Mistress (12 page)

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Authors: Anita Nair

Tags: #Kerala (India), #Dancers, #India, #General, #Literary, #Triangles (Interpersonal Relations), #Travel Writers, #Fiction, #Love Stories

BOOK: Mistress
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Saadiya thought of her father, and his stories. Vaapa was a raconteur. When he told a story, you listened, and you felt yourself become part of the story. His stories were always of men who sought distant lands, of travellers and their wondrous discoveries. Saadiya had her own favourite, second only to the story of the ten thousand horses.
‘There is a land far, far away, where it’s mostly night and seldom day. The cold would chill the marrow in the bones and turn even your hair into razor-sharp blades. That was how cold it was. All day, a stiff breeze laden with more ice than salt blew in from the sea and the people shivered in their homes. Since the sun never shone, there was no way of growing enough crops to feed everyone through the year. The people lived off the sea mostly. The men sailed their boats and went deep into the sea and when they returned they brought home enormous catches, enough to feed the entire village for many days. But some days the catch wasn’t so good, or the weather would be stormy and no one would dare sail into the sea. So what could they do then?
‘The boats were made of wood, and do you know what they did? They elongated the keel. Now, when they discovered that they had a bigger catch than usual, instead of throwing the extra fish back into the sea, they added an extra plank to the side of the boat and raised its height. They could carry a larger number of fish then. They called it the Plank of Avidity.’
Saadiya loved that phrase. It represented all that she felt was true of life. Life demands of us that we have a Plank of Avidity. How can we have more if we don’t raise our expectations? How can we be content with just what we have and know? Even Vaapa, who was a teller of stories, was content with sailing the seas of imagination. But
that wasn’t real. Reality was to be able to see, to touch, to hear, to feel, to sense, to know, to experience.
Saadiya stared at her feet. Two days ago, in her sister Nadira’s home, she had seen a book. It was Nadira’s husband’s, acquired on his latest trip to Singapore. Saadiya couldn’t read the words, but there were pictures in it. Of places, blue seas and green hills. Of roads that ran endlessly and gardens that had no walls. Saadiya couldn’t stop looking at the pictures. They gave her yearning a greater edge, a sharper definition.
Now she felt a great desire to look at the pictures again. She closed the terrace door and went into her room. The doors had several latches and the windows were barred. Every night Zuleika, their servant, slept with her in this room. Before leaving the house, Saadiya locked the doors and closed the windows. In Arabipatnam, no one took chances.
She pulled her burkha on. Its black swirls hid all of her, except her eyes.
‘I am going to Nadira’s,’ she told her grandmother and tip-toed out.
Late in the afternoon, the alley that led from her door to Nadira’s was quiet. All the women were indoors. No man came this way; they were not allowed to. Saadiya looked around. There was no one. She took away the black fold of the cloth that covered her face and flung it on to her shoulder. Then she walked towards Nadira’s house. The door was shut. Saadiya thought of the book behind the door and decided to wait. Nadira would be back soon, she thought. And as Saadiya stood there, she felt a rogue desire pull at her feet. If she walked down this alley and turned left, she would reach a common alley. The broader common alley in turn led to the road.
I’ll go only as far as the common alley, she told herself. I’ll rush back before anyone sees me. Men were allowed in the common alley and Vaapa would be furious if he knew that she had gone there all by herself.
Saadiya hurried down the alley and turned left. She peered into the common alley, which was deserted as well.
Where was everyone? What if she walked a few steps, just a few steps, peered at the road and rushed back? No one would know and she would be able to still that vagrant voice within her.
So Saadiya, whose freedom until then had encompassed just twenty feet by thirty feet, stepped into the common alley. Her heart beat fast and she felt her mouth go dry, but she couldn’t turn back now. She walked on till she reached the road. Then she looked around her and gasped.
Life. Life in so many colours and shapes. Life that breathed and walked. Life that chewed and spat. Life that screamed and shouted. Life that mumbled and tumbled, hissed and crawled. Life that waited. Life that would never be hers.
Saadiya ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips and looked skyward to feel the sea breeze on her uplifted face. The breeze caressed her cheeks, sending a clat of pleasure down her spine. Slowly she lowered her face and as she did so, her eyes encountered those of a young man’s. He stood there leaning against a wall, flanked by two bicycles, staring at her with as much shock as she had felt at her first glimpse of the road.
Saadiya tugged at the cloth that covered her face. With horror she realized that her face was uncovered and visible to the world—and to the young man whose eyes lapped at the contours of its nudity. Saadiya felt shame drown her. With a muffled cry, she pulled the veil across her face and stumbled backwards.
She turned to run back to the narrow confines of the women’s alley, and saw Zuleika enter the common alley. Zuleika stood there haggling with a chicken seller. When the man spotted her black-clad figure, he turned towards the wall so that she might pass.
Zuleika peered at the black-clad figure.
‘Who is that?’ she asked, walking towards her.
She asked again, ‘Nadira, is that you? I thought Saadiya was with you?’
