Diamond Dust by Anita Desai Read Free Book Online Page A

seen mango pickle before, can you believe?' 'He didn't know what is betel nut! "Beetle? You are bringing in an insect?" he asked!'—and of being stranded at airports by great blizzards or lightning strikes by airline staff—'We were lucky we had taken our bedroll and could spread out on the floor and sleep'—and of course they vied with each other with reports of their sons' and daughters' palatial mansions, immense cars, stocked refrigerators, prodigies of shopping in the most extensive of department stores. They brought back with them electrical appliances, cosmetics, watches, these symbols of what was 'foreign'.
    The two mothers had „taken no part in this, saying, 'We can get those here too,' and contenting themselves by passing around the latest photographs of Rakesh and his wife and their home in Toronto. Now that they too were to join this great adventure, they became nervous—even Asha did. Young, travelled daughters and granddaughters of old friends came around to reassure them: 'Auntie, it is not difficult at all! Just buy a ticket at the booth, put it in the slot, and step into the subway. It will take you where you like,' or 'Over there you won't need kerosene or coal for the stove, Auntie. You have only to switch on the stove, it will light by itself,' or 'You won't need to wash your clothes, Auntie. They have machines, you put everything in, with soap, it washes by itself.' The two women wondered if these self-confident youngsters were, pulling their legs: they were not reassured. Every piece of information, meant to help, threw them into greater agitation. They were convinced they would be swallowed up by the subway if they went out, or electrocuted at home if they stayed in. By the time the day of their departure came around, they were feverish with anxiety and sleeplessness. Anu would gladly have abandoned the plan—but Asha reminded her that Rakesh had sent them tickets, his first present to them after leaving home, how could they refuse?

    It was ten years since Rakesh had seen his mothers, and he had forgotten how thinly they tended to dress, how unequipped they might be. Beth's first impression of them as they came out of the immigration control area, wheeling a trolley between them with their luggage precariously balanced on it, was of their wisps of widows' white clothing—muslin, clearly—and slippers flapping at their feet. Rakesh was embarrassed by their skimpy apparel, Beth unexpectedly moved. She had always thought of them as having so much; now her reaction was: they have so little!
    She took them to the stores at once to fit them out with overcoats, gloves, mufflers—and woollen socks. They drew the line at shoes: they had never worn shoes, could not fit their feet into them, insisting on wearing their sandals with thick socks instead. She brought them back barely able to totter out of the car and up the drive, weighed down as they were by great duffle coats that kept their arms lifted from their sides, with their hands fitted into huge gloves, and with their heads almost invisible under the wrappings of woollen mufflers. Under it all, their white cotton kameezes hung out like rags of their past, sadly.
    When Doris came around to visit them, she brought along all the spare blankets she had in her apartment, presciently. 'Thought you'd be cold,' she told them. 'I went through the war in England, and I know what that's like, I can tell you. And it isn't half cold yet. Wait till it starts to snow.' They smiled eagerly, in polite anticipation.
    While Beth and Doris bustled about, 'settling them in', Rakesh stood around, unexpectedly awkward and ill at ease. After the first ecstatic embrace and the deep breath of their lingering odour of the barnyard and woodsmoke and the old soft muslin of their clothing, their sparse hair, he felt himself in their way and didn't know quite what to do with himself or with them. It was Beth who made them tea and tested their English while Rakesh sat with his