Disobedient Girl: A Novel

by Ru Freeman

  But my son knows better than to go against my sense of pride, I know, even though in his heart he wants very much to protect us with the fistful of money that is being offered for no good reason when we haven’t even asked for it. That is the other thing that gives me pause, this offer of money. Why would we need money when we are but a village away from family? No, I have never been under obligation to people, and I won’t have my children being so either. I lay my hand on my Loku Putha’s shoulder just in case he is tempted to disobey me, and he looks up at my face. I smile to reassure him, maintaining courtesy. My son knows that I have two faces, this one, which I am presenting to strangers who have offended me, and the other, of disdain and indifference, which I show to those about whom I care enough that I want them to know what I think of them. The village people back home, for instance; those people knew exactly what I thought of them even when I was a kind guardian to their children, my children’s playmates, or neighbor when neighborliness was called for, during childbirth, after a death.

  I lower my head a little so that the foreigner can see my face. “Thank you, sir,” I tell him in English, my voice soft. “We are all right. My aunt is in the next village; they will look after us.” I shake my head at him and smile as I say all this. It feels important that I let him know that it is not simply pride that keeps me from taking his money, but that I truly have no need for it. As I speak I am aware of the driver’s eyes on my face, of my children listening to me. They have rarely heard me speak to people in English. The only time they hear me is when I read my old books to them. When I stop speaking, I realize that my heart is beating fast. As if this foreigner has threatened me with his money, or as if he could. He only nods.

  “Then we can’t help,” says the driver, shifting the gears, and now his voice is kind again, respectful. I have not jeopardized his relationship with these white men by rudeness, and, indeed, perhaps he thinks they will treat him with more regard now that they know that his people aren’t all beggars; that in between the ones who ask for school pens and those who spit on the white people, there are multitudes of people like me, who are courteous but in no need of being rescued by them.

  “Keep walking down this road,” he continues. “It is a little far, but eventually you will come to a crossroads. One side is just a dirt road, no tar. I don’t know where that goes. Anyway, there’s a thé kadé at that junction. Ask them for directions on how to get to your aunt’s place. If nothing else, they’ll be able to tell you how to get to the railway station, and you can go from there.” He doesn’t look at me.

  “Thank you,” I say, but he has already shut the window. I watch the car hesitate for a moment and then move down the road and away from us, returning to its deep sounding but unhurried pace. Maybe the foreigners don’t like speed on these sharp turns.

  “Amma! Why didn’t you take the money?” my boy asks me, already unwrapping the package of chewing gum. He takes out one piece and breaks it into four, one for each of us, then puts the pack into the pocket of his shorts.

  “Do we need money?” I ask him. “We are going to my aunt’s house. You don’t need to take money when you are going to family for help. Money is not going to persuade them to help us.”

  “Persuade? Why do we have to persuade them to help us?” he asks. “Then Amma, why did you tell us that they would help us?”

  “Can I have more of that toffee he gave?” the little one says.

  “Did you swallow it already? Don’t swallow it, you fool.”

  “It’s stuck,” she says. “In the back.”

  Loku Putha puts his fingers into his sister’s mouth and finds the bit of gum. He peels it off his finger and puts it back in her mouth. “You are supposed to just bite it, like this, see?” My son opens his mouth, sticks his bit of chewing gum between his teeth, and chews ferociously for his sister, with loud smacking sounds. Chooti Duwa laughs. “You can’t have any more until that has finished tasting sweet,” he tells her. “Then we can add a new bit and the old piece will be tasty again. That way we won’t waste it.”

  “What if they don’t help us?” Loku Duwa asks in her timid voice, returning me to our larger concerns.

  I am immediately sorry for the words I chose. After all, it is not that they would not help; yes, they would. It is just that I have not visited my aunt in so many years, so many countless, silent years, and I do not know my cousin’s situation. What is her husband like? After all, mine had not seemed as bad when I visited with him. And yet even then hers had appeared to me to be ridden with flaws. Perhaps she had looked at mine with the same harsh eyes with which I had viewed hers.

