The Lesson

by Sowmya Rajendran

‘What?’ said the moral policeman as she fought to find the words.

  ‘Such a nice man,’ she finished. ‘That’s why I fell in love with you.’

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ said the moral policeman looking around uneasily. These were skeletons in the cupboard he did not want his office to find out. If they did, his job would be in danger. ‘How many times have I told you not to bring that up?’ he scolded his wife. ‘They mustn’t know!’

  ‘Why are you so afraid of them?’ his wife said in a tired voice. They had had this argument many times over.

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ said the moral policeman, pulling himself up straight. ‘I believe in my job. I value the ideals we’re taught to uphold.’

  ‘Do you remember that day at the beach?’ his wife said, as if she had not heard him at all. ‘Our first kiss?’

  The moral policeman turned red. ‘You must not speak of that,’ he said in a low voice, fear closing in on him. ‘Never.’

  ‘I will,’ his wife said. ‘I will speak of it loud and clear. Let them hear. Let everyone hear. Let’s see what happens!’

  ‘You have gone mad,’ said the moral policeman dully. ‘I was only a foolish boy then. I didn’t know what I was doing. What we did was wrong. It was a mistake.’

  ‘Is our marriage a mistake then?’ his wife challenged him. Her hair broke free from the thin clasp that held it up and tumbled down her shoulders. She was beautiful. Just like the day he had first seen her. The moral policeman could have wept for love but he turned away from her.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said coldly. ‘You tell me.’ Then, he walked out of the kitchen, crushing the report card into a ball.

  His son was still asleep. The moral policeman shook him by the shoulders. When the boy opened his eyes in confusion, the moral policeman struck him across the face. As he watched the skin turn red like the sunset sky, the moral policeman let the tears fall.

  Twelve

  The neighbour was the first one to see the scooter. He had never seen it before. He called his wife and she confirmed that it was nobody they knew. The two of them watched through the window as the man got down and looked at the house, as if he were surveying it.

  ‘Who do you think that is?’ the neighbour whispered to his wife. They loved playing guessing games together.

  ‘A relative?’ she suggested doubtfully. But she did not believe it herself. The dentist was an only child and he had three cousins, two women and the eunuch. They practically knew everybody in his family by sight.

  ‘A patient?’ the neighbour guessed. ‘Although the clinic is closed,’ he muttered, looking at the corner gate that led to the dentist’s clinic.

  ‘He sees patients only in the evenings on Sundays,’ said his wife. ‘And it is just eleven thirty. Hours to go before he opens.’

  ‘A young man,’ said the neighbour. ‘Do you think it could be somebody from the wife’s side?’

  ‘She has only one sister. Also, she isn’t here. She left last evening. Don’t you know? She’s pregnant!’ said his wife. She’d received this information just that morning from the newspaper boy and had been waiting for an opportune moment to spring it on her husband. There weren’t too many things she came to know of before he did and she enjoyed surprising him very much.

  ‘Pregnant?’ exclaimed her husband, shocked. ‘But how? She was on the pill!’

  ‘Well, that’s what the maid said, but maybe she misread the label or she forgot to take them on time. You have to be very careful with those,’ said his wife, not wanting to elaborate on such shameful matters as contraception with her husband.

  ‘Her mother-in-law must be relieved,’ said her husband, still watching the man. ‘Why doesn’t he go in?’

  ‘Maybe he’s not sure if he’s at the right place. Should we help?’ suggested his wife, dying to run out and solve the mystery once and for all.

  ‘No, no, they will think we’re being nosy,’ said her husband. He pulled the curtains away from the window a little more to get a better view.

  The man now took out something from his pocket and glanced at it.

  ‘He’s checking the address,’ said his wife intelligently. Years of living with her husband had strengthened her abilities to make quick deductions. At times, she even fantasized that she was in the Moral Police Force herself.

  ‘Look, the door is locked!’ said the neighbour suddenly. ‘When did they go? How come we didn’t hear them?’

  ‘They haven’t taken the car,’ said his wife. ‘Maybe they walked out when we were at breakfast.’

