And Nisha, my youngest, my miracle, my long-lost girl come to find me. Her soft voice, that delicate neck, that dimpled smile the pleasure of which I never thought I would experience, precious, like bestowing a gift.
Voices, soft, familiar.
Much beloved voices, rising and falling. Fingers on my face, soothing.
‘Mum?’ A hesitant voice.
And, ‘Ma, come back to me.’ Petulant. Tearful. Devi.
Oh I am so tired; my eyes do not want to open, they will not do my bidding.
‘Mum? It’s Nisha.’
I have to see them one more time. I can’t not.
‘Please, Ma. I want you here for me, for my baby. I miss you, Ma. I need you. My baby needs you.’
Something hot lands on my hands. I battle the urge to ignore it, ignore everything and open my eyes, slowly, fighting against the exquisite pull of weighted eyelids. A face swims into view. Devi. She is clasping my hands and on it her tears fall unchecked.
‘I am so sorry. So sorry I was so horrible to you so many times.’ My daughter’s familiar, much loved voice. The voice I have missed desperately while she’s been away.
I try to smile. I try. I do not know if my lips obey. Everything is so hard. ‘The book. The diary. It will explain. Read it. Both of you,’ I say and a barely audible hoarse whisper is all I can manage. I hope they have heard. ‘Please.’
‘We have,’ I hear from either side of me, in unison. ‘We have.’
They learned to talk almost simultaneously. Their first word was, ‘Ma.’ I would hear one ‘Ma’ and then another, and they would keep repeating and laugh, and I would think how blessed I was. How blessed.
‘I love you, Ma, very much.’ Devi says.
‘And I… I love you,’ an echo in a voice with an English accent.
I am blessed. Right now. To hear their simultaneous declarations of love. I am blessed.
My daughters, both of them, on either side of me, my daughters beside me, holding my hands, anchoring me. I am so lucky to be blessed with such beautiful children, twin miracles. I am so lucky.
And then, in the distance, a bright light, and in the midst of it, you, Manoj. Smiling your gentle smile, beckoning to me. ‘Come, Shilpa.’
I can see you, hear you now, Manoj. I didn’t before.
‘It is time, Shilpa.’ Your smile gentle, filled with so much love.
‘Have you forgiven me, Manoj?’
‘What is there to forgive, Shilpa?’ Your face benevolent. ‘I would have done the same, for them.’ Looking towards your daughters. The pride in your face is reward enough.
‘I did not, do not, deserve you, Manoj.’
‘I loved you, Shilpa. Still do. Only you. Come to me.’
I want to go. I am ready to go.
I smile at my daughters, both of them. They have each other.
‘I love you,’ I manage, my voice a laboured whisper. Their faces swim before my eyes. ‘I love you both. Look after each other.’
And I come to you, Manoj. I come to you.
Letter from Renita
First of all, I want to say a huge thank you for choosing
The Forgotten Daughter, I hope you enjoyed reading Nisha, Devi and Shilpa’s story just as much as I loved writing it.
If you did enjoy it, I would be forever grateful if you’d write a review on Amazon. I’d love to hear what you think, and it can also help other readers discover one of my books for the first time.
Also, if you’d like to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up here:
www.renitadsilva.com/e-mail-sign-up
Finally, if you liked The Forgotten Daughter, I’m sure that you will love my debut novel Monsoon Memories – you can read an excerpt on the following pages.
Thank you so much for your support – until next time.
Renita.
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Monsoon Memories
It was when she was visiting her grandmother on a rain-drenched, gloomy afternoon in September and there was nothing better to do than go over old photographs, musty and yellowed with age, that Reena found it. It was tucked away behind one of the other photos in the album. She would never have discovered it if it hadn’t been for Chinnu the cat, who squeezed in through the bars of the open window, landed on the album and then proceeded to shake vigorously to rid herself of the raindrops in her coat. Reena squealed. She had been lying on her stomach, legs bent at the knees, feet swinging merrily in the air, on the cool cement floor. Madhu had warned her repeatedly not to do so. ‘You’re a city girl and not used to these floors. You’ll catch a cold. It will seep straight into your chest from the cement. Then how will you travel back home in the overnight bus, tell me?’ Madhu had yelled just that morning when she found Reena sprawled on the naked floor.
