The Midnight Rose (11 page)

“Yes. Yes, of course I did. And I still do. Please believe me, Ma, I love her. I miss her . . . I want her to come home. If you know where she is, tell her that from me. I—” Ari could not speak anymore.

“Oh, my son, I’m so sorry, but she won’t be coming home to you.”

“Why not?” Ari could hear that he sounded like a spoiled three-year-old child, asking why he couldn’t have his favorite toy to play with.

“I’m sorry that it’s me who has to tell you this, but perhaps it’s best that you know. I’m sure you remember that her parents had arranged a marriage for her, which she refused to accept when she met you.”

“Yes.” Ari remembered it vaguely. “Some cousin near Kolkata, I
seem to recall. He was a farmer and much older than she was. Lali said she loathed him on sight.”

“Well, maybe she did and maybe she didn’t,” Samina said, equivocating, “but she married him yesterday.”

Ari was shocked into silence.

“Ari, are you there?”

“Yes.” Ari managed to find his voice. “Why? I don’t understand—”

“I do,” replied his mother quietly. “Lali is almost thirty years old, Ari. She has no trade or profession by which to earn her own living, and her parents are too poor to provide a dowry. She said that at least she would be safe and secure financially with this older man for the rest of her life.”

“What?!” Ari could hardly believe the words his mother was saying. “But Ma, she was safe and secure here, with me! I may not have given her enough time, but I gave her everything I could financially.”

“Yes, but you neglected to give her the one thing she needed. That every woman would like, especially in India.”

“You mean marriage?” Ari groaned.

“Of course. As Lali said herself, if you had tired of her, you could have thrown her onto the streets with nothing. She had no rights as your mistress, no status, no property . . . these are things that are deeply important, you must understand that.”

“If only she’d spoken to me about it.” Ari bit his lip.

“I believe she had, many times, until she gave up.” Samina sighed. “She said you didn’t hear her. All she had on her side was her youth and beauty. And time was running out.”

“I . . . didn’t understand. Really, Ma, believe me.”

“And of course, she was too proud to beg you.”

“Ma, what do I do?” he asked despairingly.

“Start again?” Samina suggested. “And perhaps learn a lesson too. But Lali has gone forever.”

“I . . . need to go now, I have work to do.”

“Keep in touch—” he heard his mother say as, unable to hear any more, he pressed the button to end the call.

For the first time in his life, Ari did not go to the office the following day. He called Dhiren, his new sales manager, and told him he was sick with a fever. For the next few days, he slept as though he was a hibernating animal. He left his bed only to eat, drink and go to the bathroom. His legendary energy seemed to have left him and when
he saw his reflection in the mirror, he looked smaller somehow, and pale—as if part of him had been stripped away. Which, in some ways, he thought miserably, it had.

In the rare moments he was awake, he lay staring at the ceiling, wondering how the spark of determination that had driven him on every day for the past fifteen years could have disappeared. When calls came through from the office, he didn’t answer them, he simply couldn’t face it.

On Tuesday night, as he staggered out into the brightness on the terrace and hung over its railings looking down at the world continuing beneath him, he contemplated his own future. And there it hung ahead of him, gaping like an empty, dark void. He rested his head on his hands. “Lali, I’m so, so sorry,” he sighed.

From inside, he heard the intercom buzz. Running toward it, praying wildly that it might be her, he grabbed the receiver.

“Hello?”

“
Beta
, it’s me, your mother.”

“Come up,” he said, disappointment coursing through him that it wasn’t Lali. He was surprised too; his parents lived a five-hour car journey away from Mumbai.

“My son.” Samina held out her loving arms to her boy as Ari opened the door to let her inside.

In that moment, all the tension and bitterness of the past ten years dissolved and Ari stood, cradled in his mother’s embrace, sobbing like a child.

“I’m so sorry, Ma, so very sorry.”

“Ari”—Samina pushed her son’s hair back from his eyes and smiled at him—“you are back with your family and that is all that matters. Now, how about making your old mother a cup of tea? She’s had a long drive.”

•  •  •

That evening, Ari talked with his mother, letting out the thoughts that had surrounded him for the past few days and the bleakness he felt for his future.

“Well, at least now you’re speaking to me from your heart and not that hard head of yours,” Samina said, trying to comfort him. “I’d wondered all this time where my son had gone, and if he would ever return to me. So this is a good beginning. You have learned a very
important lesson, Ari: that contentment comes from many different things and not just one alone. Money and success can never make you happy if your heart is closed.”

“Anahita said much the same thing to me when I last saw her,” Ari mused. “And she said that one day I would realize it.”

“Your great-grandmother was a very wise woman.”

“Yes, and I feel ashamed I wasn’t there to say good-bye to her.”

“Well, if you believe, as she did, in the spirits, I’m sure she is here with us, accepting your apology. Now”—she yawned—“I’m tired after my journey and need some sleep.”

“Of course,” Ari replied, and led her downstairs to one of the beautifully furnished bedrooms.

“So much space, just for you,” Samina said as Ari put her overnight bag down. “And a whole night without your father snoring in my ear. I may never want to leave!”

“Stay as long as you want to, Ma,” said Ari, surprised that he actually meant it and ashamed that he had never invited her to his home before. “And thank you for coming,” he added as he kissed her good night.

“You are my son, I was worried for you. No matter how big your apartment, or how rich you are, you are still my beloved firstborn.” Samina stroked her son’s cheek affectionately.

