The train was running two hours behind schedule. Mithu checked her watch again and again. She sat by the open window, her hair disheveled by the summer breeze. A uniformed guard walked down the narrow aisle, his gaze lingering on her before moving along. This did not bother Mithu. She was used to being admired.
Across from her sat her daughter, Riya. From the moment they had boarded the train, she had started asking questions.
“Where are we now, Ma? What time is it? How long till we get there? Why is that man yelling to see our tickets? Are we in the middle of a jungle? When will the trees end? Does grandfather know we’ll be late?”
Ashraf, Mithu’s husband, sat beside Riya reading a book. The title on the cover was written in English. Mithu had no idea what sort of book it was. She herself did not like to read, not even in Bangla. She had a feeling that Ashraf judged her for this. She felt he judged her for everything.
When Mithu was a newlywed, she thought Ashraf would remain enthralled with her beauty for the rest of his life. In her younger years she had broken many hearts, and when the time came for marriage, she received twice the number of proposals as other girls in her neighborhood. Ashraf had been a worthy suitor, with his MBA and tweed suits, but he was not that handsome. It was his good fortune, thought Mithu, to have married someone like her.
But Ashraf did not act fortunate. In the mornings he ate breakfast in a hurry and sped out the door with his briefcase. Mithu remained home by herself, cooking the next meal and flipping through the channels on the television. Over time she became engrossed in the daily serials that followed the afternoon news.
“Today’s episode was the limit,” she told Ashraf as they lay next to each other in bed. “The mother-in-law tried to poison Anushka!”
“And then what happened?” asked Ashraf.
“Her husband intercepted at the last second. He grabbed her wrist before she could take a sip of the cha.”
“And then what happened?” asked Ashraf.
Mithu began describing the rest of the episode in detail. Then she realized Ashraf was snoring and fell into silence.
The conductor announced the train was reaching the upcoming station. Mithu, Riya, and Ashraf would have to disembark, then catch another train to the mountains. Mithu had grown up there. Her cousin was getting married the next day, and Mithu hoped they could still arrive in time for the gaye holud that evening. She pictured her cousin in a bright yellow sari, cheeks stained with turmeric. Mithu had suggested she wear saffron instead. Yellow was not a good color on her skin.
“If she were a bit lighter,” Mithu had told Ashraf earlier, “she would have found a better match.”
“Is that all that matters in life?” Ashraf had asked without looking up from the newspaper. “Appearance?”
“If I didn’t look the way I do,” asked Mithu, “would you have married me?”
Ashraf only cleared his throat. Then he disappeared behind the pages of his newspaper.
“What did the conductor say, Ma?” asked Riya. “Will there be snakes in the mountains? What if we miss the wedding? Why is it called a gaye holud? Why not a gaye laal?”
“What sort of question is that?” snapped Mithu. She could feel the beginnings of a headache. “Not one more word out of you, do you understand?”
Riya fell quiet. She swung her legs back and forth. Then she started humming. It was as if she were incapable of staying still for one moment. Why was the girl so restless?
Mithu had not been this way when she was young. She had barely spoken in front of elders and kept her head down. She was praised for her reticence, for her gentle beauty. Each night she bathed in rosewater and carefully combed her waist-length hair. She selected the clothes she would wear the next day from her almirah and set them aside with matching bangles and earrings.
Riya was the opposite. Her new Bata shoes were already stained with mud. This didn’t seem to bother her. Nothing much did. She slid closer to her father and whispered, “Baba, why is it called gaye holud? Why not gaye laal?”
“Because turmeric is yellow,” answered Ashraf. “If the custom involved rubbing something red on the skin, say like vermilion, then it would be called gaye laal instead.”
Mithu noticed Ashraf had closed his book. He was always willing to put down whatever he was reading to listen to Riya. He never tired of answering her questions. What was the reason behind this?
