‘It’s punishable because it’s wrong, even if they’re married. It’s rape,’ Nikki said. It was another one of those words surrounded by such taboo that she had never learned its Punjabi equivalent, so she said it in English. No wonder Tarampal resented the other widows. Although they appeared reserved like her, their storytelling went against everything she had been trained to believe about marriage.
‘That’s what husbands did back then. We didn’t complain. Being married is about growing up.’
At the corners of Tarampal’s eyes, fine lines were just beginning to emerge. Her hair was still dark and thick, unlike the white buns worn by the other widows. She was young, yet she’d been a wife for three-quarters of her life. This detail struck Nikki hard. ‘How old were you?’ she asked.
‘Ten,’ Tarampal said. Her face shone with a pride that made Nikki’s stomach roil.
‘Weren’t you afraid? Weren’t your parents afraid?’
‘Nothing to be afraid of. It was such good fortune, being destined for Kemal Singh, the Pundit himself,’ Tarampal said. ‘Our horoscopes matched, you see, so there was no denying our match even though there was a huge age difference.’
‘Was there time for you to get to know each other?’ Nikki asked. ‘Before the wedding night, I mean.’
Tarampal took a longer pause to sip her tea and in that time, Nikki thought she noticed a cloud cross her face. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t press,’ Nikki said. ‘It’s obviously personal.’
‘It doesn’t happen like that,’ Tarampal said. ‘It is much simpler and you will want it to be over as soon as it starts. The romance, the consideration for each other’s needs – that comes later.’
‘So it came, then?’ Nikki said. She wasn’t sure why she felt so relieved but her sentiments were mirrored in Tarampal’s features. An unexpected smile twitched on her lips. ‘Yes,’ she said, her cheeks high with colour. ‘All of the good things came later.’ She cleared her throat and turned her head away, clearly embarrassed that Nikki had seen her reminiscing.
‘What’s wrong with writing about them then? Sharing them?’ Nikki asked gently.
‘Hai, Nikki. Those stories are vulgar. Why must these private things be written for everybody to see? You’re defending these stories because you’re unmarried; you don’t know anything yet. You must be picturing it with somebody – you have a boy in mind, do you?’
‘Uh, me? No.’ Tarampal would probably chase Nikki out and bleach the seats if she knew that Nikki had been with several men already, none of whom she had ever considered marrying. Then there was Jason. Last night, he had come to the pub and she had invited him back to her flat after her shift. The floorboards had creaked dangerously with their shifting steps as they tumbled onto her bed. Afterwards, Nikki had suggested that they spend their next evening in Jason’s flat. ‘My place isn’t an option,’ he’d said. ‘I’ve got a flatmate who’s always there and the thinnest walls in the world.’ A catch in his voice suggested this was an excuse. She wasn’t dwelling on it. She couldn’t. She liked him too much.
A moment passed. Nikki turned towards the window, looking at Kulwinder’s home. The curtains were drawn shut and the porch light was off, giving it the shadowy appearance of a house in mourning. Turning back to face Tarampal, Nikki’s gaze landed on an item on the fridge: a Fem Fighters magnet clip.
‘Is that yours?’ Nikki asked, surprised, pointing to it.
‘No, of course not. It was Maya’s,’ Tarampal said. ‘She left it here. Kulwinder and Sarab came through and took everything, of course – all of her clothes, her books, her photos. All that was left after they came through were the little things – a paperclip here, a sock there. This magnet as well.’
‘She lived here?’
Tarampal stared at her strangely. ‘Yes, she was married to Jagdev. How can you not know this? Weren’t you friends with Maya?’
‘No.’
‘How do you know Kulwinder then?’
‘I responded to an advertisement for the job.’
‘I thought you were one of Maya’s friends. I thought Kulwinder offered you the job as a favour.’
Nikki looked at the magnet again. No wonder Tarampal thought they were friends; they clearly had a few things in common. There was such contempt in Tarampal’s voice every time she mentioned Maya, yet they had been practically related. ‘So Jagdev is your nephew?’
