Mistress: A Novel

by Anita Nair

  I was so relieved to know you hadn’t forsaken me that I forgot to be frightened.

  You drew me towards you and I let my head rest against your chest. I heard your heart beat. Or was it mine?

  ‘I had to hold you in my arms,’ you said.

  I snuggled closer, my fists against your skin.

  You unclenched them and raised my chin to look into my eyes. ‘And now …’ you said.

  ‘And now …’ I prompted.

  ‘And now I can’t rest till you are mine for life.’

  Then the moon emerged from behind a cloud and you moved towards the shadows that would cloak you. Again you were two beings. The man. The voice.

  I reached for you. To hold you once again so that at least for a moment you would merge, the man and the voice I knew so well.

  You took my hand and gathered me in your arms again. You laid your lips against mine.

  Then you were gone, leaving the memory of a faint pressure on my lips. I heard a soft thud as you dropped from the high wall to the ground.

  I knew relief. You were safe.

  I wondered, what next? But you would know what was next, I thought. You would lead the way and I would follow.

  Sethu stared at the ceiling. These days he was given to staring at the ceiling and other vacant places as if to project into their emptiness the colours of his desire.

  Where does this come from, he asked himself in bemusement. The weight of this feeling for Saadiya. The need to breathe the scent of her skin, twine her hair through his fingers, cup her chin and drink in the innocence of her. Words that he didn’t know existed tripped effortlessly from his tongue. My love, the little bird of my heart, my pigeon, the singing in my veins, pretty phrases that he had jeered at when he heard them in the talkies. Now when he spoke them, they seemed to echo his feelings.

  She said she was the mirror of his soul. You are my soul, he cried.

  Then came the grim sense of foreboding. How could this love be? He had nothing, not even his real name. How could he have allowed this to happen?

  Sethu told himself, no one need know. He would be Seth, the doctor’s assistant. He would have Saadiya even if it killed him. That was the measure of his love for her. For Saadiya he was willing to die.

  I am almost twenty-five. I am not a silly boy; I am a man. This is a mature love, he would tell anyone who protested. Most of all, he told the voice in his head. Then be careful, the voice said. Be cautious. Tread carefully. Your love is no good if you are dead. Besides, it is time you told her about yourself. You can’t build a love on sand, the voice added, and he knew a dread that turned to fear. When she knows who you are, only then must you think of the days after, it said.

  That night you were quiet. Silent as if all the words that waited on your tongue were paralysed by a strange fright. I could feel the weight of that silence.

  Inside my bodice, nestling in the shallow hollow between my breasts, was the sprig of jasmine buds you had so artfully placed on your table. The jasmine grazed my skin. I felt you with every breath I took.

  Your voice when it emerged was even quieter than your silence. ‘Do you know who I am?’ you asked.

  I said nothing.

  ‘I am not who you think I am,’ you said.

  ‘Does it matter?’ I asked.

  ‘It does,’ you said. ‘I grew up in Kerala. Do you know where that is? On the other coast. When I was fourteen, I ran away from home. I found my way to Colomb,’ you said and paused. Then you gathered your breath and said, ‘Colombo.’

  I stared at you and said, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It doesn’t end with that,’ you said, impervious to my question. ‘Later, when I began to work, I moved away. I was based in the Pamban quarantine camp. There I had a quarrel with a man. I stabbed him. If he’s dead, I am a murderer.’

  I felt more love for you than I had ever known before. How hard it must be for you to tell me this. I didn’t care. I knew you. I had laid my cheek against your chest and heard your heart beat. I had known your lips on mine and tasted love. All I could think of was how bereft I would be if I was parted from you.

  I touched your arm. You stood in the shadows. I could barely see you. But I knew you were just inches away from me.

  Then you turned towards me and said, ‘Listen. I have one more secret. My name isn’t Seth. It is Sethu. Do you know what that means?’

  I didn’t speak. I did not understand.

  ‘Saadiya.’ Your voice was urgent. ‘I am a Hindu. What is the word you use, a kafir …0ur love will never be accepted.’

  I knew then that you were asking me to choose. The weight of my ancestry, or the miracle of our love.

