A Sister's Promise (10 page)

I don’t want to feel the hurt that makes my stomach cramp at night when I am lying next to you, Ma and you do not hold me close like you used to, because you have to lie on your back now, to be comfortable. I do not like the feeling I get when you stroke your stomach, when your face lights up as you speak about the baby, the feeling I cannot yet identify as envy.

I do not know if I even want this baby. Then I push the thought away. No, I cannot think like this. I am going to be a good big sister. I am going to love this sibling, look after it and make you and Da proud.

And then it is that time of year when exams loom. The last time I had an exam—my very first—you sat with me, Ma, massaging my hair, cooking my favourite dishes and feeding me as I practised my words and numbers. You and Da, although uneducated yourselves, believe very much in the power of education.

But now, even though my exams are forthcoming, I have to cook for Da and myself, I have to look after you, Ma. Despite this, I work extra hard as I do not want to let you and Da down.

On the day I get my report card, and find that I am at the top of the class, I skip the whole way home from school. This is the day you will forget about the baby for once, focus on me instead, I think. As I near our hut, the dog comes rushing at me, hurling his body at my feet, raising a tornado of dust.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask, scratching behind his ear. I never usually get this reception.

The hut is quiet, eerily so. I tumble inside anyway, holding out my report card, shouting breathlessly, ‘Ma. Ma?’

Our hut is empty and I feel foreboding shooting daggers up my spine, rooting my legs to the ground. I look in the lean-to, behind the hut, in the fields, even inside the well. All empty.

Then I am running, bare feet flying, to the market, gulping in the smell of decomposing vegetables and raw fish, soil and spices, choking on the briny taste of fear. Our market stall is empty, Ma. I knew it would be, somehow, but I was holding out desperate hope. I stand there, in that stall bereft of you and Da but still haunted by Da’s scent of stale sweat and hard work, and tasting salt and snot and panic with every gasping inhalation, I finally give in to the sobs that have been building in my chest, huge wheezing moans that rend my throat, and steal my breath.Soft arms envelop me, and for a brief minute, I think it’s you, Ma. But the overpowering odour of dried fish, the crinkly feel of the sari, is all wrong, and I cry even harder, afraid to open my eyes, to acknowledge the fact that the world has turned upside down and I have lost you and Da. I fight the irrational conviction that this strange smelling woman whose embrace does not feel remotely like yours will be my mother from now on.

‘What’s the matter, sweetie? Sharda, what is it?’ The woman whispers in my ear.

At her use of my name, I open my eyes. It is Sumatiakka, who squats in the mud next to our vegetable stall and sells fish.

‘I don’t know where Da and Ma are,’ I hiccup.

Her worried face relaxes into a smile.

‘Is that all?’ she asks, wiping my eyes with her sari pallu, and I don’t mind that the fish smell is now all over my face, that there might even be a fish scale or two stuck to my cheeks, my relief is so huge and all encompassing.

‘Your ma went into labour suddenly, sweetie, earlier than expected. There were complications. The baby was stuck the wrong way and your ma had to be rushed to the clinic in Dhoompur. It all happened so fast, you see, so you must have slipped their mind . . . ’

They only care for this baby. I am invisible to them.

Sumatiakka arranges for Modduanna to take me to the clinic in his rickshaw. At the clinic, I breathe in the alien, bitter odour of pills and I want to be sick. Then, I see you and Da and I run all the way up to you, my hurt and anger forgotten, as relief, sweet and golden effervesces in my chest.

‘I thought you were lost,’ I sob, trying to bury myself in your chest, Ma, yearning for the soothing luxury of your arms around me.

But you hold me at bay, even though your eyes shine with remorse as you knead my hair like you have not done in ages. ‘I am so sorry, Sharda. It all happened so quickly, the baby was stuck, it almost died. Your da had to bring me here. By God’s grace, the baby is fine. A real miracle.’ Your voice softening, your gaze dissolving as you talk about the baby.

I want the comfort of your lap, Ma. I want to press my ear to your heart and hear your voice reverberate as it makes its way out of your throat.

