The Forgotten Daughter

by Renita D'Silva

  She does not look back.

  Nisha sits up, disorientated, her nostrils suffused with the bittersweet scent of jasmine and lime. She is in her parents’ house; the clock blinks 16:10 in orange letters that pound in her head, mellow honey-gold rays of setting sun slant in through chinks in the curtains, shadow puppets cavort on cream cushions. She is bathed in perspiration. She reeks of sweat, fear, worry. Who was that person? Big eyes, wispy hair, framed in the bars of the gate? Woman? Yes. Familiar somehow, arousing something in her, a ghost of a feeling… Nisha had almost recognised her, made to call out… but the woman had disappeared, morphed into a cloud of dust. She can still experience the ache of loss she had felt then, sitting hard as a ball in the base of her stomach. So very real. Who was this apparition—a dream within a dream —who had aroused these feelings in her?

  And a name, plucked from the dregs of the dream: Sister Priya.

  I loved this Sister Priya, whoever she is, and she loved me. I felt safe with her, her arms my harbour. I need to call the convent, find out how much of these vivid memories, more tangible than this sofa I am sitting on, are real, how much my imagination. The crinkle of paper in her hand, the file the burnt-orange colour of leaves swirling in early autumn sunshine, the precious picture. I need to find myself, who I really am. I want to find my sister. I want to know why my birth parents gave me away and if it was only me they didn’t want or the both of us. I need to know. She looks again at her twin sister, drinks her in. If my dreams are memories, then how come my sister is not in them? Why can’t I remember her? Why?

  What are you doing now, twin sister? Do you remember me? Miss me? Feel like a part of you is lost? I will find you, I will, she mouths softly into the quiet room.

  ‘Oh, Nisha,’ Matt says, when he comes in, bringing the crisp smell of outdoors with him. ‘I wish I had been here for you when you found out.’

  She relaxes into the solid reassurance of him as she wordlessly hands over the photograph. She watches the expressions flitting across his face. Surprise, wonder, awe.

  ‘She looks just like you,’ he whispers. And then, his eyes softening in that way of his when he looks at her, ‘How did you feel? What did you do? I wish you hadn’t found this alone; I wish I had been there…’

  ‘I screamed, I raved, ranted. Threw things. Broke the bowl of potpourri.’

  He smiles, that smile that lights up his face, and if possible the wonder on his face is even more pronounced. ‘You did that? Wow!’ He bends close, breath warm in her ear. ‘Good on you.’ He rubs his hands together. ‘This is a cause for celebration. Knowing you have a twin sister of course and this. This is the beginning, Nisha.’

  How on earth did she manage to snag this wonderful man? He gets her, knows how big a deal it is for her to lose her cool, to give in to impulse.

  ‘The next time I will celebrate is when you start hitting me and ranting at me during a fight instead of withdrawing into yourself.’

  She smiles.

  ‘And, when you can tell me you love me.’ His voice soft.

  ‘Matt, I…’

  ‘I know,’ he says.

  A thought. She doesn’t want to ask and yet she is itching to know. After what’s happened, what she’s found out, she needs to know. ‘Matt. Suppose. Suppose you had to choose between me and my sister…’ She fingers her scar. ‘I mean, I am not putting this properly… This is what my parents would have said was a rhetorical question… Would you have chosen her? The better one, no blemish marring her face?’

  His eyes shine and there is such tenderness in his gaze that she is awed. ‘Oh, Nisha, I wish you could see what I do when I look at you. You are the most intelligent woman I have met, and the most guileless. You do not care about clothes and yet you are always effortlessly chic. You are so strong and yet so vulnerable when it comes to emotions. And you are beautiful.’ He is so close. His words touch her nose and eyes, his minty breath hugging her. ‘I love you. You. I meant to do this properly, at a more romantic setting, but…’ He drops down on one knee, holds her hand, his eyes never leaving her, ‘Will you marry me?’

