Madhulika Khaitan
Babydoo. With a face that assuredly measured more breadthwise than was long.
It wasn’t round, no. Those were eyes. Big. Goggling. Somebody once told her they were large. She took it as a compliment, opened them wider staringly. Bulging them larger than anyone would like. And the expression! That’s another story.
Early in life Babydoo stumbled upon her fascination with the mirror. Spent hours pouring herself over it, wish-covering it, convincing herself of its wondrous magic. It showed her rat, cat, dog, horse, pig, crow, owl, goose, worm. Now she needed to open a dialogue.
‘Beautiful Mirror on floor,’ she began, peering at the reflective, sometimes fogged up body, ‘what’s the darkest wherein one can fall?’
‘Your eyes, neighgh…lovey, your eyes!’ it cawed.
‘Dearest Mirror on floor, what’s the biggest of them all?’
Squeak-grunt. ‘Your eyes, woofie, your eyes.’
Doo grew up in pseudo-Victorian ways. No freedom. No light. More darkness. Long oiled hair always seeming in need of a wash. A large mouth that competed with the protruding eyes. A larger head with largely suppressed ideas. Everything large, except her body. A primal aim to be perfect marriage material somehow held it in check.
And her heart? Not large. Size of a shelled peanut. And mean.
She spied, flapping with the curtains. She carried tales, voice at its whinnying best. Her brother hated her, cousins abhorred her, the help at home wondered why she had been born. It would be nice to have her go.
Finally, she did.
And so Babydoo discovered sex.
A few years of imprisonment in her town’s wilderness, she was like a beast spawning babies. Unkempt babies. Time ticked with her moaning, his groaning, their bawling. When one night her husband saw a creature astride him, around him the little devils that seemed to have eyes everywhere, even in the dark, he finally stood down.
Dooey squirmed, fretted before a tall cheval bathroom addition, wishing away her lumps and bumps, wondering why she, like a cat, couldn’t have had her litter all at once.
And then came desired release.
Migration. To a greater urban hub. A generous abundance of reflectors. Desirous of being the cynosure of all eyes, she willingly withered into a stick, mouth and eyes now definitely seeming borrowed from a stunned alien being. Short tight dresses, furtive smoking in public places, alcohol mid-afternoons, she attacked life with a borrowed sense of style necessitating a vocabulary of hypocrisy and lies. Camouflage, her private mantra.
‘Mirror, darling mirror,’ she pipped.
‘Which one’ differing sounds snarled.
‘Mirror on my yoga ball…who is the slimmest of them all?’
‘You, ducky, you,’ shimmered the rolling response.
‘Mirror dearest, back-o-door…who is the coolest of them all?’
She turned lonely.
A new, bustling city had no time for aliens. None craved her friendship. Her children wanted her even less. As for her husband, he avoided her as though she had the pox.
One day she flipped through her phone book; dialled numbers at random; speaking to whoever at the other end. Soon, was the directory. A game developed revealing many possibilities.
Rat spoke, cat scratched, dog, horse, pig, crow, owl, goose, worm. Then trouble burgeoned.
‘Is that you, Babydoo?’
Babydoo froze, thawed, sweated at the phone incredulously, wondering…spoke husband? Game stopped.
Over time, Babydoo grew.
And grew on, reminiscing upon days from her hollowed past. The smell and taste of a pale-yellow mosaic floor rose up to greet her senses. When down on belly, ears to ground, nose and mouth pasted to floor, she snooped on each member of the outer family. Even now, she hid behind doors, lay flat behind sofas, crawled breathlessly into cupboards to glean information and obsess over it.
Her room is unkempt. Has been for days. The curtains are drawn, ants crawl down and up it. A lizard licks time off a wall. In the corner, feeds a mouse. On crumbs of stale aloneness. Wrapped in a robe crammed with rat, cat, dog, horse, pig, crow, owl, goose, worm…a wealed face, hair in plastic curlers, waits in bed…
Babydoo moves on to her morning tea and buttered toast.
‘Mirror on my beautiful wall,’ she begins…