by Anuradha Roy
He looked sidelong at Meera for a response, but she seemed distracted by thoughts of her own. Since the afternoon she had eaten the fish he had brought, Nirmal noticed that she seemed to be going through the polite motions of conversation and interest, but was far-eyed. She had stopped coming to the fort, or to the roof to dry clothes in the morning. He never found her alone to ask for an explanation. Not that she owes me one, he thought, but even so – there are drawings she needs to finish.
“That’s the end of the romantic couples, isn’t it?” Kamal chortled. “The pigeons weren’t the only things billing and cooing there.”
“The ruins will be crowded for a while, yes,” Nirmal said, filling an awkward pause. “No room for the ghosts of kings and queens either.”
“Especially canoodling kings and queens,” Kamal said, looking at a brown spot on the scratched wooden surface of the table.
“Quiet,” Manjula said. “Can’t you see there’s a child here?”
Bakul, who had been reading a book in the slanting early evening light by the window, all of a sudden pushed it aside and sprang up. “Mukunda? Mukunda!” she called, leaving the room.
Meera got up and began to clear away the cups and teapots, clattering them onto a brass tray.
Kamal said, “Ah, what’s the hurry? I still want another, can’t I have a cup? Please make me one.”
Meera stopped. She found an unused cup on the table, began to pour tea into it, spilling a puddle on the saucer. She added a quick dash of milk.
“Oho,” Kamal said sadly. “All these years, and you can’t remember I don’t like milk in my tea.”
“I’ll get a fresh cup.” Meera turned on her heel and left the room.
“Why are you being difficult?” Manjula said. “Just drink it.”
Nirmal got up to follow Meera into the kitchen, somehow he’d get a minute with her alone. But Kamal said, “Oh Nirmal, don’t go away while I’m having my tea, tell me about the excavation, what happens next exactly?”
* * *
Mukunda was running from Mrs Barnum’s bedroom, down the stairs, into the garden, not noticing the dark, jackfruit part of it that they avoided in the evenings, not noticing the vivid orange of the large setting sun cut up by branches of trees. The khansama was in the garden, shooing his hens into their coop. “Hutt, hutt, hutt,” the khansama called out. “Hey Mukunda,” he said. “Help me with the hens!”
Mukunda wiped his tear-blocked nose and eyes and tried to say something, then ran towards the gate.
“Come tonight, I’m slaughtering a chicken.” The khansama chuckled. “When its head is chopped off and it rushes about dripping blood, that’s really funny, you’ll like it.”
Mukunda ran through the gate that hung loose on its hinges. One of its wooden panels had rotted away, the other was nailed on somehow, and a piece fell down with an exhausted clunk as he banged the gate behind him. He ran down the road in the twilight, faster and faster, panting, seeming directionless and desperate. His breath came in sobs. He left the main road and ran down a dirt path that went through fields mellow in the setting sun. The last birds quarrelled and chattered over their choice of evening perches as he jumped over ditches, his flapping slippers leaving a cloud of dust over his hair and face.
At last he could see the ruins and the ridge behind it. He went into the inner courtyard with its large pool of red stone, dim arabesques still struggling out of the dusty earth around it. The banyan tree nearby was beginning to grow larger with deep evening shadows.
He flung himself down at the base of the banyan tree.
Bakul was already sitting there. She said: “You heard too? From tomorrow they’re digging up the ruin. We won’t have a ruin to come to any more.” She looked around at the mosses and ferns creeping out of the walls, the broken walls they had clambered over so many times, imagining rooms where now there were none.
Mukunda looked at her uncomprehendingly. He had not noticed she was there at all.
“My father had to do it,” Bakul said. “He had to come back and spoil everything.”
Mukunda wished he could put his head between his knees and cry. He wished he could explain things to Mrs Barnum, or at least to Bakul. But he could never speak about what he had done, not to anyone. He knew he would never forgive himself for losing Mrs Barnum’s trust, never stop feeling the sense of shame that made him want to be sick. He sank his head into his knees and felt the salt of tears in his mouth.
