House of the Sun

by Meira Chand

  ‘Can it be like that, Ama? Can such a thing happen?’

  ‘If the child is not normal, then it can happen. Are you all right now, daughter?’ Rekha bit her lips to stop a sob.

  ‘I have a fever still, and I cannot stand.’

  ‘Have they called a doctor?’

  ‘She came last night and gave me medicine. It is the same one I saw yesterday, who told me this would happen. After I saw her the pain began. How could she know the baby was unhealthy? She could not see it, unborn within me.’ Lakshmi sobbed.

  ‘Calm yourself, daughter. Doctors know such things. How are we simple people to tell? Do not upset yourself now, it is over. You must rest. The next child will be strong.’

  ‘How can I rest when already she wants me to work. I cannot stand and I must clean the rice and the dal, and make dough for chapatis as usual, and so many other things. Let me return to you, Ama.’

  ‘If you return now, in this condition, they will not take you back again. They will say you cannot make healthy children. They will turn this against you, as an excuse to be free of us. I have understood them now,’ Rekha said.

  ‘I shall run away,’ whispered Lakshmi.

  ‘Do not be so stupid.’ Rekha raised her voice. ‘Do you not understand your position if you allow him to be rid of you? His life would not change, they would marry him quickly again. One way or another you must stay in that house, otherwise your life is ruined. Go now and rest. Clean the rice later in the evening. You will feel stronger then.’

  She lay down again upon the bed. Her mother did not understand. All that mattered to her was that Lakshmi stay married; at what price was immaterial. In a corner of the room pigeons had flown in through the broken window, and settled upon boxes stored above a cupboard. They purred, sharp-eyed with passion. Beneath them were straggling bits of straw and she knew they would try, as they had in the past, to nest upon the cupboard. Mrs Samtani had had the sweeper brush them away, and smash their eggs, muttering words about their filth. But Lakshmi would have liked to see them there, full-throated and demonstrative. She would let them stay for as long as she could. She turned her face on the pillow, her skin was hot and dry. She went over it all again in her mind; even her mother said it could happen as it had. But she could not dislodge from her memory the strange comment Hari had made in the night, in the midst of her pain.

  ‘It is good it is done with. It was the best solution.’ The words repeated in her. She buried her face in the pillow, and the tears she had thought had dried up appeared to flow again.

  11

  The rats of Sadhbela were large and arrogant. Daylight did not deter them. They scuttled about the inner wells of the building, rich in a variable rubbish of cabbage stalks, vegetable peelings and tea leaves, tossed casually from windows. Lokumal stopped before the open door of this noxious inner courtyard in the early morning. The sweepers were at work, cleaning and clearing. He nodded approval, and continued on his way to Dr Subramaniam’s surgery in one of the vacant garages of Sadhbela. Several times each week, since a bout of heart trouble some years before, Lokumal came in the early mornings for Dr Subramaniam to check his blood pressure.

  Originally, Dr Subramaniam, being of a different community, had not lived in the building; the garage had only been rented to him. But his presence was found indispensable for the welfare of Sadhbela. He had moved in with his family, one of the few non-Sindhis in Sadhbela, and placed his board above the entrance of one of the garages, thirty five years before.

  ‘Doctor Sahib,’ Lokumal called, but the garage was deserted, the door stood open. Water dripped from a broken pipe above the entrance into a permanent puddle. The surgery was an austere place, with a rexine sofa and an examination couch ripped in places. A few wooden chair frames without seats were lined up against a wall, a glass-fronted Victorian cupboard held mugs of rusty instruments. Across the middle of the room stood a battered desk. As Lokumal prepared to call again, Dr Subramaniam drew up outside in an ancient Fiat car, its red cross rubbed to antiquity. A child servant emerged from behind him carrying his medicine case.

  ‘Morning emergency,’ Dr Subramaniam explained. ‘Sit down, Dada Lokumal. Soon I shall be with you.’ He picked up his blood pressure kit. Lokumal placed before him a plastic bag of bottles.

