“Tell me the truth,” she said. “What exactly is your work? Whose income does this house run on? Why don’t you ever speak about your job? Where is it that you go every day?”
She said she would not eat until I told her. I crumbled. I thought that at least my wife should know the truth. So I let her have the entire story of our household and everyone in it.
I told her, “There’s no dearth of anything. It doesn’t matter who’s doing what as long as it all runs smoothly. There’s lots of money in the family. Don’t worry about it.”
Her reaction was not what I expected.
“Why did you cheat me?” she asked, furious. “Why did you marry when you are living off others? I don’t need all this. I can survive on very little. But I want you to have a respectable job, whatever it is. Can you not at least go to the warehouse regularly and accept only the pay you deserve for your work? How can you not feel ashamed of living off alms?”
I tried to calm her down. At one point I brought up Appa’s share in Sona Masala and said, “Look, it’s all ultimately ours, isn’t it?” This disgusted her. It was an inheritance, she said, and there was no telling what could go wrong. Above all she simply could not accept the fact that I had no personal income. In my thinking, what came to the family was mine. In her mind, my family and I were separate entities.
She sat on the bed and wept for a long time. In between sobs she said things like: “If it comes to that I can start working, too . . . Everyone should want to stand on their own feet . . . You can’t just live off others . . .” There was no pacifying her.
To tell the truth, her words had found their mark deep inside me. My situation was something I often thought about. But how was I to extricate myself from it? There was little chance I would find a good job now. I had no real skills to speak of. I told her: “Look, I’ve been going to the warehouse all along. It’s only been irregular since our wedding. I’ll start again from tomorrow and be sure to work hard.” There was no other way to console her.
She soon calmed down. She washed her face so no one could tell she had been weeping. I sat there silently looking at her. “Why don’t you start right now,” she said, and left the room.
All this went on in the privacy of our room, behind a closed door. But Amma is alert to these matters and she probably guessed that something like this had transpired.
That night I noticed something that spoiled my sleep. I remembered seeing the receipts for the things we bought in Ooty stacked on my table until that very morning. Just before I turned in, I noticed they were gone. I looked around and found them in the dustbin—crumpled. It could only have been Anita. But I didn’t ask her about it.
I tossed and turned in bed for a long time. Scenes of Anita and me shopping in Ooty kept coming to mind. I would experience sudden gushes of affection for her and feel like buying her something or other. It was an inexplicable feeling, this wanting her to want something, then meeting that want, and that somehow drawing us closer. As we walked through the market in Ooty, I’d follow her into every stall she entered and encourage her to buy something. The first time we returned from the market she asked shyly, “Did I spend too much?” I told her, “If that happens I’ll let you know. Don’t worry about money.” Not that we were spending any great amount on the trifles we bought. Even so, whenever possible she’d try to bargain and bring the prices down. Somehow, I found this regard she showed for my money gratifying. And it gave me great pleasure when she asserted her right over my money and asked me to pay the shopkeepers: “Give him thirty-five”; “Two hundred here”; “Twenty-five.” All the days we were in Ooty, we never returned from the market empty-handed. It must have been hard for her to throw away those receipts, with all those memories attached to them. I certainly know it was difficult to see them lying crumpled in the dustbin.
I started going to work regularly at the Sona Masala warehouse. I would leave at nine in the morning and return only after dusk. I intended to work hard, but my resolve didn’t last long. The same old reason—there wasn’t any work for me to do. But my bank account began to see a larger deposit every month. Chikkappa must have felt I needed more now that I was married. The sum was significantly larger than what we needed for our expenses, but Anita’s needs had little to do with money.
• • •
A man in our society is supposed to fulfill his wife’s financial needs, true, but who knew he was expected to earn the money through his own toil? As I came to terms with Anita’s ideas of self-reliance, my attendance record at the warehouse could match that of the most assiduous of employees. Only Chikkappa knew how little work I actually did. I had mentioned Coffee House—where my attendance was equally impressive—to Anita. She must have thought it was a small eating joint near the warehouse. I never took her there, of course, but I mentioned the oracular Vincent to her in a lighthearted way.
Anita was never shy of speaking her mind, especially when she disagreed with something that was happening around her. That was the nature of her upbringing. The unwritten rules of our house were the very opposite. We went on as if nothing had happened. For instance, no one objected to anything Chikkappa did or said, especially after we moved to the new house. No one asked questions when he boasted that government officials were friends of the Sona Masala company. The only notes of discord were Appa’s occasional reminiscences of his days working as an honest salesman for an upright company. When he would say such things, we pretended not to hear, and Amma would try to steer the conversation elsewhere. We put Appa’s behavior down to his chronically gloomy outlook, but I suppose we knew deep down that he was right. After all, we used to help him with his work, and the difference between then and now was stark. Sona Masala might have been our firm, but none of us knew anything about the business. In the early days of Sona Masala, Appa would go to the warehouse. But he soon realized his outlook was very different from Chikkappa’s, and that his presence there could only cause trouble. He withdrew and left the running of the business to Chikkappa.
