Mistress: A Novel

by Anita Nair

  He heard the doctor come up the steps towards him, but he continued to stare at the river.

  ‘It goes to the sea,’ the doctor said. ‘Not the one you know, another one.’

  The boy turned.

  ‘Koman would like to know, what is the sea called?’

  ‘The Arabian Sea,’ the doctor said. ‘But didn’t they teach you that in school?’

  ‘Koman would like to know, what is the river called?’

  The doctor shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know. You must ask your father that. Yes, he’s here. And apparently, he’s a big shot in this small town!’

  The boy looked at the doctor’s face. Was that sarcasm he heard? The doctor was seldom sarcastic and rarely mocked anyone or anything. But every time the doctor referred to his father, his mouth narrowed into grimness and it seemed even his eyes frowned. The boy touched the cloth he had wound around his head. It felt strange and it drew people’s eyes, but at least they didn’t laugh.

  What would his father think of him when he saw him? What would he say?

  ‘You do realize, don’t you, that your father may not be so pleased to see you? He may even be rude. But you must understand that all of this, you and I at his doorstep, will come as a shock to him. And human beings react differently to sudden shocks.’

  The boy nodded, the turban giving his nod a greater emphasis. He touched it again.

  ‘We have to go now,’ the doctor said.

  The boy said nothing. There was nothing to say anyway.

  So he followed the doctor over the wooden bridge that connected the platforms, down the steps, and into the small town called Shoranur where his father was a big man.

  ‘Please wait here,’ the man said. ‘He’s eating his breakfast. I cannot disturb him now. Modalali meets his visitors here, in his office room.’

  For a fleeting moment the doctor’s eyes met the boy’s. They both knew what the other was thinking. He. The man spoke the word as if it was weighed with the authority of royalty. He might as well have said His Highness. Modalali. Owner. What did he own, they wondered.

  The doctor looked around the room and bit his lip. He didn’t know if he should be annoyed or pleased. The room was an exact replica of his at the hospital in Nazareth, from the table to the paperweight to the position of the waste-paper basket. Even the clock was a twin of the one that ticked in his room. Does the boy see what I see, he wondered.

  The boy did. He saw that the room was like the one he had sat in two days ago, when the doctor explained the need to make this journey. He saw that the room exuded an authority like the doctor’s did. He thought, now I know why the doctor has that strange note in his voice when he refers to my father. They must be rivals. Was his father a doctor too, he wondered.

  Again he touched the turban on his head, feeling it slip.

  ‘I should have got you a cap,’ the doctor said.

  The doctor tried to suppress the pleasure that came to him unbidden when he thought of how he would present to Seth, who he now knew to be Sethu, his twelve-year-old son wearing a cloth turban to cover his ridiculous crown of hair. That will put him in his place, if nothing else will, he thought.

  The boy wondered how so many emotions could flicker on a face in the span of a moment. He saw the play of feelings first on the doctor’s face as they waited. Then he saw it on the face of the man who walked through the doorway that led from within the house to the room. Amazement, affection, sorrow, anger, fear and then another … What was that? He narrowed his eyes and suddenly knew. Arrogance.

  ‘Well, well, well, what do I owe this surprise to?’ the man asked in a voice that was wiped clean of all emotion.

  The doctor stood up. This couldn’t be Seth, he thought. Who was this man with a fleshy face and a doormat of a moustache? He was wearing a gold watch and a silk jubbah and a gold chain that sat heavily in his chest hair. My Seth was a fresh-faced boy and this one is a—he groped for the word: Modalali. No less. Owner. Rich man. Arrogant beast.

  Then the man dropped his eyes, and the doctor knew that this was Seth. Someone who still couldn’t hold a gaze despite the obvious change in him and his circumstances.

  ‘I suppose there is no need for me to ask how you are? I can see that you have done well for yourself.’ The doctor was brusque. It wouldn’t do to let Seth think he was overwhelmed by his obvious prosperity.

  Sethu smiled. ‘You haven’t changed at all!’ he said.

  The doctor stared. Was that an insult?

