by Preti Taneja
She presses her palms together.
—You are truly a great woman, Gargi.
The men at her feet raise their glasses.
—Namaste, namaste, they laugh.
Gargi. Breathe. She turns to her father, watching her by the fireplace. There is no fire, nor has there been for years – the chimney cavity is hung instead with strings of dried chillies like shrivelled tongues. Radha’s design, for fusion, she said.
—Bapuji, Gargi says. Daddy, please don’t let Nanu say these things to me.
—It’s a joke, Bapuji says. Come. Sit and tell me all about your day in my office and the progress of our Srinagar campaigns. Don’t look like that, you will spoil your face. Face value shouldn’t fall even if market value plummets. Book value should remain. Oh dear, you’re going to tell me off! Women with short hair are susceptible to hysterical outbursts, sudden dramatic impulses, all kinds of base thoughts that should not come. Be careful, Gargi.
He cowers behind his hands, as if she, not he holds power over every person in this room.
—Bapuji, Gargi says. Clearly, Nanu is not well. And all these boys are making mess. Come on, Daddy, please?
Radha is so much better at this. She starts again.
—I heard today about my manservant.
Bapuji shrugs.
—No idea. What is the problem, Gargi?
—You. What was your problem. With my G.3.5? Please send these men away so we can talk.
Bapuji stares at her. Eyebrows raised, one hand goes to his head.
—Like this you talk to your father? Nanu says. Chi!
The men around Nanu shake their heads. She is sure she hears a high-pitched meow come from one of them.
—Bapuji, she says, this is my home, also.
—Home-tome, hum-tum, what is that? Yours? My daughter cannot talk like this. Kya tum office mein aise karti ho? Go, change your clothes, wash your face. Then you can speak. And serve dinner. Have you forgotten today is Tuesday? Party will be starting.
Gargi thinks about the wife of the G.3.5. Her song, her hands. Her jutting collarbone: the feel of it under her palm.
—No, she says. Enough. I can’t stomach anymore. Years this is going on – can’t we finally stop? It’s getting unseemly, Bapuji.
—Aré gadhi, chal hat! Go rinse your mouth with soap, says Nanu.
The men shift around Nanu’s feet. Her grandmother is calling her a donkey. Gargi sees a couple of them drink, trying to hide their smiles.
Bapuji plants his feet in their chappals on the carpet and heaves himself to standing. In his kurta pyjama, his brown Shahtoosh, his hair white, he reminds her of the snow-capped Kashmiri mountains: impenetrable, forever. Her legs feel weak. The men fall silent.
—Main kaun hoon? Bapuji says. I am a father, am I not?
—Yes sir!
—But can a father be blind? Can a father be deaf? Can a father be dumb?
No one moves; there is no sound but the grandfather clock, Gargi thinks, that clock must go.
—I think I must be. I am the ghost of a father who has worked for all time for his daughters.
—Yes and now they are trying to replace your mother, Nanu says. Instead of bearing their children themselves. Gargi are you sick? Gargi are you overeating? Were you dizzy this morning?
The old woman will talk about her periods to anyone who will listen. It is a matter of national concern it seems, whether or not Gargi conceives. All the men in the room stare at her belly, as if just by looking they can see through her skin to her womb, could put plant a seed in there.
—Now, says Bapuji. If I am Devraj the father, then who are you? Come, tell me, tell me.
It is a question she has answered almost every Friday of her childhood.
—You are Devraj. Father to me, to Radha, to – to all of us. Senior of this family. Head of the Company. With all my heart I appreciate you. But Daddy, I am asking you to send these men home. I need your help. Why are you playing with these boys when you should be living up to your name? Don’t laugh – tell me, where did you get this shisha? You turn this place into some kind of dirty – I don’t know – cesspit.
She slaps a hand over her mouth. She wants to force the words back in. Her heart rises in her chest, sticks in her throat. Tears trip over her fingers, she rubs her eyes, they sting with mascara but she carries on, rubbing black makeup all over her face. She looks at her father. How ugly she must be.
