The Lilac House: A Novel

by Anita Nair

  Rishi’s eyes harden. ‘An accident they caused. What else could it be? They are evil. I know it. They did this to her.’ His voice rises. ‘They said they would.’

  One of the constituents of all chaotic motion, Jak knows, is recurrence. That certain systems will return to a state very close to the initial one. There is no fleeing from the sensitive dependence between the original and the evolved state.

  In the pit of his stomach, at the back of his skull, in that deep recess somewhere in his soul where he laid to rest the ghost of Smriti’s past, he feels a flutter. The swift flapping of wings. Jak, the weatherman, knows how this by itself can cause a tornado to appear elsewhere.

  The butterfly flaps its wings, again and again…

  ‘You said you broke up at Madurai. I assumed you left her there, but it wasn’t like that, was it?’ Jak asks. ‘What happened thereafter? How did Smriti get to Minjikapuram?’

  Rishi Soman sits down. His eyes narrow as he remembers the bus ride from Madurai.

  VIII

  At the bus stand in Madurai, Smriti’s eyes widened in glee at the blue and white chequered pattern of the buses. ‘Oh look, I have never seen a bus dressed in a tablecloth,’ she cried. Rishi didn’t speak. He couldn’t summon up much excitement. The truth was, he couldn’t summon up any feelings about anything these days. He felt weighed down by what was expected of him.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, trying to find the right bus that would take them further east to the coast where Minjikapuram waited. He had a date with freedom there.

  In the bus Smriti slept with her head on his shoulder. When the bus screeched to a halt, he felt her awaken. She rubbed her cheek against his neck. He saw the man across the aisle stare at them. It made him feel uncomfortable.

  ‘Get up, sleepyhead,’ he said, squaring his shoulders and hoping this would nudge her head off.

  Smriti sat up and stretched. He saw her short top rise until he could almost see the undersides of her breasts. Rishi felt again the man’s eyes. Only this time they licked at Smriti’s flesh. Rishi leaned forward to cut the man’s vision off.

  ‘Hey, Smriti,’ Rishi said, ‘put that shirt on.’

  ‘It’s so hot!’ Smriti frowned.

  ‘I know. But we are in small-town India and they don’t know how to behave when they see a girl like you.’

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ Smriti demanded.

  Rishi felt his mouth straighten. She was so fucking defensive. All you had to do was point one little thing out and she behaved as if he had accused her of some heinous crime.

  ‘Nothing is wrong with you. They haven’t seen girls like you. And you always said you wanted to blend with the real India. You are hardly going to do that in a tank top and no bra,’ Rishi snapped and pretended not to see the hurt in her eyes. Or how his displeasure cowed her down. Any minute now her mouth would crumple, he thought.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked a few minutes later. ‘Why has the bus stopped?’

  He shrugged. ‘An accident. A road block. A puncture… Could be anything,’ he said. He was bored, hot and guilty. From the corner of his eye, he saw Smriti had pulled on her shirt and buttoned it all the way to the top. God, wasn’t there an easy way? A painless severance? How was he going to make it happen?

  ‘Look, everyone’s getting out. Let’s go too. It’ll be cooler outside.’ Smriti tugged at his elbow.

  Outside, groups of people stood by the road. It was Smriti who asked a woman, ‘What happened?’

  The woman stared at her in incomprehension. Rishi smiled, unable to help himself. Poor kid. Even when she spoke Tamil, they stared at her bemused. ‘It’s your accent,’ he murmured.

  ‘Yennach?’ Smriti tried again.

  The fug cleared in the woman’s brain. She broke into an explanation of an accident further up the road at the railway gate. They would be stuck here for a while, she added.

  Smriti nodded and began to walk away. ‘Where are you from?’ The woman held her elbow. Her pregnant daughter stood at her side and Smriti felt their eyes take in every little detail of her person. Didn’t they know it was rude to stare? She shook her head, unable to decide if she was amused or irritated. But they didn’t stop scrutinizing her. Nor did they stop themselves from asking her fairly intimate questions, as another group of women joined them.

