by Anju Gattani
“I’m so sorry to hear about Nainaji,” Papa said. “But looking at Sheetal and hearing about Rakeshji—”
“Yes. Very unfortunate, I tell you.” Mummyji made herself comfortable on an ottoman. “If only Rakesh did all his drinking outside, I tell you. That is, outside the house.” She scrunched her nose. “His bad habits stink up the whole mansion! Hai Ishwar! Whole house smells of alcohol all the time.”
“Isn’t that something you should be taking care of?” Mama asked.
“Why me? First, I manage this house, and now manage their marriage? Only this morning, five servants were on their hands and knees cleaning their mess, for six hours straight.”
Mama glanced at Sheetal, but Sheetal turned away.
Sheetal instructed the servants to take Yash’s suitcases down and then entered Yash’s bedroom to find him sitting on the bed pulling threads out of the duvet. She had woken Yash early that morning, broke the news that he was to return to Mansali with his Nana instead of Rakesh, and hugged him tight as he cried in her arms.
She shuffled across the room, gritting her teeth as sharp spasms of pain rippled through her body. She sat down on the mattress beside Yash and ran her fingers through his hair. “I know you don’t want to go and that I broke my promise, but after what Aunty Naina has done, I have no choice, Beta.”
Yash lowered his head.
“Look at me.” She put an index finger under his chin and gently attempted to raise his head. “Yash, look at me. Just once.”
He stiffened, refusing to look up.
“You know how much I love you and how much I’m going to miss you. It hurts me so much to let you go.”
He said nothing.
Yash always grew upset when the time came to leave. First, he argued to stay, then he pleaded. When Sheetal remained adamant, he cried. Eventually, after much cajoling and sweettalking, Sheetal earned a goodbye hug before he left. After Yash reached Mansali, he refused to take her calls for the first two to three weeks. Over time, the pain of separation healed and he gradually started speaking to her again.
“How about a new promise? I’ll come to your school concert this year, stay on until your exams are over, and bring you home.” She waited, but he kept his head bowed. “Let’s see...January, February, March, and April.” She counted the months on her fingers. “Four months. Just four until summer holidays.”
Yash resumed pulling threads and dropped them on a growing pile.
“Are you worried about me? Am I right?”
Silence.
“I had an accident last night. But I’ll get better soon. You believe me, don’t you?”
His attention flicked to the gauze padding her wrists and the hem of her sari.
Sheetal hid her feet under the pleats.
“Oh, I know why you’re angry. Your Dad isn’t taking you. Is that so? I promise, Yash. He meant to. He had tickets booked for the two of you, but he’s fallen sick.” Her throat ached and she gulped. “You’ve already missed a week of school and it’s important you go back so you don’t fall behind. We almost lost you, Yash, and I can’t bear to face that again. There’s too much outside my control here. Please understand.” Her heart fisted in her throat. She blinked to hold back tears but they threatened to spill.
Silence.
“So, you’re going to leave without goodbye?” She slid off the mattress, slowly crouched, gritting her teeth in pain, and looked up into his eyes. “Remember, you’re my little light and you must shine bright. Before you count the months, I’ll be there. We’ll be together again.” She stood, held out a hand, and waited.
Sheetal yanked aside the peach-colored curtains and the harsh, late-morning sunlight drove away the night’s broken shadows. She turned. The bed’s cream-colored blanket lay along the contours of Rakesh’s body.
He raised a hand to his head and slowly woke. “Ugh. My head,” he mumbled. “What time is it?” He struggled to sit but fell back against the pillows. “Shit! What the hell happened?”
“You don’t remember?” Sheetal tightened her grip on the curtain.
Rakesh pointed at her wrist. “Why are you covered in bandages?”
“You really don’t remember anything?”
“I need some chai.”
