The Hope Factory

by Lavanya Sankaran

  Vidya-ma’s displeasure, increasingly audible through muttered comments that trailed after Thangam and Kamala, frothed over like boiling rice water when the doorbell rang and, no, it was not Shanta but her own friend, come for lunch.

  “Kavika!” they heard her say in English, “I’m so sorry … my cook has vanished—the wretched cow—and I don’t know what to do…. I’m so sorry, everything’s chaotic!”

  “Hey, no problem, yaar,” Vidya-ma’s friend said, “we can order something in … unless you’d prefer me to leave? We can do this another day …”

  “No, no, no, no,” said Vidya-ma, visibly decompressing like a pressure cooker relieved of steam. “Yes, of course, it is no big deal…. Right, we’ll order in. You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not,” said her friend. “And, Vidya! I can’t thank you enough for the clothes you sent over. My daughter will love them, they’re perfect for her.”

  “Hey, no problem at all.” Vidya-ma’s smile transformed her face. “I saw them when I was shopping for Valmika and Pingu and thought they might work.”

  “You’re a sweetheart,” said her friend, sitting on a ledge in the kitchen, quite at her ease, her long, jean-clad legs swinging. “Now, what should we get for lunch? How many of us are there?”

  “Two of us. The children are at school, Anand’s at work,” said Vidya-ma.

  “And your staff,” said Vidya-ma’s friend. She smiled at Kamala and asked in Kannada. “How many are you?”

  Kamala darted a nervous look at Vidya-ma and kept silent. Thangam answered: “We are three of us, ma, including Shanta.”

  “Great.” Vidya-ma’s friend proceeded to order food for five people. “Hey, do you remember how crazy we were for hariyali chicken kebabs when we were kids?”

  “Especially you. You were a pig. You’d eat half the plate before the rest of us got a chance.”

  “I was, wasn’t I? Well, watch out at lunch!”

  Kamala stared after them, her mouth already watering.

  But neither Vidya-ma nor her friend ate with great appetite; the dishes placed before them were sampled but not properly eaten by any means. They plucked at their rotis, leaving them half shredded upon their plates, the friend eating the long carrot sticks that Thangam had sliced and placed upon a plate, Vidya-ma herself talking so fast, her English speeding by at incomprehensible speed; she seemed to have forgotten the main business of the table.

  Thangam did not seem surprised. “She likes to complain to this one,” she muttered.

  Kamala was impressed. “Do you understand all that they are saying?”

  “Certainly,” said Thangam, with some scorn. “Do you not? … She is complaining about Anand-saar.”

  “That can’t be,” said Kamala. “Truly? Why?”

  Anand-saar seemed to shield his wife from hardship, besides being a devoted father to his children. Did Vidya-ma not see this as a blessing? Perhaps he had some secret vice?

  “No, no … nothing like that …” said Thangam, listening closely at Kamala’s urging. “He is not sympathetic to her wishes, he does not comprehend something …”

  “Comprehend what?”

  “I have no idea,” said Thangam, losing interest. “Tell me, who can comprehend her wishes?”

  Kamala peeped at Vidya-ma’s friend when she went in with a hot roti, heated on the tava to a crisp, oily perfection. She was nice but surely as odd-looking as Vidya-ma was pretty: too thin, her gray hair cropped short like that of the old watchman at the front gate.

  Later, over an expansive lunch of leftovers—chicken kebabs and North Indian–style curries rich with ground masalas and nut butters and cream—Kamala, seated luxuriantly right where she wanted to, speculated lazily on Shanta’s whereabouts. “So strange of her to vanish like this …”

  “She must have gone to see that husband of hers,” said Thangam.

  “I did not know she is married! She has never said …”

  Shanta had never been forthcoming on any topic, right from the start. Quite the contrary. Witness her first and only statement when Kamala, on her first day of work, paused thankfully in her labors to accept a glass of hot tea and a slice of white bread in the kitchen. Thangam settled down on the floor, and Kamala went to join her—innocent, one might say, of any wrongdoing—only to be stopped by a brusque “Not there. Do not sit there. That is my place.”

