The City Son (20 page)

Rukma wishes that she’d been able to make Tarun and Mahesh Uncle hear her a while ago about her intention to leave. They should be given notice, put on alert, given time to recuperate, but they’re not her landlords, nor she their tenant. She tried communicating it to them, and it didn’t work. So, she’ll first find a flat, then inform them. Tonight. She’ll inform Tarun tonight, and he’ll let Mahesh Uncle know when he returns.

It’ll take too much effort to climb the stairs to her room
to change. She looks into the living room mirror. She’s in the dhoti that she wore to bed last night, and with a pleasant shock she realizes that it’s a dhoti that belongs to her mother-in-law. Now she remembers: when she’d moved into her mother-in-law’s room she had noticed the deceased woman’s clothes in the drawers. She was about to ask Sanmaya to give them to charity, but then she’d ended up picking up a dhoti—it might have been this one—and smelling it, wondering whether there’d be the scent of a dead person. But it had smelled good, faintly flowery, and it had felt soft in her hands, so she had pressed it against her cheek. She had remembered then that her mother-in-law had been wearing this dhoti when Rukma first visited. And last night somehow she had picked up this same dhoti to wear. It’s little wonder, then, that now, gazing into the mirror, she thinks she resembles her mother-in-law. Even her hair is uncombed.

She walks out the front door. The guard observes her curiously but he opens the gate for her so she can venture into the blinding light of the city.

Where does one go in order to find rental flats? She moves toward the center of the city. She’s aware of curious looks of passersby—her unkempt hair, her rumpled dhoti, her slippers—she came out in her slippers, and now she’s going to pound the pavements in them!—all of these add up to an unsettled woman. She wonders what her parents would think of her if they were to encounter her now. Respectable
people, they are—this picture doesn’t fit the desperately managed image they have of themselves. She ought to rattle this perfect picture, just like she did with her Newar lover. She ought to visit her parents. But today she’s not feeling like a rebel, merely someone seeking direction.

There’s noise behind her. A festival. A large procession is rapidly gaining on her, and no matter how hard she tries she cannot move out of its way fast enough. The procession barrels down on her, a stampede of feet and arms, a clash of cymbals and pounding of drums, with shouting and yelling that are meant to be chants but resonate as cries of anger and vengeance rising up to the narrow patch of the sky and the rooftops that float above. She’s picked up and hurled in the air, and she rapidly glides forward on top of a thrust of arms, hands, fingers, and thumbs, like a star football player who’s being fêted for securing an impossible goal. The roar of the crowd reaches the onlookers cramped in the windows of these ancient houses. Because there are seven or eight people per window, some of them are hanging from the windowsills precariously, like monkeys. If they fall down, Rukma thinks, as she is ecstatically hopped above the caterpillar hands of the revelers, they, too, will ride the crowd like her. The people are so jam-packed that all Rukma sees are heads, a sea of heads. A chariot looms ahead, but she can’t be sure it’s a chariot. It could just be people climbing one another for a view or to construct a human pyramid. She imagines herself a queen, being honored and celebrated by her subjects. Then she is hurtled up
in the air—a loud
aaahhhhh
erupts from the crowd—and she’s jettisoned to a side lane, where she lands with a thud.

The lane is nearly deserted because everyone has gone to watch the procession. A couple of people walking by observe her with sympathy; they think she’s a down-and-out woman cast aside by her family, like the old folk she ministered to at Swarga. As the festival moves away, the raucous sound in and around her ears also diminishes.

Two thoughts come to her in rapid succession. The first is that she could find a modest room in this part of the city, live with the common, dust-and-bones people who work with their hands and go wild with their celebrations. Maybe this is the life she ought to be living, among the average folk. She can find a job, then spend time at Swarga. She can return home tired after a day’s work, listen to her radio, make friends, commiserate with her neighbors, dance during the festivities, watch the passersby from her windows, and call out to them. Immediately at the heel of this thought comes another thought, barreling down, knocking the first thought away: This is Bangemudha. Tarun’s first family, including the infamous Didi, lives on this lane. God! Where has she landed? She meant to move away from him, and here she is deeper in his past.

