The Lilac House (12 page)

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Authors: Anita Nair

Tags: #Bangalore (India), #Widows, #Contemporary Women, #Domestic fiction, #General, #College teachers, #Fiction, #Cultural Heritage

BOOK: The Lilac House
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‘Careful of what?’ She laughs.
‘Oh, just careful!’ Meera tries to interject a note of lightness into her voice.
‘Sure.’
Meera holds the phone to her mouth and beseeches into its silence: Be careful, my child. Please be careful.
B
e careful. You need to handle this one differently, Jak tells himself.
He wishes Meera were here. She would know how to make this seem natural. Careful, he cautions himself as he lets his eyes wander around the room. Be very careful here. This one will not be as forthcoming as Shivu.
Jak’s eyes linger on the altar on the eastern wall. On the wooden crucifix and the candles. Would he be able to prevail upon the boy’s religion to make him speak the truth? Bile coats his mouth. Who is this creature he is turning into? Is nothing above or below him in this pursuit to recreate Smriti’s last conscious hours?
Sometimes Jak cannot recognize himself. The lost boy he sees in Kala Chithi’s eyes. The wayward academic reflected in Meera’s puzzled glance. The stillness of the helpless father in Smriti’s pupils. We are what we are seen as. Or, are we?
When you walked into Koshy’s, you spotted Meera immediately, in a deep cream sari with intricate black designs on it and around her neck a single strand of pearls. An isle of perfect calm in the sea of people and tables. You knew a sense of inevitability. You stood there looking at her. It was a Hopperesque moment she captured. The Chop Suey one. Hopper’s painting of the woman in a restaurant.
What was she doing here, you asked yourself curiously as you gathered in the mettle of the rest of the world seated there.
 
They had barely spoken during that first car ride but you caught yourself thinking of her every now and then that first week. What had happened, you wondered. Had the husband come home? Had they settled their differences? You couldn’t understand it yourself, this preoccupation, except perhaps that you could see in her tightly reined grief and helplessness a reflection of your own anguish. Something about her manner, the intense imploring cast of her features as she sat in your car that first time, resolutely not searching the roads, filled you with admiration. You approved of women who didn’t give way to the weight of their disappointments. Women who held themselves together.
 
But in the din of Koshy’s, she seemed lost. You didn’t know why you asked her to help you interview the person you were meeting, except that you wanted to prolong the moment. When she said she was the one, something leapt in you. A blue flame of hope. The husband was still absent, you deduced. Not that husbands were ever a consideration once you set your heart on a woman.
Later, in your home, you watched her face when you took her to see Smriti. You waited for revulsion and instead saw sadness.
She had watched you straighten Smriti’s fingers.
‘There is a day nurse and a night nurse. And there are standbys if one can’t come in. There is Kala Chithi who talks to her,
sings to her, sits with her, and there is me… We do what we can, Meera. We have to. How can I give up on her and let Nina take her and tuck her away in some hospice there? It would be like burying her alive, don’t you see?’ But you didn’t say any of this aloud. You didn’t want to embarrass or frighten her with a flagrant display of emotion.
Then she took Smriti’s hand in hers. It reassured you. She had a daughter. She would understand how you felt.
 
In two weeks’ time Meera became a part of your everyday. Without her to organize your day, you felt rudderless. You had wondered if you should ask her to accompany you to Cochin. But you weren’t sure that she would go with you. Perhaps one day when the two of you knew each other better, when she trusted you…
 
A middle-aged man walks into the room. Grey splattered hair and a paunch that causes his T-shirt to stretch. His mundu, crisp and cream, flicks with every step. Jak’s heart sinks. The man must be only as old as I am but his aura of respectability will not allow me to even bring up the subject. He will first be outraged and then deny it flatly. ‘You must be mistaken. My son Mathew! He is a very studious boy. And a member of the church choir. I think you have the wrong boy.’
Careful, careful, Jak tells himself and prepares to lie.
 
