Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa Page A

questions ... What is eternity? Why are the stars? Where do cats lay their eggs? And why don’t hospitals have flushing bedpans built into the beds?
    Rosy never even looks at the jars unless I am there. If they were to fall this minute and smash to smithereens she would be sad—the destruction of beauty is depressing—but she wouldn’t miss them among all her little pots and pans and cups and saucers. Would it be stealing then? Taking away something Rosy doesn’t want anyway?
    I cannot bring myself to ask her to give them to me. She might refuse. It’s an unthinkable risk. I know when you want something very much it gives people power over you. I will not give
Rosy that power to withhold—or to grant. Too many people have it as it is.
    Silently Rosy gets up and leaving a damp indentation of her dusty bottom on the bedspread goes out of the room.
    My hands feel weak. I cannot stir out of my crouched position. I force my mind to be rational. Hundreds of thousands of people steal...
    Suddenly my brain clicks. My eyes locate the fireplace. My hands spring to life, deft and obedient, and I bury the jars in a bed of ashes. It is almost summer. No one will kindle a fire for months. I can leave the jars there till Rosy forgets they ever existed.
    . Rosy returns bearing a saucer and my heart sinks. On the saucer are small mounds of sugar, rice and red pepper. It is an offering. A maneuver to shore up my shaky allegiance; and a silent testimony of her worth. She knows I love filling the jars, like their enormous counterparts in the kitchen, with sugar and rice.
    There is no help for it. While Rosy fills the toy teapot with water from the bathroom I pry out the jars from the ashes and fill them with rice and sugar.
    I could weep. Any time I maneuver a set of circumstances to suit me this happens. Fate intervenes. There is no other word for it. Fated! Doomed! No wonder I have such a scary-puss of a conscience.

    Ayah has acquired two new admirers: a Chinaman and the Pathan.
    Mother wonders why we are suddenly swamped with such a persistent display of embroidered bosky-silk and linen tea cozies, tray-cloths, trolley sets, tablecloths, counterpanes, pillowcases and bedsheets.
    Twice a week the Chinaman cycles up our drive, rattling and bumping over the stones, a huge khaki bundle strapped to the carrier.
    Our drive is made of packed earth. Every year, worn by traffic
and eroded by monsoons, the drive lays bare patches of brick rubble.
    The Chinaman is dapper, thin, brusque and rude. He parks his bicycle in the porch, removes the cycle-clips from his khaki trousers and heaves his bundle to the veranda. “Comeon, comeon, Chinaman come!” he shouts, squatting before his bundle and sorting out his wares for display. “Comeon Memsahib, comeon Ayah. Comeon, comeon, Chinaman come!”
    Mother yells from inside: “Tell him to get out! What is this nonsense? Coming every day! Ayah? Yousaf? Is anyone there?”
    Ayah comes to the veranda. “Go, go!” she says in tart English. (Besides Cantonese, the Chinaman speaks only a smattering of English.) “Memsahib no want. Go, Go!”
    But the Chinaman has sprung his trap with cunning. Ayah’s attention is snared by the shimmering colors. Her eyes wander to the silks.
    â€œComeon, comeon,” he coaxes, getting up. He reaches for Ayah’s arm and pulls her to his silks. “See?” he says, stroking his free hand over the bosky and then over her arm. “It silky like your skin. See? See?” he says burying her hand in the soft heap.
    Ayah knows well how to handle his bold tilted eyes and his alien rudeness. “Oh-ho,” she says, all singsongy. “I have no munneeey—how I buy?”
    â€œYou sit,” coaxes the Chinaman, pulling Ayah to squat beside him and, retaining his hold, engages her in a staccato and desultory conversation. When Ayah’s restiveness becomes uncontrollable he introduces a bribe: