Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi

Author:Tishani Doshi
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526603777
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-03-06T13:29:34+00:00

18

You know those sleeps when all your fears cram into the centre of your head and you’re forced to contemplate the certainty that you will not only lose everyone you love but that you’ll grow old alone and die in a troublesome way? Despair that begins inside the body – along the byways of arms and legs, the arteries and veins pumping blood vociferously, moving haplessly in the direction of disaster. Or perhaps nothing is intuition. Perhaps it is all retroactive premonition?

The day we lose the first of our dogs, I wake to that kind of morning.

First there is the smell of burning. A sharp, rancid smell of something giving way. It comes from the west, from the shuttered windows behind my bed. I wonder whether Mallika is setting another snake on fire, or if it’s something more horrible – the house catching fire, a gas leak.

Outside it’s dark and smoky. I reach for my spectacles and torch, and make my way downstairs to check the gas. Then I come back upstairs and go across the landing to Lucia’s room. She’s sleeping on her back, the bottoms of her feet meeting in a foot Namaste, hands thrown up over her head. Watching her like that, I want to climb into the bed and fan her thin brown hair against my chest and shoulders.

Out on my balcony, where the phone signal is strongest, I call Mallika.

‘Where’s all this smoke coming from?’ I ask. ‘Are you burning another snake? How many times have I told you they’re not poisonous!’

‘No, Ma. It’s not a snake. Today is Bhogi. Everyone is burning their old things. You should close the windows.’

I’d forgotten about this tradition of people hauling all their useless things to burn in preparation for the New Year. I bolt the shutters and windows and climb back into bed to fall into a fearsome sleep, thinking only that I should remember to buy Mallika a new sari the next time I go to Madras. She’d expect it for the New Year.

A few hours later, Lucia’s at the bed, tugging at the covers. ‘Wake up, Grace, wake up.’

She doesn’t let me change. ‘Fast, fast,’ she keeps shouting, so I pull on a robe and find slippers for my feet. Downstairs, Mallika looks sullen, wearing one of my old cardigans over her sari, arms wrapped tightly across her tummy.

We set off down the driveway – Mallika and Lucia ahead of me, marching. Lucy’s thighs rub-squeaking against each other in pyjamas.

I take note of how many holes there are in the brick compound wall. That’s where the goats come through – there and there. I marvel at how nicely the bougainvillea is coming along – huge, heaving hedges of magenta and orange sprawling over the brickwork. A speckled woodpecker sits in the middle of the path, making his noise, then disappears into a gulmohar.

The dogs are arranged like a question mark on the ground by the gate. Kat, Preity, the three mothers – Hunter, Thompson and Flopsy – ungainly and heavy-titted.

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