Tell It to the Trees (23 page)

—Some junk jewellery and a single heavy gold bangle which her mother gave her when she got married. Unlike the money, it had sentimental value, and I had no doubt it should return to her family.

—A wedding ring that she kept after she got divorced.

—Car keys, pens, books she loved, random items that litter our lives. I threw them all into the suitcase.

—Clothes: white blouse, red blouse, three skirts (one with pink flowers she liked a lot), four jeans, four trousers, underwear. Three pairs of shoes.

—Photographs of her brother and his children and of her parents when they were young, a long time ago.

The old refrigerator started up suddenly with a groan and my heart jumped in alarm. I cleaned its contents out into a garbage bag, took one last look around the room and tramped back through the snow to my house.

I feel enormously sad. I have lost a friend. It will be two friends when Akka dies—which won’t be long now. It is time to make a decision. A long time ago, on the roof
of an old house in Agra, I contemplated that thin little word—I. Can I fulfill its potential, I wonder, can I push it as tall and as wide as it can go, that slender word? It’s time now to find my lost self, that scrawny
I
that fell into a mirror that moonlit night. It’s time to drag myself out of this mirror in which I’ve trapped myself, time to let myself go.

It is now a week after Anu’s death. Her things have all gone, carried away by her brother, and the back-house is empty once more. I’m alone except for Hem, who has stayed home from school, complaining of a stomach ache. I don’t question him—her death has upset him deeply, I know. He wakes up screaming at night, insisting there are ghosts knocking at the windows. He’s outside playing now, and through the kitchen window I can see him, bright against the snow in his red winter jacket, his arms wrapped around the large tree a little to the left of the back-house. He looks a bit like he’s hanging on for dear life. I tap on the window to summon him back inside—he is sick, he shouldn’t be outside for too long. He turns around at the sound and stumbles frantically through the snow towards the house. I open the door to let him in and he falls into my arms.

“I heard her,” he sobs. “I
heard
her.”

I am bewildered. “Who did you hear, bayboo?”

“Anu. I
heard
her just now. Tap-tap, she was tapping on the window.”

I shake my head and pull him into the warmth of the
kitchen. Hug him tight and rock him like I used to when he was a baby. “That was me, not Anu. It was me.”

He holds tight to me and sobs even louder. “Mama,” he says. “Mama, I have a secret, a bad secret.”

SECRETS

I have a secret. I tell Mama …

I tell Mama how when she and Papa went to stay with Akka in the hospital, and Anu came over to look after me and Varsha, we turned off all the lights in the house except three. And when Anu asked what we were doing we told her Papa doesn’t like to waste electricity. Then Varsha pulled all the curtains shut and Anu asked what we were doing and we said that way the heat stays inside the house.

Then we told Anu we were going upstairs so I could do my homework and Varsha could take a nap because she was sick. And Varsha said I must not to speak one single word to Anu. “Did you hear? She said Mama was going to leave us. Did you hear? She is going to take our Mama away from us. She is
not
a good person.”

“Is Mama going to leave me too?” I asked.

Varsha hit me on my back so hard I nearly fell on my face. “What’s so special about you, stupid? She is going to leave
all
of us and go away.”

Then we went downstairs again and had dinner and after everything was all cleaned up and Anu did the dishes she asked if we wanted to play Monopoly or something. We didn’t speak one single word. Varsha said not to. Anu was going to steal our mother. So Anu shook her head, stuck her hands on her waist and said, “Okay you two, what’s with the silent treatment?”

We didn’t say anything.

Anu shook her head again. “Have it your way. I’m going out for a smoke.”

She opened the door and the blizzard pushed the wind in. It was cold cold cold and snow was pouring down from the sky and it was dark black outside. Anu said
brrr
and stepped back in to zip up her jacket and pull on her toque.

“Will I need my gloves do you think?” she asked.

It was freezing cold, there was a storm,
of course
she needed gloves and scarf and snow pants.

“It’s kind of hard to hold a cigarette with paws though, eh?” It was like she was talking to herself since we weren’t saying anything. “So maybe not.” She turned to us. “Okay you two darlings, don’t do anything naughty in the next five minutes, hear me? Yes? No? Oh fine, have it your way.” She went out and pulled the door shut behind her. It became warm again.

“Stupid cow,” Varsha said. She turned the key in the door. Then ran into the kitchen and turned off the light and pulled down the blinds. Came back to the landing and switched off the light there too, and the outside
light which our Papa had said to always always keep on.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I couldn’t see anything, not even my hand, it was so dark. Darker than inside my closed eyes. “Why are you switching off all the lights? I’m scared.”

“Nonsense,” Varsha said. “Why are
you
scared?
You
aren’t outside there are you? Now shut up and sit here with me.”

We sat in the dark and then the knocking started up.
Tap-tap, tap-tap
, Anu went. And then when we didn’t open the door she went
Bang Bang Bang
. And still we didn’t open and I was crying and saying it’s so cold we should open the door Varsha, we should open the door. She will be eaten up by the snow, I cried. I wanted Varsha to switch on the lights and open the door so Anu could come back in. But my sister said, “Shh, shh, it’s okay Hem, she needs to learn a lesson, that’s all.”