Saadiya stopped. There was no fleeing from Zuleika. There was no use, she knew. A glimmer of the sky, a lungful of life, a breath of escape …that was all she had dreamt of in this life. And now hope had turned its face to the wall, dangling the weight of carcasses in its hands.
A single act of trespass. Saadiya uncovering her face, Sethu looking at it. That was the extent of their trespass. No one else knew of this violation of ancient codes, and yet it was enough.
If Saadiya had veiled her face, Sethu would never have looked.
And Sethu, if he had known that it was expected of him, would have turned his face to the wall when Saadiya appeared before him, with her naked face and hungry eyes. But when Sethu saw the flush of shame colour Saadiya’s features, he felt something kindle within him. A flame that lit itself from the blazing shame and warmed his insides. And Saadiya, who ought to have vested her hero with the face of Akbar Shah’s second son, now had a face, a form to fill her vacant hours and fugitive dreams.
W
ho amongst us does not know this emotion? Why, I don’t even need to tell you what it is, when my eyebrows slant down at the ends, my eyes crinkle at the corners and my mouth droops. My breath moves from the cavity of the chest to the base of the spine. Do you see how my belly sinks and my shoulders droop?
Karunam. All of us have known sorrow some time or the other. Let me tell you a little story. A woman went to the Buddha, asking him to bring back to life her son who had just died. The Buddha said that if she could go to a house where death had not visited even once, and bring back a handful of mustard, he would bring her son back to life. So the woman set forth. She went to every home in her village. In one house, the mother had died, in another, an uncle. One family had lost a grandfather, another a baby. There wasn’t a home that hadn’t known death. Then the Buddha told her, we must accept death as part of our existence. There cannot be a life free of death. So it is with karunam.
It is everywhere. It is in the month of July, the month of karkitakam, when the relief of having got past the summer is over and the sky stretches a dull grey, like ashes flung over the face of the sun. The ground is wet and squelchy. The eaves drip, and so do the leaves. A relentless drip-drip. Clothes never dry, moss grows everywhere. Cupboards reek of damp and wetness prevails.
You can sense it when you shake a tender coconut and hold it to your ear. It is there in the lapping of coconut water as it slops this way and that between the curves of soft inner flesh …the fluid ways of sorrow.
You can hear it in the song of the karinkuyil as the notes soar into the skies. Why does the koel sing so sadly, you might ask. What sorrow could the sluttish, slovenly cuckoo who lays her eggs in the crow’s nest and absolves herself of all responsibility have?
Capriciousness comes naturally to this creature which, even as a child, gathers the yet to be hatched eggs and crow-babies on to her back and tosses them out of the nest. Perhaps remorse is what the koel’s song throbs with as it sits alone on the branch of a tree and ponders. A remorse for all that has been. For that, too, is karunam. Remorse.
Chris wears a grim look. I find him on the veranda, listening to a tape. I hear Uncle’s voice. This chapter of Uncle’s story has taken more than a week in its narration.
Uncle refused to meet Chris during the day. ‘The light bleaches my imagination,’ he said. ‘I cannot think then; come when the sun is down.’
So it was in the early evening that Chris and I went to Uncle. Shyam disapproved. He showed his disapproval in many ways, but did not voice it. I wondered why. Usually he is very eloquent, especially when it comes to something he does not like. But this time he merely lets me know it. Every evening for a week now, he has been coming home before me. He calls me on the mobile and each time he has a different reason. ‘So what time are you coming home? I am hungry.’ ‘Rani Oppol is bored.’ ‘Will you be coming in the next half hour? The SP and his wife have said they will drop in.’ ‘Isn’t it over yet?’ ‘Rani Oppol was saying it isn’t right for you to spend so much time in the Sahiv’s company …’
And when I return, he’s usually sitting in the living room with his mouth set and a drink at his side. He pretends not to see me and I say nothing, either. Two can play at this game. He may be daddy, but I refuse to be the trembling, penitent child.
Lately, though, I have been wondering about this game that Shyam is playing. It is as if he is waiting. But waiting for what? I try to put it out of my mind. I am learning to block Shyam and his moods from my thoughts.
Chris had asked me if I could transcribe Uncle’s voice. ‘I don’t understand his accent too well, particularly when he uses Indian words. Would you? I could pay you by the page or hour …whatever you prefer,’ he said.
‘I’ll do it,’ I said, and smiled. ‘But I am very slow. I haven’t keyed in anything for a long time now. Once in a while, I help Uncle send emails and sometimes I write to a friend …and you don’t have to pay me.’
Chris was unsure. ‘But you can’t do it for nothing.’
‘I am doing it for Uncle,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he would like a copy of his story. I know that I would.’
That settled it. I began work, but kept it a secret.
Shyam would be furious if he knew. ‘How dare he?’ he would fume. ‘Are you his secretary or what? If you are so keen to do secretarial work, why don’t you do it for me?’
If he ever finds out, I have my answer ready. ‘I don’t want Uncle’s words misinterpreted. Is that a crime?’ I would ask. Shyam would not mind as much if he thought that I considered it an ordeal.
I discovered that I was enjoying the work. Some mornings, as I typed, I wondered if I could become a medical transcriptionist. There were courses that would teach me what I needed to know and I had heard that in some instances you were allowed to work from home …Shyam wouldn’t be able to object to that. I felt the need to resume work consume me more than ever. When I had finished with these tapes, I would start inquiries in that direction, I told myself.
 
