Mistress: A Novel

by Anita Nair

  ‘What do we do now?’ Sethu asked, coming back from the storeroom. ‘We have almost entirely run out of medicines. We need a miracle now.’

  Dr Samuel rose from his chair. ‘Come with me,’ he said. Through the deserted streets of Nazareth, Dr Samuel led him to a little church with a high steeple. Its inner walls and pillars glistened a curious white.

  ‘You have been living in Nazareth for some months now, but you never seemed to want to come here. And I let it be because I knew that when you were ready to seek God’s house, you would do so,’ the doctor said.

  Sethu bit his lip. You brought me here, he wanted to say. But he let the words rest, as usual.

  Sethu reached out to touch the wall. ‘They must have mixed at least a million egg whites into the lime for the plaster to be so smooth and pearly.’ His voice reflected the awe in his eyes.

  Dr Samuel warded off a fly as if to dismiss Sethu’s comment. ‘I agree, the walls are quite amazing, but that isn’t why I brought you here.’

  He paused. Once again, his hand flew in the air to brush the errant fly away.

  Sethu suppressed a smile and the thought that sometimes the good doctor was a pompous prig. ‘Some years ago,’ the doctor began.

  Sethu leaned against a wall. He knew by now the doctor’s predilection for telling a story. How every moment, every emotion, every expression, even everything unsaid, would be dwelt upon.

  ‘Some years ago,’ the doctor said, seating himself in a pew. His pew. There were only four lines of pews. The rest of the congregation sat on the floor. ‘Nazareth was afflicted by God’s curse. Why God chose to curse Nazareth, I do not know. It has only as many sinners as any other town of this size does. Nazareth is not Sodom, and yet we had four cholera epidemics in one year and …’

  The doctor stopped, overwhelmed by the horror of that memory.

  ‘And …’ Sethu prompted. For that, too, was one of the parts Sethu was expected to play: mesmerized audience and chief prompter.

  ‘And when it seemed that nothing but divine intervention would help, the priest here, Father Howard, made an offering. He vowed that the entire parish would come to Confession every day. Spare us, we’ll confess our sins and do penance for our trespasses, he prayed. He fell on his knees and I am told he stayed there for a whole week, pleading and beseeching. And the epidemics ceased to be. Now cholera comes just once a year.’

  ‘I would have thought that God would have eradicated cholera for good, now that there are no sinners here,’ Sethu mumbled, unable to help himself.

  Dr Samuel frowned. ‘Seth, I have been meaning to talk to you about this for some time now. I have noticed that you barely know your Bible. You show no inclination to pray. And worst of all, you tend to question God’s will. In fact, you don’t behave like a true Christian should. You might think it’s fashionable to question the existence of God. But it isn’t right, believe me. I have seen so much disease and despair, and yet I never ask God why. You see, God moves in mysterious ways.’

  Sethu realized that they were treading dangerous territory, so he steered the discussion in another direction. ‘Doctor, I am worried. The epidemic scares me. What are we going to do?’

  Dr Samuel got up and came towards Sethu. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. Then he put his arm around Sethu and said, ‘Stay here a while. Go on your knees and pray. Speak to God so that he may set your mind at rest. As for the epidemic, don’t worry. We’ll cope like we always do. Tomorrow we have to go into the peripheries. Reports have come in of entire villages that are stricken.’

  ‘What are we to do without any medicines?’ Sethu’s voice rose. But Dr Samuel was already walking away. How can he be so obtuse, Sethu fumed. How can he delude himself that we can cope? He is insane.

  In the early hours, Hope and Charity came to Dr Samuel’s door, fear pounding their voices into thin shrills. ‘Doctor, it’s Faith,’ they cried.

  Faith lay in her bed, limp with exhaustion. ‘The dysentery is severe. She hasn’t begun vomiting yet,’ Hope murmured.

  ‘Didn’t she have her inoculation?’ Dr Samuel asked, as he fixed a makeshift IV line.

  ‘No.’ The two women shook their heads. ‘She had a fever when the inoculations were being done. Besides, you know how she is. She said it would pass her by, that God would keep her safe.’

