Mistress (49 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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Shaantam

S
o we arrive at the ultimate expression in the navarasas. Shaantam. How do we depict peace? What do we school our features into? Shaantam is not a face devoid of expression. Shaantam is not the absence of muscle movement. Shaantam is not turning yourself into a catatonic being.

To understand what we need to do, we must first decipher what Shaantam is.

Is it the stillness of the hour before dawn in a summer month, when a thin line of light appears on the horizon? The sky is devoid of all movement and so is the earth. The birds are still asleep and even the breeze is reined in by the heat that waits. There is a stillness to that hour that you can learn from. Rein in all thoughts. Calm your mind. Feel the stillness within your being.

It is not the stillness of sleep. Which is why I suggest you watch the charamundi. Do you know it? The grey heron that lives by the river, with its thin, scrawny legs, grey back, slender snake-like neck and dagger-sharp, straight beak. It is the king of water birds because, unlike other water birds, it does not stalk its prey. Instead, it waits knee-deep in water without a flicker of movement or emotion. The grey heron is stillness personified while it waits.

So you see, there can be stillness that is alive. The mind works but the thoughts must be like the palmyra fruit.

Why the palmyra fruit, you ask?

Shaantam is a discipline. Think of the purplish black cannonballlike shell of the palmyra. It does not let anything permeate it. And even if something does manage to, it has to be filtered through the fibre. That is how your mind must be. As for your thoughts, look at those little sheathed sacs nestling in the fibre. You peel them with your fingernails and then you see it: soft and tender, the fruit glistens, devoid of almost all odour or taste. Translucent as ice, the fruit is the epitome of shaantam. Alive, there and yet not there.

That is Shaantam. Detachment. Freedom. An absence of desire. A coming to terms with life. When all is done, that is what we all aspire to. Shaantam.

Radha

I feel a core of calm reside within me. All the passion I burnt with, the contempt I felt for my life, all the sorrow I knew for chances wasted, the anger I felt at being trapped in an existence so stifling, the fear of what lay ahead, the disgust I felt for myself, the yearning, the deceiving, the worrying, the aching …the whirling, twisting chaos has settled into this quietness that floods me.

I think of Shyam. I see him sitting on the toilet seat, his head in his arms and tears in his eyes. I knew then that he knew about Chris and me. All along, when I lied and deceived and lay in Chris’s arms and he in mine, I hadn’t ever felt that I was committing a crime. When we made love, wanton abandoned love, there was no shadow of betrayal. But I cannot erase from my mind the sight of Shyam as I saw him that night. Everything that I think he has put me through is outweighed by what I have turned him into. A broken man, hurt and humiliated, and I know that it is I who have caused him such anguish. The extent of my callousness frightens me.

I have no love left for Shyam. That I cannot love him, I can live with. But I have robbed him of his pride. How could I have done that to him? It was cruel. Far worse than the fact that I had never loved him.

I must spare him his pride, I think. I must leave him at least his dignity.

I am racked by guilt but I am also racked by the thought that this love affair of mine is no more than an act of defiance.

Do I really think I can make a life with Chris? What do I know of him except that our bodies respond to each other and that at first, when we were together, the rest of the world ceased to exist? Once
this was enough. Not any more.

Now when I am with Chris, I look at him and wonder if I know him at all. And I ask myself, what am I doing here with him? The passion is spent and there is little else.

Adultery, I assumed, dragged itself into murky places. Hotel rooms and box beds, bathrooms with dripping faucets and bed linen that wore bleached spots of previous assignations. Stolen kisses and clandestine couplings. Cars with tinted, rolled-up windows and dingy movie theatres.

In my mind adultery’s beast was lust. A creature that stretched its claws, ran a pointed rosy tongue over its lips and draped itself on a vantage spot. When lust pounced on you, it tore away every inhibition, every ligament of restraint away. The fuck was filled with the unholy C of cocks and cunts; defying, daring, draining all that was decent and illuminated, allowed and unsullied. All of it stank of stealth and the forbidden. All of it was accompanied by a beating heart and countless whisks of a lying tongue.

My love was none of this, I had thought. My love was neither murky nor rank. My love rose above the sludge of conventional adultery. My love was born in a perfumed garden where fireflies and stars stood vigil. My love lived in a room where curtains billowed and the breeze blew. My love grew amidst music and words, and a thousand buds. How could such a love be dismissed as squalid or vile, I told myself.

