Live Like a Flame

This is the story I sent to Neel. And before people start posting dumb questions, I’d better declare that this story is entirely fictional, and all the characters and incidents are totally made up.

There now.

*********‘Your hair! What have you done? Are you mad? My God … if Ma sees you like this … . Woman, have you no sense? You were supposed to get Mamoni’s head shaved. What possessed you …? Can’t you think for a moment before …?’
__Nisha’s lips quivered as she tried to marshal an explanation in the face of Arun’s barely controlled anger. Her eyes flicked to her daughter, but the five-year-old had skipped up to their front door and was playing with the scarf that covered her little gleaming bald head.
__‘Mamoni … I’m sorry, Arun, I couldn’t help it, she cried so loud, I couldn’t keep her quiet. She kept throwing herself out of the barber’s chair. I was so afraid she’d hurt herself; you remember how Ma was for days after she fell off the windowsill and cut her lip. I tried so hard to distract her, I really did, but she didn’t pay me any heed. Finally she agreed to have her head shaved only if I did it too. Nothing else worked, no chocolates or caresses .… I’m sorry, I couldn’t think of anything else. Did I do wrong?’
__Arun’s mouth jerked as though she’d hit him. With difficulty she realized he was laughing, a laugh so bitter it almost choked him. ‘You really don’t know.’ he said in wonder. ‘You haven’t a clue, Nisha. We give you the tiniest responsibility and this is what you do. And you really mean it, don’t you? You truly can’t see the heinousness of what you, a married woman, have done. If I didn’t know what an utter memsahib you still are underneath that sindoor and sari and shankha-pola I would never have believed it of a grown Bengali wife.’ He raised a hand as her lips parted in the beginnings of protest. ‘Don’t say a word. I know you try in your own way, but this is too much. Ma’ll think you’ve done it deliberately to hurt her.’
__A little trickle of fear touched her heart. ‘But I hardly go out, it’ll grow back before anyone notices …’ Arun snorted, and went on in a singsong of irritation. ‘Do I have to tell you that adults only shave their heads when someone dies? And a woman only when her husband dies? What’s Ma going to think of that? I had enough trouble over your short hair; she was so sad that you couldn’t wear her hair ornaments at the wedding. Have you forgotten? How long is your common sense going to live in Hong Kong, eh?’
__Nisha’s hand flew to her throat, to the mangalsutra they had given her six years ago, the night before the wedding, and which had never left her throat since. ‘Oh.’
__‘Oh, indeed.’ Arun’s voice was bitter. ‘Now Ma’s been particularly bad ever since Mamoni had malaria, so I think I’d better break the news to her, though it’s more than you deserve.’ He sighed. ‘One day I’ll get sick of bailing you out. When will you grow some sense, for god’s sake? Stay out of the way till I’ve told her.’ And he turned abruptly and strode indoors. Mamoni had been watching them from the doorway with a bright clever smile on her face, her head a red and yellow triangle in the silk scarf with a picture of Big Ben on it, a relic of one of Nisha’s father’s trips. As he passed Arun scooped his daughter up and she screeched with delight. Nisha stood there uncertainly for a while, then crept indoors, the end of her sari clutched tightly round her bald head, covering even the streak of sindoor like a wound in the center of it.
__There was a central hall just inside the door, from which the doors of all the ground floor rooms led off, as well as the grandiose, crumbling staircase. Upstairs the rooms had been divided and subdivided; some parts belonged to distant branches of the family that had severed all ties with theirs; they had added spiral iron staircases to their wings, turning this veranda into a bathroom, that niche into a kitchen, till they were nothing but self-contained noises on the other side of straggling whitewashed walls. Arun’s family had successfully retained this part of the ground floor; but the three rooms were all used as bedrooms, one for Ma and Baba, one for Arun’s sister whose in-laws lived in Malda, and one for their widowed Pishima who would stay whenever she came down from Hooghly to visit Belur Math. That left only this dank, windowless hall for use as a ‘drawing room’; it was just big enough for a table with a portable TV set on it, the family’s tiny sofa and the rickety glass-fronted case that held Nisha’s mother-in-law’s prized collection of plastic Disney animals. Beside this case Nisha waited, the dank air caressing the skin of her head with unpleasant intimacy, and heard the voices from the other room playing out the drama of her transgression.
__Why had she given in to Mamoni’s screaming? Mamoni was always screaming. It was a tactic that worked with her grandparents, and God knows it always worked with her mother. Never having faced bullying as a diplomat’s daughter, Nisha was now under the thumb of her own five-year-old child. When all was quiet, she would lie awake and resolve to be a better mother in future, to be kind but firm and not give in to the barrage of irrational demands, tantrums and scenes. But such thoughts evaporated when that screechy voice split the air, and when Mamoni contorted her body like a living corkscrew it was always only a matter of time before Nisha retreated.
__Now, she knew with sinking certainty, she had given up her peace of mind for weeks to come, in return for those few minutes of respite while the barber had shaved Mamoni’s head. Nisha hadn’t wanted Mamoni’s head shaved; it had been Ma’s idea; apparently all children had their heads shaved at age five; to make their hair grow better. How was she, Nisha from Hong Kong, to know that such an act was taboo for adults? She had seen Hindu funerals, in Singapore and Fiji, and no one had shaved their heads. In fact she had not associated head-shaving with ritual at all. Her own hair had been thin and lifeless; why not shave it off and start again? It wasn’t as if she ever went out, and it would grow back soon.
But she should have thought of Arun, she reflected guiltily. Not that he looked at her much these days; her work in the grimy kitchen under Ma’s scolding eye and in the corners of the old house where dirt seemed to mushroom and conspire had not added to her meagre stock of personal attraction, but nevertheless, how would he feel with a wife who looked like a cancer patient turned domestic drudge? Now this would give him another reason to despair of her. How could she have been so foolish, so spineless as to give in to the whining of a child in such a matter? In the half-light Nisha began to chew the end of her anchal, a nervous habit that was becoming second nature.
__A shriek rose from the kitchen. Nisha tensed. They would call her soon, to assess the damage and impress upon her the seriousness of her crime. For a wild moment Nisha contemplated rushing out of the house and taking a cab to New Market to buy a wig. But she only had twenty rupees in her handbag; besides, the ancient padlock on the gate was so stiff and temperamental that only the men of the house could open it.
__‘Moni! O Moni!’ That was Ma’s name for her. Ma hated the name Nisha; it was too ‘non-Bengali’. She wrapped the sari tightly round her head and watched her feet as they walked, so steadily, into the kitchen. ‘Ohhhh!’ Arun’s mother clapped her hands to her eyes. ‘What have you done, what have you done, my daughter! You have brought the evil eye down on my son! Don’t you know the palmist said his lifeline was broken at age thirty-five? Where you should be mending it with your care and love, you are opening the door to the messengers of Yama himself! Have you no sense, girl? See, I knew this would happen. Mamoni only listens to her Didua, no? I should have known this mem wouldn’t know how to humour such a child. As if you didn’t know what you were doing! Even in Singapore, did your friends cut off their hair and walk around like this? Uncouth creature! You could have cut off a lock or two and tricked the poor little thing into being scraped bare. And given her a sweet afterwards. Married for so long and doesn’t know how to deal with a child! When will you grow up? This is not your abroad; this is our country. Do the wives of abroad wish for their husbands’ deaths? Evil girl! Oh, my back hurts like fire today, younger brother-in-law is coming, I want him to have my special mustard ilish, but how can I cook it now that you have put this fear for my jewel son into my breast? My hand will shake with terror as I grind the mustard … ’
__‘I’ll do it, Ma,’ Nisha interjected, seizing her chance with relief, but to her surprise she only got a narrowed look of anger. ‘You have come here with the face of a thing from the burning ghat. How can I let you touch the family’s food? Here, take iron and fire. And go and bathe, don’t bring that uncleanness into my kitchen.’
