The City of Good Death

by Priyanka Champaneri

  Mrs. Gupta frowned at the sight of Rani’s round face and Shobha’s empty market bag. “You are too late today,” she said, pointing to the limp jute bag. “All the best bits will have been taken. You should have been here hours ago, as I was.” She held up her own bag, which overflowed with greens. She looked at Rani again and pointed a finger in the child’s face. “She looks peaked. What have you been feeding her? Sweets, probably, no proper nutrition?”

  Shobha shifted the girl to the other hip. “How is your family?” she asked.

  “Mailing something?” Mrs. Gupta said, ignoring Shobha’s question. “The postman’s wife is my fast friend; we’ve known each other since grade school. Did you know that?” She did not wait for Shobha to answer. “Who were you writing to?”

  “Just a relative.” Against her will, a deep flush erupted on Shobha’s cheeks. She tightened her grip on Rani.

  “But I thought you had no other relatives?”

  “A cousin.”

  “Hmm. How is your husband? Have you quarreled?”

  “Of course not.” Shobha did not hide the shock in her voice, but Mrs. Gupta only smiled.

  “Couples quarrel all the time. Ill-matched couples, especially.” She slid the coins in her palm back into her money bag. “But my nephew— oh, he is different.. You never met a more even-tempered man. And he treats his wife like a goddess. She thanks the great God every day for such a husband.”

  “As you say, it is late, and the markets will be closing soon—”

  “And what’s this I hear about your husband?”

  Shobha exhaled. “I couldn’t tell you. I never listen to gossips.” At this, Mrs. Gupta smiled even wider.

  “Well then, I’m sure you already know. It just seemed so strange for him to be walking near.… Well, you know.” The woman lowered her voice to a whisper that was yet still loud enough for any passerby to hear. “Where the bad women are. On the other side of the city.” The flush returned to Shobha’s cheeks. “Men will do that, you know,” Mrs. Gupta murmured. “If there is nothing keeping them at home.” She leaned forward, as if she wanted to say more, but she stopped when she saw the bhavan mistress’s face. Her own eyes narrowed.

  Shobha’s mouth twitched and her eyes sparkled, until she could contain herself no longer. The peal of laughter that escaped her lips was so loud that the folk passing in the lane stared openly at her, some smiling at what they assumed was a good joke. “So kind of you,” she managed to gasp out. “So kind of you to tell me.” The outrage on Mrs. Gupta’s face was enough to set Shobha off again, and she pulled the edge of her sari up to her mouth and bit down on the cloth, trying to stifle the sound. When she mastered herself, she bounced Rani on her hip, one hand reaching up to brush away the tears springing to her eyes above her aching cheeks. Mrs. Gupta was fumbling with her bags, her face awash in heat, her eyes furious. “I should be going,” Shobha said with a gentle hand on Mrs. Gupta’s shoulder. That woman turned her back without a word, and Shobha could only shake her head and try to catch her breath. She felt a brief prick of regret for her behavior—the woman was her elder, and Shobha should have had more control over her emotions. But, really! Her husband, wandering in the red-light district? The idea was so ridiculous that Shobha could not even picture it.

  And yet, despite Shobha’s good mood, nothing else went well for her that day. True to Mrs. Gupta’s prediction, the market stalls held only the last leavings, and after much back and forth with the vendors she was successful in buying only half of what she really needed for the evening meal. She arrived home late, a cranky Rani pulling at her hair. She was late with the chai, and in her haste, she added so much ginger that even Narinder, who sometimes partook but who never offered an opinion, opened his eyes wide at the first swallow. Pramesh merely blew at the liquid, his eyes distant, before putting down his still-full cup and ignoring it. Shobha thought to cheer him by telling him about what had happened to her that morning, but before she could start the story a crash sounded behind her. Rani had pried open the lid of the rice tin and upended the contents onto the floor, leaving nothing for the evening meal.

  “Rascal child!” Shobha gasped. Rani grabbed fistfuls of rice, smiling at the stream of grains falling between her fingers. Shobha stepped over the mess and grabbed the girl, hoping to salvage some of the rice, but her fingers touched the bruise on Rani’s arm, and the child shrieked and burst into tears. Before she could comfort the girl, Pramesh had come up behind her and scooped their daughter up into his arms.

