House of the Sun (18 page)

Mr Hathiramani regarded this verse with less despair
than previous ones. The disparity between the elegant original and the present translation no longer seemed to matter. The main thing was to get it done, to explain the unchanging psychology of men and women, and their sad plight in the material world. Mr Hathiramani began to write again, beneath this verse, an explanation for his appendix.

‘Once more our immortal poet, Shah Abdul Latif, reveals a masterpiece of feminine mind….’ His pen moved as quickly as he could work it, the area between his thumb and forefinger was sore with constant
pressure
. He wished he could stop, shut his eyes and sleep and never write again about Lila and Chanesar. But his hand rushed on, his eyes fastened on the flowing patterns of old script. It was as if a mechanism had been set in motion that could not be arrested. Within him one Hathiramani cried out for an end, and another Hathiramani refused him.

The trapped man within gave a moan. Even when the verses were translated, his appendix flowed on and on, new chapters appearing already in his mind:
The
Dramatic
Excellence
of
the
Song,
The
Pictorial
Excellence
of
the
Song,
Source
and
Time
of
the
Song.
He feared he might die now in mid-Song. And still his hand would not rest.

*

In the next room, Mrs Hathiramani lifted her eyes from the Ludo board to check briefly on her husband. Through the bedroom door she could see him hunched over his diary in concentration. The room was
darkening
now about Mrs Hathiramani. Over the sea the sky was like ink, unruly with thick, jostling clouds. A strong breeze whistled in the ill-fitting windows; the fan still ran full pelt. Mrs Hathiramani’s sari billowed in the flurry, as she sat at the table with Raju. She had to strain her eyes in the dusk to differentiate the colours of the counters upon the Ludo board.

‘Shut the windows, Raju,’ she said, as a newspaper
fluttered on a chair like a desperate bird. Raju packed up the Ludo, and Mrs Hathiramani’s thoughts turned to evening prayer. ‘Soon now we will have rain. Maybe it will cool Sahib’s mind,’ she said, rolling a wick of cotton between her palms, to light an oil lamp before a picture of the goddess Durga upon the top of the refrigerator. Raju shook a stick of incense out of a long, pink box.

‘What does Durga do, Memsahib?’ Raju asked,
looking
at the picture of the goddess astride a lion. He handed Mrs Hathiramani a box of matches with the incense stick.

‘She keeps away bad spirits,’ Mrs Hathiramani answered.

‘Why does she ride on a lion, Memsahib?’ Raju demanded.

Mrs Hathiramani hesitated, then frowned. ‘There were no motor bikes or cars in those days. Each god and goddess was having a favourite animal and riding about upon it.’

‘If I had education, Memsahib, I would learn such things,’ Raju replied. ‘Give me education, Memsahib, please.’

‘Have you no shame? Do I not give you enough that on top of everything you must keep asking me for education?’ Mrs Hathiramani turned angrily upon him. ‘Look at your Sahib. See how sick education makes a man. Be glad you are free of it.’

‘I would be glad, Memsahib, to risk such a disease for the sake of education,’ Raju answered. A loud clap of thunder made them start. The flame in the bowl of oil was tossed by a gust of wind. Its shadow danced behind the refrigerator in the darkening room.

‘Shut up now and say a prayer. You don’t know what you’re asking,’ Mrs Hathiramani replied.

They stood side by side before the refrigerator, heads bowed. Mrs Hathiramani prayed for attention from
Durga to her frightful plight. Raju prayed for education.

‘The rain has begun,’ Mr Hathiramani murmured in the next room at the sound of thunder, but did not look up from his writing. A breeze stirred the piles of newspapers stacked against the walls. They rustled like creatures disturbed in their nests. A magazine was ripped open and flung upon the floor; curtains lifted and flapped about like wings. There was the sudden lash of rain.

‘Can I have no peace,’ Mr Hathiramani groaned, tugging at his hair. In spite of the cool breeze, the heat of his body consumed him. He reached out for the glass of water beside him, and picked up his pen again. He heard his wife in the outer room instruct Raju to find cloths, to dam up gaps in the warped window frames. The rain battered against the glass, blown mercilessly off the sea upon Sadhbela. Mr Hathiramani returned his attention to his work, shutting out with an effort the voice of his wife, and the sound of activity in the outer room.

