Tell It to the Trees (19 page)

I flung myself at her, hugging her tight, and she buried her face in my hair.

“Oof, what a smelly child!” she said. “And why aren’t
you wearing your hat? You will catch cold, you know.” She held out a hand for me. “Safety in numbers,” she said as we trudged off down the lane. She always says the same things every day.

“Papa’s home early,” Mama said after a while.

I looked at Mama’s half-hidden face, checking to see if she had black eyes.

“What is it?” Mama’s voice was muffled by the scarf. “Why are you both so quiet?”

“Why?” Varsha demanded.

“Why what?” Mama was holding my hand tight.

“Don’t pretend, Mama,” Varsha said sternly. “Why is he home already?”

Mama stopped walking, so I almost fell. “They closed the mill early today.”

“Is he in a bad mood?” I asked.

“Did he lose his job?” Varsha wanted to know. In school they said everyone in town was losing their jobs one by one. The mill was in the red. Like it was bleeding to death maybe. Mama said that’s why we had to rent out the back-house to Anu. To give us an INCOME in case Papa’s job ended.

“He hasn’t said.”

“There’s a blizzard expected today,” I called out. I climbed a snowbank and sank nearly up to my armpits.

“A blizzard? It wasn’t in the news, was it?” Mama asked.

“I can smell it.” That made me sound important, and we could stop talking about Papa. Maybe the blizzard
would carry us away across the lake, over the mountains, somewhere nice and safe.

“Don’t believe him, Mama,” Varsha said. “They announced it on the radio this afternoon. Sudden storm coming up they said. It’s been hiding behind the mountains.”

Like a wolf. Waiting for its prey. Who would die this winter? The snow here always gets at least one person every year. Once it was my grandfather, Mr. J.K. Dharma.

“Come on then, stop dawdling,” Mama said. “We don’t want to get caught in the storm, do we?”

“We could die of HYPOTHERMIA,” I added, picking up a handful of snow and throwing it at my sister. We ran ahead of Mama. I was laughing and shouting.

“Wait for me!” she called. “Wait for me!” But I think it’s not easy to run in a sari in the snow.

Then I saw that the sky had turned grey all around us and was mixed up with the ground. There was no horizon. I couldn’t see where the road ended and the frozen lake began. The mountains had vanished in the snow. I counted steps in my head, looking down at my feet, sometimes back to spot the holes that my boots had left behind, and when I finished counting there was our gate pressed open by the snow. Our house was crouching like a big fat cat, its roof white, giant heaps of snow all around it. The front light was a shiny golden bead over the door. And behind the door waited Papa. Waited for us to come home to him.

He opened the door and I saw him begin to grow
into a giant. His head puffed up, his eyes swelled into monster-sized rounds, his arms, his legs, his toes, his nose, all stretched out this way and that. And as he grew larger the three of us grew tinier. We became little ants, or sparrows he could smash in a second.

I love him because he is my Papa. I know he hits us because he loves us, and it’s his duty to turn us into the best children in the world, into children he can be proud of. He found out about our trip to the store. Like he said he would. He has eyes all over his head. He is like god. He spotted my purple tongue and then he pointed out a smudge of purple lollipop on my sweater.

“You ate something nice, son?” he asked in his kind Papa voice.

I said, “Yes Papa, a giant lollipop.” I nodded eagerly.

“Was it delicious then, son? Did your teacher give it to you?”

“Oh no, it was Mr. Johnson. He gave it to me for free and Varsha said it was okay for me to take it and I said thank you to Mr. Johnson, I did, Papa.” Blab blab blab.

Our father called us to the room full of books belonging to his dear dead father Mr. J.K. Dharma, which we are not to touch, ever.

Varsha held my hand, squeezing hard to let me know I was not to be afraid. She stared at Papa straight in the eye, even though she’s a tiny thing, just like Mama.

Papa’s belt coiled out of his hand like a snake, not the cloth one which doesn’t hurt as much but the leather one which does.

He whipped Varsha first then me. Little hills and flowers of blood came up on our legs.

Mama started to cry and begged him to leave us alone.

Then in the middle of it all the doorbell rang. That got Papa to stop.

“Suman? Are you okay?” It was Anu. More ringing.

Papa glared at Mama and whispered, “Why is she here at this time? Does she come over often?” Our business is our business, nobody else’s.

