Her Daughter

By Madiha

I hit the bed as soon as I reached his apartment. I was too tired to think of ethics and etiquette of usurping someone else’s bed. But knowing him, he would anyway make an exception for a pregnant friend. The sheets smelled of jasmine. Ugh! Too sweet. I made a mental note to remind him to change his fabric softener.

He peeped into the room and let out a throaty chuckle at my half-dead, Christ-the-Redeemer-on-the-bed state.

“Would you like something to eat?”

“Yes, please,” I groaned. “Order Italian.”

“Well I was going to cook. I could toss up some nice pasta if you want.”

“You can cook Italian? And here, in my three years of knowing you, I thought you were abhorrent to anything that isn’t Chinese.”

“Your sarcastic faculty has weakened considerably, amica.”

“You can’t expect much brain work from an almost dead woman. Let me off the hook for today. Now go, cook for me, slave.”

“Aren’t you going to help me?”

“Absolutely not.”

His brows knitted up, a look of concern that I have come to understand so well. “You okay there?”

“Yes. Just leave me alone,” came out my ogre voice as he laughed and walked out. “Get me some dessert too.” I shouted from inside the room.

“Not your Mom.” He replied in his usual sing-song sarcastic tone, but this time it stunned both of us.

A slip of tongue on his part, a thousand ice buckets thrown at my face on my part. There followed an awkward silence in the apartment, for he had just realised what he did. Probably, deciding mutually that saying anything anymore would only worsen the situation, we stayed quiet.

But my mind. Oh, my mind. I instantly sat upright in bed, all the weariness of the day washing away. How could one word, so small, hold so much power as to disrupt everything in me? Not that it always made me lose my senses, but this time I am going to blame it on the pregnancy hormones.

I have just three memories of my mother. Of all the vague passing glimpses that I could picture in my head, these three were strong and bright.

She would walk everyday to get groceries right after my father would leave for work in the morning. And some days, she would take me, an anxious four years old, to accompany her. She always held my hand at the wrist to walk me around, never the palm. It was a summer morning and I could feel the sweat on my wrist where she held it. It didn’t loosen her grip anyway. Sweat probably never bothered her anyway. I had seen her walking around the house, drenched, unworried about it. It was always an uncomfortable sight for me to look at, but for her it didn’t matter. She was always careful with the vegetables she would buy. I took interest in looking at her as she regarded those green leaves I dreaded eating with a reverence I had never seen her show anything else. A bundle of those green leaves, and other green leaves, and other green leaves, some bulbous vegetables, and some chillies, I knew chillies, I hated them. I looked around curiously at the mayhem on that street. The normal conversations, but in abundance, were overwhelming me. I had decided to tune them out and focus on seeing things. The

vendor’s cart was dirty. A dirty, sodden red mat covered his cart on which were craftily arranged the shiny green and purple vegetables. The wheels of the cart had caught my attention for no reason. They were muddy. A slime like mud was dripping off it and I never took my eyes off its path it traced on the tyre. A sudden jerk to my hand brought me out of my reverie. Mother was walking back and I was with her. I became painfully aware of the sweat where her palm held my wrist. Somehow, she was able to complete the barter without letting go of my hand. The walk back home again included a lot of pulling. There used to be a comfortable silence between us. She never minded me, like I was one of the things she just bought and was carrying back home now and hence too precious to lose. But I hated these walks. They felt like overloads to me. Too much to see, too much to hear, while feeling sweat on my wrist. Mother reached home and then only would she let go of me. And I didn’t wait another instant to wipe the sweat off my skirt. She didn’t look. She never looked. She was mechanical. Her actions were less inspired and more conditioned. I stood to watch her as she washed and stored the just bought vegetables. Only vegetables could evoke a reverence out of her. It amazed me how routined her hands carried them, how learned were her legs’s movements. But then it happened. She looked at me. No, not through me, at me. She looked at me. And for a split second, I could swear, I saw her do this weird thing with her face, the corner of her lips moved up, there was a light in her otherwise glassy eyes and I could feel a strange warmth spreading through my chest. In the next instant, the mechanical face of hers was back. This had never happened before, and would never happen again. I never again felt that warmth on my chest.

