Why hadn’t he kissed her?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Girl in Pigtails
Aunt Anita confronted Deepak at dinner that evening.
She came to the table sans sunglasses and winked at Reena as she sat down, and Reena knew then. She had received a reply.
‘Aunty…’ Reena began.
A finger to her lips, ‘Shh…’
She complimented Preeti on the mackerel fry and laughed at something Deepak said even though it wasn’t remotely funny. Deepak leaned back in his chair, chewed his mouthful and regarded his sister quizzically. ‘I know Uttam called and things are fine between the two of you. But there’s something else, isn’t there? What are you not telling us, Anu?’
Aunt Anita laughed, ‘I’ll tell you, then. I got an email, after eleven years, from someone I was instructed to forget.’
A shocked silence around the table. I was right. The email was from Aunt Shirin. Reena watched her father’s face flood red, his eyes settle first on Reena (was that fear she saw in them?)—the same expression echoed in her mother’s gaze, huge eyes in a face drained of colour—and then turn to her aunt. Her father opened his mouth a couple of times before he found his voice, ‘Anu, what is the meaning of this? How dare you bring this up in my house, at my table?’
‘She contacted me, Deepak,’ her aunt’s voice soft. Gentle even. ‘She wants to come back.’
Spot On, Super Sleuth.
‘No.’ Bang. Deepak’s hand on the table, spilling the rice, overturning the glasses. Water spilling onto the tablecloth, the stain seeping dark red, like blood. Her dad’s panicked glance on her again. ‘Reena, go to your room.’
‘Deepak, she…’ Aunt Anita said.
‘Reena, I said, go to your room!’ Her dad yelling, voice laced with dread. Why? That sinking feeling she had had when she read the last letter, which she had tried to dispel and almost succeeded, returned.
‘She knows about Shirin,’ Aunt Anita said.
Her parents turned to her as one, their eyes wide. ‘What? How?’ barked her dad.
‘Deepak.’ Her mother’s hand on his arm, trying to calm him. Her mother’s face white, pinched.
‘I found a photograph when we visited Taipur last month.’ Reena whispered.
‘What photograph? I thought they had all been destroyed.’ Her dad’s voice gruff.
‘It was of the three of you when you were my age. It was hidden behind one of the other pictures.’
Deepak and Preeti exchanged glances. ‘What do you know about Shirin?’
‘She doesn’t know anything, Deepak. Just that she was our sibling. And I showed her some letters Shirin wrote me,’ Aunt Anita said.
Why were her parents so afraid? What didn’t they want her to know?
‘Deepak, you cannot hide it from her forever…’ Aunt Anita said.
Murli’s words echoing in her head, ‘Perhaps they are all protecting you.’ She felt tired suddenly, scared. She wanted her mum.
‘I will if I have to.’ Her dad lowering himself onto a chair like an old man, cradling his head in his hands.
As if she’d read Reena’s mind, her mother came up to her, put her arm round her, led her to her room, tucked her into bed. Her mother’s face pale as she bent close, her kiss laced with fear. Mum, why are you and Dad so afraid of Aunt Shirin? What is it you are hiding from me? And in the next instant, I don’t want to know. I’d rather not know. And, Super Sleuth, where’s your courage? The words of Shirin’s last letter floated before her: ‘No one to carry on the family name, the long line of Taipur Diazes.’ Who was she then? Who was Reena Diaz, Super Sleuth? Who am I, Mum?
Raised voices filtering in from the dining room, the argument still going strong. Her dad’s voice: ‘Do you know what this will do to Ma?’ Aunt Anita’s, trembling with indignation, ‘All you care about is Ma and her blasted status in bloody Taipur society… I talked to Ma.’
A startled pause, and then, her dad, ‘What?’
‘When Shirin’s email came, I called Ma. I… I wanted to know how she felt.’
‘And?’
‘Ma is weary, Deepak. She doesn’t care about status as much as she used to. She is getting old and she… she wants Shirin back. “What use this status,” she said, “when I miss her so?” Those were her exact words. She said she tried to tell you this when you went to Taipur in September.’
‘She might have…’ Her dad’s voice defensive.
