No Trespassing

by Brinda S Narayan

  Folks dispersed soon after. Hansika urged us to stay on for breakfast, but most of us had lost our appetites. Many people worried that their own parents would be overcome at some point - by age, or stress, or some other factor that lurked around the corner. I worried too about my own father, and wondered if he could move to Bangalore, instead of living in faraway Kolkata, where we couldn’t reach him in an emergency. But then again, I knew that wasn’t a possibility. He was more wedded to Kolkata than he had been to his wives.

  By the next morning, we were relieved to hear that Senior Mehta was going to recover soon, that it was a mild heart flutter, a common response to sudden stress. On the intercom, Hansika said: ‘Papa’s going to be better soon, nothing to worry, but though the doctor has advised that he mustn’t travel for a week, he wants to leave immediately for his farmhouse. Just the other evening, when he came back from his walk by the Zen garden, he seemed crazily frightened by something. He wouldn’t tell me what. There’s no need for him to rush back. You know how irrational old people can be…’

  Was that an old man’s unsound decision or was Raj’s father afraid of something with reason? Had someone overheard our talk inside the Zen garden? Was Raj’s Batman obsession more pertinent than it seemed? If so, was the danger creeping up on me?

  THIRTY-ONE

  I CALLED MY STEPMOTHER again. ‘Asha, I need a break from Fantasia, from everything here. Can Rhea and I come to Kolkata for a week?’

  ‘Of course, Vedika, you’re always welcome, this is your home, you know that. Can Manas also come?’ I had expected surprise, even a demurral of sorts. This was, after all, an unusual visit. Usually, we visited during the Puja holidays. I hadn’t foreseen the palpable joy and excitement in Asha’s voice.

  ‘I’ll check with Manas,’ I said.

  ‘But even if he can’t come, you must come. It will be lovely to see you.’ All those feelings that had washed over me earlier now seemed futile and baseless.

  My parents lived in Shyam Bazar in North Kolkata, in a residential locality that exuded a decayed refinement, in the Kolkata way. The homes on their street, somewhat uniform in appearance, seemed like aged ladies who were unconscious of their vanished youth. On most, the paint was peeling and the balcony grills rusted. Behind the rusted grills, washed clothes swayed gently in the evening breeze.

  As a child, I had grown up believing we had dazzling interiors. I used to be immensely proud of the gleam of our mosaic tiles, the satiny sheen on our sofas, the vivid European prints magnified on our walls. But after those few years at Fantasia, I had grown more discerning. I hadn’t seen this then, but it was clear to me now: their home was tacky. This new perspective filled me with a sorrowful longing for the person I used to be.

  It had been a long time since I had visited them. Asha greeted us with a thick, sugary kheer and a warm hug. Even Baba shed his characteristic reticence and showered me with questions about my origami and about Manas.

  ‘Are you sure he’s doing well? Are you sure he should not be considering a job?’ I wasn’t sure at all, but after looking into Baba’s lined face (he seemed to have aged considerably since his last visit), I didn’t have the heart to disclose my own fears. Moreover, I discovered over the course of the afternoon, that they had, in anticipation of our arrival, scrubbed their home clean. Asha had decorated their dining table with an extravagant bunch of white hydrangeas and snapdragons, offset by droopy, green ferns. Baba had procured an earthen pot of mishti doi and a box of sandesh from the neighbourhood’s best sweet shop. I hadn’t realised, in the midst of my own grief, how lonely my parents had become, the extent to which their thoughts and lives had been propped up and shattered by events in ours.

  That afternoon, they tried charting out our week. ‘I just want to stay home,’ I said. ‘You people must carry on with your activities, and we’ll just hang around here.’

  Asha and Baba, whose marriage was already nine years old, were settled into their own groove. Asha trotted out to the Tolly Club five days a week, to meet with her kitty-party group for chatty card sessions. Baba attended a smaller club in his locality, a simple gathering that hosted a carom board, a chess board and a TV for shared viewing of football and cricket matches. His mates were a shabbier lot, dressed in faded shirts and dhotis, without the airs that characterised Asha’s wealthier friends. Despite his dementia, Baba refused to curtail his activities or to submit to any nursing care. Nonetheless, Asha hired a maid to watch over Baba (and even follow him to his club) during her absences. Which spurred, apparently, a running dispute between them. For once, I concurred with Asha. After all, it wasn’t safe to leave Baba untended.

