Authors: Meira Chand
‘I was never beaten. And in these modern times, and in such a family?’ Rekha said.
‘Time changes nothing, and what family?’ Chachi snorted, settling her scarf about her shoulders, pulling it down to cover the slack heap of sagging breast. ‘So much big talk there was to get our Lakshmi, and in the end what do they own? Only upper half of one small house in Mahim, shared downstairs with
Samtani’s
elder brother, and belonging to neither for they are only sitting tenants. And car also belonging to the brother, and so old it is hardly ever moving, and
needing
always one new part or another. They have cheated us. Only after the wedding have we learned these things. You were in such a hurry.’
‘Still, I believe the match was good,’ Rekha insisted. ‘Hari is a nice boy. His business is good. And a sitting tenant is like owning the house; forever it will be theirs.’ She spoke cheerfully, for she did not want Lakshmi to guess her own disappointment at the revelations Chachi spoke of. She had not slept well for weeks from worry about Lakshmi, whose face was pinched and yellow now. Rekha picked up the knife and began
chopping
again. The cut leaves oozed and sent up a powerful scent. Lakshmi continued adding leaves to the pile, she hung her head low over her work.
‘Nothing will please her until what was promised is paid in full,’ Lakshmi whispered. Neither Rekha nor Chachi replied. They sat in silence under this new weight.
‘But Sham has paid,’ Rekha answered at last. ‘The matter is finished.’
Lakshmi shook her head. ‘They say now the amount
he paid was only a first instalment. They are still
waiting
for the rest.’ Lakshmi drew a sharp breath, her eyes glassy with tears again.
‘That is a lie,’ Rekha gasped. ‘They accepted our offer. Sham was clear he could pay no more. It was understood.’
‘Why should we pay more when they have cheated us, spoken lies to us, made out they were such big people?’ Chachi shouted. ‘They wanted our Lakshmi, she is a beautiful girl. For such a defective boy they were lucky to get such a girl.’
‘Ssh,’ Rekha quietened her for Lakshmi’s sake. ‘The fault is ours. We should first have tried to know them better.’
‘You should not have listened to those women,
busy-bodies
, arranging things only for their own pride,’ Chachi answered.
‘Ssh,’ Rekha repeated and turned to Lakshmi. ‘Often in the beginning there are these difficulties. Only please her as she wishes. Now you are married, they can do nothing.’ She forced herself to smile. ‘We shall speak with Sham tonight. He will make them understand they cannot behave with us like this.’
Lakshmi smiled to cheer her mother, but the thought of returning to Mahim ripened suddenly in her, filling her with terror.
The house was some distance from the main road, at the back of a scrap-metal yard. It rose from behind the shells of rusted trucks, and mounds of twisted steel. Old tyres lay strewn amidst weeds and a few stalks of maize. The house blended with the yard, shrouded in dilapidation, balcony railings eroded, splintered window shutters hanging by a hinge. On the upper floor a row of thickly leaved plants in terracotta pots was the only bright note. Part of the roof of the lower verandah had long ago caved in. Some chickens picked beneath a nim tree, a goat gnawed a rope tethering it to a stake. Sham made his way up the outside staircase, to the Samtanis’ home. Mr Samtani’s elder brother and his family occupied the ground floor.
Mr and Mrs Samtani and Hari assembled in their living room. Sham sat down, aware all goodwill was gone. Lakshmi served him a cold drink but nothing edible on a firm and audible order from her
mother-in-law
. She came to squat silently beside his chair, her hair hung in a single plait over one shoulder. He was shocked at how thin she had become, and at the
expression
in her face. He understood immediately his mother’s distress. Hari and his parents took their seats before him, across a low wooden table scarred by the ring marks of wet glasses, silent and sour-faced.
‘I have heard from Lakshmi that you are not
satisfied
, and have many bad things to say about us.’ Sham gave a short laugh. Mr Samtani looked down at his feet, but his wife stared fixedly at Sham.
‘When people do not keep their word, what then are others to say? This was not what we expected,’ Mrs
Samtani replied. Mr Samtani observed his knees, Hari grimaced silently. Mrs Samtani had dark, pitted skin, and a cleft of pock marks on her chin.
‘But the matter was settled between us. You accepted the amount. I can raise no more money. My father is ill. I have just started a new job,’ Sham said. His earnestness made no dent in Mrs Samtani’s expression, but Mr Samtani lifted his head and joined his son in speculation of Sham. Hari gave a sudden insulting snort and turned his face away.
‘All I promised has been given you,’ Sham protested, wishing Lakshmi need not hear the discussion. Through Akbar Ali he had acquired and presented the Samtanis with a refrigerator, as they requested. A nylon printed Japanese sari had been given to each branch of their family, as had a box of sweetmeats and a basket of fruit. With the cash he had received in advance of his salary from Akbar Ali, and the amount he had borrowed from money-lenders, he had raised a good sum. Some of this had paid for the wedding. The rest went in a dowry of cash to the Samtanis. It would be years before he paid it off, the interest alone might mean he was grey-haired before he was free of it.
