When I come out, people hug me and kiss my cheeks. Amma and Thatha are beaming. No one can say Amma hasn’t done everything the proper way for me. We have dinner, and then I slice into a cake covered in pink-icing roses that tumble down onto the mirrored platter, hold up a piece so that Amma and then Thatha can take a bite. They feed me too, pride and love glistening in their eyes.
Later Puime and I sit with the women as the men go outside. We drink lime juice or Fanta, and the women tell stories of calamity. There are misfortunes of the financial, emotional, or physical sort. But the most important are the disasters of love.
A woman begins: “Have you heard about the Somarathna girl?”
The rest of them lean in, hungry for the tale. “No men, I knew something must have happened with that one. We haven’t seen her for months, and she was always a little wild, isn’t it? Always people were saying this and that about that one.”
Another chimes in. “Suddenly there was a proposal and a wedding. I didn’t even have time to get a proper sari done. Fancy reception at the Galle Face Hotel.” She sniffs so that we all know she thinks the family was putting on airs, continues, “But I always thought something funny was behind it. Aiyo, give us the details, will you? What happened?”
The first woman arches her eyebrow. “I can’t tell anything. The mother swore me to secrecy. Absolute”—she puts a manicured finger to her lips—“secrecy.”
A chorus of disappointment. “Aney, please.”
“Come on, you know we won’t tell anyone.”
“That girl is like a daughter to me.”
“Yes men, we’ll protect her reputation no matter what. After all, they are my relatives on the father’s side.”
She flaps her hands at them, says, “Okay, okay! But don’t breathe a word of this, okay? Any of you. It has to stay within these four walls.” She points at each wall around us to emphasize the secrecy that everyone knows will not be maintained. She says, “I know the whole story. The mother came to me for help. Here’s the thing. The girl was carrying on with that good-for-nothing, jobless, no-degree, next-door fellow. And by the time the parents found out, they were in a hotel and the deed was done. Two months later, no periods.”
Delighted, shocked gasps; a collective fluttering of hands to bosoms and throats. Someone says, “And then what?”
“The mother and I had to take her to a clinic. They covered it up. That’s why they married her off so quickly and all. Before the proposed family found out anything the papers were signed, the poruwa built. That mother-in-law must be kicking herself. No white sheet at the homecoming, isn’t it? Who knows if she can even conceive after what that doctor did.”
Tongue-clicking noises of disapproval, eyes rolled toward the heavens.
“These modern-day girls, what to do?”
“In my time we couldn’t even look at boys.”
“My mother would have beaten me to death. Home and school and back again. That was it. Now they are going wild. One has to be so careful with girls. I never let my Shalini anywhere near that one. Cheap girls like that only ruin the others.”
They stop suddenly, remembering Puime and me with our ears open wide in their midst. I know the girl they are talking about. What happened to her? I know it has something to do with what has just happened to me, which is called “falling off the jambu tree,” for the bright red fruit of the jambu. It has to do with boys and maybe even something to do with what happens to me when Samson catches me alone, something bad and secret for which only a girl is responsible, for which a girl always has to pay. I know that these women will not keep the secret. By tomorrow, the girl’s reputation will be dust. Even her marriage will not protect her from the barbs of gossip. Shame is female; shame is the price I must pay for this body. The fabric of my white dress is suddenly cloying.
Amma says, “Why don’t you two go to your room.” We slip out. Climbing the stairs, Puime whispers, “God, when I grow up, I’m going to drink arrack in the garden with the men. I’m not going to sit around drinking lime juice and gossiping about every single person.”
I nod. I feel as though I have watched an execution.
*
After school we go to Puime’s house. In the kitchen her mother is wearing just a sari blouse and her father’s old sarong, her hair pulled into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. She is fleshy, rounded, jiggly, and maternal in a way I long for. She grabs Puime, gives her a loud sucking kiss on the forehead, and then turns to kiss me on both cheeks.
Puime groans and wrinkles her nose. “Ammie, what are you wearing?”
“What? You don’t like it?”
“Is that Thatha’s old sarong?”
“Yes, child, why can’t I use it? Waste not, want not, isn’t it?”
She pours batter into the small curved hopper pan, turns it deftly so that the liquid coats the rounded surface, breaks an egg into the middle of it, says, “Sit and eat. Now while they’re still hot-hot. Otherwise it’s useless. Here, have with this seeni sambol, a little bit of kata sambol.”