by Anju Gattani
Rakesh knelt on the floor beside Sheetal’s bed, his heart thick with grief. This is not what he intended to happen. He had bought the twenty-five paintings to lift her flagging spirits and boost her confidence.
His attention returned to the crumpled orange sari. When he set fire to Sheetal’s photograph in the orange sari, did he unknowingly evoke a presentiment?
He brushed hair away from her cheek and inhaled the odor of smoke. A few brittle strands snapped on touch, burnt fragments. She lay so deathly still. His throat swelled with a need to cry. He placed two fingers under her nose to feel for breath and exhaled as a wisp of air glided across his skin. She was alive. Barely.
Yash’s cries drifted in from the nursery, and a shudder ran through him. What if something happened and she never woke?
He brushed his thumb against her eyelid, willing her eyes to open. He glided his finger down the gentle slope of her nose and across the sharp dip in her upper lip, watching intently for the dimple in her left cheek to appear. Nothing.
What if he lost her like he’d lost Mumma? He imagined raising Yash as a single father, struggling to give the boy both parents’ love. First Megha. Now Sheetal. He promised to never remarry, to not let Pushpa raise Yash. He would never condemn his son to a fate that had been cruel and heartless to him.
He looked to the darkness outside the window. What if Yash one day ran away from him like Megha had? He wrapped his fingers around Sheetal’s hand, closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to her wrist. “Come back,” he cried into the sheet covering her.
But Sheetal lay as still as the night.
Chapter Forty-Three
Punarjanam (Rebirth)
“Sheetal,” someone called out in the darkness.
A halo of white light floated above. Sheetal reached out, touched it, and a kaleidoscope of colors shattered the horizon and disappeared. She spun on her toes. The frilly white dress fanned around her waist. Soft clapping accompanied the jingle of bangles and long, melodious notes that floated in the air.
Warmth enveloped her hand and seeped into her veins. Her finger twitched, and she wiggled her toes as the soft wails of an infant pulled her from the abyss.
Chapter Forty-Four
Vardhaman (The Rising)
“Sheetal?”
Sheetal swam above the drowning tides, surfaced, and took a small breath of air. She opened her eyes to a haze of peach and brown shadows. Familiar faces swam before her as she focused. Mama. Papa. Mummyji. Rakesh.
“How are you feeling?” Rakesh asked.
“Sheetal?” Mama called.
A hand pressed her forehead. “No fever, Hai Ishwar!” Mummyji peered at her. “Do you know how worried we’ve been? I’ll phone the doctor right away. Tell him you’re awake. Now you stay right where you are. I’ll have Janvi bring you some juice.” She rushed from the room.
Peach-colored walls and autumn leaves, running in a horizontal border, meant she was in her old bedroom. She tried to move, but her body burned. A nurse rushed to her side. What was a nurse doing here? And why was a tube of clear liquid feeding from a drip into her right arm?
“Easy, easy.” Rakesh placed a palm on her shoulder and Sheetal winced at his touch.
“Careful,” Papa said.
Mama sat on the edge of the mattress. “You’re all right. Everything will be fine soon.”
Sheetal opened her mouth to say something, but her throat felt full of pins and needles. She tried to turn, but a blast of pain seared along her shoulders, her back and enveloped her like a tentacle of fire. “I can’t move.” Her voice came out a hoarse whisper.
“You caught fire,” Rakesh said. “Your sari and…”
Fire. Her attention drifted to the sofa where Rakesh’s blazer draped the arm rest, marred with holes crusted in gray and black. And then it came to her like the ripple on a water’s surface. The paintings. The missing necklace.
“You’re alive,” Rakesh said. “That’s what counts.”
Dawn at Dusk leaned against the sofa’s flank. The top half was intact, but the remainder had charred. She remembered. The bed of kindling. The paintings. The fire.
“If it hadn’t been for Rakeshji,” Mama said, “you would have—”
“What were you trying to prove?” Papa intervened. “You almost died. Can you imagine what would…”
Her head throbbed. She had almost died, and Papa was still concerned about everything else. Her heart welled in her throat and she choked back the urge to yell. “Why must everything always be about you? You and Mama lied to save face. Did you ever stop to think what I wanted?”
Papa’s eyes widened as if in shock, and Rakesh inched away from her side.
“All my life, your prestige, honor and integrity burned me alive. You treated me as if I were dead. Invisible. Is this what it takes? For me to almost die to finally matter?”
Papa coughed as if to clear his throat.
Sheetal took a small breath and swallowed. “This is how I am inside. How I’ve been for a long time.”
“Perhaps we should leave, Indu,” Papa said. “She needs time to recover.”
Sheetal gritted her teeth. “Maybe you need time to recover, not me.”
Mama looked from her to Papa and back. “We’ll come and visit you tomorrow. And…and we’ll keep praying that Meghaji returns safe and sound.”
Was Megha still missing?
Mama was about to follow Papa out of the room when she turned to Rakesh. “I can stay in case—”
Rakesh followed them. “You have my word, I won’t leave her side.”
“Where is Yash?” Sheetal asked.
