The Bamboo Stalk

7

7As the months passed my mother’s belly expanded to make room for me as I grew. The rounded bulge stuck out and she couldn’t hide it forever under her loose clothes. She hid it from my father at first. ‘It was a strange marriage,’ my mother said. ‘It didn’t seem real, especially after he had fulfilled his objective. He was still my master, in spite of everything that had happened. So I kept you secretly inside me because I was frightened he might try to make me have an abortion if he found out.’ Like Aunt Aida, she didn’t tell my father she was pregnant till it would have been impossible to have an abortion.

My father didn’t believe it at first. He didn’t know what to do when he realised she was serious. He told her off for keeping quiet about it for so long. ‘That was when I realised that this wasn’t a real marriage,’ she said. He hinted at the idea of an abortion. When he understood it was too late he promised her he would act at the right time. As time passed the changes were obvious – the way she looked and the way she moved, her complexion, her nose, her lips, her swollen fingers and the way she walked. It wasn’t hard to tell, especially as the lady of the house was the father’s mother. One day in the kitchen, in the presence of the Indian cook, Grandmother sprang the question on her. ‘Who did it?’ she asked, expecting my mother to confess that she had slept with the cook. My mother burst into tears, and the cook fell to his knees, kissed Grandmother’s hands and assured her he had never gone anywhere near Josephine.

My father heard his mother shouting in the kitchen. He left the study and headed towards all the noise. My father sent the cook off with a wave of his hand. He turned to his mother and, casually and rebelliously, he said, ‘It’s me.’

There was a heavy silence, then my grandmother said, ‘Yes, you, the man of the house. You’ll deal with that bastard, won’t you?’

She was sure the cook had done it, so my father had to explain. ‘No, it was me who did it, Mother,’ he said.

She clasped her chest with the palm of her hand, as if her heart had sunk and she had to hold it in place. She put her hands over her ears and then over her face. ‘She’ll have to leave,’ she said, in a voice that was hardly audible.

‘I’m not in the habit of going back on what I say or do, and sometimes there’s no going back anyway,’ my father answered coldly.

His mother was about to collapse. Despite appearances, my father was also close to collapse. She took her hands off her face, sat down and pounded the dining table with her fist.

‘You can write stuff like that for your crazy readers, but not for me,’ she shouted.

‘I made a mistake when I made this baby,’ my father replied. ‘But I don’t want to make a bigger mistake by abandoning it.’ My mother said she had never heard him raise his voice so loud, and this was at his mother!

My three aunts had gathered at the kitchen door after hearing all the noise. They didn’t dare come closer.

‘That slut Josephine must leave the country tomorrow,’ Grandmother said.

My mother clasped her hands together in front of her face and wept.

‘Yes, yes, madam, I’ll leave tomorrow,’ she said.

My father silenced her with his hand. ‘She won’t leave as long as she’s carrying a part of me in her womb,’ he said.

His mother stood up straight, her hands resting on the table in front of her. ‘The girl at college, the one who . . . I’ll arrange the engagement, tomorrow if you like,’ she said.

My father shook his head. ‘It’s too late for that, Mother,’ he said.

‘It’s a disaster, a scandal,’ she shouted between sobs.

She pointed at my aunts at the door. ‘Your sisters, you selfish, despicable man. Who’ll marry them after what you’ve done with the maid?’

Rashid had nothing to say in response.

‘Get out of my house, and take that slut with you. Those crazy books have ruined your mind!’

For a whole week, my mother kept asking my father questions about what had happened in the kitchen that day. ‘Why was she pointing at your sisters?’ she asked. ‘She was talking about books. What was she saying? What were you saying when you shouted in your mother’s face?’

‘He acted out the scene for me and translated the conversation so that I could understand. I cried. Your father made me cry many times, José.’

My mother cried that day because my father hadn’t been open with his mother about the marriage. She cried even more because she knew my father hadn’t rebelled against his mother to protect her or because he wanted to stay with her, but rather to protect me, his unborn child. And although he managed to protect me while I was in my mother’s womb, he couldn’t do so when I came out.

If only he had done what his mother wanted.

If only he had kicked my mother in the stomach and I had ended up a small lump of matter swimming in her blood on the kitchen floor.