Tears came to his eyes. It was as if he himself was poor Lila, and Chanesar, the magnificent king whom Lila had loved and suffered for so many years, was identified now with some deep longing in himself that no amount of writing eased. The room was dim about him, and the hurrying figures of his wife and Raju in the next room insubstantial and annoying. If he could he would have locked the door against them, for days, for years, like a mountain hermit sitting immured with his immeasurable ecstacy, needing neither food nor water, air or breath, feeding on a radiance that left nothing within him untouched.

Mr Hathiramani felt a lump in his throat. From the outer room came the loud crash of glass. He applied his pen with renewed urgency to the paper.

The doors of the balcony rattled violently; the rain hit the windows in slabs, pounding them again and again. Mr Hathiramani took no notice. His heart swelled, tears ran down his cheeks.

The words he wrote were hardly visible in the failing light. He raised wet eyes to the dim room. The walls seemed to melt and space illimitable stretched out before him, drawing him towards it.

‘O, the audience with the beloved!’ Mr Hathiramani whispered the words aloud. The doors to the balcony rattled again, and with a furious noise burst suddenly open, and emptied the night upon him. Mr
Hathiramani
fell back upon the bed with a shout of terror.

In the living room, Mrs Hathiramani and Raju turned at the clap of thunder and Mr Hathiramani’s scream. ‘Do not cut your feet on the glass, Raju,’ Mrs Hathiramani warned. Several empty jars, ready to be filled with a pickle of mango and lime, had rolled in the wind off the table, and splintered on the floor. They picked their way carefully over the glass, and hurried towards the bedroom. Before they could enter, the door slammed shut in their faces. Mrs Hathiramani gasped.

‘Just see, now I am banished by him from the room. My milk will curdle on the sideboard.’

‘Memsahib, I think maybe it was only the wind. I will open the door. See, it opens.’ Raju pushed his way
into the room, struggling with the force of the gale. In the darkness they could not see after the light of the living room. A great rushing sound filled the air.

‘Raju, can you see Sahib?’ Mrs Hathiramani asked.

‘I am going in, Memsahib,’ Raju informed her.

The room was alive. The lamp swung wildly. Piles of newspapers and magazines heaved and sighed like bellows against the walls. Loose papers swished about the floor; the curtains beat like wings. Raju ran to the French windows and bolted them firmly. Then he turned to the bed and screamed.

‘Memsahib. Sahib has burst his brains.’

Mrs Hathiramani turned on the light. On the bed Mr Hathiramani lay at an odd angle, his eyes shut and his mouth open. Mrs Hathiramani gave a terrified cry.

‘He is not dead, Memsahib, he is still breathing,’ Raju reassured her. Mrs Hathiramani stood, trembling and transfixed. Raju ran to her side.

‘I bring you one Thums Up drink, one cup of tea? Oh, Memsahib, only speak to me.’ Raju pulled at Mrs Hathiramani’s sari, looking up at the mountain-side of her.

‘Donkey, leave off pulling at me. Go and call Doctor Sahib.’ Mrs Hathiramani’s voice cracked. She made an effort to wake her husband, but he did not respond as before.

‘He is a case for the hospital,’ said Dr Subramaniam when he arrived.

‘Hospital?’ Mrs Hathiramani wailed. ‘I know these hospitals, they will charge me money only to kill him. Do not take him there.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed beside her husband.

‘We will put him in the nursing home nearby. From the windows he will be able to see his own home,’ Dr Subramaniam reassured.

‘This is the work of Saturn,’ Mrs Hathiramani cried. ‘What more must we endure?’ Outside the wild night
shook the windows again and rattled the doors of the balcony. ‘At last he has burst his brains. One day I knew it would happen,’ she sobbed over Mr
Hathiramani’s
inert form. Dr Subramaniam shook his head.

‘I will not ask again for education, Memsahib,’ Raju whispered, and began quietly to clear up the papers that lay scattered over the floor.

Mrs Murjani climbed into her waiting car before the entrance of Sadhbela. A stray dog and two barefooted, curious children from one of the back tenements
approached
. Mrs Murjani shooed them away with the quick hiss of a disturbed goose. Inside the car she arranged her sari, and touched the pearls at her neck. It was important she look just right; Rani’s future might depend upon it. Mrs Premchand, wife of the shipping magnate and an old friend from Mrs Murjani’s college days, had clapped her hands in delight when Mrs
Murjani
had murmured of the difficulties involved in
keeping
a daughter occupied once college was finished and a B.A. had been obtained.

