The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan Read Free Book Online

to put that, or to whom. She hears him at the front, hurries to unlock the doors and fetches the food.
    He has followed her, takes up the packets and goes back outside. Sivakami hears a musical voice mutter, “Where is the golden child? The transformation of your seed, your soul-breath?”
    Hanumarathnam laughs a little and answers ruefully, “Yes, the only alchemy I have ever effected.”
    “No less miraculous, brother. And she will grow, flesh upon bone, to face the trials of this well-worn cycle.”
    “You are kind.”
    “Blessings on her, and the next, and on your home,” replies the voice.
    Her husband enters their house once more and locks the locks against the night and the moon’s glow, and all is as it should be. From deep down the Brahmin-quarter path, the cry floats back at them, “Here is a body, feed it!”
    Hanumarathnam chuckles.
    Sivakami’s objections are at a standstill. From anyone else, she would have had suspicions of dhrishti, evil eye, from such a compliment. Still, she goes and waves a fistful of salt over her daughter; it doesn’t hurt to take precautions. Siddhas don’t want family or home, so why would he put the evil eye on them? It’s not logical, not likely. She doesn’t let Hanumarathnam see her with the salt—he has no patience with superstition. She flushes the salt along the drain out the back of the courtyard and feels cleaner than she has for days.
    Sivakami is much more mobile than she was with her first pregnancy, and keeps a closer eye on the hired help. The servants are a little resentful but do not take her too seriously.
    Every pregnancy has its peculiar discomforts, though. This time, Sivakami finds it hardest when the baby kicks or she squats. His swimming within her is like being prodded with an iddikki, an iron pot-tongs, all angles and edges.
    She says “him” because she knows—and her knowledge is bordered with single-minded wishing—that this baby will be a boy. If you have a girl and a boy, it doesn’t so much matter what the others are after that. Everyone says you raise a girl for someone else—you pay for her wedding and then the fruits of your investment are enjoyed by others. She is the wealth that leaves your family. A boy is the wealth that stays. Still, you must have a girl and a boy, a girl, then a boy, or a boy and then a girl, but she already has a girl ... Everything is going so well, it would be very hard to have a disappointment now.
    She has seen couples who seem very happy for the early years of their marriages. Then, if they have no children, they enter a state of suspension. If they have girl after girl, they enter a state of constant worry. The ones with boy after boy, though, say, “Oh, yes, shame, isn’t it, seven sons, we would have liked a girl, but at least we will have grandchildren and our boys to live with in our old age!”
    And the parents of five girls say nothing but wonder if one of their daughters will be tending these idiots in their dotage, and make a mental note not to let it happen.
    Disappointment and lack of change wear down the life of a couple, she concludes. It should not happen. In her last trimester, she takes some quasi-medical advice from old ladies to ensure it does not: rubbing holy ash on her belly and using compresses of fresh herbs they gather for her at specific times of day.
    Finally, she is off to her mother’s house for the delivery. Her husband comes just before the birth. He hands the lemon to the barber’s wife and reminds her, “As soon as you see the top of the baby’s head.”
    She nods, she nods, she waves him away. He says over his shoulder, finger wagging in the air as he is shunted out the door, “It’s very important!”
    May as well be shouting to the trees. The trees, in fact, nod at him condescendingly as he enters the garden, and then they, too, ignore him. No choice but to take up his position, to pace and fret.
    No one pays him much mind because he is behaving like any expectant