Inheritance (6 page)

“Are they Buddhist?” I asked my grandmother who merely frowned a negative. Hindus, then, like us, but the family shrine was housed in the kitchen, off limits to the guests.

C.P.’s parents came forward and cordially introduced themselves and then introduced us to the boy himself. He looked like his photograph and seemed vaguely embarrassed by the proceedings. The mother was warm and effusive, the father jocular, and C.P. became unreadable.

We had some drinks (Grandmother again frowned as I reached for a cupful of wine) and ate canapés made of foreign ingredients—French cheese and apples. I spilled some wine, Jani refused to eat, and Grandmother all at once looked tired. Wiping up, settling down, we watched as C.P.’s brother brandished a shining CD. He popped it into a Bose stereo system, all sleek and silver, and soon the melodies of classic Carnatic flute filled the air. V. Lakshmi’s voice was very high and lulling. It was almost like being at a concert. I began to dream of Jani and me running across a field, pursued by someone playing a flute. The field was endless, the sky a vibrant blue, and our running effortless. The flute player fell away and now we were running toward someone. Grandmother
nudged me awake. People were applauding, and for a moment I thought it was for me.

Yawning, I got up and selected a plate at a table brimming with desserts. I chose chum-chums and badhushas, which were sweet and delicious, a perfect way to awaken. I met a young cousin of C.P.’s, about my age, who spoke of the test-match scores for the games between India and the West Indies. I didn’t follow cricket, but I liked talking to him, or rather, hearing him talk. He was cute, and I began to think this might be a very good family to marry into. I didn’t have many friends who were boys, but I liked talking to them. I guess I was a bit of a tomboy, even though I read a lot. I liked playing at games but coughed a great deal if I overexerted myself. Anyway, this chap went on about cricket, and I listened, but my gaze wandered. Grandmother was talking to C.P.’s parents, possibly discussing jewelry, and C.P. was speaking to Jani. I couldn’t tell if Jani was engaged in their conversation; my cousin was inscrutable.

The boy was no longer talking of cricket, and I said something about the music.

“Boring, no?”

“No, I like it.”

“You listen to pop?”

“I like some.”

“I’ve got the Doors and Culture Club on CD. What about you?”

“I don’t have any CDs, but I like the Beatles. And U-2.”

“You like the B-52’s?”

“Of course.”

“Shall we put on some music?”

“They won’t object?”

“Why should they?”

“Maybe they would.”

“Do you think we shouldn’t?”

“We should do it.”

“Okay.”

So we found a Beatles album and put it on, and no one minded, and this young boy and I sat down and listened to the music. I wanted to dance but thought Grandmother would have a fit if I did. Some of the guests did begin to dance, though, and since there was a crowd, the cousin, whose name was something I didn’t catch, and I joined them. It was fun, the music was “Please Please Me,” and I lost myself in its beat. C.P. asked Jani to dance. But stupidly, she wouldn’t, and I wondered at this, thinking if Jani wouldn’t dance with him, she wouldn’t marry him either.

I remember thinking his family doted on him. They had served him food first and later listed his favorite foods to my grandmother. At one point, his father asked me what the young miss wanted to do when she grew up. I said I wanted to be a zoologist. He smiled indulgently.

“You like pop music too much to study seriously, perhaps? Would you not say that is the case?” he asked.

For some reason, I began to list colleges that Western pop musicians had gone to: Harvard, the London
School of Economics, Rhode Island School of Design. His son came over and said John Lennon had gone to art school. His father then pointed at a backgammon board that C.P. had made, handsomely marked with triangles in light and dark wood.

“Janis a lovely girl,” said the father. We looked at her talking to the sister-in-law.

“They’re discussing sari shops. Think of it, two honor students talking of fashion,” said the father. C.P. and I smiled. I told C.P. that I was reading Russian novels, and he told me to read
The Brothers Karamazov.
Guests began to disperse. Grandmother thanked our hosts, and we left for home.

