Taking Turns

*Rattle*

 

The dice lands triumphantly in the middle of the board. Five moves for Amma. Her face breaks into the tiniest of smiles, as she pushes her red piece across the board.

 

My grandmothers’ beautiful hands are stained with paan.  Paan-stained, fragile and small; lines covering them like a thousand stories, disappearing up into the sleeves of her always pristine cotton shalwar kameez. I could easily be looking at my mothers’ hands- they’re identical. Pale, tiny, bird like. Hands that belong on the keys of a grand piano somewhere. The same shaped fingers, the same curve to their nails.  The same child sized wrists. I look down at mine; chipped nail varnish and far less delicate.

 

Her beautiful hands are pushing the dice impatiently into mine. My turn. I shake the dice, distracted by someone who has walked in to turn the television down. There is an alarmingly dressed Bollywood actor who appears to be declaring his undying love with some sort of thrusting dance move and inane grin. I reach over and press mute.

 

Whirring fans, beeping horns, a “howzaaaat??” from a neighbourhood cricket match. A sudden screech of tyres, and I turn sharply towards the window. Some insults fly; some children jeer. It seems one of the fielders has saved a ball from reaching the boundary (the neighbour’s clay plant pot which I fear won’t survive many more matches) by enthusiastically diving into the side of a car. Rolling my eyes, I turn back to the game. Amma doesn’t seem to have noticed any of the commotion; she’s humming to herself, staring down at the board.

 

She always loved music. Some of my earliest memories are images of her stooped in concentration over her Singer sewing machine. The radio would be playing her favourite classics in the background, and the wheel of the machine would whirr noisily as she turned it with one hand, whilst slowly guiding the cloth with the other. The sound used to bother everyone else, but I used to love this symphony of love songs and clattering wheel.

 

She came to Pakistan at the time of Partition; that painful and divisive period of history when a single  homeland splintered and spilt into different countries, and so too with it, broke and shattered millions of lives and spirits. Amma never speaks of this time in detail-only that without her husband in Pakistan her hobby of stitching clothes, fast became her means of living. She once showed me a picture of my grandfather. He looked regal and proud. I could see my brother’s eyes, and a flicker of an expression they both shared: an air of authority softened with a hint of slight amusement.

 

My aunt, a young child at the time, had told me that my grandfather made it as far as the trains leaving for Pakistan. But after he made sure the family were safely on board, he stopped to help a neighbour who had gotten caught in a scuffle with a police officer. My aunt tells me that as the train started to move off, the last she saw of her father was a baton being raised in his direction.

 

But we don’t talk about the past with Amma.

 

“Keep her focused. She needs focus or she’ll worry- she’ll get anxious, she’ll be lost.  Anything that keeps her mind focused. Just focus on the present”.

 

That’s what the doctors say. Apparently, when one starts to lose one’s mind, the only thing you can do is try to focus it. Sounds like an impossible task to me, chasing something that is not there to begin with.

 

She can no longer thread a needle like she used to; her eyesight has failed her. She can no longer go out like she used to; her limbs have failed her. She can no longer talk endlessly like she used to; instead she sits back and watches three generations rush in and around her. Quiet, tiny, spectating; the only small movement being her creased fingers gently passing over her prayer beads and her lips softly moving to the words of a silent prayer. Her translucent blue eyes determinedly focused. 

 

Her prayer mat and Ludo board are always in the same place on the shelf beside her.  

 

I push my piece three places forward.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Your uncle has gone to the bank- he’ll be back soon. Did I give you your present?”

 

My uncle is in the kitchen. It’s the weekend and the banks are closed. She has asked me three times if I have my present.

 

“Arrey, she has the present, she has the present! At this rate she’s going to leave with six presents!” teases my uncle as he walks in and sets a tray down in front of me, gently touching her shoulder as he passes.

 

He starts to peel and meticulously cut into what appears to be the world’s largest mango. I stare at his hands working away, and tell him he should have been a surgeon. He chuckles, telling me that half the joy in eating delicious food, is in its preparation. His hands tremble.

 

My aunt has become absorbed in a television show and has raised the volume on the television. I pick up one of the mangos and start slicing.

 

“So, how has she been?”

 

“Up and down…but ok. She gets upset when she can’t remember things. I came in last week and she was sitting on the floor crying, clutching an old photo of her parents. She couldn’t remember who they were, and she kept on asking me why ‘this man’ was holding her …. she didn’t stop crying for a few hours. But who can blame her- I mean, I get irritated when I can’t remember where I last left my keys…,” he smiles.

 

“Is she still getting up during the night?”

 

There had been an incident recently where my aunt had reached the top of the stairs, my uncle roused in time to prevent an accident.

 

“Sometimes, but they’ve been giving her something to help her sleep. I’m awake anyway now”, he explains, something that hardly needed noting, with the heavy bags under his eyes.

 

“You look exhausted, please, think about getting some help. You can’t sustain being awake twenty four hours a day. We can have a carer come in during the day, it’ll take away some of the burden.”

 

“Burden?” He laughs to himself. “Child, we’ve been together for 50 years, I can’t let a stranger care for her.”

 

“Just someone to help you out a little that’s all, and some of us can come and stay as well. I’ll make some calls and- “

 

He gently puts his hand on mine, his eyes staring ahead.

 

“When she wakes up in the middle of the night in a panic, she needs to see my eyes focused on her, trying to calm her down. When she wanders into the kitchen and doesn’t know how she came to be there, it needs to be my arm she rests on when she’s slowly walked back to her room. And when she has a moment of sudden clarity and a memory comes spilling out of her, words tripping over themselves in her excitement, and she begins to cry from happiness, it needs to be me who wipes away those tears.”

 

He looks up at me,

 

“After fifty years, it needs to be me…for both of our sakes.”

 

The television is now blaring, the theme tune has started and the credits are rolling. My aunt quickly loses interest and turns to us both,

 

“Do you have your present?”

 

She looks anxious. My uncle’s expression flickers slightly.

 

“ I do! But look, I wanted to show you what I bought today…”

 

Out come the shopping bags of clothes, my aunt perks up and gestures towards the shelf for her glasses. I reach for them. 

 

They sit on top of a frayed prayer mat and a Ludo board. I catch my breath slightly before I turn back.

 

She can no longer watch the news on the television, as she can’t focus long enough. She can no longer go shopping with me, as her sudden disorientation can be confusing and sometime dangerous for her. She can no longer teach, because her mind has failed her. I don’t walk into her home on Saturdays and see the throng of little kids sat round her living room table, taking extra reading and writing lessons, with her shouting from the kitchen that she can hear them giggling and they better get back to their books. I can no longer laugh conspiratorially along with those children anymore.

 

But right now, at this very moment when I am thousands of miles from home to be with her, she can still force an extra helping of mango on my plate because I am ‘all skin and bone and work too hard in London’. Right now, she can still excitedly listen to my news and what I did that day, relayed with excruciatingly wonderful detail.

 

Right now, she can still remember who I am.

 

As I talk, her hands slowly trace the embroidery and handiwork on my new clothes. Her hands pause when they reach what she considers the more impressive parts. Her fingers then gently stroke the cloth as she nods with admiration. 

 

Her hands look just like mine.