As Sweet as Honey (27 page)

“You know, we put in an application to adopt and it was accepted. We’re getting a child from Trippi! Ajay says we might get them both at the same time. Imagine, two children at once!”

She was rosy with the news. We exclaimed our happiness. I
hadn’t realized how much I missed her, my older sister-auntie. She was due in five months.

I looked up at the sky. The stars always seemed bigger in the tropical sky, and it seemed there were more of them.

“But that’s only part of the good news,” said Nalani.

We waited.

“Rasi, we have someone we want you to meet.”

“Sure. A lawyer?”

“No,” said Nalani. “In fact, it’s a young man.”

Our merriment vanished.

Sanjay spoke first.

“Nalani, Rasi hasn’t even graduated yet,” he said.

He turned to Rasi, waiting and cringing a bit for her reaction. It would be sharp and quick, and idiotically, I thought,
Don’t let Rasi be brutal, because after all, Nalani is pregnant
.

Rasi shrugged her shoulders, and then nodded. “What’s he like?” she asked.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I let it out. Sanjay and I glanced at one another. Maybe Rasi was humoring Nalani, but Rasi humored only Meterling, no one else. Only Meterling was spared her tongue, so I knew something was up. But Rasi didn’t look upset or crafty, just calm. Nalani embraced her, and hugged us all.

As Americans, or more rightly, islanders living in the States, which is the way our family would see it, I wondered if Nalani expected resistance. But she was so open-hearted, it probably never occurred to her that Rasi might not agree, might argue against arranged and sanctioned meetings. For the boy in question would have been sanctioned, vetted thoroughly by our family.

Later Rasi said she was expecting it.

“I’m twenty. One can choose the battles.”

“But this is a big battle.”

“All I’m going to do is meet him. It’s not as if I’m going to marry him and get pregnant tomorrow. Or vice versa.”

“Rasi!”

“Oh, grow up, Mina. Life is also practical. I’ll go to law school, and I’ve been in a lot of relationships.”

“You’ve been in two.”

“You forget how important some things are, like knowing the same food, the same customs. I want to be able to eat with my hands in front of the guy!”

“Are you kidding me? Food? Eating with your hands? Rasi, this is your life!”

“Like I said, I’m just going to marry—I mean, I’m just going to
meet
him.”

I could only look at her.

“Maybe he can cook. You know, I get home from school, exhausted, and he’s got nice hot bajis waiting for me—c’mon, I’m kidding!”

“So, you’re not going to meet him?”

“Of course I’m going to meet him. Look, it will be just this once. If I go ahead now and meet this guy and say no, then the next time I’m asked to meet someone, I can say, ‘Look, I tried once, and it didn’t work out.’ ”

“That’s terrible logic. People—the family—are a lot more persistent.”

“C’mon, do you really think I’m going to marry some idiot just because Nalani thinks it’s a good idea?”

I didn’t answer.

“Forget it—and just deal with it, Mina.”

Deal with it? It made no sense. How in the world did Rasi think her plan was going to work? Why did she even want to pretend
she wanted to get married all of a sudden? Then I thought—oh, it couldn’t be—but
could
she be pregnant?

“What are you talking about?” said Sanjay. In the background, we could hear the dogs barking. “First of all, if she were, she’d have told us. And second, to get married doesn’t make sense—unless they got married within the month. And third—there is no third. That’s it. She is just—ornery.”

Ornery. I hoped Rasi would be able to tell us about pregnancy or an abortion, anything. But who was this new Rasi, this one who was fine with arranged marriages, of all things? It was as if the person I knew had transformed. I think I felt left out. She was being pushed out of the nest, which is one way to view marriage arrangements, but I always thought she would soar on her own, in a dramatic sudden sweep of wing. What I resented was the boy, whose name was Laksman, just as I had once resented Ajay. Who was he? Of course, I had time to adjust to Ajay as he courted us, because it was a package he got, not just Nalani, but all of us. At first, we had all resented Simon, too, but then I was ten, and now here we were, and—ha! This
was
Rasi’s plunge, her sweep, her dramatic gesture: thinking of marrying Laksman! She really was agreeing to disagree, just like she was saying, and I knew that she would squash the idea of marriage like a bug. The nerve of Rasi, playing us like this!

