Mistress: A Novel

by Anita Nair

  ‘Is something bothering you?’ he asked.

  I looked at the pool of water at the bottom of the steps. You, I wanted to say. You are sneaking your way into my system. You are doing it with the casual ease of someone who knows how to. Are you a practised flirt? A seducer of women? Or is this something that neither you nor I have any control over?

  I took a deep breath. Think of Shyam, your husband. Think of Shyam, who has endured much for you. How can you do this to him, I asked myself.

  ‘No, why do you ask? I am fine,’ I said.

  ‘Then what is wrong? You have suddenly gone silent. Did I say something to offend you?’

  I turned away, groping to explain the heaviness I felt. A word, a phrase, a crutch that would deflect his attention. I could see Uncle standing on his veranda. He was looking at us.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Is there something you are not telling us? Why do you need to know all about Uncle’s life? What is the relevance?’

  ‘Radha, every writer has his own way of doing things. This is mine. I need to know everything about a person I am to profile. You wouldn’t believe the lengths I go to when I am researching a subject; the kind of shit I am willing to endure. But that is how it is. I know most of the information I collect may be irrelevant but I need to know it all before I can decide what to keep and what to discard.’ Chris’s voice was devoid of all expression.

  I felt a distance spring up between us. I wanted to tie his hand to the pallu of my sari and bind him to me. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,’ I hastened to explain.

  ‘I have never heard Uncle talk about himself,’ I said. ‘What I know of him is what all of us know in the family. But what he told you today, I haven’t ever heard him talk about it.’

  Chris scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Are you sure it is about him? I am not so sure …I didn’t want to interrupt his flow or offend him, so I said nothing. But honestly, what is it all about? You know, at first, when I heard him say “In the beginning was an ocean”, my jaw almost dropped. What is he getting into, I thought …It’s like something out of a South American novel!’

  I leaned forward to interrupt him. ‘That is easily explained. If you read the libretto of a kathakali play, it always begins with a shloka that puts the story of the play in context. The shloka is rather literary; what it does is give the story a setting …that is all there is to it. Really! It isn’t magic realism. Just pure kathakali technique.’

  I smiled. Chris was right to be puzzled. Who wouldn’t be?

  ‘Radha.’ I shivered when Chris spoke my name. His voice was like a finger searching out secret places. ‘Radha, who is Sethu who became Seth? What is the connection?’

  Chris took the tape recorder out of his pocket and pressed the rewind button for a few seconds. Then he played the tape. Uncle’s voice emerged, a little tinny, yet true: 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 bis tent. “This is the day made memorable by the Lord. What immense joy for us.”

  ‘Who is Seth?’ Chris asked again.

  ‘Sethu,’ I corrected, ‘is Uncle’s father. My paternal grandfather.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Chris looked relieved.

  ‘I don’t think you do,’ I said, leaning forward. ‘Chris, do you remember what Uncle said when he agreed to tell you his story? That he would interpret not just his life, but the lives of all the others involved. It’s part of the kathakali technique. The scene has to be set and explained before the character makes his appearance and the actual story unfolds. Only then will the audience understand why a character behaves in a particular way.’

  I stopped and searched his face. Was he bored?

  ‘No, no,’ Chris said, pulling a notepad out of yet another pocket. There was a little stub of a pencil in his hand. ‘Go on, it’s fascinating.’

  I leaned back against the stone steps. ‘I would suggest that you take a crash course in Indian mythology, or you won’t understand much of what I am saying now or what Uncle will tell you in the next few days.’

  He smiled. ‘My knowledge of Indian mythology is adequate. You were saying …’

  ‘I was saying, for instance in the Ramayana—you know the Ramayana, don’t you? Or, at least, about it? Well, anyway, there is this episode of Rama stepping on a stone and the stone coming to life and becoming Ahalya. The story is that Ahalya, the wife of Sage Gautama, was discovered by her husband in bed with Indra, the king of the gods, and so he cursed her to become a stone. Only when Rama stepped on her unknowingly—and Rama would come many epochs later—would she be freed of the curse. That’s what the libretto of the kathakali play says. But what a good kathakali dancer will do is interpret how this episode came to be. He will show how one day, while Ahalya was plucking flowers, Lord Indra, who was cruising the skies on his white elephant, looked down and saw this woman beckoning him. The gesture that you make to pluck a flower that is overhead could very well seem like the gesture you use to call someone down from a height. Indra is attracted to the woman. Still, he asks, pointing to himself—Me? Are you talking to me?

