NOVEL EXCERPT
The Tailor's Daughter
by Ben Antao
Chapter 18
The first rains of the monsoon descended on the town with such force it frightened Eliza. At first she thought it must be the work of God punishing the wicked on earth, as in Noachian times. The rainfall in Goa was unlike any she had seen in East Africa. She was forced to remain indoors while the rain continued for days on end. Thunder rumbled through night and day, as if angels were bowling in the heavens, and jagged bolts of lightning streaked through the sky, illuminating the countryside for miles. Torrential rain gradually gave way to drizzle, lending the landscape a tenebrous aspect that lasted more than a week. How uncanny, she thought, that nature’s outpouring matched her own emotional state!
As the weather settled down to a steady, relentless drizzle, she pondered her situation. She knew that what couldn’t be cured, must be endured. She’d already learned that lesson.
She stared out the window and analyzed the lesson of the monsoon. The rain was good for rice cultivation, for seeds to sprout and grow, although too much of it might ruin the crop. But who was to say how much was too much? The sun would shine to dry up the excess. It had happened before and would happen again. Life needed water as well as heat. Unto every life some rain must fall, her father quoted many times. She felt that too much rain had fallen into her young life.
Was God punishing her for having a sexual relationship with Jorge or was it Jorge’s father who was doing the punishing, acting as both judge and jury, dispensing his own brand of justice? Was she right? Was he wrong? She’d learned from her parents that good and evil co-existed in life; hence, she had to accept the good with the bad, and pray that things would come out evenly in the fated balance of life. She felt she’d been taking a lot more bad lately than good, and she was ready to do something about it.
One morning, while still wrapped in her pink bathrobe, she looked out the window and noticed that the tall banana plant lay broken, resembling a protractor at a 45-degree angle after the storm. How ironic, she mused. The plant looks the way I feel. Bent. Broken. Damaged.
She shivered at the maudlin thought and walked into the dining room for a bowl of congee, the rice gruel she’d grown accustomed to. She sat alone at the table. The servant, an older woman of the same khunbi tribe as Jorge’s servant, brought a large soup bowl of steaming congee and a jar of mango pickle called miskut. The rim of the dish displayed a series of ornamental curlicues in violet. On closer observation, she saw the dish had been imported from China.
The gruel was mushy that morning, but nourishing all the same. After swallowing two spoonfuls she reached for the pickle jar. This was not the first time she sampled the miskut, made from small tender green mangoes. The unripe mangoes, she’d been told, were sliced, salted, and kept under heavy weight for three days. They were then stuffed with masala, ground from hot oil-treated spices such as asafetida, turmeric, and fenugreek. After a month, when the stuffed mango strips had been cured in a jar of coconut oil and mustard seeds, they were ready to eat.
Eliza loved the hot and sour taste of the miskut. It was a perfect appetizer and she relished a generous helping of it with her congee.
It was early July now and the rain continued to fall unabated. So what, she thought. The joy of miskut made life indoors rather pleasant and more than bearable. From the window of her bedroom, she viewed the red rectangle. It had completely flooded and overflowed into the street. How could Jorge come to her in this weather? The wind-driven rain splashed on the asphalt; her eyes grew weary looking for someone she longed to see but could not.
Eliza looked forward to lunch. Today, the servant was cooking boiled rice with a curry of sun-dried, salted mackerel fillets.
“This is most delicious,” she said to Senhora Lopes. “I’ve never tasted anything like it.”
The senhora nodded. “The preserved food is our mainstay at this time of year. Who can go out to the market in this weather? Coinsaum makes delicious curries. She is a fine cook, much better than I am.”
Coinsaum appeared at the door to ask if they needed anything. Eliza seized the moment.
“Coinsaum, this curry is delicious. How did you make it? Could you teach me how to do it?”
“Nothing to it. Very simple, Bai.”
“I want to watch you make it. I’ll write down the recipe and take it to Nairobi.”
“Borem Bai,” she replied with a shy smile and excused herself from their company.
“We have variety of food for the rainy days, Eliza. You’ll get a chance to sample everything if you’d like to.”
“Of course. I’d love to try everything at least once, if it’s not too much bother for you.”
The senhora laughed heartily, remembering herself as a young woman.
“Experience it all, Eliza! Life’s meant to be lived, but so often it depends on the state of the liver, doesn’t it?”
The senhora’s comment caused Eliza to laugh.
“You’re funny today, senhora. I like you when you’re in this mood.”
“It’s the rain that tickles my funny bone. Before the rains came, people would often complain and say how it was so hot, how the humidity was killing them, but I disagree. When I went to the market to buy something, after jostling through the crowd, I found it wasn’t humidity that was stifling me, it was humanity.”
“That’s very clever, senhora. I think I agree with you.”
“Enjoy your lunch, Eliza.”
Eliza finished her lunch and searched for Coinsaum.
“Teach me how to make the curry,” she begged until Coinsaum sat with her at the table and gave up her secrets.
