As Sweet as Honey (13 page)

My own grandmother wore green, and her hair was silvery, thin, and long. She did not move in with Auntie Pa but kept
the house my grandfather built for her. She tended the gardens, supervised the servants, heard the weekly discourses by visiting pundits at the local temple. She played Parcheesi in the afternoons, swept out the stray goats from the kitchen, and put up sour dried mango pickle in Ali Baba jars. The idea of remarriage to her would be preposterous, if not scandalous, and to be honest, I could not picture it, either. She had married young, at fourteen, and took up residence with my grandfather at seventeen. In the pictures, she looks skinny, with wide eyes, next to my grandfather, who wears a suit, and in later ones would sport a Nehru cap.

Her children came quickly after she turned nineteen: Tharak; Pa; Nalani’s mother; my mother; Sanjay’s mother. I heard there might have been a child who had died at birth, a son, but this subject really was off limits for us. In my grandmother’s day there could not be an intercaste marriage without extreme consequences. Couples fled the island if they had money; some committed suicide. Some were killed in the name of family honor. As girls and boys went abroad for studies, they often chose their own partners. And of course, there had been a time right after independence when intercaste marriage was politically encouraged, but only for a short time.

Now it was month eight and a half. Soon, soon, said everyone. The monsoons would begin in September, but the intermittent rain had already begun. The cat played on the veranda, sometimes with string that I held above her quick paws. Sometimes she would meow silently, other times softly, or fiercely. She seemed to have forty different kinds of meows. I wondered if her heart opened like ours did to her, if she felt safer knowing her humans were inside, or if she felt that somehow, she was protecting her humans.

Meterling often met Simon for walks. At some point, hardly noticing, they began to speak of themselves.

Simon described the small garden he had in his London flat, and how the plants paid no attention to his ministering. Mostly, he put up his feet and read the
Guardian
.

“I was a regular twit growing up, you know. Mocking my elders, completely loafing off at school. I don’t know how I passed my A levels.”

He went on to Cambridge, and after obtaining a first in philosophy (“largely because I can memorize quickly, but the funny thing was, once I actually cracked open the books, and put pen to paper, it was as if I’d discovered a door I never knew existed”), he became an intern to a publisher’s associate. The firm published books on Italy. Once they did a book on coffee machines.

“Did you know Balzac was supposed to have consumed forty cups of coffee a day to keep writing?” he asked Meterling.

She smiled, and said, “I studied home science, learned a little economy, nursing, it was all included at my college. My father was brilliant, but I did not have that kind of ambition.”

“I can’t imagine you as being anything but.”

“That is because you are a kind man, Simon, and hardly know me.”

Her friends Chitra and Neela visited her too, bringing gifts. Chitra brought her twins, just two years old, and we played with them. They really were cute, their skin so soft, and they could be made to laugh so easily. All we had to do was cover our eyes and they would go off in a fit of giggles. Neela brought poems, and belly oil. With a twin each at our hips, Rasi and I stood at the gate of our compound, looking out. For a moment, I glimpsed my future, a young mother with a child.

“What do you want in your future, Meterling?” Simon asked her, a few days later.

“What an odd question. I want the baby to be safe, strong. I’ll always be protected here, with the family, but …”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit of those places I dreamed about as a girl. They are probably ordinary for you, but I’d like to see Paris, and Italy.”

“They are in no way ordinary. I will take you there.”

It was so simply said, with such quiet assurance, that Meterling saw it as a certainty, not a possibility. She was already in love with Simon. Now, they had somewhere to go.

They were walking in the Narati Gardens. It was Friday, and the grounds were still quiet. In the late afternoon, the weekenders would arrive. A light drizzle had just stopped; the rolling lawns were slightly wet. Their sandals made slight sounds as they walked. The rain had brought up the scent of the green around them, and the air felt washed. The baby kicked, and Meterling wondered if happiness could produce a premature birth. He seemed so eager to get out. She’d already shown us how his tiny foot pushed out at the skin, a sight that mesmerized us. She wished she could place Simon’s hand on her belly to let him feel the baby, and realized she wanted to feel Simon’s hand rest against her belly. She blushed.

