Mona Lisa put her book down and rose, standing like a slender green sapling, swaying like a plant does in a slight breeze, bowed her head slightly, and then sat down again to lower her eyes to her book.
I thought I was dreaming.
Asit was from Calcutta, much smarter than the rest of us, much more in the know; and as for Hitangshu, he too had been to different places with his father, pronounced his words clearly and with confidence, and besides, his family owned Tara Kutir. Whatever little conversation there was came from the two of them; I was silent, staring at the floor, not daring to say anything lest I betray my rustic accent. The desire to raise my eyes for just a glance of Mona Lisa was eating away at me, but I just could not do it.
After covering topics from how intolerable life was without electricity to how dreadful the mosquitoes in Dhaka were, Mrs. Dey asked, “Do all of you go to college?”
Asit gave the appropriate answer proudly: “Hitangshu has won a scholarship of fifteen rupees for his school examinations.”
“That’s wonderful. My daughter is so scared of mathematics she doesn’t want to take her exams.”
Suddenly a voice rose from the corner. “Baba, how old was Keats when he died?”
Mr. Dey looked at us and said, “Do any of you know?”
Asit blurted out, “Bikash does – he’s a poet.”
“Really?” Mrs. Dey put on a childlike smile and, for a moment – I sensed – even Mona Lisa glanced at me. My palms started sweating. There was a buzzing in my ear.
How long did we stay? Fifteen minutes? Twenty minutes? But when we emerged I was more tired than I was after five or six lectures at college.
Mrs. Dey had forced an umbrella into our hands, but we didn’t open the umbrella, we got wet in the thin drizzle as we disappeared in the darkness of the field. Suddenly Asit said – he never could stay quiet – “Such wonderful people.”
Hitangshu immediately said, “Really wonderful.” I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want a conversation.
A little later Asit said, “You tripped again, Hitangshu.”
“When?”
“As you were about to enter.”
“Of course not.”
“What do you mean, of course not. And by the way, did you greet Mrs. Dey when we entered?”
“Of course.”
Hitangshu paused and said, “But when . . . Mona Lisa stood up to say hello . . .”
We exchanged glances in the dark, and even in the dark it was clear to each of us that our faces had turned pale. A girl, a woman, had risen to greet us, and we had just kept sitting as though we were turned to stone, didn’t get up, didn’t greet her in return, didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything. They must have thought us rustic, uncivilized barbarians, even Asit Mitra from Calcutta couldn’t help us save face.
I cannot describe how heartbroken we were.
The next day the three of us went back there to return the umbrella. The servant escorted us into the drawing room . . . then Mona Lisa herself came into the room. We jumped to our feet to greet her. I smiled and said, “The umbrella . . .” “Oh . . . Just for this . . . Do sit down.” That was how I had imagined the scene, but of course it turned out differently. The servant came again to take the umbrella and disappeared. He didn’t return, nor did anyone else appear. We stood there for a while and then left silently, our heads bowed. None of us could so much as look at any of the others.
No, no. In that beautifully done up room, where every corner glittered in the sparkling white light, where the most extraordinary girl in the world leafed through a thick book, there was no room for us. But what of that? Mona Lisa was, after all, Mona Lisa.
The rain came pelting down, overcast morning, overcast rumbling afternoons, moist blue moonlit nights. After fifteen days of almost incessant rain, the first day that the sun came out, so did we: to discover the car of the best known doctor in town parked before Tara Kutir.
I asked Hitanghsu, “Someone ill in your family?”
“Not at all!”
In their family then? The question was felt without its being articulated. The next day Hitangshu announced grimly, “Someone’s ill in their family.”
“Who?”
“She is.”
“She is!”
That day too we saw the famous doctor’s car, the next day both in the morning and in the evening. Couldn’t we call on them, ask after them, do something? We began to loiter near their home, concealed by the doctor’s car. The doctor emerged, accompanied by Mr. Dey. He didn’t spot us at first, but when he did, he said, “Could you go inside? Mrs. Dey wants to say something.”
