As Sweet as Honey Read online

  The sound of china shattering to the floor made me turn.

  The teacup had slipped from my aunt’s fingers.

  “He should not have died,” she whispered, bursting into tears. I too thought the whale shouldn’t have died, but my aunt was taking it badly. The teakettle began to whistle urgently, and Uncle Darshan switched it off.

  Grief was something my grandmother understood. She understood that one entire year was needed to mend the heart, to mourn and wail, to sit staring at space with no intention. One year to tie up the stomach in knots at night, and untie it every morning. She knew that grief had many names, that it came unbidden at the slightest provocation.

  “Leave Meterling alone,” she told us. “Soon she’ll be back the same.”

  Maybe. But we missed her magic tricks, we missed her laughter. We even missed going to the market with her, where she never carried a list, forgot whatever really was needed for the kitchen, and could easily be persuaded to buy pistachio ices. Our tongues green, we’d run back singing at the tops of our voices until stopped short by one of the other aunts.

  Love had found Meterling when she least expected it. There were no letters carefully preserved and perfumed and tied with string. There were no photographs—not even from the wedding. The photographer was near tears himself; none of the photos came out—“almost, madam,” he told my grandmother, “as if the gods themselves decreed there would be no witness.”

  Archer and Meterling had known each other such a short while. No time for her to save movie stubs, a stolen menu; no time to press flowers into heavy dictionaries. Yet Archer must have had all the accoutrements of a suitor at some point. Surely, he must have proffered her a bloom on a walk, tucked a sprig of jasmine in her hair, and compared her to any number of objects: the sun, the moon, the stars. Was she his happy orange (“happy giraffe,” said wicked Rasi), his celebrated plum? His melon full of fragrance and yielding just a tiny bit? His enchantress, his toffee, his reason for existence? My mind spins at the possibility, for Meterling won’t tell.

  I imagine their courtship as furtive and romantic, like Romeo and Juliet’s. Meeting in secret, at night, stealing kisses in the dark, behind trees and bushes as they did in the films. I have no real information to base this on; I was not privy to any of it. I create my narrative with overheard conversation, stories recalled and told, a bit of imagination, using what I know now, and my eyes then as a ten-year-old.

  But I was on the cusp of eleven, and after my birthday, Rasi told me, my world would change. She sneaked Nalani’s Mills & Boon books, and read about scores of handsome, brooding men, and heroines who never thought their looks amounted to much, until they wore that one dress and loosened their hair. The books, Rasi told me, all ended the same way: the hero would crush his lips on the heroine, murmuring something like “You little fool, I love you.” I was only half interested; getting my lips crushed did not sound inviting. But soon, I began to read them too, secretly. Still, I couldn’t help thinking Rasi would punch any boy who called her a little fool, and I would, too.

  I realized I wasn’t a heroine. I actually liked the way I looked, and practiced smiling in the mirror. I did want a cowlick when I was seven, even though it was something little boys had in the books. My favorite character from the Famous Five was George, short for Georgina, and I think she might have had a cowlick. But I had read all the Enid Blyton I could find and so I looked at Rasi’s books. No, I was not a heroine. I did not think my hair was mousy, thinking that meant messy instead of a kind of color. I did not wear quiet colors—but then, I did not live in Australia or England. The men did not sound that interesting, with their cruel mouths. Who would want to hang out with a cruel mouth? Around me, it seemed, the boys had soft mouths; soft, round faces. If you said boo, they’d run away. Archer hadn’t a cruel mouth. He was always smiling, it seemed, always telling jokes and making Meterling laugh. I couldn’t imagine him crushing Aunt Meterling’s lips.

  4

  One month after the wedding, after the death, Meterling told Grandmother that she was going to have a baby. She had missed her second period, and had gone to the doctor to make sure. The baby would be born in just less than eight months. Our family again became the center of sorrow in the town.