‘The amount was to be a first instalment. In the beginning we explained to you the need to expand our business for Hari’s future,’ Mr Samtani said in a
hesitant
voice. ‘We have already made one payment on the lease for the next-door shop, and now we need the rest of the advance.’
‘Now that the marriage is over you think you can get out of things,’ Mrs Samtani continued. ‘But this money is being invested for the future of the young people. A better business means a better future for your sister. It is not right that now you will not pay what you promised us.’
‘This is too much,’ Sham exclaimed angrily. ‘Because you need money you are twisting things
round. I agreed to no more than the amount I gave you. I cannot raise money as you want.’ Beside him Lakshmi pressed a handkerchief to her lips, and stifled a sob.
‘For someone of your reputation it should not be difficult to get the amount,’ Mrs Samtani laughed
bitterly
. ‘First a thief, and now a smuggler.’ Lakshmi gasped, and even Mr Samtani stirred and summoned energy to admonish his wife.
‘What are you saying, wife?’ His voice was uneven, his thick lower lip very wet. He turned to Sham. ‘A promise must be kept, and this besides is a business arrangement between us. Marriages may be made in heaven, but these other matters connected with it should also be satisfactorily concluded.’ He spoke in a thin, high treble, his wife let him have his say.
‘Only after the wedding was your true reputation revealed to us. And then by strangers, imagine our shame,’ Mrs Samtani continued. ‘How are we to face people when the wife of our son is the sister of a thief? Had we known before we should not have gone through with the wedding. You have deceived us.’
‘This is not the time to speak of myself,’ Sham
protested
. ‘It has nothing to do with Lakshmi. She is innocent of this matter.’
‘Whether she is innocent or not is unimportant. Her association with you is enough,’ Mr Samtani offered.
‘I am in legitimate business. I can prove it,’ Sham answered, controlling his anger.
‘Only some luck in past karma has allowed your sister to enter this family,’ Mrs Samtani replied. ‘Every day I am shamed before people.’
‘Wife …’ Mr Samtani began, but she took no notice of him.
Sham blushed with fury but spoke calmly. ‘You are being unfair to Lakshmi.’
‘It is we who are being used unfairly,’ Mrs Samtani screamed.
‘I cannot pay any more. I do not have money,’ Sham repeated.
‘If you do not settle, we shall not keep her,’ Mrs Samtani threatened. ‘Our son deserves better than this.’ She rose, her face hard as dirty granite. Mr
Samtani
and Hari rose in accord behind her. Lakshmi could no longer contain her sobs. The sound of her
unhappiness
followed Sham out of the house.
*
‘Ama, please do something,’ Lakshmi whispered, her face a scoop of discoloured bone. ‘Tell Sham somehow to pay them money.’ She had come home again, as ordered by Mrs Samtani.
‘Money like that does not grow upon trees. You must tell them he will pay something more when he has it,’ Rekha advised.
‘But I am afraid. They make my life unbearable, even Hari has turned against me. He hardly speaks to me, and then only in anger. It is as if he hates me,’ Lakshmi sobbed.
Rekha bit her lips. On the string bed Chachi slept, she kept her voice low so as not to wake the old woman. She squatted before a bowl of dough, and kneaded concentratedly. Lakshmi put her head upon her knees as she crouched beside her mother, too weary to cry any more.
‘I want to come home,’ she said.
‘If you come home it will be the end. They will see their chance to get rid of you, and concoct all kinds of stories. They are only waiting for this chance. And if he divorces you, your life will be ruined. Who could we find to marry you then? You would be much worse off.’
‘But I can bear it no longer,’ Lakshmi replied.
‘Sometimes, the unbearable must be borne,’ Rekha answered.
‘Don’t mock me, Ama,’ Lakshmi whispered.
‘Why should I mock you?’ Rekha demanded, her throat tight with concealed emotion. ‘Just wait and see. Soon things will be all right.’ The dough blurred in the bowl before her. The advice was the best she could give.
‘I am already with child,’ Lakshmi said without expression. Rekha stopped kneading and sat back on her heels.
‘And do they know?’ she asked.
‘It has not helped. It has made things worse. It makes it more difficult for them to be rid of me now.’
‘And for this very reason now, they cannot. Only have strength, believe in God. Everything will be all right. A child always changes things.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’ Lakshmi asked.
‘It will,’ Rekha assured her.
Lakshmi looked down between her drawn-up knees at her belly, still flat but containing the strange thing, no bigger than a tadpole, that would become her child. It would be best, she thought, if it were never born, if she could keep it forever within herself, protected from the world. There seemed no one to need it or love it; except herself. At the news, pried out of her at last by the vomiting each morning, Mrs Samtani had grown thin and icy and hissed like a snake. Lakshmi had looked away in fear and felt the woman’s hate drilling deep within her.
‘I will beat it out of you,’ Hari had said and slapped her about the face, having the guts to give her only one punch in the stomach. It had not seemed to harm the child. But she had slept, a tight ball, her knees drawn up to protect the baby from any further sudden attack.
‘You have done this deliberately,’ he accused.
‘But we have done nothing to stop it,’ she sobbed. ‘It is not my fault.’
