Authors: Anita Nair

Tags: #Kerala (India), #Dancers, #India, #General, #Literary, #Triangles (Interpersonal Relations), #Travel Writers, #Fiction, #Love Stories

Mistress (50 page)

BOOK: Mistress

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Uncle

My fingers tremble as I dial the number. I get a busy signal. I try again. Who are you talking to, Maya?

I feel an overwhelming urge to talk to her. I want her here beside me. I want her to wrap her arms around me and still my thoughts.

‘Radha and Shyam. And Chris,’ I will say. Only Maya will understand how I feel.

But I get a busy signal again.

I think of my father in the days after Mani’s death. I had never seen him so distraught. It seemed to me that my father’s will to live had left him. He began to spend more and more time in my house. He would come after I left for the institute and stay there all day. Some days Babu came looking for him. ‘Why don’t you tell us where you are going, Achan?’ he would say angrily. ‘We were worried about you.’

My father would hang his head like an errant child, guilty and remorseful. ‘I meant to, but I forgot,’ he would say.

We noticed the change in him. He couldn’t remember what he had eaten for his last meal but he recited whole chunks of the Bible at us as explanation for what he had done or how he felt.

‘What is my trespass? What is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued after me?’ he asked Babu, reverting for a moment to the thundering old patriarch he had always been.

Babu shook his head in dismay. ‘What is wrong with Achan?’ he asked.

A few days later he would be at my doorstep again. The little house by the river exerted a strange fascination for him. ‘It is so peaceful here,’ he would say.

‘It is,’ I would agree. The Nila was in full spate and everything was green and soothing.

‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘This house has no memories for me.

‘“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through
dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” It’s from the gospel according to Luke. That is how I feel in that house. Tormented by seven evil spirits.’

‘What have I done, Koman?’ He turned to me. ‘What did I do wrong to see my son die? What could be worse than to know that one son of mine slew the other? Who do I grieve for? The dead son, or the living one who must be racked with guilt? It is better for me to die than to live.’

‘You surely don’t believe that,’ I said. ‘Babu might have come to hate Mani, but he wouldn’t kill him.’

‘I don’t know what to believe any more, Koman. All I know is that my sins must be visiting upon my children. Look at you, look at Babu. None of you seem to have coped with the business of life well. I gave you all that you wanted. I stood by everything you did and let you go your way. And yet, none of you have known what it is to be happy.’

‘Why do you say that, Achan?’ I asked. I wasn’t angry at his words but I was perturbed to know he felt such a failure. ‘What we do with our lives is no reflection on you. You can’t live through us. I do not know about Mani or Babu, but I am happy, Achan. I am truly happy. I am not saying that I haven’t known despair or anguish. But I am where I want to be. My art keeps me happy.’

‘There is darkness in that house. Too many secrets. I am glad they sent Radha away to boarding school. If she lived here, she too would be tainted by it. I miss my Devayani more than ever now. She alone knew how to calm the restlessness in me. If I were younger, I would go away somewhere. But I am too old to do anything by myself.’

‘Where do you want to go?’ I asked him.

‘I would like to go to Mannapad again,’ he said.

So we went to Nazareth. I did not know what it was my father sought there, but we hired a taxi and we traced his life there. The new superintendent had heard about my father but didn’t know any of the scandal attached to his name. I began to feel a new respect for
my father then. To go back to where he had known both happiness and unhappiness must take a great deal of courage. Where did one source this fortitude to confront one’s past?

My father was seeking familiar things, traces of the life he had once lived here. He gazed at the cork tree and said, ‘It is still here. Look at it, a foreigner like I was when I first came here.’

James Raj was dead but his family still owned the house by the sea at Mannapad. One of the sons came with us to the house. ‘We were so happy here at first, Saadiya and I. It was my fault, of course. She was so young and I left her alone far too long. She was lonely. “She is empty, and void and waste: and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness. Nahum 2.10.”’

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t understand what he was saying. Later that night he told me about my mother. The next day we drove past Arabipatnam. ‘There lives your mother’s family,’ he said. I looked at the gates with interest, but I felt nothing more than curiosity. My mother was Devayani. I had no desire to go looking for a phantom mother.

A few days after we returned home, my father died. He had said his goodbyes.

I hear Malini’s squawk, then a low voice.

I step out. It is Chris. His face is drawn and his eyes are listless. ‘My tickets are confirmed,’ he says.

‘When do you go?’ I ask.

‘Tomorrow.’

I wait for him to ask me the question I know he wants to. He doesn’t.

I sigh. ‘Do you still think that I may be your father?’ I ask him.

‘I don’t know,’ he says. He raises his gaze to mine and demands, ‘Are you?’

‘No,’ I tell him. ‘Would you have liked that? For me to be your father?’