  We children didn’t understand it. We were thrilled to know she was pregnant. Of course we weren’t to know, but secrets are very hard to keep in our house, let alone the neighborhood. But what was wrong with our Meterling? There was a trace of something in her eyes, a whiff of guilt that colored her days. All she meant to do was love whom she loved, not bring shame to her family. The boys giggled because they had heard it was all about the scandal of it, but we girls thought that the boys were just being foolish. Anyway, maybe the baby wasn’t a product of procreation (by this time, Sanjay had found out and informed us of the proper process, which we previously thought involved the doctor peeing on the mothers to produce the babies. No wonder no one wanted to go to the doctor, we thought! And now, we knew the proper process on top of everything! Who would want to get married after all that?) but an unasked-for gift from God. In the Catholic church that Mary Angel went to, babies were born all the time without fathers.

  When our neighbor Shobana had a baby called a preemie later that month, everyone made a fuss. The baby itself was pretty ugly—wrinkly and squinty, and always crying. But every once in a while, it gurgled and cooed and caught up its toes, and we children, all of us, were enchanted. We begged for turns to help Auntie Shobana—fetch her water or cane juice, or fan away the flies.

  “Do you want to hold little Iskander?” she would ask finally. We children took turns, marveling at the lightness, the comfort, careful of the soft spot on his head. Before Iskander’s birth, there had been all sorts of celebrations. But our house was muted, quiet with grief.

  Some people wondered if the baby was really Archer’s, Mary Angel told us, reporting what her parents said. If not Archer’s, whose? They thought the marriage was a cover-up, that Uncle Archer knew he was going to die, that he loved Meterling so much he wanted to make sure her baby wasn’t a bastard. Maybe this was why Grandmother was so angry lately with the cook, and irritated with everyone else. She had really liked Uncle Archer, and she trusted him. We weren’t sure what trust had to do with it, but for a while, everyone walked around with troubled eyes.

  How had he asked her to unfold, to open for him, allow him entrance to all that every South Asian girl is told to guard until marriage? Look at Sita, unspoiled and pure even after Havana’s numerous entreaties, who would not even let the monkey god carry her to safety to avoid the destined war. But wasn’t she accused of impurity after the return to Ayodha, and Rama rejected her, and she finally returned, hurt and angry to her mother, Earth, who split open to receive her? That was not what happened; they remained happily married. And don’t ask me about Radha, you troublesome girls—some things are left best to be learned after marriage.

  Maybe it was Meterling’s idea from the start. Maybe as she found that her heart was expanding to include Archer and sustain him, she thought that marriage was still remote, an impossibility, so she invited him in, despite the risks. Maybe she was being adventurous. How surprised she must have been to receive his offer of marriage, then! No, that version won’t do—surely they must have agreed to marriage before untucking themselves of clothes to lie—where? Only the forest would work in our imagination—the cool earth, the soft grass, the cover of night.

  In our part of the world, some brides are flogged for creeping home after being beaten by their husbands. Not in our community, but who could really be sure? If not physical flogging, then surely a censuring of some kind occurs. An undercurrent of disbelief, she’s lying, she deserved it, she must have been responsible runs in some people’s minds. Once when I tripped and fell and got a black eye (a shiner, because it was shiny) I remember strangers I encountered turning away, as if I were to blame somehow; even if I were a victim of home violence, it remained my fault. A girl who reports a
crime can be derided in public, and if she has the misfortune of asking a corrupt policeman for help, he might rape her as well, since she is already “spoiled.” We knew of such cases, where it was the police captain himself who molested the girl, causing the girl to commit suicide. Even as the parents seek justice, he will continue to work and gain promotion to commander.

  And I admit, I wondered if a hooligan had made my aunt pregnant unbeknownst to anyone, and Uncle Archer, in love and in full knowledge, asked to marry her, to save her reputation (because that would be how it would be seen), to raise the bastard baby. Had Uncle Archer saved my aunt from suicide? Maybe Uncle Archer had even killed the man. And the man’s family poisoned Uncle Archer in revenge. But there was no sign of anything like that occurring; they were not numb, or filled with fear, or anxious. They were at ease, happy, very much in love.

