The Onus of Ancestry (30 page)

She sat back in the armchair and pondered – her womb, she fancied rather morbidly, had revolted finally after all these years, against abuse and rejection. It seemed so strange to have this train of thought when she loved so dearly the result of her conception. Why could she never, to this day, come to terms with the assault committed on her so long ago? Why had this sense of total rejection outlived the conscious acceptance of Dia and of her fate? Why had the repugnance woven itself so inextricably into the very essence of her being that she still failed to shake it off? She had never been able to drive away the abhorrence that haunted her; the sheer vandalism of Nishith had planted itself within her. Fortunately she had been able to dissociate Dia from that particular nightmare of her subconscious existence, even if she had not been able to forget her past. It was perhaps her guilt that had prevented her from seeking marital fruition beyond the simple right to love – that fulfilment, she felt, was not for her to enjoy. It had been another reason too why she had desisted from claiming Dia as her own or exerting any definite maternal rights on her, despite sometimes yearning for her to have been a child born of love, the kind of love that she shared with Christopher. The only consolation was that Dia had found a new lease of life, unblemished and unscarred. Dwita could have given her only an inheritance of a very uncertain future.

But now the seeds of repugnance had blown and erupted – as if to swallow her in a mark of Nishith's final vengeance. Perhaps surgery would rid her of the past, cleanse and sanctify her inside and out, she thought. There would be no trace of sacrilege left in her, only the memory of the love of one man and a child would continue to sustain her.

She had made up her mind in the last few days that she was going to make her base in England. If Sultan agreed to post her to his office in London, she would continue with him, but he had to see her less in the role of troubleshooter. But she did not wish to let Sultan down – he had been a kind employer and a generous friend.

She was anxious to keep her illness to herself too – she was so used to coping on her own, solving her own problems that she was almost ashamed to share her burden with anyone, even those she loved. She was used to suffering in solitude, and others' sympathy somehow embarrassed her. Her mother had now come to understand this better and though they were in regular touch now, closer than ever, Parna had learned not to pry into her daughter's privacy, or put pressure on her to find out what she did not wish to divulge; Dwita had a pathological need to appear intact to the outside world.

As planned Dwita had returned to her flat in Abu Dhabi, greeted by Raghu's traditional consolation of a restorative gin and tonic. Her interview with Sultan had been quite difficult. He had not taken her seriously at first when she asked for medical leave.

“Sultan, I am serious, I assure you. I need surgery in the immediate future. Before then I wish to visit my family in India. I have asked for three weeks before having the operation, to tie up the loose ends here and fit in a visit to India. Afterwards, I will need at least six to eight weeks' medical leave.”

“So I virtually lose you for three months! Oh, Allah – who can I find and rely upon at such short notice?”

“Sultan, whilst we are on the subject, may I add something else? I think this will offer you the time and opportunity to think in terms of a substitute–”

“What substitute? Whose substitute?”

“Mine, of course. You must think of a substitute in case I drop dead one day. I might die under the surgeon's knife–”

“Allah forbid! Dwita, don't talk like that.”

“But Sultan, we must be practical – I cannot be here for ever,” she pleaded, almost laughing at his stubbornness.

“Why is it so important suddenly to think of leaving Sultan?”

“I am not asking to leave you, I don't want to – but I am asking you to be sensible. You must find someone who can replace me here.”

“You wish to leave Abu Dhabi?”

“Yes, I do. I would really like to be based in London. I wish to see more of the people who mean a great deal to me. You see, my surgery may be successful or not, but it has certainly brought back to me the truth of mortality, the finite aspect of the eternity we delude ourselves with.”

“Dwita, are you hiding some part of the surgeon's diagnosis from me? Has the surgeon told you something we ought to know?”

“I am not hiding anything – in fact I know very little and he is going to unravel the mystery for himself when he has opened me up.”

“And who is going to take care of you afterwards? Have you told John Parkinson?”

“No – I have told no one except you and I want you to promise Sultan, that you will keep this to yourself. Swear by Allah.”

“
Insha'Allah
, Dwita, as you wish. But Fawzia and I would like to be there when you go into hospital.”