He smiles. It is a wry smile.

I reach across and take his hand in mine. ‘I loved your mother once. I loved Angela as a young man loves a woman. With passion. With an intensity I have never been able to match again. I believe it
was the same for her. But that love died. In those last few weeks with her, we barely even touched each other.’

I see the doubt in his eyes. I think of what I told Radha earlier. ‘If you still don’t believe me, I can do one of those tests they do to establish paternity.’

He doesn’t say anything.

He stands up. ‘So this is goodbye then,’ he says.

‘Yes,’ I say. I feel a sense of loss. I wonder if I should ask him about the book he is supposed to be writing. ‘Tell me,’ I would ask, ‘is there really such a book or was it an excuse to make me talk?’

I decide against it. I do not want to embarrass him. In these few weeks I have come to feel great affection for him.

‘You must send me a copy of the book when it is published. I would like to know how you have portrayed me.’

He smiles. It is that sweet lopsided smile of his.

And I think that is how I would like to remember him. Chris from across the seas. Chris with the cello. Chris with the smile that caressed my soul. Chris who might have been my son.

‘Do you have your tape recorder?’ I ask.

He pulls it out.

‘Leave it here. There is little left to say, but I don’t like leaving stories unfinished. I will have it sent across.’

I realize then that I will be relieved to see him gone. The sooner he does, the sooner all our lives will fall into place.

1971 to Now The Manner of the Resurrection

In the play Kalyanasougandhikam, when Bheema realizes that the old monkey lying across his path is none other Hanuman, his brother, he implores Hanuman to reveal to him the form he took when he flew across the ocean, holding a mountain aloft on his palm.
Hanuman tells him, ‘I am not so sure I should. It isn’t a form that is pleasing to the eye or acceptable to the mind. It will not be what you think it will be. You may even be terrified!’

Chris, that is how I felt as I revealed my past to you. Is this what you expected? Is this what you wanted to hear? I cannot tell you untruths and couch my life with half lies and shadows to make it more agreeable to you. Like Hanuman, I am honour bound to reveal who I was and who I am, so listen:

I borrowed money from Damu. I would arrange to pay back his father, I said. I left Angela a note. I didn’t know what else to do. There was nothing left to say. We had made a mistake and I was doing what I thought was the only decent thing: severing ties so she could go on with her life. She was handcuffed to my side because she thought she had a moral obligation to be with me.

As long as I was here, I would be Bahukan. Never her equal, and smouldering with bitterness. Unlike Bahukan, I didn’t have a magic cloth that would retrieve my old self and give me back my pride.

In the airport, on a whim, I tried Ram Gopal’s number once again. The great man finally came on the phone. ‘Why didn’t you call earlier?’ he said when I said I was on my way home. ‘I am always looking for new talent for my company.’

I wondered if I should tell him about all the abortive attempts I had made. I wondered if I should tell him how I had staked all I had on a slender chance. How I had sold my soul to appease my ego. But none of that mattered now. For the first time, I knew the ordeal was over. I would never again expect my art to propitiate my ego. It was enough that I be allowed to give expression to what I understood of a vesham. All else was immaterial.

When I was a student, there was a story that made the rounds about a kathakali dancer. A famous veshakaaran who turned into a lunatic. Madness ran in his family and his illness was his destiny, his relatives and neighbours said. He was so violent that he had to be chained all day. The physician advocated that they pour a thousand pots of water on his head to cool him down and reduce the intensity of his insanity.

One evening, there was a performance at a temple nearby. All evening the man heard the drumbeats announcing the performance
at the temple. He broke his chains and fled to the temple. Behind the temple, in a little makeshift shed, the dancers were getting ready. When he appeared, they didn’t know what to do or say.

‘What is the katha?’ he asked.

‘Duryodhana Vadham,’ someone said.

‘I will be Duryodhana,’ he said.

The men looked at each other. What were they to do? The actor who was to have been Duryodhana murmured, ‘Humour him and dress him up.’

The pettikaaran said, ‘Send for his family to take him home.’

When the time came, the lunatic veshakaaran wrenched apart the hands that held him back, went on to the stage and was Duryodhana. No one knew that this was a lunatic dancing. No one knew that this was a man who was chained all day and who grunted and growled and rolled in his own filth when his madness was at its worst. When the performance was over, he went to sit in a corner. Someone helped him undress. Someone else took him home. But those who saw him that night would never forget his Duryodhana. It was the performance of a man in total control.

It wasn’t easy for me to go back to being who I was. I was still shadowed by the memory of what it was like to be Bahukan.

At the institute, the students accepted me back. They were more curious about my life in England than why I had come back. The other instructors, including Sundaran, and my family pretended that I had gone away on a holiday.

