Arranged Marriage: Stories (16 page)

“I want to call the doctor,” she said.

“What for?” said the aunt. “This poultice is the best thing for pregnant women—didn’t I tell you how my sister-in-law …”

“Where’s the number?” the sister asked. “You’d better wait till Babu comes home and ask him if he thinks it’s really necessary,” said the aunt.

“The number,” said the sister, leaning over the wife, and
the wife lifted her hand to point at the bureau and let it fall heavily again.

When she finally got through to the doctors office, the sister found out that he couldn’t be reached—he was at the hospital performing an operation. She had to be satisfied with the assistant’s assurance that he’d written down everything she’d said, and that the doctor would come over as soon as he could, probably sometime that night.

The sister stood outside the wife’s room for a while, biting her Up, listening to her sister moan. It was a low, hopeless animal sound that distressed her more than the sharpest cry of pain would have. She finally decided to call the brother-in-law, although yesterday she had thought she would never be able to speak to him again. But the operator at his firm informed her that he wasn’t back yet from lunch.

“Choto-didi.” It was the hesitant voice of the maid. “Do you think I might have the afternoon off?”

The sister looked up at her distractedly. Even through her worry, a part of her mind was pleased to note that the maid had gone back to her usual mode of dress. Her hair was pulled back more tightly than before, making the edges of her eyes slant slightly upward, giving her face a quality of alienness. She was surprised, though, that the maid would choose
this
day to want to go somewhere. It wasn’t like her. The other servants were always manufacturing elaborate excuses for why they
must
have a day off, but the maid had never asked for a vacation since she’d been hired, so that the sister had supposed that she didn’t know anyone in the city.

“I guess it’s all right,” she said. It would have been more correct for the girl to ask the aunt for permission, but she
couldn’t blame her. From the bedroom she could hear the old woman’s nasal voice telling the wife that a glass of black tea with a sprig of
tulsi
seeped in it would be just the thing for her cramps.

“Be sure to come back fast,” she said over her shoulder as she hurried to protect her sister from more of the aunt’s home remedies.

“Oh yes, Choto-didi, I will.”

Only later, when the wife, fretting, asked, “Where’s Sarala? I want her to rub my legs,” did the sister realize that she had forgotten to inquire where the maid was going.

The maid didn’t return till the shadow of the
peepul
trees slanted shivering across the lawn to the veranda, where the family was having evening tea and biscuits. The wife, claiming she felt a little better—though her face still looked drawn, with dark half-moons under the eyes that gave them a bruised look—had joined them. (“Told you that turmeric poultice would take care of your cramps!” declared the aunt.)

The husband thanked the sister for having called the doctor. “You did the right thing. I don’t want to take any chances with your sister’s health.” He wore, like always in the evening, an immaculate
kurta
, white as just-picked
shiuli
flowers and fastened with gold buttons that shone. When he leaned forward to touch her hand—but lightly, respectfully, with a brother’s touch—his eyes, too, shone, and with such sincerity that for a moment the sister believed she had imagined yesterday’s episode.

That was when the maid came hurrying down the drive,
holding a packet in her hands. She stopped when she noticed the husband sitting there. The sister thought she saw a brief tremor run through her body.

“Sarala,” called the wife. “Where have you been?”

“I went to the Kalighat temple, Didi, to offer a prayer for you.” The maid held out a crumpled banana leaf with some flowers and
kumkum
and a graying sweetmeat. “I brought you some
prasad
. Mother Kali, she’s very powerful—she can cure anything.”

“Thank you, my dear.” The wife’s eyes were warm as she took the package and touched it to her forehead.

“I’ve nothing against Kali,” said the husband, not looking at the maid as he spoke, “and it was a nice thing for the girl to do. But I don’t think you should eat any of that stuff.”

“One little bit can’t do any harm, especially when it’s blessed by the goddess,” said the wife calmly, and she broke off a piece of the sweet and put it in her mouth.

