Mistress (42 page)

Authors: Anita Nair

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

BOOK: Mistress

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‘Babu would shake his head in amazement. “Look at him,” he would say. “How does he do it? Don’t these women know any better? He should have been an actor. That woman probably thinks he is swearing undying devotion to her …what a bloody performer!”

‘Mani got away with his romantic escapades. But with Gowri, he made a mistake. She wasn’t a poor cousin or a servant maid whose silence could be bought. She was from a respectable family and, before the whole town could find out what had happened, their marriage was fixed. Gowri was pregnant and it couldn’t be delayed.’

‘Me,’ I yelp.

‘No, not you. Gowri miscarried a few weeks after the wedding. I am not surprised she did. Imagine this: the man she ought to have married disappeared three nights before the wedding and what could she do but agree to his brother marrying her? Family honour and her future were at stake. The pregnancy was a secret, but if the marriage was called off, her life would be ruined.

‘Mani came to see me that night. “What am I getting into, Etta?” he asked me repeatedly. He was beginning to realize that it wasn’t a prank he could put behind him.

‘I dismissed it as nerves. “Don’t worry. Everything will work out,” I assured him. “It is time you settled down and had a family.” I was repeating my father’s words to me.

‘“I don’t know. I really don’t know.” He was in a strange mood that night and we sat there together, talking late into the night.

‘He brought forth reminiscences, of escapades he had managed to survive and get away with, of women he had slept with. Of hunts he had been on, of drinking parties and revelry. He seemed to need to reassure himself that he wasn’t trapped and was still a creature free to prowl.

‘“But what I really want to do is see the world. How can I, with a wife and child? I’ll be tied to this place for life,” he said.

‘“Now you are exaggerating,” I said. “Why can’t you travel when you are a married man? I never heard such nonsense. The baby will grow up and you can always leave him with your parents,” I said.

‘“But it won’t be the same.”

He walked into the night and I heard his motorbike start. No one saw him after that till he returned seven years later.

He went to Calcutta, where someone he knew found him a job on a ship. He was determined to put as much distance as he could between himself and what my father expected of him.

‘There was pandemonium. One of us was expected to step in. But I couldn’t, Radha. I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready for marriage. And
something in me balked at the thought of marrying the woman Mani was to have. It felt too much like incest to me. So your father did the honourable and unselfish thing. He offered to marry Gowri.

‘No one liked Babu very much. He was caustic and abrasive. And his wandering eye unnerved most people. When Mani was around, no one had eyes for anyone but him. Mani shone. His wit, his charm, his presence robbed Babu of any stature he might have had. Did Babu resent him? I am not sure. Mani wore his emotions on his face, but Babu didn’t. He hid behind his face. You never knew what he was thinking. But that night I began to respect him. He seemed to fill Mani’s absence and impose himself on all that was around him. He was willing to offer himself to salvage the situation. What must have gone through his mind?

‘That day, when Babu laid down a condition, none of us dared say anything against it. He said we were not to refer to Mani ever again in that house. “I don’t want the baby to know that I am not its father,” he said. “I don’t want Gowri ever wondering, what if I had married him.”

‘Overnight, Mani ceased to exist. A month later, Gowri miscarried. Mani was well and truly exorcized from our lives then.

‘Six months later, Gowri was pregnant again. You. That baby was you. And how your father loved you! Even before you were born, he worried about your prospects.’ Uncle smiles.

‘Have I answered your question?’ he asks.

‘How do I know that you are telling the truth?’ I ask doggedly.

‘You have to believe what you choose to. Would you prefer it if Mani was your father? Would it suit your fantasy better? To have a daring, romantic hero for a father? Don’t forget, he was also the selfish and unreliable one. The man who abandoned a pregnant girl three nights before they were to marry. Your father was an ordinary man, dull and reeking of respectability, but he was an honourable man. A man of dignity. Don’t ever make the mistake of dismissing dignity in favour of flamboyance.’

I feel sorrow envelop me. I wish I had made an attempt to understand my father better. And loved him for what he was, rather than finding him wanting for what he wasn’t.

‘This doesn’t absolve my mother,’ I tell him.

‘Don’t judge your mother, Radha. She led her life the way she thought it best. Shouldn’t you allow her the freedom of choice?’ he says quietly.

I think of my parents. I remember their wedding photo. My parents, too, had once been young and impetuous, with reckless dreams. Groping to make sense of adulthood and responsibility. And I realize that it is the nature of children to never allow parents their youth, their mistakes or their fears. In the end, this unspoken tyranny children exercise over their parents is just as oppressive as the rules parents lay out for children.

