Rajmahal (35 page)

They left Topchanchi early on the long journey to Neterhat, through dry scrubland, the burnt grass covering giving it a charcoal tinge and scrunching underfoot when they walked out to ease themselves. The pristine silence of the countryside was only disturbed by the liquid ringing of wooden cow bells, a sound that became irresistible to Surjeet Shona. Craving to access it at will, she called to a boy ambling along with a herd, “Come here! I want one of those bells!” She could feel Neel stiffening next to her, but her bliss gave her a sense of power. The herd flowed around them in a honeyed river of sound punctuated by bucolic mooing.

“A bell?” said the astonished boy. “But this is for the cow. Why do
you
want it?”

Surjeet Shona's laughter mingled pleasantly with the bell river. “Oh but I have a cow too,” she said. “And she has no bell. Come now. Give me one! I will pay you for it!”

The boy, in loincloth and torn vest, a ragged cloth around his head, with a bamboo flute tucked into it, obeyed Surjeet Shona. He took the money from her, his eyes popping at the ten rupee notes and after tying them carefully into the top of his loin cloth, sleepwalked to a cow, untied its bell and handed it to Surjeet Shona. “Take this for your cow,” he said. “It is my best bell, from my best cow. Now I will have to make another one for her.” He fondled the white soft skin of his bell-less cow while Surjeet Shona looked at her trophy, a handsome prehistoricallooking wooden bell, painted with a crude design of blue flowers. She shook it jauntily and waved to the boy who was scratching his head with his flute.

Neel's expression was an instant dash of cold water. She felt her joy draining out. No word was spoken, but the contempt of that expression filled her with a mixture of fear, contrition, and sadness. She knew she had overstepped some invisible boundary taking her leagues further from her husband. “I have seven-league boots on these days,” she thought. “And they have a life of their own.” Before Neel revved up the engine she could hear the other characteristically liquid sound of these country tracts. The boy was propped up under a tree, languidly playing his flute.

Surjeet Shona dozed off, lulled by the intermittent sound of the bell bumping up and down on her lap. When she awoke the disjunctive feeling had left her and she impulsively touched Neel on the shoulder.

“Don't you like it?” she shook the bell gently. “The sound is almost . . . noble.”

With an effort, Neel smiled, turned to Surjeet Shona and patted her cheek. “Enjoy it, Shona. But what will you do now? Buy a cow for it?”

They reached the unmetalled red earth ghat road to Neterhat in the late evening, when the sun was low on the horizon.

“It won't take long,” said Neel. “Not more than an hour.”

As he spoke, the sky darkened and heavy drops of rain spattered the windscreen. Soon there was a downpour and the road had turned into a river of red slush. The poor light was no help with the jeep skidding at every turn. “We must keep going,” said Neel, and as Surjeet Shona prayed, there was a sudden whump and they came to a standstill. The engine roared and whined and the wheels spun, but the jeep stayed obstinately stuck. Neel got out of the jeep. “Put the gear into second,” he ordered. “The first's slipping. And start the engine when I tell you!”

Surjeet Shona slid into the driver's seat and watched Neel dragging broken branches from the roadside and stacking them under the front wheels, getting more and more bedraggled in the rain and slush. He waved to her and stepped aside, “Go!” he called. “Second gear!”

The wheels spun crazily again, spraying Neel with mud, and pushing the jeep deeper down into the bog. Steam rose from the hood as Neel strained to wedge stones under the front wheels. Surjeet Shona tried again, and with an almighty jerk and the sound of snapping twigs, the jeep surged forward onto the firm concrete of a bridge.

“Well done,” said Neel. He took over the wheel but the road beyond was steeper and at a sharp hairpin bend the engine began an alarming knocking. Neel was forced to try the first gear, there was a grinding sound, and the engine stalled. Nothing would induce it to start again and they were stuck at a steep angle in the middle of the hairpin bend with the rain lashing relentlessly at them. The car rolled dangerously back to a flatter area. “Pass me the water,” he said. “The engine's boiling.”

