2017 DNA-OUT of PRINT Short Fiction Finalist: Selma Carvalho

The Blighted Harvest 

Sema Carvalho

I. Mrs Fernandes

Mrs Fernandes stepped out of her house and on to the quiet Azad Maidan Road. The light fell low and slanting on the street. She wheeled her youngest in a stroller; the other two, about five and nine, followed reluctantly on foot. Plump and still pimpled at thirty-six, she had over the course of ten years managed to produce three remarkably dull but sane children.

Mrs Fernandes knew she was being watched. She patted down her skirt and pushed the stroller with even more determination. That’s right, Mrs Fernandes, you go ahead and waddle down the road with that smug smile on your face, content in the knowledge that in time, your children will produce some goodness in this world, however mediocre and meritless.

I moved Mother away from the window. On good days, we’d map out the futures of those children: glorified clerkdom perhaps, some humdrum but secure occupation shifting files from one desk to another, stapling papers together, filing them in rust-eaten cabinets and then returning to their desks to eat from their packed tiffins, chapattis and fish curry, rescued from the previous evening’s meal. They would come home, retire for the night, turn to their spouse in gratitude and pleasure them, a desultory pleasuring of diminishing returns. They would be happy if somewhat unfulfilled. They would be overcome with a sense of greatness because Mrs Fernandes would spend a lifetime assuring them of it, and because being ordinary is a much-valued performance in society.

A few hours later, Mrs Fernandes’s curtains would be drawn and her door barricaded, shielding her children from the screeching siren parked across the road.

II. Mother

The summer before, I overhead Father and Mother talking.

They were sitting on the garden bench. It must have been morning. I remember the cicadas singing and a pale light pooling at their feet. Mother had in her hair a white champa flower. It was wilting already.

Father said, ‘I’ll break your neck.’

‘How will you do it?’ Mother asked matter-of-factly, as if taking down notes.

‘I’ll wrap my fingers round it,’ he told her.

‘And?’

‘I have a technique. You’ll see.’

An awkward silence spilled between them. That evening, Mother came into my room, sat on my bed and said, ‘I must consult a dietitian.’

‘Why?’ I asked saucer-eyed.

‘Oh it’s nothing to worry about sweetie. I just need to eat healthy.’

She kissed me on my forehead, her skin damp and decaying.

‘Good night,’ she said and flicked off the light switch. Darkness flooded the room. She was still standing there, by the door; an angular shadow cast on a moonlit wall. ‘Your Father will be leaving tomorrow. He won’t be coming back,’ she said after a while and closed the door behind her.

A few days later, I saw her reading Your Blood Type Diet.

‘It’s important to eat food compatible with your blood type,’ she told me, ‘I’ve been eating the wrong food. I’m an AB, and I’ve been eating the wrong food my entire life.’

Her eyes were dead. I stared at her, not fully comprehending.

Along with the diet books came several DVDs; a didactic male voice, robbed of joy, kept us company at all hours of the day, informing us about carbohydrates, vitamins, proteins, fat, and sugar, the great white poison which would settle like powdery snow in our cells and kill us in our sleep. His predictions were dire; an apocalyptic act of nature awaited us as we sunned in the bliss of dietary depravity. I felt my stomach churn with guilt.

I watched as Mother counted her calories, liquefied her proteins into green smoothies, and rationed her carbohydrates until she refused to eat any more. I watched as she became a fierce opponent of red meat. Even fruit was not to escape her vilification; too much sugar, she mumbled. Her eyes sunken, her skin papery, her hair listless, the still summer days turned with her shiftless ambitions. She dissipated and deflated until her skirts barely hung onto her dwindling hips. Her body was a chrysalis steadily detaching itself from her soul.

That year we had come to believe the bounty of summer would last forever - the false hope which engenders itself in the human heart contrary to evidence that all things come to an end.

‘You know, I’m so afraid,’ she said, when at last the monsoons struck, and the first rains came weeping down on our garden vines.

‘Of what?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. So many things.’

‘Like?’

‘The people on TV. They’re watching me. All the time, they’re watching me. Plotting against me. Will you stay home today?’

Mother expected me to be the grown-up at sixteen. ‘I can’t,’ I said, ‘I’ll miss class. Nobody is watching you.’

When I returned from school, she had moved into my bedroom. She had dragged a trampoline-line bed from the guest room and propped it against the wall.

‘It’s only temporary,’ she assured me. I looked into her eyes, buried now in pools of black, and I knew she meant it.

Something happens when you start sleeping with a grown woman. You learn things about them: that they cry late into the night, that they moan in their sleep, that floating images creep into their minds causing them pain as they sleep; that some distant past, some fearful future, some primal burden rests permanently within them, fathomless, bottomless, and relentless.