  ‘I can see you have, Seth,’ he said. And he meant it in the most derogatory way possible. Then he added, ‘But it’s Sethu, isn’t it?’

  Sethu looked away.

  ‘Oh, you may do this easily. Take new names and new lives as you go along. But what am I to do with him? He’s your responsibility and he doesn’t even have a name he can call his own.’

  Sethu felt a line of sweat on his brow. Could it be him? He studied the boy, seeking in his face and limbs, the curve of his lips, the slant of the nose, a mole, a dimple, something in the terrain that would tell him the boy was his.

  ‘You needn’t worry that I would pass off someone else’s child as yours,’ the doctor said, trying not to let his irritation show. ‘I am leaving Nazareth. We are going abroad. All these years your son was my ward …’

  ‘I paid for his keep. Every month I sent a money order,’ Sethu interrupted the doctor.

  ‘I know.’ The doctor looked up. ‘But he needs more than that. He needs a family. I can’t take him with me. And once I leave, who is there?’

  ‘Faith is there, isn’t she?

  ‘No, Faith isn’t there. For the last three years, her mother has had him. Faith married and went away. It’s not just you whose life changes, you know. Faith’s mother is in her seventies. If she dies, the boy will be alone. I can’t let that happen.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Sethu said.

  ‘I know.’ The doctor was gentle. ‘He is your son. You must keep him with you.’

  ‘But what do I tell my wife?’

  ‘The truth, or at least your version of the truth,’ the doctor said, rising to go. That can’t be too difficult for you, his eyes said.

  ‘Look at him,’ the doctor said, tilting the boy’s chin. ‘Can’t you see your Saadiya in him?’

  Sethu nodded silently. He put his arm around the child. The boy stiffened.

  ‘This is your home,’ Sethu said, suddenly tired of fleeing his past. Devayani would have to accept his past and his son.

  ‘The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength,’ the doctor quoted.

  Sethu stared at him blankly.

  ‘You know it,’ the doctor prompted. ‘It has my name.’

  Sethu waved his hand as if to ward off the words.

  ‘Let it be. I don’t think of those times any more. I have forgotten all of it. Or perhaps most of it,’ he said, looking away.

  When the doctor left, Sethu looked at the boy.

  ‘What is this for?’ he asked, tugging at the cloth around the boy’s head.

  The cloth came away in his hand and he saw that the boy’s head was shorn clean except for a band of hair that ran around his skull like a circlet. A crown of curly hair that wreathed his head. A circlet of thorns offering penance. Sethu felt an iron fist clamp his chest.

  ‘Omar Masood?’ Sethu rolled the name around in his mouth as if it were a tamarind seed. ‘Omar Masood. What does it mean?’

  ‘It is a name. Just a lovely name. He has to have a name. For four days we have called him baby. But he can’t be baby for life,’ Saadiya said, fitting her nipple into the baby’s mouth.

  ‘Yes, but why Omar Masood?’ Sethu said, feeling that familiar tug of pleasure when he saw Saadiya suckle their son.

  ‘Omar is Arabic for first son, disciple, gifted speaker. Famous. And Masood means happy, lucky.’ Saadiya looked down at the baby. ‘I want him to have everything. Fame. Wealth. Happiness. Luck!’

&nbs
p; Sethu smiled and reached to fondle the baby’s cheek. ‘So ambitious a name for so little a creature!’

  ‘The names closest to Allah are Abdullah and Abdur Rehman. The truest are Harith and Hamman. Do you prefer one of these?’ Saadiya asked, consulting a little book.

  Sethu felt his face flush. He had allowed Saadiya to have her way this far. He had kept his word. A promise that Saadiya had clung to, to bring to heel her fleeing spirit as she fought to keep alive their son.

  ‘You must come in as soon as you hear the first cry,’ Saadiya had whispered through her pain. Sethu had looked at the doctor and he had nodded.

  And so, when the first cry pierced his thoughts, puncturing dread and letting fear drain, Sethu rushed in. The room smelt of warm blood, of wet loam, of dark mysterious things and the sweetness of birth. Saadiya lay exhausted and wan. The baby was in the midwife’s hands.

