A Breath of Fresh Air

by Amulya Malladi

  “I treated her very badly and then Bela’s husband was posted to Bhopal. I started seeing her again. Anju . . . Anjali . . . questioned me and I . . . hit her. Then she wanted to visit you in Hyderabad. I let her go because I wanted to spend more time with Bela. The night I was supposed to pick her up at the train station I simply forgot, and Anju almost died. I didn’t do it on purpose, I didn’t know that it would turn out to be the night of the Bhopal gas tragedy.

  “I lied to you then and I am sorry about that.”

  I didn’t look up after I was done, but I could hear them breathe and think.

  “If she had been a good wife, you would have started to love her and you wouldn’t have seen this other woman,” Anju’s father said. “I am sure she did something that—”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” I was shocked. Didn’t the old man get it? “I cheated on her and I hit her. I left her to die.”

  “Men slap their wives around a little when they get angry,” Anju’s mother said. “That doesn’t mean they are bad, that’s how they show their anger. And about this other woman . . . things happen. But you make the marriage work, one way or the other. Every marriage has problems, but wives don’t just run and get a divorce.”

  Her parents were insane. Completely out of their minds to still think that Anju was to blame. I realized that even if I had told them the truth earlier, they would have blamed Anju. It was the curse of the society. The woman was to blame. Always! If she was raped, it was her fault. If she was beaten, it was her fault. If her husband cheated on her, it was her fault.

  I stood up slowly to leave. I wanted very much to grab Anju’s father’s shirt and make him understand what I was saying, but I knew it was futile. “Anju was not to blame. She was brave to have left me,” I tried again.

  “Well, it is nice that you have no ill feelings toward her,” my ex-father-in-law said.

  I moved to leave and then stopped. “Is that boy her son?” Their faces lit up. “Yes,” Anju’s mother said. “Amar just turned twelve. Such a sweet boy.”

  I swallowed before I spoke. “What is wrong with him?”

  “He has a bad heart and . . . they operated but it didn’t help. His lungs are also bad.” Anju’s mother had tears in her eyes and Anju’s father’s face had become bleaker than before. I could see the pain in their eyes. “He is very sick. He is such a smart boy—but he isn’t very strong. Anjali and Sandeep take very good care of him.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Anju, who had probably been listening in the kitchen, walked into the drawing room. “You did,” she said succinctly.

  “Come again?” He couldn’t be my son, he was twelve and . . . I started to calculate in panic.

  “The gas . . . remember? I breathed in that gas and then a few years later I had my son. The doctors didn’t tell me that any child I had could be harmed because of the gas,” she said, almost without feeling. But I could feel her anger beneath the calm veneer.

  “You left me there to die, but I lived. All I have is chronic asthma, while my son has a whole gamut of diseases.”

  I was speechless. Did she blame me for her son? Was I to blame?

  “Is he . . . going to be okay?” I asked.

  “No . . . we hope,” Anju’s mother said. “But he doesn’t have much time.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Anju protested. “He is getting treatment and it will work. He will . . . the treatment is good.”

  The boy was going to die. My eyes filled with tears and my heart started to race. I had forgotten about her that night because I had spent the evening with Bela. I had been tired when I got home and went to sleep. It just slipped my mind that Anju was waiting for me at the railway station. It was not done out of malice. I hadn’t left her there because I somehow knew that she would almost die that night. It was not intentional. But whatever my reasons, she had a son who was going to die. It was my fault and I couldn’t deny that.

  “Now if you are done speaking with my parents, please leave. We are getting ready to have lunch,” Anju said in a controlled voice. It was the same voice that had told me she wanted a divorce.

  I wanted to say something before I left, but what could I say? What could anyone say in a situation like this? Would a mere “I am so sorry” do the trick? How did one apologize for an error as great as mine?

  I nodded my head toward her parents and without looking at her walked out of her front door with fear and guilt burdening my soul. I now knew about Amar and his sickness and I knew who was responsible. I didn’t know how I would live knowing this. Now I couldn’t ignore what had happened that night. I had left her there and for years I had consoled myself that she had lived, but I couldn’t do that anymore. She had lived, but at what cost? Her child was sick and dying and it was my fault.

  The night of the Bhopal gas tragedy I had slept while Anju had fought for her life, and now she was fighting for her son’s.

  It wasn’t fair.

  I had slept that night. Peacefully, breathing clean air.

  SEVENTEEN

  PRAKASH

  I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t go to work. I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know how to face my children. They were around Amar’s age and they were healthy because I hadn’t left Indu in the railway station on the night of the Bhopal gas tragedy.

  I had gone to Anju’s house to find out about Amar and compare her husband to me. Compare? I was almost a murderer—there was no comparison.

  I drove aimlessly around Ooty, going through narrow roads in between valleys and curvaceous roads around hills. I saw through the waterfalls, ignored traffic lights, and stayed out until late in the night.

  Finally, tired of the day and my own company, I drove home.

  Indu was waiting for me in the drawing room, wearing a “party” sari and jewelry.

  “Well, at least you are home now,” she jibed. “I had to go alone to Brigadier Pradhan’s daughter’s engagement party and answer questions about you.”

