by Manju Kapur
*
Thus began the search for a maid. A succession of women filed through their flat, but they either came with large families, or they had insufficient references, or they stole, or they were lazy.
Hemant felt Astha was guilty of mismanagement, it could surely not be that no ayah was right? After all he managed a factory with four hundred workers.
‘Why can’t you train these servants properly?’ he demanded.
‘I do try‚’ she said, not liking to acknowledge how inadequate she felt with all of them. ‘I was all right with Bahadur, (their cook) and the two part-timers.’ (To wash clothes, clean the dishes, swab the floor, and dust the rooms.)
‘Then don’t hire one.’
‘I need someone to help me‚’ said Astha bitterly, wondering how much her husband really knew of her life.
‘Have all the help you want‚’ went on Hemant carelessly, ‘only learn how to manage it.’
The search continued till Bahadur, their cook, went home to Nepal on annual leave, and brought back a widow.
‘My sister‚’ he said, introducing her laconically. ‘See if you like her.’
Astha looked at the woman. She had a broad flat face, slitted eyes and a wooden expression.
‘Have you done domestic work before?’ asked Astha, beginning with the standard questions, while wondering whether this woman was Bahadur’s blood sister, cousin sister or village sister, and whether they were sleeping together.
‘Mala knows everything‚’ said Bahadur interrupting. ‘Try her.’ There was something about the woman’s straight gaze that appealed, and she was employed. Mala’s appeal grew when Astha discovered how quick and capable she was. She was fast, she was clean, she needed to be told nothing twice. When Astha and Hemant went out she made sure the children had their meals on time, and that they were in bed by nine. She even made sure Anuradha finished her homework, and this while being illiterate.
Mala had some bad qualities. She stole food and clothes, she answered back, she took her time coming from her quarter upstairs, she became deaf when it suited her, and on Bahadur’s days off she tended to develop illnesses from which she did not fully recover till he came back.
Unfortunately for Astha this usually happened on weekends, when Hemant was around.
‘I am going to fire that bloody woman‚’ ranted Hemant the last time Mala had fever.
‘She can’t help it‚’ defended Astha.
‘She is shamming.’
‘How can we prove that?’
‘She is like this because you encourage her.’
‘How do I encourage her?’
‘I saw her going out with Bahadur.’
‘He said he was taking her to the doctor. Do you want me to take her to the doctor instead?’
‘She thinks she can get away with anything.’
‘I’m sure shell be all right soon.’
‘Where’s Mala?’ whined Himanshu, who was listening.
‘See? You make the children too dependent on her.’
‘She helps look after them, it’s natural they should like her.’
‘You treat her as though she was one of the family. You have to know how to handle servants.’
‘I can’t behave in any other way.’
‘She’s shamming‚’ Himanshu piped up insistently, wanting to be heard.
‘She’s sick darling, don’t you get sick sometimes?’ said Astha.
It was in this two children, husband, servants, job scenario that Astha started to have headaches. Years after she would remember the first time it happened, thinking that as a herald of what was to come, it might have announced its arrival in her life a little more gently, allowing her time to get used to this pain in her forehead, this throbbing at her temples, this stretching of the skin around her eyes.
She had laid the table for dinner, and they had all sat down to eat when she discovered she had forgotten the water. She rose from her chair, and in that moment, between getting up and standing, in the moment that hung between a bent body and a straightened back, it appeared. Just above her nose, at the inner corner of her eyebrow. She pressed the spot, and the pain promptly shot off in neat lines across her eye socket. It will disappear as suddenly as it came, she thought, carefully pouring the water into everybody’s glasses.
The heaviness in her head increased as she ate. If she didn’t lie down soon, she might fall headlong into her plate, banging herself against the table, startling the family.
‘I’m going to lie down‚’ she managed.
‘Are you ill?’ asked the husband, looking at his wife’s wrinkled eyebrows and drawn face.
‘I’ll be all right. Just a little headache.’
How the children were put to bed, when Hemant came to the room, Astha did not know. Through the night the pain grew worse. Nausea came upon her, she could no longer stay lying. She got up and sat outside, maybe the cooler air would help. It didn’t.
As she bent to retch in the toilet, she hoped that now she would feel better. But though the queasy feeling gradually subsided, the throbbing was still there. Her limbs were shaking, she had to lie down again. Sometimes it seemed, if she lay on the hurting side, that felt better, sometimes she felt that no, the other side was better, and she kept gingerly turning her head trying to pin the point of meagre comfort.
Gradually towards morning, when the sky lightened, and the pain began to recede, she fell asleep.
The next day, the whole world seemed new. She was still in one piece, that terrible thing had gone. Her head felt delicate, it had gone through some bad times and needed to be treated gently.
‘Are you all right now?’ asked Hemant, looking concerned.
‘Yes, I’m better‚’ she replied.
‘What happened to you?’
‘I don’t know.’
