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paste onto a bulath leaf then cram it into their mouths to augment their wads. My mother was intrigued by the dexterity with which they spat out red streams of bulath juice into the garden, never dribbling on their chins or staining their white blouses.
    The women kept their voices to a discreet murmur, except for Sunil Maama’s mother, whom the others addressed as Thushara Nanda, and who seemed to be the matriarch of the clan. She was quite deaf, leaning into the conversation, ear cupped. “Yes-yes,” my mother heard her say in a loud nasal tone, “that is in the past now. Why is Daya still holding a grudge against us? After all, she was the one who got herself into that position, nah? She is the one who made a vesi of herself with that man.” The others tried to hush the old woman, but eitherbecause she did not notice or did not care, she continued, “And who had to face the consequence of her lasciviousness? We did. After she went off to live in Colombo High Style, it was our young girls that bore her shame and had difficulty getting proposals.”
    My mother was stunned to hear her own mother, who seemed so indomitable, called a “vesi,” a term she did not understand but knew was the ultimate insult to a woman.
    When these women were ready to leave, my grandmother came out to them. “Ah-ah,” she said with a rictus of a smile, “you are going.”
    Sunil Maama had come along behind her, having been detained earlier by fellow lawyers in the house. He went around now, giving the women envelopes of money while my grandmother stood, clasped hands pressed to navel. The women took the envelopes stonily, but my mother sensed their need. Vindication flickered at the corners of my grandmother’s mouth. Yet once the women had left, her face buckled into an ancient tiredness and sorrow as she gazed after them.
    And so my mother Hema saw for the first time that her mother had weaknesses, too.
    When she was fifteen, my mother sat for the Senior School Certificate. Exam results in those days were published in the papers, with students who had done best at the top of the list, failures at the bottom. My grandmother was vaguely aware that her daughter had sat for the certificate. The day the results were published, my mother rose before dawn to wait with Rosalind for the paper, so she already knew how she had fared when, at breakfast, Rosalind, hand fluttering with excitement, laid the paper in front of her mistress, folded to the results page.
    “But what is this?” my grandmother snapped at the improperly arranged paper. Then, seeing what was on the page, she gave her daughter a keen glance before bending to run her finger along the list from the bottom up.
    “At the top, Loku Nona,” Rosalind cried. “At the very top!”
    My mother had won distinctions in all eight subjects, one of only twelve students to do so island-wide, and one of only two girls. My grandmother stared at her daughter, then turned to Rosalind, who beamed and nodded. My grandmother scratched her cheek as if she did not know what to do withthis piece of news. Then she nodded at my mother. “Ah, very good. Yes-yes, very good.”
    The phone soon began to ring: first Sunil Maama and his wife, calling to congratulate my mother; then my mother’s principal, various friends, the mothers of these friends, her father’s relatives. Soon my grandmother was getting phone calls, too, from business associates and bank managers, colleagues of her late husband in the Ministry of Justice. As my grandmother answered the calls, my mother noticed that her tone grew more and more proud and proprietary. Soon she was saying things like, “Yes-yes, I had no doubt she would get eight distinctions. It was no surprise at all. Hema has always been a very bright student.” Or, “She is my daughter, after all, why are you acting so surprised, ah?” Or, “From the time she was a little girl, she was smartsmart.” Or, “Yes, indeed, I have very big plans for her. No