Authors: Anita Nair
Ladies Coupe (22 page)
‘This is my mother-in-law,’ Sharmila said with a sweep of her arm. In that gesture, Prabha Devi read the story of Sharmila’s life. Mostly unspoken complaints: This is the woman whose son now rules my destiny and dreams. My thoughts have been reduced to whether I should cook rice or chapattis for lunch, fry okras or aubergine; load the washing machine with cotton whites or cotton coloured …
Prabha Devi smiled at the older woman. She didn’t know what else she could do.
‘Are you going to New York?’ she asked. A silly question. After all, they were boarding the same flight.
‘New York. And then across the river to New Jersey,’
Sharmila sighed. ‘Give me a minute. Let me settle them in a seat and I’ll be back.’
Sharmila sighed. ‘Give me a minute. Let me settle them in a seat and I’ll be back.’
Prabha Devi watched Shannila. The mother-in-law was led to a corner seat. The stroller was wedged between the bags arranged near the seat. And then it seemed to Prabha Devi that her schoolmate winged her way back before mother-in-law or baby could whimper in protest at being left alone.
‘You look very nice,’ Sharmila said, eyeing Prabha Devi’s peach-coloured trouser suit. ‘Doesn’t your husband mind you wearing Western clothes?’
‘His parents are just a teeny bit conservative. Not him though,’ Prabha Devi said, thinking of how she had to cajole Jagdeesh into buying her a new wardrobe for her first visit abroad. What had clinched the argument in her favour was the plea – No one will know who I am or where we are going. So what does it matter what I wear or don’t wear?
‘What about you? I didn’t even know you were married,’ Prabha Devi began. ‘All of us thought that you were studying to be a doctor in America.’
Sharmila stared at the floor. ‘My family tricked me. I was sent there to my uncle’s house and he was supposed to have arranged for everything. I actually had admission for an undergraduate degree with a fully-paid scholarship. Then Naresh was introduced into the scene. He was someone my uncle knew very well. Very good husband material, my uncle claimed. Naresh said he didn’t mind me studying even after we were married.’
‘So are you at some university now?’ Prabha Devi asked, wondering how she managed to combine studying for a degree with household chores and a baby.
‘Are you kidding?’ A faint trace of an American accent crept into Shannila’s voice. ‘With a baby and a mother-in-law? Do you know, she’s lived in the US for ten years and yet doesn’t speak one word of English. How can I leave the baby with her and go away …’
As if on cue the baby set up a wail. Sharmila wrote her telephone number on a piece of paper and slipped it into Prabha Devi’s hand. ‘Give me a call when you have the time. You and your husband must come over for a meal.’
Prabha Devi nodded. They both knew that it was one of those gestures that would never bear fruition. And yet the effort had to be made.
In the aircraft, Prabha Devi followed Jagdeesh down the aisle. He was in charge, brandishing boarding passes and hand baggage. All she had to do was clutch her purse and the stack of magazines he had bought for her to read during the flight. She spotted a harassed-looking Sharmila trying to calm the baby, settle the mother-in-law, find a place for the hand baggage that wouldn’t fit into the overhead cabinet and not lose her temper, all at the same time.
How could it be that what was an adventure for her was for Sharmila yet another hardship to add to her list of grievances? Prabha Devi felt relief flood her.
Jagdeesh had picked seats right at the back. Just as the plane was about to take off. Prabha Devi felt Jagdeesh take her hand in his. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he said. ‘At first, it’ll feel like you are going up in a swing, then everything will be fine …’
She smiled. His touch reassured her even though she wasn’t scared, just excited. How lucky I am to be me.
But there was one memory that Prabha Devi had to force herself not to dwell upon. She had tried very hard to erase it from her mind, but like a splinter under the skin, an almost invisible fish bone in the throat, it refused to be dislodged. And there it stayed, eating into the flesh, causing an occasional spasm of pain, oozing discomfort and a perennial sense of shame.
