Behari said, ‘Where are you off to? Sit for a while and chat. Tell me about your home.’
Every now and then the warm afternoon breeze shivered through the leaves and branches, a koel twittered through the thick foliage of the berry tree beside the pond. Binodini spoke of her childhood, her parents, her playmates. As she spoke, the sari slipped off her head. The brightness of her sharply etched beauty was softened by the shadows of childhood memories. The mocking, knife-edge flash of her eyes, that had made Behari feel much concern heretofore, settled into a calm and serene look as she spoke, and Behari glimpsed a different person altogether. The tender heart that was at the centre of her flashing radiance was still full of gentle affection and the burning embers of unquenched desires and all her sharp banter had not yet succeeded in withering the woman in her. Never before had Behari been able to visualize Binodini tending to her husband as a shy, homely wife or holding her child in her arms like a loving mother—but today, all of a sudden, the performing stage that he always seemed to see her on, vanished before his eyes, and he could envisage her in a happy home. He said to himself, ‘Binodini may appear to be a teasing, coy temptress, but deep in her heart a chaste woman rests in silent prayer.’ He heaved a sigh as he thought, ‘One doesn’t know one’s own true self completely; that is only known to God. The self that emerges circumstantially is the one that the world takes for real.’ Behari didn’t let the conversation drift. He badgered Binodini with questions and kept her talking; she had never before found a listener like this and never had she so forgotten herself, spoken so much about herself to a strange man. Today, the endless torrent of words spoken so simply and from the heart made her entire self feel drenched, as though cleansed by the first rain shower, tranquil and at peace.
Mahendra woke up at five, still tired from having woken up early that morning. Quite irritated, he said, ‘Let’s start getting back now.’
Binodini said, ‘What’s the harm in staying a little while longer?’
Mahendra said, ‘Oh no, then we’d run into drunken white men on the way back.’
By the time they finished packing and were ready to leave it was nearly dark. At this point a servant came and informed them that the rented carriage was nowhere to be seen. It had been left waiting outside the gates. Two white men had bullied the coachman and taken it off to the station. The servant was despatched to go and fetch another carriage. Mahendra was thoroughly put out as he thought, ‘The day has been an utter waste.’ He could scarcely conceal his impatience.
Gradually, the full moon disentangled itself from the web of boughs and branches, and rose high in the sky. The silent, still grounds were etched with shadows. This evening, in this charming, magical world Binodini felt her own identity defined as never before. Today, when she went and put her arms around Asha in the forested grove, her affection was entirely genuine. Asha saw that Binodini’s cheeks were wet with tears. Concerned, she asked, ‘What’s this, Chokher Bali, why are you crying?’
Binodini said, ‘Oh it’s nothing, my dear; I am fine. It’s just that I had a wonderful day.’
Asha asked, ‘What was so great about it?’
Binodini replied, ‘I feel as if I have died and come to heaven, as if I can get everything here.’
A dumbstruck Asha could make neither head nor tail of this. But she didn’t like all this talk of dying and said, ‘Shame, my darling Bali, don’t talk that way.’
Another carriage was found. Behari took the seat in the coachbox once again. Binodini gazed out of the window in utter silence. The rows of trees, petrified in moonlight, rushed past like a dense shadow-fall in motion. Asha slept in one corner of the carriage. Mahendra sat in forlorn silence all the way back.
18
EVER SINCE THE DEBACLE OF THE PICNIC, MAHENDRA WAS EAGER TO re-establish his hold over Binodini. But the very next day Rajlakshmi contracted the flu. It wasn’t serious, but she was weak enough to be confined to bed. Binodini took it upon herself to look after her and was at Rajlakshmi’s side all day and night.
Mahendra said, ‘If you work yourself so hard, you will fall sick very soon. Let me hire a servant to look after Mother.’
Behari said, ‘Mahin da, don’t get so worked up. If Binod-bouthan wants to nurse her, let her do it. This is not something a servant can do.’