What will my child think of me when he or she is old enough to know right from wrong? Will he sit in judgement over me as I do now over my parents? Will my child allow me my mistakes and errors in judgement? Will my child love me despite everything?

I feel a cold hand grip my shoulder. All I want to do, I think, is to be with Chris. To see him. To hold him. To reassure myself that nothing has changed between us and nothing will.

Chris is in his cottage. I know that he is there. I see him through the window.

‘Chris,’ I whisper.

He looks up. He stares at me, but I know he can’t see me. I am in the shadows. He comes to the window.

‘I know you are there,’ he says.

I emerge into the light.

‘How?’ I am curious.

‘I know your fragrance.’

I feel my insides flower. Can it be that the child is his? I hug the thought to myself. And even if it isn’t, will he hold it against me? Will he ask me to get rid of it? I feel the flower within me wilt.

Chris takes me in his arms. ‘I missed you.’

‘I missed you, too,’ I murmur. ‘I can’t stay. Shyam will be here any time now.’

‘Here?’

‘No, I mean, he will be at the gate once he discovers that I have left Uncle’s house.’

‘Then there is time enough,’ he says.

I lie there, willing and submissive. Shadowed by his flesh, I feel
my terror subside. He will never forsake me, I think. History will not repeat itself. I will not be bound to a man simply because the man I love has abandoned me. Chris isn’t like my uncle Mani. Chris is not a child playing at being a man.

‘Slowly, slowly,’ I say.

‘Why slowly?’ he murmurs against my mouth. I arch my neck in reply.

A phone rings. It rings and rings. Then I realize the sound is from my bag. I grab it. ‘Where are you?’ Shyam demands.

‘I am on my way,’ I say, keeping the panic out of my voice.

I push Chris away. ‘I have to go; he is here.’

I splash water on my cheeks and push my hair behind my ears. ‘I am sorry,’ I say.

‘Do you realize that we never seem to have any time together any more?’ he asks.

Something in me rebels at the tone of his voice. ‘What can I do?’ I ask.

‘This is so frustrating,’ he says, raking his fingers through his hair. His face wears a frown.

‘Is this all our relationship is about, Chris?’ I ask. ‘Sex?’

We never seem to talk any more, I say silently in my head. All we do is pounce on each other.

‘Oh, come on,’ he says.

‘I have to go now,’ I say and rush through the door. I feel his eyes on my back. He is furious. So am I. Why doesn’t he understand what I am going through? I rush through the trees, trying to compose myself.

Shyam is in the car. ‘I thought you said the Sahiv was away,’ he says.

‘He came back this evening. Uncle wanted me to drop off a few papers. Something that came yesterday, which he knew Chris was waiting for.’ I know I am talking too much and too fast.

He doesn’t say anything. I huddle by the door. I feel a sense of shame wash over me. Something in me moves. Is it my conscience? Or is it the child, no more than a zygote, demanding of me—Do you know what you are doing to my father?

Is this how my mother felt? Torn between two men, feeling like a slut whether she was with one man or the other?

The wonder of this love is beginning to show its slimy, seamy underbelly to me.

As I look at Shyam, and see that his face reveals nothing, neither anger nor pain or even a hint of suspicion, I see my love as sordid, the wonder diminished. I begin to see it as no more than a slaking of lust, a mere shrugging away of ennui.

Shyam

It begins to rain as I wait in my car. I look at the clock on the dashboard. I have been sitting here for the past ten minutes. Where is she?

Uncle was waiting for me on the veranda. ‘Didn’t you see Radha on the way here? You must have missed her by a few minutes.’

He was fidgety and nervous. Something was on his mind. I could see it, but I didn’t ask him. ‘What did Radha want to see you about? She said it couldn’t wait till tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Was it about her parents?’

He sighed. ‘Her parents. Yes, yes, she wanted to ask me about her parents.’

‘I thought as much! Earlier this evening she wanted to know about them, the circumstances of their marriage. But why couldn’t she have waited to ask you tomorrow?’ I demanded. I knew he wasn’t telling me the whole truth. Perhaps she only needed an excuse to get here.

‘You know how she is …impulsive!’ he said.

I nodded. I knew that well enough. Then I decided to ask him about something that had been worrying me.

