The Rice Mother

by Rani Manicka

  Ayah was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. When he heard me walk in, he looked up. On the bed was a tiny green dress. I walked closer and touched the silky material. It was cool between my fingers. I had cut up one of my good saris to sew that dress, yet I had forgotten making it. It was another lifetime ago, Divali, the festival of lights, when I had dressed her in green to match her eyes. I remembered then the oil lamps that I had surrounded the house with, and I remembered her wearing the dress. God, she was so small then. Even the priest in the temple had pinched her cheek admiringly. I looked at the hunched defeated figure sitting on the bed in a daze.

  “Where did you find this?” I asked. I was conscious that my voice was accusing. There was not a thing inside my house that I didn’t know existed. From top to bottom I knew where everything was, and yet he had carefully hidden away this dress all these years.

  “I was saving it for her daughter,” he whispered.

  Somewhere inside me was a feeling of such vast emptiness that I simply couldn’t acknowledge it. To validate the vacuum would shrivel me into nothing. Silently I took some clothes out of the cupboard and walked out. The well-being that my energetic bath had imbued in me disappeared. He had opened his pain out like a giant fan, a grotesque fan of discordant splashes of red and menacing blacks. I should have comforted him, but it was not in my nature; instead I nursed a growing jealousy. His love appeared in my eyes to be purer, higher than mine.

  I brewed the tea and sat watching it until it grew cold. I yearned to run out of the house, storm the Japanese garrison, and demand her release, but I could only sit like a powerless old woman, remembering the past. Remembering the time I took my children to a Chinese temple on Kuan Yin’s birthday. There, among life-size paper horses, a huge statue of the Goddess of Mercy in her customary flowing robes, and shining bronze urns full of thick red Chinese joss sticks, we burned thin gray incense sticks, reams of colored paper, and little flags meant to symbolize wealth and prosperity. It seemed like yesterday that my children had stood in a curious, hushed line of shining black heads, their chubby hands clutching small flags scribbled with Chinese characters that spelled their names. One by one I watched them solemnly burn their flags in a corrugated zinc container. Above them fat red lanterns swayed and nodded in the early morning breeze. Afterward we each released a caged bird that a temple attendant in white had painted with a small red dot on its tiny body so no one would dare to catch or eat it. I had stood there and prayed for my children as they watched the birds flying free with beautiful, entranced expressions of sheer delight. Keep them safe, protect them, and bless them, dear, dear Goddess Kuan Yin, I begged, but when we were leaving, I remember looking into the goddess’s cool, serene face and thinking that she had not heard me.

  Outside in the darkness I could hear Ah Moi’s brothers crawling about in the drains looking for cockroaches. Carrying candles, they combed the neighborhood drains every night, looking for cockroaches to bottle and feed to their chickens in the morning. I was diverted by their hushed whispers in Chinese.

  “Wah, look how big that devil is.”

  “Where? Where?”

  “Near your leg, you corpse head. Quick, catch it before it runs into that hole.”

  “How many have you got now?”

  “Nine. You?”

  Their voices and their squelching slippers in the wet drains faded away. I tried to feel outraged by the thought of their young hands cupping over those disgusting creatures in the filth, but it was the way during the Japanese occupation. Grain was scarce, and chickens fed on a diet of juicy cockroaches grow bigger faster.

  I was hot again. I splashed icy cold water on my face and reheated the cold tea. Sometime afterward I must have fallen asleep on my bench, for I woke up suddenly. I had left the lamp on. The kitchen clock read 3 A.M. The first thing I remember was a feeling of peace. That constant throbbing in my head was gone. I had lived with it day and night for so many years that its sudden total absence felt strange. I put my hands to my temples in sheer amazement. As I sat there marveling at what everyone else takes for granted, my husband walked into the kitchen. His broad shoulders were slumped with defeat, and the whites of his eyes glimmered wetly in the dark.

