House of the Sun (20 page)

After the storm the heat had returned, drying up the sudden first rain. They drove to Lakshmi’s funeral in three cars from Sadhbela. Mrs Murjani cursed the bitter timing of the event, that eroded the bloom on her daughter. She had explained to Mrs Premchand the impossibility of meeting any further young man and his family at this moment, however eligible. But Mrs Premchand had been insistent about the suitability of her new acquaintance, far superior to her previous introduction a few days before. Mrs Murjani was forced to agree to a meeting.

Chachi sat in the Murjanis’ car, between Rani and Mrs Murjani. Lokumal and Jyoti drove behind with Sham, Padma and Veena. Mrs Hathiramani and Mrs Bhagwandas travelled together in Mrs Bhagwandas’ car, with Rekha secured between them.

Chachi sobbed, her body slack as an ancient pillow. ‘From the beginning I told them that woman was a devil. Nobody listened to me.’ Mrs Murjani nodded, full of soothing words. She had not wanted Rani to come to the funeral, the girl was upset enough already; she sat vacantly in a chair all day, saying and eating little. Another round with death would do no good, would bring the thing back to her; but Rani had been insistent and become hysterical. Mr Murjani had gone on business to Delhi, and left his wife with the matter. Bad luck seemed never-ending.

‘The first time I saw that Mrs Samtani I told them what she was,’ the old woman screamed and buried her face in her veil. Mrs Murjani patted her hand.

Rani leaned back and closed her eyes, not wishing
to see again the roads she had journeyed along with Lakshmi so recently. They had been about to call the police to Sadhbela, when she did not return that
evening
, and the phone rang unanswered at the Samtanis’. Mr Murjani himself was preparing to drive to Mahim in search of his daughter. He had grabbed Sham roughly as they entered the door.

‘Leave him alone,’ she had shouted. ‘His sister is dead.’

Mr Murjani hesitated. Behind him the family and servants stepped back in shock, then surged forward with fresh inquiries. She could not speak, and had collapsed in sobs. It was Sham who explained, wooden and calm. They heard him out and saw that Rani had suffered no damage. They allowed him to go to his mother. Mr Murjani went with him to sympathize, terrorizing Rekha by his presence even before they broke the news.

Each time Rani shut her eyes she heard again Lakshmi’s scream, and saw the elastic shadow of Mrs Samtani stretching up, huge and dark on the wall, before that sudden burst of fire. In the court, at the inquest, she had told them these things, struggling to keep her voice even. They had taken no notice of her. Mrs Samtani stood up at the end grim-faced, a gleam of triumph in her eyes, before a show of grief. Hari had released no emotions, stoic between his parents. Accidental death. The verdict had echoed about the dusty courtroom, swept into each corner by the slow, turning fan. The words echoed still in her head.

Because of the inquest several days had passed since the fire in the Samtanis’ kitchen. They had not burned Lakshmi by the first sundown. Instead her body was cold from the hospital morgue, with a smell of
antiseptic
. She had been carried in on a bamboo bier, and laid out on the stone floor of the Samtanis’ living room. Incense and oil burned at her head, a priest chanted
at her feet. Lakshmi’s elder sisters huddled together, heads bowed beneath white saris. Through the open front door Lakshmi was exposed to the gaze of the curious who jostled for a view on the outside staircase.

At the sight of Lakshmi, Chachi sank down in a heap on the floor. ‘Forever your karma will be cursed by this deed,’ she screamed at Mrs Samtani, and repeated the words in a sob. Mrs Samtani rose, the breath vibrating through her.

‘It is you people who are to be blamed,’ she hissed. ‘This is your doing. God is my judge.’

Making his way across the room, to where the men sat, Lokumal stopped before Mrs Samtani. ‘This is not the time for such talk, sister. I beg you to be silent.’

Lokumal took his place with the men, filled with sadness and fatigue. He looked at the body of the girl before him, whom he had seen on the day of her birth, and sighed. He searched his mind for a verse from the
Gita
to calm himself and shut his eyes.

In the past, on similar occasions, the verse had never failed him. He spoke it often in his gentlest voice, to those who were bereaved. Now his head felt swollen, and the words neither penetrated nor held meaning. He studied Lakshmi’s face, grey as a discarded
chrysalis
, and wondered at the state.