Every evening Uncle would talk into the tape recorder for a little while. Ever so often he would pause to chew his betel leaves. When it was almost dark, he would stop. ‘This will do for now,’ he would say. ‘It’s Malini’s feeding time.’
Uncle talked about Malini as if she were a baby. But it was futile to try and force him. He would resist by clamming up. Malini would hop on her perch and whistle and shriek. She was always happy to see us leave. But she had at least stopped calling Chris names. She even let him scratch her head. ‘She must like you,’ Uncle said with a note of surprise. Malini usually pecked a piece of flesh out of anyone’s hand if they dared try and make even the slightest overture towards her.
Shyam had had his finger quite badly injured once and as we
drove to the hospital, he had held his finger aloft and murmured, ‘Like master, like bird …’
‘What did you say?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. Just wondering why one needs a dog when you have a bird as vicious as her.’
‘But I did tell you that she is very bad-tempered. Why did you have to thrust your finger into her cage?’
‘I usually have a way with animals.’ Shyam scowled. ‘But this isn’t a bird. This is a bloodthirsty ghoul.’
But Malini, like everyone else, seemed to have succumbed to Chris.
Chris looked pleased. ‘She is such a feisty thing,’ he said and continued to scratch Malini’s head as she shut her eyes in enjoyment.
Chris and I would sit on the steps to the river for a while till night descended. We didn’t talk much. It was enough to sit there soaking in the night sounds, wrapped by the darkness. It was an intimacy with a million nerve ends. And then I would go home with a want in me that threatened to take my life over.
‘How long is this storytelling going to last?’ Shyam demanded one day.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. It was the truth. I wished it would never end. For as long as Uncle told his story, Chris was his captive.
‘What is this? The Mahabharata? Why is he stretching it like one of those serials on television?’ Shyam muttered.
Shyam was worried that he was losing money on Cottage No. 12. ‘You realize that I thought it would be off season when I offered the cottage, don’t you? But the season has been better than ever,’ he said. ‘We are having to refuse some bookings and turn people away. I don’t like doing that.’
I shrugged. ‘You know Uncle. He never says why he does what he does. He has his reasons, I suppose.’
It was not like Uncle to be difficult. I could see that this was hard for him. All his life Uncle had played characters whose actions were defined for him. Here he had to be both the creator and the actor, and it was his own history, his life, he was laying bare.
‘What is wrong?’ I ask Chris.
He scratches his chin. ‘I was listening to the recordings of the past few days. I am not sure how much is true and how much he is making up.’
I see my printouts on the table. Every evening I take home the tape and bring it back the next evening with the transcript printed out.
‘For one,’ Chris says, picking up a page, ‘there is the cycle ride. The burial urns, the brahmin villagers who eat pork. What is their relevance?’
I am not surprised by his bewilderment. I had listened to that episode and wondered too. What did it have to do with Uncle?
Later that night, it had occurred to me. Then everything fell into place.
 