Apart from Mrs Premchand, Mrs Murjani had
contacted
other friends in the same discreet manner; all at once became active in the interests of Rani. Already, unbeknown to her daughter, Mrs Murjani had
journeyed
to a number of destinations to sip tea or cold drinks in the drawing rooms of friends, and meet with the persons assembled there. Beneath innocuous
conversation
a work of great judgement proceeded, but no family had yet seemed suitable for Rani.

After the incident at Walkeshwar Tank, Mrs
Murjani
had wasted no time. She had seen, without the help of Mr Hathiramani’s impudent remarks, that she could delay marriage arrangements for Rani no longer. From past experience she knew these things took time. She had spent a year shifting through offers for Vinod, before finally deciding upon her daughter-in-law. Mrs Murjani sighed and directed the driver towards
Cumballa
Hill and Mrs Premchand’s residence, and the
unknown family who waited to meet her there. As the car drew away from Sadhbela, she looked up at the windows of her home without apprehension, although Rani was there alone. Mrs Murjani had relaxed the strict vigil recently kept upon her daughter. Sham
Pumnani
had made no further attempt at contact, and Rani was uncommonly obedient. The crisis, thank God, was over.

*

Her mother had left at last, and except for the servants she was alone. Everyone was out. Rani ate a light lunch in solitary splendour, served by the bearer from silver dishes. Cross-legged on the floor beside the table the ayah folded clean washing, at moments squinting up and urging Rani to eat more. When she had finished Rani washed her hands, straightened her shirt, brushed her hair and searched for the things she needed. In the kitchen she found a box of pistachio sweetmeats, some apples and a tin of cheese. These she arranged upon a tray and covered with a clean table napkin. The ayah padded away to the bedrooms with her pile of folded washing, and Rani slipped quickly out of the front door, triumphant at escape.

It was dim and hot in the corridor after the
air-conditioning
in the house. The collected odour of Sadhbela’s lunch hour wrapped her in stale, pungent smells. She walked past the lift shaft to the Pumnanis’ home. She had heard Lakshmi had returned the night before on a visit to her mother. She knew she had been ill, but was unsure of the exact details. The scenes at Walkeshwar Tank still weighed upon Rani. She had seen nothing of Sham and she wished to apologize, to disown her mother to him. She knew he was not
interested
in her and could accept the fact; she hoped this equilibrium meant she was getting over him. He would hear of her visit to Lakshmi. It would prove that, unlike
her mother, she was not dismissive of him. It was the least she could do.

Rekha opened the door and stepped back in surprise. ‘These things are for Lakshmi,’ Rani said, pushing the tray at her.

Rekha smiled. ‘How pleased Lakshmi will be to see you. She is still not well.’ She sighed, the smile fading sadly.

Rani had forgotten how small the Pumnanis’
accommodation
was. Everything was neat but the dinginess was oppressive. The walls were shiny with age and the grease of hands. A bed, a table, a few chairs and cane stools, a vase of plastic flowers beneath a calendar of Krishna, seemed to fill the place. From the small room beyond came an occasional cough, and Rani glimpsed a bed behind a screen, and smelled the strong odour of antiseptic.

How had twelve people once lived here? She was filled with distress. It did not seem possible Sham returned to this each day. She stepped back in
confusion
, and came up against a string bed upon which slept an old woman, her veil bandaged in a blindfold about her head.

‘Chachi is sleeping.’ Rekha put a finger to her lips. ‘See, here is Lakshmi.’ She took Rani’s hand and drew her to where Lakshmi sat, propped up by a mound of cushions on the bed.

‘I have made her rest. There, in that other house, they never let her be.’ Rekha’s voice was unsteady. ‘Soon she must return. Already I have been called to the Hathiramanis’ phone by Lakshmi’s mother-in-law. Already they want her back in time for the evening’s work.’

‘How have you suddenly remembered me?’ Lakshmi smiled.

Rani sat down on the bed and talked with deliberate brightness. Lakshmi was unrecognizable as the girl she
had played with as a child, in the compound of Sadhbela. It was terrible to look at her thin, yellow face. The gap of experiences separating them seemed without a bridge. The cushions behind Lakshmi were threadbare and lumpy: a small window, barred and netted, showed a close view of drainpipes. The purring of pigeons was near.

