In the years to come, Pramesh would learn that his wife could speak of certain things with an ease unknown to him; she could breach the high walls of his silence and go straight to his deepest fear or worry and pull it out of him with a single tug. When she did it there, in the back yard of the farmer’s house, he was struck dumb.
“There was talk that I heard yesterday. About your elders picking someone else for you to marry,” she said. Her voice was calm and even and she continued to scrub each dirty dish with ash before rinsing it clean. “Is that why you left me here? Is that why you haven’t taken me back to your home?”
She was brave to ask that. But there was a slight quaver in her voice at the end, a tremor that sliced Pramesh’s heart. Of course that news had reached her ears, especially when she spent all day in the company of women. But worse than that: she had sat with that fact in her head all the previous day and all last night. Sitting in a stranger’s house when she should have been sitting in his; eating their food when she should have feasted on Bua’s cooking; talking to the Champa-maasi’s family when she should have been welcomed by the Elders and Sagar. And it had hurt her.
He’d betrayed her once by bringing her to this place. He would not lie to her as well. “It was a surprise to me. My father told me when I reached the house.”
They both stood at the same time. “Something happened,” she said.
He didn’t want to tell her, because he didn’t want to remember. Nothing good could come from passing around that pain. “Sagar is coming. He is so eager to meet you—he was scolding me because I hadn’t written in advance and he has nothing to give you. And he is bringing Bua.”
“Your father and uncle? Why aren’t we going to your home to meet them there?”
He didn’t know what to say. “It was supposed to be different,” he said at length. Her eyes caught his, and he felt the warm comfort of that gaze. “A whole year away, and nothing changed. They will never change.”
“Pramesh-bhaiya!” Divya came out, a girl he remembered from his and Sagar’s childhood trips to the well, her mother following. They exclaimed over Shobha, took the dishes from her, asked him about lunch, told him it was no trouble that Sagar and Bua would be arriving later. Champa-maasi wrapped her arm around his waist and pulled him toward the house. He glanced behind at Shobha just before they entered the house, to let her know that even if he wasn’t at her side, he was with her.
The hours passed slowly. He paced from the house to the road, then to the back yard, then back inside. Shobha had set herself to making pura, and his heart lifted a bit, smelling the buttery sweet batter hit the pan, imagining Sagar’s relish in eating food made by his wife’s hand.
“He was always late as a child,” Champa-maasi said as Pramesh entered the house after yet another round outside. He saw Shobha say something to the women, and they began to serve the midday meal, and he took himself outside yet again, irritation prickling his veins. They should have had the day to spend together. Where was he?
He quickly ate the food Shobha brought him, tasting nothing, ears alert for Sagar’s step. As Champa-maasi milled about, readying the afternoon’s chai, he decided he could wait no longer. “I will fetch him,” he told his wife, where she sat in the kitchen with the stack of uneaten pura wrapped in cloth. “Likely he got caught up in something and lost the time.”
She followed him outside, asking to come with him, but he kept walking. “I won’t be long.”
He walked quickly, dust blooming from his sandals as he walked the dry dirt road. What if both his father and uncle had an episode at the same time, one sobbing and pleading for Sagar, the other spouting curses and insults? Cutting across a field, halfway to the house, he saw the familiar gait coming toward him in matching haste, and he felt both relief and annoyance. Sagar was alone. His cousin spotted him, raised his hand in greeting, and ran lightly to meet Pramesh.
“Sorry, Bhaiya,” he said. “It was on my mind all morning but I got tangled in something else.”
“She was waiting,” Pramesh said, sharper than he intended. “As was I. Where is Bua?”
“She was tired,” Sagar said.
There was something odd in his manner, a glint in his eye that Pramesh did not recognize. He pushed away his disappointment. “Did something happen at home? What were you doing?”
“Nothing happened; I forgot the time,” Sagar said.
“Fine,” Pramesh snapped. “Will you keep your sister waiting even longer, or will we go?”
