Fasting, Feasting

by Anita Desai

  'Where is the need?' Mama protested. 'He can go to Seth Baba Ram College here—Mr Joshi went there—it is not bad—'

  Papa did not even bother to counter Mama's arguments; he did not expect her to understand the importance of sending Arun abroad to study, the value of a foreign degree, the openings this would create later in life, the opportunities. He merely brushed aside her protests and concentrated on Arun who required all the advice and careful handling Papa could summon. Perhaps Papa's memories of studying under the streetlights and of the painful beginnings in dusty provincial courts filled him with this almost manic determination. Was he fulfilling through Arun a dream he had had there under the streetlights, or in the shabby district courts? Uma watched, trying to find out. Of course he would never tell: how could Papa admit he had unfulfilled dreams? That he had done anything less than succeed, totally?

  So when the letter of acceptance finally arrived, Papa it was who collapsed from sheer exhaustion. He was not even able to rise to a celebration, the festivities he had promised his son if he won this prize. He lay back weakly on the swing, his face grey, and allowed Mama to take over and have her way.

  But after the first congratulatory embrace and the making of traditional sweets to be sent around to friends and neighbours, Mama too huddled up on the swing, sniffling delicately into her handkerchief, now and then dabbing at her eyes. Uma sat by her, even patted her on the arm now and then, but was uncertain if Mama was sorrowing at the thought of Arun going away, or if this were a role mothers had to play—in which case she must be allowed to continue.

  Uma watched Arun too, when he read the fateful letter. She watched and searched for an expression, of relief, of joy, doubt, fear, anything at all. But there was none. All the years of scholarly toil had worn down any distinguishing features Arun's face might once have had. They had left the essentials: a nose, eyes, mouth, ears. But he held his lips tightly together, his nose was as flattened as could possibly be, and his eyes were shielded by the thick glasses his relentless studies had necessitated. There was nothing else—not the hint of a smile, frown, laugh or anything: these had all been ground down till they had disappeared. This blank face now stared at the letter and faced another phase of his existence arranged for him by Papa.

  Uma gave a sigh of disappointment and turned away, ungratified. She should have expected no more. It was the expression with which he had gone through several hundred comic books in his childhood—tales of adventure, wizardry, crime, passion, daring and hilarity—allowing them to flood into his mind and drown there in a deep well of greyness that was his actual existence. Uma could gaze into the well, looking for some scraps of coloured paper that might still float, but they had sunk without a trace. Sometimes she was seized with a longing to stir up that viscous greyness, to bring to life some evidence of colour, if not in her life then in another's.

  It made her spectacles flash, it gave her movements an agitated edge, but no one noticed. She went back and forth, getting Arun's clothes ready, packing and re-packing them. Mama could not summon up the energy required by the task.

  Arun paid her little attention, he was too engrossed in the brochures and booklets sent him by the university, trying to picture himself on that strange campus.

  Then the day of departure arrived, and he was getting into the train to Bombay from where he would leave for the States. Looking back, he saw Uma on the platform beside his parents and suddenly noticed how old she looked: his sister Uma, already beginning to stoop and shrink. He threw her a stricken look.

  WITH Arun gone, Papa retired. Life was more confined than ever to the veranda, the swing, the intermittent exchanges, the gaps between them longer and longer.

  Arun's letters arrived, pale blue aerogrammes. They would finger the crisp glossy paper in turn, marvelling at its quality that somehow endured through the journey. It seemed like evidence of Arun's own endurance, his survival. His actual message, written on the inside, was not nearly so potent. The few lines he wrote sounded thin, without substance. 'I am keeping well. How are all of you? Hope you are well. What is the weather like? Here it is hot—' or cold, or wet, or snowing or hot once again. 'I am studying hard. I have two papers to write this week. We are going on a field trip next week. I am enjoying my studies.' The most personal note he struck was a poignant, frequently repeated complaint: 'The food is not very good.'

  He might just as well have written that from the local college hostel, Uma thought in disappointment.