“Babu….”

It was the
darwan
, looking uncomfortable. “What is it?”

“There’s a woman outside, demanding to be let in. I tried to turn her away, but she claims she’s”—he pointed to the maid—”her mother. She’s making a lot of noise. Shall I ask the bearer-boy to come help me get rid of her?”

The sister looked at the maid, who stood beside the wife’s chair, stricken into stillness.

The husband, who had also been watching the maid, spoke slowly, consideringly. “No. Bring her in. I think we should hear what she has to say.”

They could hear the woman’s voice long before she appeared around the bend of the drive, its broad peasant accent the same as the maid’s, but crude and grating in a way hers had never been. “So this is where she ended up, the little slut. Who would’ve thought it!”

And the
darwan’s
outraged, scolding whisper, “Watch your mouth, old woman. This is the house of
bhadralok
, decent people, not a
bustee
like you come from.”

The woman’s laugh was gravelly with contempt. The maid winced from it as though it were something solid, flung across the evening at her face. “Don’t talk to me about
bhadralok!
I know more about them than you ever will. I’ve seen the inside of a lot of mansions in my time—palaces, even—and I’m not talking about drawing rooms and dining halls either.”

At first when she saw her, the sister was surprised that this woman should be the mother of the maid. In her garish yellow sari and cheap silver jewelry, she seemed to belong to a lower order of humanity, her lips pulled back from her teeth in a predatory smirk. And yet, in the creases of that face which had long since given up all claim to innocence, the sister could see traces of a certain ruined beauty. It struck her that at one time men must have forgotten to breathe when they watched the mother walk down the street.

“So,” said the mother, advancing on the maid. “You’ve been hiding out here, have you, you sly thing, while I’m going crazy looking everywhere for you. And so’s Biru.” Addressing
the husband with an obsequious bow, she explained, “They had a little tiff, husband and wife, and my silly daughter here, she ran away.”

“He’s not my husband,” the maid said through stiff lips.

The mother ignored her. “It’s lucky I was at Bappi’s Tea Stall across from the temple bus stop today. The goddess’s grace, what else can you call it. I’d just started on my
kima paratha
when Kamala lets out a yell that just about makes me choke.
Ai
, Lakkhi-Pishi, she says, isn’t that your girl, the one that’s missing. I didn’t even finish my
paratha
, I tell you, I jumped right up—couldn’t take a chance on losing my daughter again, could I—and ran out. She was already on the bus, but fortunately another one came right away. And here I am.” Her grin brown and smug in her seamed face, she turned to the maid. “So if you’ll just gather your things, we’ll thank the
babu
and his good wife here, and be on our way.”

“I’m not going,” said the maid, her voice small but definite.

“What?”

“I’m not going.”

“Oh yes you are, even if I have to drag you by your hair every step of the way.”

The sister took a swift, shocked breath and turned to the wife, who sat as though in a dream, as though none of this were really happening. The maid, too, turned to her. “Please, Didi, don’t make me go.” She gripped the handle of the wife’s chair with white fingernails.

“I’m your mother. I have the right.”

Looking only at the wife, the maid said, “She sends men to my room at night, her and Biru, for the money.”

There was a sudden hush in the air, as before the
baisakhi
storms that rip the sky open. The sister saw that the
darwan’s
mouth had fallen comically open, and that the aunt’s eyes glittered with victory. But the look on her brother-in-law’s face she couldn’t read.

“That’s a lie, a stinking, bare-faced lie, you bitch. You’d better stop babbling and come with me right this minute….”

The wife’s chair fell over with a crash as she stood up, and the packet of
prasad
dropped from her lap, the sweetmeat rolling on the ground until it came to rest next to the husband’s
chappal
. She swayed a little, hand pressed to her belly. The sister noted with alarm that her lips were ash color, and she too rose.

