The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,53
baby son in the homes she worked in as a full-time, stay-in maid. If she was lucky, she was given a separate, tiny room (usually off the kitchen and just large enough to sleep herself and her son). If she was not so lucky, then under the stairs, or on the kitchen floor, her belongings stored in some unused cupboard.
But things changed as her son grew older. He was in every way a beautifully blossoming little boy: noisy, curious, and his feet began to wander. He was still too young to understand that the large residence they lived in was not their home; he was not free to run about at will, touching the things that caught his fancy, reaching his hand up for the fruit that gleamed on the table; it was not there for him. And though Kamala furiously, desperately corrected and hushed him, it was not long before she was being gently asked whether she could not make some other arrangement for her son. Could he not stay with grandparents in the village? Her employers were not bad people; Kamala realized that she would face the same questions wherever she worked.
It was time then to get a home of her own. But perhaps she was a very demanding type of person, for no matter how many places she saw, she could not be satisfied: a succession of single rooms, tiny and dingy from misuse—none of which she minded, for it was no more than she expected—but, all of them carrying with them the stench of other discomforts: potential landlords who inspected her body with disrespectful eyes; rooms that opened onto crowded, busy streets with doors that were lightweight and insecure, the surroundings so noisy that a voice raised in alarm would be swallowed up by the sounds of the street; or rooms that were so far removed from humanity that she could shout for help and go unheard. And so, like a nesting doe, Kamala had kept searching restlessly.
She had known instantly that this room was made for her. She could see her future in it: the gate at the entrance to the courtyard would keep her doubly secure; the families who lived in the dwellings within would provide her with community and security; the landlord seemed like a respectable man, and he and his family would doubtless be there for advice and assistance should she ever choose to seek it. Quickly, before the landlord could change his mind or before someone else could leap in and grab the room, she paid the advance requested (not too high, because of the unseemly location so far from the city) and arranged to move in the very next day.
If Kamala had had one wish, in those early years, it was for a shorter commute to her work, which still took her an hour and a half each day. But, perhaps because she accepted the routine without complaint, the gods took pity upon her and, with their palms raised in benediction and gentle smiles upon their faces, they addressed themselves to the blisters on her feet and moved the city closer.
She had lived here for eight years.
He would come, her brother, and he would not see the nest that had kept her safe and cherished all these years; he would notice the peeling paint on the walls and the small size of the room and disparage her and all that she held dear, for that was what he had always done—and why should the intervening years have changed his character?
He was to attend the wedding of his wife’s connection, a cousin; Kamala wished that it was his wife attending instead of him. They, at least, had maintained a steady, affectionate communication over the years, with brief phone calls, first made from the STD phone booth at the corner and, later, from her newly acquired cellphone, which was cheaper.
She wondered, all of a fidget, whether she should buy a can of paint and put Narayan to work. Should she buy new clothes for both of them? The relentless profusion of such thoughts eventually annoyed her. What nonsense, she thought. Why should she do any of these things? Let him come. Let him say what he will. Let him poke his nose in the air and click his tongue and shake his head and make his hurtful comments. Let him.
Nevertheless, she found herself approaching the visit with an air of going into battle. Her brother would actually be spending less than a