The Lilac House: A Novel

by Anita Nair

  Silver oaks dealt with, Meera sits in the patio hugging her thoughts. She finds that she is strangely reluctant to discuss how she feels, even with Vinnie. It is too new and too nebulous. It is also what she is yet to acknowledge to herself. That here is a man she would like to be with.

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ Vinnie would exclaim, her eyes ferreting out Meera’s secret thoughts. ‘Are you saying you want to marry him?’

  ‘No, not marriage. I am not thinking that far ahead,’ Meera would say.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I don’t know, Vinnie. I really don’t know. I just like him.’

  Meera says that to herself now. Kitcha. Jak. She can’t even decide how to address him in her heart. ‘It’s not just you,’ he had told her once. ‘I don’t know how to address myself any more. My family calls me Kitcha, my colleagues Jak, and my daughters Papa Jak. Am I Kitcha? Am I Jak?’

  ‘So what do you do?’ She smiled.

  ‘I take the cue from the person in front of me. Do they want me to be Kitcha? Do they want me to be Jak?’

  ‘Who do you think I want you to be?’ she asked, holding his gaze steadily.

  ‘What do you think?’ Jak, or was it Kitcha, leaned into her. She could smell the tang of his cologne and she wanted to rub her nose against the skin of his neck.

  ‘I’ll have to figure that out.’ She nibbled her lip.

  For, as unbound as Meera had become, one part of her was still Hera, who feared the birth of change. Hera, who waited outside Acmened’s door, squatting crosslegged, her clothes twisted into knots and her fingers locked together. Let it not happen yet, let it not happen yet, Hera had willed the movement of time.

  It is twilight. As the summer approaches, the days get longer and longer. Meera thinks of how on summer evenings, they would all go swimming. Giri had a corporate membership in one of the private clubs and he would send the car for them. Some days Lily and Saro would accompany them. Saro would sit at the poolside commenting on the children’s lack of finesse as they swam. ‘You are not a dog or a hippo to splash the water so,’ she would say, pulling her legs in when Nikhil sent a tidal wave across the pool’s edge.

  ‘Why don’t you show us how to swim?’ Giri snapped one evening.

  Saro, who would never allow herself to get into an argument with her son-in-law, cocked a finely arched eyebrow and murmured, ‘Perhaps I will!’

  And so Saro emerged in a bathing costume the pool attendant found her, her hair tucked into a bathing cap and as Meera watched in astonishment, clambered down the steel ladder into the waters where, with perfect aplomb and the style of a practised swimmer, she showed off her breast stroke. And the back and the butterfly. And the Australian crawl. Only, when Saro swam, the pool’s surface scarcely even rippled.

  The children were awestruck and so was Meera. She hadn’t even known her mother could swim.

  Saro never swam again. She wouldn’t explain why, despite Meera asking.

  Now as Meera watches Lily put on her glasses as a preamble to her important discussion, she bursts out, ‘Lily, why didn’t Mummy ever swim? I mean, we all saw what a stylish swimmer she was. Why wouldn’t she swim?’

  Lily frowns. ‘I thought I said, no chit-chat!’

  Meera sighs. They are sitting at the dining table, the two of them.

  ‘It’s like this.’ Lily launches into an explanation for their need to sit across a table in such a manner. ‘Ever since Saro died, I have been thinking about many things.’

  Lily has combed her hair back and wound it into a little bun at the nape of her neck. Fine silky grey hair which she has the salon rinse with an ashy glow that makes her skin seem even more translucent. Bone china. Touch it and it would splinter. She has put on make-up and dressed herself in a heavy cream silk sari. Blue sapphires gleam in her ears and around her throat. Most importantly, Lily has put her dentures on. Her mouth stays in place and her jaw is firm in its tilt as she straightens her back and snaps, ‘This is important!’

  Meera rests her elbows on the table and begins playing with her rings. They did this when Saro was alive too. Invite her to a discussion where they would tell her how they hated being a burden on her and that they thought they ought to go to an old-age home.

