Madhulika Liddle

The year I turned twelve, my grandmother took it into her head to insist that I spend the summer vacation with her. The invitation was extended only to me. She knew that Father, busy as he was, could not spare more than a weekend to visit her; she knew equally well that Mother, who treated her with a polite aloofness, would refuse to live in the same house for more than a week. “She is my grandchild, after all,” Grandmother said. “My own flesh and blood. I have a right to her company.”

Mother protested, saying that I would get bored and be a nuisance. But she was overruled, and one sultry June day, Father put my suitcase in our old blue Fiat and drove me to Grandmother’s. The road, tarred and clean, cut through rich red earth, past lush green fields of rice and groves of coconut trees. Grey clouds, swollen with monsoon rain, threw into sharp relief the bright white spires of a roadside church and the terracotta roofs of the village houses that clustered by the roadside.

Grandmother’s house too had terracotta tiles on the roof. There was a narrow, dingy verandah with an old colonial balcony of wrought iron. A set of windows with wooden shutters, also colonial. A shrine, smothered with old wax and wilting marigolds, in the front yard. Grandmother, wrinkled and crabby, but very fond of me.

And there was Ruby.

Ruby was Grandmother’s housekeeper. I had never met her before, but it was not long before I made friends with her. Ruby was eighteen, a slender girl with clear golden-brown skin and long black hair that swung about her waist in two thick plaits. Her dresses were well stitched (I later discovered that she made them herself), and the chain on which she wore a small crucifix was pure gold. Most surprisingly, Ruby could read and write—and that too not just in Konkani, but in English. “Our family wasn’t always poor,” she said once, lifting her narrow shoulders in an unconscious gesture of pride. “My great-grandfather was of the Portuguese aristocracy.” I did not know whether to believe her or not, but I did not say anything.

When I would wake in the morning—at the leisurely `summer vacation’ hour of eight o’clock—I would invariably hear Ruby singing as she went about her work. She swept, mopped, scrubbed, and cleaned the utensils. She washed the clothes, weeded the miniscule kitchen garden, cooked the food, and ran errands for Grandmother. And rarely was she quiet. She would hum, whistle, sing—or simply chatter. “That fisherman took you for a ride, Grandma!” she’d yell gleefully, her slim fingers swiftly gutting the pomfret. “I could’ve got you this fish for less than half what you paid.” Or, looking over her shoulder as she hung dripping clothes on the line stretched between two coconut trees in the backyard: “This petticoat’s more holes than cloth. Donate it to that fisherman friend of yours. He could use it for a net!”

She would go on and on, teasing and needling, till Grandmother would yell, in her shrill voice: “Ruby! Keep quiet and get on with your work!”

The exact opposite of Ruby was her elder sister, Rose. She was fifteen years older than Ruby, and unmarried. A shapely woman, her curves more pronounced than Ruby’s girlish figure; her face less animated, her eyes less lively. She spoke only when she needed to, and it seemed to me that she was unhappy. It may simply have stemmed from the fact that she the quietest person in the neighbourhood; but it may have been that I, young as I was, could nevertheless sense desperation when it was around me.

For Rose breathed desperation and anguish and an unfulfilled hunger from every pore. Sometime in all the years since she herself had been Ruby’s age, Rose had seen her own youth start slowly slipping by. By urban standards, she may have been considered in her prime. By the stricter standards of the village, Rose was clearly marked as an old maid. The very women who chatted gaily with Ruby about dresses and movies and shopping trips, changed the topic—almost certainly without any deliberate attempt—to colicky babies and drunken husbands and the price of vegetables if Rose happened to come by. Rose attracted the matronly sort; they identified with her.

And it did not take me long to realise that Rose resented it. Resented her age, her depleting beauty, and the fact that everybody around had given up on her chances of ever getting married.