__‘Ma,’ Arun interrupted wearily, ‘that’s enough. Be reasonable. Let Moni grind the mustard and forget it. Her hair will grow in a few weeks. We’ll keep her out of everyone’s sight until it grows; we’ll say she’s ill. That way you won’t be shamed in front of the neighbours. Don’t cry, Ma, I’ll tell her what a terrible thing she’s done, yes she must be made to realize…’ Arun took his mother’s arm and led her to the sitting room. Over his shoulder he ordered peremptorily, ‘Make some tea.’
__Nisha filled the kettle; her arm stung as the water splashed on it. Holding it up to the dim light of the window, made dimmer by dirty netting and oil-choked cobwebs, she saw an inch-long scratch above her wrist. Mamoni had been very angry at the prospect of losing her curls; she had beaten her mother with her doll. Nisha sighed and ran her arm under the tap.
__Spineless. They were right. Nisha felt tears pricking the backs of her eyelids and blinked angrily. She thought not again: but the choking tide rose nevertheless and swelled her throat like a physical mass. Why had they agreed at all to take her as the wife of their house? ‘They are good people,’ her father had said at the time of her marriage. ‘Not very wealthy, but warm, like in the old days. Family people. You must fit in with them, look after relatives, be a family person. They don’t understand individualism; that’s for the West. But they’ll look after you like a jewel.’ And, as she and he had sat on the darkened verandah the night before the wedding, both seeking a moment’s respite from the crowds of excited relatives and the shrill hubbub of the preparations, he had regarded her sadly. She had heard rumours of his reverses, but his early years in the diplomatic service had ingrained in him the habit of shielding his wife and child from the real state of things in his work. Nevertheless, within a year of her marriage she had learned how drastically the business he had started in his retirement had failed; when he died she had been left with the incredible tangle of his affairs to clear up. As her father’s only child she had had no escape; Arun had had to ferry her to the lawyers so many times while things were being settled.
__Arun’s family still remembered and reminded her of those days of selfless service to hers. They had offered to take in Nisha’s mother, but Mummy had refused, preferring to stay in the flat in Bombay on her husband’s pension. This had caused a certain amount of comment among the Sens; Ma had shuddered and said enviously, ‘Living alone in Bombay! I’d die of fright.’
__The pot boiled; she jumped to turn it down before it spilled over—too late. She mopped at the mess with a dirty rag, scalding her hand. The smell of roasted milk filled the air. ‘She’s burned it again,’ came Arun’s mother’s voice. Flustered, Nisha wrung the cloth out under the tap, rinsed it and spread it out to dry on the side of the slime-blackened mosaic sink. Arun came in. ‘Strained it out? Well, hurry up. I’ll take it in to her. She’d almost forgiven you when you burned the tea. Can’t you do anything right?’
__‘I didn’t burn it; it spilled.’ But he had turned his back on her and was getting the teacups down from the rack. He held the cheap pyrex cups from Gariahat for a moment in one hand, then put them away and took out two from the Royal Doulton set that Nisha had brought with her as a bride. ‘Must make Ma feel special today,’ he said, noticing her eyes on them. ‘You hurt her pretty badly. She had almost come to believe you were one of us, and then you do something as incredibly stupid as this. Don’t you appreciate how delicate this all is?’
__She hung her head. ‘I’m sorry.’
__His mouth jerked again. ‘ “Sorry” is not a word in any Indian language,’ he said dryly. He went out with the tea.
__A tremendous weariness broke over her like a wave. She felt a physical longing for the bed in the cramped room upstairs, but to get to it she would have to cross the drawing room and face her mother-in-law’s round, reproachful, slightly exopthalmic face with the perpetually smeared vermilion bindi and the strands of graying hair forever escaping from her
bun. She pulled out a piri and sat down, leaning her head against the gas cylinder. She couldn’t keep her legs doubled up like the other women; she had to stretch them out, but then the sari rode up her calves. She compromised by covering her ankles with her anchal, hoping fervently that Ma would not come in and see her. The metal of the cylinder was cold, its touch a hard shock without her hair to shield her. Her scalp crawled.
__She jerked awake suddenly at the clatter of cups being put in the sink. She sprang up. ‘I’ll wash them!’ But he was already holding one ruefully in his hand. ‘I thought you’d come and collect them. Ma called you but you didn’t come.’
__‘I fell asleep.’
__‘So I see.’ He showed her the tiny chip in the cup. ‘I’ll tell Baba to fix it with Araldite. You’ll hardly be able to see the crack.’ He put it away in the cupboard. ‘You’re tired. Why don’t you go to bed? Ma says she won’t need you for another hour. It’s only three; you can sleep till four. I’ll send Mamoni to wake you.’
__‘Thank you.’ Suddenly overwhelmed by relief and gratitude, she wished she could hug him but he disapproved of such gestures outside the bedroom; besides, his mother might come in. ‘Arun, I … you know I didn’t do it on purpose …?’
__‘Of course I know.’ He smiled. ‘That’s what makes it worse. Because everybody will think you did do it on purpose, out of spite. It’s inconceivable to us that anyone can’t know such things …! Anyway,’ he rubbed her sari-covered head, making her wince at the rasp of the cloth. ‘I know my little mem, even if no one else does. Don’t worry about it. Go on up to bed. Ma’s gone to lie down as well.’ Gratefully, she went.

Their bedroom was hardly the size of a closet; there was just room in it to walk sideways round the bed. At one corner stood an ancient steel almirah, with a full length mirror which was nevertheless too close to the bed for her to see the length of her sari in it. Intent on her own exhaustion she walked in and stopped dead.
__The sari slipped from her shoulders. She stared at the stranger in front of her; a balloon of raw skin with a smudged red streak above two wide, frightened eyes. The bones of her skull stood out starkly; she saw the recessed lines of the sutures of the temporal and frontal bones below her naked skin; her ears had the delicacy of fungi or of coral. How strange and frightening was the human skull, a shape moulded by aeons to hold the mystery of a mind, as curiously wrought as some hieratic ritual bowl. Without her hair she was out of herself, she was sense and thought, she was strangeness and terror. The squat gold earrings in her ears looked incongruous, trivial, crude, as did the vermilion streak and the bindi on her forehead.
__Slowly, hardly breathing, she raised her hand to wipe them off, but her familiar hand with its red and white bangles next to this monstrous, pitiless shining face made a shudder of horror run through her, and she tore the sheet from the bed with trembling hands and fixed it over the mirror with the two magnets in the shape of Ma Kali that Arun’s mother had stuck to the almirah on the first night Nisha had spent there. Then, in the strangely whitened light of that tiny space, she lay down to sleep.
__She awoke with a jerk of guilt. It was dark; a sliver of moon hung in the window. Her heart sank. The cooking would be done by now and no one had come to wake her. She should have woken by herself, but this too was one of the things she often failed at. She felt that mass in her throat begin to swell again.
__She swung her legs off the bed and the unfamiliar shock of lightness clutched at her heart as she raised her head. She pressed her hands to her temples, afraid her brain would whirl off into the sky through the dim barred window imprisoning streetlights and crumbled cornices.
__Crows cawed into the twilight outside, circling. The sound seemed to strip her senses. She looked at her hands in wonder, almost expecting to see the nerves sticking out of them like fine, iridescent wires. Then she realized she had no power to stretch her legs, push the bed away, get up and go into the hall. Suddenly it seemed the hardest thing in the world, to lift this lightened head and drag it twenty paces into the space of light where, she knew, voices were talking, guests were being entertained. Perhaps it’s better if they don’t see me like this, she thought, slowly letting herself fall back on the bed. Maybe that’s why they didn’t call me, and she felt a guilty flash of pleasure at being spared. She watched the fan rotating slowly, smears of orange light from the street outside caressing each blade as it revolved, grinding a regular murmuring song.