Reena smiled as she remembered asking her dad once, when she was little: ‘Is Madhu your aunt?’ Her dad had picked her up and twirled her around, so her dress bloomed in patterned swirls like a Bharatanatyam dancer’s, and, laughing, had said, ‘No, darling. She’s more like a second mum.’
She had scrunched up her nose, puzzled. ‘Another mum?’ From up in the air, suspended in her dad’s strong arms, his face had looked different, wider somehow.
‘She came to stay when your Mai was about to give birth to me, to help with the housework. She’s never left. She’s part of the family now.’
‘Why don’t I have a second mum?’ Reena had asked and her dad had laughed. She had watched, fascinated, as his face became wider as it got closer, until she was so close she could see the tiny hairs curling just inside his nostrils.
‘Your mum’s a superwoman, that’s why. She says she manages quite well on her own.’ Reena had wrapped her arms around her dad’s neck, had laid her head in that warm safe space just above his left shoulder and breathed in the familiar smell of his sweat.
‘Yes,’ she had said, voice muffled, ‘she does.’
Reena jumped up and pulled the album out from under Chinnu. That was when she saw something peek out from behind the picture she had been looking at.
Wonder what that is, thought Reena excitedly, imagination in overdrive. Perhaps something of great value that someone wanted to conceal… What better hiding place than an old, woodlice-ridden album of photographs!
She had just started reading Nancy Drew and wanted so much to be a sleuth like her. She knew her mother hoped she would be a doctor, and her father wanted nothing more than for his only daughter to follow in his footsteps and become a computer programmer. But ever since Reena had laid her hands on the first Famous Five book at the age of nine, she had wanted to be a detective. Solving mysteries seemed such fun. And there was a dearth of Indian detectives, which was a shame really considering there was so much crime in India, so many unsolved murders.
She had listened enough to her parents’ laments after they watched the news or read the paper. Her mother would shake her head sadly and say to Mrs. Gupta next door, ‘Did you hear about the poor woman being attacked and left for dead in her flat for hours? Everything taken, even the dog’s bowl it seems.’
‘Arre Baap re,’ Mrs. Gupta would moan, ‘I am sure it was the servants. You have to be very careful, Preeti. They are very sly, these lower-class people. Once they know where you keep your keys, God help you...’ One of Mrs. Gupta’s hands would be clutching her right breast dramatically, checking to see that the keys she kept tucked inside her bra were safe. Reena was sure Mrs. Gupta was aiming for the ‘tragic heroine’ look, but with her long pointy nose and evil face, she was anything but.
Murli, Mrs. Gupta’s cook and Reena’s friend, regaled her with horror stories about crimes that went unchecked in his village. In Murli’s version, it was the rich people, the employers, who were the villains.
All this only served to make Reena more determined to be a detective. It would have helped if she had a book starring an Indian detective as a guide. The India she knew didn’t have moors, gor
se, secret islands and open spaces like the England of the Famous Five books, except maybe at her grandmother’s house. But the open spaces in Taipur were populated with mud, mosquitoes and snakes. She couldn’t find a single book, fiction or otherwise, with an Indian girl, boy or adult detective. She had even braved asking the Scrooge of a librarian at her school, who had looked down her nose at Reena with her ogre-like eyes and pinched-together face and asked, ‘Who wants to know?’ Reena was a tiny bit ashamed of the fact she had fled. But, she reasoned, detectives needed to keep a low profile. They couldn’t afford to blow their cover...
