*
Back to college, the books in her attaché case unread, the problem in her belly unsolved. That night, with legs trembling, mouth dry, praying fervently for no contempt, she told Swarna.
‘I’ve missed two months, Swarna,’ she said, desperately plunging her information into a slight lull in the conversation, her face burning, her eyes focused on her twitching hands.
Swarna said nothing, merely looked, careful in that moment of non-surprise, to betray no shock, only the routine ‘Are you sure?’
Virmati nodded miserably. She braced herself for the questions Swarna was bound to ask, questions about the father, and where was he, and why was he not … perfectly legitimate questions, questions she herself would have shot off like bullets to one in a similar situation.
‘And he …?’ Delicately put, but Virmati was not in a state where delicacy could spare her feelings. She turned even redder, but forced herself to look at Swarna.
‘He … he doesn’t know,’ she stammered. ‘Otherwise …’ Virmati’s voice fell, as she hoped Swarna would understand how it might be if only he had been there.
‘And now?’ asked Swarna, looking at the shame on the face of the woman before her, whose family was to be feared, whose lover was invisible in her time of need, and who in the end had to turn to her, a room-mate of eight months.
Virmati mutely gestured towards her belly and shook her head.
*
The next day Swarna came back to the hostel, bursting with news.
‘Auntie says it is illegal. No doctor in Mayo Hospital will touch you.’
‘But I don’t have to go to such a big hospital,’ said Virmati diffidently. ‘Just a small place.’
‘The trouble is, these hospitals and clinics are the safest places. Everything is done properly, but it is also public and recorded. If something happens to you, there could be trouble.’
‘What can happen to me?’
‘Something did happen just recently in Mayo. The doctor pulled out the woman’s intestines along with the foetus.’
‘Bap
re.
How did he do that? Are you sure?’
‘God knows. Anyway, that’s what Auntie told me. Thank goodness both were English, she said, otherwise Indian doctors would have got a bad name.’
‘Anyway,’ said Virmati quickly, ‘I don’t wish Auntie or you to bother in any way, especially as it seems to be so difficult. I’ll manage myself.’
‘How will you do that?’ asked Swarna tartly.
‘I’ll go to a dai.’
‘Dais are very dangerous,’ said Swarna firmly. ‘Auntie says it is the after-care that is neglected. The method itself may be effective, but the things they use are not clean. Their hands …’ Here Swarna shuddered.
Virmati smiled grimly.
‘What choice do I have, Swarna?’ she asked, getting up and starting to gather her books. ‘Now I have to study. The exams are about to start, and God alone knows how I will manage. If I don’t pass, I cannot hold my head up in Amritsar, let alone other things …’
Virmati approached her exams in a haze of sickness and worry. She had heard stories of women sometimes bleeding to death after these home-done abortions. She was frightened, but as soon as her exams were over she would go in search of a dai. For now, she had to finish what she had come to Lahore to do. Let the corpse on the funeral pyre be a qualified BT at least.
*
And then, ‘Viru! Viru!’ Triumph glowed in Swarna’s face.
‘What?’ asked Virmati, raising her head from her book with an effort.
‘Guess!’
Virmati turned away irritated. ‘I have to study,’ she said in a strained voice. ‘Where is the time for guessing?’
Though Swarna looked surprised, Virmati added no palliative.
‘Oh, ho! You’re so touchy!’ she exclaimed. ‘And here I’ve got good news for you. Auntie has arranged it all! Now, what do you say?’
The news penetrated Virmati’s bent head. Arranged it all. She had hardly hoped to be let off so easily. She remained still, unable to say anything.
Swarna shook her, ‘Have you gone dumb? Aren’t you happy. It was not easy to get Auntie to do it, but neither does she want you exposed, or in danger, which she felt certain you would be. I had to tell her about it, Viru! She wouldn’t have done it otherwise. There will be two meetings with the doctor, both in her house. It seems that’s the best way to do it, the most private. In the hospital it would have cost at least a hundred, but because of Auntie, here it will only be fifty.’
‘When?’ Virmati forced herself to ask.
‘When? Oh, soon. Soon. Better to get it over, no? But the first meeting, to make sure you are … you know … though I said you are … but still the doctor needs to see. The meeting is fixed for day after.’
