The Final Question

by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

  After a long time she asked, ‘That was one piece of news; what’s the other?’

  Nilima wanted to convey it with a touch of humour but could not quite manage that. She said, ‘Nothing very serious really—it’s just that it’s so unexpected. Everyone was anxious about our Mukherjee Mashai’s health. He’s recovered, and his Dada and Boudi have forcibly married him off again, despite his great reluctance. He has bashfully conveyed the news to Ashu Babu in a letter. That’s all.’ Again she started to laugh.

  There was neither happiness nor amusement in that laughter. Kamal looked at her face and said, ‘So both bits of news are about marriages. One has already taken place and the other been agreed on. Why were you looking for me? I couldn’t have stopped either of them.’

  ‘Perhaps he was looking to you to stop them all the same,’ answered Nilima. ‘But I wasn’t looking for you, my dear; I was only calling God with body and soul that I might see you and make my peace with you. If I were to begin cursing my fate at having been born a woman in Bengal, I wouldn’t know where to stop. In my stupidity, I’ve lost both my father’s shelter and my in-laws’—never mind all the other losses I’ve suffered—and now I’ve even lost my brother-in-law’s shelter.’ She pointed to Ashu Babu and went on, ‘There’s no limit to his generosity. Maybe I can stay with him for the short while that he’s here; after that I see nothing but darkness before me. So I thought I’d ask you for shelter; if I don’t get it, I’ll kill myself. I can’t drag on till the last day of my life begging mercy from males, like garbage drifting downstream and getting stuck now at one landing place and now at another.’ Her voice grew heavy as she said this, but she held back her tears.

  Kamal looked at her and only smiled a little.

  ‘Why did you smile?’

  ‘Because it’s easier to smile than to reply.’

  ‘I know,’ said Nilima. ‘But these days you keep vanishing suddenly, no one knows where. That’s what makes me afraid.’

  ‘What if I do?’ said Kamal. ‘If you need me, you won’t have to go looking for me, Didi. I myself will search you out across the world. You can be sure of that.’

  ‘Give me the same assurance, Kamal,’ said Ashu Babu, ‘so that I too can feel as secure.’

  ‘Order me to do what you want.’

  ‘You won’t have to do anything, Kamal; I’ll do whatever needs to be done. Just guide me so that I don’t fail in my duty as a father. It’s not only that I can’t consent to this marriage; I can’t allow it to take place.’

  Kamal said, ‘The consent is your affair; you may choose not to give it. But how can you stop the marriage? Your daughter is an adult.’

  Ashu Babu could not control himself. This hard fact had been tossing in his mind day and night, precisely because it could not be denied. ‘I know that,’ he said, ‘but a daughter should also remember that she cannot outgrow her father. After all, it’s not just the consent that’s mine to give: so is the property. People have grown accustomed to Ashu Vaidya’s weakness, but they forget that he has another side to his nature.’

  Kamal looked him in the face and said gently, ‘Let them remain unaware of it, Ashu Babu. But even if you remind them, must you begin with your daughter?’

  ‘Yes, a defiant daughter.’ After a moment’s silence he continued, ‘She’s my only child; she has no mother. Only God who created a father’s heart knows how I brought her up. If I were to express that paternal anguish, my faltering words would mock not only me but the Father of all fathers. Besides, how can you understand this? A father doesn’t only have affection, he has his duties as well, Kamal. I’ve come to know Shibnath in his true colours. I see no other way to save my daughter from his ruinous clutches. I’ll write to them tomorrow that Mani shouldn’t expect a single paisa from me hereafter.’

  ‘But what if they don’t believe that letter? Supposing they think that a father’s anger won’t last long, that he’ll amend his own unjust ways—what then?’

  ‘In that case they’ll suffer for it. My duty is to write, theirs to believe me or not.’

  ‘Are you really determined on this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kamal sat silently. Ashu Babu himself remained quiet for some time in anxious expectation, but inwardly he felt restless. He said, ‘You’re very quiet, Kamal: why don’t you answer?’

  ‘Why, you didn’t ask me anything. Whenever there’s a difference of opinion in this world, the strong punish the weak. This has been the order since ancient times. What’s there to say about it?’

