by Akhil Sharma
Anita snorted.
The bus came and we got on.
Anita did not look at me as the bus moved. Asha stood by herself. There were a few people between us. We disembarked in Morris Nagar near the Big Round-About. We walked on the sidewalk along the red-brick wall that encloses University Quarters. The trees that stretch over the wall were leafless. Occasionally a bus or an autorickshaw went by, but most of the sounds were birds chirping. I felt as though we were walking along a beach.
We entered University Quarters through a small gate. There were two rows of single- and double-story red-brick houses separated by fifteen or twenty meters of grass. The brick paths in front of the houses had long since disintegrated into yellow dirt. Shakuntala’s husband was an administrator in the registrar’s office of Delhi University. At one point I stopped walking and watched them proceed without me. Then, because I did not know what would be said, I followed.
Shakuntala opened the door. She was less than five feet tall, with an enormous wrinkled face. I became so afraid that I felt blood tingling through my hands and face. Shakuntala looked surprised.
“I must tell you something,” Anita said, and Shakuntala led us across the courtyard into a room. The room was dark and had a television against one wall and cots along two others. Shakuntala sat on a cot and Anita, Asha, and I on another. Shakuntala had her head covered with a fold of her sari, because even though Radha was dead, I was still her family’s son-in-law. I wondered if this was the last time I would have any social status.
“Water?” Shakuntala asked.
“No,” Anita answered for us all.
I thought, I have to interrupt this. “You won’t be able to keep the house after Sharmaji retires?” I asked.
“Maybe for one year. There are rules we must follow.”
“He retires next year?”
“Yes. Why?”
Anita glared at me and then turned back to Shakuntala. “When I was Asha’s age, Pitaji raped me. He did this many times.” Anita said it so steadily, I was amazed. Shakuntala’s mouth opened. She looked at me, and all I could think of was to protest that Anita had been older than Asha. I said nothing, and she turned back to Anita. It was done. I wondered where I would sleep in the new world that had just been formed.
“There used to be blood everywhere after he finished with me.”
“Put Asha in another room,” Shakuntala said.
“I’ve told her everything.” Shakuntala looked uncertain. “It was like having a knife put in. When I first menstruated, I thought it was an old wound that had broken.” Asha lay down on the cot and closed her eyes. “Ma found out, but what could she do? She had two other children. She sent Kusum to be raised by Naniji.”
“Yes,” Shakuntala said.
I wondered whether the “yes” meant she agreed with Radha’s reasonableness or whether it was intended to comfort Anita by saying that the fact of Kusum being sent away was confirmable and Anita was believed.
“But Ma had to stay with him.” Anita turned toward me and slapped me. I wanted to become invisible and didn’t even touch my cheek. When I didn’t respond, Anita hit me again.
“Of course.” Shakuntala only cast brief glances at me.
“Last year, in May, I caught him touching Asha. I told him not to do it. Yesterday I learned he’s been going to see Asha at school.”
“I didn’t know people like you existed in real life,” Shakuntala said to me. She used the familiar you.
“I haven’t done anything to Asha.” The more times I repeated this, the more times I felt that this was just an excuse, that if not now then sometime later I would have touched Asha.
“Come here, daughter.” Anita went and sat by Shakuntala, who embraced her. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” Anita whimpered and started crying against Shakuntala’s neck. “What unhappinesses God has given you.” Anita cried and repeated her story with more details. Shakuntala occasionally rocked Anita back and forth.
In the early afternoon the doorbell rang. “It’s him. Coming home for lunch,” Shakuntala said, too traditional to use her husband’s name. She got up.
“Mausiji, will you tell him for me?” Anita held Shakuntala’s hand and looked into her aunt’s eyes as she asked this. “I don’t want to cry anymore.”
Shakuntala gazed at Anita sadly for a moment. “What’s the use of telling him, daughter? It will only make it harder to convince him to let you live with us.”
