“The problem is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and
sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain
is intellectual, only evil is interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a
refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you
can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to
condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else.”
-Ursula K Le Guin
hy do you look so glum child?” asks
Mrs White of me. “I’ve seen you go about the house. You walk around with a pall
of gloom over your face as if you’re in habitual mourning. Have you suffered
some great loss I know nothing about?”
“Oh it’s nothing,” I say and
quietly resume sipping my tea. I’m surprised Aunt White noticed.
“You mustn’t go about with a glum
face, Carol. You’ll attract all kinds of other glum thoughts floating in the
air. One after another they’ll come to roost in your head and soon you’ll have
a farm of sadness.”
I think she means that as a joke
so I give her a half-smile.
“Tell me dearest,” she asks again
kindly, “Is there something going on?”
“You needn’t worry aunt,” I say
exasperated with all the sudden attention, “I’ll be all right.”
This is the first time Aunt
Katherine and I are sitting down to have a chat. Mrs. White—my Aunt Katherine—has
been very busy over the weekend to pay me any serious attention. Today’s the
first day since my arrival at her large country house that she’s at a loose
end, hence the lecturing.
“How old are you Carol?”
“Thirteen,” I say.
“That’s too young to be looking
so morose. Is there anything weighing you down child? I can help if I’m told.”
“There isn’t anything weighing me
down. Do stop,” I say as politely as I can without sounding annoyed.
I’ve just told her a whopping
lie. It’s just that it’s not my habit to confide in semi-strangers. Mrs.
Katherine White may be my godmother, but she is still a bit of a stranger to
me. Also Aunt White’s known to be quite eccentric in the family circle, which
is why I don’t know if it’s okay to make her a repository of my secret troubles.
“Joy, real joy is what mankind was made for.
Look at my garden Carol! Isn’t it a joy to behold?”
I’ll give her that. She owns the
most fantastic garden you’ve ever seen. It’s completely white. By that I mean
she grows only plants with white flowers and nothing else.
I turn in my seat and look at her
garden as instructed.
“It’s all right,” I say to her.
I’ve purposely said this to rile her. I want to see if she’ll have an outburst
or something. She must be so used to people raving about her fantastic garden
all the time, she’s probably not prepared for a negative response like mine.
“All right Carol?” she cries,
eyes almost popping out of their sockets, “Have you a heart of stone? Whenever
I look upon my garden my heart is in raptures. It’s such a fantastic sight to
behold! And you say it’s ‘all right’?”
She drums her fingers on the
table as if she’s displeased.
“Sullen child…”she murmurs, “It’s
a sin to go around being displeased with things of beauty.”
“Is it?” I query.
“If you won’t dance when they
play wedding music for you or cry when they lament what is the use of giving
life to you? Have you never been delighted child? So very, very delighted that
you spent the whole day smiling to yourself making people wonder at what
could’ve possibly happened to put you in a cheerful mood? There’s something so
mysterious about a woman who smiles, quite like the Mona Lisa…”
I snort in my head. Mysterious
like the Mona Lisa! I don’t aspire to that benchmark.
“I saw that!” she cries in a loud
accusatory voice and I jump in my seat. “Insolent child!”
It takes her a while to be
mollified.
“You’re quite the typical
teenager aren’t you? So full of pent-up angst,” she mutters. “Why are teenagers
so full of pent-up angst, do you know Carol? Any guesses?”
“No, it’s just the way the world
is. It’s fashioned to make and keep a person eternally displeased. I don’t work
to get sorrowful aunt,” I mumble.
“You’re too grown-up for your
age,” she says and sighs. “I was like that at your age. Why am I being
hypocritical? I used to question every single thing under the sun.”
I lower my gaze and eat another
cucumber sandwich. I don’t believe my eccentric aunt. Everybody loves to
believe they can empathise with a teenager but in actuality very few can.
“Come on then, if you’ve finished
your tea we’ll take a walk around my garden. It’s breath-taking this time of
year.”
The time of year is summer. I
roll my eyes when I know Aunt Katherine can’t see.
*
Aunt Katherine’s garden is vast,
almost an acre I am told, and completely built from scratch. Mum said she built
it herself, with the fountain at the centre and the summer house at the back,
but I find that a little hard to believe. So I ask her.
“Mum said you built this place by
yourself, is it true aunt?”
“Yes,” she says, “Excepting the
summer house everything is put in its place and installed by me, the fountains
included. Why, are you amazed at your old aunt?”
“Yes,” I say. It’s quite a feat. “How
old were you when you started?”
