Authors: Anita Nair

Tags: #Kerala (India), #Dancers, #India, #General, #Literary, #Triangles (Interpersonal Relations), #Travel Writers, #Fiction, #Love Stories

Mistress (26 page)

BOOK: Mistress

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My father looked grim and uncertain. My mother turned pale. My grandfather smiled as though he didn’t know what else to do with his face. Then Uncle stepped forward, scooped me from the stranger’s clasp and said, ‘This is Radha. Gowri and Babu’s daughter.’

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and said, ‘Radha, this is your uncle Mani, your father’s brother. He has just come back after many years of wandering the world.’

I wondered at the emphasis on the word father, but let it pass. I was much too enamoured by the stranger. He had a trunk filled with strange and exotic things. A Japanese umbrella and a fan. Crayons and hairbands and packets of chewing gum. He had stories to tell and adventures to narrate. In the evenings, he poured whisky into tumblers for my father and grandfather, and if Uncle joined them, for him as well. He took me for walks to the river and to Uncle’s
house. He was a playmate first, and only after that, my father’s brother. Besides, I already had an uncle: Uncle. And I couldn’t conceive of this stranger in that role.

One afternoon, as I raided the kitchen shelves for something to eat, I heard a rustling. It came from the patthayappura. The granary was on one side of the house and it was accessed from a passageway the kitchen opened on to. I heard a moan. I heard a sigh. Then I heard furious whispers. Uncle Mani and my mother. He had her pinned against the wall. His arms were on either side of her. ‘She is mine, isn’t she? Tell me. I can see it. She looks nothing like you or that runt brother of mine.’

My mother didn’t say anything. He lowered his head and nuzzled her ear lobe. His whisper echoed: ‘Does he do this to you? Can he please you like I did, like I do now? Does he?’

My mother stood there. There were tears in her eyes, but she didn’t move away. She seemed to lean into him. ‘We’ll go away,’ Uncle Mani said. ‘You and I and our child. We’ll make a life like we should have seven years ago.’

I turned away. Something in me wept. It wasn’t right, I knew. My mother shouldn’t let my uncle do this to her. He shouldn’t be doing it to her. I felt a sense of outrage for my father.

That evening, I sidled up to my father and said, ‘How long will he stay here?’

‘Who?’ My father frowned.

‘Uncle Mani. When will he go away?’

‘Why do you ask? Are you tired of him already? I thought he was your favourite person.’ His smile was humourless. Even I could see that.

I dropped my eyes and said, ‘He was telling Mummy that he wants me and her to go with him. I wish you and Uncle would come too.’

He grabbed me by the shoulders and stared at me. He was examining my face to see if I was telling the truth. I had been artful, but I had spoken the truth. Then my father thrust me away. ‘Go play with your dolls,’ he said.

The next week I was sent away to a boarding school in Ooty. I never saw Uncle Mani again. He died in a car accident a few weeks later, I was told.

‘Didn’t you ask your mother?’ Chris asks. ‘She could have told you the truth. She owed it to you.’

‘I think I thrust it out of my mind. Now I wish I had been more understanding and less judgemental. My mother was desperately unhappy. Perhaps if she had gone away with him, she would have been happier,’ I say quietly. I am beginning to know what my mother must have felt like, trying to divide her life between two men, each of whom seemed to have staked a claim to her.

‘You were a child. Don’t blame yourself.’ Chris squeezes my shoulder.

‘I know. But how easily we judge our parents and their lives.’

Chris leans back against the headboard. ‘Last year, my father died. That’s when my mother told me that the man I called daddy wasn’t my father. When I asked her who my biological father was, she said she wasn’t sure. I don’t know: that was her answer. So you see, we have that in common, too. An uncertain paternity.

‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad,’ he quotes softly.

‘Huh?’

‘Larkin. Philip Larkin,’ he says.

I smile. ‘Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them,’ I counter quote.

It is his turn to look puzzled. ‘I know it, but I can’t place it.’

‘Wilde. Oscar Wilde.’ I mimic his tone.

‘There is an even better one,’ I add. ‘More appropriate. “All a child’s dreads came true in worlds within her world.”’

‘I don’t know that,’ he says.

‘Dom Moraes. Indian poet. I have his last collection of poetry. Typed with one finger. Would you like to read it?’

Chris looks at me. He draws me into the backrest of his chest. ‘All measure, and all language, I should pass, should I tell what a miracle she was.’

‘Donne, isn’t it? Now let’s see if you know this. “He was my North, my South, my East and West/My working week and my Sunday rest/My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song …”’

I pause. I don’t dare mouth that last line: ‘I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.’

He is silent for a moment. ‘I know that. Auden. But why didn’t you finish the stanza? You still don’t trust me, do you?’

I shrug helplessly. ‘How can you say that? If I didn’t, would I be here?’