*
Day after, the two girls cycled to Miss Datta’s house. There they had tea with a gentleman. A man, thought Virmati dismayed, the doctor is a man. She hadn’t actually considered this aspect, but now the thought of exposing herself clinically to a male made her grow hot with shame. What must his opinion of her be? She felt apprehension knot her stomach.
‘Shall we go to the guest room?’ said Miss Datta when the tea had finished. ‘We can be absolutely private there.’
The trio made their way out of the house and into the guest room with its separate entrance. It was sparsely furnished, with a bed, a cupboard, and a desk placed against each wall.
‘She should take her salwar off and lie down so I can examine her,’ said the doctor delicately to the older woman.
Virmati did as she heard with stiff hands, fumbling under her kameez with the tapes of her salwar, not daring to use the bathroom since it was not offered.
‘Relax, relax,’ said the doctor briskly, throwing a sheet over her, wriggling his hand into a rubber glove, smearing cream on, and parting her knees with Auntie looking on. ‘Now,’ he said, as the internal examination began, ‘Breathe deeply.’
‘I’m trying,’ gasped Virmati.
The doctor pushed his hand in deeper. Pain shot through Virmati’s abdomen, and she involuntarily clenched her thighs together.
‘Relax,’ insisted the doctor. ‘Otherwise it will hurt. Now, breathe deeply.’
Virmati shut her eyes and breathed deeply, and thought, Mati was right, I cannot escape punishment for what I have done.
The doctor put his hand on Virmati’s abdomen and pressed. As Virmati stiffened, he pressed harder, moving his hand in a circular motion.
‘Yes, yes‚’ she heard through the tension of her rigid muscles, ‘growing nicely. About ten weeks, I’d say. You can get up now.’
Virmati hastily tied her salwar, and they moved back to the drawing-room. Swarna smiled at her warmly. Virmati sat next to her, and started fidgeting with the lace doily that covered the sofa arm.
The doctor asked her a few routine questions, date of last period, any complications in her gynaecological history, number of pregnancies, which Virmati answered with averted eyes.
‘When will it be possible, doctor?’ asked Miss Datta after he had finished. ‘There is some urgency about the matter.’
‘The sooner the better,’ said the doctor jovially, addressing himself entirely to Miss Datta. ‘The girl is healthy, the foetus is healthy, there will be no problem anywhere.’
‘Day after, then?’ said Miss Datta, looking at Swarna for a moment with her eyebrows raised.
‘I think so, Auntie,’ said Swarna quickly.
‘Very good. The girl should be here at eight in the morning, with a completely empty stomach. Not even water after midnight.’ The doctor rose to go. ‘She is lucky to have someone like you to look after her. Otherwise I have seen so many of these cases …’ he shuddered. ‘They go to these quack dais, and then come to us bleeding and lacerated. Sometimes there is very little we can do.’
‘He is a good man,’ said Miss Datta with a sigh as the doctor went. ‘At one time our brothers studied together, right here in Mayo College. He is very fond of me.’
Virmati knew she was not expected to make any kind of response. All that was required was gratitude, which she most abjectly felt. Her mind saw each hour sluggishly dragging along till the day after, when deliverance from this unwanted burden would come. That a child of their union, the result of all those speeches on freedom and the right to individuality, the sanctity of human love and the tyranny of social and religious restraints, should meet its end like this! Glancing at her, Swarna saw tears in her eyes.
‘I think Viru is tired, Auntie. We’ll go now.’
Riding home, Virmati wished the road could swallow her up. Her nothingness was total. She felt severed from the body that was causing her friend’s friends so much trouble. They were kind, they didn’t say anything outright, but she knew herself to be a crawling worm dependent on other people’s good wishes for survival.
*
The next day was an exam. Mechanically Virmati answered the questions. The fans suspended on their long poles whirred overhead, but she was sweating despite that. Her mouth was dry, and the cautious sips of water she took from the glass in front of her did nothing to relieve her thirst.