  Ashu Babu grew very indignant. He protested and said, ‘What are you saying, Kamal? The relationship of father and child isn’t a trial of strength, that I should be bent on punishing her because she is weak. A father alone knows how hard it is to be hard; but isn’t my harsh resolution meant to save her from error? Don’t you really understand this?’

  Kamal nodded and said, ‘I do. But if she disobeys you and does anything wrong, she will be punished for it. Why should you, out of anger and simply because you couldn’t prevent your own grief, increase the burden of her misery a thousandfold?’

  Pausing a little, she said, ‘You are the closest of all her relatives. Will you give away your daughter as a helpless destitute to a person whom you know to be so degenerate? Won’t you leave her any road anywhere by which to return?’

  Ashu Babu looked on bewildered. He could not utter a word; only his eyes filled with tears, and large drops rolled down.

  After some time he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, cleared his throat and slowly shook his head. ‘The path of return is open now and now only; it won’t remain so afterwards. I pray to God that I don’t have to see her return after leaving her husband.’

  ‘That’s wrong of you,’ said Kamal. ‘I would rather hope that if she ever recognizes her error, the path of correction remains open. Humanity has grown human only by rectifying itself in this way over a long time. Mistakes are nothing to be afraid of, Ashu Babu, as long as another path remains open. You’re so apprehensive today because to you that other path appears to be closed.’

  Had Manorama not been his own daughter but someone else’s, Ashu Babu would easily have grasped these simple words. But a sense of the inevitable misery of his only child’s future rendered all Kamal’s appeals futile. He could only say in a tone of vague entreaty, ‘No, Kamal, I see no way other than stopping this marriage. Can’t you suggest anything?’

  ‘Me?’ Kamal now understood his intent. Her gentle voice turned grave for a moment as she prepared to spell it out, but it was for a moment only. As her eyes fell on Nilima, she restrained herself and said, ‘No, I can’t help you at all in this matter. I don’t know whether you can frighten her by threatening her with disinheritance; but if she is frightened, I’d say that you’ve fed her, put her through her lessons at school and college and thus brought her up, but that you haven’t made a human being of her. If she now has a chance to make good that lack, why should you stand in her way?’

  Ashu Babu did not like what she said. He asked, ‘Do you mean that it’s not my duty to stop it?’

  ‘At least not with threats,’ rejoined Kamal. ‘Had I been your daughter, I might have been stopped by you, but I wouldn’t ever have respected you after that. That’s how my father brought me up.’

  ‘No doubt, Kamal,’ said Ashu Babu. ‘He saw your well-being to lie in this direction. But I don’t: I see clearly that no one can truly love Shibnath. It’s just her infatuation, something false. Once the moment’s addictive trance is over, Mani’s suffering will be boundless. Who’ll save her then?’

  Kamal said, ‘The problem lies in the addiction. There’ll be nothing to fear when she recovers from the trance. Her sound health will protect her.’

  Ashu Babu demurred. ‘This is simply juggling with words, Kamal; it’s not good reasoning. The truth is very different. She’ll have to suffer heavily for her wrongs: no casuistry can exempt her from that.’

  ‘I said nothing about exemption, Ashu Babu,’ replie
d Kamal. ‘I know that one is punished for one’s mistakes. That involves suffering but no shame. Mani hasn’t tried to cheat anybody. If she acknowledges her mistake and returns, she shouldn’t have to return in humiliation. That’s all I wanted to convince you of.’

  ‘But I don’t feel reassured. I know she’ll see her mistake, but she’ll have to live on long after that. What will keep her alive then? Where will she find support?’

  ‘Don’t talk in that way. If the end of suffering were only to suffer, it would truly be useless. But it replenishes on one side what it loses on the other; otherwise how would I survive today? So rather bless her that, once she sees her mistake, she is able to free herself: no temptation, no apprehension should eclipse her spirit at that moment.’

  Ashu Babu kept silent. He shied away from replying, but still more from accepting her words. After a long while he said, ‘Through the eyes of a father, I see Mani’s future to be dark. Do you still insist that I shouldn’t stop her, that my only duty is silent acquiescence?’

