Disobedient Girl: A Novel

by Ru Freeman

  “We only buy tinned fish for special occasions!” Chooti Duwa counters. “Amma makes cutlets with tinned fish and potatoes. Even potatoes we don’t buy them much there. Amma says potatoes are not as good as dhal. That’s why.”

  They all laugh. “We do get some river fish,” the old man says, “but not much. Mostly it’s vegetables.”

  It is safe talk. The kind I am not accustomed to: conversations about food, the sources of sustenance, the prices of things. In our household, the sea-fish-flavored dinner was eaten fast and in silence, and any statement cast out on a brittle raft, expecting to be hit by lightning, sunk. This conversation is like the ones I remember from when I was a child, between two cordial, if not overtly affectionate, parents, and a single, beloved daughter, safe in a well-lit home, free from fear. And yet, the children talk as though this was the norm. How quickly they adapt, how deftly they leave behind the scars that I continue to carry.

  Tomorrow, when we wake up, I will do the same. I will leave everything behind, buried somewhere beside the road, and I will be like my children, rejuvenated, flawless, new.

  Latha

  Podian’s wounds had taken a long time to heal and left behind a smooth collection of scars. When she ran her palm over his back, they felt like fish bones. One of the lacerations had required a visit to the clinic at the top of the road. Latha had taken him. Afterward, she had paid for the small tube of orange gel that had to be bought from the fancy Crescent Pharmacy full of western medicine, a place she had never before set foot in, and when they came home, she had done the applications. And maybe it was only gratitude, but after that, Podian decided that he would be her servant too. Now, he made her the morning and evening cups of tea, and when he was sent to the store, he came back with a Delta toffee or sometimes, usually after he got paid his hundred rupees a month, 250 grams of chocolate biscuits, at seven rupees and fifty cents, that sometimes smelled of kerosene, wrapped up in a newspaper for her.

  “Akka, I bought some biscuits for you to eat with your tea,” he had said the first time.

  “Why did you waste your money on me? You must learn to save it for something useful for yourself,” she had said, cuffing him lightly on the side of his head.

  And he had remained silent, his eyes cast down, communicating two things: first, that she was worth his money, and, second, that his gift to her was a gift to himself.

  “Here, you have some too then,” she had said, and he had smiled as if it had been she who had bought a present for him, his uneven teeth covered in flecks of sweet brown crumbs.

  And maybe what Gehan noticed was not Podian’s reverence toward Latha, who was, after all, more than twice his age, but his gender. The fact of Podian, a boy, and his attention to Latha, a youthful woman, the way women remained when they had no husbands and children around to be assessed by, must have begun to creep into his consciousness and disturb his sleep, for he began to spend more time at home, and most of that time in Latha’s sight.

  And who could blame her if, in the quiet house, its moneyed mistress out on her own rendezvous, its children safe at school, Latha would begin to dream that all of it belonged to her? The house, and everything inside it, particularly its owner, whom she had, in fact, once almost owned, and then lost to the girl who had needed him then?

  She had been good, she told herself, as she dressed with increased attention to how the newly fashionable synthetic fabrics draped and hugged her curves. She had done right by Thara. She had been loyal, she had helped her cope with this lesser marriage, lesser future, she had found Ajith for her, and lied for them both. She had protected Thara’s children, caring for them as though they were her own daughters. In fact, the girls were her daughters, the things she knew about them, the way they came to her, even their resentments of her ministrations, these were the stuff of mother-daughter relationships. And she had played that role and still allowed Thara to wear the title: mother. And all she was doing was pretending, after all. No more.

  But she dressed just a little more sleekly when she went to drop the girls at school, Gehan in the front seat, Madhayanthi and Madhavi beside her, Madhavi still holding her hand through the whole drive, just as she had done as a baby.

  She held his gaze just a little longer when their eyes met in the rearview mirror, in which he always checked his hair before he got down at his Duplication Road office, wondering if he noticed the kohl rims of her eyes, which she made up just for this morning drive and wiped off as soon as she got home and before Thara could wake up and notice.

  She leaned just a little lower when she served him his tea.

