An Untold Conspiracy

by Pawan Mishra

  Thereafter, when a meeting was arranged between Coinman and Imli, for some reasons that no one cared to understand later, they waited for each other at two different coffeehouses with the same name. At that time cell phones weren’t yet accessible to many common people. As a result they couldn’t do anything immediately to fix the goof. Later, the prerequisite of a meeting was withdrawn by both parties as, they thought, the effort could instead be put toward marriage preparations.

  For the dual reasons of the family’s economic state and Daulat’s societal detachment, the marriage was held at Kasturi’s house itself.

  The newlyweds’ first night did not seem to go well. On the following morning, when their close cousins knocked at their door—part of a family tradition, to get them ready for the follow-up rituals—they were taken aback by Imli’s ghastly red and swollen eyes. It appeared that she had cried the entire night. The fragility of the occasion led Kasturi to immediately take charge and lock herself with the couple in their room to have a dialogue with them, but neither of the two opened up to her.

  The episode somehow made it to the gossip sessions at office, and as always, the gossipmongers stretched their minds to promote several rumors about the story behind it all. The most reliable rumor speculated that on her first night, Imli discovered that it was Coinman’s second marriage: he was already married to coins. And when she asked him to divorce that first wife, he pledged instead to being helpless in both of them.

  Thereafter, for a long time to come, Imli generally remained upset. A trifling matter was enough to make her eyebrows shrink toward the center of her forehead, and her mouth spew venom. And each evening, after everyone had had supper, she would go to her room, sit on the bed, and weep heartily. This weeping was like a fire drill in the beginning, drawing the rest of the family to gather around her bed immediately. It quickly lost its place in the spotlight, however, as its prolonged tedium eventually reached a point where the family attended her tearful requiems only to avoid an abrupt end to their consoling presence while she cried.

  The attendance for her howling enterprise dropped off, eventually, to a point when no one would join her for the first few minutes, hoping another family member would. Then came a point when no one joined her at all, and she cried alone.

  Finding no attention to her weeping, Imli was in a fix. She didn’t wish to continue the stunt, either, but needed justification to stop it. She did not have to wait long; the family soon received an invitation to her cousin’s wedding. They gathered around her the night before the function, for the first time in several months, to console her and remind her that she would want to look her best at her cousin’s wedding. Daulat, completely a lunatic by this time, unfortunately slipped into the room.

  “Daulat,” Kasturi shouted, “go to your room. Right now.”

  But Daulat did not listen. Instead he came to Imli’s bed and spoke.

  “Leave her alone. She’ll be fine,” he said, speaking with a voice that had been lost for years. Even Imli lowered her voice in surprise. “This is a natural phenomenon about women,” he continued. “Just like a beard comes naturally to men, weeping comes by nature to them—to satisfy some secret oath made to God on their behalf.”

  Then he turned to Coinman and said, “Most of a husband’s life is spent in doing research on his wife. I do not want you to fall into the same trap, so let this be a warning to you.” He smiled slyly, looking up at the ceiling—as though making a universal statement, but also to avoid looking at Kasturi. “A man wants too many things before marriage, but only peace after it.”

  Kasturi couldn’t believe her ears; Daulat had never been such a jerk, and she was embarrassed to her core—because she had spoken very highly of her relations with Daulat prior to his lunacy. She took Daulat back to his room.

  This gave Imli the opportunity she’d waited for. She wiped her tears, got down from her bed, and started looking at her wardrobe for dresses for the wedding.

  On that day Imli started to get her acts together. She made a grand list of items to address immediately to bring back order in her life. The top five, out of fifty-four items in her list, read as below:

  Keep the house free of coins, whatever the consequences.

  Get back to theater. Break a leg.

  Transition more household work to Shimla to create availability for theater.

  Find another doctor for father-in-law; he has gone from being nuts to being dangerous.

  Research if there are rehabs that treat non-substance addiction (maybe behavior disorder is the term?)

  She started from the top. She permitted Coinman a week’s time to clean the house of all coins.

  Coinman removed coins from the house fully, except for keeping some in a secret hiding place to allow him to have brief gigs with the coins at times when Imli was lost in daily chores. Any meager chance would make Coinman jump to the secret place to quench the thirst of his mind.

  However, one day, due not to his carelessness but to Imli’s random break from her cooking, he was caught red-handed and lost even this vestigial privilege at home.

  A breach in trust brings mistrust, followed by a multitude of troubles. Imli bought a high-range metal detector that she ran over random places on random days every week to expose any secret places where he might house coins.

  The curtains on his trysts with coins at home caused an additional pressure on the coins at the office—the latter needed to do overtime every day to consume the mental stress their master accumulated at home. Coinman didn’t waste a second, after reaching the office, in unlocking the drawer and putting the coins in his left pocket. Each evening, as he prepared to leave the office, his heart sank over the rift until the next morning. Friday evenings were the worst.

