In the Convent of Little Flowers

by Indu Sundaresan

  She taught me nursery rhymes in English, stumbling over the words. Laughing at her mistakes. With a freedom she never showed to anyone else, not even to my father, who was her only son. She told me the pearls she wore would one day be mine. After. But there was no after in her thoughts, for she would never leave me. Once she was kind and gentle. If only to me.

  When the extended family came to visit, to pay their respects, I would sit by her side. Watching as she was falsely gracious. And obstinate if they wanted something (usually money) she would not give. And hurtfully sarcastic. When they left, she talked of these people who made claims on her, who thought they had claims on her. And she would smile. As though anyone but I could claim her.

  Suddenly she asks, how is America?

  You care how?

  I always cared, Payal. Always wanted to know. It was hard, sending away one of ours to a foreign land. But you insisted, yelled to get your way, left us here alone. Went away alone. As though we meant nothing. As though you did not spend your childhood here, as though we were not family. Now it has been ten years.

  Ours. Our. We. She means mine, my, I. There has never been a plural in her vocabulary, unless it included me. Stifled me. A long time ago, I had let her do this, free within her grasp, unfettered by her obsession. Until Kamala.

  I was determined not to cry when I came here. But at her words, tears fill and blur my vision. I was sure I would never see this woman again all my life. Yet here I am, in this house, in this room, standing next to her. Outside the frosted windows of the room, the sun is setting now, golds and amber through insect-ridden glass. I put down her hand to go to the light switch.

  She whimpers. Don’t go. Don’t leave me here alone, Payal.

  The naked lightbulb sheds a harsh light over us. Suddenly, she is even smaller than she was when I came into the room. Her eyes move wildly, seeking me.

  I bend over her again, my voice brittle and broken. Did Kamala ask for me? Did she?

  Yes.

  It is a small word, like the no Kamala said when they wanted to cut her hair. Yet filled with meaning. My tranquil Kamala asked for me, and I was not there. I sit down next to her, heavily, as though my bones are now as old as hers. I put my face in my hands.

  Don’t, she says. Don’t cry, Payala.

  Don’t call me that!

  I am angry. But mostly with myself. Angry because I was selfish enough to leave when I was twenty-one for graduate school in America. Angry because I could not stay in this house anymore with its heavy secrets, with its quarreling women, with its squirrel rooms. Angry because I left, not thinking I was leaving Kamala behind in their hands. Kamala who never spoke unless it was necessary, who let things happen around her because I was there to fight instead, who in the end, did not know how to fight. Whose burnished hair shone like fire in the sunlight.

  Fire.

  Kamala brought a puppy home one day from school. I remember the dog squealing in her arms, licking her face until saliva dripped. I remember seeing her smile. A slow, content smile, like the one when she was a baby and I held her in my arms. The smile she had given only me. The clan gathered around to look at the puppy. Kamala stood in front of them, small and slight, hair in a thick braid to her knees, the dog sitting quiet at her feet.

  No, this woman said. Dogs are unclean.

  Still Kamala stood in front of them, her eyes watchful, moving from one face to another. But she had spoken. This woman, who lies on the bed in front of me, sat in an old carved armchair. Envious of Kamala’s hair. I knew what she was thinking. Good girls keep their legs closed, good girls listen when told something by adults.

  I jumped in, of course. Let her keep the dog. It’s only a dog. Let her keep it.

  Then she slapped me. She got up from her chair, came to where I was sitting, lifted me up by my arms, stood me in front of her. And slapped me. Enough, she said. Enough of this nonsense. Kamala will not allow her hair to be cut, she said no to it seven years ago. She will not have this dog.

  I was made silent by that slap. She had never even raised her voice to me before. When my mother scolded me, she yelled at my mother. No one in the house was allowed to reprimand me. No one was allowed to ask where I was, or whether I had done my homework, or studied for an exam, or come home from school on time. No one was simply allowed to do anything to me. Even she did not question me. Now she had slapped me and for once, I was dumb, unable to meet Kamala’s eyes.

