I touch his arm. He looks up. I smile. ‘Uncle just called,’ I say.
I see the familiar fences go up in his eyes. I sit by his side and trail a finger up his arm. ‘He would like us to go there,’ I say, and continue with my one-finger caress.
‘You, or us?’ he asks.
I make a little face, and marvel at myself. How easily they come to me, these little gestures and throw-away caresses. How well I play the role of a mistress!
I must have observed Rani Oppol more often than I thought. I am mimicking her, I realize. The little girl voice, the bated breath, the widening of eyes, the pouting of lips, the touching and stroking as I talk. I am being Rani Oppol at her coquettish best. All I need to do to complete the act is scream and turn pale when I see a cockroach. Shyam would love it. He would love me to be the helpless shrieking female while he squashed the cockroach under his slipper. Me Tarzan,
you Jane, etc. Instead, I am given to thrashing scorpions and snakes mercilessly and carrying frogs in my bare hands.
I let my finger pause. It is meant to suggest hurt. ‘Us, of course. You see, ever since Uncle began talking about himself—not the story of his parents, but his own life—he seems to be in a hurry to get it over with.’
His smile is twisted. ‘I agree with that part of it,’ he says. ‘I wish Uncle would sum his life up in a few sentences and finish with it. What is there to say, after all? He is a dancer, not a diplomat, for heaven’s sake. And he’s not even in the league of say, Kalamandalam Gopi or Krishnan Nair. Those men are icons. But Uncle! How many people know Uncle or even consider him a success? Look at Pundit Sundar Varma. Weren’t they contemporaries? That man is world famous while Uncle, he is just another dancer. What does he have to show for having spent all his life dancing? I mean, if your grandfather hadn’t bought him that house, he wouldn’t even have one of his own. Sometimes I think all this talk about artistic success being a personal milestone is his way of evading the real issue, namely his lack of success!’
For a moment I want to reach out and slap his face. How can he be so flippant? How can he reduce everything to how much money it might fetch? Doesn’t he realize that Uncle chose to live his life this way?
I feel that sense of disquiet again. I have always suspected that Shyam resents Uncle for his place in my life. I know that he thinks Uncle is a fool for not having made more of himself. For the first time, it occurs to me that perhaps Shyam has been pretending all along. What he feels for Uncle is not affection, but contempt. I see it in his eyes and in the snarl his mouth curls into.
But I don’t say anything. Instead, I let my fingers glide between his. He gazes down at our hands and his face softens.
‘You go,’ he says, trapping my fingers in his palm. ‘I have some things to attend to. I’ll come by later, at about lunch time. We can return together.’
Shyam leans back in his chair and takes up his newspaper. I sit there humming under my breath, pretending to read the supplement. Don’t hurry. Don’t leap up and rush to dress. Pretend this is a chore rather than a pleasure, I caution myself.
I yawn. I sigh. Then I rise with exaggerated reluctance. ‘I must get going,’ I say.
From behind the newspaper, I get a grunt for an answer. But I am not fooled. I know he is watching every move.
I walk languorously to our room. I have managed to escape for now, I think.
I dress quickly. When I pause at the dressing table to put some lip-gloss on, I discover that I can’t meet my own eyes.
I feel disgust for what I am doing. Can anything be worth this repugnance? How much longer can I do this? This cheating, lying and pretence?
‘Where were you?’ he growls in my ear.
‘I …I …’ I am not sure what to say. How much do I dare tell him of what I am trying to do to deflect Shyam’s suspicions?
But he doesn’t let me finish. ‘It’s been almost two days since I saw you. If you hadn’t come this morning, I would have come to your home.’
He doesn’t even wait for me to step inside. He pulls me in and shuts the door and pushes me against it. I have never seen him like this. This is a new and masterful Chris. I am not sure how much I like it. He is talking and nuzzling at the same time. I feel my heart stop at his words. ‘No, no, you mustn’t ever do that. He …Shyam is already suspicious.’