It owed its origins to the American adventure. Prabha Devi came back from the holiday with a whole set of acquisitions. There was the unbreakable dinner service in apple green; the vials of perfume; a make-up kit; lingerie
frothy with artificial lace and the dreams of Taiwanese women. Knick-knacks for the home and gifts for everyone. But she had acquired something more. A sauciness which she packed into her body with the careful dexterity she applied when packing her suitcase.
frothy with artificial lace and the dreams of Taiwanese women. Knick-knacks for the home and gifts for everyone. But she had acquired something more. A sauciness which she packed into her body with the careful dexterity she applied when packing her suitcase.
Prabha Devi wanted to be like the women she had seen in New York. With swinging hair and a confident stride. They seemed to know exactly where they were going and once they got there, what they had to do. Their lives were ruled by themselves and no one else. Such poise, such confidence, such celebration of life and beauty. Prabha Devi wanted that for herself.
So she practised the walk: an upright stance with squared shoulders, pulled in belly and a gentle but provocative swing of the hips. Then Prabha Devi discovered that a three-inch pointed heel made this whole process much easier. There was no way one could slouch wearing footwear with stiletto heels.
Then came the face. Prabha Devi made three trips to Macy’s, to the cosmetic counters, to learn how to apply make-up. Her eyes became dreamier and her lips looked as if a bee had stung them and injected them with the hues of a rose.
Prabha Devi watched talk shows and soap operas till she had perfected the lazy shake of the head, the slow widening of her eyes that accompanied the dramatic exhaling of breath when she wished to effect a meaningful pause in the middle of a sentence.
The last thing that Prabha Devi acquired to complete the transformation was clothes. She packed away her saris and began to wear silky caftans with ornately embroidered designs around the neck and sleeves. At first, she worried her mother-in-law would disapprove. But the older woman simply fingered the embroidery and said, ‘They tell me a machine does all this. It’s very pretty. I suppose this is what all young women wear these days. I must say it makes sense. No need to worry about matching blouses and petticoats.
But when you go before the men, do remember to drape a towel or some piece of cloth over your bosom.’
But when you go before the men, do remember to drape a towel or some piece of cloth over your bosom.’
With that Prabha Devi felt she was finally a woman of the world sans the slouch, the downcast eyes and the sari pallu weighing down her youth.
Jagdeesh chewed on his bottom lip and worried at the change. What, he wondered, did his parents think about all this? And how would it all end? He soon knew.
One night, while they were in bed, Prabha Devi told him that she didn’t want a baby. ‘Not just yet,’ she added when she saw the look of alarm on his face.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, shaken by her words into a purely rhetorical question.
Prabha Devi stared at the corner of the sheet. For the first time, she missed wearing a sari. There was much to be said for its pallu. An ill-fitting blouse or a missing button was camouflaged by simply pulling the pallu over one’s shoulder like a shawl. It served as a scarf for the head when the sun burned. A hood when caught in a drizzle. A fringe of decorum when one wanted to avoid someone’s penetrating gaze. Then there were its ends. To wipe tears; to mop the sweat off one’s brow; to pleat and gather or crumple into a ball, something for the hands to cling to in awkward moments. All that she had now were the ends of the sheet. She pleated and gathered them as she tried to frame an answer to her husband’s question.
‘There are ways in which pregnancy can be avoided,’ she began.
‘Like what?’ he croaked.
‘Couldn’t you wear a condom?’
Jagdeesh stiffened in shame and embarrassment. What kind of a woman was she? Sex was something a man and a woman did beneath the covers of the night and a thin sheet. It was not a topic of conversation. Did she think that he was going to sit there and discuss it? For the hundredth time, he wished he had never taken her with him on that trip abroad. She had come back a completely changed person.
He looked at her. At the spaghetti-strap nightie that bared her shoulders and most of her bosom. Desire was replaced by dislike. He turned on his side and pretended to go to sleep.
Not for long, though. Her breath fanned the back of his neck. They nestled against each other. Two spoons in a tray of bedclothes.
He groaned and turned to her. He felt her slide towards him and throw an arm around his waist. His leg planted itself on hers. ‘My parents are getting impatient. They talk of a grandchild all the time. We have been married for almost a year now,’ he said, caressing the side of her neck.
‘I want a baby too. But not just yet. Once a baby comes, nothing will be the same.’ She pushed the hair back from his brow and rocked him in her arms. ‘Tonight we’ll sleep, and tomorrow when you are prepared, we will love each other,’ she murmured, kissing his eyelids shut.
