It took me a while to take this in: first, the two of them, Tej and his widowed Bhabi, sitting “under the chadhar” so that later they can go to bed together if they like, all quite properly. Was she beautiful? Was she demure, this mother of a little boy? Had there been many witnesses? Wedding guests? And then it occurred to me that Tej wasn’t talking about the other, excellent reason for this kind of arrangement. A sexually hungry young widow on the loose could only come to grief (in Indian terms, where her remarriage was unacceptable) and the family shamed and disgraced.
“I was twenty-five at the time,” Tej went on. “She’s five years older than me. She didn’t want it any more than I did. She was, after all, still in mourning for Bhaji Hardev. But I was just about to leave for California. The family kept insisting that we go through the ceremony before I left. As a formality. Her brother was also pushing for it, for all the obvious reasons. I didn’t have much say in the matter, and neither did she. They kept telling me this would not matter if I ever wanted to get married the traditional way.”
“What did she say about this?” I asked.
“What?” It was as if I had interrupted him while he was talking to himself.
“Your wife, your sister-in-law, your Bha …”
“Bhabi? Nothing. How do I know?” He broke off as if everything had been said on the matter.
I couldn’t let him leave it at that. Yet I felt so bruised and bounced from taking on so many ideas, one after the other, that I didn’t know the right questions to ask. Yet I asked some. The notion of sharing a husband with another wife was terrifying. The whole idea, now that it was laid out before me, was terrifying. I had already set my foot on a path of life that I hoped would lead somehow to India. But with all these land mines? Going under the circumstances that only now were becoming clear amounted almost to a dare. It would be only slightly easier than climbing Mount Everest. Yet, I had to see if I could do it.
As I replay it, I see us in that room that morning as on a racing carousel amidst clothes, cast off and left where they fell; sheets and blankets and pillows creating a muddle on the unmade bed. Things were happening faster than either of us had reckoned, and in ways we could not have foreseen.
As for Tej, he had not even figured things out. He just wanted to marry me and take me home. Or take me home and marry me. Nothing was clear at that moment. There was merely this overwhelming fact that we both knew: We had created a world between ourselves that made the only sense we could verify, and that not rationally, not intellectually, but along nerve endings and pulses, inside guts and spleen, through the liver and lymph.
A year had gone by since that morning. And here she was again. Real. In the flesh. Not just a hazy idea, a faceless presence in the background of my mind, something I’d have to confront later. But back in our midst in Majra, as if she’d never gone away. I tried to drive the memories away, of earlier conversations I’d overhead: of Dilraj Kaur making much of Aunt Gursharan Kaur as Uncle’s first wife, his only wife; of Mataji saying, “What is a civil ceremony after all?” Was the chadhar more binding than a District Commissioner’s seal on a piece of paper?
I could feel the muscles of Tej’s back stiffen as he hesitated momentarily before exchanging handshakes with Arjun Singh and the obligatory hug between equals. His back was to me, but I could see the expression on his face. He would be smiling his fake smile, the one he reserved for rare occasions when nothing else would do. The two men were saying something to one another. Some gestures. Tej trying to postpone the meeting with Dilraj Kaur.
There was this pounding, leaping heart that seemed to belong to somebody else. But it was mine. And there was that feeling again, that certainty that the scene before me was one I had no place in. It didn’t need me in it. Everything, everyone was complete. Nikku was holding onto Tej’s hand now. He and Tej and Dilraj Kaur made a threesome who spoke the same language, were born to the same customs, and who shared a culture thousands of years old. It wiped out the previous two weeks in an instant. Getting married hadn’t helped. I was still an outsider, an alien. A sense of unbelonging raged inside me for a dazzling moment. And then it occurred to me that if anyone was about to go crazy, it would be me, all by myself. And that would not be fun.
I moved closer to the window then, and parted the curtain further to get a clearer look at what was going on outside in the yard. A spectator, I had the time and the occasion to seize upon every gesture, on every regrouping of the actors on that outdoor stage onto which Dilraj Kaur had so recently made her re-entrance.
