As Sweet as Honey

4




One month after the wedding, after the death, Meterling told Grandmother that she was going to have a baby. She had missed her second period, and had gone to the doctor to make sure. The baby would be born in just less than eight months. Our family again became the center of sorrow in the town.

We children didn’t understand it. We were thrilled to know she was pregnant. Of course we weren’t to know, but secrets are very hard to keep in our house, let alone the neighborhood. But what was wrong with our Meterling? There was a trace of something in her eyes, a whiff of guilt that colored her days. All she meant to do was love whom she loved, not bring shame to her family. The boys giggled because they had heard it was all about the scandal of it, but we girls thought that the boys were just being foolish. Anyway, maybe the baby wasn’t a product of procreation (by this time, Sanjay had found out and informed us of the proper process, which we previously thought involved the doctor peeing on the mothers to produce the babies. No wonder no one wanted to go to the doctor, we thought! And now, we knew the proper process on top of everything! Who would want to get married after all that?) but an unasked-for gift from God. In the Catholic church that Mary Angel went to, babies were born all the time without fathers.

When our neighbor Shobana had a baby called a preemie later that month, everyone made a fuss. The baby itself was pretty ugly—wrinkly and squinty, and always crying. But every once in a while, it gurgled and cooed and caught up its toes, and we children, all of us, were enchanted. We begged for turns to help Auntie Shobana—fetch her water or cane juice, or fan away the flies.

“Do you want to hold little Iskander?” she would ask finally. We children took turns, marveling at the lightness, the comfort, careful of the soft spot on his head. Before Iskander’s birth, there had been all sorts of celebrations. But our house was muted, quiet with grief.


Some people wondered if the baby was really Archer’s, Mary Angel told us, reporting what her parents said. If not Archer’s, whose? They thought the marriage was a cover-up, that Uncle Archer knew he was going to die, that he loved Meterling so much he wanted to make sure her baby wasn’t a bastard. Maybe this was why Grandmother was so angry lately with the cook, and irritated with everyone else. She had really liked Uncle Archer, and she trusted him. We weren’t sure what trust had to do with it, but for a while, everyone walked around with troubled eyes.


How had he asked her to unfold, to open for him, allow him entrance to all that every South Asian girl is told to guard until marriage? Look at Sita, unspoiled and pure even after Havana’s numerous entreaties, who would not even let the monkey god carry her to safety to avoid the destined war. But wasn’t she accused of impurity after the return to Ayodha, and Rama rejected her, and she finally returned, hurt and angry to her mother, Earth, who split open to receive her? That was not what happened; they remained happily married. And don’t ask me about Radha, you troublesome girls—some things are left best to be learned after marriage.

Maybe it was Meterling’s idea from the start. Maybe as she found that her heart was expanding to include Archer and sustain him, she thought that marriage was still remote, an impossibility, so she invited him in, despite the risks. Maybe she was being adventurous. How surprised she must have been to receive his offer of marriage, then! No, that version won’t do—surely they must have agreed to marriage before untucking themselves of clothes to lie—where? Only the forest would work in our imagination—the cool earth, the soft grass, the cover of night.

In our part of the world, some brides are flogged for creeping home after being beaten by their husbands. Not in our community, but who could really be sure? If not physical flogging, then surely a censuring of some kind occurs. An undercurrent of disbelief, she’s lying, she deserved it, she must have been responsible runs in some people’s minds. Once when I tripped and fell and got a black eye (a shiner, because it was shiny) I remember strangers I encountered turning away, as if I were to blame somehow; even if I were a victim of home violence, it remained my fault. A girl who reports a crime can be derided in public, and if she has the misfortune of asking a corrupt policeman for help, he might rape her as well, since she is already “spoiled.” We knew of such cases, where it was the police captain himself who molested the girl, causing the girl to commit suicide. Even as the parents seek justice, he will continue to work and gain promotion to commander.

And I admit, I wondered if a hooligan had made my aunt pregnant unbeknownst to anyone, and Uncle Archer, in love and in full knowledge, asked to marry her, to save her reputation (because that would be how it would be seen), to raise the bastard baby. Had Uncle Archer saved my aunt from suicide? Maybe Uncle Archer had even killed the man. And the man’s family poisoned Uncle Archer in revenge. But there was no sign of anything like that occurring; they were not numb, or filled with fear, or anxious. They were at ease, happy, very much in love.


But if it was merely the two of them, in love, and eager, and ready, when had they initiated their act of love? When had they said, “Let’s prepone,” rush before the prayers and the sound of horns, the walk round and round seven times circling the holy fire? Had Archer known he was not long for the world? Had he a congenital disease, an inherited brain impairment? Had he failed to tell our aunt? Would she have said “No dancing, no drinking”? Would she have said “No child making”?

Grandmother did not seem to be bothered by such questions. She said little, and took care that everyone ate well, and fussed over the pregnancy. Yes, she might have been short with our cook, Shanti-Mami, a day or two, but who knew the reasons running in her head?

As for us, we began to flutter around Meterling like butterflies.

“Does it hurt, Auntie?” I asked, looking at her tummy.

“No, darling. Soon I think you can feel him kicking.”

“It’s a boy?”

“I think it’s a boy. If it is, I’ll call him Oscar.”

“Oscar?”

“That’s Archer’s favorite name.”

Here she was, with baby Oscar or Oscarina inside, and all us kids crowding around her, asking questions. Mostly she smiled, and looked past our heads, as if she could see a ship we couldn’t, far away on a sea that we could not see, either.