Lies—how many lies do we make up in our minds, weave together like a spider’s web, ensnaring ourselves in that very trap, till it is torn apart by a gust of wind—or until we grow tired of deceiving ourselves. I did just that—so long as Jayanto was physically absent—there wasn’t an argument I didn’t raise in his defence, gathered and gleaned from heaven and earth, as when children arrange one card on top of another to build a house, a third storey on the second floor, and so on. But I would never articulate the greatest argument of all—not even when I was alone, not to myself just before falling asleep— never.
One Sunday, just after lunch, Angshu said, ‘I’ve got three tickets for Tagore’s Chandalika. Do you want to go and take Bunni along?’
‘The Chaturmukh production?’
‘Yes, that’s the one—it should be good.’ Without waiting for my reply he added, ‘If you don’t want to go, I’ll take Bunni—it’s for Bunni we’re going.’
I quickly said, ‘You don’t want me to go?’
‘You might have somewhere else to go—how should I know?’
I replied, ‘I have no other engagement.’
‘Then let’s go. We’ll have to leave at five-fifteen sharp.’ Angshu casually picked up a book and opened it (if he’d read a little less, he might have understood other people’s minds a little better). And it struck me that this sort of conversation between husband and wife was rather extraordinary, perhaps not natural at all. Then, as I thought about it, I realized that such conversations had been going on between us for several days now—skeletal conversations, without flesh or blood—and now there was no desire to take it further, on the part of either of us, as if neither had any strength left.
The stage décor wasn’t particularly good. The costumes were quite dull, the minor roles just passably played. But the music was lovely and vigorous—with an orchestra of violin, flute, drums and little brass cymbals—the sarod playing now and then like rain—it was as if the instruments were playing a contrapuntal game with Tagore’s tunes. Prakriti and her mother both danced exquisitely. These two, with their almond-shaped eyes, the mesmerizing gestures of their hands and fingers, the amazingly rapid changes in their facial expressions, completely charmed me. I sat in my seat, swaying to the rhythms, my lips moving, singing each and every song without making a sound, and an exhilarating feeling, beyond all expectations, overflowed from my heart.
It is perhaps for this reason that the night is so clear in my mind—my conversation with Angshu afterwards, and what happened once we got home. It seems like I haven’t forgotten a thing, as if it’s all lined up, event after event. That night stands out like an island in the stream of our forgetfulness. It was another world, where sorrow and strife are all there yet give no pain, where nothing is tainted, nothing is patchwork, nothing is false, where everything seems to fit together, and all is luminous and free—a world which was mine once, or could have been. At music school I too performed the role of Prakriti once. And for quite some time after our marriage, we—Angshu and I—used to come now and then to special concerts or plays. (Angshu was very keen on the theatre, but the only music he appreciated was Tagore’s.) How long has it been that we have stopped attending such functions, have not even listened to the radio—only Bunni turns it on sometimes. At one point I’d heard what sounded like a choked sob and turned my head. It seemed as though the sound had come from Angshu. Then in that dim light I caught a glimpse of him wiping his eyes with the flat of his palm. The final scene was over. In the aisle, on the way out, we ran into a few people we knew. I heard Angshu say in English, in reply to somebody, ‘Well, that old man!’ As we got out onto the street he said, mainly to himself, ‘Fantastic! Fantastic! So tender and sweet, sometimes even sentimental—but then, suddenly here and there, it surged to such great heights.’ Nayonangshu hailed a taxi, even though it was the end of the month. Bunni fell asleep on the way home with her head on her father’s lap and her feet on mine. On the way Angshu asked, ‘Did you notice that the words given to the mother are homely and simple, but the daughter speaks in rather sophisticated diction—do you think it’s a blemish in style?’
‘I don’t know, never thought about it—I concentrate so much on the melody that I don’t really hear the words.’
‘That’s a mistake—there’s real magic in Tagore’s lyrics.’ Then a little later he added, ‘No—perhaps I didn’t state it correctly— particularly in the dance dramas the words so melt into the melody that we don’t get time to think about what’s happening and why. Still—it’s something worth contemplating.’
After we reached home Angshu still couldn’t get off this subject. He started talking at length about Rabindranath. He took out a copy of Chandalika and flipped through the pages—I saw his face and eyes light up.
‘Here, I got it—this passage—
O holy one, best of men,
Whatever the strength of my sin,
The power of your forgiveness is
Manyfold the greater
I wouldst dishonour you,
Yet I bow down, yet I bow down, yet I bow down.
‘Here all of a sudden the mother, too, uses one or two bookish words. It looks a little awkward in print—especially the ‘wouldst’—but when sung—come now, do you remember the tune?’ asked Angshu glancing at me. For some time there hadn’t been an occasion when he’d wanted to hear me sing—I sang for him. Angshu fell silent for a moment, then said, ‘There’s nothing more to be said. It’s the last word, absolutely the last.’