  But I have to admit now that in fact our visit had not been greeted with as much hospitality as I had hoped for. They had welcomed us, of course, and served us tea and made a special lunch for us. It had been a good lunch, too, with even a chicken that my cousin’s husband had killed to be cooked just for us. Still, that is what they were expected to do by tradition. And we had arrived unannounced, so there was no time for them to prepare a colder reception. But my aunt had remained quiet in the background, and when I worshiped her, she had cried a little and murmured regrets, about my mother, about how she had left, and what she might have done to persuade her to stay. That had surprised me. I had thought that my mother had a good relationship with her sister although they did not visit, and that she had eloped with my father for love. If she had lived, I would have been able to ask her these questions, but when my mother fell ill I was far too young to be concerned about such things. I was still content with the life that was being presented to me by my parents, still unaware of the secrets they might keep.

  “People leave home for many reasons, Duwa,” my aunt had whispered to me. “They leave because they love the wrong people, or they leave because the right people don’t love them,” she had continued, and her eyes had welled up again.

  I hadn’t had the opportunity to ask her anything more, because my cousin and her husband had asked us to stay another day, but when we’d protested and said we didn’t want to inconvenience them that long, they had chosen to believe our story, that we had someone else to visit in Nuwara Eliya that day, and they hadn’t argued with us as they should have. My husband and I had ended up taking our leave and spending the night on the benches inside the railway station, he smoking to stay warm, and I curled against his bulky frame. Maybe it was that unfortunate visit that had persuaded my husband that I was not worthy of his care; he had seemed less interested in me already by the time we climbed aboard for the long train journey home.

  And now here I am again, and not simply with a husband who did not have the kinds of graces my mother’s family might have expected but with three children with many needs. It is so much more complicated—marriage, parenthood, family—than children could ever know. Nor should they understand the misgivings, the ruptures, the disappointments that cast their pall over women and men tied irretrievably to each other’s fortunes and loss of prospect. I can only hope that they, my children, make unsanctioned unions like I had with Siri and, perhaps, my mother had with my father, for I have come to know that those are the only kind that allow love to take us by her hand, to visit with us for a while. In a way, now that it is over, now that I have my little girl beside me, I am glad that he is dead. Yes, glad that Siri is dead. For how would I have borne the end of that illusion too?

  “Amma,” she says, as if she hears my thoughts, “Akki says they won’t help us!”

  “No, I didn’t say they won’t help us, Nangi. I only asked what if they don’t help us,” Loku Duwa says, trying to set everything straight.

  I look at each of their questioning, troubled faces, imagine how careworn we will seem to my cousin when we arrive. That is good: people always help the destitute. That is the nature of our people. The last time I went I must have seemed prosperous and conceited to them, with all the gifts my husband and I had brought for them and my gold jewelry that he had forced me to wear over my protests. Jealousy or embarrassment
may have played a part in the failure of their grace. Now I have nothing, and, if nothing else, they will want to relish that, keep me close to reassure themselves of my fallen fortunes, to content themselves that they have done better, are better. And I will tolerate that for the sake of my children until I can find employment. I can withstand anything at all if it means I do not have to return to my husband.

  “They will help us,” I say to my children. “I just said that we don’t need to take money to them to ask for help. We have our strength and good strong legs and we can walk there, can’t we?”

  They murmur their agreement, but I know they are tired. Tired of this journey, weary with the idea of a place of rest that they cannot reach no matter how they try, how far we go. And what if they had seen the dead family? Here I am, I can barely keep all my sorrows in check—those that came before our early morning departure, and those that have happened since: the dead family, the burning train, the departure of the one gentleman who had been kind to me on the train, and the pregnant girl. Oh, to have her with me now. A girl of her age, pregnant or not, someone to bridge the years of innocence that separate me and my children.

  “Remember how they said there’s a tea shop down this road? When we get there, we can rest,” I tell them. “We can buy hoppers and hot plain tea and rest our legs.”

  “Our good, strong legs,” Chooti Duwa says, giggling, game again for another adventure, this time with crispy hoppers at the end of it.