  ‘Take him,’ Saadiya said. ‘Now in his left ear, whisper Allahu Akbar. It is the call to prayer.’

  Sethu picked up the baby and into its left ear murmured, ‘Allah is great!’ Then, unable to help himself, he whispered a prayer from his childhood, invoking the mightiest of the trinity, with the third eye and the power to destroy. ‘Om nama Shivaya.’

  He bent to put the baby down but Saadiya said, ‘No, not yet. Now in his right ear, you must whisper this prayer. Repeat after me.

  Ash hadu an la laha llal lah

  Ash hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulah lah

  Ash hadu anna Aluyyan Waliyah lah

  Hayya alas Salah

  Hayya alal faleh

  Hayya ala Khayril Anal

  Alahu Akbar

  La llala llal lah.’

  Sethu felt something in him turn. But he repeated obediently:

  ‘I justify that there is no god but Allah

  I testify that Muhammad is Allah’s messenger

  I testify that Ali is protected by Allah

  Hasten to prayer

  Hasten to deliverance

  Hasten to the best act

  Allah is great

  There is no God but Allah.’

  Then again as he had, he murmured, ‘Om nama Shivaya’ and for good measure he added, ‘Narayanaya nama, Achuthaya nama, Govindaya nama …’

  He couldn’t remember any more, but it was enough, he thought. Suddenly he knew a great sadness. The child was just a few minutes old, and already he had to balance the two gods that resided in him.

  ‘You must leave now,’ the midwife said. ‘There is some work to be done here.’

  He gave the baby to the midwife and over her head, his eyes met the doctor’s. He thought he saw in them the words he dreaded: I knew this would happen. This difference!

  Three days later, on their way home from the hospital, Saadiya and Sethu summoned the barber.

  ‘This is so that all misfortunes may be removed,’ Saadiya said. Sethu didn’t protest, even though he flinched when he saw the barber’s blade.

  ‘He’ll have a good head of hair.’ He smiled.

  ‘The Aquiqah is an important ritual in a Muslim’s life. Now you must weigh this hair and give the same amount as alms,’ she said, taking the baby back from the woman Sethu had found to help Saadiya with the baby.

  Saadiya smiled. Her voice rose and fell as dainty bells. Her happiness lit the house. Sethu knew relief. His Saadiya was back. All would be well again.

  It didn’t matter what their son was called, he thought. Harith was nice; it seemed like Hari. However, she seemed set on Omar Masood.

  ‘I like Omar Masood,’ Sethu said.

  Saadiya smiled again, pleased that her choice of name had been approved.

  Saadiya put the baby over her shoulder and patted it so it burped. Her palm cradled its shaven skull.

  ‘Now there is just one more ritual.’

  ‘What is that?’ Sethu asked absently. ‘You know that I will be gone for two days. I have to leave early in the morning tomorrow.’

  ‘It can wait till you are back. The Prophet advised that it be done on the seventh day, but I am told that we can stretch it to the fortieth day.’ Saadiya held the baby in her arms and rocked it gently.

  ‘Here, give him to me,’ Sethu said. ‘It’ll be two days before I see him again, Omar Masood, son of Saadiya and Sethu.’

  Sethu held his son in his arms and knew content, something that had eluded him for more than a year now.

  ‘So what else do you have in store for this little rascal?’

  ‘The khitan,’ Saadiya said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Saadiya wouldn’t meet his gaze. She looked away as she said, ‘The skin on the end of his, you know, his thing, has to be removed.’

  Sethu stared at her, puzzled. Suddenly he knew what she was saying. He felt a tingling within his penis, a cringing of his testicles. Circumcision. That was her khitan.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ he said quietly.

  Saadiya frowned. ‘You don’t understand …’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Sethu snapped, tightening his hold around the baby. ‘I don’t understand how you, his mother, can talk of maiming him. What kind of mother are you?’

  Saadiya stood up. Her eyes begged him to understand.

  ‘Please, listen to me. There are five acts of cleanliness in Islam. Shaving the pubic hair, plucking the hair under the armpits, shaving the moustache, clipping your nails and circumcision. Only then is fitra achieved. Fitra is an inner sense of cleanliness, which will make him a good Muslim. Without the khitan his acceptance into Islam won’t happen. You promised me that I could bring him up as a true Muslim. You promised. Don’t forget that!’

