by Kapur, Manju
‘The tea has come. Why don’t you bring it in?’ said Harish, stretching and yawning on the bed.
Virmati got up and unlocked the door as noiselessly as she could. Even in her own room she felt raw and exposed. She put her nose a fraction of an inch outside.
There lay the tea-tray on a small table, covered with a spotless white napkin with white embroidery. Underneath was the delicate bone china with the faint green leaves and small pink roses. Virmati picked it up. This tray was really Ganga’s. To think there had been a time when she had associated it with Harish, and only with Harish!
After tea, Harish wanted to go for a walk. That was his daily routine. ‘I’ll wait for you outside‚’ he said as he wrapped his cotton chaddor around himself.
‘All right.’
‘And do your hair‚’ he added.
Virmati edged past the bed, to pull her comb out of her suitcase. Her hair scattered easily, she knew, and now it was almost all out of her plait. Harish would not want her to appear untidy. There were so many eyes watching her.
*
The day passed, empty like the day before. Virmati had a bath, washed her own clothes – his, of course, were already done – read, and waited. The room she was in was so small, she had to force herself to concentrate on the print of her book in order not to feel stifled. Once or twice she went out. Giridhar, sitting on the bed with his grandmother, fell silent when he saw her, and looked at her with his big, round eyes. Kishori Devi, her face blank, muttered under her breath, as though each word was an effort, ‘What do you want?’
*
She tried to be friends with Guddiya. After all, Guddiya was her sister-in-law. She was not affected, like the others, by her marriage.
‘Guddiya.’
‘Hoon, didi.’
‘Let’s talk.’
‘I have to do my homework.’
‘Shall I help you with your lessons? I used to teach girls just like you, you know.’
‘Why aren’t you teaching them now?’
‘Right now, I am here. I want to teach you. Shall I?’
‘I have to help Bhabhi in the kitchen.’
Guddiya always had something to do with either her mother, her bhabhi, or her bosom buddy, her niece, and soon Virmati had to give up with her. Though not overtly hostile, in the warring factions that existed in the house, she belonged to the opposite side.
*
She tried with Giridhar. He was young enough to be won over, she thought.
‘Come here, beta,’ she said, one day when no one was looking. The door of the dressing-room was open and he peeped in, his bright eyes curious.
Giridhar didn’t move, just stared and sucked his thumb.
‘Bad habit,’ said Virmati instinctively. ‘Take it out. Here, look.’ She quickly drew some figures on a piece of paper.
The boy inched forward and stopped.
‘Come,’ said Virmati, ‘here’s paper, I’ll show you how to draw.’ If only she could teach Giridhar to come to her! She would have someone in the house.
‘Giri … Giri …’ Virmati could hear Ganga’s voice calling sharply.
And then a pair of hands snatched the little boy up, scolding violently. ‘What are you doing here? Who asked you to give trouble where you are not wanted?’ A slap followed, loud wails, Kishori Devi’s voice remonstrating, Ganga screaming, ‘You want her to take him away too. One is not enough for that … that …’
Through Virmati’s heart hammered, that is how they talk of me, think of me.
It was only when Harish came home that Virmati felt free to move about in the house in the areas that were considered his. The big front room, where he sat, read, listened to music and entertained guests, the front garden, and the little dressing-room where they slept. When Ganga saw her, she would turn her face away, or what was worse, would stare intensely at her, her eyes moist, her lip trembling, her big red bindi flashing accusingly. Occasionally, at night, she could hear both the women arguing, and sounds of Ganga crying.
*
Virmati paid a single visit home. One morning, when she felt she could bear the dressing-room no longer, she started off, her heart in her mouth. What would they say? On her arrival in Amritsar, she had written and told them she was married, but nobody had come to see her, not one brother or sister, not any of the young ones to whom she had practically been a mother. They were justifiably angry with her, but she realized she had transgressed, she was willing to make amends. Full of a desperate hope, Virmati shuffled down Lepel Griffin Road.