Then she took my hand and slowly, bumping into stuff, we went to Akka’s room and crept under her smelly blanket and waited for tomorrow.

“If anyone asks, Hem,” Varsha whispered, cuddling close to me, “if anyone asks, just say we were fast asleep.”

I tell Mama we shut the door and turned off the lights and left Anu outside in the blizzard when it was freezing cold. I tell her how we didn’t open the door. I tell her how we found Anu’s notebook where she left it on the table with her keys. I said we shouldn’t take it but Varsha said finders-keepers so now it was ours. She hid it in a secret place inside her cupboard so Papa can’t find
out about Anu helping Mama run away, and about how she’s going to take only me and not Varsha. If he found out he would be broken-hearted. Varsha said. And if his heart broke he might go mad and do something bad to us. Varsha said.

I tell her how Anu’s ghost bangs every night and day on my room window and on the windows of all the rooms and I can’t sleep because I’m scared she’s coming to get me. I’m scared of my sister and Papa, and I cry that I want to go far away from here with her. And I tell her where Varsha hid her passport. I tell her everything.

And then I feel bad that I BETRAYED Varsha.

So I go tell Tree what I just did. And Tree tells Varsha.

And now my sister knows I told on her. She knows everything.

I have a secret. I am leaving …

Hemu has told me. I find it hard to believe that two children could do what they did. No
—one
child. My son isn’t responsible. He is a baby. Too young to resist that girl. That terrible, terrible girl.

He also told me my passport is hidden behind the photograph of Mr. J.K. Dharma. Varsha stuck it there because she was afraid I would leave her. I think of that day years ago when she told me that she would rather have me dead, a garlanded photograph on the wall with the rest of her family, than let me go. I thought it was childish rage. Now I know it was not. She is mad. I feel sorry for her, but now I know I cannot stay here and allow my son to be turned into someone like her. Anu was right, I have to get out, I owe it to my child. And to myself. It will be difficult, but I will manage. I have made up my mind and that is a start.

I stare out of the kitchen window at the back-house, so dark and lonely. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a flutter of pink. It is Varsha, back from school. Hem follows, holding her hand, dragging behind. For the first time, she insisted she could come back on her own today. “It’s okay, Mama,” she said, kissing me sweetly this morning. “I can bring Hem home by myself. I am old enough.”

Vikram wasn’t there to object to this—he’s in the hospital with Akka. She is failing fast, any day now, she will be gone, the doctors have said. All the more reason for me to leave this house, this family.

Hem breaks away from Varsha and stumbles through the snow towards me. Varsha grabs his jacket, hauls him back and leans into him. He squirms out of her grasp and continues towards me. Varsha stands there alone, her toque bright against the winter whiteness, and then she heads to that giant tree they both love so much. She leans against it, her face close to the trunk. I used to wish I could ask the tree what the children were whispering to it, what they were burying in its ancient wooden heart, and now I am not sure I ever want to know.

Varsha finishes her conversation with the tree and turns towards the house, looks up and catches sight of me at the kitchen window. She stands still and looks straight at me. I wave to her. She does not respond. I wave again. It is better to pretend I don’t know. Soon she will be inside the house with us, this girl who is capable of anything. Inside the house her grandfather built on a road that goes nowhere, in a place where nobody cares what happens behind the closed doors of a house. Where family business is the business of the family.

I have a secret …

I shut the door. And turned the key. And switched off the lights.

I know the passport isn’t where I hid it. Suman found it. Hem told me—he can’t keep a secret, the silly blabbermouth. I know Suman is going to leave. Hem told me that too. I know she will take my brother with her. But he is
mine. I
saw him first. Akka is gone. There is nobody else left for me. Suman cannot go. She can’t take my brother. I will have to find a way to keep her here forever. To keep Hem with me. I
will
find a way.

I am cunning as the snow.

I am sharp as the winter wind.

I am strong as Tree.

I can find a way.

I am Varsha Dharma, granddaughter of Mr. J.K. Dharma (late), and Bhagirathi Bai (late), daughter of Vikram and Harini alias Helen (late), stepdaughter of Suman, sister of Hem. This is
my
house, this is
my
family.

Acknowledgements

This is a wholly inadequate acknowledgement of my debt to the following people:

— Louise Dennys for her insightful editorial guidance, patience, and wonderful ability to draw the best possible out of me

— Deirdre Molina for her equally perceptive comments and sharp eye for detail

— Denise Bukowski for her strong support through endless drafts and her faith in me

— all my wonderful friends at Knopf Canada who have had a hand in sending this book out into the world.

ANITA RAU BADAMI’S
first novel was the bestseller
Tamarind Mem
. Her bestselling second novel,
The Hero’s Walk
, won the Regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and Italy’s Premio Berto, was named a Washington Post Best Book, was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, and was a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize. Her third novel,
Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?
, was released in 2006 to great acclaim, longlisted for the IMPAC Award, and a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. The recipient of the Marian Engel Award for a woman writer in mid-career, Badami is also a visual artist. She lives in Montreal.