As Sweet as Honey (9 page)

I told her I did not plan to marry, ever. I would be a famous scientist who had no time for cooking and husbands. I would live alone with lots of animals, including a horse, like in the storybooks where children rode on horses and lived with cats and big shaggy sheepdogs.
“Beti,”
Meterling would say, using Hindi, because sometimes in Hindi, the tenderness required to cut through an excess of emotion with a perfectly pitched honesty was available—
beti
, which means “child”—
“beti,”
she’d say, “don’t worry. All is possible; all is good in this world.” And Meterling would smile. She who had lost her love, her joy, at twenty-eight. She’d smile with tenderness, hoping to ease our pain, even as her back ached.

When someone dies, everything dies as well. At least it seems like that. It seems like the gods are punishing you, and no matter what treasure you might have amassed, it all becomes rot, becomes meaningless. Death changes everything. It changes everybody.

Meterling changed, becoming clouded, becoming worn, withdrawn. A light was quenched in her as her sorrow took seed. But Oscar, growing inside her, moved the seed around somewhat. He didn’t let it settle. Life, life, life, he whispered, this voice coming into being, this child, shouting at Meterling
not to give in. No, live! he must have shouted, this child in being, live so that I may live as well. And we responded to Oscar, this child in being, as well. We responded to his light, as did the aunties, as did everyone who flocked around Meterling. “Live,” we told her, “do not give in to this sorrow, do not succumb to this pain. Let it out, yes; let it out so we can carry it for you.” Because that is what people do when they care deeply about someone: they shoulder their pain, put their heart to work, put their mind to the grief. And they carry the burden. And that is how some people live. That is how some people—whose time to die is not yet, because of whatever grace is granted in their life—this is how some people survive.

At twenty-eight, Meterling had discovered the one person she realized she had waited for her whole life.

“No,” said Meterling. “That’s not entirely true. I just met Archer by accident. All that drama came later, because I lost him. But meeting him was accidental. Loving him was the crux of the matter, a choice I made. I was happy before I met him, though. I wasn’t pining for something missing. How could I be, with all of you loving me so?” Her eyes filled with tears. The baby was due in four months, twenty-one days.

Rasi and I listened, and Rasi agreed with Meterling, but then she turned to me. “Sanjay stole my transistor,” she said.

“What?”

“I left it out and it was gone.”

“How do you know it was Sanjay?”

“He had it this afternoon.”

“Oh.”

“He said he didn’t.”

“Did you tell Grandmother?”

“Don’t worry; I’ve got a plan.”

Rasi went to confront Sanjay over her transistor.

But Sanjay had found a kitten.

Sanjay found a kitten that was hiding under a banana leaf. Scrawny, white, with pink-tipped ears, it cried when Sanjay removed the leaf.

“C’mon here, kitty,” he said, but it tried to scurry away. Its paw was caught in a trap. It lay bleeding, and without thinking, Sanjay reached in, pulled away the leaf, and pushed apart the trap’s jaws.

The kitten nestled onto his lap, and that is how the kitten named Scrap and Sanjay became fast friends.

We went to ask Uncle Raj, who was a doctor, what to do next. Uncle Raj tidied up the kitten, and gave a lecture, but Sanjay wasn’t listening too much. He was wondering how he could keep the kitten, how to convince everyone to let him have a bit of milk or water—what did kittens eat anyway? As it turned out, it was easier than he thought to keep the kitty and feed her as well.

“I want to pet it, I want to pet it!”

“How come you got to keep it when we couldn’t keep the puppy?”

“I still see that puppy in the street sometimes.”

“I think Mrs. Shankar takes care of it.”

“I wish we could keep a puppy. Who needs a cat anyhow?”

“Look at its little nose.”

“Look at its eyes.”

“It likes you, Sanjay.”

“Let me see, let me see!”

“I want to feed it.”

“Not an ‘it.’ Her name is Scrap.”

“Scrap?”

“How do you know it’s a girl?”

“Yes, it’s a scrap of a kitten.”

“Did you think it was a scrap of paper when you found it?”

And Sanjay admitted that he had, that he had been looking for some paper to jot down—

“Jot down what? Jot down what?”