She stands and dusts herself. A laborer carrying farm equipment stops and stares. “What are you looking at?” she barks at him, but he doesn’t budge. “Don’t you have work to do?” she asks, but moves on without waiting for an answer.

Now she
has
to. How can she not? She’s right here, isn’t
she? She recalls, almost with relish, that he told her Didi wasn’t yet ready for her. Well, here Rukma is, isn’t she? She has been literally thrown into this lane. Ready or not, here I come.

How to find the house? Ah, the Masterji. Everyone should know about the famous Masterji, even though his glory has greatly diminished now. But this is a city where legends remain in circulation long past their expiration date, so when she stops to ask at a shop about the Masterji, the bored shopkeeper tells her his house is at the end of the lane. “The one who married twice?” the shopkeeper asks to confirm, and she nods. “Yes, down this way. It’s a one-story house with a small front yard.” It’s dusk now, with a haze in the air that makes it hard to distinguish what is smog and what is mist. Lights have begun flickering in the dwellings and shops around her. As she approaches the end of the lane, she sees the house. She slows down. The first room in view is the kitchen, which has a window, about ten or fifteen yards away from her, that allows her a glimpse of what’s inside. A woman is working. She’s a heavyset woman. There’s a sizzle—she’s frying—then the shrill blast of a pressure cooker.

The woman looks up. Their gazes lock. She has a round, fattish dark face; her eyes are big. The woman doesn’t smile; neither does Rukma. The woman frowns; she’s attempting to remember something; she’s trying to figure out who Rukma is. Rukma strolls past the window as though she were only passing through. She can feel the eyes of the woman on her back even after she’s moved away.

She’s at the small gate of the house. She hesitates briefly, wondering whether she should go in, but she has nothing to lose. Let’s see what’s special about her. This visit might mean nothing, she realizes, for living apart from Tarun eventually could lead to divorce. The word sounds funny when she thinks of it, and she realizes that it’ll be an anathema to many concerned. Even to Rukma it sounds like a big, grumbling, nasty, mythical beast. She hasn’t thought that far ahead, only of separating, going her own way, living apart. If indeed this separation will soon culminate in a divorce, then what’s the point of her going into this house?

Yet here she is, and inside is the legendary Didi whose hold on her husband is strong. Besides, the woman has already seen her, so Rukma is locked into going. She opens the gate, enters the yard, then walks up to the door and knocks.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A
YOUNG MAN
opens the door. He has a pleasant, smiling face. “
Kallai khojnu bha?
” A sweet voice.

“Is this Tarun’s house?”

He laughs softly. “Tarun
dai
doesn’t live here. Not anymore. Well, he hasn’t lived here in ages.” Then recognition dawns in this eyes. “
Bhauju ta hoina?
”

“Yes, I am Tarun’s—”

The young man’s happiness is palpable. “Oho,
bhauju, katabata?
Please, please, come in. How could I not recognize you, the fool that I am!”

“How did you recognize me, though?” she says, stepping in. “We’ve never met.”

“I’ve seen your picture.”

Her eyes take everything in: the sickly looking man sitting cross-legged on the bed. Then through the kitchen door, she glimpses the woman she’s seen from the outside. Despite the voices at the door the woman hasn’t turned around, and Rukma senses that she knows precisely who has come visiting.

“You must be Sumit,” Rukma says. “I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“No, no, of course not. You’re not disturbing us at all,” the young man says.

“
Ko?
” the man on the bed asks, lifting his finger.

She does a
namaste
; the old man returns it.

Sumit says, in a loud voice as though the old man is hard of hearing, “Our
bhauju
. Tarun
dai
’s bride.”

