A numbness started up my arms. It spread to my body.
“Always mumbling to himself, he was,” old Rukkamma said. “Such a nice fellow, too. Very respectful. Colour of barely ripened mango. Always used to carry up my bucket of water for me. Such a sorry end for him, hanh? To end up in a mental hospital?”
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I walked up the steps to our apartment, and banged on the door till Janaki aunty opened it.
”Forgot your keys?” Her eyes were puffy from her afternoon nap. When I didn’t answer, she looked at me sharply. “What’s wrong?”
Brushing past her, I went to my bedroom, and collapsed on the bed.
Janaki aunty followed me in and pulled up a chair. She kept rubbing my back, asking what had happened. She put a hand under my chin and turned my face to the side. One glance and she left the room. On returning, she helped me sit up and gave me a pill to swallow.
I downed it with a glass of water. It must have been a sleeping pill, because I slept.
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I don’t know when I awakened, but I was groggy.
Aunty sat on a chair, neck at an awkward angle, fast asleep.
I went to the bathroom to freshen up.
When I came out, Aunty was rubbing her eyes. “What happened?”
“It’s two in the morning.”
“Don’t worry about the time,” she said. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”
I related all that had happened.
“My poor child,” she said, as tears made their way down her cheeks.
I lay back on my bed, chest hurting badly. “I can’t believe Srikar ended up in a mental hospital, Aunty.” I broke down.
Aunty stopped crying. “You’re not talking like a doctor. His emotional problems must have been too much for him to handle. What is wrong in getting help?” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself, as well. “Would you blame him if he needed medication for heart problems? Blood pressure? Then why not for emotional trauma?”
But doctor or not, prejudices were hard to overcome. I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself, but it hurt. I rubbed my chest. Images of my husband restrained in a bed, undergoing shock therapy, haunted me. Did they even do that anymore? God, no! Anything but that!
“Aunty, all this time I thought of him as being safe someplace. Wildly successful, but missing me madly. Searching for me desperately. To think of him locked away…” My voice, or was it my heart, broke.
Aunty held me tightly. “I am going to find him, Child, if it is the last thing I do.”
My husband and my son. That’s all I want. Please, God. Take away my degree, my education, my money, add more darkness to my skin. Just give back my family.
Cupping my anguished face, she said, “Do you think his grandfather would have gone to so much trouble merely to let Srikar languish in a mental hospital? I’m sure he got the treatment he needed, and now is quite successful in life.”
“You’re talking about the man who had no problem giving his own great-grandson away.”
Aunty had nothing to say to that.
Let him be happy, God. Even if it means he hates me. I just can’t bear the thought of him locked up.
Chapter 41
Confronting Geeta
Aunty had been scouring the city for Srikar. She had called in every favour she could think of – and being a doctor, she was owed many – but she was unable to find any trace of him. “I just don’t understand,” she said. “He has disappeared.”
We sat, as usual, on the balcony overlooking the road, after a long day at work. As had become our habit, we relaxed with, depending on the season, either hot tea or chilled buttermilk. Today it was tea.
“I have offered large amounts of money for information, but nothing. I got in touch with my contact at the mental hospital, but that didn’t pan out either.”
I leaned back against the swing, drained. Aunty wasn’t able to find a grown man. What chance did I have with a young child? A child I might not even recognize. Did the people who had him treat him well? Did they take good care of him? Please, God, let him not be out on the streets all alone, nowhere to go, no one to worry whether he’s eaten...
I took deep breaths, trying to ease the tightness in my chest, trying not to think of Srikar all drugged up, and chained to his cot. “Do you think we should contact women’s organizations, or the National Human Rights Commission for help?”
“And draw attention to yourself? I don’t think that’s wise, Child.”
I sighed. “That leaves only Geeta.” I could, of course, call Ammamma. God knows, I wanted to. It wasn’t inconceivable that the news of Srikar had trickled back to Ammamma through Srikar’s grandmother. But I was afraid to put my grandmother in danger.