“Lead the way.” Sagar’s tone was clipped, his face set. Pramesh began walking, wondering how to improve the mood before they reached Shobha. But as he walked, he grew more and more irritated, until he stopped.
“This thing you say you were tangled in,” he said, rounding on Sagar. “What was it? What was so important?”
“We shouldn’t talk of it now,” Sagar said. “As you say, she is waiting.…” He began to walk, but Pramesh stepped in front of him, placed his hand on his cousin’s chest.
“Where were you? Why won’t you tell me?”
For a moment, he thought Sagar was ready to strike him. But his cousin merely stepped away from his hand, turned back in the direction he’d come from, turned again to face Pramesh. “I went to speak to her family. The girl’s.” His gaze flicked up and met Pramesh’s eyes. “I’d been thinking about it for a while. All those months going by, no answer from you. The Elders pretended like the agreement was still on, but the girl’s family realized soon enough. They felt cheated,” Sagar explained. “They had an understanding with the Elders, expecting a husband for her. It wasn’t fair to assume they would just let everything go—you on your way to Kashi, me here with the Elders, both of us living our lives while they still had an unmarried daughter.”
The words filtered into Pramesh’s brain slowly. “Bhaiya.…”
“It wasn’t right, what we did to them. So I agreed. I said I would marry her in your place.”
Pramesh felt himself sway, the field and Sagar all tilting, then righting themselves. “You can’t do this,” he said, his own voice sounding far way. His senses felt muted, as if his ears were stuffed with cotton. He remembered something. “What about Jaya?” The words burst out of him. “Would you really abandon her, just for the chance to placate the Elders?”
“I am abandoning no one,” Sagar said sharply. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them. “She is married.”
Pramesh stared. “When?”
“A month after you left.”
“You never said—you didn’t write a word—”
“What would you have done, if I did?” Sagar shot back. “You would have returned, immediately. You would have tried to fix it. And you would have humiliated us even more than the Elders already did. Too late, Bhaiya, it was too late. They destroyed any chance there was. Every family has their limits—what man will let his daughter live in the house of someone who has insulted him the way that those two are capable of?”
All those letters, with Sagar talking of himself, of farming, giving news from the village, and Pramesh writing whatever nonsense he’d sent in return. Asking about Jaya again and again. Those letters he’d waited so eagerly for, that he read repeatedly until the paper grew soft from his hands—none of it had been true. “What happened?”
“It isn’t worth saying.”
“I want to know.” He stepped closer to Sagar, as if his proximity might pull the words out of his cousin. Sagar stared at the ground, jaw working.
“After you left … they were furious. First they fought with each other, saying they’d agreed to send me, and that your father reneged on the bet. For hours, it lasted. Then came the drink, and they were quiet.” He pushed his palm up his forehead, back over his hairline. “They were quiet the next day. And the next. I had to go with Nitin the day after; he’d promised me a look at his brother-in-law’s farm. That’s when they decide
d to do it.” He scratched his throat. “They waited for a day when everyone would be at Jaya’s grandparents’ house—her parents, her aunts and uncles, her cousins. They paid the whole family a visit, as if they were just dropping by for chai. They began talking as if they really were there to discuss a match between the families. Only instead … instead….”
Sagar’s shoulders drooped, defeat on his face. Pramesh had never seen his cousin look that way, even during the Elders’ most violent rages.
“They held nothing back—every time they felt slighted by Jaya’s grandparents, all invented things, none of it real. Every petty thought and jealousy. And they spoke every possible insult—questioning her family’s line, their blood. By the time the Elders left…. It was lucky I didn’t meet any of her cousins on my way home.” Sagar said.
Pramesh could imagine it. A torrent of insults, spit one after the other, ugly thoughts erupting in uglier words, every blackness in the Elders’ characters fully revealed. If the village was unsure about the quality of the Prasad family, the Elders would have smashed any last doubt in that meeting. Theirs was a family not just to stay away from—it was one to run from. And that included the Prasad cousins.