  ‘And Ahalya repeats what he thinks is an invitation. So he takes the form of her husband and slips into her bed when her husband is away. Perhaps he thought the disguise would dispell any doubts she might have.’

  I stopped, aghast. Why had I chosen this anecdote to explain my point? Would Chris interpret it as an invitation?

  I pursed my lips and finished, ‘To understand my uncle as a dancer and a man, you need to know about his parents.’

  Chris put the tape recorder and notebook away. ‘Baggage, I suppose,’ he said softly. ‘None of us is free of it and yet, if we were, we wouldn’t be who we are.’

  I laughed. ‘Considering you travelled across many continents with a cello, how can you even talk about baggage or being free of it?’

  Chris reached across and tugged at a lock of my hair. I laughed again. I felt like a child who had spotted a rainbow. Then I stopped abruptly. ‘I must go,’ I said.

  ‘Before you go, tell me what happened to this guy Indra. Did he get away because he was a god? Or was he cursed to become a stone?’

  ‘Indra was cursed, too,’ I said. ‘In Hindu mythology no one is spared. Hinduism teaches that we cannot escape our actions. The curse of the sage is said to have caused a thousand marks on him.’

  ‘What kind of marks?’

  I flushed. ‘The vagina. He had a thousand vaginas imprinted on him so that everyone who saw him knew he had been philandering.’

  ‘The poor guy! And then?’

  ‘And then, he was forgiven because that is the other aspect of Hinduism: redemption. So the vaginas became a thousand eyes which allowed him to see better, I guess,’ I added.

  Chris grinned. ‘So he did get away?’ He leapt off the wall and ran up the steps. I rose quietly. What could I say? He was right. Thinking about it, Indra managed to get away with little more than embarrassment. It was poor Ahalya who bore the brunt of the curse. Let that be a reminder to you, I told myself.

  Chris held his hand out to help me up.

  I hesitated. In his country, this was merely a polite gesture a man made to a woman, like opening a door for her. I shouldn’t be reading subtexts into it, I told myself. So I laid my hand in his.

  His grip tightened. I knew then that he knew what I was feeling. And that there was no escape.

  I am here. But I am also elsewhere. I wonder what Chris is doing. Has he unpacked his bags? Is he playing his cello? Maybe he is writing an email to the woman he loves. Is there a woman in his life? A girlfriend? A live-in partner? A wife?

  I feel jealousy corrode me. Who is she?

  Then I feel Shyam’s breath ruffling my hair. What am I doing, I ask myself. I lie here in my
bed in my husband’s arms and think of another man. What kind of woman am I? I feel contempt for myself.

  I stroke Shyam’s hair. Shyam, I whisper. Shyam, wake up. Shyam, wake up and love me. Shyam, you must.

  Shyam opens his eyes. His pupils are sleep washed.

  ‘Aren’t you asleep yet?’ he murmurs and snuggles deeper into my side.

  In the morning, I wake up thinking that I will stay away from the resort.

  Shyam peers at me from above his newspaper. He reads the Malayalam paper over breakfast. It feeds his lust for the bizarre and trivia. Dog bit baby—baby’s mother bit dog back and its ilk. ‘If you live in Kerala, you need a Malayalam newspaper to give you all the local news,’ Shyam defended his choice, when I asked how he could read such nonsense.

  In public, though, Shyam prefers it to be known that he reads the Hindu, and on Sundays the New Indian Express as well.