“Take tomorrow morning off and look for her. I can handle the patient load.”
I nodded. It was time.
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The next morning, I dressed with care – a smart sari from a fashionable boutique, my hair carefully done up, a fancy purse in hand. Despite a lack of money, Geeta had an innate sense of style. I had no wish to feel inferior.
Getting into the car, I gave the driver Geeta’s address. Thirty minutes later we stopped across from a six storey building. Not fancy by any means, but certainly a step-up from Madhuban Apartments.
Two boys, a little older than the age my son would be now, were playing cricket in front of the building. I walked past a small room set to one side, bathroom on the outside. Probably the watchman’s quarters. I took the stairs up to the fifth floor, mildly out of breath. 503. The flat Geeta lived in.
I took a deep breath and knocked, gearing up for the confrontation.
Geeta opened the door, and the years fell away.
I was back in Madhuban Apartments, newly married and amazingly naïve, excited about my husband, my new friend Geeta, my future.
She looked at me questioningly. “Yes?”
I found myself too choked up to say anything.
All of a sudden, the expression on her face changed. Recognition seemed to have dawned, because she fell into the chair beside the door. “You came,” she said, voice hoarse. Almost as if she had been expecting me. Like the Warden at the Home.
“Quite a nice place you have here.” Distress caused my scalp to tighten. “Three bedroom flat, is it?”
She nodded, her skin a sickly green. “You have come to find out about that day, haven’t you?”
I looked at her.
“They made me do it,” she burst out. “Kondal Rao’s goons threatened to chop my husband to pieces and throw him in the Godavari if we didn’t cooperate.” She got up and grabbed my shoulders, a wild expression on her face. “Please, you have to believe me. He said all I had to do was tell Srikar I knew nothing, had seen nothing. They paid two or three people in the building, I don’t know who all, to spread rumours that you’d run away with your lover.”
“But Srikar couldn’t believe that!”
“He didn’t. He gave up his job, roamed the streets like a mad man, searching for you. I heard he even went to Kondal Rao’s office and attacked him, but of course, nothing came of it. I didn’t say anything to anyone. That’s all I did.”
“That’s all you did?” Blood rushed to my face.
Geeta started to sob. “They came right after you left. I was still slumped in the corridor from the terror, unable to move. They cleaned out your possessions, including the jewellery you’d left behind. They even took the money from under the mattress.”
The money we were saving to buy Srikar a motorcycle so he could search for a better job. All these years, when I thought he was out looking for me, he’d thought I’d run away with his money and my lover?
I worked my jaw, trying to loosen the tension. “Kondal Rao is gutter filth. But you?”
She looked at her hands, tears dripping down.
“What about the note I left for him?”
“They made me copy your handwriting. I wrote a fresh note to Srikar, pretending to be you
. They made me say you were running away with your lover.”
Srikar couldn’t have known it wasn’t my handwriting. I’d never had the occasion to write him a letter.
“I didn’t hurt anyone,” Geeta said, desperate for absolution.
“Of course you didn’t.” My jaw hurt as I found myself grinding my teeth. “All you did was destroy my marriage by implying I was an adulteress and a thief. All you did was cause me to lose my child.” I paused for a breath. “You know what Srikar’s grandfather did? He stole my baby, and gave him away. You did nothing more, really.”
Geeta swayed, her face ashen.
“Did you know they took Srikar away in an ambulance? Worked out well for you, didn’t it? You got a three bedroom flat, my husband ended up in the mental hospital?”
“No!” Geeta started to moan. “I’m not responsible for that! He didn’t believe me. I think Kondal Rao bribed old Rukkamma, too. Suddenly she started getting monthly pension.”
And started spreading vicious lies. I stumbled in shock. Srikar really thought I’d been unfaithful to him? I hadn’t wanted to believe old Rukkamma, but this... I leaned against the wall as blood rushed to my face, clouding my vision. I lunged at Geeta, shaking her so hard she cried out. “May you never be happy,” I spat at her. “May your husband suffer, like mine did. May your children be taken away from you so you understand my pain.”
