What You Call Winter Read online

  A girl came in, a young married woman wearing salwar kameez and rubber slippers.

  “Hallo, hallo,” she said in a voice that seemed loud. Colleen and her mother had still been talking in an early-morning hush and here, with the girl’s arrival, was day breaking over them like a wave.

  Her mother looked delighted, as if the girl had come to pay a visit. “Sachi! This is Sachi.”

  “Hallo!” Sachi said again. She had a round yellow face, dotted with tiny moles near the hairline. Her hair was in a knot at her neck. She smiled at Colleen and tossed her head in a satisfied nod. “Here is baby!”

  “This is my older girl,” Grace said, and then to Colleen, “See how strong her hands are! She rubs my neck, just there, when I have a headache. Or she gives very nice foot rubs with oil; she can give you one later. She comes when she can, sometimes two times a week, sometimes three.” She began chatting to Sachi in Marathi, a language Colleen had never picked up well. They were speaking of arrangements for the day’s meals.

  “Oh, my girl —” Grace broke off and turned to Colleen. “Your first day, and Sachi can get some nice pieces of chicken. We should put off this eye nonsense.”

  Colleen was prepared for this. “You can’t keep changing. It isn’t fair to the doctor. Biddy says he’s been very good.”

  “He’s a nice man,” Grace conceded. “Let me speak with him directly; he’ll understand when I’ve explained—”

  Biddy came bustling in with a plastic bag in one hand and a large leather purse with brass buckles. Her lipstick was dark red, making her face appear even more mobile than usual.

  “What’s this? Is she backing out again? Coward!” She kissed Grace’s forehead. “Oh, God, Colls, running late again! What’s the matter with me —”

  “I am not a coward!” Grace said, but Biddy cut her off. She handed Colleen the bag.

  “Here’s everything the doctor’s given us —” One of the children was calling down to her. “One minute! I’m coming!” she shouted up the staircase. Then to Colleen: “He’s written everything out, the procedure, all the prescriptions. Then we have to choose which lenses to buy—”

  “What’s the choice, babe? I want to choose for myself.”

  Biddy ignored her. “Just check and see. She’s not supposed to eat for some time beforehand—Mum, wait, don’t eat that ’til we’ve read this —”

  “See, Sachi, how these girls treat me! Not even a banana!” Sachi laughed and brought out a cup and saucer before disappearing into the kitchen. “There, Biddy, I’ve had half only. Now have some tea.”

  Biddy clicked her tongue impatiently. “Not now, Mum, I’m running late. I’ll never get these kids off. Coming!” she called again. “I’ll just take them to school and stop by Santa Clara Medical on my way back. I can pick up the drops.”

  “Why go?” Colleen said. “You’re in such a rush already. I can get the drops.”

  “No, no, not you,” their mother said. “Let Biddy go.”

  Biddy looked from one to the other. Her gaze settled on Colleen. “If you don’t mind, it would help —”

  Grace spoke firmly. “No, babe. Better for you to go. They know you there.”

  Colleen tried to keep the irritation from her voice. “They don’t need to know me, Mum; they need to know the drops. Of course I can go.”

  “Yes, but,” her mother murmured, “if there’s any trouble, then suddenly Biddy has to take something back … Babe, you have the time if you go now.”

  Grace stared at Biddy, wide-eyed. Finally Biddy turned to Colleen. “Never mind. I’ll go.”

  A look of weary resignation passed between them.

  Colleen tried to keep her voice light. “You see, Biddy—she doesn’t trust me even to run your errands.”

  “No, darling!” A rusty laugh that jarred Colleen’s nerves. “Only it’s better for continuity if Biddy does everything from the start. She’ll be here when you’ve gone.” Grace turned to Biddy: “You have to go overnight? Your sister’s just come.”

  “I know, Mum. I’m trying to get back. I’ve cut it down from two nights actually. I don’t know how I’ll finish.” A voice called from above and Biddy flung herself toward the door. “Oh, God, these children! Come and say good-bye, Colls — they won’t budge ’til they’ve seen you.”