  ‘If I were her mother, I would have acquiesced. Perhaps, like you, I too would have suffered when I thought about her future, but I wouldn’t have obstructed it in this way. I would have said to myself, “The problem that she faces today in her life is greater than all my anxieties. It cannot but be accepted.”’

  Ashu Babu kept silent for some time and then said, ‘I still don’t understand, Kamal. Mani knows all about Shibnath’s character, all about his misdeeds. Once she objected to letting him enter this house. The enchantment that now overshadows her good sense and morality is not true love; it’s a spell, an infatuation. A father’s duty is to resist this cheat by every means.’

  Now Kamal fell completely silent. She saw at last the basic difference in their thinking. Their premises were so categorically different and so impossible to prove, that their argument had to be in vain. Kamal understood that if she looked for a thousand years in the direction of his gaze, she would not come across his truth: the familiar test of judgement, the moral discrimination, the fastidious calculations of good and evil, happiness and misery—the same use of engineers to build a firm foundation. Such people wanted to work out their love by mathematical calculation. In his own life, Ashu Babu had loved his wife wholeheartedly. She was long dead, yet perhaps even today that love had not lost its grip on his heart. It was an incomparable affection. All this was true, yet it was equally true that he and Kamal belonged to different categories of being.

  There was nothing so fruitless as to argue whether this was good or bad. Not once in their married life did Ashu Babu have any difference with his wife, nor had any ill-feeling touched their hearts. Who can deprecate the pride and virtue of a man who has led a long married life in undisturbed peace and comfort? The world has sung hymns to this; poets have made themselves immortal by writing of such rare tales; men have hankered ceaselessly to obtain such love in their own lives. How could Kamal be so audacious as to belittle something of unchallenged, eternal glory?

  But what about Mani? Despite knowing all about the dissolute wretch to whom she was bent on sacrificing herself, she was not afraid to step beyond the circuit of her knowledge. The father was heartbroken at the prospect, her friends were depressed: she alone wasn’t anxious. Ashu Babu knew there was no honour, no goodness in this marriage, that it was based on deception; once the infatuation was over, there would be no place to hide a lifetime’s disgrace and misery. All this might be true, but how could she make Ashu Babu understand that, after she had lost everything, what remained for the supposedly deluded girl would still be greater than her father’s happy, peaceful, long-lasting married life? How could one argue with a person to whom the final outcome was the only measure of value? For a moment, Kamal felt like saying, ‘Ashu Babu, infatuation isn’t always false. The flash of lightning that illumines your daughter’s heart for an instant might be brighter than her father’s unquenched flame.’ But she held her peace.

  Having spoken so clearly about a father’s duty, Ashu Babu was waiting impatiently for a response; but Kamal sat silently as before with lowered face. Clearly she did not want to talk about it any more—not because she had nothing to say, but because she felt no need. But if someone stays silent in this way, the respondent’s mind cannot be at peace. In fact, at the core of this elderly man there was a real devotion to truth. He was shamed and confounded by fears about the hard days ahead for his only child. Whatever his tongue might say, he recoiled from exercising arrogant force simply because he had the power to do so. The more he saw of Kamal, the more his wonder and respect for her increased. In the eyes of the world she stood condemned, rejected by respectable society, left out from gatherings; yet it was the silent contempt of this young woman that he feared most, it was she who made him diffident.

  He said, ‘Kamal, your father was European, but you’ve never been to those countries. I on the other hand have spent a long time there and seen much of them at close quarters. Whenever I was invited to a party to celebrate a love marriage, I gladly attended; and I also wiped my tears when I saw the marriage break up after indifference, neglect, promiscuity and torture. If you’d been there, you too would have seen these things.’

  Kamal looked up and said, ‘I can see that even though I haven’t been there. Instances of such break-ups are mounting in those countries every day. That’s only natural. But while it’s quite true, it’s wrong to form a conclusion about their real nature on that basis. That’s no way to judge, Ashu Babu.’

  Ashu Babu felt somewhat embarrassed as he saw his error. One could not argue with Kamal in this way. He said, ‘Well, let that be, but look at our own country. Think of the foresight of the founders of customs that have continued down the ages! Here the responsibility is not on the bride and groom but on the parents and elders. Hence the judgement isn’t befuddled by unrestrained passion; the partners are attended through life by a sober, unwavering good.’

