Mistress: A Novel

by Anita Nair

  The music stops abruptly. I open my eyes. He keeps the cello aside. He continues to sit on the chair with his legs still slightly splayed, his eyes intense. The music hangs in the air.

  He looks at me.

  I walk towards him.

  Shyam

  I have a Rotary Club meeting to go to. We intend to conduct a project discussion. There are three projects under consideration and tonight we will decide which one it is to be. I wish Radha would go with me. All the other office bearers will bring their wives. I like looking at Radha when she is with a group of women. My Radha shines.

  When we are out together in company, I watch her. I see the way she tilts her chin forward when she is listening, and the way she throws her head back as she laughs. I see her cover her mouth with her hand and toss her hair from her face. And I know again that sense of pride. She is mine. I see a burst of admiration in the eyes of the other men and a wave of envy on the women’s faces. My Radha shines.

  ‘Are you sure you are not coming?’ I ask.

  ‘No, I told you that I am going out with Uncle,’ she says. I read the irritation in her voice.

  ‘Is the Sahiv going too?’

  ‘I think so. Uncle thinks it will help Chris to write his piece better if he were to see a few performances.’

  ‘I see.’ But I don’t. I understand why Chris has to see kathakali being performed. What I don’t is why Radha has to go along. I think of my mother’s stock of sayings: sesame seeds need to soak in the sun so that they yield more oil, but why is the silly beetle doing the same?

  ‘What are you muttering?’ Radha asks.

  ‘I was just wondering, won’t you be tired if you stay up late? You know that we have to attend the SP’s daughter’s wedding tomorrow, don’t you?’ I try again to dissuade her.

  She frowns. ‘It isn’t the first time I have stayed up late. For heaven’s sake, what’s wrong now? No one’s going to gossip, if that’s what is worrying you.’

  It hadn’t occurred to me, but now that she’s put the thought in my head, I do worry.

  ‘If you need me to pick you up, just call and I’ll come,’ I say.

  She looks at me for a moment. I don’t understand the import of that look; is it sorrow? But why?

  ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ She touches my elbow. ‘Uncle has booked a taxi. He will drop me back.’

  I smile. Perhaps everything will be fine, after all.

  I watch her as she fastens her earrings. She is even more beautiful tonight. She is my Syamantaka gem, I think. But I dare not tell her. She will laugh at me and ask, ‘Syamantaka gem? What do you know of that?’

  Both Radha and Uncle prefer to believe that I know little or nothing of mythology, or anything that makes an attempt to appeal to the unconscious. That is their realm and they guard it fiercely. In their minds they have divided the world into two: those who belong and those who don’t. As far as they are concerned, I am a businessman and the only music I hear is the ringing of cash registers, the only literature I read is the writing on currency notes; my favourite paintings are stacks of industrial chimneys and my sense of rhythm is derived from the grinding of cogs and wheels. I don’t belong in their world and they prefer that I don’t try and trespass.

  When we were first married, I tried to join a discussion that Uncle and Radha were having about a character in the Ramayana. They stared at me as if I had said something really stupid. Then Uncle sniggered and Radha said, ‘Don’t be foolish. It isn’t like that.’

  What isn’t like that, I wanted to demand. Mythology is like poetry. It is fashioned by its telling. Uncle and you talk about the importance of interpretation, but you are such snobs. I may not be an artist or an art connoisseur, but that doesn’t make my opinions invalid. Are you saying that you think only those steeped in art ought to be allowed to express their views? And that your readings are acceptable and mine foolish? But I was intimidated by the newness of our relationship and held my anger back.

  So, how then can I tell Radha that she is my Syamantaka gem, ‘yielding daily eight loads of gold and dispelling all fear of portents, wild beasts, fire, robbers and famine’? When you are with me, I want to tell her, I am the sun wearing a garland of light.

  Instead I say, ‘Why don’t you ever dress like this when we go for dinner at the Club? Then all you wear are your stiff khadi kurtas. I hate them; they remind me of those activist women burning with vitriol and a cause. Women should wear silk, jewellery and flowers in their hair.’