  But if it was merely the two of them, in love, and eager, and ready, when had they initiated their act of love? When had they said, “Let’s prepone,” rush before the prayers and the sound of horns, the walk round and round seven times circling the holy fire? Had Archer known he was not long for the world? Had he a congenital disease, an inherited brain impairment? Had he failed to tell our aunt? Would she have said “No dancing, no drinking”? Would she have said “No child making”?

  Grandmother did not seem to be bothered by such questions. She said little, and took care that everyone ate well, and fussed over the pregnancy. Yes, she might have been short with our cook, Shanti-Mami, a day or two, but who knew the reasons running in her head?

  As for us, we began to flutter around Meterling like butterflies.

  “Does it hurt, Auntie?” I asked, looking at her tummy.

  “No, darling. Soon I think you can feel him kicking.”

  “It’s a boy?”

  “I think it’s a boy. If it is, I’ll call him Oscar.”

  “Oscar?”

  “That’s Archer’s favorite name.”

  Here she was, with baby Oscar or Oscarina inside, and all us kids crowding around her, asking questions. Mostly she smiled, and looked past our heads, as if she could see a ship we couldn’t, far away on a sea that we could not see, either.

  5

  After school, we threw down our schoolbags, and stretched out with her after our tiffin. I had begun reading an abridged version of Silas Marner, and was struck by the description of the bright coppery gold of a little girl’s hair. Would Oscar have hair like that, or black like ours? Aunt Meterling did not know. She listened to our questions, answered what she could, and spoke about other things on her mind.

  “Distractions,” whispered Rasi.

  “There are just a few requirements for good tea,” Aunt Meterling said one rainy day, as if that had been our topic of conversation, when we were all sitting on the veranda. I was watching the rain pound the earth, making small puddles, beating down the plants. The rainy season was calming down. No longer did people dash by with umbrellas and overturned baskets on their heads. To me, the sound of rain was intoxicating, a conversation between earth and sky. At the beginning of the season, I knew some people held monsoon parties—“drinking as much as the rain poured,” said Grandmother—and danced into the early hours. Now, the rain ceased and began again, no longer a steady presence. We were lucky to escape the flooding of the towns on lower land, the tremendous damage to crops and homes, the fierce mudslides. Madhupur seemed in a bubble, warding off ecological disaster.

  “One, the tea itself must be good. Not fancy, but just strong. Then you let it sit awhile while it steeps. But when you pour it, it must be hot. And when you drink it, it must be nice and hot as well.”

  Here she paused to give us a look, as if imparting a secret. “But not to scorch your mouth. And a porcelain cup is good, because it will retain the heat. A little milk, a little sugar …” And here she sighed, relished the teacup in her hand.

  “It is good around three in the afternoon, when the heat of the day is still strong. When you can feel the sun. If someone starts dinner outside a little early, then the whiff of wood smoke in the air is good. But you know, the smoke is better on a rainy day. When it is nice and summer hot, you want to smell only the sun and whatever flower the breeze carries.”

  Again she paused. We breathed in, seeing if there was wood smoke anywhere.

  “Only the first three mouthfuls will be good. You must relish them: its heat, its flavor. After that, you will drink only the memory of that first taste, until you drain the cup.”

  “What about the sugar? Don’t forget the sugar,” said Rasi, who had heard this story before and was idly playing with a top.

  “Yes, you must remember not to stir the sugar in too forcefully in the beginning. In fact, a little sugar should be left to coat the cup’s bottom. Stirring too hard fans the tea and makes it cool. Now you are rewarded with a sweet ending taste.”

  I was still too young for tea, but my personal favorite drink was Coca-Cola, which I was also not allowed to have but had tasted once at Mary Angel’s house. It was like a liquid jewel, and I planned on drinking a lot of it when I got big, and to bypass tea entirely. Grandmother’s friend Dr. Kamalam, who was also our family doctor, said that tea wasn’t good for children or adults, that good water, thinned buttermilk, or light juice from fresh fruit or coconut was better. But Meterling was fond of tea, and got a soft, dreamy look when she drank.

