‘I will feed them, I will do it somehow,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Isn’t it better for a child to be with its mother?’
‘Not always,’ she says, calm as the sea when the storm has passed.
‘How dare you?’ I shout. ‘Are you saying I am not a good mother?’ She is only telling the truth, a voice says inside my head; they almost died because of your neglect.
People stop what they are doing to stare. As if I care.
‘I am not saying anything of the sort. I am just saying that she needs the kind of care you cannot afford to give.’
I could slap her. Right at this moment I could happily hit her until she was nothing but pulp, even though I know what she is saying is the honest truth and only she is brave enough to tell me so.
‘Can you fix her cleft palate? Get her married? Give her a face people will not flinch away from?’
And just like that, my anger deflates. ‘No,’ I say softly.
‘Well then,’ she says, and I look up at her, hope flaring once more.
‘Is that what is in her future? Will her face be fixed? Will she be able to live a normal life, get married, have children?’
She doesn’t say anything, just smiles. ‘What will be, will be. You have made your decision. Learn to live with it, Shilpa.’
The rain has stopped; the world looks fresh, sparkling clean. Everything has a silvery sheen. The sun is setting. The sky is grey, tinged orangey pink, a rainbow peeking out from between clouds. The world is mellow. My heart rages. ‘Was it the right one?’ I ask. The question that has been tormenting me ever since I took Nisha away from the hospital bed and placed her in the nun’s arms.
The wise woman does not speak, laying a gnarled hand on mine instead, letting it do the talking. And, sitting under the peepal tree, the smell of stale fish and fresh regret, the feel of the rough callused hand on mine, the soft breeze on my face tasting of tears, of guilt, the bitter aftertaste of loss, I feel something shift.
‘Can’t I get her back?’ I whisper.
‘Not if you don’t want to lose everything,’ she says.
I believe her, dear Diary. I do. Everything she has prophesied has come true so far, every single thing. If I bring Nisha back, I will lose everything, everyone. I don’t dare. And so, I sacrifice my girl for the greater good. The wise woman has said Nisha will be fine. She implied that her cleft palate would be fixed, that she would get married, have children, be beautiful. Didn’t she? So I made the right choice, in the end. I have to believe that. I have to.
* * *
There is no food. Nothing in the house. My mother taught me how to make something out of nothing. But I seem to have lost the ability to do anything at all since I lost my child. My Devi cries. And cries. Jalaja comes with milk and rice and curry. ‘No,’ I say. ‘For the baby,’ she says, pulling my daughter into her lap and feeding her. My daughter stuffs the food into her mouth, gasping in her rush to push it in. She is starving, I think, as I take in her concave stomach, the ribs poking out from the shelf of her chest. If I am not careful, she will fall ill again, I think. I hope my other daughter is well fed, her stomach never reverberating with pangs of hunger. I think, please Lord; you owe me that much. The next day I leave Devi with Jalaja and go to work, cleaning other people’s houses while mine festers. That evening I come home with a chicken and my daughter’s face lights up at the sight of me for the first time since I gave her sister away, only to crumple when I kill it for our supper.
* * *
I visit the convent, devour my girl with my eyes and let her be, when what I really want to do is to snatch her away. Is it foolishness? I will never know. I want to take her home with me, but then I see her: happy, healthy, loved, a miracle—and I think of that limp girl hounded by fever whom I had conveyed here in my arms. She is happier without me. She is chubby, glowing with wellbeing. If I took her home, I would struggle to feed her. As it is, I can barely feed Devi. I am cursed. And so, even though it breaks my heart a little more each time, I let her be. I go home empty-handed to my other daughter’s accusing eyes, her raging tantrums.