“Nothing. Anyway, you see, it isn’t a scrap of paper, it is a kitten.”

“Can I pet it again, Sanjay?”

“You don’t have to ask permission.”

“Don’t scare it!”

“Look, it’s sleepy.”

“Maybe we could sing to it.”

“Okay, okay—just take turns.”

14

I
ntelligence, my girls, is how you maintain yourself in independence,” said Aunt Pa one day, out of the blue. “Year after year,” she continued. “It’s knowing how much to spend at the market so you have something left over to spend again. It’s making sure all the channels of cash flow are open, that nothing is caught, creating blockage, creating snags. It’s making sure that as well as a way out, there is always a way in. Entrance is as important as that Exit sign that’s got you so fixed—oh, I know all about it, how at the movie theater, you spot that sign first. And why not?—it’s so lit up, so red, so bright. It’s for emergencies, after all, for fires and power outages, for stampedes, any unforeseen circumstances. But the Entrance sign is important, too. That one is green, green for ‘go,’ green for ‘hello.’ The
entrance sign that lets you in, no matter what color, what class, the thumbs-up in our lives. You girls don’t know how hard we fought for your independence. You don’t know how it was back then, with the British. You don’t know.”

And it was true what Auntie Pa was telling us: we didn’t know. Rasi and Sanjay and all of us, girls and boys both, we just felt so free and lucky those days. We were nine, and ten, and eleven. The world really was our oyster, ours for the taking. We did like to run, we liked to shout, and we liked to sing at the top of our voices. Grown people like Aunt Pa were mystifying. They liked to drink tea, they liked to talk, they had eyes so creased with tears and fears and trembling. It made no sense to us. But at one time, Nalani says, they were young too, all of them, in braids and rag-tail hair, screaming and running and shouting for the sheer joy of it. But the years made one quieter, in our family anyway, it made for a steadier gaze, a firmer walk. And all at once, we hugged Auntie Pa, who batted us away, like she was annoyed, and told us to stop making ourselves pesky, so we ran off to find Grandmother.

We found her in the garden, Grandmother, watering her plants. A new one had bloomed. She called it Chandra, for the moon, and indeed its white, round bloom looked so soft and heavenly, just like the full moon. But softer than the moon, too, which can appear harsh sometimes, all silvery and cold in the sky. This flower was more yellow, creamier, like we could cuddle into it as if it were a pillow and coverlet, and sleep quite soundly, if we were small like Thumbelina, say, or Tom Thumb.

“There is a saying,” said Meterling, “that the gods rain down gifts and tangle up our brains.” Why else (she thought but did not say, as did we) would the gods give me such a man as Archer, only to take him away? Again and again, all over
the world this happens, this suffering. A baby dies, the parents overcome by grief, overwrought by pain.

Grandmother takes in all of this hurt, all of these questions, and shrugs her shoulders. In that shrug lies the way of compassion, of not knowing. But when one is in the throes of emotion, a shrug is hard to come by. A shrug is ancient; it is a way of acknowledging the pain, of moving past it while acknowledging it, of recognizing that many things are out of our control, that the world is impermanent, that love and loss go hand in hand.

As children, our tradition dictates that we be sheltered from all this pain and suffering, sheltered, as it turns out, from the human condition itself. But kids are smart. We figure it out soon enough. We know the grown-ups don’t tell us everything, that their ways and methods are baffling, but they are kidding themselves if they think we don’t know about suffering. We see it all the time. But as children, perhaps, at least outwardly, we recover more quickly.

Sanjay, Rasi, and I were a team of sorts, a triad of playmates who took turns helping each other to figure it out. When you grow up in an
extended
, stretchy family, the mothering and fathering is done in batches, but there is also a great deal of freedom. When there are only two parents and one or two children, the attention can be focused, but on the island of Pi, we just ran around like rowdies, like we were free.

Nalani saw Meterling’s suffering differently, more tangibly, like a shard of steel or glass in her heart. For Nalani, Meterling’s heart was embedded with this sliver, and the sliver, like a splinter, needed to be dislodged. Inside her heart, Nalani believed, Meterling carried her grief, and it was up to us, her family, to help her both carry the pain and dislodge it.