“You, of all people, need chai to wake up after what you’ve done?” Anger raged through her. “Must be hard to remember with all that scotch in your head. Think.” She pulled another curtain panel aside, bathing him in intense sunlight. “Who do you think did this?” She pulled the boat-shape collar of her blouse off her shoulder, revealing more bandages. “How’s this for morning chai? Awake now? Want to see more?” She raised the skirt of the sari and pointed to her feet wrapped in crimson-stained bandages. “I was bleeding, but you didn’t stop. You didn’t listen. You kept whipping me with that.” She jabbed a finger toward the belt hanging across the footboard and let go of her sari. “I begged you to stop but you didn’t.”
He shielded his eyes and rolled onto his other side. “I don’t...don’t even remember. I...I must have had too much to drink.”
Sheetal walked around the bed and towered two feet above him. “You’re always drunk.”
“It’s not my fault. I wasn’t in my senses.”
“Are you ever?”
Rakesh dug his right elbow into the mattress, pushed himself up, and turned away. “I...didn’t mean anything that happened. It was a mistake.”
“You mean I’m making all this up?”
“I don’t know what—”
“How can you know anything when you’re always drunk?”
“It’s not—”
“Of course, it’s not your fault,” she raised the pitch of her voice. “The only reason you haven’t drunk in the last nine hours is because you were asleep—thank goodness—or you would’ve surely beaten me to death.”
“Sheetal, I—”
“Didn’t do such a thing, right? Rakesh Dhanraj, at least wake up to what you’ve done for once in your life, if nothing else.”
He pressed his fingers against his scalp.
“You accused me of cheating on you. I’ve been faithful to us for ten years. I’ve given this marriage all I have and look at what you do. What am I supposed to tell everyone?”
“It was an accident.”
“Accident?” Sheetal ambled around to his side of the bed. “Your sister drugs my son and it’s an accident. You beat me and it’s an accident. What’s real, Rakesh? Tell me, what part of my life is real and what is an accident?”
He slid his palm down his nose, his mouth, and cupped his lips.
“Go on, Rakesh. Speak. You’ve never held back. Why now? I sent Yash to Mansali today because of you and Nainaji. Our son returned without either of us because of you and your family. What’s to stop you from beating Yash? You let us down, Rakesh. All of us.”
Rakesh let his hand go and retched. Vomit, the color of rotting mango chutney, splattered Sheetal’s pleats.
Sheetal unclipped three safety pins from her sari, unraveled six yards of fabric, trashed the sari on the carpet, and hobbled to her closet.
***
Sheetal spent the first two days in December researching cirrhosis of the liver and learned that instead of efficiently eliminating toxins, Rakesh’s damaged liver was recycling waste. Rakesh might not consider his condition serious because he was in the initial stages of the disease, but he only stood a chance at recovery if he abstained from alcohol. Side-effects like jaundice, fatigue, confusion, disorientation, and changes in personality fell under “common occurrences.” However, no sick person—no matter how sick—deserved to get away with beating another.
Now, with one more Himalayan Mountain scene to complete and her deadline for the Renaissance Hotel’s order days away, Sheetal hoisted the incomplete painting onto the easel. Despite having worked on this particular painting thrice, she hadn’t been able to correct its flaws. Last week, in a fit of anger, she’d set aside the project with the rationale that she couldn’t wa
ste more time and energy pursuing something that demanded more than she could ever give.
She squeezed out titanium white, midnight black, and several blue, yellow, and red paints onto a palette, stroked a two-inch-wide brush in the white, then dipped it in blue, and spread a layer along the bottom edge of the canvas in an effort to hide the defects at the base of the mountains. Halfway up the mountainsides, she dabbed small strokes of the same color. Something didn’t look right. She sighed. She could easily put aside the project and give up, but after having invested so much of herself and her time, she couldn’t let go. Dedication demanded persistence, and if she wanted to reach the heights of Tagore and Hussain, she couldn’t surrender.
A draft drew Sheetal’s attention to the imperfectly covered broken window. So typical of Rakesh to leave a mess for others to clean up! Her best bet would be to hang one of the rejected orchids over the window so the next time he visited her studio he’d realize his oversight.