  ‘These will be useful to you,’ he said. He had begun his preparations for death already, emptying his room of rubbish. He wished to leave nothing behind that posterity would not value. Medicines had accumulated over the years in his room; drums of old vitamin pills and eye drops, half-bottles of cough or digestive mixtures, pills from forgotten bouts of diarrhoea. A pile had been collected and examined by Lokumal, to be sure all were beyond expiry date and of no further use to the family. Dr Subramaniam was delighted. Occasionally others in the building brought him similar bagfuls of drugs. These he dispensed for a reduced fee to servants, the hutment population, or any vagrants who came to his surgery.

  Once, Jyoti had taken offence at this practice, and became unreasonably righteous with Dr Subramaniam. ‘You take money for nothing from these poor people. Your medicines are so old they are useless,’ she said. She had not the acceptance of long association nor the memory of bitter times, as had Lokumal, when Dr Subramaniam’s services, however rudimentary, had proved indispensable.

  Dr Subramaniam’s eyebrows were thick, and rose and fell as he talked to Jyoti. Hair sprouted from his ears. ‘For the rich, time is important, they need the short cut of potent drugs. The poor can take disease at their leisure. But how much greater is the curative power of trust, when I give them a bottle of something. Therefore these medicines are far from useless, even if expired five years before. Bring me also whatever you have. We have a duty to help our poor,’ he said. Jyoti had stormed away. It had taken all Lokumal’s persuasion to defuse the doctor’s bewilderment.

  Dr Subramaniam breathed asthmatically, bending to wind the grey bandage about Lokumal’s arm, and then pump up the blood pressure kit. ‘A little higher than usual,’ he announced. ‘Any new anxiety?’ Lokumal shook his head with a look of sustained innocence. ‘I will give you a prescription,’ he said, heaving himself up.

  As Lokumal came out of the surgery, he took a deep breath of the cool morning air. The sun moved upon the sea; the beach was white and peaceful. The sound of waves mixed with the first rhythmic ‘vlump vlump’ of beaten washing in the dhobi ghat. A flock of parrots in a mango tree rose above his head in a thick, green cloud. Beyond the gate the early morning walkers – men with dogs, stout, stately couples, young people in jogging shoes – were revolving about the vicinity of Sadhbela. Lokumal was saddened by how soon he must part with these first sights of the day, that seemed now suddenly precious to him. He gave himself a shake, recognizing a further test in the business of attachment, and turned towards the gate where he had seen Mrs Hathiramani feeding a sacred cow.

  At seven-thirty each morning Mrs Hathiramani, as prescribed by Bhai Sahib, had given an order for the presence of a cow. She would have preferred the beast to arrive before seven, to start her day early, but the cow-woman was a stubborn old crone. First, she said, she had to pick the cow up from its owner in Worli, from whom she rented it for ten rupees a month. Then, she had to walk the cow to Sadhbela through areas where people, just as much in need as Mrs Hathiramani of propitiating the gods, were also waiting to feed it. Even as Mrs Hathiramani stood with a silver tray of food before the creature, other people assembled about her, waiting with offerings. If they had no offerings, they interrupted Mrs Hathiramani’s concentration by haggling with the cow-woman over the price of a handful of hay from her sack to feed the animal.

  Mrs Hathiramani greeted Lokumal as he approached. Some vagrants had gathered about her as she stood before the cow. They rubbed their stomachs and pointed to their open mouths in a disagreeable manner; Mrs Hathiramani turned her back upon them. The tray was heaped with thick chapati and an assortment of foods.

  ‘Bhai Sahib has told me the cow must eat dal, sweetmeats and
fruit. Oh ho, so angry was Mr Hathiramani, and such a big lecture I have had from him upon the wastage of food. He does not understand these things.’ The cow spat out a lump of stale sweetmeat Mrs Hathiramani had hoped to be rid of. The cow-woman, a bow-legged, bright-eyed woman with a shrivelled face and silver toe-rings, stuffed it back into the cow’s mouth. The cow swallowed, and then rolled her great tongue about Mrs Hathiramani’s tray, to finish the last of the dal. Mrs Hathiramani flicked some consecrated water over the animal’s head from a small brass pot, and threw the rest over her hooves. She gave the cow-woman several rupees, and then walked back to Sadhbela with Lokumal, turning once to admonish the vagrants who, in angry agitation, yelled uncomplimentary remarks, still pointing to their mouths.