Six

Jani refused to talk about the party. My mother read a book while I complimented C.P., hoping to get a reaction from both of them. I could tell that Jani and my mother did not get along. At least, if my mother had participated in a conversation like a normal human being, they wouldn’t have gotten along. Jani dismissed my mother but never said anything to me directly, to save my feelings. But I could see it in the way Jani regarded my mother, the way her mouth would tighten, and her eyes, too, holding back, as if she were a snake, a hiss.

Animal behavior was a subject I liked. I remember reading about cats and birds. Cats don’t like heights, things like that. Birds at a young age are inherently afraid of hawks and not afraid of geese. If a cardboard cutout of a goose is passed over their baby heads, they do not
mind. But they are terrified by a fake hawk. Jani, I think, thought my mother was a hawk, and instinctively, her back went up, ready for a fight.

I think Jani saw my mother as selfish; at least she was alive and could talk to her daughter, that sort of thing. Jani missed her own mother terribly, I knew, for I had noticed how suddenly sometimes her eyes would become distant and full of sorrow. No one said that Jani was an orphan—in India, I don’t think parenting is so exclusive that other relatives aren’t involved in all aspects of raising a child, so the child is part of a community from the first—but she was sensitive, and felt the loss. When we’d see films about death and dying, her cheeks would wet with tears. Quickly, she’d try to dry her eyes in the cinema dark with the hem of her sari border but I noticed. In grieving for her mother, Jani also grieved for me.

My aunts did not do a bad job of raising me. There wasn’t enough room, and we were in one another’s way sometimes, the children and I. Usha practiced singing, which sometimes interfered with my homework assignments. I’d be trying to memorize species subgroupings, and there would be Usha trying to sing in Sanskrit. And Usha would want to turn the lights out to sleep before I did, because I wanted to read a novel in bed. So I used a flashlight, a tiny one no bigger than my elbows, and tried to read. But it was uncomfortable and threw the wrong
shadows, and I wondered if it was worth the effort. But then I got used to reading in the semi-dark.

There were the occasions of illness. Bronchitis was the most common, followed by stomach flu, head colds, ringworm, hives, mononucleosis, and laryngitis. I got the measles, the mumps, and the chicken pox, despite the inoculations. They thought I was dying on at least two occasions. My aunt daily checked my temperature and always gave me an extra blanket; this made me sweat, and I think added to the odds of my getting sick the next day, due to the flux of sweat and chill in the air, I was always sleepy, or not at all sleepy, and my own body wearied me. But one of my doctors (I had three) told me early on not to succumb to depression and to keep myself engaged and alert, even when bedridden. That’s why I read novels and studied a bit of zoology on the side (it wasn’t offered at my school, but I picked up old textbooks from the book vendors).

We had one dog and two cats, but they were strays who had adopted us, and they slept outside. I liked them because if I missed school, they were my companions in a nearly empty house. I’d let the dog jump on my bed while I read and would try to fluff out the dog hairs from my bedding before my aunties realized the infraction of the no-dog-on-the-bed rule. The cats roamed at will. But all that was at my aunts’ home in Madras.

Here on Pi, at my grandmother’s house, I found myself rapidly becoming bored. Jani spent her time quietly
reading. I had already gone through all the activities I had planned. Twice, I collected wildflowers and pressed them between the pages of the old
Pears Cyclopedia
in the hall. Twice, I sat with my watercolors, straining my eyes at the garden, trying to paint delicately and faithfully. I peered into the Italian grammar and studied for a full half hour. I read through all the “Humor in Uniform” and “Life in These United States” bits in the back copies of the
Reader’s Digest
stored in the closet. I picked at a collection of abridged Dickens and longed for something to do. I took to wandering around the compound and making a nuisance of myself. Jani responded only in grunts to my whining. No one would play cards with me. My great-uncle was unavailable. I tagged behind my grandmother until she got tired and told me to make myself busy. Even my mother, usually good for an hour or so of spying upon, was boring; she was stretched out on a chaise longue, giving herself a clay mask treatment. The world was dull, dull, dull.