When she first discovered she was pregnant, Mithu had been elated. Soon she would have someone to look after, to sing to. She ate ghee laddoos and drank buttermilk and fell asleep praying for a daughter. In the evenings she walked through the children’s section in shopping centers, picking out this ribbon and that dress. When her daughter turned five, Mithu planned to buy her a dollhouse.
But Riya never wanted to play with dolls. She set aside the bracelets Mithu bought her and reached for her father’s books. Once she learned to read, Ashraf began taking her along to the bookstore. Then he decided to enroll her in an English medium school. Riya would sit at the dining table with her homework in the evening while Mithu cooked supper.
“Ma, how do you spell tangerine?” she asked. “What’s the antonym of war? How do you change this paragraph to the past tense?”
Mithu tried to help. “T-A-N-N-J-E-R-E-E-N. I don’t know the rest.”
When Ashraf came home, Mithu overheard him talking to Riya in the living room.
“The antonym to war is peace. And that’s not how you spell tangerine.”
“Ma said it is.”
“Riya,” said Ashraf. “Don’t go to her with these questions. She doesn’t know much.”
Mithu cried in the kitchen. She envisioned packing her belongings and leaving for the mountains. But what reason would she give her parents for her sudden arrival? After she had moved to the city to live with Ashraf, her mother had given her old room to someone else. Now when Mithu visited, she had to sleep on a mat on the floor. When people went back and forth to the washroom in the middle of the night, they stepped over her body. In the end, she decided against going home. She poured an entire canister of salt into the rice, left it on the dining table for Riya and Ashraf, and went to bed early.
~
The train halted at Lovely Station. There were no coolies on the platform, no hawkers selling newspapers or bottles of water. Mithu watched as Ashraf spoke to the stationmaster, an old man with a sad-looking beard. They had missed their connecting train, and the next one would not arrive for another two hours.
The sun had lowered in the sky. Mithu tapped her foot. She wished Ashraf would start an argument with the stationmaster, mention his political acquaintances and threaten to write to so-and-so about all the delays. But Ashraf only asked whether they would be able to find food nearby while they waited. The stationmaster gestured beyond the platform. Mithu followed Ashraf and Riya as they made for the exit, studying their matching gait. Even a stranger would be able to tell they were father and daughter. Riya had inherited Ashraf’s thick curly hair and brown skin. They both wore glasses.
Mithu remembered holding her newborn baby for the first time as she lay in the hospital bed, staring at her tiny features, trying to find some similarity between the two of them.
“She takes after your husband,” Sonya had said on Riya’s first birthday. Sonya herself was dark-skinned, and Mithu’s parents had not been happy when Moni, Mithu’s older brother, had married her. In the past, Mithu had often caught the look of envy on Sonya’s face when a gentleman arrived with sweets and flowers to woo her, or when her mother brought her buttermilk after supper. Mithu had secretly relished Sonya’s distress. Then Moni and Sonya had a child—Isha, a pretty girl with fair skin like her father. Now Mithu’s parents treated Sonya like their own daughter. They doted on Isha, giving her Mithu’s old room, buying her confections each week, and spending the most money on her clothes for Eid. Mithu knew all this because Sonya wrote her gloating letters once a season. She ripped these into pieces after reading them and imagined she was ripping Sonya’s hair out of her scalp instead.
Outside the station there was a single tea-stall with a long bench. The cha-wallah rose to his feet when he saw them.
“Ki khobor?” he called. Mithu was annoyed with the question, with his gap-toothed smile, with the eucalyptus trees that stretched for miles and miles around them. What sort of station was this? It looked like one of those places in films where people went to get murdered. Mithu had wanted to take the bus as usual, but Ashraf insisted on traveling by train.
“Let’s take the scenic route for once,” he said.
“That means there will be beautiful sights and sounds,” Riya explained.
Mithu had wanted to slap her. Why did no one listen to her? If they had taken the bus, they would have been there already.
