‘I suppose it is incest,’ Akhila agreed. ‘Maybe that’s what made them so comfortable with each other.’
‘I can’t understand what your religion is all about.’ Katherine shook her head. ‘You consider eating an egg a sin. But it is perfectly acceptable to marry your uncle!’
Akhila could see Katherine’s point of view but for some strange reason, she felt she had to defend her parents. Explain what their marriage had been like. ‘They were very happy together. The happiest when they were together. Sometimes I think it was because they had always known each other. Imagine, my mother must have dribbled down my father’s back when she was a baby. Perhaps even peed all over him. She must have heard his voice crack and seen the first hairs on his upper lip.’
‘All that’s fine. But you don’t have to marry your uncle to be close to your husband,’ Katherine had argued. ‘In that case, you might as well marry your brother.’
‘No, that’s not what I mean. But you know what, a few years ago when I still wanted to be someone’s wife, I would have agreed to marry anyone. Even an uncle,’ Akhila had said, only half in jest.
Akhila glanced at her watch, impatient for the bell announcing the arrival of the train to ring. The Udayan Express had come and gone and now the platform was filled with passengers for the Kanyakumari Express. The elderly couple had moved a few paces ahead. She wondered how long they had been waiting there.
The man was beginning to look restless now. He asked the woman a question. She nodded her head. He edged out of the crowd and went up to the kiosk at the entrance of the station. He returned with a soft drink for her. She took a sip and offered it to him. He shook his head.
Why am I wasting my time watching them? Akhila pursed her lips. Here is proof of everything that my family has told me. A woman can’t live alone. A woman can’t cope alone. She was saved from further rumination when the signal changed. The headlight of the train moved towards the station and the PA system announced its arrival.
Akhila picked up her suitcase and gripped its handle in readiness to board.
The swell of passengers surged forward as the train drew to a halt. Akhila felt fear propel her. The train halted here for just two or three minutes. How would all of them board the train at the same time? She elbowed her way through the crowd. When she got to the door, she discovered the elderly man there. He was helping his wife climb up the steps into the carriage. ‘Go on, get into the train quickly,’ he said, turning towards Akhila. He held the other passengers back while Akhila hefted her bag and found her way into the compartment.
The ladies coupé was at the beginning of the carriage. She entered it and looked for her seat number. There were six berths in the coupé. Three on either side. She had a lower berth. But, for now, all six passengers would sit on the lower berths till it was time to sleep. Then the middle berth would be raised from its place against the wall and fixed to the upper one. Akhila stowed her bag beneath her seat and looked around her. The elderly lady was opposite. Her husband had pushed a suitcase beneath the seat and was blowing into an air pillow. When it was puffed and plump, he patted it and put it beside her. He raised the window and adjusted the catch so that it wouldn’t slam down on her hand. ‘Do you want help with your window?’ he asked, turning to Akhila.
She smiled and refused.
‘You will be alright, won’t you?’ he asked, turning to his wife. ‘When you are ready to sleep, pull down the wooden shutters. That way you’ll get a good breeze and you don’t have to worry about anyone snatching your chain or earrings. Don’t forget to take your medicine. I am in the same compartment, so don’t worry, I’ll check on you often.’
When he was gone, the older woman gave Akhila a wry look and explained, ‘We reserved our tickets only two days
ago and this is all we could get. He doesn’t even have a berth.’
‘Looks like there is one empty berth,’ Akhila said. ‘The TTR might give it to him after all. They don’t mind elderly men in the ladies coupé.’
‘The berth is already taken. She is boarding at the next station or the one after that, they said.’
The train began to move and Akhila looked around her. She thought of what Niloufer had said and smiled to herself ‘Five women, incessant chatter. Can you handle that?’ Niloufer had teased.