‘Get up, I’ll be late for work.’ Arun’s voice, impatient. She started inside herself, sleep fragmenting like the stillness of a pond to a fisherman’s spear. Why was his voice so rough?
__Then she opened her eyes to the realization that she had been hearing that edge of exasperation in his voice now for many months. She had not noticed it. ‘Get up!’
__‘I’m sorry.’
__‘Sorry, sorry,’ he mimicked. ‘Do you think that makes it all right? Can’t you get it right for once? I’m sick of your sorrys. Why didn’t you help Ma last night like you promised?’
__‘You were supposed to call me.’
__He threw his hands out in a gesture of annoyance, scattering a faint pall of talcum powder from the can he held. ‘You should have the sense to get up anyway. I was busy with Mamoni’s homework. I didn’t want to break her concentration by sending her to call you. You know how important it is to Ma that she does well.’
__But she’s my daughter, Nisha thought. Shouldn’t it matter to me? And realized with a shock that it didn’t.
__Arun shrugged himself into his shirt and went out. She followed, going downstairs and into the tiny courtyard at the back of the house to brush her teeth in the outdoor sink. She was the only one who used the sink for this purpose; the rest just spat suds of toothpaste into the drain, where it congealed. Arun’s mother always inspected the sink pointedly, so Nisha cleaned it when she’d finished, not that cleaning made much impression on its pitted, slimy surface. Most of the little black stone chips in the grey cement had been ground away by daily hard use, leaving a mass of tiny craters full of slime and dirt like the skin of some obscene fish-eating coral. She could hear Arun calling for his breakfast. Usually she made it and his mother served him, but everything was upside down this morning. She went into the kitchen to find her mother-in-law frying eggs. Without a word Ma thrust a plate of toast into Nisha’s hand and motioned her into the hall. Arun was sitting there, pinning down errant sheets of newsprint with both hands under the fan’s breeze. She put the toast down on the table and began to butter it.
__‘I may be late back from the office,’ he said, biting into a piece of toast as she buttered another. ‘You’re to stay indoors, do you hear? God knows how long it’ll take to get you looking like a human being again. I don’t even want you showing yourself on the porch. We’ll be a laughing stock among the neighbours. Look at you! Why have you taken off your earrings? Don’t you know they belonged to my grandmother?’
__‘They looked strange with … without my hair,’ she faltered.
__Arun’s look was cold yet curiously smug, as though he had expected no other answer. ‘Why don’t you wipe off the vermilion streak and wear a white sari as well? That would be very stylish. You could pose for fashion plates.’
__To her shame she felt tears invade her eyes.
__Mamoni ran into the room, holding the ends of her scarf high above her head like wings. She frowned when she saw her mother. ‘Where’s Didua?’
__‘In the kitchen.’ Mamoni ran in with a shriek of delight. Nisha could hear her mother-in-law talking to the child in her special child’s voice. Once again, for the millionth time, she wished she could unbend with the girl like that, but something always stopped her, a kind of shrinking into herself. With a start she realized that Arun’s plate was empty and she was sitting idle, butter dripping onto the table from her knife. She bent her head to her task.
__The doorbell rasped. Her mother-in-law’s voice exploded from the kitchen. ‘Kamala! That woman! She’s late again. Late! Moni! O Moni! Open the door, will you? I’ll give her a piece of my mind, thinks she can walk in at all hours and we’ll wait on her whims …’
__Arun grimaced as Nisha dropped the knife on the table, making a butter smudge, and scurried to the door. She wrenched at the latch (the padlock was left off for an hour in the morning to let the various morning staff go in and out) and threw the door open.
__It was Kamala all right. Her thin-lipped mouth fell open as she took in the sight of Nisha, her shining head, the sari slipping on to her shoulders.
__‘Ma go!’
__Arun’s mother rushed out of the kitchen, spatula in hand. ‘Kamala! Stop staring at the foolish girl. See what she has done! See!’
__‘Who of yours has died?’ Kamala asked, her eyes still wide.
__‘No one,’ said Nisha, before her mother-in-law could stop her. Arun’s voice cut in, ‘Moni is ill, Kamala, don’t bother her with questions.’
__Kamala gave them all a very odd look and went into the kitchen without a word. Arun’s mother glowered at them both. ‘Don’t put ideas into that woman’s head. You know everything she hears gets retailed all over the neighbourhood.’
__‘Would you rather tell her the truth?’ Arun fastidiously picked up the smeared knife from the table and handed it to his mother. ‘Please wash this. I’d ask Moni, but she’d have to go in the kitchen …’
__‘What shall we tell people then? Your father is yet to come back from his club. Moni, go and look if you can see him … oh, forget it. Sit down. Oh this will be the death of me.’ She shook her head mournfully. ‘What to tell people? Everyone knows she has no near relations except her mother. Young people these days are so “liberated” they don’t even shave their heads for their fathers when they die, and everyone knows Nisha’s father is long dead. What can we say? Who will believe?’
Nisha let herself fade into the background. She was used to being talked about as if she was not there. Head bowed, she stared blankly at Arun’s half-eaten breakfast as Arun toyed with his toast. He pushed his plate away. ‘I’m late, Ma. Nisha, you stay indoors today, and see no one, you hear? We’ll talk about this in the evening. Ma, don’t worry. It will all sort itself out.’
__‘Oh! You can’t go without eating!’ His mother’s eyes widened. ‘Moni! You haven’t buttered the toast. Quickly, quickly, or he’ll go with an empty stomach! Those slave drivers won’t let him be even fifteen minutes late.’
__Glad to have something to do, she went back to her task, not letting her gaze stray from the knife in her hands. Shortly afterwards Arun left for work. She ate her own half-hearted breakfast and crept upstairs. There she sat and stared out of the window, waiting for the creak of the front door that would announce Kamala’s departure.
__She shut her eyes. If she had known it would feel like this she would never have allowed it. It was not her hair but a layer of skin that had been scraped from her body, leaving her open to things that had scrabbled in vain for her heart till now. How simple an act it had seemed then, just a gesture to please a child’s whim — no, she should have realized the implications of what she was doing. Why had she not? She could see now what a terrible blow it was, to her husband, to his mother, even to Mamoni. Was her identity as wife of the household so loosely set upon her shoulders that she could mislay it in a fit of absentmindedness, like a torn shawl? She raised a hand automatically to smooth her hair and jerked it back when she felt skin against skin. Already the needle points of new hair were embedded like ground glass in her head, though they were yet to pierce the skin. She could hardly endure the touch of the pillow. Restlessly she paced the narrow gap by the bed, not caring that she bumped her knees on the heavy wooden sidebeams of it.
__She heard voices downstairs; Haru Doctor had come to give Mamoni her certificate excusing her from school; the school frowned on head-shaving, alta, bangles, earrings — all the things indispensable to a young girl growing up, to her mother-in-law’s indignation. Mamoni’s appearance sans hair would mean another meeting with the principal. Arun’s mother got around these irksome regulations by the simple expedient of feeding Haru Doctor ‘like a daughter’s husband’ every time he dropped in, and extracting bogus health certificates when necessary. This time her fish fries would get Mamoni a week of official fever. Once the haze of fine black down softened the creamy tan of her scalp she would not stand out so much in the line of little girls. With luck she might go unnoticed.
