Monsoon Memories (29 page)

Baby stayed over, both she and Madhu working late into the night finishing the pork and chicken curries, adjusting the salt in the boti, making tendli bhaji with fresh cashew nuts (kindly donated by Lenny Bai) and honey-sweet tender coconut flesh. And the next morning they stood side by side in the kitchen, busily frying dosas, having formed an uneasy alliance.

‘They’re here,’ Nagappa’s son announced, hopping on one foot, waiting eagerly to see how many rupees Jacinta would press into his open palms. He grinned with delight when he saw the three ten-rupee notes and skipped away, pleased with himself.

Vinod looked different in his suit and tie. Formal. His hair was slicked down, flattened in a side parting. Shirin almost fell off the stool in her room, where she was standing looking out of the window as before, when she tried to get a closer look. As Vinod passed under the window, he looked straight up at her, as if he had been expecting her all along, and smiled. Her heart stopped beating for a full minute.

‘You were looking for me, weren’t you?’ she asked Vinod now, lightly teasing, testing the waters.

‘No. I was looking at the sky, checking for rain.’ Vinod met her gaze, smiled. Apologetic. ‘And I saw this heavenly pair of eyes peeking through window bars right at me.’

Eyes. Prem.

Vinod’s brother, Prem, had walked in behind him. He caught Vinod’s smile and looked up too. Shirin jumped off the stool in fright. In Bangalore, Prem had avoided looking at her and at Jacinta. Now she knew why. Vinod’s brother had dark, empty eyes, devoid of all emotion. He scared her.

‘I didn’t know,’ Vinod said. ‘You should have told me.’

‘I hardly knew you, Vinod. How could I, a stranger, complain about your brother to you?’

‘Oh, Shonu,’ His voice aching. ‘If only...’

She’d stayed in her room while Vinod and his family ate. After breakfast, as they were leaving, Shirin had peeped out the window and caught Vinod looking up discreetly, searching for her as he walked past.

‘You were looking for me,’ Shirin teased.

‘I wasn’t.’

‘Liar.’

His brother had looked up too, and even though she was standing back, even though she was sure he couldn’t see her, it felt like his empty eyes were looking right at her. She had a sudden urge to tell her mother to stop the engagement, cancel the wedding. In all her worries until this moment, she had imagined Vinod calling the wedding off, not the other way round. Never the other way round. But now Prem...

‘Really? You considered doing that?’ Vinod asked.

She nodded.

‘It would have been best in the circumstances, perhaps.’ Vinod sounded crushed.

She stood on tiptoes and, forcing herself to swallow the fear that inhibited her from touching him, lightly brushed his lips with hers. ‘Don’t say that.’

‘If you had a chance to do it all again, to go back to that point in time, would you stop the engagement?’

All that she’d lost. All that she ached for. All she had now: this man. Who had stood by her through it all. ‘Don’t ask me that. It’s not fair,’ she whispered.

It was the thought of Jacinta that had stopped her, the thought of the effort her ma had put into organising her engagement, the relief her ma had felt at finally finding Shirin a groom, the crushing disappointment if she reneged. She’d thought of all the people waiting at the church. She’d thought of Vinod, his smile, his kind eyes. She’d thought then that it was too late. To stop the engagement. To retreat. And for what? Just because Vinod’s brother gave her the creeps?

She had shrugged off her doubts and kept her mouth shut as her mother and Madhu dressed her in the rose-petal-pink sari, as they did her hair and looped flowers through it, as they piled jewellery on her. The face staring back at her from the mirror was pale, eyes huge, dark. Madhu had leant close, whispered, ‘Look at you. My baby. All grown-up. Beautiful.’ Tears had sparkled in her eyes. Jacinta had met Shirin’s gaze in the mirror and flashed a small, satisfied smile.

At the church, as her mother helped her out of Uncle Ron’s Ambassador car (specially hired for the short distance that Shirin would normally have walked—‘You can’t walk! Not on your engagement day!’), Vinod, who was talking to someone, his back to her, turned. Their eyes met. His face lit up. He reached her in two long strides, took her hand in his and squeezed gently. That was enough to quell her doubts. She wanted to marry this man.