During the first week, I only met Rose when she came to Grandmother’s, on some errand or the other. She would come, silent as the dawn, walking so quietly down the path that none of us knew she was there until she spoke up. “Mrs Alva,” she would say—she was always very formal—“Could you spare me a cup of sugar, please? I’ve run out of it, and the Professor will be home soon”—or some such request. Grandmother and Ruby, both of whom loved to chatter, would try to involve Rose in gossip, and all the time she would be getting more and more restive. I, watching from the small cane stool on which I habitually sat, would see her hands clench and fidget, her smooth, immobile face become etched with lines of distress. Finally, she would burst out, “I have to go—he’ll be coming. Could I, please—?”

The sugar—or the salt, vinegar, whatever it happened to be—would be brought out. Rose would clutch it eagerly, and with a barely audible mutter of gratitude, would go rushing down the hibiscus-fringed lane, back to the house she kept for Professor Gomes.

It was a tiny villa, beautiful and old-fashioned in the way only a typical Portuguese-style Goan villa can be. I often passed by it on my walks, and one day Ruby, who was with me, suggested we go pay Rose a visit.

“Won’t the Professor mind?” I asked, scared of intruding.

“Don’t be silly,” Ruby scolded good-naturedly, gently nudging me through the wooden gate and pulling it shut behind her. “He won’t be home just now.”

She was right, of course—Ruby usually was. Rose was busy dusting, and all she said when she saw us was “Hello. Why don’t you sit; I’ve work to do, but you can talk.”

It seemed idiotic to sit in the drawing room while Rose went about her work, so Ruby and I followed her about. Ruby asked questions, volunteered information, talked nineteen to the dozen. Rose, taciturn as always, did the dusting. And I watched Rose.

She moved in a strange way through the house—her pace never hurried, her steps never swifter than a controlled walk. Yet she accomplished a lot, going about her work with a single-minded concentration. Where Ruby would have been jabbering, Rose was silent; where Ruby would have gone back and forth to do a dozen tasks, Rose efficiently managed it all in one single circuit around a room. She dusted the furniture, fluffed up the cushions, and straightened the framed photographs, the little ceramic curios, the rows of books lining the shelves.
And all the while, the only expression I saw on her face was one of—what was it? Resignation? Abstraction? Ennui? I was too young to be able to gauge emotions just by watching her face, but this much I could tell: Rose’s mind was elsewhere. She was standing in front of us, doing her work, ostensibly listening to Ruby’s chatter and nodding now and then. But she wasn’t really there.

Not, that is, until she stepped into a spacious whitewashed room towards the back of the house. The room had large windows overlooking a balcony crowded with flowerpots; beyond was the backyard and a hedge. In the room was a heavy wooden bed, its four posters carved in intricate spirals. A painstakingly worked crochet coverlet, snowy white in colour, stretched all over it down to the floor. There was an old almirah; a dressing table with a swinging oval mirror; a planter’s chair; and a bookshelf.

Rose crossed the threshold and paused, the way people do to offer up a little word of prayer when they’re stepping into church. Or at least that was how it seemed to me. I was looking up at her as we entered the room, and her expression surprised me. She did not actually smile, but just for a moment, I saw a brief flicker of what may have been a dimple in her right cheek. And then she was moving about again, doing her work.

“The Professor must read a lot,” remarked Ruby. “So many books.” She let a finger trail along a row of hardbound tomes.

Rose glanced at her. “Don’t touch those.”

Ruby giggled. “Why on earth not? I’m not doing any damage.”

“Just don’t do it.”

Without looking again to see if Ruby had obeyed her or not, Rose went to the dressing table, and very carefully, very gently, began dusting everything that lay on it. I watched her, fascinated, as she lifted up, one by one, the items on the polished wood. A sleek black comb; a bottle of aftershave; an alarm clock; a pile of letters; a gunmetal penstand stuffed with blunt pencils. She lingered over each thing, cleaning it meticulously, as if it had acquired God knows how much dirt in the twenty-four hours since she had last touched it.

