Cinnamon Gardens (22 page)

S
unday was always a relaxing day at Lotus Cottage, a do-nothing day in an otherwise busy week. In the morning, after church, a woman would come to the house and give each girl a massage with gingelly oil. Then they would engage in quiet activities until it was time for their bath in water that had been boiled with ciacca seeds and other herbs. For Manohari and Kumudini, this meant homework and sewing. Annalukshmi would drag a big cane armchair into the garden and sit herself down under the flamboyant tree for a good read. These hours were sacred, and everyone at Lotus Cottage knew better than to disturb her.

This Sunday, Annalukshmi was reading George Eliot’s
Silas Marner
and was two-thirds of the way through. The last part of a novel was always her favourite. There was a quality of breathless excitement, a sense of rushing towards a future that was already decided, but which she could only try and guess at as it approached.

She was so engrossed in her book that she did not hear the bicycle bell at the gate. It was only the call “Telegram” that made her look up. Kumudini had already gone down to the gate. Annalukshmi hurried up the garden, a feeling of trepidation beginning to build in her. Telegrams seldom brought good news.

Louisa, having heard the call, came out onto the verandah, wiping her hands with a dishcloth.

Kumudini brought the telegram up the front path and silently proffered it to her mother. Louisa quickly opened it as the girls crowded around to read it with her.
PARVATHY AND MUTTIAH ARRIVE WEDNESDAY WEEK ON EMPRESS OF TOKYO
.
STOP
.
IN CEYLON ONLY TWO WEEKS
.
STOP
.
MARRY ANNALUKSHMI TO MUTTIAH AND SEND HER BACK
.
STOP
.
WILL NOT BROOK OPPOSITION
.
STOP
.
MUST MEET MY DAUGHTER IN MALAYA A BRIDE
.
STOP
.
MURUGASU
.
STOP
.

Louisa cried out and raised her hand to her mouth.

Annalukshmi felt the blood rush to her head. She thought she was going to faint and sat down quickly in a chair. Wednesday week, ten days from now! It took two weeks by ship from Malaya to Ceylon. Parvathy and Muttiah were already halfway across the Indian Ocean, on their way for her.

“Amma, did you know about this?” Kumudini asked, rereading the telegram.

After a moment, Louisa nodded. Then she told them about the arrival of that letter from Murugasu over a month ago and her attempts to avoid his orders by trying to arrange a marriage for Annalukshmi. When she was done, Kumudini said, “The Macintosh boy. He is our only hope. You must tell Aunt Philomena to find out if he is interested in akka and if so to arrange a meeting right away.”

“I’ve told you I am not interested in marrying anyone,” Annalukshmi started to say, but they ignored her.

“How can I tell Philomena that?” Louisa said. “She’ll want to know why.”

“You must tell her that akka is getting difficult,” Kumudini said with complete disregard for Annalukshmi’s feelings. “Tell her that akka is threatening to abscond.”

“Really, Kumudini,” Louisa said crossly, then glanced appraisingly at Annalukshmi.

“I’ve never heard of anything more ridiculous,” Annalukshmi protested. “Bad enough there is this proposal from Malaya. Now –”

“Well, then what, Amma?” Kumudini asked, cutting her sister short.

Louisa turned and went into the house. Kumudini followed, elaborating on her idea.

“If this thing with the Macintosh boy fails, you are finished,” Manohari said with relish. “Patas! Before you know it, you’ll be in Malaya.” She held out her hand, as if displaying a name board. “Mrs. A. Muttiah.”

“Be quiet,” Annalukshmi cried. “Just be quiet.”

She stepped off the verandah and made her way back to her chair. She sat, picked up her book, and then slammed it shut.

Muttiah as her husband. How preposterous. Muttal Muttiah. For he was a “muttal” chap, an oaf, an idiot. She pictured him as she had known him seven years ago, before she left Malaya. His heavy eyelids, the frown of effort when he spoke, his sputtering of words, and then, what he had to say so dull, so inconsequential. He was tall with strong arms and legs. Yet his very physique, usually sprawled in a chair, added to his indolence, his witlessness. She felt her skin prickle with repulsion at the thought of his
touch, his embrace. Her abhorrence went even deeper than that. In Parvathy’s house, she knew, from the times she had visited, that she would be expected to conduct herself in a traditional manner. Avoid the company of male visitors and sit in the back room; only leave the house when accompanied by a male relative; attend to her housewifely duties in a compliant manner; never contradict her husband even if she knew he was wrong. She would be expected to exemplify the True Wife of the
Tirukkural
, whose husband is her only God. And to think she was being ordered by her father to marry a Hindu. It was an affront to her mother. What utter madness, she thought. I don’t care if he will brook opposition or not. My father will never meet
me
in Malaya, a bride.

Louisa knew that Kumudini’s suggestion was the only solution. So she ordered a rickshaw and went to see Philomena Barnett that evening.

Cousin Philomena lived in a modest house on Flower Road. A house that was plain and practical with none of the charm of Lotus Cottage. As Louisa came up the front path, she could hear Philomena’s unmarried (and some said unmarriageable) daughter Dolly hammering out “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms of Jesus” on the piano, her quavering voice never quite reaching the “leaning” in the chorus, making her sound as if she desperately needed to lean on something. Philomena was sitting on the verandah playing solitaire. When she saw Louisa, she tried to hoist herself out of her chair but gave up. “Cousin,” she said. “Come, sit, sit.”

She turned towards the drawing room and screeched out for Dolly. It took a few tries before Dolly finally heard her. When
she appeared at the doorway, Philomena sent her to get a drink, then turned to Louisa.