Mahendra began to frequent the sickroom. The diligent Binodini found it intolerable that a person who wasn’t doing anything, was always underfoot when there was work to be done. Irritated, she did mention a few times, ‘Mahinbabu, you are not doing anyone any good by sitting here—don’t absent yourself from your classes needlessly.’
Secretly, of course, Binodini was proud and thrilled that Mahendra was following her around. But at the same time she was impatient with this supplication, this ‘waiting with a starving heart’ even at his sick mother’s bedside—she found it somewhat revolting. When Binodini took on a responsibility, she lost sight of everything else. No one could ever find her inattentive as long as there were household chores to be done, a patient to be fed, washed and helped—she was also intolerant of frivolity at moments of greater need.
Behari came sometimes to ask after Rajlakshmi.These were short visits. The moment he entered the room, he’d sense what needed to be done, what was missing—within minutes he’d set things right and then take his leave. Binodini was well aware that Behari approved of the way she was taking care of the patient. And hence Behari’s visits were like a special reward for her efforts.
A feeling of indignity forced Mahendra to leave for college every day on time. His temper was already frayed and to add to that—what a change had come over his daily routine! Food was never ready on time, the driver would disappear, the ladders in his socks kept inching higher and higher. Such aberrations no longer charmed him. In the last few weeks he had grown accustomed to having his every need anticipated and looked after. Now, the absence of that attentiveness and Asha’s bungling incompetence failed to amuse him.
‘Chuni, how many times have I told you to keep my clothes pressed and ready before I go for my bath? It never happens that way. After my bath I have to spend two hours hunting for my clothes and sewing on buttons,’ he exploded one day.
This was like a crack of thunder for Asha. She had never received such a dressing down. She could not summon up a suitable reply such as, ‘It was you who stopped me from learning anything useful.’ She was entirely unaware of the fact that competence in housework was all about practice and experience. She believed, ‘I am unable to do a single thing properly because I am inept and stupid.’ When Mahendra forgot himself and slighted her with an unfair comparison to Binodini, Asha accepted it humbly and without resentment.
Asha often hovered around her mother-in-law’s room—sometimes she even stepped in tentatively. She would have liked very much to make herself indispensable to the household, she wanted to show everyone her willingness to work, but no one seemed to want it. She did not know how to take control of the household, how to run it in her own way. Her diffidence about her own incompetence kept her always outside the circle. A sense of deep misery festered in her heart, growing every day, but she was unable to articulate it, to give this formless agony a name. She perceived that she was not being able to do anything about the household falling apart all around her; but she didn’t know how it had all taken shape, why it was eroding away and what would bring it back to life. She wanted to bawl her heart out every now and then, crying, ‘I am really quite hopeless and incompetent; my stupidity is unparalleled.’
Earlier, Asha and Mahendra had often spent hours in a corner of the house, sometimes talking and sometimes not, but perfectly happy in each other’s company. These days, in Binodini’s absence, when Mahendra was alone with Asha he seemed lost for words. And he wasn’t comfortable not saying anything either.
One day Mahendra saw a bearer carrying a letter and asked, ‘Who is that letter for?’
‘It’s for Beharibabu.’
‘Who gave it?’
‘Let me see,’ Mahendra took the letter. He was tempted to tear it open and read what Binodini might have written to Behari. He turned the letter over and over in his hands a few times and then hurled it back at the bearer.
If he’d opened it, he’d have found this: ‘Aunty is refusing to eat gruel and barley water, may I give her a lentil soup today?’ Binodini never consulted Mahendra on any medical matters. On such issues she trusted Behari implicitly.
Mahendra paced the veranda for some time, then entered his room and noticed that a picture hung crookedly on the wall—the string holding it was threadbare. He scolded Asha roundly, ‘You never seem to notice anything; this is how everything gets spoiled.’ The bunch of flowers that Binodini had brought back from the farmhouse in Dumdum and placed in a vase, was still in the same place, withered and dry. Mahendra usually didn’t notice these things. But today his glance fell on it and he said, ‘These will never be thrown away unless Binodini comes and does it.’ He hurled the vase, flowers and all, out of the room and it bumped down the stairs with a metallic thud. ‘Why can’t Asha be what I want, why can’t she work the way I like, why is her innate lassitude and feebleness making me so restless instead of binding me to the path of domesticity?’ The words roared through Mahendra’s head as he turned and realized that Asha was standing by the bed, holding one of the four-poster pillars, ashen-faced and lips trembling—then she turned away and dashed out of the room.