__Nisha took care not to come down till she was sure Haru Doctor had gone.

Arun’s parents were sitting on the broken down sofa when she finally crept down the stairs. Arun’s mother had her embroidery spread out on her lap; a pinafore for Mamoni on which she was appliquéing a picture of Mickey Mouse. ‘Come, here, Moni,’ she said, patting the dun-coloured cloth beside her. ‘Are you angry because I shouted? Silly girl; you are such a child.’ She stroked Nisha’s back, then carefully arranged Nisha’s sari to cover her head. ‘Wear it like that for now. And Moni, for the next month or so wear those wide bordered tants I gave you, they will cover you nicely. There! Now you look like a proper Bengali Bou.’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have sent you with Mamoni. Tch. Not everyone can do everything.
You grew up in abroad, with no brothers and sisters; you never learnt how to manage children. Next time I’ll go. I’ll make Kamala stay and I’ll take Mamonshona myself. Don’t worry, your hair will grow back. But for now, we will look so foolish to the neighbours! They’ll be laughing at you. And what will I tell them then? What face will I show? You know I hate them to have a chance to speak badly of you. That is only why I was angry.’
__‘I’m sorry Ma, I … I should have known better. It was so silly of me. I’ll … stay indoors and make sure no one sees.’
__Ma sighed. ‘I’m afraid Kamala will make that impossible. It’s probably all over the para now. I will just have to stay home and avoid them all for a while.’ She broke a thread with her teeth. ‘Provided I can stop them coming to see me.’ Nisha knew how much her little trips around the para to see her friends meant to Ma.
__Nisha glanced at Baba. Normally when he came back from the club he was full of politics, which he made a point of retailing to her because she had education. The talk was making him uncomfortable; he had buried himself in the paper and had forgotten to take off his white canvas shoes. She wondered if she should point it out.
__‘We must do a puja,’ said Ma with sudden decision, ‘to avert any evil that might come from your action. Are you listening?’ Nisha knew the last comment was for Baba to pay heed.
__‘Puja!’ Baba sounded thunderstruck behind the sports news. ‘What for?’ Then he pointed angrily to the paper. ‘This English Prime Minister has had another son. Another! The fourth! And they come here and preach to us about population control! What Indian wouldn’t give his right arm to have four sons?’
__Nisha kept quiet. She had once made the mistake of objecting when he had come home and announced that AIDS was a hoax put about by America to discredit the Third World; she had learnt then that her job was to listen; that was what her education was for. Occasionally she would be asked to clarify a fact or supply some tidbit of information, but the opinions were non-negotiable. In the beginning she had tried, but she soon realized that she was hurting Baba by questioning his judgement, and that was not to be borne.
__Ma sniffed. ‘They are all hypocrites. Listen, we must have a puja. We will tell the neighbours that Nisha has sacrificed her hair to the goddess so that Arun will have a son next time. Yes!’ Her eyes shone with the joy of having found this brilliant stratagem. ‘A Kali Puja. You must tell the priest to drop by so I can make all the arrangements.’
__Baba grunted. His opinion of pujas was less than complimentary, and he usually handed over the priest’s portion with an angry glare of affronted rationality. ‘Bloodsuckers!’ he would mutter for half a day afterwards. But his objections never extended as far as forbidding his wife her observances. To him they were an unpleasant necessity, like income tax. Then he said, ‘Kali Pujas are expensive and the priests are always high on ganja. Can’t you do something more civilized? A Lakshmi Puja?’
__‘Don’t be silly, no one sacrifices their hair to Lakshmi.’
__‘Well, can’t you just go to Kalighat and do it there?’
__Inwardly Nisha cringed. She hated Kalighat; she had been there only once to have her bangles consecrated before the marriage, and the dirt and noise and the crowds had oppressed her. She hoped Ma would refuse.
__‘You always make a fuss about my pujas. Do you think I’m getting in a taxi with Moni looking like that? Everyone will see!’
__Baba pursed his lips. ‘If you can manage the puja in under three thousand rupees, then fine. I still haven’t paid off Bara Kaka for our trip to Digha last year. Do you think I have a money tree? Now I’m going to get the dry groceries.’ And he flung down the paper and stamped off. Nisha sat and stroked Ma’s back as she buried her face in Mamoni’s half finished frock.
__Mamoni came running. ‘Didua! Didua! What has happened? Why are you crying?’ She patted her grandmother’s shoulders; Ma flung her arms around the child. Mamoni squealed, ‘I’ll tickle you! I’ll tickle you!’ Soon they were laughing and chattering, heads together.
__Nisha picked up the embroidery and folded it carefully away.

Don’t flinch, she told herself. Look straight. You’ve done this hundreds of times. Why should it be so hard now?
__‘Hurry up with that mirror, I need to comb my hair,’ said Arun, struggling into his pants.
__She stood motionless, her hand with the sindoor-laden comb poised above her bare skull. All she had to do was draw the thin red line along the parting of her hair that defined her as a married woman. This had been her morning ritual now for six years. Yet her hand was stuck fast as though the joints had been frozen in place. Of course, now there was no parting. All there would be was a thin red line marking something that was gone.
__Arun came up behind her and tapped her playfully on the shoulder. ‘Statue!’ he yelled. ‘Now I’ve broken the spell. You can put your sindoor on and let me get …’
__‘I’m not going to.’
__‘Now where did I leave … What?’
__‘I said I’m not going to put this stuff on.’
__‘Why not, woman?’ he exploded.
__‘It looks silly.’
__‘Yes, you said. Well you should have thought about that then, no? Surely you had the imagination to see that sindoor on a bald head looks weird? But women don’t wear the stuff to look nice; I hope you appreciate that basic fact? Not that I care, but don’t you think you should avoid hurting Ma till your hair grows again? After which problem solved, of course.’
__‘No.’
__‘No?’ Arun’s face darkened in the mirror. ‘What do you mean, no?’
__She turned sharply, sindoor from the open box in her hand spraying across the bed. ‘I don’t see why there should be any pride in wearing a glorified nerve toxin!’
__‘What?!’
__‘Do you know what is in this stuff?’
__‘In it? It’s sindoor, that’s what’s in it. Look at the mess you’ve made. Go and fetch a cloth. And stop behaving in this ridiculous fashion. I really have no time for this. Who told you it’s toxic anyway?’
__‘Shall I analyse it and show you?’
__He stared at her. Then slowly his lips twisted. ‘How could I forget you have a degree in chemistry? No, Madam Lady Scientist, that will not be necessary. I’ll take your word for it over the experience of millions — billions — of Indian women who’ve been proud to wear sindoor as a sign of marriage. Obviously you know better than them. Anyway, I’m not asking you to eat the blasted stuff. Just put it on, like a good girl. And give this bedcover for washing. Ma’ll have a fit when she sees it. Look, I’ll do it for you. I’m supposed to put it on, aren’t I?’ He took the comb from her and drew a ragged line on her bowed head with the sindoor-powdered back of it, marking the partition of right and left hemispheres. ‘There. Remember when I put it on for you first? When we were married, but that was in front of everyone. And in Ooty, on our honeymoon. You were so naïve then.’ He sighed. ‘Sometimes I think you haven’t learnt a thing. Now clean the bed; I’ve got to rush. Tell Ma to set my breakfast out.’
__She went downstairs with the soiled bedcover. As she crouched in the bathroom, scratching at the red stains with a stiff plastic brush that hurt her fingers, Ma poked her head around the door. ‘You know what?’ she beamed. ‘Baba has agreed to let us hire a luxury car to go to Kalighat! With curtains, so no one can gawk at you. We’ll do the puja and tell everyone that Kali has blessed you. You will certainly have a son next time. We’re going tomorrow; you must get Mamoni up and dressed by seven. You know she loves going to the temple, and she needs some new bangles …’ Ma’s voice receded down the corridor as she hurried back to the kitchen, so engrossed in the thought of her outing that she hadn’t even noticed the ruined bedclothes. Nisha gave a guilty start; she had forgotten to tell her to set out Arun’s breakfast. Stuffing the wet bedcover into a bucket, she ran to the kitchen after her mother-in-law.

