The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka

Author:Rani Manicka
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Fiction
ISBN: 9780142004548
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2004-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Anna

My brother Sevenese said that sometimes animals spoke to him in his dreams. Once in the middle of the night he dreamed of a cat that stood outside our door and said quite clearly, “It’s so cold. Please let me in.”

Startled, he woke up. Outside, a storm bellowed inconsolably. Flying winds lashed at the window shutters and screamed at our front door. Huge drops of rain drummed loudly on the corrugated zinc roof over the extension. Inside the house, the air was damp and heavy.

My brother got out of bed, propelled by a force greater than him: fearless curiosity. Flashes of lightning filled the corridor with white light, and a sudden clap of thunder made him jump and clasp his hands to his ears. On such a troubled night, who knew what treacherous spirit, what insane demon waited on the other side of our closed front door, but open the door he must. At the other end of the corridor in the flickering light of the oil lamp, he saw Mother’s shadow on the kitchen wall, bent over her sewing. He pulled back the bolt on the front door and opened it fearlessly.

On the doorstep, patiently waiting, was a bedraggled mother cat and five shivering little kittens. The cat looked up and stared unblinkingly at him, her eyes bright sapphires in the gray of the stormy night. He stared back speechless, but as if he had invited her in, she gently grasped in her mouth her shivering babies by the loose skin on their necks and carried them one by one into the warmth of our kitchen. Sevenese and Mother made a bed with rags on the kitchen floor, watered down some condensed milk in a shallow plate, and watched with satisfaction as it disappeared underneath her little pink tongue.

According to my brother, that is the only time he can ever remember feeling close to Mother. He forgot about the thin cane hanging on its hook on the kitchen wall and was aware only of the sweet smell of banana jam on Mother’s breath when she held him close to her and kissed the top of his head. He felt warm and loved and was glad to be indoors with her while the night raged outside.

Mother allowed him to keep the cat. The kittens she found homes for.

For a stray, the cat was strangely regal. Tall, with a small triangular face and a coat of the lightest, most luxurious gray you could possibly imagine, she stalked about the house, her nose high in the air. My brother grandly named her Kutub Minar and made her a basket beside him. Some nights when he awoke sweating and terrified by one of his wretched nightmares, he turned toward her basket and never failed to see the reassuring sight of her head raised, two blue pools of light regarding him steadily. When she stared at him with those moonlight-washed eyes, my brother swore a silent energy passed through him until his heart stopped pounding madly in his chest.

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