We were all sitting at the dining table- I, my mother, grandmother, grandfather, my brother, and a strange man I had now come to recognise as my father. My brother was on with his antics. It always fascinated me how he could speak. I rarely spoke. Grandma liked that. Grandfather never cared. And the other man, I don’t know about him, I rarely saw him around. But my brother could speak. And he could speak for hours and hours. I loved to listen to him speaking, his made up stories, his untrue anecdotes. That evening too he was going off about some heroic deed of his. My stomach was queasy and I didn’t want to eat. But out of fear of my mother, I tried to stuff my mouth and swallow all that I could. Few moments later, my stomach felt acidic and I knew I was going to throw up. But I was scared, I couldn’t speak. It got bad. I was making heaving sounds. Next thing I know, I threw up. Without anyone realising, mechanically, were my mother’s palms next to my face and she had the half chewed bolus that I just threw up. It was disgusting for me to look at. There was a commotion on the dining table. Mother walked, mechanically, to the sink to wash her hands and then took me with her to wash my face. I was handed a glass of lime water that did wonders to my stomach. They sent me with my mother to bed. The last thing I remember before drifting off to sleep was my mother’s palms holding my puke.

We had an elaborate swing in the balcony of our house. I enjoyed sitting there whenever I got the opportunity. Had it not been for crows and mosquitoes, it would have been my favourite spot of the house. Mosquitoes were annoying, but crows scared me to my soul. Grandma would often tell me how crows take away little kids who disobey their elders to their own lands and then they feast on their tiny fingers. I was always hyperaware of crows, so attuned to their sounds and movements in the verandah of the house that they almost dictated my actions. But inside the house were no crows, and sometimes, in some rooms there were no elders. And in those rooms, I could do whatever I wanted and the crows wouldn’t know, like stealing a shiny

red tablet from my grandfather’s medicine box and chewing on it. It always tasted bitter and every next time I expected it to taste better. This was my act of rebellion against the crows. This was me challenging them. I was being disobedient but they could do nothing about it. They couldn’t know. It was the rains that brought me the most joy. Because with it would leave the crows and the mosquitoes and I could sit on the swing and be the rightful citizen of my house. Mother didn’t like the rain, I remember. She never said that, but then, she would rarely say anything. But I distinctly remember seeing minute worry lines on her head everytime it would rain. I knew whenever it rained she worried about how the laundry was going to get dry. Whenever it rained, she would be obsessively cleaning the verandah floor lest my brother or grandma would slip. I was smart, I never moved, so I wouldn’t slip. I would, with fascination, watch her mechanics, as she would walk around the house drenched in sweat taking care of the things that the rain had soaked. I distinctly remember her rain ritual. I distinctly remember what rain meant to her.

A knock on the door brought me back to the present. He stood there with two steaming plates of shrimp spaghetti. I would never admit it to him, but I was grateful that he existed. An escape, or a conformity, I couldn’t classify him though. He handed me the plate and sat next to me on the bed. At that moment all I could think was how his sheets would be spoiled if the red sauce of spaghetti dripped on his white, jasmine-scented sheets.

“So how are things?” He knew I hated it when he spoke with a mouthful of food. He was doing it on purpose to annoy me. I thought two could play the game. I stuffed my mouth with food. “Things are fine. Usual. Normal.”

He laughed. Somedays, his laugh was the only highlight of my day.

“Did you talk to your grandfather?” I should have seen this coming. No build up, straight to the point.

“The nurse texted this morning. He was doing normal.”

“Why do you talk to the nurse? Why don’t you, for once, talk to him? He is all that you are left with.”

“How does it matter? He can’t even remember me.”

“That is okay. But you remember him. Talk to him for that.”

“Do I? Do I remember him? I don’t think so. I can’t place him anywhere in my life.” “Alright.” He knew he was defeated. “This went nowhere.”

“Nice try.”

“So…” he trailed off. Here comes another talk. “What about the father?”

“What father?” I knew exactly what he was asking, but I decided to act nonchalant about it. “Your child’s father. I don’t want to invade your privacy, but I can’t help being concerned. Who is the father? Does he know about it?”

“I won’t tell you and no.”

“Alright, don’t tell me who he is. But at least let him know.”

“Why? How does that matter?”

“It might not matter to you now, but it might matter to your child later.”

“What matters to the child years later is none of my business now. Besides, there is no point. Fathers are unreliable.”

“And mothers are reliable? I think mothers and daughters are just two bodies sharing one trauma.” He knew what he was doing, hitting a weak spot on purpose to elicit any reaction out of me.