Rekha withdrew and soon reappeared with tea, strong, and spiced with cardamom, in thick white cups. She had arranged the pistachio sweets on a plate, and cut up an apple. She smiled, looking down at the two girls. Lakshmi was talking of old times, when they used to play together. Her cheeks had a hectic flush. As Rekha handed out the tea, there was another fit of coughing from the next room.

‘It is too much for her,’ Lakshmi worried as Rakha disappeared again. ‘I fear for her health. First father, then Sham, then me. Our karma is bad.’ Rekha returned to sit with them, and Lakshmi chatted on through their tea.

‘I must be back by five.’ Lakshmi suddenly looked at the clock. She struggled off the bed and stood, swaying slightly on her feet. ‘I did not notice how late it was.’

‘How will you return alone? Look at you. Wait for Sham, he will go with you. Like this you cannot go upon buses and trains,’ Rekha urged. ‘Soon Padma and Veena will be back.’

‘Why don’t you go by taxi?’ Rani asked, concerned.

‘Taxis cost money,’ Rekha answered gently. ‘We have not that kind of money, the journey is long. Taxis are for big people, like you.’

Rani bit her lip in shame. All the Murjanis’ cars were out but she had money in her purse and her mother would not return until after five o’clock. ‘I will go with her,’ Rani decided. ‘I will go there and back in a taxi.’ She was happy at last to see an opportunity to make amends to Sham.

‘God will bless you,’ Rekha said later, peering through the window of the taxi outside Sadhbela. The vehicle grated its gears and moved forward. Rani was filled with excitement, at defiance of her mother yet again, and at the rightness of her action.

The effort of getting downstairs and into the taxi seemed to have exhausted Lakshmi. She rested her head and shut her eyes. Rani shook her, worried. ‘I’m all right,’ she smiled. ‘It’s just the thought of going back there.’ She gave an involuntary shudder.

‘Is it so terrible?’ Rani asked and took Lakshmi’s hand. It felt light in her own healthy grip.

At first Lakshmi shook her head and would say nothing, biting her lips to control her emotions. When Rani repeated her question she began to speak of the unpaid dowry in a low, barely audible voice. ‘And now, they have learned from the doctor I cannot have children. Now they know this, I am frightened. Already they speak of divorcing me,’ she whispered.

‘What does your husband say?’ Rani asked, and Lakshmi looked down at their clasped hands.

‘He does not care,’ she answered. She gripped Rani’s hand and sat forward, her voice rose with sudden strength. ‘They want to be rid of me. Only then will they be happy.’ Words rushed unstoppably from her then, dark and lucid, terrible in their clarity, building shocking pictures.

Rani drew back in the seat, alarmed by the emotion suddenly spilling from Lakshmi. Beyond the taxi
windows
the familiar regions of Bombay fell away, and were replaced by views less trustworthy. The crust of grime and dilapidation seemed thicker in these areas of the city, inhabited by nobody Rani knew. Small shops, people, animals and carts clogged the streets. At each traffic light the beggars surged forward,
pushing
poxed faces and the freakish stubs of amputated limbs through the open windows. Each time the taxi
moved forward the beggars were left behind, but the pressure of Lakshmi’s unhappiness was without respite. She talked on. Her voice rose to shrillness and fell to a whisper, but refused to stop its unbelievable tale. Rani wondered if Lakshmi’s mind was unhinged, she doubted the truth of some revelations.

‘But you believe me, I know you do,’ Lakshmi
pleaded
. ‘You are my friend, you will help me.’ And unable to deny association under such duress, Rani nodded and mutely assured her. Lakshmi cried and laughed in a single spasm.

‘I knew you would. I knew you would believe me,’ she replied, but all Rani wished for was escape from the horror of Lakshmi’s life. It already touched her with its taint, filling her with tension and distaste.

At last Lakshmi wiped her eyes and began to direct the driver through narrow streets. They passed a
vegetarian
restaurant with red and green neon lights, and turned suddenly off the road between apartment houses. They came into a yard with piles of rusting, twisted metal and the abandoned carcasses of trucks. To one side stood a house. A black and white goat dozed on a verandah. An outside staircase led to an upper floor, a few straggly canna lilies clustered at its base.