‘He’s a family friend from Birmingham. No relation. He came to London to look for work after he got laid off from his job. Kulwinder insisted on introducing him to Maya because she thought they’d be suitable for each other.’ Tarampal sighed. ‘But she was wrong. Maya was a very unstable girl.’
Jagdev: the son Tarampal always wanted. Nikki could see her relishing the role of possessive mother-in-law. She wished there were some way to teleport Mindi into this conversation, to show her what she was getting herself into. Tarampal wasn’t even related to Jagdev and she could hardly hide her disdain. What were Mindi’s chances of winning approval with a real mother-in-law? ‘So it was set up then? How long did they have to date?’
‘Three months,’ Tarampal said.
‘Three months?’ Even Mindi and Mum would balk at that time frame. ‘I thought Maya was a modern girl. Why the hurry?’
‘The widows didn’t tell you all about this?’
‘No,’ Nikki said.
Tarampal sat back and eyed her. ‘I find that surprising. All they do is gossip.’
‘They’re not gossips,’ Nikki said, rushing to the widows’ defence. For all her frustration at being excluded from conversations about Maya, Nikki admired Sheena’s protectiveness. ‘Sheena’s especially loyal to her. I suppose these stories get distorted and she wants to prevent that from happening.’
‘There’s only one story,’ Tarampal said. ‘Sheena’s like Kulwinder – she doesn’t want to believe the truth. That’s the truth.’ She pointed at the back door. A small window in the door provided a view of the garden but it was dark. Again, Tarampal was assuming Nikki knew this truth. She looked at the Fem Fighters magnet clip; if Maya were alive, maybe she’d be teaching the women’s classes and finding some way to sneak in erotic stories under Kulwinder’s nose. What was this terrible fate that nobody wanted to discuss? If Nikki wanted to know more, she had to play along. ‘Well, I did hear some rumours that Maya was not very honourable,’ she said.
‘Maya was seeing an English boy, did Sheena tell you that? Hanh, she wanted to marry him. Came home with a ring on her finger and everything. Kulwinder put her foot down and told Maya she had a choice – marry the boy and leave her family forever or leave the boy and have her family.’
Leave the family, Nikki thought immediately. Good riddance to old-fashioned parents. Then she was struck by a sobering memory of her first few weeks alone in her flat. It had been lonely enough without giving up her family forever. ‘And a forced marriage was part of the deal?’ Nikki asked.
‘An arranged marriage by the people who had her best interests at heart,’ Tarampal replied flatly. ‘We all cared for her, you know. I was a close friend of Kulwinder’s and I had seen Maya grow up. We knew what she needed.’
‘Were they compatible, then?’ Nikki asked. A good blood-type match? she refrained from asking.
‘Sometimes Maya and Jaggi got along but they fought a lot too. Most of their arguments were in English but this body language, everybody can understand.’ Tarampal puffed up her chest and tilted her head upwards to challenge an invisible adversary. ‘One day she purposely said in Punjabi, “We should get our own place.” She wanted me to hear it.’
Nikki sensed a bit of excitement in Tarampal’s reenactment. Auntie Geeta got similarly carried away whenever she arrived at Mum’s place with fresh gossip. ‘She just wants to connect to people, the poor thing,’ Mum always said in her defence, though Nikki knew Mum found it unsettling, this eagerness to vilify people for entertainment’s sake. Yet Nikki found it just as difficult to suppress her curiosity. ‘Did they move then?’
‘She was very unstable, you know.’ It was the second time Tarampal had mentioned this. ‘The question is, why did she want so much privacy? In our community, girls move in with their in-laws once they’re married – since I was offering very reasonable rent, Jaggi decided to stay here and this became their marital home. See, Maya didn’t want to accept her life. She was trying to live as if she had married that gora.’
She thought she could make it work, Nikki thought sadly. ‘So they stayed here?’ she asked, looking around. Even a contemporary home like this one would feel confining to a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage. ‘I’m guessing Maya wasn’t happy about it.’
‘Not at all. Then Jaggi began confiding in me. He suspected that she was having an affair. Maya put on perfume in the morning before going to work in the city. She stayed late at the office and was driven home by a man from her office. Who would drive all the way to Southall just to drop off a girl unless they were getting something in exchange?’