  When Lokumal entered his home, Prakash and his family were already seated at the breakfast table, the two children upright and correct, Prakash behind the newspaper.

  ‘Come Daddyji, sit with us, please,’ Jyoti said at once in her pleasantest tone. Lokumal hesitated; he had not yet relented, but he missed sitting with them all and the chatter of his two grandchildren, Bina and Ravi. They looked up at him now with the apprehensive expressions of two small mice, aware of some family dislocation beyond their comprehension. He sighed.

  ‘Grandad, please do sit with us,’ they chorused in a well-rehearsed way, instructed no doubt, thought Lokumal, by their mother. He took a quick look at the table and saw only scrambled eggs, toast and fruit. Prakash put down the paper and appeared to hold his breath. Jyoti quickly poured out a cup of tea before Lokumal’s place, reserved for him still at the table. She had been careful, in spite of his withdrawal, always to lay his usual place.

  ‘Grandad is sitting down.’ The children bounced up and down in excitement.

  ‘Bina, don’t make such a noise when you drink milk. Ravi, hold your knife like this, not like that,’ Jyoti ordered to cover her relief. She was anxious at this early age to instill into her children a proper regard for Western manners.

  Lokumal silently accepted the tea. He thought with regret how, since the death of his wife, he could no longer openly enjoy the pleasure of drinking his tea from the saucer. Jyoti had told him that some things, for the sake of Bina and Ravi, would have to change. Such homely practices as drinking tea from saucers, and having no knives or forks at the table, were a bad influence upon the children; their future must be considered. Looking now at the sparse fare before him, Lokumal remembered past breakfast tables, littered with plates of thick, hot koki, bowls of steaming khoya in the winter, omelettes wet with oil and onions, and his mouth began to water.

  ‘Toast? Cornflakes? Fruit?’ Prakash pushed things towards his father.

  ‘I will take only one banana,’ Lokumal replied.

  ‘Shall I mash it with milk as you like it, Daddyji?’ Jyoti began at once to peel the fruit. ‘Shall I have the cook make a koki for you?’ she offered in sudden atonement.

  Lokumal shook his head, not wishing them to think he had retracted from his stand. He had noticed the dust in the room, and a pile of wood shavings and planks in a corner. He could already make out the frame of the bar, the route by which the further taint of alcohol was to contaminate his home. His distress at these happenings had mounted unbearably, as if to test him in these last days of his life. Sitting now at the table, the half-erected bar before him, the shameless short hair of his daughter-in-law encapsulating all her misguided thoughts, the absence of wholesome breakfast food, and in the kitchen those unbearable lumps of flesh, he felt an uncomfortable heat in his chest. He shut his eyes and a verse of the Gita came into his head.

  ‘A man of disciplined mind who moves among the objects of sense with the senses under control and free from attachment or aversion, he attains purity of spirit.’ He repeated it silently to himself and felt calmer.

  ‘I shall sit with you for breakfast, if there is nothing to upset me,’ he said aloud. ‘If at other times the table is pure you may call me, and I shall consider whether or not I shall sit with you. Otherwise, I shall continue as I have been doing.’

  The children clapped their hands and bounced around. ‘Grandad is sitting with us again.’ Lokumal smiled and patted their heads, and popped pieces of banana into their mouths with his fingers.

  Prakash grinned in relief. ‘We want only to move forward with the times.’

  ‘I do not wish to speak more about it,’ Lokumal decided. ‘My job is only to keep myself pure.’

  The matter of his own purity amidst such taint, so close now about him in his own home, was a work of some diligence. It was vital that his room remained pure; that he did not dwell with putrefaction, breathing in foul ether. He had blocked up the keyhole with cotton wool, and across the bottom of his door he laid a plump snake of fabric Jyoti had bought for him at a school bazaar, to ward off the monsoon draughts. The thing had button eyes and a red felt mouth, and leered sympathetically at him. Each evening the servant lit frankincense, fanning it until the thick, sweet smoke filled all corners of his room, cleansing it of the day’s taint.

  Now, in the peace of his room, filled with the light sun of the morning, he settled upon his bolsters and set up his tape recorder. He began to recite a prayer, composed by Swamiji upon the banks of the Ganges. Bhai Sahib had suggested that, as well as incense, the constant intonation of prayer would create an impenetrable barrier about him.