Once again Uncle was creating an atmosphere where the real tussled with the unreal. If Sethu had met Saadiya after an insipid and boring cycle ride, the impact of that meeting would not have been so forceful or even poignant. Arabipatnam would have been just another Muslim settlement to him. But the unreality of the real world he passed through gave Arabipatnam a magic edge. It was an enchanted place, and Saadiya was the princess trapped there. I explain this to Chris. ‘Do you see it?’ I ask.
Chris crinkles his eyes. He has acquired a tan in a week’s time and the ruddiness of his skin makes his eyes a deeper green. ‘You have beautiful eyes,’ I say.
He grins. ‘I thought I was supposed to say that.’
I flush and look away, then take a deep breath and say, ‘Do you understand what I am saying?’
‘Not really. Why would he do it?’
‘Actually, he’s again using a technique from his art,’ I say. ‘Do you want me to explain it to you?’ I hesitate to volunteer information. I worry that I am beginning to sound like I am lecturing him.
‘Do you mind if I record this as well?’ He inserts a new tape into the machine.
‘There is a smallish episode in the Mahabharata. It is rather insignificant in the scope of the whole epic, but it is very popular in kathakali. It’s called Baka Vadham. Which means the killing of Baka.
‘Baka was this evil demon who was terrorizing a brahmin village. The villagers, who were incapable of defending themselves, pleaded with him to leave them alone. Baka agreed on one condition: every day a family would send him a cartload of food and the cart driver and the bullocks that pulled the cart as his dinner.
‘Now, the Pandavas, who were in exile then, arrived at this village and were offered shelter. One evening, they came home from their wanderings to discover the host family in mourning. It was their turn to send the food and a member of their family to Baka. The family wept as each one of the male members offered to go. Bheema then stepped forward and said he would be the cart driver. Bheema, if you remember, was the strongest of the Pandavas, with a great love for food and battle.
‘Now the libretto has a description of Bheema’s journey into the forest that Baka lived in.
‘Bheema hears the howling of jackals and the screeching of vultures. When he hears these ugly and terrifying sounds, he feels as if the animals are worshipping the demon. Bheema walks on and hears maniacal laughter and the blood-chilling shrieks of ghouls and other evil creatures. A breeze blows and it bears the stench of death, of putrefied human remains. Then Bheema sees shreds of the sacred thread that brahmin men wear and is even more furious.
‘My point is, if the libretto didn’t include such a lead up, then the Bheema–Baka battle would be an anticlimax.’
Chris whistles softly. ‘All right. I buy that. But there is something else you must listen to …’
My heart skips a beat. I think of what he had said one night as we sat by the river. ‘Sometimes I abandon a trail halfway through. Either the subject fails to hold me, or I discover that I have made a mistake and my subject is a load of bull.’
I worry now. Will he think Uncle is not worth the effort?
It is a warm evening. I lift my hair away from my face. I see his eyes cup my breasts and I straighten abruptly.
‘May I use your bathroom?’ I ask to break the mood.
‘Here, put these flip-flops on,’ he says, kicking his rubber sandals off. ‘I just had a shower and the whole floor is wet.’
I step into them. My feet draw in the warmth of his. I examine the shelf in the bathroom. I sniff his cologne and touch his toothbrush. I bury my face in his towel and breathe in his scent. Then I see myself in the mirror. What am I doing?
The tape comes alive: ‘
Saadiya loved that phrase. It represented all that she felt was true of life. Life demands of us that we have a Plank of Avidity. How can we have more if we don’t raise our
expectations? How can we be content with just what we have and know?
’
I feel a question gather on my brow. ‘So what about it?’ I ask.
Chris runs a hand over his face. He looks at me and asks, ‘Has he travelled much?’
I nod.
‘What does that mean? A yes or a no?’
Before I can react, he suddenly leans forward and touches my hand. ‘Hey, I didn’t mean to snap. I really don’t know what’s got into me …’ He drops his head in his hands.
‘It’s all right,’ I say. I am willing to forgive him his surliness. What is this magic he is weaving around me?
He looks up. ‘That phrase …Plank of Avidity. Do you know where I came across it first? At the Viking Museum in Roskilde in Denmark.’ His voice is quiet.
I don’t know what to say. ‘He’s travelled a great deal,’ I say.
Chris smiles. ‘You think I am being impatient, don’t you? It is his story. I should let him tell it the way he chooses to. Besides …’ He pauses.
‘Besides, what?’
‘Besides, I get to spend time with you.’
I look away. I feel him near me. How did he get here?
I step back. He watches me.
‘Uncle wanted to know if you would like to go to a performance tomorrow,’ I say. ‘He will resume his story the day after tomorrow,’ I add.
He is amused by my embarrassment. He leans forward and with his finger gently caresses my cheek. ‘What are you scared of? I will go, but only if you go too.’
I know I should object. Say something to disabuse any notion he may have of our relationship developing into something else. Instead, I ask, ‘Is it the dance or me you want to see?’
He gazes at me with his green eyes and says, ‘What do you think?’
 
It is a little past seven when I walk towards Chris’s cottage. The moon in the night sky is bright enough, despite its blurred edges. I look at myself.
For the hundredth time this evening, I wonder if I should have worn something else.
I had looked at myself in the mirror. I had told myself that I was going for a performance and it would be insulting to the art and the artist if I were to appear in casual clothes. As if his performance was not worth the effort. But I also knew that I was dressing up for him. The kohl in my eyes, the flowers in my hair, the varnish on my nails, the perfume at my pulse points, the sari draped low to reveal the curve of my waist …I wanted him to look at me.
As I near his cottage, I hear music. What is he listening to, I wonder. The music pauses and begins again.
It is Chris playing.
I hurry. I climb the steps to his cottage carefully, quietly, so he will not know I am there. Then I sit on the veranda, listening.

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