‘A friend. A kind colleague,’ Nikki said.
Tarampal shook her head. ‘Nonsense.’ Her pronouncement was absolute. ‘Maya and Jaggi had a big quarrel about it. She packed her bags and went home to Kulwinder’s place.’
Here Tarampal paused and stared out the window. Nikki followed her gaze. The plain curtains in Kulwinder’s bay windows were drawn tightly together. What happened when Maya decided to leave? Nikki imagined Kulwinder’s lips set in that stern line as she shook her head and ordered Maya to do her duty.
‘And then what?’ Nikki asked.
‘Maya was home for about a week, and then she was sent back. Things were peaceful at first but it didn’t take long for the fighting to resume once she returned.’ Tarampal sighed. ‘You can’t expect the world from your husband. The sooner you girls understand that, the fewer disappointments you’ll face.’
Mindi’s dating profile picture flashed into Nikki’s mind, that shimmer of hope in her eyes. Nikki felt a sudden relief on Mindi’s behalf. She had far more control over her situation than Maya had. Although Nikki still had her doubts about Mindi meeting the women of the families first, at least she had choices. She could say no, and she certainly wasn’t going to be bullied into a three-month courtship. Mum would never allow it. ‘My sister is looking for a husband but she’s being selective,’ Nikki informed Tarampal. ‘She wants to avoid being let down.’
‘Good luck to your sister, then,’ Tarampal said. ‘Let’s hope she does not end up losing her mind like Maya.’
A silence stretched between them, during which Nikki’s eyes scanned every available space in the house to avoid Tarampal’s intense stare. The kitchen opened out onto a living room with a plush suede sofa facing a modern stone fireplace. A row of three framed wedding portraits lined the wall space above the mantel. Each bejewelled bride wore a large gold hoop on her nostril and a pattern of sequined bindis that studded the arch of her eyebrows. The overwhelming jewellery partially obscured their facial expressions.
‘How did Maya die?’ Nikki asked softly.
‘She took her own life,’ Tarampal said.
‘How?’ It was a morbid question but Nikki had to know.
‘The way women in our culture do it when they are filled with shame,’ Tarampal said. She blinked and turned away. ‘With fire.’
Nikki stared at Tarampal in horror. ‘Fire?’
Tarampal nodded at the back door. ‘There is still a patch of burnt grass in the garden. I don’t go out there any more.’
So that was what Tarampal had pointed to earlier. It was too much to take in. The revelation left Nikki slightly short of breath. From the corner of her vision, the back garden was shrouded in shadows but she adjusted her seat so she could cut it out completely. How could Tarampal stand it? No wonder the house had been so lavishly remodelled – an attempt to move on from the memory of Maya’s ghastly suicide. Nikki felt a lump in her throat as she thought of Kulwinder and Sarab living across the street from the site of their daughter’s death. ‘Was anybody else home at the time?’ she asked. Surely somebody could have stopped her, she thought, with a fierce and desperate longing to save Maya from herself.
‘I was at the temple. Jaggi was halfway up the road. He had found some messages on Maya’s phone from the man she had been sleeping with. He told her he wanted to divorce her. This sent Maya into a panic. She didn’t want to be divorced. She was afraid of never being able to face the community or her parents again. Maya was in hysterics and begged him to stay. Jaggi stormed out of the house saying, “This is over.” That was when she ran out into the back garden, doused herself in petrol and lit the match.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ Nikki said. She shut her eyes but the violent scene played out in her mind. Tarampal kept on speaking but her voice sounded far away. ‘That’s the problem with having too much imagination, Nikki. Girls begin to desire too much.’
This flawed and rigid logic was maddening. Nikki didn’t have any idea what Maya looked like but she pictured a younger, slimmer version of Kulwinder, wearing jeans and her hair in a loose ponytail. A modern girl. The callous words of those langar hall ladies returned to her. A girl with no honour. If people in the community were ready to brand her as such, she probably saw no reason to keep living.
‘Poor Kulwinder and Sarab,’ Nikki said.
