Ferang opens the door and the music fills the bathroom.
“Come on, Nil.” Ferang pats him on his back, his skin shining almost as if it has a light beneath. “Let’s get you married.”
Back in the main hall of the Taj Hotel, the three of them split, swallowed into a chaos of colors, sounds and dances and sweet and spices and sugary herbs and incense, which are, Nil thinks, a parody of this country, a string of neatly ordered clichés for the beholders to mock, and he finds himself exchanging pleasantries with the mogul of the Indian automotive industry and the tycoon of the Indian telecommunications, and with the corner of his eye he scours the crowd to steal a glimpse of Mel, who is carrying a glass of champagne to her father, while Ferang is busy making himself look good with a group of girls.
And then Dad and Mom get hold of him and they accompany him on stage and all the guests sit and wedding music fills the air and the voices become hushed, and Jiya enters the room.
She walks and keeps her chin up and her father, Chandra, the King of the country’s transports and soon to be congressman, walks beside her, holding her arm, and together they cross the room making sure to pay the guests their due, if not direct respect, with slight nods of their heads.
Once in front of the stage, Jiya climbs the steps first, and her eyes are filled with a light pure and fresh when they meet Nil’s, and then her father gets up and takes her hands, and his gray mustache betrays the curve of a smile, and the priest begins to recite the Hymn to Love, and Nil cups his hands and, for a moment, looking at the crowd below the stage, the number of guests makes him feel good, powerful, and so he smiles back at Jiya, and at her father, who is offering him his daughter’s hands.
Nil reaches out but finds no hands to welcome into the folds of his own. Jiya is looking down to where their hands should clasp together and so is her father and the audience, but there is nothing there, only Nil’s cupped hands waiting for something that doesn’t exist. Instead, where her hands should be, there are just two stumps, and Nil can see in them the bones and muscles and tendons but not a drop of blood.
Her bracelets—those beautiful, gold and silver bracelets adorning her arms almost up to the elbows—begin to slip off the severed wrists with no hands to keep them in place, and they fall to the ground and bounce at their feet and scatter in different directions rolling between Nil’s legs and off the stage. One of them, red in colour, rolls toward the crowd and keeps rolling and doesn’t stop until a woman bends to pick it up. Holding it before her eyes, she studies it. She wears it. Glancing back at Nil, the Crooked Woman, reflected in every mirror, in each piece of jewelry in the room, twists her arms behind her back and smiles and looks at Nil.
The cool touch of Jiya’s fingers on his own bring him back to the real. Nil looks down and sees his own hands around hers, which are delightfully decorated with henna, and then he looks back up to see her looking at him with an encouraging smile, while her father has moved toward the back of the stage and the priest has begun his incantations. The Sacred Flames rise from the altar.
Nil leads Jiya and they sit before the priest and accept from him the mangalsutra—the pearls of which are warm and pleasant to the touch. Nil listens to the lull of the Sanskrit prayers and turns to Jiya, and in turn Jiya bows her head exposing her beautiful neck and minute ears, and Nil takes in a deep breath of J’Adore by Dior worth fifteen thousand rupees that she’s wearing, and, careful not to touch her skin, which is almost white but still beautiful and surely treated with Fair and Lovely, he ties the necklace where her shoulders meet her vertebrae in a sinuous curve.
Both stand up, as does the priest. Nil takes Jiya’s hand and his own moist skin touching the delicacy of hers fills him with satisfaction. He glances toward the back of the stage, where his father nods with a smile in his eyes and so, encouraged, Nil leads Jiya in their first circle around the fire.
“O, beautiful and obedient woman,” he starts reciting, repeating the priest’s Sanskrit words. “You who feed me with vital food, you who feed my guests, my parents and my offspring. O beautiful woman, I, as Vishnu, take this first step. I will honor you and will provide for your welfare and your happiness.”
“Yes,” Jiya replies, and now she is guiding Nil around the altar. “The food that you will earn by the sweat of your brow, I will preserve it and prepare it to feed you. I will take responsibility of the house, promising to respect your wishes and feed your family and your friends.”
