House of the Sun

by Meira Chand

  The doors of the balcony rattled violently; the rain hit the windows in slabs, pounding them again and again. Mr Hathiramani took no notice. His heart swelled, tears ran down his cheeks.

  O, the audience with the beloved!

  O, the audience with the beloved!

  The words he wrote were hardly visible in the failing light. He raised wet eyes to the dim room. The walls seemed to melt and space illimitable stretched out before him, drawing him towards it.

  ‘O, the audience with the beloved!’ Mr Hathiramani whispered the words aloud. The doors to the balcony rattled again, and with a furious noise burst suddenly open, and emptied the night upon him. Mr Hathiramani fell back upon the bed with a shout of terror.

  In the living room, Mrs Hathiramani and Raju turned at the clap of thunder and Mr Hathiramani’s scream. ‘Do not cut your feet on the glass, Raju,’ Mrs Hathiramani warned. Several empty jars, ready to be filled with a pickle of mango and lime, had rolled in the wind off the table, and splintered on the floor. They picked their way carefully over the glass, and hurried towards the bedroom. Before they could enter, the door slammed shut in their faces. Mrs Hathiramani gasped.

  ‘Just see, now I am banished by him from the room. My milk will curdle on the sideboard.’

  ‘Memsahib, I think maybe it was only the wind. I will open the door. See, it opens.’ Raju pushed his way into the room, struggling with the force of the gale. In the darkness they could not see after the light of the living room. A great rushing sound filled the air.

  ‘Raju, can you see Sahib?’ Mrs Hathiramani asked.

  ‘I am going in, Memsahib,’ Raju informed her.

  The room was alive. The lamp swung wildly. Piles of newspapers and magazines heaved and sighed like bellows against the walls. Loose papers swished about the floor; the curtains beat like wings. Raju ran to the French windows and bolted them firmly. Then he turned to the bed and screamed.

  ‘Memsahib. Sahib has burst his brains.’

  Mrs Hathiramani turned on the light. On the bed Mr Hathiramani lay at an odd angle, his eyes shut and his mouth open. Mrs Hathiramani gave a terrified cry.

  ‘He is not dead, Memsahib, he is still breathing,’ Raju reassured her. Mrs Hathiramani stood, trembling and transfixed. Raju ran to her side.

  ‘I bring you one Thums Up drink, one cup of tea? Oh, Memsahib, only speak to me.’ Raju pulled at Mrs Hathiramani’s sari, looking up at the mountain-side of her.

  ‘Donkey, leave off pulling at me. Go and call Doctor Sahib.’ Mrs Hathiramani’s voice cracked. She made an effort to wake her husband, but he did not respond as before.

  ‘He is a case for the hospital,’ said Dr Subramaniam when he arrived.

  ‘Hospital?’ Mrs Hathiramani wailed. ‘I know these hospitals, they will charge me money only to kill him. Do not take him there.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed beside her husband.

  ‘We will put him in the nursing home nearby. From the windows he will be able to see his own home,’ Dr Subramaniam reassured.

  ‘This is the work of Saturn,’ Mrs Hathiramani cried. ‘What more must we endure?’ Outside the wild night shook the windows again and rattled the doors of the balcony. ‘At last he has burst his brains. One day I knew it would happen,’ she sobbed over Mr Hathiramani’s inert form. Dr Subramaniam shook his head.

  ‘I will not ask again for education, Memsahib,’ Raju whispered, and began quietly to clear up the papers that lay scattered over the floor.

  17

  Mrs Murjani climbed into her waiting car before the entrance of Sadhbela. A stray dog and two barefooted, curious children from one of the back tenements approached. Mrs Murjani shooed them away with the quick hiss of a disturbed goose. Inside the car she arranged her sari, and touched the pearls at her neck. It was important she look just right; Rani’s future might depend upon it. Mrs Premchand, wife of the shipping magnate and an old friend from Mrs Murjani’s college days, had clapped her hands in delight when Mrs Murjani had murmured of the difficulties involved in keeping a daughter occupied once college was finished and a B.A. had been obtained.

  Apart from Mrs Premchand, Mrs Murjani had contacted other friends in the same discreet manner; all at once became active in the interests of Rani. Already, unbeknown to her daughter, Mrs Murjani had journeyed to a number of destinations to sip tea or cold drinks in the drawing rooms of friends, and meet with the persons assembled there. Beneath innocuous conversation a work of great judgement proceeded, but no family had yet seemed suitable for Rani.