She took leave from school and sat around the whole day, not using her eyes to read, not using her mind to think. She dusted and tidied, mindless labour that soothed and kept her busy. She hoped that what had happened to her the night before was a one time thing.
*
Soon it became clear that her headaches had arrived to stay. Stress made them worse, going out in the sun made them worse, sleeping too little, too late made them worse, eating the wrong kinds of food made them worse. Slowly her life changed to accommodate her headaches. She learned to dread each small twinge, was it going to be bad or medium? Maybe she was tired, should she lie down and rest? Or maybe it was anxiety, should she meditate, shut her eyes, ignore the throbbing, clear her mind of images, and focus on a spot of light between her eyebrows? The last was the most difficult, but her GP had said there was nothing physiologically wrong with her, it was all in her mind. He prescribed some painkillers, but they only gave momentary relief, making her dull and drowsy, with greater chances of having a headache the next day.
Her mother took her to a homeopath in her neighbourhood in Jangpura. ‘My daughter is not well, doctor, she suffers from tension. Little things upset her, and she gets a headache.’
The homeopath, a well-known one in that area, looked concerned. ‘Tension‚’ he stated, ‘the disease of modern life. The secret of health is a balanced mind.’
‘I try and be calm‚’ said Astha earnestly, ‘but still I have headaches, and the pain lasts quite long.’
‘Right side or left?’
‘Usually right.’
‘Front or back of the head?’
‘Eyebrows. One or the other, never both.’
‘Morning or evening?’
‘Any time. Occasionally I wake up with a headache, at other times it comes in the afternoon or evening.’
‘Which season?’
‘All.’
‘Hot or cold suits you?’
‘Cold.’
‘Sun or shade?’
‘Shade.’
Etc. etc. etc.
Astha left the homeopath clutching Sanguinaria and Belladonna, 30X. Four times a day, alternately. Come after two weeks
.
She dutifully took the Sanguinaria and Belladonna four times a day alternately. She kept a diary of her headaches. Once to twice a week. Hemant felt homeopathy was mumbo-jumbo, and took her to an ENT specialist. The specialist looked up Astha’s nose and informed her husband that with such a deviated septum, it was a wonder that Astha could breathe properly, in fact if you notice, her mouth is open.
Astha shut her mouth quickly.
And of course she is going to have headaches. Time will not improve her condition.
At the thought of everything going from bad to worse, all power of decision left Astha.
The family took a second opinion, and surgery was decided upon.
*
Astha was in hospital four days. Her nose was heavily bandaged and hugely swollen. She could hardly breathe. It was not a good beginning to a life of easy breathing, and a head that didn’t pain.
Hemant spent a part of every evening with her, while Papaji supervised in the factory.
‘Poor little baby‚’ he murmured as he stroked her hand, ‘does it hurt?’
Astha nodded, and tears rolled down either side of her bandaged nose. She tried to talk, but then her nose moved, it hurt more, and the tears came faster.
‘Baby, don’t talk‚’ said Hemant tenderly. Astha wished to capture his expression in her heart for ever. She looked more beseeching, more piteous, and Hemant pressed a soft kiss under the swollen lump, lingering long on the salty lips.
‘How are the children doing?’ croaked Astha.
‘Do not worry‚’ said Hemant, head of the household, the type of person his wife could depend on, poor little thing. ‘Mala is very reliable when you are not there. She knows she can’t try her funny business with me. Besides they love being with Mummy, she thinks they are not dressed well enough, and has bought both of them new sets of clothes.’
After he left, ‘How good Sa’ab is‚’ said the day nurse with a sigh. ‘Coming to see you every day. Not every husband is so nice.’
‘Yes, he is‚’ said Astha.
‘Love marriage?’ asked the night nurse.
‘No.’
‘Arranged is best‚’ said the night nurse with an even larger sigh, and then proceeded to tell the story of how her husband had first seduced and then married her sister. She could hardly bear to speak to him when he came home at night, that is why she had taken up this job, otherwise she came from a respectable family where the women didn’t work, but now what else could she do, it was very bad madam, her sister looked after all the children and ran the house.
*
After her operation, Astha came home, waited for her headaches to go and life to become pain free. But the headaches continued, and Hemant was naturally not as attentive as he had been in the hospital.
If that nurse could see her now, her envy would be greatly diluted, thought Astha as she fretted over absent husband, and often absent children as well.
Where were they? Upstairs. Five days had been enough to establish this pattern. When she called them down, this was seen as objecting to their being with the grandparents. She tried talking to Hemant about this.
‘It upsets the children’s routine if they are up for so long‚’ she protested. ‘And if they eat so much junk, their appetite is ruined for dinner.’
‘You fuss too much. Besides their Dada Dadi are lonely. They complain they do not see enough of the children.’
‘I send them up whenever I can, Hem, you know that.’
‘Yes, but you know how it is with old people, they think they have little time left, all rubbish of course, but if it cheers them to have the children, why not?’
‘What about me? As it is when I am in school Himanshu is upstairs. When I come home I want the children. I hardly have you, I should have them.’