The landline rang as she swept more color into the lake, then stepped aside to gain a different perspective. The remaining distortions reminded her of yet another one-way conversation with Yash yesterday.
She’d called him four times since his arrival in Mansali and listened to the slow, steady breathing that comprised his answers. He needed time to adjust, she rationalized, and possibly more time to overcome the added trauma of the overdose.
Sheetal added touches of greens and browns on snow-capped peaks to give the mountains height and dimension. She dabbed her brush in white paint and lifted some of the blue from the lake, creating mist between the crevices. The intended effect wasn’t coming across.
Mint scented the air. Rakesh. Sheetal tensed. They hadn’t spoken for two weeks, not since the morning after the beating. She didn’t intend to start speaking to him now. She picked up another brush, fanned the bristles with the pad of her thumb, then loaded the brush with yellow ochre and green. With the bristles well saturated, she created a line of conifers along the lake bank. She loaded a new brush with yellow and dabbed the left side of each tree, creating sunlit highlights. She filled the empty banks of the lake with bushes, wildflowers, and pebbles, all the while feeling the press of His stare on her back.
“Sheetal?”
Her bangles clinked with the steady jab of her brush.
“We need to talk.”
Talk? She pursed her lips and lifted the brush off the canvas. The wounds had finally healed and the whip bruises left by his belt had almost faded. Now he wanted to talk? “What more do you have to say?”
“Put the brush down, Sheetal. It’s important.”
Bile rose in her throat. She firmed her grip on the filbert brush. “Don’t you order me to put the brush down after what you did. Two whole weeks and no apology. Did you once stop to think about what I’ve been going through and how I feel?”
“Your father just called.”
She threw the brush on the palette and turned. “And you told him what you did to me. Right? And what a perfect son-in-law you turned out to be.”
“Your mother.” He looked past her shoulder.
“My mother stopped the chemo a while back. I know that. We all know that. Except you, of course. Because you’re so busy beating up your wife.”
“She’s—”
“She’s what? What happened?” Blood rushed to her head. “Did you tell her how you really use a belt? It would have killed her. She would have died right there and then.”
“Gone, Sheetal. I’m so sorry. She’s gone.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Free
Sheetal entered Mama’s bedroom. Mama appeared so serene in blue, asleep in the same position on the same side of the mattress she’d occupied the last time Sheetal visited. Papa, his face caked with dry tears, slumped in a corner chair, his arms limp by his sides and legs extended like a marionette that had lost its strings.
The chemotherapy wore her out, Sheetal thought. When was her next treatment?
She leaned over Mama. “Mama. Wake up. It’s me.” She shook her gently but withdrew from the cold stiffness of Mama’s arm.
She waited for Mama’s lips to quiver and feather-like wrinkles to form at the corners of her eyes. She waited for a change in her blank expression, but Mama lay motionless. “I’m here, Mama.” Sheetal knelt beside the bed, cupped Mama’s face and numbed. So cold. So stiff.
Mama wouldn’t leave her alone. She was just fast asleep.
She looked up at Papa. “Take her to the hospital.”
Papa seemed unable to focus on her.
“She needs chemo treatment. Ma—” The word lodged in Sheetal’s throat and knotted in her chest. She ran a palm across Mama’s forehead and brushed the blue halo-like mantle aside. “Mama, I’m here now.”
Mama’s sari blurred in her vision. Sheetal rubbed her eyes and tears burned down her cheeks. Then a weight pressed her left shoulder.
“She’s gone,” Rakesh said.
“She’s sleeping.” Sheetal ran a thumb along the contours of Mama’s eyes, waiting for Mama’s lips to release a tiny gush of air.
“Sheetal.” Rakesh knelt beside her and tightened the pressure on her shoulder. “She’s gone.”
A cry, like the wail of an animal, tore through her heart and ripped her soul to shreds.
***
Indu Prasad was cremated that evening. Vikram set fire to her pyre.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Illusions
Despite being in her second trimester, Megha visited Sheetal after the twelve days of mourning ended. Megha lent Sheetal her full support and attention, and offered her a shoulder to cry on. Sheetal was grateful to have a friend.
