The Forgotten Daughter

by Renita D'Silva

  She had always secretly entertained the notion that her parents had no pictures of her as a baby because of the way she looked before the many rectifying operations for her cleft palate. Something in the vague way her forthright mum said, ‘Oh I think they were destroyed in a fire,’ not really meeting her gaze, had roused her suspicions.

  Forthright? Her mother? I have to question not only everything I know about myself but everything I thought I knew about my lying, deceiving parents.

  In a sudden fit, she tears the sheet of paper off her notebook, crumples it into a ball. Rogue tears threaten again—tears she thought she had exhausted. She is angry, so angry. She wants to shout, scream, rant, break something. Instead, she sits quietly on the sofa, the crumpled sheet in her hand the extent of her rebellion.

  She remembers the time she came home, her face purple with rage, kicking and thrashing at the bin in her room until it overturned, then shredding the paper spilling from it in white-winged waves into slivers, scattering it about the room: broadsheet confetti.

  ‘What is the matter?’ her mother had asked, coming in, her eyes wide.

  ‘The boys on the bus… they called me a dirty Paki.’

  Her mother had smiled. It had made Nisha wild. ‘How can you stand there and smirk?’ she had yelled. ‘Do you know how it feels to be made fun of, ridiculed like I am worth nothing at all?’ she had yelled.

  ‘Shh…’ her mother had said, still infuriatingly calm. ‘There is no need for this, this anger, this hissy fit. Anger is just a waste of your energy and time.’

  ‘Oh, don’t start, Mum,’ she had yelled, surprised by her own daring, the pain inside, the humiliation she had experienced, making her lash out.

  ‘By letting those boys’ ignorant words get to you,’ her mother had explained patiently without raising her voice, ‘you are affording them power. What you should do is laugh at them, pity them because they don’t know any better. Come, eat something and then we’ll see why they were wrong, we’ll read up on it.’

  Her parents’ answer to everything—read, study, research. Funnily enough, though, it had worked. Armed with knowledge, she had felt invincible. Words had lost their power to hurt. Those boys had plagued her again a couple of times but when they realised they couldn’t dent the wall she had built around herself, they had left her alone, targeted some other gullible victim.

  She is spent, exhausted. She has lost the knack for anger she had as a child. She can perform complicated calculations in her head but she cannot rant, cannot vent. She looks at the crushed page in her hand, irons it out. Then she goes hunting for glue. She loved her parents; nothing can take that away from her she thinks as she glues the page containing her memories of the beloved, fiercely intelligent couple she had the privilege of calling Mum and Dad, back into the book. You were the parents I knew and loved. Perhaps you didn’t deserve it. Perhaps your love wasn’t pure. But mine was. And that is enough. It has to be.

  She fingers the number for the convent on the sheet of paper. Should she call? Why should she? Because… the voice in her head says. Because what? Why indulge the ‘what ifs?’ And anyway, the number may not be the right one; it is twenty-odd years old.

  Why is she wasting time deliberating? This is not like her. She needs Matt. Almost time for him to leave work, thank goodness. It feels like years since she woke in his arms, said goodbye to him as he left for work and then came here, to her parents’ home. He will be round to pick her up soon, his tie loose, his eyes lighting up, the lines around them crinkling, softening into creases, as they do when he sees her. He will swoop down for a kiss and she will anchor herself in the haven of his arms. They will stop off at Marks, buy a bottle of wine and the meals in their ‘Two for Ten’ offer. After dinner, they will snuggle in bed and talk and she will give him the letter and he will laugh and say, ‘This had you worried?’ ‘Yes,’ she will say and he will smile, reach out and tip her face up with his finger and gaze at her with those liquid eyes the colour of grass after a summer shower and say, ‘You were not a project, Nisha, you were their child. But of course they loved you. How could they not?’

  She opens her notebook to a new page. She will write about Matt; it will ease the turmoil she feels.