Increasingly the curtains remained drawn in our bedroom. ‘We don’t want anyone watching us, do we? Especially not Mrs Fernandes from across the street.’

The doctor made frequent house calls: asthma, heart palpitations, dizziness, bobbing walls. A sinister black abyss opened up before Mother, into which she fell frequently. She stayed in bed refusing to leave the house. I became her errand girl, her buffer against evil, cosseting her from the eyes of the world. It wasn’t until I found her on the bathroom floor clutching her towel, her naked skeletal body forming a curious V-shape, that we realised the extent of our problems.  

The doctor at the government hospital held her hand and said tenderly, ‘there’s nothing wrong with you. Not with your body at least.’

What I came to know of my mother that winter is this: she was kind and funny underneath that sheath of fearfulness. She disappeared every day into a thicket of trees which hid her from view. She shivered like a leaf at the mere thought of living life. She watched the night and she watched the day from behind drawn curtains. Outside the window, in the fog, she saw poisonous plumes, in the flowers, she smelt fumes, in the mounds of garden earth, she saw toxic wastelands, in the distance and within close proximity, there were always shadows watching her, waiting to engulf her. A year later, she slipped willingly into the shadows forever.

III. Father

Mrs Fernandes no longer lived across the road. She had moved to a street far away, with houses that had gates and guards.

Our garden had turned to grassland without protest. Wayward bushes scrambled over fences. My daughter stood on an uneven mound of earth performing an imperfect pirouette with her skinny limbs arched skywards, the arc of life.

‘Look Mother, somebody’s watching us,’ she said suddenly, pointing to the window above.

It was Father.

I pushed open the door and ushered in my daughter. Once magnificent, the house had fallen to ruin, the walls eaten by moss on the rainward side and tunnelled by ants. Where we stood was shrouded in darkness. A long shaft of light leaked from the top of the marble stairwell, and there stirred signs of human life. Father appeared on the landing in his pyjamas.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Your daughter.’

‘Come up then,’ he motioned impatiently with his hand, and retreated into his room. Always his anger had frightened me. It lurked just below the surface and I was afraid of what would happen if it burst forth. The room smelt of Vicks VapoRub, unwashed clothes, and dried up urine.

‘Sit,’ he said.

I moved a month-old pile of newspapers from the only chair with its caning still intact. My daughter sat on the chair. I sat on the bed beside Father. How old he had grown: his eyes were a cataractic glassy-grey; his hairs were but limp shoots of white. The once tall, large man sat slumped in front of me, covered in layers of clothing, huddled against the perpetual cold of old age.

My daughter and I sat there for a long time in silence. In between Father’s grunting, panting, swearing, and shouting, there came brief moments of lucidity.

‘You know the truth about me? I killed my wife,’ he said leaning forward, and then he disappeared once again into the labyrinth of his mind, slaying dragons and trying to find a way out. Here, in these four walls, Father had incarcerated himself after Mother’s death, picking at the carcass of his guilt. Here, he had curled up, trying to come to terms with his recalcitrant urge to hurt those closest to him.

I took his hand and looked over at my daughter. It was too late to absolve him of his guilt by revealing the truth but I did so anyway: ‘It’s a blighted harvest, I’m afraid. I’m glad you’re gone too,’ I told him.

On the way home, my daughter said, ‘I like Grandpa.’

Children are like dogs; they can sniff out the tiniest shred of goodness in human beings.

IV. Daughter

I felt myself being drawn into the folds of a familiar place. In those last months, before the bleakness overcame us, my daughter and I were blanketed by a divine clarity. We spoke of great things to accomplish in the future. We spoke of the type of men to date and the ones to avoid. We went to fast-food restaurants, ran our fingers over ketchup smeared table-tops, ordered chicken far too greasy and unhealthy for us. We went on holiday to Portugal, looked down on the River Tagus, took a giddy ride through Mouraria, marvelled at the tile work, even as our tour guide told us of the history of the Moors and the fado, tinged with so much sadness much like our lives. We laughed and cried that summer. On those days, when I could feel the sinister black tugging at my hem, I spoke incessantly and insanely about things that mattered. Her young face was flushed berry-red with squishy hope for the future. Her watery eyes pleaded for time; afraid that the waves would smother me in their pleated folds and carry me away before she was ready. Before she had said all the things that needed to be said, before she had told me, her Mother, how much she loved me, and how she was going to protect me from the eyes watching us.

***

Selma Carvalho is the author of three books documenting the Goan presence in colonial East Africa. Her short fiction has been widely published. She won runner up place in the New Asian Writing Contest 2017 and was a top six shortlistee for the London Short Story Prize 2017. Her stories have been short or longlisted in several contests including DNA-Out of Print 2016, Exeter Writers 2017, the Berlin Writing Prize 2017 and the Brighton Prize 2017.