In exasperation, for I kept coming into the kitchen for something to eat, Vasanti sent me off to the market. I was given a string bag, rickshaw money, and a rapid goodbye. I decided to walk and save the fare for a flavored ice later on. The day was still cool. I passed a group of children playing hopscotch. I began to wish I had a special friend, a confidante. There were usually people like this in the
books I read, girls who walked arm in arm, telling each other heart secrets. I didn’t have any close friends at school, being absent a lot. The girls I admired ignored me, having their full share of friends. I must have appeared strange, half brown, half white, without actually having the cachet of having been to America. I always seemed the odd one out. Anyway, these girls liked silly music, teenage stuff, and had no interest in books, except romances. It was different when Jani shared her Mills and Boons romances, because we talked about other things. But the girls in my class seemed immature. I guess that’s why I liked Jani so much—she never took me for granted.

One of the teachers befriended me, a pretty young English teacher named Miss Julie. She discovered my interest in reading and lent me many novels. She was careful not to show me special attention in class, and it never occurred to me to invite her to the house. When I told my aunts about her, they told me to ask her over for lunch, but I never did.

Once I met her on the street. I nearly didn’t recognize her, so accustomed was I to seeing her in a classroom. But there she was with an armful of colorful bangles and sunglasses pushed to the top of her head. She was with a young bearded man whom she introduced as Mr. Vivek. She hesitated for a moment, but the man broke in and added that he was, in fact, Miss Julie’s husband. My confusion must have broken out like a hidden
sun on my face. “Yes,” she said, “I’ve been married for a month or so. I thought I’d tell you next term, since we’ll be finishing up so soon. You girls are so, so inquisitive.”

I understood what she meant. The girls in our class, once they heard that Miss Julie was married, would crowd around her desk and tease her unmercifully. They would want to know all sorts of things, how handsome he was, how they had met, did she shave her legs before the wedding night and what else did she shave, things like that. I assured them that their secret was safe with me. Still, I thought she might have told us, so that we could have celebrated with her, brought her a gift, taken a half-holiday from classes.

Later, I wondered if Miss Julie had wanted to keep the marriage secret for another reason. Perhaps it wasn’t approved of by her parents, or perhaps they were too poor to have a big wedding and were ashamed. It never occurred to me to doubt their word, for the idea of Miss Julie having a boyfriend seemed too ridiculous. Yet that was the very rumor that swept through the school the next term. She never mentioned her marriage to anyone.

But this was Pi, not Madras, where liberated Christian schoolteachers might have as many boyfriends as they desired. The island was off the coast of India, not connected to the mainland, an eye, a tiny eye, to the teardrop that was Sri Lanka. It had been invaded and colonized so
many times that it nonchalantly absorbed the morals of every culture that came to it. Castes intermarried, racial lines were blurred, and nearly everyone was an eighth something else. I was certain my family had both African and Dutch blood in it somewhere, but that was of course hushed up. Anthropology would prove me right, but religion remained an obstacle. Our family descended from pure-blooded priests, said my grandmother firmly, refusing argument. As such, we had our own codes for conduct, and old traditions reigned. Thus, to our acquaintances with similar histories and beliefs, my mother was a tramp.

The marketplace was a mixing ground for rich and poor. There were big stores with shiny windows displaying the latest sari fashions and jeans and small shacks selling betel leaf. Women spread their wares on burlap smoothed over pavement; men set up wooden crates to sell imported watches and fancy scarves. Book vendors showed off their fare on rickety, movable stands, the spines facing out. I always took a long time choosing a title from my favorite book vendor. All the books were used, and many were in English. Some were from religious publishers, some were commercial, and some were from a local press that published poetry on handmade paper. There was always a supply of Penguin paperbacks, and I often walked away with a good Jane Austen or George Eliot.