When she reached the house she walked around the back, where the cows were kept. Her thoughts were confused. At this point, she felt far closer to her family than she had before her marriage. Groping irresolutely around the compound, it did not seem possible that the link was severed. Those bricks and leaves were mingled in the blood and breath of her body.
Virmati entered the angan from the narrow entranceway between the cowshed and the house. She stood there silently, while the weak tears she despised gathered in her eyes. Only her mother would be at home this time, her mother who might be hating her.
*
‘Get out of here! Why bother to come now?’ Kasturi’s harsh words hit Virmati, and she bent her head, hoping this was just the initial reaction, her mother was understandably hurt.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’
Virmati remained standing. Kasturi came closer.
‘It would have been better if you had drowned in the canal than live to disgrace us like this!’
‘Mati – Mati –’ choked Virmati. ‘I shouldn’t have –’
‘Why are you telling me you shouldn’t have? What had I been telling you for five years? But no! You were too conceited to listen to anybody – why should you? – you are so educated‚ aren’t you?’
Virmati looked at her mother’s face. The eyes were cold and narrowed, the brows contorted with rage. There was implacable hostility there. She thought she should die with the pain she felt.
‘I shouldn’t have come,’ she managed bitterly. ‘I should have known what to expect.’
Kasturi grew red with rage. ‘Yes, you should have, you shameless –’ she shouted.
She took off her chappal, and raised it. Involuntarily Virmati ducked, and took the blows on her back.
‘You’ve destroyed our family, you badmash, you randi! You’ve blackened our face everywhere! For this I gave you birth? Because of you there is shame on our family, shame on me, shame on Bade Pitaji! But what do you care, brazen that you are!’
Virmati was backing out of the corridor, trying to free herself from the brutal grip her mother had on her arm.
‘Pehnji!’ It was Paro’s cry. Virmati turned around. There was Parvati pulling at her mother’s sari. ‘Mati, leave her – leave her, Mati, leave her.’
Kasturi turned on her furiously. ‘Protecting your sister, are you? You think she cares for you? For anyone besides herself?’
Parvati’s pale face became paler. ‘Let her go, Mati,’ she wept.
Kasturi pushed Virmati so hard that she fell. ‘Who is keeping her? Let her go to her cheap, dishonoured home! Could we ever stop her? Go! What are you waiting for?’
Virmati got up and faced Kasturi. ‘I’m going.’ Her heart was breaking but her voice was determined, ‘You will never see me again.’
With a last look at Paro, whose face was twisted with grief, she turned and left.
*
That afternoon, after lunch, the Professor turned to Virmati and asked, ‘And what did you do in the morning?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied drearily. ‘I did nothing.’
‘You should go out more,’ he said, looking suspiciously at her red eyes. ‘See, you are losing your appetite with being so inactive.’
‘It sometimes happens,’ she replied.
‘Well, see that it doesn’t. I don’t like to see my wife looking so listless. What will people think?’
Ever since the visit home, Virmati had felt blank and
dazed. She didn’t know how to tell the Professor what had happened, she could barely understand it herself. Were all ties between herself and her family broken? After all those years of care, concern, sacrifice, and responsibility? They had flung her away, what could he do about that? She looked at her husband, her lids heavy and swollen. ‘I’ll soon be all right‚’ she said.
‘Good girl.’ In his experience these troubles that women had with each other generally sorted themselves out. He patted Virmati lightly on the head as he got up to wash his hands and rinse his mouth.
*
In the big house on Lepel Griffin Road, Kasturi spent the rest of the morning brooding in the kitchen. Paro sat miserably on her patla next to her.
‘Where has she gone, Mati?’ she asked once.
‘How should I know where that good-for-nothing has gone and died?’ snapped Kasturi.
‘But she was here‚’ ventured Paro timidly.
‘She’s chosen to leave us. How should we now know where she is?’
Parvati tried to digest this information. Didn’t her sister care for her family any more? Why did people always say these things about Viru Pehnji?