“Moushmi Kaki’s with him in the nursery.” Rakesh closed the door behind Mama and Papa and sat on the mattress’s edge. “What’s wrong?”
Sheetal turned to the nurse. “Help me up, please.” The nurse and Rakesh slid a palm under her pillow from both sides, and a current of pain, like a short-circuited electric wire, sizzled across her back. They elevated her upright and the pain spread like wildfire across every muscle. The nurse and Rakesh filled the gap between Sheetal and the mattress with pillows and cushions.
Sheetal swallowed, and her mouth felt like it was full of sand. “Water.”
The nurse brought a cup to Sheetal’s lips and gently tipped it. The cool water made its way down Sheetal’s throat. Then memories came to her. The returned paintings. The delivery. “You bought those paintings behind my back. Making me think I had actually sold them when I—”
“Let’s talk later,” Rakesh suggested. “We have plenty of time.”
“Now.”
Rakesh gestured for the nurse to leave, and she closed the door on her way out. “Look, I didn’t mean for it to happen that way. The paintings weren’t supposed to come here,” he said. “Only Dawn at Dusk. So you realized how much I cherished that moment and what we had. It’s priceless, and I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else putting it on their wall.”
“And the other twenty-four?”
“I— That got messed up. I gave Vipul Sahib clear instructions that only Dawn at Dusk should be delivered here. Not—”
“Is that all this is to you? A delivery error? Nothing more? This isn’t just about the paintings. It’s about us.”
He blinked, a blank expression crossing his face. “I was trying to help.”
Isn’t that what they all said? “How?”
“I wanted to see you happy.”
Happy. Sheetal took a deep breath. “Buying my work behind my back?”
“There was no demand. People were walking around like it was a social event or something. I created a need. A market. Didn’t you notice? The moment people saw sales, they started buying.”
“You can’t make our relationship work by buying me out. Or buying success.”
“I wasn’t buying you anything. I was making the event successful. Besides, it’s not like anyone else knew.”
“I do.”
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br /> “That’s not the point.”
“This whole thing is about me. Or am I wrong? Is it about you again?”
“It’s about how the market works.”
“I never asked you for anything except honesty. What you did…made me fall in my own eyes. And where were you planning to hide all twenty-four paintings anyway?”
“I…” He stopped, as if to find the right words. “I don’t know, but I was going to eventually tell you.”
“Like the time you told me you were at home renovating this room and my studio? And then I found out you had really gone to Amsterdam with someone else? Or the time you claimed to have found me unconscious and it turns out someone else did?”
He turned his back to her. “I had to win back your trust after what happened on your birthday. And your wrecked studio was because of Naina.”
“What does Naina have to do with this?”
Rakesh sat on the edge of her bed, near her feet. “Shortly after you left for your mother’s place, Naina barged into your studio, destroyed your paintings and wrecked the room. It was beyond simple repair.”
Sheetal gulped, absorbing each word. So, the studio had been vandalized and no one had bothered to tell her. Instead, the whole family banded together to hide the event.
“I didn’t want to tell you at the time, but…she… I guess you figured she hates you.”
“Well, isn’t that a surprise?”
“I had your studio renovated before your return so you wouldn’t suspect anything.”
“Which means you didn’t throw away my paintings like you said.”
“No.”
“Why the lies?”
“Would you have stayed here knowing how much she hates you? She’s…she’s not normal, but I guess you’ve figured that out by now.”
“I had her medication verified. All of you were hiding things from me.” Her throat itched and she swallowed. “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
“We had to get her married and settled. We had to somehow convince the Malhotras she was right for Ajay. We tripled the dowry and kept Naina’s contact with her in-laws to a minimum so they wouldn’t catch on to anything. Imagine the risk to her engagement if anyone outside the family knew.”
Her heart fisted in her throat. She’d married into the Dhanrajs, given birth to one–so, what did that mean? “I’m an outsider then, is that it?”
“You…you were new. What if you leaked the truth?”
“To whom?”
“Anyone.”
“I never told anyone a thing, even after I found the Elavils in her room. But look at what all of you have done. You’ve deceived another family.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “It was either that or be stuck with Naina for life.”
Bile rose in her throat. She was going to be sick. “So, you basically compensated the Malhotras in cash for taking Naina in.”
“It was Pushpa’s idea.”
“How does it matter? You think no one will know? The Malhotras will find out for sure.” She was about to mention Mummyji’s recent phone call with Mrs. Malhotra, but decided against it. What was the point? “You can’t force people into something you want and expect it to work. You have to accept people the way they are. But you’ve been shoving your will down people’s throats. Like that champagne on my birthday. And look how that day ended.”
He said nothing.
“It’s not about paychecks or profit and loss. It’s about relationships. Harmony. Balancing what you have with what you want.”
“You don’t get it.” He lowered his head and cupped his face in his hands. “I had to win you back after I lost you.”
“People lose things they own, Rakesh. You never had me to begin with. And how could you after what you did on our first night?”
“I…didn’t mean it that way. I—” He rose and crossed to the window. “I wanted to keep you away.”
“From what?”
