One Hundred Rubies of a Pomegranate

Abstract

Each year she came to us softly, afraid even to wake the pink flowers blooming in the pomegranate groves, in the orchard behind the house; her eyes lowered in an obedient gesture. She always came alone and always after she had stayed in someone else's household for a few months. I did not know how long she stayed in other homes, or where those homes were, but when I was very young she came to stay in the house where I lived, for only one hundred days. Her visits to this household were always during the summer months, often when the monsoon was raging. Summer holidays drove the wealthy, delicate women of the family to the summer homes in the distant hills, while the men stayed in town and tended to the business and their powerful jobs. Most of the children stayed in the house for about a month, but were eventually packed away along with their fathers. They were sent to visit the women in the cooler environment. For Pishima and me there was hardly any respite from the relentless heat. She was needed during those months to take care of the children and the rest of the family. During that season, before the rains came, the large house, its surrounding orchards, and the farms around it simmered in the blazing sun. Even the marble floors of the large bedrooms felt hot to the soles of our feet. Yet, as soon as she entered the large dwelling, quiet as the silence of a dark night, the same heat shrank from her gentle touch, as if the previously unbearable sun was being driven away from the parched grains by her sheer willpower. The wilted