  Kamala was startled at such unceremonious ways but quick-tongued in her own defense. “Why?” she said to Shanta. “Does your noble father own this entire floor?”

  Shanta ignored the provocative comment; Thangam pulled Kamala to another side of the floor to drink her tea and talk of other things, urging her, later, simply to ignore Shanta, adding: “That is her nature. She is like that with everybody.”

  Kamala soon discovered this to be true; Shanta extended her incivility to the world with great impartiality. When Vidya-ma entered the kitchen to make a third alteration to the dinner menu, Shanta abruptly said, “No. I cannot do that.”

  “Why not?” said Vidya-ma. “Why do you say that?”

  “Where is the time to prepare akki-rotis,” said Shanta. She turned her back on her mistress and began to wash dishes in the sink, noisily banging steel plates against vessels.

  Vidya-ma’s face flushed. “Of course there is time.”

  “No,” said Shanta and increased her banging.

  Judging by Vidya-ma’s expression, her next words, Kamala felt sure, would be “pack up your things and instantly go.” Instead, her new mistress just glared at Shanta and left the kitchen, leaving a trail of angry words in her wake. “… so unhelpful. Why I put up with it, I don’t know …”

  Kamala didn’t either—and had to wait until lunchtime to have that question answered. For Shanta Ruthie Ebenezer’s qualities were an unfortunate stew: of a miserly temper, a sharp tongue, an unforgiving mind, a capacity for small meannesses—and an unfair, semidivine ability to cook like a dream. Her Sunday prayers at the Roman Catholic church did not serve to sweeten her soul; instead, the Goddess Mary gifted her with swiftness of hand, so she could slice her way through entire trays of vegetables, reducing them to shreds and slivers in minutes; strength of muscle, so her arms could tirelessly stir the gravies on the stove and grind the raw, soaked rice and lentils into smooth batters in the old stone grinder that was cemented into the floor; and a litany of incantations that converted the spices that lay in everyone’s kitchen into magical tools of alchemy. A simple chunk of gingerroot, in Shanta’s hands, tugged at the senses in ways that one could never imagine possible.

  If she were in a good mood, the meal she laid before them was elaborate and generous, sometimes exceeding the food she served to the family at the dining table. This was rare. But even if her mood was so sour that she could not bring herself to feed the other servants with anything other than a large vat of rice and another of lightly spiced sambar, it was still sambar so flavorful that it gently teased the mouth before settling delightfully in the stomach.

  One day, during that first week, there was a stack of parathas next to the rice. Kamala took two and stopped in amazement after the first bite. She had never eaten a paratha like this before, with magical layers of spice and flavor and tenderness that Shanta’s harsh qualities could not possibly have been capable of producing. Kamala ate a second piece—and immediately thought of her son. How he would enjoy this … She eyed the rotis on her plate. Perhaps she could take them home with her at the end of the day? What difference did it make if she ate them now or later?

  She pushed them to one side of her plate, contenting herself with rice, waiting until everyone else had finished before rolling them up. She was about to stuff them into her bag when a firm hand gripped her wrist.

  “Put that back. I am not cooking for every grubby street brat whose mother is too lazy to cook for her own child.”

  Kamala felt herself tremble in rage and embarrassment, her fingers dropping the rotis. The silent malevolence of Shanta’s gaze made it clear that
she would take great pleasure in thwarting Kamala.

  They had existed in a state of uneasy quick-to-fire truculence ever since then, Kamala’s passages through the kitchen marked by Shanta’s comments and her own rebuttals. There was no question of a pleasant exchange of personal information.

  “Yes, she is married, but naturally, as the second wife, she does not speak freely about it.” Thangam seemed to know all the details. “It is not the sort of thing one can speak of with pride, is it? The truth of the matter is he spends most of his time with the first wife—Shanta sees him only when he requires money.”

  “Has she children?”

  “One, but there were two,” said Thangam. “Both young men in their twenties. The elder died three years ago in a road accident. He was walking home in the rains—you remember those bad floods?—and he fell into an open manhole in the road. The government promised Shanta twenty thousand rupees as reparation and gave her twelve—which her husband immediately took from her …”

  “And the other?”

