The Fifth Man

by Basu, Bani

  Pupu said, ‘Won’t you invite him home once more before he goes back, Ma? Don’t make too many items, else there’s no time to talk.’

  Esha saw that Neelam was looking stricken. And Neelam saw that Esha looked exhausted, dispirited. It had been very important to inform Neelam that Mahanam had been with them all the time, right up to the front door. Having discharged her duty Esha did not pause a moment longer. She went in for a bath. A shower. Let all the fatigue, filth, regret, be washed away by a clean stream of water.

  Esha came out of the bathroom with wet hair. Pulling her hair-dryer out quickly, Pupu said, ‘Do you wet your hair often when bathing, Esha Mashi? Dry your hair.’ Making Esha sit down at her own desk, she stood behind her and ran the dryer herself.

  ‘Do you use the dryer a lot?’ asked Esha. ‘It’ll turn your hair grey quickly. That’s why fashionable women grey early these days.’

  ‘Oh, how I would love it,’ said Pupu.

  ‘Is everything about you upside down?’ laughed Esha.

  ‘Don’t you see, Mashi?’ said Pupu. ‘It would make me look like Dr Mahanam Roy.’

  Neelam started so violently that both Esha and Pupu turned towards her. Esha looked at Pupu, and then said, ‘That’s true, you do resemble Mahanam-da.’

  ‘I must have been his daughter in some other life,’ said Pupu. ‘Although I don’t believe in reincarnation.’

  ‘Don’t become too rigid about your beliefs so early in life, Pupu,’ said Esha. ‘You have no idea how many complex problems of life could be solved if there were such a thing as rebirth.’

  Neelam was sitting as still as a corpse. Throwing a quick glance at her, Esha said:

  I am at least thirty-five today

  You are barely fifteen, and yet

  The secret wound oozes the poison of memory

  When I look at your young face

  Neelam raised her eyes to look at them. They were brimming with tears. Pupu was listening closely to the poem, which Esha had recited in Bengali. ‘The rhythm is lovely,’ she said, ‘but I understand Bengali poems only in translation. You used the word “gurho”, what does it mean?’

  ‘Secret.’

  ‘The secret wound oozes the poison of memory. How lovely! You make beautiful poetry, Esha Mashi.’

  ‘What I recite is always the work of others. This was Sudhindranath Dutta’s translation of Heine’s poetry.’

  Neelam realized that Esha had come to know. Mahanam had never even considered staking a claim, but Pupu was bound to learn the truth some day or the other. It was best to let her find out for herself.

  Esha didn’t sit at the table to eat. Pupu took a glass of milk to her in the room. The three of them were having a family dinner after a long time. Aritra went to bed as soon as he had eaten. And fell asleep at once. Before going to bed, Neelam went into Pupu’s room to find Esha missing. Searching for her, she finally located her on the fifth floor roof. The floor of the terrace was tiled. The sky appeared very near. The end of Esha’s sari was fluttering in the gentle breeze.

  ‘What is it Esha, you didn’t go to bed?’

  ‘I can’t sleep. I’ve troubled all of you a lot, Neelam. Forgive me.’

  ‘What do you mean? I should be thanking you. You’ve given us so much. Beautiful experiences, wonderful company, love, so many truths would have remained piled up had you not come. It’s you who must forgive me if you can. I’ve only taken. When I try to give now, I don’t find anything valuable enough.’ Neelam was weeping.

  Esha felt as though what Aritra should have told her was being channelled through Neelam. Because she needed to hear this. ‘There’s no need to suffer for the past, Neelam,’ she said. ‘It’s a new day.’

  Neelam said, ‘The thing about Pupu made you sad all over again, didn’t it?’ Even as she said this, Neelam realized that despite her shame and sorrow, she felt a sense of pride. She had always got what she wanted. Her hands were filled with all she had got. Only Esha’s hands were empty.

  ‘It wasn’t very unexpected,’ Esha told her. ‘We knew, all the students in our group knew, that you were Mahanamda’s. Everyone was surprised when things turned out differently.’

  Neelam looked away. ‘Now you know how terrible I am, Esha. You must hate me.’

  Esha said, ‘Would you make the whole thing clearer to me, if you don’t mind? Was it your choice? Aritra instead of Mahanam-da? Or was it Mahanam-da who didn’t want to accept you and his child?’

  ‘Mahanam-da has come to know about his child today, eighteen years later. I decided not to let him know, lest he stop me. The choice was mine. The responsibility was entirely mine. Ari had told me many things about Mahanam-da, which turned me away from him. And besides, you know his irresistible ways of making love. He can win over any woman of any age. If he wants to.’

  After a long pause Esha said, ‘He cannot win me over anymore, Neelam, you must trust me about this.’