‘I know it’s hard, Deepak, given the circumstances,’ Aunt Anita’s voice was gentle. ‘Have you once thought about what Shirin went through, is still going through?’
Her dad, defeated: ‘She didn’t want Reena to know. She was adamant. Why this sudden change of heart?’
Her aunt’s voice, soft: ‘She just wants to come home, Deepak.’
She didn’t want me to know what? The bed creaking as her mother settled in beside her, holding her close, her spiced breath warm on Reena’s cheek. The casebook under her pillow, a hard damning lump. Super Sleuth, what have you unearthed?
* * *
The phone rang, shrill, demanding, refusing to stop, dragging Reena out of a sleep populated by visions of a girl in pigtails playing hopscotch, who, when the dust cleared, and her face—Reena’s—was revealed, parroted, ‘They’re protecting you,’ like a robot. The argument between her dad and Aunt Anita had continued late into the night. Reena had drifted in and out of slumber, anchored by her mother’s arms, raised voices filtering into her dreams, turning them into nightmares. She wondered when they’d stopped arguing, called it a night, gone to bed. She blinked at the bedside clock. 3:25 a.m. Reena heard her parents’ bedroom door open, her father curse as he stubbed his toe on the door stopper, his voice thick with sleep, ‘Hello?’ And then, louder, shot through with panic, ‘Madhu?’
Reena sat up, wide awake. Her mother was already at the door, going to Deepak. Madhu? Why was Madhu calling and not Mai? Why was she calling in the middle of the night? Madhu had never called, ever. She didn’t know their number. She was illiterate, she couldn’t read.
She heard Aunt Anita’s door creak open, the soft swish of her nightgown sweeping the floor. ‘Deepak, what…’
On jelly legs, she walked to where her mother and Aunt Anita clustered around her dad at the phone, and her mother, face drawn, eyes wide with worry, put her arm around her, pulled her close.
‘What riots?’ Her father yelled. ‘Riots! In Taipur?’
Slowly Deepak put the phone down and sank into the chair Preeti had pulled out for him. He ran his hand through his hair.
‘What happened?’ Aunt Anita asked the question Reena had been afraid to.
‘There were riots in Taipur. It started off as a harmless fight between college boys and escalated into violence as these things do, with Hindus and Muslims blaming each other.’
‘It’s been building up. There’ve been lots of little incidents, petty fights between the Hindus and Muslims. When we were there last month we witnessed one in front of Aashirwad...’ Her mum wrung her hands.
‘Never mind that. Why is Madhu calling now? Is Ma...?’ Anita interjected.
‘They set fire to buildings, burnt down buses in Mirakatte. The parish council from the church intervened, trying to make peace. So last night, they burnt down the church hall while the parish meeting was in progress. Old Mr D’Sa is the only one who succumbed. Ma is seriously injured. She’s in hospital. One of the nuns looked up our number and dialled it for Madhu.’ Deepak’s voice was shaky, disbelieving.
He stopped, as if afraid to continue. He looked first at Preeti, then Anita and finally his gaze settled on Reena. He looked at her for a long time, and then he looked down at his hands.
Then, so quietly that it was just a whisper, he said, ‘She’s delirious. She keeps saying one word over and ove
r.’
‘What, Deepak?’ Aunt Anita’s voice was harsh with worry.
‘Shirin. She’s asking for Shirin.’
In the silence that ensued, Reena watched an intrepid ant make its way across the dining table carrying a grain of basmati rice twice its size on its back.
‘Coincidence,’ Aunt Anita whispered, her eyes on Deepak. ‘Karma, as the Hindus say.’
Silently, her dad handed Aunt Anita the phone. Aunt Anita’s hands shook as she took it from him. ‘Her number… It was in her email.’
A pause as she looked Shirin’s number up, dialled and put the phone to her ear. A pause that felt like eternity. Pick up, Aunt Shirin. Please. Aunt Shirin jolted out of sleep by her phone ringing. Her sister’s voice inhabiting the darkness of her snug bedroom after eleven years of silence. ‘Come home.’ The girl in pigtails from her dream swam before Reena’s eyes: ‘Bring me home, please.’