“It’s simple, Bai. It’s made in a pot of baked clay, and consists of crushed red chillies, turmeric and cumin seeds, and a couple of dried, salted mango slices. These ingredients are added after chopped onions are sauteed in oil. This broth-like sauce lends the fillets a most exquisite sour and spicy taste that lingers in the mouth for hours. Try it on your young man, Miss Eliza. He’ll be yours forever after he tastes it.”
Eliza wished it was that simple as feeding Jorge curry.
The senhora, true to her word, had Coinsaum prepare palate-titillating dishes for the expressed epicurean pleasure of her Nairobi guest on alternate days.
Eliza first tasted the paro, a pickled preserve made from dried mackerel fillets. The fillets were washed in vinegar and covered in masala--dry chillies, ginger, cummin seeds, peppercorns and turmeric--all ground in vinegar and kept in a tightly sealed jar for three to four weeks. Fried in coconut oil, they lent a zest to a simple meal of boiled rice and plain curry.
“What a delight!” Eliza licked her lips.
Coinsaum’s broad smile indicated that she was happy to see Eliza enjoying the native preserved food. She had taken extra care to add a dash of black pepper and a crushed chilli to boost the flavor to Eliza’s desired taste.
The next day, Coinsaum held up a dried fillet of tuna for Eliza to inspect.
“Bai, do you want to see how I do it?” asked the servant.
Eliza was tired of having nothing to do but read and pine for Jorge. She welcomed the opportunity to be invited into the kitchen, the sanctum sanctorum of the Goan cook.
The kitchen was large and shadowy, its walls lacquered in a patina of smoke. It had a shuttered window and a stone sink. Three stoves had been erected on tripods of stone blocks, black as burnt coal. In the corner stood a rolled-up straw mattress that the servant used for sleeping.
Coinsaum, in a red calico sarong and matching blouse, tightened the sarong’s string at her waist and went to work. She lifted a jar of coconut oil from the cupboard, poured some oil in the copper frying pan, and set it on a stove. She blew into its hollow pit, gently enough so as not to scatter the ashes, lest they land in the pan. The firewood rekindled, showing its orange-red face with no flame. She took a fillet of tuna that was wrapped in cloth, gently tore off a strip, and placed it on a glowing ember. In less than a minute, she picked up the roasted piece with a prong, dipped it in oil, and retrieved it after a hot hiss, repeating this process a few times. The appetizer was ready for Eliza’s lunch.
“Very tasty, thank you,” said Eliza when offered a piece to sample in the kitchen itself. “It’s charming how you do it; you have a knack for it.”
The next day, knowing Eliza had not tasted shark before, Coinsaum did the same with a dried fillet of shark.
“This tastes even better than mackerel,” Eliza remarked.
Then came balchao, a preserve made from the newly spawned, dried shrimps, but here the masala was ground in coconut feni. Eliza loved this as much as miskut, for it left a warm glow in her mouth. She would have missed all these delicacies had she not decided to stay in Margao longer, she thought.
Eliza soon grew to love the rain and the sound of water tumbling from both sides of the half-moon shaped eaves trough in the veranda. She loved the sight of water gushing forth, and the smell of the rain seemed to erase the stabbing pain in her heart. She waited patiently for the rain to stop and when it did, she longed for Jorge to show up.
She imagined him pulling up in front of the boarding house on his motorcycle, clad in white trousers and white silk shirt, open to the waist, showing off his bronze chest. Her body tingled at the thought of his good looks. She wrapped her arms around herself to bring back the memory of how it felt to be in the circle of his strong arms.
I’ll have you for my husband, Jorge Pacheco. You were made for me, and I for you, and nothing, not even your calculating father can stop us. Once I get you away from him you’ll see more clearly. You’ll realize how he tricked you into staying with him.
She closed her eyes and imagined walking down the aisle of her church in Nairobi, dressed in white silk, on the arm of her father.
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'The Tailor’s Daughter' was published by the Goan Observer Pvt Ltd in 2007.
About the author:
BEN ANTAO was born in Velim, Goa, India. He is a writer and a certified financial planner, based in Toronto, Canada.
He graduated from the University of Bombay (M.A. in English) and worked as a reporter for The Navhind Times, Panjim, Goa (1963-64) and later joined The Indian Express (1965-66) in Bombay. In 1966, he was awarded a journalism fellowship by the World Press Institute based at the Macalester College, St. Paul, Minn., for a year’s study and travel in the United States. While in the US, he worked for ten weeks as a writer and editor for The Denver Post, CO.
On immigrating to Canada in 1967, he worked for The Catholic Register weekly and The Globe and Mail, both of Toronto. In 1976, he graduated from the University of Toronto (B.Ed) and switched to a teaching career, retiring from teaching English in high school in 1998.
In 1990, he published Images of Goa, a memoir of his early life and experiences in his native land. In 2004 he published Goa, A Rediscovery, a travelogue of his visit to Goa.He has written six novels: The Tailor’s Daughter, Blood and Nemesis, Penance, Living on the Market, The Priest and His Karma, and Love Triangle, a novel in terza rima and 160 sonnets. His short stories are published in two collections: A Madhouse in Goa and nine other stories, and The Concubine and Selected Stories.
His other non-fiction includes a memoir Images of the USA, 2009, and a travelogue The Lands of Sicily, 2008.
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