  ‘I know he can’t. But that he wants to is my humiliation, don’t you see?’

  ‘No, it’s not your humiliation,’ said Esha. ‘You’ve given him too much importance. Ignore him a little, deprive him. Fight. Don’t let him win every time. For that’s when it will be a resounding defeat for him.’

  Neelam said, ‘The one who wanted to deprive him has done it already. I have no womb, no eggs, I am a woman without womanhood.’

  ‘I’ve heard,’ said Esha. ‘Why are you agonizing over this medical, this physiological fact? I’m saying you’re still a woman. And, over and above that, a human being. Neelam, you must deprive him of what one person cannot do without from another. Don’t let your charity be so unrestricted.’

  ‘I’m not doing it anymore. I won’t. I understand many of my mistakes now, which I hadn’t earlier. That’s why I was thanking you. But what do I give you, Esha? My heart is parched.’

  Esha said emotionally, ‘This is my biggest gift from you. However far I go away, your bounteous feet will always walk with me.’ It was a new vow beneath the starlit night.

  Aritra did not know. But the battle had begun. All the cannons were trained on him. They were concealed behind the trees. Hidden eyes kept him under surveillance. The cavalry patrolled from a distance. You don’t know, Aritra Chowdhury, that you are in serious trouble.

  Neelam said, ‘Bikram and Seema have requested us again and again. We’re staying at their house in Bombay.’

  Agitated, Aritra said, ‘Phone them immediately and cancel it. I’ve made arrangements at the company guest house.’

  Neelam said, ‘They’re waiting for us. I cannot hurt them. Why don’t you stay at the guest house? I’ll stay with the others at their house.’

  ‘So you’ve made up your mind.’

  ‘There’s nothing to make up my mind about. They’ve invited us. They’ll have made arrangements. Why should I turn them down?’

  ‘You’ll turn them down because Bikram’s vulgarity crosses all limits sometimes.’

  ‘I’m the vulgar type too, I can handle it.’

  ‘You can’t handle anything. The truth is that you like vulgarity. You’ve been indulging Bikram for a long time now.’

  ‘I don’t know whether I like vulgarity, but I do like a warm welcome. I admit it. The way Seema takes care of us when we go, the way Bikram is always ready to help, is not to be dismissed. And maybe I’m indulging Bikram, but who’s indulging you?’

  ‘Does my behaviour also reveal a vulgarity like Bikram’s?’

  ‘You’ve probably gone one better than him.’

  Aritra was on his feet. Extremely agitated. About to say something offensive, he stopped. Had Esha said anything to Neelam? His face turned blue.

  Pupu said, ‘I was in Goa just the other day. I’m not going again. I’ll stay back at Bikram Kaku’s house.’ Neelam decided that she would too, but there was no need to tell Aritra right now. She had to give him a lot of rope.

  EIGHTEEN

  Seema had had a lotus pond built on the terrace. Her parents’ home in the Hoogh
ly district of West Bengal had lotuses and water lilies. Land was very expensive in Bombay. And so the garden was on the open terrace. The wardrobes were packed with new nightclothes and dressing gowns for the guests. Bikram had made both his cars available round the clock. You never know where someone might want to go.

  ‘Such attention to guests, this is incredible, Seema,’ said Esha.

  Seema said, ‘A guest is an atithi, who arrives unexpectedly instead of adhering to the appointed date or tithi. You can visit me without luggage next time, Esha-di.’

  Mahanam was astonished by the library and the collection of paintings and sculptures in Seema’s house. Any album he wanted was available. Including those of Ajanta. He didn’t have so many himself. Mahanam sketched to his heart’s content along with Pupu. They would be used in his book, with due acknowledgement to Seema Seal and Samiddha Chowdhury.

  Mahanam asked, ‘Whose passion is all this, Seema?’

  ‘No one’s, Mahanam-da,’ smiled Seema. ‘Just one of the different ways of spending black money. We bought all this personally in the expectation that you would set foot in our house one day. Can’t you see, there’s not a mark on the golden embossing, no one opens the pages.’

  ‘Why do you have to display so much humility, Kakima?’ asked Pupu. ‘Are you cultivating it deliberately? Seema Kakima has many interests, many talents, Dr Roy, she is extremely accomplished. But she refuses to acknowledge them. Sherlock Holmes said modesty is not a quality, it’s another name for hypocrisy. Tell her, will you?’

  How would Seema tell them that without acknowledgement and praise from the right quarters all talents become useless. Even if she did, Pupu would not understand. She did whatever she liked, all by herself, without caring for recognition or acclaim from anyone. Was this unique to Pupu, or a natural trait in women of the new generation? It needed observation. Seema would be very pleased if it was the latter. In her old age, as the wife of the chairman of some corporation or the other, she would mention this quality of the new generation at the conferences she would grace as a garlanded chief guest, asserting unequivocally that it was a sign of progress.

