Karma (4 page)

When the saleswomen start draping silks over my head, Bapu waves his hand like he's about to hit them with an open palm. They bow deeply and retreat to the shadows.

One size fits all

Anyone can wear a sari,
Mata used to tell me.

One size fits all. Hindus, Sikhs, Christians.

Even Muslims
.
Many Sikh women wear a
salwar kameez
, a loose-fitting pant and long top, but my mother preferred the sari. She thought the
salwar kameez
was too similar to North American pyjamas.

I'll not be laughed at
, she told her new husband, shortly after they arrived in Canada in 1968.

Amar had let it go.
Wear what you want. This country is so young it doesn't matter. The streets are filled with immigrants like ourselves. There's no such thing as a real Canadian anyway except for the Indians. And we're Indians!
He thought this was very funny.

Leela looked on Elsinore's Main Street for women like herself and saw none. The women wore short dresses, their pale calves sticking out like the thin legs of flightless birds. Some wore pants.

Everyone stared at her sari. In the beginning she thought they were just jealous. Canadian clothes were lumpy and stiff.

Reena's Sari Shop in Winnipeg

The sari is five thousands years old
, Mata says, as I crawl under a table of coloured waterfalls spilling to the floor.
As old as Sanskrit text.

Mata's eyes are closed. Her fingers graze.

Silks from Banaras, Mysore. Synthetics with pretty names. Georgette. Chiffon.
Kanjeevaram
saris. The longest and heaviest. Embroidered with real gold.

Mata can always tell the difference.

There hasn't been a woman born that can't be made beautiful by wearing a sari. It softens our bones.

According to Mata, the value of a sari lies in how it falls from the body. The drape from the waist. Small hand-gathered folds. The detailed
pallu
flowing down a woman's back like a Himalayan river.

Weight is very important when choosing cloth. The eye, our most unreliable sense, is often seduced by gold threads, or fooled by sheen or variegated threads. But weight is honest. It doesn't change with the light or one's mood. How much air can pass through the weave? Is the cloth heavy and dense like the earth or thin, resembling the wind itself?

From under the table I watch her drape the sari like a veil.

Maya! Where are you?

I crawl out from my hiding place.

Why are saris so long, Mata?

I'll tell you when you're older.

The one

Bapu leaves me alone.

I browse between the stacks of fabric.

Searching with my hands.

I know it's there, but I can't rush over the lesser fabrics. I must touch slowly. Respect the blends and rayons. Starched cotton. Not all can be silk.

I wander through the garden. My hands caress brocades heavy as canvas. I could do this blind. I know weight like Mata.

When I finally find it, I stroke gently, afraid it will disintegrate like tissue. I feel the golden birds fly in a delicate filigree. Wings as light as clouds.

I lift the sari under my face and glance at the mirror.

“Tall, short, skinny, fat, rich or poor we fold and wrap.”

You look like your mother,
Bapu says, appearing beside me.
On her wedding day.

The glow of red silk.

Helen of Elsinore

Helen likes singing Mata's dressing song:

Tall, short, skinny, fat, rich or poor we fold and wrap.

I drape my blue sari over her head and shoulders.

Helen, I think you look like Mother Mary
in the Christmas play.

Great. A pregnant virgin. I wish I had a sari. Then we could both wear them to school . . . where they would
accidentally unravel in front of Michael! And he'd go crazy trying to decide which one of us he desired more!

I glare at Helen, but she just giggles and mouths S-E-X-Y.

I'm still trying to forget that moment.

(Michael helping me stand up. The end of my sari pooling in his hands.
Sorry,
he whispered.)

Really? You want to forget Michael Divienne leaning over your body in the middle of the hallway?

What?

Focus, Jiva. Focus.

You focus, Helen. We're supposed to be doing our project on world religions. You're the Christian. I'm the weird Sikh.

Fine.
Helen pulls a green sari around her hips like it's a beach towel.
Tell me again what you believe in, Jiva?

Maya
, a voice whispers from the hallway.

Did you say something?
Helen asks.

Tall, short, skinny, fat rich or poor we fold and wrap.

My mother's voice floats through the open bedroom door.

Hello, Mrs. Singh! How are you?

I usher Helen past Mata, pushing her into the bathroom
. We believe that we have many lives, Helen.

I lock the door.
If we live well, we are rewarded in our next life.

And if you mess up?

You're a cockroach.

Cool,
Helen says, while examining the clumps in her mascara.
Reincarnation. Another chance.

Every one deserves a second chance, don't you think?

My mother hears only music

The piano fallboard slams shut.

What did you say?
Mata's mouth is trembling.

Nothing, Mata. Please don't stop playing.

What. Did. You. Say.

I said that when you play, your fingers are quick. They run like the mice run in the barn. But I meant . . . happy mice.

Yes. Mice. I play music for chickens, cows, and sleeping cats. And my daughter says my hands are like rodents.

I watch my mother's beautiful hands flutter above her head as if she's playing a piano suspended in air. At the tips of her fingers, the short white nails glow like opals.

Suddenly Mata grabs my arm and drags me down the stairs to the kitchen. She pulls on the heavy back door, then kicks the screen open with her foot, pushing me into the pale sunlight. In the summer, startled chickens would have flown up cackling in a panic. In the fall, I would have heard a combine coughing clouds of black smoke in the fields. But in the winter, there isn't a sound. The prairie is silent. Like the inside of an egg.

Tell me what you hear, Maya?

