by Marisha Pink
FIFTEEN
INSIDE, Kalpana’s house was dark and cramped. The front door opened directly onto the living quarters, where a compact arrangement of tattered rugs and cushions delineated a small seating area. A few low shelves, stacked with blackened pots and pans, and an ash-filled hearth clustered together in one corner to form a basic kitchen, whilst the far corner boasted an elaborate shrine that seemed out of place in such a simple home. A sizeable marble statue sat proudly beneath a gold-roofed, four-pillared canopy that was itself adorned with flowers, fruits, tea lights and slow burning incense. A concrete floor extended throughout the house, though, in places, portions had cracked off to reveal the powdery earth below, and to Aaron’s left, a badly constructed clay wall was punctuated by two doorways, each leading to smaller rooms.
In the corner, despite her protestations, Hanara was busily preparing chai in a small pan over the hearth, the unmistakable aromas of cinnamon and clove overpowering the scent of burning incense that already filled the room. Taking his cue from Lucky, Aaron kicked off his flip-flops at the door and sat down cross-legged amongst the cushions and rugs to drink in the simplistic, yet homely, environs. He had had no idea what to expect of India, let alone of Kalpana’s home, and it felt odd to think that he was finally sat in her house, even though she was no longer there. Yet somehow, despite the unbearable heat, the chaos of the airports and cities, and the mandatory insanity that seemed to govern all forms of transportation, he was glad that he had come, and he felt strangely at home sitting beside Lucky while they waited for Hanara to finish.
A few moments later, she guided a small tray onto the floor between them, carefully balancing the copper teapot and trio of cups so as not to spill any of the steaming mixture. Pretending to be concentrating hard, she expertly poured three level cups, all the while avoiding Aaron’s watchful gaze. She placed one cup at Lucky’s feet and then another at Aaron’s, before claiming the final cup for herself and sitting back against a pile of cushions to stare into its milky depths.
‘Thank you, Hanara,’ Aaron offered tentatively.
Hanara grunted at him in response and he wasn’t sure why, but he felt slightly afraid of the diminutive woman. Her sharp tongue and venomous words had left him in no doubt about her feelings towards him, yet he didn’t know what he had, or indeed hadn’t, done to yield such an emotional response.
‘So, Aaron, I have many, many questions. But it is the same for you, I’m sure,’ began Lucky, ignoring Hanara’s continued insolence. He appeared eager to exchange life stories with his new brother and, leaving his chai untouched, his eyes were fixed expectantly on Aaron.
‘Yes, yes I do,’ replied Aaron taking a sip of his chai. ‘I … well I guess that first I want to know what happened to Kalpana? I know that she was sick, but –’
‘How did you know that she was sick?’
‘Oh, because she said so in a letter that I found; one of many that she had written to my adoptive mother. Sorry, I should have explained. I –’
‘You got the letter?’ cried Lucky, surprise registering on his slim face.
‘Yes, I … well no, not exactly. My mother got it, but I didn’t know about it until recently. I have it here,’ stammered Aaron, fishing in his pocket for the small collection of letters.
‘We were so sure that they are not yet reaching you. Your mother used to write very often to tell us how … wait,’ shrieked Lucky, suddenly jumping up and disappearing into one of the other rooms.
Hanara rolled her eyes at Aaron while he laid the letters on the floor in front of him, but obviously realising that she had let slip that she was listening to their conversation, she quickly resumed feigning interest in her cup of chai.
Lucky could be heard rummaging around for a few minutes, before re-emerging carrying a large, battered wooden box. He placed it into the circle between them and gently slid back the warped lid to reveal a handful of crumpled white papers and an assortment of sun-worn photographs. Aaron gasped, instantly recognising his childhood self staring up at him from within the box. He was five years old and dressed in the signature navy-blue uniform of the first preparatory school that he had attended. He reached forward and lifted the faded photograph from the box for a closer inspection. The boy in the picture seemed so innocent, so naïve and unaware that life could have turned out quite differently.
Lucky watched Aaron intently, seeming to seek confirmation that he had done the correct thing by bringing the box out, but Aaron remained poker-faced. He lifted image after image from the box, piecing together a photographic timeline of his life, until a picture of a young woman with two small children and a baby stopped him in his tracks.
‘Is this … is this … her?’ Aaron croaked.
Lucky peered over his brother's shoulder and nodded.
‘Yes, this is Mata-ji and all of us, just after you were born. It’s the only picture that we have.’
Aaron stared at the faded photograph for the longest time, drinking in the image of his birth mother. She was young, in her early twenties perhaps, and her almond-shaped, hazel eyes were full of an innocent optimism that shone back at him from the picture. She wasn’t that tall and her hair was scraped back into a tight bun, accentuating the delicate features of her face. Lucky and Hanara were stood on either side of her, clinging fearfully to the folds of her sari, and in her arms she held a baby, swaddled so tightly that it was difficult to make out the face.
‘She’s beautiful,’ whispered Aaron, so moved by the experience of seeing his birth mother for the first time that tears pooled in his eyes.
‘She really was,’ concurred Lucky softly.
When he had finished with the photographs, Aaron turned his attention to the crumpled white papers. Unfolding the first one revealed a neatly typed letter from his mother to Kalpana and it was hard not to feel resentful when he imagined her sitting in her study, secretly typing letters to Kalpana whilst he had played naïvely on the floor. He smoothed out the creases in the paper and began to read, but after only a few lines the tears that had already welled up in his eyes began to overflow onto his cheeks, forcing him to stop. Catherine had written exactly as she had talked and he could hear her voice, clearly reciting the lines word for word in his head, singing his praises when she proudly described his progress and achievements.
