Of Marriageable Age

by Sharon Maas

  She looked at her watch. 'Goodness, it's nine already. So late. I've given you enough of my time for today, Saroj, and if you want to solve your problems by yourself, go ahead. Trixie, it's high time you both were in bed, school tomorrow. Have you done your homework? If not you'd better…’

  'Homework? At this time of night? And after a day like this ?'

  'Well, that's your problem. I'm off; I've got a load of typing waiting downstairs. Good night.'

  She turned abruptly on her heel, obviously disgusted by Saroj's ungrateful obstinacy, and walked stiffly, elegantly down the stairs to her ground-floor office. A few minutes later they heard the clacking of her typewriter echoing up the stairwell. Trixie looked at Saroj and grinned, winking.

  'Never mind her,' she said. 'Now we can have some fun. Oh boy, it's just like having a sister. Or being at boarding school. Look, I bought some new comics today, and a copy of Seventeen. Let's read in bed.'

  38

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Savitri

  Madras State, 1939-1941

  Ayyar's behaviour improved even more after Ganesan's birth, except for the drinking. He was so proud of the boy. And he was pleased with Savitri for having, at last, done her duty, and began to be kind to her.

  'What is that book you're reading?' he asked, coming home early from work to play with Ganesan, as he often did these days.

  'Oh, it's a book of poetry. The Swallow Book of Verse. I used to read it a lot when I was a child.'

  Savitri had brought back three books from her visit to Madras. It was a miracle, even, that The Swallow Book of Verse still existed and had not been thrown out by Mani at the time of her marriage. But with great foresight Amma had salvaged it, and kept it safely for her till the day when she could safely give it back. For her mother was a woman too, and knew of love, and knew that the book was all Savitri had left of David, and that David was now out of harm's way, and the book could do no harm.

  'I want to purchase some books for you,' Gopal had said to her the day before her return, and taken her to Higginbotham's Book Store and told her to choose what she wanted. She had chosen a copy of the Bhagavad-Gita and a book of Rabindranath Tagore poems. He had encouraged her to buy more, and more costly books, but she was adamant.

  'I will find all I need in these books,' she told him, and indeed, she did. She read for at least an hour every day, for somehow, since Ganesan's birth, she had less instead of more work. Ayyar thought it was beneath her dignity, as the mother of his son, to go to the Parvati Tank for the washing so she gave her laundry to a dhobi and all she had to do was cook and keep the house tidy, and look after Ganesan, who anyway spent a good part of every day with his grandmother. So Savitri had time to read, and life was beginning to be good. Even the nightly gropings—no longer rape!—had stopped completely since Ganesan's birth. Ayyar did not bother her at all now, and that alone was heaven. She had her son, and her books, which were a wellspring of wisdom and joy, and she had freedom in her heart. Really, she thought, to ask for more would be ingratitude.

  'Read on, read on!' Ayyar said now, and smiled down kindly at her. 'I am glad you are educating your mind. I am proud I have an educated wife, for you will be able to educate our son. So I am allowing you to read as much as you please. You are a good, devout wife and I am very pleased with you.'

  Savitri bowed her head and continued with her reading. If he only knew, she thought, smiling to herself. For, wrapped up in a piece of newspaper and glued to the inside spine of the book, was a little gold chain with a cross pendant, hidden there long ago with great prescience and presence of mind, in the days when her world was still whole and innocent. And now, when she held this book in her hands, David was with her, and all around her, and she too was whole again, and innocent, and she had Ganesan, and he was healthy, and alive.

  Ganesan was the most beautiful baby ever. His golden brown skin was polished to a gloss every day when Savitri laid him, naked but for the string around his hips, on her stretched out legs and rubbed his body with coconut oil, smiling and laughing with him as he cooed and blabbered in delight, and her skilful fingers kneaded the firm flesh of his chubby legs, arms and buttocks, the softness of his back and belly and the round apple cheeks. He had a thick thatch of strong black hair, which was growing out again after having been shaved off completely two full moons ago, when Savitri shaved her own head and made the pilgrimage to the great Shiva Temple at Tiruvannamalai last Deepam, to give thanks to the Lord in keeping with her vow.