Mrs. Dey was standing on the top step of the stairway that led to the front veranda. Asit paused, a step below her, and said, “You asked for us, mashima?” These Calcutta boys could use these terms with ease, I was never able to.
Mrs. Dey said hoarsely, “Toru is ill.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Typhoid.” She uttered that horrifying word softly and said, “It’s terrible.”
Asit said, “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything.”
“Can you, can you please? She’s my only child . . .” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Mona Lisa, you never knew, you’ll never know how good it felt, how happy we were, back during the monsoon of ’27, in old Paltan, day after day, night after night, during the fever, the fervor, in the milling darkness, the chilling shadows. For one-and-a-half months you lay in bed, for one-and-a-half months you were ours. For one-and-a-half months that steady rhythm of happiness never once stopped beating in our hearts. Your father went to office, peeped in once he returned from work, then deposited himself on his easy chair; your mother had no respite all day, but she couldn’t go on through the night, she fell asleep on a camp cot in your room; and we took turns to stay up all night, sometimes two of us together, once in a while all three, but usually one of us by himself. And it was I who savored most the joy of staying up by your side, all by myself – Asit rushed around all day, Hitangshu too. The nearest place to get ice was a mile away, the medicine shop was twice as far, the doctor lived three-and-a-half miles away – some days Asit went back and forth ten times or more, his clothes, wet with rain, drying on his body; another time Hitangshu went off at twelve thirty at night for ice, the shops were all shut, the station lifeless, by the time he could get to the ice depot by the river, wake the people there and return with the ice, it was two in the morning. I would keep checking how much of the ice in the ice bag had turned to water, while Asit collected the fragments of ice scattered around the bathroom. Because I didn’t know how to ride a bicycle I couldn’t do any of the running around. I hovered near your mother, helped her out with whatever she needed, poured out the medicine, noted the temperature, carried the doctor’s bag when he came and when he left. Then evening fell, then came the night, an ocean of darkness outside, in that ocean you and I, floating, in a dimly lit boat – you will never know any of that, Mona Lisa.
All day and night, Mona Lisa lay on her bed, only half conscious, raving sometimes – so softly you could barely make out what she was saying – but the few words that we could decipher were stored away lovingly in our hearts. Whatever one of us heard simply had to be shared with the other two; whenever we had a spare moment at this busy time, the three of us passed those words around, like three misers gloating over their jewels in a closed room at the dead of night. If she said, “Oh,” it put a flutter in our hearts like the sound of a flute; if she said, “Water,” it made the waters of the rivers brim over within us.
One night, Hitangshu had gone home, Asit was asleep on a mattress on the veranda, only I was awake. A candle burned on the table, large shadows trembled on the walls: the light seemed to be giving up its unequal struggle with the darkness. I couldn’t battle sleep either. Like a pirate, that sleep hacked away my hands and legs, my body melted like wax, every time I whipped myself into not submitting, an enormous wave rose from the depths. As I drowned I mus
ed, Mona Lisa, are you too fighting death this way, is death drawing you in like sleep, still you’re here, how you are here! As soon as this thought came, unbidden, sleep left me, I sat up straight, gazed at your face in that faint light, shadows trembling; that silent moment of greatness at four in the morning. Were you going to die? There was no answer on your face. Were you asleep or awake? No answer. Yet I kept looking, I felt I would surely get the answer, get it from your face, your expression, your voice. And – I watched in amazement – your eyes opened slowly as if in response, widened, after wheeling around wildly they settled on me, your throat acquired a voice: “Who is it?”
I quickly applied the ice bag to her head.
“Who are you?”
“It’s me.”
“Who?”
“Bikash.”
“Ah, Bikash. Bikash, is it day or night?”
“Night.”
“Won’t the sun rise?”
“Yes, very soon.”
“All right. Can I sleep now?”
I put my hand on her forehead.
“Ah, that feels good.”
“Sleep,” I said.
“You won’t go away, will you?”
“No.”
“You won’t, will you?”