A slim pretty woman with bobbed hair and eyes like shards of onyx sat next to the elderly woman. Was she a doctor, Akhila wondered. She seemed to be examining everything and everyone. The woman caught Akhila looking at her and smiled. A brief tight smile that took the edge away from the intensity of her gaze. Akhila smiled back and shifted her glance. Sitting next to Akhila was a good-looking woman with a light complexion and a trim figure, dressed in a manner that suggested money. There were gold bangles on her wrists and diamonds in her earlobes. Her fingernails were long and painted a dull pink. She looked like she hadn’t done a scrap of work in her life. Akhila wondered what she was doing in a second-class compartment.
‘Where are you going?’ The woman asked her.
‘I’m going to Kanyakumari. What about you?’ Akhila asked.
‘Kottayam. There is a wedding there. I was supposed to have driven down with my husband but he had to go on business to Bombay and he will be flying in from there to Kochi.’ And this is all I could get at short notice, her expression said, even though the words remained unspoken.
‘What about you?’ the elderly lady asked the pretty woman next to her.
‘I’ll be getting off at Coimbatore,’ she said. Her voice was
as sweet as her face and yet something about her made Akhila feel uneasy. ‘And you?’
‘Ernakulam,’ the elderly lady replied.
The woman at the farthest end of the coupé sat curled towards the door. She seemed completely oblivious to the rest of them in the enclosed space.
They stared at her. She wasn’t one of them. She didn’t look like one of them. It wasn’t that she was dressed poorly or that there was about her the stink of poverty. It was simply the expression on her face. As if she had seen it all, human fickleness and fallibility, and there was very little that could happen that would take her by surprise. In contrast, their faces, though much older than hers, were unmarked by experience or suffering.
Besides, they were sure that she didn’t speak English as they all did. That was enough to put a distance between them and her.
The woman next to Akhila opened a small basket and took out a few oranges. ‘I didn’t want to leave them behind at home to rot. Here, have one,’ she said, holding out the fruit.
‘My name is Prabha Devi. What is yours?’ she asked no one in particular.
Prabha Devi. The elderly lady was Janaki. The pretty one was Margaret. And she, Akhila, Akhilandeswari.
The woman by the door had waited for the ticket collector and then she had climbed to the top berth and gone off to sleep. For some reason, Akhila knew it made them all feel better that they didn’t have to include her in their conversation. That they didn’t have to pretend they had something in common with her. That because they were all women they had to group themselves with her.
The scent of oranges filled the coupé. And with it a quiet camaraderie sprung between them.
Akhila kicked her sandals off, curled her feet under her
and leaned against the window. The breeze ruffled her hair. The moon hung by her shoulder.
‘My grandchild gave me a bar of chocolate. To nibble at during the night,’ the elderly lady said smiling. ‘Would you like some?’ She offered the bar around.
Akhila took a piece of the Kit Kat and tore off the silver foil. Margaret shook her head ‘Not for me. I have to watch my weight.’
Janaki shook her head in disbelief. ‘Why do you need to watch your weight? You are slim enough.’
‘I used to be fat. Not plump, mind you. Really fat,’ Margaret said. ‘When I went on a diet, I had to give up a whole lot of things and now I think I have lost the taste for chocolate. I used to love it. Not anymore …’
‘I don’t eat chocolate either,’ Prabha Devi said, passing the chocolate back to Janaki. ‘My son is seventeen years old but he is still like a three-year-old when it comes to chocolate. Each time my husband goes abroad on business, he brings chocolate back for my son. My daughter stopped eating it when she discovered that it was chocolate that was causing her skin to erupt. Sometimes I think she spends all her time in front of the mirror checking her face for a pimple or a blemish. Now she demands that my husband bring her back make-up from a store called Body Shop.’
‘What does he do?’ Janaki asked.
‘We have a jewellery business,’ Prabha Devi said. ‘I shouldn’t be saying “we”. He has a jewellery business. I am a housewife.’
‘Nothing wrong with that. I’m a housewife too,’ Janaki said. ‘What about you?’ she said, turning to Margaret.