Chris raises his head. ‘Does that mean you will never invite me to your home?’
I shake my head. ‘No, I didn’t say that. I will have you over one of these days. I want you to see where I grew up, or at least spent part of my childhood. But you must promise to behave.’
His eyes glint. ‘When I look at you, I don’t want to behave.’
‘We have to go,’ I whisper. ‘Unni will be timing me.’
‘In that case …’ I hear his laugh explode against my skin.
Fifteen minutes later, we walk to Uncle’s house. I see Unni watching us as we walk past the reception area. What does he see? Two people, casual acquaintances, chatting as they walk. We’re separated by at least three feet and an expression of disinterest I am careful to wear on my face.
I think of the hasty jumbling of clothes, the embrace, the shuddering, the reckless coupling against a wall because to move to the bed would have been to rob ourselves of a precious few minutes.
Outside the cottage I could hear the swish of brooms as the women swept the leaves off the pathway. I could hear the snip-snip of secateurs pruning a bush. I could hear a crow cawing and parakeets calling. And the footsteps of the electrician as he checked the garden lights.
When I felt the tidal wave drag him and me into an abyss and a moan emerged from my mouth, it was he who shut it off by gathering it into his mouth.
What is this passion that carries all sense of propriety away?
I glance at him. His pupils seem dilated. Can sex do that? What about me then? Do I too show the branding of an injudicious moment, of adulterous desires that have swept aside all that is decent and moral about me? Would Unni see and know? And would he think: Look at her, like a bitch in heat, careless of who is around or what they may see.
I am not listening to Chris. All I can hear is the beating of my own heart and an inner voice that berates me. How can you let lust rule you? There is nothing more stupid than careless lust. There is nothing more disgusting than your inability to control your wantonness. Do you want to undo all that you have been trying to build? Chris might want you like this, reeking of abandonment and sex, but in his heart he probably thinks you are a slut! Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting, it snickers.
I try to pull myself out of my despair. I try to concentrate on what Chris is saying. ‘Have you been watching the Saddam trial?’ he asks.
‘Some of it,’ I say. ‘I keep thinking of the picture they ran of him when he was captured, and the footage of him in the courtroom. He was in total control, not like the decrepit, dazed old man in the picture. They ran a transcript of the trial in the newspapers. Did you see it? He kept insisting, “I am Saddam Hussein, President of the Republic of Iraq”. I must confess he had a great deal of dignity sitting there.’
‘Dignity! He’s evil. Think of the carnage he was responsible for. If he hadn’t been stopped, he would have continued with it,’ Chris snorts.
I stop. Chris halts by me. ‘He said he shouldn’t be penalized for what he did to protect the Iraqi people’s interests,’ I say.
‘You mean his interests?’
‘What about Bush then?’ I retort.
‘I don’t believe you are saying this.’
‘Why not? Everyone knows that it’s all about oil. There was no horde of weapons of mass destruction. There was nothing to warrant Bush and his bunch of buddies invading Iraq. Chris, I never thought you were a Bush supporter.’
‘I am not a Bush supporter, do you hear me? But do you realize what you are saying? Forget all about oil or WMD, Saddam was a threat to peace in the region.’ His nostrils flare.
It strikes me then that we have never argued before. In our insular world of flesh tones and soft caresses, neither of us has ever spoken a harsh word to the other. We’ve never sounded each other out on our beliefs or ideals, on our politics or principles. For the first time, I see that he dislikes his opinion being questioned.
In his first week here, Chris had been quick to condemn Bush, Blair and the other boy scouts as he had called them. ‘“Be prepared”, they must have whispered around to gather support,’ he had gibed.
And Shyam had spoken up, ‘I was a scout. Nothing wrong in being prepared. I mean, I wouldn’t have known how to make four different knots or light a fire if I hadn’t been one.’
