Maya the Harelip

Anil Patel was ten years old the first time he witnessed one of Papa’s arbitrations.

Children usually were not allowed at these meetings, but an exception was made for Anil since he would, one day, inherit his father’s role. As the only child present, he made himself as invisible as possible, crouching down in the corner of the gathering room. The meetings always took place here: the largest space in the largest house in this small village nestled into an expanse of farmland in western India. This room was the beating heart of the Big House, where the family ate their meals, Papa read the paper, Ma did her mending, and Anil and his siblings raced through their school work before going out to play. The centerpiece of the gathering room was an immense wooden table ¾its top four fingers thick, its carved legs so wide a grown man’s hands together could not reach all the way around ¾a piece of furniture so substantial it took four men to lift it, though it hadn’t been moved more than a meter in generations.

          On this day, Papa sat at the head of the magnificent table with Anil’s aunt and uncle on either side. Relatives, friends and neighbors stood a respectful distance away. The room was filled with people, but the subject of the day’s arbitration, Anil’s cousin Maya, was not amongst them. Maya had been born a harelip to Papa’s sister, and her husband believed this to be a curse of the family into which he’d married. That Anil’s uncle had agreed to come here, to hand his family dispute over to the arbiter of his wife’s clan rather than his own, was significant but not surprising. Papa had a reputation for fairness and wisdom that extended well beyond their land.

Anil’s uncle argued he should be released from his marriage, to be free to seek another wife who could give him normal, healthy children. Maya’s deformity, he said, was proof his wife’s womb was tainted, that she would bear him nothing but more bad fortune and unmarriageable girls who would remain a burden. Papa’s sister sat nearby, weeping into the end of her sari.

Papa’s face remained impassive as he listened. He then consulted the astrologer for whom he had sent, asking him to read Maya’s birth charts. The astrologer found nothing untoward: Maya was born under a good star, no eclipses had occurred during the pregnancy. Finally, Papa turned to his younger sister. Did she love Maya? he asked. Was she dedicated to her husband? Would she give whatever was needed for their health and happiness? To all of these questions, she nodded yes, still weeping. Her husband stared down at the table for so long that Anil worried he might notice the initials he and his brothers had recently carved into its edge.

          “This is a very difficult matter,” Papa began after everyone else had spoken. “Obviously, no one would wish for what has happened to Maya. But as you’ve heard from the astrologer, the problem did not come from the pregnancy or the birth. In this case, we can no more lay the blame for Maya’s condition at the foot of her mother than her father.”

There was a gasp from the crowd. Anil held the last breath he’d drawn. Even at the age of ten, he understood the danger in threatening another man’s pride. Yelling matches had erupted amongst his relatives over far less. Every pair of eyes in the room turned to Anil’s uncle, who looked shocked by the suggestion he could be at fault for Maya’s affliction. A deep crease appeared between his eyebrows.

          “So, then,” Papa continued, “We must turn to the child. What do we know about Maya?”

Anil was momentarily lost. What was there to know about an infant, one who wasn’t even present? Looking around the room, he could see the others were confused as well.

          “Maya,” Papa repeated. “Her name means illusion. What is an illusion? Something that tricks our eyes? Something that is not as it appears? Bhai,” he turned to his brother-in-law, reaching out a hand to his forearm, “You’re too smart to be tricked, aren’t you? You know your true daughter is not this harelip. You know your daughter, your true daughter, is beautiful and loyal and will bring you years of care and happiness, don’t you?”

          Anil’s uncle stared at Papa for several moments. The furrow between his eyes softened, and very slowly he nodded his head. It was such a slight movement, everyone waited until he nodded again, then the crowd began to murmur agreement. Anil’s aunt stopped crying and sniffled sharply a few times. Papa smiled and sat back. “So what we must do is uncover your true daughter. It will take a strong and clever man. Are you up for the task, bhai? Yes? Very good.”

          Three weeks later, Anil’s father and uncle took Maya to the charity medical clinic traveling through a nearby town, where she underwent an hour-long free surgical procedure to repair her cleft lip. Nobody else was aware of such a thing, but Papa was one of the few people in the village who could read the newspaper from town. A few months later, Maya had healed completely from the surgery. When the bandages came off, the illusion was gone. In its place was a smile as beautiful and perfect as those with which Maya’s three younger siblings were later born. Every year thereafter on Maya’s birthday, her parents brought Papa an offering of blessed fruit and flowers.

The night Papa returned from the clinic, after Ma and Anil’s four younger siblings had gone to sleep, Anil sat with his father in the gathering room, across the great table, the chess board between them.

“I’ve never seen them like that,” Anil said. His aunt and uncle had both been in tears as they left the Big House with Maya.

          One corner of Papa’s mouth turned up in a weary half-smile. “Your uncle is a good man at heart. He just needed some guidance to find the right path.”

          “You helped him?” It came out as a question, though Anil hadn’t intended it that way.

          Papa wobbled his head and held up his thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. “It was really the doctor.”

His father’s eyelids were beginning to falter, but Anil was eager to keep him talking. “T-tell me about it,” he stammered. “Please?”

Papa rolled the pawn he was considering between his fingers before setting it down on the board. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together over his belly. “There was a big tent set up outside the marketplace, right across from the coconut stand. Fifty people were lined up outside. Inside there were rows and rows of cots. The doctor came over and explained what he would do to fix Maya’s lip. He showed us pictures of other children he had treated, before and after.” Papa shook his head once. “Magic. A miracle, really.”

Papa moved his rook forward on the board and looked up, his eyes moist. “You should be a doctor,” he said to Anil. “You will do great things.”