A smile breaks on the old man’s face, and he beckons her closer. The woman in the kitchen still hasn’t turned; she has the excuse of the pressure cooker going off right at the moment when Sumit spoke, but Rukma is convinced she is simply biding her time. “Perhaps I’ve come at the wrong moment,” Rukma says. “Isn’t Didi at home? Tarun is always talking about her.”

Sumit points to the woman, then goes to the kitchen and speaks to her. The woman responds in a low voice but doesn’t turn.

“Come here,
buhari
,” the Masterji says, and suddenly Rukma is sitting on the bed with him. “Let me feast my eyes on you.” His happiness at seeing her is evident.

“I was passing through, then I thought that you all lived somewhere—”

Didi is standing in the kitchen doorway. “Oho,
buhari
,” she says. She is smiling. “What brings you here?”

Rukma’s words are disjointed. “I was … hadn’t been able to come. After the wedding—”

“You mean Tarun didn’t bring you here.”

“I wanted to come.”

“I know you did.” She comes and stands before Rukma. The old man’s smile lessens. Didi’s eyes are large and penetrating. She sits down next to Rukma and takes her hand. “Let me look at you. Tarun
ko dulahi
. We finally get to see you.” She lifts Rukma’s chin with her finger. “I knew my Tarun would snag himself a beauty, the beautiful boy he himself is. And I hear you are from a very good family. We were not consulted on that matter, of course.” There’s a strong kitchen smell coming from Didi, yet strangely the smell and the stroke on the chin Rukma finds comforting, even lulling. “What are these circles under your eyes?” Didi asks. “A newly married woman like you, you should be hearty, healthy, and glowing, but why do you look like a withered flower? Is our Tarun not taking care of you?” Her words are measured, meaningful, as though she knows what Rukma is going through. “Are they not feeding you in that house? Well, no matter, today you’ve come here, and dinner is cooking, so you’ll eat here.” When Rukma demurs, Didi says, “I’ll not accept no for an answer. You’re already here, it’s dark, and the dinner is about ready.”

Sumit sits on the floor while Rukma continues to sit on the bed, flanked by the Masterji and Didi, with Didi’s hands
enveloping her hand. Sumit gazes up at her adoringly. He doesn’t speak much, and when he does his voice is pleasing. “Your studies going well?” she asks him at one point, and he nods and says, “Going very well,
bhauju
.”

“So, tell us about yourself,” Didi says.

Rukma fights the urge to spill it all out. But there’s a coziness here that’s illusory. “There’s nothing to say.”

“How’s that possible?” Didi says. “An educated, beautiful city girl like you. Your parents must be very happy. Do you go to visit them often?”

“I go when I can.”

“Tarun and I …” Didi doesn’t finish her statement.

“Tarun visits you frequently, doesn’t he?” Rukma asks.

Didi looks down at her hands.

“These days Tarun
dai
doesn’t come as often as he used to,” Sumit says.

“He’s a busy boy,” Didi says.

Rukma ends up eating with them, and eating ravenously. Every bite and every morsel—the mutton, the spinach, the
aloo ko achar
, the
titey karela
—is like an explosion of sensations on her tongue, and she hardly speaks as she devours the food. Since there’s no dining table, they eat on the floor near the bed. The expert manner in which Sumit unfolds the newspapers and lays them on the rug, the quick efficiency with which Didi brings over the food, tells Rukma that this is where they eat their meals every day. Didi keeps ladling food on her steel plate, a large
khandethaal
that has separate pockets for each dish. “No, no,” Rukma keeps
saying yet continues to stuff herself. She’s filled with a hunger that she’s not experienced since her childhood, a greedy kind of hunger. By the time she’s finished she is so full that she lets out an embarrassing burp. She can barely stand to rinse her hands and mouth at the tap, so Sumit helps her to her feet. “I should get going,” she hears herself say, but there’s a flurry of protests, Didi’s, Sumit’s, the old man’s, and her own counterprotests.

“But you just ate—you can’t leave now.”