  Things I adore about Matt:

  1. When he holds me, I feel safe. I feel cared for.

  2. The first time I saw him: I was invited to give a guest lecture and he met me at the university steps, his hand held out, his beard catching the light and glowing honey gold, his eyes warm with approval as he said, ‘You must be Nisha. Gosh, what a pleasant surprise. I was expecting an old fuddy-duddy who would need help up the stairs. What made you choose such a stuffy, ancient people’s subject, Ms Kamath?’ I was charmed. I had laughed, and he had looped his arm round mine and said, ‘I will help you up the steps anyway; the pleasure is all mine.’ He had bent down close, his breath warm in my ear, chocolate and peppermint, a strangely intoxicating smell. ‘And after the lecture, would you care to have a drink with me and tell me why statistical analysis fascinates you?’ And I had surprised myself as much as anyone when I said yes.

  3. He makes me laugh.

  4. When I am with him, I feel whole. (Is this love?)

  5. He is neat and methodical and loves numbers as much as I do.

  6. He gets me—my penchant for having facts at my fingertips, for wanting to know things and have proof to go with them; my need to compartmentalise, slot everything neatly in my brain. He accepts me for who I am, despite all my issues: my prickliness, my intense reserve, my asymmetrical face, the scar above my upper lip—a relic of the cleft palate.

  7. He doesn’t ask me to give more than I am willing to—as the other men I have been with have invariably tended to do.

  8. I admire very much the dogged determination with which he worked at breaking the walls I had built around myself until I gradually let him in.

  9. I love the way the morning sun slanting in through the window makes the hairs on his chest glow and he looks as if he is alight, on fire.

  10. His intelligence, that pleasure he gains from amassing knowledge that I share.

  11. The mischievous glint he gets in his eyes sometimes, that naughty side that only I am privy to.

  12. The little snores that escape him when he is fast asleep, one arm slung carelessly across me.

  13. I miss him when he’s not around, ache for him at odd, unconnected times of day. Anything can set me off—the curve of a jaw, a glimpse of long, tapering fingers, someone saying ‘Hello’ with the emphasis on the ‘o’. (Perhaps this is love.)

  14. My parents approved of him.

  Was Number 14 the reason that clinched it in the end? Was it?

  As she waits for Matt, she rereads the letter, her legacy from her parents. And a question looms. Was my birth mother unmarried? In India, twenty-odd years ago, that would have caused a furore, she suspects. Perhaps that was it, the reason for Nisha’s eviction to the convent, and not her cleft palate at all. Or perhaps it was a combination of both.

  Her mind is like a roulette wheel coming to rest on the same few sets of questions, the same queries. Who are my parents? Why did they give me away like an unwanted present?

  Who am I?

  Chapter 5

  Devi

  Slimy Fingers

  Ma,

  So, there were no weighted silences in your room today. I hate that room, by the way: the smell of death; the determinedly cheery nurses with their high-pitched voices into which they inject optimism as they inject medicines into the few veins on your arms that have escaped, so far, being pricked by the needle (I flinch for you when they do that, you don’t of course); the nuns who seem to float past in a prayer-haloed haze, their habits rustling and swishing in a clandestine dialect, their faces calm and unaffected by the suffering surrounding them; the moans dripping with pain drifting in from other rooms on a gust of bitter, medicine-scented breeze. I envy the nuns their peace—it almost makes me want to find God myself. I tell you this,
hoping it will elicit a laugh, shock you out of your unconsciousness, but you are unresponsive, serene in a way you never were before.

  So I sat and I held your impassive hand and I read to you. When I came to the part about you hitting me, I dropped your hand. I couldn’t help it. I am angry now, just thinking about it. You whipped me, Ma, for the first time in my life. Whipped me like I was a sheet you were ridding of dust motes, or a bullock that refused to do your bidding. Ma, even after all this time my blood roils…