  Kamala must have been ten; I was twenty. One year from going to America. One year from leaving Kamala to these people.

  But even if I was losing the strength to fight, Kamala’s was only just beginning. She kept the dog. Fed it scraps from the kitchen, literally taking food out of the cook’s mouth. I think he even lost weight during those two months. It did not last very long.

  One day, the puppy floated in the well in the back garden, his stomach distended, his eyes bulging, his tongue hanging out.

  I had never seen Kamala cry before. She did then, leaning over the edge of the well, looking down into the water, her arms outstretched as though to touch the dog. She cried soundlessly, her mouth open. I did not know how to comfort her; I did not put my arms around her, or lay my face against hers, did not tell her everything was going to be all right. Did not tell her I saw this woman do it. Did not tell Kamala she had stood over the well for two hours watching the puppy swim in slower and slower circles, until exhausted, it drowned.

  I just left for America.

  I look up at the woman on the bed. She seems to be sleeping, her eyes are closed.

  Aziz, I say.

  The word fills the room. She opens her almost-sightless eyes and I see hatred burn inside them.

  Do not say that name. Do not take that name in your mouth.

  She turns away from me.

  I force her head back to mine, force her eyes to mine.

  Aziz. Aziz. Aziz. Aziz. Say it, bitch. Say Aziz. Say his name. Say Aziz.

  I had spent seven years in America without coming back here. After graduate school, I got a job editing a newspaper in New Jersey. I partied at night, downing mai tais with a vengeance. I opened my legs for a few men; the American men were always kinder than the Indian men afterward when we broke up. For I always broke up. I did not care enough to be a good girl.

  In seven years, only one letter came from Kamala. She sent a photo with it.

  She was in high school then, twelfth grade, I think. The picture sits on my desk at home. At America home, not here home. Someone had caught her in half-profile. Her hair tumbles down her back still, and still to her knees, thick, glorious, blue-tinted like a starlit sky. Her eyes are the same, laughing even as her mouth does not. The neck still slender. The open blouse of her sari showing bones against delicate skin. Pale Brahmin skin, the skin she got from this woman. She looks at the person taking the photograph with a glance filled with love. With trust. With respect. That was why she sent me the picture, for she knew how she feels in it is how she feels for me.

  Aziz took that picture with Kamala’s camera.

  The old woman’s voice comes to me again. Brittle as mine, still filled with hatred. He was a Muslim. They eat cows; they eat the sacred Hindu cow. The Nandi. How could Kamala even bear to be near him, to touch him? It was wrong.

  I eat cows, I say. In America I have eaten many many cows. American cows are not that different from Indian cows. I eat cows. Steaks, hamburgers. They mince the meat, season it with salt and pepper, slap it on a grill. The fat bubbles in the meat, sizzling over the side. Then I cut into it with a fork and a knife. I put a piece in my mouth and chew slowly, letting the juices from the meat fill my tongue. It slides down my Brahmin throat, into my Brahmin stomach. Look. I pull her hand into mine again. I rub my hand against hers. Look, you touch the skin of a woman who eats meat cooked over an open fire.

  Fire.

  Her head flaps against the pillow, her eyes moving sightlessly around the room. Don’t say these things. Don’t say you have eaten meat. Now
your blood is polluted. Oh, Payala.

  Don’t call me that, I scream. You bitch. You horrible stupid bitch. What was wrong with Aziz after all?

  He was a Muslim. The words come slowly, stubbornly. Kamala wanted to marry him, to have his children. To mix the blood of our house with his, it would not have been right. She said no when we wanted to cut her hair.

  He is beautiful, Kamala had written. And she said more, painting his face for me with her phrases. A shock of curly hair, unruly over his forehead. Eyes that laughed, a mouth that did even more so. Though she did not tell me, I know he put his arms around her. I know he kissed her, his lips meeting hers in homage almost. As though he knew she had not been kissed very much in her life. I know his father owns the chai shop on the corner of the street from this house. Aziz sat there behind the counter, the steam curling his hair, his kurta white and pressed, starch holding it stiff even against the heat. Kamala lost her hairpin in front of the shop on her way back from school one day. He helped her look for it, scrambling in the dust of the street, his fingers brown with mud when they emerged with the pin.