  ‘I told you we must take turns! Never leave the window unmanned!’ chided her husband, clearly upset.

  ‘You were right,’ admitted his wife meekly. ‘But where did they go?’

  ‘The temple!’ exclaimed the neighbour, slapping his forehead. ‘His wife just got pregnant. They must have walked to the temple on the next street to offer prayers and thanks.’

  ‘You are a genius!’ said his wife with admiration. She complimented him further to make up for her folly. She was the one who had insisted that they eat together that morning. It had been so long since they had done that and she’d been so sure that nothing of import would happen in their absence.

  The man was now leaning against the scooter, frowning. The sun beat against his face mercilessly and he was squinting against it.

  ‘I think we should invite him inside,’ said the neighbour. ‘It would only be humane to do that.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed his wife at once. ‘I will make some sherbet.’

  As the neighbour went out to speak to the man, his wife tidied the drawing room hurriedly.

  ‘How many times must I tell him to put the old newspapers away?’ she grumbled to herself. Cobwebs adorned the pedestal fan that stood in the corner forlornly like a punished child. The wife draped a towel over it and hoped that the man would not notice.

  Then, she made the sherbet, her hands shaking as she poured it into the glasses.

  ‘It’s time we changed these,’ she thought as she arranged them on a tray. They still looked dirty, no matter how many times she washed them. ‘Right in time,’ she said in a low voice as she heard the front door open.

  The man entered the room with her husband. ‘This is my wife,’ said the neighbour importantly. She folded her hands in greeting and gave a quick nod.

  The man smiled a little, as if dazed by the sun.

  ‘And you are?’ she said softly, when the introduction did not come.

  ‘A government employee,’ said the man, sitting down uninvited. His eyes travelled to the pedestal fan. The wife looked at it desperately, colouring a little.

  ‘It’s … it’s an old fan,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ said the man, confused.

  ‘N-nothing,’ she said, feeling like a fool. He had not been looking at it and now she’d drawn his attention to it.

  ‘Government employee meaning?’ said the neighbour, coming to her rescue. He had approached the man and invited him inside but found him to be oddly taciturn.

  ‘I came here on work,’ said the man evasively.

  ‘Undercover?’ asked the neighbour, leaning forward. ‘Have some sherbet.’

  ‘Not really,’ said the man. He was not the most sociable of men.

  ‘I understand,’ said the neighbour. ‘You don’t wish to gossip. But you can trust me.’

  The neighbour paused. This was the cue for his wife to jump in.

  ‘He’s a retired moral policeman,’ she said. ‘Twenty-five years of service. He was given a gold medal by the chief himself when he retired. For his exemplary service.’

  The neighbour waved a deprecating hand. ‘Don’t bore our visitor with all that,’ he said with a modest smile. But his eyes remained on his wife.

  ‘Have I forgotten to add something?’ she wondered nervously. ‘Oh,’ she said, remembering. ‘He still does consultation work for them now and then. They don’t seem to be able to get on without him!’ She giggled dutifully.


  ‘Silly woman,’ said the neighbour fondly. ‘All women are silly.’

  ‘I work next to the Moral Police Force,’ confessed the man, breaking into a small smile. He looked a lot more relaxed now.

  ‘On the fourth floor?’ asked the neighbour, excitement creeping into his voice. ‘You don’t mean the Adjustment Bureau?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘The rapist,’ said the neighbour with respect. For years, he had tried to get the job but the rapist who had been on duty back then had been a young, virile fellow nowhere close to death or retirement. Not that the job itself was that well-paying but he’d have enjoyed the one-man office (and the importance that came with it) a lot more.

  The rapist inclined his head.

  ‘Is the baby not his? Is that why you are here? Is she a loose woman?’ asked the neighbour’s wife breathlessly.

  ‘Baby?’ said the rapist, confused. ‘What baby?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ said the neighbour, feeling like a VIP again. ‘She’s had good news at last.’

  Thirteen

  ‘We should go to my parents’ house today,’ the first daughter said. Her husband, the dupatta regulator, could barely hear her. His head pounded; he felt nauseous. The balm he had slathered over his forehead and nose burned his skin and made him sweat. His wife’s voice, even though soft, felt like an axe coming down on his head.

