As Sweet as Honey

As Sweet as Honey - By Indira Ganesan


PART ONE

Marriage

So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a

woman looking at a girl throwing a ball.

—To the Lighthouse





1




Our aunt Meterling stood over six feet tall, a giantess, a tree. From her limbs came large hands, which always held a shower of snacks for us children. We could place two of our feet in one of her sandals, and her green shawl made for a roof to cover our play forts. We loved Meterling, because she was so devotedly freakish, because she rained everyone with affection, and because we felt that anyone that tall had to be supernaturally gifted. No one actually said she was a ghost, or a saint, or a witch, but we watched for signs nevertheless. She knew we suspected her of tricks, for she often smiled at us and displayed sleight of hand, pulling coins and shells out of thin air. But that, said Rasi, didn’t prove anything; Rasi had read The Puffin Book of Magic Tricks and pretty much knew them all, and was not so easily impressed.

What was interesting, and never expected, was that Aunt Meterling married the littlest man she knew. He was four feet seven, dapper, and jolly. The grown-ups were embarrassed and affronted, for like Auntie Sita said, it was bad enough having a freakishly tall woman in the family. Yet, they were all relieved that Aunt Meterling found Uncle Archer and he, her.

The wedding was a small enough affair as weddings go, but the bridegroom did ride to town in a white baby Aston Martin decked with garlands of roses and basil. The first marriage rites took place at dawn.

Someone said how sad it was that Meterling’s parents could not be at the wedding, but neither could Archer’s. I wondered what Meterling’s father had been like. He had named her, after all. Who had he been? A man smitten with the German language, it seemed, for her name sounded German, and smitten, too, with his family. A man who died, with his beloved wife, in a car accident, all those years ago. A man who loved his daughter enough to name her something special. A man who must be still alive in Meterling’s heart, I thought.

And her mother? A small, sweet woman who must have loved her daughter, even as she might have seen something in her that marked her for a fragile future. Also absent, also loved, also missing the wedding. I could comprehend Meterling’s longing for her family, because my own father and mother were in America, land of dreams and snow. But lose a mother and a father—no, that was impossible! I could only imagine so far.


I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, straining to see if my aunt would change somehow after the fire ceremony, the part where she walked seven steps hand in hand with Uncle Archer, but she kept her eyes downcast, as became a modest bride, while the priests chanted all around her. She wore a reddish-pinkish gold sari from Kanchi, with twelve inches of gold jhari on its border and thirty-six on the paloo; she had mendhi on her hands and feet, aglow from a bath of turmeric and sandal. In her hair was jasmine, rose, and tulsi. She wore an engagement ring, and during the ceremony she’d get a gold ring on her third finger, left hand, and a ring on her toe. Uncle Archer would get a ring as well. He wore a white pajama suit of heavy material all the way from Bombay, a pink tie, a boutonnière, and sandals. That he was wearing a suit instead of a formal dhoti was radical enough, whispered the aunts, but to hold hands before the ceremony was too much. We knew something was afoot but were not quite sure what the problem was. He’s being intimate, giggled Sanjay, stamping his feet while Rasi and I pretended not to know him. We just shook our heads as our aunts did—we were smart enough to know that rules were being broken left and right, and didn’t need Sanjay to tell us, even if it appeared that he did know more than us. Afterwards, Auntie Pa (her real name was Auntie Parvati, but Sanjay started saying Pa when he was two and could not roll his r’s, and the name stuck) said that she had had a funny feeling in her heart that something was not right, but at that moment, when they were simply standing at the ceremony and later at the reception, everything was fine and there was plenty to eat and drink and toast the couple’s happiness. He was now our uncle. Auntie Pa smiled and playfully tugged Sanjay’s hair.


But no one could have predicted what happened next. One minute Uncle Archer was laughing and dancing with the littlest cousins, and then he took Aunt Meterling out to the dance floor. She had gone to Western dance classes, whispered an aunt, just for this moment. No one doubted Uncle could dance; he was born to wear a suit and tails—in fact, he bore more than a striking resemblance to the Monopoly man, with a full white mustache and a round tummy. A Western waltz was struck up, and everyone left the dance floor. Some of the elders among the guests frowned and turned away, because touch dancing was severely looked down upon, even though we lived in town. As my grandmother would say, this was not Delhi, not Bombay, but Madhupur, a town on the island of Pi in the Bay of Bengal: a place as sweet as honey, where people lived decent lives. Touching was meant for procreation, nothing else. Once, we had looked up “procreation” in the Animal Encyclopedia, but didn’t learn much except about the mating habits of the stickleback fish. But there she was, Aunt Meterling, swathed in gold tissue silk, and there was he, monocled and marvelous, and the music from the hired band began. One turn, two, three, and he was down. Uncle Archer was on the ground. A flurry of activity, then a scream, and we children were pushed aside. The youngest of us didn’t understand but started to cry anyway. Rasi, Sanjay, and I didn’t really understand, either. When it was all over, no one had any appetite for the plates of round halvah and sugared grapes.


We were stunned into silence. We had not been paying attention. We never would have believed it if someone told us. We grew still with shock. We were eleven, nine, and ten. Plus all of our other cousins. All of us kids. It was the worst thing we had seen, or nearly seen. He had died in an instant.


There was not even a chance to see where exactly he measured up, someone said, in a half-giggle or cry, whether to her knee (“That’s silly,” said Rasi), her elbow, her chin. In truth, most of the guests hardly knew him, had only seen him once or twice, and mostly from afar. And it was hard for us to see much during all of the ceremony, because Sanjay started chasing Mani, who had swiped his spin top, and Rasi joined in to help Mani, and she dragged me with her. Mary Angel from two doors down called to us to share her caramels. We forgot about Mani and Sanjay as we ate the caramels. Rasi said we had to avoid her schoolteacher. She did not look so menacing to me when I saw her, a perfectly nice woman with her husband, who smiled broadly, making me think Rasi hadn’t done some schoolwork, or had skipped out on a class. All in all, we hardly saw them wed.

But their love was palpable, like a color that was visible, almost heard. Their arms reached for each other with the sweetest sigh. Fingertips touching, swish of gold, monocle flash. One step, two step, three, gone.

Meterling sobbed in a corner. She sat right down, three feet of her against the wall, another three and more stretched on the floor. Her crying was fraught and unabashed, and no one seemed to know what to do. No one had ever seen her cry, because her height made her seem protected from whatever ill might befall ordinary women. Grandmother, no slouch, sharply spoke to anyone who said “It’s too bad,” and gave them work to do. The other aunties crowded around; some, you know, were waiting for a moment like this, because Meterling, that awkward fish, had landed a man before they did. But others, like Nalani, just burst into tears for the loss and grief.


The marriage hall quickly cleared, and they took Uncle Archer’s body away. Uncle Darshan and Uncle Thakur ushered Aunt Meterling out. I looked back at the decorated hall, the garlands of pink, white, and orange flowers trailing from the ceiling, and those crushed on the floor. A funny feeling filled my stomach as I stared at the trampled blooms. A handful of cooks and cleaners began to clear up the food and sweep up, while a priest continued to pray, and there was a loud murmur of voices all at once as we exited. Outside, the musicians bowed their hands to our grandmother, offering condolences.


We gathered on the veranda that evening, not sure what to do. In an instant, our house had gone from celebration to mourning. The family doctor had been a guest, and now she was in charge of the body. Was it a heart attack? An attack on the brain? All we heard was the muffled crying of Meterling, which made Auntie Pa want to have us stay with neighbors, but my grandmother decided we should stay home and not cause trouble.