  After the incident at Walkeshwar Tank, Mrs Murjani had wasted no time. She had seen, without the help of Mr Hathiramani’s impudent remarks, that she could delay marriage arrangements for Rani no longer. From past experience she knew these things took time. She had spent a year shifting through offers for Vinod, before finally deciding upon her daughter-in-law. Mrs Murjani sighed and directed the driver towards Cumballa Hill and Mrs Premchand’s residence, and the unknown family who waited to meet her there. As the car drew away from Sadhbela, she looked up at the windows of her home without apprehension, although Rani was there alone. Mrs Murjani had relaxed the strict vigil recently kept upon her daughter. Sham Pumnani had made no further attempt at contact, and Rani was uncommonly obedient. The crisis, thank God, was over.

  *

  Her mother had left at last, and except for the servants she was alone. Everyone was out. Rani ate a light lunch in solitary splendour, served by the bearer from silver dishes. Cross-legged on the floor beside the table the ayah folded clean washing, at moments squinting up and urging Rani to eat more. When she had finished Rani washed her hands, straightened her shirt, brushed her hair and searched for the things she needed. In the kitchen she found a box of pistachio sweetmeats, some apples and a tin of cheese. These she arranged upon a tray and covered with a clean table napkin. The ayah padded away to the bedrooms with her pile of folded washing, and Rani slipped quickly out of the front door, triumphant at escape.

  It was dim and hot in the corridor after the air-conditioning in the house. The collected odour of Sadhbela’s lunch hour wrapped her in stale, pungent smells. She walked past the lift shaft to the Pumnanis’ home. She had heard Lakshmi had returned the night before on a visit to her mother. She knew she had been ill, but was unsure of the exact details. The scenes at Walkeshwar Tank still weighed upon Rani. She had seen nothing of Sham and she wished to apologize, to disown her mother to him. She knew he was not interested in her and could accept the fact; she hoped this equilibrium meant she was getting over him. He would hear of her visit to Lakshmi. It would prove that, unlike her mother, she was not dismissive of him. It was the least she could do.

  Rekha opened the door and stepped back in surprise. ‘These things are for Lakshmi,’ Rani said, pushing the tray at her.

  Rekha smiled. ‘How pleased Lakshmi will be to see you. She is still not well.’ She sighed, the smile fading sadly.

  Rani had forgotten how small the Pumnanis’ accommodation was. Everything was neat but the dinginess was oppressive. The walls were shiny with age and the grease of hands. A bed, a table, a few chairs and cane stools, a vase of plastic flowers beneath a calendar of Krishna, seemed to fill the place. From the small room beyond came an occasional cough, and Rani glimpsed a bed behind a screen, and smelled the strong odour of antiseptic.

  How had twelve people once lived here? She was filled with distress. It did not seem possible Sham returned to this each day. She stepped back in confusion, and came up against a string bed upon which slept an old woman, her veil bandaged in a blindfold about her head.

  ‘Chachi is sleeping.’ Rekha put a finger to her lips. ‘See, here is Lakshmi.’ She took Rani’s hand and drew her to where Lakshmi sat, propped up by a mound of cushions on the bed.

  ‘I have made her rest. There, in that other house, they never let her be.’ Rekha’s voice was unsteady. ‘Soon she must return. Already I have been called to the Hathiramanis’ phone by Lakshmi’s mother-in-law. Already they want her back
in time for the evening’s work.’

  ‘How have you suddenly remembered me?’ Lakshmi smiled.

  Rani sat down on the bed and talked with deliberate brightness. Lakshmi was unrecognizable as the girl she had played with as a child, in the compound of Sadhbela. It was terrible to look at her thin, yellow face. The gap of experiences separating them seemed without a bridge. The cushions behind Lakshmi were threadbare and lumpy: a small window, barred and netted, showed a close view of drainpipes. The purring of pigeons was near.

  Rekha withdrew and soon reappeared with tea, strong, and spiced with cardamom, in thick white cups. She had arranged the pistachio sweets on a plate, and cut up an apple. She smiled, looking down at the two girls. Lakshmi was talking of old times, when they used to play together. Her cheeks had a hectic flush. As Rekha handed out the tea, there was another fit of coughing from the next room.

  ‘It is too much for her,’ Lakshmi worried as Rakha disappeared again. ‘I fear for her health. First father, then Sham, then me. Our karma is bad.’ Rekha returned to sit with them, and Lakshmi chatted on through their tea.