“Me. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt?” Sheetal choked on the word. “You raped me on our first night. What could hurt more?”
“Every time I love someone they get hurt. It just happens, and I have no control over it.”
“It’s not always your doing. Sometimes things happen, like bad coincidences.”
“And I’m sick of everything going wrong. How you always find fault in everything I do.”
“I don’t.”
“Say one good thing about me.”
The air thickened and her head throbbed. One good thing. What was one good thing about him?
He raised his eyebrows. “Is there anything? Anything, at all, you like about me?”
Her attention fell on a loose thread, snaking from the sheet. Would the truth unravel here? Right now?
“Do you even love me?”
“I…” Her tongue felt like jelly.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“How can you blame me? You teamed up with Mummyji against me. Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know everything. Your plan to take my inheritance one day.”
His expression tightened. “That was her idea. It’s all she does, cook things up. I had nothing to do with it. Promise. But you loved someone else before we married, didn’t you?”
Sheetal inhaled sharply, and the quick draw of breath made her ribs ache. “He was just a friend.”
“You loved him, Sheetal. Admit it.”
“It…it’s in the past. I gave him up the day we married.”
“You still love him. I know.”
“He’s out of my life.”
“I saw you kiss him at the Broken Fort, and I’ve tried to forget what happened. But I know you still love him, and you want me to be like him.”
Was he trying to put words in her mouth? “Why were you spying on me?”
“After lunch that day, at Medit, I followed you and your cousins home to see where you lived. I saw you slip out the back and I knew something was wrong. How can you hate someone you don’t know? Then I understood why. You can’t force people into something you want and expect relationships to work. You never accepted me for who I am. When you look at me, it’s not at me. It’s past me. Like I’m invisible.”
Wasn’t she the invisible one around here? She turned away, and her attention fixed on the clear liquid trickling into her vein, visible only because of the meniscus in the bag.
“It’s like you want to find Arvind in me. I’m cold and heartless, aren’t I? I see the hatred in your eyes. I somehow knew it would come to this one day. That’s why I had someone steal the necklace from your dowry. To bring shame and embarrassment and pressure you and your family to stay put with everything.”
“You had thousands of women dying to be Mrs. Dhanraj. Why me?”
“You think they’d put up with Pushpa or Naina?”
The lump tightened in her throat. “You think I can’t pick up my bags and leave?”
“I wanted someone who would give me a chance.”
“And I tried. But you never gave me a chance. You say you’re off to Amsterdam, then you tell me you never went. Then I find out you really did go and…and…a bunch of receipts that meant something else altogether.” Her head spun from all the confusion. “Then you shove me off to another room, and I don’t know what to believe. My life with you, it’s like an illusion. I see you with another woman at Graffiti and I ask you for the truth. I know you’re with her. But you lie. You always lie, and I can’t take it anymore. And then a baby comes along and now—”
“Let’s face it. You were forced into this marriage, like me.” He sighed.
“You were so clear at breakfast that morning. You’d never step foot in this house if I went to your office. Clearly, you don’t want me in your life. You never wanted this marriage, either. Besides Papa’s money, what were you holding on for?” The thought made her sick.
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��The—my company’s reputation depends on our marriage and this family sticking together. I guess you’ve realized how fucked up we all are. Pushpa and I are stuck together.”
“And what about me?”
He turned his back to the window and crossed his arms. “I get it. I was wrong. But there were times, so many times, when it was about us.”
“Like when you threw me across the dance floor? When you abandoned me during the pregnancy? Was that us? Or you?” He made for the door, and her stomach went queasy. “What are you going to do about this other woman? ”
“Look, I…I was fucking lonely for a long time.”
She froze. Another round of excuses?
“But it’s over now. You were right all along.”
For once, it would have been good to be wrong.
He turned the doorknob.
“I was here the whole time, Rakesh. Trying to share my life with you. But you never let me in. You put up walls and you’re doing it again.”
“Because all you want is Arvind. Look, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, but that’s the truth.”
Guilt seeped in with the drips of glucose. Was she equally at fault in signing up for this marriage, determined to hate him? Did she somehow doom this relationship from the start?
“I’ll send the nurse in.” The door clicked closed, leaving her alone.
Chapter Froty-Five
Sachchai (Truth)
A week later, footsteps thudded along the corridor loud enough to wake Sheetal. She struggled to sit upright. The gauze bandages on her back, like an outer shell, shielded her from the bed linen but did little to ease the scorching pain. Much of the swelling on her shoulders had begun to subside, but when Nandita showed her a reflection of her back, Sheetal was horrified to see a tapestry of welts, swollen patches and pus-filled blisters.
Rakesh threw open the bedroom door, rushed in with a copy of the Sunday edition of The Raigun Herald and spread the newspaper on her lap. “You’re not going to believe this!”
Naidu Sahib’s review of her work in the “Art and Aesthetics” column had been circled in red ink. The article used phrases like “deep and meaningful,” “able to capture the essence of life with her strokes,” and “what it means to be alive.” But the title “An Artist Is Born!” and the four-out-of-five-star rating made Sheetal’s heart soar.