The car was an ancient Ambassador, and belonged to a former colleague of Baba’s who had fallen on hard times. Officially Baba was ‘borrowing’ the car; money would change hands only in some ethereal and unobtrusive way, decently covered by a manila envelope. ‘There’s no car like an Ambassador,’ Baba proclaimed, thumping the seat. ‘Fits seventeen at a pinch, can be fixed by any roadside mechanic, tough as a camel. Eh? Where will you get legspace like this? All these newfangled cars, they look like frogs, you can dent them with your thumb, they go phut in two years. This is the only car for us.’ And he looked proudly out of the windscreen over the little green plastic trishul that wobbled on the dashboard on its spring.
__Nisha tried not to fold up into a foetal position. The back and seat were rexine cloth stretched over a hard wooden frame which dug into the backs of her knees; the inside of the frame was filled with ancient prickly coconut husk and rusty springs that creaked. She could feel an ache start in the back of her neck, which was propped on the frame at the back, while her body bounced on the weak springs in the cavernous hollow below. Ma’s weight beside her had produced a declivity which threatened to fling Nisha into her lap every time they turned a corner. Baba, in front with Mamoni who had insisted on being propped up with a cushion so she could see over the dashboard, was giving directions. The front seat of the car was hazy with regurgitated exhaust. Faded green curtain turned the back seat into a murky cave.
__The car stopped in yet another traffic jam, on a humpbacked bridge. The brake discs groaned as the driver stamped on the pedal to stop the heavy car from sliding. The crumbling cement railing was just inches away from the door, and beyond that were the turbulent waters of a canal, an incredibly virulent grey-green. Naked children played, coating their bodies with slime as they jumped, shrieking, one after another from the parapet, then struggled back up to the line of garbage-walled hovels in order to jump again.
__‘Look Didua, they are playing!’
__‘Yes, Mamoni, but you must never do that.’
__Baba said, ‘Amazing, no? Do not the little creatures feel any disgust? If we did that we would be dead in a week. But they thrive on it. They’ve grown in it from birth; they have become immuned.’
__Nisha felt her jaw move before she could stop herself. ‘We think they are because their deaths don’t get mentioned in the Statesman personal columns.’ But then she decided she must have imagined the act of speaking, because no one reacted.
__The car began to move again. Nisha was stifled behind the thick curtain, which was drawn on her side. The city flickered crazily behind the flapping polyester. They lurched over a bump, and Nisha felt momentarily sick at the unaccustomed lightness of her head. She started to play a game with herself; an old game she had invented in childhood when she was given her first watch, an Omega. She promised herself to sit quietly for five minutes, after which she could have a peek out of the window. And for the five minutes after that, and then she could shift her position. Another five minutes and she could move her feet. In this way the time would pass. After all, even the worst ordeal was only a matter of time. As long as you were alive, time would pass. One way or the other.
__In five more minutes, she thought, I can scratch the itch on the back of my head.

‘Wonderful,’ said Duli Kakima. ‘An excellent thing you’ve done. Yes, it’s high time the goddess gave you her blessing again.’
__‘Indeed,’ said Ma, with a cunning smile. ‘Do you know I have been saving up to send them on holiday again? The seaside this time. My poor Arun gets no leisure here, he’s so tired when he comes home in the evening. We will have to live without him somehow for a week or so, but it’s all for the good, no? Anyway, Bouma doesn’t do much around the house;
I’ll manage, as always, there’ll be no problem. It’s not good if the gap between the children is too wide; they told on TV yesterday.’
__‘I’ve always said you are a very thoughtful and considerate mother-in-law, Purnimadi. Who else would scrimp and save to send her son-and-wife on a second honeymoon? You’re an example to us all.’
__Ma glowed.
__‘It’s good you’re working so hard to teach her our ways,’ Shonali Mashi said. ‘After all, she wasn’t brought up like us. We were taught from girlhood how to behave with our in-laws. She hasn’t had that training, poor thing. And to grow up in phoren, in such privileged surroundings …’ Shonali Mashi sighed. ‘It must be so hard for her here with you, Purnima.’
__Nisha came in to serve the tea, her face almost hidden in her sari. The women exclaimed, ‘Doesn’t she look just the little Bouma! You look straight out of a Ray film, Moni. No, don’t hide. Purnimadi, why isn’t she wearing any jewelry? Only this little chain? She’s looking like a widow!’
__Ma smiled a martyred smile. ‘You know how she is about jewelry. These modern girls …’
__‘Nonsense, Purnima. My daughter-in-law is convent-educated and she’s delighted every time we give her jewelry. It’s got so she sulks if she doesn’t get a necklace every puja. Girls are always girls. Don’t try to tell me your Moni is some sort of saint. Sure she feels the urge, it’s just that she doesn’t want to embarrass you by asking for it. After all, only your Arun is working.’
__Ma’s large round eyes bulged a little more. ‘Moni, go and put on that set I gave you last puja. The one with the red stones.’
__‘Yes, Ma.’
__They watched her, too thin in the wide-bordered tant, cross the living room and go upstairs.
__Mamoni whirled round as Nisha pushed aside the curtain in the doorway. She was sitting on the bed, the contents of Nisha’s costume jewelry boxes scattered around her. On her forehead a huge red bindi had been surrounded by various stick-on jewels. Her arms were laden with bangles.
__‘What are you doing, Mamoni?’
__The girl scooped up everything and dumped it in the box. ‘Playing.’
__‘I’ve told you not to play with my jewelry. What happened to that necklace I gave you last Rother Mela?’
__Mamoni pouted. ‘It broke.’
__‘Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have got you another.’
__‘You always buy me such silly things! I don’t want plastic beads. I want a real necklace, like this.’ She held up a string of cultured pearls.
__Nisha laughed, and held out her arms. ‘All right. I’ll get you one.’ But Mamoni was unimpressed. ‘You’ll only buy those pearly plastic ones. The paint flakes off. Do you think I’m a silly girl? I want real ones! I’ll look after them really well, I promise. Can I have these?’
__Nisha sat down on the bed next to her daughter. Mamoni earnestly took her mother’s hands in her own. ‘Please?’
__Nisha caught sight of them in the mirror. Two bald heads. Hers, with the wandering vermilion streak. Mamoni’s with the silk scarf slipping off. She adjusted the scarf. Mamoni tossed her head impatiently.
__‘All right.’ She undid the clasp of the pearl necklace and slipped it round her daughter’s neck. Mamoni’s eyes sparkled. ‘You’re a lovely Mummy!’ she cried, flinging her arms around Nisha. Nisha tried to hold her, but Mamoni squirmed like a puppy in her mother’s arms, then looked up and laughed. Some of her stick jewels had transferred themselves to her mother’s neck; Nisha picked them off and returned them to her daughter’s forehead. Mamoni dashed to the mirror to adjust the pattern.
__‘Mamoni,’ Nisha said to the little back, stiff with concentration. ‘Would you like to go on a trip with me?’
__‘Where?’ she asked, frowning as she teased a crescent-shaped jewel into the middle of her forehead.
__‘Oh, just anywhere. We’d pack our bags and go down to the station and buy tickets for whatever train is leaving, go wherever it takes us. Would you like that?’
__Mamoni thought about it. ‘How would we know it’s a nice place it’s taking us to?’
__‘We wouldn’t know until we got there.’
__‘What if it wasn’t a nice place?’
__‘We could come back.’
__Mamoni made a face. ‘That doesn’t sound like fun. I’d rather go to Poonam’s and watch Kaho Na Pyar Hai. Anyway, Daddy hates wandering around. He’d complain and complain and complain.’
