Nandana looked at her uncle with relief and nodded.
“Your stomach is feeling all right now?”
She nodded again.
“Okay, let’s go then.” Arun picked up his niece, school bag and all, and marched briskly out of the compound to the beat of “We Shall Overcome,” which he sang completely out of tune.
Nirmala shook her head and leaned against the verandah entrance. “Too old I am for all this daily hadh-badh,” she murmured sadly. “What is going to happen, I don’t know.”
I don’t know either, Sripathi thought. Maya’s death had aged them both ten years. Where were they going to find the strength and energy to bring up a seven-year-old? He wheeled his scooter out of the gate, which was still jammed up by construction debris, and squeezed his way out. A warm breeze drifted down the road, and copper-bellied, yellow caesalpinia flowers chased after it, tumbling and skipping like merry children. Here and there lay crimson gulmohur petals, splashes of blood on the dull, black road. His spirits lifted momentarily at the prettiness of the blossoms. The flowers were falling; soon clouds full of moisture would blow across the sea, and the rains would come.
As he rode the scooter, Sripathi kept a wary eye out for lemons strung with leaves, which he avoided because they had been left on the street to draw evil away from somebody else. If he stepped on the pile of yellow and green, he would surely transfer the wickedness to his own fragile home.
When he returned that evening, he took another bath, not caring that the water supply was low in the drums and bins and buckets. He dressed in a clean shirt and a lungi that smelled of the sun and went down the stairs to the gods’ room, where he fussed over the selection of fruit that Nirmala had arranged on a silver platter.
“What are you doing?” she asked from the doorway.
“We can’t take any nonsense. Why didn’t you buy grapes also?”
“As if God cares whether you give banana or apple. Are you trying to bribe, or what?”
“I like taking decent fruit to the temple, that’s all,” said Sripathi.
“You are also coming to the temple with me?” Nirmala was surprised.
“Why, you have a problem with that?”
“On festival days I have to go down on my hands and knees and beg you to come with me. Why you have become so holy all of a sudden?” she teased.
“I have to ask Your Highness for permission before I pray even? Not enough that I have to ask about everything else that goes on in this house? Henh? Are you my wife or my jailor?”
“Okay, baba, okay,” she said. “I was only joking a little bit, and you go and get angry.”
That night, there was a huge orange balloon of a moon floating in the sky. From where he lay, he could see the sky, dark and busy with stars, even though the moon occupied centre stage. Nirmala had left the balcony door open to let in some cool air. They used to sleep with that door open all the time, but Sripathi had woken up a few nights ago, seen the white towels floating dimly like ghosts—outlined by their own light against the inky sky—and nearly had a heart attack. Ghosts frightened him now. He had become more aware than ever that the world was full of unseen things, old memories and thoughts, longings and nightmares, anger, regret, madness. They floated turbulently around, an accumulation of whispery yesterdays that grew and grew and grew. These days Sripathi could not bear the insubstantial—sorrow, pain and other abstractions that couldn’t be surgically removed like an extra thumb.
On the bed beside him, Nirmala stirred and sat up suddenly. “Listen,” she whispered, her eyes wild. “Listen, did they do it all properly?”
“Do what?” he asked, annoyed with her for disturbing the silence of his night.
“The rites. For our daughter. Did they close her eyes with coins? And put one in her mouth as well?”
“I already told you all the details, Nirmala, as soon as I came back. Now go to sleep. I have work tomorrow.”
“No, tell me again. Did they? And who washed her body? Did they wash her hair as well? It is not auspicious otherwise.”
Sripathi shook Nirmala by the shoulders. “Stop this nonsense,” he said. “What does it matter now? Everything is finished. Did you hear? Finished. She is dead, and after death, nothing matters. Maya is beyond all these rituals.”
Nirmala turned on him fiercely, her eyes on fire. “Nothing ever matters to you, henh? Like a stone you are. My poor child has gone like a beggar, without any proper rituals, and you say it doesn’t matter? Her soul will float like Trishanku between worlds. It will hang in purgatory for ever. Did they at least dress her in unbleached cotton?”