When I saw the surprise on Anita’s face, I knew she had not believed my warnings. I felt a little relief Perhaps this confirmation of what I had said would cause Anita to stop. Shakuntala went and let in her husband, Mr. Sharma.
During lunch I talked the most, trying to keep the conversation off why the three of us had suddenly appeared in Morris Nagar. To talk and pretend nothing had happened filled me with energy. The excuse we used was that Asha had been sleeping a lot and we wanted Mr. Sharma to examine her. Mr. Sharma had bought a doctor’s certificate a few months earlier as a source of income after retirement and had begun building a practice by writing the first prescription free.
Asha was woken to eat, and after she finished, Mr. Sharma asked a series of questions, most of which Asha answered no to. He wrote Asha a prescription and left for work.
Anita told Shakuntala she wouldn’t stay in Morris Nagar. “I only wanted to let you know what he did.” Shakuntala answered she was glad to learn and made no further offer of help.
I was amazed to leave the house and see the world still there and hear the birds.
We went to Bittu’s house next. Bittu, Radha’s brother, lived in Sohan Ganj, a ten-minute walk from our home. He had two rooms in a three-story building which had been built by his grandfather. The house was divided among him and the several sons of his father’s brothers. His two rooms were shared with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law
Bittu was asleep in one room, and in the other, the three members of his family were sitting on a bed drinking tea and playing cards.
Anita interrupted the offers of tea that greeted us with “I have a serious thing to tell.”
Bittu’s son, Rohit, woke Bittu. He entered the room sneezing. He wore a kurta pajama and carried a string of worry bends in one hand. Vibha, his daughter-in-law, brought him a chair. We also had chairs and were sitting in a row in front of the bed and Bittu’s chair.
“I must tell you something,” Anita said.
Bittu looked at me, as if to ask what it was about. I gave no response.
“When I was a child, he raped me.” Anita turned toward me so that there would be no mistake as to who “he” was.
“Remove the child!” Bittu’s wife, Sharmila, shouted. Rohit immediately stood and took Asha out. We all waited in silence. I wondered what would happen if I got up and left. In a day of impossible things, this appeared no more unlikely than anything else.
The story was told again. Sharmila kept interrupting with questions, because she found everything so unbelievable, and Bittu repeatedly told her to hush. Nobody said anything to me, though they watched me with such attention that I began looking at the floor. The floor was made of a yellow stone with green specks in it. I wondered what would happen to Anita. Nobody was going to take her into their home after this rumor spread, and it would spread, because scandal always did.
At some break in the story, which had been going in circles, Sharmila said, “Bring the older people. Something must be decided.”
“Yes,” Bittu agreed, and went to collect the men of his and my generation and the one person, his father’s sister, surviving from the previous one. They gathered, one by one, in Bittu’s front room. These were Radha’s cousins and they had known me for thirty-five years, during which, just because I was the family’s son-in-law, whenever we met in the street they felt compelled to buy me a cup of tea or a cold drink.
Anita told the story again. It was late afternoon. The audience was louder now. “In the old time we could have killed him,” a man said. The me
mbers of the group egged each other on.
“The police would not care if we did.”
“Look up,” shouted Koko Naniji, Radha’s aunt. I did, and the glares made my head drop again.
Anita looked with great concentration at whoever spoke.
“What were we thinking when Radha was married to him?” someone asked.
“Poor Radha,” people periodically said. I wondered whether Anita realized that the loyalty of Radha’s family was to Radha, not to her. Sharmila and Vibha made tea and began passing around teacups. I was given one also, which I found comforting.
“Get the girl away from him.”
“Who, Asha?”
“Asha also.”
“Anita needs a home of her own.”
“Homes don’t grow on trees.”
“Neither do daughters.”
“She needs protection.”
“We are here.”
“She can’t live with us forever.”
“Why not?”
The decision was made by acclamation. Marry Anita. Then people began murmuring about the dowry. “In this bad world no one will marry a widow, especially one who doesn’t work and has a child, without a dowry.”