  ‘Then we must find a place where our love will be allowed to live,’ I said.

  If the Venerable Haji Najib Masood Ahmed had a will wrought of iron, Saadiya Mehrunnissa’s was cast in steel. Immune to heat and pain, resistant to corrosion and pleading.

  When Razia’s baby was born and the festivities to celebrate his arrival were over, Vaapa set about organizing Saadiya’s nikaah.

  The days away from home had turned her into a woman, he thought. She was a child no more. Her eyes and the unhurried movements of her body bore the languor of a woman, of a creature who hugged close to her a secret, he thought one morning as he watched her come down the staircase. To have left her unmarried so long was a mistake.

  Then one night Saadiya went to him as he sat in the front room of the house. What he saw on her face unnerved him. It was a resolve that befitted a mutineer.

  ‘Vaapa, I do not wish for this nikaah,’ she said, not bothering to even lead up to the subject.

  The Haji looked at his Bulbul-tara. It was as if, instead of its soft notes, it had boomed a drumbeat. He pretended not to hear Zuleika’s gasp.

  ‘Vaapa, I do not wish to marry Akbar Shah’s second son.’

  Ummama burst into the room and pulled Saadiya’s arm. ‘Come away, girl. What’s wrong with you?’

  But Saadiya shook her arm free. ‘Vaapa, you can pretend that you don’t hear me. But I will tell the Qazi that I am not willing to marry the man you have chosen for me.’

  The Haji raised his eyes from his Bulbul-tara. He put it down gently. ‘What is wrong with Salim?’ he asked in a mild voice.

  ‘I don’t know Salim. I don’t want to know anything about him. You see, my heart will not accept him,’ Saadiya cried. Her face flushed and beads of sweat raised themselves on her forehead.

  ‘Your heart! Your heart will accept who I ask it to. Do you hear me? I have no time for your silliness,’ Vaapa said without raising his voice. He waved his hand as if to dismiss her and rose from his pile of cushions.

  ‘I will not, Vaapa,’ Saadiya said. Her voice was as soft as his. ‘You cannot make me.’

  Ummama pleaded. Nadira cajoled. Razia wept. Suleiman threatened. And Vaapa: he administered beatings and threats, gave orders to starve her and then sat with his face to the wall and wept. They tried all that they thought they ought to, so that she could see sense and the error of her ways. But Saadiya was inviolable.

  Nadira crept to her father’s side and said, ‘There is no use, Vaapa. She only grows more determined by the day. There is hardly any life left in her, but she refuses to change her mind.’

  Vaapa turned to his eldest daughter. ‘What are we to do then?’

  ‘Let me find out what is on her mind,’ Nadira said, wiping her father’s tears.

  All day, the next day, Nadira avoided her father’s gaze. The Haji waited for Nadira to come to him. But she stayed away and so the Haji sought her out, unable to contain his dread any more.

  ‘What can I say, Vaapa?’ Nadira cried.

  The Haji tried to read the face of this daughter who so resembled his wife. ‘She said something? What did she say?’

  ‘She talks of her Malik. A man she has lost her heart to. He has her soul, she says.’

  ‘Has she gone mad? What man? Who is this Malik?’

  ‘Seth. The do
ctor’s assistant,’ Nadira said, her voice cracking.

  ‘But how can it be?’ The Haji frowned. ‘How can it be?’ His voice rose.

  ‘I don’t know, Vaapa, I don’t know,’ Nadira cried, afraid that she would be held responsible.

  ‘Is he one of us?’ The Haji spoke aloud to himself. ‘But even if he is, how can it be? How will I face our kinsmen? How will I live with their scorn?’

  ‘Vaapa, he is not one of us,’ Nadira murmured. ‘He is a Christian, I think.’

  Then the Haji fell to his knees and wept. Great sobs that tore through his soul and shook the thin walls of the house. When it seemed that he could cry no more, he went back to his house and locked himself in a room.

  They huddled outside and pleaded with him to come out. Nadira and Razia. Suleiman, Ummama and Zuleika. Only Saadiya stayed in her room, unmoved by Vaapa’s distress.