  ‘There are these really nice ones, you know,’ Saro would say. ‘Not all of them have little dingy rooms smelling of decaying bodies or stale food. I have made enquiries and you would be surprised at what is offered.’

  And Meera would explode, ‘What’s wrong with you? This is your home. If anyone should leave, it’s Giri and I!’

  What if I had actually taken them up on their offer and said yes, Meera wonders. Would they have left? A stab of sorrow – this too must be part of parenthood – to feel unwanted as one grows older, to want to be needed… One day, I probably will do the same to Nayantara and Nikhil, play my version of Do you love me? Do you really love me? Do you need me in your life?

  So Meera hastens to reassure. ‘Lily, I know where this is leading… no, don’t even bring it up. You are not a burden. And no, I am not going to let you go into an old-age home!’

  Lily sits up frowning. She works her jaws in consternation. ‘Who said anything about going to an old-age home?

  ‘Then what?’ Meera’s heart pounds. Is Lily ill?

  Lily smiles. For a fleeting moment, Meera sees the beauty that she once was. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘My friend Zahira, you know, the actress who gave it all up some years ago and lives in Mysore now with a houseful of animals. Well, her son is a very successful television producer and he wants me to act in a new series. It’s going to be dubbed into six languages.’

  The excitement in Lily’s voice fills Meera with dread. She has never seen Lily so animated. She is too old and too used to being the star of the show. What role would she be given?

  ‘Lily, I don’t know what to say,’ Meera begins. She must dissuade Lily from this wild caper. To hang around a set all day at her age would kill her. And the children wouldn’t like it. Their great-grandmother as a TV soap granny would embarrass them.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. I am not asking you for permission. I am informing you of my decision,’ Lily bristles. She can see Meera isn’t pleased.

  ‘The terms they have offered are excellent. After all, I am a national award winning actress. It will also help ease some of the burden on you.’

  A dark suspicion creeps into Meera at the mention of money. ‘Is that why you are doing this, Lily?’

  Lily snorts. ‘Yes, the money is important but I wouldn’t kill myself for a two-bit role, you know that, don’t you? I like the story. I like the expanse of the character I am to play. Do you know how hard I have been working to get into character? I have been managing without my dentures because I think the character requires it in the initial part of the series. Before the flashbacks, etc.’

  Meera feels foolish. I am so much more of a drama queen than she is. Here I was, attributing depression and despondency to her, while she has been method acting. Meera reaches across and takes Lily’s hand in hers.

  The skin is papery and dry, the blue veins under the almost transparent skin criss-crossing the back of her hand. Meera squeezes the fragile hand ever so gently. More and more, she has let the irritations of her daily routine overwhelm her.

  ‘If it makes you happy, Lily…’ she says. ‘I am so proud of you.’

  She wonders if it is tears that bring a sheen to Lily’s eyes. Lily murmurs, ‘Thank you, thank you, my dear. And…’ She pauses and focuses at a point in the middle distance. ‘I am lost, Meera. Without Saro, my life has lost its definition. I miss her.’

  ‘I miss my mother too,’ Meera admits, realizing the vacuum that Saro’s absence has created.

  ‘There is one more thing,’ Lily says abruptly. ‘If there is a chance for you to make a new life, you must.’

  Meera looks away.

  ‘When your father died, I should have told Saro this. But I didn’t. I was selfish in my
fear that I would be alone. So I clung to your mother and let her use me as a crutch. She was too young to be a widow as I was. I should have spoken then, but I didn’t. So I must tell you this.’

  Blood rushes into Meera’s face. ‘I don’t know what you are thinking but there is nothing between the Professor and me,’ she says lamely.

  Lily leans back. ‘Not yet. But I can see he likes you and you him. It isn’t about cutting your hair or acquiring a new wardrobe. That’s good in the movies. A new look that turns you into a new woman. Get real, Meera. Get real before your life slips away from you.’

  Meera squares her shoulders to bring more vehemence into her denial. And then she stops. Why is she denying the truth?

