Socialite Evenings

by Shobhaa De

  “Let me sleep over it.”

  “There’s no time for that—I have to speak to the travel agent immediately and book our flight.” On an impulse, I agreed. I’m glad I did.

  Venice with Black Label turned out to be quite an experience. Strange as it may seem I actually found myself enjoying his company. And in the strange warp I was in I found myself even laughing at his jokes about Krish. “When that bum gets here, you’ll end up starving—I’d better leave enough money with you.” We did the whole tourist bit, the museums and the boat rides to the islands.

  “What is left for you and that swine to discover now?” the husband taunted. “In any case, he’ll only be interested in checking out the bars. Make sure he doesn’t get arrested, or fall into a canal—or wait a minute, that might be the best way to get rid of him. Just give the guy a small shove after a night on the town—call it an accident. No one will ever know.” This was when I actually found myself laughing—laughing at Krish!

  We were booked into a magnificent old palace hotel with a sprawling suite at our disposal. We drank champagne in the sunken green marble bath and lunched alfresco. We had great weather and great fun. In fact, I was sorry to see the husband go. We had steered clear of the subject of Krish, except for the occasional little asides from the husband, but the weird calm that had hallmarked the confrontation kept things easy.

  CHAPTER 14

  WHEN KRISH ARRIVED, HE BROUGHT THE RAINS WITH HIM. THE canals looked forbidding and dark. The squares were completely deserted, and the only people on the Bridge of Sighs were a group of Japanese tourists who enlisted our services to snap their pictures. All this did not deter Krish in the least bit. He was his usual breezy self, ever ready with the throwaway line. He’d picked a seedy hotel to live in, and I was both guilty and glad I didn’t have to spend the nights on those beds with the springs gone. He went along with Black Label’s plans happily enough, which rather surprised me. I’d been expecting him to explode, to be outraged, to throw at least a token tantrum. Nothing. He cheerfully agreed to the deal and slapped me playfully on the bottom saying, “Theek hai, yaar. Poor guy has a point.”

  “You mean you aren’t going to challenge him to a duel? There’s going to be no bloodshed? No suicides? What’s the matter with you? Or is it me? How absurd this is. I’ll kiss you goodbye in Rome and fly off to rejoin Black Label.You will get on to the next flight and go home to strawberry ice cream. This is worse than an anticlimax. If I’d known the grand passion was going to end so stupidly I’d never have accepted your chamelis.”

  “Don’t do so much dramabaazi. Life isn’t a Chekhov play. For that matter it isn’t even a Badal Sircar one.You aren’t Anna Karenina. And I’m not Valentine. We are all adults. Don’t behave like a kid. Now, eat your pizza and shut up. If you’re a good girl, I might even break a rule or two and hop over to your hotel for a long soak in your sunken tub.”

  “Do that, and I’ll make you pay for the room.”

  “Forget it—I’m a maamuli ad guy—not a Black Label. By the way, has he left you enough money for us to buy ourselves a goodbye gift? I saw something wonderful in a boutique this morning.” That’s when, as the cliché goes, the scales fell from my eyes and I saw him for what he really was—a shallow, exploitative, utterly ordinary, no he was even less than that, human being.

  “You are so shameless, it’s unbelievable.”

  “That’s what you saw in me, jaaneman, and that’s why you are here.”

  I bought him the Armani jacket and, just to rub it in, I bought another for Black Label. “Coordinated jackets—isn’t that cute? His and his. I’ll think of you every time he wears it. And he’ll think of you too.”

  “You are so charming—I’m overwhelmed. But thanks for the jacket. It’s got Venice written all over it.”

  “Don’t thank me, thank your friend. It’s his money, not mine.”

  It still amazes me to think that that’s how it went and that’s how it ended with Krish waving and blowing kisses at the airport, looking smart and trendy in his new jacket. I didn’t feel a thing. Not even that I’d been had. I’d enjoyed Krish, no regrets there. But I knew too from this experience that I wasn’t up to adultery for adultery’s sake and the grand romance I was looking for just seemed not to exist. Books were safer. And less time-consuming. I dived into the one I’d just bought at the airport, and forgot all about Krish.