  She is silent.

  I see the surprise in Shashi’s eyes when he opens the door for her. And admiration, too.

  ‘Madam is going for a kathakali performance. Which is why she is all dressed up,’ I say. He grins.

  ‘I’ll drive. You can go home,’ I add.

  Radha snarls at me as soon as I start the car. ‘What do you mean, all dressed up? You make it sound as if I am doing something extraordinary. Can’t I wear a silk sari without your having to discuss it with the driver?’

  I wonder why she is so upset. What did I say?

  I stop at Uncle’s gate. ‘Are you sure the taxi has been booked? Do you want me to check?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t fuss,’ she says, getting out.

  ‘Radha,’ I begin.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Have a good time.’ I wait for Uncle to open his door and for Radha to step inside. Then I reverse and drive away.

  Her perfume lingers in the car. I know that sense of loss again. Why is it that my hold over Radha remains so ephemeral, even after eight years of marriage? Why can’t I reach into the substance of her being? Is it because she doesn’t let me?

  My father and Radha’s mother, Gowri, were cousins. They grew up in the same house. When my father turned eighteen, he joined the army. He survived two wars and then, when I was nine years old, he was killed in a freak road accident. A lorry carrying a load of iron pipes took a curve too fast. One of the pipes bulleted out and knocked my father off his scooter into the path of a bus. I lost a father and acquired an unshakeable belief in destiny.

  My mother didn’t have a family to turn to, so we went to my father’s house, where my grandmother still lived. That the house would go to Gowri ammayi when my grandmother died was understood, but she didn’t need the house. She had married well. So we continued to live there even after my grandmother died. Gowri ammayi persuaded her husband to help us out. We wanted for nothing but self-respect.

  My elder sister, Rani, was sixteen. A relative’s son who worked in the railways married her. All the money we had received on my father’s death was spent on her wedding.

  My father had had great hopes for me. My son will be a doctor or an engineer, he used to say. Neither my mother nor I dared ask Gowri ammayi’s husband for money to fund an education in a professional college. So I acquired a BA in economics and found myself a job in sales. We no longer needed his handouts.

  When I was paid my first salary, I bought him a shirt. I took it to his house.

  I heard him tell my aunt, ‘Your cousin’s chekkan is here.’

  I flinched. Chekkan. Boy. I am a grown-up now, I wanted to tell him.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked, peering at the package I offered him.

  ‘A shirt. I was paid early this week and I wanted to buy you something with the money.’

  ‘You must learn to spend wisely; then you won’t have to depend on others,’ he said. ‘Gowri, see what this chekkan has brought me.’

  Why couldn’t he use my name?

  I never saw him wear that shirt.

  I was good at my job, and ambitious. I took a management degree from the open university and switched jobs.

  My mother saw that my prospects were bright and brought forth the subject of marriage. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  ‘How old is Radha?’ I asked.

  ‘Radha? What has she got to do with your marriage? I hope you are not nurturing any desire of marrying her.’ My mother sounded querulous.

  ‘Wh
y not? What is wrong with me?’

  ‘Don’t be foolish. Only a child cries for the moon.’

  ‘I am sure Gowri ammayi will agree,’ I said.

  ‘She will, but he won’t. He expects his daughter to make a brilliant marriage into a family that will match them in status and wealth. We are nobodies. We don’t even have a house of our own.’

  I kept quiet. It was true. We had nothing to call our own, not even this roof over our head.

  The next time she talked about marriage, I said, ‘Amma, I will get married only when we have a house of our own.’

  Then I received a letter from my mother. It said: Take two days off and come home immediately.

  I was working in Trivandrum in those days. I wondered what it was about, but I went. Besides, I had news of my own. I had a letter of contract from a trading firm in Dubai. I was finally going to be making serious money. I was finally going to be somebody.

  ‘Your uncle will be here by about ten to see you,’ my mother said, even as I walked in. She looked fraught with anxiety. What could be wrong? Was he planning to sell the house?