As Ari climbed into bed half an hour later, he felt bizarrely comforted that his mother was sleeping only meters away from him. He was humbled by her lack of recriminations for his past behavior and the fact that she had flown immediately to his side the minute she had heard he was in trouble. He then thought of Anahita, and the way she’d refused to believe her
own
firstborn was dead for all those years.

Was
there an innate sixth sense for a mother when it came to her child?

Ari’s eyes were drawn to the chest of drawers. Inside it lay his great-grandmother’s story, untouched for eleven years. Even though he was alone, Ari felt a blush rise to his cheeks, just as it had when he had last been in his great-grandmother’s presence.

If she were with him now, he hoped she would hear how sorry he was for ignoring what she had entrusted to him. Climbing out of bed, he opened the drawer and took out the yellowing pages. Looking at the immaculate handwriting, he saw that it was scripted in small, neat English.

Ari could feel his eyelids were heavy. Now was not the time to try to decipher the words, but he promised himself that he would begin reading it tomorrow.

•  •  •

The following day, Ari took his mother out for breakfast before she began the long journey home.

“Will you be returning to work tomorrow?” she asked him. “You really should, it will help take your mind off everything, rather than mooning around in that soulless apartment of yours by yourself.”

“Honestly, Ma,” Ari said, chuckling, “one minute you’re at me for working too hard, the next, you’re pushing me back to the office!”

“There should always be a balance in life, and you must try to find that in yours. Then you might find the happiness you seek. Oh, before I forget”—Samina dug inside her handbag and brought out a tattered copy of Rudyard Kipling’s book of poems
Rewards and Fairies
and handed it to Ari—“your father sent this for you. He said you were to read the poem ‘If—’ and to tell you that it’s one of his favorites.”

“Yes.” Ari smiled. “I know it, but I haven’t read it since school.”

Once his mother had left, having secured from Ari a promise to visit the family the moment he arrived back from Europe, he drove to the office.

Calling Dhiren in to see him, Ari told him that he was entrusting the business to him while he was in London and that he might be away for longer than he had previously thought.

Twenty-four hours later, he boarded the night flight to Heathrow. Ignoring the film selections, Ari reread the poem by Rudyard Kipling that his father had sent him and smiled ironically. He understood its message. Then, ordering a glass of wine, he took his great-grandmother’s pile of yellowing pages from his briefcase.

Anahita

M
y child, I remember. In the still of the night, the merest hint of a breeze was a blessed relief from the interminable dry heat of Jaipur. Often, the other ladies and children of the zenana and I would climb up to the rooftops of the Moon Palace, where we would make our beds.

The city of Jaipur lies on a plain, surrounded by brown desert hills. As a child, I used to think that I must live in the most beautiful place on earth, for the city itself had a fairy-tale quality. The buildings were painted the prettiest pink imaginable. Domed houses with exquisitely carved latticework and elegantly pillared verandas laced the wide streets. And, of course, the Moon Palace itself occupied the best location—it was a town in itself, surrounded by lush gardens. The inside was a labyrinth, the scalloped arches leading to inner courtyards, which would in turn reveal their own secrets.

And the Jaipur residents themselves were colorful; the men wore vivid turbans of yellow, magenta and ruby red. I used to gaze down on them sometimes from one of the high terraces which overlooked the city from the palace, and think how they reminded me of thousands of bright ants, going ceaselessly about their business.

In my palace at the center of the magical city, living among the highest in the land, it was easy to feel as though I was a princess, just like many of my playmates were.

But, of course, I was not.

Up until the age of nine, I had lived among the people in the city down below me.

My mother, Tira, was from a long line of
baidh
, the Indian term for a wise woman and healer. From a young age, she would have me sit with her as people from the town came to consult her for help with their problems. Out in our small back garden she grew many sweet-smelling herbs with which to mix her Ayurvedic potions, and I often watched her grinding the
guggulu
,
manjishtha
or
gokhru
on her
shil noda
to prepare a remedy. The customer would seem pacified and went away feeling happier in their heart that their true love would love them back, or that their bad tumor would disappear, or that they would conceive a child within the month.

Sometimes, when a female customer came to the house, my mother would tell our maid to take me out walking for a few hours. I began to notice that, when she asked this, the woman would be sitting on the cushions in our back room, her face drawn and terrified.

Of course, I didn’t know then how my mother helped these women, but I do now. She helped them take care of unwanted babies.

My child, you may think that such a deed is a sin against the gods. It was usually because a woman already had half a dozen children or more—there were no forms of stopping babies from arriving in those days in India—and the family was so poor, they simply couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. Conversely, she would help mothers when a child wished to come
into
the world. And as I grew up, she started to take me along to assist her. When I first saw a baby being born, I admit to shielding my eyes, but, as with anything, especially when it’s nature, one becomes used to the sight and starts to view it as the miracle it is.

Sometimes, my mother and I would ride out on the pony that my father kept stabled outside the city, and visit the villages outside Jaipur. And that was when I began to understand that everyone did not exist in a pink, fairy-tale city, with loving parents and food on the table every night. I saw terrible things on those visits: poverty, disease, starvation and the agony that human beings can suffer. I learned when I was very young that life was not fair. It was a lesson I was to remember for the rest of my days.

My mother, like all Hindus, was highly superstitious, although my father used to tease her that she took it to new levels. Once, when I was six years old, we were preparing to journey to see relatives two hundred miles away for Holi, a joyous festival when each of us throws as much colored dust as they can at the others. By the end of the day, everyone is covered from head to toe in every hue of the rainbow.