Yet, when I think of Chris, what I see is the shadow of Shyam. And when I think of Shyam, what I see is the possibility of escape with Chris.

I know for certain that I cannot live with one or the other.

I go to see Chris one last time, to reassure myself that I know what I am doing. Is it possible that someone who impelled me to take such wild risks and shed my fears and inhibitions, can leave me cold now? How can it be that all the passion, the dreams, suddenly mean nothing?

He is talking, but I hear nothing of what he is saying. I see his lips move and the expression change in his eyes. I see the smile that once caught at my throat. When I look at him, my heart stays in its place. There is no answering chord. There is no leap, no flash in the dark.

He is trying to tell me what I already know. ‘I know. Uncle told
me,’ I tell him. ‘Why weren’t you honest with me?’ I ask.

He flushes. ‘How could I ask him if he was my father?’

‘Is he?’

‘I don’t know yet. My mother and he were lovers. That much I know.’

I rise to leave. I realize that there’s nothing left to say.

‘How does it make a difference to our relationship?’ he asks. I think it would be kinder to let him think that his revelation has changed things between us.

‘It does,’ I say. ‘You deceived me. I thought we had no secrets. I thought I knew everything about you. What else have you kept from me? Is there a wife, perhaps? A child?’

I mouth clichés. This is the grand denunciation act.

He is appalled. ‘You can’t be serious,’ he says.

‘Believe me, I am,’ I say. ‘I never want to see you again.’ One more cliché.

It works. I think of what Shyam once told me: Clichés are clichés because they are true. They are guaranteed to work, no matter how often they have been used before.

‘This is ridiculous,’ he says.

I leave the room. I dare not look back.

One time when were together, Chris took out a metronome. ‘It’s old. I need to wind it like a clock,’ he said and showed me how it worked.

Then he set it again and said, ‘This is the slowest this metronome can go. Forty oscillations to a minute. We have about eight minutes before it will wind itself down and so that is all we have …three hundred and twenty oscillations. Ready?’ His eyes had glinted and his mouth swooped.

When the metronome stopped, our rhythm had too, and there was an odd silence. An absence of all movement and time. Everything stopped—the heaving and panting, the moans and sounds that emerged from his throat and mine, the beads of sweat, bodily fluids, skin against skin. It is this silence that resounds in my head. Our need for each other had wound itself out.

An act of defiance for me; an interesting encounter for him. Loneliness and a funnelling need that had exploded into unbridled
passion. That was all it was. And as is the nature of such things, it died as it was born. Abruptly.

I walk into the reception area. Shyam is in the office. We left home together. When I said I was going with him, he didn’t comment. I was prepared for his anger. His silence terrifies me.

I go into his office. He looks up from his files. ‘You were with Chris,’ he says. It is a statement, not a question.

‘Yes,’ I say.

He continues to look at me. His face doesn’t reveal what he is thinking.

‘Shyam,’ I say. ‘I am leaving.’

‘Shashi is outside. Send him back,’ he says, turning back to his files.

‘Shyam, you don’t understand.’ I shake my head. ‘I am leaving you, Shyam.’

The pen in his hand falls on the page with a soft plop. ‘I suppose I must be thankful that you had the decency to tell me instead of running away with Chris.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I am not going with Chris.’

He fiddles with a paperweight. ‘But you are pregnant.’

I stare at him. How does he know? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Shyam feels compelled to monitor my entire life, including my menstrual periods.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But it makes no difference.’

‘A child needs both its father and its mother.’ His voice is quiet.

‘I will never deny you your parental rights. You can see the child, spend as much time as you want, but I cannot live with you any more, not even for the child’s sake.’

‘The child isn’t mine,’ he says. ‘I can’t father a child. Not unless it is assisted. I am not your child’s father.’

His words boom inside my head.

I sit down on the chair. I feel a churning within. What have I done, I think. Why hadn’t it ever occured to me that Shyam could be sterile?

‘What can I say?’ I hear myself tell him. ‘I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean to put you through any of this.’

‘Listen,’ I add, ‘I don’t need anything. The house, the business, my property, you can keep all of it.’

His face is grim. ‘Don’t insult me, Radha.’

‘Shyam,’ I say. I reach across to touch his hand.

He shakes me off. ‘I don’t need anything. I can’t be bought. Your father was the same. He thought he could buy me and now you are doing the same. I am not to be bought. Do you hear me? All I ever wanted was for you to love me.’

