by Akhil Sharma
All those years gone so quickly that even describing them does not take long. Big things do not happen to you and so you think time is not passing. You jiggle the years in your pocket, thinking you are a rich man, and suddenly you have spent everything. I was thirty-eight and an old man overnight, and Anita was twelve and so young that seeing her was like looking down from some great height into a misty valley and wondering what will be revealed when the sun arrives.
One afternoon, Anita fell asleep beside me while we listened to the radio announce that Indira Gandhi had become Prime Minister for the first time. The room was dark and the quilt that covered us heavy and warm. I was dozing off as well. In her sleep, Anita rolled over and put her hand on my penis. I woke immediately. I started to remove Anita’s hand, but stopped. There was something mysterious and erotic about lying beneath the warm quilt with Anita’s light touch, listening to her breath and feeling her weight against my side. I became hard. After a few minutes, Anita rolled over once more and removed her hand.
Later that day I told myself that I had been slightly dazed from sleep and that this was why I had left her hand on my crotch. But my mind was adept at reducing its presence when my body did something shameful. I do not remember whether, before this, I had seen Anita in a sexual way. Probably I had, because I wondered what it would be like to have sex with nearly everyone, even children I saw in the schools I went to. But I am sure that, before the afternoon when Anita touched me while the election results were announced, she had held no special attraction for me. Anita was not a pretty girl. Her hair was dry and short, and she had a round, thick face and a large nose.
One afternoon, a day or two after Anita’s hand first fell on my crotch, I played a game of tag with her in the courtyard of the house where we then lived. We laughed and bounced about as I dodged Anita’s lunges. But as I swayed in front of her, I kept positioning myself so that when I did let Anita touch me, her hand might brush my penis. One of her dives to tag me finally pressed her open hand against my penis. I felt such a shock of pleasure that I became perfectly still. The mineral flavor of lust filled my mouth. Anita also stopped. She looked frightened. I immediately realized that I must not let Anita associate anything bad with touching me, so I laughed. Our game continued for a little while after that. Then I went off and masturbated.
The pleasure and relief of masturbation was so strong, I knew right away that I would repeat this game. My conscience did not bother me. I reasoned that Anita was not being physically harmed. I was also not damaging her emotionally, because the games hid my intentions. Nor did I wonder when or where the games might end. They would continue till they came to some quiet and natural conclusion.
Games of tag or hide-and-seek, during which I tried getting Anita to touch me, became common. We usually played these games on the roof of our house after I had returned from work. The sky might be fluttering among shades of purple, and the nearby roofs were always crowded. Sometimes people watched us play: Anita trying to tag me and me hopping, swaying, shouting challenges, just out of reach. I would become giddy from the excitement of waiting, and after a while became so distracted that I sometimes got tagged by mistake. Anita and I played till we lost our breath from laughing and running. Then, because I wouldn’t let it be any other way, we stood a foot or so apart, trying to pat each other and jump away before being tagged back. Occasionally Kusum, Rajesh, and Radha came upstairs and read or talked or played games, pausing every now and then to watch us. I was so confident of the game’s camouflage that before all these people I touched Anita’s thighs, the backs of her legs, and sometimes, rarely, her chest. The fact that I was able to do this before so many people confirmed that I was not doing anything wrong.
To win Anita’s love, I bought her coloring books and taught her magic tricks. To make sure nobody wanted to examine the oddity of a grown man playing these children’s games with such intensity, I tried winning over the rest of the family. I began taking everyone to dinner and a film once a week.
In the beginning I felt no shame for what I was doing, because I was not harming anyone. As time passed and the games continued and the touching became more and more obvious, shame entered me and, settling, strengthened. Every night I had dreams of humiliation, of people catching me with Anita. When I saw a rooster picking at a pile of dung, I wondered what he was eating. Around this time I also began imagining sucking the penises of powerful men.
But I understood the connection between what I did with Anita and my shame the way a lake understands the connection between the cloud above it and the reversed image bobbing on its waters. In my imagination I saw our games as discrete and static, events which occurred once and separately, not as part of a developing pattern. This sense of things meant excuses came after I had already started on something. For example, if Radha and the other children were downstairs, Anita and I would begin on the open roof and then move to the storage shed. Then the shed door would open, as if on its own, and we would walk in; then it closed by itself. There was no difference between being in open sight and being inside the shed.
I remember the first time I put my hand between Anita’s legs. We had moved into the shed and were standing less than a foot apart, tagging each other with our fingertips to try and make the other “it.” I pretended to reach for Anita’s chin and dropped my hand to her crotch. Anita’s underwear was moist with sweat. The surge of excitement was so great that instead of touching her and removing my hand, I just stopped. Anita stared into my stomach, and I looked at the thin rectangle of light surrounding the closed door of the shed. For years after all this, anything, a bathroom’s moist doorknob, could suddenly make me feel her underwear almost soaked through and the smooth boniness beneath.