Mathew’s father smiles at him. He goes to an ornately carved roll top desk and extricates a box of cards. He offers a card to Jak.
‘Joseph John. Pleased to meet you.’
Jak fumbles in his pocket for his card sleeve. He dredges a card out and proffers it to the man with a terse, ‘I am Professor Krishnamurthy. I am the Head of Department of Biotechnology at the University of Florida.’ Jak lathers his words with his most pronounced American accent, determined to make an impression
and buy the man’s complicity. If Mathew were majoring in medicine, Jak tells himself, he would have introduced himself as the Dean of Paediatrics at Florida Med School. It was Mathew who had hoisted the ‘all is fair in love and war’ flag.
‘Your son is a bright young boy. I have been corresponding with him on email. As I was here, I decided to surprise him.’
The man beams. ‘That is wonderful. Mathew has gone to church. He should be back soon. Please do sit down. Would you like coffee or tea?’
Jak settles into the chair and waits. For a man whose very soul is restlessness, the extent of his newfound patience amazes him. Such vast reserves of calm, where has it lain hidden all this while?
So with his newfound patience Jak absently thumbs a magazine, drinks a cup of coffee, eats his way through a plate of banana chips and waits.
Shivu has revealed what he can. It is Mathew’s turn to take the story forward. But will he?
 
‘Has he always been a very religious boy?’ Jak asks.
Mathew’s father frowns. The famous Joseph John frown that the rest of the family knows so well. Don’t be an ass, it says. ‘We are a very god-fearing family. A Christian family. All of us go to church. My uncle is a bishop, in fact!’
Jak sits squashed and subdued. After a moment, he smiles and wheedles further, ‘I am so pleased to hear Mathew is such a spiritual boy. The new generation could do with boys like him. You are a fortunate man.’
Joseph John preens. Which father wouldn’t, Jak thinks sadly. We want it all for our children. Health and happiness, the best of grades and the largesse of at least one of the muses. We want our children to be admired even more than loved. We want to see in our children the fulfilment of our dreams, the expansion of our lives.
‘O
ur lives are not ours. God decides the dictum of our lives. “Many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.” The Bible says this. For a while, I was deceived. That was the beginning of my sorrows. Because iniquity shall abound. All of this too is in the Bible, Shivu. But I have seen the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, I have heard his angels trumpet.’
Jak reads once again the letter Mathew had sent Shivu. He folds it and puts it back into his pocket where it lies alongside the printout that he carries with him everywhere. Three boys and a girl. The sides of a square and the trapped past within.
He looks at Mathew’s face. Brother Benny Hill, you have seen the sign and heard the angels, but will you speak the truth now?
 
Mathew starts when he walks into his home and discovers Jak ensconced in an armchair, nibbling on banana chips and discoursing on the merits of the American education system.
‘Look who’s here.’ Joseph John beams. ‘You didn’t think Professor Jak would come here, did you? Come, come, join us.’ Joseph John thinks of his family in Fort Worth and Long Island. And of a possible move there if Mathew made America his home.
‘It’s just like being here; you get everything you need, except it’s a lot cleaner and more efficient,’ a visiting cousin had said, showing off photographs of his house, roses, dog and car. ‘Here, take a look! You should think very seriously about sending Mathew there for higher studies.’ And so the seed of imminent migration was sown.
 
Mathew looks wildly around. Jak sees the widened eyes and flaring nostrils, then Mathew’s features slowly twist into a grimace of a smile. Fear fights with acceptance of the inevitable. The grimace contorts into resignation. The Que Sera Sera look. Mathew probably knows the song from his father, Jak tells himself
wryly. Joseph John seems to be the kind of man who would have an impressive collection of Jim Reeves, Kenny Rogers and music from the fifties.
 
‘How was church?’ Jak asks. He sounds foolish to his own ears. But seeing the flare of panic in Mathew’s eyes, he sees how the innocuous question is striated with sinister serpentine turns: it doesn’t escape me, my boy, why you need to go to church!
Mathew is quiet.
‘Was the choir practice better today?’ Joseph John tries to aid his suddenly tongue-tied child. What is wrong with him? Here is this man, all the way from America, seeking his son out to possibly passage his way into his hallowed institution and the boy is behaving like the village idiot. Alternating between moronic grins and silly grimaces and not speaking a word.
‘Well, I’ll leave you to it! No doubt you have much to say to each other.’ Joseph John rises and as he leaves, gestures for Mathew to follow him.
‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ Mathew’s voice finally emerges, low and tremulous.
In the corridor, Joseph John frowns at Mathew. ‘What’s wrong with you? Instead of making an impression on him, you are behaving like a frightened bridegroom! Go on, talk to him. When he goes back, I want him to consider you as a serious candidate for his course.’
‘Chachan, you don’t know who he is,’ Mathew begins.
His father holds up his hand. ‘I know. I know that your future lies in his hands. So go and be as he expects you to be!’
Mathew huddles in a chair. Jak waits for him to speak.
’Let us go for a walk,’ Jak says to the hunched boy, feeling a wave of pity for him. ‘I think you would prefer that. What do you say?’
 