In the beginning she had been all for forming a club like in the Famous Five or the Secret Seven and had spent ages concocting names and passwords. She had given up when she realised that she had names aplenty but a scarcity of friends or siblings who could be coerced to join. Then she started reading Nancy Drew and bingo, she realised that she could go it alone. She spent hours practising her signature in her notebook, adding flourishes and titles. She personally liked ‘Reena Diaz, Super Sleuth’ best. It had a nice ring to it. She decided she would be the first Indian girl detective. All that remained was to find a mystery. The only problem was that once Reena decided to become a detective, there were no mysteries to be found. No murders or burglaries were reported in the local newspapers or on the TV channels. Even Murli didn’t have any more horror stories of unsolved crimes to impart. Her life, Reena was fast coming to the conclusion, was extremely mundane. Nothing thrilling ever happened in it.
And now, thanks to Chinnu, she seemed to have stumbled on something exciting, even if it wasn’t the murder she’d been hoping for as her debut case.
Before proceeding any further with the discovery, and wanting to prolong the sense of mystery as much as possible, Reena glanced furtively around her, as she imagined Nancy Drew would. Chinnu was sitting under the wooden bench in the corner cleaning her whiskers busily with her paw.
Her grandmother, Mai, was having her afternoon siesta. She lay on the mat by the front door. Her mouth was open and little snores escaped it from time to time. Her sari was slightly askew, the pink skirt she wore underneath showing. The steady hum of rain relentlessly beating down on the tiles and the steps leading down from the front door served as a familiar lullaby.
Outside, the coconut trees stood out in relief against the blanket of rain which muddied the courtyard that Madhu had diligently swept and tidied just that morning. Dirty little puddles had formed everywhere.
Her parents were out visiting with her father’s old school friends. They had tried to get Reena to go but these friends of her dad’s did not have any children and nothing could persuade her to venture out into the blinding rain, get wet and muddy only to sit in their house, stare at their walls and listen to her father reminisce about the good old days. Looking at yellowing photographs of people she didn’t know to the accompaniment of Mai’s snores, while eating hot golibhajis dipped in coconut chutney and sipping cardamom tea was much better.
At least she was dry.
She went to the kitchen, ostensibly to get a tumbler of water, but in reality to check on Madhu. Madhu was sitting beside the hand grinder which she used to pound spices into thick masala for her curries, preferring it to the new electric grinder, which she insisted didn’t make a smooth enough paste. Her knees were drawn up, and she was resting her head on them. Strands of grey escaped her bun and obscured her lined face. She was wearing the stained, old apron that she was never without around her sari. She was fast asleep. The kitchen door was wide open and sprawled across the entrance was Gypsy. She was fast asleep as well.
Reena hurried back into the living room. Luck was on her side. Her parents were not due back for a while yet. And it was as if an epidemic of sleep had struck the rest of the household. Even Chinnu was asleep now, lying on her side under the wooden bench, paws stretched out.
Slowly, Reena pulled out whatever it was that was peeking out from beneath the picture she had been looking at—and sighed in disappointment. Just her luck! It wasn’t a mystery at all but another black-and-white photograph. It must have slipped behind the other one by mistake. Like the others, this one too was yellowed with age. And, like the others, rot had begun to eat away at it.
She pulled it closer for a better look—and noticed something different. Unlike the other pictures she had spent the afternoon flicking through, this one was creased and worn, as though someone had run their fingers across it many times and then folded it and tucked it away. It was a picture of three children, all of them smiling what were obviously false smiles for the camera. The youngest—the little girl sitting cross-legged on the floor, hair in bunches, flashing dimples—Reena recognised as Aunt Anita, from the countless pictures she had seen of her as a baby and toddler. The boy in the photograph, tummy sticking out, adorable gap-toothed grin, awkward stance, was her father, Deepak, as a child.
It was the other girl in the picture who captured Reena’s attention. She was chubby and dark-complexioned. She wore seventies-style churidars and her long thick hair was in pigtails and tied neatly with matching ribbons behind her ears. She had a kind face and an open smile. And she looked very much like Reena herself...
* * *
Madhu was washing clothes on the little granite stone by the well, in the shade of the tamarind and banana trees. The heavy thud of clothes hitting stone guided Reena there.
