decided to be direct. “Maneck, look at me. Straight in my eyes.” She brought her face closer to his. “Maneck, you would not be lying to me, would you? Because Ishvar and Om are your friends, and they asked you to?”
“I swear on my parents’ name, Aunty!” He drew away from her, shocked. Then the accusation made him angry. “You don’t have to believe me, think what you like. Next time don’t ask me to do your work.” He left the room.
She followed him. “Maneck.” He ignored her. “Maneck, I’m sorry. You know how worried I am about the sewing — I said it without thinking.”
A moment’s silence was all he could maintain before forgiving her. “It’s all right.”
Such a sweet boy, she thought, he just cannot stay upset. “How long have they been sleeping outside the — what is it, chemist’s shop?”
“Since the day their home was destroyed. Don’t you remember, Aunty? When you wouldn’t let them sleep on your verandah?”
She bristled at the tone. “You know very well why I had to refuse. But if you were aware of it, why didn’t you tell me? Before something like this happened?”
“Suppose I had. What difference? Would you have let them stay here?”
She avoided the question. “I still find it hard to believe this story. Maybe that watchman is lying — covering up for them. And in the meantime I will have to go begging to my brother for the rent.”
Maneck could sense the things she was trying to juggle, conceal, keep in proportion: concern, guilt, fear. “We could check with the police,” he suggested.
“And what good will that do? Even if they have the tailors, you think they will unlock the jail on my say- so?”
“At least we’d know where they are.”
“Right now I’m more worried about these dresses.”
“I knew it! You’re so selfish, you don’t think about anyone but yourself! You just don’t — ”
“How dare you! How dare you talk to me like that!”
“They could be dead, for all you care!” He went to his room and slammed the door.
“If you damage my door, I’ll write to your parents! For compensation, remember!”
He kicked off his shoes and fell in bed with a thump. It was half past nine, he was late for college. To hell with it — to hell with her. Enough of trying to be nice. He jumped off the bed and exchanged his shirt for an old wear-at-home one from the cupboard. The door clattered off the lower hinge. He jiggled it into the bracket and banged it shut.
He flopped on the mattress once more, his finger angrily tracing the floral design carved in the teak headboard. The bed was the identical twin of the one in the sewing room. Dina Aunty’s and her husband’s — they must have slept side by side on them. A long time ago. When her life was filled with happiness, and the flat with the sounds of love and laughter. Before it went silent and dingy.
He could hear her pacing in the next room, could sense her distress in the footsteps. And barely a week ago the work had been going so well, after she gave the Amrutanjan Balm to Om. Massaging his arm had put her in a good mood, she had started reminiscing about her husband’s back, about their lives.
All the things she told Maneck came back now to crowd his room: those enchanted evenings of music recitals, and emerging with Rustom from the concert hall into the fragrant night when the streets were quiet — yes, she said, in those days the city was still beautiful, the footpaths were clean, not yet taken over by pavement- dwellers, and yes, the stars were visible in the sky in those days, when Rustom and she walked along the sea, listening to the endless exchange of the waves, or in the Hanging Gardens, among the whispering trees, planning their wedding and their lives, planning and plotting in full ignorance of destiny’s plans for them.
How much Dina Aunty relished her memories. Mummy and Daddy were the same, talking about their yesterdays and smiling in that sad-happy way while selecting each picture, each frame from the past, examining it lovingly before it vanished again in the mist. But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be recreated — not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.
So what was the point of possessing memory? It didn’t help anything. In the end it was all hopeless. Look at Mummy and Daddy, and the General Store; or Dina Aunty’s life; or the hostel and Avinash; and now poor Ishvar and Om. No amount of remembering happy days, no amount of yearning or nostalgia could change a thing about the misery and suffering — love and concern and caring and sharing come to nothing, nothing.
Maneck began to weep, his chest heaving as he laboured to keep silent. Everything ended badly. And memory only made it worse, tormenting and taunting. Unless. Unless you lost your mind. Or committed suicide. The slate wiped clean. No more remembering, no more suffering.
Poor Dina Aunty, how much of the past she was still carrying around with her, although she deceived herself that these were happy memories she was dwelling upon. And now the problems with the sewing, the rent, the rations…
He felt ashamed of his earlier tantrum. He got out of bed, tucked in his shirt, dried his eyes, and went to the back room where she was pacing the prison of her incomplete dresses.
“When do you have to deliver them?” he asked gruffly.
“Oh, you’re back? Day after tomorrow. By twelve o’clock.” She smiled to herself, having expected him to sulk for an hour; he had emerged in thirty minutes. “Your eyes look watery. Have you got a cold?”
He shook his head. “Just tired. Day after tomorrow — that’s two whole days. Lots of time.”
“For two expert tailors, yes. Not for me alone.”
“I’ll help you.”
“Don’t make me laugh. You, sewing? And me with my eyes. I can’t see to put my finger through a wedding ring, let alone thread the eye of a needle.”
“I’m serious, Aunty.”
“But there are sixty dresses, six-zero. Only the hems and buttons are left, true, but it’s still a lot of work.” She picked one up. “See the waist, all puckered? That’s called ‘gather.’ Now it measures” — she stretched the tape — “just twenty-six inches. But because of the gather, the hemline of the skirt is, let’s see, sixty-five inches, to be done by hand. That takes a lot of — ”
“How will they know if you do it by machine?”
“The difference is like night and day. And then eight buttons on each dress. Six in the front, one on each sleeve. An hour’s work per dress for someone like me. Sixty hours altogether.”
“We have forty-eight till delivery time.”
“If we don’t eat or sleep or go to the bathroom, yes.”
“We can at least try. You can deliver what we finish, and make an excuse that the tailors fell sick or something.”
“If you’re really willing to help …”
I am.
She started to get things ready. “You’re a good boy, you know? Your parents are very fortunate to have a son like you.” Then she turned abruptly. “Wait a minute — what about college?”
“No lectures today.”
“Hmm,” she said dubiously, selecting the thread. They took the dresses into the front room where the light was better. “I’ll teach you buttons. Easier than hems.”
“Anything. I learn quickly.”
“Yes, we’ll see. First you measure and mark the places with chalk, in a straight line. It’s the most important step, or the front will look crooked. Thank goodness these are plain poplin dresses, not slippery chiffon like last month.” She took him through the paces, emphasizing that the stitches in the four-holed button should be parallel and not crisscross.
He tried the next one. “Oh, to have young eyes again,” she sighed, as he moistened the thread between his lips and passed it through the needle. Finding the holes in the button from the blind side took a bit of poking around with the needle. But he managed to finish in fair time, and snipped the threads, triumphant.
Two hours later, between them they had finished sixteen buttons and three hemlines. “See how long it takes?” she said. “And now I must stop to make lunch.”