We wouldn’t dream of challenging Appa or Chikkappa, no matter what. True, there was some self-interest involved, but it would be an exaggeration to say it was only that. It was a difference of culture, too. Sometimes, Anita would fly into a rage after sparring with Malati and Amma and resort to snide remarks about Appa or Chikkappa. The rest of us would fuss about lest they heard her. Amma valued the household’s well-being more than winning the day’s fight. She would surrender at once, and Anita would feel she had emerged the victor. So when the family was together there was always a slight air of dread regarding what verbal bomb Anita might drop next.
The house next to ours was lying vacant, so we rented it to stock spices where we could keep an eye on them. Lorries with sacks of spices would arrive on some nights at about nine and leave empty after an hour. Once, a lorry arrived late, at around eleven. The sound of the engine woke me. Anita, her sleep disturbed, began to grumble. I didn’t like it. Perhaps she hadn’t yet comprehended that this trade was our source of sustenance. I got up and, without turning on the light, went and stood at the window. Our room was on the second floor, overlooking the street. Chikkappa was already outside. The lorry had brought two workmen. The driver asked them to unload the lorry quickly so they could leave, but Chikkappa protested. He insisted that each sack be weighed as it was unloaded. The unloading went on, slow and systematic. Anita joined me at the window. She must have wondered why I wasn’t helping Chikkappa, but she said nothing. There was an argument on the street below: Chikkappa protesting about the weight of some sacks; the driver claiming our weighing scale was faulty. While this was happening, one of the workmen injured his foot—it caught the side of the metal gate while he was bringing in a sack. Chikkappa rushed into the house, emerged with some old cloth, and bound his foot. Chikkappa then climbed into the lorry and began hauling sacks out of the truck and onto the back of the other workman. There was a practiced ease to his movements that onl
y a workman could have. I returned to the bed and lay down on my back. I couldn’t fall asleep.
The silence of the night had yielded to the curt talk among workers, the sound of their labored breathing. Finally the chains at the back of the lorry clattered, the engine came to life, and the lorry left at around one. Anita stood there until then. I didn’t ask her why. She went to bed afterward without speaking.
SEVEN
The day Amma chased away that woman, Chikkappa didn’t emerge from his room until he was called for lunch. We all sat at the table, with the exception of Amma, who usually ate after the rest of us had finished. She served us chapattis. Conversation was terse, restricted to “Can I have some of that?,” “That’s enough,” and the like. Amma tried to get us to talk as we usually did, asking, “How has the curry turned out? I didn’t have any dill or it would have tasted better.”
No one answered.
After a moment Anita said, “Oh, but masoor dal curry goes very well with chapatti. If you had been more careful this morning we could all have had some.”
The very thing we’d been trying to skirt, the specter Amma had been trying to dispel, was dragged to the table by Anita. There was a silence during which everyone concentrated intensely on their plates. I wondered who would come to Chikkappa’s aid. As in the morning, it was Amma who stepped forward.
“Do you know what you are saying?” she asked, her voice low and menacing.
Anita seemed undaunted, even gleeful. It only remained to be seen if this battle would continue to be fought through insinuation or if she would step into the ring and have it out.
“What do you mean? Maybe there’s no one else here who likes masoor, but I do. I wish you had taken it,” she said.
Amma raised her voice: “If beggars from the street come to our house should we welcome them?”
The rest of us were quiet. I felt I should say something to Anita to silence her, but I couldn’t think what.
Anita went on: “How many beggars from the street have been known to bring us food?”
Amma said, “What is that woman to you? Why are you speaking on her behalf? Does she matter to you more than your own family?”
“She’s nothing to me. She may be something to someone here, but not to me. I just don’t like how we chased her off like a stray dog without even listening to her. If women don’t support other women, who will?”
“So to support women you’ll indulge just about any home wrecker?”
“What makes you think she’s a home wrecker? She hasn’t cheated us or asked anything of us. It’s possible she has been betrayed, but certainly not the other way round.”
Chikkappa raised his glass of water and gulped it down. He pushed back his chair and left the room with food still on his plate. I supposed something was expected of me then. “Stop it now, Anita,” I said. She carried on eating as if nothing had happened.
“You’ve snatched his meal from him,” Amma said, shaking with fury.
“You’re talking about yourself,” Anita said. “You spilled the curry that was meant for him.”
Amma then brought out her most powerful weapon, one she had used many times to silence us. “Am I doing all this for myself?” she asked.
Anita was unmoved. “Yes, you are doing this for yourself,” she said. “You want to ensure that Chikkappa remains unmarried. You can’t stand the thought of anyone else entering this house and challenging your authority.”
Amma reeled from Anita’s words. Appa had raced through his meal without saying a word, and now he, too, got up and left. Malati had been quiet until now, but seeing Amma defeated and close to tears, she stepped in.
“We’re not in the habit of entertaining riffraff. Today it’s her, tomorrow someone else. Then old classmates. If we start laying out chairs for people we’ll soon be on the street with a begging bowl. Who doesn’t want to be connected to the wealthy? There’ll be hundreds of people who will cook up stories with an eye to making quick money.”
