Naming Maya

by Uma Krishnaswami

  “Leave her a note,” Sumati suggests. She’s so sensible. “No, better. Tell Kamala Mami. She’ll tell your mother, no?”

  “Hang on,” I tell her, and I take a peek at Mami in the kitchen. She is singing to herself as usual. She does not seem as if she’s in danger of exploding with laughter. Sumati is behind me, peering over my shoulder.

  “Well?” She obviously sees nothing unusual.

  “Okay.” I’m talked into it.

  I tell Mami, “Sumati and I are going to see a movie.”

  Mami demands at once, “Movie? What movie? Where movie?”

  Sumati explains patiently. It’s a Tamil movie. Yes, it’s okay for kids to see—Mami tells us quite clearly what she thinks of the kind of movie in which the women aren’t wearing nearly enough clothes and aren’t nearly as good as they ought to be. No, no, it’s not one of those. It’s close by. We can walk, so we won’t have to take the bus. Sumati has enough money for both of us. Yes, she’s sure about that. We’ll go straight there and back. We won’t stop for anything, sathyam, Mami. We’ll be careful, honest.

  “Wait,” I say. “Let me go get my camera.”

  “Why? You’re going to see a movie or make one? Oh, all right.” Sumati taps her feet impatiently.

  I go upstairs and hurry back down with the camera.

  “I haven’t seen a Tamil movie in years,” I say. “We used to rent them from the Indian store in New Jersey, back when.”

  “They’re all the same.” She grins and tugs at a coral bead hanging off-center on a chain around her neck. “Long. With songs. Dances. Tears. Ladies with bosoms like a fleet of battleships.” She pronounces it “boozums,” dragging the word out for drama. We giggle, because of course between the two of us we don’t have enough boozum for even one battleship.

  Mami fusses and carries on. She’s worse than Mom. “Just tell my mother,” I say to her, “that we’ll be back by seven.”

  She throws us a few more warnings. “Be careful crossing the road.” “Count the change they give you.” “Come straight back.” “Hurry.” We are at the gate.

  “Don’t talk to strangers!” Mami calls out from the front door as we close the gate behind us.

  “Tchah!” Mr. Balaji Rama Rao flaps his newspaper at us. “Still no rain. And water rationing they are going to implement. Go, go in.” This command is not for us. It’s aimed at the betel-leaf-chewing woman I’ve seen at their door before. Last time she was complaining they’d fired her, and now they appear to have hired her back. Mr. Rama Rao seems willing to hold two conversations at once. “Terrible, terrible!” he says to us. “Push the door, I say, it’s open,” he says to the woman.

  We giggle our goodbyes at him. We giggle all the way to the theater. It’s a comfortable thing, being silly together. It’s the way I am at home with Joanie.

  The movie is so stupid it’s splendid. It is about four brothers who are identical quadruplets and grow up not knowing anything about one another. “Of course they’re identical,” Sumati tells me when I finally figure this out. “Quadruplets are always identical.” I admire her for being so sure, even though I think she’s wrong. There are few things I am that sure about.

  There are so many characters in the movie I can’t keep them all straight. A karate-kicking grandmother has us in stitches. We love it. We laugh ourselves silly when the entire family is stuck in a house teetering on the hillside with the bad guy coming up to get them. We laugh so hard and so loud the rest of the audience begins laughing at us, and we don’t care a bit. We have such a good time that when the three hours of the movie end and the lights come back on, we sit in our seats blinking, our eyes needing to adjust.

  “Oh, that was funny,” gasps Sumati.

  “That was horrible,” I point out to her.

  “Horribly funny.” We giggle together.

  That gets us laughing all over again as we finally emerge from the theater into the still bright and hot evening.

  “That grandmother was amazing,” I say. “She doesn’t get mad. She goes to war!”

  “It’s an effective strategy,” says Sumati. She has such a grand way of talking. Effective. Strategy.

  Walking home, we burst out laughing about the movie, again and again. A little boy hawking key rings clowns for us. The tea-stall man shoos a yellow dog away. The mango seller calls out her wares. I take all their pictures so I can cement the day into my memory, seal it in a bubble, and go back to it when I need to smile. It’s what pictures do for me.