‘When you were talking about the buying of this house, you said your father bought it around the time of your brother Mani’s wedding. I suppose you meant the marriage he ran away from. Or did he get married after that?’

Radha is the sole beneficiary of her grandfather’s estate. She was
her father’s only child and Uncle has no heirs. I worried that in the future there would be new contenders for a share in the inheritance.

‘Mani died. He had no wife or children, legitimate or illegitimate,’ the old man said.

‘He died in rather suspicious circumstances, didn’t he?’ I asked.

‘He died in an accident. It was a stupid accident, but there wasn’t anything suspicious about it,’ he said.

‘The car he was driving rammed into a parked petrol carrier and exploded. The police weren’t wholly convinced it was an accident, I hear.’

I saw the frown on his face.

‘I had my friend the SP dig out the records. I thought it would make sense to find out everything about him. We need to be prepared if someone ever comes claiming to be his progeny. That was when I heard that they thought someone might have arranged the whole thing,’ I explained.

‘But who would want him dead?’

‘Radha’s father, for one,’ I muttered.

‘He was an honourable man. He would never do anything like that,’ Uncle said. But I saw that he sat down, unable to trust his legs.

‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘The brother who was cast away comes back claiming his right. The property is one thing, but what if he claimed the woman and child as his? It’s precisely to preserve your honour that you might do something like that,’ I said.

Uncle didn’t say anything. He looked at me after a moment. ‘You must leave the dead alone,’ he said.

I sit in the car and watch the windshield wipers. I am beginning to understand what Radha’s father must have felt when his brother arrived suddenly, back into their lives. I see threats everywhere. I see forces coming alive that will usurp all that is rightfully mine.

Where is she?

What is she doing, I wonder. I dial her number. The phone rings. It rings at least eight times before she picks up. I feel my patience snap. ‘Where are you?’

I hear her voice. It is unnaturally calm. ‘I am on my way,’ she says.

I realize then that I have interrupted them.

A howl of outrage bursts from my mouth. The night swallows my anguish.

I rest my head on the steering wheel. What is the husband of an adulteress allowed to do? Am I permitted to vent my fury at being betrayed? Will I be able to defend my honour? Will any court of law, human or divine, hold it against me?

When I was still a child, I heard a story about a neighbour who had chopped his wife’s head off. He had discovered that she had a lover. He went to the police station with his axe in one hand and the woman’s head held up by her hair in another. The policemen offered him a chair, it was said. Even they, those men in uniform, understood that adulteresses deserved to be killed. It was a matter of honour.

But this is Radha. My Radha. What am I to do?

Then I see her. She emerges into the light from the headlamps. She holds a hand over her head to protect herself from the rain. Only Radha would think that her tiny hand can offer protection from the hard drizzle. Just as she thinks that I will not find out about her affair.

The rain patterns her face. Raindrops cling to her.

She opens the car door and gets in. I smell his fragrance on her.

I want to coil her hair around my fist and hold her down. I want to trap her neck between my fingers and squeeze the air out of her treacherous body. I want to see her flail her arms and struggle for breath. I want her to see how deeply she has hurt me and I want her to suffer for my suffering.

Instead I control my anger and my voice. ‘I thought you said the Sahiv was away.’

She rattles out an explanation. Her words gush and tumble, roll over and turn cartwheels. Clowns filling intervals in a circus. She smells of secrets and guilt.

I say nothing. I am afraid to speak. If I do, it will be an accusation. It will be venom and hate. Then all will be lost.

She goes to bed early. I sit in the living room. I am unable to sleep.

It is almost midnight when I go to our room. She is asleep. Her clothes are scattered on a chair. I hang them up and thrust her undies
into the basket in the bathroom. The wall cabinet is not shut properly. I open it and start arranging the toiletries. There are two packets of sanitary napkins. Why does she hoard them? They take up so much space. Then suddenly I know what is wrong, what it is I have missed.

Radha hasn’t had her period. I calculate in my head. It was due ten days ago. For a moment I hear a wild singing in my head. Can it be? Can it be that she is pregnant? Have I finally fathered a child?

Then I stop.

What am I thinking? I know that I cannot father a child. What is growing in her isn’t mine. It is a mass of sin. Living evidence of her betrayal.

A wrenching pain tears through me. I bite on my hand to muffle the sound of my agony.

All that is mine will soon forsake me. My love. My life. My dreams, my honour. All that I will be left with is humiliation. How do I go on?

Something wet courses down my cheeks. I am crying, I realize.

I weep because all I have is my grief to cling to.