  The homecoming was as I’d expected it to be. The husband was at the airport and looked genuinely pleased to see me. He looked very sweet standing outside the customs enclosure awkwardly clutching a bunch of roses. The hug and kiss were almost formal. It felt good to sit beside him in the car and I felt glad he hadn’t brought the driver with him. He started the music—and it was Ravel’s “Bolero” which I absolutely adored. “I couldn’t find the tape this morning—then I looked on your side and there it was.”

  He didn’t ask me a thing—not a thing about Krish. He just picked up my wrist and smiled. “You didn’t get yourself the watch. I knew you wouldn’t. Never mind—I’ve got it for you. Someone was coming from Dubai.”There was an instant flashback in my mind to the time he had picked up my hand at the Sea Lounge and said, “No ring?”We didn’t speak very much all the way home. I was dying to ask about his mother but shut up. “I’ve asked the cook to make puranpolis for you.”

  “Thanks. That’s awfully thoughtful of you.”

  “There’s some wine in the fridge, but it won’t go with the food tonight.”

  Then, a little later, “Did you at least get your bras and panties? What about perfume? I saw a new range in the flight magazine, but Alitalia didn’t have it. They had the usual stuff—Dior and all that. I got you Caleche anyway, because I know you like it. And Je Reviens—you like that too, don’t you? And something else—what’s that—Blue Gras—I’d seen it on your dressing table once.”

  Back at home, there were flowers everywhere, in each room and the servants had lined up at the entrance to greet me. I should have felt guilty or remorseful. But I didn’t. Only happy to be back. Happy and safe. Krish was forgotten for the time being and I gave up chamelis for ever.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE ONLY PEOPLE I WANTED TO TALK TO ABOUT THE WHOLE EPISODE were Father and Mother but even that was not to be for they were in the middle of a far greater crisis than a daughter’s unsuccessful affair. The emergency had to do with my second sister Alak. She had always been a reserved, moody girl but now there seemed to be something horribly wrong. No wonder my parents had paid little heed when the husband had complained about me. Alak seemed to have lost her equilibrium—with all that this entailed: frequent memory lapses and the occasional dysfunctioning of her motor coordination. Mother told me in whispers that a few times she’d wet her bed and soiled her clothes. I was alarmed at hearing this. She’d quit her job. And she lapsed into frequent depressions. I was summoned home by Mother. “You had a friend in college—he was a mental doctor, I forget his name. Why don’t you take your sister to see him? I think something has happened to her. Your father and I are afraid she’s going mad.” I wasn’t really surprised to hear this. In a way I’d seen it coming years ago. She’d never been completely there, often going into her black spells without any warning. She was like the proverbial girl from the nursery rhyme who, when she was good, was very, very good and when she was bad, was horrid. I’d been unable to keep up with her swings in mood and had learned to leave her alone. She used to puzzle me by her obsessive secretiveness. It was impossible to figure out what it was that she wanted to hide so desperately. I’d hear Mother teasing her, but never Father. With him she shared a strangely intense relationship, though they hardly spoke to one another. I would notice their silent exchanges at the table, or see her gazing at him intently while he worked on his files. She was always there to fetch him tea or press his feet. He was gruff with her as he was with all of us, but there was tenderness in his manner when he put an extra helping of fish into her thali. And the only time one saw her animated
was when she went to Father with something she had created, even a crochet doily. She would wait for his reaction, her eyes lighting up with each compliment.

  As I tried to reach my psychotherapist friend I tried to figure out where we’d all gone wrong. If we’d only tried to help her when we’d first seen she was not normal. I remembered asking Mother once why there were no plans for Alak’s marriage (this was after both Swati and I had married). Mother had replied uneasily, “Your father thinks it’s better she stays with us. She is a difficult person as you know.Very moody and emotional. She does not wish to marry—she has told us both the same thing many times over.”

  “But why? How long will you be able to take care of her? Can she live alone later? Why would any woman want to remain a spinster? There’s nothing really wrong with her. She is attractive enough. She speaks well, has a good job, dresses well—then why?”

