The Rice Mother

by Rani Manicka

  “What did you buy?” he asked indulgently, stroking my belly gently. The room was filled with sunset colors. Behind him the setting sun was deep red.

  “A present,” I said, trying to look into his eyes. Into them, behind them.

  He raised an eyebrow. His slanting eyes were curious. “Well, where is it?”

  I waddled outside and returned with a long, narrow box. He tore open the plain green wrapper, lifted the lid, looked inside, and glanced up with a merry query.

  “Now why would I want a walking stick?” he asked, lifting the cane out.

  “A cane, a very long time ago, was an occasion to show one’s rings off. This one is made of snakewood and the head of ivory,” I explained with mock reproach.

  “Mmm, it’s exquisite,” he said, examining the fine details on the small ivory terrier head. “Where did you get it?” he asked, running his fingers over the wood so dark that it looked as if it had been soaking in snake blood for centuries.

  “It’s a secret,” I said, hoping to sound as mysterious as he so often did.

  He stood on his ice island and laughed. “I shall treasure it forever.”

  And I loved him even as I felt the distance between us growing.

  That night I dreamed that Mr. Vellapan, our family doctor, came to visit. He sat outside in my summer house with me. It was hot, and he had taken off his shoes.

  “Is it very bad?” I asked.

  “It’s not good news, I’m afraid,” he said.

  “How bad is it?”

  He shook his head. “You won’t make it through the weekend,” he answered sadly.

  “What?” said I. “Won’t I even have a chance to say good-bye to everyone?”

  “No,” he said, and I woke up. Luke was fast asleep. I snuggled close to his hard body and lay awake for a long time, listening to his breathing. There was so much I still didn’t know about him. He was not mine. What are you hiding from me, Luke?

  I admit I stood outside the door for the express purpose of eavesdropping. It was the Whispering God who urged me on. Maybe I shouldn’t have, for I shall never be happy again. Happiness I know now to be the sole preserve of the ignorant, the simple, those who can’t see or choose not to see that life, that all of life, is full of sorrows. Behind every kind word is a bad thought. On a bed upstairs love lies dying.

  “What did you eat?” he asked into the phone. Not flirtatious, not even particularly loving, but I knew instantly. He has a lover.

  He has a lover.

  The thought slammed into my brain so fast and with such impact that I actually reeled. Blood rushed into my head, and the passage outside Luke’s study spun in dizzy, laughing circles. He has another. But it was only yesterday that he was in love with me. It is true that love is heartless and has to fly from heart to heart.

  Fool. Crazy, stupid fool. Did you think that you could hold him?

  A man like him.

  “Okay, see you at nine then,” he said before I heard the click of a line disconnected. He had sounded neither tender nor voluptuous, as I knew he could be, but he was going to meet her the next day at nine. Nine. When he was supposed to be at a directors’ meeting.

  I felt the baby kick. Hard.

  My knees gave way, and I collapsed to the ground. A small sound escaped my lips, but he didn’t hear. He was already on another phone call, his voice clipped and professional. “Buy the idiot off,” he ordered coldly as I squatted, destroyed, outside his door. Then panic hit me. I had to get out of the passage. Outside his door I became cold with paranoia. I felt certain that he would open his door at any minute. I began to crawl away on my hands and knees.

  The servants. They must never see me like this. He had a lover. My hands were trembling. I felt faint. I had been warned. A leopard never changes its spots. Who was she? What did she look like? How old? How long had this been going on? I crawled clumsily, my head reeling. I didn’t want Amu to see me like that.

  I made it up the stairs, clinging desperately to the banister. I hated myself and hated the horrible thing inside me that made me so repulsive. So ugly. No wonder even my own mother hated me with such unexplained ferocity. Then a small thought arrived by late train. What if I had made a mistake? Hope poured through my veins like little bubbles that don’t kill. They fizzed like Coca Cola in my blood. What if I had made a mistake? I sat on the bed heavily. The stitch in my belly was gone, and my heartbeat slowed. I looked up, and he was standing in the room.

  I stared at him as if he were a ghost.

  “Sweetheart, are you okay?” he asked, his voice concerned.

