The Rice Mother

by Rani Manicka

  Snip, snip, snip, she went with the scissors. She was making an arrangement for the dining table. Blood-red roses were teamed with kangaroo’s paws.

  “Why are you crying, Mommy?”

  The memory faded, and I was left staring at my subtly altered self in the mirror. I went downstairs in my mother’s clothes. I not only looked different but felt different. The air was mild and peaceful, and I felt at home, but soon it would be dark, and there was neither electricity nor gas in the house. I spotted the pair of ebonized blackamoor statues standing on either side of the staircase, covered in dust and cobwebs, holding a candelabra each, and began hunting around the kitchen for some candles.

  The fridge had been cleaned out, but the cupboards were full of old tinned food. Packets of instant noodles, tins of powdered milk, cans of sardines, empty boxes of cereal overturned by the rats, and jars and jars of homemade pickled mangoes. In another cupboard there was a bottle of wild honey that had separated into a solid dull gold base and a thick dark brown liquid. I found the candles. Then I noticed a bunch of keys. One of them fitted the back door. I gave the door a hard shove, and it burst into the darkening evening. The sun had set behind the tall red-brick walls encircling the garden. In the half-dark of dusk I stepped out and walked along a short stone path almost completely overgrown on either side with wild plants. The garden was quiet. Wonderfully so. The sounds of the traffic seemed far away, and the oncoming night was just beginning to dress the trees and grounds in subdued shades of purple. Because of the decay and the complete seclusion inside the high brick walls, I experienced the delicious pleasure of having left the world behind and discovered a fabulous secret.

  What is paradise but a walled garden?

  I passed a small vegetable plot long colonized by hardy grasses and large-leafed weeds. Like the skeletons of American Indian wigwams, sticks weathered to the pale color of birch bark had been stuck into the ground in a circle and tied together at the top. Once, rambling vegetable plants had been trained on them. Now the top of each wigwam skeleton was studded with mauve-and-gray snails, curled up together in groups, content to remain motionless high up over the riot of wild vegetation. Closer to the brick wall a mango tree’s flowers had hardened into small green fruit. The knobs of pale green hung in low clusters. A tattered hammock hung from a mango tree. I had a memory of the hammock, brand-new and swinging slowly in the hazy shade of the tree. Somebody was in it. In the soft breeze I heard a small laughing voice cry, “Race you.”

  I turned around, but there was no one. The stone path died suddenly, and I found myself standing on springy moss. To the left there was a small brackish pond with a statue of a moss-laden Neptune rising out of it. By it a small shrub had flowered, and a lone pinkish white flower, nearly as big as a small cabbage, hung heavy from a twig. I bent close to smell the flower and had a fleeting vision of bending over the pond and seeing another face in the clear waters. A smiling, dark, triangular face. The vision was gone as quickly as it had come. The pond was quite dead now. A brown spotted toad stared suspiciously at me. I walked farther down the garden.

  At the end of it, almost completely hidden by creepers, was a small wooden shed. Orange roof tiles that had not fallen off lay hidden under large, glossy, heart-shaped ivy leaves. The leaves covered almost the entire doorway and threatened to bring down the whole roof with the sheer weight of their abundant growth. I pushed some foliage aside, squatted outside the door of the shed, and peered within. In the darkening light I could make out a table and a chair and what looked like a small bed or a wooden bench. It looked far too dangerous to go in. Inside might lurk snakes. In the dark I thought I saw the glint of gold on a finger and fancied I saw, passing in the shadows, that same triangular face that I had seen earlier in the pond, split into a big smile.

  The face was old, and the eyes were kind. There was something memorable about the face, a dark green tattoo of small dots and diamond shapes that started on the forehead from the middle of each eyebrow and worked its way like a star constellation down the temples and onto the high cheekbones. A child giggled uncontrollably. The old lady with the tattoo was tickling her stomach. I strained to look further into the shadows, but nothing else moved. The old lady with the gold ring and the giggling child must have been made out of tea biscuits, for they vaporized into the darkness of the dusty shed like biscuit crumbs sinking into a mug of tea. The darkness was complete. I stood up and walked back slowly, retracing my steps past the pond. The tattoo. Who was she? All of a sudden I knew. Dear, darling Amu.