  The next morning, Asha invited me to accompany her to the Tolly Club. I politely refused but suggested she take Rhea. I wanted to steal some time alone with Baba, and also some time by myself.

  ‘Then I’m not going, either,’ Asha said.

  ‘But you should, why do you want to miss your cards session?’

  The next day, she suggested we visit the tourist sites in South Kolkata. ‘Victoria Memorial?’ ‘Alipur Zoo?’ ‘What about an open field, Rhea will like the fresh air in the Maidan.’ I would have relished a break from the confined togetherness of their place. Rhea too was turning fretful and hankered for an outing. But more than a tour of Kolkata, I needed solitary time with Baba.

  To occupy Rhea inside the confines of their small flat, Asha retrieved a carton of my old toys from the attic. I hadn’t known such a box existed. As Rhea hurriedly prised open the taped top, I felt like something inside me was opening up. It was surprising and strangely affecting that my mother—brittle, shorn of sentimental displays—had preserved my possessions for posterity. And that Asha hadn’t discarded them either. After all, their tiny flat, crammed with necessities, didn’t have the vast, unfilled spaces of our Fantasia villa.

  Soon, the living room started filling up with scraps from my past: a train set that I had glued together with Baba’s help; a wind-up Mickey that my uncle, defying my mother’s dictums, had gifted me at Orlando. An old carom board, netted with cobwebs at the four corners. A pair of roller skates. The origami book that had sparked my passion, and creatures I had folded at various stages. A Standard 5 class photo, where my face was obscured by the taller kids.

  Also, my first dream journal, filled with snatches from my nightmares. The one at Fantasia was the second or third in the series. I grabbed the journal and started reading the first few entries, before I got to: The doll hung from a tree, then Mira screamed. Fat boy was scared, he ran away. Just then, Rhea who was still scrounging inside the box, cried out with delight.

  ‘See Mama, see what I have found. A clown man.’ Cradled inside my daughter’s arms, with a distressing fondness, was a clown doll, very similar to the one that Sajan had had. Sajan’s had a striped shirt and dotted pants, whereas this one wore a dotted shirt and striped pants. But this wasn’t mine, I had no memories of playing with it, ever.

  And yet, the sight of that doll brought back the clammy feelings of my nightly terrors. The gloved hands were stained with rust-coloured blotches. Dried blood?

  ‘Give me that, Rhea.’

  ‘No, it’s mine. Asha Nani said I can have anything from this box.’

  ‘I don’t want you to keep it. It’s disgusting, it’s dirty. Give it to me.’ Ignoring the loathing it inspired in me, I tugged at the doll. I couldn’t have Rhea holding it.

  ‘It’s mine, it’s mine.’ Rhea slapped my arm and backed away, my docile child turning surprisingly savage.

  ‘Ouch, Rhea, how can you do that? Give me that, it’s bad luck, I’ll get you something else, a new doll.’

  ‘I want this, Mama. I don’t want any other stupid doll.’

  Baba, roused by Rhea’s cries, entered the room. ‘Vedika, why are you making Rhea cry? Give her what she wants.’ He had always been indulgent with me, and even more permissive with his grandchild. But when he spotted what Rhea was holding, a different expression rippled across his face. Something t
wisted and frightening. Without another word, he sprang across the room and wrested the doll from her with a surprising viciousness. Rhea, attempting to hold it back, staggered against the centre table and hit her head against a sharp corner.

  ‘Baba, what’s wrong with you? You’ve hurt her.’

  Baba didn’t even stay to hoist Rhea up, but disappeared into his room and thumped the door shut. Rhea wailed hysterically, her cries suffused with anger and disappointment. How could her favourite Nana do this to her?

  Asha, who had been in the kitchen cooking, rushed into the room with a ladle in her hand. ‘What happened Veds, why all this noise?’

  ‘Asha, I’m not sure if the new pill is working. Baba’s dementia seems worse, he’s not himself anymore.’

