The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,19

be cleaned?”

It appeared that Vidya-ma had forgotten. “Oh my god!” she said. “The full upstairs? And now look at the time!”

“Don’t worry, amma,” said Kamala hastily, “we can do it quickly.”

“But the full upstairs!” said Vidya-ma. “If you all go upstairs now, I will not see you again before the evening, and that will be too late! Why on earth could you not have reminded me earlier?”

Thangam opened her mouth and said, unthinkingly: “But, Vidya-ma, I did! I did remind you!”

And as their mistress’s wrath broke over Thangam, Kamala caught her eye sympathetically, but some part of her could not help thinking that there was a virtue in knowing when to speak and when to keep silent.

“Now,” said Vidya-ma, when she had calmed down. “I’ll tell you what we shall do. Kamala, you and your boy shall start on brass polishing. The driver and watchmen shall help me set up the garden. Shanta needs the driver’s wife in the kitchen. And you, Thangam, shall go upstairs to clean.”

“Vidya-ma!” said Thangam. “Am I to clean the full upstairs by myself? I cannot manage!”

“Oh,” said Vidya-ma, her irritation evident. Her eyes wandered. “Kamala, perhaps your son can go and help her?”

“That is a good idea, Vidya-ma,” said Thangam, ingratiatingly.

Oh, never, thought Kamala. Never would she allow Narayan to work under Thangam, who would surely see that he did all the work while she stood idly by. She did not like to contradict Vidya-ma, who was looking flushed, unhappy, and cross, but she had to say something. “Let me go help her, Vidya-ma,” she said. “I can do it quicker.”

“But the brass? And who will do the flowers? … Oh,” said Vidya-ma. “You are all so unhelpful. At a time like this, you are all so unhelpful.”

The words in Kamala’s mind popped out of her mouth: “Let the driver’s wife start the polishing, Vidya-ma. My son can help her…. Shanta is such a clever woman, she is sure to be able to manage in the kitchen by herself. After all, she is not cooking for the function.”

“OH, A SOW’S TEAT,” Kamala said. “A braying donkey curse this house and all those who labor in it. Even a dog’s fart would smell better than this place.”

The pain had settled deep within her groin. It was right on schedule; it should not have taken her by surprise. She had known since the previous day, when her monthly cycle had started, in coy red drops that settled in the cloth between her legs and welled to a majestic flow by this morning. Her son found her squatting on the floor, one hand pressed to her belly, her head resting on her knees, eyes closed tight to prevent tears escaping, mouth moving silently in a hundred nameless curses. Her broom and bucket lay idle next to her.

“Mother? Are you not well? What ails you?” The worry in his voice roused her, but, naturally, she could not meet the concern and alarm in his eyes with the truth.

“It is a back pain, child,” she said. “And a little bit in the stomach. But do not worry, it will soon be better. Have you finished the jobs you were given?”

“Yes, yes,” he said, “all done, but, Mother! Can’t you rest yourself awhile? Isn’t there some medicine that you can take?”

She forced a smile. “Do not worry, child. It will soon be better. I will drink some water, and it will go away.”

Her normal practice, at such times, was to speak to Vidya-ma before her pains became unbearable—all the females in the house did—and they would receive a special pain pill that Vidya-ma kept for her own use and that was not available at the neighborhood medicine shop. Like magic, within a half hour, the pulsing pain in the groin would be stemmed. But Kamala could not think of approaching Vidya-ma today. And she cursed her own foul judgment, that on a day like this, amid all her other preparations—the readying of her son’s clothes, the earnest lectures to him, the this, the that—in not taking care to provide herself with a little pill of her own. As she slowly straightened, her legs trembled—in reaction to the work already done, and in anticipation of the work to come.

When the clock showed half past three, she could bear it no longer. “I will be back,” she whispered to her son, who had loyally spent the past few minutes trying to swab the floor for her. “You have done well. I am