Jane Vejjajiva (2 page)

Kati waited every day for Mother.

Kati loved her tin lunch container. Grandpa called it ‘the food-mobile’ and it was compact yet held just enough food to fill you up nicely. Grandma didn’t want to see leftover food brought home to rot and she knew exactly the capacity of Kati’s stomach. Grandma’s lunch menu never missed the mark, not with ever-tasty minced basil and chili chicken with a fried egg on top, or boiled eggs, rich brown because they’d soaked up the aniseed gravy overnight, or crispy fried ‘son-in-law’ eggs with their sweet-and-sour tamarind sauce, or smooth and creamy steamed egg custard, or quail eggs dipped in batter and fried. Grandpa called Kati an ‘eggivore’, for as long as the lunch menu included eggs there was never any need to coax Kati to eat – she would devour the lot every time.

Every school morning the bus would stop to pick up Kati. The route of the little open buses ran past the mouth of the lane leading to their house. Grandpa would give Kati a lift to the bus stop on the back of his bicycle. Kati liked hanging on tightly to Grandpa’s back. She liked the smell of his cologne that came from the bottle with the sailing ship on it. She liked the little breeze that dried away her sweat. The bus would be crowded with children because it was only a short way to the school, and Grandpa would call out for the passengers to make room for Kati and tell Uncle Loh to drive slowly and not to lurch about. ‘You’re taking them to school, not driving in the grand prix, so make sure you don’t end up spilling them out the back in a heap,’ Grandpa instructed, but Uncle Loh just laughed in reply.

The children put their lunch containers in the dining hall before putting their bags away in the schoolrooms. The lunch containers stood together, big and small, tall and short, and many different colours. They probably conversed about the food they each contained: how tasty and spicy their food was and who had cooked it, and whether the rice had been served out lovingly or only dutifully. Did they hold just enough cold leftovers to fill the owner’s stomach, or the most delicious secret recipe from a market stall so popular the stallholder could hardly dish out the food fast enough? Some containers had a sticky rim, still unwashed from the day before. Some had ants. Some were battered and dented because they’d been handed down many times. Finally, the lunch containers would probably whisper about that really flash lunch container and whether she would turn up to strut her stuff as usual.

Flash was the air-conditioned car that drove up to wait in front of the school. Flash was the lunch container that came with the maid wearing a uniform like a servant of some aristocratic family. Flash were the embossed designs on that lunch container, which would open to reveal piping hot rice, steaming clear broth and exotic dishes the other lunch containers never knew about because they never had the chance to discuss these things with the flash lunch container. She only arrived at the school just before lunchbreak and was whisked away with the start of the first period of the afternoon.

The school bell clanged for lunchbreak. Kati raced her friends downstairs and ran past Tong walking in the opposite direction. Tong was three years older than Kati and in Year 7 at school. He smiled at her before he left on his way home to the temple. Tong said that at lunchtime he had a whole buffet meal waiting for him from the varied offerings people had made to the monks.

In the afternoon when Kati got home from school she washed her lunch container and placed the sections in a basin in the kitchen to drain. Later, in the evening, she would dry them and put them by the stove, handy for Grandma in the morning. Perhaps at night the lunch container would strike up a conversation with the stove to pass the lonely hours, asking how Grandma spent her day, and if she did anything else but get angry with Grandpa.

In the house there were no photos of Mother.

Kati’s job was to take the clothes from the line and put them in the washtub for Grandma to sort. This had been her chore even when she was too small to reach the clothes pegs on the line. Grandpa had made her a little set of moveable steps with a basket attached to hold the tub. He would push Kati and the steps slowly between the clothes lines. The wind blew,

fluttering wildly, filling with air and straining against the coloured clothes pegs like birds that spread their wings but could not fly away.

The clothes pegs had been plain wooden ones when they were bought, but Kati had coloured them with crayons, pencils and paint progressively, as she mastered each medium. It had started one day when Grandpa said that as a young man he had been a children’s art teacher. The funny look that came over Grandma’s face only encouraged Grandpa to go on about primary colours, warm and cool colours, complementary and opposite colours. He finished by reaching for the nearest object to hand on which to demonstrate his skill. That day the clothes pegs had been right beside him.

The moveable stairs reflected Kati’s height. Now, at the age of nine, she needed only the first step to reach the line. But Kati liked to climb up so that she was higher than the clothes line. She would move her arms like a music conductor, like Mickey Mouse in
Fantasia
. The clothes danced to the song of the wind, and the moves were always new. Sometimes the sun was low in the sky before she finished taking in the clothes.