There was no one left between her and Tej now. They stood facing each other with several feet between them. And then, with just the right timing and the intuitive genius of knowing exactly what to do next, Dilraj Kaur took several steps forward. Her dupatta fluttered prettily about her head. A barely perceptible smile hovered over her lips. Her grey eyes looked briefly into Tej’s before she lowered her gaze and sank down to touch his feet before he had the presence of mind to stop her.
Without thinking, I ran my hand across my stomach. Whatever else was happening, the life inside belonged to me—for the next few months, anyway. A day may come, I told myself, when this home, so recently settled into, may cease to be that place I’d been looking for. Staying on like this would not be worth my loss of sanity. I’d have to get moving. I remembered the Ranikaran Babaji and was certain that at that moment—while all this was going on here, all the comings and goings, the formal greetings and farewells at the gate—he would be sitting at his cave-room entrance, going nowhere, dispensing tea and his little speech about the hot springs to today’s batch of pilgrims. They would go away as disappointed as the Aggarwals, while he sat happily by his pool, as he had since the day he discovered it for himself.
The time had come when I couldn’t postpone my entry much longer. I had got my cue. It should not be said that I was being aloof. A memsahib. It should also not be felt that some lack of confidence was making me jealous and mean and unsure of myself. I let the curtain fall in front of the window, smoothed my hair, squared my shoulders, put on my best, cheeriest smile, and moved into this high-density scene, visible, but undefined, like an out-of-focus figure in a grainy photograph.
12
When the rains finally wore themselves out toward the end of August, work on the five hundred acres of farmland belonging to the family claimed everyone’s attention and energy. The swing in the neem tree was taken down for another year and another bride. It was just about the time my pregnancy was making it a queasy way to spend time anyway. Meanwhile the family had received the news of the expected child with the kind of joy and enthusiasm known only in lands where babies are always welcome gifts of the gods.
With Hari still away in Bikaner, the workload for Tej was doubled. Everyone had a job to do, except me. Or if I had one, I didn’t know what it was. Whenever I offered to pitch in, I was told I should not exert myself. Was it because I was pregnant? Because I was not capable of doing the task? Because I couldn’t even learn? The message wasn’t clear. I couldn’t settle down. A character in search of a part, I wondered what would become of our baby if one day I found I could no longer settle for this wandering about on a busy stage without being part of the action. If I simply bolted. Even my walk-on part in the kitchen appeared to be dwindling as Dilraj Kaur resumed stewardship of that vital department. Whenever I asked Udmi Ram or Chotu or Ram Piari to do something for me, they always looked to her first to see if my request should be carried out. She was “Bhabiji” to everyone, while I was simply “Bhabi,” minus the respectful suffix. To my alarm, I found myself wallowing in such concerns.
“Bhabiji says that the woman Uncle sees all the time is using black magic on him,” Rano said to me late one morning. “As if there was such a thing.”
We were taking out some lassi to Tej who was sitting in for the tractor driver that day. The man had suddenly quit over an issue that was never made clear to me: he had been caught fornicating in the sugarcane fields with the wife o
f another worker, or had been cheating on the diesel bill. Whatever the case, Tej was stuck with the plowing and was already waiting for the buttermilk, just out of the churn, that we were bringing him.
“Don’t you believe in black magic?” I asked Rano as we turned into the broad, tractor-furrowed path leading out to the fields.
“Of course not,” she said.
Rano is a no-nonsense type. She has gone to good schools all during Pitaji’s military career, and has had the sense to make use of a convent education as far as she’s gone.
“But the others do?” I asked.
“I suppose so. Mataji says she doesn’t give any importance to such things, but then sometimes she gets influenced. And Goodi thinks anything Bhabiji says is right.”
“How would a person use black magic, Rano?” I asked. “What would that woman in Uncle’s village be doing?”
“There’s usually some old woman in a village to go to who would tell you what to do, give you some advice,” Rano said. “For a fee, naturally. Or some favor or something. Here in Majra, it’s Veera Bai, the sweeperess.”