  The waiting room was small and crowded, with a harsh light overhead. In one corner was a young couple with a baby, not more than a year old, who was trying to get a foothold on her father’s chest. What could have gone wrong already? Colleen wondered. Why would such a little thing need an eye operation? He lifted her high and the baby laughed.

  Colleen was called into the room where her mother had consented to put on the cotton gown. Over that Grace had rebuttoned her thick cardigan, and over that, she put on her shawl.

  “Doctor,” Grace began in a sweet voice. “Oh, here’s my daughter!” She smiled in relief. “Now, you can tell her what you explained to me? Only using your words — I don’t know exactly how you like to put it. I’ve told her my case is different from most other people’s.”

  “Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Lobo. It only means we may need to use a slightly different procedure. But I promise you, in five years of practice, I’ve never had a patient with complications.”

  “And then one other factor, Doctor, this cold. The moment I lie back my head feels —” She put both hands to her temples and pressed. “Then, you know, I have difficulty breathing —”

  “That’s only the congestion. That won’t interfere with what I’m doing.”

  “Oh, if you think so,” Grace said, holding the ends of her shawl together. “But this tightness in the chest. I still have a cough.”

  “Not to worry, Mrs. Lobo. That won’t interfere with what we’re doing.” He was a young man with a large square jaw and easy smile. He glanced at Colleen conspiratorially. “Your mother is very curious, isn’t she? Very thorough.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I like to know things.” Grace lifted her head. “Good for you,” the doctor said. “Then have you made a decision about the lenses?”

  “Tell me again.”

  There were three types. A cheap type, which he did not advise; another for 25,000 rupees, which was usually considered sufficient, he said carefully; and the most expensive variety, 32,000 rupees, which came with a UV coating. “That’s only useful if you spend a lot of time outdoors,” he said. “Otherwise the midlevel lenses are just as good.”

  Grace frowned. “But this UV—” she began.

  “Never mind, we’ll take the highest quality,” Colleen told the doctor. Biddy had already taken her aside: Just get the very best, even if she doesn’t need it. It will make her more comfortable.

  “Right, then, very good,” said the doctor. “You can take care of that with Amrita outside. I have lenses here, so you’ll just be buying them from me—that way we don’t wait another day for the lenses to come. We can go straight ahead.”

  “Cash only, Doctor?” Grace sounded doubtful. “Darling, you have enough? Or we can come back tomorrow to pay the rest, Doctor?”

  “I have it, Mum!”

  He smiled at them both before leaving. “Nice boy,” Grace said. “His mother is a Menezes, she’s on St. Vitus, I think.”

  Someone came to take her blood pressure. “Why?” asked Grace. “Is there any trouble?”

  “This is standard only,” she was assured.

  The doctor came in again, overrode the assistant’s request for Grace to remove her shawl, and as he left, suggested that she lie down. It was difficult for Grace to climb up on the high, narrow bed; she leaned on Colleen and bore down, a surprising weight. The doctor laughed when he reentered.

  “Mrs. Lobo, you’re doing acrobatics in here? We could have cranked the bed down for you! Never mind, you’re too spry for that, aren’t you?” He helped ease her onto the mattress, and Colleen, who had just spotted the lever to lower the bed, felt a fool.

  “You’ll wait in here with her until
we’re ready to go? That’s not usual, Mrs. Lobo, but what did I tell you? You’re a special case. Very good, then. In a few minutes we’ll be under way.”

  The room had two beds and no chairs. After a bit, Colleen perched on the second bed. Her mother was unusually quiet, until other people came into the room and prompted a new line of questioning.

  Now Colleen looked at her mother, who lay very still, face to the ceiling, waiting like a docile child. Her body seemed flattened, the long throat, the arms limp at either side: a small body after all.

  Grace coughed, a dry little sound, then raised herself up on an elbow and coughed again with more drama. “You’re feeling all right, Mum?”

  She lay back down, smiled slightly. “Just a little hungry.”