  Eleven

  UMA has spread all the writing materials out on the table, first removing the embroidered tablecloth so as not to stain it with ink, or have it cramp her writing. She draws up a chair and bends over it, lips clenched inwards as she waits for Papa to begin dictating the letter. She knows she must get it right: the aerogramme costs money, it cannot be torn up like a sheet of paper and thrown away, a fresh one used instead. Papa has warned her about this over and over again. There is a silence, filled in by the constant muttering of pigeons seated on the rolled-up mats; their voices sound like warnings to Uma. She squints at them in irritation.

  'Now where are you looking? Just concentrate on the letter, Uma,' Papa scolds.

  'I am, Papa, I am. What am I to write?'

  'Write "Dear Arun",' Papa clears his throat, speaking slowly. '"We are happy to hear you have done well in the examinations and can now take a well-earned rest —"'

  'Wait, wait,' cries Uma, frantically trying to get the pen to catch up with the words.

  'Oof, you are so slow,' he complains.

  'She is slow,' Mama agrees, quite unnecessarily.

  But this gives Uma time to catch up; she breathes heavily with the effort.

  '"Mr O'Henry has come up with a suggestion. You may remember Mr O'Henry from St John's School —" put that in brackets, Uma.'

  Uma had started out writing 'Put that in brackets' and now has to scratch it out. She tries to do this unobtrusively but Papa notices, and explodes. 'Don't you know what brackets are? What did they teach you at the convent?'

  'At the convent,' she tells him, looking up, 'the nuns would dictate: "Open brackets, close brackets." So we knew—'

  'Then how is it you don't know?' he fumes, and goes on quickly. '"Mrs O'Henry's sister lives in the same town as you. Her name is Mrs Patton, and she has one son and one daughter. Mrs O'Henry has written to her and she is willing to let you have a room for the months you cannot stay in the dormitory —"'

  'What kind of rule is this?' Mama interrupts, still fuming over it. 'If students cannot stay in the dormitory, where are they to stay, eh?'

  'Oof,' Papa turns his irritation upon her. 'Don't you understand? When the university is closed for the summer—'

  'I understand, I understand,' Mama says crossly, 'but where are they to go? That they do not say!'

  'But Mrs O'Henry's sister has offered—'

  'Papa, what am I to write? Am I to write "willing to let you have a room" or "has offered" or what?'

  Mama retires in a huff, and Papa turns his attention to Uma, bending forwards to make sure she has not muddled the two versions. His deep frown indicates how great a labour this is, as great for him as for Uma. Both are perspiring, and have to stop to mop their necks and faces frequently. The aerogramme is looking damp and wilted as well; it is not of the same quality as those Arun uses, in America. The pigeons on their roosts continue their scolding, complaining and grumbling.

  Mama is the one who droops, holding her head in her hand; she has a headache. When she hears Papa conclude the letter with '"Mama and Uma send their love. Yours affly —"' she sighs and leans back, saying sadly, 'Who knows what this sister of Mrs O'Henry is like? Who knows if she will look after Arun properly?'

  Papa glares at her and tells her how fortunate Arun is to have a home offered to him free of charge. Uma cannot resist adding 'O'Henrys are very kind people,' to remind them of all the times they had failed to see what is now so evident. But when MamaPapa both turn to glare at her, she thinks it better
to change the subject, in fact, to bring the whole matter to a close. 'Now I am going in,' she tells them, standing up. 'My eyes are paining.'

  'Your eyes are paining—after just writing one letter? Oof,' Papa lets her know what he thinks of such weakness.

  Uma is indignant. All the indignation of the morning has mounted and now reaches its climax. 'I have told you many times my eyes hurt,' she cries.

  Mama agrees with her. 'Yes, her eyes are giving her trouble. She has told me they hurt her. Perhaps she should see a specialist.'

  Uma has taken off her spectacles and stands rubbing her eyes.