“No.”
You fell asleep, and outside birds began calling. The sun rose.
Raving, fever-induced raving, but let it remain mine, mine alone. I didn’t tell the other two about this exchange, perhaps they too had things of their own that they’d hidden and I didn’t know, that no one else knew. You, Mona Lisa, never got to know, never will know.
Then, finally, you got well. This was good news. As for us, we lost our vocation. On the Sunday that your mother invited us to lunch, about a fortnight after you ate your first full meal, I for one felt that it was our farewell party.
And yet, why? We could now visit anytime, spend time there, play gramophone records for Mona Lisa, plump up the pillows behind her back when she was tired. In the meanwhile, in the sky the white clouds played with the dark, the blue spread itself in between. As soon as autumn arrived they took their daughter off to Ranchi to convalesce, and even then, from the packing to seeing them off on the steamer at Narayanganj, we were with them all the way through.
When the image of Mona Lisa standing on the first-class deck, holding the rail, had faded, I remembered we hadn’t taken the Deys’ address in Ranchi. I wanted to write a letter as soon as we got home and post it, but I just couldn’t.
Asit said, “She’s the one who should write first.”
“But will she?” said Hitangshu despondently.
“Why not, what’s so difficult about writing a letter?”
Who knew what was so difficult, but even twenty days later, there was no letter, though a money order for the rent came, addressed to Hitangshu’s father. We decided to get the address off the money order and write; there seemed no logic to showing our indignation by not writing just because she hadn’t. She was weak, perhaps she hadn’t mended properly yet – it was proper for us to find out how she was. But how would we address her in the letter? Which form of “you” would we use, the formal or the familiar? Of course, she used the familiar form with us, so did we, but how many words had we actually exchanged, surely not so many as to warrant using the same form in writing, gleaming in ink? Besides, what would we write? How are you, all well? That was all we had to say. A lot could be written if we were to talk about how we were, what we were up to, but was Mona Lisa eager to know about us?
When prolonged discussions led to no solution, the other two finally told me to compose our letter. I was chosen because I wrote poetry.
Perspiring that night by the lantern, I prepared a draft. Using a formal mode of address that didn’t require a name, the letter said that we had expected a letter, but that there was none. Twenty-one days had gone by in expectation. Ranchi was wonderful, was it? Of course, it was good if it was, we were happy if that was the case. The ground floor of Tara Kutir was locked up, so old Paltan is dark. There used to be a Petromax light there every evening, you see. Never mind all that, we were conjuring up images of Ranchi. Hills, jungles, red gravel roads, dark-skinned locals. Laughter, joy, health. What an awful illness – may there never be another. But even without anyone falling ill, could it not be arranged so that we could be put to work? Honestly, we couldn’t cope with a life of indolence, the days were dragging. If a letter were to come, at least we’d have to write again, there would be something to do. Our greetings to your parents.
I couldn’t write more without getting myself extricated in the “you” problem. Even this small effort had taken till three in the morning. A look at the paper showed this handful of words, amidst all that were scratched out, twinkling like the sunlight in a darkened jungle. I read our missive several times; one moment, I felt it was quite good; the next, how dreadful, tear it up. I tore it up, too, but before that I copied it onto a nice clean sheet, and the next day we affixed our respective signatures and posted that perfect letter with a prayer.
Dhaka to Ranchi, Ranchi to Dhaka. Four or five days . . . all right, six. But no, no letter. Fog in the evening, a little cold. No letter. Summer flowers gave way to winter ones; no letter.
A letter came eventually, or not a letter but a scanty postcard, addressed to Hitangshu and written by her mother. She conveyed Bijoya greetings to dear Hitangshu, Asit, and Bikash, the news was that their days in Ranchi were drawing to a close, they would be back soon, if Hitangshu could get their house unlocked and swept and cleaned this would be a big help. The keys were with his father. And finally, she wrote, Toru was mostly recovered now, she spoke of us sometimes.
