Custody (41 page)

By now he had forgotten the half of what she had said.

Early next morning father and son set off for Dehradun. Ishita watched them go and felt free to breathe. As she turned to go back to bed, she noticed the key dangling in the drawer of Raman’s bedside table. Why the key? He normally didn’t lock the drawer.

She opened it and saw a pile of photographs. The ones Arjun was no doubt supposed to show Roohi, the ones he had obviously forgotten to do, perhaps left them with his father, show them to my sister when she wakes up?

The day grew lighter, birds could be heard greeting the morning, traffic began to roar from the main roads beyond the colony. Delhi stirred into its daily routine, while Ishita feverishly shuffled through three rolls of photographs. She could feel the loathing coursing through her body, submerging her brain, narrowing her emotions to the point of that strong feeling. How could New York tolerate the presence of such a woman? How come its forces hadn’t combined to kill her?

She could look at those pictures no longer. Carefully she arranged them in the same order and returned them to the drawer. Her husband was welcome to gaze at them, compare his wives, but that one had almost killed him, and this one was prepared to sacrifice everything for the well-being of her family. She turned the key and let it dangle there as Raman had done. That was Raman all over, so trusting. He might attempt to secure his things but he secured them very badly.

She vented to her mother. ‘I hate him.’

‘Beta, please. He is a child.’

‘He is a horrible influence. Whenever he comes there is tension. Which he deliberately causes. Deliberately. I have seen him.’

‘Is that what you tell Raman?’

‘Do you think I am also a fool?’

‘What can you do? The boy is his son, after all.’

‘That’s just the trouble.’

‘He was here for one or two nights only.’

Ishita groaned. ‘I know. And each time I think this will be a new start, but it never is. Raman only stares at the boy, for him he is an angel, we are all nothing.’

‘Beti, you feel too much. What has the child done?’

‘Everything, he has done everything. He goes on and on talking of his mother. His mother this and his mother that. What do you think Roohi is going to feel?’

‘You are with Roohi every day, for her you are her mother, no matter what anybody says. Just be patient. How do you know she even understands what her brother talks about?’

‘How much can I go on trying? I wish I were dead.’

‘Hai beti, shubh shubh bolo.’

‘Why? Why should I always say good things? What has it got me? I wish I were dead, so there.’

‘The boy is in boarding school – think where you would be if he were home all the time.’

‘Every day with him is like a year. I dread his coming.’

‘Things take time. You knew this was a complicated situation before you married. There is no need to give up so easily. In your life you have faced much worse. You don’t want to ruin your second chance.’

Tears came to Ishita’s eyes. Why was it always like this? This time she didn’t have parent-in-law issues, instead it was children-in-law. The critics, the judges, the manipulators.

That night she was especially tender with Roohi as she put her to bed. As she felt the child’s face next to hers, a slight moan escaped her.

‘Mama?’ The small voice sounded alarmed.

‘Beta.’

‘Are you crying?’

‘Babu – do you love me?’

The tears that the mother could not contain dropped into the little girl’s heart and sent out sounds of woe.

‘Do you love me?’ asked Ishita again.

Roohi started to sob, clutching the older woman around the neck and rocking back and forth.

‘Don’t cry, beta, don’t cry.’

This made Roohi cling even tighter. The child was five years old, what would she know of love? thought Ishita drearily, it was not even a fair question. Children love whoever satisfies their needs. It was that simple. It was Ishita’s needs that demanded more complex inputs.

XXXII

One year passed.

In this year there were two sets of holidays.

Each time Roohi had a major illness.

Once it was measles.

Once chickenpox.

Certificates verifying the child’s state of health made their way to Mrs Sabharwal’s residence.

During the year Shagun’s shadow hung persistently over the Kaushik household. What would her countermoves be? Contempt of court? Kidnapping? Setting Mrs Sabharwal up as a decoy, luring the innocent Roohi into her lair? How many people could Ishita warn her daughter against? Her former mother? Her former naani? Her brother (unfortunately not former)?

