Songbirds(69)

There was a carousel a few stalls down, whose music never ended, and opposite an old woman sold colourful saris. Next to her, a middle-aged man had a cart selling nuclear-orange isso vadai – spicy lentil cakes with prawns – and next to him a young woman who made luminous desserts with shredded coconut wrapped in betel leaf.

The park was ringed with food vendor carts lit by small puddles of electric lights at night. There were colours and smells and sounds everywhere, and Nisha was exhausted. Her mother’s pension was measly, so Nisha was keeping them all afloat. When her husband had been alive, they had worked together to pay the bills, and although it had been tough, at least she had been in it with someone else, with both their wages helping them get by. They had also managed to put a bit aside for Kumari’s education. It was Mahesh’s wish that his daughter would be educated, and be the first in the family to attend university.

Once Nisha left for work, Kumari would cry. In fact, she cried until she turned blue. Her grandmother could do nothing to console her.

‘Your daughter is a crazy genius,’ Nisha’s mother would say to her. ‘She knows too much. I can’t distract her like I could with you. She’s bloody minded. Where did she get this from?’

‘You, Amma!’ Nisha would say, remembering her mother’s obsession with her little sister’s heart all those years ago. Remembering the pendant that Kiyoma had thrown into the river to free herself.

Kumari was always awake when Nisha came home from work. There was nothing Nisha’s mother could do to get her to sleep. She tried everything. She sang to her, she walked her along the beachfront. Nothing – Kumari looked at the waves and laughed. Nisha’s mother changed the songs to prayers, chanting beneath the hush of the trees in the garden. At one point she thought of organising a thovil: ‘Nisha, I’m at my wits’ end. This child of yours is possessed.’ She was joking, of course; Kumari still smiled through it all.

Whenever Nisha came home, whether it was 9 p.m. or 11 p.m. or 1 a.m., Kumari would begin to cry. It seemed to Nisha, on reflection, that these were tears of immense relief. She would pick up her daughter, sit on the bed, and make a little nest by crossing her legs. Kumari would cluck and mutter, while Nisha put her baby to her breast. Kumari would suck vigorously, resting her left hand under Nisha’s breasts, her right hand holding Nisha’s fingers. When Kumari had finished, Nisha would take off her sweat-drenched clothes and lie on her back on the rug with her baby on her chest. She liked lying on the floor, feeling the firm ground beneath her: it made her feel safer, held by the Earth. And then, finally, Kumari would sigh and drift into a soft sleep.

At these times Nisha was happy. This was when her tears stopped, when she had her baby in her arms. On warm nights she’d lie like that in the garden for more than an hour and think about the world from the womb to the stars. She thought about time and space and existence and how somewhere between birth and the heavens we all exist, and that somewhere out there was her husband’s energy-force either waiting or being reborn.

No matter how much Nisha worked, however, her income was never enough. They had already started eating into the education fund, which left her feeling mortified. Within just a few months, there was nothing left. The three of them were surviving pay-check to pay-check.

One day, the young woman across the street who made coconut sweets with betel leaf, didn’t turn up. She was replaced by an older woman with dappled skin who always wore the same purple sari. For so many months, Nisha had watched Isuri as she delicately wrapped the sweets – dark eyes down, flicking up occasionally to take in the passing crowd. Nisha and Isuri would exchange kottu for sweets, pleasantries for smiles, and eventually grievances for hugs. Isuri wasn’t yet married and was looking for a suitable match and was progressively getting fed up with her life; she could never earn enough to support her ailing father and two much younger sisters.

Nisha and Isuri had become close, and Isuri’s sudden departure had had a profound effect on Nisha. Isuri had been talking about leaving Sri Lanka, hoping to go to Europe and work as a maid. ‘So many women are doing it!’ she told Nisha one morning, with sparkling eyes. ‘I could earn double what I’m earning here in one month! I could send money home and still have enough for myself. I’ll be given nice accommodation and food. And imagine having all that freedom too! Imagine being able to go out, to be free, and not have to answer to anyone. I will be my own woman.’ She had been so excited, and Nisha would never forget how Isuri looked that morning with so much hope in her heart.

At home in the evenings, with Kumari sleeping peacefully on her naked chest, drenched in drying tears, she felt her body begin to ache and her mind spin. How could she ensure that Kumari had a good life? How could she fulfil her husband’s wish and send their daughter to university one day? Staying in Galle was a dead end. She had three mouths to feed and she had to do it all alone. The flour was running out in the cupboard, as was the rice. Her mother had started to ration the portions. Kumari was wearing hand-me-downs from the neighbours – this wouldn’t have been a problem in itself, had Nisha been able to put money aside for Kumari’s education and make sure that she was well fed, but no matter how careful she was, no matter how much overtime she worked or tips she earned, she still could not afford to buy all the food they needed for the week, let alone put money aside for the future.

Nisha felt her baby’s tiny fingers, soft and warm as she slept; she gently squeezed her chubby thighs and placed her little feet in the palms of her hands and held them. Kumari sighed but did not move and did not wake. Nisha inhaled her sweet breath. Then she exhaled her decision. ‘Yes,’ she said out loud. Yes. I must sacrifice these beautiful moments for Kumari’s future. And then she kissed Kumari’s hands a hundred times while she slept and resolved to give her everything she could, every chance in life.