by Ru Freeman
“No, Mama? I’m not that young,” she said to the slightly hunched lady who had come out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a faded pink-checked serviette. She put the cloth down, pried loose the fall of her sari from where she had tucked it into her waistband, and smiled and nodded through the introductions. Mrs. Herath noted with some interest that Mrs. Niles’s solid-colored yellow sari was made of good-quality cut lawn fabric, and not the kind usually chosen by women who wore their saris in the Indian fashion. Had it been a mistake or a deliberate choice? Mistake, she decided, taking in the haphazard way in which Mrs. Niles had draped her sari, the pleats uneven, the fall barely reaching her hips. Mrs. Herath smiled indulgently at her new neighbor.
“Quite young, she is,” Mrs. Niles asserted, after everybody had sat down again, gesturing toward her daughter, whose few gray hairs had been dismissed as a fluke, by Mrs. Niles herself, just that morning as she plucked them away with a pair of tweezers. “Kala is a piano teacher at St. Margaret’s and now ready to settle down. Good at embroidery too. See these lace curtains? All done by her!”
Kala Niles flushed. Her mouth twitched in various directions as though looking for a place to settle. She squeezed her eyes several times instead and smiled, her lips stretching so far that her cheeks became taut. The children watched these facial tics with interest. Clearly there was more to Kala Niles than had first seemed apparent from the well-played classical notes that floated out of her window each evening. They couldn’t see themselves, but they would not have been surprised to be told that their heads were cocked at identical forty-five-degree angles, presenting to Kala Niles an impression at once disconcerting in its undiluted intensity and soothing in its chord like symmetry.
“So, Aunty, these are the children?” she asked Mrs. Herath.
Mrs. Herath, who had let her eyes wander over to the pale, peach walls and the scenes of English pastoral life that were framed and hung in the living room, swallowed hard. Flattery was expected on the part of a supplicant, and certainly, in this instance, she was here as the devotee, but to be referred to as aunty by a woman her own age required a sacrifice she was not sure she wished to make. She glanced at her children, at their compliant hands, their variously elongated artistic fingers. She sighed, looked up at Kala Niles, and smiled with a slow open-shut of her eyelids to communicate the burden and grace of motherhood. “Yes, these are the children. Suren, Rashmi, Nihil, and Devi. They are twelve, ten, nine, and the youngest is seven and a half.”
“Must be busy, no?” Kala Niles said, sounding as though she hoped this were the case. She had not yet heard Suren play, not yet turned her home into a haven for the neighborhood children, and so she was only what she had been thus far: a usually pleasant woman who was, nonetheless, given to the irritations and little cruelties that are born of boredom and being single in a world where marriage was an expected, if somewhat Herodotean, digression on your way to the grave.
“Yes, but you can see, they are so well behaved I don’t have to worry about a thing with them,” Mrs. Herath said, without thinking. She recollected herself quickly. “But, you are right, not for me the gay life of a single girl like you!” she said, and laughed as heartily as she could, registering not so much the satisfaction in Kala Niles’s face but rather the curious interest of her own children, who had never heard her be this obviously false before.
Kala Niles felt up to making a few concessions in the wake of this last remark. “Your children seem very nice. Much nicer than the Bolling kids down the road. Those ones are just no good. Nicer even than the Silva boys. Have you met them yet? That Mohan, particularly, I get a very bad feeling about him. Something a little hard about both of them, don’t you agree?”
Mrs. Herath would have liked to agree, but she was practiced in the art of Setting an Example for children, the ones she taught at school and the ones at home. She fell back on a slight shrug of her shoulders (to let Kala Niles know that she did agree), and an apologetic, “Well, we haven’t really got to know them yet,” (to communicate to her children the value of refraining from judgment).
Kala Niles pressed on with anecdotes about the various children who lived down Sal Mal Lane, from the worst, Sonna, to the quietest, the Tisseras’ son, and even a few who had once lived there but had moved away.
“One time, I saw that Mohan imitating Raju from behind all the way down the street,” she said. “And that Sonna, never up to any good. If you see him, you can be sure that he has just done something wrong or is about to. Bolling girls, too, like ragamuffins, no?”