  The street food vendors on Chowpatty beach were pestering Seema. Pupu was matching strides with Mahanam, an ice cream in her hand. Esha refused to lag behind. Neelam was walking next to Aritra in a white sari and blouse, Aritra was limping a little. Bikram said, ‘What a dress, Bhabi! You look beautiful. But Chowdhury-da has been widowed.’

  Neelam couldn’t contain her laughter. ‘You need to be widowed too,’ she said. ‘Seema will dress this way tomorrow.’

  Esha wasn’t speaking. She hadn’t said a word since they had returned from Aurangabad, only offering monosyllables in answer to questions.

  ‘Are you ill, Esha?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not depressed anymore?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’re taking the ship to Goa, you’ll love it. You haven’t been to Goa before, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you unhappy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you angry with me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The anger’s gone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pupu said, ‘You people are walking very slowly, Baba. Dr Roy says he wants to see the Viceroys enter through the Gateway of India. Esha Mashi is saying she’s seen the Elephanta Caves already, she’s not in the mood to go again.’

  Bikram said, ‘Esha-ji has to be dunked in the sea at Juhu beach. Her mood will improve at once.’

  ‘If I go into the sea I won’t come out again, I’ll go back to where I belong,’ said Esha.

  ‘You’ve come from the seabed?’ asked Seema. ‘Are you Lakshmi or Urvashi, Esha-di?’

  ‘Neither Lakshmi nor Urvashi,’ said Esha sadly. ‘I’m a poison pot, Seema.’

  ‘Neither a mother nor a wife, so far as I’ve heard not a daughter either, who can you be but Urvashi,’ Bikram told himself.

  Aritra said in his head, ‘A man’s heart loses itself suddenly. His blood pounds, Urvashi from heaven.’

  Mahanam said, ‘It’s a matter of choice, Esha, whether you want to be Urvashi or Lakshmi.’

  ‘I don’t want to be either, Mahanam-da,’ said Esha. ‘Doesn’t imagination offer any alternatives?’

  ‘It does,’ answered Mahanam. ‘Instead of a poison pot, you could be a nectar pot. What do you want to be, Samiddha?’

  ‘I don’t want to be nectar either,’ said Pupu. ‘It would bore me stiff to be immortal, much better to be a bubble, full of colour and death.’

  Mahanam recited:

  O wide river

  Your water, unseen, unheard

  Uninterrupted, incessant

  Flows eternally

  ‘Look, Esha, Neelam, you can’t blame god. Man wanted death voluntarily. Not with pique, but with love. Not like Freud’s Thanatos, the death-wish which is a synonym for hatred—but with the kind of romantic passion that Pupu expressed. So there was death. And then, suffering from amnesia, he forgot that this was what he had wanted. He was furious. He made up all sorts of stories. Since then man has been at loggerheads with god.’

  ‘So you accept an anthropomorphic god, Mahanam-da,’ said Aritra. ‘A god in the mould of humans, with arms and legs. God made man in his own image, and man returned the compliment.’

  Mahanam said with a smile, ‘You don’t even get rhetoric these days, Ari, have you turned completely into an officer in a commercial firm then, aren’t you a poet anymore?’

  ‘Ari was never a poet, Mahanam-da,’ said Neelam. ‘He had the gift of the gab, that’s all. And in youth even a bitch is a nymph.’

  Esha said, ‘Ari-da was not a poet? It’s possible. Bikram was a singer too once upon a time. Now he manages his own enterprise, Ari-da manages someone else’s.’

  ‘What rubbish, I still sing,’ protested Bikram vehemently.

  ‘You may sing,’ said Seema, ‘but you’re not a singer anymore.’

  ‘What!’ said Bikram incredulously.

  Esha spoke little, and when she did, it was with Pupu, with Neelam, with Seema, with Mahanam, even with Bikram. But Ari was left out. Ari was left out.

  But what had he done? Nothing. Nothing at all. At one time he had meant everything to Esha. He had all the rights in the world over her. Esha-Presha would melt like butter on his breast. Wouldn’t she? Her hands and feet, lips and breasts were all made of soft wax, a wax that turned liquid under Aritra’s passion. It was he who had made Esha who she was. She belonged to a conservative family. Esha would say, ‘You know, Ari, among my cousins the girls are like roses or jasmines, the boys are all fair-skinned. I’m the only dark, ugly one. My aunt has been making me use beauty lotions from my childhood. But beauty never came.’ Sometimes she would say, ‘You know, Aritra, my cousins have their noses buried in thick books all the time. Human Destiny, Religion Without Revelation, The Cosmic Blueprint. Counting the number of scholars in this family will make your head reel. While I’m an ignorant fool, Aritra.’ Esha would laugh. But through her laughter Aritra could hear the weeping of a girl constantly criticized.