  She is shocked, she is overwhelmed. She is frightened. ‘Matt, I… I cannot do this right now, commit myself to someone else when I don’t even know who I am…’

  His eyes cloud over. He stands up, nods once in her direction and walks into the kitchen. ‘I’m going to have a glass of wine. Want one?’ Not a question, just a statement recited in a flat voice so unlike his exuberant tones of earlier.

  The tears she has been trying to keep at bay overflow, pushing past the bridge of her eyelids, stumbling over the slide of her eyelashes, suffusing her cheeks. ‘Matt, I’m sorry,’ she says, following him into the kitchen.

  ‘Bad timing. I understand.’ He speaks to the open fridge, not looking at her, his voice cold. An icy blast on her face. The stale smell of old food, compressed air.

  ‘Matt, I… I wish I was different, I wish I found this easier... I… care for you, a lot. But I… I have been lied to by my parents. I have just found out I have a twin sister whom I cannot remember at all… I… need to find myself. I… I am not capable of giving love when I don’t know what to feel. I am exploding inside.’

  He shuts the fridge, looks at her, his eyes glistening, the colour of the roiling sea in the midst of a winter storm. ‘I am sorry too.’ He lowers his head into the cradle of his hands. ‘It gets tiring after a while, Nisha, the one sidedness of it all… When I asked you to marry me just now, you looked scared, like you wanted to bolt… I do not want to have that effect on you. I love you so much, have done since the moment I met you. It hurts that you don’t feel the same way…’ He rests a hand against the cool white of the fridge, and she looks at it, pink skin framed by creamy white, so she doesn’t have to see the pain in his eyes, his eyelashes fringed with shimmering drops. ‘I have been so patient, but sometimes… I just…’

  She takes a step closer towards him. She aches to hold him, be held by him. Will he let her? And in that moment she understands how it is for him, to never be sure of her love. He has always taken her on her terms, held her when she’s needed it and let her be when she has craved solitude. And he has always, without question, been there for her. She cannot remember a time when he has pushed her away, said, ‘No, I don’t feel like it. I want space.’

  She longs to tell him she loves him, but how can she when she has been hurt so badly by the lies of the people closest to her? Isn’t it better to say nothing at all until she is sure? She cannot do to him what has been done to her, she owes him that much. She opens her mouth, but he leans forward, puts a finger on her lips.

  She takes another step forward, his finger still on her lips and then, he opens his arms and she folds herself into them. She nestles in the solid haven of his embrace, rests her head against his heart, is soothed by its rhythm. And she wishes she could stay here forever; she wishes she could give herself completely to this man, say what he wants to hear. She wonders for the umpteenth time if, had she grown up in India, would she have been different. She wonders if the sister she has just discovered finds it just as difficult to process emotions. Her tears soak his shirt and his soak her hair as they stand there, and in that moment, there is just him and her, their hearts beating in sync. And for now, that has to be enough.

  Chapter 14

  Devi

  Coconut Shell Spittoons

  Ma,

  I can see now why you believed in the madwoman. I would, too, if I had to endure but a fraction of the agony you suffered.

  After I read your entry, Ma, I went to see the gynaecologist. I asked if miscarriage is genetic, if it runs in the family. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but miscarriages are very common.’ She smiled softly at me. ‘Rest,’ she advised. ‘Try not to lift anything heavy. And I know it is hard in your situation, what with your mother… but try not to be too stressed.’

  Afterwards, I went to the temple for the first time in years. I prayed to Lord Ganapathy even though I wasn’t sure I believed in
Him. And today, as I entered the hospital, I paused in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary. If I wasn’t sure about Lord Ganapathy, the God I grew up with, I believed in the Virgin Mary even less. And yet, I prayed to the both of them. I prayed that my baby would be healthy, safe. And I prayed for you, Ma.

  I ridiculed your belief in the madwoman, Ma. How little I knew! How naïve I was! We all need faith, I realise that now. Perhaps faith is blind but it is better than nothing. Sometimes, blind belief is all we have.

  Ma, in your diary you mention that your parents yearned for grandchildren just as much as you yearned for a child. You regretted that they died without seeing me—their only grandchild. Please come back to me, Ma. I do not want to harbour the same regret.