Nirmala rocked herself on the bed, looking dry-eyed into the darkness as if she could see Maya there. Sripathi sat silently beside her. I have not turned to stone, he wanted to say. I am full of tears, but if I let go I will not be able to carry on walking this hard path to the end of my life. Control is everything now.
“Now, if she had died before her husband,” continued Nirmala relentlessly, “it would have been better for her. She would have gone to Yama-raja as a sumangali in her bridal finery with her wedding beads around her neck and kum-kum on her forehead.”
Sripathi couldn’t stand it any longer. “Stop this foolish postmortem analysis you are doing,” he said sternly. “We have a child to bring up now, and you are behaving like one yourself. We have lost our daughter, that is true, but think of that little one in the next room. She has lost her parents. Do you think I don’t feel as wretched as you?” he asked in a gentler tone. “Henh?”
His words fell softly in the silvery grey silence of the room, and he was surprised and suddenly embarrassed that he had laid himself bare like this.
“Did you at least see her before … ?” asked Nirmala, soothed by the hand stroking her head. He used to do that to the children as well, she remembered. Such a fond father he was. What evil spirit had suddenly entered his mind and turned him against his child?
“Yes, I told you already, I saw her. She looked peaceful, as if she was simply asleep,” replied Sripathi. He didn’t tell her that Maya’s scalp had been shaved for surgery and that Alan had no face left. He couldn’t tell her about the greyness of their frozen skins, the dark blue lips, the dreadful immobility as they lay in the morgue. Dr. Sunderraj had warned him that the cost of keeping them in the morgue would be very high, but Sripathi had insisted. He had not wanted to see their lifeless bodies, but he had needed to be absolutely sure that there had been no mistake. It was his daughter’s voice that he needed to hear, and her laughter. But it was better than not seeing anything but a box of ashes and a gravestone.
In the end, all he said was, “Yes, I saw them both. He was a handsome boy, our son-in-law. And Maya died knowing that we would take care of Nandana. Yes, she knew that.”
Nirmala lay down again and put her forearm over her eyes to curb the tears that continued to well out of her like a spring from a dark, echoing cave. Sripathi slid down until he was flat on the bed, his body separated from Nirmala’s. Ever since that telephone call months ago, she had kept this thin space between them, an invisible line of anger, one that he dared not cross. For thirty-four years he had curved his body against her back. In the beginning, and for years after, just the touch of her buttocks against his crotch had given him an erection. Slowly that desire had faded into a simple need for warmth and companionship. He knew how that stiff back tensed like the branch of a bamboo tree when she was annoyed, its relaxed doughy softness when happiness filled her, the small red mole like a monsoon beetle edging towards the valley of her spine, the curve of dark, sunburnt skin just above the line of the old cotton blouse she wore to bed, the generous dimples that marked the beginning of her buttocks. Sripathi couldn’t bear the distance any more. Timidly he touched Nirmala’s shoulder, ran a finger down the hollow of her back, the rich, smooth skin like old silk. She shrugged her shoulder as if to flick off a fly, but he recognized that motion. It meant, I am still angry but … So he kept his hand there, fingered the red mole, an
d when she didn’t jerk away, he folded himself against her.
“I am sorry,” he whispered, his hand gently stroked her hair, loving the soft surge of it against his palm. “I wish I could undo the past.”
Nirmala breathed in deep and the breath travelled through her and into him.
“We performed all the rites. Dr. Sunderraj got the Hindu Temple priest to do it for Maya. Alan’s ceremonies were done in the church,” he whispered.
“I have asked Krishna Acharye to arrange a puja for their souls,” said Nirmala after a long, quavering silence. “On Thursday. And then we will take the ashes to the sea.”
And then, a few moments later, she was asleep. Calm and empty of all emotion. What a simple woman she was, thought Sripathi enviously. There were no shades of grey in her mind, no annoying little doubts that lingered and grew like scum on a pond, choking all other thought and feeling.