  Sethu stared at them in shock. ‘You should have known better. Couldn’t you have persuaded her?’

  Dr Samuel said nothing. Then he sighed and said, ‘Perhaps God meant her to serve him a little longer. You see, I kept enough medication for the five of us. With an epidemic on, I thought it wouldn’t help if one of us went down.’

  Faith recovered, but it was three days before the doctor and Sethu could leave. The day before they left, a consignment of supplies and a team of five doctors arrived. ‘Now do you see what I mean?’ Dr Samuel told Sethu. ‘God has his reasons, his own ways.’

  ‘We’ll set up camp in one of the villages and work from there,’ Dr Samuel said to the three doctors who accompanied them in the ambulance to the village. Faith, Hope and Charity had been left behind to assist the two doctors in the hospital.

  ‘I wish we could have brought one of the sisters, but they are needed at the hospital,’ Dr Samuel said. ‘Besides,’ he said, dropping his voice, ‘it would harm their reputation if they spent the nights with us in the wilderness.

  ‘There is a woman in the village near the camp. Mary. She will help us. She is a very devout and hard-working woman. I have already sent word for her to report to the camp tomorrow morning.’

  Mary didn’t. That was when Sethu realized that he would be expected to fill in for her.

  In the first tenement, Dr Samuel introduced him to the synonym for cholera: rice-water stools. ‘See this.’ He pointed very matter-of-factly to a man who lay in his faeces. Despite the extent of suffering in the hospital wards, Sethu had never seen anything like this before. ‘Clear fluid with bits of mucus. No odour. No blood. Just a gushing of bodily fluids. Classic cholera dysentery!’

  Sethu rushed out of the hut to retch.

  Dr Samuel pushed down his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘You’ll have to get used to this,’ he said. ‘Now pass me the IV line. The bacteria won’t kill him, but dehydration will. IV fluids with electrolytes to restore the balance and raise the blood volume, and medication to prevent further propagation of the bacteria. That’s all we can do. If God wills, he’ll survive.’

  God willed it, and for three days Sethu trailed Dr Samuel through huts and tenements in the village. He swallowed the bile in his mouth, scrupulously washed his hands with disinfectant each time and bustled around providing Dr Samuel with hope, faith and charity. ‘When I can, I’ll escape,’ Sethu told himself as he cleaned up a patient. ‘I’d rather be a bonded labourer in my uncle’s fields than clean shit and mop up vomit.’

  Revulsion is elastic. It stretches, seeping into every thought, corroding the mind and splattering every waking moment with its peculiar stench and taste. Revulsion taints your mouth, fills your nose and clogs your nostrils and then one day it ceases to be. And so Sethu, too, discovered compassion where revulsion had been. Disgust was replaced by concern, and fear with the anxiety that he would be unable to do enough.

  The medication was nearly finished and the IV bottles were down to a dozen. ‘This isn’t enough,’ he told Dr Samuel, showing him their meagre stores.

  Dr Samuel nodded and wouldn’t say anything beyond ‘If this is what God wants …’

  That night Sethu couldn’t sleep. How could he? In the past few days death had revealed itself to him. A new face of death that could be vanquished by fluids.

  Next morning Dr Samuel took him back to the first tenement. ‘Look at him,’ he said, pointing to the first patient Sethu had tended to. Arasu. King. Sethu thought of him as Rice-water-stool Arasu.

  The man was sitting up. In a few days he would be back at work. ‘You are God in disguise,’ Arasu wept, clutching the doctor’s
feet.

  ‘Hush,’ the doctor protested. ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 21 Psalm 46.1. I am just an instrument of God.’

  Sethu looked at the floor and thought that the instrument of God wouldn’t accomplish much if he didn’t have IV bottles. So Sethu set about doing what he knew he must. More than anyone else there, Sethu understood how precious life was. Before the disease wrapped its coils around him, he had to find a way to manage the looming crisis so they could all escape. And so Sethu added yet another part to his born-again identity.

  He drove the ambulance into the horizon. He didn’t have a plan, but by the time he got there he would have one, he told himself.