  ‘I must be back by five.’ Lakshmi suddenly looked at the clock. She struggled off the bed and stood, swaying slightly on her feet. ‘I did not notice how late it was.’

  ‘How will you return alone? Look at you. Wait for Sham, he will go with you. Like this you cannot go upon buses and trains,’ Rekha urged. ‘Soon Padma and Veena will be back.’

  ‘Why don’t you go by taxi?’ Rani asked, concerned.

  ‘Taxis cost money,’ Rekha answered gently. ‘We have not that kind of money, the journey is long. Taxis are for big people, like you.’

  Rani bit her lip in shame. All the Murjanis’ cars were out but she had money in her purse and her mother would not return until after five o’clock. ‘I will go with her,’ Rani decided. ‘I will go there and back in a taxi.’ She was happy at last to see an opportunity to make amends to Sham.

  ‘God will bless you,’ Rekha said later, peering through the window of the taxi outside Sadhbela. The vehicle grated its gears and moved forward. Rani was filled with excitement, at defiance of her mother yet again, and at the rightness of her action.

  The effort of getting downstairs and into the taxi seemed to have exhausted Lakshmi. She rested her head and shut her eyes. Rani shook her, worried. ‘I’m all right,’ she smiled. ‘It’s just the thought of going back there.’ She gave an involuntary shudder.

  ‘Is it so terrible?’ Rani asked and took Lakshmi’s hand. It felt light in her own healthy grip.

  At first Lakshmi shook her head and would say nothing, biting her lips to control her emotions. When Rani repeated her question she began to speak of the unpaid dowry in a low, barely audible voice. ‘And now, they have learned from the doctor I cannot have children. Now they know this, I am frightened. Already they speak of divorcing me,’ she whispered.

  ‘What does your husband say?’ Rani asked, and Lakshmi looked down at their clasped hands.

  ‘He does not care,’ she answered. She gripped Rani’s hand and sat forward, her voice rose with sudden strength. ‘They want to be rid of me. Only then will they be happy.’ Words rushed unstoppably from her then, dark and lucid, terrible in their clarity, building shocking pictures.

  Rani drew back in the seat, alarmed by the emotion suddenly spilling from Lakshmi. Beyond the taxi windows the familiar regions of Bombay fell away, and were replaced by views less trustworthy. The crust of grime and dilapidation seemed thicker in these areas of the city, inhabited by nobody Rani knew. Small shops, people, animals and carts clogged the streets. At each traffic light the beggars surged forward, pushing poxed faces and the freakish stubs of amputated limbs through the open windows. Each time the taxi moved forward the beggars were left behind, but the pressure of Lakshmi’s unhappiness was without respite. She talked on. Her voice rose to shrillness and fell to a whisper, but refused to stop its unbelievable tale. Rani wondered if Lakshmi’s mind was unhinged, she doubted the truth of some revelations.

  ‘But you believe me, I know you do,’ Lakshmi pleaded. ‘You are my friend, you will help me.’ And unable to deny association under such duress, Rani nodded and mutely assured her. Lakshmi cried and laughed in a single spasm.

  ‘I knew you would. I knew you would believe me,’ she replied, but all Rani wished for was escape from the horror of Lakshmi’s life. It already touched her with its taint, filling her with tension and distaste.

  At last Lakshmi wiped her eyes and began to direct the driver through narrow streets. They passed a vegetarian restaurant with red and green neon lights, and turned suddenly off the road between apartment houses. They came into a yard with piles of rusting, twisted metal and the abandoned carcasses of trucks. To one side stood a house. A black and white goat dozed on a verandah. An outside staircase led to an upper floor, a few straggly canna lilies clustered at its base.

  ‘Come in with me, please.’ Lakshmi took hold of Rani’s hand again. ‘My mother-in-law will be glad to see I have a friend like you.’ She tugged Rani from the taxi with sudden strength.

  Rani instructed the taxi to wait, securing her escape, and followed between the mounds of scrap metal which Lakshmi explained was the business of their landlord. From the verandah the goat stared sleepily as they climbed the stairs. Rani had a view over the rail of the collapsed roof of the downstairs verandah. Lakshmi pushed open a door of flaking brown paint, and led the way into the upstairs flat.

  ‘I cannot stay,’ Rani protested, drawing back before the dark, reptilian quality of Mrs Samtani, who bore down upon her purposefully, intent upon embrace.