“No, Sultan – please. I shall ask the hospital to telephone you as soon as it is over. I wish to go through this alone. I have a feeling that I will need to be alone, when they have done with me.”

“Allah should have made you a man.”

“Not all men feel like me, you know.”

“I hope Allah will look after you. You have been like a sister to me and Fawzia, we will do our best for you. And remember that the company will collect the bill, so you go and get the best you can out of your surgeon and hospital.”

“Thank you, Sultan. You have always been good to me. I could not do better than you for a brother. I have always valued you and Fawzia as my dear friends.”

“When do you leave for Calcutta?”

“In a week's time if I can tie everything up satisfactorily in the office here. I hope to spend a week to ten days in India, then I can look up the offices in Bombay and Delhi for you. I will get back to Abu Dhabi, then leave for London thereafter. Raghu can have his leave then.”

“What will happen to him if you leave here?”

“He will want to go back to India, I think.”

“I can always absorb him, you know. He is a good chap.”

“Yes, very good and reliable. I am not sure if he would want to stay here without me. I will find out and let you know.”

She had spoken to Raghu subsequently and he had said that he wished to return to India and be with his family for a while. If she came to India, he would come back to her. They agreed on a pension that would keep him well provided. She had also settled a generous sum on him in her will. He was of course a well-to-do-man in his own right these days and had invested his earnings sensibly in a house and land. She was able to complete her work and clear her desk in time to keep to her schedule of departure for India.

She lay on the bed in a London clinic, alone and unknown, as she had been once before many years ago. So much had happened since then, and she remembered vividly those days from her bleak suffocating past, that had robbed her of her rightful present and future. Lying here now she did not feel competent or inclined to account for the last two decades and more of her life, which seemed to have slid past rather more rapidly than she had realised. What had been gained or lost in the process was far beyond her own costing capability. Time had eluded her and she had managed it rather badly, as her professional counterparts would no doubt allege. She only knew that she had been able to keep her head above the height and formidable strength of its surging waves which had threatened to swallow her all these years. She had somehow survived, kept her sanity. Time's onslaughts had not been able to dislodge her will and absolute determination.

Dwita remembered that she had reported to her surgeon as instructed, a few days before the scheduled date of the operation so that he could conduct a few additional tests for the exploratory surgery.

Things seemed to have changed so fast since she had met them all, and now if something happened to her, something outside her own power or control, would they then blame her for forfeiting her promises? Or would they forgive her after reading the letters that she had addressed to them. She was getting absurdly sentimental, she rebuked herself for this unnecessary indulgence. She seemed not to be in control of herself.

She had used the telephone in her room to speak to Dia – not of course, telling her where she was. The girl thought she was in Abu Dhabi. Dwita had told her that she was going to be on the move over the next few weeks, so there was no point in leaving a contact address or a number. She had, however, promised to keep in touch. She had used the same tactic with her mother, who accepted it more stolidly being used to Dwita's itinerant way of life – in any case Parna did not phone her daughter, it was always Dwita who made such overtures. When she had finished speaking to both of them, she could not help being amused by her own effrontery – she was now leading the game of hide and seek. It was her prerogative to be unavailable when others were free to receive her… She felt detached – perhaps the clarity of purpose and the sterile atmosphere of the hospital transported one from the mundane and human emotions were disinfected and dried in the clinical ambience of the medical world.

It was already a week since she had returned from India – an India she did not wish to recognise. The India of her childhood, the one she always endeavoured to push out of her memory had reappeared with a vengeance, while the India of her dreams, beloved, was fast evaporating in the face of renewed violence and hatred amongst the people she cherished and respected. Most of their generation were disenchanted, thwarted and disillusioned; ashamed of what they saw happening regularly around them, happening both to people they knew well and others whom they knew not. A new cloud of enmity and greed was gathering force on the Indian horizon – not between the Hindus and Muslims, but between the Sikhs and Hindus, who had lived together in peace and harmony since time immemorial.