“Around forty. The land belonged
to my father, your grandfather. He left it to me to take care of and I wondered
to myself—what shall I do with it? Strangely, Carol, the idea to build a white
garden came to me when you were born. I saw you in your tiny white clothes at
the hospital and I suddenly thought of what your wedding bouquet might look
like. I don’t know why I thought that, but that’s what I thought—this little
mite will get married one day, what will she do for flowers? She should have
her pick of white flowers to choose from. That’s when I decided to set this
place up. And now I’m the supplier of flowers for marriages all over the
country.”
I’m mildly touched by her story
but I act like I don’t care. To think it was my birth that started her off. Capital!
“It’s a pity you hardly come to
visit me,” she mutters under her breath.
We begin our walk down from the
porch on a pebble-covered path. Both sides of the path are lined with white
periwinkles and large white gerbera daisies.
“Periwinkles and gerbera
daisies,” says Aunt Katherine pointing them out with her walking stick, “Plants
that require the least care.”
The path is narrow. There isn’t
enough room for the two of us to walk abreast so Aunt Katherine walks ahead
while I follow behind.
Beyond an arched gateway covered
with profuse white bougainvillea there is the bulb garden. Gangly white spider
lilies and starched stiff white tulips flutter in the morning breeze.
Surrounding them are delicate calla lilies and singular peace lilies. My aunt
has categorized her garden well.
“I don’t know why teenagers go
through this “teenagey” period, Carol. It’s like a rite of passage I think. You
want to do certain things a particular way, nobody understands why, nobody
understands your way of thinking, nobody understands you. Or that’s what you
like to think. I think I learnt early on in my life, Carol that it pays to be
happy about everything. Don’t make me beg you to tell me what’s wrong with you.
Go on! Spit it out!”
“There’s nothing to say,” I
protest. I don’t want her to label me as “typically teenage”. I don’t know why
but I just don’t like the term.
“If you say so,” says Aunt
Katherine, “Remember, dear, I offered to help. I can sense things others can’t.
And I sense you’re full of rage. Only I can’t understand at what.”
I feel like I’ve been a little
exposed so I steal a quick glance at her face. She looks very serious.
We walk on.
*
Beneath a canopy of frangipani trees we continue our garden
tour. White magnolia and hydrangea bushes line the winding path. I like
hydrangeas for their sheer volume. My mom compared them to the size of my head
once.
“Next up is the rose garden,”
says Aunt Katherine.
I lag behind a little.
“When I was a little girl I used
to be very protective of your mother. She’s ten years younger than me. I would
never allow our mother to grow roses in our garden at home in case your Mom
pricked herself.”
“And fell into a deep sleep?” I
ask and laugh a deeply cynical laugh.
“Full of sunshine aren’t we?”
mutters Aunt Katherine and later, “I’m trying to get you to talk to me Carol.”
“I don’t want to talk! Don’t push
me,” I shout back with sudden force. Big mistake. Aunt Katherine turns around
and gives me a stare.
“Oh,” she says. And then silence.
We keep walking through her white
garden without saying a word to each other. Aunt Katherine pets her plants and
talks to them in a lovey-dovey voice. I hang back a little and glare at her. I
know I shouldn’t have yelled, but I wish she would stop snooping. I made it
quite clear to her as politely as I could that I didn’t want to talk. She
should’ve taken the hint.
In the rose garden Aunt Katherine
cuts a bunch of roses to take back to the house in perfect studied silence. I
offer her no help.
Here’s the thing about me. I’ve
become very cynical about the world lately. I don’t believe, and I’m too scared
to say it out loud, but I don’t believe there is a God, a good and a kind God
at least, one who watches over our troubles and wants to help us out of it.
I don’t believe He exists because
I prayed really hard, like crazy, about something, and my prayers weren’t
answered.
And no, I didn’t ask for a doll.
So I figured either God doesn’t
like me very much or He doesn’t exist. How do I tell her that?
She’s a staunch Christian. She’ll
be sure to give me the same old platitudes—‘God’s ways are higher than our
ways’—‘Even though you don’t understand it now, you will later’—‘Don’t question
God as if He’s your playmate!’.
And I don’t want to hear stuff
like that.
*
When we get to another section of
the garden I see some very beautiful flowers. “What roses are these, Aunt?” I
ask pointing to the flower that looks very much like a rose.
“They aren’t roses. They’re ranunculi.
Aren’t they pretty?”
“Ranunculus singular?”
“Yes, dear. Ranunculus.”
That sounds like a spell from
Harry Potter.
“Ranunculus?”
“Yes, ranunculus. Aren’t they
pretty?”
I quite like the flowers so I nod
assent. Aunt Katherine whacks her cane against some myrtle bushes. She needs
the cane because of the arthritis in her knees. I look at her in wonderment.
Why would she do something so unlike her usual plant-loving self?