  ‘But Mani isn’t out to calculate the good, Ashu Babu,’ said Kamal. ‘She wants love. The one can be ensured by the wise advice of elders, but no one except the heart’s god can reckon the other. But I’m annoying you to no purpose with my arguments. A person whose house is only open on the west can’t see the sun rise at dawn; it’s only seen when the sun sets at dusk. If one tries to compare the colour and appearance of the two, one will go on arguing forever. It’s getting late: I’d better be going.’

  Nilima had been silent all through, without contributing a word to the debate. Now she said, ‘I too didn’t understand all that you said, Kamal, but at least I’ve understood that the other windows of the house should also be open. The fault lies not with the vision but with the closed windows. If you look out of only one opening till the day you die, you’ll never see anything new.’

  As Kamal got up to go, Ashu Babu said in a tone of desperation, ‘Don’t go away, Kamal: stay a little longer. I can’t eat anything, I can’t sleep—I can’t tell you what’s going on continually in my heart. But let me try once more to understand what you said. Do you really suggest that I should sit idle while this ugly business takes place?’

  ‘If Mani loves him, I can’t call it ugly,’ observed Kamal.

  ‘But that’s just what I’m trying to tell you, Kamal. This is infatuation, it isn’t love. One day the illusion will be shattered.’

  ‘It’s not only illusions that are shattered, Ashu Babu,’ said Kamal. ‘So is true love. That’s why most love marriages are short-lived. That’s why those countries are so infamous, and why there are so many divorce suits there.’

  Ashu Babu seemed to see new light on hearing this. He said with buoyant eagerness, ‘Say that again, Kamal, say that again. I’ve seen such cases with my own eyes.’

  Nilima looked on in wonder.

  ‘But what about the practice of marriage in this country?’ asked Ashu Babu. ‘What do you think of that? The bond never breaks all through life.’

  ‘It should not, Ashu Babu,’ said Kamal. ‘Here it’s not the frenzy of inexperie
nced youth, it’s a calculated transaction worked out by sagacious elders. The capital in that business doesn’t consist of dreams—it’s pure solid stuff, tested by seasoned experts with open eyes. If there’s no fatal mistake in the calculations, it won’t crack easily. Wherever this is done, it’s a strong bond—it lasts through life like a fast knot.’

  Ashu Babu sighed and remained silent.

  Nilima was looking on silently. She slowly asked, ‘If what you say is true, if true love breaks as easily as a delusion, on what can we rely? What will people pin their hopes on?’

  Kamal said, ‘They’ll have the sweet, intimate memories of a lost paradise, and beside it a sea of sorrow. There seemed no end to Ashu Babu’s peace and happiness, but he had no more treasure than that. Didi, what can we do but pardon someone whom fate has fobbed off with so little?’

  She paused and continued, ‘People looking on from outside think all is lost. Friends grow alarmed, they reach out to bar one’s way; they’re convinced that there’s nothing outside their calculations but a big zero. But it’s not so, Didi. What remains when everything is lost can be held in the palm, like a jewel. It can’t be flaunted in a pageant, so the lookers-on are disappointed and jeer as they return home. They say there’s been a disaster.’

  Nilima said, ‘There are reasons for saying so, Kamal. Jewels are not meant for everybody, certainly not for the rabble. People who re only happy when decked out with gold and silver from top to toe won’t understand the value of your tiny diamonds and gems. Those who want a lot feel secure only after tying knot upon knot. They put a price on something only by its weight and show and bulk. But it’s useless to try and show the sunrise from a western window, Kamal. Let’s end the discussion.’

  Ashu Babu slowly said, ‘Why should it be useless, Nilima? It isn’t useless at all. But never mind, I’ll keep quiet.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said Nilima. ‘Is there truth only in Kamal’s thoughts and not in a father’s wise judgement? That can’t be so. What’s true for her may not be true for Mani. Whatever truth there may be in a wife’s separating from a wayward husband, I’m sure there isn’t a lot of truth in Bela’s separating from her husband. Truth lies neither in deserting the husband nor in serving him like a slave. These are simply two roads leading left and right: you have to work out your own destination. You can’t do that by argument.’