  One of them touched Smriti’s eyebrow stud. ‘Doesn’t this catch in your hair?’ Another woman, more censorious than curious, pinched the fabric of her shirt and asked in a whisper, ‘Don’t the men stare at you? They leer at us even when we are in a sari so when they see someone like you… I couldn’t ever dress like you do. All those eyes stripping me naked. I would rather die!’

  Another gestured to Rishi with her chin. ‘And he? Doesn’t he mind your dressing like this?’

  ‘Are you newly wed? On your honeymoon?’ someone asked coyly.

  Smriti looked at Rishi’s face. Would they see the yearning in her eyes? She shook her head. ‘No, no, we are from Bangalore. He is my friend.’

  The woman frowned. ‘I thought you were husband and wife. You would make a nice couple! Tell your parents to marry you off to him.’

  Smriti laughed in confusion. If only she could. Her eyes sought Rishi again.

  He touched her arm. ‘Are you going to stand here gossiping all day?’

  Then Smriti spotted the hoarding for the No-Pain balm. ‘Look, Rishi!’ She pointed. And everyone looked as well at Rishi on the hoarding. A series of Rishi straightening from a stiff back to playing a vigorous backhand, his tennis racquet slashing the air. A dashing, dapper Rishi men envied and women sighed over.

  ‘Do you act in the movies?’ a man asked.

  Rishi flushed. ‘No!’ he snapped.

  ‘You should!’ the man stated, oblivious to Rishi’s brusqueness. ‘You have that look about you! You would make a good movie star!’

  The women nudged Smriti. ‘He is very glamorous. You better be careful someone doesn’t steal him away!’

  ‘Have you met Rajanikanth?’ A boy who had heard just the tail end of the comment latched onto the ‘movie star’. He pulled at Rishi’s sleeve.

  Rishi shook his head and began walking away. ‘What about Vijaykanth? Prabhu? Surya? Dhanush? You don’t know anyone! How can you be a film star?’ The boy’s disappointment was a knife turning.

  Rishi crossed the road to a small copse of trees.

  ‘He is very shy!’ the women told Smriti.

  Smriti didn’t speak. She knew he was upset by any references to his career in the movies. He had acted in a couple of films but it had stayed there. A stillborn movie career was the worst thing to happen, he told her again and again. ‘At least when you are waiting for someone to discover you, you have reason to hope. But this is awful!’

  She slipped her hand into his. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He had to leave Bangalore. There was nothing there for him. He would have to move to Mumbai. And Smriti would have to accept that it was over.

  ‘What is this dump?’ Smriti asked, wrinkling her nose. She stood on one foot, her other foot lazily scratching the back of her calf.

  Rishi paused and looked up from the register he was writing in. ‘Well, this is all I can afford. There is a boutique hotel that’s come up a little way up the coast. But it’s too expensive for me. You can go there if you want!’

  Smriti shook her head and prodded him in his ribs. ‘You sound like you want to get rid of me. This is fine. It’s by the sea and I can hear the waves. And it is in Minjikapuram!’

  Then, once they were in the room, it didn’t matter. For when the boy flung open the door and the windows of the balcony, Rishi watched Smriti’s eyes glaze over. He saw her breathe in the sea. Then she was in his arms, tugging at the buttons of his shirt.

  ‘Make love to me here, Rishi. Make love to me with the sea and the skies as our witness,’ she urged, rubbing herself against him.

  Rishi held her away. ‘What? Here?’ he asked, suddenly revolted.

  ‘Why?’ s
he demanded, drawing circles on his back with her nails. ‘You don’t want to? You never seemed to get enough of me and now you act as if you can’t stand me.’

  ‘Not now.’ His voice was flat, his face expressionless. ‘I am not in the mood. Button up. Let’s go find something to eat. I am hungry.’

  Smriti sat huddled on the bed. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked abruptly. ‘Why do I get the feeling that you don’t want to be here? Don’t you, Rishi? Don’t you want to be here?’

  Rishi went back into the balcony. He could see the boats in the outer seas. There was a fishing village a little further up. ‘But don’t go wandering there,’ the man at the reception had warned. ‘Especially with a woman. They are all drunks. Drunken louts when they are on land.

