Tamarind Mem by Anita Rau Badami

or the sight of his dirty shoes in the verandah. When Ma had her headache coming on, Roopa and I had to be as quiet as mice. She did not like the sound of chalk on the slate, or the whisper of our slippered feet.
    I knew almost everything about my mother, even that she sometimes fibbed to Dadda about what she did all morning. But when I told her that I heard her fibbing, she pulled me on her lap and said, “My darling Baby knows everything about Ma, hanh? But it’s our secret, okay? Yours and mine? And if you are a good girl and keep the secret, what do you think you will get from me?”
    “A box of crayons?”
    Sometimes Ma gave me only a box of Veera Sweet Mint, and at others I could persuade her to get me dolls and books. There were times, though, when Ma got mad with me and slapped me instead.
    “What cheek!” she would exclaim, her slaps brisk and sharp, stinging my thighs.
    I would wait for Dadda to come home, and cry, “Ma beat me, I didn’t do anything, only asked her not to go out, and she beat me.”
    It always worked. Dadda scolded Ma, his face cold with anger, “Your place is in this house, not out there in the streets doing social work and gossip while my daughters run around like gypsy beggars.”
    I collected these small instances and bided my time. It all depended on how annoyed I was with Ma. Sometimes, it didn’t even matter how many toys Ma got for me. I disliked being left at home with Linda Ayah. She made me eat up all the carrots and peas that I picked outof the food and arranged on the side of the plate, insisting that if I didn’t eat them, the vegetable
bhooth
would sit on my stomach when I went to sleep. Or she would force me to take a nap along with Roopa so that she could watch both of us without chasing about the house.
    Once when Dadda came home from a trip to Chittaranjan, he asked Ma what she had done all week and she shrugged and said, “I wasn’t well, I slept most of the time.”
    I hated my mother for leaving me with Linda, and for not getting me the paint-box she had promised, so I told Dadda, “Ma is fibbing, she went out in a taxi.”
    For a few days after, Dadda came home at five in the evening only to have a quick shower before driving away to the club, where he stayed till late at night. Sometimes I woke to the sound of his keys in the front door and the low angry murmur of Ma’s voice. Sometimes I thought that the angry voice was Dadda’s, but in my half-sleep I was never sure. Then I felt sorry for having tale-tattled to Dadda. I wished that I was more like Roopa who kept her mouth buttoned up tight, never breathing a word people did not want to hear. I envied my sister’s willingness to listen to everybody and then swallow all that she had heard. It made her seem such a
good
girl. Even Linda Ayah, with her glasses that saw right into a person’s heart, could find no fault with Roopa. “Why can’t you learn a few things from that sister of yours? Half your size and twice as smart, that child,” she sighed.
    On Saturdays, Ma took both of us for a trip to Simon’s Market to buy provisions and other necessaries for the house. It was also the day she bought us a toy or a trinket.She got a little gift for herself as well, telling us with a naughty twinkle in her eyes, “Don’t tell your Dadda, he will make a face and scold me. He will say don’t waste money.”
    Once she bought herself a pair of long silver earrings with
meena
-work in blue and magenta and said that she would give them to me on my wedding day. Another time it was eight toe-rings decorated with tiny flowers, fish and peacocks. I never saw her wear any of these ornaments and often wondered why she even bought them.
    Ma and Roopa and I had so many secrets, I was becoming afraid to talk to my father in case a secret slipped out, although at one time I had loved cuddling up on his lap and telling him about school and my friends, and listening to his railway stories.
    “In Aunlajori, where we had to