  ‘By the way, there is no dark secret why Saro wouldn’t swim. She hated water and I forced her to swim as a child. When she left home, she swore she would never swim except for an exigent circumstance.

  ‘And that day at the pool, Giri was one,’ Lily says, rising from her chair. ‘The first thing to do is to be honest with yourself. Meera, listen to me, all of us need our dreams…’

  VI

  And so it happens that Meera allows herself to dream once more. Nothing elaborate or grandiose. Nothing involving new curtains or wardrobe space. She isn’t hoping to build a new nest or sail into a sunset, wing to wing. At this point, she is content with the companionship that Jak gives so easily and with such largesse. Her Jak. Her Kitcha. When he ruffles her hair or leans across to cup her chin or flick a crumb from her kurta, Meera knows a sensory explosion.

  Vinnie from the sidelines has done a volte-face. ‘Are you ever going to make love or are you two going to moon around forever like juveniles?’ she asks as Meera lists the casual caresses of the day. ‘I can’t believe that you get so excited by the brushing of skin. Oh Meera, Meera, what am I to do with you?’

  Meera grins foolishly. All in good time, she thinks. For now she likes the woman she sees in his eyes.

  For the first time in many years, she raises the spectre of a dead dream.

  ‘Oh, Giri,’ she had cried one evening early in their marriage, ‘will I ever do it? I worked so hard on the research. It’s all sitting there gathering dust while life slips away from me.’

  ‘What’s the point? One more literature dissertation isn’t going to change the world,’ Giri said, and then as if to take the sting out of the words whispered, ‘The children need you. I need you. Isn’t that more important?’ He kissed her fingers one by one in homage to her role in their life.

  Meera smiled. But the next time she brought it up during a car trip, Giri was not as cajoling. He retaliated with a joke. A cruel joke. He took to pointing out water tanks: ‘Oh, there’s Mummy’s MPhil on the roof!’ The children giggled and Meera stretched her lips into a smile and never mentioned it again.

  But Jak listens carefully, his head cocked, his fingers doodling. ‘I wish you had worked on it,’ he says. ‘You still can. Can’t you?’ he asks abruptly. ‘Are there any books I can source for you?’

  It isn’t long before Meera walks in on Nayantara and Nikhil discussing her as they play a game of Scrabble. She stops in her tracks, curious as much as anxious.

  Nayantara and Nikhil sense something is afoot but in the light of a father who they hear is soon going to have a baby, a moderately soppy mother is easy to deal with.

  She overhears Nikhil tell Nayantara, ‘He is a nice man. He doesn’t put down Mom.’ Like Dad used to, he doesn’t say.

  In recent months, both Nayantara and Nikhil have acquired a new sensitivity. Past acts of unkindness, taunts and ridicule have come to haunt them.

  ‘He admires her and all,’ Nikhil says. ‘He keeps asking her what she thinks.’

  ‘Mom! She is just a housewife. What does she know?’

  ‘Shut up. Shut up,’ Nikhil says furiously. ‘She is here for us, isn’t she? I admire her too.’

  ‘Mummy’s pet!’

  ‘I would much rather be Mummy’s pet than Daddy’s darling, like you. Daddy didn’t want us. He went away. Or, have you forgotten that?’ Nikhil’s voice acquires a gravity Meera has never heard before. Her breath catches in her throat.

  ‘He had his reasons.’ Nayantara rushes to defend him but Meera can see her heart isn’t in it.

  ‘I don’t care what his reasons were. Did he ever ask you or me even once if we wished to go with him? He left us behind like we were old clothes or something. You should see the Professor. How he looks after Smriti. He does so much for her and he doesn’t ever act as if he is sick and tired of it. Every night before he goes to bed, he sits at her bedside and tickles her under her chin saying, “Catch up on your sleep, baby, when you wake up in the morning, I am going to make you work so hard to make up for all this lost time…” Do you think Daddy would look after us like that? Daddy doesn’t care about us. I don’t think he ever really did,’ Nikhil says, moving a tile this way and that.