  Meanwhile, happy with her progress on the first item on the list, Imli focused on the next. She visited her previous manager, who couldn’t have been more excited to see her back. “I was expecting your call. How long could an artist of your caliber have her soul suffocated by the smoke of mundane affairs? It’s not been an ideal run here, either—no one has been able to fill your shoes, so huge they were.” He literally hugged her for minutes.

  If I weren’t connected to all of this, Imli thought, my existence might have shrunk to the futile affairs of the house. I might have excelled at cooking to win laurels from family and friends for temporarily gratifying their taste buds, yet would surely have remained devoid of satisfaction.

  Imli felt as if she had never left the theater. She was at her best on day one—picking up where she had left off. Then, on one occasion, when a background actor fell ill just two days before opening night, and the group had no one else, Imli promised her group she was going to bring someone to fill the role. She was confident that Coinman could easily manage it, as it was a very small appearance where the character had only this brief line to say: “If you really want to talk to the big boss now, make sure you leave your balls here with me, for he likes no balls on people he is talking to.”

  That evening she came home early and eagerly waited for Coinman to come back from the office.

  “Hey, how was work today?” Imli struck up a conversation as soon as Coinman had entered the house.

  “Same old same old. How about you?” he asked, taking off his shoes.

  “It’s been exciting. We are working on a new play. We have a show in two days.”

  “Wow! That’s great. I am so glad that you could go back to your real passion.”

  “I couldn’t be happier, actually. Things are working out so well. How have your days been at work—any fun?”

  “Well, my job is not quite like yours…we do a lot of boring work. You guys are plain lucky! I wish I had some creative genes in me to do something like you do.”

  “Hey, why don’t you try out something—some sort of a hobby or interest?” As she spoke, she busied her hands putting her wardrobe in order. “One needs to pursue some sort of a creative interest in order to keep life from eating us alive.”
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  Coinman looked at her silently for a few minutes. She clearly was conducting herself very differently from usual.

  “But at this age?” he replied, “No, I am done.”

  Imli smiled to herself. “Oh, trust me on this, honey, the only thing required is a little willpower. The only thing God is afraid of is a strong-willed human.”

  “Maybe I can start reading fiction? That may be a good hobby.”

  “Or maybe you can start learning keyboard…or even start with background work at the theater.”

  Coinman looked puzzled. “Look, I have wasted half of my life without having anything to do with art.”

  “But history is full of great artists who started very late in their lives.”

  “They probably had it in them, and did not get an opportunity until late. I don’t have it in me.”

  “I think many late bloomers felt exactly that way in the beginning. But then their hearts took control and couldn’t care less about failures, as long as they loved what they did.”

  “Listen, I am open for something I can do. I just don’t think I can pick up just anything now. My learning capabilities may be dried up.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.” Imli turned to him with a smile. “I have something in mind—my current play has a very small role, and I am sure my troupe would love to have you. You don’t have to do anything, just stand on the stage and say one short sentence.”

  “But isn’t your show in, like, two days from now?”

  “Yes, it is. But you will be just fine.”

  “Why do you think so—that a new person who has never acted will be fine with two days’ preparation?”

  “Because you just have to stand on the stage, and say just one sentence. You have enough time to practice that sentence a thousand times between now and the show. Besides, we have a final stage rehearsal, too.”

  “I can try it,” Coinman said, “but I have a condition.”

  “I accept any condition you want to have.”

  “Then you must allow me coins in my pocket at home for one year.”

  “That’s blackmail. I can’t stand you with coins for a second. As you know, I have already been looking at ways to get you fully out of this habit. Allowing you this will make us go back to square one.”

  “Well, I should get rewarded for my theatrical efforts.”

  “Ask for something else.”

  “This is the only reward that would make me happy.”

  “Well, all right. But only for two days; as soon as the play is over, you are out of coins again.”

  “How about one month?”

  “Three days.”

  “Three weeks?”

  “Four days.”

  “Two weeks?”

  “One week, my final offer.”

  “One week and one day.”

  “Fine. But, of course, only with the condition that you leave your coins behind when you are with the troupe. We can’t afford a coin rhapsody on the stage.”

  There was not much of an option for either party!

  Coinman at once jumped out of the house and came back with a pocketful of coins in a flash.

  For next two days the monster of acting gobbled up Coinman’s freedom and made him rehearse his dialogue an uncountable number of times.

  On the eve of the show, during the stage rehearsal, he had great difficulty in delivering his dialogue at the right time, with the right voice and the right emotions. He attempted several times, but something was always missing. He had seen several plays in the past, but this was the first time he understood the internal hurricane actors experience while onstage. If he remembered the timing well, he forgot his dialogue, or he forgot how it was to be said. If he remembered the dialogue by repeating it in his mind, he forgot about all other elements, because the dialogue became a heavy burden that he wanted to dispose of as early as possible. When that happened he said his dialogue even before the preceding dialogue was completed, something that irritated the actor he was addressing. But eventually, after numerous rehearsals, Coinman was finally able to do it right consistently four times in a row. That was it—Coinman was ready for the final show.