`Madhu’s food was a huge success. After lunch, Jacinta led Vinod away to introduce him to all the Diaz relatives and well-wishers. Shirin was leaning back in her chair, fingering her ring—
I am engaged—
her eyes following Vinod as he mingled with her people, when she felt hot breath on her shoulder, making the hairs on her neck stand up, raising goosebumps. She turned, and found herself looking into soulless eyes—his face too close, his breath hot on her face. His grin a leer. He held out his hand for her to shake. ‘Congratulations, Voniye.’ She recoiled, fear spearing her stomach, wanting to yell for help, suddenly all alone in this crowded room, not finding her voice. ‘Prem,’ her future father-in-law—his arm a clamp on Prem’s shoulder—led him away.

‘I didn’t know,’ Vinod said, leaning against the cupboard and closing his eyes. ‘Da never told me. We talked to Prem before. He promised not to drink, make a scene.’ He paused. Then, ‘He could be quite charming when he was sober. Although by the time of our wedding, he hardly ever was. Oh, Shonu, I should never have married you, put you in danger like that.’

‘Vinod…’

‘But I thought, we all did, that he would never… and I had had enough of having my life held back because of my brother…’ He rubbed a hand wearily across his face, looked at her, ‘And I wanted you, ever since I saw your huge eyes peeking out from between those bars that first time, I wanted you…’

And me, when you put your hand in mine, I wanted you, too.
Why couldn’t she say it, make him feel better, remove that haunted look from his eyes? ‘Vinod, it happened.’

‘Yes.’ Vinod sounded defeated. ‘It did.’ And then, ‘Shonu, you’re right. No point giving all this up.’ He waved his hands around to indicate the house.

‘It’s just… Here we are both liked, respected… If we went back, and were treated like outcasts… If we were shunned…Especially you, for no fault of yours… I couldn’t bear it, Vinod…’

He came up to her then and, with his finger, traced her features. She willed herself not to flinch, to move away, as was her instinct. ‘Yes. I know,’ he said.

She took a deep breath, looked into his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. All these years, I’ve been so absorbed in my own pain. I had no idea... Have you been very unhappy?’

‘I am happy with you.’

Not really an answer. She persisted. ‘Your parents...What you said…’

‘Oh, Shonu, if they had needed me, really needed me, I would have stayed with them, no matter what. But it wasn’t me they wanted...’

She took another deep breath. ‘Vinod, about what you asked. I...’

‘Shh... You were right. I wasn’t being fair, asking you to choose...’

But he was hurt. She could tell.

All that night, Vinod’s question played in her head.
If you had known then, what you know now, would you have stopped the engagement? Would you?

Her infatuation with Tariq, her dream of finding love like Anita had with Uttam, her doubts of whether she would learn to love Vinod… They had all dissipated when Vinod’s hand had found hers, when his face had lit up in a smile at the sight of her. After the engagement, after what happened with Prem, she had had nightmares. Every night she woke up screaming, and Madhu held her, like she had when she was little, soothed her, joked with her, ‘Soon, you’ll be doing this to your own child.’ Her own child. She wanted to create one. With Vinod. And the words that were building up in her head, that were threatening to spill out of her mouth, ‘I can’t. I can’t marry him. I am afraid of his brother,’ stilled. She wanted Vinod. After all, she was marrying him, not his brother. And perhaps she had imagined it all; perhaps because of her dislike of Prem she had imbibed his actions with menace. After all, what had he done really? Just held his hand out to congratulate her. So he had come a bit too close. So what? She was making too much of what had happened. And so she assuaged herself, calmed her fears and did nothing.

If you had known then, what you know now, would you have stopped the engagement? Would you?

I should have, by rights, Vinod. Even back then, I had an inkling, a premonition. But there was Ma, running around organising last-minute details, that rare smile now a permanent fixture, her voice proud as she declared to all and sundry, ‘They have two cars. A big house right in the centre of the city. And their own business. What more could I ask for?’ and the words died in my mouth.

If you had known then, what you know now, would you have stopped the engagement? Would you?

Perhaps…
Vinod washing her ever so gently that horrible evening, his tears falling like rain… Reena…
I don’t know, Vinod. The thing is, I don’t know.

Vinod moved onto his back, jostling her arm. She looked down at him, at the impossibly long eyelashes curling on his cheeks; his face less lined in repose, the mole peeking from under his left nostril. And she saw herself as the naïve young girl she had been, counting down the hours the night before her wedding, worrying about spending the rest of her nights with a man she barely knew, worrying about the brother-in-law who scared her…

Shirin spent her last night as a virgin in a cramped bed in a little room in a convent in Bangalore. Her da snored in the next room, lost to the world. Jacinta, Madhu, Anita, Deepak and the rest of the wedding party, which comprised practically the entire village of Taipur, would arrive the next morning. The church ceremony was at four o’clock and the reception would go on late into the night.