Ashraf ordered cha and samosas. Mithu remained standing, but Ashraf and Riya sat down on the bench. Riya’s skirt had ridden up and her brown calves were visible. Though she was nine, she did not have the sense to tug her skirt down. Why was the girl so shameless? Couldn’t Ashraf take off his suit and drape it over her knees? What if the cha-wallah was looking at her?
“How come this place is so empty?” asked Riya. “Why is the station called Lovely Station? What’s lovely about it?”
“There’s a pond nearby called Lovely Pond,” said the cha-wallah. “Just there, past the trees to your right, about a ten-minute walk away. This station was named after the pond. And the pond was named after a queen. The loveliest woman in the world, as the legend goes.”
“A legend?” asked Riya. “Like Padmaavati?”
Mithu did not know this Padmaavati. Was it something that was taught in school? Mithu had passed the tenth standard with decent marks, and her school mistress recommended she continue her education. But her parents did not send her to university. Funds were limited, and it was more important for her brother to complete his master’s degree.
“Yes,” answered the cha-wallah. He handed Ashraf a plate of samosas. “Queen Padmaavati was known to be sharp. But Queen Lovely was famous for her sadness.”
Even the cha-wallah knew more than her. He gave cups of steaming tea to Riya and Ashraf and approached Mithu.
“Your cha, madam,” he said, looking at her with the same curiosity that all men regarded her with. All but her husband, who was eating a samosa, unaware of the flakes that fell and clung to his suit.
“What made her sad?” asked Riya.
“Well,” said the cha-wallah, “the story goes that she wanted a child. But no matter how hard they tried, she couldn’t conceive. So she cried and cried and filled the halls of the palace with her tears. The servants had to stand by with buckets to stop the place from flooding.”
“You’re joking!” said Riya.
“The kingdom was in ruins,” continued the cha-wallah. “Not only because there was no royal heir, but also because they were in the middle of one of the longest droughts in history. The crops died, then animals, and then people. The king had to do something. He ordered for a pit to be dug, deep enough for a pond. Then he lowered the queen into the hole. Her tears filled the pit and overflowed onto the banks, bringing plants and flowers back to life. The people drank from the pond and quenched their thirst. In their happiness they forgot the queen, and she drowned.”
Mithu had never heard a more ridiculous story in her life. She sipped her cha, which had too much sugar and not enough milk.
“That’s so sad,” said Riya. “How big is the pond? Can we go see it?”
“I would stay away from the water, miss,” said the cha-wallah. “People say the queen’s spirit still prowls these parts, looking for a child.”
Riya set aside her teacup, looking scared. Ashraf squeezed her knee.
“It’s just a story,” he said to her. “Come, let’s take a walk. You’ll see there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Mithu did not feel like joining them. She sat down on the bench and watched them go. Her stomach growled, but she ignored the plate of samosas in front of her. There was nothing more unladylike than eating in public. The cha-wallah watched her openly, no doubt emboldened by the absence of her husband. Mithu changed her mind. She left her unfinished tea on the bench and went in the direction of the pond.
The water was an unremarkable shade of green. Ashraf and Riya squatted on the bank, watching a tadpole run back and forth. Was it a trick of the setting sun, or had Riya become darker?
“Where is your parasol?” Mithu asked. “How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of the sun?”
Riya did not respond. She stared at the ground and chewed her lower lip.
“You left it on the train, didn’t you?” asked Mithu. “Good god, Riya. How can you be so careless? Do you have any common sense at all? When will you start acting your age?”
“We might have left it by the cha-wallah’s bench,” said Ashraf. He got to his feet, looking at Mithu the way he did whenever he felt she was overreacting. “I’ll go take a look.”
“I’m sorry, Baba,” said Riya in a small voice.
“It’s only a parasol,” he said.
He left for the tea-stall, and Mithu watched him go. Why did he always take Riya’s side? Could he not see that Mithu was trying to help their daughter?