Simon took her hand.

“Meterling, will you marry me?”

He said it quietly, not knowing her response. He had thought about it for weeks, even from the moment he first sat in the living room. He chased guilt and desire away, but companionship remained constant. They had been able to lift the burden of grief together, bit by bit, and with it, guilt for being alive when Archer was not. Meterling pressed his hand.

“I am pregnant.”

“I know.”

“And you would get both of us.”

“I know that, too.”

“I get moody.”

“I will hold you.”

“Tightly?”

“As tightly as you need.”

“Of course, I will marry you. I never thought otherwise.”

23

W
e worried Simon-Archer would take Meterling away. They would marry, and what then?

“A widow is supposed to die after her husband dies,” said Sanjay.

“That’s the stupidest thing you ever said.”

“That’s what they did in the old days.”

“We are not
in
the old days.”

Then, families sternly guided love, if love was even thought of as much as land, money, children. After Meterling told us she would marry again, the word leaked out. Some people thought it was scandalous. It was much too soon, and she was seen as fickle. Plus, widows didn’t often remarry. Some assumed the baby needed a father and thought Meterling was being pragmatic. Some thought a white man was most appropriate, since the baby would be half-white anyway. Some thought it was for the money. “What money?” asked Aunt Pa, rolling her eyes with anger, then with laughter. And that indeed was a sea
change for Auntie Pa. To go from anger to laughter is like going from debt to understanding what debt is—that is, not just the money but also the value. The value of money, and the value of anger, she would tell us, is important to learn. More learning, we sighed.

I knew, more than even Rasi or Sanjay, that Meterling was in love with Simon-Archer. “It is as if I have come alive all over again,” she said, laughing, thinking I wouldn’t understand. But I did. I had seen Meterling fade a little bit every day after Archer’s death. And with the cousin, I saw her come back to bloom bit by bit.

It was like the dawn after the wreck. When something catastrophic happens, like a shipwreck, people gather together after the storm, assess the damage, blink into the light to grasp something that is too big to grasp at that moment, that first look. Some grab a cup of coffee from the folks next door; some squint at the way the shore is littered with effects without coffee. The deep sorrow, the deep pain overcomes, but then they begin to pick through what’s left, say prayers in thanks that it was not worse.

I saw them kiss. They melted into each other. At first, I didn’t understand what they were doing, but they fit. I’d never seen Archer and Meterling kiss like that. In fact, I’d never seen anyone kiss like that. But it looked just right. They looked just right.

His family didn’t agree, because it seemed unseemly. To throw himself away on a pregnant woman, an island girl, a brown-skinned widow, his cousin’s wife, for godsakes, said the distant relatives. As he expected, Susan was not supportive, although his parents were. His mother said she’d worried about the widow, and the child, but said they should wait, in deference
to Archer. The adoption process could start immediately, however.

But Grandmother was upset. She did not think Meterling should remarry so quickly, although we knew of widowers who did, some within a month of the death. There were laws created specifically for the right of widows to remarry. They were instituted for the number of very young women, sometimes children, who were left widowed and unwanted. Their hair might be shaved off; they might have to forswear garlic and onion to spice their food, and wear only pure white; but that was only the beginning. They were to look as unattractive as possible, because men, it was said, lusted after widows like vultures swoop in on flesh left on the ground. Some widows spent their lives in cities by the rivers, waiting for death.

Aunt Pa kept saying ours was a progressive family; she thought Meterling should marry whomever she chose, especially now with a baby due. Yet Grandmother fretted. She increased her prayers. No horoscope had been drawn up for Archer, and none was needed for Simon, if he was to be accorded the same respect. Yet, maybe a horoscope might help, but most of the family disagreed.