‘Hello,’ Aunt Anita’s voice wobbled. ‘Vinod? Is that you? This is Anita. Yes, it is me. Ma is not well. Can I speak to Shirin? Shirin! It really is you...’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A Daughter’s Duty
Saturday. The Eyes. They were everywhere. Stalking her. Like in the early days after.
A headache had gradually crept up on her, dull at first, now throbbing. It loomed like a bad omen behind her eyelids, threatening nightmares. She had managed to fight it off with paracetamol and ibuprofen. She couldn’t any longer.
‘I am going to bed,’ she said.
‘That bad?’ Vinod asked.
She nodded, barely able to keep her eyes open. Once in bed, the duvet pulled up to her chin, she succumbed, heavy eyelids shutting closed.
Pain bloomed red flowers on a field of white, where a pair of empty accusing eyes danced, holding court, telling a story...
The morning after her wedding, Shirin woke to sunlight streaming in through unfamiliar, mosquito-netted windows, pink curtains waving; in a bed far too big for her and smelling of man: musky with a lemony tang; draped in strange blankets—and still a virgin. She looked up: flaky white ceiling, red blades of a Bajaj fan droning lazily. No lizards draped precariously across wooden beams. No being shaken awake by Madhu from depths of slumber, with a cheery, ‘Time for mass.’ She wondered if the coach had reached Taipur yet, with dawn arriving orangey rose over the tops of the coconut trees, or if it was stuck somewhere in the ghats. She wondered if her family was thinking of her, if they were missing her. A snapshot of Madhu: lipstick smeared across her face, holding Shirin close, body racking with sobs, loath to let her go. ‘Look after her,’ she’d said to Vinod, wagging a trembling finger at him, ‘Heart of gold, she’s got. Heart of gold...’
Heated voices raised in argument filtered in through the thin walls. Vinod... Was that really Vinod’s voice? ‘Couldn’t you at least have stayed off the drink on my wedding day?’
Shirin sat up, pulling the blanket around her, conscious of her flimsy nightgown even though the door to the bedroom was closed and there was no one to see her.
A feminine voice murmured something. Her mother-in-law? Then, ‘You scared her. I hadn’t been wedded two minutes and you had to make a scene. What the hell am I supposed to tell her? That I hid the fact that I have an alcoholic for a brother, that I have been hiding it, protecting you all my life...?’
Now she knew. The empty eyes—only filled by alcohol. She bunched the sheets in her fists.
‘Vinod...’ Her father-in-law’s voice.
‘And now you slink in, dead drunk. Her first morning with us. What am I supposed to say? How am I supposed to explain?’ The edge of pain in Vinod’s voice made Shirin want to hold him, to console him, to do the things they hadn’t the previous night.
‘I will take him out. Don’t you worry...’ Her father-in-law again.
‘We should have told them upfront. She’ll think I trapped her into marrying me...’ Vinod, her husband, was worried about lying to her. He cared about what she thought. He cared.
‘She’ll think no such thing. You are a catch for them. No dowry, wealthy...’
‘Ma, don’t start. I want to leave here, begin anew.’
‘Please, putha...’
‘Like we agreed, we will stay here a month. Then we are moving out.’ The proprietary use of ‘we’. Shirin’s heart bloomed. Just her and Vinod in a little house of their own. In time, maybe children... Vinod’s voice, soft: ‘I can’t take this anymore, Ma. Lying to everyone. Especially her, I don’t want to deceive her...’
‘Not married a day and already she has such a hold over you.’
‘She’s my wife, Ma...’ His wife. A warmth spread through Shirin. His wife. Then why hadn’t he kissed her, made love to her?
Sounds of dragging. Loud cursing. Slurred. Prem. The gate opening. A car starting. Silence. Then, footsteps. Halting outside the bedroom door. Shirin lay back down, pulled the blanket up over her head. The bedroom door opened softly, the latch turned, the bed sagged beside her. His smell: woody, spicy; pervading her senses. Would he hold her? Would he kiss her? Make love to her? The tingle of anticipation, the desire, the ache. She felt him turn. The bed complained, creaked. And then, nothing... Slowly she pulled down the sheet, opened her eyes. He was leaning on one elbow, looking down at her. As she watched, with one finger, he traced her features. So gentle. Hardly a touch. More a whisper-soft caress. On her eyes, her nose, her mouth. Her gaze locked with his. Desire exploding in her breasts, her lower body. Her mouth opening in a small moan, an involuntary sigh.