  Vaapa stayed in there for many hours and as abruptly as he had shut himself in, he emerged. He looked at the faces of his family as they stood there: eyes and cheeks ravaged by tears, voices despairing, hands wringing, clothes dishevelled and hair unkempt. Then he searched again to see if she was there.

  ‘Bring me hot water for a bath,’ he said. ‘I am hungry. I wish to eat after my bath.’

  They looked at each other, shocked by the ordinariness of his words.

  ‘Vaapa,’ Suleiman began.

  The Haji held up his hand. ‘There is nothing more to discuss.’

  When it was twilight, the Haji went to the mosque. When the prayers were over, he said to the men gathered there, ‘I have something important to tell you.’

  They looked at each other. They had already heard a rumour. But since it was about the Haji’s daughter, they had dismissed the rumour as baseless gossip.

  ‘My brothers,’ he said, trying not to show how much it hurt him to stand before them with the shadow of humiliation. ‘For as long as I can remember, I have professed the importance of our ancestry. For as long as I can remember, I have sought to keep intact the purity of our bloodline. Our ancestors came only second to our faith, but it was a close second. So when you chose to make me your leader, I knew I was vested with a great responsibility. For as long as I was your leader, I would have to be the custodian of all the values our ancestors deemed fit to uphold. I would be the one to ensure none was violated, and if it did happen, that the violator was suitably punished. But now, within my own home, in my own bosom, I have without knowing nurtured an evil. A creature who seeks to transgress the tenets of our law, destroy all that we hold precious.

  ‘It is fitting, therefore, that I step down from the honour of being the head of the clan.’

  The men looked at the floor and then at each other. Suleiman clasped his hands to stop them from covering his face.

  ‘All my life, I have lived true to our faith and ancestry. All my life I have never asked Allah for anything but to be given the strength to be an honourable man. My honour lies in shreds, but allow me this last vestige of self-respect. Allow me to apologize to you and know that in your heart you will find the generosity to forgive my family for the dishonour she has brought us.’

  The murmurs grew louder. ‘Speak clearly, Haji,’ someone said.

  The Haji gazed at his feet and said, ‘My daughter Saadiya says she will not marry Salim, Akbar Shah’s son.’

  ‘Is that all?’ someone else laughed. ‘Find her another groom.’

  ‘No, that isn’t all,’ the Haji said, his face paling in anger, his nostrils flaring. ‘Do you think I am a silly girl to stand here before you, enacting a scene? My daughter wants to break every single law of our community. She wants to be a kafir’s wife.’

  ‘Who?’ The voices rose in unison.

  The Haji had pondered on what he would say if they asked him to name the man. The doctor was not to be faulted. If he were to name her lover, the doctor would never be allowed in again. And it would be the women and children who suffered. Saadiya, you do not know what your treachery is costing me, us …

  ‘Does it matter? the Haji asked. ‘She refuses to mention his name.’

  ‘Beat her,’ someone said.

  ‘Brand her and starve her; that will cure her,’ Mohammed, the Haji’s brother-in-law, cried.

  ‘Tell her that you will kill yourself,’ an old man said.

  ‘I tried. Believe me, I tried,’ the Haji said quietly. ‘But she remains adamant.’

  ‘Then let her remain a spinster.’

  ‘She says she will kill herself then.’ The Haji’s voice broke.

  ‘What is wrong with the girl? Perhaps there is a djinn in her. Perhaps she needs to be exorcized,’ said Mohammed.

  ‘What will you do?’ Akbar Shah asked.

  ‘I will disown her. Tomorrow morning she will be left outside the gates and thereafter, neither I nor anyone else in my family will have anything to do with her. We will wipe her from our lives and memories. As penance for dishonouring our ancestry, we will accept whatever punishment you see fit to give us.’

  The Haji waited while the elders held a council. It was Akbar Shah who spoke their decision. ‘Haji Najib Masood Ahmed, we have heard your decision. Now hear ours. What you do with your daughter is your affair. As the head of the household, you may choose to do as you think fit. Keep her at home, or sever ties with her. That is your choice as the head of your family. However, we see no need for you to step down from your position. You have maintained your position as head of the community with dignity. You have fulfilled your duties flawlessly. Your character is unimpeachable. Why then should we deprive ourselves of your sagacity and wisdom? We wish you to continue to be our headman.’