  'Everyone's eyesight grows weaker as they grow older,' Papa declares. 'Don't you know that? You think my eyes have not grown weaker?'

  'Yes, but you went to see the doctor and he gave you new glasses,' Mama reminds him.

  He settles back in silence, and his face closes to all these annoying hints and suggestions being thrown out by the two women; it is like a gate closing on unwanted visitors.

  ***

  PAPA called Uma to the telephone which stood on his desk in the study. He looked extremely irritated at being interrupted 'in his work'. The less there was of it, Uma observed, the more fiercely he made sure it was known to everyone. 'Those convent nuns,' he grumbled as he handed over the phone with extreme reluctance, 'you must tell them not to keep calling.'

  'Keep calling?' Uma cried, and snatched the phone from him—the nuns had never called her before. 'Yes? Yes?' she shouted.

  It was Mother Agnes, her voice sounding very faded, as if it were a long-distance call. 'Uma dear,' she crackled, like a paper parcel being opened, 'you know we are getting ready for the Christmas bazaar. Mrs O'Henry from the Baptist mission wants to put up a stall but she needs someone to help her. Would you be willing to, dear? You know we will all be busy ourselves with the games and food stalls and the concert—'

  Uma was so willing that she was able to ignore Papa's glare totally as she shouted into the phone, 'I'll come, Mother, I'll come.' When she turned around to go and tell Mama, she found Mama in the doorway, listening, so that they nearly slammed into each other.

  But in spite of her, in spite of them, it was a day to remember. It was a day as all days ought to be, not just a single one in the whole year, a single one in a whole lifetime. If Uma was asked to paint a picture of heaven, then heaven would have paper lanterns hanging from the trees along the drive and around the school courtyard, pots of white and yellow chrysanthemums like great boiled eggs in freshly painted flowerpots on the veranda stairs. It would have Tiny Lopez's band playing 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer' and 'Away in a Manger' in a marquee on the netball field. It would have stalls all along one length of it, where ladies stood frying potato fritters, and selling toffees in packets of crinkly pink crepe paper, bottled drinks and candy floss. It would have stalls all along the opposite length where girls in blue slips and white blouses and ribbons supervised games of chance—lucky dips, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, toss-the-hoop, guess-the-weight-of-the-plum-cake. It would have nuns twittering with unaccustomed glee, schoolgirls shrieking to each other down bustling corridors, and someone cranking up a gramophone to play old 45 r.p.m. records like 'My Darling Clementine' and 'The Donkey Serenade'. And Uma would have her own place in that heaven, beside the Baptist missionary's wife with her two braids of shining golden hair, not only permitted but asked to handle the little packets of cards stencilled with leafy ferns or decorated with satin bows, sequin stars and pressed violets. She would collect money in a tin for the flushed and pleased lady who would smile and smile whenever anyone put some more money into it, and who would say, at the end of the day, to Mother Agnes, 'What a fortune we've made for the poor! Every card sold. This dear girl has been such a help.' For a treat, for a prize, she would be given a free chance at the lucky dip—and come up with a cloth-bound volume of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poems, only slightly soiled, to take home as a memento.

  MAMA did not come to the bazaar. Mama rarely went anywhere without Papa, and then it was only to social events—a bridge evening at the club, or a wedding reception for a friend's daughter. Now that Papa was at home all day, the surreptitious visits to the neighbours' for a round of rummy were no longer possible. If anything needed to be communicated to Mrs Joshi, it was ayah or mali or, now and then, Uma who was sent across with a message. Mama did not object to Uma visiting the neighbours, as long as it did not happen too often, or without her knowledge.

