by Elizabeth Wilder
In this two-part story, Elizabeth shares moments in the life of Nancy, an expatriate who is trying to fit into an unfamiliar culture. In the first part, Nancy is flummoxed about how the idea of helping refugees is seen by high-society women as an opportunity to let go of superfluous things at home. The second part deals with Nancy’s emotions as she struggles to let go of some tiny artefacts that represent the memories of her past.
‘And now, something very special,’ screeches the Chairwoman from the dais. A wireless contraption is clamped over her bobbed, unnaturally red hair head like some medieval torture device, holding the black microphone directly in front of her lips so that dissent is drowned in decibels. She grabs a stack of neon-yellow flyers and waves them over her head like a victory flag. ‘We are doing a special collection for Syrian refugees!’
She grins in self-congratulation for being so globally aware. ‘Pass these along, pass, pass,’ she urges, thrusting paper stacks into the hands of those International Women’s Club latecomers unfortunate enough to be seated in the front row.
Nancy shrinks into her chair, hoping to avoid notice. A newcomer to the Club, which is composed primarily of Indian-born women with British or American passports, she already attracts curious stares. She studies the brochure as the Chairwoman brutalizes the audience by loudly reading the handout, word by word.
BRING YOUR UNUSED CRAFT SUPPLIES, the flyer proclaims. Nancy tunes out the tyrannical Chairwoman as she scans the project details. The leftover paint pens, yarn, buttons, thread and fabric donated by the International Women will help the Syrians achieve dignity and financial independence by producing and selling unspecified craft items. The project appears ill-conceived to Nancy, who worked at a small NGO before moving to India.
Nancy cringes as she learns that each Club member will individually present her sack of hand-me-downs next week in a public display of charity.
‘Why don’t we help refugees from Bihar? We see them every day on the sidewalk,’ Nancy whispers to the women seated next to her.
‘Shh,’ scolds Vidya, shaking her curly black hair vigorously before smoothing her pink kurta over her round tummy. ‘That is different.’
Nancy shyly shakes her mousy brown hair over her cheeks and drops her blue eyes to the flyer in her lap. She does not want to annoy Vidya, who is the closest thing Nancy has to a friend, over something as trivial as concern for the dollar-a-day labourers sleeping right outside the five-star hotel in which the women are meeting. Vidya is the neighbour in Nancy’s oceanfront high-rise who kindly showed Nancy how to select the best vegetables, and where she could help her maid get de-wormed. Mumbai would be impossible without Vidya.
Frowning slightly, Nancy points to a line on the flyer. ‘Leftover supplies? Why not cash?’ She knows the aid would be far likelier to reach the intended beneficiaries if the Club simply sent a check to the Red Cross.
Vidya coughs impatiently. ‘Everyone wants to clean out her closet and not feel bad throwing perfectly good items away.’
Nancy silently wonders what exactly will be made from a few pompoms, some old bulky worsted yarn, and leftover muslin. Maybe a poncho?
‘You know Part Two of this adventure, don’t you?’ whispers Vidya. She wiggles her perfectly threaded eyebrows at Nancy. ‘We’ll be forced to buy the crafts if and when they ever get made, at next year’s Mela.’
Nancy stifles a giggle as she envisions a Mela full of lopsided baskets and crudely stitched placemats. The chief selling point will be guilt.
***
Nancy sits on the sisal carpet in her Breach Candy living room, emptying numerous translucent plastic boxes onto the floor. The weight limits associated with three international moves in nine years have reduced her household goods to the (Western) minimum. While Nancy had no trouble giving away duplicate Le Creuset pots or her fox-trimmed wool coat, her craft supplies have piled up into this sad monument to unrealized creativity. Bolts of felt, left over from the flag-making project she led at that children’s NGO in Dharavi. Odd packets of dull silk embroidery floss. Half-skeins of hand-dyed yarn from years of knitting sweaters back when they lived in Norway. Nancy intended to use up the yarn making mittens, but nobody wears mittens anymore.
Lucy, the maid, hurries in as she hears the pop of plastic lids snapping off the boxes. ‘Madam, I do?’ she asks, softly. Lucy twists her white uniform smock. She is never certain if she is helping or annoying Madam.
‘Oh, no thanks,’ Nancy says. ‘I’m organizing a gift for Syrian refugees.’ The women stare at each other for a moment before Nancy remembers to add, ‘You can go.’