  Mother had looked over her shoulder to see nobody was near before replying hesitantly, “I think—and your father also thinks—that she is afraid of men—you know—of marriage, because it involves having a relationship with a man.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I had answered. “Why should she feel afraid? Has anything happened to scare her? Did she have some bad experience when she was a child? Has she ever told you her reasons for being afraid.”

  “No—how can I ask her such a thing. I feel ashamed. But I remember when she was about eight years old.We had all gone to visit my sister in Nagpur—her husband was posted there. It was a large house—do you remember it—an old mofussil bungalow. One afternoon we couldn’t find your sister. Everybody got very worried. We searched the whole house. Finally she was located in the coal shed, sitting in a corner, looking very scared. Her mouth was full of coal—she’d been eating it. She had done that before in our own house and the doctor had told us to give her extra vitamins or calcium, I don’t remember. So we all thought she was hiding there because she was afraid she’d get a scolding for eating coal. But maybe something else had happened—who knows? She never told us. But after that day she definitely changed. Your father noticed it too. When we came back to Bombay, she didn’t feel like going to school. And she stopped changing her clothes if any of you were in the room. She became very shy of even me. She started to lock herself in the bathroom and stay inside for hours. When she got her period three years later she became hysterical. She came running to me screaming, “I am dying.” I tried to calm her down, but she kept asking for Father. I told her that these were female problems and it wasn’t done to bring a man into it, but she wouldn’t listen. She continued to scream till I phoned your father and asked him to come home. He was actually very annoyed with me. He said I hadn’t prepared the girls for these changes and that it was a mother’s duty to handle a daughter at a time like this. It was no use telling him that I had told all of you and that this girl was acting strange. She became uncontrollable—wouldn’t allow me to help her to clean her up. She just sat there screaming, ‘Help me! Help me! I’m dying.’We had to call the family doctor, who gave her a tranquilizer. It was only after that that she calmed down.”

  Why hadn’t any of us done something then? I wondered. Or later? Events from the past came to me: Swati and I ganging up against her and making fun of her kinks; Alak glaring at us and then even attacking us sometimes, flinging whatever was handy—saucers, scissors, cushions.

  As I sat there, telephone in hand, trying to work all this out in my head, the only reason I could think of for our disregarding of the first signs of Alak’s madness was that she was so quiet and orderly after she landed her first job that we all forgot about her as we got on with our own lives. And all the while she had been going quietly and desperately nuts. Occasionally Swati and I would wonder why she never dated or received any calls. Surely, there must have been some eligible men at her office? I had concluded one night, “She must be lesbian.” Swati had gleefully agreed. But she didn’t receive calls from women either. Each morning, she’d dress carefully, put a few drops of Tata’s eau-de-cologne into an ironed handkerchief, check her bag for pens, money and other essentials and leave. She’d return on the dot of five forty-five p.m., go to the room, lock herself in for half an hour and emerge in a full-length housecoat. Mother would then serve her tea, which she always had with two Marie biscuits. If Mother ever ran out of Marie biscuits, she’d push the tea cup away and leave the table in a huff. The remainder of the evening would be spent crocheting or watching television. She never went to the movies and had no curiosity about any sort of entertainment. She’d wait for Father to return and then there’d be some spark of life in her dull eyes. She’d rush to the kitchen to make his tea and sit with him at the table while he drank it. Mother would sometimes show her resentment by snapping at her but that was all. Alak’s days continued as always, unchanging and dull.