  After all, they had known Mrs Joshi ever since she came to the house on the other side of the hedge as a bride, and when her mother-in-law was still alive and still ruled that house like an evil empress of ancient history, able to shrivel the entire garden with her touch, turn sherbet into tepid water, children's games to punishment. The young Mrs Joshi had often slipped through the hedge and come to Mama to complain, even cry a little. But her tears had never lasted, her complaints were overtaken by laughter: she had an endless fund of good humour that made her cheeks fill out and turn round like buns even while she was complaining that she could not drink milk or eat sweets without the evil one criticising her for being greedy. The problem was that this woman's son loved his wife. One could see it in the half-smile that hovered about his face whenever she was near, the way he contrived to smuggle her out of the house and take her to the cinema, the way the two would murmur together and giggle helplessly while the old lady glared futilely. It was what kept Mrs Joshi's eyes so bright, her cheeks so plump. And she was always willing to be drawn into the girls' bedroom and look at Aruna's latest purchases and admire Uma's collection of glass bangles. 'Wear them, Uma, wear them. Why do you hide them away in your cupboard?' she would ask. She never came without some little gift she had managed to smuggle out of the house, and always enquired tenderly after cousin Anamika, having heard how she too suffered at the hands of a mother-in-law as wrathful as her own. When that one finally died, young Mrs Joshi went through all the ceremonies and rituals with. impeccable propriety, then took over the household with great aplomb, attaching the bundle of house keys to her own waist, and so began her own benevolent rule.

  Where, under the old tyrant, there had been nothing but dust and desolation around the big house, Mrs Joshi now had a bed of roses bloom in her front garden while at the back were beds of fresh vegetables, so profuse and luxuriant that their bounty was shared with all the neighbours.

  Her children played all over the place freely: the boys' cricket bats and balls littered the verandas, and swings hung from the big trees. The boys won prizes at school, got jobs, moved to the big cities. The daughters were married off, one after the other, and were now bringing up their own children, teaching in nursery schools, painting or block-printing on textiles, giving or taking music lessons, and leading lives that seemed as easy and light as the flight of sparrows. Only the youngest, Moyna, had inexplicably developed a desire to 'be different', to have 'a career'. They had all been surprised, a little amused, and indulged her little whim. She was off in Delhi, pursuing 'her career', and they laughed, waiting for her to return.

  After she had left, Uma would put her arms around Mrs Joshi, nuzzling her freshly powdered neck, and tease, 'Won't you adopt me, Aunty? Won't you let me be your daughter now Moyna is gone?' and Mrs Joshi would reply, laughing, 'Of course! Stay here, be my daughter,' then give her a gentle nudge in the direction of her own home, with a basket of mangoes or a jar of pickles for Mama.

  A CAREER. Leaving home. Living alone. These troubling, secret possibilities now entered Uma's mind—as Mama would have pointed out had she known—whenever Uma was idle. They were like seeds dropped on the stony, arid land that Uma inhabited. Sometimes, miraculously, they sprouted forth the idea: run away, escape. But Uma could not visualise escape in the form of a career. What was a career? She had no idea. Her vision of an escape, a refuge, took the form of a huge and ancient banyan tree with streaming grey air roots, leafy branches in which monkeys and parrots feasted on berries. Sometimes she heard the berries raining down on the zinc
roof which baked in the clean white sun. Down below there was a river where the sand glistened and a trickle of water gleamed (not the broad, deep, inexorable river running by their own town that had once parted to take her in and draw her away and from which she had been violently torn). She heard the sound of the water jar being set down on the veranda floor. When she closed her eyes, the small motes that drifted through the darkness turned into kites, circling and soaring on air currents, at a great elevation. Then she saw herself seated on a stone step, listening to the parakeets in the banyan tree, looking out at that flash of water in the sand and the kites hovering in the sky so high above that they merged with infinity.

  But then she would feel Mira-masi's hands descend on her shoulders and grasp her, and hear her voice intoning, 'You are the Lord's child—I see His mark on you,' or 'The Lord has rejected the man you chose—He has chosen you for Himself,' and Uma would give a start, then begin thrashing her arms around and looking about her wildly, making Mama cry, 'Uma, what's the matter? Uma?' and she would subside, and as she subsided, feel herself drawn by an undercurrent into a secret depth, so dark that she could see nothing at all—just the darkness.