  ‘There’s something else,’ the man had said. ‘I suggest you put some money in an envelope and leave it here with me. For the police. You don’t want them picking the two of you up for immoral trafficking, do you? And they will when they see you…’

  Rishi felt uneasy. In retrospect, it had been foolish to come on this trip with Smriti. Severance on familiar territory would have been more easily accomplished, he realized.

  He felt a curious heaviness within. He wished he could say what was on his mind. Have it over with her; get it out of his system. And then, perhaps, they could have a few decent days together. Going back to what they once were. Young, carefree, with no strings attached.

  Smriti was very excited about going on the trip. ‘Despite the laws and regulations, women still find a way of discovering the sex of their unborn babies. If not the women, their families. They abort the foetus if it’s a girl. Soon there may come a day when there are no women left,’ she said, laying out her clothes on the bed.

  ‘What is needed is awareness. To make the women realize that the girl foetus has to be given a chance. That they can find joy in their daughters too. It’s going to be hard work, thankless, too.’ Smriti was flushed with excitement. ‘I’ll be away for two to three weeks,’ she said. ‘I know most of the others think that I am a bleeding heart with no real resolve. But I want to show them that I care. I really care.’

  Rishi read the earnestness in her voice with relief. She just might loosen her tenacious hold on him. Shift her obsession to the unborn babies who would at least benefit from it.

  ‘When do you have to be there?’ he asked.

  ‘The first of March is what I have said. The first batch of volunteers must be there already. You know, don’t you, that I hate the thought of leaving you,’ she said, taking his palm and holding it against her cheek.

  Her skin felt clammy to his touch. Rishi felt a strange sadness envelop him. The surge of feelings she had aroused in him once had dwindled to this. A physical distaste and pity.

  ‘I’ll take you there,’ Rishi offered. ‘Let’s spend a couple of days together before you go on from there. We could go to Kodai. Or how about Minjikapuram? You keep talking about how wonderful it is… we could go there. It’s not too far from Madurai either.’

  ‘Would you? Really? I would prefer to go to Minjikapuram. My father used to talk about it all the time when I was a child.’ Smriti glowed. Perhaps it was the sparkle on her face that hardened his conscience further. This way it wouldn’t have to be done here, where it would be difficult to hide from her desperate pleas. For he knew that Smriti would cling. This way, the women and their unborn girls would keep her occupied for a while. By which time he would have left.

  Wine, she said. They would take wine to drink by the sea. ‘My father’s aunt used to live around there for a while. Papa spent a few days there, he said. That’s when he fell in love with the skies. Until then he had watched the sea but at Minjikapuram, he learnt to watch the sky as well.’

  So wine we need, she said, drawing up a list. And oranges and grapes. And pepperoni slices on a tray. They would have a moonlight picnic on the beach. The moon would be almost full then.

  ‘Smriti, Smriti,’ he said, breaking into her frenzied monologue. Giddy plans to entangle him with love and longing. Rishi kneeled at her side, thinking, how did I ever think this was love?

  ‘Ease up, will you? We are going by bus. The food won’t keep. We are going to stay in a lodge. They won’t have corkscrews or wine glasses. The beach may be a long walk away… who is going to lug all those things there?’

  In the end, he agreed with a resigned shrug to two cans of beer and a can of salted cashew nuts.

  ‘Why don’t you freshen up?’ he said, walking back into the room. ‘Let’s go for that walk when you are ready. Where’s the beer and nuts? I spotted a fridge in the shop outside. Let me ask them if they will chill it for us. We can go for your moonlight walk and then for dinner.’

  He would tell her tonight, he told himself. He couldn’t keep this going any longer.

  ‘But I couldn’t,’ Rishi says. ‘We went for a walk. We drank the beer and ate the nuts. I listened to Smriti talk. I was hoping for an opportune moment; a pause that I could fill. But it was as if the night air and the moon had infected her with a wildness. She ran in and out of the water, she twirled in circles. And then in one final swirl of recklessness, she leapt into the air and landed on a bit of broken glass.’

  There was nothing to do but wait the night out. There was no ice, but the shop next door provided two bottles of chilled Pepsi. There was no plaster, so Rishi tore up his T-shirt and bandaged the wound.