2016 DNA-OUT of PRINT Short Fiction Shortlist: Selma Carvalho

Mand Goes To Church

Selma Carvalho

A chill wind blew as Mand looked down from the hill. The sky had darkened to a miserable blue; the leaves fluttered gently. In a short while, a hot rain would burst forth guided by a malevolent spirit who knew no mercy. For now, Mand stood still as he smelt the air of dung and dirt and flowers and fruit.

Mand watched the Catholic homes at the foothill as he had done since he was a child. They were thick, those houses, all clustered together in some sort of solidarity. How he longed to be part of their world, part of those homes with their pyramid roofs, tiled methodically, one tile and then the next and then the next, all neatly arranged with nothing left to chance, not one gaping hole which would let in the rodents or the rain. There were other houses, thatched to perfection in much the same way, except they were further away and they stood in a subservient semi-circle around those that were tiled. The larger houses had neat little vegetable patches at the back where pumpkin and okra grew in long rows, and some had green chillies and tomatoes and green vines latticed onto bamboo. In the front, were glorious gardens of bougainvillea blooming with wild abandon as if the good fortune of the house could be measured by the vibrancy of the bloom and a wilt would spell decrepitude. So they bloomed, willed on by sheer determination. There were roses which sprung up reluctantly and the best vigilance could not coax them to produce more than a few miserly petals which the mistress of the house would boast of with supreme conceit as if she had cultivated indeed a jewel, a pearl perhaps, and it grew not in her garden but on the crowned head of a maharaja. There were marigolds which grew with more success, beaming their little yellow heads up to the sky and flowering with a wanton lushness for they were native to the soil, unlike the roses.

Mand stroked his foot, which had grazed against the thorns. Just for a little bit, he told himself biting his lip, the pain lasts just for a little bit. He looked down at the village once again. O how the names of these Catholic households trickled down his tongue: the Almeidas, the Alfonsos, the Albuquerques and the Colacos, the Cardozos and the Carvalhos, the Fernandes and the de Souzas, the de Silvas and the Furtados, the Pintos and the Pinheiros. How he wanted a name just like that. 

His mother often said, ‘Mand, you have to be careful in choosing a Catholic name. It reveals things about the person, their past, their ancestors, their lineage, their right to property.’

Mand didn’t know much about things like that. He wasn’t allowed near the Catholic village.

Mother said, ‘You can’t go down there Mand. Promise me, you’ll never go down there.’

‘Why can’t I, Mother?’ he had asked.

‘Mand, I know how hard life has been for you. You’re all grown up now. Strong bones, spine like a rod and a breath that just smells of foul protest. But Mand, I’ve lived longer than you and I know things.’

‘What things, Mother?’

‘You’ll be chased away by their children and their old men who sit outside the taverns drinking from their bottles of local brew. Even their dogs dislike strangers and can smell one from a distance. Then, a merciless hunt will follow and the hapless stranger if caught in the tearing teeth of the local cur will not find reprieve. Crowds will gather and goad the dog into ever greater frenzy.’

A small air bubble grew on the inside of Mand’s heart and he felt its twinge as he thought some more of that Catholic village nestling down at the foothills, like a giant carelessly abandoned shoe and he wanted so much to go down the hill and be part of it all. 

He mustn’t go down, no matter what, for although the folks sometimes trekked up the hill to find his mother and buy her herbs and potions and incantations and curses, the sort of thing their padre vicar frowned upon and forbade, he could never go down. 

Mand lowered his pants and aiming at a bush sprinkled it with pee. Then, rubbing his hands on some nearby leaves, examined his penis. It was growing long and thick and he could feel it moving ceaselessly, his body feverish and building up into a knot of tension which often imploded without warning. 

The clouds had shifted. It might not rain after all. Mand now sat on a rock and resumed his watch, this time peering into the souls of the houses, illuminated by the white light of a sun drawn gently inwards through the many windows facing east and others to the west, so that no matter what time of day it was, there was always a light however faint or bright, in the rooms. The women in the kitchen through some sleight of hand were preforming feats of magic, a little austerity and a little indulgence, tempering seasoning and spice to produce breads, broths and brews; there was the fish gutted and shaved of its outer slivery scales until what remained were glistening eyes, fins and a fritter of a tail, all to be splashed in a sauce and fried in pig fat; there were sausage links looped around the wooden beams just above the open fire; there were ginger wines stored in their cold darkened pantries; pickles in huge jars, jams of mango and jackfruit, and bunches of banana and papaya and baskets of chikus collected over the season, now at season’s end, rotting and ruined. The women worked from the first light of morn, a life of kneading, grinding, gutting, shaving and serving and it seemed, if ever the heaving and huffing, the toing and froing were to be interrupted, then life itself would stand very still and silent. 