She did not attempt to hide the softness that came into her face when she picked up the last thing she had to dust in the room. It sat on the bedside table, a studio photograph framed in a rich-grained dark wood. A young man, perhaps in his late twenties, handsome and cheerful, smiling at the camera. Smiling, right then, into Rose’s face as she gently wiped the glass, the frame- even the back of the photograph.

I did not realise the significance of what I was seeing. I did not realise it when Ruby said, “Wake up, Rose! We’re still around.” And I did not even realise it when Rose, as if emerging from a stupor, put down the photograph and left the room. We followed her, Ruby grinning mischievously, and I wondering why Rose was so different from Ruby.

But over the days to come, I did realise. Our trips to the Professor’s house grew more frequent—we even ran into him a couple of times, and he proved to be as handsome as his photograph. A quiet, pleasant man, who smiled at us and asked Rose to make us lemonade or tea.

Seeing Rose when Professor Gomes was around was a revelation. She was not, in the strict sense of the word, a changed woman—but she was different. Much, in fact, like the suddenly tender creature I had glimpsed the first day I watched her dusting his room.
Professor Gomes would say something completely prosaic—that he would be late coming home, so she should leave his dinner in the fridge—and the effect on Rose would be, at least to my eyes, strange. She would not be looking at him directly (she rarely did); but I could tell that every nerve was aware of him, of what he said and what he did. Her hands, busy cooking or washing or whatever, would continue with their work, but there would be the faintest of aimless wanderings. As if just the sound of the man’s voice had shaken the careful control of her fingers.
Her face would remain as passive as ever, but there would be a sudden brightness in her eyes, a look of keen concentration- and that concentration, I could see, was not on whatever work she happened to be doing, but on the presence of the Professor.

I was old enough to realise that Rose felt more than a mere friendliness towards her employer. I was also young enough to be shocked by what appeared to me such obvious stupidity on the part of Rose. She was, after all, a servant. Not too literate. And—this seemed worst to me—she was older than him.

But that didn’t appear to bother Rose. It did not even appear to bother her that the Professor treated her with a polite indifference, very appropriate to the harmless relationship between a bachelor and his housekeeper.

What bothered Rose—and bothered her very much indeed—was the coming of Melissa.

Melissa was all that Rose was not. She was a city girl, her hair charmingly cut, her lipstick a delicate shade of coral that complemented her peaches-and-cream complexion. Her dresses, pretty floral cottons and elegant chiffons, were tailored to her slim figure, and her bag always matched her shoes. She was genteel, lovely, softspoken—a glorious example of femininity. Her aunt, with whom she had come to stay, adored her. The women in the neighbourhood envied her. And the most eligible bachelor of the neighbourhood, Professor Gomes himself, fell head over heels in love with her.

His opinion of Melissa was such that within a fortnight of her arrival, people were gossiping about how the Professor was spending less time in his own house and more at Melissa’s aunt’s. His evening walks along the beach—with Melissa stepping daintily by his side—became a standard feature of village life.
They stopped over at Grandmother’s house one day, and even though Melissa’s hair was windblown and she had sand sticking to her sandals, she looked stunning. The Professor, gazing at her with frank rapture, was obviously smitten.

Grandmother, a die-hard romantic, sighed wistfully as she watched them ramble down the lane. “Such a handsome pair,” she murmured. “So beautiful together.”

But Rose did not think so, as Ruby and I were to discover the very next day.

She met us in the lane outside the Professor’s house; she had been out shopping. The weight of the bags—bursting with groceries and vegetables and other mundane items—made the veins stand out on her forearms and her hands, and her face looked drawn.

“You don’t look well, Rose,” I blurted out.

Rose looked at me as if she hadn’t noticed me before. “I’m all right,” she replied flatly. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

Ruby shrugged. “Have it your way. But I agree with the kid. You look terrible. Need a hand with those bags?”