This new enmity was gaining momentum at a terrible speed and political forecasters were predicting another holocaust, similar to the riots and carnage of 1947. She and those others of her belief and faith prayed it would be averted. India could not afford a new enemy, or a new traitor to hold her to ransom and reverse her progress.Would they of their generation and others who followed them be forced yet again to lose another thread of their eternity, their solidarity? Would they be asked to assume a new veil of mistrust? It seemed that those who were busy promoting this concept of divided India were so bewitched that they could not assimilate the danger of demolishing the stability of one's own heritage in order to achieve amoral personal ends. Who could we blame now, Dwita asked herself. Could we say that the seed of separation was an acquired malaise from the days of the Raj or was this a new disease that had been allowed deliberately to germinate and spread by those who did not care? Would this not ultimately lead to a land of no hope or return?

Dwita could not bring herself to submit to life under the talons of this dragon of destruction. When she met Barun the last time, she had told him, “My hope of refuge or return seems to have been sentenced permanently to extinction. In my life I have nursed and cherished only a little hope, a small amount of assurance, and some love, it does not add up to very much. Hence I quite selfishly wish to cling to what I have – my feelings, my recollections and my foolish dreams. In my vagrant way of life, the love of my friends and the dreams of my country have helped sustain me; my common loyalties have remained untouched and unshaken despite consistent denials and disappointments. I simply do not have the courage at this time in my life to sacrifice those few dreams and my remaining privileges, by returning to confront a scene I do not wish to acknowledge or perpetuate. I shall never be in a position to fight or alter any of this so I shall stay away, Barun, for as long as I need to, in order to keep my dreams and nurse my illusions. You and others may call me a coward – but there it is, when I cannot hope to conquer, I feel it is best to retreat.”

The impact of current events and changes not only affected Dwita but her mother as well. An active and motivated person though Parna was, she had been dumbfounded by the overwhelming sense of betrayal and had been relegated to speechless inactivity. It was also surprising to see Raghu's reaction when she spoke to him on her return to Abu Dhabi. His untaught ears refused to acknowledge the magnitude of the horror and disappointment that lay ahead of him, even in his little village in Andhra. He kept himself glued to the television screen, unable to absorb what he heard and saw each day. When ultimately he left for home, he did so with much less joy and more trepidation in his simple heart.

Dwita hoped fervently that if and when she woke up from her encounter with the surgeon's knife, the anaesthetic might have some permanent effect on her nerves, so that she might be equipped to cope with a world she understood less each day.

*

She stirred herself out of her morose contemplations, pregnant with yesterday's dreams and tomorrow's realities, and decided to re-read the copies of letters she had written to the three people she loved most in life – the originals were in the safekeeping of her solicitors who she hoped would remember to deliver them as entrusted.

She blushed with shame at the contents of these letters. They were melodramatic, full of the sentiments of a soap-opera – but that was really how she had felt when she was writing them – and why not? In all her years of rational, pragmatic living, she had tried to remain reserved and remote, seemingly unaffected by other people's refusals or incapacity. Now, when she could do nothing to help, avoid or influence her own future, could she not be allowed a little foolish emotion or a few admissions in terms of a weakness named love? Should she not be entitled to a small share of time and space in the lives of those she had loved, yet had not had the right or the courage to claim as her own?

Dwita picked up the three letters again with some hesitation and lethargy and started to read them slowly to herself, as though attempting to memorise their contents. She read the one to Barun:

“When you receive this, with it will also be a small casket.

I know I have never really belonged to anyone or anywhere in particular or in the true sense of the term, but I would still like what is left of me to mingle with the earth and elements of that part of the world which I think I loved and understood most, but could not claim or occupy. Let what remains of me find its rest in the heart of the Ganges – I believe she is generous and forgiving and may cleanse what remains to be cleansed, in order to carry me on into an eternity of which I know nothing.

“Farewell, my friend, and thank you for everything, especially for your patience and for your understanding of me who gave you so little in return.”

She then tore the letters up as a last gesture of futility. How abysmally stupid and sentimental, she thought whilst she lay there on her bed alive and apprehensive. She was exhausted by what she felt were absurd indulgences, unused to exposing herself to the demonstration or exhibition of common emotions in the practised regime of her upbringing. She consoled herself by thinking that surely she could not be expected to leave this world without a message of love or a token of association? Surely her spirit would otherwise rebel and wander in wanton fashion, seeking fulfilment in death and haunting those she had loved.