“No, she doesn’t, she doesn’t. I don’t know what she wants.”

“You take these two upstairs. I’ll deal with her,” Papa said.

The knob rattled and Anu called out again, “Is everything okay? Suman? Akka?”

Mama rushed us up the stairs. No noise, she whispered, no noise. We went into her room and she shut the door. Down below we heard voices and then Anu was gone and Papa was coming up the stairs. The door opened and he was there. “Nosy Parker,” he said. “I am not sure it’s such a good idea to have her around.” He looked sharply at Mama. “Does she do that when I am not here?”

“Do what?” Mama looked confused and scared.

“Come to the house?”

“No, I hardly see her. I think she is busy writing her book,” Mama said.

“Are you sure?” Papa caught Mama by the chin like
she was a child and turned her face up so he could look closely at her.

“No. I mean yes. I mean yes I am sure. Ask Akka if you want,” Mama said.

There was a long silence and then Papa moved away from my Mama. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

And then Mama had to go down to make dinner and we had to go to our rooms to do our homework and later still, when the house was quiet, I could hear Varsha crying in her room. It was my fault. I wished I was not a blabbermouth, I wished I had not eaten a purple lollipop. Good thing it was winter and our legs would be covered up. And Mama would say to us as we walked to the bus stop, don’t tell anyone, okay? No one at all. On my head, promise on my head, or I will die and you will not have me with you any longer. Nobody must know what happens inside our house. It’s like hanging out your dirty underwear in the public square Mama says. In summer when she hangs out our underwear to dry she covers them with towels so nobody, not even the sparrows, can see them sitting there quiet as mice, like us. Promise, Mama. Promise, Varsha. I won’t tell. Otherwise I’ll go to hell. Otherwise people will think bad things about us.

Anu’s Notebook

January 24
. Yesterday evening, trudging back to my cottage after a trip to town, I heard an almighty racket going on in the Dharma house again—crying, shouting, the works. Somebody, it sounded like Suman, was pleading or wailing, I couldn’t be sure. I hesitated—was it any of my business to interfere? Decided to check anyway, in case something was really wrong, like maybe Akka was dead. The house was sparsely lit as usual. Suman tells me Vikram doesn’t like wasting electricity. If there’s nobody in a room, the lights are turned off. The light over the front door stays on all night. I pulled my jacket about me and walked through ankle-deep snow and rang the bell. Silence descended abruptly. I waited, shivering as the frigid wind bit at my face, making my eyes water, and rang again. This time I heard footsteps approaching and Vikram opened the door, plainly annoyed.

“Anu. What can I do for you?” he asked, wedging his body in the doorway so that I couldn’t see inside.

“Nothing, I just heard some noises, and was wondering … Is everything okay?”

“Yes, why shouldn’t it be?”

“Well, it sounded like someone was crying and shouting and, well, I got worried. I thought maybe Akka …”

“Probably the radio. Didn’t realize it was so loud, sorry.” Vikram smiled. “Is there anything else?”

“No, no, I should be apologizing for disturbing you.” I backed away, feeling stupid.

Another cordial smile from Vikram and then the door was shut. I walked slowly back to my cottage, thinking, he’s lying, it was definitely not the radio I heard. Stop it, Anu. Stop poking your nose into everything. None of your business. You are just a tenant. Nevertheless, the feeling of unease stays with me. I can’t in all conscience do nothing if Vikram is bashing up his family. But I am not sure what I should be doing. Would things turn worse for Suman if I interfered?

Then, this morning, I bumped into the three of them—Suman, Varsha and Hemant—on their way to the bus stop. Varsha’s face was all puffy and bruised.

“Hello! What on earth happened to you?” I was genuinely concerned. She looked terrible.

“Nothing,” they all said in unison, mother and two kids.

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me,” I remarked.

They went quiet, all of them. Suman looked positively terrified. Then Varsha found her voice and said, “I got into a fight with a guy at school yesterday. That’s all.”

“You got beaten by somebody at school? Bloody bullies! Did you complain?”

Varsha shrugged. “I can deal with it. Bye, we’re going to miss the bus.”