He did not realize he had spoken aloud until the men about him nodded. He trembled all over. Now these words applied imminently to himself, they had acquired new perspective. He dare not admit to the sudden comfortlessness of verse. Within days he too, on June 11, according to Tunda Maharaj, would lie dead and stretched out like Lakshmi. To what place had the spark in her flown? He had answered the
question
calmly when it was put to him by others; why could he not answer himself? He turned his prayer beads, and thought of Swamiji on the banks of the Ganges and the radiance of his face. He remembered Lakshmi as a small child whom he had fed with sweets. He thought of his grandchildren, Bina and Ravi, and tears came to his eyes. Neither the eating of meat, nor the building of the bar, seemed of importance now. All he wanted was the love of his son and his
daughter-in-law
, and the arms of his grandchildren about him. He was shocked at his thoughts, at this sudden lusting after earthly attachments. He bowed his head at his lack of courage before his final test.

Soon the men stood up and left the room, and the women began their work. Old Chachi pushed forward determinedly upon her short stiff legs, breathing
heavily
. She took up a position of command to the right of Lakshmi’s body, knowledgeable from past experience of the details of the rite. Rekha sat cross-legged beside Lakshmi, rocking backwards and forwards with grief.

‘Bring scissors,’ Chachi demanded of Mrs Samtani. ‘Bring water. Where is the gauze?’ Mrs Samtani sucked her breath angrily, and turned to command a servant.

Chachi gave the scissors to Rekha, but her hand trembled violently. ‘Let Meena do it,’ Chachi ordered. ‘She is the eldest sister.’

Meena knelt, and cut the charred remnants of clothes from Lakshmi’s body. Chachi stood lucid with
command
, hands on hips. The snip of scissors and the tearing of cloth unsettled the silent room. The body was turned and the clothes pulled free, releasing with the movement a sudden, putrid stench of death. Lakshmi lay naked, her only protection the blistered hide of her flesh. The seated women looked away. In the doorway the crush of onlookers drew back, but did not avert their gaze.

Mrs Hathiramani pressed her handkerchief to her
mouth. Each time the body was moved a new wave of sweet-smelling rot filled the room. She gave a sob, afraid even to breathe for fear now of death’s contagion. Beside her Mrs Bhagwandas sobbed companionably, but even to her friend Mrs Hathiramani dare not
disclose
her terror. To voice it would be to give it shape, and attract the fate waiting to pounce upon her. Each time she raised her eyes to Lakshmi’s body she saw instead the still, lifeless shape of her husband. She shut her eyes quickly, and prayed, as she did every hour of the day, for his recovery. She regretted her scorn of his education. She regretted her concern with her chutney jars that had caused her to ignore him. And yet, at the end of each guilty accounting, she knew she had only Saturn to blame. Mrs Hathiramani feared the evil at work in the House of the Sun had still some course to run. She began to sob again.

‘Water,’ ordered Chachi. Mrs Samtani stepped
forward
, but the old woman barred her way with a short, stubborn arm. ‘This job is for her family.’ Mrs Samtani opened her mouth to protest, but drew back before the vehemence of Chachi’s expression. The cleansing could be no more than a ritual dab, on each of Lakshmi’s charred limbs. Padma joined Meena, took the wet cloth, and touched it lightly to the body.

‘Gauze,’ Chachi demanded. ‘Cut the hole large.’ She bent herself, wheezing with effort, to lift Lakshmi’s head as they slipped the shroud upon her, pulling it straight, arranging stiffened limbs.

‘Now call back the men,’ Chachi announced. ‘Bring a bag for these; they must burn with her.’ She pointed to the charred, shredded clothes. She refused to sit but stood, hands still on hips, in her loose tunic, short legs in blue striped pyjamas planted firmly apart. She had unearthed a new veil for the funeral, and held an end to her wet eyes.

Jyoti drew a breath, and looked across the room at
her father-in-law, who appeared frail in the shaft of light. Beyond the window, two crows on a branch of a mango tree goaded a stranded kitten. The birds croaked and edged towards the cat. The heat of
mid-morning
filled the room; the sun streamed in on the white clothes of the mourners. It fell on Lakshmi’s face, untouched by the fire, discoloured as old wax above the pale gauze of the shroud.

