As Sweet as Honey

14




Intelligence, my girls, is how you maintain yourself in independence,” said Aunt Pa one day, out of the blue. “Year after year,” she continued. “It’s knowing how much to spend at the market so you have something left over to spend again. It’s making sure all the channels of cash flow are open, that nothing is caught, creating blockage, creating snags. It’s making sure that as well as a way out, there is always a way in. Entrance is as important as that Exit sign that’s got you so fixed—oh, I know all about it, how at the movie theater, you spot that sign first. And why not?—it’s so lit up, so red, so bright. It’s for emergencies, after all, for fires and power outages, for stampedes, any unforeseen circumstances. But the Entrance sign is important, too. That one is green, green for ‘go,’ green for ‘hello.’ The entrance sign that lets you in, no matter what color, what class, the thumbs-up in our lives. You girls don’t know how hard we fought for your independence. You don’t know how it was back then, with the British. You don’t know.”

And it was true what Auntie Pa was telling us: we didn’t know. Rasi and Sanjay and all of us, girls and boys both, we just felt so free and lucky those days. We were nine, and ten, and eleven. The world really was our oyster, ours for the taking. We did like to run, we liked to shout, and we liked to sing at the top of our voices. Grown people like Aunt Pa were mystifying. They liked to drink tea, they liked to talk, they had eyes so creased with tears and fears and trembling. It made no sense to us. But at one time, Nalani says, they were young too, all of them, in braids and rag-tail hair, screaming and running and shouting for the sheer joy of it. But the years made one quieter, in our family anyway, it made for a steadier gaze, a firmer walk. And all at once, we hugged Auntie Pa, who batted us away, like she was annoyed, and told us to stop making ourselves pesky, so we ran off to find Grandmother.

We found her in the garden, Grandmother, watering her plants. A new one had bloomed. She called it Chandra, for the moon, and indeed its white, round bloom looked so soft and heavenly, just like the full moon. But softer than the moon, too, which can appear harsh sometimes, all silvery and cold in the sky. This flower was more yellow, creamier, like we could cuddle into it as if it were a pillow and coverlet, and sleep quite soundly, if we were small like Thumbelina, say, or Tom Thumb.


“There is a saying,” said Meterling, “that the gods rain down gifts and tangle up our brains.” Why else (she thought but did not say, as did we) would the gods give me such a man as Archer, only to take him away? Again and again, all over the world this happens, this suffering. A baby dies, the parents overcome by grief, overwrought by pain.

Grandmother takes in all of this hurt, all of these questions, and shrugs her shoulders. In that shrug lies the way of compassion, of not knowing. But when one is in the throes of emotion, a shrug is hard to come by. A shrug is ancient; it is a way of acknowledging the pain, of moving past it while acknowledging it, of recognizing that many things are out of our control, that the world is impermanent, that love and loss go hand in hand.

As children, our tradition dictates that we be sheltered from all this pain and suffering, sheltered, as it turns out, from the human condition itself. But kids are smart. We figure it out soon enough. We know the grown-ups don’t tell us everything, that their ways and methods are baffling, but they are kidding themselves if they think we don’t know about suffering. We see it all the time. But as children, perhaps, at least outwardly, we recover more quickly.

Sanjay, Rasi, and I were a team of sorts, a triad of playmates who took turns helping each other to figure it out. When you grow up in an extended, stretchy family, the mothering and fathering is done in batches, but there is also a great deal of freedom. When there are only two parents and one or two children, the attention can be focused, but on the island of Pi, we just ran around like rowdies, like we were free.


Nalani saw Meterling’s suffering differently, more tangibly, like a shard of steel or glass in her heart. For Nalani, Meterling’s heart was embedded with this sliver, and the sliver, like a splinter, needed to be dislodged. Inside her heart, Nalani believed, Meterling carried her grief, and it was up to us, her family, to help her both carry the pain and dislodge it.

But it was hard to deal with Meterling’s pain those first few months. It came and went like a flame on a matchstick. With us, she would be happy, or pretend to, and then when she thought she was alone, it would come pouring out. We knew people who suffered from sadness. That sadness twisted in and out like a knife, making the person double in pain sometimes, and sometimes it was like a path that pointed down. Sanjay, Rasi, and I felt bad for Meterling when we saw her doubled up in pain.

What could we do for Meterling?

“Should we make her presents?”

“A boat that she could use?”

“A boat?”

“A wooden boat.”

“What would she do with a boat?”

“Everyone wants a boat.”

“You want a boat—not everyone does.”

“Maybe she’d want to play with Scrap?”

“Rani Mami says Auntie should stay away from Scrap until the birth.” Rani Mami had come with Dr. Kamalam to examine our aunt. She would help her when it was time.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should just bring her tea and biscuits.”

“That’s what Grandmother says.”

Our aunt had a lot of tea and biscuits.


Nalani practiced yoga. Nalani practiced deep breathing and dancelike asanas to help her float and ground, energize and stay rooted. One hundred and eight sun salutations was her goal, but usually she did just ten. Sometimes she asked us to join her, but Rasi and I were not very interested. But Sanjay sometimes stayed with her as she rolled out her mat on the roof, and practiced with her, side by side. Afterwards, Rasi and I would tease him, but usually, we noticed, for an hour or so after yoga, he remained fairly oblivious to our teasing.

Nalani also tried to get Meterling to join her in her yoga, but Meterling always shook her head.

“It will be so good for you, Meti, good for your bones, good for your skin,” she’d say, but Meterling always shook her head no, grasped her teacup with both hands, and walked away to muse.

“Archer—she has to let him go. He has taken her heart and she needs it back.”

“I thought she had a splinter in her heart.”

“Both. She has it all. The whole kit and caboodle of grief.”

And we wondered what a caboodle was, if it was anything like a caboose.


Invoking Rilke, Aunt Pa said, “May her tear-filled face make her more shining, may her simple tears flower,” and, noticing us, she said, “Something I read once, long ago,” sweeping past us, not allowing us to follow. Oh, what a family we had! But Aunt Pa turned back, looked at us, and said, “What I think that means is to let something good come out of the grief.”

Oscar, Oscar was going to come out of the grief, out of her belly, we thought, cheered up once again, although doubt had entered rather sneakily into our hearts.