She remembered her mother – a sense of guilt threw a further pall of gloom over her. If she truly inflicted the pain of her death on Parna, would she find some grace in her heart to pardon her or would she accuse her of callousness and irresponsibility? She would perhaps decide not to forgive Dwita for what she would call wilful violation of filial duty. She would never believe that Dwita was not given any choice in the end, but had merely followed what time had prescribed.

*

Five weeks had passed since Dwita had walked into her room in the clinic. Three of those weeks had been spent in the clinic and the last two in a convalescent home which she had just left to return to her home in London.

The surgeon had made a successful diagnostic conclusion, all doubt had been resolved – she had cancer of the womb. The operation to remove it had been successful, but he still could not give her a guarantee of no relapse or say that she was ‘cured'. It was a case of advanced malignancy and he had done as much as he could. He had looked at her with concern and tried his best to dilute what he had to convey to her with the right amount of kindness and consideration. He had then said, “I rang your friend in Abu Dhabi as advised by you but gave him no details. I was not sure if you would have wished me to – would you like me to contact anyone else?”

She had shaken her head and refused his offer. She felt unable to face anyone, not yet. She had to think it all out for her herself. The two weeks in the home he had suggested had sounded just right. Years ago, she had retreated once before to gather her life together, except the circumstances were different and the doctors had then left her no choice. It was rather special this time – she actually had the prerogative of a decision to be made only by herself and could not be asked to revoke it or live outside it. Although the surgeon had done as much as possible she was well aware that with such aggressive malignancy there was a chance of recurrence. On the other hand she could just be fortunate and would never hear of it again. There was so much to think about – so much seemed at stake – her career, the things she still wanted to do or had promised to do, life itself. The important question was to what extent she could involve others in her uncertain future? She knew that she would soon have to face up to people – the people who stood in the wings of her life, who could be affected and hurt by the realities that confronted her.

Returning to her flat in London to think things through further had seemed a good idea then – she had to pick up the threads of living as long as life was given to her, and the sooner the better. Golden rays of early October sun peered through the folds of ivory silk in the window. Yet she winced and turned her face away.

Dwita lay awake, or rather half-awake, thinking lazily in the quiet solitude of her comfortable bed. She never knew these days where she was, as she awoke to the first light of dawn. Was she in India? Calcutta, Delhi or Bombay? Or was she in the Gulf? Abu Dhabi, Doha or Bahrain? Maybe in Africa – East or West? She never knew until she had surfaced fully. She pulled the continental quilt up to her eyes, breathed deeply and smelt the friendly warmth of her London flat. Her itinerant Indian soul, denied a real refuge or a personal home had found its own shelter – the cosmopolitan anonymity of London. Here, she lived with her unchained spirit in an atmosphere of true English detachment – between countries and cultures.

She stirred uneasily – why was she feeling so different today? Apart from everything; unconcerned and untouched by surroundings; alive yet not quite living. She suddenly remembered with huge relief that the storms of the last few years, or even decades, had ceased – storms that had blown her from one place to another, scattering her hopes and dreams, pushing her off precipices of faith. They could no longer touch or threaten her – she had been released. Nothing of her past remained to stifle her – a massive funeral pyre was sighing out its last flame, where an assortment of common feelings lay in ashes, an unrecognisable heap of love, fear, sensitivities, expectations, divine faith and the rest. Soon the tongues of flame would die out, the smoke would clear and she would emerge into a new intangible existence. Her spirit, cleansed by the fire and now weightless, would live lightly, relieved of flesh and blood desires and expectations. The gnawing human cravings had fled. She felt a little light-headed with the realisation, like a final orgasm – the serenity inside her was sublime. She fell easily then into a deep slumber, where the fleeting memories of a departing past overtook her.

Faces floated down the line of recognition – dim but with its opaque clarity… Nirupama… Aparna… Maheshwari… Barun… Nishith… Prithwish… Rusi… Sultan… Christopher… Dia… and so many other faces – all marionnettes in a parade of indeterminate follies… Was this the predicted farewell to a past she had failed so utterly to manage or control? Or had she?… Or was it her way to seek release from the onus of ancestry and the beginning of another journey?…