  I ignored her. I had other things on my mind. I had Anju on my mind.

  But Indu was my wife. She needed to know the truth. It was a little late for revelations, but I was burning with the need to confess.

  I walked to the wet bar in the corner of the drawing room and poured myself a peg of Scotch. I downed it in one swallow and then poured and downed another. Finally I faced her.

  “Where have you been?” she asked, looking me in the eye.

  “I went to Anju’s house,” I said, without flinching or looking away. The Scotch was single malt and good. “Her parents are in town. I saw them yesterday at the parade grounds. I went to tell them the truth.”

  Her eyes widened questioningly.

  “They think Anju was to blame for our divorce.”

  “And wasn’t she? You said that she simply couldn’t get used to army life and that—”

  “I lied,” I said, and looked appreciatively at the bottle of Scotch.

  Indu smiled as if she had finally found a buried secret— one she had been looking for for a long time. “She divorced you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was a son of a bitch.” I poured myself another drink.

  “Get me a drink, too,” Indu said, instead of all the other things I thought she would.

  We took our drinks out onto the veranda. I knew Indu was waiting to hear the rest of the story, I just wasn’t prepared for what she might say when she heard it all.

  I told her in as much detail as I could what had happened and how I had ruined my first marriage. I told her everything, except about Amar. I didn’t have the guts yet.

  Indu listened patiently, without interrupting. When I was done I looked bleakly into the darkness.

  “You were very young,” she said. “And so was she.”

  “But she didn’t make the mistakes, I did.”

  “She married you. That was a mistake.”

  I chuckled. “You married me, too.”

&nbs
p; “Because I wanted to marry you.”

  “Why? I was divorced, not the perfect catch,” I demanded.

  She set her drink down. “I don’t know why. Maybe I was in love with you. My parents thought I was—according to them no decent woman ever marries a divorcé.”

  “Are you in love with me now?” It was an important question, though I didn’t know what I would do with her answer. I didn’t know if I was still in love with her. I cared about her, because she was my wife and because she was the mother of my children.

  When Indu and I got married, I promised myself I would not stray and ruin this marriage as I had my previous one. I had not strayed, but I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t ruined my second marriage all the same.

  “I don’t know if I am still in love with you,” Indu said, then sighed. “But does it matter so much? We have a life, and we have children. We are hardly living in a movie. Love isn’t particularly important.”

  We both fell silent for a few minutes.

  “Are you in love with me?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want a divorce?”

  I was shocked that she would even think it. “No.”

  “Good, because I wouldn’t just walk away like your Anju did. I would make your life hell,” she said sincerely.

  I didn’t doubt her. “But I didn’t divorce Anju. I am not that type of a man. I—”

  “Oh, you divorced her all right,” she interrupted. “Don’t you see, Prakash, you made her life miserable and you forced her into divorcing you. You didn’t want to be married to her, so you created a situation where your marriage couldn’t survive. And it didn’t.”

  She was wrong, I thought defensively. I never wanted a divorce. I was married and I didn’t like it, but I knew for sure that I would have come to terms with it.

  “You married her because you wanted to avoid a scandal and then you let her divorce you. Don’t tell me the divorce didn’t create a big scandal.”

  “I told everyone that she only wanted to leave me after the gas tragedy. I . . . made it sound like . . .”

  “She was a little mad? A little confused because of all that gas? Or did you just tell them that she was an imperfect wife and you were leaving her?” she asked, arching a perfect eyebrow.

  I looked at Indu then. I had avoided looking at her while I told her my sordid tale. I was afraid of what I might see.

  Even when Indu was being sarcastic and insulting, she was beautiful. She had borne me two children and she was still beautiful. Her slim body, her soft skin, her face, everything about her was beautiful. Anju on the other hand bore the scars of her life. Her face and her eyes reflected her experiences. Her clothes were not sophisticated as they once were. She didn’t wear any makeup. She used to be beautiful and now she was just another average-looking woman.

  “But people must have guessed the real reason,” Indu continued, her full lips twitching a little.

  Indu wore makeup—always. Anju didn’t—anymore. What had I done to my ex-wife?

  “Did you meet her husband?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Does she have any children?”

  “A son.”

  “Did you meet him?”

  “Yes.”

  “So? What was he like?”

  I shrugged.

  “Why did you tell me all this, Prakash?”

  I shrugged again. I had no answer to that question.

  Indu fidgeted with her whiskey glass and then suddenly threw it out onto the garden. The glass shattered against a cement pathway.

  Her face contorted as she tried to hold back what looked like an onslaught of emotions. Her eyes seemed darker than usual, bright, and her lips were pursed together as if opening them would open floodgates she wanted closed.

  “I can’t believe I married a man like you,” she said after a long pause, after she seemed to be in better control of her emotions. “You cheated on your wife! Have you cheated on me?” Her voice was not soft anymore.

  “No.”

  “How am I supposed to believe that?” she demanded. “How can I believe anything now?”

  She dragged her hands through her hair, ruining her perfect chignon.