‘My husband is the principal of a school. I teach chemistry in the same school,’ she said.
‘Do you find yourself arguing about everything?’ Prabha Devi giggled and then suddenly, as if conscious what she had said, covered her mouth with her hand and tried to explain, ‘It’s not just the house; you share a workplace too.’
‘We had our problems at first but now we know enough
to deflect tension when it occurs. To separate the school life from our home life. It took us a long time but we manage pretty well now. Guess what? My daughter studies in the same school too!’ Margaret said with a chuckle.
‘What does your husband do?’ the elderly lady asked, cocking her head at Akhila.
‘I am not married,’ Akhila said.
‘Oh.’ Janaki lapsed into silence. Akhila could see Janaki thought she was offended. She took a deep breath.
‘I am forty-five years old and I have always lived with my family,’ she said.
Prabha Devi turned towards her. But it was Margaret who spoke first. ‘Do you have a job?’
She nodded. ‘I work for the income-tax department.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking you, why is it that you didn’t marry?’ Prabha Devi asked, leaning towards Akhila. ‘Did you choose to remain unmarried?’
What am I going to tell her? Akhila wondered.
Suddenly it didn’t matter. Akhila knew she could tell these women whatever she chose to. Her secrets, desires, and fears. In turn, she could ask them whatever she wanted. They would never see each other again.
‘I didn’t choose to remain single. It happened that way,’ she said. When she saw the curiosity in their eyes, she elaborated, ‘My father died and I had to look after the family. By the time they were all settled in their lives, I was much too old to marry.’
‘You are not all that old,’ Janaki said. ‘You can still find yourself a good man. The matrimonial columns are full of advertisements by men in their mid- and late-forties seeking a suitable mature woman to spend their lives with.’
‘If you ask me, those men are looking for a housekeeper – someone to cook, clean and fetch for them. If she is happy the way she is, why should she marry?’ Margaret asked.
‘Are you happy?’ Prabha Devi asked.
‘Is anyone happy?’ Akhila retorted.
‘It depends,’ Prabha Devi said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘It depends on what you define happiness to be.’
Akhila leaned toward her and said, ‘As far as I am concerned, marriage is unimportant. Companionship, yes, I would like that. The problem is, I wish to live by myself but everyone tells me that no woman can live alone.’
‘Why should a woman live by herself? There is always a man who is willing to be with her,’ Janaki said, taking her glasses off and rubbing the bridge of her nose. ‘Didn’t you ever meet anyone you wanted to marry?’
‘I did,’ Akhila said and a faint shadow settled on her face. ‘But it was not meant to be.’
‘Why?’ Prabha Devi asked. ‘Why was it not meant to be?’
‘We were not right for each other. Besides, these days, getting married is hardly on my mind. All I am trying to do is convince myself that a woman can live alone.’
‘You should trust your instincts,’ Margaret said. ‘You have to find your own answers. No one can help you do that.’
Akhila paused for a moment, then began again. ‘My family said that, if I talked to other people, they would tell me how stupid it was for me, a single woman, to want to live by myself. But I expected my family to say that. So I pretended to them that I would talk to a few people. I was certain that I wanted to live alone and I didn’t need anybody to tell me that. But one night, I woke up with a start. My heart was hammering in my chest and I was paralysed by a nameless fear. How can I? I asked myself. How can I, who have never spent a week away from my family, survive a future alone? What do I know of running a household? What will I do when I fall ill? Who will I turn to? What do I know of life?
‘And then, when I entered this coupé and saw all of you … I know you are all married … I thought that if I talked to you … it would somehow help me make up my mind.’
Prabha Devi and Margaret looked at each other in amusement. Then Margaret peered at her fingernails and said with a sly grin, ‘What if I tell you that you should live alone, but she,’ she gestured to Prabha Devi, ‘tells you that you can’t live alone. That you should continue to live with your family. What will you do then?’