Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai

Author:Anita Desai [Desai, Anita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781448104550
Google: cCaMpY0P1D0C
Amazon: B002SB8N0S
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2000-01-02T18:30:00+00:00

Ten

MRS O’Henry is giving a coffee party. She has invited Uma. Uma is flushed with delight, the bottle-thick lenses of her spectacles gleam with pleasure as she listens to the voice on the telephone, that deep, sing-song burr. MamaPapa, watching her intently from the swing, purse their lips.

‘Who was that?’ they ask, although they have already guessed.

‘Mrs O’Henry - she has invited me to a coffee party.’ Uma can hardly speak; she would like to keep this treasured invitation to herself - it is for herself alone, after all - and would have preferred not to divulge it. Of course that is out of the question.

‘Why?’ asks Papa.

‘Coffee? Why coffee?’ asks Mama.

Uma jerks her head back. ‘Why?’ she snaps back at them. ‘She is giving a party - a coffee party, not a tea party - and she has invited some ladies, and me.’

‘Tchch!’ Mama pronounces her opinion of this ridiculous, outlandish invention, and moodily swings back and forth.

‘Why? What is wrong?’ Uma demands heatedly.

‘Nothing is wrong,’ Mama replies sourly, ‘only I don’t see the need for such parties. Coffee parties. Mrs O’Henry invites you to a party, then you will have to invite her to a party -‘

‘Yes, then what?’ Uma is defiant. She rubs her nose with the flat of her hand and makes it gleam with defiance. ‘Isn’t that what you do with your friends - go to their homes for dinner, then invite them to ours?’

Papa’s frown has grown so deep he has become locked inside it, he can’t emerge into speech, and Mama speaks for him because displeasure always makes her articulate.

‘That is different,’ she says, waving a hand as if dismissing a fly. ‘That is because of Papa’s work. We have to invite certain people, and we have to visit them. But where is the need for you to go running after Mrs O’Henry?’

‘Papa has retired - he doesn’t have any work,’ Uma flares up, ‘and still you go to dinner parties and to the club. And I don’t go running after Mrs O’Henry - she invited me - you heard her.’

‘Why does she keep telephoning you?’ Papa speaks up, needled beyond endurance at this mention of his retirement. He has kept his office open, has his clerk come twice a week to do his correspondence, and does not like to think his life is in any way diminished by such a thing as retirement. What would become of his status, his standing, in this town or even in his family, if he gave up these vestiges of his authority and power? It could not be permitted. It must be nipped immediately in the bud. He lowers his brow and directs his blackest look at Uma. ‘Is she trying to get you to -‘

‘Papa,’ Uma interrupts in exasperation, ‘what can she get from me? She only wants me to come and meet other ladies she has invited for coffee!’

‘Tchch,’ Papa says disgustedly, turning his head away as if it is no use talking to someone as naive and as backward as his older, his old daughter.

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