That night we both fell asleep as soon as we lay down—a deep, soft, beautiful sleep—but much later that night my sleep was gently broken. I was aware of Angshu’s hand on my shoulder. When my eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness, I could make out that he was gazing at me—bending over my face. Once again I felt his breath on my cheek. A ripple of pleasure shot through my body—it had been so long since I’d felt Angshu’s touch, any man’s touch—but a moment later that very pleasure turned into pain arising in my throat—a silent wail, of desolation—as if my heart had been drained completely and I’d become aware of it only then. Angshu lay down beside me. He drew my face to his. My heart didn’t respond, but I made the appropriate gestures. I gave him for those few moments this body of mine. I don’t know what Angshu got from it, if he got anything at all—but a revulsion came over me: it was as if I could not forgive Angshu for the claim he had on me, on my body—and then I felt a smouldering anger at myself for having such hostile feelings towards Angshu.
Angshu had fallen asleep with his face pressed against the nape of my neck—like a contented lover from some novel. He sighed peacefully, like a child, as though he had regained some lost happiness. I pushed him away saying, ‘Get up, go to your bed.’
‘What’s wrong if I stay here?’
‘But suppose you don’t get up before it’s morning? What if Bunni comes in and sees us?’
Angshu got up, still heavy with sleep, and left. A thought, coming from the depths of my heart, began to make its way to the surface. My anger, anguish, my resentment towards Angshu—all of it was because of Jayanto. I couldn’t forget him for an instant. That’s why the anguish. We’d been together to see Chandalika, Angshu and I, and together we’d tasted a different kind of pleasure—sensual yet not so—a pleasure in which Jayanto had no part at all. Something beautiful, beyond our needs and possessions, which might be called pure or even sacred—the two of us had been united in it for a few fleeting moments. Jayanto remained excluded. A little while ago I had also given my body to Angshu. Angshu thought he was happy and fell asleep, and Jayanto was driven out from this house. Angshu, my husband, drove Jayanto out—without a thought for me, without considering my feelings. Tagore melodies had cast a spell over things then. I had almost forgotten myself. I thought Angshu first-rate, most intelligent; I felt his comments on Chandalika were exceptional. But during the hours of sleep, the song birds have left me and flown away. I have lost the mood I had then—the one in which I’d though
t of Angshu as fine and intelligent—and now, suddenly awake, Angshu’s touch has brought me back to reality. How can I accept or tolerate Angshu’s being happy (or at least thinking he’s so) because of me, when I know that Jayanto is suffering, just as I am suffering every single moment, constantly. And he is without even the few comforts and consolations that I have in my life. I felt jealous of Angshu, and of myself, because we attained happiness in some form or other, or had once attained it, or might be able to in the future, something which Jayanto’s life hadn’t granted him. A sickly and very plain wife, a slightly crazy widowed mother, children, poverty—Jayanto lived his life among them, or used to, until he met us. I only knew about his life from what he’d himself told me, and had never seen him at home or at his place of work. Based on what Angshu had told me in his initial burst of enthusiasm, I had come to see him as a soldier in life’s battle, struggling with a hostile environment, with no fixed job, trudging the streets for a living in the sun and rain, hair all dishevelled—a man serving the nation, protesting against injustice week after week. It seemed to me he had many good qualities which were being crushed by poverty and which others wilfully refused to recognize. I decided I’d bring Jayanto back to this house—however I could—I’d nurture and nourish his qualities, provide him a refuge. I felt I was his greatest friend in the world, a necessity for him, and to deprive him would be a sin on my part. I sighed deeply, tossed and turned the remainder of the night—in this very room, on the very bed that stands next to my husband’s.
The next day, in the solitude of the afternoon, I wrote on a sheet of paper, ‘Jayanto, come back.’ I kept gazing at those three words I’d written for a while, as if trying to discover their meaning and why they were written there. I ran my pen again and again over them making the lettering heavier. Suddenly I started at the thought of another possibility—Jayanto hadn’t left Calcutta, had he? Fate—what we call happiness in this life depends entirely on fate! He is a free man and a reckless one at that—what’s there to stop him from going away? So that this life of Nayonangshu and his wife doesn’t fall apart, maybe he has gone his own way bearing a burden of pain and humiliation. Is his magazine, Bartaman, still being published? He sends us a copy each week. Did any arrive recently? I began to search the magazine rack in the sitting room. Angshu has all sorts of magazines there, but not one copy of Bartaman. Then it has stopped publication, or has it changed hands? Angshu certainly knows but isn’t telling me. Perhaps it was Angshu who got him a job in Patna or maybe Bhubaneshwar. At that moment I thought that Angshu must have conspired to get Jayanto out of the way. He didn’t want any friend of mine to stick around, didn’t want anyone to give me some special attention—selfish, jealous Nayonangshu. But Jayanto, how was it you didn’t think of me either?
At that moment I suddenly saw Jayanto—standing before me, in the sitting room—just as I looked up from the magazine rack. It took me a few moments to believe my eyes.
He was wearing a clean dhoti and panjabi, his hair was neatly combed and parted. He looked a little thinner. He said without sitting down, ‘I couldn’t help but come again. I had to see you once more. But if you don’t want to, if both of you would rather … I’ll leave this minute. You won’t see me again in your entire life.’