  “Yes, I think so,” I said through numb lips. I looked into his blank eyes, and he stared, alarmed by my stunned, bloodless face.

  “You sure? You look a bit pale.”

  I nodded and managed a smile.

  “Baby okay?”

  I nodded again, stretching my lips farther.

  His anxiety eased, he smiled. “I’ll just dash into the shower before dinner.” Tomorrow I would follow him. I must know who waited at nine o’clock.

  I slept badly and awoke with the immediate knowledge of betrayal. There was no lapse between sleeping and waking. It was still dark outside, and it would be some time before the sun appeared over the pine trees. The air was deliciously cool. I wondered what she had eaten yesterday. Cake, chicken rice, noodles, nasi lemak, satay, mee goreng, honeyed pork. The possibilities were endless, the variety of Malaysian food mind-boggling. She could be Chinese, Indian, Malay, Sikh, Eurasian, or a mix of any of the above.

  My head began to pound and ache. In the mirror my face was blotchy and swollen. I looked haggard. For some reason I couldn’t comprehend, I didn’t feel angry with him. I was furious with her. I went back to bed and lay in it until I heard the sounds of my house waking up. Music, toilets flushing, the use of pots and pans in the kitchen.

  The expensive purr of Luke’s Mercedes died away. There was a soft knock, and Amu came in. She held a small tray in her bony hands.

  “Go and brush your teeth,” she instructed bossily, laying the tray on the small table by the bed. The smell of my favorite breakfast, apam, wafted up. Two small white rice cakes, their middles glazed with sweetened coconut milk, the edges thin and perfectly crisp. I looked into their soft round faces as they eyed me, glistening coyly in their perfection, and I wanted to vomit.

  “What’s the matter?” Amu asked, her lined face sharp. Like needles, her eyes probed mine.

  Oh, Amu, I wanted to say, he’s having an affair. And those two apams are laughing at me.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Well, eat them while they are still nice and hot, then. I’m going to the market now, so I’ll see you later.” She watched me intently as I nodded and smiled. For a while it seemed as if she was about to say something else, but she changed her mind, shook her head, and left. I sat staring at the apams until I heard Kuna, our chauffeur, drive away with Amu in the backseat. Then I got out of bed. My feet carried me on the cold floor. Bright sunlight sat quietly in the silent house and waited to see what I would do. I opened his door and walked into his room. His room was like a freezer. I switched off the air conditioner, and the room became silent too.

  It watched me with cold, disapproving eyes. I had become the intruder. I looked around that familiar room with a brand-new perception. Everything looked different. Shirts that I had bought laughed at my stupidity; handkerchiefs that I had once lovingly ironed sniggered in corners. I opened a cupboard, a drawer, and a small cabinet, and always, continually, I touched things he had held, worn, slipped into, put on. I felt light-headed with the empty ache inside me. As if a large hand had reached in and scooped out everything inside me. I was hollow but for the baby. It hung in nothing. Like those wonderful Easter eggs they made in England with a plastic toy inside. The unmade bed was brazen with its rumpled sheets. All night it had lain with my husband. I climbed up onto the bed and stood right in the middle of it. The house listened, and the four walls of his room watched as
I began to scream. I screamed until I was hoarse.

  Outside, the weather changed. Grim clouds gathered, and the room darkened. Large drops of rain fell on the roof of the house. Exhausted, I fell into a graceless heap on the bed. I couldn’t give him to her. He was too precious to give away to some street prostitute. I loved him too much to give him up. I straightened my ungainly body and lay flat on my back on his cool sheets. I would charm him back. There were certain men, bomohs, you could go to if you wanted to lure someone into your power. Yes, that was what I would do. I decided then that it was the only way that he would be mine for ever.

  Suddenly Amu stood in the doorway. She looked flustered and horrified. Had she been calling? I had heard nothing. There was pity in her dark eyes. It was only when I looked into her compassionate face that my lips trembled, tears filmed my eyes, and the burning pain in my heart sobbed hysterically. I opened my mouth and howled. She climbed into bed and clasped my head against her flaccid breasts. She knew without being told that there was something wrong between the master and mistress. Against my forehead I could feel her breastbone. She rocked me gently. Not a word passed her lips. Not a single story about a scheming aunt or an evil second cousin. She rocked me past the river of tears.