  It’s a little past seven by the time I say goodbye to Sumati. I watch her take off toward the corner she will turn to get home. I swing the gate open at the yellow house on St. Mary’s Road.

  I am completely unprepared for the reception I get when I enter the house.

  “Where have you been?” Mom’s face is as tight as her words. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “What—?” It takes a moment before it all registers. “I don’t know what you mean. I went to see a movie. With Sumati.”

  My mother takes a deep breath like she will need it because she has so much to say. “All you needed to do was tell Mami where you were going, and she’d have told me. Honestly, Maya, you’re old enough to think of someone other than yourself once in a while. Don’t you—”

  I say, “But, Mom—”

  “I don’t want to hear any excuses,” she says. “I had a tiring afternoon, and I didn’t need to be sitting here since four o’clock, wondering if I should call the police.”

  Excuses? Fine. If she didn’t want my explanation, she wasn’t going to hear it. I think of Mami’s laughter that won’t stop, and I feel a little worry quivering inside me. I am scared this is all part of something I do not understand. A part of me urges, Tell her, Maya. Speak up. She needs to know. But another part insists, You tried to tell her, didn’t you? She didn’t want to hear a word of it. The Dad voice says, Remember, there were other things you didn’t tell her. Phone calls … an overnight letter … Yes, better if you don’t tell Mom.

  Until I get it all sorted out, I have to let my mother’s disappointment hang in the air like rain clouds.

  Forgetting and Remembering

  “Why didn’t you tell Amma?” I ask Mami the first moment I get alone with her the following day. “Why didn’t you tell her that I went to the movie with Sumati? You said you would.”

  She is cleaning the dining table. Not that it needs to be any cleaner. You can practically see your face in it now. She pauses in mid-swipe, glancing at me, and then her hand goes back to work.

  “Why?” I ask her.

  Another look. This one holds secrets, as if she finds something about me funny but isn’t about to tell me what. Not yet, anyway.

  “I forgot,” she says, and begins singing in her usual way, paying no more attention to me than if I’d been one of the crumbs of food she’s sweeping up in the cleaning cloth. In between stanzas she mutters, “I forgot. What about it? I forgot.” The words are mixed like spurts of laughter into her singing. Her eyes focus on a place somewhere on the wall behind me, so she looks as if she is looking right through me to someone else.

  Outside, the crows begin their daily racket.

  “How could you, Mami?” I should have the sense to quit, but I am too upset at the unfairness of it. “You didn’t tell her, and she got angry at me, and all you can say is you forgot?”

  She turns on me a look so strange and scary it makes me take a step back in sudden panic. Her dark eyes are distant. “I forgot,” she says with a shrug. “I had other things to remember.”

  She goes to trim the wick on the lamp she keeps burning all day long. She has set up a small shrine in the alcove in the wall of the dining room. It holds bright pictures of the gods. Mami lights that lamp every morning as soon as she gets off the bus and into the house. She keeps it filled with oil all day so it is still glimmering when she leaves in the evening. By the time she returns the next morning the little flame has died out and she lights it all over again. S
he recites a long string of Sanskrit verses at the top of her lungs as she does this. Wave upon wave of them roll off her tongue. She begins always with hymns to Devi in her various forms.

  The doorbell rings. It is Sumati, waving an American flag. “What are you doing with that?” I ask, letting her in.

  “It’s the Fourth of July,” she says, all excited. “Aren’t you supposed to do something? Here, I got the Nuisance to make you a card. He’s playing at a friend’s house, so I thought I’d come over. I wanted to bake a cake. Don’t know how, though, and Amma’s gone to work, so I couldn’t ask her to help.”

  I’m so surprised I don’t know what to say. The card shows a tall building that looks more like the Eiffel Tower than anything in America. In Ashwin’s wobbly handwriting it says, “Happy July Forth.” What a lot of trouble they’ve gone to! “Thanks,” I say at last. “Where did you get that flag from?”

  “Oh, my photographer uncle brought it back from America for me years ago. I used to collect flags. Here, you want it?”

