Salad Days

by admin

October 17, 2020

467

That white house lived under blue skies and its best friend was a pretty nellikai tree. It nestled by the backwaters, with five other companion white houses. The houses were friendly, no high walls separated them from each other. We children would jump the waist high walls and stroll into any kitchen wafting out enticing aromas, demanding to be fed. Our endless games of hide and seek were punctuated by these much needed rest breaks. If one house slaked our thirst with tender coconut water, another home was the source of tiny crispy fish drenched in coconut oil. We’d sit on the mossy wall, legs swinging, a line of bare calves ending in standard issue Bata sandals. Hunger satiated, thirst slaked, the games would be charged with fresh war cries and whoops until the sun set behind the palms and the mothers came to the back doors to shout us back home in three different languages.

Our nicest neighbours were Colonel Uncle, jolly, beer-bellied, moustachioed and upright and his lovely wife, plump, smiling and ever vigilant of her husband’s continuing good health. This meant that the colonel spent many a surreptitious evening at our place, knocking back a peg or two along with a plate of forbidden fried sardines or bhajias. They doted on us kids because their own sons were grown up and career officers in the Air Force and Navy. The old gentleman would while away his time making fun of his sons, who had not been man enough for the Army. When the boys were home on leave, the Colonel’s teasing and ribaldry would reach new heights.

“These namby-pambies, no spine in these whippersnappers nowadays!” he would roar delightedly. The sons, handsome and polite, would never dream of retorting, though they’d roll their eyes at me behind their father’s broad back, making me giggle.

“Now I am an ARMY man”, would be the next sally, “with nerves and guts of steel. These Air Force chaps have insides like jelly. And sailors! Ha, ha, ha, always throwing up over the sides of their tubs.”

Babe decided to host a lunch party as the Colonel’s boys were home on leave. With the Norwegian Fisheries around the corner, Babe had given in to temptation and ordered some crab meat to prepare her piece de resistance – an elaborate crab salad, the flaky crab meat delicately cooked and concealed, in that mysterious way of seventies cuisine, under a bed of lettuce and other greenery.

“I hope the salad has turned out alright, Colonel, it’s my first time cooking crab meat,” Babe ventured apprehensively.

“Dear Zenobia, it will be a hit, a veritable hit! Now then, lead me to it at once.” He patted her bluffly on her shoulder and she relaxed a bit. His sons, too shy to poke around for the crab meat, managed to eat only a very little. Not so their dad. He dug in and scooped a large mound of crab onto his plate which he ate with cries of delight and appreciation.

“Wonderful stuff, this crab meat. Zenobia, my missus never feeds me treats like these. Here, I’ll have another helping. Delicious, absolutely scrumptious!”

That evening, Aunty’s anxious call sounded across the garden wall.

“Molé, are you all well? One of the boys is feeling, just, you know, a bit queasy.”

“What did I tell you about these weaklings?” Colonel Uncle shouted. “Can’t even stomach a bit of shell in the salad.”

A half hour later, the other lad reported sick. Their father grew increasingly scornful, almost capering over to give us a blow-by-blow account of the bathroom escapades of his hapless children. Then he returned home, shouting for his dinner. Babe was distraught, convinced that the two boys had fallen ill with her cooking. In fact, the crab meat was the culprit. Nestled under the salad, it had gone off in spite of refrigeration and no one was the wiser. We had, as hosts, allowed our guests first dibs at the food, so though we all felt a bit ill, no one was occupying the toilet just yet. Aunty called to say that the boys were feeling a bit better.

Babe heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t the medical nightmare she had imagined after all. And then the phone rang again. Much like the bell that tolls one’s doom. Except it was Colonel Uncle’s doom it was tolling. He was very ill, evacuating spoilt crab meat from both ends. We rushed him to hospital, where he spent forty eight hours purging every last bit of tainted shellfish. He returned home, a wan, downcast version of his former self, barely able to meet his sons’ merry eyes.

“For me, an Army man, to make a fool of myself,” he moaned to Babe. “No, no, don’t blame yourself, dear Zenobia,” as her face whitened with guilty misery, “it was my bloody stupid fault for laughing at my own flesh and blood.”

Dear Colonel Uncle never lived down the Dreaded Crab Debacle. When we left the white house behind, our neighbours were as bereft as we were. We looked back at the house and the nellikai tree as we left. Babe said that looking back meant that one day we would come back home. She was right. I returned twenty years later. Sullen and greying, the house ignored my overtures. It seemed morose and lonely. The nellikai tree and Colonel uncle were long gone. The waist high walls had crept upwards, and even the air smelt of decay instead of crispy fish and salt air. I did not linger there.