Rose shook her head. “I said I’m okay, I don’t need your help.”

“But—”

“Stop it, damn you!” I had never seen Rose—calm, unemotional Rose—behave like this, and I shrank back. “I told you I don’t need your help, so stop pestering me. Why must you bother me? I don’t poke my nose in your business!”

Her bosom was heaving and her face was flushed. I had never imagined Rose could be so furious.

She lifted an arm, the bag she held obscuring her face as she used her wrist to push back a strand of hair from her forehead. A gleaming streak of perspiration across her knuckles shone in the sunlight as she lowered her arm.

“Leave me alone,” she muttered. “I don’t want anybody.”

Ruby was quick to goad her. “Does that mean you’re not coming home tonight? What will I say when Mother asks about you?”

Her sister did not say anything; she looked long and hard at Ruby, and then she walked away.

Things did not get better over the weeks that followed. They simply went from bad to worse. Professor Gomes, completely oblivious of what was happening to Rose, continued to go out with Melissa. He smiled a lot, even laughed now and then. And viewed the world through rose-tinted glasses in which, alas, Rose did not appear.
Grandmother sent me to his house one morning with a message for Rose, asking if she could come to Grandmother’s to do some cleaning, since Ruby hadn’t turned up. When I stepped into the front yard, I saw Professor Gomes on the verandah, getting ready to leave. His books were lying on a chair and he was busy knotting his tie. Rose was standing on the threshold, staring blankly into space.

I wished them good morning, and passed on Grandmother’s message. “That should be easy for you, Rose,” the Professor remarked. “Since I won’t be home for dinner, you’ll be able to leave early and go over to Mrs Alva’s.” He did not say why he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

Rose nodded. The Professor gathered up his books, said goodbye, and went off; and I, feeling awkward, went home.

It was two days later on a sunny Saturday morning that tragedy struck. I was sitting at the dining table breakfasting off French toast and banana milkshake when pandemonium broke out in the lane outside. A woman was shrieking at the top of her voice; someone was wailing; a man was shouting for a doctor. Something had happened nearby, and Grandmother and I rushed out to see what it was. Ruby, duster in hand, came racing out after us.

“He’s ruined my poor child! Scarred her for life! My pretty angel, my darling! So beautiful, so beautiful—why did he do it? Why? Oh, what will happen? What will I tell her parents—?” Melissa’s aunt, flabby shoulders shaking, was babbling incoherently. A little knot of women clustered around her. One of them was hugging her, while another was holding a glass of water and attempting to make her drink it. Two men, attracted by the outcry, were standing on the fringes of the group. One of them glanced at his watch and said something to the other about the doctor being on his way.

Grandmother made her way forward, intent on discovering what had happened. When she finally emerged, she was looking shaken.

“What is it, Grandmother?” I asked in an awed whisper. “What happened?”

Grandmother shut her eyes briefly, her withered old hand resting on my shoulder. “Let’s not talk about it just now, child,” she replied. “Melissa’s had a bit of an accident. Maybe we should both go in and pray for her. All right?”

I nodded obediently, though I was dying of curiosity. What sort of accident had happened to Melissa? To me, accidents meant cars or buses; and unless Melissa had walked down to the highway, she could hardly have encountered any cars in the area.

I slipped away as soon as I possibly could, to Melissa’s aunt’s house. The crowd had dispersed by then; there was nobody around, not even Melissa or her aunt. I guessed Melissa had been taken to the hospital. I walked further down the lane to the Professor’s house, wondering if he knew what had happened to Melissa. It was a silly thing to do, because even if he knew, I could never have plucked up the courage to ask him.

As I rounded the corner and came in sight of the hedge that surrounded the Professor’s house, I heard the sound of a woman sobbing. “I didn’t,” she cried, the words distorted. “I swear I didn’t. Why should I—”

“Why should you indeed,” cut in the Professor, his voice strained and sarcastic. “You would not want to harm a hair of Melissa’s head, would you? You love her so much, right?”