  “She’s gone. She’s finally gone. They can’t hurt her anymore,” he said in a broken voice. Such a gentle man. He couldn’t begrudge her the white peace that surely awaited her innocent little soul. There was sadness in the giant leather-backed turtle’s eyes. Then he turned away quietly and left. My throbbing headache rushed upon me once more with merciless vengeance as I stared at his retreating back.

  I understood. She had been in my house. She had awakened me and spoken to her father. Perhaps they had spoken in their own little language. She had come to say good-bye. I didn’t need to wait anymore. I knew what had happened. I suppose I had known from the time I saw the bastards return Ah Moi to her family. That was why I had not rushed out to ask for her. I already knew. She was lost to me. Inside me I felt that monster serpent, black and horribly vindictive, that I told you about earlier, stretch and hiss boldly.

  Mrs. Metha from the Ceylonese Association came to sit in my living room and offer her condolences. For a long time I sat locked into stillness, looking at her ugly mouth and the dull nose stud that perched on the right side of her hooked nose.

  “Only the good die young,” she proclaimed piously, and I was overtaken by the strongest desire to slap her. I could actually see myself get up and slap her so hard that her face swung all the way back on her scrawny neck. The impulse was so strong that I had to rise. I offered her some tea.

  “No, no, don’t bother yourself,” she said quickly, her eyes alert, but I had already turned my back on her. I thought I hated her. I also thought I recognized her. She was the envious crow that Mother had warned me about. The one who drank other people’s tears to keep its own feathers black and shiny. The crow that sits on the highest tree so it may be the first to see the funeral procession.

  In the kitchen I made tea. I spooned in my last precious stock of sugar. When the tea was ready, I tasted a little from a small teaspoon and judged it perfect. I knew she’d drink every last drop. I put the mug of tea on the bench, and I thought about that little green dress lying on the bed. For a little while I permitted myself the luxury of being weak, and instantly the waiting tears burned painfully into my eyes, running down my cheeks and splashing into the mug of tea. You see, the only tears the envious crow must never drink are the tears of a grieving mother. A mother’s tears are so sacred they are forbidden, or its feathers will become dull with disease and it will perish slowly and excruciatingly. I was right about my tea—she finished it all—but I was wrong about her. I made a mistake that day. Mrs. Metha wasn’t the crow Mother had warned me about, for she came back many times with many offers of help. She died recently, and as she lay on her deathbed, as ugly as ever, I felt sorry for what I had done. I bent my head and whispered my sin into her ear. It seemed as if her shriveled body shuddered slightly, but her eyes when I met them smiled. She died without saying another word.

  Ah Moi, I thought, was not to be on my conscience, but it was not to be so, for less than a week later the hunched figure of her father was driving the bullock cart past our house with her body wrapped in a mat woven from coconut palm. I stood behind the curtain and watched like the black cobra that hides in a secret nook in the jungle, observing the grieving mother beat her head on the stone pillars after she places her dead son before the shrine of Lord Shiva. Poor Ah Moi had hanged herself from the rafters of her house. She had died of shame.

  Her father buried her in an unmarked grave somewhere not far away. After their strange and poor burial Ayah went to offer condolences, but I couldn’t face First Wife. Even from our house I could hear her blood-curdling howls of grief, thin and shrill like a dog damaged.

  I had lost a daughter too. Put in the same situation, I knew that she would have done exactly as I did. A mother’s love recognizes no laws, no bounds
, and bows to no masters but itself. It dares all. At that time I couldn’t see that I had done wrong. I refused to mourn Mohini properly. Instead I let myself believe that my greatest regret was that it was not I who had saved that little green dress. I should have thought to save that green dress. Every now and again I searched for it as if it were the secret key to everything. Even now I search for it, and though I can’t find it, I know he keeps it because he believes that she will return. One day. He hides it in some very secret place away from my prying eyes and my jealous heart.

  PART 2

  The Scent of Jasmine

  Lalita

  Our family history can be divided into two distinct ages: before and after Mohini died. With her death Mother, Father, and Lakshmnan changed into unrecognizable people. They even looked different. I would never have thought it possible for people to change so drastically in one afternoon. People, I thought, were solid objects . . . and yet they did. My entire family changed beyond recognition one hot afternoon a long time ago.