—You cannot stop lying, can you? he says. All of your life, you can’t control your servants, and now you’re blaming it on my boys. All of these young men are hand picked from St Stephen’s College. From Hindu College, IIT. Deepak here— (and Deepak grins form his place on the floor, though Gargi knows he is spending every paise his wife will give him on bad investments in tech start ups) —Deepak attended Doon School. What are you talking, Gargi? Don’t make a pasha out of me. All these men are the future captains of this country, here to learn better than you ever have what it takes to run a company. All you are concerned with are your programmes. ‘Gargi for women’, as if this will steady the ship and manage the balance sheet. My God. Are you a daughter or a snake?
She sits down heavily in her father’s chair. She watches him stride to the door.
—You beat a man senseless just for doing his job. And those boys try to make me serve them?
He turns to the men.
—Chalo. Let’s go. The Tuesday Party is waiting, others must have come.
Satisfaction floods Gargi’s mouth. Its taste is so unusual – nimboo pani, extra salt. Bapuji will go outside and find the unlit burners and empty dishes. There will be no golf carts, no drivers. The lights remain unlit in the courtyard, the stage is not set up. The microphone and speakers are not plugged in. Darkness, silence – nothing more.
*
—Daddyji, what is going on?
It is Surendra. Gargi’s dear husband, just finished with his evening raag. He stoops slightly, his face concerned. Under his arm is a newspaper, probably The Hindu, which he gets each day and reads to guide his writing style. Endless compositions of letters to the editor, practice columns on every topic: liver cleansing diets to the correct way to wear a starched kurta.
—Surendraji, please let me pass.
—Wait, Papaji, wait. At least tell me what is happening? Surendra’s voice is soft, so low that Gargi can hardly hear him. He has always hated any kind of argument: it upsets his digestion.
She wipes her eyes, watching her husband flap his paper, and make Os with his mouth as if blowing bubbles into the air.
—I don’t understand, says Surendra.
Bapuji ignores him. He turns to Gargi. His eyes go soft, his face drops. He does not need to speak, for she can hear him without words. I am very disappointed in you.
Here they are, her father, her grandmother. Their skin rubbed smooth with years, their hands clenching and unclenching the air. Bapuji’s silence around her, heavy as fallen snow. She licks her lips.
Bapuji walks back across the room, towards her.
—You are the one whose name is evil, the one who lies with disease upon your womb, who kills the embryo as it settles, as it rests, as it stirs, who wishes to kill it before it is born; you hunger for the one who spreads apart your two thighs, who lies between the married pair, who licks inside your womb, all for your own unnatural pleasure. And if you think you are going to be the great Mother of my whole company, you are wrong. You cannot be a mother to anyone.
His words are so extreme, Gargi almost starts to laugh. She sucks in her cheeks, she chews them.
Bapuji sees it. He stops in front of her, his shawl across his shoulder. The Shahtoosh she has begged him not to wear, so fine it can be pulled through the O of a woman’s wedding ring.
—Everything you touch will turn bad while you continue to refuse your duty, he says. To fulfil what you were put on this earth to do. Gargi, you will never know how much you’ve hurt me tonight. No barren woman can know how ungrateful children can wound. S
o much we do for you. Nahin, beti, nahin.
He sniffs as if Chinku the pup has circled, sniffing at the ground then gone to toilet carefully, specifically at his feet.
Daddy, she thinks. Bitches bear their teeth and bite their own babies to death. What will you do now?
But the feeling of Sita as a toddler still sits on her chest, clutching her throat, sleepy heavy. Story, story, story she had wanted. She had always wanted. At bedtime, she would only ever let Gargi touch her. And so it follows that Bapuji is right: Sita is Gargi’s own fault. She looks at Nanu. Let it be her fault too, then, she thinks. And Bapuji’s: she looks at her father. He divided us for his own pleasure. Like meat torn from bone.
Her father spits,
—Pah! I will first have my party. Then I will leave. I will go to Goa, to Radha. Spend some time in meditation there.
He ignores Surendra as he leaves the room. In ones and twos and threes, the boys in the room arise and follow after.
—Beta, wait toh karo! Nanu calls.
Bapuji does not answer; he leaves her, sitting in the armchair, reaching for him to come back.
