The Worlds Within Her by Neil Bissoondath

at least, Hindus. But I liked the name. And he never objected to other family members being named Robert or David or Elizabeth. I always felt it held him back, this racial allegiance, although he saw it as inescapable. He was in political life, you see, and circumstances, I suppose …” Her mother’s voice trailed off. She raised the binoculars to her eyes. After a moment, “Were you an aggressive batsman, Mr. Summerhayes?”
    â€œDepended on the day,” Jim said, his discretion allowing her to set the agenda. “And on the bowler, of course.”
    Yasmin reached for a nut of
kurma,
crunched it, licked thesugar residue from her fingertips. The light from the window was encroaching on Jim and her mother, the brightness softening their contours, making their edges grow indistinct. Listening to their exchange of unfamiliar jargon, watching them lose their tensions in the light at the window, Yasmin had the sense that she was seeing the convergence of her past and her future, neither whole, each shapeless, both unseizable.
    â€œBy the way, Mr. Summerhayes,” she heard her mother say slyly, “what in the world were you doing in a nightclub in Barbados?”
    Jim was taken aback for a moment. And then, with a smile, he said, “Recovering from the sun.”
    In the elevator on the way down, Jim said, “I’ve never seen anyone eat toast with a knife and fork before.”
    Yasmin thought of her mother’s manner of eating the single slice of toast she had permitted herself at tea: the careful slicing of the toast into nine equal squares; the delicate spearing of each piece; its almost thoughtful consumption. “Do you find it weird?” she said.
    â€œSay, eccentric.”
    â€œEccentric …” Yasmin repeated the word to herself, weighing its implications. Her mother had always eaten toast that way, and the habit had never struck Yasmin as extraordinary.
    Jim said, “Don’t misunderstand me, Yas. I like her —”
    â€œShe likes you, too, I can tell.”
    â€œIt’s just that she isn’t what I expected.”
    â€œYou expected a woman in a veil and sari, I suppose. Serving you hand and foot.”
    He laughed sheepishly. “Hardly.”
    She took his hand. “Don’t underestimate my mom. When I was young she wouldn’t let me eat an ice-cream cone in thestreet. Once she said, ‘I approve of masturbation, Yasmin’ — Can you imagine? — ‘but I wouldn’t recommend its practice in public either.”
    â€œShe seems very … British,” he said.
    â€œEarly in his career my father spent time in London, some kind of attaché at the High Commission or whatever it was called back then. He hated it, she loved it. He became an anglophobe, she became an anglophile. She watches
Masterpiece Theatre
religiously.”
    â€œThat explains the tea,” he said. “But why’d she come here after your father died? Why not England?”
    â€œThey wouldn’t have her. My father’s reputation. Guess they didn’t appreciate his calling them monsters.”
    â€œDid he mean it?”
    â€œI suppose. As much as any politician means anything.”
    â€œHow old were you? You remember anything about London?”
    â€œOh, I was born later. From what I gather, my father wasn’t in any hurry to have kids. He had too much to do. For his people.”
    â€œHis people?”
    At that moment the elevator doors opened. Yasmin hurried out. By the time they got to the car, she had changed the subject.
16

    THE GROUND IS hard and uneven, less lawn than mere land, cleared of wild grass. The upward grade is subtle, perceived in the distance ahead but only felt more immediately.
    Cyril says, “For a long time people aroun’ here call me the Manager. People still call me Manager, but is not a title anymore. Is just a name.” His is a gentle voice, and although he has spoken