  ‘But I cannot recite prayers all day, much as I would like to,’ Lokumal protested. ‘It is not practical.’

  ‘For what do we live in these modern times?’ Bhai Sahib inquired. ‘It is convenient nowadays to use a tape recorder. Record your voice and play it through the day; the effect is the same and energy is saved.’

  Lokumal heard his grandchildren preparing to leave for school, and soon they knocked on his door, as they were used to before the present crisis, to say goodbye to him. He could not refuse them entry, or deny the affection in their faces by telling them the room was a sealed place. They flung the door open, letting in wafts of contaminated air, they danced about his bed. He sighed as he put his arms about them.

  ‘What is this for, Grandad?’ they asked, looking at the tape recorder. Lokumal’s face lit up; perhaps in his grandchildren, if not in his son, he would find true heirs.

  ‘Tonight you shall hear it,’ he promised, and thumped the satchels on their backs with a great laugh. They jumped about, excited to be back in his room with its picture gallery of saintly men upon the walls, to fire their fantasy.

  ‘Tonight also you will tell us stories, like always?’ Bina inquired, anxious for a return to normality.

  ‘Yes, yes. Go now, your mother is waiting to take you to school.’ He smiled, not caring now about the open door. The sight of the children in his room, as happy as he at reunion, seemed to obliterate all else.

  Only when they had gone did his depression return, when he realized how soon he must leave them. A pain tore through him that he recognized sadly as another jerk on the rope of attachment. All he had thought overcome was now descending upon him, as a last and rigorous test. He arranged himself in lotus position, and ordered his concentration. He started the tape recorder again, and summoned up the words of prayer.

  12

  Mrs Murjani let the binoculars drop and sat down in shock before the window. Her heart pounded in her chest. The day, until now, had developed well. There had been a phone call after lunch from a woman journalist, wishing to interview her for an article in a national magazine about the wives of prominent businessmen. A date had been set for the interview and, putting down the phone, Mrs Murjani walked to her bedroom window and its pinnacle view. The panorama of the sea always filled her with a powerful feeling, and now she felt it was in tune with her new importance. All India would see her in the magazine as a leader of society; her heart already fluttered. Slowly, she allowed her gaze to wander from the far corner of Nepean Sea Road, over thick trees and the red tiled roofs of government bungalows, to the apartment blocks about Sadhbela. The sea extended in an arc be
yond the squalor of the hutments, the cremation ground, where smoke hung in the air, and the dhobi ghat with its plethora of washing draped over rocks behind the tide. To the far left was the huge and legendary tank of fresh water, said to have sprung from a single arrow shot into the ground by Rama. Upon the steps about it the pious bathed. Temples and the houses of priests were crammed about the tank. Beyond stretched the sea about Malabar Point. On the rocky shore before the dhobi ghat, a splash of yellow on a moving figure halted Mrs Murjani’s gaze, and made her step closer to the window. She rushed to retrieve from her husband’s cupboard a pair of binoculars, the pleasant flutterings of her heart turning to uncomfortable pounding. There was no mistake; dressed in jeans and a bright yellow shirt, Rani stood on the rocks beyond the dhobi ghat with that disreputable Sham Pumnani. Mrs Murjani, her hand shaking slightly, held up the binoculars again. As she watched Rani turned and threw her arms in embrace about Sham. Mrs Murjani dropped the binoculars with a gasp, and sank down in the chair behind her.

  *

  ‘The thing is, are you really in love with him?’ Pinky had asked the day before, lying on her bed, frizzy hair tied back, her face covered by a face pack. It had been laboriously made from rice and blanched almonds, ground to a paste in a pestle and mortar. Rani smoothed some of the mixture on to her own face before Pinky’s mirror.

  ‘And the other thing is,’ Pinky continued, ‘is he in love with you? Has he tried to kiss you yet?’

  ‘No …’ Rani was forced to admit. ‘He’s fighting his feelings,’ she decided, staring at Pinky out of great flesh-edged holes in a white face. Pinky tried to smile, but could not beneath her tightening skin. Her eyes, bright in an equally ghoulish face, stared back at Rani.