  “Oh, he is in every way his father’s son. He does no work; he spends his life as an alcoholic and runs after his mother, like an unweaned baby, for food, for money, for whatever she can give.”

  “Poor thing,” said Kamala. “That is trouble indeed …”

  “Yes,” said Thangam, “but tell me, sister, who does not have troubles? The rest of us manage to smile occasionally, do we not?”

  Kamala, at her ease in the kitchen for the first time, said, “It would be nice—would it not?—if she would stay away a few days…. Then we could feast like this every day …”

  “Akka, which film have you been watching?” said Thangam, with some asperity. “We would eat like this only if Vidya-ma’s friend also lived here. Such leftovers wouldn’t come our way normally. They would be put into the fridge—and you would be resigned to eating whatever rubbish I make. Here,” she said, picking up a few kebabs, “put these in a dabba … take them home when you leave.”

  “Are you certain? Would you not like them for yourself?” Kamala said for ceremony’s sake, before delightedly packing them away. Narayan would savor them with his evening meal.

  Vidya-ma and her friend went out in the afternoon. Thangam vanished upstairs to clean the master bedroom, and Kamala finished washing the lunch dishes. The kitchen was still imbued with quiet and peace. The dhobi-man had returned the children’s clothes freshly ironed; she carried them upstairs to place inside their respective cupboards.

  When she returned, she saw a shadow in the kitchen—and knew that Shanta was back. Urgent curiosity warred with the superior urge to slice through the cook’s pretensions.

  “So, sister,” Kamala called out, very much on her dignity, “who is it, then, who goes out to enjoy herself and leaves the work to others?”

  Shanta was standing over the sink, her back to Kamala. She did not turn around, and Kamala, annoyed at being ignored in her moment of triumph, went up to her, repeating: Who is it then who leaves the work to others?

  Oh, sister, she said. Oh.

  The side of Shanta’s face was bruised; angry marks, as though drawn by a crazed lipstick, slithered down her skin to vanish behind her saree pallu and reemerge on her arm. She leaned against the sink, her arms and legs trembling. She would not look at Kamala; she would not ask for help, but Kamala was not deterred; she gently held her, bearing the weight of the beaten woman upon her own body. At Shanta’s usual place against the wall, Kamala helped her sit, crooning to her, nonsense words as she might to a child. “Sit, sister, sit,” she murmured. “You are safe now, safe. All will be well.”

  She soaked a cloth in cool water and touched it gently to Shanta’s bruises, loosening her blouse and tracking the passage of the husband’s hand down her body. He had held her by her hair, pulling some out in the process, slapped her, fattening her eye, and left the impress of his fingers on her skin as an enduring gift.

  Kamala rooted about inside her woven plastic bag for a moment. “Here,” she said to Shanta, pulling out a Crocin tablet, white in its blue wrapping. “Take this, it will ease the pain.”

  Shanta sipped at the hot, sweet tea from the steel tumbler that Kamala soon held to her lips, wiping tears that flowed from a swollen eye. “He needed money,” she said. “I gave him all I had, but that was not enough.” She swallowed the pill and closed her eyes, her head lolling against the wall. Her hand, holding tight to Kamala’s, would not let go.

  Thangam dropped her bucket and brooms in a noisy clatter when she saw the scene in the kitchen. “Oh, that sinner!” she said. “That rakshasa-spawn!”

  At that moment, the front doorbell pealed. “That must be Vidya-ma! Quick,” said Thangam. “Hurry yourself, Kamala sister; you answer the door and I will help Shanta into the back room; Vidya-ma must not see this …”

  Kamala pushed the brooms that Thangam had dropped to one side and hastened to the door. Vidya-ma looked displeased. “What is the meaning of this delay?” she said. “I wondered if my entire household had vanished along with Shanta.”

  Kamala was relieved to hear Thangam’s voice behind her. “She has returned, amma.”

  “Oh, is it? Well, where is she? … Resting? Why is that? First, she takes a holiday without permission, then … what, is this a dharamshala?”

  “She has had an accident, ma,” said Thangam. “On the road … She meant to absent herself for just ten minutes to purchase some medicine, then met with an accident. A scooter banged into her, she fainted, went to the hospital, and now she is back.”