“No room for the ghosts of kings and queens any more,” Bakul mimicked. “He thinks that’s so funny.”
A swoop of green parakeets above made them look up. In the early evening sky there was one bright star. The banyan tree to which the birds were heading was now a shadow.
“Hey,” Bakul said to Mukunda’s buried head when he did not reply. “Come on, it’s bad, but not so bad. He says they won’t spoil it all.” She felt alarmed by his stifled sobs and got up saying, “Let’s go, it’s late.” She was frightened of the darkness and the black shapes in the trees but could not admit it to Mukunda. Out of the night-time forests came foxes and leopards, she knew. She had seen pairs of foxes, curiously dog-like, sometimes even in broad daylight in the fields.
They started to run down the tree-filled path back towards the fields. It was still easy to see the ruts in the pathway and leap over them in the soft purple light. The darkness seemed to gather and snuff out the shapes around them, making everything look bulky. They could smell crushed eucalyptus, sharp and fragrant, over one part of the track shadowed by the lean trees. Soon it became difficult to see exactly where they were stepping. They held each other’s hands as they scampered on as swiftly as they could. When Mukunda stumbled, Bakul clutched his sleeve harder and said, “Careful, there’s a big stone there!”
Mukunda looked back. Was someone following them, someone from whom they had to run? He could see nothing but the snarling tiger on Mrs Barnum’s bed. Over the sound of their panting and their flapping slippers, he could hear it – something behind them. He held Bakul’s hand tighter and whispered, “Don’t be scared!”
“I’m not,” she whispered.
They reached the fields. There was more light in the open, away from the trees. Bakul tugged at Mukunda’s sleeve as they ran down the humps that separated one field from the other.
“Look,” she exclaimed. “Look! Up there!”
He stopped running and looked up. Above them, as far as they could see, the blue-black sky was sequinned with stars, so many stars that the sky did not seem to have the space for them, and yet it seemed endless, a vast, sparkling dome arched over the star-washed field, so many stars that if you stood looking up for a while you felt dizzy. Through the stars streaked a white, flaming trail of light, light of a kind they had never seen, arcing downward until it disappeared into the horizon.
Hand in hand, they stood in the middle of the empty fields under the star-filled sky, their troubles, fear, and the long way they still had to go before reaching home, all forgotten.
* * *
Meera sat in the kitchen, not noticing that she had not switched on a light, that her midriff and arms and feet were aflame with mosquito bites, that in fact if she had tried switching on the light it would not have worked because there was a power cut.
She could think of nothing but the terrace at dusk, ten days ago, when Kamal had come up to her with an unobtrusiveness she wouldn’t have thought him capable of, and said, “You really work too hard.”
She had smiled a polite smile. “Not at all, I’m just taking in the pickle bottles. I didn’t want to risk the servants breaking any.”
“I was just thinking how difficult it must be for you, how lonely.”
She had laughed, bemused more than disconcerted, and said, “I’m used to it.”
“Oh, but it’s a great pity, the dreadful rules our society makes, and the blindness with which we impose them on ourselves. I think we need to rebel a little.” He was absorbed in brushing off a bit of blackness his whit
e kurta had picked up from the terrace wall.
“I should collect the bottles.” She edged away from him to the corner of the terrace where bottles of mango pickle stood ranged in a row, still warm from the daytime sun they were storing.
As she bent to pick up the bottles, she felt a hand on her back where her blouse dipped, scooping out bare skin. She leapt away, startled.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Kamal said, “I just wanted to … say that if you need anything, tell me. Don’t think twice.” She saw his gaze travel over her as if he were mentally unfurling her sari and unbuttoning her blouse.
He paused. Then looked skyward and said, “We should have some rain soon, shouldn’t we?”
Ten days had passed since that evening. He had said nothing more, made no move to touch her, but if he looked at her, she knew he was looking beneath her clothes. When his eyes travelled over her body she shuddered as if a lizard had slithered over her skin. Why had he done this, she asked herself again and again. She had lived in the house so many years and he had never attempted anything of the kind before. What had unleashed this sudden lechery? She thought back to the past fortnight and could recall nothing out of the ordinary. Their conversations, if they could be termed that, always took place at the dining table, when he asked for a second helping of something and she served him.