Surjeet Shona took out a half-empty bottle of drinking water. “That's all there is,” she said. “We could let the rain cool the engine.” But perversely, just at that moment, the rain stopped.

Night had descended and Surjeet Shona stood by the hood with a torch
in one hand balancing the water bottle with the other. Taking off his shirt and using it to protect his hand, Neel heaved at the burning radiator cap. It came unstuck after a mighty struggle, releasing a vicious jet of boiling water. Neel's hand was in the way and the jet hit it, scalding him painfully. Surjeet Shona screamed and jumped to Neel's help, letting go of the water bottle which spilled into the red slush. “Oh God! Now look what you've done!” groaned Neel.

Surjeet Shona ignored the jibe and helped him back into the jeep. “We have to wait for the engine to cool,” she said. “There's nothing else to do.” They waited while Surjeet Shona ministered to Neel, cosseting him like a baby, anointing his hand with cold cream, and admiring his shining mud-streaked body.

Help finally came from a group of road workers on their way up to Neterhat. They had a canister of water with them and cautiously filled it into the half-empty radiator where it bubbled and cooled down. Their reward was a free drive up to their destination which was blessedly near.

The cowbell had been lost in the melée, but Surjeet Shona didn't care. It had brought them nothing but ill luck and spoiled the sweetness of Topchanchi.

The next day at dusk, she and Neel drove out over the open fields of the Neterhat plateau, a vast landscape bathed in the light of a brilliant sunset. Oraon girls walked and sang arm in arm in small groups, their broad cheek-boned faces bronzed by the light, their short saris freeing their legs for graceful skips. Neel, whose hand was only lightly burned, pulled Surjeet Shona out of the jeep, and arm in arm, they danced with the
adivasi
girls. Surjeet Shona felt she could touch the painted sky if she stretched out her hand.

But that very night watching the full moon through the open window of their bedroom, she could see, among a ring of squatting villagers ranged in front of Neel, one beauty, heart-shaped face shining like all the others in the moonlight, looking directly at him. Laser rays streaked between their eyes. The girl's sari had fallen aside from her shoulder and her naked breast was round and full, calling to Surjeet Shona's husband.

A familiar pain manifested in the pit of her stomach. “Guru's early death fooled me about the nature of marriage,” she thought. It was a pain based on a deep fear, a familiar circular fear which she recognized, and she knew she had to free herself from the ridiculous and recurring dilemmas, the enigmatic bonds which sprang up so frequently between Neel and these
sumptuous women. She thought back with incredulity to the intimacy of the red, wet womb of the jeep when she had ministered with such love and hope to Neel's wounded hand.

Surjeet Shona said nothing when Parasnvanath hill followed by the Barakar temples flashed by on their way back. Reminding Neel of his earlier assurance to stop and explore would only irritate him.

 

As remorseless friction attached itself to time, the pattern of their intimacy changed. Neel continued to gaze at Surjeet Shona sprawled asleep on the bed, but he stopped touching her so as not to arouse her. He rejoiced when she moved and fell into a newly perfect pose, but the feast was purely visual.

Later, Surjeet Shona was to come into bitter confrontation with Neel over her son's elite education in a boarding school near Shimla.

“A brown sahib, is that what you want my son to be?!”

“I want a proper education for Gurdeep, he's
my
son!

“Am I not his father now?”

“You may be . . . ”

“
May
be? When I married you for your beauty, I did not expect such betrayals . . . !”

“I'm not a pinup!” screamed Surjeet Shona. “And who are you to talk of betrayals?” she added.

“Why am I saying all this?” said a voice inside her. “It's unforgivable, what I said is unforgivable! Can't I hear him calling Gurdeep
his
son . . . ” Fear gripped her. She lost her balance whenever she came into conflict with Neel and he brought out the worst in her, she could see it.

“You think I have no say in Gurdeep's future, in his upbringing, is that what you're saying . . . ?”

Surjeet Shona could only make a painful apology. “Sorry, I'm sorry!”