  Nayantara is reduced to silence. But just as Meera decides to step in, Nayantara’s curiosity rears itself. ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘What do I think about what?’

  ‘About Mummy and her Professor. Is something going on?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe they will marry?’

  Nayantara is clearly aghast at Nikhil’s line of thought. That Dad would make a new life was part of his leaving home. But Meera? Moms are meant to put aside dreams and grow old gracefully, like furniture. ‘Marry?’ she shrieks.

  ‘Yeah, they seem to like each other very much. But even if they marry, at least you don’t have to worry about him and Mom having a baby. They are both too old.’

  Meera suffers a quiet pang. Her children are growing up. Their lives are acquiring a dimension of their own.

  ‘What about Smriti?’ Nayantara asks.

  ‘What about her?’ Nikhil is quick to defend Smriti. ‘You should ask Mom to take you to the Professor’s house. Then you’ll see for yourself. She just lies there…’

  ‘That’s their baby then! Dad’s baby will at least grow up. But this one, you and I will be changing its diapers for the rest of our lives.’ Nayantara doesn’t mean to be as unkind as she sounds but she is all churned up. She doesn’t know what urges her to speak as she does. Hurt. Fear. Or a combination of both.

  ‘You are being mean,’ Nikhil says quietly. ‘If you saw her, you would take back everything you said now. Mom takes me there now and then and the last time, she asked me to read aloud to her,’ Nikhil says in the all important voice of one asked to perform a very important task.

  ‘Did you?’ Nayantara’s whole being radiates jealousy.

  ‘I did. After a while it’s like reading to yourself. She doesn’t even move a muscle, I think.’

  Nikhil forms a word. D.E.A.D.

  Nayantara looks up from the Scrabble board. ‘She is that bad?’

  ‘She is. I think I would die if something like that ever happened to you.’ Nikhil’s voice snags in his throat.

  Nayantara doesn’t say anything for a while. Then she pushes the board away and hugs Nikhil.

  VII

  On an evening, as Jak keeps vigil, Rishi comes to see Smriti.

  Kala Chithi has gone to the doctor for her routine medical check-up. Meera has left for the day. More and more Jak finds it a wrench to see Meera throw her books, papers, pen and phone into her bag and walk out of the door. When he can, he drops her home, prolonging the moment of her going away. Sometimes he wonders if he is getting in way out of his depth. Even in those first heady days with Nina, he hadn’t known such a giddiness of sensation. A luminescence. All springing from so tiny an aperture that in another time and another place, another Jak would have slapped his forehead in a gesture of protest and jeered: Oh, grow up, will you?

  For the first time, he wants to rush things rather than watch and wait, as is his wont. With Meera he wants more. Not just a melding of bodies and needs; he wants all of her. ‘I know you will like Meera, Smriti. She isn’t like Monique or any of those other women. I know how muc
h you resented them. Meera is different. Meera is Meera…’ he tells his daughter, rubbing cream into her palms. Then he hears the doorbell ring.

  Jak doesn’t speak when he sees who it is. He opens the door wide and says, ‘Come in. You would like to see Smriti, I presume.’

  Rishi follows him into Smriti’s room.

  Jak hears the gasp that escapes his mouth and watches the play of emotions on Rishi’s face.

  Rishi doesn’t speak for a long time.

  ‘I didn’t know…’ His eyes seek Jak’s in a plea. ‘I really didn’t. What can I say?’ His shoulders sag as he leans against the wall.

  ‘What did you expect?’ Jak doesn’t bother to hide the rage that seethes in him.

  Rishi moves away from the wall and walks to the foot of the bed. He stares down at Smriti, still unable to believe that this grimacing thing, this ruin of a girl, is the Smriti he knew. The Smriti he fell madly in love with. ‘They… I didn’t ever think they would do this.’

  ‘They who?’ Jak straightens.

  ‘Srinivasan and his men. I didn’t think they would dare do something like this.’

  ‘It was an accident. A freak accident,’ Jak says.