  On the night before the performance, Coinman couldn’t sleep until midnight, and got up several times before he was wide awake at four o’clock. He was extremely nervous about being able to deliver the dialogue correctly. He had been practicing his dialogue the entire night—whether awake or asleep. Unfortunately, in his dreams he hadn’t gotten it right once.

  He thought brief physical exercise would make him feel fitter, so he brought out his old yoga book and performed all the asanas. He skipped breakfast, as his nerves made him feel sick looking at the food. He repeated numerous questions that Imli had already answered—about the stage, the audience, the curtains, the seating arrangements, the acoustics, the sound system, and whatnot. Imli told him that these things would be clear when the company did the final rehearsal onstage, just two hours prior to the show. She told him that she could not give him an exact idea of the audience, but she expected there would be a few hundred, as the show had been well advertised and was a performance of one of the most popular plays in the area.

  Coinman acted well during the final rehearsal—everyone in the group praised him backstage. But each of the pats on the back they gave him seemed to turn into an additional expectation to meet, making him even more anxious.

  Backstage, Coinman was still very much a stranger among the group and did not know what he should engage himself in while others were busy. He tried to give a hand a couple of times, but seemed more of a hindrance than a help. He found a corner that suited him and started rehearsing his dialogue. Imli visited him after a while, asking him if he wanted to accompany other members to lunch. He said he wasn’t hungry.

  As the rows started to get filled in the evening, Coinman sank into a deep nervousness about his performance. He suddenly felt very hungry, too, as he had hardly eaten anything during lunch in his anxiety. There was no food in sight. He prayed hard to God and promised that he was never going to try acting again. His whole body seemed to float like a balloon, and he made frequent trips to the washroom to splash water at his face, trying to feel normal. How can an outer treatment help with an inner condition?

  The applause on the opening of the first scene seemed to put even more of a burden on Coinman’s shoulders as he waited, rehearsing his line ceaselessly, in the right wing. Then the testing moment arrived. Coinman made an impressive entry on the stage, head held high and with a confident walk up to the place he was to say his dialogue from. He turned in the right direction, facing the audience, to say his line—but, alas, the right words would not come to his mind. What repeatedly popped into his head instead was a line from his favorite movie: “Over my dead body!” Clearly it wasn’t prudent to say that one instead.

  Each second that went by made it even more difficult for him to remember what to say. Everyone onstage looked at him, and the crowd fell silent in nervous anticipation. Those onstage initially thought that it was only a small glitch and hoped that Coinman was soon going to recover, but seeing Coinman turning into a statue, they lost more hope with each second.

  Sensing a growing impatience within the troupe about the situation, specifically a panicked look on Coinman’s partner in the dialogue, the crowd started to wonder if the unanticipated dramatic pause was truly a part of the script. It wouldn’t be surprising if they thought that Coinman had dropped the ball. One whistle somewhere from the back rows in the auditorium was enough to start a chain reaction of whistles from all directions.

  And then Coinman delivered.

  “Over my dead body or surrender your balls with me before you enter.”

  The preceding long silence, the serendipitous merit of the dialogue, and the pompous effect in the delivery caused by desperation filled the dialogue with such an immense volume of power that the audience erupted in several rounds of crazed applause. It was clearly the best applause the group had ever witnessed�
��they had to wait for a minute to let the ovation die before saying the next line.

  As soon as the play was over, a few influential members of the audience showed up backstage to shake hands with Coinman.

  Yet the group was done with Coinman. Not that Coinman was surprised by that. Imli never even brought up the incident with him.

  It was definitely a rare situation, in which a career had started and ended simultaneously on a very high note.

  On the other hand, Imli’s star rose higher and farther, day after day. Her hard work paid off, as she went on to become a popular performer, frequently covered by the newspapers. Like all great actors, in order to live the characters in the most impressive manner on the stage, she practiced at home all the time. The moment she was assigned a role in a play, she could visualize her name being announced as that of the best actor in the play—and most of the time it wasn’t a flight of fancy. She won, and won often.

  This absorption in her craft, however, wasn’t necessarily what other members of the family would have wished for. Her talent, in fact, was a big menace to the family.

  Once, when playing a ghost, Imli started living the character completely in all facets of her existence. She perfected her ghost demeanor by responding in what she imagined was a ghostly way, even in the most trivial matters of day-to-day life. She pretended to be invisible at all times, always dressed in white, maintained a depressed outlook, conversed only through moaning, and slept during the day, to be active during the night.

  A benign spectator of her drama, Coinman received the byproducts of her obsession more than other members of the family. At midnight she would rush upon him, mouth wide open, screaming, “Boo!” She hounded Coinman in all corners of the house, waiting for him, hiding in the most unexpected places—in the wardrobe, or under his bed—to pounce upon him like a wildcat.