Tears came to her eyes. More tears for Astha, poor thing. She was climbing a mountain, and when she reached the top her face sweating, her heart going at its fastest, all she could see was another mountain. As she gazed at the jagged edges, her head began to ache, and the blood that was pounding in her heart obliged by moving to her head and pounding there.
Hemant rolled his eyes, and drew out a handkerchief to dry her face. ‘What rubbish‚’ he repeated. ‘It is all your imagination. When don’t you have me? You are the one who keeps wanting to stay at home with the children, or your school work, or your books when we are invited to parties, or when I want to go to the club.’
‘How can you say that? I always come with you.’
‘And hate it, don’t deny it. Half these invitations I refuse because of you. I am the one who is lonely, and without company.’
By what sleight of hand had their problems become identical?
She continued with her sketching, but found herself scribbling poetry, her father’s encouragement more firmly in her mind now than when it was first given. She wrote about gardens and flowers, the silent dark faces of gardeners tending plants and never getting credit. She wrote about love, rejection, desire and longing. The language was oblique, but it was her own experience endlessly replayed.
Writing alleviated the heaviness within her, a heaviness she found hard to deal with. Discussing her feelings with Hemant usually led to argument, distance, and greater misery. In the struggle to express herself she found temporary relief.
After Astha had written about two hundred poems, she felt she needed to go somewhere with them. Publication would make her work seem less futile, but how to get there? She started revising them, typing them out on the small portable typewriter Hemant had brought back from the States.
After she did twenty she showed them to Hemant. As a man of the world, she trusted his sense of how to do things.
‘Poems?’ he remarked, looking pleased. ‘I didn’t know you were still writing.’
Astha smiled and said, yes, she was still writing.
The last he had seen her poems had been on their honeymoon, he reminisced, while Astha smiled some more. ‘That was about a lake‚’ he went on.
‘I don’t write about things like that now.’
‘You don’t?’
‘I’ve lost interest in Nature. I’m older, I think differently‚’ said Astha.
‘But you look as young‚’ responded Hemant automatically. He put his arm around her for a moment before turning his attention to her writing.
Astha waited nervously. It was the first time anyone was seeing her poems. Hemant frowned, shuffling through the twenty typewritten sheets. To his wife’s horror he started reading one out in a puzzled voice:
Changes
The eventual release from pain
In the tearing relentless separation
From those in habit loved
Can come so slowly
It seems there will never be a day
Of final peace and tranquillity
Who promised me, that if I
Did gaze upon reality
Accept it, embrace it, befriend it
I would never suffer again
But no matter how many times
I heave the doorways of my soul
To let the chill light in
The darkness grows silently
To hide me in the break of day.
Hemant stared at her. Astha cringed. ‘Actually, forget it‚’ she said. ‘They probably need more working over.’
‘But I am here to help you‚’ said Hemant genially. ‘I personally thought the one you wrote in Srinagar was very good. I said so at the time, didn’t I?’
Yes, you did, you did, you did. But now it’s all changed, and I want to bang my head against the wall because you never understand anything. ‘I thought you might help me in deciding what to do with them‚’ she said tense and calm.
Hemant continued riffling through the papers, sparing her the embarrassment of more loud reading.
‘You don’t like them?’
‘I don’t know what to make of them. Look, I am no reader, but they sound rather bleak, don’t you think?’r />
‘Do they?’
‘Good heavens, Az, they are all about cages and birds, and mice, and suffering in situations that are not even clear. There is not one happy poem here.’
‘Poems are about emotions‚’ defended Astha. Maybe now he would ask her why she felt sad and they could really talk.
‘What kind of emotions? This person sounds positively neurotic.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘If others read these poems, they might actually think you weren’t happy.’
‘No, no, they are not about me‚’ said Astha quickly.
‘I know that. But people are so quick to put two and two together and come up with five, quick to gossip, you know Az.’
‘Perhaps I should test that by sending them somewhere‚’ said Astha looking down, not wanting to see his face.
Hemant looked doubtful. ‘Well, I don’t know, it’s up to you.’ He held out the poems and she took them forlornly.
That night she thought long and hard of ‘Changes’. How self-indulgent it had sounded when Hemant had read it out. And this was one she had considered her best, evocative and moving. Maybe he was right, they were all too alike, she would be exposing herself to the world.
She gave up writing and continued rather sadly to draw, sketching with the soft pencils and coloured charcoal that Hemant got her from Japan. Nobody could put two and two together about painting, say it was negative rather than positive, say she should paint lakes in Kashmir instead of mice, birds and cages. Maybe one day she could do something with her art, but for now her school and herself were audience enough.
That summer Astha’s mother announced, ‘I am going to Rishikesh for a month.’
‘Why?’ asked Astha.
‘Swamiji is giving a course.’
‘So? You listen to him here, don’t you?’
‘His ashram is by the banks of a river. It will be a different experience.’