The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,30

too lazy to cook for her own child.”

Kamala felt herself tremble in rage and embarrassment, her fingers dropping the rotis. The silent malevolence of Shanta’s gaze made it clear that she would take great pleasure in thwarting Kamala.

They had existed in a state of uneasy quick-to-fire truculence ever since then, Kamala’s passages through the kitchen marked by Shanta’s comments and her own rebuttals. There was no question of a pleasant exchange of personal information.

“Yes, she is married, but naturally, as the second wife, she does not speak freely about it.” Thangam seemed to know all the details. “It is not the sort of thing one can speak of with pride, is it? The truth of the matter is he spends most of his time with the first wife—Shanta sees him only when he requires money.”

“Has she children?”

“One, but there were two,” said Thangam. “Both young men in their twenties. The elder died three years ago in a road accident. He was walking home in the rains—you remember those bad floods?—and he fell into an open manhole in the road. The government promised Shanta twenty thousand rupees as reparation and gave her twelve—which her husband immediately took from her …”

“And the other?”

“Oh, he is in every way his father’s son. He does no work; he spends his life as an alcoholic and runs after his mother, like an unweaned baby, for food, for money, for whatever she can give.”

“Poor thing,” said Kamala. “That is trouble indeed …”

“Yes,” said Thangam, “but tell me, sister, who does not have troubles? The rest of us manage to smile occasionally, do we not?”

Kamala, at her ease in the kitchen for the first time, said, “It would be nice—would it not?—if she would stay away a few days…. Then we could feast like this every day …”

“Akka, which film have you been watching?” said Thangam, with some asperity. “We would eat like this only if Vidya-ma’s friend also lived here. Such leftovers wouldn’t come our way normally. They would be put into the fridge—and you would be resigned to eating whatever rubbish I make. Here,” she said, picking up a few kebabs, “put these in a dabba … take them home when you leave.”

“Are you certain? Would you not like them for yourself?” Kamala said for ceremony’s sake, before delightedly packing them away. Narayan would savor them with his evening meal.

Vidya-ma and her friend went out in the afternoon. Thangam vanished upstairs to clean the master bedroom, and Kamala finished washing the lunch dishes. The kitchen was still imbued with quiet and peace. The dhobi-man had returned the children’s clothes freshly ironed; she carried them upstairs to place inside their respective cupboards.

When she returned, she saw a shadow in the kitchen—and knew that Shanta was back. Urgent curiosity warred with the superior urge to slice through the cook’s pretensions.

“So, sister,” Kamala called out, very much on her dignity, “who is it, then, who goes out to enjoy herself and leaves the work to others?”

Shanta was standing over the sink, her back to Kamala. She did not turn around, and Kamala, annoyed at being ignored in her moment of triumph, went up to her, repeating: Who is it then who leaves the work to others?

Oh, sister, she said. Oh.

The side of Shanta’s face was bruised; angry marks, as though drawn by a crazed lipstick, slithered down her skin to vanish behind her saree pallu and reemerge on her arm. She leaned against the sink, her arms and legs trembling. She would not look at Kamala; she would not ask for help, but Kamala was not deterred; she gently held her, bearing the weight of the beaten woman upon her own body. At Shanta’s usual place against the wall, Kamala helped her sit, crooning to her, nonsense words as she might to a child. “Sit, sister, sit,” she murmured. “You are safe now, safe. All will be well.”

She soaked a cloth in cool water and touched it gently to Shanta’s bruises, loosening her blouse and tracking the passage of the husband’s hand down her body. He had held her by her hair, pulling some out in the process, slapped her, fattening her eye, and left the impress of his fingers on her skin as an enduring gift.

Kamala rooted about inside her woven plastic bag for a moment. “Here,” she said to Shanta, pulling out a Crocin tablet, white in its blue wrapping. “Take this, it will ease the pain.”

Shanta sipped at the hot, sweet tea from the steel