“Where is she now?”
“Far.” Sagar looked at the ground, arms hugged to his chest, and gave a sad little laugh. “They took her away immediately, arranged a match with someone else. She married a university man after all. He took her to Agra.”
“Did you get to speak to her? Before she left, before the wedding?”
Sagar toed the ground with his sandal, creating a divot and building up a small hillock of dirt that powdered his toes, saying nothing. Pramesh wished that the impression Sagar was making in the ground would widen just large enough for him to lose himself in, for him to escape from this feeling of crushing guilt, the sickness rising in his throat. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He reached out, and Sagar stepped back.
“It’s done, Bhaiya. She is happy. Her eldest cousin made sure I knew that—along with every other detail of what the Elders said.”
“He never liked either of us,” Pramesh said, remembering that boy—now a man—spitting at his feet. Nothing but the son of a drunk.
Sagar waved his hands. “I was grateful that he told me. He owned me nothing after what happened that day. Leave it. Leave her.”
But Pramesh couldn’t. He kept thinking of his first weeks in the city, his dazed happiness as he walked the narrow lanes, exploring every turn, sitting on the ghat and daydreaming about what it would be like to create a life for himself there. And all the while, Sagar’s future had combusted, the Elders’ wrath like a lit match held to a butterfly. “Even if it is too late for her, it isn’t a reason for this, this other madness you’ve agreed to. I’m sorry for the girl, but we owe them nothing.”
“We do owe them something,” Sagar said, his tone weary. “There was a dowry.”
Pramesh swallowed. “How much?”
“Sizeable.” Sagar laughed, bitter. “Surprising, that they’d have so much money. But remember the man I told you about, the man who everyone said died because the girl bewitched him? They say the money was from his family. Bhaiya, the story—”
“Just give it back,” Pramesh said. “It wouldn’t be the first time for such a thing to happen. Blame me; tell them the fault is all mine; tell them I willfully defied the Elders.”
Sagar made a sound of impatience. “Do you really believe that the Elders would keep the money safe for all that time? Wait until the marriage was official before they touched it?”
Pramesh’s heart sank. “All of it?”
“There were loans on the land, Bhaiya. We weren’t living on soil that was ours. They never told us—I found out from Hardev-maasad.”
Too many things; too much pain Sagar had hidden from him. Pramesh’s thoughts scrambled to keep up. “We can repay it.”
“This isn’t just about the land, the money. It’s not the only reason to do this; it’s—”
“No. We can repay it. I’ll borrow what I can from Dharam-ji, and you’ll come back with me to Kashi; we’ll find you a posting somewhere; we’ll—”
“No.” Sagar held his hand up. “I gave them my word. The date is set. And I already told Bua and the Elders.”
Pramesh froze. There was something so final in Sagar’s voice, the old stubbornness and steel from before returning.
“They aren’t what you think,” Sagar began, but Pramesh cut him off.
“This is not your problem—it’s of the Elders’ making; let them fix it. And this girl’s family sounds no better —willing to sell their daughter to whoever names the right price. What did they say to you? How can you entangle yourself with a family like that? Isn’t the one waiting for you at home bad enough?”
“It isn’t like that! You said you felt sorry for her,” Sagar countered. “I was watching you yesterday. You felt pity for her—it was in your face. Even if her family is what you say, it means she’s just like us. Remember? She knows, Bhaiya. She will understand what we went through.”
“You knew you were going to do it?” Pramesh’s heart juddered. “You said you were watching me—this is something you planned on doing, then?”
“An idea,” Sagar half threw up his hands, paced a few steps and turned. “It was only an idea. I wasn’t sure they’d agree. But if you’d only listen to what they told me, only—”
“They told you a fairy tale, Bhaiya,” Pramesh said. “You were never one for such stories, and yet you believe one now?” He was breathing heavily, as if he’d run a great distance. “They are taking advantage of you, and you are letting them. Why must you always walk where you are never meant to go?”