The invigilator brushed past Virmati’s table, and stood behind her, looking at what she had written. Virmati tried to make the pen in her hand move faster, some of the knowledge she had gained during the year was bound to be relevant, and in a daze she wrote whatever she remembered. The main thing was to finish, somehow get this torture over, so that there would be no distractions from the more major, body-wrenching torture of tomorrow.
That night Virmati could not sleep. She was in misery, and longed for Harish’s presence. At least she could talk to him, or more realistically listen to his beautiful words. He would have found something to say, something that would have made her feel better.
What she was doing – killing their child – was it right? If she could have presented Harish with a pregnancy she was sure that all his doubts and vacillations about marrying would be resolved. But she scorned such tactics, and even if she didn’t, it was too late to avoid the shame that an early baby would bring.
As she tossed and turned, one thought kept recurring. By this time tomorrow it will all be over, over.
But suppose it was over in a very final sense? Suppose she died? She got up from her bed, and looked around. There was a dim light coming in from the weak bulb in the corridor. Her glance fell on a fruit knife lying on the table along with some apples. Absent-mindedly she picked it up and walked outside. She sat down on the parapet and looked at the empty courtyard. Everybody was sleeping peacefully, everybody except for her. She picked up the knife and slowly slashed at the soft skin on her calf. If she could brand her name there, that would mean she could survive the pain of tomorrow. But by the time she had carved out ‘V there was too much blood for her to finish.
*
Next morning the girls took a tonga at seven in the morning.
‘I think we had better‚’ Virmati had said to Swarna the night before, ‘I may not be able to cycle back.’
Swarna looked concerned, and on the way to Miss Datta’s held Virmati’s sweaty hand in her own warm, dry one. The clip-clop of the horse’s hooves was the only sound between them. With an effort, Virmati pushed her thoughts to beyond the event.
‘I have these bangles to sell‚’ she said, showing Swarna her wrist.
‘Is that why you came back with them!’ exclaimed Swarna.
Virmati nodded.
‘But won’t they mind?’
‘I have no other money. I have to.’
‘What will you tell them?’
‘War effort. Something like that.’ As an afterthought Virmati added, ‘Even Shaku Pehnji gave a bangle when they came collecting in her college.’
‘Hers is a government college. Nobody will come collecting from the RBSL institution.’
‘Still.’
Both girls looked at the narrow gold bangles glinting on Virmati’s arms. The evening before she left, her father had got her this new pair from the shop, the latest design, he said as he gave them to her, not the old heavy stuff he supposed she was getting too modern for. They were flattish and had small flowers carved onto them, interspersed with green and red enamel leaves. Slowly Virmati took them off and pressed them into Swarna’s lap.
‘Keep them,’ she said. ‘In case –’ Swarna tried to resist, but Virmati grabbed her wrist and slipped them on.
They reached the house before either girl could think of anything more to say.
*
Virmati lay on the bed of Miss Datta’s guest room, salwar off, legs spread, sheet swathed, in a repeat of the earlier scenario. Miss Datta was standing behind her, Swarna was in the outer room, the doctor was saying reassuring nothings. His tone told her that much, she was too terrified to follow his actual words. Something about planning to teach after her BT? She gulped and made a noise which passed for an answer. By now a needle was approaching her, a hand was laid on her wrist. It is all my karma, hovered around in her mind as her tense lids closed on her weary eyes.
An hour later, Virmati drifted back. Still on the same bed, legs down, alone in the room. There was tape on her wrist, some raw wetness between her legs, and relief! She was alive! The condition of her body was now commensurate with her social position.
*
Virmati had not reckoned on the discomfort she would feel. The dull ache in her abdomen, the increased soreness when she tried to go anywhere on her bicycle, and of course all that wretched blood meant that she could not ignore her body, even now when everything was over.
That was all she wanted to do. Forget. Forget, forget, forget. She felt a deep emptiness inside her, which she construed as yearning for the Professor. Oh, how she longed to meet him, to throw herself on his chest, babble out her story, feel his love and sympathy, his regret that he wasn’t there pouring over her in a great tidal wave that would cleanse her of all guilt and sorrow!
With these feelings, she did her practicals. They were conducted during the regular class hours of the SL school. The examiner who sat in the back row of the class, could he tell that she had just had an abortion?