Zbornik Mednarodnega literarnega srečanja Vilenica 2003 - Ljudmila

- I agree with you, sweetheart. I can't think of anything more stupid.
- There you are then!
- Would you be so kind and see to it, so that I don't have to go hunting myself?
She seethed.
- It's people like you, serious and considerate, who thought up all this nonsense! Rules,
taxes, religions and even those neckties you so nonchalantly strangle yourself with!
He laughed at her revolt. He stood up and went to the door, indicating that the debate
was over.
- Aha! So the audience is at an end?
She took a box of matches and threw it at him. I don't want another fellow in the house!
I want a female cook!
He poked his head back round the door. He tried to keep his face straight, but the
corners of his mouth were twitching and his eyes were full of laughter.
- If you can do that, I'll take my hat off to you. To be a cook is a question of caste - and
it's always a male.
On Sunday he got back from the building site before lunch and announced that he had
the afternoon to himself. They sat in the garden. The scent of fresh coffee and mango,
the child in its playpen under a handwoven mosquito net, noontime dreams in the shade
of the banyan tree. Suddenly she jumped up. I have something for you! Her face split in
a broad smile as she placed an enormous melon before him. The knife cut gently into
the pulp, and from the dark green skin oozed pink goo and a sour smell.
- Where's it been kept?
- On the verandah.
- It's over-ripe. In fact, it's fermenting.
He dug into it with the spoon she'd prepared and couldn't stop laughing.
- Would you share some over-done goo with me?
- No! I'll hire the cook!
Zam Singh brought another breath of the Indian spirit into the house, and countless
more bewitching perfumes. Coriander, ginger, cardoman, tumeric and chilli. He was
always smiling and hummed continuously. It sounded like a double bass playing. A
turban on his head and a moustache under his nose, his well-kept beard plaited into
braids which disappeared into his hair like two tiny snakes. He was friendly and
companionable, keeping clear only of the dog. Amon, on the other hand, followed him
eagerly, because his eternally famished snout could not fail to miss the preparation of
any meal. Rachel scarcely noticed this, whereas Thomas was amused. Zam, I don't want
to admit this, but that dog is fonder of you than of me!
As time passed and she became more accustomed to life in India, Mama asked Zam to
prepare something from the Bengali cuisine. Zam flew around the kitchen like a white
bat. His kingdom was furnished with every essential piece of equipment, including a
pulverising machine handed down from generation to generation. Sil nora. I admired
that thing from my earliest childhood. Zam clutched a smooth oval stone in his hand
and drove it back and forth across the surface of a pentagonal stone on which lay lentils
or something else.
Apart from payesh, Zam's version of rice pudding, I adored fish done in the Bengali
manner. Every kind. There is nothing better than fresh fish steamed in mustard sauce
thickened with poppy seeds and served with rice.
When Mama first allowed me to go with Zam to the fish market, I was in raptures. I ran
here and there in the stifling Babylonian odour and chatter, poking my nose into baskets
full of florid shrimps, crabs, catfish and sardines. In dumbstruck amazement I followed
the flashes of the sharp boti, with which the sellers divided the catch. Zam offered to let
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me choose, to point out which fish I wanted, but that was an unhuman task. I couldn't
decide, I pointed to the right and to the left and somewhere else again. I wanted them
all. In the end I did choose. It was a gold-coloured fish. Topshey. The English call it
mango fish, but for me it was a golden fish, and I didn't want any other. When we got
back all I could think of was that we would have my golden fish for dinner. I wanted to
play with it; I wanted to take it to bed with my teddy bear. Mama got angry.
- You can't take a dead fish to bed!
- It's not dead, it's mine! I chose it!
- Listen to me. I know you chose it, but that fish is not for playing with. If you like, we'll
get you an aquarium for your birthday and you can put another golden fish in there and
look after it, all right?
- And why can't we have my fish in the aquarium?
- Because it's dead, and dead fish don't swim. They have to be eaten. As soon as
possible!
I scowled. She lost her patience.
- If you can't be sensible, I'm not going to allow you to go to the market next time!
I lost my patience as well.
- I don't care!
In the evening I cried in my room while my parents ate my golden fish. I had fought in
vain and what was more, I was afraid my mother would never let me visit the fish market
again. I sneaked into the dining room and watched them eating it all up. Papa noticed
me. He put his knife down. A sinewy forearm in a rolled-up sleeve waved to me to come
in. Do you want to taste the golden fish? He sat me on his knee. He almost never got
angry. I looked at mama out of the corner of my eye. She was smiling. That gave me
courage.
- And when can I have an aquarium?
They looked at each other over my head and burst out laughing.
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Translated by Barabara Day