  Ganesan looked up at her with his great black shining eyes as she rubbed his body, and he waved his arms and reached out to grab her fingers and pressed with the soles of his feet against her belly. It seemed to Savitri, as she lifted him up and outlined his eyes with lines of kohl and marked his forehead with a black spot, that she had always known him, that he had always been a part of her, and was a part of that great love she shared with David, for love is love and cannot be divided, it reaches out and embraces every living thing, and this little boy was the form love had chosen to approach her in, now that David was lost to her. She hugged him to her breast and laughingly kissed him all over till he struggled to get away and called out, 'Pal, Amma, pal!

  She smiled then and opened her choli, and replied, 'You want pal, little Ganesan? Come, here is Amma's pal, come, my darling!' And the little boy snuggled into her arms and opened his little red mouth and took her breast to drink her milk sweet with her love.

  Ayyar's drinking grew worse. She knew he kept a grubby brown bottle in the back pocket of his trousers — Ayyar, like Gopal, never wore a lungi, since he, too, considered himself modern-minded — and that all through the day he took a swig or two, whenever he thought he was unwatched.

  It would not have bothered her were it not for Ganesan. The boy was almost a year now, older than any child she had ever had, and at an age when fathers begin to take yet more interest in their infants. So it was with Ayyar. He loved to carry the boy around, to take him with him to work, or to see his mother, or his friends, and Savitri was certain that at the homes of certain friends yet more alcohol was passed around. Ayyar came home in a rickshaw, then, hiccupping and burping and reeking of drink, and hardly able to carry the child the short distance between rickshaw and front door. Savitri waited anxiously on the front verandah on these occasions, a book open on her lap, but looking up whenever she heard a rickshaw bell or the creaking sound as a rickshaw's wheel rounded the corner. And when she saw it was Ayyar with Ganesan she would leap to her feet and run to meet them, and gather the child into her arms, and pay the rickshaw-wallah, and she was so grateful that Ayyar was safely home that she was kind to him and he really believed she loved him as a good wife should, and he was pleased, even through his drunken stupor.

  'What a good wife you have become!' he stammered then. 'What an excellent wife. But you would never have turned so good, wife, if I had not beaten you the first few years. You would never have borne me a son if I had not beaten you for bearing me daughters.'

  And he advised his friends, 'Yes, yes, a woman needs a good beating now and then, just until she turns obedient. Once she has learned to be obedient, though, it would be a sin to beat her. Yes, yes. Look at my wife. One could not find a better wife, or a better mother. And she has borne me an excellent son. But —' and here he would waggle his forefinger at his listening friends, 'never beat your wife once she has learned her lesson, for that would be a sin. I never raise a finger to my wife any more. I adore her and worship her as the Divine Mother herself.'

  And he would smile in satisfaction at his own great wisdom, assured that theirs was a perfect family life. Especially now that the youngest girl was married off, and it was just the three of them, husband, wife, and son. A perfect happy family.

  Ayyar had to make some adjustments to his ledger this Saturday and so he went to work for half an hour, taking Ganesan. He had taken a swig before leaving and he set the boy down to play as he entered his office at the train station. He took the thic
k, heavy, yellowed ledger from its place in the overflowing cupboard, leafed through the dog-eared pages but couldn't find what he was looking for; in fact, he had forgotten what he was looking for. To give his memory a jolt he took another swig, belched, licked his thumb and leafed through the pages again. He found the right place and got up from his swivel chair to find some papers, but they seemed to be buried under a heap of other papers in the cupboard. He pulled at them and the whole lot came tumbling out of the cupboard. Ayyar swore and went to the table to take another swig. Papers lay all over the office, now.

  Ganesan thought it was delightful. He picked up a heap in both hands and threw them up into the air. Ganesan was fourteen months and had just learned to walk. His hands were everywhere, and Ayyar knew he would never get the papers back into the cupboard, and in the right order, with Ganesan in the room.

