The Architecture of Loss

by Z. P. Dala

  In time, another man would arrive and be duly warned to not get too attached to the child. Some kept their distance, watching Afroze with apprehension and barely nodding at her. Some were taken by her sweetness, her air of loneliness, that same loneliness that they perceived in their lover, her mother. For some men, this forlorn brokenness was a drug, but once they had had their fill of it, they hastily ran away.

  Afroze always blamed her mother for chasing them away, chasing away men that could have been called “Daddy.”

  Now, the memory of those veranda mornings enveloped Afroze, catapulting her into her five-year-old world, where on one Monday morning crashes and shouts echoed through the air. Her mother’s gruff voice was not her own. It pleaded. It cajoled. It promised.

  “Please, please stay. She is no trouble at all. Just a child, a silent one. Please stay . . .”

  And the day had ended with her mother talking to the rosebushes, meaning it for Afroze.

  “Maybe you should go to your father in Cape Town. I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

  But even when her lovers left, taking her dignity in their overnight bags, and even though Sylvie would pour her vexation onto the roses, threatening to send the child away, she never did send Afroze away. Until a horrible night fell like a cloak on her fragile world, and Sylvie finally did banish her child.

  It had been a dark midnight. Afroze had never even been warned.

  “Please, you have to take her. Take her away. Take her now.”

  Afroze had cursed the lover who had bewitched her mother’s eyes, causing her to exile her only child into a world unknown. But as the years passed, deep into the forest of her banishment, living with a cold, unstable father who explained nothing and a simple but comforting stepmother who knew of nothing to tell, Afroze’s curse mutated into cursing the mother who no longer wanted her.

  The years droned by in a cautious silence, an eggshell existence. It was as if the day she was dropped into her father’s world was the actual day she was born. In her new world, no one believed in past lives. She concentrated hard on the urgency of forgetting. But one image she could only ever remember was her mother’s turned back as the car drove off at high speed, not bothering with the crying child and her plastic bags of possessions in the back seat.

  Now, this man calling himself her mother’s lover grabbed Afroze’s thoughts from the past and pulled them with his bare hands into the present. But even here, in the existing now, her mind was racing. Her thoughts gained momentum. Sensing the explosion, the man took her by the elbow. His touch felt cool. Coolness to her rage, coolness to her memories. Heat to her skin.

  “Come, let us go in to see my Diana. May she teach her child about fire.”

  Afroze followed him into the cottage, muttering softly, “Fire razes everything to ashes.”

  The man, his hearing sharp, turned to look her in the eye.

  “Yes. But it is so beautiful.”

  Halaima, with her laundry on the table that overlooked the front rose garden, watched from beneath the cover of busy hands. Folding and fluttering her fingers in acts that belied her keen attention.

  Afroze pulled her eyes away from the unblinking beauty of Sathie. Uncomfortable, she swallowed and attempted to shake herself clean of something she could barely recognize. It took the physical effort of squaring her shoulders and willing her limbs to walk away from him, into the house, to break an infant spell. A tiny, little, newly formed crackle of electricity with a world of potential.

  Sathie lingered for a second, watching her march into the house.

  “Be careful, my friend,” Halaima said, coming to stand quietly next to him, her eyes on the retreating figure.

  “I am never careful, my beautiful Halaima. I have never been careful a day in my life.”

  “Yes, and see where that has gotten you.” Halaima shot off, their familiarity easy. Only one who knows you well will warn you if you are heading into your demons’ lair.

  “Halaima, you know my situation well. I am weakened by my need for a confidante. I didn’t expect that you would throw it in my face.”

  Halaima laughed and pulled Sathie toward her in a light hug. Her affection for this man, despite his showy mannerisms, his sickly sweet speech, and his belief that he was still young and able to turn hearts was strong and unwavering.

  “Sathie . . . my dear friend. You are silly silly. You think you are playing with these cats, but the cats are going to play with you.”

  “Cats! Oh, indeed . . . you and your little veiled stories. Don’t you think it’s time you spoke clearly, Halaima of the distant hills?”