“No!” Geeta ran to the puja room and collapsed in front of the pantheon of Gods. “Yedukondalavada! I didn’t do this with malice in my heart. They forced me!” She got up and fell at my feet. “Forgive me, Pullamma, forgive me!” she said, continuing to moan.
I looked at the woman slumped on the floor, heart full of fury. She’d betrayed me in the worst way, this woman I’d considered a friend. I stepped around her, and slammed the door shut behind me, my rage such that I wished I really were a Goddess so I could put a curse on her.
Chapter 42
Life Moves On – I Can’t
What was it about me that caused my friends to betray me so? First, my best friend, Chinni. Then, Geeta. What was it about me that caused me to lose my family – my child, my husband, my grandmother? I found time slipping away. I’d turn on the TV, then realize an hour had passed with no memory of what I’d been watching. I’d gaze out the window, nothing registered. Perhaps, one day I’d forget to breathe, too.
Work was the one thing that kept me anchored to the world. I might have given that up, too, but Aunty wouldn’t let me. All of a sudden she decided she’d had enough of practicing medicine. “All these years of missing my son, I’m drained, Child. I want to spend the rest of my life in prayer and charity work. Would you mind?”
I wasn’t unaware this was a ploy to keep me busy, but I owed this lady so much. I couldn’t possibly refuse. I hired an administrative assistant, and two more nurses. I also hired another doctor, Dr. Govardhan, to help with the patient load. Once I brought him on board, Aunty withdrew completely from practice.
Aunty had gotten to know quite a few neighbours, and was beginning to spend a lot of time attending perantams – women-only functions either involving pujas, or purely social in nature. Lines were drawn in these functions, invisible, but there all the same. Married women, the fortunate ones, were at the top of the social pecking order. Unmarried girls came next, because they could still find husbands, and become part of that elite first group. The widows were the unfortunate lot, the has-beens who, while invited, weren’t offered kumkum and turmeric – the auspicious prerogative of every married woman. Abandoned women rarely went, while divorced women were rarer than politicians with morals.
I couldn’t figure out where I fit in the social hierarchy. I refused to go as an unmarried woman, and couldn’t go as a married one – I didn’t even know if my husband was alive, or if he was, whether he had another wife. “You know why I can’t,” I said.
“Child, it’s not healthy to lock yourself away from people. You could go as an unmarried woman, you know.”
“You know what will happen. People will rush to find me a husband.” Doctor brides, in their twenties, like I was, were considered a catch by the middle- and upper-classes because of their potential for future earnings.
In my mind, though, I was still married to Srikar. I still wore my pustela taadu, the one he’d tied around my neck at our wedding in the registrar’s office. This symbol of marriage remained carefully hidden underneath my clothes, through my stay in the Home, and beyond. I’d not stayed with my husband long enough for him to afford the gold chain the coins would have eventually been attached to. After Aunty and I set up practice, I bought the gold chain myself, and had the coins affixed to it.
What it came down to was that I was married, but not married. I was a mother, but not a mother. And I’d lived longer with my mother-in-law, than I had with my husband.
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I put my head down on the desk, cushioning it with my arms. Yesterday, Dr. Govardhan’s day off, had been very busy. Today I was feeling the after-effects.
“Why don’t you go home?”
I raised my head to see the lanky form of Dr. Govardhan at the door.
“There are no patients right now. Now’s your chance,” he said, grinning at me. “Escape before the hordes start to queue up. Quick.”
I looked at him, hesitant.
“Go, really. You deserve a break.” He winked. “See a movie, smile at a handsome man, do something F-U-N. Don’t show your face here for twenty-four hours. Doctor’s orders.”
Dr. Govardhan, with his perpetually sunny outlook on life, made me feel old, even though he was older in physical years, forty to my twenty-five.