She spoke of us sometimes. And our letter? Not even the closest of scrutinies of that postcard revealed any evidence that our letter had arrived. What had happened to it? But where was the time to think of all that – we had to get to work immediately. Within a day we converted the dust laden ground floor of Tara Kutir into a state so spick-and-span you could see your face reflected on the floor. Another postcard a few days later: “Returning on Sunday, come to the station.” Only as far as the station? Off we went to Narayanganj.
Oh, how beautiful Mona Lisa looked, in a pale green sari with a red border, a ruddy glow on her face. She was a little less thin, probably taller too. Lest it became obvious that she was now taller than I was, I stood at a distance, while Hitangshu ran around for lemonade and ice, and Asit harried the porters to get the enormous pieces of luggage loaded onto the train.
Mrs. Dey said, “Why don’t you get into this compartment?”
“No, no, how can we . . . the other one . . .”
“Come along, come along . . .” said Mr. Dey and paid the extra fare to the guard.
Narayanganj to Dhaka. It seemed the happiest time of our lives had been waiting to be realized, all these days, in these forty-five minutes. Ignoring the first-class cushions, we sat on the luggage; the advantage was that we could see everyone. Mona Lisa was happy, her mother was happy, her father was happy, and as we saw them happy we too were filled with happiness. All that had been inhibited and suppressed in us became free at last, all that we had wished for was realized – we made a real din as we traveled, the huge train seemed to be impelled by the force of our happiness. Mona Lisa started calling us by our individual names as she spoke – so many things to say, so many stories – and as the train neared Dhaka station, she was describing a waterfall, when I broke in and asked, “Did you get our letter?”
“Our, or your?”
I reddened a little and said, “But you didn’t reply?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing all this while? There’ll be more when we get home, I’ll tell you all.”
Mona Lisa wasn’t lying. The doors to heaven had opened for us all of a sudden. The three of us became the four of us.
Then one day her mother called us and said, “You did so much for Toru once, now you have to do it again. She’s getting married on the twenty-fifth.”
Twenty-fifth! Just ten days later!
We ran off to see her. “Mona Lisa, what’s this we hear?” I exclaimed.
She frowned a little and asked, “What? What did you say?”
I was at a loss momentarily at this unwitting betrayal of her secret name, but why worry now that it was out? With the courage of the desperate man, I looked at her eyes, into her eyes – which I’d never done before. Her eyes were purplish brown, her pupil like a diamond drop. I looked again and said, “Mona Lisa.”
“Mona Lisa! Who on earth is that?”
“Mona Lisa is your name,” said Asit. “Didn’t you know?”
“What!”
Hitangshu said, “We can’t think of you by any other name.”
“What fun!” Laughter touched her face and colored it, then disappeared for an instant as a shadow descended on it, as though a momentary cloud of sadness had wafted across her face. She looked at us for a while, her lids raised, then dropping.
“What’s this we hear? What’s this we hear, Mona Lisa?” Our words held bubbles of amusement.
“What do you hear?” she said, and hiding her face in her sari, disappeared with a peal of laughter.
The groom arrived from Calcutta two days before the wedding. Fair of skin, dressed in a dhoti and kurta made with a fine material, he turned your heart into a flying bird with a subtle fragrance if you went near him. We were enchanted. Hitangshu kept saying, “How handsome Hiren-babu is.”
Asit added, “That dhoti and that border!”
“His feet!” said Hitangshu. “If he hadn’t such fair feet a dhoti like that wouldn’t suit him!”
I said, “But a little too handsome, a bit ridiculous.”
“What! Ridiculous!” Asit cried out, but no shout emerged for he had already gone hoarse with all the screaming he had done earlier with everyone else, before the wedding. Snarling like an angry cat, he said, “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“Nothing like Mona Lisa.” I wasn’t letting go.
“Can one person be so much like another? They’re made for each other. Beautiful!” said Asit, leaping onto his cycle and disappearing in a flash. The entire responsibility for the wedding was his, he’d decided, where was the time to argue?
My Kind of Girl Page 9