—What have you done? Surendra says. What has she done, Nanuji?
—Don’t trouble yourself, Surendraji. Gargi links her hands behind her neck. Pressing the tension out of her voice.
—Let Daddy go to Radha and make a fool of himself. That’s his job now.
—Did you sign the paperwork? Surendra asks.
He walks around the living room, picking up glasses, putting them down. His living quarters are opposite hers: his bedroom, closet, golf practice area – the outside shower and toilet he prefers, because he likes to see the sky while he sits on the pot. On her wedding night, she had stood naked while Surendra informed her that it was her duty to keep herself clean at all times. He took her to the bathroom and watched while she washed herself according to his directions. He checked her chikkis, where none but she had ever touched. His fingers were not gentle, but hard and matter of fact. Her heat quickly faded and turned into her old enemy, the need to do susu came on her. And then Surendra undressed, and made her kneel to wash him in return. Eyes to his dick – how foreign she feels when she thinks of that word – but ‘lund’ she called it back then, from her Lottie – so soft, so hidden, like a little finger twirled in hair – still she had felt her throat open and close. She had wanted to take it in her mouth and suck it, but also to put her fingers inside herself: her own excitement had risen again.
Then he had lead her from the bathroom and made her lie, face down on the bed. She had felt his hipbones press into her thighs. She had spread her legs wider, and waited for the pain Nanu told her to report back on, and waited for the pleasure she had been promised by her Lottie. A hot feeling. She had pressed her face into the pillow; she had chewed it. She had twisted the bed sheets up in her fists.
His lund, when he put it in her, was no more than a little caterpillar that tickled her insides. She had felt like bearing down, like doing susu and laughing at the same time. Then his body had bumped against her bums until he gave a cry and collapsed on top of her, smothering her into softness. Her mouth full of pillow, breasts flattened against the sheets, a dribble of something sticky on her thigh, she had thought: Honeymoon suites should have firmer mattresses. Complimentary chocolate. Scented candles, a hardback Kama Sutra and massage oils. A sex counsellor for the morning.
She called it the Bridal Extra package. It was rolled out three months later Company wide, charged at Rs 2500 per unit, and had become one of their bestselling staples, particularly in the northern states.
For seven years she allowed Surendra to bump at her once a month. Every three months she went to the dermatologist – a kind man, the best – who prescribed her the Pill (for her acne, of course.) Then, she turned twenty-five. On that very night, as she blew out her candles, she decided she would never have sex with Surendra again, even if they were the last married couple left at the end of time. With no mother and no child she would be, simply, sister to her sisters. Herself to herself.
—Let him go, Surendra, Gargi says.
He doesn’t answer her, or look at her. He leaves the room, his shoes squeaking on the marble floor: eek ek, eek, ek, eeek. Gargi sits in silence. Nanu has her eyes closed, her head back. Minutes pass. Gargi crosses to the long windows. She peers through the red curtains. On the terrace, her father and his boys. Bapuji: waving the very same arms that beat a man black and blue, broke his ribs and collarbone. Now, he is smacking his hands together, looking to right and left. The boys are spreading out over the terrace, among the stacks of chairs and the un-laid tables, as if they could conjure the party up.
Surendra reaches them. He tries to catch Bapuji’s arms in an embrace. Baupji turns away, and then back, as if he is caught in a skipping rope and someone is pulling each end. He pushes past Surendra, then turns again, he is coming back into the room.
She waits.
He is inside. Coming down the corridor, shouting for everyone to hear.
—Gargi, have you no shame? Cancelling the party – and that saala, Ranjit’s boy – now I find you told him to ban fifty of my Hundred – you, a woman with no control. Don’t you know whose daughter you are?
She walks out to meet him, tries to take his arm.
—Daddy, she says. The servant’s name is Bilal Kakri. He was specially selected for his gentle ways to serve Nanuji. We had to send him back to his village in Jharkhand. What about his daughters, hein?
—Don’t expect me to cry. I will become blind and sit in the basti, scratching fleas off the cats before I cry in front of you.