My shoulders shake under her hands. I want to say the right thing, the thing that will take away her anger, the thing that will make her smile and not feel so alone. I want to say I hear music. I hear Bach when I'm feeding the chickens. I hear Beethoven like it's my own heartbeat. I hear music all around me.
Your music, Mata.
But it's pointless. There is only one answer to this question.

I hear the wind,
I whisper. Mata lifts her clenched hands from my shoulders, looking at them as if they no longer belong to her.
It's what I always hear.

My mother looks up at the sky brushed with long white clouds like a horse's tail.
If I'm lucky, Maya, your wind will carry me away one day
. She steps inside the house, her hand pulling the screen door tight against the spring-loaded latch. Then she closes the wooden door and turns the lock.

Sometimes the wind says my name. It whispers,
Maya
.

Who has seen the wind?

“Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads

The wind is passing by.”

Mrs. Robinson had us learn Rossetti's poem in the third grade. And then we went outside to look for evidence.

We stood in the playground at Elsinore Elementary, staring at the fields. Twenty-one eight-year-olds, eyes peering. Waiting for the wind to bend the stalks.

There, there it is!
I shouted.
The wind is orange!

No, honey,
the teacher said.
We can't really see the wind, only its movement.

But I can see it,
I said.

No, you can't,
some of the others jeered.
You're just pretending.

But I wasn't. High in the air, above the turned heads of the sunflowers, a broad orange ribbon floated through the air.

Their laughter reminded me of what I already knew. I was different. I had strange parents that came from a place far away. Across an ocean, a world of turbans and saris and peculiar alphabets. I came from a people who saw things that weren't really there. We made worlds out of nothing: air, wind, water, revenge.

But Helen, the prettiest girl in the class, envied me.

If I could see the wind, I'd know where to hide,
she whispered.
My father has a bad temper. He hits me just because I don't like peas!

She took my hand. I had a friend who needed to disappear too.

Overheard through the bedroom walls

No one in town ever talks to me, Amar.

Then you must talk first.

Be friendly.

It takes time.

Time? We've lived here nine years.

You have to try harder.

Why should I have to be the one to try so hard? Do you know that one day a woman actually reached out and touched my sari? Like I was a bolt of fabric in a store.

Such rudeness.

Then wear a dress.

Some pants.

Leave the sari for home.

Never. Canadian clothes are hideous.

They are little better than a scarecrow's.

Would you consider not wearing your turban?

That's different.

Oh, yes, Amar. That's different.

If you're a man. If you're a Sikh.

I'm just a Hindustani woman in this godforsaken place.

You must learn to hold your head high, Leela.

I can't any longer.

Their eyes burn through my skin.

I feel like I must apologize and I don't even know for what!

Well, then stay home.

And never go out again if that pleases you.

I can't live like this, Amar.

You must take me home.

There's no money, Leela.

The shop needs new tools.

Then just one ticket.

Please.

You'd leave your daughter and husband behind?

For a visit, Amar.

A few months.

That's all.

Stop these selfish thoughts, Leela!

Your life is here.

But this isn't a life!

It's a slow death.

My mother cries all night.

My father paces the floor.

I pull the bedcovers over my head so I don't have to listen to any more.

All in good time

Mrs. Hart, my homeroom teacher, always says this.
We must have patience. Good things come to those who wait.

The class sits still. Backs straight. Hands clasped in front on top of the desks. Everyone trying not to breathe. A breath could sink us.

All in good time,
she says softly as her hips swivel up the aisle like two pivoting pumpkins.

I can't look at this
, Michael groans, loud enough so even the first row can hear.

Helen giggles and then stuffs her fist into a perfectly outlined pink lip-sticked mouth. I look at her admiringly. This is the girl who became my best friend the day she said:
Don't ever cut your hair, Jiva. I'll just kill you.

Patience,
Mrs. Hart repeats.
When you are all perfectly still, I will dismiss you. I can stay here all day, you know.

I'll just bet she could,
Michael mutters behind me.
P-p-p-patience, Jiva.
His lips are close. His breath. On my neck.
Patience, girl. Some things are worth waiting for.
His words sear my skin.

Patient

That's the English word my father uses with my mother.

We must be patient, Leela. We'll go back to Punjab at the right time. Maybe there will be another child yet, if God wills it. Maybe a boy.

Oh, yes, Amar. We all must wait for your God's will.

She leaves the room. Beethoven bangs overhead.

I try to be patient too.

(Not about a visit to Punjab.

Who cares?)

Not foreign

I must wait for Michael to notice me.

Not my colour.

Not my sari.

Not someone in a play dressed in costume.

But me.

(The
me
who wouldn't be foreign with
him
.)

In the beginning

I smiled at him all the time even when he ignored me.

I started to help him with math.

I laughed at his lame jokes.

(Three naked nuns and a man selling window blinds isn't really that funny.)

Then Helen got involved.

Don't look so interested,
she said.

Boys hate girls who are interested.

No. No. No. You can't help him with homework.

Tell him you didn't do so well on the last test.

Boys hate smart girls.

(Really?)

So I ignored Michael.

Pretended he didn't exist.

And sure enough he began to tease me.

Good morning, Rikki-tikki-tavi!

And I didn't even mind.

(Why am I so stupid?)

I thought I was lucky.

To have a friend like Helen teaching to me how to control my desires.

Men like to be in control,
she instructed.
If you push too hard, they just turn away.

My mother had no friends to teach her this.

No one to advise her on husbandly behaviour.

If she had, I think Mata would have been out the kitchen door in under three seconds, stealing for the airport, in a car driven by a friend.