The children listened, curious about the stories, reconciling what they heard with what they knew of the children that they had already met.
“Have some tea,” Mrs. Niles said, appearing again though nobody had seen her leave. “Children must be thirsty. Have. Have.” She picked up a Maliban lemon puff and held it out to Devi. She complied, and her siblings followed her example, helping themselves to biscuits and balancing their cups of tea on their laps without spilling a sip.
The return of her mother seemed to agitate Kala Niles, whose voice now took on its former sharpness. “What do the children do, Aunty? Boys must be playing cricket, no?” she inquired at last, getting to this question of extracurriculars when it was impossible to delay inviting the request she knew was coming.
Mrs. Herath took a sip of tea to clear her throat and then launched into her sales pitch. “Oh, they are involved in all kinds of things. All of them take elocution classes, and the older two play chess . . .”
“Chess?” Kala Niles exclaimed with a slip of outrage under the awe. “Such young children. Must be brainy. Are you brainy?” Kala Niles asked Rashmi, who shrugged noncommittedly and looked sideways at Suren.
“We just like chess,” Suren said mildly. “Our father taught us.” He liked Kala Niles, not because of what she said but because of the elegance of her hands, which sat, folded, in her lap. The way she held them implied reverence for their work.
“And the other two?” Mrs. Niles inquired, more impressed with every bit of new information she was gathering for the price of tea and biscuits, and eager for more, particularly as related in the crisply articulated English that Mrs. Herath used, all the t’s hit and o’s rounded in a way that slowed her speech and made her sound regal.
“They are also quite creative,” Mrs. Herath said. “Nihil and Devi are constantly inventing new games. They put on concerts—”
“I direct and produce them,” Nihil interrupted his mother. Interrupting was not something usually tolerated in the Herath household, but under the guise of enhancing a narrative being related by an adult it was permissible, even welcome. Mrs. Herath smiled warmly at him.
“Ah? You direct them, darling?” Mrs. Niles said, charmed. “So talented.”
“Odd, no? The older three have names beginning with the soft sounds, su, ra, and ni, but not the youngest. She got the hard sound. Why? Couldn’t find an appropriate one?” Kala Niles said, using her voice to take the venerating wind out of her mother’s sails.
“Of course you would notice, with your ear for music!” Mrs. Herath said, trying not to rise to the bait. “The first three were fortunate, and the akshara that were found for them by the astrologer were the softer ones, as you say. But the youngest was born on the seventh of July and had a different sound, de, which is why we named her that way.”
“Seventh of July? Unlucky date, no? What is that local saying?” Kala Niles pretended to think hard. “About how children born on the seventh of July will have nothing but misfortune?”
“Chee, Kala. Mustn’t say things like that in front of the little one!” Mrs. Niles reprimanded.
Kala Niles was not to be stopped. “Death, even, I have heard,” she continued. “Remember, Mama? Your cousin’s daughter, unlucky her whole life and then died in a car accident? Remember her?” She turned to face Mrs. Herath. “Just nineteen years old she was, about to get married too. And not so long ago, in the slums past the bridge, in the Elakandiya, a litt
le boy died from cholera. Born in July on the seventh. So many stories I have heard. What is that saying? You know what I’m talking about, right? Oh yes, jooli hathay mala keliyay. You know what it means, Aunty? July seventh terrible tragedy—”
“Kala!” Mrs. Niles said and smacked her daughter on her shoulder. She turned to Mrs. Herath. “All nonsense. There are always people who come up with these superstitions. Only some,” and she turned back to her daughter as she said this, “only some foolish ones believe such tales.”
Mrs. Herath squared her shoulders but allowed a mellow note into her voice, which fell, soothing in its ebb and flow, into the room. “Oh, don’t worry, Mrs. Niles. We aren’t a superstitious family. Why, Nihil’s birthday is on the ides of March! A most unfortunate date, according to the Romans.”
Kala Niles felt a strange and delightful prickling in her stomach as she pressed on, ignoring the sharp pain in her shoulder and aiming for what she could tell was a fear lurking just beneath that serene voice.