  ‘Such a visit is an honour,’ Mrs Samtani said. Rani was pulled into the hard depths of Mrs Samtani, whose small eyes searched her face. She pinched Rani’s cheek and made a kissing sound. ‘Our Lakshmi is a very dull girl, never has she mentioned that you were her friend. Once, at a distance, I have seen your parents. Every day we use your father’s pressure cookers, all India knows his name; and you are knowing Lakshmi. Only a girl as dull as Lakshmi could neglect such friends.’ Mrs Samtani shook her head in wonderment.

  ‘Lakshmi will bring you refreshment,’ she continued. ‘How shall I thank you? She refuses to take care of her health, and therefore unnecessarily gives trouble to her friends, who must bring her here and there like a Maharani in their cars.’

  ‘In a taxi,’ Rani corrected, edging to the door. ‘There were no cars available at home. The taxi is waiting for me. Lakshmi must rest, she is not well.’

  Mrs Samtani smiled and took a step towards Rani. ‘Sit, sit. At least one juice you must drink. Lakshmi, stupid girl, even this you cannot bring your friend? You will let her go without taking something in our house?’ Mrs Samtani placed a hand on Rani’s shoulder, and pressed her into a chair.

  ‘The taxi is waiting,’ Rani repeated.

  ‘It will wait.’ Mrs Samtani sat down on a stool opposite Rani. Lakshmi carried in a plate of biscuits and an apple. She placed them on the table and scuttled away again.

  ‘See, she brings it to me to peel.’ Mrs Samtani picked up the apple and a knife. ‘A girl of good family, like yourself, knows the right way to do things. Never would such a girl expect her mother-in-law to peel the fruit. As Lakshmi has given you trouble to bring her home, so every day here she is likewise giving trouble. If she had her way she would do nothing but sit about, like a Maharani.’

  Mrs Samtani dug the knife savagely into the apple, and leaned forward over the low coffee table. Rani drew back in her chair, and stared at the pattern of ringmarks in the thin varnish of the table top.

  ‘And not even a full settlement yet,’ Mrs Samtani hissed. ‘People like your parents would settle in full. When you marry they will take pride in showing their worth. They will only give and give. But Lakshmi’s family are not cultured people; they know only how to cheat. They think they have done a clever thing with this marriage. They are laughing at us. I know they have money.’ Mrs Samtani looked fiercely at Lakshmi, who hurri
ed back with two over-full glasses of orangeade. Her hands trembled, and the liquid slopped on to the table.

  ‘Useless,’ Mrs Samtani shouted. Lakshmi gave a sob and hurried away again. ‘If they do not pay we will divorce her.’ Mrs Samtani’s eyes appraised Rani.

  ‘Her family is poor. There is no money,’ Rani burst out angrily.

  Mrs Samtani became sorrowful at Rani’s agitation. ‘It is difficult to see the faults of our friends. But we have been cheated and now, on top of everything, we have been told she cannot bear children. My son will be denied a son; I will have no grandchildren. Our name will die.’

  Mrs Samtani gave a sudden sob and threw down the apple and knife, covering her face with her hands. Lakshmi appeared with a cloth and mopped up the spilt liquid. She sat down and silently took over peeling the apple, not raising her eyes to Rani. Eventually, Mrs Samtani lifted her head and looked hard at Rani, behind the glassy haze of tears.

  ‘If you are her friend, go to her people. Tell them they must pay. Speak to them for us,’ Mrs Samtani insisted. Beside her Lakshmi lowered her head and began to cry, still peeling the fruit. Rani watched the tears drip on to her hands, and the breath shuddering through her thin body.

  ‘They have nothing to give,’ Rani retorted. She sat forward in the chair to throw the words at Mrs Samtani. ‘All you want is to squeeze more money out of them, now that you’ve got Lakshmi.’

  Mrs Samtani drew a quick, angry breath, but her voice remained calm. ‘I am sorry to hear you say these things. So, this is the impression of us Lakshmi gives to her friends. These are the lies she tells.’

  ‘Oh please. Please,’ Lakshmi sobbed, putting down the apple.

  Rani stood up, her chair scraping on the stone floor. ‘I’m going,’ she said, turning to the door.

  Mrs Samtani hurried up behind her. Lakshmi’s sobs were distant now. ‘She is upsetting us all. Sometimes I fear she may do something to herself,’ Mrs Samtani shouted after Rani as she ran down the stairs and climbed into the waiting taxi. Looking up from the safety of the car, Rani saw Mrs Samtani standing before the upstairs door, emotion still throbbing in her face.