Chris turned to me then, rallying my support. ‘You know what I mean, don’t you? That smug, beatific, do-gooder attitude,’ he had said.
Something urges me to press my point now. ‘I understand that he was a threat. But that is for the UN to decide and do something about. Not Bush.’
‘Look, no one can remain neutral about the justification of war on Saddam. And that is what you are doing. You are saying you know that he is evil, but it is not our business to intervene. And that was your country’s stand too, if I remember right. How can you let evil perpetuate? That is almost as evil. Tolerance is just another word for laziness. To have an opinion and to stand by it necessitates making an effort, and you don’t want to make that bloody effort.’
‘Forget it, Chris,’ I say. ‘You will never understand what tolerance is about. It is beyond you westerners.’
‘Jesus, that is a racial comment if I ever heard one.’
‘What do you want me to say? That Bush and Blair and the coalition are right and we are wrong? Please understand. I am not justifying what Saddam did. All I am saying is, one country does not have the right to take away the sovereignty of another. That is all.’
Chris’s eyes are piercing. ‘What are we talking about? Why do I get the feeling that you have moved away from Saddam and the Gulf to something more personal? Is this about us?’
Yes, I want to tell him. Our opinions, even when they are about a world that has no direct bearing on our lives, are us. And yes, I do think that you have taken away something that is mine. You invaded my mind, my body, and while I had to suppress my desires and dreams and even forfeit my freedom to live the way I wanted to, under the previous regime, at least that existence had a pattern, a method. What do I have now? How am I to function without your support? I am a country that has to rebuild itself from nothing. I am a country that has to face recriminations and challenges and I don’t know where to begin. Worst of all, I don’t even know if you will be there to hold my hand through the rebuilding process. So wouldn’t it have been best to leave me alone?
We are outside Uncle’s house and Uncle is frowning. ‘What is wrong? Have you two been quarrelling?’
Chris runs a hand through his hair. ‘We were arguing about politics and war, except that Radha seems to have gone off in a direction that I can’t follow …’ His eyebrows rise.
I smile. I try to erase the belligerence from my face and the thought that our worlds can never be the same.
‘How is Maya?’ Chris asks.
I try to catch his eye. He looks away. He is still furious, I can see.
‘She is fine,’ Uncle says. ‘We spoke last evening and she said she wished she could come back here right away.’
‘So what’s stopping her?’ Chris asks.
‘Well, there is her husband for one,’ Uncle says, and turns to Malini’s cage. The parakeet is nipping at a piece of jackfruit. When he faces us again, I see him trying to erase the sorrow in his eyes. What is the nature of his relationship with Maya, I wonder.
‘Would you like some jackfruit?’ Uncle asks. ‘It’s come rather late this year, and some of what I have eaten so far has tasted watered
down because of the rains, but one of my old students brought me one this morning. It’s delicious. He had his wife prepare them, so I didn’t even have to get my hands messy.’
‘How messy can a fruit get?’ Chris asks.
Uncle and I look at each other and laugh. ‘You should try cutting one open and prising the pods out,’ Uncle says.
‘It’s like sticking your hand into a huge gob of much-chewed chewing gum,’ I giggle.
Chris grimaces.
‘It’s quite disgusting and the process is very tedious, but the fruit …’ I say.
Chris looks at the delight on my face. ‘Do you think I could try one? Eating one, I mean …’ he adds hastily.
Uncle brings out a platter of jackfruit. Picked and cleaned, the pods lie on their side, plump and inviting. Sweetness that glistens.
Chris surveys the plate, unable to decide. He picks one gingerly. ‘Its smell is rather strong, like the durian,’ he says, looking at it suspiciously.
‘Never mind the smell, bite into it,’ Uncle urges. ‘And take care, there is a huge seed inside. You don’t eat that. Not raw, at least. One of these days Radha will make you a curry with it.’
We watch his face as he nibbles at a golden yellow pod.