“Will you give her a dowry?” Koko Naniji asked.
It took a moment for me to realize that the question was addressed to me. I looked up to say yes, and this time my head did not fall. If Anita got married, my responsibilities would end.
“I don’t want to marry,” Anita said.
The voices trailed off.
“What do you want, daughter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think of Asha,” Sharmila said.
Anita looked at the faces watching her. Evening had come and there were shadows in the room. Soon the lights would be turned on.
“What do you expect from us?” Bittu asked.
Anita did not answer.
“Rahul is a widower,” someone offered. For a while names and suggestions were exchanged. It seemed Anita’s desires had been ignored.
People began dispersing back to their rooms. No one made Anita an offer to let her stay with them. Koko Naniji was the only one to even acknowledge we were leaving. She did this by giving advice. “Lock him in his room at night. Give him a bucket to piss in.”
The stars were out as we walked through the narrow alleys that connect Sohan Ganj to the Old Vegetable Market. A wind carrying dust and bits of gravel coursed around us. The sounds of people leading their lives, cooking, talking, listening to the radio were everywhere. I wondered if Anita’s anger had at last eaten everything it could reach.
I opened the flat door and let Anita and Asha enter before following. “Go take a bath and change your school uniform,” Anita said. Asha left to do so. I realized with surprise that I would sleep again on my cot tonight.
I sat on the sofa in the living room. Anita went to the phone and, after looking something up in the phone directory, began dialing a number. I did not dare ask whom she was calling. The fluorescent light above me thrummed.
“Hello, this is Anita. I’m Mr. Karan’s daughter. Yes. Is Mr. Mishra there?”
ELEVEN
The phone is black, heavy, with a metal bottom. There are brown stains on Pitaji’s scalp. I wonder whether they mark where his skull is softest, like bruises on a cantaloupe. The triumph of telling the world faded when I sat in Bittu Mamaji’s rooms. I smelled masala roasting, somebody’s dinner, and thought, What now? Calling Mr. Mishra is joyless. As I explain to him what Pitaji did, fear for the future clambers into me. Pitaji wheezes while I speak.
“Do you want to talk to Pitaji?” I ask when I am done.
“No,” Mr. Mishra says. He stays on, and I have nothing to add. I put the phone down without saying goodbye.
Pitaji stands and, looking at the floor, walks to his room.
Asha is asleep on our bed. The side of her face is pressed into her pillow while one arm stretches ahead as if she were swimming.
After half an hour, I shake Asha’s shoulder and say, “The whole world is dying for you and you’re asleep.” She opens her eyes immediately, as if even in sleep she is waiting. “How old are you that you need this much rest?”
I decide to clean the flat. It is my flat, too. I mop on my knees. Asha dusts. I want to punish Asha for sleeping all day. She had slept while sitting on a chair at Bittu Mamaji’s and almost fallen off. I suffer and she cannot even watch.
As I swing the gray rag from side to side and crawl over the floor, I keep thinking, I have nothing to threaten Pitaji with. To be angry without power is to be ridiculous. Asha finishes before me because dusting is easier. She does not thank me for doing the harder labor. She goes to bed again. Kneeling in the common room, I call out, “If it weren’t for your school, I would live with Rajesh.” The words shame me. I stop working and stand. To be hopeless means believing there is no future different from the present. I leave the bucket and rag where they are and go to Asha.
I lie beside her. I ask Asha to drape herself over me. I used to ask Asha to do this sometimes when Rajinder was alive. I repeat my request until she complies. Asha smells like sugary milk. I smooth the back of the gown she is wearing. “This flat is mine. We are going to live here forever,” I say. Her breathing does not change and I realize that I can offer her no safety.
Pitaji stays in his room that night.
I worry over my choices.
I cannot marry. Marriage would mean having to share what little I have with a stranger.
No relatives will keep me in their home for long. I lived with Rajinder’s family for a month after he died. Even to think of being homeless, of remembering to put back in your suitcase everything you take out, is exhausting.
