Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi

Author:Avni Doshi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2020-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

I waited below my grandparents’ flat with a blue suitcase. My hair was braided in a neat plait that pulled at the skin beneath my sideburns. Nani had flattened my delinquent eyebrows with petroleum jelly. As she stood beside me downstairs, Nani told me to be a good girl.

‘Make him love you,’ she said. Her words seemed like a warning that I only had a single chance.

Ma had barely said goodbye.

My father arrived in his usual Contessa. He was a clean man, and prudent with money. His car, though old, was spotless and well maintained. ‘I hope you packed enough for a week,’ he said. I had packed a little extra, the things that I didn’t want to leave behind.

I don’t remember how many steps we took to the house, but I dragged the blue suitcase up behind my father. The door was black and the handle was a gold bar carved like a column in a temple where the relief had been rubbed away by hands over many years. The doorbell was so faint I was tempted to press it again after my father, but I stood back and waited, surprised when the door flew open. She was waiting there, wearing the bangles from her recent wedding on both wrists. They were too large for her and must have belonged to my grandmother. The glass in her frames was bisected and smudged with fingerprints. My father did not seem to notice. He stepped into the house to greet her while I watched them from the outside. I touched the wall of the house, shuffling my foot until they both looked at me. A manservant came and prised the suitcase from my clenched hand.

The new wife bent down and embraced me, pulling my face into her hair. I smiled in the fog of frizz. It was woolly and smelled of coconut oil. In the antechamber behind her, I could see the maids peeking in on our moment.

They showed me to a room that was usually occupied by my grandmother. I would stay there because she was in Delhi, visiting one of her daughters. The room was damp and smelled of sweat and skin, but they didn’t seem to notice. My suitcase was already there, open, and the manservant was separating my underwear into piles and placing them inside the dark cupboard. I leaned against the foot of the bed and looked into the face of the fan that stood in front of me like an open mouth.

In the morning, my father left for work after eating a banana in two mouthfuls and drinking a tall glass of milk. I set an alarm like Nani showed me so I could wake up when he did. I ate like him and tried to say something, but had to lie down with a stomach ache as soon as he left. I stayed at home for the rest of the day, with the servants and the guard dog, who rushed to the gate, barking, any time a car or cyclist passed.

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