‘But the house,’ I try again. I know how much he loves the house. I think of what it must have cost him to confess his sterility. I think of the hurt I have caused. I think of him waiting for me to start loving him. I wish to absolve myself of the guilt I feel.

‘Yes, the house,’ he cuts in. ‘I’ll send someone to your house to fetch my things.’

He looks at me. There is sorrow in his eyes. ‘Will this make you happy? To free yourself from my clutches? It suits you to think of me as the uncouth, tyrant husband. Perhaps it is best then that we separate. All I wanted was a chance. I loved you. I loved you more than anything in this world. That was all I hoped for from you. Your love. If I showed you how much I loved you, I thought you would …it doesn’t matter,’ he says, stopping mid-sentence.

Love me as I need to be loved. He doesn’t say it. But I read it in his voice. In the resignation that is beginning to dawn in his eyes.

‘I have left Shyam,’ I say.

Uncle’s expression is hard to read. ‘So you have decided to go with Chris,’ he says.

I shake my head. ‘No, Chris and I …’ I am unable to speak the words. Have nothing in common? Have drifted apart? Have severed ties?

‘It is over,’ I say.

Uncle shakes his head. ‘What have you done, Radha? What have you done?’

I don’t say anything.

‘Have you told Chris about the child?’ he asks suddenly. ‘You must.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t want him to know.’

‘Why not? He might want to take responsibility for the child if it is his. There are tests to prove paternity, I read somewhere,’ Uncle murmurs.

‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘I know who the father of the child is. Chris. Shyam just told me he is sterile.’

‘You are being irresponsible. You have left your husband. You don’t want Chris. What do you want?’ Uncle is angry. I have never seen him angry before.

‘I don’t know. I really don’t. All my life I have stumbled from one thing to another, persuading myself that this is how it should be. I have never behaved as if I have a mind of my own. I have never made a decision. I have let myself be swept along. Isn’t it time I assumed some responsibility for my life?’

‘What will you do?’

‘I don’t know. But I will, one of these days.’

Shyam

I let her go because that is what she wants.

I let her go, knowing that if I didn’t she would leave me anyway.

I let her go because at that moment I hated her with a savageness that scared me.

Uncle looks at me. She has been to see him, I realize. He greets me as one would a bereaved man. His silence is weighed with pity.

‘What do I do now?’ I ask him.

‘Give her time,’ he says.

I stare at him. Is that the best he can come up with?

‘No, Shyam,’ he says. ‘I am not offering you a platitude because I don’t know what else to say. She has to sort herself out. She will. Trust me. She is an intelligent woman and a sensitive one. When she has, she will listen to what you have to say.’

‘I thought she would go with him,’ I say. ‘It is his child.’

Uncle looks at his hands. ‘She hasn’t told him,’ he says. ‘She doesn’t want to.’

‘I loved her. I loved her more than I did anything or anyone,’ I tell him.

‘I know,’ he says. ‘And now?’

‘I don’t know.’ I am not sure any more how I feel. All I can think of is the hurt that courses through me. And the anger. The humiliation, the betrayal, the despair.

‘The Sahiv will be leaving tomorrow,’ Unni tells me. ‘His tickets have been confirmed.’

I nod.

The night sky is clear. The stars hang low and bright.

I think of what Rani Oppol would say: ‘You are well rid of her. At least now you can find a girl who is more suited to you, to us …someone who will be a good wife and bear your children.’

I think of what my employees would say among themselves. “He is well rid of her. She never valued him enough.’

And I think that I know it is true, but I can’t bear to be parted from Radha.

I will give Radha the time she wants. I will not force her or ask her for more than she is prepared to give.

I walk towards the wall that banks the river. A breeze rustles through the leaves. The night is bathed in a bluish haze. I look around and feel a swell of pride again. All this is mine, I think.

Peace washes over me. All that is lost, I will regain.

I dial a number on my phone. Padmanabhan’s owner comes on the line. ‘Will you sell Padmanabhan to me?’ I ask.

I hear him suck in his breath. He doesn’t speak. Then he says, ‘I have a younger elephant. Vasudevan. He is just as handsome.’

‘No, I want Padmanabhan,’ I say.

‘He is expensive.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I want him.’

We agree to meet next week to discuss the sale. It is an omen, I tell myself. When I have Padmanabhan, my life will be mine again.