Nisha sees me only once. It is some months after I deposited her in the nuns’ arms, begged them to heal her. She looks upset, worried, not her usual happy self. I cannot help it; I watch her for longer than I usually do. I stare through the bars, breathe her in for more than a fleeting second, wishing a smile upon her, wanting to hold her in my arms, to tenderly wipe the worry off her face. She looks up, sees me. I flatten myself against the wall. I watch her palms come up to the gates, rattle them, drink in her voice, low, musical as she calls for Sister Priya, watch her twig-like delicate hands waving as they snake through the bars, and resist, with difficulty, the urge to grab them, grab her and not let go. Then, everything is quiet. I think she’s left. I count to ten softly in my head, wait one beat, two. When I peer inside, I see her. She is standing by the wall, diagonally opposite me, looking forlorn, lost. Before I have the chance to move, she spots me. Her eyes widen, then crinkle as she tries to smile, that ravaged mouth moving. She opens it and I know then that she has recognised me, despite the months that have elapsed since I gave her away. She has recognised me, is going to call for me. I have to leave, I have to. I make myself move, walk away from my daughter, the torrent of tears blinding me as I collapse some distance away, in the mud by a tender coconut stall. The owner comes up to me, pats my arm, ‘Do you need anything?’ Yes: my child. I need my child. ‘No,’ I sob. He holds out a tender coconut. I shake my head, no. She recognised me, she remembered me, she was going to call for me. What am I doing? She is not mine anymore. I am harming her by doing this. I have to allow her to forget. And yet… I creep back just in time to see her disappear into a nun’s waiting arms and I ache to be the one holding her, hugging her close, her arms encircling my neck, her face buried in my shoulder.
However much I want to, long to, I do not go back.
* * *
A novice nun arrives with a letter from the convent. ‘Some scientists from London who are in Mangalore at the moment heard about Nisha, about the miracle that cured her and have contacted us. They know that she is one of twin girls and they have enquired if she could be part of a project they are conducting. We have prayed about this and feel that it is what the Lord wants. If you are okay with it, could you send a picture of the twins, if you have one, with Sister Latha, please? The scientists would like it for their file, it seems.’
I give the novice some rice and sambar and ask her to wait while I run to the wise woman, the letter clutched to my chest. ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ she says, beaming.
And so I part with the picture taken that blissful morning in Shankar’s studio, the only physical evidence I have of my twin blessings apart from what I have penned here within your pages, dear Diary, and the ache, the Nisha-sized hole in my heart. I kiss my baby’s wounded face on the picture and hand it over to the nun.
* * *
A few days later, the novice nun is back with another letter. ‘The scientists, they came to see her and they fell in love with your daughter, Shilpa. They want to adopt her. It is all part of the Lord’s grand plan for Nisha. They are good people; they genuinely love your child. They say they will fix her cleft palate. She will have a good life in England. She will want for nothing. Is that okay with you? Do you want to come and meet them, see what you think?’
I made the right choice that day, I think. The wise woman was right, I think. My baby will have a good life, I think. Her face will be fixed, she will get married, have children, I think.
‘No, I don’t want to meet them,’ I pen with hands that tremble. How can I meet the people who will be to my child everything I long to be? How can I bear to watch my beloved little girl with them and not snatch her away, ignoring the wise woman’s prophesies and everything that has gone before, not heeding what I know is right for Nisha, following blindly instead the yearning in my chest, the call of my heart?
‘I trust you and your God,’ I
write with shaky fingers, in handwriting that I barely recognise as mine. She will be so far away, I think. I will never see her again, I think. ‘Yes. It is okay with me.’
* * *
Mango (Midi) Pickle:
Ingredients:
Tart, raw, baby mangoes—30
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp coconut oil
1 tsp turmeric powder
Rock salt
20 fiery red chillies, arranged to dry on raffia mats in the courtyard. If your dog anticipates a forbidden treat, ventures to the chillies, sniffs them and sneezes in surprise, don’t worry. Happened to my Bobby. The dog will be fine and so will the chillies.
Method:
Wash the baby mangoes, sharp and tangy, and steep them in rock salt. Leave for a couple of days and then take them out.
Grind the dry red chillies and mustard seeds to a coarse paste with a little water.
Fry oil in a pan. Add the paste and cook the salted mangoes in this paste along with the turmeric powder.
Once the mixture cools, steep into jars and let it rest to allow the flavours to mingle and settle a day or two.
