A Sister's Promise (33 page)

‘Your wife, is she in need of a housekeeper?’ I ask, more to determine what he is really asking of me.

‘I lost my wife last year,’ a shadow clouds his face. ‘One of the village women comes and cooks for me, but what I would really like is a housekeeper to look after the house, do the cleaning and tame this garden while I’m at school. I am a teacher, you see.’

I know,
I want to say. But I keep mum and ruminate on his offer instead.

It sounds ideal. I can picture Kushi sitting in the garden while I hang the washing out to dry, a beautiful bloom among beautiful blooms.

But first . . . I had better tell him. For he must have heard the rumours, surely? Nevertheless, this kind of thing is better out in the open. The words stick in my throat but I force them out. I do not want him finding out and throwing us out, just as we are settling in.

‘I . . . I have to tell you . . . ’

He smiles at me and his eyes are warm as he waves my words away. ‘I’ve heard all the gossip. News travels fast in this village.’

I’ve heard about you too. Are you really as good as the stories I’ve heard make you out to be?

He is party to the rumours. Is he taking them at face value? He’s lost his wife. He sees a woman with a baby and no husband. What exactly does he want?

‘Then why are you giving me the job?’ My voice is belligerent, scarlet as a heart not daring to hope, or to clutch at a lifeline in case it turns out to be poisonous ivy.

He scrunches his face in puzzlement, and then, when my meaning sinks in, his eyes grow wide with understanding.

‘Please,’ he says, looking right at me. ‘Your honour is safe with me. All I want is a housekeeper.’

‘Are you really the god the villagers make you out to be?’ I can’t help but ask.

What is the matter with you Sharda?

After the experiences I’ve had since Kushi, I’ve learnt the hard way not to trust people so easily, lest they bite when my back is turned. They look at me and see the lowest of the low: a woman with a child and no husband, a woman of easy virtue, a woman who will stoop to anything. They treat me the way they wouldn’t their mothers and sisters and children and that isn’t saying much. You can’t be too careful, is what I’ve learnt.

‘Ah, you’ve heard then.’ He pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘My wife . . . she died of complications from a fever caused by a mosquito bite. Two days was all it took. She was well on Monday, gone by Thursday. And I . . .’ His eyes shine wetly, ‘For a while I sank into depression. Not eating. Not talking. Barely managing to survive. And then one of my students came here, a little boy who said he missed me, and that nobody else could teach quite like I did.’ He rubs his forehead, takes a breath. ‘I dragged myself back to work. And among those children, their innocence and their enthusiasm, I found myself again. A version of myself in any case.’ He sighs deeply. ‘My wife . . . she adored children, dreamed of having a houseful someday . . . Anyhow, on my way home from school, one evening, I noticed the emaciated children of the slums begging for food . . . And here I was with my cottage and money and food I didn’t want to eat. And so, I started giving it away, to help those kids.’

He smiles, a gentle, sad smile that makes me ache.

‘People say I am good. Pshaw. Stuff and nonsense. The fact is, I am selfish. I do it for myself. It gets me through the days, and gives me a reason for living.’ He nods at me. ‘Now, I’ve never been this honest with anyone in the first few moments of meeting with them. You’re a great listener Sharda. I hope you’ll be just as good a housekeeper, if you decide to take the job, that is?’ He smiles and this time the sadness is confined to the corners of his eyes.

I go with my instincts and nod, hoping I am not making a terrible mistake. ‘The villagers won’t be happy,’ I say.

We’ll make a right pair won’t we? You the saint and me the sinner, in their eyes.

‘Not that my housekeeper is any of their business but I know what you mean.’ He rubs his hands together. ‘We’ll convince them otherwise. I like a good challenge.’

Kushi stirs, whimpers.

‘Come and see the house and then you can decide,’ he says, ushering me to the door.

He fumbles with the key, and then we are inside, in the foyer smelling of neglect and knowledge, books everywhere, the damp, delightful scent of books.

I breathe in deep. I picture days after my work is done, sitting down and reading, Kushi playing beside me, working my way down all these haphazard piles, my idea of heaven. I lean against the doorjamb, lightheaded suddenly. Is it really this easy? I feel tears sting my eyes. Why now, I think, when everything for once, is working my way.

‘Thank you,’ I whisper. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘Well,’ he says and I see that beneath his beard he is blushing. I have embarrassed him. ‘You can cook, can’t you? I didn’t think to ask.’

And I smile through my tears and then I am laughing and Kushi looks up at me and then her lips lift upwards and I say, ‘Look, she is smiling! Her first smile!’ and I am awed.

I am blessed.

A procession of villagers comes to my employer’s house. They call him ‘Sir’ and make it their duty to tell him their version of my story: a malign, shameless vamp, who takes advantage of honest men.

Sir nods and tells them that he knows and then he invites them in and asks them to partake of the food I have cooked and they leave singing my praises, saying they have never tasted anything like it.

Bit by bit, I am accepted into the reluctant folds of the village. My name is not uttered in the same breath as ‘slut’. Instead I am the woman whose fingers work magic, the fabulous cook who works for Sir, isn’t he lucky? And in time, with the inevitable fading of collective memory, I become Kushi’s parent, the mother of the amiable child who smiles adorably at everyone.