  “The fish and the meat,” I reminded, in a choked voice.

  In my mind I saw the plastic bags of market produce sitting on the kitchen table. I saw the glistening wings of the black flies that hovered so faithfully like veiled mourners at the scene of the dead. She nodded and left silently. I loved her more that moment than I had ever loved anyone in my entire life.

  My limbs were still mine to command. I scrambled out of his bed and telephoned a car rental company. Would madam like to leave her credit card number or cash? Cash please. Two o’clock this afternoon. Fine.

  At two the car arrived. I drove it to the end of the lane that met our driveway and parked it under a tree.

  At six-thirty Luke returned. He looked cheerful.

  “Good day?” I asked.

  “Very. What about you?”

  “Brilliant. Baby’s fine.”

  He came to kiss me on my left temple, his favorite spot. The lips were cool and familiar. Judas. How easily he lied to me! I stared at him, and to my horror tears welled into my eyes. Quickly they spilled onto my cheeks.

  He looked startled. “What? What’s the matter?” he cried worriedly.

  “Hormones,” I explained with a watery smile.

  “Really?” He seemed unsure.

  “Yes, really. What time are you leaving for your meeting?”

  “The meeting is at nine, but I can cancel it if you’re not feeling very well.”

  I marveled at him then. The absolute cool of the man. To stand there and show such sincere concern without the slightest trace of guilt.

  “No, I’m perfectly fine. Maybe just tired. You go.” Did my voice sound as stilted as I felt? But he seemed satisfied. “I shall rest for a while. If I say good-bye now . . .”

  He understood immediately. He came forward and kissed me tenderly on my lips. “Yes, rest awhile.” There was a small, kindly smile playing on his lips.

  I smiled back. You bastard. How can you be so unfeeling? I eased myself carefully out of the chair. I didn’t want to seem clumsy. No doubt she was graceful and slim, but I had plans for her. Nothing but her head on a platter would do. I felt his eyes watch me as I toddled away. Upstairs I turned the key and sat on my bed to wait. When I heard him close the door of his bedroom noiselessly, I let myself out of my room and slipped downstairs.

  As I strolled down the driveway, my heart was thudding very loudly in my chest. What if he was standing at his window looking down at me? I would simply say I wanted a walk to clear my head. The sun had already set over the trees, the day russet and gold when I let myself out of the gate. His lighted window was empty. He was still in the shower. I walked down the lane that led to the main road. At the end of it was the dark blue car I had rented. I got in, shivering and sick to my stomach. In the dusk I waited.

  Soon his car drove past. For a precious second I was paralyzed with fear. Then my hands and legs, like separate entities, took over. The key turned, and the gears moved. The accelerator pressed down. It was easy to keep up with him. I followed him to where expensive shopping centers were climbing out of the ground like awakened giants. He stopped outside a Chinese medicine shop. On the first floor over the shop was a hairdressing saloon, and on the top floor, a sign offered Golden Girls as escorts. Beside the Chinese medicine shop was a small narrow staircase protected by iron gates.

  As I watched, it clanged open and released a young girl, incredibly beautiful, in a long black cheongsam embroidered with gold bamboo shoots. Flawless legs flashed through the high slits of her costume, and shoulder-length jet-black hair framed a smiling, oval face. The stunning girl waved at the man in the medicine shop, who did not wave back. She glided down the few steps into the street and into the passenger seat of Luke’s car. He drove off without a backward glance.

  I sat there gripping the steering wheel perhaps an hour, or ten minutes. Time ceased to matter. Cars passed. Other girls came out of the narrow staircase in an assortment of tight, revealing clothes and slid smoothly into large expensive cars and sometimes taxis, and I sat and stared. Until finally a hawker selling noodles passed by. He rang his bicycle bell very close to my window and woke me from my noiseless dream.

  I started the car and drove home. Suddenly into my numb body came a small pain. It started in the left side of my stomach and spread like a drop of poisoned blue ink in a round pot of milk. Growing and growing. Soon I knew the whole pot would be infected, but finally I was turning into the lane of my house. How I had got there is a mystery of the power hidden in the subconscious. It had taken me back home.