  “Careful,” he said, his tone sharp. “It was an accident. Leave her.” He walked out of the kitchen with Rani, leaving Shobha amid the mess.

  She cleaned up the rice grains, her heart pumping, shame sending a rush of blood to her ears. The feeling remained all afternoon and evening as she cleaned the vegetables and sweated over the fire, and especially when Rani ran into her arms, the earlier incident already forgotten. But after everyone had eaten, after the priests, Mohan, and Sheetal had thanked her for the meal, after she had cleaned the dishes and the kitchen and after she’d had a moment to think, her shame turned into something else. Anger rose at the back of her throat and radiated down to her stomach. Ever since the day Rani was cut at the Mistry house, Shobha had felt that the mantle of guilt was hers to wear. Pramesh certainly had not tried to make her feel otherwise. For days, his every action and look seemed to imply that she was a neglectful mother. She, who had to be everything to everyone, who reserved every worry, every prayer, every thought for her daughter and husband. Who dealt with her husband’s moods and infuriating silences, his secrets that drove her to go seeking for answers herself.

  That night, after she’d tucked the blankets around Rani and drew the privacy curtain around her daughter, she lay in bed, careful not to let any part of her touch her husband. She was conscious of his every movement, his every breath. Anger kept her awake, and so when Rani woke a few hours into the night, throwing her blankets aside and kicking at the privacy curtain, Shobha was quick to get up, quick to rest a cool palm on the child’s hot forehead and fetch her a glass of water, to hold her daughter’s hand until she fell back asleep. Only when she turned back to the bed did she see that Pramesh was also awake, observing her.

  “Is she well?”

  These words after his long silence sparked the anger that had smoldered hot inside of Shobha for hours, and she struggled to control her tone. “She is asleep, finally.”

  “I noticed another bruise.”

  “She was with you all afternoon.”

  Pramesh blinked. He peered at her in the dark. “I am only worried.”

  “I am the one who is with her, always,” Shobha said, her voice rising. “But you—you were gone for hours yesterday. Wandering in such places.…”

  Pramesh sat up. “What places?”

  The words escaped Shobha before she could stop them. “Everyone is talking about it. Places where family men do not go.…” She clapped her hand over her mouth, instantly contrite. There was only malice in everything that Mrs. Gupta ever said; why would Shobha think to accuse her husband now, with that, with the thing that she herself did not even believe?

  He was silent, but she recognized the look on his face from the many times he’d been confronted with an especially hysterical family. “They do not speak an untruth,” he said. He looked down at the thin blanket and picked at the threads. “I was there, or close to it.” Shock sealed her mouth. “I was looking for Sagar-bhai. I was searching for the last hours of his life.”

  “In that place?”

  “Not there, exactly.” His eyes flicked to her, hesitating. Then his mouth opened, and the words spilled out. The false bhavan, the boy, the notebook; the near miss when Mohan turned Sagar away.

  Shobha felt a tight knot loosen within her as she listened. When Pramesh was finished, they sat quietly for some time, side by side on the bed. She felt him reach out, his fingers se
arching for hers. She could picture everything as he spoke, his walk to the other Shankarbhavan, the scene inside, the boy with his carefully written words, the story within the story that her husband told. But all she could think of was someone else entirely. Who would tell Kamna the story? If she were that other woman, if Pramesh had been the one who was sick, who had died and left her a widow, she would want to know everything. Every detail of every minute of his final day.

  She chanced a look at him in the dark. When will he be here? We are waiting. The letter was in her almirah; it was a moment’s effort to get out of bed and fetch it for him to read. But she wasn’t sure what his reaction would be. “Should we write to them? His wife, his in-laws?”

  “What for?”

  “To tell them what happened, what you found out today.”

  His hand lifted from hers. “I already wrote that family twice before.”

  And I’ve written twice as well, Shobha wanted to say. “What about just her?” she asked. “If we write specifically to her—”

  “How do we even know she is there?” Pramesh cut her off. “They may have all moved on by now; her elders probably sold the land and pocketed the money, all to escape those stories.”