  Halaima’s arched left eyebrow shot up and she smiled in jest. “Oh, really, Sathie of the shadows. Don’t you think it’s time you spoke clearly too? The doctor laughs at your language; she calls it proody.”

  “Proody? What in the bloody world is proody? Aah! Parody. Nice to know that you’re improving your English. You are most welcome to come to my room at any time for further lessons.”

  Halaima chuckled and rubbed Sathie’s back. “Oh, no no, Sathie sir. I won’t be coming to your room for any lessons, unless you let me bring my husband too.” She pushed him away lightly.

  Sathie laughed, knowing that this woman was immune to his advances. Not that he ever intended to advance upon her. She had become dear to him, a sister and keeper of his worst fears.

  Despite his calm appearance, when he saw the doctor’s daughter arrive, those large fears came crashing down. And when he looked at Halaima,he knew she was fearful as well.

  “I wonder, Halaima, what this rich Cape Town daughter with her fancy clothes and big car is going to do with us. Maybe you and I had better start looking for places where we could go. This daughter has cold eyes; she won’t let us linger here like the doctor does.”

  “Don’t worry, my friend. We will be okay. We have nothing, and if we always have nothing, then that is our destiny. And maybe this daughter will be good to us after all.”

  Halaima, remembering something, patted Sathie comfortingly on his arm, and then quickly started forward and rushed past him to ensure the doctor was dressed.

  Sathie watched her hasten away, the ever-faithful maidservant. He was far less confident. He had finally found a home here in Brighton, a place where his creature comforts—fine food, afternoon music—were indulged. He had come to enjoy the sometimes tedious conversation with the doctor, who had finally warmed up to him after months of calling on her, praising her, patronizing her. Now, with the arrival of this daughter from Cape Town, worry and fear began to creep into Sathie’s otherwise flawless facade. Would his days of hard-won comfort be taken away from him? He didn’t know.

  “Destiny means rot. Hope is rubbish. I will make my own hope,” he muttered, composing himself in the practiced way that he had learned to cast every thought and fear away before he stepped onto a stage of women in love.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Have you met the great beauty, Sathie?” The doctor’s voice echoed through the open door.

  Afroze found herself tentatively lingering in the hall as Sathie’s ease in her mother’s home became apparent. He was a gentleman, his ministrations seemed old world, and more than a bit contrived. He had announced his arrival by calling out in a hearty voice. Afroze had the distinct impression that he used this same call every time. It was trained, the ritual of a method actor.

  “Now, where is my great lady love—Artemis, do not hide. I am here and you have never been coy.”

  A bustle in the bedroom, the sound ladies make when rapidly preening for a man.

  Almost a giggle, a waft of the very same perfume she had always worn, the perfume whose scent haunted many days and nights of a child daughter. What was it called? Ah, yes . . . Cache, Hidden. When she was a little girl and could barely read, the ornate crystal bottle of the French fragrance, shaped like a treasure chest inlayed with gold and boasting a delicately crafted gold lock and key, had captivated her as it reflected morning light, much as
the creamy chiffon sari fabric would ripple and dapple with that same morning light.

  She could not yet read well but could sound out words and the word Cache emblazoned on the bottle in black sounded out in phonetics to Cac. Which sounded very much like kak, a local word for “shit.” And back then, the perfume smelled quite divine. But as she grew older, far away from its smell, its memory earned this misnomer. Crap apt.

  The floating perfume scent got stronger and, with a dragging huff-puff, Afroze’s mother appeared at the door, dressed in a satin nightgown of the deepest red, ruffles tied with ribbons at the sagging drape of her throat, her face made up in a garish heaviness of reds, blues, and pinks. The sight was quite horrific. The scarlet lipstick had been painted on in haste, you could clearly see, but then again, with such a sagging, downturned pair of lips, mistakes would so easily happen. Who had done this? This clown-dressing?

  Halaima . . .

  “Aha, now the blood is beginning to flow in the heart of this mad, desperate lover,” Sathie announced, glimpsing Sylvie walking into the passage outside her bedroom. He bowed as low as his stiff back would allow. His every word, his every nuance, was a performance. Afroze, lingering in the passage, looked in puzzled revulsion at the intelligent, abrasive, worldly woman who could stamp out any debate with choice intellectual ripostes, melting under the florid grammar.