Day by day she enveloped Roo in a fierce and fearful love. The child was hers, if there was justice in the world she would remain hers. To this end she fasted, to this end she turned religious, to this end she surreptitiously visited astrologers and numerologists. Her fingers sprouted myriad gems glinting from thick gold settings: topaz, moonstone, ruby, amethyst. She who had objected to the pearl her mother had forced her to wear during her first marriage.

‘I am told I should change the child’s name,’ she said to her husband. ‘That will ensure she remain with us. Roohi is not auspicious.’

‘Leave her name, will you? The letter R was taken from her horoscope.’

‘It can be any other R. Roopali, Rupa, Rudrani, Rohini, Rehana, Rekha, Rashmi, Rasalika, Roshni . . .’

‘Not one of them is as nice as Roohi. Call her what you like at home, but we cannot change her name.’

Ishita resented this disinclination to consider the child’s bad stars, but she could do nothing except rename her Roopali in her mind and call her Roopi at home. Close enough to Roohi to not antagonise the father.

Isolated from Raman in these matters, Ishita went to Swarg Nivas with her troubles. A certain set for her mother – anything to do with Arjun, a certain set for her mother-in-law – anything to do with Roohi. And for Mrs Hingorani the doubts she had about herself.

‘I used to be a straightforward girl, Auntie, until I married Raman. I didn’t know in families everybody hears what suits them, nobody cares for the truth.’

‘Perhaps there isn’t one truth, Ish. We see things through the distorting mirrors of our interests. Understandable in a way.’

‘But I am always suspect. Even with Raman I have to be so careful because there are always his feelings about Arjun to be considered. And to tell you the truth, Auntie, though the two children are linked in his mind, they are not in mine. That’s the fundamental difference.’

‘He must surely understand that.’

‘He only understands what he wants to. Sometimes I think it doesn’t bother him that Shagun has greater rights over Roopi than me. Though she was the one who ran off and left her. How is that fair, Auntie, how is that fair?’

‘The tyranny of blood,’ observed Mrs Hingorani, who applied this truth to a variety of contexts. She had long known of Ishita’s devotion to Roo, and could easily imagine the child’s trauma, torn between two mothers, two homes, two countries.

‘And then there is all this tension of lying about Roopi’s illnesses. I feel we might be punished one day by her really falling sick. It’s only when I sense how much Roo needs me that I have the courage to go on. For her sake.’

Ishita was always a very intense girl, decided Mrs Hingorani. Though the child did seem to benefit from so much attention. She looked better, talked more. If anybody deserved happiness it was Ishu. And with these thoughts she accompanied Ishita downstairs to embark on her evening walk.

*

For two years, before such contact ceased, Raman saw Arjun on his visits to and from his mother. It came to a combined total of two days and four nights per annum. He prolonged the precious moments of contact by driving his son to Dehradun, taking leave from office, dispensing with the driver so there would be just the two of them during the six-hour journey.

Gone was the question of sharing any holidays. ‘Mama says she is doing you a favour by allowing you to meet me at the airport and keep me the whole night,’ the son informed his father. ‘She doesn’t get to see Roo.’

‘But then how would you reach your school?’

‘There is a teacher for airport duty. We spend the night in Delhi, then take the school bus the next day.’

‘Isn’t a father better than a teacher?’

‘A mother is also better . . .’ His voice trailed off; clearly this was a lesson that had been learned inadequately.

‘Of course a mother has her place but she has to be around,’ said Raman. ‘Roo needs her routine. She doesn’t keep well. Every time she has fallen sick we have sent medical certificates to your Alaknanda grandmother, who I am sure has passed them on to your mother.’

‘Mama says all those certificates are fake. I told her I have never seen Roo ill.’

‘How much do you see her, that you know whether she is ill or not? You are at home only one night, and that too very jet-lagged. In fact it would be nice if you paid more attention to your sister.’

‘Mama says if you don’t send Roohi, she will tell her lawyer to do something.’

‘What?’

‘Something. I have forgotten. Why don’t you ask her?’

‘Good idea.’

‘She is very busy with her work, otherwise she would have come long ago and taken her. I said I would help her.’

‘But beta, you can’t just take someone. It’s against the law.’