I don’t believe a word of it. Now I think about it, in the six months I’ve been here, I’ve noticed bruises on the children—mostly on their legs. I just assumed they were normal scrapes and bumps. Now I’m beginning to connect the dots: the shouting, the bruises, the fear. Does he hit Suman too? Or is it only the kids? Does Akka know? How can she not? She lives in the same house. My respect for the old woman descends several notches. How does she sit there and watch her son beat up his wife and kids? The more I think about it, the more agitated I get. I might not like Varsha or Hemant very much, but they are children. Maybe I should report Vikram to the police.

“He hits them, doesn’t he?” I asked Suman. I was waiting for her at the gate, when she got back from dropping the kids off at the bus stop. “And you? Does he do it to you too?”

She gave me an evasive look and pushed past me, refusing to look at me again or say anything. I trailed after her. When we got to the house, she wouldn’t let me in.

“Please, I have many things to do today. Very busy. I cannot talk now.”

“Does he hit you too, Suman? You can tell me, you know. We can report it, it’s not right. I could help if you
need. Or maybe I could speak to Vikram? He might stop whatever it is he’s doing if he realizes I know.”

A look of horror crept across her face. “No, no, please don’t say anything to him. He will …” She stopped and composed herself. “There is nothing wrong. Please leave. I am busy. Varsha was rushing down the stairs and fell, that is all. Why are you making a big drama about it all?”

“She said she was in a fight, Suman. You guys need to get your lies straight if you want me to believe you.”

“I am not lying. She was in a fight and they pushed her down the stairs. I have forgotten. There are bad children in her school.”

She didn’t bring me any lunch this afternoon. Am I being punished or is she avoiding me? I think it’s the latter—Suman does not seem the kind of person who could punish anybody. Then, just before supper, she showed up with an invitation from Vikram to join them for dinner on Saturday next week. She was all excited about it; the events of this morning seemed all forgotten.

“You must dress nicely,” she said. “We are inviting Gopal and Chanchal. Remember, I told you about them?”

I was taken aback. Wonder why Vikram is turning so cordial all of a sudden. Does it have anything to do with my knock on their door last night or my questions this morning?

“You can come? Yes? Vikram insisted that we must have you over. We wanted to do this before, but somehow …” She tailed off and gave me one of her imploring looks.

“Yes, yes, of course, that would be lovely. I’ll be there. It isn’t as if I have an appointment book full of things to do, either!” I was trying to make her smile her sweet smile but wasn’t successful. “By the way, I meant to tell you, I met Chanchal and Gopal in town yesterday and they kindly invited me home for tea and some yummy cookie thing—naan khatai, I think it was called. Characters, both of them. But really nice, I thought.”

I’ve never seen Vikram interacting with his family or any friends, and I’m curious. It’s so odd that I never even bump into him, although I know he’s at home on Fridays as well as weekends lately. Akka told me it was because of cutbacks at the lumber mill.

“Dress nicely? But I don’t have any fancy clothes. Will a pair of clean trousers and a shirt do?”

“You don’t wear saris?” Suman asked. “You are from India, no?”

“Well, my parents are. And yes, I do wear saris occasionally and not very comfortably, but right now I don’t have any with me. So it will have to be trousers and a blouse, I’m afraid. I promise to look good, not to worry.”

“It’s okay. It’s a family dinner and family friends. Do you want me to make anything special? Vikram said to ask.”

He’s really laying it on, I thought. I must have stirred things up. I assured Suman that anything she made was manna from heaven as far as I was concerned. Even her plain rice tasted better than the fancy stuff you can eat in posh restaurants. She smiled, pleased, and hurried away
as fast as she could through the snow which had started falling again.

January 25
. I had more visitors today—the children this time. I was outside, smoking peacefully, enjoying the crisp air, the brilliant sunshine, when I heard footsteps crunching towards me.

“Hi, Anu Aunty, how are you?” Varsha called, waving.

I almost swallowed my cigarette from shock. Anu
Aunty!
And smiles instead of scowls! What is going on?

“Oh, you startled me,” I remarked. The bruises on Varsha’s face have faded a bit. They aren’t as bad as they were yesterday.

“Sorry, we just came by to apologize for our rudeness,” she said.

“Yes, apologize,” the little echo added.

“Nothing to apologize for. You weren’t rude at all. Your face looks pretty beaten up. Are you better now?”

“Yes, yes I am. I had a really bad fall down the stairs, you know, three guys pushed me. Big guys,” Varsha said.