  He folds the newspaper and places it neatly by his plate. Then he takes the newspaper I am reading and folds that as well. He reaches for a banana, peels and eats it slowly. He leaves the skin on his plate. It looks as if the plantain slunk out when no one was looking, the skin is so perfectly arranged. Shyam is fastidious. Newspapers have to be folded and stacked; clothes ironed and put away on their shelves; all surfaces wiped clean of dust; and glasses placed on coasters so they don’t leave water marks. Candles are not allowed to drip nor are dead leaves allowed to remain on a plant. His music collection is arranged in alphabetical order and his office table looks as if he does no work on it, ever. Everything is in its place and in order.

  I thrive on chaos and it vexes Shyam to see my closet and bedside table. ‘How do you know what is where? How can you be so disorderly?’

  It irritates me to see Shyam as he goes about regulating his universe and mine. But this morning, his need for symmetry and love of order comfort me. They contain my thoughts and pace the unruly meanderings of my mind.

  ‘Oppol will be here this weekend,’ he says.

  I look down at my plate and try to hide my grimace. Rani Oppol. Shyam’s sister. She is a good woman, but her insensitivity would make even a buffalo blanch. Her visits usually leave me infuriated and feeling totally worthless. But she is Shyam’s sister and I know there is nothing I can say to prevent her from visiting us.

  ‘They are on their way to Vishakapatnam, where Manoj is, and she wanted to stop over and spend some time with us,’ Shyam says.

  My heart sinks.

  ‘How long will Rani stay?’ I ask.

  ‘Just a couple of days. Radha, you really mustn’t call her by her name. It is so disrespectful, and you know she doesn’t like it at all.’

  I agree, I want to tell him. She shouldn’t be called Rani. She ought to be called harpy, vixen, whinger, nag, bitch …

  I can hear her voice in my head. That affected, little-girl voice that grates on my nerves. How is it, I wonder, that she knows the exact thing to say, to rob me of all self-esteem? For years now, I have been enduring it.

  ‘But Radha, why don’t you drive? All girls of your generation do.’

  ‘I do. I used to in Bangalore,’ I would protest. ‘But Shyam won’t let me. He says …’

  ‘Ah, Shyam probably has a reason.’

  Another time, she told me, ‘The other day I met Susie, that girl who was in college with you. She is working for a multinational company. That’s how girls ought to be. Smart and independent. If you sit at home, all you do is sleep in the afternoon, watch TV and get fat. It is such a pity that you are wasting your time doing nothing.’

  I sucked my belly in and resolved not to nap in the afternoon.

  Later, it was to Uncle that I voiced my irritation. ‘She is obnoxious, she truly is. I made this chicken dish especially for her, the way she likes it. At dinner time, when we were seated at the table, my long-suffering brother-in-law said, “Rani, try some of the chicken, it’s cooked the way you like it. Marinated and deep fried over a wood fire.” And do you know what she did? She crinkled her nose as if I had offered her a dead rat and said, “Should I? It’s only chicken, after all.”

  ‘What was I expected to provide? An elephant’s egg, hardboiled?’

  Uncle laughed and laughed.

  I said, ‘You think it’s funny, do you? But I was hurt. If someone were to criticize her cooking, she would probably have a fit. All of us have to be careful what we say to her. My sister is so sensitive, Shyam says. Doesn’t he realize what a beastly woman she is?’

  I think now, I will have to prepare myself for her arrival. I will not let her wound me again.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Shyam asks, watching me toy with my breakfast.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Good. No need for you to be there every day,’ he says. ‘I intend going for just an hour. I’ll leave the car and driver here for you, and take the jeep. I suppose you are going to spend the whole morning at the beauty parlour.’

  I smile. Shyam likes to think of me prettying myself for him. He prefers a glossy, silly wife to a homely, practical one. Glossy, silly wives are malleable.

  He pauses on his way out and fondles my cheek. ‘Though I really don’t know why you need to go to the beauty parlour. You are ravishing the way you are.’

  Poor Shyam. He thinks exaggerated compliments will make me happy and ensure marital bliss. He tries so hard that at times it tires me. This morning, though, I feel sad. For him. For us. For our marriage. He deserves better.

  Shyam complains that I don’t show any real interest in his pursuits. That I don’t care enough. He speaks the truth.

  Shyam is ambitious, and I find his unwillingness to hide his ambition repulsive. Once, early in our marriage, I told him as much.

