired cooks, funeral professionals, shaped hundreds of small circles to be cooked.

There were pounds of eggplant, pounds of squash, cabbage and carrots that needed shredding and cutting. Vats of water were boiled to scald potatoes, so their skins
would slip off easily. My sisters wandered in and out, commenting on the procession outside, the guests who wanted water and tea. At one point Savitri placed an arm around me and insisted I drink some tea, whereupon I burst into tears.

There was the cremation. And after that, the fuss over whether the remains should be taken to the Ganges near where my grandmother had been born. There was a lot of squabbling and shouting. There were the children getting tired, more people to feed, and lightbulbs to replace (the hallway light chose that time to burn out, giving rise to a tide of commentary over whether that was a good or bad omen). And there was the garden and the marigolds—and oh my grandmother, my grandmother.

I began to make more mandalas. I drew orange, scarlet, and green ones. Colors of Indian independence and then some. I drew spidery webs and chains of dots. But what was the use now that she had died? What was the use when our lives had changed? Three weeks ago everything had been familiar and fine, but now chaos, now an irreversible change in our lives. I could not continue to draw.

Jani found me tossing peas into the garden. We watched as birds came down to feed. “Give your sorrow to the
birds. They will fly away with it and sing songs to the Lord,” she said. Together we deeply dug out our breath, expanded our chests of mourning, and let our sorrow fly. We did this many, many times. But my sorrow was slow to depart. My sorrow dipped in uneven curves. My sorrow traveled up to the sky and seemed to want to come back to earth again.

My mother found us. With her were my sisters. My mother carried teacups and a teapot on a tray. My sisters carried milk and sugar. We all sat in the garden and drank deeply. We opened a tin of biscuits and dipped them in more tea and ate the soggy result. Never did anything taste so good, the spicy tea and the biscuits. They warmed my tummy and soothed my constricted throat.

My mother bent her head as if to evade her own sorrow. Her face assumed a grave dignity as she gave directions to workmen who came to scale the coconut trees for fruit. Neighbors approached her hesitantly, bringing food, temple offerings. Children from the town stared, to see if they could distinguish her frightful attributes, her witchlike stance. I shooed them away angrily, wanting to protect my mother. She listened to the priests’ instructions and fed them.

Mrs. Narayan came over with an armful of roses. This time I hugged her with all my strength. My mother touched Mrs. Narayan’s feet in a gesture of respect. Together we all went to temple. I walked a prathakshana around the shrine for my grandmother and for myself and my mother. I stepped one slow foot against the other, inching my way forward.