It struck her like a blow. Of course! He must have caught wind of her friendship with his brother! And decided he too would try his luck. She stood up in agitation. Of course! That was it, it was how men thought: friendliness with a man could be nothing but flirtation, and if you flirted with one you were easy, a slut, game for more.
What was she to do? The only woman she had to talk to was the man’s wife. Making accusations to Nirmal about his brother was impossible. What if he said she was overreacting to friendship and sympathy? What if he did not, and confronted Kamal instead?
Meera lit a lamp when she realised there was no electricity, then pulled out the rice canister and poured three cups onto a plate. Methodically, she began to sift through it for stones, trying to quiet her mind and decide what to do.
* * *
A little while later, when Mukunda and Bakul stole back into the house that evening from the fort, they saw Meera hunched over a plate in a pool of yellow lamplight, her shadow tall on the opposite wall. Her rigid back and bent head discouraged questions. They crept past her, knowing they were in for a scolding. Even in the wide verandah on the first floor that ended in Amulya’s stained-glass window – one of the panes had cracked and been replaced by one in plain blue that was thought to match – there was nobody. This was where Kamal sat drinking tea every evening. A lamp had been left there, darkening the sooty cobwebs high up in the ceiling. Bakul and Mukunda edged closer to each other. They padded out onto the small terrace that led to Manjula’s quarters, hearing an indefinable murmur of voices emerging from there.
“I think she’s right,” they heard Kamal’s voice saying, “it’s been a mistake all along.”
“It’s not a mistake because they’re late one evening.” This was Nirmal.
“Come, come, Nirmal, all of us make errors of judgment. Don’t you remember Kundu Babu? First he got his daughter married off to that man who turned out to be impotent, to top that they say he had just one eye, then she came back to her parents and they couldn’t look at anyone for the shame.”
“What has Kundu Babu got to do with this?” Nirmal sounded irritable.
“What I mean is that elders make mistakes, don’t you see?” Kamal’s voice sounded placatory. “If you ask me, the first error was our father’s. We were not that rich anyway, what was the need to act the godfather?”
A match struck. Kamal said something more, too low to hear. A faint cigarette smell floated out towards Bakul and Mukunda. In the far distance, they could hear the lonely cry of a fox calling to its mate. They sank to the floor of the terrace, still warm with memory of the daytime sun, and leaned side by side against the wall. Sweat made their clothes stick to their backs.
“We need to be practical, Nirmal.”
“Practicality’s not everything.”
There was a brief silence. Above Bakul and Mukunda, a pimpled half-moon had struggled up into a sky fragmented by the canopy of leaves that hooded the terrace. Cold, white, distant stars stabbed the trees. The fox called again, closer, this time answered by an echoing cry. In the distance, they could hear the faint tuning of Afsal Mian’s tanpura.
“Think of the expense!” they heard Kamal say. “He’s growing, but the money in Baba’s will is not, is it? All these years he’s been eating us out of house and home. I tell you, Nirmal, there are good institutions for boys like him. They’ll take over and our headache will – I mean, he was Baba’s responsibility, maybe in some way, but how are we –”
“I’ll look after him, whatever is extra. We don’t need to send him away for the money.” Nirmal sounded shorter and more abrupt than he had before. “You won’t have to worry. You haven’t had to worry so far.”
“My dear boy, money is not the only expense, you know,” Kamal said.
“I tell you, having to be here, managing the boy and Bakul, it’s not easy, Nirmal. The girl’s growing up, so is he! Just the other day I was in a real fright when … ” This was Manjula. She lowered her voice, so Bakul and Mukunda could not tell how they had frightened her.
Then her voice again, louder. “That’s all very well, Nirmal, and you might think they are children, but they aren’t. Look at today. Not back yet, it’s so late, we don’t have any idea where they are or what they’re doing! And they do this all the time. You may not worry, but I do!”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Nirmal’s voice was stubborn. “They’ve been friends since they were four and six. I trust them. They’re like brother and sister.”