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Wrong?’ Her face broke into a smile. ‘It is good news. He came with a proposal of marriage last week.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell him that I don’t plan to get married yet?’

  ‘Wait till you hear who the girl is …It is Radha.’

  My mother hustled and bustled. She wrung her hands and wiped her face with the end of her sari. She clucked and nodded, smiled and frowned, and was in a state of nervous excitement.

  ‘Fetch me a cup of tea,’ my uncle said, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

  I was leaning against the wall. I straightened and I don’t know how, but I found the courage to say, ‘I don’t want you to use that tone of voice to my mother, ever.’

  He looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. I wasn’t any more the chekkan he could dismiss with a tilt of his chin. I was thirty-one years of age, with two degrees and soon, a job in Dubai.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it that way. She is like my younger sister,’ he said slowly.

  ‘You wouldn’t ever talk in that tone to your sister if you had one. My mother is not your maid …I know that you took us in when we had no one else. You didn’t have to. We are your relatives only by marriage. You have my gratitude, and hers, for that. But it doesn’t give you the right to talk down to her or me.’

  ‘Shyam,’ he said. How easily he spoke my name now. ‘Shyam, if I thought you were not my social equals, would I come here to offer you my daughter in marriage?’ He came to stand near me. But his gaze was shifty.

  I had known as soon as my mother gave me the news that something was wrong. Suddenly Radha was not the moon but the mango ripe for plucking.

  I sat down then. I had never done this before—sit with him. I was expected to stand or perch on a step. Only equals sat down with each other. He stared for a moment and I saw him try and mask his displeasure.

  ‘Is there a problem with her horoscope?’ I asked.

  ‘No, no, her horoscope is very good and it matched very well with yours.’

  ‘Does she have a disease then? Leucoderma, or maybe something is wrong with her uterus?’

  ‘What a thing to say! She is perfectly healthy.’

  ‘Then she must be pregnant,’ I said. My voice sounded cold to my own ears.

  ‘Shyam, what is wrong with you? How dare you be insolent? To insult your own uncle who has been so kind to us …’ my mother’s horrified voice burst from the doorway. The cups on the tray shook with the force of her emotions.

  ‘Amma,’ I said. ‘I have to know why I, a nobody with not even a house of my own, am being asked to marry Radha who you said would make a brilliant marriage. We are not in their league, you said. So why is it different now? I am sure it is not because they have realized that I may not be their equal in status or wealth, but am still the best man for Radha.’

  ‘Let me talk to him,’ Radha’s father said.

  My mother left us alone. He took the cup of tea and sipped it. He drew out a pack of cigarettes and after a moment’s hesitation offered it to me. ‘Would you care to smoke one?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I looked away. I felt deeply ashamed. He was willing to let me wipe my feet on him. He had no pride left, and I was still trampling him into the ground.

  ‘What is wrong?’ I asked as gently as I could.

  ‘She’s been involved with a man.’

  ‘So why don’t you get them married?’

  He wiped his face with a handkerchief. ‘I wish it was that simple. He is a married man with three children. His wife wrote to me saying, take your daughter away before he ruins her life and she my family. Knowing this, how can I delay her marriage?’

  ‘So you are afraid to thrust soiled goods on to somebody else and decided to come to me. Shyam will do what we ask, because he is bound to us by a debt of gratitude—is that what you thought?’

  My mouth tasted bitter. Radha would be mine because no one else would have her.

  ‘Don’t say that. It was an innocent relationship. A young girl’s fascination for an older man.’

  I could see he thought otherwise, but hoped I wouldn’t.

  ‘You have to save my reputation, my standing in society,’ he pleaded. ‘Shyam, you are my lone hope.’

  So much for innocence, I thought. I stood up. ‘You have to know something. I have always been in love with Radha. My mother said I shouldn’t have foolish dreams. But I knew that she was destined to be mine. It doesn’t matter to me that she had a relationship with another man. I shall be happy to marry her. But will she?’