* * *
Dear Diary,
It’s been years since I last wrote to you. My hands are pockmarked, my fingers tremble as I write. So much has happened in between. And now that my remaining girl, my Devi, has fled to that country which they say is so cold that your breath comes out as ice, that country that has now claimed both of my daughters, I have come back to you. Sorry, old friend, to have neglected you so. I have plenty of time on my hands now—I have nothing but time and I will make it up to you.
It is at times like these that I miss the wise woman the most. She is gone too, and I am bereft, lost without someone to look into my future, to look to that country, England, to keep an eye on my girls for me.
‘Why do you set such store by some rubbish that madwoman spouts, Ma?’ Devi yelled countless times over the years. ‘Why do you believe everything she says and make my life hell?’
Because she knows who I am inside, I wanted to say to her. She has seen the worst I can be. And the best. Because she has such power over me. Because she can see into my future. If I keep her close, I believe nothing bad will happen, or at least that I will be warned before it does. Truth is, I am afraid to stop believing in her. If I stop, I am afraid something terrible will happen. But I am even more afraid of this: What if it doesn’t? What if I have been following her every word blindly all this while, doing everything she’s said, when perhaps if I hadn’t, things would have been different?
Perhaps if I hadn’t, I would have both of my daughters with me.
I picture the wise woman as I saw her for the last time that aboli-scented, cerise-tinged evening, lying prone under the peepal tree, a white sheet covering her body, the lines on her face ironed out, peaceful in death. I miss those stark, grey-blue eyes, those eyes that could see so much. Why did she exit the world so suddenly, leaving me grieving, in the lurch, blind to the future…? Did she see her own death, a sigh and then nothing, the hand holding mine going slack?
I prepared the mango pickle (recipe above) and lime pickle, sambar and rasam powders to give to Devi when she left for England. I don’t know why I write my recipes as if someone other than me will see them. My secret hope is that one day, my children—Devi or even Nisha perhaps (who knows, miracles happen; she is living proof), will keep a hold of you, diary, and read my words, follow my recipes.
And during the solitary nights after Devi got married and left home but before she left for England, when her absence beside me on the mattress ached like a physical wound, when sleep evaded me and ghosts from the past threatened, I wrote letters in flickering candlelight. Pages and pages of thoughts and musings. A sheaf of lined note paper torn from old school notebooks of Devi’s that I had preserved, now busily populated with my spidery scrawl. All the things I had never told my daughter. Her story. Her father’s story. Her sister’s story, intertwined with hers. Missives of love, dotted with candle wax, briny with tears, to the daughter I chose to keep, the daughter I was also going to lose.
I wanted to tell her in person. I wanted to say, ‘You are going to England—can you find your sister for me?’ But I did not have the courage. She was going so far away and I did not want her to leave hating me for what I had done. I did not want to watch the rebellious, impatient expression that is the face she wears for me—in which, nevertheless, I see glimmers of the love she tries so hard to mask—replaced by hurt, mistrust, hate—all that I deserve but didn’t have the strength to endure. And so I took the easy way out: gave her the letters.
When Devi was growing up, there was scarcely any money, never any food, and my mother’s valuable tips and recipes on how to make something out of nothing came in handy. Each day heralded a new worry. The monsoons were late, the well was empty, my vegetable plants were not coping—droopy like children cooped up in school during that long drowsy hour after lunch and before home time. What to cook today? I wondered, every single day. These daily concerns, etched in the network of lines on my face, defined my life and Devi’s life with me.
I hope my Nisha escaped them. I hope she never wanted for anything. The ache of missing her is a constant, like the sun rising every morning. I hope wherever she is, she is happy. I hope she is doing well. I hope her mouth is healed. I hope she finds a man who loves her. I hope she is blessed with many children. And I hope that one day, I get to see her. I don’t deserve to, I know, but I desperately hope I could touch her. Just once.
I hope.
I gave her away—what right do I have to ask for her back? I console myself with the thought that if she had stayed with me, her face would never have been fixed; she would have always been an outcast, with people staring and pointing, flinching and turning away. I tell myself that I made the right decision, that I saved my daughter by giving her away.