The coconut trees at the edge of the compound rustled and creaked. In the distance a dog barked frantically for a few moments and then subsided. Restless now, Sripathi got out of bed, careful not to disturb Nirmala, and padded out to the moonlit balcony. His eyes were caught by a vertical line of moving silver trapped between the apartment blocks next door. Why, he thought, surprised, it was the sea. He had never noticed it before and realized that someone must have chopped down one of the Ashoka trees on the other side of the apartment building. The water pulsed and shivered, contained by the two immobile blocks of cement and brick within which two hundred bodies slept and dreamed, and Sripathi was almost certain that he could hear it sighing against the sands. A bat fluttered past, and small creatures stirred and shuffled in the wild back garden. The sharp smell of ripening limes from the tree below the balcony mixed with the cloying scent of oleander blossoms. He hoped that Nirmala had warned Nandana about those pretty pink flowers, of the poison that they carried in their hearts.
The last few lights in the apartment block went off. Sripathi slipped into bed again and drifted into an uneasy sleep churning with dreams. In one of them he chased after a bus, and the faster he ran, the farther he was from the bus, until at last he realized, with a weeping sense of emptiness, that all along he had been running backwards.
At around four o’clock the next morning, a loud rumble travelled like a tsunami through the moist, heavy air and sent him scrambling out of bed, heart thudding wildly. Thunder, he thought, reaching for his glasses on the windowsill. Thunder at last! But when he looked out at the grey, pre-dawn sky, in which a pale moon still lingered, there was not a cloud to be seen. He waited for another rumble, wondering whether his yearning for rain had translated itself into imaginary sound. If only his longing could touch the still sky and turn it into a churning sea of charcoal cloud. Could one’s will, strong and unwavering, touch the hearts of the gods, of nature herself?
Years ago, Sripathi had gone with Shantamma to a music concert. He had been reluctant to accompany her, bored by the thought of sitting through three hours of singing in the dark theatre with its thatched roof and humming mosquitoes. But his grandmother had told him that it was important for his soul. Music, she had said, had the power to rouse Varuna and Vayu, the gods of the ocean and of the wind, and compel them to fill the clouds with rain. “And some ragaas,” the old lady had assured him—nodding her head and ecstatically keeping time with the flat of her hand on her thigh—“have such heat and passion that when they are sung, a thousand oil lamps will ignite spontaneously. But only when an ustaad, a master of music, produces them.” That certainly eliminated that donkey Gopinath Nayak.
He stretched his arms wide and knocked over a pile of books and papers that had been balanced on the windowsill beside the bed. He tutted impatiently and scrabbled in the narrow gap between cot and wall, pulling out old newspaper clippings, sheets of paper (on which Nirmala had briefly tried to account for all the money they spent each month), a magazine with a sexy film star on the cover and a slim book of poetry by Pablo Neruda—a gift from Maya for his forty-sixth birthday, just a year before her departure for the States. Once in a while Koti went on a cleaning spree and piled everything neatly, according to size. But the order she imposed was only temporary. Like a number of things on the windowsill, the volume of poems, too, had gathered dust all these years, waiting to be put away, read or organized. But Sripathi had not picked it up, even to glance at it. Last week, on an impulse, he had started it, his curiosity aroused after a documentary on the poet had aired unexpectedly on television, in between the Kannada song-and-dance sequences and soap operas that Ammayya and Putti watched avidly. Sripathi liked to think that he was the only person in his family who had any taste at all, but he was also shy about this opinion and felt a delicate, hidden pleasure in keeping it to himself. He had found himself fascinated by the poems, even though he couldn’t fathom the poet’s meaning at times. He glanced down at the volume in his hand, noticing the slim size. How marvellous that the poet could fill such a universe of feeling and ideas into such a slender book. “Ask me where have I been / and I’ll tell you: ‘Things keep on happening,’ ” said Neruda, on the page that opened to a bus ticket that Sripathi had used as a bookmark.
And there is nothing you can do to stop them, he might have added.
He tossed off the thin, well-washed cotton sheet preparatory to getting up. It was too hot for clothes, let alone sheets, but he could not sleep unless his toes were covered. A rat had bitten his big toe once, and when he’d woken up the sheets were damp with blood, and he’d had the terrifying thought that he might be dead or dying. It took him a while to get over the panic and discover a nipped toe at the end of a body otherwise whole and healthy.
