As Sweet as Honey

2




Our family is medium-sized. I used to wish for sisters and brothers, but really, having Sanjay and Rasi and all our other cousins was enough. My grandmother had four daughters and one son: Rema, Parvati, Jyoti, Chandra, and Tharak. Rasi and Sanjay are my cousins closest in age. We all lived in Grandmother’s house, along with Auntie Meterling and Nalani. Rasi’s father, Uncle Thakur, is usually in Dubai or Singapore for business; but her mother, Auntie Pa, lives in Madhupur. Uncle Darshan, Sanjay’s father, lives nearby, a few districts over, and is a college professor. His wife, Chandra, who was also the sister of my mother and Auntie Pa, died giving birth to little Appam, so Sanjay practically lives with us as well. Appam stays with Uncle Darshan’s sister and her husband, who have no children and are looking after him like a mother and father would. Rasi (whose real name is Rasisvari) has two sisters who are much older than her, both already married and living in India. Nalani (who we call just Nalani, not Nalani-Acca, or Elder Sister, because she is still unmarried and young) says there are enough kids for everybody. She is the daughter of my mother’s sister Rema, who died with Nalani’s father, both of them on a hiking trip in Ooty, while Nalani was in school, long before Rasi, Sanjay, and I were born. Meterling is the daughter of our uncle Tharak, my mother’s brother, but we still call her Aunt even though technically she is our cousin. My mother and father are Jyoti and Jai, both in America, working on their PhD’s in astrophysics and organic chemistry. I’m Mina, and at the time of the wedding I was ten, Rasi was eleven, and Sanjay was nine.


We had heard snatches of their story before, of how Meterling and Archer met at a party thrown for a local nawab, minutes before Meterling was to leave to go home. A Cinderella story, only they didn’t live happily ever after. And no glass slipper. Instead, Archer and Meterling spoke, captured each other’s hearts without intending to, and went home determined to meet again.

“He wore funny socks,” said Meterling. “Imagine wearing socks in this heat.” Meterling had worn yellow and looked like a radiant flower, said Grandmother.

They met at the train station next, where they nodded hello, and Archer asked Meterling to another party. This was a more awkward situation, because Meterling was, despite her height and name, a proper girl of specific caste and region, and Archer was an unknown. Marry an unknown to a known, and who knows what the net result might be! But marriage wasn’t in anyone’s head, merely social edification, so Meterling was sent to the party—a reception, really, for one of our neighbors who came back from the States with a degree. The grumbling was minimal, more or less, but two chaperones were provided, just in case. Meterling was twenty-eight (too old already, according to our town’s standards) and as such was ripe to marry a fat fifty-year-old from a neighboring town, Mr. Govinda, but as fate would have it, she fell in love with Uncle Archer, who was only Archer at the time, fat enough himself and close to forty.

At the second party, the hostess had decided on a theme of jellyfish to honor the local marine biologist, and served vegetable cutlets with ketchup and multicolored badushas. Meterling stood in front of a punch bowl full of seashells, and looked for something to drink. Archer offered her a cup of something sea-green, tasting like a little of this, a little of that, with the tiniest kick thrown in between.

“Vodka?” she wondered out loud, before accepting.

He shook his head, saying, “Seven-Up with food color.”

Meterling had never tasted such a fizzy drink before and immediately burped. Archer let one out too, to save her embarrassment, and that’s how their fate was sealed. They decided to go outside to see the roses. Mrs. Mohan’s roses were famed all over the district; it was rumored she ordered them direct from England. They were large, immensely fragrant, and individually named.

Meterling smiled.

“How complicated it must be to live here as a foreigner,” she said.

“How hard do you think it is to grow roses?” he asked in reply.

Riddles, they both thought, feeling awkward.

Then Archer looked away a bit.

Then he held her gaze.

She felt embarrassed, and wondered if anyone could see. Who was this man anyway? A footfall prevented intimate conversation, and they went back inside.

In the American films we were not allowed to see, couples fell in love at first sight. In fact, they did in Hindi films too. One of my grandfather’s friends fell in love when he saw a girl on a bus, and married her within a week. My aunt did not fall in love with Uncle Archer so quickly. She said he made her laugh, but she could not take him seriously at first. In fact, only when the entire family had fallen in love with him could she entertain the notion of marriage.


He was easy to love. He came to our house bearing small, funny gifts, and flirted outrageously with our grandmother and Auntie Pa. He complimented them on their saris, spoke knowledgeably about market prices for potatoes and string beans, and knew the words to old filmi songs. He made them smile. With Uncle Darshan, he was more reserved, but only in the beginning. He soon cheerfully played and lost game after game of Parcheesi and cards, and sometimes he and Uncle Darshan retired with glasses of gin.

He gave us a clock shaped like a cat, whose tail swung to and fro and could open and close its eyes. We were delighted. We had a grandfather clock that Grandfather had received as a gift from one of his clients, but this plastic clock seemed to represent a new age, a new era. He gave us a set of Russian nested dolls and a set of miniature sport cars. “Put a tiger in your tank!” said one, which didn’t make sense, but we loved it anyway. He pulled our braids, tousled Sanjay’s hair. He taught us to improve our badminton. He told us jokes that made us crack up. He reminded me of a cuddly old teddy bear, eager to please and a bit beaten up.

When he came to the house one evening to ask our grandmother if he could marry her oldest granddaughter, Grandmother did not hesitate too much. My grandfather had known his father, the Gin King, and had often played cards with him into the wee hours. When they had first met the Gin King, she thought the foreigner was a bad influence on the neighborhood, and on her husband. My grandfather said no, the man was only lonely, missing his family, who were in England. Because she remembered Grandfather’s good opinion of the Gin King, she gave her approval for Meterling to wed. She worried only what people would say. Marriage across color lines, not counting religious and cultural lines, was unusual but not unheard of, even in Pi. She wanted to be sure Meterling was certain about Archer, not resigned to any marriage instead of no marriage. If he had been Indian or an islander, this question would not even have arisen. Our aunt must have reassured her, because a date was set for late September.