  What on Earth had happened to this mother, the one who unnerved her dreams with memories of formidable strength? This was not her. This aged doll. This melted wax. Grotesque.

  As soon as the doctor bestowed a gummy smile at her lover, she glimpsed Afroze hovering and a scowl came to her face. Afroze quickly slipped in to stand behind her, not wanting that awful childhood feeling to return, where she was a little girl standing between lovers. She ached to just hide away, for a little while.

  “Didn’t you hear me, Sathie? What do you make of the great beauty?”

  Her mouth curled downward. Such a bad taste on the tongue. She was too ladylike to spit, although there had been many times in her life when she had easily lobbed gobs of smoke-scented saliva at anyone who annoyed her. Sathie, her lover’s presence, preserved her etiquette. For now.

  “Oh, you cheeky old girl,” Sathie said. “Silly Sylvie. You are the great beauty. And there is no one else besides.”

  When he leaned to embrace Sylvie, his eyes lingered on Afroze.

  Her mother’s painted-on eyebrows shot upward into a terrible, terribly placed auburn wig. Slightly askew on a face that displayed much loss of form and function, the wig, although very unbecoming, somehow rounded off the entire series of brushstrokes of an Impressionist painter. One tiny stroke at a time, creating a complete but messy whole. You would have to be far away to see the big picture. Afroze was too close.

  “Well,” her mother continued, edging forward with her walking cane, “she is quite bland, isn’t she? I often thought that with that milky skin and thick black hair, she would have grown up to be somewhat stunning.”

  “Oh, my beautiful fiery Artemis. She is not a beauty like her mother.”

  Sathie winked conspiratorially at Afroze. The wink caught the eye of the hovering Halaima, who clicked her tsk-tsk in silent disgust and placed a protective arm around the shambling doctor. Those mynah-bird eyes flashed between two people who had now transgressed all decorum in her world, two disgusting making-fun people.

  “You lie poorly, Sathie,” Sylvie said. “I can feel the rising of your blood. She is cold and she is flavorless . . . now. But she is my daughter, after all. She might surprise you when she begins to flame.”

  “Oh, nonsense and pish-posh, my sweetest Sylvie. How can I be distracted by blandness in brown trousers, when a world of beauty in colors stands here?”

  Afroze did not feel insulted, being discussed by critics who clearly did not see things clearly. What cut deeper than the name-calling dissection was the suture on the wound. The passing mention, the offhand comment, her mother had thought of her.

  Through the years. Often. When you arrive at a place that has starved you and a hint of the attention that you have hankered after is thrown at you, you take it. Bones and crumbs, despite your pride, tastes very good, after all. This staggering slick of balm on her slapped cheek cooled her, calmed her, warmed her. Her dissolve was palpable and a thick silence encircled this strange gathering at the doorway of a stuffy bedroom. Afroze had crept unnoticed to face her mother in that narrow passage, and into the dissolve, her eyes searched and found Sylvie’s. They looked at each other for the very first time since she had arrived, and in this look that passed, Sathie grew anxious and Halaima, who missed nothing, also felt the pangs of uneasiness.

  In the silence, Sathie the seducer grinned, not because he felt that grinning was the best thing to do at that time, but because through the stark stare between mother and child, he sensed a door closing in his handsome face. If his Sylvie lost her heart to her restored child, then there would be no room for him. He sensed a gap in the door, and a tiny crack is all an insect needs to get into a sealed house.

  His school had been the streets and the bedrooms of virgins, wives, and matriarchs. He knew when he was being displaced. Sensing, like the feral being he was born to be, that a union between these two feminine forces would force him out, he desperately needed to replace the wedge, to center himself in the moment. Sathie, who had run away from every place he had ever been, needed now to secure this one. He was getting too old for running.

  In his years as a practicing Lothario, he had learned that all lady-loves, no matter how strong, aloof, or intelligent, could never resist his true asset: that gorgeous, very big smile. He trained his gift on Sylvie. The radiance of that man-smile, the smell of a man in a world filled with women was all that was needed to subvert their attentions from each other.