  Back in the kitchen I locked the door and stood at the doorway until my eyes got used to the deeper darkness inside the house, and then I lit a candle and, carrying it in one hand and the box of unlit candles in the other, went back into the hall. One by one I stuck the candles into the candelabras. I dusted away the thick shroud of dust and cobwebs and lit all the candles.

  The blackamoor boys looked grand lit up, their handsome ebony faces glowing like smooth black stones under a full moon. They put little dancing yellow lights on the walls and threw mysterious shadows in the corners. I did not remember their slightly surprised expressions but knew without a doubt that their names were Salib and Rehman. Once I had been no taller than they. The candlelight woke the ceiling. The plump nymphs, coy-faced women, and perfectly proportioned, curly-haired males were alive. The house and everything in it had been waiting for me. Perhaps the house was haunted, but I felt quite unafraid. I was surely at home and far more comfortable in the crumbling, deserted house than in my cool, luxurious flat in Damansara, but as the corners of the room darkened into blackness, I realized that though I didn’t want to leave, I must, for the delicate tapping of small claws on the marble floor grew nearer and bolder. I had no desire to make acquaintance with the rats that apparently lived in my house, so I put away Mother’s dress, blew out all the candles, locked the door securely behind me, and left with a heavy heart. As if I had left something important behind.

  When I switched off the tape recorder, it was two in the morning. Outside, a storm howled inconsolably. It rattled the balcony door like an angry spirit desperate to get in. I looked around at the luxurious things in my apartment and felt no regret. Their loss would not be felt. I had not put my heart into them. You get what you pay for. . . . Last week everything was different. In a week or so I would be like everybody else. I might have to go out and become a secretary somewhere. Buy my clothes from department stores, cook my own food, clean up after myself. I shrugged.

  What mattered was uncovering the deep mystery surrounding my mother, solving the puzzle of the black marble floor that loomed, sinister, in my dreams, finding out why a dripping tap chilled me to the bone and why the combination of red and black was so gratingly offensive. Deep emotions were waking in me. I thought I remembered Great-Grandmother Lakshmi, but it was hard to equate the vibrantly young Lakshmi in the tapes with the old and gray woman I vaguely remember. Could she really be the same unhappy old woman in a rattan chair who always cheated at Chinese checkers?

  I had been so involved in listening to the tape of Ayah’s story that I missed dinner. In the kitchen my maid had left a selection of dishes in covered containers, and I suddenly realized I was ravenous. I sat and ate furiously, out of character.

  I stopped suddenly. Why was I behaving like this? Why the greed, the unseemly haste? I had a picture of a young boy vomiting into his own food. His name is Lakshmnan and his twin sister has just been taken away by the Japanese. “I can taste the food she’s eating!” he cries wildly to the old lady with iron-gray hair and betrayed eyes. But no, then Lakshmi must have had wonderful thick, black hair and bold, angry eyes. I pushed my plate away.

  Restlessly I walked into the living room and headed for the balcony. Instantly, strong winds whipped my hair and pulled at my clothes. How I longed to be in Mother’s house. Mine now. The wind blew rain into my face, and I breathed its wild, wet smell. Thunder crashed very close by. The voices in my head clamored for attention. Finally, when I
was very, very cold, I went in.

  I came out of the shower warm and exhausted and dried my hair in front of the mirror. It was already almost four o’clock in the morning. Tomorrow I would go back to Lara. I wanted to make arrangements to move in straightaway. I switched off the hair dryer, and in the mirror my eyes surprised me. I stared at the green specks in my irises. Nefertiti was dead, but she had left her eyes behind, in me. I saw that the aloof glaze in my eyes was gone, and in its place glittered a strange, oddly feral excitement. I smiled at myself in the mirror, and even my smile was different.

  “Sleep now, so you can leave first thing in the morning for your new home,” I told the glittering girl in the mirror. Then I lay down under the covers and listened to the frantic storm outside. I tossed and turned until finally I got out of bed, switched on the light, and pushed the button on the tape recorder that read “Play.”