Giving him a grateful smile, I decided to take him up on his offer. Feeling a delicious sense of irresponsibility, I decided to talk Aunty into going to a movie with me. She’d been complaining I worked too hard. I walked up the stairs trying to decide between a Telugu movie, and a Hindi one.
We rarely locked up during the day, so I pushed the door open – and gasped. I blinked, stepping into an alternate universe. Muted sounds, diminished colours. I saw tears stream down Aunty’s face. On seeing me Srikar’s grandfather, Kondal Rao, abruptly released his grip on her shoulder.
Staggering to my bedroom, I drew up the bed sheet and curled up.
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“Pullamma!” Aunty called, her voice sounding distant.
My head felt as if it were enveloped in cotton. I tried to ignore her, but her tone was insistent. I forced my eyes open. Aunty was looking down at me, a frightened expression on her face. She started to sob hysterically. She was scaring me. I’d never known her to lose control. I tried to say something, but my tongue seemed to have thickened; I found myself unable to formulate words. I forced myself up. The image of Srikar’s grandfather formed in my head again. Pushing past Aunty, I stumbled to the kitchen for water.
Had that terrible man really been in my house?
Aunty followed me into the kitchen, her eyes red and puffy.
I leaned against the counter and drained the glass of water. I blinked, hoping it would help me focus. How had he found me? Why was I still alive? I refilled my glass, throat still parched.
Aunty twisted the loose end of her sari between her hands, looking as if expecting something. I couldn’t tell what, but I knew this wasn’t going to be good.
“He didn’t come for you.”
I stared at her blankly.
The moment stretched out.
“You want to know what Srikar’s grandfather was doing here?”
I said nothing.
“He found me near Srikar’s house and followed me home.”
The steel tumbler slipped from my hand. I traced its path as it hit my foot, then bounced its way across the kitchen – the clanging of it the only sound in the room. It rolled till it came to rest against the cooking-gas cylinder, making one final clang before lying spent.
“Did you hear what I said?” Aunty’s voice was shrill. “I said he told me to stay away from Sri
kar.”
“We have worked, and lived together how long?” I cocked my head. “Hmm. Let me see. I moved in with you when I was seventeen. Now I am twenty-five. Eight years.”
I wasn’t falling apart, I thought with surprise.
Aunty had a stricken expression on her face, though.
“You know how desperately I’ve been searching for Srikar. And yet, you didn’t feel the need to share this little nugget. Amazing.”
Aunty stood unmoving, seemingly unable to respond. How I knew the feeling.
“Tell me something,” I said, making myself comfortable against the counter. “Did you also forget to tell me other little things? Like, perhaps, you’ve reconciled with Srikar?”
Aunty blanched.
“Ah! So all this time I’ve been grieving, you’ve been meeting my husband? Is your father-in-law part of this happy little family, as well?”
“Pullamma!” Aunty’s voice was hoarse. “Let me explain.”
I had to get away. If I fell apart, I’d turn into Humpty Dumpty; unable to put myself together again. “Didn’t I mention a movie?”
Aunty made a sound of distress.
Don’t think about it, don’t, don’t. I struggled for a blank face. “Well, I am off to one. Got to improve my Hindi, you know. I’m getting lots of North Indian patients now.”
I walked out of the flat and took an auto-rickshaw to the nearest movie hall, completely forgetting I had a car and driver waiting. The movie I wanted to see was playing, so I bought a ticket. Luckily, there was hardly anyone in the hall, probably because it was a weekday matinee show. I picked a seat in the last row, and settled in with a cup of tea and a plate of steaming hot samosas. I could see a few people ahead, but no one in the last rows.
The movie started, and the trembling started. Then the tears came.
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Two and a half hours later I lurched out of the theatre, no improvement in my Hindi skills whatsoever. Outside stood Aunty, her face grey with fatigue. I found myself unable to respond to her mute appeal. Appeal for what? I didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care. I’d loved this woman like a mother and she’d betrayed me.
Tell A Thousand Lies Page 21