  Ma, did you know that while you were in this very hospital recovering after walking into the hive of bees the day Rohan and his parents came to our house, a contingency of village matrons paid me a visit, trying to dissuade me from marrying Rohan?

  The conclave of village matrons, led by Durgakka, are squatting on Jalajakka’s veranda chewing paan while they wait for me to return from visiting with you, Ma, their mouths stained red with betel juice, their spittoons, fashioned from coconut shells, within easy reach, the brown of the inside masked quickly by a viscous crimson, replete with bubbles and swarming with flies. As soon as I near the tamarind tree, they congregate in the courtyard, cornering me. Sweat drips down their grave visages, creating runnels in the mask of talcum powder caked onto their faces in an effort to lighten their wrinkly russet skin, staining their saris, suitably sombre in deference to your condition, Ma: greys and browns and muted golds. Their oiled gleaming hair is pulled back in identical severe buns that etch deep grooves onto their faces. They look like a posse of ducks, their plump bodies straining against the constraint of their saris.

  It is too late to turn back; they have seen me see them.

  ‘We are here because we care, dear.’ Durgakka, their designated spokesperson, takes a step forward, her face ballooned with the import of what she is saying. ‘What with your poor ma in hospital, we are taking on the mantle of guardianship on her behalf. After everything she has done for you, all the sacrifices she has made, she does not deserve this. Lord Ganapathy has spoken.’

  ‘What has he said then?’ I ask, smirking.

  The ladies take a step backward, as if slapped. Their mouths open in a collective O of shock, displaying reddish-yellow paan in all its half-chewed glory.

  Durgakka sighs sternly and launches right in. ‘Your mother walking straight into a swarm of bees, puffing like a puri in hot oil, was a bad omen, child. It is Lord Ganapathy’s way of warning you that a union between families of different religions is wrong, even though Rohan seems a nice enough boy, even though his family came from good stock.’ The other ladies’ heads bob up and down in unison. ‘It is not done to ignore the signs. And anyway, that boy’s family are only accepting you on their terms. You are to have a Catholic wedding, no puja, nothing, just some pish pish in a church and those hymns like somebody crying out in pain, like tears at a funeral, like river water gushing, frogs farting—no rhythm, no raga, nothing. No soul,’ Durgakka’s face scrunches in an expression of disdain. ‘Not like bhajans.’

  I am impressed by Durgakka’s oratory. Has she prepared this speech in advance, perfecting similes over time, or has she just made it up? The ladies’ heads are moving so fast, I worry they will fall off any minute.

  ‘And not only that,’ Durgakka continues, her voice increasing in tempo, ‘you have to convert to Catholicism, turning your back on the very Lord Ganapathy who blessed your mother with you, after five miscarriages. Five.’ Durgakka’s eyes are large as laddoos. ‘Now, after all that, marrying a Catholic, becoming one, would be the worst kind of betrayal. Lord Ganapathy wouldn’t be best pleased. Aiyyo, he is already showing his wrath—why else the bees?’

  ‘Thank you very much for your concern, but I am going to marry Rohan, omens or not,’ I say, trying not to smile at the identical expressions of disbelief on their faces.

  As I write this, Ma, I think that perhaps those bees were an omen. Perhaps they foretold what was to come, that some years later, you would be lying unconscious in the same hospital that managed to cure you of the bee stings even though the doctor did say then that you had had a lucky escape, that if there had been a delay of a few minutes, the poison would have infiltrated your bloodstream and it would have been too late. Is it too late now, Ma? I desperately hope not.