I had at one time promised myself that if Anita ever appeared to understand what I was doing, I would stop. Now she reached out and put her hand on my penis in the shed. When we were together, she thrust out her chest. But I reasoned that since I was not harming her physically, the only danger I posed was to her mind. And this was not my responsibility. How could I be held accountable for the way she interpreted what I was doing? There was not that much difference between what I did and a father who makes his children sing before guests at a party.
Instead of worrying about Anita, I tried to seal her mouth. I told her that I often thought about killing myself and that she was the only happiness in my life. I often complained with an air of fatigue about Radha’s indifference and the dreary hard work I did to support us.
In all this, Anita seemed increasingly cheerful and outgoing. She no longer hid when strangers came to the house. Her schoolteachers remarked that she was showing more interest in her work. I taught her the basics of palm reading and she would offer to read any guest’s hand. Anita now argued with her mother. Radha’s and my neglect must have stunted Anita to such an extent that even my tainted attention was relatively benign.
I have no doubt that Anita loved me during this time. When I returned home from work, she came immediately to me and took away my shoes and asked if I wanted water. We always ate dinner sitting side by side. Sometimes I found myself feeling a strange, potent combination of fatherly and amorous affection for her. Occasionally we had dinner alone on the roof, and then, if this odd love was with me, the moon felt like a private light.
The whole family was happier than ever. A stranger would have been charmed by the ease with which we bantered, the rituals of picnics, movies, and contests of joke-telling and singing. Radha, who had withdrawn into religion, began to involve herself again in the children’s lives and in our plans as a family. Radha had a beautiful voice and she sang to us nearly every night.
Whatever was allowing this happiness stopped working once Anita began spending the night in my room. For a long time I had wanted this so that I could fondle her without the fear and hurry which I always felt in the shed. One evening I said to Anita, “Why don’t you sleep in my room?” I said this during dinner, with the whole family around us. We had been jo
king and laughing and I wanted my idea to appear as if it had occurred spontaneously and was a product of the affection we were all showing each other at the moment. Anita looked surprised, but no one else appeared to notice.
During the two months Anita slept in my room, the first night was the only one she stayed on her cot the whole night. I placed her cot next to mine. That first night she came into my room and sat down at the edge of her cot. I shut the door. I would have locked it, but it could be bolted only from the outside. I was excited and nervous. When I turned around from the door, Anita was leaning forward with her shoulders curved in, looking like a bird in winter. My eagerness, which had been laced with doubt, turned to self-disgust. I gave Anita my little transistor radio and left the light on through the night.
In the morning, though, I did not carry Anita’s cot back up to the first story. All day I thought about doing this, but my guilt was not enough. Probably I knew that my guilt would lift on its own. The second night Anita’s sad face only made me resentful. I switched off the lights before turning around from closing the door. I got into my cot and told Anita to lie next to me.
She lay stiff and straight. With a single fingertip under her wrist, I moved her hand onto my penis. Even through the underwear and pajamas I wore, I could feel each finger. I imagined I could even feel the roughness of her fingerprints. But I did not do anything more than lie there with her limp hand on me. There was no pretense behind which to hide my actions, as there had been when we “played.” I could not look around her fright or the fact that I was responsible for it. For an hour or two I lay paralyzed. Finally, I sent Anita to her cot.
This pattern was repeated over several nights. Anita’s body became less stiff. My shame diminished. I discovered the disguise I needed: pretend sleep. I did not care that it was obvious I was shamming. What mattered was having some excuse.
One night I loosened the cords of my pajamas and, while snoring, took Anita’s hand and slipped it beneath my pajamas and underwear. I remember how Anita’s fingers were startled to discover my pubic hair. I kept my eyes closed and continued breathing deeply. When her fingers touched the base of my penis, they would have jerked away except for my heavy hand on top of hers. I covered her hand with mine and showed her how to hold me. I made her masturbate me.
The first time, I came suddenly and with such enormous force that my whole body vanished in silver pleasure. I even stayed hard after coming. When Anita pulled her hand away, I sleepily kissed her on the forehead. I didn’t want her to associate anything bad with masturbating, and for some reason I thought that if I appeared grateful, she would see herself as less taken advantage of. “Thank you,” I murmured from my sleep. “Wipe your hand on the cot leg.”
I had Anita masturbate me once or twice a night. I pretended to sleep as I guided her hand. The only sound was my mad, wheezing snore. After she finished, Anita would slip quietly to her cot.
The masturbation made me certain that I would be caught. I had always felt that each of my crimes drew me closer and closer to punishment. Now that I was onto something directly sexual, the likely had become the inevitable.
It might happen at any time. The latrine was on the ground floor, and Radha sometimes came down at night to urinate. A moment’s curiosity would be enough. Many times I thought I heard footsteps and literally shoved Anita out of my cot and onto the floor. As I did this, I kept snoring.