Louisa now told Philomena about Annalukshmi’s supposed threats not to cooperate with any attempts to arrange a marriage.

When she was finished, Philomena cried out “Hah!” in amazement, then shook her head to say she was not a bit surprised.

After that, it did not take Louisa much work to convince her cousin to try to expedite matters with the Macintoshes.

Philomena Barnett acted quickly and, on Tuesday, she arrived at Lotus Cottage with the news. The Macintoshes had agreed to a meeting. It was to take place on Thursday evening at Lotus Cottage.

Annalukshmi felt that there were more important considerations at the moment than for her to be bothered with nonsense that would lead nowhere. Yet she had, after all, given her initial permission for things to proceed with this Macintosh boy. The meeting with him would have to be gone through.

The smell of freshly mown grass was something that Annalukshmi always associated with special occasions, usually birthdays. When she came home early on Thursday afternoon, Ramu was cutting the lawn with a long knife, the piles of grass like tiny hills all over the garden. As she stood on the verandah watching him, she felt as if it was indeed someone’s birthday, but, instead of joy, she felt the slight biliousness that had been with her the whole day return, strengthened. She went to find
her mother and Kumudini, shaking her head at her foolishness for ever agreeing to go along with this. As she came out of the back door and made her way along the verandah to the kitchen, she smelt the odour of pastry frying in coconut oil, yet another thing she associated with birthdays. Usually the smell made her hungry, but now it increased her feeling of queasiness. When she came into the kitchen, Louisa and Kumudini were making patties. “Akka,” Kumudini said on seeing her, “I want you to look at something.”

She washed her hands and led Annalukshmi to their bedroom. Manohari was at the desk making a garland of jasmine flowers. On the bed was a sari of Kumudini’s. A pink Paris chiffon with a pattern of little birds on it. Annalukshmi disliked it immediately. The sari was too girlish for her.

“What do you think?” Kumudini asked.

“You’ll look like a delicate, feminine flower of Tamil womanhood in it,” Manohari added caustically.

“No thank you,” Annalukshmi said to Kumudini. “I think I’ll wear my plain white cotton sari.”

Kumudini looked at her aghast. “You can’t be serious, akka,” she said. “That’s a daily-wear sari.”

“I’m not about to get all dressed up for nothing.”

“Very well, akka,” Kumudini said. “In that case, you can heat up the coals and iron the sari yourself. I’m not going to do it.”

Annalukshmi envisioned the laborious process of ironing the six yards of material that constituted a sari. “Well, I suppose it will do,” she said rather ungraciously.

Kumudini saw she had the advantage and decided to press further. She held up the garland of jasmine flowers. “How about this?” she asked.

“Absolutely not. I hate the heaviness of it in my hair.”

“Chutta has gone through a lot of trouble to make it.”

Annalukshmi shook her head.

“Look, akka. Either you do it my way or yours.” Kumudini began to pick up her sari.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Annalukshmi said. “I’ll wear the wretched garland.”

Kumudini not only got Annalukshmi to wear the sari and the hair garland but, with some resistance, was able to apply a little red salve to her sister’s lips, some kohl around her eyes, and powder to lighten her darkness.

When Kumudini was done, she stepped aside so that her sister could see the result of her handiwork in the mirror.

Annalukshmi looked at herself and grimaced.

“You look very nice,” Kumudini said.

Annalukshmi looked at Manohari, who nodded her approval. She stared at herself in the mirror, still unsure.

At that moment, they heard the gate opening.

“My goodness,” Kumudini cried and glanced at the clock on the wall. “They couldn’t have arrived already.”

Footsteps could be heard coming along the verandah. They got up and went to see who it was.

As they came out of the bedroom, Louisa was hurrying across the drawing room ahead of them.

Philomena Barnett appeared at the front door. One look at her distraught face and they knew there had been a catastrophe.

“Oh cousin,” Philomena gasped. “Oh cousin, cousin, a terrible thing has happened. The boy has bolted.”

“What!”

“He’s run away, cousin,” Philomena said. “The dirty, dirty fellow has run away.”

Louisa cried out in horror.

“Akka has been abandoned,” Manohari exclaimed. “Deserted like Miss Havisham in
Great Expectations
.”

This was too much for Louisa. She slapped Manohari, sat down in a chair, and burst into tears.

Louisa and the girls were able gradually to extract the story from the nearly hysterical Philomena. The Macintosh boy, it turned out, had run away to live with a woman who had a house in Pettah. An older woman. A rich woman. A divorced woman. A low-class parvenu, Philomena added. His parents had tried to dissuade him from this woman. They had come up with the proposal of Annalukshmi. Once he had seen Annalukshmi’s photograph, he had actually been willing to meet her. Then this morning he had left, taking hardly anything with him. A real filthy, useless cad, Philomena declared. He was now living in sin with this woman.

Once Annalukshmi had heard the whole story, she stood up and began to walk towards the bedroom. Kumudini rose and followed her.

“Akka,” she said and touched her arm.

Annalukshmi shrugged off her sister’s hand. “Well, that’s an end to that, isn’t it,” she said and went off to her room.

When she got inside, she bolted the door, then sat down at the mirror and stared at her made-up face. What bloody nonsense, what a waste of time all this had been. She was a fool not to have put her foot down before. There were more important concerns in her life right now than that Macintosh boy. Picking up a towel, she began to take her make-up off, scrubbing viciously
at her skin. She unwound the jasmine garland from her hair, threw it in the wastepaper basket, and tied her plait into a knot at the back of her head. She quickly removed the sari.