  Those first three sips, said Nalani when I told her what Meterling had told us, those first three sips are so precious to her because she lost Archer. That’s why she thinks the flavor can’t last to the last drop. Three sips and gone.

  Another day, in another distraction, Meterling told us about a poet.

  “Our island has many poets, did you know that? It is always poetry we rely on, some of us, to set the tone for our days. Everyone thinks of Tagore, or Kalidas, but there are many more alive today. One of my friends is a poet, and she works, ever present, at her desk in the morning chill, moving her pen across the page. Perhaps she uses a pencil. If her window is open, you can hear the slow tap of her typewriter keys. She was my classmate at school, and she wrote poems even then.”

  This is what Meterling told us when we asked her if she was not sad that Archer could not see his child. We thought that sorrow would eat her up, as it had eaten others in our family, tales we heard that we never knew if they were true or not. But Meterling hugged us close, and said no, no, that was what the poet was for, what poems were for.

  “She is our inspiration when we feel bad. No matter how deep our heart drops, my friend the poet will pull us up out of dangerous water, somehow, with those lines, her magic cards, bring us up bit by bit so we can choke out the water, pull oxygen back into our breath.”

  Meterling carried the poet’s books about with her on occasion, but mostly they stayed in her room on a shelf, thin spines edged neatly together. There was a pile of paper bound together with a ribbon as well, blank pages for Meterling herself to fill up when the time was right. To that end, she kept some fresh pens and a few sharpened pencils in a long, narrow wooden box.

  And when will the time come for Meterling to pen her own thoughts? We wondered about that mysterious force that would rise up somehow, in a cloud of ink and erasure, and take her away from us. We knew so little about writing. There was a hundred-year-old man who lived near to us, a famous author, said our grandmother. He needed very little contact with the world, it seemed, and mostly penned his famous work in foreign hotels on holiday. He asked only for quiet. Once he paid for a family of bleating goats to be removed from his neighbors’ garden, supplying them with milk from his writing income to make up for their loss. He was eccentric, and just a bit scary, and the poet sounded just as bad. We certainly did not want Meterling to end up a writer!

  6

  There’s all kinds of magic,” said Rasi.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s the person who just guesses really well—like the weather, or whether you’ll get a boy baby or a girl.
That’s not magic, that’s just luck.”

  “Uncle Thakur can predict which horse will win a race.”

  “That’s not magic.”

  “Uncle Raj says it is.”

  “Then,” continued Rasi, “there’s the person who can read people’s minds. That’s called Especially.”

  “Especially?”

  “Yes,” said Rasi. “I read it in a book. And so, say you’ve got a bad thought, and that person has Especially, then you’re in trouble, because that person will know what you are thinking.”

  “I don’t believe it … What kind of bad thoughts?”

  “Like lying or stealing or cheating. And you should believe me, because it’s true.”

  “Amma says to look straight at her elbow if she thinks I’m lying.”

  “What?”

  “She points her elbow at me and asks me to repeat whatever I said, except at the elbow. If I don’t laugh, she knows I’m telling the truth. But I always laugh. It’s her elbow.”

  “But to really be magic, it takes someone special.”

  “Especially?”

  “Special,” said Rasi, exasperated. “The kind of someone who can turn little boys into frogs, that sort of thing.”

  “A magician!”

  “Yes. And on Pi, there are only eleven such magicians.”

  “There are?”

  “Where are they?”

  “Oh, they live in ordinary houses and everything, but they have great power.”

  “Do you think Aunt Meterling is one?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it.”

  “She might be.” Aunt Meterling did do some mysterious things.

  “I saw her one day, hair not even combed, with a sword in her hand,” said Sanjay.

  “A sword? We don’t have a sword,” protested Rasi at once.

  “And not only did she have the sword, which was just a plain one, not encrusted with jewels or anything—”