Nalani was happy for Meterling; glad the baby would have a father, and Meterling a husband. For thousands of years, brides were selected for grooms and vice versa; and traditions rooted in strong belief were slow to let go. Love marriages were looked at with great suspicion, for what did children know about what was best for them? And they
were
children, sad to say, in not-so-long-ago times, though householding would only begin after puberty. Even now, at weddings, silver toys are brought out as part of the ritual so the groom and bride were kept amused. Living in another age, I might already be bespoke at ten.

•   •   •

We began to call Simon-Archer “Simon.” He wanted Grandmother’s blessings on the union. He said that Meterling had already suffered so much that it would be cruel to cut her off from her grandmother. When the publisher of the
Hindu
long ago in India arranged for his widowed daughter to remarry, his relatives refused to attend the ceremony, which they thought scandalous. Grandmother was father and mother both to Meterling. So Simon began quietly to campaign for approval. Like Uncle Archer, he brought flowers and requested to see Grandmother. They sat down for tea, and first spoke about the weather. At last, he spoke directly.

“I will take care of her and Oscar for the rest of my days.”

“Do you too have his weak health?”

Simon offered to have a medical checkup.

“And if you have a child, what will happen to Oscar? Will he be treated like a stepson?”

“You know I would not do that.”

“But that’s it, Simon-ji, I
don’t
know you. Archer lived among us for many years. But you live in the UK, where you could have girlfriends and indecent clothing and rum punch. How do I know you won’t run off with a girlfriend when you get bored with Meti?”

Simon would object, promise, and the discussion would close until the next day.

My grandmother, I think, feared the upset of social order and that turning away from the gods would ruin my aunt’s remarriage. The neighbors would forever snipe and not cover their mouths discreetly, and the gods would throw darts. She would be gossiped about as well as the couple, but what she feared
most was Nalani’s future. Would Ajay’s parents recoil from the match?

It was around this time that Dr. Kamalam came around for a talk with my grandmother. Everyone walked around the house in long faces. Uncle Thakur, Uncle Darshan, and Auntie Pa were all upset with Grandmother, although, as they frequently said, it was pure medieval thinking that had got them into this situation. We believed for thousands of years in astrology, the stars under which you were born, the family you came from. A Brahman could trace his ancestry to one of thirteen original saints. Marriage matches were an art and a science, dependent on oral histories and priests; even after a match was made, the search for an auspicious time for the ceremony began. Ours was a culture that deeply respects elders, that watches its collective tongue when words like “death” or “sex” are intimated.

Dr. Kamalam was cut against the grain from the same cloth. Brahman as my grandmother, she spoke her mind quickly and to the point.

“What you are attempting, Usha, is antediluvian. There is no reason for this nonsense, except that it has been the way too long. Where would we be if we blocked every new idea that came into our way? Motorcars, airplanes, computers?

“Meterling is not old. She has a right to happiness, married happiness. Her child could have a fine father with this English boy. Don’t be foolish.”

But Grandmother was adamant. The social censure would be great and could even touch my marriage, and Rasi’s. It was not done, it was simply not done.

24

W
e played with Scrap outside, went for pistachio ice cream and saw movies with Nalani. We had had weeks of mild weather. Meterling looked very sad to us, Grandmother worried, and Auntie Pa was exasperated with us for getting underfoot.

Uncle Thakur intervened.

“What does it matter what people think, or even what the Vedas say? We live in modern times.”

Maybe he could have convinced her, but Meterling herself thought it was wise to end things with Simon. It would be too much for Grandmother to bear. Simon argued with her, but to no avail. He believed, like we all did, that Grandmother would come around.

“When does love just turn to possession, Simon? We want to be together, but is it just the want we want?”

“Logic in love, Meti?”

“There has to be logic in some things. I don’t mind if we appear monstrous or grotesquely comic to others, but I don’t want Grandmother to crumple inside. She’s been through too much suffering and loss.”

“So have you. Don’t you feel you deserve happiness?”

“Maybe it’s too ingrained in me, the way my ancestors thought.”