  But it was Halaima who sliced the trance in two, breaking an invisible silver thread that buzzed between a mother and her daughter. The moment dissolved. Perhaps never to reform again.

  “Doctor, come. You must sit down. I have laid out breakfast on the veranda at the back.”

  Her mother shook slightly, a shiver up the spine, and gathered herself up again into brusqueness, taking Sathie’s offered arm.

  “Yes. Breakfast. Thank you, sweet Halaima. I’m sure you have set the table for three.”

  “Yes, Doctor. Three.”

  Afroze shuffled slowly behind the unlikely pair, each supporting the other with the hand free from their canes. Afroze noticed, with a very small smile, that the canes had matching heads.

  The veranda at the back of the house was large and had a floor painted a glossy red. Afroze remembered it well. She remembered how it shone when the domestic worker had spent hours on her hands and knees polishing it with lavender-smelling floor wax. The delicious slippery canvas, a temptation for a little child. Afroze had loved to put on pairs of old socks and slide clean across it, crashing into the rows of potted plants at the far end. The one wild game she allowed herself in a house where she spent all her moments creeping and hiding. And the one time her mother had tended to her, the day she had crashed too hard into the wall, missing the plants and fracturing her wrist.

  A child with a limp wrist, sobbing in not-fake, wracking heaves, scared and in pain, looked around with a wild desperation for the comfort of a mother’s embrace.

  You are five years old, you believe in miracles, and in your world, even a broken bone can be healed by kisses. But it was not the mother who came out that day. It was the anxious, angry doctor, who had swept like an irritated animal into the room where Afroze sat, a thick piece of towel wrapped around her wrist, the hasty ice inside it already melted clean away.

  “Oh, really, Rosie. Not this now. Not now,” her mother had said, hurriedly glancing backward. Ever the doctor, her mother had prodded and poked the massive, swollen wrist, needing no X-ray machine to confirm her diagnosis. Afroze had screamed and wailed. It was so painful. Her mother had cradled her forearm, muttering words like “greenstick” and
“radius,” and had applied a thickly pasted roll of plaster of Paris to her forearm.

  The cool plaster had soothed Afroze, her sobbing was placated by some morphine drops, and she had begun having visions of circling angels. Her mother, the queen of the cherubic seraphs, floated above her, crooning her to sleep. Her mother, a fantastic centaur, the head of a majestic woman, the body of a majestic horse. Archer arms trained to shoot arrows into the sky.

  Had she dreamed it all? That night she was tossed about on stormy sheets, the coolness and comfort of her mother’s hand on her forehead, stroking her tiny five-year-old chest, calming her down with the feel of skin. Had she dreamed the hugs and kisses?

  Maybe she hadn’t dreamed that hot mother-tears fell on her baby-bare chest, and a woman crooned many sorrysorrysorrys to her in her drowse. Despite it being a painful night, Afroze knew that it had been a beautiful one. The morning had found Afroze looking fuzzily at her mother, fast asleep, crouched at the foot of her bed, gripping tightly to the sheet.

  “Ma,” Afroze had said in the wake of a morphine stupor. Her mother had sat bolt upright. The always-in-place bun on her head flopping out of its many pins, stray hairs all over her face, tracks of caked mascara making journeys down her cheeks. Tears had ridden those tracks.

  Caught in the act, her mother smoothed the sari she had never taken off. She seemed almost ashamed. As if being called mama brought untold indignity to her demeanor.

  “Rosie. You are awake. Well . . . You are a very stupid girl, aren’t you? Bloody stupid. I’ll tell the maid to set you straight.”

  The swish of sari chiffon seemed louder than a roar. Afroze did her healing in private. She itched and scratched inside the horrid cast silently, never moaning, never fussing.

  Some girls from the Norwegian Mission across town came to visit Afroze. Afroze knew the times when her mother went to visit the nuns only by the mood that followed. Sylvie would come back seething with rages of vile bile. Ranting at a world where virginal girls had taken the Order, and had to have babies cut out of them for their troubles.