‘It is too soon,’ he replied. ‘Nothing is settled between us, not permanently yet.’
‘But we are married,’ she cried. He pursed his lips and turned away.
She had thought her mother would agree that she could come home for a while. She had brought some clothes secretly with her, in a bundle. She had thought her mother the last person to send her so firmly back. Perhaps she did not understand the terribleness of that house. Lakshmi feared not only for herself, but for the life she carried. Already, nightmares woke her in a sweat. She was held down against her will and the child ripped from the walls of her body. She heard its scream echo within her own.
‘Ama, please, I cannot go back there.’ She pulled at her mother’s arm.
‘There is no other way,’ Rekha replied, averting her eyes, kneading harder at the dough. ‘There is no place for you here. They are your family now. You are no longer of this house.’
‘Ama,’ she cried.
‘Only believe in God,’ Rekha repeated in a whisper, and added more water to the dough.
*
‘There is a very good lady doctor in Mahim,’ Mrs Samtani said sweetly. ‘Now that you are in your present condition, it is best to see somebody, to check
everything
is all right.’
At first the tone frightened Lakshmi by its
strangeness
, but Mrs Samtani added a smile that seemed to consolidate things. She even attempted to share the cleaning of the rice, taking the tray from Lakshmi’s hands, saying she must be tired. Lakshmi stood before her, awkward at the sudden loss.
‘It is my work.’ She squatted down and reached for
the tray, drawing her sari over her head, as if to shield herself. Mrs Samtani laughed.
‘Do as you wish. Tomorrow we shall go together to Lady Dr Agarwal. I have already made the
appointment
.’ Lakshmi nodded, surprised at her concern.
Perhaps
, as her mother said, the child had already begun to change things. But she remembered again Mrs
Samtani’s
initial icy hissing at the news. She remembered the spurt of hate from the woman; her body tightened with anxiety.
‘I’m all right, there is no need to go,’ she protested.
‘It is best,’ replied Mrs Samtani, the sweetness shrinking about her words. ‘The second month is always a dangerous time. Many women do not carry beyond it.’ Lakshmi’s hands, powdery with rice starch, trembled visibly.
*
Lady Dr Agarwal worked in a room at the top of a building on the main road to Dadar. Four floors of decrepit balconies, once painted green or blue, rose up above a block of booth-like shops. A flowerseller, with blooms in orange plastic buckets, sat beside the entrance. Sprays of golden rod, pert carnations and the blood-red flutes of gladioli were brilliant before the dark, gaping entrance. Inside the sun was immediately blotted out. It was difficult to see at first. Lakshmi stumbled on the steps, which were splintered in places and worn low in the middle. The stairwell rose up blackly above them. At intervals, on landings, slim windows let in a shaft of light. There was a dry, dusty, crumbling smell about the place, and the trapped odour of old fried onions and urine. A rat slid before Lakshmi’s foot and vanished under the stairs. At last they reached the uppermost floor and came out into the sun on a balcony, high above the road. The clogged artery of cars and carts and trucks and people, denser
than a river, flowed beneath them, far away, part of another world.
The room was small and dingy. Pink walls had faded in colour, and flaked in places to a plaster base. There was an odour of antiseptic, and from an enamel bucket below the end of an examination couch, unemptied of its putrid contents, the metallic smell of blood. There were dark splashes on the walls beside the couch, as if a swarm of insects had been swatted as they settled. At one end of the couch was a pillow, and at the other a metal contraption of stirrups and buckles. There was a tray of thick steel instruments and long, thin,
needle-like
probes.
Lady Dr Agarwal was short and plump, and carried her stomach before her beneath a green flowered nylon sari. Her skin was soft as a ball of greased dough. Her smile never dropped, nor the sugary tone of her voice. Lakshmi was told to sit down.
‘So young,’ purred Lady Dr Agarwal. ‘No more than a child herself.’ Lakshmi attempted to smile, but her lips would not stretch appropriately.
‘Nothing to fear,’ the doctor assured. Lakshmi sensed an exchange of complicity, and looked up to see the doctor give a quick nod in reply to a silent query from Mrs Samtani. She wished she could get up and walk away, but her legs would not move and she knew if she did, they would drag her back into the room.
Lady Dr Agarwal began to bustle, rolling slightly as she walked. She called into an adjoining room to her assistant. An ayah emerged, thin and taut and dark as wood, her sari secured between her legs in the style of Maharashtra.
‘Get up on the couch,’ the doctor ordered, Lakshmi held back. Mrs Samtani stepped forward and gave Lakshmi a push, with a laugh of apology to the doctor. Lakshmi glimpsed the blooded water in the bucket
beneath the metal contraption at the end of the couch, and retched in sudden terror.
The grubby sheet was crumpled, the pillow smelled musty. Her sari was pulled up high about her waist, and her underwear peeled from her. Her body was brusquely parted, and her legs strapped to the steel stirrups, spreading her open in humiliation before them all. Lakshmi began to sob.
‘Please let me go. I know there is nothing wrong.’
‘Stupid,’ laughed Mrs Samtani, standing towering at her side. ‘All women must go through these things. Soon it will be over.’