  Ratha

  I sent a very simply written letter to Nisha at her father’s address, explaining that I was a relative from her mother’s side of the family. I noted that it had been impossible to be in touch with her before her father’s passing because he had forbidden us all contact with him or his daughter. Since the appearance of his funeral notice in the newspaper, I had wanted to meet her. If she was so inclined, could she please telephone.

  When she arrived, my daughter showed her through to my favorite place in the house. My large kitchen. She was beautiful. She greeted me carefully, her eyes taking in my face, twisted on one side, and my scanty silver hair. I know I am a human gargoyle.

  “Sit down, Nisha,” I said, my smile crooked. “Would you like some tea?” I offered.

  “Thank you, yes,” the girl accepted. Her voice was elegant and cultured. If nothing else, Luke had given her poise. I decided I liked her.

  I placed a small basket of eggs in front of her and said, “Eat.”

  For a moment she looked at me expressionlessly, but I heard her thinking: Oh no, the old dear has more fat than protein in her brain.

  My eyes full of mirth, I took an egg, cracked it against the plate, and broke it in my fingers. Runny white and yellow yolk did not flow out. The thing was made with cake, almonds, and custard. The shell, colored sugar.

  She began to laugh, too. Of course, Ratha, the mistress of sugar. Today she has done something simple. She has made some eggs.

  “This is a great talent,” she said, picking up the cake in her hand. Small white teeth bit into the cake, and her mouth declared it was gorgeous. “A brilliant, marvelous talent,” Nisha said.

  I seated myself opposite her. “I am Ratha, your great-aunt, and I want you to know that your mother, Dimple, changed my life. I am old now, and soon I shall be no more, but I should like you to know what she did for me so many years ago. She was the most caring, wonderful person I have ever met in my life. One afternoon, twenty-nine years ago, I was sitting alone, icing a cake, when I heard someone calling at the door. Outside stood your mother. She must have been—what—fifteen years old then. Such a pretty little thing she was, too.

  “ ‘I need to speak to you urgently,’ she said.

  “ ‘Come in,’ I invited, surprised. I should have slammed the door in her face, because really I wanted nothing more to do with my ex-husband’s family. Liars, cheats, and thieves the lot of them. Each one a cruel hunter. But there was always something innocent, a little hurt, about that child. Her mother had always treated her very badly while I stayed with them. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know she was there to help me. I offered her juice, but she refused. ’Why don’t you love Grandma?’ she asked, plunging straight in.

  “ ‘Well, it’s a long story,’ I began, with no intention of telling such a slip of a girl anything, and suddenly I was pouring everything out. I started from the very beginning when her mother, Rani, had come to our home in Seremban full of smiles, looking for a bride. You see, Rani lied to us. She showed me a photograph of her husband Lakshmnan and told me my intended husband looked just the same.

  “ ‘They are brothers,’ the avaricious woman said, thinking of her commission. ’So similar, people are always mistaking one for the other.’

  “I looked at the photograph, and how I wanted him, your grandfather. Yes, that’s right—the evil woman had guessed that her husband was the man of my dreams. She knew. She always knew. She knew which screws to turn.

  “ ‘Give me your dowry to help Lakshmnan,’ she said. ”How could I refuse? She knew. She always knew. But what she didn’t count on was that one day her Lakshmnan might actually turn his head and look at me. She thought it amusing that a poor little rat living in her house harbored a secret passion for her husband. She thought she would torment me with her good fortune. She would rest her hand casually on his big strong chest and order him to bring her a pair of slippers from the bedroom because her arthritis didn’t allow for movement. She thought she would tease me for fun. But she didn’t count on a simple look that showed her just how tenuous her hold on him was.