My whole body began to tremble. I collapsed in a chair, lost. My heart began to beat violently. Quite some time passed without either of us speaking a word, without looking at each other, merely immersed in each other’s presence. Then Jayanto said, ‘Lotan, won’t you forgive me? Won’t you even look at me?’ I looked over at him to see his black eyes filled with fire.
Bunni got home from school and jumped around excitedly on seeing her Janti kaka. Jayanto gave her a big kiss and a hug. When Angshu arrived from office, he stopped short for just a moment, then almost immediately said casually, ‘Here you are, Jayanto babu. How’re you doing?’
Even more casually, Jayanto replied, ‘Mrs Mukherji, your husband is an amazing person. He even tolerates scoundrels like me.’ And so just like that our normal life, or not so normal life, resumed. From that point onwards I proceeded quickly to where things stand today.
Have I done wrong? But what could I have done? I am made of flesh and blood, too. How could I, and why should I, have turned away someone who wanted me—not some figurine fashioned by his own hand or fancy, but just me, myself, me! Those days that Jayanto hadn’t come to the house (all together maybe fifteen or twenty days) were easily erased from my mind, as if they had never existed, as if Jayanto had been here all the time and would stay forever. In how many ways had he made it known to me that I was the centre of his life, his everything! Should I not place any value on such devotion? Am I heartless? How many times it so happened that the house was full of people, some relatives having come by, and I was in a flurry, moving about from one room to another, and Jayanto sat patiently, hour after hour, to get me alone for as little as fifteen minutes. (We’d just look into each other’s eyes, maybe exchange a word or two, about my household affairs, or about Jayanto’s life, the detention camp, a tale about the Dandakaranya situation—to get me alone meant nothing more than that to him.) He was quite at ease with our relatives, made fast friends with Bunni, didn’t miss a detail about the ins and outs of my domestic life. Somehow he made himself a part of this household. I could sense that Nayonangshu didn’t look too favourably upon all this. I must admit one couldn’t really expect him to. I could see that as the days went by, an ominous dark cloud was building up at the back of his mind. I was beginning to realize that neither of us had a stable footing in this united life of ours. Sad—but were all redresses and remedies in my hands? No, it’s Angshu who is the master of this house. He himself has to take the hard decisions. Why did he let go of the helm, why did he give in after he’d thrown out Jayanto once, why wasn’t he blunt and rude, why didn’t he control me with a stronger, dictatorial hand—why, why did he just whine and sulk and feel hurt, behave like a girl, like some anaemic gentleman?
No. This is wrong, all wrong. We have a thousand and one ways of deceiving ourselves and others. And through that sieve of deception, no one knows how or when, trickles out all that we label good or bad, just or unjust. No—these abstract things don’t exist. All there is, is desire. We are driven by our desires. Each of us is so made that one person’s desires never quite coincide with another’s. And because husband and wife have to be together constantly, these differences become most apparent in their lives. In a majority of cases, they do not really matter much, and some sort of compromise can be reached. It is possible to accept or adjust. But if ever some desire becomes immensely powerful, then who can dictate what is right and what is wrong? Is there anyone who can resist that irrepressible power, like steam hissing from the boiler of an engine? It’s like this: for the past twelve years everything has happened according to Angshu’s wishes. For once, can’t something happen according to mine? Am I just Nayonangshu’s wife, am I not an individual with a will of my own?
Let no one think that I was blind to Nayonangshu’s suffering, or that I did not try to make him happy. Those times when nothing at all had happened between Jayanto and me, I’d noticed Nayonangshu undergoing some strange transformation. He smiled far less frequently, never gave a straight answer to any of my questions—he was hurt by the idea of me surpassing him in the view of at least one other person. Didn’t I at that time try hard to keep Nayonangshu in good humour? I’ve never liked cooking—the heat from the stove gives me a headache—yet at that time I myself cooked whatever he relished. And although we had servants, I ironed his shirts and trousers myself. I didn’t even mind polishing his shoes. He liked his comforts, and on top of that he was very particular about neatness. I worked hard, took great care to keep the flat sparkling. I replaced the lampshade and put new covers on the sofa so that the sitting room looked bright and pleasant—but he seemed not to notice any of it. Yet, nothing I did, however small, ever escaped Jayanto’s attention. He even noticed if I had new earrings on. Whil
e pouring tea, I’d feel his gaze on my hands.
Should I have beguiled Nayonangshu with my body? But wouldn’t that have been abominable behaviour? What can I do, I’ve become like this. I want to make him happy, yet I can no longer look upon his body with pleasure. When he comes out of the bathroom sometimes with his torso bare, I turn my eyes away. At times I feel suffocated because we have to sleep in the same room. If only the body played no part in love, how happy we could have been, Nayonangshu and I! Couldn’t he keep the two apart and still find joy? I was rather hopeful the day he invited Aparna Ghosh from his office over for tea—she’s a divorcée, lively in conversation, made up like the women on Park Street, and she throws melting looks at Nayonangshu—but no, he won’t pursue the matter. He’s a great one for brooding and worrying. His thinking is convoluted, oblique. Dealing with things casually is not in his line at all. He just doesn’t have the ability to be happy effortlessly.
It Rained All Night Page 7