  At the Pamban quarantine camp there were enough stores. He even knew where the storekeeper’s keys were. After all, that had been his job. He knew every nook and cranny of the place, and though he had told himself that he would never go back, he had to make this one last visit.

  Sethu returned to the camp thirty-six hours later. It may be too late, he thought. Or perhaps not. There were still many who lay ill in their homes. Dr Samuel looked at the stores Sethu had brought back. He wouldn’t meet Sethu’s eyes and instead set about dispensing medication as quickly as he could.

  Later that night, he called Sethu to his tent. ‘This is the day made memorable by the Lord. What immense joy for us. Psalm 118.24 Jerusalem Bible,’ he began. ‘When God chose to send you to me, I had my doubts. Yours was a reluctant soul, even though your flesh worked willingly enough. But now I am satisfied. God knew, even if I didn’t, that you are a true Christian. I will not ask how or where you came by the stores. I will not question God’s largesse. You know best. It is your secret, but if there is a sin involved, I want you to know that I will bear the burden as much as you. Shall we pray?’

  Obediently, Sethu went down on his knees. He was glad that the doctor wasn’t too angry with him. And hadn’t sent back what he had risked his life for.

  Next day, the doctor had news for him. ‘The Franciscan Sisters will be here tomorrow. They will bring a team of doctors and supplies. We can go back. Once things have settled down, we need to make another visit. This time to Arabipatnam. That will be quite an experience for you. The first time I went there, I thought I had entered another land. The people, the houses, the alleys, everything is straight out of the pages of the Arabian Nights. Very strange! It is like a little kingdom with its own rules. For instance, all strange men are expected to leave the town by sunset. But they trust me completely and so I am allowed to spend the night there.’

  Sethu smiled. It pleased him that they had moved onto another plane in their relationship. The doctor trusted him enough to take him to Arabipatnam. Sethu had heard a great deal about Arabipatnam from the kondai sisters. It was a place where no stranger was welcomed. Where the alleyways were shrouded in mystery and peopled by descendants of men who rode both horses and the seas.

  Haasyam

  Watch carefully. This isn’t what you think it is. This is glee—what is there to it, you think? Laughter is laughter. Convulsive movements of the facial muscles, a crinkling of the eyes, mouth splaying open like a whore’s thighs …Stop there.

  Watch me. This is what you do. Raise your eyebrows slightly, high at the bridge of your nose and low at the farther corners. Keep the eyelids slightly closed and the lips drawn down on each side. Indent the upper lip muscles. This is haasyam.

  Pay attention to the mouth. It isn’t merely an orifice to devour and spit and make sounds. It is the mouth that sets the seal on the intensity of the haasyam. Let your breath move from your throat to your nose. The pressure is the degree of haasyam.

  Now look at this. This is mirth. You see it in the mischief that rides in with the December winds. From the plains of Tamil Nadu, they creep in through the pass at Palakkad, only to emerge on this side with a new name: thiruvadhira kaatu. Winds that come in readiness for the festival of thiruvadhira, when gigantic swings adorn the trees. Winds that come prepared to swing maidens and their dreams.

  But first the wind crackles through the trees; the leaves have to them a certain brittleness, foretelling the intensity of the summer months. It strips branches, nudges the undergrowth, turns dried leaves, raises tiny puffs of dust from the front yard that is yet to be swept. Palm and coconut fronds snap; cabbage butterflies hover at knee level as though they know that if caught in the cross winds, the wind will toss them this way and that. All this is mirth, too.

  Unlike the rattle of mirth is the quiet smile. Think of the peppercorns drying in the sun and tamarind pods ripening on trees, the mango blossoms that speckle the branches, the cashew blossoms weighing down the trees and the jack fruits growing quietly large.

  Then there is derision. You will see this when, later in the day, the wind lifts from the hillside with renewed vigour and moves the heat. Dispersing it with a sure hand, showing a plain disregard for all and everything.

  Which brings us to contempt—to look down upon. To condemn. And there is one other form of contempt. For that I suggest you seek the coconut palm fronds. Look, there it is, the olanjali. The Indian tree pie. Do you see its tail feathers? Now listen to the whickering sound it makes. Ki-ki-ki …Isn’t that the sound of contempt?