  The morning after that fateful day, I wake to the smell of mint and eucalyptus oil, to gentle fingers working my wounds. You are applying salve once more and I am consumed by the urge to push the dish containing it off your hand, onto the floor. Instead, I pretend to be asleep. Afterwards, you plant soft kisses on my cheeks and I have to exercise all my willpower not to flinch, to scream, to pull away. You stand, knees creaking as they have taken to doing lately, and a heartbeat later, I hear the thwack as the wooden bar holding the kitchen door closed is moved and it is flung open, Bobby’s joyful bark as he bounds in, the hick hick hick of your vigorous brushing, the thoo of your spitting underneath the jackfruit tree. You like to lean against its trunk, I know, and feel the morning air on your face, fresh and clean and smelling of promise, carrying a slight hint of night. You like to study the leaves, every one underlined by the crust of dew clinging to its base. Are you looking at the spot where I lay sobbing as you whipped me mercilessly, I wonder? Or do your eyes avoid it, deliberately slink away from it? I hear you hobble in, listen to you call upon Lord Ganapathy, as is your habit when you bend your knees to climb over the stoop and the joints resist, hear the hiss of the fire as you put the conjee to boil, breathe in the smell of smoke, orange tinged. I hear the clank as you wash the pans ignored in last night’s ruckus and gathering flies, the sizzle as hot oil hits the frying pan, the swish of rava frying, the starchy smell of potatoes boiling and the tear-inducing spiciness of chillies squished to release their seeds.

  I wear a long-sleeved salwar kameez to hide the welts, flinching as the cotton rubs against the weeping wounds. I ignore the breakfast you have set out for me—upma with peas and potatoes and plenty of green chillies, my favourite—and the plea in your eyes. I grab my satchel and bus pass and leave without a backward glance. You clutch at my arm, and I yell involuntarily at the pain. You drop it at once, your face awash with tears. ‘Devi…’ you begin but I storm off, unable to look at you, to stand being near you. You, who judged me without a backward glance when, for perhaps the first time in my life, I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t do anything even though I was tempted. I was good. And you didn’t ask, didn’t listen, just flogged me like Sumitranna does his cows. Why should I be good? Why should I do anything you ask of me when I will be deemed bad anyway? Why?

  I ignore Bobby bounding up to me, circling my legs, tongue hanging out, begging for a pat, a play. I walk past the spot where I lay the previous evening as blows rained on me. I stride with my head held high, knowing that you are standing beside the tamarind tree, watching, waiting for me to turn and wave goodbye. I round the corner, climb the couple of haphazardly placed stones impersonating steps that take me to the road, past the makeshift temple beside the anthill which everyone believes houses Naga, the Snake God, and to which they feed pots of milk during the feast of Nag Panchami. I walk past the priest doing circuits of the statue of Lord Ganapathy holding a flickering lamp smelling of hot oil and incense, vermilion smeared across his forehead in horizontal gashes, rose agarbatti in his cupped hands. I walk to the bus stop and I do not look back.

  Rohan is not at college. Is he ill? I desperately want to talk to someone, but I don’t have any close friends apart from Rohan. There is Sharda but she is part of a giggly group and I cannot stand their shallow talk—not today.

  Rohan is the only one who will understand, but I do not have his phone number. I never thought to ask him for it. I imagine dialling his number, picture his mother’s shock when she answers and hears my voice at the other end: a girl, having the temerity to call Rohan, asking to speak to him! Rohan has grumbled about his parents, complaining that they are too strict, commiserating with me when I have groused about you. ‘We are alike in that we are both only children. I too, feel weighted down by the burden of my parents’ expectation. At least you only have your mother,’ he has said. ‘Only my mother—she’s enough for anyone,’ I have laughed.

  Did Rohan’s parents find out about the previous day too? Have they banned him from seeing me? Is he so weak that he will agree, give me up so easily? If so, then I was right in not letting him do what we both wanted down by the lake…

  I spend the day in agony. I am hot in the long-sleeved kameez, the sweat pooling down my back, my arms, irritating the wounds, which chafe and itch. To add to my discomfort, I am hungry. I did not have breakfast and stubbornly did not take the lunch you prepare and pack lovingly into a three-tier tiffin carrier for me every morning.

  After classes finish, I go to the library, trying to ignore the smells of seera and goli baje, puri and chapatti kurma that drift from the canteen. I did not take money with me either, in my rush to leave home, escape you, this morning. I watch the rain creeping down the window pane with slimy fingers that dissolve into ghoulish patterns, making the gate outside and the students walking across the grass appear blurry, indistinct, coated in a shimmering curtain.

