Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon

Author:Catherine Menon [Menon, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241988985
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2020-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

16. And One Princess Remains: 1934

It’s a shame nobody ever gave Cecelia that advice. Stay away from boys, stay away from temptation and danger and the lure of missed chances. But Cecelia wouldn’t have listened. She’s nineteen years old – plump and beaming, head of the matriculating class – when she turns up at the convent one evening in 1934. Mary’s sitting inside with Sister Gerta, their hair stirred by the fan. It’s that luminous and untrustworthy hour just before the rains, when the light’s in the air and not in the sky. The convent lies dim and quiet, with only a few hushed footfalls and the trembling glimmer of a hurricane lamp to show anyone’s there at all.

Mary’s been spending a lot of her time at the convent lately. She likes the clean, white orderliness of it all and she likes being wanted. She hasn’t converted to Christianity yet, and that means she still has an unsaved soul to offer. Sister Gerta licks her lips over that soul. More than once Mary’s woken from her narrow mosquito-netted convent bed to see Gerta sprinkling her with a basin of holy water, in case Mary’s dreaming of baptism. Mary wakes each morning at the convent in a damp and blessed bed but happier than she’s ever been before.

It’s a different story when she goes back home, though. Her mother’s now wholly lost in her betel nuts and gin. Each night Radhika traipses barefoot through the scrub jungle, coming back to the house at dawn with her feet swollen and bleeding. She’s trying to find her way back home, or back to something better. Poor Radhika, she’s always been slow to give up hope.

Stephen’s miserable too. Since Paavai left four years ago Stephen’s been in a state of rage. He takes it out on the house, spending every night renovating and remodelling by the light of a smoky carbide lamp. When Radhika finally returns in the grey and ashy dawns, she could be forgiven for not recognizing the place at all. Stephen blames this house for everything, and traces his personal disasters to its corners and nooks. The puddles under the verandah are Radhika’s smile; murky and unknowable. The sloping windowsills and overhanging vines are Anil’s mind; blurred and shadowed beyond all hope. The dark corridors, the precarious ceilings, the rooms without windows and others without doors, well, they’re the easiest of all. They’re Stephen’s own mistakes, in a very literal sense.

With a family like that, it’s no surprise that Mary prefers to spend her time at the convent. These days, she only goes back home to talk to Anil. He’s grown handsome and tall, with an eye for pretty girls. He’s only thirteen years old, but if he knew what hearts were then he’d break them. Mary loves him more with every passing year.

‘Mary, dear.’ Gerta puts her embroidery down and looks across at Mary through the humid, breathless evening. ‘I’m just going to prepare Agnes her supper. She’ll be in here whining about how she’s hungry soon.

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