The gaiety of the afternoon is lost. For a while, as we swapped memories and quotes, I had felt spooned by his intellect. Our worlds nestled into each other. We belonged, he and I.

Then Chris takes my hands in his. ‘Take courage, lover!/Can you endure such grief/At any hand but hers?’

I nuzzle his chest. ‘Whose is that?’

‘Robert Graves. He wrote I,
Claudius
.’

‘I know. Don’t patronize me.’

‘I don’t think much of his poetry. But my mother does,’ Chris says.

‘What is your mother like?’

‘Flower-child turned pillar of the society. She did all that her generation did. Smoked grass, tripped on acid, listened to the Beatles and Ravi Shankar, travelled to India. She was here for a while. Then she went back, sorted herself out, got a job in publishing, met my father, married and lived happily ever after. I happened somewhere along the way. I have two sisters. Did I tell you that?’

I shake my head.

‘Younger than me. The older one, Elizabeth, is a lawyer, and the younger one, Deborah, works with a bank. My parents retired to Bosham, a little seaside town. My mother still lives there in a house too big for her and a garden she can barely manage on her own. But she is happy, with her many committees and friends. Once in a while, she trots off to London for a literary lunch. The rest of the time, she is content to play respectable mum.’

‘Tell me about Bosham,’ I say. In my mind, I imagine a little town that is two parts Enid Blyton, one part Jane Austen and one part Barbara Pym.

‘It is very pretty. You would love it. There is a lovely waterfront, with boats bobbing in the water. It was from Bosham that King Harold sailed to Normandy in 1064. The Borham church is very old. In fact, it’s one of the oldest in England.’ His voice bears the softness of nostalgia.

I feel fear gather in me. His life is so beyond my comprehension. ‘Chris,’ I murmur. ‘Please hold me.’

In his arms, I feel panic stem. In the fold of his nearness, I feel
nothing can come between us. Shyam, the parallel worlds we inhabit, guilt. Nothing matters. What feels so right can’t be wrong. This is what I have to draw courage from, to go on.

Uncle

Two days, and already it seems like Maya has been here a long time. Our lives have fallen into a routine in just forty-eight hours.

Maya is sitting on the veranda, reading a book. Her hair, freshly washed, hangs down the back of the chair. There are streaks of grey in the black. ‘Your hair is greying,’ I tell her.

She peers at me over her glasses. ‘I know. I keep thinking I should dye it.’

I see a flash of concern in her eyes.

‘Does it bother you? That I am not what I used to be?’

I laugh. ‘Don’t be silly. I am not what I used to be, either. We are all ageing. We can’t deny that.’

Malini squawks loudly. She is jealous. She begrudges the attention I give Maya. ‘Even Malini,’ I say. ‘But age can’t kill what we are, within. Look at her. After all these years you would think she would have calmed down, but she is still as demanding as ever, still as vicious, and so bloody possessive. Even though she knows that I am her slave, she resents your being here.’

I go to her cage and scratch her head. Malini closes her eyes in pleasure. ‘Silly girl,’ I murmur. ‘Koman loves you, don’t you know that?’

Maya shakes her head in disgust. ‘You spoil her, which is why she is the way she is. You should get a dog.’

‘I had one.’

‘What was it called?’

‘Ekalavyan,’ I say.

Maya stares at me. ‘What a strange name for a dog.’

‘When I came back from London, I decided that I wanted to have nothing more to do with anyone. My guru was dead. My brother Mani had disappeared. My father was ailing, and there was no one I could talk to. The dog attached himself to me. He was a puppy when he started lurking outside the classroom. Each morning he would be there, and he would stay till I finished. He would be back in the evening when I began the theory class. He played quietly by himself and seemed to want nothing from me. Some days he would sit there with his head on his paws, staring at the class as they did their exercises. One evening, on a whim, I whistled to him when I was going home. He put down the piece of cloth he was worrying and followed me. And never left my side after that.’

‘Is that why you called him Ekalavyan? For his steadfast devotion to you?’ Maya is amused.

‘Oh no,’ I protest. ‘I wouldn’t burden a dog with such a name. My students named him Ekalavyan. They were vexed with him, and me, I suppose. I would scream at them saying, “That dog has more sense than all of you put together. He never misses a lesson, never disobeys me, and he does all I ask him to. He has learnt more by watching me than you ever will.” It was their idea of revenge, I suppose, to name him after the ideal student from the Mahabharata. He would wag his tail furiously when they called him Ekalavyan and run towards them with his tongue hanging out and his ears laid back. They knew it annoyed me, but he seemed to like the name.’

‘So did you call him Ekalavyan, too?’

‘I called him Dog.’

‘Why didn’t you give him a name?’

‘Dogs don’t need names. Do you think dogs call each other by name?’

‘What about Malini, then? Shouldn’t you call her Parakeet?’

‘Radha named her Malini. Left to myself, I would have called her Parakeet.’

