FROM HER VANTAGE POINT on the balcony, Kamala could see party preparations in full swing next door. Vidya-ma’s new maid appeared in the garden—a replacement for Thangam, who, unable to bear the pressure from her chit fund creditors, had packed her bags and vanished in the middle of one night. No one knew where. The new girl did not seem very curious about her predecessor; she was far more engaged in talking to the old, married watchman in her spare time. Shanta reigned unchallenged in the kitchen.
Kamala’s current job involved housecleaning and some light cooking for her aging employer. It was a simple existence: a day of work, an evening of rest and quietude, with time enough, after the old lady went to sleep and the television they watched together was switched off, for Kamala to contemplate the accumulating losses of her life: her beloved courtyard home, or any home at all, and the one loss that grew more unbearable with time—the daily absence of her son.
Kamala saw him once a week, for a few brief hours. His days were full: in the mornings he attended school, in the evenings he still toiled as a table cleaner and dishwasher at the canteen, sleeping there at night. The canteen owner spoke of Narayan with affection, and Kamala listened but could not rejoice as she should. She yearned to cook for him and care for him.
She shared her sharp grief with no one, not even in occasional phone calls to her sister-in-law.
Indeed, the only person who stood firm in her life, surprisingly, was Anand-saar. He had kept his word. Narayan met him regularly to report on his academic progress, and it was in those repeated meetings that a small, flickering hope still lingered within Kamala, a shy hope, not to be dwelled on, not to be subjected to untoward prayers and lingering fervent desires, no, never again, no, no, but it remained.
What a good son you have, Kamala, the old lady, her new employer, often said, adding: “What a shame I cannot ask him to stay here also. But really, I cannot afford to feed an extra mouth.”
Narayan, if he were there to hear this, always smiled politely and said, “Thank you, aunty, but we can use the money from the canteen, my mother and I.”
What a good boy, the old lady would say. An answer to a mother’s prayers.
“Yes,” Kamala would say, and through her mind would fly this thought: Yes, an answer to my prayers, but did the gods have to let it take this form?
She could see him now, in the distance, walking toward her. He had grown taller and thinner still. His mien would be serious; he seemed to have completely lost the sparkle and mischief that had so delighted and exasperated her. He would, she knew, be bringing her the weekly money he earned and telling of school, where his progress was good.
Who were his friends, these days? she wondered. What were his dreams? These were not questions she could easily ask of him; they were fraught with discomfort; if she did ask, his answers were vague. The loss of her ability to feed him daily, to put nourishment into his mouth, to care for him, to wash his clothes, to pat his cheek and tug scoldingly at his ear seemed to echo her growing inability to pull answers and conversation out of him.
She watched her son walk toward her, the tar on the newly paved road yielding slightly beneath his feet. As he approached, it seemed he retreated farther and farther away.