Starting a new round around the saffron flames, Nil resumes reciting. “O Thoughtful and beautiful woman, with a well-run house, with purity of conduct and thought, thou will make me strong, energetic and happy. Together we will protect our home.”
“I’ll be by your side as your strength and your courage. I will rejoice in your happiness. In return you shall love me, and me alone.”
“I pray that we can be rich and prosperous. May our children live long.” Nil hesitates, then adds as the priest waits for him to finish, “Unless they are females.”
“I will love only you for the rest of my life, for you are my husband,” Jiya continues unperturbed. “Every other man will take me from behind. I promise to remain chaste.”
“You brought nothing to my life, and so you completed me.”
“I will fill you with happiness from head to toe. I will try to destroy you with all my might.”
“You are my jailer and my executioner. You came into my life bringing wrath with you. God bless you.”
“I promise to love and honor you for the rest of your life. Your pain is my happiness, and your happiness is my pain. I’ll believe you and respect you, and I will try to fulfill your every wish.”
“May your womb to be sterile, you filthy whore.”
“Die, you bastard.”
Nil gets ready for the last prayer.
“Now we are husband and wife, and we are one. You are mine to use and abuse. I’ll rip your throat and make you eat it.”
“I will crush your testicles with my bare hands, I will poison you in your sleep, and I will make sure your mother serves your remains at the banquet,” Jiya concludes. “We will love, honor and respect each other forever.”
With these words, Jiya smiles a shy smile and Nil holds his wife’s hands tight and, in unison, they turn to the audience and the guests stand up and clap and whistle and, as far as Nil’s gaze can wander over their heads, there is no trace of Mel.
A horde of photographers invades the stage kicking off an hour and a half of photographs with family and friends and friends of friends and shareholders and at least a couple of fans and paparazzi who were smart enough to bypass the security.
A four hour long banquet follows, and the newlyweds share the same plate and Jiya laughs a suave laugh and feeds him tidbits of ricotta and fried pepper, and Nil tries to smile to the cameras but the touch of her fingers on his lips makes him shiver, and then they all dance to a playlist of carefully selected Western music, which, in spite of Mom’s efforts, gradually degrades into a Bollywood-like delirium that empties the tables and fills the dance floor, where multicolored lights shine bright, and Nil and Jiya dance in the middle of a circle of claps and shouts of encouragement, and Nil is enchanted by the mastery with which she leads the dance while giving bystanders the impression of being the one who follows, and then the main lights come back on and the people are happy and sweaty and Ferang, his kurta unbuttoned down his chest and his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, sits at a table full of girls and chats both with each of them individually and all of them at the same time, and yet of Mel there is not a whiff.
“Thank you all,” Dad says into the microphone. “It was a wonderful evening and we are grateful to each of you for being here, for your love and for your support.”
Mom approaches the podium and thanks the guests as well, and urges them to stay and enjoy at the hotel, and then Dad makes a joke about building a larger one, and Nil laughs as he should but, try as he might, he can’t ignore the Crooked Woman at the back of the hal
l, who, her arms twisted behind her back, keeps on dancing alone to the sound of music only she can hear.
By and by the guests retire for the night. Jiya and Nil greet them one by one. Mom kisses him on the cheek and expects him to bend to touch her feet and so he does that, and Dad squeezes his shoulders and then hugs him, whispering, “You did the right thing.”
Ferang winks at him and his eyes are loaded with innuendos, but his handshake is fraternal and makes Nil feel good, and then Mel is behind him and takes his hand in hers and nods in what seems to be a sign of encouragement and then, too soon, she leaves his hands and turns and walks away.
In the elevator, Nil and Jiya listen to one of those recorded Indian classical elevator songs that sound so pleasant at first, but which on loop just get repetitive, and neither says a word.