‘You are strange, Koman. I suppose I should be thankful that you don’t call me Woman,’ Maya laughs.

I like the sound of her laughter. It is low and throaty.

The evening is beginning to die. I look towards the horizon. The sky is overcast. It had rained intermittently all day. The river is rising. It has covered the last three steps already. ‘Maya, do you want to go
and sit on the steps?’ I ask.

‘Later. When the moon is out. I want to see the fireflies you talk about.’

I look at my watch. Where is Radha? And Chris? ‘This evening I will tell you more,’ I had promised. Suddenly, I discover I am impatient to tell them my story.

‘Sometimes I wonder what you see in me,’ Maya says, shutting her book.

The first afternoon she was here, we lay down together, Maya and I. All we did was lie in each other’s arms. It was enough to be together, drawing sustenance from each other’s presence. It was more intimate than making love. There would be time enough for that.

Her body has settled into a pleasing fullness that is more comforting than enticing. We lay with our bodies pressed together; my breath caused the tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck to rise and fall, my hand gathered the roll of flesh that padded her lower abdomen, her legs trapped between mine. All afternoon we lay cupped by each other’s bodies, comforted by the intimacy of flesh against flesh.

‘What do I see in you, Maya? Comfort,’ I say.

Her lips part in a smile. She is pleased.

Maya touches my elbow. ‘What do you think will happen to them? Chris and Radha. They are sleeping with each other.’

‘I don’t know about that. She spent the night here yesterday and the night before that.’ I laugh.

Maya makes a face. ‘Don’t be facetious. You know what I mean.’

‘I know.’

‘They could, if they choose, make a life together. There’s nothing to hold her back. No child. No responsibilities.’

‘Is that what held you back, Maya?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘And there isn’t a day in my life that I don’t wonder if I should have been more kind to myself.’

‘We can still be together.’

Maya is sad. Sorrow sits easily on her face. ‘I know you think that, Koman. I know that you don’t make the offer easily, when you say you would be happy for us to live together. But you love your solitude too much. You like what we have even if you won’t admit it. It’s best we remain the way we are. That way, what we have will
never dull or pale.’

One other woman had said the same to me. What was it that Lalitha had said? ‘There is no room for another person in this world you have chosen to live in.’

I still do not know who I am till I am someone else. How then do I find the space to usher in another presence?

‘For some years, my companion was a woman called Lalitha. I asked her to marry me, but she didn’t want to. She was happy to come and go. She said the same thing. That it was best we remained the way we were.’

‘Was she a dancer?’ Maya asks.

‘No,’ I say. ‘She was a prostitute when I first met her. She became my mistress. She worked in a tailoring unit and it was only in the last few years of her life that she would accept any money from me.’

‘She must have been a very special person,’ Maya says.

I get up and go towards her. I stroke her hair. It is this graciousness of hers that binds me to her. It is the relief that I do not have to pretend to be someone else when I am with her. Perhaps this is love.

‘I listened to the tapes this morning. Can I ask you something?‘She turns to look up at my face. ‘I know that you don’t like talking about yourself. So why are you doing it now?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t meant to. Perhaps I am trying to find myself.’

Maya laughs. She thinks it is a joke.

‘I am not joking,’ I say.

‘You can’t be serious. Don’t you know who you are?’

‘Maya, let me tell you the kathakali version of Ravana Udbhavam, the genesis of Ravana. The story begins with Ravana, king of all three worlds, whom neither weapons nor gods can destroy, revelling in his power. Why do I feel so triumphant about what I have achieved? he asks himself. He knows that he acquired his position because of his belief in himself. He didn’t beg and plead for the boons that made him the lord of all three worlds. He acquired them by the sheer power of his penance. He lit around him four sacrificial fires and forbade the sun to move away; it was to be the fifth sacrificial fire. He stood on one toe in the blazing heat and offered his prayers to the creator for a thousand years. When the creator still wouldn’t appear, he began severing his heads and threw them one by one into
the sacrificial fires. Can you ignore this, he asked of the creator. One after another, he severed nine heads until he had just one head left. Even then he didn’t hesitate. He was about to sever his remaining head when the creator appeared and granted him every boon he desired. Ravana knew himself. He knew what lengths he could go to. He knew the measure of his power. And his life. That is why he feared nothing and no one.

‘I do not have ten heads to offer to this hungry creature called the inner me. But what I am doing is, laying bare my life. Perhaps then I will discover who I really am.’

‘What happens now?’

I don’t know. Some days the dredging of the past is easy. Some days it is painful. Henceforth, I realize it will not be accomplished so easily. I, who have always been someone else, will have to be me. Where do I find the courage to go on?

I begin to braid her hair. It is soft and silky. ‘I happen,‘I say. ‘All those things I told you about my life and everything I didn’t, you get to hear if you stay long enough.’

‘How long, Koman?’

‘Long enough. Remember, I’ve just been born in this story.’

BOOK: Mistress

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