  I parked the car down the lane and began to walk. The pain grew and grew. I clutched my stomach and sank to the ground helplessly. More than anything else he must not know that I had been out of the house—that I had seen. I began to crawl toward the house. In my delirious mind a slip of a girl in an adult costume slid into a glossy car. She was waving to me. The medicine man looked on expressionlessly. You could tell he didn’t approve.

  On my hands and knees I arrived at the front door. I rang the bell and curled into a ball of terrible pain. In my head the beautiful girl waved. In my stomach something was trying to tear through. The door opened. Amu fell on her knees. Her face was a blur, but her thin hands rushed to cup my face. Then the stars descended and gave me blackness. Beautiful blackness.

  I awoke in a moving vehicle, but a passing goddess felt sorry for me and tossed me back into the beautiful black where the stars lived. I remember the cold air on my bare feet, hurrying lights overhead, and the sound of a rushing trolley in my ears. Urgent sounds. And I remember hearing Luke’s voice. The cool was gone from his voice. Serves him right, I thought, imprisoned in my black-and-red world. He sounded angry and demanding. He sounded far away and hazy.

  The girl in the black-and-gold cheongsam waved to me. Her face was curved into a shining smile of youth and beauty. The man in the Chinese medicine shop sneered. He didn’t like me either. The girl giggled, and the man laughed. I was mistaken. He didn’t disapprove of her, they were in it together. From far away I heard their laughter. Into the fading sound came another shot of pain. Pure white and then pure black.

  I called her Nisha. I look at her with perfect wonder. She shakes her tiny hands and legs and crows happily. How can anything so tiny and helpless be so powerful? She is the place I go to when the pain becomes too unbearable. At the glimmer of her smile the pain snakes away like a coward.

  He still sleeps in the other room. I think I gave him a scare. His cold eyes are strange with concern. He looks me over carefully, protectively, but I am forever plagued by the waving girl. I sat in his study yesterday and looked through his drawers. Of course I found nothing. But today I went through the pockets of his car and found a picture. Yes, I found a picture of her. She stands
in the middle of a hotel room. Her beauty is such that it spills out of the photograph and into my curious hands, making them shake. It is her eyes. There is something frighteningly timeless in them. It is like a lake at dusk. Unforgettable, mysterious, and full of dreams.

  Can a lake smile? Perhaps in the dark.

  She frets inside a large T-shirt in a pool of sunlight. She is not a character but a vessel of irresistible temptation. What would she look like asleep on her stomach, her head fitted into the curve of his neck? Her hair is wet. She smiles without a care. There is something awfully innocent in her frozen smile. I recognize some deep need to be loved. She is in love with him. Her desire glows in her unmade face like morning dew on a blade of young grass.

  I wish I could quote Terence Diggory to her: “Desire is defined as the pursuit of that which is already lost.” I wish I could tell her that what at first appears so clear fades like the past appears today, and so will today in the future ahead. She does not play fair, but I have the answer she doesn’t.

  “Who will replace me?”

  Two years ago I was the vision with the dewy eyes in the picture, but there are magical differences. It appears she smokes. Yes, I see the packet of menthol cigarettes in the background. But when all is said and done, such sophistication doesn’t amount to much. Time is racing. Her dream will end. How will it not, ten years, five years, two years after. “Who will replace you?”

  In the background on the bedside table is the wallet I gave him two birthdays ago. A bunch of keys, of which one will open our front door, sits beside the wallet. Draped over a large armchair a pair of jeans—hers—and his trousers, and over it a lacy black bra. A towel lies carelessly on the seat of the armchair. It has been used. It is a communion of perfumes and shy thoughts. In view is just the edge of a large bed. The bedsheets are tangled. Ah . . . I have witnessed her secret. I have seen his trousers decorated by her black bra. I will live in this portion of their hotel room for many years, to come. I will know days, weeks, months, years, when I will look out of the window and see motionless clouds in the distance and be back in their intimate love nest. It will always be there, day and night. Another woman’s bra slung over my husband’s trousers.