  And more than once on the sudden afternoons when he was home, her hair would come loose from the bun she had tied and fall down the side of her face.

  And on one of those occasions, when both things happened at the same time, Gehan put aside the newspaper he was pretending to read, pushed away the cup of tea, and touched her.

  And she did not move.

  “Forgive me,” he said, after a long moment. “Latha.”

  And she knew that he could not be apologizing, that he was only saying what he thought he should so they could begin speaking to each other again, she knew, she knew, but she turned away from the truth and simply shrugged and said what he needed to hear. “It was a long time ago, and we were very young, sir.”

  “You don’t have to call me sir,” he said, and his voice was low and full of that long ago; full also of trust, which made her feel the past more forcefully than his words.

  She shrugged again, but she smiled just a little. She had never called him by his name even when they had been children, meeting for the first time or during any of their walks to school, or any of the clandestine arrangements where all they had done was walk, and once or twice hold hands. No, not in all the four and a half years of her innocence, when she had imagined a perfect future with herself and her boy, Gehan, at the center of it, had she ever uttered his name in his presence. She had referred to him by name only in the notes she had written to him in school. Somehow, those syllables had never made it to her tongue; they had stayed locked in her heart. Perhaps some greater wisdom had warned her that saying them aloud was not going to be her lot in life.

  She was still standing there, half tilted forward, his hand on her arm, when she heard the gate open: Podian was back with the evening’s bread. She straightened up at the same time that Gehan, clearly oblivious to Podian’s return, removed his hand from her arm and caressed the loops of hair that reached to her hips, so it felt as though he had wrenched it. She winced, and turned away, rewrapping her hair into its bun. Even the gesture felt madam-like. She let an enormous smile spread across her face, unwitnessed by either Gehan, who had picked up his newspaper again, or Podian, who had just come in and was removing his sandals by the door.

  And that smile, secret and wide, was like a gate through which an even larger, uncontainable, and incautious joy escaped, pushing down on her past like a rocket off a launching pad. That day, when Thara, relaxed in the way she was on those evenings when Gehan was making his weekly visit to his parents with the girls, asked Latha to make her a glass of lime juice, Latha volunteered to rub her feet.

  “Your hands feel so good, Latha,” Thara said, sighing with pleasure and leaning back against the plump pillows on her bed. “Even Ajith’s hands are not so strong. And Gehan? My god. His hands are like steamed bread! There’s nothing there. Not even like a man’s.” She started laughing. “I thank my lucky stars that after I got my tubes tied he’s not even interested in the other stuff. He’s much more likable from a distance.”

  Latha bent her head and kneaded Thara’s calves with greater intensity. It was true that Gehan’s hand had felt unsure and vaguely feminine. But she had always liked that about him. He had never been handsome or particularly brilliant the way Ajith had been, talking all the time, commenting on this and that, but his hands had seemed connected to his emotions, extensions of them, not mere tools to grab and grope with. Yes, of the three m
en she had experienced—Gehan, Daniel, and Ajith—even though she had not actually known Gehan the same way, physically, she had found the other two lacking. Ajith had been competent, Daniel had been awkward, but both had seemed furious and swift. It was not how she imagined things would be with Gehan. The leg beneath her palms jerked toward her face.

  “Why are you stroking my leg and not massaging? Stop daydreaming! What are you thinking about? Must be some man, the way you are doing that!” And Thara shrieked again with laughter, communicating the improbability of the thought.

  Latha laughed along. “Don’t be silly,” she said, looking Thara full in the face. “Why would I be interested in men at my age?”

  “Well, I’m still interested in men, and I’m the same age,” Thara said.

  “Not men, one man, only Ajith Sir,” Latha said, having learned that this was the way to distract Thara, by talking about Ajith.

  Thara sighed her contented agreement. “Yes, only him. If only my life had gone differently, we would have had sons, Latha. Imagine? You could be looking after my sons.”

  Sons? Why would anybody want sons? And why would…“Why would you have sons and not daughters?” Latha asked, horrified and curious at the same time.