  'Go and play outside!' he told the boy. 'Look, there are some goats over there. Go and play. Po-i-va! Po-i-va!' He shooed the boy out and closed the door. The work would take half an hour longer. He wished he had a secretary who would look after the paperwork. In Madras train station there were lots of working girls; they had typewriters and could do shorthand. He had to do everything himself. He deserved a secretary. A pretty one. He wondered if he should go and get Savitri to help him, but dismissed the thought immediately. People might say his wife was working and that would be a scandal. No, he'd have to sort out this mess by himself. He took another swig and got down to work, sitting on the floor and placing the papers in their appropriate heaps.

  For half an hour he was completely lost in his work, and lost to the rest of the world. It was then that the shrill whistle of an arriving train bore into his subconscious and stirred him. He knew the times of each train by heart. He looked at his watch. Two-thirty. The through-train from Coimbatore. He frowned. He had the feeling that he had forgotten something important, but he couldn't for the life of him think what. The train's whistle stopped and the silence now was palpable. A goat bleated into that silence. The goat's bleat reminded him of something… Ganesan. He had sent Ganesan to play with the goats but that was half an hour ago. He'd better check on the child, he was so quick on his feet…

  Ayyar stood up slowly. His left foot had gone to sleep and he could only limp towards the door, which he opened to cast an eye on Ganesan. The goats were still there but Ganesan was not. Ayyar frowned. Where was the little imp? Had he gone off down the road? He stepped down into the sunny, sandy courtyard in front of the station building and peered down the road in both directions. It was deserted, asleep. People were still at rest, for it was the hottest time of day. Could Ganesan have gone into one of the houses?

  'Ganesan!' he called. 'Ganesan!'

  The train's whistle blew again, much louder now. He heard a child call, coming from the behind the bramble hedge which flanked the track.

  A dark knowledge grabbed him in the form of panic, a deep, dark premonition, a certainty of grave impending danger, like the cool breath of Yama, the god of death, at the nape of his neck. His mind cleared and he raced towards the track.

  'Ganesan!' he screamed.

  'Appa!'

  'Ganesan, Ganesan!'

  He had reached the track but there was no sign of the child at first and the train's whistle was one long drawn out piercing screech. 'Ganesan!'

  He couldn't hear his own scream now, and there was Ganesan, twenty yards uptrack, with a nanny-goat who was nibbling at the hedge, Ganesan crouched beside her and pulling at her udder and smiling in contentment.

  'Ganesan!'

  Ayyar catapulted himself towards the child while the black, snorting, screeching engine loomed in the background. Ganesan noticed this for the first time, and pointed at it with a pudgy finger.

  'Da!' he said, beaming at his father, and then with the same finger pointed at the goat.

  'Pal! Pal!'

  Ayyar's eyes were fixed in terror on the snorting monster storming up towards them, furious, raging, ruthless.

  'Appa!' cried Ganesan anxiously, in the very moment when, simultaneously, Ayyar gathered him into his arms and the engine's cow-catcher swooped them up and flung them into the air, the two of them and the nanny-goat, and pitched them aside as if they were no more than three little rag dolls cast away by a child in a tantrum.

  The moment before his head cracked open Ayyar thought:

  'It is because of the daughters I killed. All things return. Shiva, Shiva, Shiva.'

  The train screeched onwards, and the stillness it left behind was the satisfied silence of death.

  39

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Nat

  A Village in Madras State, 1969

  Shortly before midnight they finished the makeshift platform of waterlogged branches. In spite of the roughness of his bed and the proximity of so many men lying foot-to-head like sardines Nat, overcome by jet lag, fell asleep almost the moment his head touched the folded lungi on the plastic sheet. But long before dawn he was awake again, wide awake. A word, a name, had gnawed itself into his consciousness but it took some time before it dawned on him what that name was trying to tell him.

  Gauri Ma.

  Where was Gauri Ma?