Jiya looks at herself in the mirror and Nil stares at the lift attendant, a poor bastard with a black, pockmarked face and a dick-like cap on his head, who, sensing Nil’s gaze on himself, stares at the keypad in front of him as if it holds some sort of secret, and for a second Nil has a dizzy spell and opens his arms to regain balance, and by doing so he touches Jiya’s waist, and she smiles looking down at his hand, and Nil feels out of breath inside this fucking elevator.
The doors open, the corridors infused with a cinnamon fragrance while the red carpets give off a pleasant sound under their feet. Nil turns one last time just before the elevator doors close and sees that Nobody is still staring at the keypad.
The suite looks like an alien place: the air conditioning, evidently left on for a long time, and the thorough cleaning have driven out all traces of previous guests, and the bed, straight out of a interior-design magazine—covered with roses and jasmine—resembles the surface of an asteroid.
Jiya comes in behind Nil, taking a few steps towards the center of the room, and her anklets jingle and the fragrance of her perfume remains hanging in the air in her wake, and he breathes it in but then turns his head away.
Nil looks inside the bathroom through a half-closed door only to return to the entrance of the room and scan the environment. The light dazzles him. He turns it off. Jiya smiles, the white of her teeth glimmering in the moonlight. The moon takes up much of the balcony door, and Nil wonders whether Dad has rented it for the night—yes, the moon, and he grins to himself, realizing he can’t tell the joke from reality.
Jiya moves closer to him, walking on her toes, but all Nil can do is stare at the strange shape of the bed in the dark, and when Jiya follows his gaze, Nil presses a hand to his chest, pressing down where his heart is going nuts.
Jiya takes a glass of milk from the minibar and hands it to him. Nil takes a sip, the taste of almonds and saffron tickling the back of his cheeks. Then he takes another and another, and soon he sees his bride’s face grotesquely distorted through the bottom of the glass.
“Weren’t you thirsty,” she says laughing, not at all bothered.
Nil wills himself to smile. He flops down on the bed, ruining the flower composition. His hands are shaking and he struggles to hold the glass. He looks down and that’s when he notices it, lying on the carpet—her gray shawl. Jiya is undressing.
This, right here, is what every man waits for, to strip naked the woman he married, and he wants to rise up to the occasion and help her get rid of the jewels and the fabrics, but shuddering from head to foot, Nil drops the glass to the floor. Milk spills and soak into the carpet but thank god the precious glass doesn’t shatter, and Nil looks at it horrified and feels like stepping on it, but he doesn’t know why.
Jiya’s fingers touch his trembling chin, then his lips. Between her thumb and forefinger, a white pill. She presses it on Nil’s mouth, and he accepts it without looking up.
“Valium,” she says with an encouraging smile. Her eyes are motherly sweet, and Nil swallows the pill and feels better immediately, enough so to take her hand.
He gets up, and they look at each other and, while Nil unbinds her gold necklace, the onyx bids bewitch him with their sparkle. Jiya presses her lips against his. This is not their first kiss, and yet, Nil has waited for this moment with a mixture of trepidation and fear for years, a kiss from his long betrothed wife, and it feels good, and perhaps, after all, he might survive the night.
Taking her red sari off, Nil lets the fabric caress her almost white skin as it slides down her shoulders and hips and thighs. He loosens the amaranth around her waist and the dress opens and drops from her body.
Jiya is beautiful, she truly is. But then she bends her arms backwards to unfasten her bra, and Nil tries, he tries hard not to think of the Crooked Woman, but there she is, dancing in his memories, and he feels nauseous and the room swirls around him and his vision grows dim and then all at once Jiya is completely naked, obscenely gorgeous, and her almost white fingers are fumbling with the button of his pants and objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.
“Relax,” she says, a hint of astonishment on her face. “This is not our first time, Nil.”
Nil says nothing and stares at the wall in front of him to keep his balance, trying to regularize his breath in vain, when Jiya takes his hands and makes him sit on the bed.
“Lie down,” she says. She seems worried, though her eyebrows betray a hint of annoyance now, maybe.
He lies down and the ceiling above begins to dance happily, and so he closes his eyes, and it gets worse. He feels the mattress bend under Jiya’s weight, but his eyes are closed and he can’t see her. The room smells like flowers and dust. Her body ever so close makes him feel like half a man. He’d like to have Mel’s coke at hand. And Mel, as well.
