Aradhana could hear raised voices in the next room, and she immediately knew it was about what she had said to her aunt, Nandini Pishi. She slipped out of bed and crept barefoot to press her ear to the door that led into her father’s room. She couldn’t quite understand what they were saying because her father’s voice was low and angry, and Nandini Pishi never raised her voice, even when vexed about the horrible things Aradhana did. Aradhana couldn’t see the glass of water sailing at the door to which she had her ears glued, and the sound of it crashing made her leap away in fright.
“Never! You will never tell her the truth! I forbid you!” Her father was furious, as he often was. Aradhana scampered back to the soft, pink blanket on her bed, which Nandini Pishi said was made with her mother’s sarees, so it meant her mother was holding her tight every night. A large black-and-white photograph of her mother hung over the bed, the face ever serene, no matter what Aradhana had done. Aradhana prayed to it every night before sleeping, offering the same prayer they had taught her in school, because that was the only one she knew. Tonight, she changed it a little for her mother, repeating the last line fervently – Holy Mummy, mother of mine, pray for my sins, now and at the hour of my death. Amen. Holy Mummy, mother of mine, pray for my sins, now and at the hour of my death. Amen. Holy Mummy – until she fell asleep crying.
Aradhana knew it was terribly naughty of her to upturn the fishhead on Nandini Pishi’s new saree or dip the bottom of her aunt’s braid into blue paint as she napped in the verandah. Sometimes her father frowned when he was informed of her antics, dismissively telling her not to repeat it before turning back to the book he was reading. The thing is, it was hard to love Nandini Pishi; her father didn’t seem to love his sister, so Aradhana didn’t see why she had to. Besides, she had heard Baba tell Nandini Pishi that she wasn’t really a Lahiri so she should know her place. Aradhana didn’t know what it meant to really be a Lahiri, but she knew that her father’s words had made Nandini Pishi become so quiet that you could hear her breathe, which was always a sign that she was angry. When Aradhana was not allowed to have more aloo bhaja with her khichudi that day, her face had crumpled. “You don’t get to decide what I eat because you’re not really a Lahiri,” she said, recklessly.
“Lahiri or not, a nine-year-old does not get to eat more bhaja than is good for her,” was Nandini Pishi’s firm retort. She had not become quiet at all, which made Aradhana sulk; all she wanted was for Nandini Pishi to stop asking her so many questions about her classes and friends, and just let her be. It was Baba she wanted to talk to, about how Sonia had flung Kathleen’s hairband across the room and Teacher Lewis had caught it like a frisbee. But her father never really wanted to listen. Nandini Pishi said he worked very hard and was very tired, so she shouldn’t disturb him, but that didn’t mean that Aradhana wanted to talk to her.
It took Aradhana years to discover that her father’s interest was piqued by bizarre snippets of information. If she could spring it on him unexpectedly, even better, and so she developed a propensity to retain trivia that went on to make her indispensable to the school quiz team. She noticed that the really good ones found their way to the monthly magazine he edited, such as the tidbit about sandwiches, even though it would always rankle that he hadn’t touched those sandwiches she had made him with leftover chicken from the afternoon stew. “I don’t eat sandwiches,” he’d said, regarding the triangular bread, glistening with butter along the edges, with disdain. “It’s an American abhorrence.”
“Actually, the Earl of Sandwich was British,” Aradhana piped up. “He didn’t want to stop playing cards to go eat dinner, so he asked for the roast beef to be served to him between two slices of bread.”
As the laugh lines formed on her father’s forehead, creasing out his frown, the air around Aradhana became lighter, like egg whites whipped into cream. She basked in the joy of the uncharacteristic sparkle that had briefly replaced the question she usually saw soldered in the light eyes she’d inherited. The only question she couldn’t answer with a comic fact. Why are you alive when your mother is dead? But the moment passed, for moments were loath to be trapped into glass jars to be partaken of later, and her father disappeared behind a heavy book, the sandwiches remaining untouched. That sparkle in Hemanta Lahiri’s eyes was the only evidence that he could be any different from the glowering man his daughter was so familiar with – this is how he must have looked around her mother, she imagined. If only Aradhana Sen hadn’t died, so many things would have been different for Aradhana Lahiri. For instance, she would have had a real mother and not have to put up with Nandini Pishi’s fake-mothering. And Handsome might have still been around. They would have been a real family, like the ones she read about.
Sometimes, when she was daydreaming in class, especially when Teacher Lewis was trying to explain fractions, she thought about Handsome – Handsome digging up the garden under her window and being chased away by an irate Maali. Handsome wildly shaking himself after a bath and dousing her in water, which made her laugh even though she pretended to be annoyed. Handsome was almost as old as she was, for Nandini Pishi said they had brought him home on Aradhana’s first birthday and that she had slept with him snuggled at her feet for a whole year. Though she couldn’t remember this, it explained why she liked to have an extra pillow heaped on her ankles at night. All Aradhana really remembered was that Handsome mostly preferred to romp outside, slipping out of the gate, visiting the neighbours who would bring him back home just before her father returned from office. Handsome would station himself in the garden and Aradhana would hover in the verandah when it was time for Hemanta Lahiri to return from work. Aradhana wasn’t allowed to hover in the garden alone, so it felt like hours waiting for Baba to come upstairs after his car had rolled in, listening to him having a whole conversation with his golden retriever as it chased its own tail in excitement. The Handsome she remembered only liked to sleep on a rug by her father’s bed at night, for they were inseparable. Aradhana only had her mother’s photograph for company.
Excerpted with permission from The Lady on the Horse and Other Secrets: A Novel, Ramona Sen, Speaking Tiger Books.