She felt diminished by Lakshmi’s death. She thought again of the difference between her own fate and Lakshmi’s, of the goodness of Lokumal, of his sagacity and affection, and was ashamed at how she had tried him. She looked up to the window again. The crows flapped great wings before the terrified kitten, one rose to dive in attack. Jyoti held her breath, but the cat jumped to a ledge at the side of the house, and ran down a drainpipe to safety. She must do what she could to show Lokumal his place in the house was unchanged, whatever the progressive changes. Beneath the perfume of incense, the stench of death now filled the room. Lokumal was an old man; there would be time soon enough to please only herself.

The priest mixed a paste of carmine and instructed Hari to mark Lakshmi’s brow, eyes, ears, and mouth. Wafers of copper and silver were placed between her lips.

‘Something of gold is also needed,’ the priest demanded. Chachi looked straight at Mrs Samtani.

‘We are poor people, what gold can we give?’ Mrs Samtani replied.

‘Give her this.’ Rani stood up and unclasped the chain from her neck. She slid off the bead, worn as a good luck charm since childhood, that she had failed to give Lakshmi the other day. Mrs Murjani reached up a restraining hand, but Rani pulled away. Hari placed the bead between Lakshmi’s lips, beside the slivers of copper and silver.

It was the first time she had seen death. Rani could not believe the shrouded figure was Lakshmi. The
stillness
was grotesque. Her mind had shut down, or was made of sponge. She kept her eyes upon Sham. What more could she have done? What more could she still do? She was surrounded by plenitude she had a need to be rid of. Why did she have it? Why did he not? The questions made her ill.

Garlands of jasmine, marigolds and asters were heaped in a mound upon Lakshmi. Mrs Samtani picked up Lakshmi’s wedding sari, Rekha and Chachi sprang forward at once to take possession of it. Mrs Samtani drew back with a fierce tug at the garment; Rekha held on grimly. The sari opened suddenly, cascading yards of soft red silk over Lakshmi, as they pulled and strained. Chachi reached out and added a hand and the silk was ripped from Mrs Samtani’s grasp. Rekha laid the wedding garment over her daughter, and upon it a last garland.

She was light on the bier; the men carried it easily out of the house, down the outside stairs, to a battered truck. The priest walked ahead with an oil lamp, listing the illusions of life. The women stood before the house, amongst the piles of twisted metal and the grazing goat, as the men departed with the body, on its journey to the fire.

‘Food for the priest, gifts for him also, and money. Money also for the burning, and the bills of the doctors still unpaid. Who is to pay for all this?’ Mrs Samtani demanded as the truck disappeared. ‘Even in death she will pursue us.’ Mrs Hathiramani and Mrs
Bhagwandas
exchanged a look. Jyoti turned from fingering the canna lilies at the bottom of the steps.

‘Can you give her no peace, even now?’ she asked.

‘Peace?’ screamed Mrs Samtani. ‘From the moment she came into our family—’

‘Send the bills to me, sister,’ Lokumal interrupted,
and turned away from Mrs Samtani. He felt suddenly exhausted; he had not gone with the men to the
crematorium
. His car already lurched forward to take him back to Sadhbela. The driver got out, and opened the door to install him. Mrs Samtani rushed forward.

‘All bills you will pay? Everything?’ she confirmed.

‘Everything,’ Lokumal barked. Jyoti climbed into the car beside him, and soon they drove away.

‘Why did you waste your own gold on the girl?’ Mrs Murjani demanded of Rani when their car followed Lokumal’s into the streets of Mahim. Mrs Hathiramani and Mrs Bhagwandas rode with them. Rani was crushed on the back seat between the two women, their flesh overflowed upon her. Mrs Murjani sat in front. Mrs Bhagwandas had left her car and driver at Rekha’s disposal for the day. She would remain at the Samtanis’ until the men returned from the crematorium, and the priest was ceremoniously fed.

‘People like that will pick such gold from the ashes, even before they look for the bones,’ Mrs Hathiramani stated.

‘The fire is not yet started, and already I hear they have a new girl for Hari,’ Mrs Bhagwandas announced. ‘Mrs Watumal has relatives in Mahim, she has heard this from them.’

‘I too have heard,’ Mrs Hathiramani announced. ‘The girl is so black in colour you cannot see her at night, and one leg is shorter than the other. But there is a good dowry. For such a girl the parents are happy to get a boy like Hari. Even if he is defective, and also now a widower, he is still a good catch for some.
Already
Lakshmi is forgotten.’ Mrs Hathiramani sighed.

‘So, soon now you will also be arranging for her?’ Mrs Bhagwandas inquired over the seat to Mrs
Murjani
, after a quick appraisal of Rani.