They sit in silence by the sea wall. Gulls circle a crop of rock in the distance. The skies are slowly changing colour and Jak feels
calm beach itself in him. The sea always does that for him. It is true, he thinks, that tattered cliché about time being a healer. My daughter lies there in her tomb of silence. And I can sit here and gaze at the horizon with what seems to be pleasure. Should I feel guilty? Or should I think that this is wisdom, this acceptance of circumstances. Jak cuts the end of his cigar and puts it into his mouth. He lights it, turning it slowly. In his most reasonable voice he inquires, ‘Why didn’t you come to see Smriti even once?’
The boy stares into the distance. He doesn’t reply.
His new-won calm dissipates. ‘Answer me.’ Jak grips the boy’s arm.
‘How could I?’ The boy shakes Jak’s hand off angrily. ‘How could I? Would you have been able to? I can’t even ask her for her forgiveness. Do you know what I am going through? Do you know what it is to be tormented by guilt every moment? Knowing I am responsible…’
Jak is surprised. He didn’t think Mathew would admit to any responsibility. Not so easily and quickly.
‘Shivu must have told you,’ Mathew begins.
Jak nods. ‘Some of it,’ he says, lighting his cigar again. The sea air gathers the sweetness of the cigar smoke with a casual ease. ‘Shivu told me that you and Smriti were… that you were in love with her.’
‘I was a fool,’ the boy says bitterly. ‘I was a small-town boy who was overwhelmed by her. By her American ways.’
 
Mathew thought he couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t feel like this. All churned up by love, anger, tenderness, resentment, jealousy, clowns cartwheeling and tumbling in the sawdust that was his heart. He found himself writing her name on pieces of paper. Smriti. Smriti. Smriti. Smriti. Smriti. Pages and pages of it as if by committing it to paper, she would be his forever. She lived in his inner eyelid; each time he shut his eyes, she was there, her head thrown back in laughter, the curve of her throat, all his, all his.
She perched on every breeze, the fragrance she wore rode up his nostrils so that it came to him again and again. His ears quickened; her footsteps were hers alone. His skin warmed in memory of her skin against his… Smriti. Smriti. Smriti. Smriti. Mathew leaned back against his bike and glanced at his watch again. She was late. She had no concept of time and if he pointed out to her that she was late, she would crinkle her nose and demand, ‘How does it matter?’
He would wait another five minutes and leave. She could call him when she got here and if he was free, he would come by. He started playing a game on his mobile. His fingers itched to text: Where are you? But he was already too much of a soppy fool around her.
 
When Shivu had introduced her to him, he felt a bolt of lightning shoot through him. It really had been that thing: love at first sight. All he could think was, Shivu is my best friend but I can’t let it stop me. I love her. I love her like Shivu would never even know how to. I am the one who deserves her. Not Shivu, even if he’s my best friend.
He had to employ all his cunning to find out where he could meet her alone. A space to wedge himself in and snare her. Steal her from Shivu, his conscience reminded him, but Mathew wasn’t listening. All is fair in love and war, he told himself.
 