  “Anyway, I agreed to the marriage in principle and waited for the day of the first meeting. A week later I met my bridegroom in the flesh. Lakshmnan and my bridegroom-to-be were like day and night. I stared at that repulsive man in my aunt’s living room with confusion. I should have stopped the marriage arrangements right there and then, but the people, the relatives, the flowers, the saris, the jewelry, the ceremonies—I got lost in them, and my throat locked. I walked in a daze. I could not have your grandfather anyway, so I lost myself in work. Every day from the moment I rose until the moment I lay down exhausted, I worked. I worked all day long so I didn’t have to think about my terrible silence. The day of my marriage got closer and closer, and I fell deeper and deeper into my pit.

  “Alone in bed, I cried. The man I wanted would soon be my brother-in-law. No one could know my shameful secret. How could I tell anyone? Every night I took my poor love that dared not breathe during the day and stroked it to sleep in the dark. My silence grew and grew until it was too late to speak.

  “It was the wedding day. And it was a disaster. There was nothing to do with my hands, and so the tears flowed. A huge dam broke inside me, and the tears refused to stop. Such a river that my nose ring slipped and fell. All those tears, and nobody asked me what was wrong. Not one person opened their mouth to ask, ‘What’s the matter, child?’ If they had, I could have said it. I would have said it. Stopped the marriage. It was because I didn’t have a mother. It was because no one cared about me. It is a question only a mother would ask.

  “And then I went to live at your great-grandmother Lakshmi’s house. She tried to be kind, but I felt that she too had helped to deceive me. Together they had all plotted to marry me to her idiot son. I felt her contempt for him. It was never said aloud, in words, but in her voice, her look, and her manner, and so subtly that not even he noticed. I saw it, but I wouldn’t let myself think of their terrible deception, and so I cooked and cleaned all day long. I never stopped. It was a relief to clean under the cooker, between the rafters, and brush my skin until it was raw and red. The way I brushed the skin on my stomach where no one ever saw. Sometimes it even blistered and bled, but there was a perverse pleasure to be gained by the pain I inflicted on myself. In the bathroom I examined the torn, angry skin with deep curiosity.

  “Then came the dinner invitation from Rani. We went, and during dinner she said, ‘Stay. Go on, stay.’ She insisted. ’I could do with the company.’

  “I looked at my husband, and he looked at me with doe eyes, so I nodded shyly. It was the wrong decision to make, but at that moment my foolish heart leaped and jumped at the thought that I would see Lakshmnan every day. ‘I only want to look at him,’ my errant heart whispered, to my shame. ’Don’t you see, that would be food enough,’ it pumped and sighed. It was my joy to cook and clean for him. When he sat at the table and smiled in admiration at my creations, my heart blossomed. I waited quietly for each mealtime to see him turn more and more eagerly toward the dining table. Alas, he complimented me
too often.

  “I know she is your grandmother, but Rani has a fistful of dust for a heart. I saw it shrivel up and go hard with hate and venom. She watched me closely, but I had nothing to be ashamed of or to hide. I was quiet, respectable, and hardworking. Then one day your grandfather brought home a piece of meat. He brought it into the kitchen and left it on the table, wrapped in an old newspaper. It was as if he had given me a bouquet of scented flowers. I wanted to laugh out loud with happiness. He had never done anything like that before. I opened the package, and it was the meat of a wild fruit bat.

  “I began immediately. First I bathed the piece of meat in lemon-grass juice, then I beat it until it became a length of silk. Afterward I wrapped it in a papaya leaf so it would become tender enough to melt on his tongue, and the desire for more would haunt him after he had left my table. Hours I labored, slicing, grinding, pounding, chopping, and fanning the furnace lightly with a palm leaf so my pot would barely simmer on glowing coals. The secret was, of course, in the finely diced sour mango. Eventually my velvet-textured creation was ready.

  “I set it on the table and called everyone to eat. When he put a violet piece of flesh into his mouth, I saw him unconsciously inhale. Our eyes met, and desire crept into his face. But even as he looked at me, I saw the sudden realization drop into his eyes that, just as the waves must leave the shore, his pursuit was of that that was already lost. No, it could never be. Confused, he dropped his gaze down to his food and, as if only then remembering your grandmother, abruptly looked up toward her. Rani was staring at him, her eyes dark slits in her jealous face. Slowly, deliberately, she tasted the meat that had made her husband gasp with pleasure.