Ode to Broken Things by Dipika Mukherjee

laugh, while propping two pillows behind her grandmother’s back. “She can barely speak, and her memory comes and goes. She doesn’t recognise me on some days!”
    Jay cleared his throat. “Hello,” he said, “ Kemon acchen ?”
    Shapna grunted softly and stretched out a slow hand towards Agni. Jay noticed the dark blue veins gnarled under skin that was almost translucent, and remembered how breathtakingly beautiful she had been. Her high cheekbones jutted out, defining a strong silhouette, and her hair, skimping over the pale skin underneath, still had more raven than snow.
    He fidgeted. Her silence made him safe; he had to hold on to that. He wasn’t going to let this slut drive him away again. This was the woman who taught him to flee from his problems, and he had been running ever since. He was going to be fifty in another year; he was tired of this.
    Agni opened the blinds. “You were about to tell me why you came back, Professor?”
    The challenge in her tone was clear – she would not let it rest.
    “I am going to be a consultant at a research lab in Nilai… to work on biomaterials.”
    She smiled at him. “Ah, Transfer of Technology? Usually the government just pays for our researchers to see your facilities in Boston, no?”
    “Yes. But there are some restrictions. It’s… complicated.” He sounded staccato, even to himself. Leave Me Alone .
    She looked at him briefly before turning to Shapna. “Dida? See him clearly now? This is Ila’s Babush?”
    “You know my nickname?”
    “Some of my childhood fables were about you, Professor. I know more about you than maybe even you remember, and about your father’s work in that village in Port Dickson.”
    “A plantation, actually.”
    Shapna made some gurgling noises. Agni rose to pour her a glass of water. Shapna wobbled her neck towards Jay and, in the depths of her rheumy eyes, he could see her fear.
    Slobbering Slut, he thought, smiling at Shapna. You’re not the only one who can’t keep a secret.
    Shapna’s trembling fingers raked over the bedclothes in uneven lines. Jay still remembered her, like an imperious empress, waving him away like a mosquito the last time they had met.

Eleven
    I am an old woman who can’t keep water in my mouth, Jayanta, and my tongue can’t spit out your truth. But I know that if you have come back, after so many years, it can’t be for any good.
    You look like your father now. The same sharp nose, and his high intelligent forehead. But you have your mother’s swarthy skin because her murky blood flows through your veins. What has happened, Jayanta, to bring you back? How is that mother of yours? Rotting in shit, I hope, with the rest of your plagued family. My spleen burns when I remember.
    You were my biggest disappointment. Even greater than Shanti. If you look behind you right now, you will see that old picture, yes, the only one of you which I couldn’t bear to burn with the rest, of two children grinning toothlessly, both holding hamsters in clenched palms. You and Shanti. Remember?
    I should have known. Even then, you would always rear the murderous pet. Shanti and you would choose fish from the same shop, and yours would be the one with the hidden teeth, the one that would last the longest after gouging the eyes and the fins of the rest. The rabbits you chose were brothers; but yours killed Shanti’s in a night so bloody it left deep gouges in the victor. Ah, you have seen the picture now. You do remember. You asked me once, “Why do I always choose the evil ones?” while tears rolled easily from your baby eyes. I never suspected.
    When you first said you wanted to be a doctor, just like your father, Shanti told you, “Be a vet, lah. Get your pets to kena some victims and booming business what!”
    I didn’t know then, no one knew… saving lives, hah! I thought the real reason Shanti had died was that we had given her no reason to live; and that I, her mother, was guilty. I carried the weight of