“You mean Veera Bai is a sweeperess by day and a sorceress after sundown?”
“Not all the time; not every night,” Rano said. “Just when the mood comes on. Whenever the spirit gets inside her. Then everybody comes to know; they say ‘she’s playing.’ Whoever wants her help goes to her hut that evening.”
“But Veera Bai’s very young,” I said illogically. “Does she really have magic powers?”
“Not Veera Bai, but the spirit that comes into her, they say. She casts out demons and …”
“And?”
“She might give a person in trouble a message from the spirit, some act to carry out, some penance to perform, some charity to offer,” Rano said. “Usually it’s something silly. Maybe she would have them sticking pins in a photograph of an enemy, reciting a mantra or something like that. Sometimes they tie up a lock of a baby boy’s hair in a red cloth to bring him bad luck, to cause his death, even.”
We reached the spot where the new tubewell had just been installed and turned toward the open fields. Our path took us down a lane of newly-planted eucalyptus trees that were intended as windbreaks to protect the leechee and mango groves. Underneath the trees, Egyptian clover—green fodder for the livestock—spread damp, fragrant leaves. We made our way over the ruts in the half-dried mud made by the tractors, bullock carts, and cattle. The sun shone down like a spotlight.
“But what do you think this woman in Uncle’s village is up to?” I asked Rano.
“I don’t know, Bhabi. Maybe she would be wanting Uncle to like her or be under her influence. Then, you see, she would put something in his drink when he came to see her. Something given to her by the kala jadoowalli, the sorceress.” Judging from the tone of her voice, the whole idea was insane or outrageous or both, as far as Rano was concerned. At the same time she found it amusing.
A few fields ahead we could see Tej on the tractor going back and forth across a plot being readied for wheat sowing. An acre beyond that Dilraj Kaur was supervising the transplanting of the paddy plants from the nursery to the fields. She was a black-umbrella dot on the landscape. Scores of chumaries, ill-clad, barefoot Harijan women from our village, bent to their task in the calf-deep, muddy water, while she cajoled, bullied, and rallied them on. She stood locked together with them in this cliché of rural backwardness and oppression. The chumaries’ aching backs went into the food we ate, the clothes we wore. Their sweat earned us our livelihood. This apparent exploitation was one of the issues Tej and I could never resolve between us. It was the subject, on one occasion, of one of our most furious fights. He ended up saying I didn’t understand the system because I hadn’t been brought up in it.
Pitaji, seeing me rush out of our room crying that day, called me to him with a wild gesture of alarm. “What is it, beti?” He cried. It was the first time he had seen me like this, and his voice was full of concern. “Don’t feel troubled, beti,” he said. “Tej sometimes takes things too far. He’s rash. Stubborn. Difficult. But a wonderful boy, really.” His voice trailed off. Pitaji was a big man, strongly built, with a military bearing. At the same time, there was an expression of such gentleness in his eyes at that moment that I felt reassured and comforted. “Remember, Mataji and I are here to look after you,” he said. “Think of us as parents, not as in-laws.”
I had no words to reply before he went on. “We Punjabis are like that. Ready to fight, always taking offence. It’s our nature. It’s because we’re fighters, have seen so much bloodshed. Our villages have been turned into battlefields time and again. It has made us tough. And we quarrel a lot too, don’t we? Well, we’ve seen too much: babies torn from their mothers’ arms. Women and young girls carried off. All the young men and boys killed; as recently as three years ago, in some villages.”
“I know. I understand,” I said. And I suppose I did, to a certain extent. But understanding is not the same thing as condoning, and I explained to Pitaji what Tej and I had been arguing about.
“In a world free of imperfections,” he said, returning now to his usual pontifical tone of voice, “those who have would sit down with those who do not. But …”
I had to admit, if only to myself, that so far the attempt had never worked out on a sustained, large scale anywhere in the world, in spite of goodwill, bright intentions, and honest efforts.
“In the meantime,” Pitaji continued, “we provide jobs, they earn their living, partake of feasts on our family birthdays, and enjoy the celebrations with the rest of us when the harvest is over.”