  From a distance he had seen a big car leaving the Khans’ house, carrying several bejewelled fairies. Each of them with hair as black as queen bees, eyes like lotus petals, a nose like the softest of flowers, mouth and lips like ripe red fruits. Their faces demanded individual attention, their expressions were haughty, they never walked on the streets. Ravishing, they were. But no one would be inspired by their appearance to write poetry. There was Esha, coming out of the house. A willow tree. The huge front gates of the Khan mansion seemed to bow to her before closing. People all around. Cars speeding by. But Aritra could see no one else, there was no one else. Photographs don’t come out well without appropriate backgrounds, such as a temple in a narrow lane. But how perfectly Konark stood amidst a desolate emptiness of sand stretching to the horizon, in all its glory. The perspective of a conservative, blind aristocracy. A meaningless procession of innumerable faces and c
ars in the backdrop. Esha approached, charged with meaning. The immortal woman.

  Will she sleep alone this stormy night

  Crawling expectantly in the blind lane

  Imprisoned in her mother’s watery womb

  Where’s the surgeon on this dreadful night?

  Wait in the yard with the conch-shell

  Let the sound mingle with its echo

  Can there be an explosion of words

  Will she awaken? Will she bring a ransom?

  Aritra had given birth to Esha, hadn’t he? ‘Urrr naagin, laach naagin, laach naagin, laach.’ The snake had danced to the rhythm of the snake charmer’s flute at the University Institute folk festival. Memories of earlier lives had flashed before her eyes. Well then? Did the incomparable Galatea whom he had built with his own hands not belong to Pygmalion anymore, did she belong to the entire world now?

  Aritra tore his hair out, sank his teeth into his hands, biting them like the crocodile in the fairy-tale. Then, bleeding profusely, he died. And, in a laughing procession over this death they walked with their luggage up the gangway to The Condor, bound for Goa—a heroic Bikram, a brightly smiling Mahanam, a detached, distracted Esha-Presha; and in orange slacks, orange lipstick, orange nail-polish, and with an orange bag on her shoulder, a shiny Seema wrapped like a lozenge, and, bringing up the rear, a limping Aritra Chowdhury forced to rise to his feet and dust himself off.

  NINETEEN

  The steamer sounded its horn. The Condor would now unfurl its gigantic wings and fly across the wide sky of the Arabian sea. Like dolls—although they weren’t dolls— ranged along the railing on the deck, stood Seema, Aritra, Mahanam, Bikram, Esha.

  Why hadn’t Neelam come? Despite all the cajoling and imploring? Beseeched to join the travellers, why did she still remain, impenetrable, on the distant shore they had left behind? The waves in the wake of the steamer were turning the blue water white. As frothy as a waterfall. As fearsome as a whirlpool. As though the water was playing the cymbals of death with both its hands. Why hadn’t Neelam come? Esha was afraid. Was it just because of Pupu? Pupu was even more comfortable than Seema’s son Tito in Bikram’s house. Tito visited once a year, but Pupu went as often as she liked, for as long as she liked. Without her parents. Sometimes with her friends. And yet Neelam hadn’t wanted to come. As though, clasping Pupu to her breast, she had bid goodbye to Aritra forever. Had Neelam left Ari for good? She was supposed to have fought, she was supposed to have lived with deprivation, but the question of abandoning him had never arisen. Ari had not understood. How terrifying! Esha could understand, but Ari was too besotted to realize that the ground beneath his feet was shaking. That he was floundering in bottomless water. He hadn’t realized. Neelam, Neelam, you have been cruel to many people, directly, indirectly. Don’t do it anymore. You must not pick up the scales of the blindfolded goddess of justice. You cannot be the deity who judges. Don’t be. Esha seemed to be knocking her forehead against an uninterested Neelam’s feet while Neelam stood in an empty sky. And The Condor kept flying regally, holding people in the span of its wings and in its beak. People who could neither stop the ring from whirling, nor escape it with a tremendous leap. Their actions had pinned them to the rim. Not because of their karma from another lifetime, but from this one. This one alone. And all of them, almost all of them, were silently adding the blue of their agony to the blue of the ocean with its restless waves. No one could see how the Arabian sea was turning darker in consequence. Currents of blood, blue in colour, were spreading from one coast to another. Charged with an electric force. So powerful was this blue stream of pain and desire that it would silently suck in anyone who fell into it.