‘She’s married – now are you satisfied? Betrayed us. Made sure we are all ruined. Understand?’ continued Kasturi in a frenzy of bad temper.
‘I understand‚’ said Paro appeasingly. She wished Pehnji had not gone like that. Weddings, she knew, were different. She remembered Indumati’s marriage. It had been arranged quickly, but still there had been the excitement of dressing up, new clothes for everybody, all the more wonderful because of its novelty. There had been mehendi, lots of food, and guests, and staying up late, and with Virmati not there, hardly any supervision.
Gunvati’s marriage last year had followed the same pattern, but on a larger scale. All the relatives had come. Her two mamas, mamis, cousins from Sultanpur, her masi and cousins from Pherozabad, her father’s family, and all the important aunts and uncles from the Samaj, without whom no major function was complete.
And now Virmati was married away from home, beaten by her mother, and declared dead. What had happened?
‘Was it really so bad, Masi?’ I am trying to get my youngest aunt to remember the time when my mother married. It is an uphill task. My aunt has had arthritis for so long that most of her memories are those of physical suffering. The hands that lie folded in her lap are twisted, with the bones sticking out in peaks. Her face is dark and bloated with the cortisone she has had over the years, her hair is cut short, because she cannot lift her arms high enough to do it any more. Most of it has fallen out anyway, what is left barely covers the shiny, brown patches of her scalp.
Parvati looks irritated. ‘She is gone, and you are asking about her marriage? Why didn’t you wake up earlier, when she was here and could tell you herself?’
‘She never talked much about herself, Masi.’ I feel obliged to defend myself. ‘When I asked her anything, she would say she remembered nothing. No matter how hard I pressed it was always the same answer.’
‘She had such a sharp mind when she was young‚’ says Parvati Masi accusingly.
‘My father used to say she had read a lot …’ I offer this observation doubtfully, uncertain of its relevance.
‘She was the only one in the whole family to get an MA, and that too from Government College, Lahore. But your father complained that she didn’t remember anything – such a pity he said, that she didn’t study systematically, when she has read such a lot. As though that was all to life …’ Parvati Masi snorts.
‘And?’ I am curious to know what she thinks.
‘Nothing. He was a learned man, a cultured man. He had a great deal of influence over everybody he knew.’
I drink all this in.
‘But –’
‘Yes?’ I say encouragingly. Why has Parvati Masi fallen silent?
‘Why are you asking me these things?’ She turns abruptly towards me. ‘Both dead and gone. I have nothing to say, nothing.’
I notice she has tears in her eyes. Now I am going to cry myself. Why is it so hard to get information about my mother, something about her life.
‘What is there to say?’ says Parvati less aggressively. ‘He came to Amritsar like a person from another world. He dazzled his students. Small-town people. And then his glance fell on your mother. What chance did she have after that? She was a simple girl at heart.’
I hate the word ‘simple’. Nobody has any business to live in the world and know nothing about its ways.
‘A simple girl,’ repeated my aunt, the harsh lines on her face softening.
One evening as Paro was playing at the back of the house, beyond the cowsheds, she thought she heard someone call her name, ‘Paro, Paro!’ twice in a voice very like her sister’s. She looked around but could see no one. Panic-stricken, she ran inside. Had Pehnji killed herself because of what had happened, and come to haunt them as a ghost? Her mother had said Pehnji had been born to create trouble. Maybe one lifetime was not enough for all of it, and she was working out the remainder.
Next day, on her way home from school in the tonga, she saw Virmati standing at the crossroads where Lawrence Road meets Lepel Griffin Road. She looks very real, thought Paro with relief, maybe she isn’t dead. The tonga entered the side gates of the house, and Parvati quickly jumped off. Then she ventured cautiously on the main road, and walked towards the crossing.
There stood Virmati, half-hidden by the trunk of a big neem tree. She looked sad and despondent, much like the woman who had come to the house a few days ago, and not like the loving sister who had cared for her ever since she could remember.