  I dissolve into tears. “What?” she cries in concern. “What did I do? I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “I—am.” I hiccup. “It’s just … you’re so nice. Thank you.”

  “You always cry when people are nice to you?”

  She gives me an awkward little hug. “Stop, silly,” she says, which of course makes me even more of a wreck. “Something you need to talk about?”

  And that’s when my worry about Mami comes out. I tell it poorly, all in a rush, like a bottle of fizzy Limca uncapped too soon after being shaken up.

  When I finish, Sumati is silent. “Maybe she just forgot,” she suggests at last. “I mean, she’s getting old, you know. Old people forget things.” She is so filled with cheerful common sense that I feel foolish. Perhaps my imagination is just working overtime. And when Mami comes to see who is here, she seems so much her normal self that Sumati shrugs her shoulders at me as if to say, See? I told you there’s nothing to worry about.

  At first Mami is confused when Sumati tells her it’s Independence Day. “No, no,” she corrects Sumati. “That is not till August fifteenth. Don’t they teach you anything in these schools these days?”

  Sumati clarifies. “No, Mami, in America it’s Independence Day today.”

  Mami says, “Oh, why didn’t you say so? It’s the vellaikkara independence!” In celebration of the white people’s holiday, she insists on boiling a pot of milk to make payasam. She cooks a handful of fine noodles in the milk. She tosses in sugar, and pinches of saffron and cardamom. When she is done, all three of us sit on the oonjal. We swing back and forth gently, and sip the hot sweet liquid from little stainless steel cups. Mami wants to know what I would be doing if I were back in America now. She nods enthusiastically when I tell her about fireworks and parades. “People are the same everywhere,” she says. “Everyone celebrates special days with fireworks and parades.”

  After Sumati has said goodbye and gone home, I think, Lighten up, Maya. Nothing’s wrong.

  Mom is Official Mom this afternoon because the real estate agent, Prasad, brings new people to see the house. He takes off his shoes at the door, where people coming into the house are expected to. You can tell who has company in any house up and down the road by the rows of shoes and sandals at the door. He is dressed like one of the billboards that advertise men’s clothing, pants ironed to a sharp crease, tie held in place with a little fussy pin.

  “How do you like India?” Prasad asks me. He sets his briefcase down and wipes his forehead with a white handkerchief. “You are here in mango season. You like mangoes?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes. I like mangoes.”

  He and Mom chat about mangoes. They debate politely over the best variety (Alphonso or Banganapalli). On one point Mom agrees with Prasad—you can’t get a decent mango in the United States.

  The prospective buyers are a husband and wife. They are small and quiet, both of them, matched in size and volume. They talk back and forth to each other, quickly, in undertones, refusing to join in the mango conversation. The wife jots columns of numbers on a floppy notepad and wriggles her toes so her silver toe rings click on the floor.

  Mami brings coffee around. It is milky and sweet and steaming hot, with a lovely bitterness that fills the air. I don’t like the taste of it much but I love that smell. She looks them all up and down. She urges, “Drink before it gets cold. Best blend of peaberry and robusta.” Steam rises from the stainless steel tumblers of coffee, promising they will not cool anytime soon.

  “Very good,” says Prasad. He takes an obedient sip of the scalding stuff.

  “From Narasu’s. I ground it myself.” Mami beams. I stifle a grin, having been with her on a couple of those coffee-grinding trips. Mami’s method is to commandeer the coffee grinder after bullying the owner into admitting he doesn’t know the first thing about truly fine coffee. When she’s got him to the point where he is begging her to teach him how best to use his own equipment, she then holds up all the other customers till she’s got the stuff done to exactly the right consistency. She passes out samples of it to everyone in the store, admires the texture and scent, declares the price outrageous, and only then counts out the rupees.

  Prasad finishes his coffee, clears his throat, and says, “Hrmm, shall we?” And Mom says, “Please. Go through the house. I’ll be here if you have any questions.” Mami takes off reluctantly with the empty tumblers.

  Reciting a list of the selling points of the house, Prasad leads the couple into the hallway and up the stairs. “Excellent condition. It has been in the same family for three generations. And of course this is a prime location.”

