Where Earth Meets Water. Pia Padukone
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long it took to put it together,” Karom whispers.
“Here, I need help with this headpiece.” Gita aligns an emerald stone that glistens like a giant waterdrop in the center of her forehead, glancing in the mirror to make sure that the chain falls neatly into the parting of her hair. “What do you think?”
“It seems so sad to break up the set that symbolizes the start of her new life as a bride. But I guess she’s passing on the legacy.”
“Trust me, she doesn’t want the memories. They’re not happy ones. Besides, I’m here, Karom. She wants me to have something. What do you think of these?” Solid gold bangles cuff her wrists, glinting in the dim light.
“They’re nice. I’m going to...” Karom nods toward the doorway and slides off the bed. In the kitchen, Ammama is pouring tea into the Bodum pot Karom has brought her. Her hand shakes a bit as the last drop fills the strainer. “I hope you like the teapot. Gita told me how much you like your tea. ‘Once in the a.m., once in the p.m. and once before R.E.M.’ Right?” Gita had also told him that Ammama would trot it out while they were there and then rewrap it in its original box and place it in the back of a cupboard until visitors came.
“It’s beautiful. You shouldn’t have wasted so much money,” Ammama says. Karom places the pot on a tray along with the small ceramic box of sugar and a matching pitcher of milk. Gita appears at the doorway, wearing a heavy yellow-gold necklace. It droops down nearly to her midriff, rubies and emeralds twinkling brazenly. The inner strands are unpolished grayish oblong seeds rather than the now seemingly artificial perfect globes of pearls Karom has seen the ladies wear with Chanel suits on the Upper East Side. Gita doesn’t look very comfortable, but she sticks her chest out and says, “I want this one.”
“I wore that on my wedding day,” Ammama says, smiling. “Beautiful choice. If you’re sure, I’ll take the rest back to the safe-deposit box at the bank.”
They sit in the living room, the overhead ceiling fan making wide, useless circles as the tea cools. Karom nibbles absently on a stale biscuit.
“You’ve left your visits until the last minute,” Ammama says. Gita looks down shiftily and traces a pattern on the stone floor with her toe. “I only hope it’s convenient for your great-aunts and uncles that you come tonight.”
“You’ll come with us, right, Ammama?” Gita asks shyly. “It’ll be fun.” Gita has obligations, she’s told Karom. To see family members who remember her better than she knows them, but these visits make them so happy and they make Ammama happy, too.
“I’ll make an early dinner and we can call a rick to take us. I missed my nap today,” Ammama says, her eyes twinkling. “I hope I won’t be too cranky.”
* * *
The evening is crisper than the previous days have been. Karom borrows a pale blue sweater from the empty closet that once belonged to Gita’s grandfather. He puts his arms through the sweater sleeves and his nose to the fabric.
“Why do clothes in India always smell like this?” he asks. “It’s so reassuring, such a comforting scent.”
“Probably because all the dhobis use the same detergent,” Gita says sarcastically. “And let the clothing dry in the air to pick up the subtle undertones of coconut trees and cow dung.”
Ammama sits by the door in the sitting room. Karom doesn’t understand the name for this room; no such place exists in Western-style homes. It is a room for receiving, for watching, for preparing, but never simply for sitting. It is the first time he has seen anyone be still in this room since his arrival.
Ammama is wearing a dark maroon sari with a paisley border. The previous summer, she distributed all her bright saris and those with gold or silver thread to the twin neighbor girls upstairs. They are both in their forties, living with their parents. One of them was married, but on her wedding night, her husband raised his hand to her and she retaliated, striking him on the bridge of his nose. Stunned, he told her to pack her things and go, and she responded in kind, returning to the flat upstairs. At least, that’s what Ammama has heard.
Gita told Karom about a ritual she loved as a child, first arriving at Ammama’s flat in the summers, tearing open her wardrobe door, running her hands across the yards and yards of silk, brocade and crepe-de-Chine saris, burying her head into the fabric to breathe in that familiar smell of India and begging Ammama to take out “this one. This one is my favorite.” Gita’s allegiances changed each time she visited, her tastes maturing and then reverting as trends came and went. In her tomboy years, she chose only the blues and reds, and when she finally embraced her girlhood, she lovingly pulled out more pinks and purples. Upon arriving at the flat a few days ago, Gita had flung open the wardrobe door and cried out softly as she sank back onto Ammama’s bed.
“They’re gone,” Gita said. “What happened?”
“I’m too old. I can’t wear those bright-bright things now,” Ammama replied. “And the zari work was too fine—I couldn’t iron them constantly. So I gave the whole lot to the girls upstairs. They needed some color in their lives.” Gita twisted her mouth, saddened by the gaping holes between the lonely, dismal saris that remained. But you need some color in your life, she thought.
Ammama’s apartment building is set back in the compound, and the motorized auto-rickshaws buzz about like flies only in the main road. Karom goes to fetch one while Ammama walks carefully behind, holding her cane in one hand and Gita’s forearm in the other. Gita can see Karom in the distance with his arm up in the road as the little black rickshaws scurry past him.
“I like him, Gita. I really like him.” Gita holds Ammama’s hand as they take dainty steps together. “Do you think you’ll marry?”
“I hope so, Ammama,” Gita says, looking down into Ammama’s eyes. “I really hope he gets things together. I really hope he can move beyond his past. Because I love him, I really do. And I think we could be happy together.”
“Give it time, child,” Ammama says. “Not everything happens overnight.”
“It’s been years, though,” Gita sighs. “And he’s taking such baby steps that I worry he’ll never—” She stops and looks up toward him. He is standing too far into the road, extending his arm out as if he were hailing a cab on Broadway. He is getting impatient, pushing the hair out of his eyes and wiping his brow on his shoulder. He takes one more step into the road as an angry rickshaw driver shouts at him, gesticulating wildly. Panic rises and jets out of Gita’s nostrils.
“Ammama, wait here.” Gita props Ammama against a low-lying parapet. Gita takes off at a gallop. It seems so filmic, her hair bouncing and her shawl flying behind her, as if she is running in slow motion to catch up to the man she loves. But as she approaches him, she catches hold of his wrist and swings him back into the ditch that follows the sidewalk along Ammama’s lane. Angry shouts erupt around them, rickshaws nestling close together like black beetles attacking a crumb to allow them through.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Gita asks, panting.
“Getting a rickshaw. What does it look like? Gita, let go. That hurts.”
“You’re standing in the middle of the road and you know it. This isn’t Manhattan, where the cabs will actually stop. This is Delhi, Karom. People die.”
“Stop being so melodramatic, Gita. No one’s filming right now.”
“No, you stop it, Karom.” Tears prick the edges of Gita’s eyes as their voices rise to be heard with the thrumming and honking of the vehicles that speed by. “This is neither the time nor the place. Please don’t do this. Not now.” A honking interrupts them. Ammama pokes her head out of a rickshaw that pulls up alongside them.
“Found one,” Ammama says. “Come on, get in.” Gita climbs up on the other side of her grandmother and Karom piles in the opening closest to him, his long, spidery legs nestling against the back of the driver’s seat. As the rickshaw speeds by on the newly paved