Ode to Broken Things by Dipika Mukherjee Page A

that guilt Jayanta, not knowing any better. Everyone knew Shanti had two mothers, and had been cursed by both. How could she survive that? That is what I thought, for far too long.
    But your crime? It wasn’t a vengeance forgivable by the gods. May your child die in your arms.
    You are putting the picture back on the mantelpiece, lightly wiping the glass with the tips of your bloody fingers. But you will find no absolution here. There is no reason for you to be here, to breathe the same air as my granddaughter, no reason at all.
    I curse the day I met your mother. I should have trusted my instincts and kept away. Or at least recognised the rot in her blood that runs through your veins. But I was so gullible then! I met your parents soon after Nikhil and I had first stepped into the harbour in Singapore. I was so open, so young and alone then, new to Malaya and disgusted with the languages that tripped up my tongue and made me seem foolish. When Nikhil said there would be two new Bengali brides coming, I couldn’t believe my luck! I can still see Nikhil, sitting on the open balcony, waving the card at me. “Both Mahesh and Ranjan are getting married to girls from Calcutta!”
    But the two brides couldn’t have been more different. Mridula, Ranjan’s bride, was a child, with pimply skin and an innocence to match her husband’s open heart. Two thick pigtails looped with red ribbons framed a plump face, and she plodded in flatfooted. I pushed up her shoulders as she bent to touch my feet. “No formality with me, little sister. We will be good friends, yes?” Mridula was so shy that her cheeks flamed immediately.
    But your mother, Ila, oh, I could see at once that she was very different. Closer to me in age she should have been more of a friend, but we stood across from each other with eyes that critically appraised. My first thought was a triumphant, She is so dark! – until I noticed the way her skin glistened. Even modestly draped in a sari, head covered in deference to Nikhil’s age, she moved like a swan, her arching back regal on a gracefully curved behind.
    Her jewellery tinkled when she spoke, so that the men, including Nikhil, turned to her. She looked at your father with an obscene hunger, while he found reasons to touch her frequently, even in public.
    My husband was very poetic when Ila, in the middle of that evening, blushed and said that her family had despaired of ever finding her a husband for she was so impossibly dark, but oh, here she was! Nikhil closed his eyes and recited a poem from memory:
    I am utterly enchanted
The sight of her beauty makes me
Melt like wax before the fire. What
Is the difference if she is black?
So is coal, but alight, it shines like roses.
    “An ancient Greek poem, bhai,” he told your father as the men clapped with a loud theatrical Wah! Wah! Then Nikhil turned to me, finally acknowledging my simmering anger and gently mocked, “I didn’t write it!”
    I should have known then, to be wary, to never let my guard down. But during that sweet twilight hour on our balcony in 1933, when we were first acquainted with the two brides, poetry was quoted, songs were sung, and we talked until the morning. No children came between us. It was almost dawn when we finally slept, but I already felt I had far more to fear from Ila than Ila did from me.
    Enough of my memories – you are here again.
    Go. Go away now. I wish I could tell my granddaughter to keep away from you, but she thinks I only need water. Maybe I do; it burns my marrow to see you put your hand on the small of her back, fitting into her, just so. She is not stupid, my Agni, but she has led a life too filled with wide-eyed wonder, for I have shaded her so. We say Gacher thekhe phol mishti – Sweeter than the tree you plant is the fruit it bears – and my grandchild is precious indeed.

Twelve
    Colonel S dialled the hotel for the sixth time. He listened impatiently as the phone rang again and again before connecting to