  Here. Then he put his hand out involuntarily, skimming over her hair, loose around her face in wisps this late in the day. You have beautiful hair. The most beautiful hair I have seen.

  She knew, Kamala knew it would be Aziz. She never hid anything from the people at the house. Met him openly. Talked with him outside the shop where anyone passing could see her, always standing away from him. It was six months before he touched her hair. Six months when this woman on the bed raved, ranted, screamed herself hoarse. She locked Kamala in her room. Kamala picked the lock and walked out. She took Kamala out of school. She yelled curses at her. Kamala listened to everything, her eyes huge, silent as usual. Because she still did not think it was necessary to speak.

  It was not right, the old woman says again. Not right. Not right. Not right.

  I hit her. My hand comes away shaking, my fingers leave their mark on her dark face. Look at your skin now. I hold her hand up to her eyes. Look at your skin. It is because of what you did to Kamala.

  No. That was right. That had to be right, she says.

  Kamala ran away with Aziz one night. She had written to me about him, sent me her picture but not his. Then waited six months. I read it and remembered. How this was the first time she had written me in seven years. How she never came to the phone when I called from America. How she had been silent. I felt betrayed. I did not see then what I see now. I should have come back to India. To this house, to the child whom I thought of as my own. To my little sister, born ten years after I was born, who swept me away into her quiet world. Whom I left.

  The story came to me through many people. The phone never seemed to stop ringing those first three months afterward. I would pick up the phone dreading a well-known voice from my past, yet wanting desperately to hear what they had to say. The ten thousand miles between America and India melted away as they spoke, words tumbling out of their mouths, in a hurry to point fingers, to ease the burden of their own shame. The neighbor who watched and did nothing, my aunties who participated and so did nothing, my mother who cannot speak anymore without blame coloring her voice, my father who cannot meet my eyes. Only she, this woman on the bed, never talked to me about it.

  Yet they are all equally guilty.

  It was less than forty-eight hours before they found Kamala and Aziz at the railway station. They were in a train, in a second-class compartment. Aziz seated near the window. Kamala leaning against him, her head on his shoulder.

  They dragged them home. Dragged them from the train. Aziz resisted, but neither of them cried out. They were both quiet people.

  Brought them into the front garden. Tied them to the champa trees. Stoned them.

  You threw the first stone. My voice is tired now. I am tired. I feel old. It is from a pain that will never wash away. Just as the blood will not wash away from this woman’s hands.

  I had to, she says. I had to show everyone what was right. I had to tell them. Aziz’s blood could not mix with the blood of this house. Not with the blood of a daughter of this house. They had been missing for forty-eight hours. Who knows what they had done, and where they had done it? No good Brahmin boy would ever marry her. Or marry a daughter of the house if we had not done what we did. It was right.

  She hides behind a strange and immovable logic. That the family’s reputation must be saved at all costs. Even if it means losing Kamala. It is true, what she says. Had they not done what they did, no decent family would marry into ours. They are all blinded by this logic, following it faithfully as though we live three, four hundred years ago. Yet this bothers all of them. Which was why various people called me in America to explain. Which is why they put this woman away.

  It was the right thing to do, Payala, she says again.

  Payala. She calls me Payala. As Kamala did all her life. At first, it was because her mouth could not stop at a consonant as a child. She needed to make my name musical, to add that “aa” at the end of it. Paa-yaa-laa. Later it was a joke between us. And we joked so little, I let her call me Payala.

  Don’t call me that, I say again. But my voice is drained of energy.

