The Rice Mother Read Free Page A

ensured that you will not. You shall be more. More than me. I will begin preparing your jewelry box immediately.”
    I stared mutely at her. Her mind was made up.
    I was doomed.

    The five hundred burning oil lamps at my grandmother’s wedding nearly fifty years ago had surprised the awakening sun for five lavish days of merrymaking, but mine was to be a one-day affair. For a whole month wedding preparations kept everybody busy, and despite my earlier misgivings I came around to the idea of a mysterious husband who would treat me like a queen. I was also rather pleased with the idea of lording it over my two new stepchildren. Yes, perhaps it would all be a wonderful adventure. In the gorgeous fantasy I created, Mother came to visit once a month, and I took the boat back perhaps twice or thrice a year. A handsome stranger smiled tenderly and showered me with gifts. I bent my head shyly as a thousand romantic notions partly clothed and blushing ran through my silly teenage head. Of course none of them involved actual sex. No one I knew talked or even knew of such things. The secret process of making babies did not concern me. Curlyheaded, they would turn up when the time was ripe.
    The big day arrived. Our little house seemed to sigh and groan with the weight of fat middle-aged ladies whirling about. The aroma of Mother’s famous black curry filled the air. I sat in my little room, right in the middle of the hustle and bustle. A little ball of excitement was growing in my stomach, and when I laid my palms on my cheeks, they were hot, very hot.
    “Let’s have a look at you then,” my mother said after the clever hands of Poonama, our next-door neighbor, had twisted, pleated, and neatly pinned down the six yards of my red and gold wedding sari. For a long while Mother simply looked at me with the oddest mixture of sadness and joy, then she dabbed the corners of her swimming eyes and, unable to speak, simply nodded her approval. Efficiently, the lady she had engaged from a different village to do my hair moved forward. I sat on a stool as her quick hands threaded strings of pearls through my hair. She added a wad of coarse false hair, twisting the whole thing into a large round bun low on the nape of my thin neck. It looked like a second head had popped out of the back of my neck, but I could see that Mother seemed pleased with the idea of a two-headed daughter, so I said nothing. The lady then produced a little tub that she unscrewed to reveal a dense red paste. She dipped her fat forefinger into the vile-smelling product and applied the sticky grease carefully to my lips. I looked as if I had kissed somebody’s bleeding knee. I stared, fascinated.
    “Don’t lick your lips,” she instructed bossily.
    I agreed solemnly, but the temptation to wipe off the layer of thick smelly paint persisted until the moment I saw my bridegroom. That was when I forgot not just the annoyance of the blubber on my lips but everything else as well, when time stood still and my childhood fled forever, screaming in horror.
    Decked in jewelry, I was escorted into the main hall, where my bridegroom waited on a dais, but as we reached the second row of seated guests I could hold back my curiosity no more. Brazenly I lifted my head and looked up at him. That ball of excitement that had bubbled and bounced so playfully in my stomach shattered. My knees went weak, and my step faltered. Both my smiling escorts simultaneously tightened their grip on my arms. I could hear their disapproving thoughts in my spinning head. What on earth is the matter with the tea-colored girl now?
    The matter with the tea-colored girl was that she had seen the bridegroom.
    Sitting on the dais awaiting me was the biggest giant of a man I had ever seen, so dark his skin shone like black oil in the night. On his temples, like a bird of prey, rode twin wings of gray. Beneath his broad nose, long yellow teeth jutted forward, making it impossible for him to completely close his