Nirmala was still asleep, her mouth open, a small snore emerging now and again. He went over to the balcony to see what had caused the thunderous sound that had awoken him, and then decided to go down to the verandah. To his surprise, he found the front door ajar and his sister sitting on the steps, chin cupped in the palm of her right hand, three packets of milk on the floor beside her. Putti’s hair was loose on her shoulders, and she had on an old cotton sari. In the dim light of pre-dawn she looked much younger than forty-two.
“What are you doing up so early?” asked Sripathi.
“I came to get the milk,” replied Putti, looking embarrassed. “I do it every morning.”
“Oh, I thought Nirmala did,” said Sripathi.
“No, I told her to sleep for a little longer. I am up early anyway, and since I sleep downstairs, it is easier for me. I don’t mind.”
“Does that Gopala still bring the milk?”
Putti looked acutely uncomfortable now. “Yes, sometimes,” she mumbled.
If Sripathi had been less preoccupied with his own misery, he might have noticed, and wondered at his sister’s embarrassment. But he saw nothing, and after a few moments Putti patted the verandah steps beside her. “Sit down. It is so peaceful at this time, no? You can even hear the koyal bird singing.”
“Yes, at least till that moron Gopinath starts his morning raaga,” agreed Sripathi.
“Shh! Don’t talk. Listen to the bird sing,” whispered Putti, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees.
Sripathi stared out at the deserted street and allowed the sweet, high notes of the bird to fill his troubled mind. So must the Emperor of China have felt when he heard the nightingale’s melody, he thought, remembering a story from his youth. He glanced at his sister’s rapt profile and with a sudden shock realized that he had never spent time like this with her. Never. The sixteen year gap between them had prevented any closeness. When she was a child, he was frantically finishing his degree, battling with guilt for having abandoned medical school, for having knocked his mother’s hopes to the ground. And then, after he had found a job, he was too tired to notice her. By the time she was ten, he was already a father preoccupied with his own children. They all lived in the same house, but Sripathi hardly knew his sister.
“Maya and I used to sit here every morning and wait for the koyal to st
art singing,” said Putti suddenly. “We would creep out when everybody was asleep, and she would tell me about her school. I loved listening. It was like having a little sister. She made me laugh, especially when she imitated her teachers. I wish Ammayya had let me go to school as well.” She paused for a bit. “Maya told me before she left for America, that she would send me a ticket to visit. But I knew it would never happen.”
“She would have sent you a ticket, I know,” said Sripathi, moved by his sister’s wistful voice.
“Maybe. But my fate lies within the walls of this house,” said Putti. “See, today I am forty-two years old and still I am stuck here. Even if Maya had sent me a ticket, Ammayya wouldn’t have allowed me to go.”
Sripathi clapped his hands to his head. “Ayyo!” he exclaimed. “Today is your birthday, I completely forgot.”
“Too many things are happening, so of course you forgot. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to remember that I am growing older and older every day, and still I have done nothing to remember the years that have passed,” said Putti.
“Tchah-tchah, what sad things you say.” How stupid he felt for forgetting. Every year he did something special for her—got her a new sari or took her and the others out to eat at the Mayura Palace on Bridge Road. It was a pure vegetarian restaurant, the owner had fervently assured Ammayya the first time they went there. “Everybody who is working here is Brahmin, Amma. Even our doorman is my own nephew’s son—totally Brahmin. No garlic or onions we are putting in the food. Our ice cream, too, is purest vegetarian, no egg and all to increase bulk.”
“So shall we eat out today to celebrate your birthday, Putti?” asked Sripathi.
“Don’t be idiotic,” she replied. “I am too old for such nonsense. Spend the money on that poor Nandana. Or when I get married we can celebrate!” She gave him a sidelong glance, her eyes bereft of their usual ring of kohl. “What do you say?”
“Are you planning to get married?” asked Sripathi cautiously. “To whom?”
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