‘Poor Jaggi,’ Tarampal said. ‘You should have seen him at the funeral – clutching his hair, falling to the ground, pleading for her to come back, despite everything she did to him. He suffered much more.’
Surely grief wasn’t a competition. ‘I’m sure it was difficult for everyone, including yourself,’ Nikki said.
‘It was more difficult for Jaggi,’ Tarampal insisted. ‘Think of what Kulwinder and Sarab have been saying about him: that he drove Maya to it, that he never took care of her. Why should his reputation suffer?’
Discomfort swelled in Nikki’s stomach. Where exactly had the conversation taken this turn? Less than an hour ago, she had rushed across the Broadway thinking that she might convince Tarampal to return to the classes but she was more wilful than Nikki had expected.
‘You have a lovely home,’ she said quickly before Tarampal’s rant could spiral any further into this dark territory of honour.
‘Thank you,’ Tarampal said.
‘My mum wants to do some remodelling,’ Nikki said. ‘Do you have the contact information of your guy?’ Mum would like that – a Punjabi contractor, someone who would understand her need to make the house look luxurious for Mindi’s future wedding.
Tarampal nodded and left the kitchen. It was a relief to be left alone. Nikki took in a deep breath and finished her tea, gulping down even the gritty remnants of seeds and leaves that had escaped through the sieve. The house was silent except for the chorus of rain outside. She plucked the Fem Fighters magnet from the fridge and rolled it in her palm. To think that she had handed out hundreds of these at a Hyde Park rally and that somewhere in that pulsing summer crowd, Maya might have been present.
Tarampal returned with a brochure for a contractor. Attached at the top was a name card with the contractor’s name in gilded raised lettering: RICK PETTON HOME RENOVATIONS.
‘He’s English,’ Nikki said with surprise.
‘I had Jaggi help me with communicating,’ Tarampal said. ‘He’s back in Birmingham but he visits every so often.’
‘Like a good son,’ Nikki said.
Tarampal flinched. ‘He’s not my son,’ she said.
‘Of course,’ Nikki said. What a punishing existence it must have been for Tarampal with her failure to produce a son for the community’s spiritual leader. She was sorry that she mentioned it. A look of unease lingered on Tarampal’s face as Nikki picked up her satchel.
Passing the living room on her way out, Nikki could feel the stares of Tarampal’s daughters from their portraits on the wall. Their eyes glistened with youth. It was difficult to discern their emotions beneath the heavy coat of make-up and wedding jewellery. Was it excitement? Nikki wondere
d. Or fear?
Chapter Nine
Nikki stretched her leg and pinched the edge of the curtains between her toes to drag them across the window. Jason stirred at her side. ‘Leave them open,’ he mumbled.
‘Such an exhibitionist,’ Nikki teased. ‘I’m just trying to keep the sunlight out.’ It was late morning. Last night, all night, they had been up reading stories to each other with pauses in between to reenact the best scenes.
Jason gave her a light smack on the bum. ‘Naughty,’ he said. He reached over her and drew the curtains shut. Dropping his head back to the pillow, he landed a wet, delicious kiss on Nikki’s ear. She sank back into his chest and pulled the covers over both their heads.
Jason shifted and rolled to his side. There was a rustling sound. He returned with a slightly crumpled sheet of paper. ‘Centuries ago, on the fringes of a palace city, there was a talented but modest tailor …’ Jason narrated.
‘We already did the tailor one.’
‘I’m writing the sequel,’ Jason said. He slipped his hands under the sheets and ran them down the length of her back. Nikki shivered. Jason brushed his lips against her neck, travelling up and down its length with light, dusty kisses. He reached between her legs and began tracing his fingers in circles along her inner thighs, inching upwards and then drawing away. Nikki sank back into the softness of her bed.
Charred flesh.
The image flashed into her mind so suddenly that Nikki sat up. Startled, Jason jolted away. ‘What happened?’ he asked. His face was so full of concern that Nikki felt foolish.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I must have had a bad dream last night and it came back to me.’ Fragments of this dream remained in her consciousness. She could catch a faint whiff of burning and the wide-open mouth of an anguished scream. She shook her head. Three times since her visit to Tarampal she had dreamt of Maya.
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows Page 17