Nancy wants to please Vidya, even though the idea of a solo foray up the aisle of the hotel ballroom, donation in hand, is mortifying. She believes that the Club will judge her by her level of participation in what Nancy knows is a pointless exercise. She despises herself for her superficiality in selecting an oversized fabric tote bag to show off the scale of her mandatory donation.
Time to get to work. The felt pieces are big and the colours quite festive; pink, white, yellow, lime green. People will like them. Nancy folds the fabric into a semblance of order and plunks the large stack into the bag. More than half full. A good start toward a good impression.
On top of the felt, she places several lengths of cotton dress material. The cost to have clothing made at the Lady Diana Tailor Shop is so low, Nancy buys two meters of fabric whenever something at Mangaldas catches her fancy.
‘Tea, madam?’ Nancy startles at Lucy’s interruption.
‘Yes, thanks. What do you think of this on me?’ Nancy asks, randomly holding up a mango coloured silk with hand-painted small brown flowers. Perhaps she should keep this piece for herself. She drapes it over her shoulder.
Lucy’s eyes are the size of thali platters. This is a trick question. Against the bright colour of the pretty fabric, Nancy’s pale skin looks sickly green. The flowers unattractively match Nancy’s freckles. Lucy suggests, ‘Perhaps for a skirt?’ and runs to fetch tea.
Nancy grabs a small zip-top bag and stuffs it with heavy crewel yarns she’ll never need. Into a second bag goes some notions: an extra measuring tape (she kept one plus a 24-inch quilting ruler), long hat pins from an ill-conceived attempt to make Christmas ornaments, some ribbons. An old round green box marked Herb-Ox surfaces just as Lucy brings in a tray holding a porcelain cup of Assam tea.
‘Look, Lucy,’ Nancy says, smiling happily. She holds up the box like a trophy. ‘Remember when bouillon cubes came in these?’
Lucy shakes her head, no. She doesn’t know what a bouillon cube is.
Nancy tries to explain. ‘Well, dried soup used to come in little cubes, and you’d just pop it into a cup of hot water. But the boxes were so cute, my mother, and probably my grandmother, kept all their spare buttons in them. I still have all my buttons in this one. In fact, I wouldn’t know where else to store them!’ She chuckles and shakes the little box, which rattles like a castanet. ‘Anyway, I must have some buttons I can send, buttons are useful for all kinds of mending.’
Nancy opens up the round soup box and memories pour out. There is a big square gold button in a vaguely Asian style – from a blue jacket she sewed for herself. Nancy still has that jacket. She can’t give that button away. She finds a little red ladybug button from a baby overall she’d made twenty years ago. A ceramic lamb shaped button, a pink fake pearl button. Nancy smiles when she uncovers some tiny brass buttons that once decorated the sleeves of her son’s little navy-blue blazer ‘just like Daddy’s’. The Syrians can’t have those.
Sipping her fragrant tea, Nancy’s slim fingers push the buttons into piles. She sorts by colour, white, tan, black, and then by material: metal, plastic, horn. One button was from her mother’s favourite cardigan, another from a Halloween costume her own grandmother made for Nancy. The buttons are all that is left of three lifetimes of sewing.
Impatiently, Nancy wipes an unexpected tear from her face as she looks over the small heaps of buttons. She scoops a fistful of plastic ones into a little bag and shoves it in her tote. She doesn’t want to see it. Nancy knows she won’t actually miss the buttons – they’re just buttons! It’s what they represent that she will miss. She hopes the refugees like them.
Quickly she bundles away the rest of her craft supplies and puts the remaining special buttons back into the green bouillon cube box.
She shakes the button box in her hand. The soft clicking of the special buttons soothes her.
It’s too soon to let these buttons go. Only Nancy knows which ones were her children’s, her own, her mother’s, and before that, her grandmother’s. The old buttons are too precious to use. Someday Nancy will give them to her hypothetical future daughter-in-law, even if she doesn’t sew.
Elizabeth Wilder lived in Mumbai for three years (2011-2013). During that time, she volunteered as an English teacher with two non-governmental organizations. She loved exploring the fabrics and embroidery of India, because her hobbies include sewing and needlework. Now residing in the United States, she volunteers through Rotary International.