  It is the custom of birds to perch. Not this one. It has scant regard for custom. Instead, look at the bird’s nonchalance as it skates and slides to the tip of the palm frond and dangles from it.

  So you see, haasyam can be that as well. Contempt for convention.

  Radha

  I lie next to Shyam, unable to sleep. We have our bedtime rituals, Shyam and I. We have been married for eight years, after all, and there is no escaping the ritual of routine.

  I lie on the left side of the bed and he on the right. I read in bed till my eyes begin to droop and then I turn the bedside lamp off and go to sleep. Shyam is usually asleep by then. He sleeps on his side with his arm around my middle, his chin nestling my ear. On nights that he feels amorous, he strokes my upper arm till I can no longer pretend that I do not know what he expects of me. Then I put the book down and turn to him. It is all part of this ritual and routine called marriage. Everything has its place and moment.

  I can’t say that I am unhappy with Shyam. If there are no highs, there are no lows, either. Some would call this content, even.

  Shyam is asleep. His arm pins me to the bed. His bed. I think that for Shyam, I am a possession. A much cherished possession. That is my role in his life. He doesn’t want an equal; what he wants is a mistress. Someone to indulge and someone to indulge him with feminine wiles. I think of some of the cruel acts I committed as part of biology projects in school. I think of the butterfly I caught and pinned to a board when it was still alive, its wings spread so as to display the markings, oblivious that somewhere within, a little heart beat, yearning to fly. I am that butterfly now.

  One day.

  It’s only been one day since Chris arrived. I close my eyes and see again that image of him in the station, light trapped in his hair, a shadow of a smile on his face. I see that lopsided smile and the loose-limbed gait.

  Twenty-four hours since he moved into Cottage No. 12 and into my soul.

  Eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds since I realized that my life would never be the same again.

  I do not understand what is happening to me, a married woman, a wife. When I married Shyam, I swore never to flout the rules of custom again. How have I become so disdainful of honour, so contemptuous of convention?

  Early this evening we went to sit on the steps that lead down into the river from Uncle’s house. Dusk was falling. The silhouette of a flock of birds as they flew home stood out, clear and dark, against the quiet twilight sky. From the resort grounds, the breeze drew the scent of jasmine and spread it in its wake. The silence pressed down upon us, stilling all that was merely comradely.

  I stared at the sky, seeking a word, a phrase, to shatter the mute tension that was undulating between us. The western horizon was strea
ked a rosy red and splotched against it were masses of pewter-coloured clouds. My mother had a sari that was patterned with the same colours. I wondered if I could mention that. Something trite like, how nature inspires even sari designs. Then I saw that the colour had bled to render the rest of the sky a rosy hue.

  ‘There will be a good catch of mackerel later tonight,’ I said.

  ‘This is called a mackerel sky,’ I added, trying to fill the quiet. I sounded foolish to my own ears.

  But the silence scared me. If silences were meant to create distance between two people, this one seemed to wedge it, and bridge the gap that rightfully ought to exist.

  Chris turned to look at me. I couldn’t see his face clearly in the dark. But I could hear the laugh in his voice when he asked, ‘Do you fish?’

  I pretended not to hear the teasing note.

  ‘I am just repeating hearsay,’ I said. My fingers were shredding a teak leaf to bits. ‘My grandfather used to say that every time the sky turned this colour.’ And then, cocking my head because try as I might it wasn’t easy to resist indulging in playful banter with this man who was doing strange things to my insides, I said, ‘And no, I don’t think he fished.’

  I bit my lip. I hadn’t meant to say that. Anyway, what was I doing, sitting here in the dusk with him? What if someone saw us? Shyam wouldn’t like it.

  Chris rose. I froze. Was he getting ready to go? Please, no, stay awhile, I pleaded in my head. I didn’t understand this fractious mood I was in. I knew I should not stay and yet I didn’t want him to be the one to want to leave.

  He looked into the distance for a while and then he moved to sit on the wall that shored the slope. I couldn’t avoid his eyes any more.