She couldn’t sleep for worrying: How would she look in her gown? Would Vinod hold her hand like he had at the engagement? Would his face light up on seeing her? And Prem. He would be the best man, surely. How would that go? All the apprehensions about him came flooding back. Those strange empty eyes. Her heart thudded loud against her chest. To calm herself, she pictured Vinod: his kind eyes, his smile. Her husband tomorrow! This time tomorrow, she would be in bed with him beside her. A tingle, a shiver of anticipation. Would she be able to please Vinod? Or would he be disappointed? Her fleshy body. What would he think? Would it hurt? She felt an ache deep inside as she imagined him holding her in his arms, kissing her, taking off her clothes...

She alternated between hope and despair, fear and a strange fevered excitement. She worried about so many things, but she did not worry about the actual wedding itself, whether it would go smoothly. She just assumed it would.

And on her wedding morning, she woke to a downpour the likes of which Bangalore had not seen in years.

Vinod stirred beside her, ‘The wedding. All those premonitions. Did you want to call it off then?’

She looked into his eyes, deep black flecked with brown, like the night sky just before dawn. Both of them lying side by side pretending to be asleep, thinking of the same thing. How many times over the past decade had they done this?

Their wedding. The sky midnight blue and weeping on what was predicted to be a sunny day; an incessant, unseasonal assault dousing Bangalore. The bus full of relatives stuck in the ghats due to flooding. The clap of thunder like the voice of God intervening when the priest asked, ‘Do you, Shirin, take Vinod as your lawfully wedded husband?’ Shirin’s ‘I do,’ encored by a flash of lightning that lit up the church and stole the power, smothering them in darkness. A hush settling in the church heaving with people in their wedding finery. No rustle of silk, no clink of gold. The only sound that of rain whipping the sloping roof. And then, old Richa Uncle’s voice booming, ‘Stop this wedding. It is a sham. God has spoken.’

Voices, all at once, whispering, shouting to be heard, building to a crescendo, inhabiting the darkness, drowning out the rain. The priest’s voice trying for control, ‘A mass is on. Please stop.’ A candle flickering, the face of a nun hovering above it. Then, the sweet voices of the nuns rising in song, overriding the rabble. ‘Heavenly Father, send thy blessing.’ The congregation joining in; song reaching up to the rafters of the church, sending the crows sheltering there a squawking: fluttering shadows silhouetted in dazzling light as the power came on. Eyes blinking in the sudden harsh brightness, mouths open in refrain. Shirin’s gaze resting on her mother’s face—worried, drawn, on this, her wedding day. Her mother’s face.

Vinod’s eyes searching hers in the dark:
Did you want to call it off?

‘No,’ she said. ‘Did you?’

The rain had reduced to a mere drizzle when they stepped out of church, a married couple. Traffic was moving outside the church grounds again, not as many horns blaring. Vinod had put his hand in hers and squeezed. His head bent close, his lips just brushing her ear, raising goosebumps, arousing desire, ‘Congratulations, Mrs. Vaz.’

‘Not then, not now. Not once in all these years.’ He pulled her close and after a bit, she settled into his embrace.

‘What about your parents?’ she asked. ‘Were they worried about what happened, what Uncle Richa said?’

She could feel his heart beating under his night shirt. She snuggled in closer, breathing in the musky scent of him. ‘I think they were relieved that it was the rain and Uncle Richa who misbehaved and not Prem.’

Prem had appeared from nowhere, clasped Vinod’s hand. ‘Congrats, brother,’ he had smirked. Vinod’s smile froze. ‘You’ve been drinking,’ he whispered. ‘Tell me something new,’ Prem laughed. He came and stood next to Shirin, tucked her hand in his arm, motioned to the photographer, ‘A picture with my Voni.’ She tried not to recoil from his touch, the alcoholic fumes on his breath. Vinod’s dad came up then, led Prem away. Shirin relaxed. ‘Sorry,’ Vinod whispered. ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered back, even though it wasn’t. And they both switched on smiles for the next lot of well-wishers coming forward to congratulate them.