Now he speaks without a single tremor; he sounds as happy as he does when reporting the Company annual profits to the press.
—I think my name is Devraj, and this Gargi is not my daughter. Chup! Don’t speak. Not your turn. Gargi you have my Farm, my office, my desk, my chair. Now my seminars and my boys. Nahin beti, nahin. Tum aisa nahin kar sakti ho. Do you think to have the whole Company for yourself? Ungrateful, besharram—
—What? Ungrateful what? she says. She leans towards Bapuji, hands folded across her chest, eyes wide on him, heart almost falling from her mouth.
—Aré chup, randi, chup! he shouts.
In the deep, wide silence, the word whore floats down. It comes to rest between Gargi and Bapuji, a peacock feather falling on the grass.
All this while Nanu has been watching from deep in her chair. Now she pushes herself up.
—Gargi, she says. By nature you have always been sly like your mother. Always you speak without respect. You think that boy Jivan, Ranjit’s thook, can bar fifty for you and nothing will happen? I know you. Always. So. Let him lick between your thighs and see how you taste. Devraj beta, meri baat toh suno. Let us go to Radha. She at least knows how to serve.
Bapuji crosses to Nanu. With his arm under her back he helps her rise from her chair. She leans on him, wiping her hand across his face. Together they walk away.
—I will reassign your share to Radha and Bubu, Bapuji says. Let them have it all. Then you will see.
Gargi watches them, her hands over her mouth, body stiff. Like wire, she thinks. I must become like wire.
Surendra sits on an ottoman, patting his knees, rocking and murmuring,
—Hai Ram! What has happened here? Reassign? Gargi, what is Bapuji saying?
Sita, Gargi thinks. You have ruined our lives for good.
She takes out her phone and presses 1.
—Uppal? Please take this down and email it to Radha Madam straight away, Gargi says. She speaks clearly, loudly. She tells the story of the peacocks, the injuries suffered by Bilal Kakri. It sounds like a list of nothings: she begins to itemise each wound. Fingers broken. Arm, lifted from socket. Ribs cracked, three. Back bruised, side almost pierced. Surendra pushes his palm at her, holds it almost in her face. She covers the phone with her hand.
—What is it?
—Can’t you see the mess you’re making? he says. Go and say sorry to Bapu
ji and give the word for the party to set up.
—You want to run after him, she says. You go. But there will be no party tonight.
She waits until he leaves. Then turns back to her call, instructing Uppal to tell Radha and Bubu to remember, we are strongest when we act together. Also, to get up earlier and not sleep so late, cut down partying, and most of all, treat Ranjit Uncle tenderly.
—And Uppal? I want you to go to up to Amritsar. Tell Radha directly that whatever Daddy says, we are going to announce his retirement at the Srinagar opening. Everyone will hear about it while eating our khaana and drinking our drink. They will see how we do things as a family. Tell Radha to make triple sure the right Ministers, Judges, writers, cricketers and a good quota of Bollywood types are begging to come. We’ve waited long enough. Tell her to say that to Bapuji, OK?
She shuts the phone. The candles gutter around the room, flames lilting towards the floor. Cushions have been tossed and abandoned; wine glasses lie empty on their sides. Pistachio shells, upturned like tiny boats, lurch over the priceless seas of carpet and cloth. The monkey on his music box stares at her, waiting for permission to clap. She will pack all these relics and hang this room with works by modern masters. She will turn it into a space for her own trainees.
Her arms are limp; her fingers touch a bottle of Company wine by the chair. She picks it up and brings it to her lips, then lets her head fall back, the bottle loose in her hand. Thinks of the brick of papers, waiting for her signature. The red curtains seem to move, to whisper the old warning, ‘the life of a business house is sixty years’. But everything is silenced as Gargi tips the bottle, and drinks. Her eyes go up to the camera in the corner. Abhi toh main jawaan hoon, she says. Now, see what I will do.
§
MY STORY IS A SIMPLE ONE, come closer if you can. A story reverberates in the telling, as a blessing, a warning or a curse. It changes shape and tone, but mine is the voice that will endure, for do not the Vedas say, ‘I am not the first of me, and will not be the last’?