“But not like the Roman tales, the seventh of July matter is one of our own beliefs. Mustn’t ignore those, no? Even we aren’t superstitious. We go to church. But we are very conscious of these stories. Everyone I know has at least one story about someone who has come to a bad end because of that terrible birth date. Can’t be too careful.” She felt her mother’s glare and quickly added, “Beautiful girl after all.”
“Kala can give them piano lessons,” Mrs. Niles said, firmly, outraged by her daughter’s defiance. She sat down heavily in one of the blue single chairs, which sagged beneath her weight, and continued. “She has time every afternoon after school. After one thirty, you name the time, and you can send the kids. Half price.”
“I don’t have time—” Kala Niles began.
“Every afternoon she’s free. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. What days can you send the children?”
“Suren and Nihil can come on Tuesdays, and Rashmi and Devi can come on Fridays,” Mrs. Herath said quickly, not wanting to test this bit of good fortune.
What else could Nihil do, in the wake of such a conversation as had just taken place, one steeped in references to Devi’s luckless birth date and the many undefinable threats that were waiting for her? He said: “I want to come when Devi comes.” He said this very slowly, his child voice seeming especially fragile as it made its way through the tumult of the adult ones all around him. His mother’s head turned just as slowly to look at him, transforming her misgivings about Kala Niles into something less destructive and possibly more reparable toward her younger son.
“I will decide when you can and cannot come, Nihil,” she said.
He laced his fingers together and squeezed them. “I won’t come unless I can come with Devi.”
“That can’t be done. You have cricket practice on Friday.”
“I can stop playing cricket. I don’t like cricket.”
Mrs. Herath raised her eyebrows and waited to see if Nihil would change his mind, and when it was quite obvious, by his steadfast return of her glare, that he wasn’t going to, she decided that dropping out of cricket would be punishment enough and, knowing his passion for the game, one far more severe than any she could dream up. She turned away from him and picked the crumbs that had fallen into her lap and placed them carefully in her saucer.
Speaking the Truth
Nihil listened as the arrangements were made for their lessons, feeling tearful inside, a desire made more palpable by the fact that distress, more than any other emotion, must be kept secret in the face of threat and, to Nihil, Kala Niles was a threat. He sat back against the hard press of the settee and regarded the backs of his siblings, now no longer in harmony with his. Sitting there he discovered the weight of fear and distrust when complicated by the tenderness of love. Devi looked particularly vulnerable, more so when she peered over her shoulder to look at him, and he saw the flecks of lemon puff crumbs on her chin. He dusted at his own chin to alert her, and she grinned as she wiped her face clean.
How long, how long would he have to keep her safe? Now he would have to give up cricket and he would never grow up to make the first eleven, something he had felt he was specially meant to do, even though it was the dream of every boy in grade 4A and probably every boy in every class in every grade in his school. Now he would never hear the crack of his bat against the bright new red leather ball, never feel the stitches of that ball in his hand as he changed his grip to make it spin in different ways, and that perfect green, it would be lost to him forever. He stared at the radiant orange flowers on Rashmi’s dress and the orange bow tied around her waist. Tears would not do. Someone had to protect Devi from the ogre who took such pleasure in reminding them of his sister’s cursed birth date, and he trusted himself alone to do that work.
“Well then, I suppose we are all settled here,” Mrs. Herath said, concluding a long negotiation about dates and times and potential conflicts, not to mention a review of their musical training to date. “Do you take fees at the beginning or the end, Kala?” she asked.
“The beginning,” Kala Niles said. “That way no misunderstandings. If the children skip then it’s their fault. No refunds. If you have to reschedule, must do at the beginning of each month so I can plan my activities properly.”
In the silence that followed, Mrs. Herath listened to the sound of the bread man making his way up the lane, ringing his bicycle bell with his particular song, ring pause ring ring pause ring ring. She wondered, absently, what activities, for a woman of Kala Niles’s upbringing and circumstances, might take precedence over securing either income or permanent male company. Knitting, perhaps Kala Niles was part of a knitting group. At the convent, or the church, or—
“I belong to the Women’s Music Federation,” Kala Niles said, reading Mrs. Herath’s thoughts with a precision that startled her. “I am the secretary. Also, I play tennis at the Women’s Club. Very full life I have. Very full.”