  ‘What’s wrong with wanting to make money? You don’t know what it is like to be poor. How would you anyway? You’ve always had money. Your family brought you up as a princess. Everything you wanted was made available. Not so for me. I know what it is to want something and not be able to have it because it is “beyond us”. My mother had a whole stock of sayings to explain this “beyond us” business. No point in crying for the moon! What is the point in a rabbit trying to shit as much as an elephant would, etc., etc. And all because I asked for a toy or a pen or some such trivial thing that had caught my eye.’ Shyam’s face was contorted in a grimace. Then, as if he had wiped a hand over his features, it smoothened and he said in a cold but even voice, ‘I am yet to understand the meaning of the word “enough”. When I do, I promise I’ll stop this “frantic chasing to amass wealth” as you call it.’

  I didn’t ever bring it up again. As the years passed, one by one, we shunted away all the topics we could converse about. We couldn’t agree on anything, whether it was music or films, political parties or even the choice of plants in our garden. Now we have no conversation.

  This morning, I feel the need to make an effort, to redeem myself in Shyam’s eyes. Do penance for allowing this strange attraction I feel for Chris to root within me. I shall avoid the resort, I think. For there wait Chris and temptation.

  Shyam owns several businesses. But none of them need me for anything. They run on their own and don’t need me, the owner’s wife, hovering around. When I do go, occasionally, one of the employees offers me a chair and a soft drink in a bottle with a straw and stays there while I gulp it down, so that he can see me to the car. He opens the door for me, waits for me to seat myself, slams the door shut and tells Shashi, ‘Drive carefully.’

  There is relief on his face; a relief that stretches his face into a smile even before the car has pulled away. I know. I have seen it.

  I think of where I could go. Then I think of the match factory.

  Perhaps factory is a euphemism for a shed and a batch of workers with a supervisor. But even this little place brings Shyam profits. He has a knack for making money. My grandfather would have approved of him and his methods.

  Shyam manufactures four brands of matches. Two of these, Jasmine and Near-the-Nila, are made exclusively fo
r the resort. He had picked up the idea of customized matches while on a trip abroad. The third brand changed every few months, for it relied on the flavour of the season, be it politics or films. This season we have a matchbox called Lajjavati, after a popular song. Lajjavati, the shy one, is a big hit. Then there is the ‘umbrella brand’, as Shyam refers to it. Shyam often uses marketing terms learnt during his days as a marketing executive with Hindustan Lever. The umbrella brand is called Foreign. ‘People like going to shops and asking for Foreign matches and shopkeepers like being able to sell Foreign matches. Both parties are happy. Do you understand?’ Shyam explained to me.

  I had smiled then. I smile now, thinking of it. Again that sadness. Shyam, who is so sensitive to people’s attitudes when it comes to buying and selling, doesn’t have the faintest notion of how my mind works.

  I thrust the thought away and ask Shashi to take me to the match factory.

  I do not know what I will do there. But there must be something I can do beyond sitting on the proffered chair and sipping the mandatory soft drink.

  There must be a way by which even if I can’t exorcize the thought of Chris, I can run a stake through the heart of that thought and rein it to the ground.

  Shyam

  I shove the plate aside, lick my fingers one by one, pick up the glass with my soiled hand and drink the water in one gulp, then belch loudly.

  The licking and belching are a rare treat, but I am alone and can indulge in it without worrying about Radha’s censorious gaze. Her disapproval of such natural pleasures inhibits me and usually, even after a splendid meal, I feel incomplete. But for now I am sated.

  It was almost lunchtime when I turned in at the gate. My twin lions gleamed gold-like in the midday sun. I felt a swelling of my heart. I don’t think I will ever tire of gazing at them. For that matter, I don’t think this sense of achievement I feel each time I drive through the gates of Near-the-Nila will ever dim.

  The doorman was at the car door even as I stopped. He was keeping good time. I smiled at him. I looked to where Padmanabhan had been tethered in the morning. ‘Have someone clean up that mess,’ I said. There were heaps of dung lying on the ground. ‘What time did he go?’ I asked.