“But they are not brother and sister, Nirmal,” Kamal said in a patient voice. “And they are both of the age when … ”
Manjula snorted. “They won’t even know what they are doing before it’s done. And then some terrible disaster. How will we ever show our faces?”
Someone put a glass down with a clatter. Mukunda and Bakul drew closer; she could feel Mukunda’s breath on her face, warm, smelling of malted sweets. They were talking of sending Mukunda away. Their voices contained a terrifying darkness.
“Still,” Nirmal was saying, “I don’t think they’re up to anything. It’s true they’re late tonight. They just need a good scolding.”
“A scolding?” Kamal snorted. “That boy needs a hiding! Ideas above his station. But then we’ve spoiled him, so what do you expect?”
Manjula interrupted, “I tell you, Nirmal, you’ve stayed in the mountains too long, you have no idea. Is it only in darkness that people get up to trouble?”
“Mukunda is part of this house, he’s Bakul’s only friend, we cannot just send him away.” Nirmal’s voice was implacable.
“If you don’t do anything now, you will regret it at leisure, is what I say,” Kamal pronounced. “But she’s your daughter.”
Bakul and Mukunda heard a chair scrape across the floor and shrank further into the dark niche of the terrace, their hands in a tight, sweaty clasp, a sick tide of fear churning their stomachs. “I’d better see what Meera’s doing about the rice,” they heard Manjula say. And then the first notes of Afsal Mian’s melancholic voice joined the strings of his tanpura.
* * *
Nirmal went out to the garden for an amble. It had been a trying evening: first that long argument with his brother and sister-in-law, then having to take the lead in disciplining Bakul and Mukunda for disappearing. Kamal had been of the opinion that the boy needed six strokes of a cane. Finding the tact and patience to dissuade him had been exhausting.
Breathing in the gardenia and raat ki rani his father had planted, he took out his cigarettes. No harm competing with their fragrance, he said to himself. He wished Meera would come out to the garden. It had been so many days since they had had a r
eal conversation, despite seeing each other at every meal.
Nirmal strolled around the house to the back. Dull, yellow light striped a square patch of the darkness and he walked closer to look, curious. It came from the room at the corner of the courtyard, Mukunda’s. Through the window he saw Mukunda hunched over a book beside his candle, tracing a line, lips moving without a sound. He had stripped down to his shorts. Sweat made his skin shine in the candlelight which contoured his young, thin body with dark shadows. Nirmal noticed the taut muscles of Mukunda’s upper arm as he fanned himself with an exercise book. His chest, which had also developed muscles – all that work with the water buckets, Nirmal thought – tapered down to a waist that showed a faint line of hair. His face had lost most of its childish curves. Now the cheekbones were sharper than before, the cleft in the chin deeper, the lines stronger. Only his eyes still seemed long-lashed, almost girlish.
He frowned to himself and, forehead puckered with thought, trudged back to the house. He had never looked at Mukunda so closely before. But tonight … He could hardly bring himself to admit that his fatigue that night came from arguing the whole evening not only with Kamal and Manjula, but with a part of himself as well.
He padded up the deserted stairs on his way to the roof, to his room. He thought he deserved another smoke, and an after-dinner rum. And perhaps Meera would be on the terrace.
When he reached the first floor, however, something struck him, and he turned towards the room where Bakul slept. He peered in through the open door and saw her shadowy form sprawled across the bed like a prone Jesus, her bare legs pale in the moonlight from the verandah. She had flung her sheet aside in the heat. Her night frock was bunched up near the swell of her newly acquired hip curve. Her wildly tousled hair covered her pillow.
Nirmal crept away.
* * *
The next day Meera was sitting in Kananbala’s room, head bent over a sketch, when Kalpana the maid came in and, unhampered by any perception of Meera’s absorption in her work, said, “Give me the soap, and bring out the clothes to be washed. You’ve left nothing out in the courtyard.”