__‘Yes he would, wouldn’t he?’ Nisha smiled a little. ‘But we could leave him behind.’
__‘Could we take Didua?’
__‘We could. But she can’t walk very far, you know? And she’d miss Dadu.’
__‘Can we take Poonam?’
__‘Why not just you and me?’
__Mamoni put her head on one side. ‘But if Daddy doesn’t come, who will call the taxi and fight with the coolies and tell the beggar children to go away?’
__‘Moni? Moni? Where is she now? Can’t ask her to do the simplest thing without … Moni! Everybody’s waiting. See I had to come looking for you leaving everybody waiting? Hurry up now. Oh you useless girl I’ll get it out for you. Where are the keys? Never will you save my face before that poisonous Shonalidi! Thinks she’s so great just because her son works for some foreign company. There! Now put it on and come downstairs. And then make some more tea. Really, you must make an effort, Moni. This is too much.’
__Not looking at herself in the mirror, Nisha jabbed the thick wires through her ears and struggled with the screw-thread stops. The necklace pricked her neck. One of the bangles bent as she tried to force it over her large square hand; she turned it so the distortion was towards her. Ma would notice anyway. Pulling her sari back over her head, she went downstairs.

‘Well?’ Arun said finally. ‘What was it you wanted to say?’
__She looked out across the crumbling rooftops. Arun had come home early. She had asked him to come up on the roof, not knowing why she asked, fully expecting him to refuse and get started on Mamoni’s homework. But he had agreed, and thrown her into an abrupt seizure of thought as he led her upstairs, dangling the heavy key between his inkstained fingers. The fresh warm air had shocked her senses; tenderly he had placed her sari over her naked head to protect her from the last of the afternoon sun and the curiosity of the neighbours. They stood now by the low parapet wall. With a kind of idiot precision, her eye took note of the lines of drunken TV antennae marching silently into the sky.
__‘Arun …’
__‘Yes?’
__‘Why did you marry me?’
__Arun’s brow furrowed. ‘What sort of a question is that? I thought it was something important.’
__‘Isn’t it?’
__‘Well, yes, but I would have thought the answer’s obvious. I mean, it’s not as though you’ve suddenly discovered some mystery about it.’
__‘Please …’
__‘Oh, all right.’ The singsong lilt of exasperation entered his voice, the tone she realized she dreaded. ‘There I was, in Ma’s opinion old enough to carry the family torch, and no one to complete my life and hers. So out came the Statesman matrimonials. And there you were, third column, fourth ad. The seventh girl we tried. Right caste, good background. And then of course we met at your house, and a month later we went to Flury’s with Mashimoni. Remember? And the rest, as they say, is history.’ He smiled with half his mouth, and picked at an ancient gob of wax left over from some Diwali on the cracked brick surface.
__‘But you said … you said I was different.’
__‘Of course. Otherwise why do you think we chose you?’
__‘No, afterwards … in Ooty. On our honeymoon. You said …’
__‘Oh for god’s sake there’s no need to quote all that stuff.’
__‘You seem to have forgotten. Arun … do you remember what you said then? About your life? About freedom? You said my difference could be your life preserver. You said you were sick and tired of … of being Arun Sen of Senbati, S.M. Mitra Lane. You said you wanted me to help you be someone else, someone you could admire. You were attracted to my … my ignorance, I now realize, but then you said it was my freshness. That I didn’t and couldn’t know the world you came from, what you call its rules and regulations. I thought you wanted that from me, that way of looking at things, and now …’
__‘Oh, Nisha, Nisha, you still remember all that? That was years ago. We’re all older now. Now we have responsibilities, a place in the world. Why are you thinking like this? Aren’t you happy here?’
__‘Happy …’
__‘You have a nice secure home, a lovely daughter, a mother-in-law who works hard to spare you and won’t hear a word against you, you’re free from want and worry, you have all we could give you even if we’re not as well off as your father once was, but you knew that, even then.’
__‘And a husband?’
__He laughed. ‘Of course. Without me you wouldn’t have all these things, would you?’
__She lowered her head, feeling the weight of the sari against her ear. He went on, ‘You have all the freedom we could give you. Yes, I admit we haven’t seen the world like you, we live in our own small way, we know so little, but we’re kind. Doesn’t that count? Your father said the heart was more important than …’
__‘Arun, what is there in your heart for me?’
__He smiled, put an arm around her and drew her close. Perhaps here on the rooftop in the heat of the afternoon he felt less constrained in showing her affection. ‘My neri,’ he murmured, patting her sari-covered head. ‘My baldie. Of course you’re different. Who else would do a thing like that?’
__She jerked convulsively, breaking his grip, ‘Don’t patronize me!’
__They stared at each other. ‘So,’ he said slowly, ‘that’s what you think I’m doing.’
__She felt the tears pricking deep behind her eyes. ‘No! No, Arun, I’m trying so hard to understand. I’m trying, but I can’t! I can’t!’
__He sighed. ‘What more must I do, tell me? You know I can’t leave my family. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Do you really think that would make you happy? I can’t turn away from them, they have no one else. Ma … she’s suffered so much. Only now I’m beginning to earn enough for her little luxuries. Would you take them away from her? I know she’s not elegant like your mother, but she’s spent her whole life scrimping and saving. She never had the chance to learn how to be elegant or to have taste. And Baba, he worked so hard for his parents. Without him my aunts would never have been married as well as they were. You know Ma’s family was richer than his, but still she settled down, lived as we lived; she never grudged her husband’s family their share. Can’t you do the same?’
__‘And become like that?’
__He cocked his head on one side. ‘What’s got into you, Nisha? Are you angry about what Ma said when you came home with your head shaved? I explained to you; you shocked her deeply by what you did. Please try to see her point of view as well.’
__‘That’s not it,’ she said dully. ‘I don’t think that’s it. Oh, why can’t I shut my mind like I used to?’
__He turned away, rested his elbows on the wall. Not looking at her, he said flatly, ‘You’re not happy here.’
__‘Arun, I am. It’s just …’
__‘Don’t argue. I’m not a fool. If you have to “shut your mind” to stay with us, this is the wrong place for you. We shouldn’t keep you here. You should know I’m not that kind of man. Tell me, would you feel better if we moved out? You know Bhola next door is knocking down his house and putting up flats. I can book the first floor one. We’ll have our own house, and if Ma needs us she can just wave from the verandah. Yes, that would be a good solution. Can you wait just a couple of years? I promise you it’ll happen. Just let me work out how much I can take from my PF …’
__‘You can’t touch your PF,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Ma said it’s for Mamoni’s wedding.’
__He grinned, and put his arm around her again. ‘See, you can think like us, if you put your mind to it. All right then. Baba’s LIC matures in three years’ time. We can make the down payment from that. The rest I’ll pay from my salary. Anyway, this house is disputed. Who knows how long Ma and Baba can stay here? Then if we have our own place, they can come and stay with us. Won’t that be nice?’
__‘That’s not the point.’
__He looked at her then, but the sari hid her face. ‘Just what do you want, woman? I’m doing the best I can with the available resources. What do you expect me to do? Play the stock market? I’m just an ordinary office-goer. You know how much I make …’
__‘No! No! No!’
__He sighed, turned her round to face him. The sari slipped, exposing her grayish, stubbled scalp. He made a face, but did not replace it. She stared furiously at the top button of his shirt, aware that she could not meet his eyes. Where was her old courage? Only let me survive this, she thought. Only let me survive.