  I think perhaps I’ll tell Mom about my concerns about Mami, but before I can say anything, she mumbles about going to see if Mami has enough milk money. So I don’t get a chance to talk to her. I tell myself that it’s all Mom’s fault. If she’d wanted to hear me even a little, I’d have shared my worries about Mami with her in the first place. Even if they were needless worries.

  That’s right, chimes in the Dad voice in my head. Why didn’t she listen to you? Why didn’t she tell you there was nothing to worry about?

  What did Sumati say when we were playing hangman? To be left in the lurch. I say it to myself a couple of times. In the lurch.

  Two-Gift

  I am still lurching along and feeling aggrieved the next day, but Mom does not seem to notice. She has other things on her mind. The buyers have decided they are not. Not buyers, that is. Not for this house. “They say it is too old,” reports Prasad. “Not enough conveniences. No built-in cupboards, no modern kitchen. Too old and sprawling.”

  After Prasad has delivered the bad news and gone, my mother sighs and says, “We just have to wait till he finds someone else to see the house. Is there something you’d like to do, Maya? Shall we go look at the shops on Mount Road?”

  “I don’t care,” I say.

  “Well, what do you want to do?” Now she asks.

  I set my chin. “I don’t care,” I repeat.

  “Does that mean yes or no?” She sounds exasperated.

  I shrug. “Yes, I guess.” I’ll go, but I can’t pretend I’m going to enjoy it.

  We take an auto rickshaw to Mount Road, which has been renamed something else but everybody still calls it Mount Road. The auto man refuses to make the U-turn it would take to get us to the side of the road we want. He is headed the other way, he says, but we can cross, right here. He points to a little break in the median, and then blasts off with a cheery toot of his horn.

  Crossing Mount Road is a little like running an obstacle course in which all the obstacles move with great noise and speed in unpredictable directions. This is because, among other things, drivers don’t stop for pedestrians. Some stop for the lone traffic light on the far end of the divided road, but we can’t bank on that either. If we want to cross, we have to scope out the oncoming vehicles quickly, then make a mad dash across the road. We keep a swift eye all arou
nd so we can dodge cars and buses and motorbikes. They all keep coming. They honk and beep at us for daring to get in their way. We manage to make it safely to the other side, in spite of one blue bus that obviously has us in its sights for target practice.

  We end up in a huge dusty cavern of a store filled with carved wooden figures—elephants, camels, birds, masked dolls with spring-mounted heads that dance when you touch them. And little brass bells on strings, and statues sized from tiny to larger than life. I hover around the trays of miniature objects. I’ve always liked small things. They are comfortable. You can tuck them in your pocket and only you know they’re there.

  “Want to get something for Joanie?” Mom asks. While I am debating whether to reply, she says, “It’s okay, pick something you like. A Two-Gift?”

  I stare at her. That’s a Dad line.

  One gift to keep and one to give away, me to Joanie, Joanie to me. It was a rule we made years ago when we were both much younger. Every time we go anywhere with our families, we bring back two gifts. Looking at our twin collections, you can trace the places we’ve been the years we’ve been friends. We each have a replica Capitol (Joanie’s visit to Washington, D.C.); a bear bookmark from Arizona (my trip to the Grand Canyon); coral from Florida (Joanie’s trip to see her grandma Beth); and Mickey Mouse buttons from Disney World (my sixth-birthday trip).

  Dad loved the term Two-Gift. Whenever we went anywhere on vacation, he was the one to remind me. “Nothing for Joanie?” he’d ask. “A Two-Gift?”

  No Dad to remind me. No Dad to make funny faces, to make me laugh so hard the tears would run down my cheeks and I’d beg for mercy. “Stop, stop. Oh, I’m getting a stick in my side.”

  Mom would say, “Stitch, sweetheart, stitch.” But Dad would pretend he had a stick in his side that wouldn’t come loose, and stagger around trying to get it out, and drive us both into a weakness of laughter.

  I steal a sideways look at my mother. The only thing that makes her laugh close to that hard these days is chatting with Lakshmi Auntie about old times. Suddenly, despite my determination to stay mad, I want her to laugh with me about something now. But there’s no funny memory handy.