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ought Estha a comic too, but that she‟d kept it away for him until
she got another job and could earn enough to rent a room for the
three of them to stay together in. Then she‟d go to Calcutta and
fetch Estha, and he could have his comic. That day was not far off,
Ammu said. It could happen any day. Soon rent would be no
problem. She said she had applied for a UN job and they would all
live in The Hague with a Dutch ayah to look after them. Or on the
other hand, Ammu said, she might stay on in India and do what she
had been planning to do all along–start a school. Choosing
between a career in Education and a UN job wasn‟t easy, she
said–but the thing to remember was that the very fact that she had
a choice was a great privilege.
But for the Time Being, she said, until she made her
decision, she was keeping Estha‟s presents away for him.
That whole morning Ammu talked incessantly. She asked
Rahel questions, but never let her answer them. If Rahel tried to
say something, Ammu would interrupt with a new thought or
query. She seemed terrified of what adult thing her daughter might
say and thaw Frozen Time. Fear made her garrulous. She kept it at
bay with her babble.
She was swollen with cortisone, moonfaced, not the slender
mother Rahel knew. Her skin was stretched over her puffy cheeks
like shiny scar tissue that covers old vaccination marks. When she
smiled, her dimples looked as though they hurt. Her curly hair had
lost its sheen and hung around her swollen face like a dull curtain.
She carried her breath in a glass inhaler in her tattered handbag.
Brown Brovon fumes. Each breath she took was like a war won
against the steely fist that was trying to squeeze the air from her
lungs. Rahel watched her mother breathe. Each time she inhaled,
the hollows near her collarbones grew steep and filled with
shadows.
Ammu coughed up a wad of phlegm into her handkerchief
and showed it to Rahel. “You must always check it,” she
whispered hoarsely, as though phlegm was an Arithmetic answer
sheet that had to be revised before it was handed in. “When it‟s