On my first day at the job, I tell my employer my story, the whole, unabridged truth.

‘I’d heard of you,’ he says. ‘Everybody around here has heard of the local girl who got first rank in PUC. I understood from the papers that you were going to study medicine.’ And then, after a pause, his kind eyes earnest, ‘Would you like to continue with your medical degree? I could loan you the money.’

Tears flood my eyes at his generosity. ‘I . . .’ I fiddle with my sari pallu.

‘I mean it,’ he says and I look up. ‘You’re so talented. It’s a loan you know, you can pay me back in time . . . ’

‘Thank you so much, Sir,’ I rub my eyes with the pallu of my sari. ‘But I’ll say no for now.’

‘Think about it,’ he says. ‘I think you’d make an excellent doctor.’

But I know it is not going to happen, Ma. That ship has passed. Kushi is now my life. I’ll concentrate on bringing her up, making her into the woman I wasn’t, the woman Puja tried so hard to be: modern and fearless and unbound by tradition, unafraid to take on the world.

Kushi grows a little every day. She’s recently started to crawl and she roams the house on all fours, a delightful, delighted little thing, always laughing, extremely sociable, charming all and sundry, so much like her mother.

The stain of my arrival in this village, the stink of scandal has been chased away by the fragrance of my cooking. This is my calling, I realise. Cooking has always made me happy; it is when I feel closest to you. Seeing others savour and enjoy what I have prepared gives me great joy.

Also, I am beginning to have feelings for Sir. Or I should say Naresh, as that’s what he’s asked me to call him.

‘I call you Sharda, so please call me Naresh,’ he’s said, flashing his earnest smile at me.

I respect Naresh and admire him. He is a man who has tasted sorrow, survived loss, a man who cares, a man who reads, a man with principles, a man I am growing to love.

When Kushi is almost a year old, Nilamma passes away, quietly in her sleep, having never quite recovered from the smoke inhalation.

One evening, a month or so after the cremation, as I am cooking potato bondas for Naresh’s tea, he asks me to marry him.

‘I love you, Sharda,’ he says. ‘You’re the strongest and most intelligent woman I know. I admire you more than anyone I’ve ever met. You take what life throws at you and make the best of it. You have this elastic and unparalleled capacity to love. You’re fiercely loyal and so perfectly wonderful . . . ’

‘I’m not,’ I say, tears streaming down my cheeks and dripping onto my sari blouse. ‘I . . . I’m not worthy of your love . . . I’ve made so many mistakes. My sister . . . I . . . ’

‘You’re only human,’ he says softly. ‘I’d have done the same.’

‘I doubt . . .’

But before I can get another word out, he comes and puts his arms around me and then he lifts my face and kisses me on the mouth.

Kushi toddles up to us while I am still breathless with wonder, and savouring that wonderful kiss that tasted of heaven. It is the flavour I aim for every time I cook and never get quite right; the taste of love, of being loved.

Kushi squats on her bottom and lifts her arms. She looks right at Naresh. ‘Da,’ she says, ‘Dada.’

And Naresh raises an eyebrow at me and says, ‘Well, she’s made up her mind, at least, and much faster than you too.’

I laugh and I’m crying and he hoists Kushi up and he puts his arms around me, gathering us both in his embrace.

Kushi looks at Naresh and says, ‘Da,’ and she looks at me and says, ‘Ma.’

She touches my eyes and puts her hand to her mouth before either of us can say anything, and her face scrunches up in a look of pure disgust. She opens her mouth, sticks her tongue out and blows raspberries to get rid of the tang of salt.

Both Naresh and I burst out laughing, and her mouth, puckered up to cry, relaxes, and she smiles, brings her palms together and claps, a trick she’s recently learned.

And I look at the three of us grouped in Naresh’s strong arms in the warm kitchen aromatic with hot oil and roasted spices and think,
We’re a family
.

I will not dwell on what will happen if Puja decides to come back and claim Kushi. I will live in the present, with this man who loves me and this girl who has claimed Naresh and me for her own and who lives up to her name and fills our lives with such
kushi
, untold happiness.

KUSHI

THE HUMBLE SKIN OF AN ONION

When I read the bit where Ma finds a baby under the mango tree, I am intrigued. Where is this child?

I find out soon enough.

I set down the letters very carefully. They waver and dance before my eyes. The cracked ceiling sways and then rights itself. A lizard hugs the wall. It flicks its tongue at me.

Bile threatens, sluggish, bitter. Nausea heaves; my stomach cringes from the truth it is finding so hard to swallow, from the earthy scent of betrayal and the musty odour of exposed secrets.

I try and fail to reconcile the familiar contours of Ma’s beloved face, conjured up by my stunned mind, with this new knowledge that is burning a hole inside me, the words that I’ve just read, that are percolating through my brain like stones sinking to the bottom of a jar of water.

How can you look like the woman I’ve known and loved when you’ve revealed yourself to be someone completely different?