  Baba emerged just then, with the doll tucked out of sight (where had he hidden it?), but with fury still flaring his nostrils and puffing up his eyes. ‘Asha, I’ve told you to bloody not touch those things. You had no right to fucking give those things to her.’

  ‘Baba, Rhea was bored. Asha was trying to help, you can’t yell at her like this. What’s up with you these days? You weren’t like this earlier?

  ‘Vedika, bloody stay out of this. You don’t know a thing. This is between us.’ I didn’t know a thing because I hadn’t been told anything. Because Ma and Baba had withheld everything from me. Because I didn’t know who my parents were anymore. And why was Kolkata turning out to be less peaceful than Fantasia?

  ‘Baba, you can’t use such words in Rhea’s presence. Please go back to your room till you calm down.’ I gently pushed my frail father into his room and shut the door. Asha, dissolving into tears, had crumpled into a whimpering heap on the floor. ‘Asha, I’m sorry, this is not your fault. I think it’s his dementia. Come, Rhea, let’s cook dinner together. Let Asha Nani rest.’

  Later, while peeling carrots with my daughter, I wondered if the dementia was turning my father into someone else. But what if it wasn’t the disease at all? What if Baba’s rage had always lurked inside, camouflaged by my mother’s stronger persona? There had always been a certain distance in Baba, a scientific detachment even inside the family. I had assumed that all scientists were reticent, trapped in obtuse research problems. Had he, all along, been trapped in something else? That expression on his face, when he seized the doll, was ferocious, murderous even.

  I was no longer just frightened for my father, I was frightened of him. Who was he really?

  That night, I read through the dream journal, encountering my past self with trepidation, as well as a sense of kinship. One particular entry popped out at me: The grinning doll hung from a tree. So it was that doll, the clown doll, that had featured in my dreams all along. But how could I have foreseen my son’s death?

  By the next morning, my mild scientist father had re-emerged. He didn’t say sorry, but with an apologetic, hangdog expression, he gifted Rhea an elaborate ‘Chemistry Set for Kids’. My daughter, ecstatic about her new beakers, droppers, tubes and flasks, set up her lab at once, on the dining table.

  Fortunately, Asha said she would leave us for a few hours while she caught up with friends. While Rhea fiddled with her fuming, colourful potions, I made two cups of Baba’s favourite cinnamon tea and settled by his side on the balcony that overlooked the main street. Across from us, a tea vendor sold milky tea in small steel tumblers to a host of construction workers. The tree behind him was plastered with posters of Didi, the effervescent Mamta Banerjee, Chief Minister of the state. Above a chowmein stall on the right, a group of morose students lugged heavy backpacks into a CBSE coaching centre.

  Gently, I asked Baba about his childhood and his decision to become a scientist. I knew he had a PhD in Chemistry from Jadavpur University, but I had never probed his motivations to study the makeup of our material world.

  ‘I was very idealistic. When I was in college, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published in the U.S. I wanted to play a part in shaping the country’s environmental destiny. So at first, I worked for the Government, framing policies to contain chemical contamination of soil and air. I was given a project by the Central Pollution Control Board.’

  ‘What was the project about?’

  ‘Pollution, what else? You see, our country was starting to get rapidly industrialised, and we were just starting to understand the side effects.’

  ‘Was this the project at Dhoolvansh?’ I said, trying to make myself heard above Kolkata’s bellowing street noises. The tea vendor’s steaming tea had run out, and the workers were disbanding under the gulmohar tree.

  ‘Yes, we lived there for a few years only. The work was fascinating,’ he said, with a bitter laugh. The tea in his tumbler slopped out. Earlier, there used to be a precision and economy to Baba’s movements, even his tea drinking neatly choreographed. But he had changed, aged in a way I didn’t care to notice. Would this be me in the future?

  ‘Why did you quit the government job?’

  ‘Money, Vedika. We were paid peanuts. Even we scientists, we needed to live.’

  ‘But how did quitting help?’

  ‘I could consult for private projects.’