47

I
t wasn’t long after that I found Oscar sitting in the garden, in the bower toward the back. This had been Nalani’s favorite hideout, and I needed to think. The monkeys only ventured
in if there was food around, and since it was placed among the lemon trees, they pretty much left the area alone. Oscar was quietly reading, but looked up when he saw me.

“You look like you’re in Pooh’s forest,” I said.

“I used to want to be Christopher Robin, when I was little,” he told me.

“How come?”

“He had all his friends around him in the Wood, and he could go home and have his tea, too.”

“I wanted to be Piglet.”

“That’s silly. Nobody
wants
to be Piglet.”

“I did. First, he was a very pretty pink, and then he sometimes helped Pooh out when Pooh forgot all about him.”

“He was so small.”

I was still getting used to Oscar’s British accent. At five, it had not been as pronounced, being mixed in with a child’s high-pitched half-sentences.

“When I grow up, I want to be even taller than my mum, although it may not happen.”

“I think it helps to stretch.”

He looked at me with doubt, at someone who, after all, had openly declared her preference for Piglet.

“This is a nice place to read,” I said, wondering why he wasn’t on the veranda.

“I like to find places where I’m not bothered.”

“Do people bother you?”

“Not so much here, but sometimes at school.”

Instantly a funny look came over him, and he wouldn’t say any more. I imagined he hadn’t meant to tell.

“Do boys pick on you?”

Silence.

“I used to get picked on when I first moved to New Jersey.”

He glanced sideways at me.

“Girls would call me names, and one boy would regularly steal my lunch.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. I thought that’s the way things were.”

“Weren’t you hungry?”

“I was really hungry, especially in the afternoon. One day, I fainted in class, and that’s how it all came out.”

“You told your teacher?”

“And my parents that evening.”

“What happened then? Did the bullies stop?”

“They stopped taking my lunch, but they still teased me. Mum and Dad wanted to move me to a different school.”

I hadn’t thought about this in years. They did want me to change schools, but in a year, I’d be at the new high school, anyway, and things would be different. So, I stayed on.

Oscar seemed to be considering what I said.

“Really, you wanted to be Piglet?”

I sighed. “Really.”

He looked at a lemon tree in front him.

“You won’t tell, will you?”

When I said nothing, he went on. “It’s just that I really like school, and I don’t think the bullies will bother me too much anymore. And I’m going to learn karate to get confidence and an aura of protection.”

“Is that like an invisible cloak?”

“Maybe,” he said uncertainly. “Anyway, if you want to sit and read here, you can. I’ve got another book.”

This is how I came to spend the afternoon reading about Matilda and the library.

48

I
thought how easy it had been for Rasi, Sanjay, and me, on the island. In hindsight, we were rarely bored, and if we were, we had each other to complain to. I wondered if Meterling was right, what I had overheard the other night. She wanted to return to Pi, for Oscar’s education. Nalani and Ajay were adamant: no one returns to the island for schooling; one only returns armed with degrees.

“All he will get here is learning by rote, and get involved in college-age politics. All these boys rioting and overturning buses, it’s too much.”

“There are all sorts of race riots in the UK, and anyway, you did well.”

“Yes, but surely readying for Cambridge and Oxford—the seats of learning in England—”

“Seats of learning, Nalani? You once thought the English bastards and bullies.”

“Oxford and Cambridge open doors. Oscar deserves better than schools here.”

“I wonder how is it in America?” asked Ajay.

“Oh, Pa always says American education is a joke. Our children are by their nature brighter,” said Meterling.

I had always thought my family’s social views slightly outlandish but not dangerous, yet listening to them, I wondered if I had been too tolerant. They were middle-class, used to a very good life on Pi, and had gone without land or family to the States and become a different kind of middle-class. I still
remembered one of my father’s friends telling us the story of how people in a town north of ours had stared when his wife appeared at the A&P in a sari. Little children had made faces and pointed; but out in the Midwest, in St. Louis, because it was a university town, people were so enchanted with his older sister’s sari, they invited her to model it at the local TV station. In the U.S., South Asian housewives carefully created their own upholstered American living rooms with fabric from Jo-Ann’s and patterns from Butterick. My mother didn’t, but that was because she was one of the rare women who worked. Aunt Pa had got to hand-stitched matching tea cozies and toaster covers before she said,
Enough
, and looked for a computer course to take.