  The Haji rose from where he was seated. ‘How can I who can’t teach the greatness of our ancestry or faith to my daughter uphold it for the rest of the community?’

  Suleiman groaned. The council was doing what they had never done before, by allowing the Haji and his family to go unpunished and wanting him to continue as headman, and here was Vaapa arguing with them.

  ‘Please, Haji,’ one of the council elders said. ‘We trust you. Do we need to say more?’

  Haji Najib Masood Ahmed shook his head gravely. He understood. That was to be his punishment. Henceforth, he would have to accept the council’s decisions without questioning them. Turn a blind eye to transgressions, offer clemency where none was required. He would have to witness, unable to protest or voice his disagreement, the breaking of laws and the making of new ones. He would not be allowed to be guardian of their lineage. He would be a titular head and no more.

  Haji beckoned to Suleiman. ‘I want you to go home now. Tell Saadiya that she has all night to decide. At the crack of dawn, she will have to tell me what her decision is. Make sure you tell her what lies ahead if she chooses to go her way. Tell her clearly, so that she knows what she is forcing us to do.’

  ‘Vaapa,’ Suleiman asked, ‘what if …’

  The Haji looked at his son. ‘We won’t consider that now. If there is a what if, it doesn’t concern us any more. Go now. I will remain here till it is time. I will pray to Allah that He grant her wisdom and bestow mercy upon me so that it is never said that Haji Najib Masood Ahmed’s daughter destroyed the purity of our bloodline.’

  BOOK 2

  Kaananamithennalenthadhikam bheethithamalle,

  Kaanenam thelinjulla vazhikal,

  Noonamee vazhi chennal kaanam payoshniyaarum

  Enaakshi, dooreyalla chenaarnna kundinavum

  Though this is a forest, it is not that fearful

  we should be able to find clear (trodden) paths

  If we go this way, it is certain, deer-eyed one

  that the river that quenches hunger and thirst

  and famed Kundinam too, are not faraway

  —Nalacharitam [Second Day]

  Unnayi Warrier

  Raudram

  Ah, and so we come to raudram. The common fallacy is to think raudram is a synonym for anger. Nothing wrong with that, for raudram wears the countenan
ce of anger. Wrath, even. Look at this: you start with the eyes. Widen them so that they open fully, until your head tilt backwards, the nostrils flare, the mouth sets and your jaws clench. You must inhale as you usually do, but try and exhale through the eyes. Intensely. Powerfully. Then the cheeks will acquire a mobility of their own.

  Now do you see what I mean? This is the face you wear when you are angry, when you feel wrathful, and this is also the face you wear when fury rides your mind. So what is fury?

  There are degrees of fury. Let me explain.

  Previously I told you how the rain in karkitakam symbolizes sorrow. But there is another kind of rain. It begins with a gathering of grey clouds as the afternoon wears. There is a hush punctured only by the rasping croak of crows, the rumble of thunder, an old man heaving and snoring as he sleeps. The leaves resonate with silence. Then the rain falls. On leaves, on tree tops, on dried palm leaves. Rain through the undergrowth. Rain dripping down the eaves. The fat plop. The crystal drop.

  In the night, the darkness is a thick velvet drape, muffling stars and noises. Only the steady drip of the rain penetrates. For this is the rain riddled with fury. When thunder rules and clouds burst. When jagged flashes of lightning tear the sky, striking trees, ripping through the trunks browning leaves … The end of October brings the thulaavarsham. And this is the rain that doesn’t fall quietly, but rages and roars.

  There is another version of raudram. For this you must go to your kitchen garden and pluck a cheenamolagu, those tiny green and white chillies with waxen skins, seemingly so innocuous. You might need to persuade yourself to take a bite. Almost instantly your mouth will be on fire with a burning sensation so intense that your heart beats faster, your mouth salivates, the nose sniffles and your head and face break out in a torrential sweat. So you see, you don’t have to feel anger or wrath to know fury.