  Shobha’s breath caught, heart pounding. “What stories?” She spoke slowly and carefully, as if she were trying to convince Rani to do something she very much did not want to do.

  “That she knew how to bewitch men,” he said. “Make them follow her, fall in love with her. Foolishness.” He exhaled deeply. He repeated to her what he’d told Narinder.

  A new feeling tingled within her. A woman like that might be capable of anything. Black magic. The ability to cast the evil eye. Silly things, silly accusations.… Gossip at the well, at the market, in the kitchen of a neighbor. But a small voice in her head persisted. Sometimes, such stories carried a thread of truth. A slow wash of unease ran through her veins, and she thought of the letter she’d mailed just that morning. Her fingers curled inward, the nails cutting into her palms. She should have waited. She knew no more about Kamna than she did ten years ago. Why hadn’t she waited to mail it?

  “He was sick,” Pramesh interrupted her thoughts. Something in his voice made her look closer at him, trying to make out his features in the dark.

  “But they let him go,” she said. Again, she put Pramesh in that place, herself in Kamna’s. What could be so important that he would need to leave the city, take a long and tiring journey, when his body was deteriorating? She would have blocked the door, would have held onto his feet and pulled him back into the bhavan before allowing him such a thing. “If he was as sick as you say—dying—why would they have let him leave?”

  He held his hands up in a helpless gesture, then let them drop. “He needed someone, he needed a family, an equal partner. But he had no one, at the end.”

  There was a quality of sadness and hopelessness in his voice that penetrated her bones. She picked up his hand and squeezed it between her warm palms.

  ***

  Pramesh stayed awake for a long while. He remembered the old holy tree he’d visited as a child, the fight he’d had with Sagar, who scoffed at superstitions; Sagar, who preferred the logic of self-determination and will over the dubious boons of a village-designated idol. To abandon that so suddenly, to alter that essential part of himself and place his hopes in a dream, a fairytale told by a strange child in a strange city.…

  He saw Sagar getting into the boat, pushing off with such desperate purpose. He saw the weak arms pulling the oars, the legs bending and straightening in an unfamiliar motion, propelled by the darkness of Magadha, so tantalizingly close. He felt the same fear Sagar must have felt as the river took control of the boat, shuttled it wherever the strong currents willed, pushed it further into darkness. Did his resolve waver, then? In that moment, did he wish for dry ground, for a return to the city and the chance to see Pramesh? No matter—in the end, the temptation of surmounting death, of eluding the Bearer for just a little longer had sealed Sagar’s fate. He must have held such hope as he bent his body to the water, scooping the holy river into trembling palms, lips burning to taste that miracle that would give him the thing he wanted most, and then, then, then.…

  28

  The rains poured and poured and poured until finally they stopped, and the monsoon season ended. What was wet became dry, what was submerged became visible, the ghats seeming to rise out of the river, the buildings growing out of the ground, the city stretching upward and unfurling from its submissive curled state like the many-hooded serpent king Kaliya rising up from the river. Folk emerged from their homes, blinking and anticipating the festival season that would arrive in two months. Inside Shankarbhavan, the mood was one of purposeful determination.

  Narinder sat cross-legged on a low stool in the priest’s quarters, scrutinizing a star chart and counting out mysterious figures on the knuckles of his right hand.

  “Today?” Pramesh asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Narinder said. “We will leave early.”

  Pramesh busied himself, taking inventory of the rooms, checking the state of the rope beds and blankets, making note of which rooms needed replacements. He strode from room to room inspecting the windows and doors for squeaky hinges and faulty locks, looking over the water tank, assessing the fastness of the main gate, tackling the paperwork and old files in his office and fiddling with the budget so that he might buy newer linens. When his thoughts began to wander, he forced himself to think only of the next hour, the next day, and everything that needed to be done.

