*
I read Alice in Wonderland obsessively. Not because I like it. All those panicked, devious animals, the uncontrollable growings and shrinkings that suggest one’s body is never quite one’s own. When the Queen of Hearts shouts and demands obedience, it feels real and close. When everyone scampers to obey her orders, when the soldiers paint each white rose red so that she is appeased and satisfied, I understand the threat of the cold blade slicing through their necks. They are waiting to hear her words “Off with their heads!” I too am waiting for the cold steel of her disapproval to drop. In these days I too live in the kingdom of the Queen of Hearts.
*
I go into the kitchen to find Sita. She is stirring red rice in a pot, rinsing the dust out of it. She watches me from the corner of her eye as I drift about the kitchen. She says, “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
She shrugs her shoulders, slowly pours the water out of her pot, not looking at me. I say, “I hate her. She broke Thatha’s camera. And he didn’t even do anything. He was just taking pictures of me.”
She doesn’t look at me when she says, “Your mother. She doesn’t mean it, you know. She’s had a hard life.”
“She hates me.”
She sighs, turns to me, wipes her hands, says, “Okay, come with me.”
She takes me into her little room; unlike Samson’s, this one is inside. She sits on the sagging bed and puts her arm around me. She says, “Your mother came to this house very young. She doesn’t have any people, you know. Her parents, they died when she and her sister were small. Then her sister went abroad to America. It’s difficult to be alone in the world.”
I say, “She’s not alone. She has Thatha.” I don’t say the other person she has: me.
She pulls me into the circle of her arms. “Yes. But your Thatha is from a different world. His people are different. They are rich people. Your mother’s people were poor like me, like Samson. It’s hard for her to fit into this life. To be the big Madame.”
I lean into her. “What was it like? Before I was born?”
“We came here together. My sister and I. From a village down south. We came to work for your father’s parents. We were young then. My sister had Samson, and then your father was born and she was his ayah. So they were brought up together. But your father is the master now. And Samson is Samson, you see?”
I don’t see anything, but I nod so she will continue.
“And then your father grew up and married your mother, and then you were born.” She tweaks my nose, grabs my face, and inhales each side of my face, a fierce and potent kiss.
*
The lotus has risen in the pond again, taking over the water, so the koi must circle the stems. I am not supposed to trim them alone, and anyway it’s no fun without Samson. I go to his small shedlike room at the back of the house and I can hear him inside muttering to himself. I have never been inside, but now I say his name and enter his small, enclosed space. He is sitting on his bed; it’s bright outside, but inside there are deep shadows. There are posters of film stars on the walls. The place smells like him, as if he has been shut up here for weeks, his sweat permeating everything. I sit on the bed next to him. His face is in his hands, his hair in porcupine quills as if he has run his hands through it. Between his fingers and in a broken voice he says, “Baby Madame, you shouldn’t come here.”
I put my small hand on his rounded back. “What is it, Samson? What happened?”
He jumps up away from my touch, but there is nowhere to go in that small space. He says, “My mother, Baby Madame. They say she is very sick. I don’t know what to do. Your Amma. I can’t ask her for leave again. I went to the village last month, and she said if I asked again I should go but not come back.” He shakes his head as if to clear it. He turns and looks at me, says, “You should go. If someone sees you in my place, it won’t be good.” And knowing somehow that he is right, that I shouldn’t be found here, I leave that claustrophobic space, my lungs filling with air as I step outside as if I had been holding my breath the whole time.
*
Later in the week, Amma slaps her palm against the table. “Where the hell is Samson? This floor is filthy.” She turns to me. “Make yourself useful. Find him.”
I race through the garden down to his tiny room. I know before I enter that it is empty. In the kitchen Sita is crying, wiping the tears with the edge of her sari. She says, “That stupid boy. He went without telling her. Now all hell will come down on our heads.”