  ‘Why?’ he managed to mutter, holding his head in agony.

  ‘My sister has come,’ she said, folding the clothes that lay on a big pile on the bed. The boys’ socks were still stained despite her soaking them overnight. She threw them to a corner, exasperated.

  ‘Oh,’ said the dupatta regulator, incapable of saying anything else. He could think of nothing but his headache. He’d read on the Internet that it could be a tumour. His cousin had been operated for one in the brain just the previous year. It was benign, the doctors had said. In the dupatta regulator’s imagination, the tumour grew like a flowering tree, twisting and turning, craning its neck, finding a way to burst through his skull to meet the sun. How could such a thing be benign? What if it ran in the family? He imagined himself on the operating table, unable to move. The surgeon sawing his skull to get to his brain.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ his wife asked, an unusual edginess to her voice.

  ‘Headache,’ he groaned, rubbing his eyes. The balm stung and tears rolled down his cheeks.

  ‘Isn’t this the third time this week?’ she asked, sounding irritated. As if he had invited this upon himself.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s not my fault.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was,’ she said, immediately contrite. ‘Just that I really must go and see my sister today.’

  ‘Why the urgency?’ he asked, beginning to get angry. Couldn’t she see he was suffering? And she had never been fond of her sister anyway.

  ‘She’s pregnant,’ said the first daughter, a small smile on her face. ‘I never thought she would do anything as normal as having a baby!’

  ‘She got married, didn’t she?’ said the dupatta regulator. ‘Why would she do that if she didn’t want kids?’

  The first daughter shrugged and rolled her eyes. ‘They had to beg and plead with her to make her agree to the match,’ she said. ‘You should have seen her when she finally gave her consent. She looked like they were marrying her off to a troll and not a respectable dentist!’

  The dupatta regulator was not very fond of the dentist. He knew that his in-laws thought him to be the better of the two sons-in-law. His mother-in-law, especially, never lost an opportunity to talk about how much the dentist earned. He had filled her cavities too and she never tired of telling all and sundry what a good job he had done. He had given the two of them electric toothbrushes and that somehow made his in-laws feel very smug.

  It made him sick, the way they fawned over him as if he were royalty. ‘Eat, eat more,’ his mother-in-law would say as she piled his plate with food, the first course still uneaten. It was not that she ignored her first son-in-law, but she was never so effusive, so warm. Every time the families met, the dupatta regulator always came home feeling slighted.

  His head throbbed even more. The thought of seeing his in-laws in his present condition was unbearable.

  ‘Why don’t you go taking the children?’ he suggested to his wife.

  She threw him an injured look. ‘You always make excuses when it’s about meeting my parents,’ she said.

  ‘I have a headache,’ he said, clutching his head in pain. ‘I don’t think I can drive.’

  ‘Let’s take a cab then,’ she said. ‘Come on, they will be really disappointed if you don’t come.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the dupatta regulator in a barely audible voice.

  ‘You are being really silly,’ said his wife, arranging the folded clothes in their cupboard. ‘You must get over this complex of yours.’

  ‘What complex?’

  ‘Look, you are like a son to them. Why do you keep comparing yourself to the dentist?’ she said, not looking at him.

  The dupatta regulator began to say something but stopped. He didn’t want to get into an argument, not when his head felt like it would explode. ‘Do we have to stay for lunch?’ he asked instead.

  ‘Only if you want to,’ she said, smiling at him happily.

  His three sons chattered incessantly about cricket all the way to his in-laws’ house. The cab was too small for all of them to sit comfortably. The youngest, who was also the fattest, sat on his lap. The dupatta regulator could smell the sweat in his hair. The boy, only five years old, seemed to already weigh a tonne. He moved his arms in excitement while talking to his brothers, and the dupatta regulator could see the sleeves of the yellowing white vest he wore underneath his baggy t-shirt.

  The cab crawled through the traffic, inch by inch. Though the air conditioner was on and the windows rolled up, the dupatta regulator could taste the fumes of the vehicles as they boomed near the cab. His stomach roiled. The radio was on and the driver turned it up over the boys’ voices. He saw his wife tap her feet absently to the song that was playing.