My househelp had brought me back from school. She was crying all the way back. When I reached home, the house was flooded with people. Weird wailing noises echoes around the house. The househelp took me to my room and changed me out of my school uniform. It was unlikely of my mother to not take me downstairs for lunch. Instead, the househelp brought a serving of last night’s leftovers and fed me. I was never the one to ask questions. If my mother would be around she would have forced me for an afternoon nap. I hated afternoon naps. But today felt like freedom. Mother wasn’t around and I didn’t have to sleep. I could catch the 4:30 telecast of my favourite show that I generally missed because mother would put me to nap. As excited I was I went down running. There were a lot of people in the living room. That was concerning because I couldn’t turn on the television with them around. Some woman, wailing, held my hand and took me to my grandmother’s room. She was sitting in a corner and crying into the loose end of her blue saree. I sat next to her and she put my head in her lap. She was going to put me to sleep, I was sure of that. That angered me, but I was never the one to say anything. It was almost half an hour of me sitting in that uncomfortable position in grandma’s lap and she had been constantly crying. I was thirsty. Instead of asking someone to fetch me water, I decided to get it myself. Slowly, getting out of grandma’s lap- she was crying badly, she didn’t even know I left- I made my way to the kitchen, trying to avoid hitting all the people on the way. Some women stood at the kitchen’s entrance and instead of crying they were talking animatedly and were so lost in their conversation that they didn’t see the little child sneaking under them. I was about to reach out for the steel water tumbler when all of a sudden something shiny caught my eye. It was the glass tumbler shelf that was prohibited for me and my brother. I looked around. Mother wasn’t there. I could fetch one of the tumblers, drink water and put it back and mother would never know, now would the crows. I tried to stand on my tiptoes to reach the shelf. The women were still indulging in their conversation, unaware of me, “they found her hanging from the ceiling this morning. She was an okay woman, God knows what went wrong.” I was still short and tried to reach up further. I was determined to get one today. “They are rich people. She had everything. Why would she do that?” I had stretched enough to reach the shelf. I was able to get hold of a tumbler. “Such a selfish woman. Didn’t even think about her kids.” As I caught it, it slipped from my hand and fell down. The loud crash alerted the woman. The tumbler was broken. Now mother would be angry. One of the women picked me up and deposited me next to my still wailing grandmother. I sat with my palms under my buttocks and my feet tucked under grandma’s saree. I was scared. Now the crows would know what I did in the kitchen. They would take me away. I was hiding my fingers and toes. I started to cry, I didn’t want to be fed upon by the crows. Grandma pulled me closer to her and sometime later, I drifted off to sleep.

He snapped his fingers in front of me to bring me back. “You have been going away like this, a lot lately.”

“Hormones.”

“How long before the little you comes out?”

“If everything goes fine, four months more.”

“Great. I am excited.”

“Good for you.”

“You aren’t?”

“What is there to be excited about?”

“Nevermind.” And there followed an awkward silence, which knowing him, he wouldn’t let it last long.

“There is something I needed to say.” Here it came. “This is going to be hard for you. How hard? I do not know. And I think you don’t know that either. But I need you to know that if you need any help I am always here.”

“Can you change diapers?”

“I draw a line there.”

“Expected. But thanks anyway.”

“Also, if the hormones manage to make your tear ducts functional and you need a shoulder to cry on, you have me.” He held my hand.

“I know.” I gave his palm a squeeze.

June was rising and wasn’t going to be any less cruel in the coming days. Summers were intolerable to me. The heat would give me frequent headaches. What had added to my headaches recently was my two months old daughter’s incessant crying. I did not know how to stop that. I just hoped that the Lord above would make this crying stop to give me some moments of peace. People I knew had romanticised motherhood. Beautiful maternal instincts they kept talking about. It was anything but that. It was ugly and smelly and filthy. I knew the child that was inside my body. But ever since she came out, we are just two strangers. And I was sure we did not like each other. I didn’t feel like a person anymore. I was a machine that was invented to fulfil her needs. She needed to be fed, she needed to be kept clean, she needed to be kept safe. I would move around the apartment finding things for her or keeping from her. Most days I smelled of puke, because she would puke on me and multiple showers a day weren’t practical with her around. I had learned to not mind the puke and the smell anymore. I still smelled of puke. She threw up milk on me an hour ago and I just wiped it off. She was just crying. Nothing stopped her. She wouldn’t accept my breast, or rattles, or was pacified by rocking. “Would you just tell me what you want? I don’t know, okay? I don’t understand?” And my yelling had no effect on her. There was no comprehension with her. I was pacing around the house, exhausted and drenched in sweat, rocking her on my shoulder. And when nothing seemed to work, I left her to her incessant crying. She was lying on the bed, crying. Her cries now turned white noise to me. I laid down in bed next to her. I wasn’t me anymore. My body wasn’t mine anymore. I didn’t exist anymore. And that pained me. I turned to look at the cause of my pain. Did I hate her? I didn’t know. And I didn’t like not knowing. Maybe we could give this another try, I thought. I held her hand at wrist. She kept crying and I didn’t mind that anymore. The summer heat induced sweat. I could feel the sweat oozing in my palm where I held her wrist. Her crying slowly quieted down. For the second time in my life, that strange warmth spread through my chest. I looked at her and the corners of my lips rose up. Before I knew it, I was crying. Mothers and daughters were just two bodies sharing one trauma.

By Madiha