  “Can I have an egg hopper?” Loku Putha asks. He rarely asks for anything. He rarely expresses a preference. I am relieved by the changes in him, the way he has let down his guard, most of the time anyway, how he lets me know that he has desires and that they are simple ones: for chewing gum, a chocolate, egg hoppers, for a sense of responsibility, and for pride in being able to take care of his mother and sisters as all young boys should.

  “You can have two egg hoppers,” I tell him. “Three if you like. A whole stack of egg hoppers.” They all laugh.

  Chooti Duwa says, “We’ll tell them to bring only egg hoppers to our table. We’ll say we don’t want any plain hoppers.”

  “I want at least one plain hopper to eat with jaggery,” her sister says, tentatively, as if she is afraid that her request might be too mundane to be included in this feast.

  “Yes, we must have some plain hoppers with jaggery too,” I say, smiling at her. “That can be our dessert.”

  “And plantains,” Loku Putha says, his voice trailing off as he looks down the road.

  We all follow his gaze. The road is empty, the car long since gone. Nothing else, no other vehicle moves toward us from either direction. Everything feels quiet. We sigh, contemplating the walk, which feels long despite the promise of the food and drink that wait for us at the tea shop.

  “Let’s go,” I say and pick up the heavy bag. “Loku Duwa, could you help me?” She picks up the other handle. It is helpful to have her on the other side of the bag, but not as much as it was when my boy helped me. I am glad that I have one strong child with me, one grown old enough to be useful in that way. The heat scorches the top of my head as we walk. I take the fall of my sari and drape it around my head and the head of my little one, walking right by me. “Hold the other side, Chooti Duwa,” I tell her, “and you will have some shade.” She treats it like a new game; unburdened by bags and age, she is free to be happy. Loku Duwa looks at me, and I see reproach in her eyes. I try to avoid the judgment, but I can’t.

  “Loku Putha! Stop and wait a moment!” I call to my son, walking purposefully some distance ahead of us. I open the bag and get his two long-sleeved shirts out. I unbutton them and drape one over my Loku Duwa’s head, tying the sleeves over her brow to keep it in place. I call to my son so I can tie the other on his, but he shakes his head.

  “It looks silly,” he yells back at me. “Nangi looks silly with her head bandaged like that!”

  I offer it once more, and argue with him for a few minutes, but he does not relent. I put the shirt back in the bag. We start walking again. It seems even hotter after all that effort. We have not gone too far before we hear a boom in the valley below us. It sounds like thunder, but we know it isn’t. Somewhere on that train, there must have been another bomb. Good. I hope those people who judged me realize that the old man was innocent. As innocent as I am of causing things to explode and burn.

  Latha

  When the school bus exploded, the flames a dull gold behind curtains of soot and smoke, Latha had already picked up the girls with the driver. She still went with the driver to pick up the girls. Thara, with her growing list of associations and committees and clubs, appeared to have meetings with somebody or the other every day. Whether she met Ajith or not, Latha was no longer involved; Thara was out and about under her own steam, with a new group of friends in a city full of clubs and bars and malls and restaurants and foreign things and billboards full of blue-eyed people advertising cell phones and Pantene shampoo. Yes, Thara didn’t need Latha even to get in touch with Ajith now; in fact she barely needed Latha at all, except on those days when she could not meet him. When that happened, Latha was summoned to rub feet, make telephone calls, squeeze limes. Otherwise, all her time was for the girls.

  But now, with the bomb blast so near the school, wedged as it was in the crowded city between the American Center and the Russian Embassy, not to mention the Japanese Consulate, Latha was needed by everybody. By Thara, not to comfort her daughters but to deal with the aftermath of a canceled meeting with Ajith; by Gehan, to ensure that the car came directly from the school to pick him up at work; and, reliably, by the girls, who ran to Latha’s room as soon as they reached home and insisted that they be served lunch there by the houseboy, not Latha, to whom they clung, hanging on either arm like refusing-to-be-ripened fruit.