  “Daughters are pests. Haven’t you noticed ours? One of these days they will start up with some boy or other and I’ll be putting out fires this way and that. Gives me a headache even to think of it. Thank goodness you’re there to keep them under control and at least watch where the hell they are going and what they are doing. I would have given up long ago if I had to do all this on my own.”

  “But still, how would you have sons?” Latha persisted, pushing aside her other observation: Thara did very little on her own, and in fact did nothing at all with her daughters.

  “Ajith says that Gehan is not manly enough. That’s why we had two daughters.”

  Latha snorted. “That’s stupid talk. We learned about all this in grade eight, don’t you remember? You don’t get boys or girls because of the virility of the father!”

  Latha frowned. “Ajith studied in America. He knows a lot more than the goday schoolteachers here. Anyway, what would you know about these things?”

  And Latha knew she had embarked on a new phase in her life, because something inside her body beamed at that remark. More than you, Thara, she wanted to say, fleetingly glad that even Ajith, whom Thara thought so highly of, would count her as his first experience of intimacy and furthermore, that she, Latha, had found him so disappointing sexually. So she shrugged and said magnanimously, “You’re right. What would I know?”

  There was a little silence after that as both women turned inward to the sound of the fan whirring overhead. Then Thara spoke again.

  “Not that you are unattractive, Latha. That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  “You are quite attractive,” Thara continued, sitting up a little and staring at Latha, and as her eyes moved over Latha’s body, her voice became slightly flavored with alarm. “Some might think even prettier than me. If only you weren’t just a servant woman, you might have been able to make a good catch.”

  “Aiyyo, I’m too old for all that now,” Latha said. “Let’s talk about something else. How are your parents these days? Is Mr. Vithanage still taking his walks every morning?”

  “No, no, I really mean it.” Thara stood up, all of a sudden alert and motivated. “Look, nobody’s home. I’ll dress you up like I used to do when we were small. You’ll see.”

  And no amount of protesting could dissuade Thara from her entertainment. She had decided to amuse herself this way and Latha might just as well have been a life-size, fully mature doll.

  “Which sari shall I put you in? Hmmm…,” Thara said, while Latha stood behind and watched Thara slide her fingers up and down over the twin stacks of saris in her almirah. Why she had so many Latha had never quite understood, given that she wore them only to weddings, official functions related to Gehan’s work, or the children’s annual concerts. The rest of the time Thara wore blue jeans and short corduroy skirts, usually both in sizes too small for her ample hips, and long kurta tops in, admittedly, heavenly colors from a shop whose bags announced it as a place called Barefoot, with price tags that indicated that one had to be quite well shod in order to afford anything from it. Latha, for one, could probably never acquire a single thing from such a store, not even if she saved her salary for a year.

  “Aney, Thara Madam, this is really not necessary,” Latha tried again, though this time, after seeing all those saris, she was hopeful that Thara would persist with her plan.

  “This one,” Thara said, drawing out a purple sari. It was rather plain. “No, don’t look disappointed, look at the palu!” and she swung the sari open onto the bed. And indeed, once the yards of cloth had flown up with their magical swishing sound, releasing the fragrance of luxury, and come fluttering down again to the bed, Latha saw that there was nothing to be disappointed about. The fall of the sari was embellished with hand-done lime green and gold paisley embroidery intricately twisting in and out of a black grid. The pattern continued on the top and bottom edges all along the six full yards of the sari in a three-inch square border, each square of it embroidered with a single dot, first in green, the next in gold. It was quite magnificent.

  “I’ve never seen you wear this,” said Latha, made slightly timid by the spectacle of the sari and its colors.

  “Yes, it’s one of those that Gehan bought for me when we got married, and I never quite liked it. It’s a little too garish for me, but with your color it should look nice. Let’s dress you.” She picked up the sari and flapped it about and then exclaimed, “Aiyyo! It has no blouse! I never got one made because I didn’t like it. Look, the blouse allowance is still attached.”

  Indeed, it was. Latha looked at the blouse piece, at once attached to and separated from the sari by a thin row of half-unpicked threads, and felt despondent. Nevermind, it had been a nice thought.

  “Wait,” Thara said, “we’ll cut it out and just tie it around you. I don’t care for it anyway.”