Mahendra took measured steps and picked up the discarded vase. His desk stood in a corner of the room. He sat at the desk with his head in his arms as the minutes ticked away.
After dark someone brought in the lamps, but there was no sign of Asha. Mahendra paced the terrace with impatient steps. The clock struck nine and the lonely house grew silent as the depths of the night—but Asha still did not come. Mahendra sent for her. Asha came up diffidently and stood by the terrace doorway. Mahendra approached her and drew her in to his heart. In an instant Asha’s tears flooded her husband’s bosom; she couldn’t stop, her tears were ceaseless, her sobs threatened to tear away from her throat. Mahendra held her tight and kissed her hair—from the mute sky the stars looked down at them in mute silence.
Mahendra sat on the bed that night and said, ‘I have too many night shifts to work in college. So I guess I should stay at a place near my college for some time now.’
Asha thought, ‘Is he still angry? Is he moving away because he’s upset with me? Am I so useless that I am pushing my husband out of his home? Death would have been a better fate.’
But Mahendra didn’t show any signs of anger. He was silent as he held Asha s head on his chest and played with her hair, running his fingers through it repeatedly so that her hairdo came undone. In the early days of their romance he often did something like this and Asha protested vehemently. But today, far from protesting, she lay there in quiet contentment. Suddenly, she felt a teardrop on her temple, Mahendra raised her face to him and called in a voice choked with emotion, ‘Chuni.’ Asha did not respond in words. She merely held him closer with her gentle hands. Mahendra said, ‘I was wrong, please forgive me.’
Asha pressed her petal-smooth palm to his mouth and said, ‘Oh no, don’t say that.You haven’t done any wrong, it’s all my fault. Please take me to task like a truant servant and make me worthy of a place at your feet.’
On the morning of his departure, before he left the bed Mahendra said, ‘Chuni, my precious, I shall hold you the highest in my heart, no one can take away that place.’
Reassured thus, Asha steeled herself for all kinds of sacrifices and placed before him her only and slight demand: ‘Will you write to me every day?’
Mahendra said, ‘I will, if you promise to reply.’
Asha said, ‘I wish I could write well.’
Mahendra pulled a few strands of hair tucked behind her ears and said, ‘You write better than Akshaykumar Dutta—you could write the Charupath!’
Asha said, ‘Go on, stop teasing me.’
Before he left, Asha took it upon herself to pack his portmanteau. Folding and packing Mahendra’s winter clothes were difficult. Between the two of them, they pushed and stuffed all the things into two suitcases where perhaps one would have sufficed. The things that got left out went on to form an array of discrete bundles. Although Asha was shamed by this, yet the squabbling, tugging at things, jesting and hurling reproofs at one another brought back memories of happier days. For a while Asha forgot that all this was in aid of imminent parting. The coachman sent word to Mahendra at least ten times saying that the carriage was ready. Irritated, he finally said, ‘Tell him to unharness it.’
Gradually, the morning wore into afternoon and then dusk. Finally, the two of them cautioned one another once again to take care of themselves, promised to write frequently and with a heavy heart, parted company.
Rajlakshmi’s fever had abated and she had been sitting up the last couple of days. At dusk she wrapped herself in a thick shawl and sat playing cards with Binodini. She was feeling quite fresh and fit today. Mahendra stepped in and without glancing at Binodini said to Rajlakshmi, ‘Mother, I have to work nights in the college and it’s difficult living here. I have rented a place near the college. I am going there today.’
Rajlakshmi felt deeply wounded but only said, ‘Go ahead. Naturally, you must do what’s good for your studies.’
Although she was now in good health, the minute she heard Mahendra’s plan to leave, she felt very ill indeed. She said to Binodini, ‘Child, could you please hand me that pillow?’ She lowered her head on the pillow as Binodini massaged her head and arms gently.