An ear-splitting crash invaded their intimate silence, stilled the finger on her lips. She wanted to flick her tongue out, pull his finger into her mouth, suck on it. The crashing sound continued: a stainless-steel tumbler falling, rolling round and round on the floor until it stilled. Other sounds filtered in. The rattling of the front gate. Dogs barking. Vendors yelling. Footsteps sounded; loud, deliberate. They hovered near the closed door of their bedroom, stopped. A strident knock. ‘Vinod, Shetty Uncle is here. He couldn’t attend the wedding yesterday. Wants to wish you well.’ Footsteps moving away. Sounds from the living room. A man’s voice.
Vinod retrieved his finger leaving Shirin bereft, cold. She wanted to pull the blanket back up. She wanted to pull Vinod down, on top of her, to ease the longing, to fill that suddenly empty part of her. Instead she smiled shyly up at him. Oh, why was she so timid?
‘Time to get up,’ he whispered. He bent down. Shirin’s heart caught in her throat. Was he going to kiss her? He did: a feather-soft kiss on her eyebrow. She swallowed her disappointment and got up to face her first day as the new daughter-in-law.
Her mother-in-law cornered her as she stumbled to the bathroom, while Vinod was making small talk with Shetty Uncle.
‘I have waited all my life for a daughter to help with the chores,’ she announced. ‘From tomorrow, I expect you to wake at six thirty and help me with breakfast.’
Shirin nodded meekly. Her mother-in-law still blocked the entry to the bathroom. ‘Now, after you have brushed, come and make tea for our guest and help with the lunch preparations.’
‘Yes,’ said Shirin, and only then did her mother-in-law move.
After Shetty Uncle left, Vinod announced that he had to pop into work for a while. ‘This is what happens when you have your own business. Never a moment’s rest.’ His voice hardened as he said the last bit.
That afternoon, she accompanied her mother-in-law to the dry cleaner’s. As she hopped along to match her mother-in-law’s stride, Shirin was assaulted by thoughts of home. What were they doing at this very moment? Were they eating lunch, munching on fat red rice soaked in mackerel curry with sweet squash bhaji and brine-soaked lime pickle? Were they missing her?
Walking back, laden with bags, Shirin felt someone hovering over her right shoulder. ‘Voniye, let me carry that for you,’ a voice said. She lo
oked up. Prem. She had not felt uneasy when he came up behind her and she didn’t now. He took the bags from her, not meeting her gaze. No pungent tang as he stepped close. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’ her mother-in-law asked, smiling. ‘Just got back. Vinod is coming with Da.’ He sounded normal. Slightly diffident. Very different from the leering Prem who scared her.
Why had she been so scared of him? He was okay, really, she decided as he regaled them with jokes all the way home. Teasing his ma. Laughing at himself.
When they reached home, he held the door open for her: ‘See you later, Voniye, I am going out.’ He returned half an hour later with boxes of soan papdi and laddoos. ‘For the lovely women of the house,’ he said, grinning.
As she helped her mother-in-law roll chapattis for dinner, Shirin mused about her brother-in-law. To think she’d actually gone so far as to consider calling off the wedding because of her irrational fear of Prem! Yes, he had a drink problem. So? Richa Uncle, Mini Aunty, her cousin Ronnie all had drink problems. Her mum and Madhu had always accused her of an overactive imagination, worrying that there were ghosts lurking in the toilet, convinced there was a dead body in the courtyard that time during a power cut when she stumbled on a coconut frond… She watched her mother-in-law place the perfect circle of chapatti dough right onto the flames, watched it puff up and rise, the charred sweet smell enveloping her.
This unease, this fear of Prem was irrational, all in her head.
That evening, after she’d bathed, she lavishly applied the body cream that smelt deliciously edible (wedding gift from Anita), and waited eagerly for Vinod to consummate their marriage. He held her in his arms gently as if she was something precious—when what she had wanted was for him to crush her roughly against his body—and, instead of kissing her, said, ‘I have a confession to make.’
Monsoon Memories Page 24