  I still couldn’t fathom why he had quit his government job. Baba wasn’t the kind to prioritise monetary needs over a meaningful career. Besides, Ma always flaunted her frugal lifestyle. But I remembered snatches from childhood quarrels. ‘You asked me to quit,’ Baba had said. ‘We needed to live,’ Ma said. Now Baba was repeating Ma’s words as if they were his own. Another troubling thought wormed its way into my consciousness: had Ma secretly hankered for a more material life? Was her disdain of rich people a coverup of a lifelong disgruntlement?

  Just then, a slew of vehicles, all constantly honking, rode through the street.

  ‘What did you do after that?’

  ‘It was all so far back, I’ve forgotten now.’

  ‘Why did you move out of Dhoolvansh?’ This time around, when I mentioned the word again, something shifted on Baba’s face. His face reddened, as if he were stifling a momentary rage, and then the lights in his eyes died out. He looked at me blankly.

  ‘Baba, you have to tell me, why did you move out of Dhoolvansh?’ The plea in my voice was so impassioned, I sounded like I was crying. Just when I thought I was getting somewhere, how could Baba forsake me?

  When I was least expecting it, Baba lunged forward and gripped my arm, tightly, as if he would lose me otherwise. His eyes stayed dim and murky. ‘We made a mistake, we shouldn’t have hired her.’ His voice had receded into a soft mumble, I had to lean forward to pick up his words.

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘The maid.’ My breathing had become jagged and below us, the stretch of tarred road seemed to buckle and warp. Was he talking about their current maid in Kolkata, a quiet woman who tucked herself out of view, or another maid from earlier?

  ‘What was her name, Baba?’ Just then, Baba shook himself into wakefulness. My questions, after that, resulted only in dispiriting denials: ‘No, we never had a maid at Dhoolvansh.’ He shook his head emphatically - too emphatically? - when I asked him if he had ever known ‘Kantabai’ or ‘Mira’ or a ‘fat boy’.

  ‘Then why did you leave Dhoolvansh?’

  ‘I told you already, government jobs don’t pay. So we came to Kolkata, and then I did some private consulting.’

  Baba rose, stretching his body languorously over the rattan chair.

  ‘But you never wanted money. And Ma didn’t either. So why…?’

  ‘You won’t understand these things, Vedika. There were many forces at play. Why do you think I chose to stay here? Because Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray was my hero, and this house was close to APC Road.’ Prafulla Chandra, Baba added, founded a new Indian school of chemistry. ‘No one here will care about such things.’

  ‘Your Dhoolvansh project, can you tell me what exactly you found there?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ said Baba. ‘There are too many people like you, constantly thinking and analysing rather than do
ing. That’s the story of Kolkata. It’s a dead city filled with armchair intellectuals. Look at those students with heavy bags, they will study with so much hope, but if they remain here they won’t get jobs. There are no companies coming here anymore. If any come, we drive them out. Forget about the side effects of pollution, what about the side effects of unemployment? Do you ever ask about that?’

  A truck, blocked by an auto rickshaw and two-wheeler, honked relentlessly. Baba suddenly looked abashed, like a student who had spoken out of turn. ‘Shall we go inside?’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Dhoolvansh all these years?’ I wished Baba would stay seated for a while longer.

  ‘What’s the point, it’s history,’ he pursed his lips, clamping down on my interrogation. ‘Even the companies are dead, why dig into the past?’

  ‘Have you heard of the Dhoolvansh Missionary Society?’

  Baba’s face turned stony and his lower jaw sagged as if he were deliberating a response but retracting it on second thoughts

  ‘Asha said you sent them a donation?’

  ‘Since when have you become so inquisitive? Enough of this, I need to get to my club.’

  ‘Baba, why did you take that doll away? I need to know, because Sajan was…’

  ‘Vedika, I don’t want to fucking talk anymore. I’m not well, don’t stress me out.’

  I was going to say something more, but I was afraid of Baba’s savage alter ego. Besides, Rhea was around, engrossed in her liquids and powders.

  An hour later, when Baba slipped out for his carom game, I quickly roamed the house. In their study, Baba had a small plywood desk with in-built drawers. The drawers were locked, but I had seen him tuck the keys into the glass bookcase across from it. When I finally opened all his drawers, I rifled through their contents, feeling the familiar defiant shame of all my covert operations.