But there is a bundle in your arms that is obstructing me from doing so and as I stand there, it emits a series of tremulous wails, much like the emaciated kittens that sometimes wander into the market in search of food.

I am intrigued by the bundle, but I have something important to tell you, first, Ma, something that will make you shine.

‘I got my report card, and I came first,’ I say, flapping the now crumpled sheet of paper in front of you.

But you are distracted, Ma, not paying attention to me. Not even looking at me anymore. Fuming and desperately hurt, my eyes stinging and fresh tears bubbling, I stare at the cause of all my upset. And my tears dry on my cheeks, and my distress is forgotten as I take in the perfect little being swaddled in cloth, with its miniature scrunched-up face that emits those plaintive mewls.

‘Do you want to hold your sister?’ you ask, Ma, and that is when I know the baby is a girl.

‘She is very special,’ you’re saying. ‘She almost died, you know. The nurse had to swing her upside down and slap her a couple of times, gently, of course, before she started breathing. She is a real miracle this one.’

Your words barely register as I hold the squirming, wiggling bundle in my arms. Her hands are tiny, with diminutive fingers bunched into delicate fists that she waves in the air as if railing against the world. And then, she turns her minuscule face in my direction and tries to open her eyes. She struggles to focus her new-born gaze on me and when she does, opens her little mouth in a huge yawn, a perfect ‘O’, displaying startling pink gums and a rosebud of a tongue. And just like that I fall in love with this vulnerable being.

My sister. Puja—meaning prayer.

‘All our prayers answered,’ you say, Ma, at the naming ceremony, and I nod in solemn agreement.

RAJ

UNEASY TRUCE

Raj slouches in his seat, jabs earphones into his ears, and turns the volume to its loudest setting. He does not want to go to India with his mother. He wants to be with Ellie.

He has loved Ellie since the very first day of Secondary School, when she sat in front of him and he was dazzled by her hair, a halo of gold glinting in the weak September sunlight that angled in slanting streaks into the classroom. Ellie, of course, had never given any indication of even knowing who he was, except for that incredible wave and mimed words from the bus that evening—was it only the day before yesterday?—that ended with him almost getting arrested. He hasn’t been back to school since.

Did that wave and her subsequent declaration really happen or did he imagine it? If it did, then does it mean Ellie knows he likes her and that she likes him back? Will she acknowledge him when he comes back? When is he coming back?

Lord, he needs a smoke. What hell to be stuck next to his mother on a nine-hour flight, travelling to a country he never had any intention of visiting, especially after Raj’s father chose it over him.

His mother is gesturing to him.

‘What?’ he growls, tugging an earphone out of one ear.

‘I . . . ’

If he didn’t know her better, he would have thought she was blushing.

She gestures towards his cheek.‘I’m sorry about that.’

He nods, and goes to plug his earphone into his ear again.

‘I . . .’ his mum says, clearing her throat. ‘I was quite a self-centred child. Can you believe it?’

Oh, so she wants to chat, tell him about her past. Perhaps it is because of his accusation that he doesn’t know anything about her that triggered the slap. Or perhaps this is her way of apologizing for dragging him five thousand miles away from his life, to visit with an aunt and cousin he didn’t know existed until the day before yesterday. He could do with an old-fashioned sorry and a bit of silence to be honest, so he can lose himself in his music and fantasise about Ellie. Will Ellie think he’s given up on her when he doesn’t turn up at school? Will she have hooked up with someone else by the time he’s back?

Puja is looking expectantly at him, waiting for an answer. What does she think this conversation will achieve? Make him okay with being hauled on this pointless journey to the other end of the world? And does he really want to know? Does he really want to unlock the mystery that is his mother? Who knows what he’ll find.

‘Are you going to donate your kidney to your niece?’ he’d asked her that morning, as he bit into toast slathered with lashings of butter and strawberry jam. Crumbs rained onto the carpet with each bite. He wilfully did not use a plate as she always nagged him to.