It was more than Aaron could bear, and not wanting to embarrass himself in front of his newly found siblings, he folded the letter neatly, tucked it back inside the box and slid the lid into position.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Lucky, now appearing concerned that it had been an error to retrieve the box.
‘I’m fine … sorry,’ he replied, wiping the tears away with the backs of his hands, ‘it was just … strange to read, that's all.’
Lucky fished a hanky from his pocket and offered it to his brother compassionately.
‘You still haven’t told me what happened to Kalpana,’ sniffed Aaron, gently dabbing at his cheeks and swiftly changing the subject.
‘Are you sure that you want to talk about this now?’ asked Lucky, still appearing to feel responsible for upsetting his brother.
‘Yes, I’m sure … I need to know.’
‘Okay, well, let me see … already you know it that Mata-ji was sick, isn’t it?’ began Lucky in a low, melancholy tone. ‘The sickness started only after she went visiting in one of the holy sites in the north at the beginning of the year. When she came back, she had a very bad, very awful cough in her chest; even you could hear it from outside the house. Then she is having also a fever and in the night she was sweating so much that she was not sleeping well. Soon we noticed a little blood when she was coughing and she was not really eating, maybe half only of whatever Hanara was preparing for her each day.
‘We took her to see the doctor, especially because she was losing a lot of weight, but he also wasn’t sure what was wrong exactly. He gave her a few medicines to try, but these didn’t help and every day she was getting weaker and weaker, until one day she asked Hanara to close ou
r shop for her so that she could take a rest. This was the last day only that she worked in the shop; after this she was always too tired. She was having a difficulty breathing and a difficulty walking around, and after a few weeks she was staying all the days in her bed.
‘We did our very best to look after her, really I promise you Aaron that we did. Every day we were praying and we called the doctor to the house even, but he said that we must take her to the hospital in the city only. I wanted to take her in my rickshaw, but she kept telling us that she didn’t need to go; I think so she was worried about the cost. Hanara was trying to talk to her, but she was very stubborn sometimes and she didn’t want to listen. So we just kept praying; praying for God to make her better only. And then one day … one day –’
‘One day we woke up and she didn’t,’ finished Hanara stonily, her eyes watering with the threat of tears that seemed too afraid of her to fall.
Aaron bowed his head solemnly, taking in the moving story and trying to understand the strange, empty feeling that now possessed his body. The memory of their loss had silenced Hanara and Lucky, and though he wasn’t sure whether he had a right to, Aaron shared in their pain. The sadness he felt unexpectedly bound him to them in a way that he hadn’t imagined would be possible with Kalpana gone. Though he hadn’t known her personally, or even been present to witness the suffering that she had endured in the final days of her life, he too felt that he had lost something irreplaceable. Worse still, the heaviness in his chest was resurrecting feelings about his adoptive mother’s death, feelings that he thought he had laid to rest.
There were inescapable parallels between the end of his mother’s life and the end of Kalpana’s, though the first event magnified the greater injustices of the second. His mother had received the best care possible, with no expense spared, whilst Kalpana, worried about money, had deliberately eschewed the basic level of care that she was entitled to. It seemed so unfair to him, especially in light of everything that he had learned so far, but the more that he thought about it, the more he realised that even money couldn’t guarantee anyone a happy ending. People, not things, were what counted and when it had mattered, both Hanara and Lucky had been there to support Kalpana, whilst Aaron had been there for nobody at all.
‘What … what happened to our father?’ croaked Aaron hoarsely, clearing his throat. ‘Where was he while all this was going on?’
‘He left us,’ replied Lucky simply.
‘When?’
‘About seven or eight months before you were born.’
‘Why did he leave? If you don’t mind me asking,’ Aaron continued, remembering his manners.
‘I don’t know. Mata-ji never wanted to say.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Why do you care so much?’ snapped Hanara.
‘Hanara –’
‘No, Lucky. He thinks that he can just show up here in his fancy clothes, with his fancy accent after all these years. Asking us all these questions, making us remember everything that has happened and making us all sad. He has no right,’ she screamed violently.
‘I … I didn’t mean to –’
‘Oh of course you didn’t mean to. Poor little Aaron, so young and so innocent, just looking for his Mata-ji, isn’t it?’ she continued sarcastically. ‘You could have come back at any time, any time, but you never tried to find us.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know …’
‘Sorry? You think sorry will make it all better? Even when she was asking you to come back you were too busy at your expensive schools and with your exotic holidays to care about us, isn’t it?’
‘Hanara, I think that’s enough,’ intervened Lucky.
‘She asked you. She asked you to come and you didn’t,’ spat Hanara, pointing her finger threateningly at Aaron. ‘All she wanted was to see your face again only. Just once, Aaron. Lucky and I, whatever we did, everything that we did, it was never enough to make up for missing her precious Aaron.’
‘Hanara, stop this right now.’
‘I WON’T,’ she screamed, scrambling clumsily to her feet. She glared down at Aaron, her eyes glowing with a hatred, the likes of which he’d never seen before.
‘You want to know what really happened, Aaron? I’ll tell you. It wasn’t a sickness that killed Mata-ji at all. If she had gone to the hospital then they could have saved her only, but do you know why she didn’t go?’
Aaron felt a hard lump forming in his throat.
‘It’s because of you, in case you came back. She died waiting for you.’