  She threw the first stone. A small rock really. It cut into Kamala’s chest, at the collarbone, smashing it. Kamala bled. Yet she did not cry. Then they all threw stones. My mother, my father, my aunties, the chauffeur, the maids. I know it need not have happened, I know this woman on the bed could have stopped it. The people of this house had always listened to her; if she had wanted to, she could have stopped it.

  When Kamala and Aziz hung from the ropes that tied them to the tree, still silent, this woman walked up to my sister and pulled her head up by her hair. Kamala watched as she brandished a pair of scissors in front of her eyes. Holding Kamala’s braid with one hand, she cut through the thick fabric of hair.

  Only then did Kamala scream. Great big screams came tearing out of her. For the puppy who died in the well. For Aziz to whom she had given all her love when I left. For the children they would never have. For me.

  For me who left her and went away because I could not bear to stay. For me who did not answer her letter, who did not come because I couldn’t recognize a plea for help. For me who had always sheltered her when she was young. And in doing so, did not teach her how to shelter herself.

  Her hair lay spread on the ground like a fan. That was when—Kamala still screaming, Aziz quiet by her side, his ribs cracked, his cheekbones smashed—my grandmother set fire to them.

  Fire.

  The champa trees, alive as they were, burned very well. Everyone waited in the front garden as Kamala and Aziz burned. All of them, following this woman like sheep. And she stood there watching, a stone still clasped in one hand, the scissors in another. When the ropes had burned through, Kamala lifted her hand to Aziz, to hold his. Her hair was already aflame by then, in a glowing halo around her face. She did not lift her hand to dust off the flames. She lifted her hand to join with his. When the fire died down, they found them collapsed at the foot of the charred champa trees, their hands melded in the heat, unable to part them.

  Aziz’s father buried them together. I know the whole neighborhood saw the fire, felt the heat, smelled the burning flesh. When the police came the next day, they found only two blackened stumps of trees. An accident, everyone said. And no one saw how it started. This is how it was, how it has always been. For we, our family, this woman, have money, and silence is cheap.

  That was three years ago. Three years before I could come back. Three years and thousands of mai tais.

  Did I do right? Her voice is piteous now. Look at my skin, she says. It is as black as Kamala’s when she burned. Did I do right, Payala?

  My mother told me to come and see her, so I do. In this house, her house really, she is the head. Even my father, who pretends to be a man, who pretends to play the role of the head of the house, is nothing compared to this woman who gave birth to him. I have seen her
power, known it, broken away from it, even. If she wanted, she could have saved Kamala.

  No, I say. It was not right, what you did.

  She turns away from me to look toward the darkness beyond the windows. Her voice, when it comes after a long silence, is distant. You loved Kamala more.

  I was thinking I should leave when those words fill the room. Suddenly, all the dull ache I carry within me focuses into pinpoints of pain. Like clear ice shards.

  Is that why—?

  Then I stop, the words sticking in my throat. I remember wondering why during all those nights when I was forced to think. When, my tongue still sweet-sour from a mai tai, my brain benumbed and disobedient from the alcohol, I wondered why. Now I know why. Because she thought I gave my love—the love she had to have—to Kamala.

  Such a simple, stupid, stupid reason. And such simple, stupid, stupid reasoning. Did she think Kamala’s not being alive anymore would make me love her again?

  I look at her, black skin against white sheets. Her sins have come up from inside her. I raise myself on my knees. My hands tremble. But I know why I have come back after so many years, and why I will never come back here again.

  Look at me.

  She looks.

  Look at my hands. My nice white Brahmin hands. So unlike yours. Watch them as they come nearer.

  I need only one hand to cover her mouth and her nose. With the other I smooth the silver hair from her forehead so I can look into her eyes. She does not even struggle. She is even defiant. Her breathing grows shallow.

  No, I think. Let her live. I do not stop from fear, for if she dies, no one will condemn me. They all want her dead; for alive she reminds them of their failings. I want her to live like this, alone, unwanted, a shameful reminder. When I take my hand from her mouth and nose a deluge of fear floods through those blurred eyes. She wants me to do this. And she knows why I don’t.