  'Dad?' he whispered. His father slept next to him; he did not want to wake him, for Doctor needed every moment of sleep, but the question was urgent and if, by chance, Doctor was awake he'd hear the whisper and answer. No answer came. Nat fumbled in the folds of the lungi that had been his pillow for his torch, switched it on and looked at his watch. Twenty past three. Not an unreasonable time; in the country, people rose at four and by the time he got there it would be four. He'd have to go, there was no other way. If she was safe, then no harm done, he couldn't sleep anyway, and he'd be back by five. But he had to go.

  Of course, she might not be alive at all. She might have died in the years of his absence. But maybe not.

  He listened; the silence outside seemed to speak to him, to tell him something important, very important, something he'd overlooked in his worry about Gauri Ma, and suddenly he realised what — it was just too silent. No pouring of rain, no incessant splashing into the lake that was the world outside the school, not even a gentle patter. The rain had stopped! He said a prayer of thanks in his heart; it was a good omen.

  He got up and stepped gingerly between the sleeping bodies, the beam of light from his torch cutting through the pitch darkness to guide him. Outside the school room it was just as dark, for even though the rain had ceased the night sky was still filled with clouds and Nat had only his own instinct and the narrow ray of his torch to guide him out to the road. The water reached almost to his knees, he could feel the mixture of sand and mud and grass beneath his bare feet, squishing up between his toes as he walked on through the thick blackness, through the deathly silence. It was as if the water had absorbed all sound: not a frog croaked, not an insect chirped. There was only the splashing sound Nat's feet made as he stepped onwards through the floods. Not a building, not a ruined house, not a tree or a bush or a high rock could be seen, only the shining, rippling surface of the water as it caught Nat's light and played with it, disturbed by the pair of feet moving steadily, rhythmically forwards.

  It was a walk into nowhere. Since there were no stars, no landmarks, not even the hulking form of the hill in the background, Nat could not possibly know in which direction he was going. He could not even know if he was on the road, or walking through a field, or straight towards the yawning depths of the Ganesa Tank, for the whole world was one big black shining lake, opening up to him with each step he took and closing behind him again. And yet he walked on, into the nothingness.

  After what seemed a small eternity, gradually, the world turned a shade less black and to Nat's amazement and deep gratitude he made out that he was right on course and almost there. He could make out the collapsed forms of isolated huts, crumbled into the water that surrounded them, the neatly woven coconut fronds that had once been their roofs cleft through the middle as if a ruthl
ess giant hand had dealt them a quick karate stroke. He wondered where their residents had fled — but that was not his business now. A man could only do what he could, and right now Gauri Ma was his business.

  Her hut, he estimated, could not be more than a hundred yards further down the road, and several steps further on he heard through the silence a quiet whimpering, as from a puppy. Probably the puppy had been left behind when the desperate family it belonged to had fled to a safer, higher place; maybe it had found refuge on an abandoned rooftop, or on a rock ranging out of the water. It was the first sound, besides the splashing of his own feet and the whisper of his own breath, that he had heard this morning.

  The whimpering grew louder, and now he was almost at Gauri Ma's hut, and for the first time since setting out he felt foolish. Of course Gauri Ma was safe! His father would surely have taken care of her, evacuated her to some safe lodging; or else she and her husband would have fled to the Town and taken refuge… somewhere, or else, well, certainly they would not just have sat there and waited for the floods to capture them. He would find a soggy ruined hut with a caved-in roof, empty, abandoned, no Gauri Ma or her husband or any sign of where they had gone, and he would have to turn around and go home again, arriving back just as the others were stirring and having to explain his senseless, panic-filled rescue mission, thwarted because there had never been anyone to rescue. Idiot! Well, maybe he could at least save that puppy.

  It was as he'd thought. Gauri Ma's hut was nothing but a heap of sodden rubble covered with the remains of a one-time roof, and Nat felt even more foolish. Who do you think you are, some kind of a movie hero? No, you're not. You're a spoiled little boy back from the self-indulgent West and you'll never be even half the man your father is. Of course Doctor had taken care of Gauri Ma and every one else he could; that was his whole mission in life and what put it into Nat’s idiot mind to come out here before the crack of dawn to rescue a puppy?