‘Come in with me, please.’ Lakshmi took hold of Rani’s hand again. ‘My mother-in-law will be glad to see I have a friend like you.’ She tugged Rani from the taxi with sudden strength.

Rani instructed the taxi to wait, securing her escape, and followed between the mounds of scrap metal which Lakshmi explained was the business of their landlord. From the verandah the goat stared sleepily as they climbed the stairs. Rani had a view over the rail of the collapsed roof of the downstairs verandah. Lakshmi pushed open a door of flaking brown paint, and led the way into the upstairs flat.

‘I cannot stay,’ Rani protested, drawing back before the dark, reptilian quality of Mrs Samtani, who bore down upon her purposefully, intent upon embrace.

‘Such a visit is an honour,’ Mrs Samtani said. Rani was pulled into the hard depths of Mrs Samtani, whose small eyes searched her face. She pinched Rani’s cheek and made a kissing sound. ‘Our Lakshmi is a very dull girl, never has she mentioned that you were her friend. Once, at a distance, I have seen your parents. Every day we use your father’s pressure cookers, all India knows his name; and
you
are knowing Lakshmi. Only a girl as dull as Lakshmi could neglect such friends.’ Mrs Samtani shook her head in wonderment.

‘Lakshmi will bring you refreshment,’ she continued. ‘How shall I thank you? She refuses to take care of her health, and therefore unnecessarily gives trouble to her friends, who must bring her here and there like a Maharani in their cars.’

‘In a taxi,’ Rani corrected, edging to the door. ‘There were no cars available at home. The taxi is waiting for me. Lakshmi must rest, she is not well.’

Mrs Samtani smiled and took a step towards Rani. ‘Sit, sit. At least one juice you must drink. Lakshmi, stupid girl, even this you cannot bring your friend? You will let her go without taking something in our house?’ Mrs Samtani placed a hand on Rani’s shoulder, and pressed her into a chair.

‘The taxi is waiting,’ Rani repeated.

‘It will wait.’ Mrs Samtani sat down on a stool opposite Rani. Lakshmi carried in a plate of biscuits and an apple. She placed them on the table and scuttled away again.

‘See, she brings it to me to peel.’ Mrs Samtani picked up the apple and a knife. ‘A girl of good family, like yourself, knows the right way to do things. Never would such a girl expect her mother-in-law to peel the fruit. As Lakshmi has given you trouble to bring her home,
so every day here she is likewise giving trouble. If she had her way she would do nothing but sit about, like a Maharani.’

Mrs Samtani dug the knife savagely into the apple, and leaned forward over the low coffee table. Rani drew back in her chair, and stared at the pattern of ringmarks in the thin varnish of the table top.

‘And not even a full settlement yet,’ Mrs Samtani hissed. ‘People like your parents would settle in full. When you marry they will take pride in showing their worth. They will only give and give. But Lakshmi’s family are not cultured people; they know only how to cheat. They think they have done a clever thing with this marriage. They are laughing at us. I know they have money.’ Mrs Samtani looked fiercely at Lakshmi, who hurried back with two over-full glasses of
orangeade
. Her hands trembled, and the liquid slopped on to the table.

‘Useless,’ Mrs Samtani shouted. Lakshmi gave a sob and hurried away again. ‘If they do not pay we will divorce her.’ Mrs Samtani’s eyes appraised Rani.

‘Her family is poor. There is no money,’ Rani burst out angrily.

Mrs Samtani became sorrowful at Rani’s agitation. ‘It is difficult to see the faults of our friends. But we have been cheated and now, on top of everything, we have been told she cannot bear children. My son will be denied a son; I will have no grandchildren. Our name will die.’

Mrs Samtani gave a sudden sob and threw down the apple and knife, covering her face with her hands. Lakshmi appeared with a cloth and mopped up the spilt liquid. She sat down and silently took over peeling the apple, not raising her eyes to Rani. Eventually, Mrs Samtani lifted her head and looked hard at Rani, behind the glassy haze of tears.

‘If you are her friend, go to her people. Tell them
they must pay. Speak to them for us,’ Mrs Samtani insisted. Beside her Lakshmi lowered her head and began to cry, still peeling the fruit. Rani watched the tears drip on to her hands, and the breath shuddering through her thin body.