  I miss Rohan, feel the vestige of the desire he aroused in me the previous day stir, that raw warm feeling. And then it is gone, replaced by a simmering anger that bubbles to the surface, wanting to burst out of me. Deep inside, a small part of me asserts that you were right in a way: I did lie after all, say I was with Sharda. I shush it impatiently. You could have talked to me, asked me what I had done, before hitting me like Jemma does his wife, like I am an object, a cheap possession.

  The library closes at six. The librarian shoos me away. I don’t know what to do, where to go from here. By rights I should have been home by now; I know you will be panicking. The thought gives me courage. Good. You deserve it.

  I walk briskly to the bus stop, climb on a bus going to Mangalore, the opposite direction to home, glad that I have my bus pass if nothing else. The rain has let up a bit and the moist air whipping my face through the corroding red-tinged window bars brings with it raindrops smelling of earth, seeds sprouting and the tangy, slightly bitter smell of lime leaves with a faint undertone of rust.

  I picture you waiting under the tamarind tree, your vantage spot from where you can get the first glimpse of me as I turn the bend, deciding when I don’t get home at half five that I have missed the Kundapur Express and taken the Brahmavar Local which makes scheduled and unscheduled stops at every corner. As the clock drags towards six o’clock, you will reason that the driver stopped the bus to jump outside and pee in the bushes, or partake of a leisurely beedi and a steaming tumbler of tea with one of his cronies, as he has been known to do, while the passengers wait, hot and sweaty, packed like rice grains jostling in gunny sacks, so close together that they can look down each other’s nostrils—not that they want to, of course. You will walk up and down, up and down, wearing the mud path thin, walking progressively faster in proportion to the size of your worry. Bobby will nip at your heels, thinking this is some sort of game and you will bend down to scratch behind his ears, ‘Shh, Bobby,’ you will say. ‘We are waiting for Devi is all. Once she’s here, I will give you your supper.’

  Your face, worry lines creasing your eyes, dragging your mouth down in a frown, blooms before my eyes… I blink it away. What do I care? You say that I was your reward, achieved at great cost, your eyes iridescent with tears, each word binding me to you as surely and insidiously as the umbilical cord. When I ask what you mean by reward, what was the great cost, you don’t tell me. Instead you say, eyes shining, ‘You are all I have, Devi. My precious gift.’ You say all these things and then you hit me, hurt me like there’s no tomorrow. No, I will not come home. I will not.

  The bus lurch
es over potholes overflowing with the evening’s downpour, dirty yellow water splashing the children walking back from school, their backs, weighed down with satchels, bent like saplings in a brisk breeze. They skip away to try and avoid the muddy water, but some of them are too late, their blue uniform shirts and navy skirts autographed with buttery smudges. The road construction workers huddle in the cloth tents they have built beside the road as shelter against the elements, their lungis and saris gaping with holes and stained orange with mud, their gaunt faces peering out. Beggar children with bloodshot eyes, bare feet and naked bodies dotted with pus-oozing sores run beside the bus, bedraggled hair flying, their stomachs curved inwards, their legs like the reeds that grow in the marshes. A lorry piled high to overflowing with hay overtakes, nudging the bus onto the ditch beside the road, and the conductor lets out an ear-splitting whistle, half his body and one leg dangling out of the bus, the wind ballooning his hair and shirt, inciting the sheaf of tickets tacked to a board that sits snug under his arm into rebellion. I pull at my kameez shawl, agitated, and it tears in two. Tears sprout and I angrily brush them away.

  Mangalore is dizzy with people, awash with shops, frantic with vehicles. Buses scream, music blares, autos screech, people yell. I don’t know where to get off, and just sit tight until the bus pulls into the bus station and a whole load of people rush to get on, squeezing the breath out of me, loath to let me disembark. I manhandle my way through the crush, my arms like batons, breathing in the stale smell of other people’s sweat, the tang of toddy, sour breath, the bruised-tobacco whiff of half-chewed paan, the smell of curry and spices clinging to women’s saris. Men grope at me, a hand on my breast, squeezing hard, and I attack wildly, my arms flying like missiles. ‘Ayyo, enamma,’ the man beside me yells, cowering, protecting his face with his hands, those same hands that have just violated me. I land a thump on his head with my elbow for good measure. At last I am free, swallowing the gasoline-stained, blue-tinged, smoke-scented air of the bus station in frantic gulps.