“Remember when we were kids and we always tried to get wet playing with water, so that we could remove our shirts?”
Nil remembers, sure he does, and does so fondly, but he can’t answer her.
“And you’d touch my hair saying you liked it and my nipples asking me why I didn’t have any boobs?” Jiya places her hand on his belly, and Nil tries his best to prevent his body from stiffening.
Her hand slides down smoothing his kurta towards his pelvis, conquering centimeter after centimeter, till there is just a strip of skin that keeps her away from his groin, and her fingers fumble with the buttons of his trousers and press to release the fabric, and when the fabric gives way Nil hears a deaf rumble echoing within himself, and he swallows it, or at least tries to.
Jiya explores the territory under his belt and Nil feels the coolness of her touch brushing over his limp sex through the fabric of his shorts, and then all at once his hand, almost on its own accord, snaps down to grab hers and he says, “No.”
Nil opens his eyes to meet hers, just for a moment, and then he looks away. He can hear her sigh. She removes her hand and lies down, turning her back to him.
Silence. The room is dark and full of questions.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Jiya asks wearily.
“Yes,” goes Nil, with no hesitation, eager to explain himself.
The air conditioner roars on in the silence between them.
Jiya jerks. She turns and her face is lit up by an eerie flame—perhaps it’s anger, Nil thinks at first, but then he realizes it’s amazement. For a moment, he sees in her the playmate of his childhood.
“Tell me the truth,” she says.
“What?”
“You’re lying. Tell me the truth.”
“But... what are you talking about. I’m not.”
“You’re a bad liar, Nil, you’ve always been. You think that a couple of years apart have made me forget that face?”
“What face?”
“There it is. When you lie you forget to breathe and to blink and all the rest. You don’t move a muscle, Nil.”
“I’m in love with someone else.”
“That’s not it,” goes Jiya and she shakes her head, never letting her eyes off him. “Love is always only half of the story.”
Nil wants to break something. His body tenses and he closes his eyes. After a moment
of stillness, beyond his eyelids, the room is again flooded with light and the bed tilts and his heart stops for a second when Jiya’s body rides him, and although she is lightweight, he feels like he is sinking into a darkness more dense than that of blindness, and his lower belly is pressed against his wife’s crotch, and she starts to move, arching her back, pushing her sex against his, and he knows that Jiya is looking straight into his pupils through the barrier of his eyelids.
He feels her hand bend over to reach his sex, pressing it with her palm and jerking it free from his pants, and finally sticking it under the band of her underwear. But Nil’s cock doesn’t answer the call.
Silence falls.
After an endless moment of stillness, Jiya frees him of her weight. The bed creaks and then it shuts up, and Nil tries to regulate his breath and to relax his muscles, but he cannot.
For a second there he actually considers telling her why he can’t have sex with her, or anyone else. Telling her what he did three years, six months and seventeen days ago.
“They are killing you, Nil,” says Jiya, and he jumps, startled by the sound of her voice. “But I won’t die with you.” She sighs and turns on her side again, slipping under the bedsheets. Only then does Nil open his eyes.
His thighs are freezing cold where the fly of his trousers remains wide open. His heart seems to have calmed a little. Licking his dry lips with an equally parched tongue, Nil grabs the button of his pants and puts it back again into the buttonhole. The room stops whirling around and his hands stops shaking: Jiya seems to have given up.
Jiya, with whom he grew up and whom he always dreamed of marrying, has now turned her back to him, and Nil wonders if such a dream, if such a dream was really his own, or another appropriate thing his family groomed him to desire.
Nil smiles in the dark for no real reason. He cannot help chuckling to himself, but soon his laughter turns into frantic sobs and he can’t breathe and his heart is pumping blood at full speed, but his shoulders, chest and face are cold and sticky with sweat, and Nil is writhing on the mattress, gasping for one single breath of clean air.
Objects in the Mirror Page 2