But it was hard to deal with Meterling’s pain those first few
months. It came and went like a flame on a matchstick. With us, she would be happy, or pretend to, and then when she thought she was alone, it would come pouring out. We knew people who suffered from sadness. That sadness twisted in and out like a knife, making the person double in pain sometimes, and sometimes it was like a path that pointed down. Sanjay, Rasi, and I felt bad for Meterling when we saw her doubled up in pain.

What could we do for Meterling?

“Should we make her presents?”

“A boat that she could use?”

“A boat?”

“A wooden boat.”

“What would she do with a boat?”

“Everyone wants a boat.”

“
You
want a boat—not everyone does.”

“Maybe she’d want to play with Scrap?”

“Rani Mami says Auntie should stay away from Scrap until the birth.” Rani Mami had come with Dr. Kamalam to examine our aunt. She would help her when it was time.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should just bring her tea and biscuits.”

“That’s what Grandmother says.”

Our aunt had a lot of tea and biscuits.

Nalani practiced yoga. Nalani practiced deep breathing and dancelike asanas to help her float and ground, energize and stay rooted. One hundred and eight sun salutations was her goal, but usually she did just ten. Sometimes she asked us to join her, but Rasi and I were not very interested. But Sanjay sometimes stayed with her as she rolled out her mat on the roof, and practiced with her, side by side. Afterwards, Rasi and
I would tease him, but usually, we noticed, for an hour or so after yoga, he remained fairly oblivious to our teasing.

Nalani also tried to get Meterling to join her in her yoga, but Meterling always shook her head.

“It will be so good for you, Meti, good for your bones, good for your skin,” she’d say, but Meterling always shook her head no, grasped her teacup with both hands, and walked away to muse.

“Archer—she has to let him go. He has taken her heart and she needs it back.”

“I thought she had a splinter in her heart.”

“Both. She has it all. The whole kit and caboodle of grief.”

And we wondered what a caboodle was, if it was anything like a caboose.

Invoking Rilke, Aunt Pa said, “May her tear-filled face make her more shining, may her simple tears flower,” and, noticing us, she said, “Something I read once, long ago,” sweeping past us, not allowing us to follow. Oh, what a family we had! But Aunt Pa turned back, looked at us, and said, “What I think that means is to let something good come out of the grief.”

Oscar, Oscar was going to come out of the grief, out of her belly, we thought, cheered up once again, although doubt had entered rather sneakily into our hearts.

15

O
ne day, Meterling woke in a panic. She could not recall Archer’s face. She remembered what they had done together—their walks, the boat ride, the wedding
—but what did his face look like? She had no photographs. His hair, it was silvery, and he had a mustache. He was rotund. What did he look like?

How could she have committed herself to a person she hardly knew? And create a baby with him before marriage? They were so sure. She loved him, she told herself, loved him, but the words seemed in that moment empty.

What if Oscar asked her what his father looked like? What if he wondered what the Y chromosome deposited in his features, the nose, the mouth, the smile? What if Oscar became unrecognizable, the two of them a ludicrous pair of misfits? Could she bear to bring such a life to him? Meterling grasped her belly protectively. It had grown more—as, it seemed, had her feet. Her belly button popped out. Sometimes the baby kicked hard.

Archer had promised her the moon, and she had reached for it, expecting it. They would travel unfettered to Italy, to France, see the coasts of California he loved so. They would travel with sketch pads and charcoals, buy paints and canvas. They would honeymoon with easels on their backs and capture the essence of their adventure in art they would bring back and show us. Archer had planned an itinerary, and she had believed every word. She was mad for adventure, the need to leave Pi and see what lay beyond simple domesticity. Now, all of that was lost along with Archer. She would remain on Pi and give birth to a fatherless child, and if she was lucky, she would be enfolded in simple domesticity to ward off the gossip.

More had happened at that violin concert, we found out.

A man named Akbar came to stand in front of Meterling. “Who is that beauty,” he had asked at the violin concert, “from three rows down?”

“That’s the daughter of Rajeshswaran, the late doctor.”

“What is her name?”

“Nalani.”

“Nalani. An angelic name. How far till the child?”