This threw up currents and the ill-matched pair went through a short harmony. But deep inside, both knew the marriage was doomed.

Surjeet Shona gave up joining Neel on his field trips in the fifth year of their marriage. When he stayed away an unnecessarily long six months in the northeast, she was ready for a divorce. “He must have been a tribal in his last life,” she said cattily.

 

Gurdeep, buffered by the vastness of the Indian plains in his aerie of a boarding school, wouldn't mind, she convinced herself. He didn't ask about his stepfather's whereabouts on his annual holiday and Surjeet Shona waited till he was about to leave before breaking the news to him.

“Really?” was his laconic response. And though Surjeet Shona tried to say more she cautiously stopped when she saw his lack of interest.

“He wasn't even startled,” she thought. “It isn't surprising though. He hardly saw Neel after he was seven.” Appearances were deceptive as she found out later.

The divorce was hard on Surjeet Shona. Neel had adopted a studied politeness toward her, and though her parents and other Rajmahalians stood by her as they would always as long as they lived, the loss and loneliness were hers uniquely. She retreated into the
Guru Granth Sahib
room again to nurse herself, sorely hurt.

SURJEET SHONA SHUNNED HER CONSTANT ARRAY OF SUITORS, convinced no spark could ignite her again. Any thought of going back to the Sharp's job drained her of energy. She concentrated on Gurdeep, and examined the possibility of other occupations. She tried painting, went riding, avoided parties, and read voraciously. But there were terrible empty spaces when the book held in her hands would blur and thoughts of the failed marriage and loss of Neel would invade her like an attacking horde. When she slept her dreams were filled with the theme of Neel's betrayals. Those were the times she took refuge in the
Guru Granth Sahib
room, or more and more frequently, at the Petrovs' apartment. Here, she allowed herself the dubious diversion of meeting people again.

When Doctor Ranji Talwar, a Calcutta consultant based in London's Harley Street, joined the queue of suitors, Surjeet Shona would eventually succumb. Much older and talked of, the doctor courted Surjeet Shona aggressively, causing a flutter in their circles. She automatically resisted at first, but the doctor clothed his aggression in such gentle, adult, and courteous attentions, that his persistence paid off. She toyed with the idea of moving to London with him, though she was still deeply wary of marriage. The house and ghosts were equally wary, but could do nothing when the doctor doubled his attentions as Surjeet Shona's resistance waned.

After several seasons Surjeet Shona found herself waiting expectantly for his next visit. She was nearly convinced he could provide her with the uxoriousness she craved. Eventually, she followed the doctor to London and moved in with him. Gurdeep would join them for the holidays, the arrangement seemed near perfect, and Surjeet Shona settled tentatively into the business of housekeeping, taking pleasure in cooking for her
attentive new lover. For a time she enjoyed the big city, the plays and concerts, the museums and parks, the bountiful shops. When she thought of it, she missed the rough exciting trips with Neel, dramatically at the other end of the scale, but she was determined not to allow herself any maudlin backslide over Neel himself, Neel the husband. She would take out her albums and look at the photographs, the tigress and her cubs, the young cowherd, the sunset over the Neterhat plateau. But when the photos of the Oraon women appeared she would feel an unpleasant heaviness. Then she would open up the albums with Gurdeep's pictures, their wedding, the motorcycle, and she would feel the same heaviness. There were no pictures of Martin to test herself with. “That's the trouble,” she thought. “There are parts of all of them I still feel for. At least. I think so. And I miss the Rajmahal.” She continued to avoid the idea of marrying Ranji even though she was at ease with him and enjoyed his mature, quiet company, even though he showed an unstrained affection for Gurdeep, and the two seemed to get on well. But Surjeet Shona's mother's instincts wouldn't allow her a blind acceptance of Gurdeep's docility and she couldn't get over her uneasiness on this last score. And repeatedly, the heaviness would creep over her, mixed with a complete lack of anticipation. As if there were nothing left to be done. As if it were all over. There were no starbursts, no ecstasy. “How far did all that take me anyway?” she consoled herself.