Free In the Convent of Little Flowers by Indu Sundaresan Page B

not holding, rises to touch her hair. And I know what she wants to say.
Kamala of the doe eyes, large, liquid, edged with a sweeping fan of eyelashes. We all grew up modern. Western. The aunties cut our hair short, bangs in the front, a straight sweep just above the shoulders in the back, but Kamala, dreamy, tranquil Kamala would not let them touch her head. When she was three, that inner fire burst into flames and she said no. The word frightened the whole house immeasurably, for she had not spoken yet. Not one single word. They thought, we all thought, she was mute.
She told me later she felt there had been no necessity to speak, for everything in her life so far had progressed as she had wanted it. No ripples, no waves. But when some auntie came to her with the scissors, Kamala said no. Just once. There were no arguments, no cajoling, no scolding, nothing. Just that simple no.
I did all the yelling and screaming on her behalf. I kept her behind me, away from the scissors. I hauled her up the champa tree when someone came calling with the barber my father used every second Sunday. I distracted the adults (they were easily distracted) by sprinkling sugar on the back verandah to beckon an army of red ants. It took them five days to get rid of the ants. Kamala just watched me, did not even say thank-you, for things were progressing as she wanted them. But one night, a few months later, as I was up late studying for a history exam, she came to the door of my room and just stood there. I looked at her in silence, knowing she wanted to say something, silent because she had taught me the value of it. Then she came in, reached up from the floor, put her little arms around me and laid her cheek against mine. We did not kiss much in this house; neither of us would have known how to do so. But that one embrace was enough. It was never repeated again. It did not have to be. For I knew.
So Kamala’s hair grew long and luxuriant. A gleaming ebony, catching multicolored highlights in the sun. Her hair seemed almost too big and too heavy for such a small face, a slender neck, a tiny child.
I envied that hair, the old woman says now, cleaving through my thoughts. Envied its length, its brilliance, envied as she bent over her books, her hair weighing down her neck. Envied that skin. Envied her silence. No one who was so silent was normal. She cannot have been normal. Look what she did later on.
My grip tightens on her hand. I see distress darken her eyes. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. She does not cry out. Does not ask for help as I squeeze her fingers, my knuckles crushed against hers.
Once I loved this woman. So much. She is my grandmother after all, my father’s mother. My mother and father were always at the edges of my affection. But she consumed my hours until Kamala came. There were boys in the house—born to continue the male line, to deposit genes, to carry the name. But she ignored them and favored me. Only a girl child. I slept in her bed until I wanted a room of my own.
She taught me nursery rhymes in English, stumbling over the words. Laughing at her mistakes. With a freedom she never showed to anyone else, not even to my father, who was her only son. She told me the pearls she wore would one day be mine. After. But there was no after in her thoughts, for she would never leave me. Once she was kind and gentle. If only to me.
When the extended family came to visit, to pay their respects, I would sit by her side. Watching as she was falsely gracious. And obstinate if they wanted something (usuallymoney) she would not give. And hurtfully sarcastic. When they left, she talked of these people who made claims on her, who thought they had claims on her. And she would smile. As though anyone but I could claim her.
Suddenly she asks, how is America?
You care how?
I always cared, Payal. Always wanted to know. It was hard, sending away one of ours to a foreign land. But you insisted, yelled to get your way, left us here alone. Went away