Mand thought he heard a noise coming from the bushes and hid behind a large tree. He mustn’t be caught watching the village like that; but it turned out to be a squirrel carrying away with it a tired-looking seed. Once, briefly, it strained its brown furry neck to look Mand in the eye before it scurried off. Mand, now climbed the tree which afforded him a better view and flattening his stomach on one of the thicker branches whose outer layer had cracked somewhat as if suffering from an undiagnosed skin condition, took up position. From here, he could hear conservations for not only did they carry upwind but the uneducated in the village had not yet learnt to modify their voices; they spoke often and loudly as if a fight were about to break out at any moment.

Perched comfortably, he could see into the rooms. Just a step-level above the kitchens were the bedrooms on either side, where privileged young men, on a Sunday afternoon, paced with great alacrity, examining this and that, a book perhaps or the chords of a violin. Those more fortunate, were cradling babies and teaching them to mouth words. These clean-shaven men, so fair of face, who had studied Latin and Portuguese faltered now while speaking their native tongue, almost forgotten and relegated to the kitchen, where their servants spoke it fluently. The men had scrubbed off their skins the very scent of their past and were made anew by colonisation and Catholicism. 

The older men sat out on the verandah waiting for someone to pass by, so that they could initiate conversations without the starch of substance. ‘Hey senor,’ they would call out, ‘are you returning from the market? Tell us, what the price of fish is today.’ And the passer-by, imposed upon by the rigours of convention and duty, would halt his Raleigh’s bicycle, tarry awhile and talk at length, ‘The mackerel are in full season now.’ ‘Delphin gave birth yesterday. A boy this time after three girls, a tiklo. He’ll bring them bad luck, that tiklo will.’

‘Philomena took ill last night. Had to be given her last rites.’

And in this way the village came alive to the men who had grown old but not in the way they thought they would; their bodies were not yet infirm and yet they were dried of desire, ambition and dissent, the things that really make one young.

Mand’s eyes gravitated towards one Catarina Maria Dias, who this morning was making her way to church. He knew her name, as he knew most of their names. Catarina was the only child of the village doctor. She must be not older than him, a pale looking creature with a long lantern face which drooped with a certain sadness, a slim, shapely body with small bud-like breasts pressing against the cotton dresses she wore. In other ways, she was no different from the young belles in the village; they were educated upto primary school, they prayed fervently for a good man, they were dutiful and graceful and musically accomplished, and not an unkind word passed through their delicate lips nor an act of kindness from their hearts which demonstrated curiosity or empathy with humanity. Their sole aspiration it seemed was to pass like ships from the safe harbour of the father’s house to that of their husband’s. They were as cold as the candles they lit at church and just as dull. But Mand loved Catarina. Other than his mother there wasn’t a single soul as important to him as Catarina.

Catarina’s sadness fused with his own loneliness and he wanted so much to hold her. 

Could he? 

What if he did? 

Would she laugh in his face? 

What if the village set their dogs on him? He was a creature of their past: pagan, savage, filthy, disgusting, dishonourable, a man-boy without a religion, without a caste, without even a surname. A boy that the nameless tribal woman living up in the hills had given birth to. 

Perhaps the padre would take him in and enrol him in at the chapel school. He would be amenable to instruction. He loved the essence of Catholicism; the towering edifice which was the church buttressed by massive columns and thick walls and stained-glass windows reflecting light perfectly to colour in squares and rectangles, a golden shade of yellow or a deep indigo blue or a pomegranate red, forming pictures which told tales of virgins and lambs and shepherds. He loved the pomp of pageantry, the processions, the golden chalice, the solar discs of wisdom around each martyred saints’ head. He could learn, quite easily, the rousing hymns, the ritual of prayer, so full of mystery. He could do all this willingly and with dedication. 

Except Mand believed in the glory of each moment. This moment, this moment in time was not predicated on the one that came before. A man riding a bicycle may stumble, he may fall or he may ride without incident. Each possibility lay only in the moment. The savage in him had refused to believe in the cold act of propitiation and an equally futile redemption. It was only this that set him apart from the Catholic village. And yet that gap seemed insurmountable. 

Perhaps today, he would learn to believe in propitiation; he would learn to propitiate and beg for help as their dogs converged on him. He would learn to scream for redemption. Perhaps this was the day, he would become Catholic and part of the village. 

Mand goes to church to find Catarina.

Selma Carvalho is a widely published Indian columnist and author of three non-fiction books on the history of Goans in East Africa. Between 2011 and 2015, she headed the UK Heritage Lottery Funded project 'Oral histories of British-Goans'. Her fiction work has been featured by Muse India, Jaggery and Litro in the issue guest edited by Shashi Tharoor. She was shortlisted for the 2015 Almond Press UK Short Story contest and her work anthologised.