  ***

  Shobha watched him from the kitchen. She knew what the end of the rains meant for Pramesh, but her mind still went to Kamna, as naturally as a bird alighting on a favorite perch. Something about what her husband had revealed kept asserting itself in her mind. She pushed it away. Perhaps, she thought, with the exorcism of her husband’s cousin’s spirit, she could also exorcise that man’s wife from her thoughts.

  The thick sound of a clearing throat alerted her to Mohan standing at the door. Rani was sick with yet another cold, and the assistant offered to do the marketing for Shobha. “Just one second, Mohan-bhai,” she said with a smile of apology. “I have nothing ready. Ah, and I have all my writing things upstairs.… Maybe you don’t need a list? Just some ginger, potatoes, coriander? And I have run out of black sesame seeds as well.” She would have continued with the few more trivial things she needed, but Mohan held his hand up in a limp motion.

  “I think,” he said, “it is better if you write them for me, ji. I do not want to forget and come back and disappoint everyone. I don’t want to forget my duty.”

  She looked up, assessing his face. “Mohan-bhai, you always do your duty.” She thought of what Pramesh had said about Mohan turning Sagar away from the bhavan. She never interfered between her husband and the assistant, but something in his tone—or in how he couldn’t look at her and instead looked at Rani who sat curled on the rope bed—alerted Shobha to the sadness emanating from the assistant’s figure like a haze. He was tired, dark circles stamped his eyes with a haunted look, and his usual cheerful greeting came unaccompanied with the joke or bit of gossip that he always had at the ready. “Are you well?” She received no answer but a drooping smile. “Just one more day, and then it will be over. Narinder-ji will begin the rites tomorrow. We all just need some patience and strength.”

  Mohan’s eyes flickered up to meet hers. “I didn’t do it on purpose, Bhabhi. I wanted to tell him. But it was my fault. I accept it.”

  Shobha wagged her head slowly, unsure, yet wanting to provide comfort.

  “But one thing. If you could only tell me—he was angry, and he was right to be angry. But before then, on the day that Kishore came—does Pramesh-ji know that I was right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ah, Bhabhi, tell me that Pramesh-ji knew the weaver was dead, that I did not make a mistake!�
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  “Well, I—” Shobha faltered. She’d seen the lie her husband had told about the weaver as a sacrifice Pramesh had made for the bhavan and the family. She hadn’t thought of Mohan then at all, and now realized what a blow it must have been for him. “What I mean to say,” she began, trusting her tongue to find its way, “is that he did what he thought was best. And we must follow him in that.”

  He did not look well. He sighed and seemed to shrink within himself. Shobha dipped a clean metal tumbler into the clay water pot nearby and carried the full cup to the assistant. As he drank, Shobha spoke. “He was dead,” she said. “You were right. And my husband was wrong to say otherwise.” Mohan ceased drinking, but this time she would not meet his eyes. She excused herself to fetch a pen and paper. “The list,” she said as she hastened up the stairs. “I will get you the list so you may be on your way.”

  Once in her room, she leaned against the old wooden almirah, trying to remember the market items that had seemed so necessary minutes ago. Her face felt heavy and hot, as if all the exertions of her heart were working to pump blood to her head only. The very ends of her hair burned. But she gathered herself, reaching her wrists up so that the metal bangles she wore might cool her face. She uncapped a green glass bottle and rubbed a small amount of oil into her temples. The pungent medicinal smell cleared her mind, and she remembered her errand. She slipped out a torn scrap of paper from the small pile she kept for such things and then rummaged for a pen. And then she spotted something in the pile.

  Your Sister, Shobha.

  It was one of the versions of her most recent letter to Kamna, every word labored over, only for her to tear the paper into four equal squares for later use and to try again on a fresh sheet. Only now it delivered a truth that was achingly stark in its simplicity. She had just betrayed her husband. She had not told a lie, and her intentions were for the best, but still—she had spoken words against her husband, who had given her comfort after her father died, who had never breathed a word of reproach as her womb refused to hold fast to the soul that had entered and fled before Rani, who’d ignored his family’s wishes and put her before all. She could not have done worse if she’d announced to a bhavan full of priests and guests and dying folk, and to stragglers in the lane, within Pramesh’s hearing, that he was guilty of wrongdoing.