Deepak had tried countless times to get Madhu to use the new washing machine he had had installed in the bathroom. But Madhu was having none of it: ‘I wash the clothes, rinse them and then scrub them again. Will that square little box do that? I am not using any fancy machines when my hands will do.’ Since then, the washing machine had sat forlorn in the bathroom gathering dust and chicken droppings where the hens perched on it when being chased by Gypsy, the gleaming white exterior fading slowly to dull grey.
Reena sat on the cement rim surround of the well and watched Madhu. Her sari was tied up, the pallu tucked tightly into her waist. Her worn apron was wet and hair escaped the confines of her bun and collected in greying tendrils around her face. Every once in a while she used her arm to push it away, leaving wet soapy smudges on her face. She had finished scrubbing the clothes and was wringing the water out of them by rolling them into a tight cylinder and then bashing them very hard against the stone. The bar of Rin soap that she had used lay on the stone beside her, bleeding dark blue water onto the streaky granite surface. Gypsy, who followed Madhu wherever she went, lay curled beside her feet. She looked lost to the world, except for the deep growl that escaped her every once in a while and the little twitch her nose gave when a fly landed on it. Do dogs dream? Reena wondered.
Every so often the spicy, scented breeze stirred the tamarind and banana trees, releasing a little flood of raindrops that had adhered to the leaves. The garden in the front courtyard which Madhu diligently tended was in full bloom, and Reena breathed in the sweet honey aroma of the hibiscus and jasmine flowers mixed in with the earthy smell of rain-washed mud. Bees buzzed, butterflies flitted and a fat frog stirred in the grass next to the well. Reena sighed, for just a moment loath to disrupt the peace and stir up old secrets. The moment didn’t last long, however.
‘Madhu,’ she said, ‘I’ve got something to show you.’
Madhu jumped, startled. Gypsy barked. ‘Gypsy, shush. Rinu, you gave me a fright. How long have you been sitting there?’
‘Not long. I like sitting here, watching you. It’s peaceful.’
‘What’s that?’ Madhu rubbed soapy hands down the sides of her apron and extended wet fingers to receive the photograph Reena was holding out to her. Reena watched as she squinted at the picture, as her smile stilled and her face lost colour.
‘Where did you find this?’ Madhu asked.
‘Oh, you know...’ said Reena vaguely, deliberately nonchalant, even though her heart was pounding.
Up until now, though she had wanted to find out more about her lookalike, wanted to get to the bottom of the myster
y, a part of her had thought that it was all in her head. The adults would pooh-pooh her wild theories as just that. There would be a perfectly simple and straightforward explanation.
Although she’d hoped to have stumbled on something, now, as she looked at the myriad emotions flitting across Madhu’s lined face, as her breath came out in long sighs, as the smile fled her face to be replaced by grief, Reena wished she had never found the photograph. She wished it had remained hidden in that old woodlice-ridden album. For the first time, she considered the fact that the girl might be dead. But that didn’t make much sense either. Why hide her photographs? Why forget her? In Reena’s experience, the dead were revered and remembered all the time, even more than the living, she sometimes thought. There was a seven-day mass after the funeral, a thirty-day mass, a yearly mass, framed photographs adorned with garlands taking pride of place next to the altar...
Again she found herself asking the same questions. Why the secrecy, the conspiracy of silence?
Madhu used the pallu of her sari to wipe away the tears streaming down her face.
Reena was horrified. She had never seen Madhu cry. She didn’t know what to do. Guilt, sharp and painful bound her to her perch on the rim of the well. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to move to comfort Madhu.
The frog hopped away in wet sticky plonks, drawing arches in the air. Gypsy stirred and ambled up to Madhu, licking away the salty tears which kept on coming.
‘Shoo, Gypsy,’ Madhu murmured, patting the dog’s flank. ‘I saved it in a safe place, but couldn’t remember where I had put it. I looked everywhere, but in the end had to accept it was lost. And now...’
The Forgotten Daughter Page 30