In the morning and during the day I think, If Pitaji tries to force us from the flat, I will stand on the gallery yelling his crimes to the compound till he relents. I know this is not a good plan.
Pitaji does not leave his room.
At night I keep a hammer beside me. Several hours after going to bed I hear water splashing in the latrine bucket. It is a hollow sound at first, and then, as it thickens and my mind rouses, I know Pitaji is no longer in his room. I had expected Bittu Mamaji and Shakuntala Mausiji to come during the day and see what was happening. Again I count the money I have taken from Pitaji. If I did not have to pay for housing or Asha’s school, we could live on it for a year.
In the morning Asha goes to school. I spend the day waiting for Pitaji. He does not appear. The next day also passes this way. At night the refrigerator door opens and closes and the water bottles clink. I grip the hammer’s wooden handle. Pitaji bathes. Like a child afraid of moving in her bed for fear of attracting the ghost that is in the room, I lie still. Once, I squeeze Asha’s hand so tightly that she wakes hitting me. A week goes by without my seeing Pitaji. One morning I find his undershirt bunched on a chair in the common room. I become so panicked, I throw it into the squatter colony.
During the day, when I am alone, any unexpected sound can cause my heart to thump. At night I dream regularly that my hammer is being wrested away. I put a knife under the bed. Sometimes I wake to find the light from the common room bleaching the darkness on my face. Another week goes by.
When Asha is at school and Pitaji is behind his blue door, the idea that there is no one to help me makes me so lonely and afraid that I begin boiling sheets or washing all the walls with soap. By working hard I can prove the flat is mine.
With Asha home, I feel better, even though we hardly speak. She often goes to the roof with her schoolbooks. Asha never mentions Pitaji’s absence. Once, I ask her what she is thinking. Asha answers, “I didn’t say anything.”
Waiting distorts time. I sometimes imagine I will get white-haired and Asha will leave home for college and then one day Pitaji will emerge from his room unchanged.
But I know Pitaji will reappear soon. To delay this, I begin preparing elaborate meals for Pitaji before going to bed. I hope that if he has good food he
will be less likely to reenter the world. Every morning I also slip the newspaper, unfolded till it is thin enough, under his door.
Weeks into this strategy, its purpose changes. I now cook as a bribe, to diminish the anger he will feel when he finally starts living in the day. Perhaps we can return to where we were. We could live together again. The purpose alters, because I realize Pitaji cannot stay in his room forever. When he comes out he might force Asha and me to leave the flat.
One morning, while I am in the kitchen cleaning the breakfast plates, Pitaji’s door opens. He is wearing pajamas with an undershirt. His face is gray with beard. My blood fizzes from adrenaline. My hands become numb. Pitaji stares at me. His beard makes him look dangerous. As his mouth twists to speak, I run to the balcony, up the ladder, to the back of the roof.
My fear is so basic that I do not understand it. Until I saw Pitaji, I had been willing to live with him. I take small breaths. Delhi’s roofs line all the horizon. Pitaji had said that if I told people, in a year or two he would forget his shame and repeat his crime. This I know will occur. This is his nature.
I come down in an hour. Pitaji is back in his room, his door closed.
Later, I am kneeling on our bed, ironing a sari, when Pitaji reappears. My back is to him as he enters our room. I spin around. I consider leaping to the gallery and then down the stairs. Pitaji has shaved. He stares at me. He has on pants, shirt, and shoes. His lips are parched white. I had wanted to wall him from the world by revealing his crimes. His leaving the flat means I have failed and shame has no power over him.
“I didn’t do anything to Asha,” Pitaji says.
“Enough. What you did.”
Pitaji stands and watches me for minutes. I cannot look away. All the weight he has lost makes his face drape. Pitaji touches a cheek with his fingertips. This is a new mannerism and I wonder if it comes from being alone too long. Pitaji appears to shake before me, like broken film fluttering in a projector.
“You don’t have to leave,” he offers softly.