  “Let her rest, then,” said Vidya-ma. “You will have to cook until she is better, Thangam … though hopefully she will be well enough to cook for the guests on Wednesday evening. But why should she go anywhere without permission?”

  Thangam and Kamala maintained a prudent silence.

  THE HARSH BLUE MORNING SKY was curtained by evening with cooling gray clouds, ponderous and heavy, timing their guttered waterfall for the precise moment when Kamala was to walk home. She dithered reluctantly for a few minutes before venturing forth, a large plastic shopping bag cut open on one side and placed over her head. She would be soaked through, but after such a day she was desperate to return to her own home.

  The rain embraced her as she stepped out, fat drops slapping against the plastic on her head and clinging to her saree at her hips. Kamala concentrated on where she placed her feet; the clouds had eliminated twilight, plunging the world straight into the dark of night, barely illumined by the weak light of the distant streetlamp, and she did not want to slip on the broken pavements, their jagged edges angled, waiting, treacherous.

  A shadow moved next to her. There stood Narayan, holding an umbrella proudly. “I thought you might be returning home now.” He placed a protective arm about his mother’s shoulders, holding the umbrella over her head.

  “Where did you get this, child?” she asked, amazed. “To waste money on such a thing!”

  “It was available cheap, Mother. At that corner shop,” he said. “It folds up and you may carry it every day in your bag…. Have you heard the latest news? You will never guess!”

  She would have kissed him if he was but a little younger; she contented herself with listening to his chatter, relishing the warmth of the arm that held her close.

  “What news? Tell me. I cannot guess. Very well then … Did that Ganesha trip over a stone and break his leg? … No? Perhaps the landlord’s wife has delivered twins…. No? Well then?”

  “That Chikkagangamma who lives opposite has been captured by a ghost!” Narayan nodded at his mother. “Do not look so disbelieving—she was seized by the ghost in the middle of the night—her own children told me so!”

  “What, those two little fools? They are seven and eight years old, what do they know of ghosts?” Chikkagangamma was a shiftless woman who combined an inability to hold jobs with certain morally dubious proclivities that Kamala would not consider discussing with her son.

  “In the middle of the night, the ghost ent
ered her body; she began to scream and vomit and act very strange…. Their uncle came in the morning and whisked her away, while you were at work. He told them that he would be taking her to a temple so that the priest could say the right prayers to drive the ghost away!”

  This astonishing story was later confirmed around the neighborhood—and just when Kamala began to ponder the possibilities of the vengeful ghost, freed by prayer from Chikkagangamma’s brain, searching for a new soul to possess and lighting on Kamala or her son—the landlord’s mother disabused her of her notions.

  “Ghost!” the old lady said. “Nonsense! Is that the story they are spreading? That foolish woman—you know her bad habits—could not squeeze the money she wanted out of the latest fellow she is consorting with, so she attempted to drown her sorrows in an unseemly amount of alcohol. She merely had a drunken fit in the middle of the night. That is all.”

  “The priest?”

  “There is no priest. Her brother has taken her away to prevent her from drinking more. He has left those children in the care of the corner tiffin canteen—they are to sleep there and earn their keep by doing the washing.”

  It was a sad story of neglectful motherhood, but Kamala’s primary emotion was one of relief that there was no ghost wandering about, looking for an unwary home. Just to be on the safe side, she added an extra fervor to her usual evening pooja, praying for the well-being of her son and for her job and the security it provided.

  IF, IN THE INTERSTICES of a disturbed night, Kamala had harbored any notions that the relationship between her and Shanta might forever change, that Shanta might repay her concern with kindness of her own, if she had envisioned the two of them holding hands and skipping along like beloved friends in a movie, Vidya-ma’s kitchen transformed in a magical instant into a field of frothy, frolicsome flowers, such notions were short-lived. When Kamala reported for work the following morning, she was startled to see the cook not resting in recovery but hard at work in the kitchen, slicing vegetables, a slight stiffness in her movements, a swollen eye the only visible manifestations of her troubles of the previous day. Rama-rama, sister, Kamala almost exclaimed. Should you not be resting? Is this wise?