  The evening before my wedding, I sit on the dew-stained veranda, listening to the music of crickets. Twilight paints the sky in navy-tinged pink strokes. Droning flies venture valiantly to the lone lamp flickering with the ever-changing voltage. Mosquitoes buzz. Night jasmine infuses the air with its heady scent. Snatches of voices raised in argument echo in the charged silence of impending night—they are fighting again in Murli’s household. Soorya stumbles home through the fields, singing drunkenly. Your voice, high-pitched with strain, drifts from inside. You are telephoning the caterers with last-minute changes: Aunt Mini has suddenly decided she doesn’t like onions in her food. After that you will call the band, ‘Mangalore Disco’, to confirm that they will be playing a mixture of Tulu and Konkani hits to cater to both Hindu and Catholic tastes. Later, you will telephone the relatives who need to be personally invited as invitations by post just won’t do, Aunt Amita being top of the list. And then, of course, you will have to appease and cajole all those relatives who have refused to come because they maintain you are committing a terrible, irrevocable blunder by marrying me off to a Catholic when there are a hundred, no, a thousand, very suitable Hindu boys, some even in England, if that’s what you and I are after. Next, you will go to the kitchen in search of the lime sherbet you made earlier in order to ease your throat, sore from all the shouting—Aunt Amita in particular is partially deaf. In between soothing gulps, you will get the saris, the gold ready.

  You had transported the gold, gleaned through years of scrounging and saving, from the bank the previous day in a pouch tucked beneath your sari blouse and kissing your flesh, and kept it locked in Sumitranna’s Godrej safe for the night. (Sumitranna had stayed guard the entire night, sleeping sitting up on the chair by the front door, holding the old plough in one hand and the heaviest idli steamer in the other, just in case the burglar who had been stealing his chickens and coconuts got wind of the gold and decided to visit.) You had laid out all the gold on the dining-room table and it had winked up at us in vibrant shades of turmeric. ‘As part of your dowry,’ you said, looking at me fondly, the look that always made my hackles rise.

  ‘But Ma, Rohan has said his family do not want any dowry.’

  ‘Yes, but I cannot send you into their family with nothing. You are not a beggar,’ you said firmly. ‘Here —two pairs of bangles, three pairs of earrings, two rings, three bracelets and three necklaces.’

  This wedding is wiping you out, I know. You have borrowed money from Sumitranna and taken a loan from the bank. ‘My only daughter will be married in style,’ you say to anyone who will listen. ‘I don’t want Rohan’s family to look down on our family just because we are poor, live in a two-room cottage.’ It makes me grit my teeth, this affectation of yours. ‘We are poor. Everyone knows it. There is no need to make yourself poorer just for this one wedding. His family have offered to pay for the wedding; why don’t you let them?’ I have shouted, more than once. ‘It is not just any wedding—it is your wedding. I have been preparing for it all your life. I will give you away properly,’ you replied, speaking like a heroine from a Kannada blockbuster. And then, softly, ‘I do not want to be beholden to them. As it is, they are paying for your ticket.’ Why do you have to remind me of that, Ma? ‘When I get to England, I will find some work, any work, and pay them back, don’t you worry,’ I yell, and watch your face fall at the mention of England. You know I am going, Ma, then why not accept it, get on with it instead of flinching away from every mention, your face like a punished child’s?
I cannot wait, Ma. I cannot. Much as you are savouring these last days with me, I am willing them away. ‘You don’t want to owe Rohan’s parents, but you don’t mind being beholden to Canara Bank and Sumitranna then?’ I scream before storming outside to sit on the veranda. Truth is I don’t like the thought of you having to work harder than ever to repay the loan, especially as I won’t be nearby to keep an eye on you. It annoys me that you couldn’t just have accepted Rohan’s parents’ offer. So you suffer a small blow to your pride, so what? I have, I think, as hot-red memories of that cringe-inducing evening outside Rohan’s house inveigle in, the bitter taste of shame assaulting my mouth.

  From the kitchen drift spicy aromas: fish frying, rice boiling and sambar bubbling, enough to feed all the guests who have arrived early and camped in our too small house. Rathi, the girl you have hired to help with the wedding, is in the bathroom heating the big urn of water which will have to bathe all of us. Rathi feeds the fire coconut husks, which even I know not to do, and clouds of thick pungent smoke invade the house sending everyone into coughing fits. Jalajakka, who is helping with preparations of course, storms into the bathroom yelling, ‘Have you gone completely mad? Now I have burnt the fish.’