  The strangest thing is, I can’t even remember that day. In fact, I can’t even remember Mohini. Maybe I am angry with her, that unlucky spirit who changed all our lives by simply going away. That is unfair, I know. She was dragged away at gunpoint; but still another part of me wants to accuse her for not being ordinary like everyone else. And that too I know is unfair. She didn’t choose her looks.

  Sometimes I remember her as the scent of jasmine on Mother’s hand. Don’t look so confused. There is an explanation. Mohini died at the end of the Japanese occupation. During the occupation Mother kept cows. She got up at four in the morning to milk them before she came to awaken us, smelling of the wholesome aroma of cow’s milk. As soon as the Japanese were sent packing, Mother sold all the cows. She didn’t arise at four in the morning anymore, she arose later—and the only thing she did before she woke us up was to fill a tray with jasmine flowers for the prayer altar. My childish perception remembers the scent of the jasmine flowers on her fingers like an aftertaste of Mohini’s passing. How I hate the smell of jasmine! It reeks of death.

  When I try really hard to picture my sister, I remember her only as she is in the one precious photograph that we have of her. For many years Mother kept it in a little silk purse until one day Sevenese took it to old Chin Teck’s shop in Jalan Gambut and had it framed in a black-and-gold wooden frame. Mother took down from the living room wall Anna’s best needlework effort, an embroidered peacock cavorting in a green field of orange flowers, and hung the photograph in its place. The photograph was from just before the Japanese war, the entire family captured in their best finery, although I can’t remember the trip to the studio or ever posing for the photograph. A black-and-white testament to my flawed memory.

  Mother is wearing the thick gold thali chain she got married in and the famous ruby pendant that she sold at the beginning of the Japanese occupation. She sits and stares into the camera’s eye, refusing to smile. There is handsome pride in her face. She is no raving beauty, but she is aware of her good fortune. Father is standing, big and tall in a short-sleeved shirt that is a masterpiece of meticulous ironing. Slightly hunched, he smiles self-consciously into the camera, and yet you feel that he hasn’t quite met your eye. Lakshmnan’s chin juts forward, and his chest is puffed out like a robin. There is the same bold quality in his gaze that Mother has in hers. He understands that he is destined for great things. Anna has clasped her chubby hands in front of her in an endearing gesture and is wearing her favorite red shoes. I remember those shoes. They had shining buckles on the sides.

  Jeyan’s hair has been painstakingly curled by Mohini, but he is narrow-shouldered, and his dark eyes are already dull with defeat. Sevenese grins toothily, his hands deep inside his baggy hand-me-down shorts. He is a gorgeous urchin with sparkling eyes. Then I see myself. I sit on Mother’s lap with a dazed look in my small sleepy eyes. I scrutinize my own image for eyelashes and can find none. Then I look at my mouth, slightly agape, and it is instantly apparent that I have been denied even the fleeting beauty of childhood.

  The eye restless for a resting place is drawn to Mohini. The ultimate resting place. But she refuses to meet the onlooker’s stare and has turned her head to gaze instead at Lakshmnan. Even in profile, it is patently obvious that she is beautiful and different. Caught in motion and by the very act of not looking straight at the camera, she becomes somehow more alive, more real, than all the other frozen people in the picture. It is strange to think that we are all alive, and she is not. She is alive only in our motionless picture.

  Before the time when I was awakened every morning by the smell of jasmine, Lakshmnan was my hero. The foreign soldiers had taught him to say, “Hey, kid.” And that is what he used to call me. In English. Always with a smile in his voice. I remember him shirtless and barefoot, energetically beating all our washing clean. Drops of sparkling water used to fly around him as if he were some sort of water god, young, vibrant, and terribly handsome with a brilliant rainbow-colored future waiting for him in the distance. Water droplets full of the sun are forever flying around him. I sit in Mother’s vegetable patch and can’t take my eyes off the mythical water god. Watching the clever way he made the sun color the soapsuds. Green, red, yellow, blue . . .

