Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon (100 books to read in a lifetime txt) 📕

the crook of my elbow. He wraps his legs round my waist as I carry him downstairs, then lets out a shrill yelp. He’s seen Karthika through the dining-room doorway.

I set him down on the floor and he toddles towards her. She’s still cross-legged on her chair and doesn’t look up.

‘Karthika! Didn’t you hear him screaming upstairs?’

She looks up then, gives me a slow stare and closes her eyes. ‘Not allowed in the bedrooms, Durga-Miss. I can’t come.’

‘Don’t be stupid!’ I’m cross, my blouse is bloodstained and there’s a damp mark on my hip from Rajneesh’s nappy. Karthika doesn’t notice any of these things: for her, they’re ordinary life.

She turns away to take something Rajneesh is handing her. It’s the feathery pen that he’s been clutching. She tucks it neatly into the pocket of her skirt without even turning a hair.

‘That’s mine!’ I burst out.

She blinks up at me. Something about that monkey-like cringe irritates me and for a second I have to fight back an urge to slap her. Send her packing. A girl like that; what could anyone have expected?

‘Karthika, you know you can’t take anything from here. All those toys … and that doll of yours. Upstairs, he’s broken it now. I told you not to leave it here.’

‘I didn’t, Durga-Miss. I wouldn’t have bought a doll like that. Such poor dress, a sari for old-fashioned only.’ She sneaks a glance at my own sari, then strokes her red nylon skirt complacently.

‘Don’t lie. And give that pen back,’ I add.

She clenches her teeth and I can see her jaw move. She sits very still, then turns away.

‘Karthika, give it back. Now!’ I stride over to her, blocking her view, and hold out my hand. ‘What do you want with it anyway?’

You can’t even write. I stop myself, which is nearly as bad as saying it. She flushes and brings the pen out of her pocket. It clatters onto the table and her eyes are jealous and gleaming as it rolls across the surface. It’s almost comical, how much she wants a cheap glitter pen. Almost.

‘Tom-Mister says I can go into the bedrooms, anyway,’ she says, with a vicious little sneer. ‘He showed me yours, Durga-Miss.’

‘What?’

‘When you’re in Canada, Durga-Miss. He showed me the bedrooms while Mary-Madam sits on the verandah.’

I stare at her. Her smile’s worming back over her face. Karthika, shit-smelling and scandalous with it, in my bedroom with Tom. Nonsense, I tell myself quickly. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. He took her up there to clean the toilets or move the furniture. To polish the floors; Karthika on her hands and knees in front of Tom. He wouldn’t.

‘Karthika!’ Ammuma calls from upstairs, making us both jump. ‘Stop your chatter-chatter, paid to clean the floors, isn’t it?’

Ammuma’s scolding brings reality back. Carrying a servant-girl off to bed is something that only happens in Karthika’s highly coloured movies. Not in real life, not in all the drabness of the here-and-now, where she can’t even refuse.

I give Karthika a tentative, forgiving smile but she doesn’t look at me. She unfurls her legs from under the table and hefts Rajneesh onto her hip. As she walks into the kitchen, she tugs the refrigerator open. Tupperware and bowls are piled high in there and it’s full of smells I remember but can’t name any more. I see fried prawns with belacan, mustard seeds, muscly rendang curry. She must have spent all morning making Ammuma’s favourite dishes. There’s nothing an elderly woman ought to have, but everything Ammuma wants. It’s a peace offering, and something I’d never have thought of.

I reach out to the incense stick and pinch it off, feeling the quick sting of the embers. Rajneesh giggles from the kitchen, and I hear splashing in the stone sink. Karthika and I used to paddle in there, ankle deep as we sat on the windowsill. We had a name for that game – Going to Sea? Swimming Away? – but that’s another thing I’ve forgotten.

I look over at the almirah, with Tom’s bag and that Little Twin Stars notebook inside. It feels better to have the door closed, to feel it locked safely away as I climb back up the stairs. Perhaps this is how people felt after the war, like everything that used to be familiar had changed. Perhaps it’s how Ammuma felt after Francesca died. And thirty years later she’s still searching out books and sweets and offerings. Would you have liked this, Fran? How about that? Will this one bring you back? The women in my family take motherhood hard, being demanding or dead and quite frankly not much better than daughters.

Upstairs, the bedroom door’s wide open and I can see through into the box room. Ammuma’s in there, her oxygen cylinder propped against her leg. She’s laid the smashed doll on a shelf at waist height and she’s piping glue onto the shards. She doesn’t look old, not now, she looks alert and strong enough to hold up the sky. The sun strikes through the charred boards of the wall in hot slices and the faint scent of incense floats up from downstairs. Everything feels very still, thick with the smell of dust and a faint undertone of ash.

As I watch, Ammuma picks up a broken sliver of the doll’s face, and lays it gently back into place. She presses it down and wipes the glue off with her forefinger. She’s humming softly as she picks up the next piece and muttering to herself.

‘Come on … come on, stick tight, just there. Next one, another one … Making it look right, just like a princess, like a tiger-prince. Once upon a time there was a tiger-prince – there you go, stick tight – and a princess. And when the sun came up they knew they were safe – stick tight, won’t you.’

The stairs seem to shiver under me. The princess, beautiful and dangerous. The tiger-prince, with his mouthful of teeth and tiger stripes. The froggish