Anita let her reference to her old classmate go. She said, “There’s no smoke without fire. If he lacks the courage to stand by her, he shouldn’t have gone near her in the first place.”
So far we’d managed to keep Chikkappa happy, with nothing unpleasant ever falling on his ears. The well-being of any household rests on selective acts of blindness and deafness. Anita had outdone herself when it came to suicidal forthrightness. It looked like she wanted to destroy all of us along with herself.
Amma and Malati glared at me with helpless fury. I expect they were unhappy with my silence. Malati said, “Finish your lunch and leave with your tail between your legs.” What was I to do? I knew as well as they did that no good would come of Anita’s brashness. She needn’t have taken that woman’s side with such enthusiasm. But I could not dispute what she was saying, either. In any case, Anita seemed satisfied with what she had done. She ate without hurry and went to our room.
A line had been crossed that afternoon. I wondered with some dread about what would come of it. The others in the family must have, too. Anita was to leave that evening for a week in Hyderabad. I just hoped she would manage to leave the house without any further calamity. I went up to our room and tried to avoid talking to her by pretending to fall asleep at once. Anita must have realized I was faking. She kept muttering as she packed: “You could have opened your mouth and said what happened was wrong . . . It’s not even as if you have to oblige them anymore . . . You’re working as hard as anyone else . . . Just because a woman is unknown doesn’t mean she deserves contempt . . . Would you have kept quiet if that happened to a woman from your family? The only decent person in this house is your father but the rest of you behave like he’s insane . . . One day I should go to the police and tell them everything I know about this family’s affairs . . . Let the dirt come out into the open. Maybe I should go this very day on my way to the train station . . .”
Those last words of hers sent a chill through me. The word “police” had always filled us with a strange fear. Even when all was well, we tended to be on edge in the presence of the police. But there are those who revel in that sort of thing. Chitra was one of them. She spoke of visiting the police station as others mention going to the post office. It was the same with Anita—the result I suppose of her having volunteered for an NGO in Hyderabad. I thought it best not to say anything and kept my eyes closed.
I didn’t know how to make her see the relationships in our family from the inside. There was no other way to comprehend them.
I saw her off at the train station. There was only perfunctory talk between us. “All right, see you,” she said when she took her seat in the train compartment, the words sounding like a formality. Neither of us seemed keen on speaking to the other. I remained standing in the compartment for a couple of minutes. Then I thought there wasn’t any reason to stay, so I left and stood aimlessly on the platform. When I next peeped in through the window, I saw she had already started a conversation with the woman sitting beside her. Anita was wearing a cream-colored sari, her hair gathered in a bun. I wondered at how beautiful she looked in the evening light.
We could easily send her home by plane, but she insisted on going by train. Second class, at that. At least she had agreed to travel in a sleeper compartment.
As the train’s departure time neared, the bustle on the platform grew more frenzied. I didn’t know if Anita had seen me standing outside. I tried to attract her attention from the window. She seemed to glance in my direction but perhaps not, because she immediately resumed the conversation with her neighbor. The engine sounded its horn. A couple that had arrived at the last minute was scrambling to get into Anita’s compartment with far too many bags. I watched them, fascinated, and during that time the train began to move. I realized I hadn’t waved goodbye to Anita and began to walk with the train. She was still engrossed in talking with her neighbor and didn’t look toward the window.
I ran a few steps as the train gathered speed. Whether she saw me or not, I waved, at least to comfort myself, and then stopped running. The train went on, leaving me behind. I realized I didn’t know when exactly we had lost contact. Was it when she began talking to the woman next to her? Or was it when I became engrossed in watching the couple struggling to board? Or was it sometime before that? It didn’t feel like I had really seen her off. A feeling came over me of not having done what I’d set out to do.
When I got home, Chikkappa had gone somewhere. Appa was out, too. No trace of Malati. I was in no mood to talk with Amma, who was watching TV. I rushed upstairs to my room and closed the door.
I sat on the bed and the first thing I noticed was that the door of Anita’s wardrobe was slightly ajar. I got up to close it completely, but it didn’t move. Some garment was stuck in the crack of the door. I opened the two doors of the wardrobe wide so I could get rid of the obstruction. A familiar smell washed over me. I lost myself for a second in my own reflection in the mirror on the inside of one of the doors. The tall compartment to the right had her saris, arrayed on hangers. On the shelf below were folded tops, salwar-kameezes. The locker on the left contained her necklaces, earrings, bangles. Nothing too expensive—it was all mixed metal. With the exception of her taali she never wore gold jewelry.
I pulled open one of the two drawers. It had some of her certificates and other official-looking papers. The other drawer had our wedding album. I flipped through a few of the photographs and put the album back. Next to it were some papers. Some receipts. A scrap with someone’s telephone number. I saw a folded newspaper clipping and opened it. It was a death notice for someone named Varaseetalakshmi Shankar. The photo showed a scrawny middle-aged woman with large eyes. She had died the previous June. There was no information about how she had died. Strange, I didn’t remember Anita having mentioned her to me. Must be a relative. My mind was running away in all directions and I composed myself.
Ghachar Ghochar Page 7