  Then I remember him on the heavy grinding stone. Every morning my brother ground the spices that offered taste to our meals for the day. He turned handfuls of dried spices into small warm-colored mounds of chili, cumin, fenugreek, coriander, fennel, cardamom, and turmeric on a little silver tray for Mother, like a gift. Little wet piles of yellows, greens, oranges, deep reds, and shades of earth.

  Why can’t I remember anything else? Why don’t I remember the things that Anna and Sevenese can remember?

  Mother gets intolerant of me, but I can’t help it. The past for me is not big events but everyday things like coming home from school and seeing her sitting cross-legged on the bench in the kitchen, stringing garlands of colorful flowers to adorn the pictures of all the gods on our altar. No incident stands out on its own merit. Just things I saw every day, colorful garlands coiled on a silver tray beside her. Or the S-shaped Siamese mangoes she stored in the rice to hasten their ripening. I do remember the many delightful hours I spent lost inside the contents of Mother’s wooden chest. Made of solid black wood with chunky bronze handles, it was the most intriguing thing of my childhood, a box abundant with Mother’s treasures. Inside were her brilliantly colored silk saris that she had always said would one day belong to my sisters and me. I ran my fingers over the cool, silky material and tried to imagine which ones would be mine one day. The green ones I knew were meant for Mohini. Mother said that green was happiest on Mohini’s skin. Inside the box were also Mother’s important papers, and bunches of raffia-string-tied letters from Grandma. After the Japanese left, Mother’s chocolate box of jewelry came down from the top of the coconut tree and found its rightful place inside the wooden chest. The chocolate box, once opened, was bewitching. Rubies, sapphires, and green stones twinkled and winked as if happy to see the daylight and to reach for human skin.

  I have surprisingly crystal clear memories of plants, insects, and animals, of beautiful purple leaves that can hold a drop of rain like a sparkling diamond on their surfaces, or of sitting outside in the sun for hours, mesmerized by ants. Back and forth, back and forth, with loads many times larger than their own enchanting bodies. And if I sat very, very still for long enough, a dragonfly might descend on me. They are beautiful things, with diaphanous wings that carry the rainbow within them. I am humbled by their big, warm, crystal-ball eyes with the dot of black deep inside. Sometimes delightful millipedes with unnecessary feet would wander up my hands, or drunken daddy longlegs would blow onto my skirts and lurch crazily in the wind. Once I sat and stared at a bat that had flown into the mango tree at dusk. He hung upside down from a thin branch and crunched the utterly naked head of a baby bird.

  But of all the creatures in the world, my favorites were the chickens that lived u
nder our house. I loved them when they were small, fluffy, and yellow, and I was proud of them when they became cooing, clucking, beady-eyed hens. Only I was small enough to bend at the waist and enter their home under the house. It was always musty and dim but wonderfully cool, with the feathery smell of chickens hiding inside the ammonia odor of their droppings. They crowded around me, clucking, making it impossible for me to take another step without squashing them with my rubber flip-flops. As soon as I stopped, they mobbed around, fluttering their wings, hopping into the air, and sometimes yelping impatiently, waiting for me to scatter their feed so that they could peck at the ground in a mad, greedy panic. I watched them feed, endlessly entertained until I had to rummage through their boxes and find the eggs that sometimes had double yolks in them. Mother would never allow the girls in our family to eat those curiously deformed eggs because it was believed that eating them might cause twins in the future.

  It was the rooster I had to be careful of. He was a magnificent creature but incurably mad. He tossed his head to one side and allowed his one peculiarly dazzling yellow eye to follow the journey of my bright-blue rubber slippers. And sometimes he chased them and attacked them, banishing me from under the house for no good reason at all. Yet I loved him.

  A few days after Mohini died, Mother slumped sideways slowly until her head lay on Anna’s lap as they sat on the bench in the kitchen. I remember watching her with surprise. Mother never leaned on anybody. Anna stared straight ahead, and her small plump hands lay limply on Mother’s head.