But the possibility that Anita might betray me to Radha frightened me even more than the risk of being caught. I decided to make Anita afraid. Once, while Anita masturbated me, I rolled over and looked at her. She was on her back. Her eyes were wide and her face still. I stared at Anita till she began to be frightened. “What are you doing?” I finally asked. She didn’t answer. I lifted myself on an elbow and continued staring. I suddenly lifted a hand as if to slap her. Anita flinched so hard she almost fell off the cot. “This is what you do while I’m asleep,” I hissed. I didn’t say anything then for several minutes. I kept looking at her lying on the edge of the cot. “Never tell anyone about this. If you tell, people will think you’re an animal. They will kill you with stones.” I sank onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Anita went to her cot.
Nothing would ease my fear, though. I began growing desperate. One night, while the children were asleep and the tube light in the family room was crawling with bugs, I made Radha sit beside me on a sofa and started telling her that I had acted shamefully with her and the children for many years. “I drink. I curse. If I only ate meat and started whoring, I would have done everything. But this is because I have been so unhappy. I was sad with what life has given me.” I took her hands in mine and cried.
“Don’t cry,” Radha murmured. She forced her hands free. I wept for nearly an hour. Radha did not know what to say and kept rubbing the sofa’s rough blue cloth. After a while, my tears moved her so much that she started crying as well. From then on, I went to temple two nights a week.
Anita became ill. She had a fever and a prolonged dry cough so deep it made her vomit. Her illness lasted a week and a half. During that time, each cough felt to me like an accusation, as if I had caused her sickness. I felt so guilty that I told her to sleep upstairs.
I think Radha also felt guilty, because she paid more attention to this than she had to other illnesses the children had had. She teased, “The neighbors are going to think you have TB if you keep coughing like that.”
The cough had been gone two days when I brought Anita back to my bed. Anita was in the courtyard brushing her teeth before going up to her cot to sleep. I stood in my doorway and watched her. Anita had curly hair as a child, and seeing it, I thought of my own collapsing hairline. I had not masturbated for several days in anticipation of what her small hand would feel like around my penis. “You can sleep with me tonight,” I said to her. “Your coughing won’t keep me awake.” Anita did not say anything. Once more, I carried her cot down to my room.
My guilt about her sickness still lingered and I had doubts whether that night I would have her masturbate me. But when I closed the door to my room and turned around to see Anita lying on her cot, I felt my throat close with desire. “Get into my cot,” I said. My voice came out rough and angry. Anita scrambled onto my cot; her fearfulness aroused me. She was wearing a large loose gown that came to just above her ankles. I turned off the light and removed my pajamas. My penis pointed straight ahead. I had never before lain naked next to Anita. I got into the cot and immediately bunched up her nightdress and put one finger in her vagina. She yelped. I wiggled my finger in her to let her know she had to be quiet. Then I sucked on my finger and tried to see how deeply I could sink it. Half an inch. “Ohh!” she said in pain. Shh, I went. Shh. Anita was having trouble breathing. She sounded as if there were sand in her lungs. I took my finger out of her and parted her legs. Then I rolled on top of her and brought my penis to her vagina. Putting my hand over her mouth, I stubbed my penis outside her vagina for a moment. But finding my place, I rammed, once, twice, three times, and gushed sperm. Anita had her lips pressed tightly together and I could feel her face twitching with pain.
As I remembered this on the bus going to Beri, I whimpered. The man sitting beside me glanced in my direction. I looked out the window. The bus was climbing an unpaved road along the side of a bare hill. I touched my face. It was covered with dust and felt swollen from the heat and wind. I’ve changed since then, I thought. Asha was an accident after decades of being good. It was alcohol. Nothing happened with Asha. Anita was angry because of my thoughts.
Almost immediately after ejaculating, I had felt as if I were swallowing my own tongue. Anita continued breathing loudly. She started crying. The noise frightened me, but I was too ashamed to hush her. I got up and went to the courtyard. The moon was nearly complete. Everything I had done appeared to me clearly. Even outside, I thought I could hear Anita breathing. My stomach was roiling. I squatted to put my head between my knees, but lost my balance and fell stretched out on my face. I wondered a
s I fell whether Radha could hear me.
I went and washed my penis. There was blood on it. I rubbed Anita clean with a towel. The insides of her thighs were gooey with sperm and blood. Neither of us said anything as I did this. Anita kept crying.
In the morning Anita’s face looked as though the bones had given way. When Radha saw her, she was shocked. “Sick all night,” I hurried to explain.
“Vomiting?”
“Twice.” Anita did not contradict me. How could she have?
For a week and a half I did not go near Anita. I told her she still sounded sick and sent her to sleep by herself. Anita began speaking again and her eyes started moving to follow what was in front of her. The fact that Radha did not ask questions to discover what had happened appeared to me complete proof that she was almost consciously choosing not to know. I think this, but I know that Radha was honorable and would not have shunned her duties.