  “We can get something in for dinner. Anything you like.”

  “But Sachi has gone to get chicken!”

  “The chicken, then. But see how you feel. You may not feel up to eating afterward.” They were silent.

  “I’ll miss my program,” Grace said. “You can catch up tomorrow.”

  “You can get the main flow, but there’s always some little thing you miss if you don’t watch.”

  Colleen looked at her mother’s hand, at the wedding ring she still wore though her father had been gone more than eighteen years. “Vanessa watches The Bold and the Beautiful.”

  Grace coughed again, and Colleen was annoyed with herself. Why had she said such a thing? Of course it was a lie. Her roommate had no interest in soap operas. “At least I think she used to once.”

  The assistant reentered with the anesthesiologist, who wore green scrubs and slippers. His answers to Grace’s questions were clipped and efficient.

  “Can my daughter stay?” Grace suddenly asked him.

  “No, we’re ready to begin. Doctor is coming.”

  “Babe?” Grace sounded frightened and Colleen took her hand. “How long will it take?”

  “The procedure should last ten minutes. But you’ll be sleeping for at least an hour or so. You can go and get a snack,” the anesthesiologist told Colleen.

  “I’ll be right outside, Mum,” she said. “I won’t go anywhere.”

  Colleen was thirteen years old when she went to her father and told him she was having trouble seeing. He had looked up from his papers, surprised. He took off his own specs and drew her closer. She leaned against him.

  “Seeing what, baby? Things far away or close at hand?”

  “Far away,” she answered promptly. For the past week she had been squinting at the board at the head of the classroom, waiting for her teacher to notice.

  He gave her a book from the pile on his desk and she read the first lines without hesitation.

  “Now—” He turned her gently. “Tell me what is on that shelf there.”

  She stumbled through the contents of her mother’s shelf, a jumble of dry goods, jars of pickles, dusty bottles, vitamins. “A box.” She frowned terribly. “No, a bag, a brown bag.”

  “You have headaches?”

  She did not know the answer to this. “Yes … sometimes …”

  “And how long have you had trouble seeing? A long time?”

  “No …” She was nervous.

  “You didn’t want to tell anyone? I see.”

  Colleen looked at him without understanding. By then her father was in his sixties, the age of her friends’ grandfathers. His hair was dark but sparse, combed in fine lines. He had a wide, square face and large hands. He stroked her head absently and Colleen waited.

  “We must get you a pair of specs, I think,” he said, and then, misunderstanding her jerk, he kissed her forehead. “Never mind, girly. I wear them too. We’ll be two of a kind.”

  The second time she met Vanessa for dinner, Colleen told her the story of feigning eye trouble when she was a girl. At first it was an anecdote, a funny trick she’d played as a kid—isn’t it funny, the ideas you have when you’re a kid?

  “I thought they would make me look smart. Another girl in my class had them and I thought they were wonderful.”

  Vanessa laughed, as Colleen had hoped she would. But almost at once, Colleen was ashamed of herself. “There wasn’t a lot of money. It must have pinched, the doctor’s visit and the cost of the lenses.”

  It had all been so far from what Colleen had imagined: tests, trips to the doctor, consultations. Perhaps her father would have to take her to town. She pictured her face transformed by glasses, glasses that made her look interesting and bookish. She’s such a reader, her father would say proudly.

  Instead her mother had come to find her in the bath, cutting through Colleen’s embarrassment with the sharp order to turn around. Colleen didn’t like it, but she didn’t say so — not because she was afraid of her mother but because she worried it was unnatural, a daughter ashamed to be seen by her mother. So Colleen let her mother take a brush to her. Her ankles, her spine, the back of her neck — her mother scrubbed as if Colleen were a dirty window, then looked right through her when she had finished. “Now your knees. Hold still.” Her mother crouched on the floor before her and Colleen had to brace herself, one hand against the wall, as she rocked from the pressure on her legs. She could see the line of her mother’s part, sharp as if she’d used a blade. “We’re going to town,” her mother told her. “Wear your good skirt. I want you to look presentable.”