  “You slept with another woman. Was it in your bed . . . the bed you shared with Anju? How could you, Prakash?” she asked, tears filling her eyes.

  She had been calm up until now, talking as if she didn’t care one way or the other about my first marriage. But she did care. She loved me.

  “I was young and stupid.”

  “No one is that young or that stupid!” she yelled. “You cheated on your wife,” she repeated in disbelief.

  We sat there silently for several minutes before she spoke again.

  “I need a large drink,” Indu said, and I went to get the bottle of Scotch and a fresh glass for her.

  She filled the glass and swallowed the searing liquid. She winced, but I wasn’t sure what was hurting her more, the sudden intake of whiskey, or the sudden knowledge that her husband was worse than she thought he was.

  In the past, every time she said how well she knew me, I used to be tempted to tell her the truth about my first marriage and myself. Just to wipe away her smugness. Now I had and I felt no relief, no pleasure, and no pain. I was in a limbo of emotions. Feeling nothing but numbness. What Indu would say didn’t matter right now. A boy was going to die because I had left his mother to die. I couldn’t get over that.

  In a deep corner, in a very small deep corner of my mind, I was glad Anju divorced me. If we had stayed married, Amar could have been my child and I would have had to live with a sick boy. I would have had to live with a boy whose life I knew I ruined. I would have had to watch the life being taken away from my child, breath by breath. And know that I was to blame.

  “Did you love her?” Indu asked. Her voice shook and tears freely rolled down her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry, Indu,” I whispered. “Your makeup is getting ruined.”

  EIGHTEEN

  SANDEEP

  I didn’t want to discuss my wife’s ex-husband any longer, but Anjali’s parents wouldn’t let it go.

  “He is a nice man, Sandeep,” Anjali’s mother told me. “He has his flaws, no doubt, but a wife has to make the marriage work. It is her duty.”

  They were here for just one more day and I didn’t want to tell them to their faces that they were wrong, that it was not Anjali’s duty to keep a bad marriage alive. Anjali had done the only thing she could do and I for one had no complaints about that.

  “Yes, it is a wife’s duty,” Komal interjected primly. She had found out about the divorce. Anjali’s mother was not discreet and after Prakash left, she had cried and wept and Komal would have had to be dead to have not figured it out.

  “I can’t believe you married her after knowing all this,” Komal said, looking at me in disgust. “I don’t know how I am going to stay here any longer.”

  I had had enough. “Then you can leave, Komal,” I said. “Anjali did the right thing by divorcing a man who abused her and their marriage,” I told her parents. “You should be proud of her.”

  “Proud of a daughter who cut our noses off in society?” Anjali’s father demanded. “She ruined us. Our reputation will never . . . she just ruined us.”

  “But she saved herself,” I pointed out sharply.

  Anjali’s mother shook her head. “Look at your own sister. Her husband couldn’t give her children, but she didn’t run away. She stayed with him and tried to make it work.”

  Komal flushed. “It was not easy, but I knew my duties as a wife. A divorced woman!” She shook her head disparagingly. “Sandeep, you should have told me. I would never have let you marry her.”

  “I am going to Gopi’s house,” I said, and left to join Anjali. She had gone there earlier with Amar when Komal and her parents had dug up the old dirt.

  When Amar told me that Prakash was in the house, I had been tempted to leave the garden work and go in
side to meet him. How would we greet each other? Would we shake hands? The curiosity had been there, but there had been reluctance, too. Part of me didn’t want to know this man who had been my wife’s husband.

  Anjali hadn’t spoken to me about his visit, she just left with Amar. Amar didn’t know about Anjali’s first marriage. He knew that she was in Bhopal the night of the gas tragedy and that was why he was sick. Anjali and I had discussed the matter for months: should we or shouldn’t we tell Amar why he was sick? Finally we knew we had to. He was ill and he needed to know why. We didn’t tell him that Anjali had been married to another man and he was satisfied with our explanation: Anjali was visiting a friend, Harjot Dhaliwal.

  Amar knew Harjot, since she visited us often with her husband and children. She had two adorable daughters who Anjali and I had come to treat as our own and she and her husband treated Amar like their own son. Harjot was special to me because of what she had done for Anjali after the Bhopal gas tragedy. I didn’t know Anjali then, yet I wished I could’ve done something for her. The helplessness grated on me. I loved her today but when she needed me the most I hadn’t even known her.

  Anjali and Harjot were still as close as they had been over a decade ago. They met during difficult circumstances. First Harjot had lost her uncles in the Indira Gandhi assassination riots and then Anjali had almost lost her life in the gas tragedy. Maybe it was helping each other through the tragedies that made their bonds stronger. After Anjali’s divorce, Harjot had helped Anjali make a life for herself. She had helped Anjali sell her jewelry, write the entrance exams, and get a new education, which she could use to support herself.

  When Amar was born, Harjot had been there in the hospital room, holding Anjali’s hand and mine. She had stayed with us, talked to the doctors, and helped us come to terms with the pointless question: “Why our son?”

  I wondered what Harjot would do if she knew Prakash had managed to enter Anjali’s life again.