“Get rid of this—creature,” said the wife to the husband in a slurred, sleepwalker’s voice. She waited until he nodded at the
darwan
, and then held out her hand for the maid. “Sarala,” the words came out jerky, disjointed. “Help me to my room.”

As the sister rushed to take her other arm, she heard the mother shout behind her, “Creature—who’s she calling
creature?
And,
babu
, don’t think you can get rid of me so easily. I know my rights. You might be rich, but I can get a hundred people from the
bustee
to come back here with me tomorrow. Make a stink like you won’t believe.” Her voice dipped knowingly. “Don’t think I can’t see the real reason you’re keeping my girl on—that pregnant wife of yours isn’t much good for anything else right now, is she?”

And the
darwan
, shoving her before him, “Get out, get out, you filthy-minded witch, before I bash your head in.
Threaten the
babu
in his own home, will you? Just you try coming back. …”

“Break a stick across her back when I do get hold of her …” screamed the mother.

“Out, out this minute….”

And the husband leaning smoothly back in his chair, the dark pooling around his bone-white
kurta
, a curiously pleased expression on his face.

By the time Dr. Hazra arrived, the wife was delirious with fever, and the ache in her belly was worse. She tossed on the bed, throwing off the covers they tried to keep on her, hitting out when the aunt tried to put on another poultice, and when her husband leaned over to ask her how she felt, she didn’t seem to know him. The doctor gave her a shot and called the hospital, for she would have to be moved right away.

“We’ll probably keep her there for the next few weeks, until it’s safe for the baby to be born. She needs supervision. But most of all”—he looked accusingly at the rest of the household—”she needs to be kept from getting agitated.”

“I can’t go,” the wife spoke in a tired whisper. “Who’ll take care of Khuku? Who’ll …?”

“My dear,” said the husband, taking her hands solicitously between his, “if the doctor says you must go, then of course you must. None of us like the thought of you being away, but we have to think of whatever’s best for you—and the baby. You need not worry—your sister is here after all. And the maid.”

“Yes, please, don’t worry,” said the sister, pushing back a
damp strand of hair from the wife’s forehead, though every muscle in her body tightened at the thought of remaining in this house without her sister.

The wife beckoned the sister closer, until her ear was close to her mouth. “Promise me you’ll stay until I get back,” she said in the faint tones of one who is already far away. “Promise me you’ll take care of Khuku. And, Sarala—promise me you’ll take care of her too.”

“I promise,” said the sister, trying to keep the doubt from her voice. She felt weak and incapable, weighed down with misgivings. But what else could she say?

In the week after the wife was hospitalized, the sister was amazed at how smoothly everything at home continued to run. The
mali
watered and fertilized and mowed as usual, and even trimmed, without having to be told, the mango branches that were blocking the light from the living-room window. The cook performed magnificently, fixing a Mughlai lamb dish that the husband claimed was better than anything he had done before; the bearer-boy came to work on time; and the
ayah
didn’t get into a single fight with the other servants all week. Even the little girl didn’t cry for her mother, as the sister had worried she might. She went for her bath unprotestingly and let the sister comb out the tangles in her hair without kicking or screaming. She ate a good lunch and took her nap, and in the evenings she played checkers with her father quite cheerfully until bedtime.

The sister was relieved, but her relief was tinged with dismay. At first she’d interpreted this sudden spate of good
behavior as a temporary, shocked reaction to the wife’s absence, but as the weeks passed she saw that she had been wrong. The household had closed over the departure soundlessly, without sorrow, the way the fluted leaves of the water hyacinth close over the surface of a pond after the bathers have left. As though it were the most natural thing. Would it be the same if—she couldn’t keep the thought from her mind though she tried hard to push it away—her sister were dead? Is this, finally, all a life amounts to, all the mark it makes on others, she asked herself as she turned restlessly—but carefully, so as to not wake the others—on the large pallet that had been put together by joining two mattresses on the nursery floor.