He had asked the question even though he’d been wary of disrupting their status quo, not really wanting to start a fight. They had both arrived at an uneasy truce after their argument (which generally meant ignoring everything that had been said—the hurtful words and accusations—and avoiding each other as much as possible until their next spat). But his curiosity and angst had got the better of him. He wanted to know why they were dropping everything at a moment’s notice and leaving the country. He’d hoped, even then, that he might make Puja change her mind, rid her of this madness that seemed to have consumed her since her sister called. He wanted to make her see the foolhardiness of this venture—not that anything
he
ever suggested had the smallest effect on her.

His mother had stopped her maniacal rushing about, and her hands full of clothes that she was trying to stuff into a suitcase that was already heaving, she looked up at him. ‘I . . . I didn’t promise anything . . .’

‘Tell me again, why are we going then?’

She had sighed and ignored his question, as was her habit whenever they discussed anything of importance to him, and had resumed her frantic packing. Then she booked a taxi, sent emails, and made last-minute phone calls so her business would run smoothly in her absence.

He’d stood glaring at her until finally, she looked up. ‘Have you had your shower yet? The taxi will be here in a few minutes.’

And that was when he had finally accepted that it was happening. They were going to India.

Fat lot of help this convoluted apology of his mother’s will do, he thinks now. He’s still going to be miles away from Ellie.

But . . . his mother’s going to talk whether he wants her to or not. She has that determined look about her, the look she gets when she’s read his school report and is preparing to launch into a lecture about how he’s wasting his god-given talents by not working hard enough. Those times he escapes into his room, shuts the door, and shuts her out. Now he is trapped in this confined space beside her with nowhere to go. He should have chosen the aisle seat, he thinks.

Although truth be told, he is just a tiny bit curious to know more about the girl his remote mother once was, this girl who grew up in a hut. Sounds like a fairy tale, he thinks, especially compared with how she lives now, in a veritable mansion. He also wants to know more about his mother’s sister whose phone call caused this upheaval, but whom his mother has never mentioned, or been in contact with in years, as far as he knows. If he’s to be absolutely honest with himself, he’s jealous. Jealous of this Sharda and her daughter, and the hold they have on his mother.

When Raj was too small to know better, he would launch himself at his mum, wanting reassurance, a hug, especially during those long, bleak days after his father left. She would push him away then, albeit gently, time and again. Gradually, he learned not to ask for affection, to hide his yearning, his need for his mother, behind a taciturn scowl, an armour of sullen resentment, a shield of rage, against the disservice done to him.

He learned not to be afraid of the dark, and to ignore the shadows skulking down the walls of his bedroom and taking his toys hostage, during those long, winter evenings when his mother forgot to inform his nanny that she was working later than usual, and his nanny left at her usual time and his mum had still not come home.

He learned to recognise the sound of her key in the lock, her soft tread on the stairs. He learned to tamp down hope when she opened his bedroom door to check on him. He would sense her standing above him, smell her perfume and her tiredness, and with his heart clenched and eyes shut tight, he would pray that this was the day she would bend down and kiss him goodnight.

He learned not to expect her at cake sales and school assemblies. He was the only child whose parents were not present; the only child whose nanny came to pick him up at three fifteen on the days when all the other kids went home early with their parents after book celebration morning, and he was the only one left in class, helping his teacher put the reading folders in order in the strangely echoing classroom bereft of the music of his classmates’ voices.

In his mother’s list of priorities he’s always come last. Now he knows who comes first.

But why? Why a stranger, a woman his mother hasn’t spoken of or been in touch with in years?

He wants to find out. And so he turns towards his mother.

‘I can believe that you were a self-centred child, yes,’ he says and she laughs, slightly hysterical.

He understands that she’s nervous about this trip. She’s already dropped their passports twice, causing him to stuff them into his own pocket. She’s misplaced their boarding passes, making them wait for ten minutes at the door to their plane as she riffled through her purse, with the passengers behind them sighing and grumbling in frustration. If she’s this nervous, then why on earth is she going to meet her sister, the woman who has achieved with one phone call what he hasn’t managed in his life?

‘I was the most beautiful girl in the village . . .’ His mother says, her voice girlish, and tinged with nostalgia.