‘Pehnji!’ she cried, running towards her.
‘Paru!’ cried Virmati, ‘Paru!’ She held her arms open. Paro jumped into them and buried her face into the thin young shoulder.
‘Pehnji – you are not dead, are you?’ asked Paro.
‘You also think I should be, darling?’ asked Virmati hiding her face in Paro’s neck. Just to hold her sister in her arms was balm to her tormented mind.
‘No Pehnji – but they are talking like that. And last night I heard a voice that I thought was like yours, but there was nobody there, and I thought …’ Parvati’s voice trailed off.
‘Oh, sweetheart, that was me. I was calling you. But you didn’t hear.’
‘I was so frightened.’
Just then, a tonga cloppered around the turning, and Virmati instinctively withdrew behind the tree again. It was adding to her humiliation to be seen talking to her sister on the road.
‘Sweetheart, can you come to my house, just for a little while. Then we can walk back.’
‘Your house?’ asked Parvati.
‘My house. It is down the road here.’
‘How come?’
‘My husband lives there,’ said Virmati, holding Parvati’s hand and walking down the road with her. ‘Come, I will show you.’
‘Why didn’t you get married from home, Pehnji?’
Virmati didn’t say anything. Paro looked at her face, and then said to cheer her up, ‘Kailash is getting married soon, Pehnji. Then you will come?’
Virmati stopped walking. That was how far she had come from her family, how much they hated her. She was not to be invited for her own brother’s wedding, when the furthest, most removed relative would be pressed to come. She started to cry.
‘It’s not nice, Pehnji, being married?’ asked Paro after a while.
‘It’s very nice, darling‚’ said Virmati bravely.
‘Then why do you keep crying? And Mati too, whenever she talks of you.’
‘I miss you all. Very much. I think of you all the time. That is why I’m crying, although I am so happy.’ Saying this, Virmati dabbed her eyes and blew her nose with the end of her dupatta.
Paro thought she had better not ask any more questions. People were always talking of the time when she would get married, but if her beloved Pehnji were anything to go by, all it produced was storms and tears.
*
By June it was very hot. The Professor’s college duties were over, he had corrected his share of the exam papers as quickly as possible, so as to be with Virmati. For him, it was a joy to have her waiting when he came home, to have her eat with him, sleep with him, move with him in his rhythms through the day. He reflected how wisely he had acted. There was no more tension, no more indecision. Even the social opprobrium was not expressed openly. He glanced fondly at his wife as she lay with her eyes closed, next to him on the bed. Every part of her was desirable, even the perspiration that beaded her forehead and upper lip. He quietly got up to lock the door.
Virmati was not sleeping. Her lids were shut, and her thoughts were wandering. How much cooler it would be in the kothi now, how inviting in summer were the large gardens and sprawling orchards. And then the mangoes, lichis and loquats, the juicy mornings and evenings when they glutted themselves on fruit fresh from their own trees, and on the melons and watermelons brought home by their father every day. She could almost feel the taste in her mouth, almost hear the laughing and quarrelling of her brothers and sisters that accompanied these marathon eating sessions. Unconsciously her mouth half opened when Harish put his tongue in it and clamped it shut again.
Afterwards they lay together, hotter than ever.
‘I’ve been thinking, Viru,’ said Harish. ‘Why not invite the poet here?’
‘Here?’ asked Virmati. Moti Cottage did not strike her as a particularly inviting place. ‘Where’s the room for another person?’ she asked tartly.
‘That’s not like you, Viru. You are usually so accommodating.’
‘The place has to be mine to accommodate, no?’
‘Yes, yes, but he is a very understanding fellow. Besides the last visit to him was so rushed.’
The Professor did not elaborate on the role the poet had played in his marriage. But he felt a debt to him and he wanted to show his appreciation by showering him with hospitality. His home was the poet’s home, wherever he may be, and in whatever circumstances. He owed all his present happiness to him.