I sidled up to the hedge, looked swiftly along the lane to see if anybody was around, and reassured that there would be no witnesses to my prying, bent down to peek through a gap in the hedge.

Professor Gomes was standing, shirtsleeves rolled up and hair dishevelled, in the yard. Despair was written all over his face: despair and frustration and rage. At his feet, crumpled onto her knees, sat Rose. But this Rose was a far cry from the composed and quiet Rose I had once known; she was also very different from the pale and unhappy spectre that Rose had become over the past weeks. This Rose, with her long hair streaming out over her shoulders, her fingers clawing at Professor Gomes’ trouser leg, was an emotional wreck.

“I tell you I didn’t do it,” she wailed. “Please believe me, I didn’t.”

“Don’t tell lies,” he snapped. “I saw, with my very own eyes, the note you’d put with the flowers. Melissa may not have recognised the handwriting; she may have thought it was mine- but I knew whose it was, Rose. Just as I know who it was who sent those flowers to Melissa, knowing full well that she was violently allergic to them.”

“How am I supposed to know she’s allergic to bottlebrush? Please, Professor: please listen to me—”

“The entire village knows she’s allergic to them.”

Professor Gomes bent, grabbed Rose by the shoulders and very firmly thrust her away. “I don’t need you any more,” he said. “Go away, please, and don’t come here ever again.”

He strode away into the house, and Rose sank to the ground, sobbing as if her heart had broken. I slunk away back to Grandmother’s, not quite sure what had happened, but feeling very uncomfortable about it.

The next day, Father came to take me back home. As we drove past Melissa’s aunt’s house, I saw Melissa getting into a white car, a nurse holding one elbow. Melissa’s aunt hovered solicitously in the background, and further back stood the tall figure of the Professor. I caught a glimpse of Melissa’s face as she looked towards him. Her face was red, blotchy with rash, tears were streaming from her eyes—and her expression was one of sheer hatred.

* * *

I did not return to Grandmother’s house for a long time. Life was hectic, and after Father’s company transferred him to Delhi, it became difficult to go all the way to visit Grandmother. She came to stay with us once a year or so—usually around Christmas—and that was all.

I had grown up, finished with studies, and taken up a job as a travel writer of sorts when a trip down south brought me less than 100 kilometres from Grandmother’s village. I took the plunge and hired a cab to take me there.

The first person I saw when I reached the village was Ruby. An older, more mature Ruby, but Ruby nevertheless. Her hair was pulled into a neat bun, and her figure, firm as ever, was clad in a blue dress. She was standing in front of a general goods store, clutching a handbag that looked pure leather. I waved madly at her from the cab window, and although her face didn’t show any sign of recognition, she smiled, as if willing to make the acquaintance.

I paid off the driver and stumbled out of the cab.

“Ruby! Ruby, it’s been ages! How are you? Surely you haven’t forgotten me? Remember what fun we had when I stayed with Grandmother?”

Her eyes shone with sudden recollection. “Of course, how can I forget,” she smiled. “I rarely see Mrs Alva now, but I heard you were doing well for yourself. Here to see her?”

There was something different about her. It wasn’t just that the bubbly teenager had matured into a poised woman; there was more to it. I started to speak, but was interrupted by a woman who emerged from the shop behind Ruby. She was holding a scrap of paper, which she held out to Ruby.

“You left your shopping list behind, Mrs Gomes,” she said. “First I didn’t know whose it was, but then I guessed it must be yours, the handwriting is so exactly like poor Rose’s. I knew her quite well, you know. Such a shame about her, I would never have thought she was the type to lose her balance like that—”

I stood there in the dusty street, staring wild-eyed at Ruby.

And Ruby just smiled serenely back at me.

(Winner of the e-author version 4.0 competition, www.oxfordbookstore.com and Reader’s Digest, 2006)