  A year or so later I got married and then, Swati. We’d get the occasional report that Alak wasn’t well, but we lost all sight of her illness so well did my parents hide it from the two of us. It was only now that I was finally told everything by Mother. Apparently the first sign of Alak’s worsening condition was her rapid losing of weight. And then she had started talking to herself. At first this was restricted to low, unintelligible mumbling. Soon it had become excited, extended conversations. Then her speech had come out slow and slurred. Her movements had become catatonic. Old aunts had insisted it had all to do with her “unnatural state.” “Marriage,” they had said. “Marriage cures everything. But who’ll marry her now—it’s too late.” Mother had despaired, as Alak sat on the family rocking chair and rocked away, smiling sadly to herself. An uncle had suggested calling in a vaid—a bearded, bare-chested man from Andhra Pradesh. After picking on an auspicious time, this man had arrived and put Alak into some sort of a trance. Amidst a great deal of chanting and shouting, he had performed a peculiar puja, which he had “taught” my mother. “The girl must fast for thirty-six Tuesdays. She will observe a strict vegetarian diet and wear plain cotton clothes. No tea. No coffee and no bed. She will sleep on a mat on the floor. Every morning you will say this mantra over her head and give her this packet dissolved in milk. At the end of thirty-six weeks, you will report to me.” He had been the first of several tantriks and quacks who had been brought along to solve Alak’s malady. But all it had resulted in was Alak being hastened along the path to a quiet madness.

  My psychotherapist friend was sympathetic but discouraging. “I don’t deal with cases like this,” Praful insisted, “but because she’s your sister, I’ll take a look at her.” I took him to my parents’ home one evening after his regular clinic. Alak was in one of her off moods, totally isolated and withdrawn. He didn’t talk to her directly, but all of us sat around and chatted, trying to involve her in our conversation. She seemed not to hear. Praful addressed a couple of casual questions to her, but she ignored him. She looked like a skeleton, wrapped in a housecoat several sizes too large for her. We talked some more. She continued to rock. Her rocking was beginning to drive me crazy. Rock. Rock. Rock. After a while, Praful got up and gestured to me to come down with him. “I think she requires immediate hospitalization. Your sister is gravely ill. I’m not competent enough to say what exactly is wrong with her, but she needs expert medical attention. Speak to your parents and let me know. I’ll try and arrange it. By the way, what was her relationship with your father in the past? Was she very scared of him? Did he ever beat her? And your mother—were they ever close? I wish you hadn’t waited this long to see someone. I’m afraid it might be too late.”

  He was right. It was too late by the time we removed her to a psychiatric ward. About a month after her admission, she suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed waist down. With intensive therapy, both psychological and physical, she improved a little—but only marginally. She was restricted to a wheelchair and required a day and night nurse. We never really knew whether she was aware of our visits or even if they mattered. Her condition continued to be a cause for grave concern and it de
stroyed my parents.They withdrew into a self-created whirlpool of guilt and spent most of their time blaming themselves for Alak’s fate. It was that and television. Numb and afraid to face anyone, they remained closeted at home, listening to taped discourses and praying between serials.

  I withdrew as well (thankfully Swati was far away—but who knew what she went through) from the people I knew. The husband was very understanding and I think I liked him better than I’d ever done before for his grace. It was Anjali, surprisingly enough, who finally pulled me out of myself. Her two businesses (Babaji and interior decoration) were both flourishing and she sounded exuberant when she invited me to come over and see her in her new office. I knew I had to get away from myself, so I went.When I arrived at the place I was amazed at the change in her. Gone were the chiffons and pastel silks. Anjali, the most wanted “interiors” woman in the business, had switched to something like business suits though not exactly Brooks Brothers stuff. The day I met her she had on a strange creation all her own—a pin-striped, shirty, padded-shouldered version of the traditional salwar kameez. Her nails matched the new look. “These are my executive nails,” she explained showing me the blunt-filed versions, buffed and varnished with a transparent polish. No lipstick either—just a little lip gloss. The cheekbones continued to be colored with slashes of blush-on, but otherwise this was Anjali’s idea of looking serious and professional. “It’s a nuisance, dealing with lechy businessmen. Saris look far too sexy and, in any case, they aren’t practical in the workshop. I tore up too many French chiffons. I had to stop leaving my hair free because each time a lock fell across my face, I could see the lech wetting his pants.” She now wore it neatly coiffed at the nape of her neck. I liked this new woman, she was so brisk and together. I suppose I needed someone like this to get me out of my own depression. “I heard you dumped that no-hoper ad man.” God, I thought, there wasn’t anything private in this society!