On Megha’s sixth visit in as many days, Sheetal paused mid-painting to gaze out her studio window and noticed Megha standing behind her. When Sheetal went downstairs, Megha followed. When Sheetal cancelled a business lunch scheduled for that afternoon, Megha listened nearby.
Despite being married and therefore considered an “outsider,” Megha assumed her position at the Dhanrajs as if she were still one of them. Sheetal couldn’t have cared less, except that she wanted privacy and found Megha’s presence suffocating.
Sheetal’s phone chimed. She set down her paint brush and took the call.
“Hello. Mrs. Dhanraj?”
“Speaking.” From the corner of her eye, Sheetal glimpsed Megha, who stood so close she almost breathed down her back. Sheetal spun on her heel and left the studio.
“This is Nisha Trivedi, a member of the Board of Directors of Solange Art Gallery.”
Sheetal’s heart quickened. Solange Art Gallery, renowned for hosting prestigious works by elite artists, carried a notorious reputation for scrutinizing every artist they hosted. The chosen artists not only got to showcase their works, but received media coverage, attention from the cream of Raigun’s art community, and received offers to display their works in other prestigious art galleries.
“What can I do for you?” Sheetal walked along the south wing, careful not to sound overanxious.
“We’d like to feature twenty of your paintings at our exhibit on April thirteenth.”
She paused at the railing. April thirteenth—a week after her return from Mansali. “Twenty paintings?”
“That’s right. We’re exhibiting works from foreign artists and some of our own celebrities like Husain and Tagore Sahib. We thought something new to represent the modern generation would be a great addition.”
Could this really be happening? She swallowed but couldn’t feel a thing. “How did you hear about me?”
“Who doesn’t know a Dhanraj?” Nisha’s wind-chime voice played music to her ears. “Your name and family’s reputation speak for themselves. But we have been hearing some great things about your work and saw several pieces on display. You’re very talented.”
Sheetal pressed a hand to her chest. Her latest series, “Basking at the Feet of Mountain Gods” shipped to the Royal Renaissance Hotel on time, would add to her credibility
. “Thank you. I’m so flattered, I don’t know what to say.”
How she wished Mama had lived to see this day.
“Just say ‘yes.’”
A shadow fell across the rail beside her. Sheetal looked over her shoulder. Megha stood several feet away. “Please give me a minute so that I can take some notes.”
“Of course.”
Sheetal sped down the south wing, took a right on the west wing, another right, and entered her bedroom. She grabbed a pen and notepad from her bedstand and sat on the mattress. Clearly, the invitation had arrived because of the Dhanraj label. Perhaps, she could use this opportunity to break away from the family name and secure independence in her career with her personal ethics, professionalism, and continued caliber of work. “Is there a specific theme or collection you’d like me to put together?”
“I was thinking....”
Megha entered and made herself comfortable on the sofa.
Sheetal jotted notes and ignored her. When the call ended, she left the room and closed the door, leaving Megha in her room.
A week later, when Sheetal received a call from the Renaissance Hotel, Megha lay sprawled on the studio sofa reading a book. Every so often, she watched Sheetal over the rim of the pages.
“Hello? Mrs. Dhanraj. Kannada here.”
“Hello Mr. Kannada.” Likely, he was calling to confirm the remaining balance. “Sheetal speaking. Give me a minute, please.” Sheetal covered the phone’s mouthpiece and turned to Megha. “Why don’t you lie down in another room? That sofa isn’t very comfortable.”
Megha hoisted both feet onto the coffee table. “Oh, don’t worry about me. It’s my duty to stay with you. I mean, it’s only been a few weeks since your mother passed away.”
Since when had she become Megha’s responsibility? Why did Megha assure Rakesh every morning before he left for the office that she would stay for the day? Didn’t she have a life that included a husband and in-laws?
Sheetal pressed the phone to her ear and turned her back on Megha. “Yes, hello, Mr. Kannada. I understand you received all ten paintings. I got the confirmation.”