‘Mama says she has rights.’

‘She does, but I have custody.’

Every time his son talked of his sister in this way, Raman felt dragged into the position of respondent, making statements to the shadowy plaintiff that lurked behind Arjun’s words. It made him uncomfortable, yet these were pronouncements that needed a counter-view. He was sure a similar process was not operating back in New York.

‘So,’ he said, determined to change the topic, ‘how is your mother’s import-export going?’

‘Good. Some days she goes to a store. She took me there. It’s really really big. Everybody knew her. They called her Shay-gun. She is a consultant now.’

‘Everything in America is big. Is she a buyer by any chance?’

‘I don’t know.’

Raman was left with a burning curiosity that there would be no means of ever satisfying. He couldn’t imagine Shagun working. Wasn’t she part of all the travel Ashok did? Or maybe that wasn’t as much fun as she had first thought. He hoped that was the case. Then what was she to do, this once-upon-a-time mother?

He put Shagun out of his mind and turned his attention back to his son. He had to rely on the little time he had to get an idea of Arjun’s life. It was a heavy burden to place on a few hours, and the hours seldom measured up.

‘So where else do you go? Last time you mentioned friends.’

‘Museums.’

‘You went to
museums
with your
friends
?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But you would never do that here.’

‘It’s for a school report. About Asian art. I volunteered.’

‘So. You have the best of both worlds.’

Arjun looked as though this was a natural state of affairs. A smooth impermeable mantle of privilege had already begun to envelop him. Soon he would outdo his father in confidence.

‘How do you feel about school now? You are bigger, things must be easier?’

‘Oh, I love it, Papa. I don’t even mind going back after the holidays.’

‘Really?’

‘Things are different now I am getting to be a senior. Even the teachers give us more respect.’

‘In what way?’

‘They are more like people we can relate to. That’s important, you know, Papa. It’s important to make people your friends. To know how to get them over to your side.’

‘Yes, I am sure it is important. Do they teach you that in school?’

‘Not in so many words.’

‘I see. So it’s just something you picked up on the way?’

‘Ya.’

‘What is it like with Ashok? Do you two get along?’

‘Oh yes. He was head boy, you know.’

‘I do know. That one achievement stands him in good stead even now, it seems.’

Arjun looked puzzled, but did not ask what he meant, and Raman did not want to tap into the resentment he still felt over his son’s changing schools. He should just turn out OK. That was all he asked the powers that ruled the universe, that his innocent son not suffer for the sins of his parents.

The boy was going to be fifteen soon. He had an incipient moustache, he was taller than him, his voice was breaking, his body was more angular.

Each time he saw him Raman felt startled at the changes, the totally natural changes. And each time he worried at the rate the boy was growing, and the little time he had with him before he became a man with his character fixed.

As he struggled to reach out to his son, he felt an impenetrability that disturbed him. The earlier sullenness had gone, but slowly a stranger was taking his place.

‘How was Dehradun?’ asked Ishita the next evening. Always the bright cheerfulness on his return, always the husband who was tired and ill-tempered, always the fretting about the son which led to arguments about the daughter.

Dehradun was fine, he said, but for how long could they keep Roohi from Shagun?

He was careful not to say ‘her mother’, that phrase had caused some of their most serious fights.

‘Why? Did Arjun say something?’

‘He says Shagun is doing me a favour, letting me see him for the few hours I do.’

Ishita said nothing. She knew how her husband felt, but really, what could she
do
? This situation was not of her making.

‘He also says she is going to see her lawyer about Roo.’

‘It’s just talk. If she had to file a contempt-of-court case, wouldn’t she have done it by now? Not sent a message through Arjun, who doesn’t even know what he is saying.’

‘Maybe she was waiting. She must have accepted that some of those certificates were valid. She’s not heartless, to insist her daughter travels while she is sick.’

If, said Ishita in icy tones, he still thought of Roopi as that woman’s daughter, he was certainly free to send her.

Why were women so emotional? he demanded in turn. Contempt of court was a possibility they had to consider, the risk would increase the more they didn’t send her – this was what they needed to discuss, not his existential freedom.