  Sethu moved away. He walked to the window and stood there. The tide was beginning to rise.

  ‘Have I broken my word? I did all that you asked. I didn’t understand any of it, but I didn’t speak a word in protest. And even now, Saadiya, I am not saying he shouldn’t practise his acts of cleanliness. Shave his head, clip his nails, do all that you have to do. But don’t you see, when you talk of a moustache and pubic hair and hair in the armpits, you’re referring to a man. Or a boy almost a man. Someone who knows his mind. But this, circumcision, I can’t allow it. You must wait till he’s old enough to decide for himself.’

  Sethu paused. ‘When I was growing up, I heard of the sunnath, but it was always performed on pre-adolescents. You must wait at least until then.’

  Saadiya was silent. Then she said, ‘I am a descendant of the original Kahirs. In me is the purest of Arab blood. Islam, as we practise it, is a religion that demands sacrifice. In your village, the Muslims are converts. No matter what, they will never know what it is to be a true Muslim. Everything is compromised to make it acceptable. My son is not a convert. He has my blood.’

  ‘Will you stop this?’ Sethu heard his voice rise as if it were someone else’s. ‘You keep saying, my, my, my …He’s my son as well. My blood is in him. What’s wrong with you, Saadiya? You sound like a fanatic; you sound like one of those idiots in Arabipatnam. You chose to give it up, so why are you inflicting it all on this little child?’

  ‘I made a mistake. I can’t allow my son to make the same.’

  Sethu felt his rage evaporate. A cold sheath settled over his face, his heart, his thoughts. She looked cold and aloof. Like she had in the labour room. Only this time, he felt the same.

  ‘If you think you made a mistake, then I will not insist you continue doing so. You may leave. You can go back to your family and your religion, but you can’t take this child. You will not want a reminder of your mistake.’ Sethu spoke quietly. He felt his insides hurt as if someone had struck him in the ribs.

  He laid the baby in its colourful cloth cradle fashioned from an old sari and went to the other room. At the door, he turned and said, ‘May God go with you. Your God, not mine, because in your narrow mind there is no room for any God but yours.’

  I, Saadiya, sit on the floor. His words beat a tattoo in my head. He says, go. But where do I go? I have no place. No home …no one.


  I take the baby out of its cradle.

  ‘Omar Masood,’ I say. ‘Your Umma has to go. Your Vaapa wants her to.’

  If he would take me in his arms, all would be right again. If only he would. But that isn’t true. Nothing can change the fact that I have brought to life an infidel.

  Omar Masood begins to whimper. I lay him on my shoulder. For the past five days, since I came back from the hospital, I have been in this room, resting from the rigours of birth. My legs feel unsteady. I feel cold.

  The sea breeze lifts my hair. I feel a great longing to wash my feet in the waters of the sea. To lie in its embrace and never know a moment’s confusion again. To not feel so torn between my ancestry and my Ife as it is now. To just rest.

  Sethu didn’t know what to do. Saadiya had vanished. Could she really have returned to Arabipatnam? They wouldn’t take her in. He knew that as she did. But where else could she have gone?

  The body washed up three days later. A bloated Saadiya whose funeral was devoid of all religious rites. Sethu held the baby in his arms as he lit the pyre. ‘Please, God,’ he prayed, unable to keep the tremor even out of the voice in his head. ‘Please, God, accept her in heaven. Her version of heaven, whatever it may be. This is all I ask.’

  Later, when James Raj came to see him, he broke down and wept. ‘Why would she do this? That night, we quarrelled. I said some very harsh things to her, but I didn’t ever think it would lead to this. If I had known, I would have agreed to anything she wanted. I wish I had known. If only …’

  James Raj patted his arm and said what he said to grieving relatives all the time, ‘Who knows? It is God’s wish that she go away from us.’

  Sethu wiped his tears.

  ‘You must get away from here. Go somewhere your mind won’t dwell on the unpleasantness of your memories,’ James Raj added.