I was glad Uncle Archer’s parents were spared his death. Grandmother herself had seen the death of three of her children as adults: Meterling’s father, Nalani’s mother, and Sanjay’s mother. Even one was one too many, and there are people in the city who say my grandfather died of grief. I knew that the death of a child is the very worst thing that can happen to a parent. My grandmother’s face was lined, soft, stoic as well. She could be cross with exasperation, and her voice could turn querulous. Maybe she knew more than we did that life wasn’t to be wasted over petty things. But how does one separate petty from what is important if what is petty seems important at the time? Whenever we fought, it was always over something of importance. When we were punished for fighting—our toys being taken away, or having to write out the times table—we sometimes forgot what the fight was about.

I never saw my grandmother cry. I wondered if she cried in bed, like I did. We used to take turns sleeping with Grandmother, or we’d all tumble into bed with her. Her body was so comforting, a big mound gently breathing. She smelled good, too, not like powder or perfume, like some of the overseas aunties, but of chapati dough, wet silk saris hung out to dry, sometimes vetiver. The fan circled above, and the night’s shine came in through the windows. Sanjay, Rasi, and I believed that if we slept with Grandmother, mosquitoes would not bite us at night. Look, we’d say, showing off our smooth arms and legs in the morning, no bites.



“Was Uncle Archer really a white man, Auntie?” asked Rasi one afternoon.

But Aunt Meterling didn’t answer, just got that distant look in her eyes, and we threw Rasi murderous looks. What a thing to ask! She had been at the wedding like all of us. A few myopic older great-aunts had whispered “Kashmiri” as they gazed at Archer’s pale face and sandy gray hair. Some thought he was Anglo-Indian, which was what Rasi was asking, but we knew better. His father, Oscar, was English, as was his mother; both had a fondness for Robin Hood. We knew too that Archer’s father was a gin maker, although we didn’t know what gin was exactly. The place he made gin was on the island somewhere. There was a card game called gin, and one called rummy, though we ourselves played “Declare” with ten cards, one sequence, no jokers. But Archer’s father’s gin was liquor, and not for children, and no, we don’t have any in the house, go run out and play. Archer had worked for his father in Distribution, not Disturbance like some neighbor suggested, and why were we listening to all this talk anyway?—but when his father died, yes, I am still telling you the story, Archer decided to live on Pi instead of England, and live off the interest of his inheritance. That’s why his bungalow, which we saw only once, was as sparsely furnished as an islander’s, though most of the British and European homes on the island were thick with furniture and lamps and paintings, even pianos. It would have been nice, though, if he had had a piano.

• • •

Archer had invited his family to the wedding, but only his sister and a cousin attended.

Mother? Uncles? Nieces?

He had little family, most already dead. Some friends from Eton showed up.

He went to Eton?

Someplace like that, anyway.

Some friends from Eton, then, showed up, with girlfriends and wives, and kept a watch on proceedings. The family retainer attended. One of the women wore a sari, insisted on hennaed feet and hands, and spoke a good deal about a Madame Blavatsky and vegetarianism. Some of the foreign men gave Uncle Archer hearty claps on his back. An Italian couple watched the proceedings with interest while we were watching them. The woman was wearing a white silk dress, which was looked at askance by those who believed that white was for funerals. A boy with curly hair stood shyly by them, until one of the other boys befriended him. It was always like that at weddings—we kids always found our level and ignored the rest. The Italian boy grinned at me at some point, and I smiled back.


Our families will be tied together, grandmother had said to one of his friends. Archer is top-notch, said someone. Then, She’s very tall, isn’t she, the bride? Grandmother sighed. Yes, we are very happy to have him here, she said, in English. It didn’t sound right. She tried again:

We are very happy he is coming to the family.


Afterwards, his friends fled back to England, after awkwardly offering condolences to everyone but the bride. The Italian family looked stricken; they went on earlier than they’d planned for a holiday in Ooty. Uncle Archer’s family lawyer flew home, after speaking to our uncles. Archer had died of an aneurysm was the guess, not by poisoning, not by murder. No need for an inquest. There was a moment when the sister demanded one, convinced Archer had been murdered for his money.

My grandmother drew up to her full five-foot height and asked if the sister really believed her granddaughter was benefitting by marrying Archer. It was a painful situation, but the cousin intervened. No one knew how to approach Meterling—she was so consumed with grief.

My aunt did not go to the funeral. Uncle Archer’s family, represented by the sister and the cousin, were to take the body away, to “bury on decent soil,” the sister had said. It seemed like an awful lot of bother, to transport a body from one country to another. Grandmother bristled, but what could anyone do? Antigone, someone said, but we didn’t know what that meant, and someone else said, well, it was her right, the sister’s; she had refused a cremation.

“It’s not right that she is not invited to the funeral,” said the cousin to the sister.

“She’s not really part of the family, Simon,” said the sister, furious with our aunt.

“She’s his wife,” he said softly.

“What could he have thought, marrying without even introducing us? Who is she? What is she?”

“Susan …”

“He’s my brother, Simon.”


No one could get a word out of Aunt Meterling then, racked with sobs as she was.

“What of the money?” asked Aunt Pa. “What of the rights of a widow?”

But Meterling just continued to weep. If anything were to come to her, that funny-looking cousin wouldn’t be telling us any time soon.