“I heard from your mother that
you were sick, Carol. She told me to make sure you took your pills. What are
the pills for?”
I don’t believe Mummy. She was
the one to tell me not to tell anybody.
“Tuberculosis,” I say.
“Oh dear,” she says and a furrow
forms on her brow, “that’s terrible news. Where do you have it? In the lungs?”
“I don’t know,” I say truthfully,
“they couldn’t find it anywhere in my body though they are medicating me for
it. That’s why I had to go to Vellore. To get tested.”
My aunt looks at me puzzled. “Is
that why they had to drill your spine? To test your bone marrow? To rule out
cancer?”
“Yes,” I say and suddenly it’s
too much to hold in. I burst out crying.
*
I don’t believe Aunt Katherine.
I expected her to tell me to get
over my pain and not be a wuss, but she comes over to me and gives me a hug.
“That must have been the most painful
thing you’ve ever endured, wasn’t it?”
I don’t say anything.
“Honey,” she says when I’ve
finished sobbing, “Is that why you’ve been so under the weather?”
“Yes! You don’t know how painful
it was! The pain was enough to drive me out of my mind. I think I’m going to
die because they can’t find out what’s wrong with me. Nothing makes sense, Aunt.
I prayed so hard. I thought if God really loved me He wouldn’t let me go
through that kind of pain but Aunt, He did! Why did He do that?”
Aunt Katherine’s grip on me is
tight.
“I heard your mother couldn’t
stand to hear you screaming when they were drilling your spine so she left the
OT. She told me all about it, Carol.”
This is something I didn’t know.
I thought Mummy was outside the whole time.
“You didn’t answer my question. Am
I going to die?”
Aunt Katherine doesn’t answer me
immediately.
“No,” she says after some time,
“You’re not going to die. When will the test results come out?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble.
“Carol, are you holding onto that
pain and not letting go?”
I gape at her without answering.
“That’s a wrong thing to do. I
have arthritis in my left knee and I go through excruciating pain every day. I
don’t blame God for it. I believe God lets these things happen to us for
various reasons. He does it to get us to call out to Him, to seek Him, to
understand that Jesus died in the same painful manner to free us from the power
of eternal Death.
That’s why, no matter how much
pain you face, Carol, you should always be joyful. Because the eternal life God
has purchased for you is worth letting go of all the pain. It is joy that
mankind was created for.
Come on, I’ve got a surprise for
you.”
*
Meekly I follow Aunt Katherine as
she hobbles through her garden to a gate in the wall.
Taking a key out from beneath a
rock she opens the gate and invites me to enter.
“There’s a dance I do this time
of year. Come in. I’ll let you see me.”
I enter through the gate in the
wall and the sight I see is astounding.
In a vast field, thousands of kash flowers are beating against each
other, swaying gently in the soft breeze. Wave upon wave of silvery white
flowers and green grass are bent and made upright.
Aunt Katherine plunges into their
midst.
“Come on, Carol. When God created
the world the sons of God shouted for joy! Shout for joy because you have the
gift of eternal life.”
I look woodenly at her as she
jumps and shouts in the field of kash.
She prances and dances a curious dance with deft movements of her hands, as if
she’s a bird and her arms are her wings. She mimics a stork in the way she
walks through the field of kash blossoms. Over all, I wasn’t expecting her to
be so comical.
I look at her and a weak smile
breaks out on the corners of my mouth.
Aunt Katherine is very amusing,
to be sure.
“Why are you standing there,
Carol? Come and dance with me!”
I obey the command and plunge
after her into the sea of silvery white. She takes hold of both my hands and
gets me to dance with her.
“I can’t dance!” I protest but
she hears none of it.
“I’ve got a secret to share with
you Carol.”
I limply follow my Aunt
Katherine’s movements.
“Do you know why Christ thought
nothing of the pain He felt when He was being crucified? I’ll tell you why. The
joy of being with His Bride was nothing in comparison to the pain He endured on
the cross, which is why He could endure it. He knew that the joy that awaited
Him would last a lifetime.”
Her words sink in to my soul.
“And you and I are that Bride
Carol. Don’t hold on to the pain as if God betrayed you. Let it go and be free
in the knowledge that you are loved.”
I don’t know whether I should believe
her and be so easy. I was planning on
giving God a rough time for putting me so much pain. I didn’t think that Jesus
had endured similar pain on my behalf—without giving me a rough time about it.
“Come on, what do you say?”
I think about it and nod. It’s
easy to become bitter at God for the things He makes us endure without
realising that Jesus endured the same kind of pain to set us free from the
grasp of Death.
I grab onto Aunt Katherine’s
hands and together we dance our funny stork dance in the field of kash.