__‘Nisha, do you want a divorce?’
__She shut her eyes. No words came.
__‘You do.’
__She shook her head.
__‘I’ll admit it was a mistake if you will.’
__Silence.
__He shook her violently. ‘Talk to me!’
__She gasped. Her head lolled, jerked out of balance, against his shoulder. He held her. She felt nothing, as if her body had soared out over the TV aerials and was being speared by the simultaneous broadcasting of the theme tune of the afternoon soap, shouting from a thousand electronic throats, ‘Motherland! Motherland!’ She moaned, a long, unmeaning sound of despair. The wires on her head rasped against his throat. Electricity jabbered along her nerves, making pictures of impossible faces and worlds that broke into scanning lines talk to me to me to me to me … .
__‘You’re ill, Nisha, you’re shaking. I think you’re coming down with fever. No wonder you’re spouting such nonsense. Come, I’ll help you down. Ma! Ma! … .’
__‘Let me go,’ she said, but the words never reached her throat.

She woke to find the sun shining in her eyes. She jerked upright. It must be past eight! Mamoni had to go … . Then she remembered Haru Doctor and the fish curry. They had respite till Monday; this was Saturday. Slowly she let her shoulders sink back, wincing as the pillow scraped her head.
__Foolishness, she thought. What else was there in life? She had no one. Mummy had enough problems. What was so bad about this? There had been worse in her life, hadn’t there? Like the time when her father had disappeared without warning, just failed to come home one day, and her mother had cried all night, afraid that the Chinese had caught him. Sombre men in suits had come to see her; Nisha had been kept in her bedroom with the Malay maid. That was the first time she had heard the word ‘intelligence’. Her father had come back, but she heard that word again, later, on occasions that chilled her heart, for she knew each time her mother would spend the days without him in a grey haze of fear. Even now, the word didn’t mean to her what it meant to others. They thought it mean cleverness, but for her …
__‘Feeling better now?’
__It was Arun, bearing a cup of tea.
__‘Aren’t you going to work?’
__‘Just on my way out. Thought I’d see how my neri was sleeping. I’ll be late back tonight. It’s Sutapa’s birthday. She said to bring you too but I don’t think you’re up to it, and frankly I don’t want to have to explain what happened to your hair.’ He laughed. ‘Did you buy that present?’
__‘Yes, it’s in the almirah locker.’
__He took it out and looked with amusement at the fancy wrappings, done with all the care of someone for whom even craft class had been a respite from monotony. ‘I don’t know why you bother. If I know Sutu she’ll be calculating the bhoris before the ribbons are off.’
__He left. They had put sugar in the tea again. She drank it anyway. Haru Doctor had left some antibiotics; listlessly she swallowed the morning dose. She wasn’t sure what was supposed to be her malaise, but it had all been sorted out. She stared at the ceiling, trying to remember how to get up and dress. Another day to get through. Briefly she considered the option of going to Ma and begging for something to do, some little task. Anything to feel less useless. But she was supposed to be ill, and with Ma in this mood nothing she did would turn out right and Ma would insist on doing it all over again. She couldn’t face that.
__Maybe she should spend more time with Mamoni. Yes, that was what she should do. She had made no effort to try and share the little girl’s world, she told herself sternly, wrapped up as she was in her own miseries. She tried to remember how her own mother had been when she had been five. But all she could dredge up were the faces of servants; in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. Impassive faces, speaking always English to her, other languages among themselves. She had not been a child but a responsibility, part of the state apparatus in a foreign land. How far from Mamoni’s safe tight little shell, circumscribed within this tiny island of narrow alleys in the heart of the city, of giggly secrets about phuchkas and dolls’ weddings among her five-year-old friends, all of them, even the non-Bengali ones, speaking Bangla. She had tried, before, to interest Mamoni in stories of the places she had seen, but they raised no echoes. ‘Is that where Star TV comes from?’ one of Mamoni’s friends had asked, and then they had gone back to their games. Places meant nothing for them, not even exotic locations in the latest Govinda film. The only place that could be interesting was here, because here they were. From cradle to grave, except they would have neither cradles nor graves. kantha to pyre, then. Here, never to leave, except to hop a handful of streets when the marriage party arrived and took them away.
__She got up and staggered to the bathroom. A roiling nausea held her throat. She vomited up a mixture of sticky sweet tea and bitter antibiotic. Her mouth felt raw. She washed away the mess, then stared blankly at the tap. The only drinking water was in the ancient water filter in the kitchen. She couldn’t face going down there. She turned the tap on, drank from its trickle of yellowish water. She knew it was dangerous, but at the moment going down those narrow dark steps seemed worse than any disease she might catch. A dark, murky joy filled her. They said cholera killed quickly. A few hours of pain, and then peace.
__Don’t be silly, she thought. Hardly anyone gets cholera these days.
__Carefully she dried her face and head. Quite certain she intended to go in search of Mamoni, she nevertheless found her steps turning towards the roof. She let her feet carry her up there, knowing fully well that the door would be locked. She could then touch the bars and come down again, and another five minutes would be gone. But she was wrong. The door was open.
__She stepped out into the sunlight, blinking. Kamala was there, snapping a wet sari in the wind, her mouth full of clothes pegs. Nisha watched her throw the saris over the rusty wire with a practised flick of her hand, then spread them out in double folds so that their ends were clear of the ground. Once they were fixed in place, she began putting up the smaller clothes, skewering each with a cheap plastic peg.
__‘Well, didi,’ she said, when the last peg was out of her mouth. ‘Are you looking forward to your trip?’
__‘What trip?’
__Kamala looked sly. ‘Your … trip!’ she said, eyes big. ‘With Dada. To the seaside. You know: honumoon!’
__‘What?’
__‘Don’t you know? Mashima is sending you two on a trip. Of course,’ she went on, ‘you can’t go looking like that. What’s the point of a honumoon if the bride looks like she’s recently lost her suhag? People will give you funny looks. They might even think he’s your second husband! People always say such things. Tch!’
__Nisha was aware that she was being got at in some fashion. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said helplessly. Kamala gave her a critical look. ‘You know, with my Mantu’s wife, I never let her take her alta off for the whole of the first year. Only when we had the third grandson did we let her sleep without her jewelry. Didi, why don’t you let me give you a rub with cream and flour? It’ll do your skin a world of good. Look, if you go around looking like a dishrag how can you expect your husband to be interested in you? He comes home tired, and then there’s all the troubles of the house waiting for him. You need to make him feel he’s come home. Take care of yourself. After all, you’ve only got the dear little girl. The real work hasn’t even begun.’
__‘Not you, too,’ Nisha mumbled.
__‘I’m telling you this for your own good,’ said Kamala in tones of reasonableness. Nevertheless, a spark in her eye said she was well aware that no wife — no real wife — would tolerate her speaking with such freedom. Kamala had very definite ideas on how the household should be run. Nisha had once, early on, bought a non-stick frying pan; Kamala had systematically scrubbed it because ‘it was all black’. The pan was now used to feed the street cow that Ma maintained on vegetable peelings in the name of Ma Lakshmi. ‘I’ve brought six sons into the world and I have more grandchildren than I can count. Didi, you must take yourself in hand. Why haven’t you changed your sari?’
__‘I’m not well,’ Nisha mumbled, furious with herself for answering the question.
__‘Tch. He sees you like this every morning. That’s all right if you have all your family, but you don’t, do you? You’re throwing away your chances. Why don’t you …’
__‘Stop it! Shut up!’
__Kamala stopped, shocked by the savagery of the words. Nisha rounded on her, her eyes huge with rage in her denuded face. ‘Dishrag, you said? It’s taken me months to achieve it. Months of toil you can’t imagine! You wait and see. I’ll destroy this body! I’ll be ashes, I’ll be dry twigs. There’ll be nothing left for the rats and crows! I’ll leave nothing behind, they won’t even have my bones to suck the juice out of …’
__‘Didi, Didi!’ Kamala cried, backing off, ‘You really aren’t well. Wait here, I’ll call Mashima.’ And she bolted down the stairs.