He glanced at his watch. Two more minutes. He wished Shivu was here. He missed Shivu. But there had been an ugly scene at the hostel a week ago. Shivu had found out that Mathew had taken Smriti to Wayanad. ‘It’s not on,’ Shivu had said, white lipped. ‘I know Smriti wanted to see wild elephants and I know your dad could arrange it because of his connections but Mathew, she’s my girlfriend. You can’t go off with her like that. If it wasn’t you, I’d think you were hitting on her.’
When Mathew didn’t defend himself, Shivu stared at him in
shock. ‘You are, aren’t you? You are trying to take her away from me. But Mathew, you are my friend.’
Mathew turned his head away and said, ‘All is fair in love and war. Smriti isn’t in love with you. Why else would she go out with me?’
Shivu turned on his heel and walked out. He hadn’t seen him since.
Mathew kick-started his bike. He would go to the coffee shop. In its bright interiors and with the music playing, he wouldn’t feel so torn and twisted.
As he walked into the coffee shop, he saw Smriti. She was sitting with someone. Shivu, he thought. That fucker, he’s trying to snatch her back from me. The
pilayadi mon
!
Mathew strode towards them angrily, his fingers already clenching into fists and then he stopped abruptly. Smriti, he saw, was sitting shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh with Rishi. And that bastard was using the oldest trick in the world to hold a girl’s hand. He was pretending to read her palm.
As for Smriti, she sat there resting her chin on her other palm, her eyes half closed, rapt in attention – or was it something else? How could she? Didn’t it bother her that someone would see her like this with Rishi? Mathew could see her frown and demand in her most acid tone: ‘Like what with Rishi? He was just holding my palm, I wasn’t giving him a blow job! What’s wrong with you, Mathew?’
Mathew heard another voice in his head. Joseph John’s, when he had Mathew admitted to the Deccan College for Biotechnology. ‘I am paying a lot of money just for the admission. I hope you understand that! And the course isn’t cheap either. I want you to work hard and get very high grades. Do you hear me?’
Mathew had nodded, eager to flee his father’s censure and ambitions for him.
‘One other thing,’ Joseph John said, leaning forward. Mathew looked up from his plate. His mother, he noticed, kept her eyes on
her plate, afraid to meet his gaze. ‘You are going away from home and neither your mother nor I will be there to watch over you. The devil takes many forms. You have to watch out for yourself. The devil will charm you and entice you. The devil will make you its own with the face of an angel. Do you understand what I am saying?’
Mathew nodded again. Decode to ‘Don’t get involved with girls!’
But perhaps Chachan had been right after all. Mathew felt bile fill his mouth. The devil smiled and had the face of an angel. The devil played with you, shredding your soul, your mind. The devil called itself Smriti.
Mathew bellowed.
 
‘Who was it who dragged me away? I can’t remember. It must have been Shivu. When the red cloud in my head lifted, I found him there.’
Jak can’t speak. Something akin to revulsion fills him. Who is this girl these boys knew? It couldn’t be Smriti. Not his Smriti, who knows neither guile nor deception.
‘Did you speak to Smriti?’ Jak asks.
‘She said I was silly to think that she was seeing Rishi. For that matter, she wasn’t seeing anyone – neither Shivu, Rishi, nor me.’
‘And then?’
‘I didn’t believe her. I didn’t want to. How could she not love me? I loved her that much, you see. Shivu insisted that she was just friends with all of us. That he had made the same mistake, reading too much into their relationship. “That’s how these girls are, don’t take it too seriously!”
‘But I couldn’t let it go. I pretended to let it all settle down. We were all friends once again. Shivu, Smriti and I. But I don’t think any of us trusted the others. Only Smriti, poor Smriti, trusted us. She was so happy to have all of us back together again.
‘“My family,” she said. “You are my family. Do you understand?”’
Jak closes his eyes. It tears into him, the stab of guilt and sorrow.
 
‘Your appa wasn’t happy,’ Amma had said one evening. It was a few months after Appa left.
Kitcha stared at his mother. Why was she suddenly talking about Appa? Then he saw her eyes linger on the calendar and he realized it was his father’s birthday.
His mother had been in a strange mood all day. Humming under her breath as she bustled about her chores in the morning. In the evening, he had come home from school to discover that she had cooked a feast of ‘tindi’. Who was she expecting for tea that evening, he had wondered, surveying the chakkara pongal and bonda, aval uppuma and kuzhipaniyaram.
She had looked up each time an autorickshaw turned into their alley, her eyes on the door, waiting for the appointed knock. Kitcha felt a wave of pity engulf him.
In what desperation had she cast portents for the day? It would be the day he would come home. Her husband would walk in and discover how he lived there even if he didn’t any more. So she hummed his favourite kirtanams, dressed in his favourite colour of M.S. blue, cooked his favourite tiffin and beguiled herself into expecting his return.
Kitcha looked away. He had always known it. Appa’s dissatisfaction with everything around him – his home, his wife, his son. And with it the acrid stench of regret. Of wrong choices made. Of the meandering of the life force. Kitcha hadn’t wanted to see it. If he didn’t, it would go away, he thought. Like those horrific nightmares he used to have every night for a while. Amma had taught him a mantra to chant at night. ‘Repeat it two times before you go to sleep and you won’t have those bad dreams any more. Wish them away from the bottom of your heart!’
But Appa’s sorrow hadn’t gone. Instead, he had.
‘I clung to him. I shouldn’t have. When people stop loving each other, they shouldn’t stay together. It doesn’t do any good,’ Amma
continued. ‘I should have understood his unhappiness. I should have let him go when he first wanted to.’
‘When?’ Kitcha whispered.

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