For the next three months, Prabha Devi winged her way through the days. When people shot her admiring looks, she pretended not to notice. But she knew that wherever she went, she attracted attention. And she revelled in it. I am young. I am beautiful. I am desirable. How lucky I am to be me.
So when Pramod remained indifferent to her presence, she saw it as a slight to the person she had become. She saw him every weekend at the club where Jagdeesh played his weekly game of tennis. As she sat in the lawns sipping iced lemon juice and flipping through a magazine, Prabha Devi began to wait for Pramod. He often stopped by to chat if Jagdeesh was present. If she was by herself, he merely tilted his head in greeting and ignored her. Prabha Devi didn’t like it. How dare he? she thought. Am I not a person by myself? Am I to be treated as a mere extension of someone else’s personality? Jagdeesh’s Mrs and no more.
When Pramod continued to remain immune to her presence, unconsciously she began to practise her wiles on
him. With a tilt of her head and a widening of her eyes; with meaningful pauses and secret smiles.
him. With a tilt of her head and a widening of her eyes; with meaningful pauses and secret smiles.
If someone had accused her of flirting, she would have been horrified. ‘All I do is talk. Is there anything wrong in that? Besides, I’m married, aren’t I?’
But no one did. Particularly not Jagdeesh who flopped into a chair after a game, rivulets of sweat running down his back, too exhausted to notice what was going on.
As for Pramod, he was a mere mortal who succumbed to Prabha Devi’s attentions, turning from terse stranger to fawning slave. And Prabha Devi, triumphant at yet another conquest, lapped up the admiration. Until the afternoon he came calling on her.
It was quarter past three. The time when Prabha Devi woke up from her afternoon nap. She had a bath, sluicing the sleep off her skin with brimming mugs of tepid water. Fresh clothes. Daytime make-up. When Pramod saw her come down the stairs, she seemed to him fresh and inviting and so very desirable.
Prabha Devi felt a tiny tremor of fear when she saw Pramod. The maid had come up to her bedroom and said, ‘You have guests. A man and a child.’
‘For me? I’m not expecting anyone this afternoon,’ Prabha Devi said, examining herself in the mirror. ‘Do you know who they are?’ she asked, wondering if her clothes were appropriate for receiving guests.
The maid shook her head. ‘They look respectable enough. The man said he knows you,’ she added, justifying her seating them in the living room.
He stood up when he saw her and went towards her with extended arms. Prabha Devi stepped sideways and evaded them. She put on a bright smile and looked around the room searchingly, ‘What a surprise to see you here! I was told there was a child. Where is she?’
‘My niece. She’s outside. She is sitting on the swing reading a comic. She won’t bother us,’ he murmured, taking her hands in his.
She withdrew her hands from his clasp and sank into a chair. Her legs were trembling so badly that she didn’t know if they would hold her up much longer.
He stared at her and then sat down in a chair opposite hers. ‘You don’t look very pleased to see me,’ he accused in a low voice.
‘Friends are always welcome,’ she said in a mock-bright voice, trying to still the panic in her.
‘How welcome?’
‘Would you like a cup of tea or some fresh juice?’ she asked, trying to infuse a sense of normality into the visit. ‘There are some delicious grapes in the fridge. It’ll take me just a minute to make the juice. What about the child? Would she like some biscuits?’
‘I don’t want tea or grape juice. I wanted to see you … be with you. Do you know how long I have waited for this day?’ Pramod said quietly, gazing into her face. Prabha Devi refused to meet his eyes. He sighed.
‘Yesterday when I saw your parents-in-law at the railway station, I knew that the day had come. That finally I could meet you alone. That what I have wanted for so long would be mine.’
‘What do you want?’ she asked. Pause. Sidelong glance. A hint of a smile.
‘Don’t do this to me,’ he groaned. ‘Don’t you know that I want you? That I’m in love with you?’
Prabha Devi suddenly realized with a sinking of her heart that she had ignited something she had no idea how to extinguish. Her mind whirled. A series of thoughts drawn by a single thread of disbelief Why on earth did he think that she would welcome his advances? Didn’t he know she was married? What kind of a woman did he think she was?
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