  And that was what she did. She made Latha stand still, stripped to her underwear and a borrowed underskirt, her feet wedged into Thara’s gold stiletto-heeled sari shoes, while she draped and pinned the rectangle of cloth around her chest, commenting all the while on Latha’s figure, the firmness of her unnursed breasts, the plunging, front-fastening purple bra she was wearing, exclaiming at the fact that even Latha, a mere servant, had taken to shaving her underarms. Latha endured all this without fuss. She had worn a sari only once before, and that had been at Thara’s wedding. It had been a simple nylon sari handed down to her by some unknown relative claimed by the Vithanages. Not a real sari like this one, rustling, silk, endowed with proud colors. Thara dressed her in a Gujarati style that, she told Latha, was the rage these days. The pleats fanned out between her legs when she walked, and the fall came tipping over her shoulder, cascading to the floor in front of her body with the palu revealed in all its glory.

  “Do you have a comb?” Thara asked and didn’t wait for an answer. “Podian!” she yelled and sent the boy scurrying to Latha’s room to fetch her comb. “What are you staring at? Grinning like an idiot? Go! Go and do something useful in the kitchen,” she said, shooing Podian away when she noticed him peering at them from behind the curtain even after she had dismissed him. First she tried to pull Latha’s hair up in a bun, and, when that didn’t work, not being accustomed to combing any hair but her own, she told Latha it looked better loose and let it go. Then she applied a maroon lipstick with her fingers, choosing one after rejecting a dozen others and flinging them half-open to the bed, where, Latha couldn’t help hoping, they wouldn’t stain the white sheets; it would be terrible to try to get such stains off, even in the washing machine.

  “Look in the mirror now, Latha,” she said.

  What Latha saw in the mirror was not Latha the servant but Latha the mistress of the house. She stood up straigh
t and moved her body this way and that, taking in the sight. She looked like the women she saw on TV, the ones in the Indian films that she now watched with Podian late on Friday nights, the ones who knew how to sing and dance and shimmy their shoulders and always got caught in the rain in plain sight of handsome men. Yes, she was beautiful. And Thara, standing a full four inches shorter beside her, barefoot and ordinary in sweatpants and a baggy shirt, her hair uncombed after her stop at the new gym she had joined, could not quite compare. But the way Thara was looking at her, her eyes shining with goodwill and humor, a slight pride in her achievement tightening the corners of her smile, made Latha want to weep. It was too late now for her to step back to the place she had once inhabited, uncomplaining if not exactly retiring, leaving Gehan safe with his unused loyalty to his wife by law. It was much too late for this sudden kindness from Thara, for this moment from the past now that the past had returned to her through the most improbable of people, Gehan, and for that Latha was truly sorry.

  “Let’s take this off now before sir gets home,” Latha said, tugging at the pleats tucked into her underskirt without much enthusiasm.

  “No! Stop! Let’s take pictures before we put it all away,” Thara said. “This is the most fun we have had together since we went shopping for curtains for this stupid old house of Gehan’s!”

  Do this, hold up your hair, sit here, lift your shoulders, lie down. It was almost as though Thara wanted to apologize to Latha for having mocked her earlier, or perhaps for never having allowed her to display her beauty, by finding the perfect pose, the one that she could hold up and say, “Look! Look here! You are beautiful.” And Latha complied. She did as she was told, and the pleasure she felt in this late-bloomed, borrowed-feather loveliness mixed so efficiently with the feelings she was trying to recapture for her lost friend who had drifted off to the scent of coriander and ginger that, unknown to her, the camera caught Latha in a particularly wistful radiance. And so taken was Thara with her activity, so enamored with this forbidden enjoyment of a servant, and their rekindling of a preadult girlhood, that she shot almost an entire roll of film and still would not let Latha undress. Which is how Gehan, having returned with two sleeping girls and come in before them to put away the usual food-based gifts from his parents before going out to waken and coax his daughters in, and having come upstairs to discover the origin of the unusual sounds of mirth that were floating from his own bedroom, managed to witness the cruel beauty of love shared between the two women in his world, the wrong one and the wrong one, and the relative value of each to the fulfillment of his life.