In the all-purpose room known as ‘Grandma’s office’, the washtubs waited in a line. Kati had to sort the clothes and place them in the correct tub: Grandma’s clothes, Grandpa’s clothes, Kati’s clothes, each in their own tub. The pillowslips and sheets, tea-towels and table napkins, the cleaning rags or ‘yucky cloths’, as Grandpa called them, were separated out, not only as a hygiene measure (an over-the-top hygiene measure, according to Grandpa) but also for the convenience of Sadap when she came to do the ironing for Grandma.

Grandma would come in and arrange the tubs in order of priority. Kati’s school uniforms took pride of place, as these had to be washed, ironed and worn again within the week.

The sound of the rain hissing and splashing on the roof was greatly improved by the plink-plonk drumming on the tubs which had been left outside. Kati lay and listened with pleasure. But she would begin to get jumpy if the rattle of the rain was drowned out by thunder rumbling from the skies. The sound of lightning strikes seemed always to be echoed by a cry of heart-stopping despair. Kati was never certain if this was just the thunder ringing in her ears or a cry coming from somewhere in the darkest recesses of her memory. Grandma would open the bedroom door and come to lie down, holding Kati in her arms until they both fell asleep. Kati lay curled up in Grandma’s embrace. She didn’t want to hear the sky, the rain, the cry, the sound of that woman.

Grandma’s cool smooth skin was faintly scented. Grandma never sang her a lullaby or told her a story to calm her agitated spirit, but she stroked Kati’s back softly, regularly, rhythmically, sending her to sleep. Once Kati half-opened her eyes to look up at Grandma and saw her eyes shining. A distant flash of lightning gave just enough light for Kati to see that, in the darkness, Grandma was crying.

No one ever spoke of mother.

Grandpa bought a little flat-bottomed boat to paddle in the flooded fields when the rainy season came. He said it was a nice way to escape Grandma’s bustle. Kati and Grandpa would go off, just the two of them. They set off in the late morning, Grandpa paddling in a leisurely fashion, passing down the waterway, looking at the fruit trees growing along the banks: mangos and rose apples mingled with casuarinas that liked to grow by the waterside. Grandpa didn’t stop and rest but called greetings to all the people he saw. Uncle Sohn was hauling up his net from the pier in front of his house, and it looked like he had a good catch of tapean fish. Grandpa said that on the way

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home he’d stop and get some for Grandma to marinate in anchovy sauce for Kati’s dinner.

The little boat drew away from the deep shade of the waterway and moved towards the open field that seemed to stretch as far and wide as the eye could see. The water in their wake was ruffled by a gentle breeze, and away in the distance the paddy fields glinted bright green. Grandpa let the boat drift in the centre of the field and began to pick lily stems. You had to look carefully to make sure that you had the
pun
lilies not the
peuan
lilies with their dry bitter taste. The
pun
lilies had bright yellow flowers and round leaves with no veins. Their crisp fresh stems were delicious dipped in the pungent chili sauce which Grandma had wrapped in lily leaves along with newly harvested rice for their lunch. Kati had fun breaking the lily stems up into little pipes and fitting them back together as a necklace. Sometimes Kati would see a raft of
krajup
growing together. She liked them better than water chestnuts, and Grandpa would gather them in the bottom of the boat to take home to boil and eat. Then there were the water hyacinths with their fragile pale-purple blooms. If you held them in your hands, in no time at all they would wither away. The white morning glories were pretty too. Grandpa said if you were an artist like Monet you could make them just as beautiful on canvas.

Grandpa would paddle peacefully, not worrying about what time he left home, where he had to be next and when he had to be home by. Grandpa said they weren’t on a tour according to the dictates of the railway timetable. They were on a tour according to the dictates of their own hearts.

The flat-bellied boat with its stubby bows made an excellent conveyance. It did not pollute the environment, but cut through the clear waters to the stroke of the paddler. If you paddled into a flock of pond-skaters, the insects would scatter wildly, making mayhem. Grandpa and Kati didn’t need to speak. They let the little boat and the water greet each other instead. The sun seemed far away in the sky even though its rays were stronger now. But around them the water completely covered the field, acting as a coolant to cut out the heat. Time seemed to stop still. Water and sky, wind and sun framed a picture in the centre of which floated the little boat. Nevertheless, a boat can’t keep going forward without eventually reaching its destination, no matter how enchanting the journey.