  He was angry. Couldn’t they just leave him alone? He had said he didn’t want to go. He wanted to lie down quietly in a dark room and wait for sleep to swaddle him. He did not want to see his in-laws and make small talk. His sister-in-law was pregnant. What was he supposed to tell her? She was a thorny woman, not easy to talk to. Most times, she looked at him as if she thought he was impossibly stupid. Her clothes … she wore clothes that were borderline inappropriate. She’d made a joke about that once. Asked him if he could have her arrested for wearing her dupatta around her neck and not her … her chest when she was at home. He’d seen her now and then at the university, before she got married, waiting outside the anthropology department for her professor and playing with her dupatta, tugging it this way and that, as if tempting him to report her. What sort of shameless woman said such a thing to her brother-in-law anyway?

  The driver was honking at a bike in front of the cab that refused to start though the signal had changed to green. The bike rider was trying frantically to start it. The driver rolled down his window and unleashed a fluent stream of abuses. The boys tittered. His wife pursed her lips disapprovingly.

  The bike wouldn’t start and the driver went on honking. The horn drove the dupatta regulator insane. It was as if it had detached itself from the cab and had squeezed into his brain through his ear. It was inside his head now, honking. It wouldn’t stop.

  His son shifted his weight on his lap and the dupatta regulator caught a whiff of his hair again. He put his hands to his mouth and forced himself to think of something pleasant. He imagined a rose garden. He was a bee. The flowers were red. Red and sweet.

  The bike finally started and the driver lifted his hand from the horn. But it still blared between the dupatta regulator’s ears. He closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep. Just as he was dozing off, the driver braked hard and
he slammed into his son’s back and woke up with a jolt. His son’s back … where had his t-shirt gone? And the rest of his clothes? His son was sitting on his lap, stark naked, the flesh doubled like a python that had curled up to sleep. He turned around in panic. His wife wasn’t there. And neither were his other sons. He took a peek and saw that the driver was still behind the wheel. And he was naked too.

  The dupatta regulator couldn’t believe his eyes. He looked out of the window and saw a naked man on a motorbike, his fat, hairy legs straddling it. The man seemed to be completely unbothered by his appearance. The dupatta regulator’s eyes were drawn to the pockmarks on his arm, a constellation of acne scars. How was it that he hadn’t been stopped by anyone?

  The dupatta regulator looked down the road to see if anyone else had noticed. There were a lot of people on the road. It was a busy traffic junction, after all. But nobody was looking at the naked man. Perhaps because they were all naked themselves, even the women. He saw a flower-seller, her belly distended from numerous pregnancies, make her way through the crowded platform. He found the dark stretch-marks on her brown belly repelling, yet strangely reminding him of tiger stripes. There stood a boy and a girl at a bus-stop, not a stitch between them. The dupatta regulator averted his gaze from the girl as he felt himself stiffen. She was dark as coal, her hair falling to the small of her curved back. An old man sold roasted peanuts in a corner, his skin grey and wrinkled like that of an elephant’s. In the flare of his stove, the dupatta regulator could make out a tattoo underneath the white hair that grew out of his chest like a ghostly forest. Was it a name? A date? He didn’t know. He felt giddy. It must be his sickness, he told himself. This couldn’t be happening. To his surprise, he saw the university bus waiting at the signal. The door swung open and a student got down, so naked, so casual. The dupatta regulator didn’t want to look inside the bus, but in spite of himself he did.

  The students were all seated quietly, most of them listening to music. Some were studying. The boys on the gents’ side, the girls on the ladies’ side. None of them wearing any clothes. The dupatta regulator stared at them, wondering if he should yell, chide them for their indecency. He looked down at the full sleeves of his shirt, his immaculately ironed pants. The shine of his shoes. An image of himself naked on the seat grew in his head. The gentle slope of his paunch as it fell in defeat, the scar on his knee where his father had hit him with an iron rod for talking back, the shame of his swollen penis, the tear-shaped birthmark on his left thigh. The dupatta regulator shivered.