“What are you thinking about, Bhabi?” Rano’s voice interrupted my rerun of the event that had taken place more than a week ago.
“Nothing,” I lied. “Or rather, I was still thinking about that woman in Bikaner. What is she like?”
“I don’t know much. Mataji says she lives separately from Uncle’s family. In another part of his village. And everyone agrees that’s a good thing. She has a little land, you know, but no munshi, no one to oversee it. Uncle goes to see her every day, almost. Spends lots of time with her. Lots of money on her and the little girl, too. Maybe she’s poor,” Rano added, trying for some rationale.
“Maybe she’s beautiful,” I said.
“Who knows?” Rano said. “Mataji hasn’t even seen her. Everybody says she’s young, though. Too young for Uncle.”
“That appears to be the big objection,” I said.
“Bhabiji says that nothing too horrible can be said about such a woman,” Rano went on.
“What do you say?” I asked her.
She looked at me, trying to discover my views from the expression on my face. She had the same straight-at-you look Tej had and a forthrightness about her that the adults in the family continually sought to tone down. A door was opening in her mind, into a corridor she hadn’t been down. “I don’t know what to think,” she said finally. “And you?”
“I don’t know, either,” I said. And I didn’t. A pouting creature in harem-pants, seated on a pile of silk cushions, kept coming to mind. A Persian carpet, jugs of wine, and plates of sweetmeats. Gauzy curtains, hovering servants. She would be spoiled, demanding, and unreasonable. But she kept Uncle spellbound. I had lived in Majra long enough to know all this was not a likely portrait of Uncle’s concubine, but what was? Was she beautiful? Attentive? Understanding? Aunt Gursharan Kaur was—or had been—all of these things, by all accounts. Perhaps it was black magic, kala jadoo, that was behind that girl’s power over Uncle. Who could tell, I asked myself, as I watched the black umbrella in the distance move across the field of paddy being sown. Suppose there were such a thing? The black umbrella was joined by a streak of red against the mud color of the watery paddy field.
“Is that Goodi?” I asked Rano.
“Yes. Bringing Bhabiji her lassi,” she said. “Bhabiji likes hers sweet.”
Winter
13
Four months later I sat down to wri
te to Carol Thorpe again. “Dear Carol,” I began. “It’s the Christmas season already, and I hardly realized it until the other day when I felt inspired to mass produce these homemade Christmas cards for friends and family—so far away! The urge came in answer to some primeval cry for a celebration of the winter equinox, I guess. I felt Christmasy in my bones, looked at the calendar, and saw the big day was a mere week away.
“I have been wanting to reply to your letter, the one telling about your breakup with the Dante professor. By now you have no doubt decided that everything was for the best. I’ve often wondered, though, why single men never attract you! Well, no matter. The Right Man will come along one day, and you will know it when he does.
“We’re in the midst of winter. It’s cold, dusty and dry, with piercing winds that rage all day. The sky is often overcast with blue-grey partridge-feather clouds, and the misty ball of a sun hangs like a frosted Christmas tree ornament in it. The sugarcane is high, the wheat fluorescent green and growing, and the brilliant yellow mustard fields stretch into the distance. During the daytime, the girls and I go gathering wildflowers and brown berries in the fields. At night, we sit around the fire in the new kitchen.
“Yes, we’ve finally moved into the new house. It was finished just a month ago, and I must describe it to you so that you can picture everything. It’s an ‘L’-shaped, two-storyed brick building with broad verandas at ground level. Tej and I have our bedroom and bath on the ground floor, and so has his brother Hari. The living room and a kind of reception center for casual guests, who are not friends of the family, are also on the ground floor. Above us, Tej’s two sisters share a room, and Mataji has her room next to theirs. Pitaji’s is next. Then there are a couple more rooms upstairs for guests.”
I stopped at this point to look up and across to one of those rooms, the one at the opposite end of the “L” from ours, where Dilraj Kaur and Nikku stayed.
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