As usual, my thoughts had wandered away from me. Hemamalani’s chin rested lovingly on my knee. Absently, I petted her. I didn’t want to evaluate my family, judge them without knowing everything, although of course I did. Who knew what was hidden in their past that they wouldn’t talk about, ancient hurts and injustices that had shaped them? “Ancient” was the right word, because hadn’t we been shaped from millennia of custom and decorum? All those laws to prevent the boat from being rocked. A woman’s talents lay in how well she could roll a betel leaf, how many sons she produced.

Thinking I’d lay claim to my own talents, I thought I would go into Madhupur proper to get some sketch pads and pencils. I liked the Aspara-brand charcoals here, as well as the thick paper hand-sewn into notebooks. I wanted to sketch Grandmother watering the plants, as I had once done long ago, but this time, I wanted to catch her spirit in the arc of water splashing from her hand. I would never get married. I would break the chain of ordered life.

Still, I needed a guide for the practical things. Nalani took
me on the bus, and we took Oscar along. I thought I’d get him a small set of watercolors, since I’d noticed the one in the house had all but vanished from frequent use. On the bus, I avoided eye contact with the men who leered in our direction; three years ago, I’d made the mistake of looking into a man’s eyes, only to be “accidentally” brushed against, a hand snaking across my breasts minutes after my bottom had been pinched, hard.

Looking over Oscar’s shoulder through the bus window, I saw the thatch-roofed stores giving way to brick and stone ones with Plexiglas windows advertising saris, electronics, and furniture. Stainless-steel ware was sold on the streets; tumblers and saucers and thalis lined up on rough blankets. Small and large chimes were sold on the street as well, and you could purchase songbird cages complete with songbirds. Small, colorful temples punctuated every few blocks, dedicated to both large and small deities, and vendors displayed coconuts, fruit, and flowers for purchase for special prayers. A priest was blessing a scooter with coconuts and lemons. Three years ago, if we were on foot, I’d insist we stop in at all the temples, pray and receive prasad. Now, outside one temple, I saw a holy man, with dark, long, curly hair and mustache, ash stripes covering his arms and chest, taking a break with a cigarette.

A thin, unsmiling proprietor looked up as we entered the art-supply shop, and a thinner and saried woman followed us as we browsed the aisles. I can always rely on art-supply stores and stationers to get my senses engaged and, weirdly, my senses calm. This store was tightly organized, with pyramids of candy-scented rubber erasers and boxes of unsharpened pencils. Paintbrushes were neatly arranged in open cups, one reason the woman in the sari was probably following us. Pads of foolscap, tracing paper, and heavier drawing paper enticed, as I ran my finger dreamily along their spines. Oscar was much
intrigued by a paper tiger mask, but in the end, decided he really didn’t want it. The proprietor still didn’t smile as Nalani insisted on paying for my purchases. Well, there was no need for him to smile. He wrapped up the sketch pads, brushes, pencils, and watercolor set individually in brown paper and twine. Because it was so hot, after getting coconut water, we headed for home. I wanted to ask Nalani more about this Laksman, but instead we chatted about her pregnancy and the adoption while Oscar stared out the window.

I told Rasi about the holy man smoking in front of the temple.

“Do you think he just goes up to the counter and says, ‘A pack of Camels, Hari Om’?”

“With a special discount,
yaar
, and I’ll pray for you?”

Somehow this struck us as hilarious.

“I’m sorry I was angry before,” said Rasi.

“That’s okay.” I hesitated. “I just don’t understand why you agreed to an arranged marriage after your whole life has been about, you know, nonmarriage.”

“ ‘Nonmarriage.’ I like that. Anyway, I agreed only to an introduction. Look, the whole charade will be over. Nalani will be happy, my parents will be happy. I’ll have seen one boy, that’s all, and I can say no to all the rest. I told you, I can say, ‘I’ve tried it your way, but now please leave me alone.’ ”