For weeks she had rubbed fairness cream on Riya’s skin, but it was no use. She had then bought her a parasol, hoping that protection from the sun would make Riya appear brighter in the wedding pictures. But now that hope was gone. Mithu saw that this visit home would be the same as all the others. She envisioned the guests at the wedding admiring Isha and ignoring Riya. She imagined the looks of pity they would send her when they realized she was her mother. She pictured Sonya watching it all with a satisfied smile.
Riya was still squatting on the bank, quiet for once, avoiding looking up at her. Mithu wished she could leave her there. She wanted more than anything to disappear, to walk to the station and board a train that took her far away from everyone she knew. She thought of the cha-wallah’s story about the queen named Lovely. Mithu tried to imagine what she would do if Lovely suddenly climbed out of the water and took Riya away. Would she even try to stop her? Or would she be relieved?
Good luck, she would say to the queen. You’re going to need it. Motherhood is not what you think it is.
The sun was setting, and the leaves of the eucalyptus trees were ablaze. Would they be stuck here all night? If so, would they be missed? She picked up a stick from the forest floor and began scratching the bark of the nearest tree. Mithu remembered the last time she had done such a childish thing. The night she had exchanged rings with Ashraf, she lay awake in her bed, reading the badly written poetry he had slipped into her hands before taking his leave. She felt shy as she looked at his handwriting, at how the letters curled to form her name. Later, she lit a lamp and snuck out to the garden and etched Ashraf’s name into the crevice of her favorite mango tree. Mithu now wondered if it was still there. She had forgotten it the same way Ashraf had forgotten to write her poems.
From behind her, a scream. Mithu turned around. There was Riya in the pond, flailing.
Mithu ran towards her. She felt her feet collide with cold water. Ahead, Riya was sinking.
Mithu did not know how to swim. There was a strange feeling in her gut, a deadly downward pull. Was it Queen Lovely?
Riya screamed again, and Mithu was suddenly filled with rage. She would kill Queen Lovely. She would rip her spirit to shreds. She would make sure she never came near her daughter again. She kicked her legs left and right, arms slicing through the water, propelling herself forward.
Riya disappeared beneath the surface of the pond just as Mithu reached her. She took her outstretched hand and pulled, her heart thudding in her chest as her daughter’s face re-emerged. Mithu started crying. She lifted Riya and held her the way she used to when she was a toddler. Then she felt them both sinking.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “You’re safe.”
Mithu felt Riya shivering. The downward pull continued, and she closed her eyes and prayed. She begged God to spare her daughter.
Suddenly, an arm around her waist. Ashraf. Next to him was the cha-wallah.
“Give the girl to me,” he said. “I’ll take her back.”
But Mithu could not bring herself to let go of Riya. Ashraf and the cha-wallah took hold of each of Mithu’s arms, and eventually, they all returned to the shore.
The cha-wallah covered them with tea-stained towels.
“The train will be here in ten minutes,” he said. “You must make haste.”
Mithu leaned on Ashraf as they silently walked back towards the station. She noticed that he kept blinking rapidly, as if trying not to cry. Riya, on the other hand, was calm.
“I’m sorry, Ma,” she said quietly as they sat side by side on the train. “The tadpole ran into the water and I followed. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No,” agreed Mithu. “You really shouldn’t have.”
Riya did not respond. Her little hand, still clutched around Mithu’s, tightened.
They were late to arrive at the gaye holud. Riya’s hair was in knots, and Mithu ran her fingers through her ruined braids to detangle them. She heard the whispers and the murmurs. Someone was asking Sonya what village they had come from.
“We look terrible,” said Ashraf. His shirt was discolored, and his shoes kept making a strange squeaking sound. He pulled a piece of weed out of Mithu’s hair. Their eyes met. Mithu touched her face, and her fingers came away covered in melted kohl. She wiped them clean on the hem of her sari and began to laugh.