When Devi was here, I used to see in her face, her voice, her laughter, her screams, the daughter I gave away. I measured Nisha’s life by Devi’s changing face, her growing body. I fed Devi and I was feeding them both. I held Devi close, kissed her forehead—she has not let me do that in a while now—and I was holding them both, kissing them both. Perhaps this is where I went wrong with Devi—I loved her too much, poured twice the love on one person and she reeled under the burden, ran away.
Because that is what she has done.
Devi’s wedding ceremony was a success, everyone agrees. The Catholic ceremonies, prayers and hymns had been, strangely, as soothing as they were alien. As I watched my daughter being pledged to Rohan, the grief I felt was layered, buffeted by another dormant one. Longing. Like the dull ache of a rotting tooth. I wanted. And instead I was losing. Again.
This Catholic God, he is so powerful, dear Diary. He takes first one of my children, then another.
Devi, my girl, she took everything when she went to England—the pickle bottles, the powders, the letters, noise, laughter, bustle, life. Everything I see now is indistinct, lacking the definition, the colour my daughter’s presence used to give it. The coconut trees, the crows sitting on telephone lines, the electricity pylons, the fields are blurred. A wavy not-quite-there sun descends wearily down a tangerine-spattered sky beyond the fuzzy jackfruit trees.
The letters I have written her, they tell her my story, the terrible choices I made. She hasn’t read them yet. If she had, she would be yelling so hard down the telephone my eardrum would burst, never mind the distance. My Devi, she cannot keep anything inside; everything she feels is out there for everyone to see. She’s so pure, so magnificent, so unlike me. She hides a beautiful, kind, loving heart behind an angry facade. Her defence against the world that stole her sister.
She took so very long to forget. And even though she was little, she somehow knew I was to blame. She never liked the wise woman either. She always called her ‘madwoman’ like the rest of the village. Slowly, very slowly, she let go. She still had dreams when she would wake up screaming,
‘Nini!’
And that is why I didn’t tell her. I couldn’t invoke that suffering, that pain in her all over again.
I sit here on the veranda even though it’s getting a bit too dark to see to write, dear Diary. Sorry about the messy handwriting. I do not want to go inside, do not want to face the night.
The nights are too long. I lie on the mattress that I shared with Devi, feeling bereft, forlorn, eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling, at the lizards flitting between rotting wooden beams, happily going about their business, alighting on unsuspecting flies, their tongues darting out, teasing, tantalising, like the face of a North Indian bride glimpsed from underneath a pallu—there for a minute, then gone. Flies swallowed, kaput.
Outside, trees sigh as they revel in the wind’s caress. Cats grumble and dogs howl. Stray cows moo dreamily. No Jalaja nearby (she had taken to sleeping here to keep me company after Devi left—‘That old man can keep his hands to himself for once,’ she’d said when I protested), her snores a welcome intrusion into my thoughts. She is tending to her mother who is very ill over in the next village; Sumitranna and their son have gone with her.
My neighbours are a blessing I feel keenly when they aren’t around.
I gaze up at the ceiling and my eyes hurt with the effort it takes to stare in the dark. I am glad. I want to feel physical pain. I want Manoj. The ache to see my daughters is like a missing limb making its phantom presence felt. I want them here with me. I want my past back, so I can start over. But what else could I do different?
This is what I imagine, this is what I hope, this is what I pray for: That one day my girls will meet. That Devi will walk along a street and will see, walking towards her, someone who looks exactly like her. She will stop, she will stare and, knowing my Devi, she will shout, yell, rant. ‘How dare you steal my face?’ she will ask of the other girl. She will call me, she will be raging, ‘Do you know, Ma, there’s this girl who is the spitting image of me? How dare she?’ And I will say, ‘You still haven’t read my letters, have you?’ ‘No, why?’ she will ask, her bluster rising at the edges in a question. ‘She’s your sister,’ I will say. ‘Your little sister. You loved her so, were very protective of her.’
The Forgotten Daughter Page 27