Mahendra felt his mother’s temple, took her pulse. Rajlakshmi pulled her wrist away and said, ‘As if the pulse tells you everything. Don’t you worry, I’ll be fine.’ She turned away feebly.
Mahendra touched her feet and walked away, without so much as a word to Binodini.
19
BINODINI WAS WONDERING, ‘WHAT IS THE REAL REASON—WOUNDED EGO, wrath or fear? Does he want to prove to me that I don’t matter to him? So he’ll go and stay in a rented house, will he? Let me see how long this lasts.’
But Binodini herself was affected by Mahendra’s departure and felt quite restive.
She had been keen on teaching Mahendra a lesson, throwing barbs at him; now that this didn’t occupy her day, she felt time hanging heavy on her hands. All her interest in the household vanished. Asha, without Mahendra at her side, was bland fare indeed. Mahendra’s affection, caresses and love towards Asha had always kept Binodini’s heart astir. The intense awareness of pain their togetherness roused in Binodini’s grief-stricken imagination, was cause for a compelling excitement. She could not figure out whether she loved the man or despised him, whether she should penalize him or give her heart to him; it was the same Mahendra who had deprived her of all fulfilment in life that was due to her, the same Mahendra who had rejected a gem of a woman like her and instead embraced a weak, feebleminded child like Asha. He had succeeded in lighting a fire within her and she couldn’t figure out if it was love, hate or a mixture of both. She would smile bleakly to herself and say, ‘Is there another woman with a fate like mine? I cannot even understand if I wish to slay or to be slain.’ But either way, whether to be burned by or to set fire to, Mahendra was indispensable to her. Where else would she shoot her poisoned arrows?
Binodini’s breath came thick and fast as she muttered, ‘Where can he go? He will be back. He is mine.’
Asha was in Mahendra’s room, fiddling with his books, pictures, papers on the desk, his chair, on the pretext of tidying up. Her evening of separation was being spent in touching his belongings, picking them up, dusting one, putting another away. Binodini approached her slowly; Asha felt a trifle sheepish to be caught in the act—she stopped what she was doing and pretended to be hunting for something. Solemnly, Binodini asked, ‘So , what are you doing, my friend?’
Asha drew up a small smile and said, ‘Nothing muc
h.’
Binodini wound her arms around Asha’s neck and asked, ‘Bali dear, why did Thakurpo take off like that?’
Binodini’s question threw Asha into deep quandary and anxiety as she replied, ‘As you probably know—he had some college work and so he had to leave.’
Binodini raised Asha’s chin with her right hand, silently staring at her with a mixture of pity and concern as she heaved a great sigh.
Asha’s heart sank. She considered herself to be stupid and Binodini to be clever. This expression on her friend’s face turned her world upside down. She didn’t dare to ask Binodini the question. Instead, she sat down on a sofa by the wall. Binodini sat beside her and drew her into her arms tightly. Held in the embrace of her friend, Asha couldn’t check her tears as they flowed from her eyes unrestrained. Outside the house the blind beggar twanged his fiddle and sang, ‘Give me the shelter of your feet, O mother Tara.’
Behari came looking for Mahendra and from the door he saw Asha weeping and Binodini holding her to her heart as she wiped away the tears. He stepped aside, went into the adjoining room which was dark and sat down. He gripped his head in his hands and began to wonder why Asha should be weeping. Who could be heartless enough to bring tears to the eyes of the girl who was innately incapable of doing wrong to anyone? He recalled the image of Binodini consoling Asha and said to himself, ‘I really misjudged Binodini. In her nursing, comforting, and unselfish love for her friend, she is nothing less than a goddess on earth.’
Behari sat there in the dark for a long time. Once the blind beggar had stopped singing, Behari made a lot of noise, shuffled his feet, coughed and walked towards Mahendra’s room. Before he reached the doorway, Asha veiled her head and scuttled towards the inner chambers.
The moment he stepped into the room Binodini exclaimed, ‘Beharibabu, are you unwell?’
He said,‘Not at all.’
Tagore Omnibus, Volume 1 Page 7