“And what of our story? What of what everyone says about us? I was visiting with every family, seeing what I could learn from those farmers, but I also wanted to know where I stood with them. And do you know what I found out?” Pramesh watched Sagar pace back and forth, his feet pounding a rut into the dirt. “I began talking to them, really talking to them—not like a boy going to his aunt’s house, but like a man talking to his neighbors. And then I could see it. What they really thought of us. Pity, and disgust, and curiosity. Are these Prasad cousins like their fathers or they like their mothers?”
Pramesh waved his hands. “They will say what they say, it isn’t—”
“Listen to me, Bhaiya,” Sagar said. “I wanted to know how damaged we were, how people saw us. Now I know—and I am going to fix it. I won’t run away for a new life. The one I have now is good enough for me, and so is the Prasad name. And I will make everyone here realize that. That we are people of quality—we aren’t the Elders. And we fulfill our promises.”
Pramesh listened, watching Sagar’s voice rise and spit out the words in rapid bursts, watching his feet move back and forth in tight paces, feeling his anger increase with every one of his cousin’s steps. “Is that the knife they are holding over you? That they will smear our name unless you give yourself to them? Who cares what they think? And if you really care, why then are you marrying her, joining this family? You aren’t saving anyone by doing this—worse, you are dragging yourself down. Whatever she’s done, her story, her family’s story, all of it will drag you into the mud.”
He was echoing his father, but in this case he knew he was right: whatever Sagar thought he was doing would miss the mark, curving back around to strike him instead.
“Fine,” Sagar spat back. “I don’t want your blessing, Bhaiya, and I won’t wait for it. And why would you think that I need your permission to do anything?” His eyes bore into Pramesh. “You walked away; you didn’t even look back as the train pulled away. Do you know what it was like when you left? Like I was living in a house of silence, of ghosts. You ran off, pushed me from your mind, started a new life. Why are you pulling me back from mine?”
Pramesh felt winded. “You made me promise,”
he stumbled, “You told me not to look back.” His mind flew back to that day, the train, trying to recall Sagar’s words. Had he misremembered?
“You keep begging me to join you, to run away like you did. Can’t you see how selfish it is? Not once have I asked you to stay here with me. Do you know why?”
“Because there is nothing left here, for either of us. And if you remain, they will destroy you; you will be eaten from the inside. Even now you are a pawn, playing right into their hands, fulfilling a contract they had no right to make with that girl’s family. No different than the children we once were, accepting whatever punishment they doled out. It won’t end well. And when it all falls apart, what will you do?”
Fury filled Sagar’s eyes. “And what about you? You went there to take my place at the university, didn’t you? Did you ever meet that head of sciences? Did you attend a single class? Or did you hide yourself in that hostel from the first day? Doing what—watching people die? They aren’t even your own blood. Don’t forget—you weren’t there for the Mothers’ deaths. I was. It doesn’t matter how many other mothers you see die. It will never match what I had to see, alone.”
Pramesh listened, unable to respond, feeling the blood pounding in his ears.
“You see, Bhaiya. You aren’t the only one with things to say about the other’s life.”
When Pramesh found his tongue, the sound from his mouth was neither a laugh nor a sob, but something in between. “Is it my fault I knew nothing of how you felt? You lied to me, Bhaiya. Everything you said, everything you wrote—none of it was true.” His lips trembled. He felt he might shatter at the slightest touch.
“What good would the truth have done you? You’ve never had the courage to do the thing that has to be done. Even back then, if only you’d had the stomach to tell the Elders to their faces that you would take my place … I had to do it for you. I had to give you permission. And remember this: I never interfered with what you did after. When you shunned the university, when you surrounded yourself with dying folk in that forsaken hostel—I said nothing. Even when I thought you were wrong, being foolish, I never interfered. And I see you still need my permission. So be it: I release you from any obligation you have to this family. Go, go to your life in Kashi. Go to your bhavan. Go to your wife.”
The City of Good Death Page 38