“Women’s Federation is just the teachers from St. Margaret’s,” Mrs. Niles informed Mrs. Herath. “And tennis Kala just started. She’s taking lessons now with a Mr. Knower who lives in Barnes Place. Two weeks so far.”
“Mama, you don’t know everything,” Kala Niles snapped and rose to her feet. The Heraths followed suit. “Then we’ll see you next week,” she said to Mrs. Herath, moving a few steps toward the door.
“Thank you very much for the tea and everything, Mrs. Niles,” Mrs. Herath said, taking the liberty of squeezing Mrs. Niles’s shoulder in camaraderie that had more than a little sympathy attached to it.
“I am glad you moved into that house,” Mrs. Niles said. “All that sad business . . .” She tipped forward and scooped up Devi, squeezing her own eyes shut almost as hard as she squeezed the child in her arms. “You are a good girl,” she said. When she put Devi down and looked up, she was rewarded by three broad smiles from Devi’s brothers and sister.
Nihil was almost persuaded to retract his offer to quit cricket, so affectionate was that embrace from Mrs. Niles; Devi had looked not merely safe but untouchable in her arms. Then, just as they were about to step outside, there was a moan from the corner of the veranda. All the Heraths turned toward the noise. At the end of the enclosure—the Niles household having been at the forefront of the move to hide their open veranda, leaving peepholes on one side by design—they saw an unnaturally tall man dressed in a white verti of a very high quality and a white linen shirt. To the children he seemed formidable, though he lay on his back in an armchair whose leg rests had been pulled out to accommodate his feet in a manner that suggested that this was his normal state of being in the world. Nihil realized that the particular scent he had noted when he first arrived came from the old man; it was the smell of sedentary old age overlaid with a men’s perfume. His great-grandfather had smelled that way in the years before he passed, and for a moment, before Mrs. Niles spoke, Nihil was transported back in time.
“No need to be scared, darling,” Mrs. Niles said to Devi, who had shrun
k back into her embrace. “Come, I’ll take you to say hello to Uncle.” She took Devi by the hand and led her toward the old man. Nihil stepped forward and joined her, Suren and Rashmi a step behind.
Mrs. Niles addressed the man in a loud voice. “These are the new children from across.” She turned to the children. “This uncle is Kala Akki’s father. You can see how she looks just like him, right?”
Suren and Rashmi said hello almost together, but Nihil and Devi stared wordlessly at Mr. Niles. His hair, which clearly had been white for so long it was yellowing with age, still looked soft and lustrous above severe brows that met over eyes that kept tearing up, and ears sprouting a mass of hair in a non-matching dark. He had long arms, one flung behind his head, the other dragging along the floor, the fingers hovering near a neat pile of white handkerchiefs. For his eyes, Rashmi thought, her own moving from the pile to the fluid escaping slowly down a well-worn path along Mr. Niles’s cheek.
“Why is Uncle crying?” Devi asked.
“He’s not crying. He had a cataract,” Mrs. Niles said, “and something didn’t go right with the operation. The doctors are still trying to figure it out.” This she addressed to Mrs. Herath, who had left Kala Niles by the ornate front door and joined them.
Devi, her hands behind her back, let her eyes wash over the entirety of the old man, from his head to his toes. “Why doesn’t he talk to us?”
“He is probably feeling tired right now, darling,” Mrs. Niles replied.
“I talk when there is something to say,” said Mr. Niles in a deep voice, looking at Devi. “But it seems Kala has already talked too much and all I can say is that I hope you enjoy playing the piano because you won’t enjoy spending time with her when she is in that type of mood.”
Nihil grinned at Mr. Niles. Now he was certain he would not have to give up cricket for, surely, between the concern and perception of the old couple, Devi would be quite safe. Right then, Mr. Niles turned his eyes toward Nihil and the thought froze in between remorse that he had made the offer and relief that he could rescind it.