  When she had dressed, Colleen was sent to wait in the garden while her mother spoke with her father on the veranda steps. She watched as her father peeled bills from a thin fold.

  “Is it enough, you think?”

  “I don’t know. Go and see. If we need more, we can pay the difference later.”

  Colleen stamped at the shaggy shell of a coconut, cracked open and rotted.

  Her mother joined her a moment later, sternly checking the contents of her pocketbook. Her father went to the back of the garden without saying anything, without waving.

  “Come. You’ve cleaned your teeth properly?”

  “Dad’s not coming?”

  “I’m taking you.”

  They set off. The street was hot and dusty, crowded with people, and Colleen’s feet felt heavy in socks and shoes. Her mother’s silence made her nervous. They met neighbors with shopping baskets, but Grace didn’t stop and linger in her usual way. Colleen wondered whether they were late, but didn’t risk setting her mother off by asking. Grace was barreling through the crowds, pulling Colleen along beside her, until they had to stop at a junction.

  “We’ll get the best we can,” she said suddenly, her grip on Colleen’s arm so tight that Colleen could feel the pressure of each finger even after her mother had let her go. She imagined the marks as something permanent, something anyone could see if she rolled up her sleeve.

  Colleen looked up at Vanessa. “We searched for hours in two different shops. The shop owners were furious with us — Mum looked through every single tray, as if she would suddenly find the one good pair she could afford. But all she could find for the price were ugly, cheap things — huge, with thick rims — I think they were men’s glasses, actually—and in the end we had to buy them. I just managed to keep myself from crying right there in the shop.

  “Anyway, that was that. I was stuck with them. Mum had gone to my teachers to be sure I wore them in school. I kept up the pretense for months. I couldn’t bear to tell my parents it was all a lie. Finally I went to my dad and put on an enormous act. The glasses had fixed my eyes, I told him! I could see without them. ‘Is that it, baby? All better?’”

  Vanessa smiled.

  “He tested me with a book from so many paces and I read it perfectly. He didn’t say another word, only took the glasses and kept them in a box. ‘In case your eyes go weak again.’”

  “I remember feeling so relieved; I thought I’d been totally convincing. Later my mother took a strap to me and I didn’t know how she found out I’d been shamming.” Vanessa was watching her and Colleen felt unsure where to put her hands; she wrapped them around her gla
ss and took a sip of wine. “Of course she had every right. I mean, she was usually very fair, and it wasn’t as if things were bad between us. This was a punishment. But Dad was angry with her over that. He never shouted at her, but he did over that.”

  Later her father had come in to wish her good night. Her shame was so great that she had tried to feign sleep, but instead (a new shame) she began to cry. He sat with her until her sobs had subsided, patting her hand, while Biddy, who shared the bed, looked on with solemn interest. “Say a little prayer,” he told Colleen. “God forgives anyone who comes to Him.” She had tried to concern herself with God’s forgiveness when it was really theirs she wanted: her father’s and mother’s. But for months afterward, she had risen early to hear daily Mass at St. Anthony’s, in case God’s forgiveness might satisfy her after all.

  Still, she could hardly bear to think of her father’s face that night: the eyes sad and knowing, his disappointment bound so closely with love that perhaps they were inextricable.

  “Stupid little thing, wasn’t I?” Colleen tried to smile and failed. She had not meant to drag the whole wretched business into the light, but when she looked up, Vanessa had not turned away. Her eyes were steady, alive with sympathy and interest. Colleen felt suddenly that Vanessa—who was no one she could speak of at home, not even a friend yet to mention to Biddy—had the power to forgive this deception, long past and in another country.

  “Your father died?”

  “A long time ago.” This came back to her too: his face when he had no longer recognized her.

  Vanessa reached across the table to take Colleen’s hand. After a moment, during which she began to brush her thumb lightly against Colleen’s fingers, she smiled.

  “So, are there pictures of you in these awful glasses?” she asked, and Colleen, relieved as a girl, began to laugh.