  Before everything, nobody went into Latha’s room, a converted storeroom really, accessed by the passage between the garage and the kitchen, unless she invited them. The only people she used to invite were the girls, and usually it was to save them from proximity to the quarrels that unfurled without fanfare like tattered flags between their parents. But after that, after the future had been washed out of her body, after those three days of bliss when Thara had bathed her and tended to her as true as any sister at her side, after those days had come and gone as quickly as the city dried up the rains, the fights between Gehan and Thara escalated because of Latha’s inattention to them, and the girls came more and more frequently to her room until it seemed it was a mere extension of their own spaces. And among the furnishings in Latha’s room, what captivated them the most was her collection of sandals and shoes.

  Even today, with the terror they had just barely escaped so fresh in their minds, they discussed her acquisitions between the balls of rice and curry that she was feeding them with her own hand, a special treat, often requested and usually denied in the interest of maturing them.

  “Why do you have so many shoes?” Madhayanthi asked her again, as if she divined that the answer Latha gave her the first time, because she had the money to buy them, could not be the whole story; she kept repeating this question, clearly hoping for some new bit of information about Latha’s love of footwear.

  “Latha hasn’t bought any new ones, Nangi,” Madhavi observed, sitting on the edge of Latha’s bed and watching her sister try on sandals one after another, almost as though she wanted to find one that would fit her nine-year-old feet. “Those won’t fit you,” she added.

  Madhavi sat with her legs crossed, like a lady. Eleven now, tall like Gehan and slender, chaste in all her choices, she was, without a doubt, Latha’s favorite. Latha squandered hours on Madhavi’s concerns. If she wanted her special cotton-polyester blend uniform washed and ironed before wearing it a second time, it was done; if she wanted a French braid, Latha was on hand to loop the long, thick ropes of hair into its complicated twists in time for her to be ready for school; and if she wanted money, which she seemed to with regularity now, Latha gave it to her. Th
e things Madhavi bought filled Latha with girlish happiness, and she loved looking at the treasures that her older girl, which is how Latha considered her, brought home: stickers that puffed up, pink gum she blew into bubbles that exploded on her face, hair ribbons with edging, an autograph book with space on the cover for a photograph.

  Latha gave money to Madhayanthi too, but with a less generous heart, and Madhayanthi knew it. It made her jealous, possessive, and sometimes sharp-tongued. Like now: “You don’t need all these shoes, you don’t have anywhere special to go wearing them anyway,” she said.

  “I don’t own them because I need them, Chooti Baba, I own them because I like having them. I like buying what I want when I want it. Don’t you like buying what you want when you can with your pocket money that Thāththa gives you?” Latha said, and went to wash her hands and put away their empty plates.

  “It’s silly to buy what you don’t need,” Madhayanthi said, as soon as Latha returned, a statement that was laughable coming from a girl who owned more glass baubles and hair ornaments than her entire class of girlfriends combined.

  Latha, however, didn’t laugh. She shrugged. She refused to be moved by Madhayanthi’s running commentary on her doings. Instead she smiled at Madhavi and stroked her hair. “Loku Baba, what is happening with the debate tournament?” she asked her.

  “We’re winning. Today we won two debates. Tomorrow we will have another one.” She thought a moment, then frowned. “Although, maybe we won’t have school tomorrow because of the bomb and everything. What do you think?”

  Latha sighed, concerned more with a small blemish that had appeared on Madhavi’s forehead than with the reality of bombs. She didn’t know, of course, but she also didn’t care very much either way. Bombs went off these days, it seemed, without rhyme or reason, killing people she didn’t know. Yes, she did feel sorry for the living when the dead—a student going to her A/L examination, a father of three, and so on—were described on the television, but there was something surmountable about bombs and their aftermath. There was something insurmountable about not having family to lose. She stared at the girls and wondered how she would feel if they were lost to her. At first it made no impression on her, that thought, given that they were sitting there, pretty and well-fed, cocooned in her room with its assortment of colorful decorations bought at church fairs and Sunday markets, her simple bedding, her rows of sandals, but then something changed in the air. A picture of an empty room, empty of these two girls. And the pain that rose up within her took Latha by surprise and she cried out to the gods, Deiyyo! that it should never come to pass.