  ‘She will do as I tell her to,’ he said.

  ‘I have a job offer from Dubai,’ I said. ‘I will have to leave soon, so you must conduct the wedding before that.’ I was suddenly afraid. What if someone else more suitable than me turned up?

  ‘Will she be able to go with you?’ he asked.

  ‘Not immediately. Maybe later.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. He looked away, unable to meet my eyes. ‘Why not do something here? Young wives shouldn’t be left alone.’

  He took my hands in his. ‘All that I own is hers, and therefore yours,’ he said.

  ‘Is that a bribe?’

  ‘Shyam, you are my son,’ he said.

  ‘In which case, I would like you to advance me some money. I have an idea for a business venture. But I will pay you back every rupee with interest,’ I said. Then I added, ‘But there is one thing you must promise me. That you will never ever mention to Radha what transpired here today. I don’t want her to know that I know about her past. Or that you put up the money for me to start a business.’

  My mother approved of the alliance thoroughly. Only Rani Oppol wasn’t so welcoming. She was suspicious that I had been forced to agree. ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ she said when the marriage was fixed.

  I smiled at her. She was so protective of me. ‘Don’t worry. I am sure.’

  ‘You can get any girl you want. You don’t have to be saddled with her just because we owe her father a debt of gratitude.’

  ‘I like her. I like her very much, Oppol,’ I said. I wouldn’t dare use a word like love with Oppol. She wouldn’t like it, I knew instinctively.

  On our wedding night, Radha waited for me in our nuptial chamber with a face that seemed hewn out of stone.

  ‘Why do you look so serious?’ I tried to joke.

  ‘I am not a virgin,’ she said. ‘I want you to know that I have had sex.’

  I tried not to flinch and instead, peeled a banana. The bedside table was laden with the mandatory first-night accessories. My aunt saw too many movies, I thought. A plate of fruit, incense sticks, a glass of milk, and the bed draped with flowers.

  ‘All this is a farce,’ she said, sweeping a string of flowers away.

  I offered the fruit to her. ‘Have a banana,’ I said.

  She stared at me. ‘Do you think t
his is a joke?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I said. I had thought very carefully about this. I knew Radha well enough to deduce that she would want to confess to me, bare her soul before we went any further. I knew that to affect nonchalance was the only way to play down the significance of her confession. ‘It doesn’t matter. I have had sex, too. I have slept with other women, too.’

  ‘Did my father offer you money to marry me?’

  I looked at her carefully. ‘You are insulting me,’ I said quietly. I wouldn’t allow her to provoke a quarrel. Not tonight. ‘I don’t need to be paid to marry you. Don’t you know how beautiful you are?’

  She wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  ‘But why did you marry me? You don’t seem very pleased with this marriage,’ I said.

  She stared at the floor. ‘I didn’t know what else to do,’ she said, and wept.

  I did not know what to say. Perhaps I should have told her that I loved her. That I had always been in love with her. That it didn’t matter what she had done before, what counted was what we made of our life together.

  I did the husbandly thing. I made love to her and she let me do so without protest. When she responded to my touch and I knew that she was trying to block a memory, I closed my mind to it. That was then. This is now. You are mine, I thought as my hips locked with hers and my mouth sought hers.

  I lie in bed, on my back. It is a quarter to eleven. Where is Radha? I look across at her bedside table, where a book lies face down. It has the picture of a woman sitting inside a train compartment. I turn it over and read the blurb on the back: ‘The story of a woman’s search for strength and independence …’ I fling the book down. Is that what it’s all about, the midnight wanderings and the hours closeted with the Sahiv?

  I insert a CD in the player. A.R. Rehman’s Jana gana mana …Radha dislikes most of the music that I listen to. She thinks my tastes are plebeian. She thinks it is disgraceful that I enjoy Baywatch and WWF. ‘How can you even bear to watch?’ she says incredulously. ‘It is so unreal. Do you think lifeguards look like that? As for those wrestling matches, everything about them is make-believe! ’