Nisha stood silent among the billowing saris. Why did you go and do that? she asked herself. I only wanted to shut her up. And now god knows what she’s going to do.
__But its true, said a tiny voice inside her. If he touches me I’ll shrivel up like a leaf in a flame.
__No! she thought. What’s wrong with me? Don’t I love him? Hasn’t he been good to me? He has.
__Then why do I feel like this? What has changed? Everything is the same. Why, we made love only two weeks ago, and he joked and laughed with me.
__He laughed, anyway.
__Why am I thinking like this? What has happened to my mind?
__Am I going mad?
__She waited for a long time, but no one came.

Arun sat on the park bench, watching the cigarette burn between his fingers. That was another thing they didn’t know about, at home. He had thought once to tell Nisha, but she would have been shocked for different reasons. Best to keep quiet. That was always the easiest way out.
__He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, and half turned. ‘Mrinalda.’
__‘I thought I’d find you here.’ Mrinalda sat down beside him; the fragile bench creaked under his weight. ‘You’re too young to take up morning walks, my boy. What ails you?’
__‘Need you ask?’
__Mrinalda smiled slightly through his thick beard. ‘These things happen. Sad, tragic, and all that, but one puts it behind one and moves forward. That’s the only thing to do, at the end of the day.’
__‘Why did she do it?’
__‘I never ask questions like that.’ Mrinalda shook an admonitory finger. ‘Something she saw on TV, some story she read, some desperate counsel from a so-called friend, who knows why women do these things? The key thing is, it’s not your problem. You were not to blame.’
__‘Yes,’ said Arun bitterly. ‘But that was only because you helped to hush it up.’
__Mrinal laughed, shaking prodigiously. ‘Of course. Can’t have the middle classes washing their dirty linen in the corporation hydrants. What would the dear bourgeoisie come to? Anyway, it was a simple case, just a question of a few papers. I promised you you’d only have to appear in court once, didn’t I? You’ve had a very narrow escape from notoriety. Just be thankful and don’t expect me to hold your hand as well.’
__Arun lit another cigarette from the butt of the first. ‘No, Mrinalda, it’s not sympathy I’m looking for, but I want to understand. I mean, I had no idea things had got so bad. Apart from all that business of cutting off her hair. People don’t take such steps on the spur of the moment.’
__‘Arun, you’ve got to understand something about the world. I, as a lawyer, see the dirty side of life far too frequently for my own comfort, but I’ve evolved a defence against it. And that is: every morning as I face myself in the mirror, I tell myself, however dirty all those ugly bastards are, I am clean. I didn’t make the world, and I won’t change it. I am responsible for my hands alone. What the hands of the rest of the world do is on their head. If you get my drift.’
__‘Bullshit!’ Arun jumped to his feet, scattering cigarette ash and sparks. ‘We were responsible. We have to be! Otherwise nothing makes sense. I can’t believe she did it just to spite us. We must have done something wrong.’
__‘What? You gave her a home, you loved her. Didn’t you? You had a daughter. You could have had a son. You had a future. And now, put it behind you,’ said Mrinalda kindly. ‘You’re still alive, you could have a future, you could find someone …’
__‘No!’
__‘Mamoni needs a mother.’
__‘My mother is quite capable of looking after her.’
__‘All right, you need a wife.’
__‘Do I?’
__‘You need someone who can share your life, your hopes, your values. Someone who won’t have to consciously try to fit in. And Nisha, whatever good qualities she may have had, and she had plenty, just wasn’t your type.’
__‘I asked her first, I said, do you want to leave, and she …’
__‘Yes? What did she say?’
__‘Nothing.’
__‘Would you have agreed, had she answered yes?’
__‘I don’t know … no one in our family had ever been divorced.’
__‘Rubbish, there’s that cousin of yours with the big teeth.’
__‘Yes, but she was brought up in Dehra Dun. And they married her off to a pilot. Ma said at the time it was a mistake. Everyone knows …’
__‘All right, all right, no one in your family of any importance had ever been divorced. But no one’d ever married a diplomat’s daughter either. That was a bit ambitious of you, I think.’
__‘But they had no money. She had nowhere to go. It was a kindness really. Her father practically begged …’
__‘Well there’s your problem. Never trust a diplomat when he begs. Look at Pakistan …’
__‘Don’t joke, Mrinalda! This is life and death we’re talking about.’
__‘Melodrama doesn’t suit you, Arun. Stop striking a pose.’
__‘It’s not funny, is what I’m saying.’
__‘OK, serious mood. But you’ve got to make yourself understand: it’s over. It’s finished. There’s nothing you can do now. There’s no point working out whether you were to blame or not, because you can’t turn back the clock and undo whatever you did that was wrong. You now know the fundamental mistake you made; it was built in from the start. Now stop beating yourself over the head with it.’
__‘You’re brutal.’
__‘No, just practical. Like I told you, I see filth all day, every day. Try doing my job for a week. If I believed filth was important, I’d slit my own wrists. So I believe it isn’t. And filth ceases to bother me, and I can do my job without puking my guts out. Nisha did a nasty thing to you. Shrug, and move on. Don’t give her the added triumph of taking your peace of mind.’
__‘But what about what she went through? Can you imagine what that was like? I saw her face when …’
__‘Why are you wasting your sympathy on her? She made her choice. OK it was a hell of a choice, but it was hers and there’s nothing you can do about it. And so it ends. There can be nothing between you now. Let it go.’
__‘I can’t forget her.’
__‘You have to.’
__‘Yes, but, suppose it happens again? With someone else? How will Ma stand that?’
__‘Look, there are plenty of girls who’d give their right arm to be married to a fine young man like you. You’re only thirty-five. Advertise again. And this time make sure it’s someone from your own background.’
__‘I’d only get a divorcee or a widow or someone with some problem. Why should I want to marry one of them? I didn’t do anything wrong. Why should I be punished?’
__‘Aha, you’re thinking better, boy. Much better than trying to blame yourself. Listen, my Mama’s daughter is unmarried, she’s twenty-nine, she’s a doctor, has been studying all this while, they couldn’t get around to it till she qualified. Everyone says she’s too old now. Want me to put in a word?’
__‘A doctor! I’m only a B. Com. Ma wouldn’t like it. She’d want her daughter-in-law to stay at home.’
‘Yes but think of the money. I know you’re not too well off. It’s just your income and your dad’s pitiful pension. Once your mother realizes what two incomes mean to your household, she’ll come round.’
__‘Yes,’ said Arun slowly, ‘and we could think of making the down payment on that flat …’
__‘See? Never say no to life.’
__‘What’s the catch?’
__‘Catch?’
__‘Damn you, Mrinalda, why would she want to marry me?’
__‘Er … she has leucoderma. But not so you’d notice. I mean …only you’d know. Mainly.’
__Arun made a face and lit another cigarette with shaking hands. ‘You bastard.’
__‘Just trying to be helpful.’ Mrinal slapped his knees. ‘So I’ll be off then. I’ll tell my Mama to call up your dad and arrange a time. She has duty every day except Wednesday. Wednesday evening should be about right.’
__‘Hang on, I haven’t said yes.’
__‘You’re refusing?’
__‘No … I mean, I need to think about it.’
__‘You do that.’ Mrinal brushed the dust off the seat of his pajamas. ‘See you around.’
__He was almost on the corner when Arun called after him, ‘Mrinalda! What’s her name?’
__‘Bonolota. Talk about poetic justice.’
__‘Oh.’ Arun smiled. ‘Thanks.’
__‘Don’t mention it.’
__Arun stubbed out the cigarette, dusted himself off and headed home.