  Once they would have laughed about it. It was the kind of absurdity they found hilarious. She sat with her foot propped on his shoulder while he held a Pepsi bottle on either side of the foot to stop the bleeding. It was done in a silence punctuated by politeness. ‘Does it hurt?’ Rishi asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’

  ‘Later,’ she replied.

  This was a new Smriti. A quiet, reined in Smriti. Her meekness was like a rebuke. It made him uncomfortable. He wished he could just walk away. Close the door behind him and forget all that had to be dealt with very soon.

  Rishi, who allowed himself only three cigarettes a day, lit a fourth one and went out to the balcony. He felt her eyes on him as he inhaled and blew the smoke out, and as he continued to work his way through a pack of tens.

  He saw her wan face. His conscience niggled. She sat with her back to the wall, with her foot propped on the pillows. He knew she was waiting for him to go to her. Cuddle her and baby talk her as he used to in those first whirlwind days when a little cut on her thumb caused a vast reservoir of tenderness to burst forth. Now she was in pain. Her foot must be throbbing. But all he felt was a distant pity.

  IX

  Smriti didn’t want pity. She wanted him to love her. To be as they once were. So when he suggested they see a doctor, she disdained the offer to show him how upset she was with him.

  ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t fuss!’

  But he wouldn’t accept that. ‘The cut probably needs stitches. Don’t be idiotic! You need a tetanus shot and perhaps antibiotics. Look, I am already stressed out. Don’t add to it by being stubborn and sulking,’ he snapped.

  Smriti looked at him for a long moment. ‘Fine,’ she said.

  The nursing home was by the bus stand, the man at the reception said. He could call them an autorickshaw, he offered. Rishi looked at him in surprise. He was younger and much more friendly than the older man at the desk last night. The older man had watched Rishi help a bleeding Smriti up the steps of the lodge without a flicker of emotion. He hadn’t even bothered to ask, ‘What happened?’

  In the dim light of the hallway, Rishi had felt a great rage surge up in him at the man’s apathy.

  But the young man, as if to compensate, plied them with questions while they waited for the auto to arrive. ‘If I had been here, I would have asked you to stay away from the beach at night. It’s not safe at all. The fishermen drink and once they are drunk, they won’t stop at anything. It’s fortunate that you didn’t meet any of them,’ he said. />
  ‘What’s your name?’ Rishi asked.

  ‘Arul Raj. Why?’ His eyes quickened with interest.

  ‘I am surprised at finding someone like you here,’ Rishi said. Arul Raj shrugged. ‘I’ve been promised a job in Singapore. The moment the appointment letter arrives, I’ll be out of here. There is nothing for me here, sir. Nothing. I hate this town.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked abruptly. ‘This is not a tourist town. There is nothing… so how did you end up here?’

  Rishi shrugged. It was Smriti who answered, ‘I am part of a theatre group that’s touring Tamilnadu.’

  ‘How long will the auto take?’ Rishi demanded, suddenly impatient.

  Arul Raj, irked by Rishi’s imperious tone, reverted to being the polite stranger. ‘Soon,’ he said, opening the register.

  When Rishi went to stand by the gate, Smriti as if to make amends asked, ‘Is it a good nursing home?’

  ‘It is the only one we have. My sisters had their babies there.’ Arul Raj allowed himself to be drawn into a conversation again. ‘There is a government hospital at the Taluk headquarters but that’s ten kilometres away. So those who can afford it go to the Meenakshi Nursing Home.’

  ‘Who’s Meenakshi? The chief doctor?’

  ‘No, the chief doctor is actually a man. Dr Srinivasan. I think Meenakshi is his daughter. In fact, he owns this lodge too. And I think just about everything in this town!’

  Rishi appeared. ‘How much will the auto man charge?’ he asked Arul Raj.

  The young man’s eyes hardened. Then he saw Smriti wince as she placed her foot on the ground. ‘He’ll ask for fifty or sixty, seeing that you are out-of-towners. But you shouldn’t pay more than thirty.’ Turning to Smriti, he said in a voice softened by sympathy, ‘Do ask for Vasantha Sister. She is my neighbour. Please tell her that I sent you to her. She’ll help you.’