I retreated into a place in my head and hid there. All I wanted to do was dance. It was enough. I had no desire to participate in reality. I would think of the story of the lunatic. If within insanity, art could be his sole means of sanity, so it would be for me. Henceforth, my life would be led through my art. It was the only way I would be able to retrieve some of my self-worth.

Most days, in the evening, I sat on the topmost step of the veranda. The dog would lie on the ground, its eyes fixed on my face to catch even a flicker of emotion, its snout edging my foot, content to nuzzle and merely be there.

One evening a breeze rose from the dry river bed, turning sand,
raising dust and leaves in its path. Over the deep pool the breeze acquired a beading of dampness so that when it blew into my face, I felt a pleasing coolness. It eroded the density of my thoughts and prodded me to move. I sat up straight and yawned, my body stretching and flexing, the yawn emerging from the concave of my belly and expanding to form a whole set of syllables: aa-ooo-uu. The dog raised its head and watched intently this unfolding of movement, of life. It stood up, tail wagging in salutation and joy.

I saw the dog’s tail wag. I patted its head. ‘Lie down,’ I said. ‘I am not going anywhere.’

The dog put its head on its forepaws. Drawing courage from the rare caress, it rose and settled once again on the ground, but with its snout now resting on my foot. I looked at the dog. My eyes met its imploring gaze. Don’t push me away, it begged.

For so long now I had felt drained of all emotion. The weight of the dog’s snout on my foot, its eyes, stirred in me a tiny squiggle of …what could it be? I dared not ask myself.

I bent and stroked the dog’s head. The softness of its fur and the slow mechanical movement of my fingertips caused a trickle of images to wander into my mind. Time spelt in a series of vignettes. Life held within the palm of the hand. Chances that trickled between the gaps of my fingers because I willed it so. Memories and now life experiences. The dog closed its eyes in pleasure. I felt the weight within me rise and slowly dissipate.

The dog raised its head, ears cocked, eyes searching. Someone was coming up the alley. I straightened. Who could it be? I was not inclined to make conversation. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts.

The dog, as if pursuing my line of thought, rose and raced to the gate. It stood there, its feet firmly planted, its hackles raised, barking. A series of powerful barks that rumbled and filled the air with threat: go away, we don’t want you, go away, leave us alone.

I stood up. I would go into the house and wait there. Whoever it was would leave after a while. Then I saw her. Lalitha. What did she want?

She stood on the other side of the gate, her hands clasping the latch. ‘Call the dog away,’ she said.

I whistled. ‘Come here; it’s all right,’ I said softly.

The dog’s hackles went down; its tail began wagging. She looked
at it with a smile. ‘You have trained him well.’

I went to sit on a chair on the veranda. She stood on the bottom step, waiting for me to invite her in. When I didn’t, she said, ‘I heard you were back. I thought I would see for myself.’

I drew my chellapetti closer. She climbed the three steps and sat on the low wall near me. ‘How have you been? When did you get back?’

‘Some months ago,’ I said. ‘Do you want this?’ I pushed the betel-nut box towards her. She looked at it for a moment. ‘This is a new habit. When did you start?’ she asked.

I shrugged.

She opened the chellapetti and took out a few betel leaves.

For a while we both sat there, our mouths full, our minds wandering, chewing on betel leaves and slivers of areca nut, letting common memories stream down our throats.

Then she cleared her throat and stood up.

‘Are you leaving?’ I asked, suddenly stricken by the thought of being left alone.

‘Do you want me to stay?’

I looked at her as if I was seeing her for the first time. Lalitha. That was my name for her. I had forgotten what her real name was.

Lalitha, who in reality could be Nakrathundi, the demoness who fed on lust. No, that was unfair of me. I was no Jayanthan, the guiless youth deceived by her. I had known all along who she was. Which was why I had chosen to call her Lalitha.

‘Will you?’ I asked, unable to meet her eyes.

She laid her hand on my arm. Conflicting images tussled before me. I tried not to flinch. Nakrathundi or Lalitha: who was she?

And then I thought, does it matter? She was there for me, once. Isn’t that enough?

‘I am here. All you have to do is ask. You have to ask me to stay,’ she said. I could hear the measure of power in her voice.

I had hurt her and she was exacting revenge. Is this what living is all about? This perennial scoring off each other; this seeking of retribution. I sighed. I would have liked to lie in bed and feel her cool, adept fingers slide over my skin, her body pressed against mine. Someone to make slow and practised love to me, so all I had to do was surrender myself.

She would do that. She would hold me against her and let me feed off her. She would do all that and more because that was her trade. To fulfil needs of iniquity. But she had also saved me a place in her being, ever since that first time. That had been my measure of power. No matter how I treated her, she always forgave me.

When I had cast her away and said she shouldn’t ever come to my house again because Angela would be horrified if she knew, I had hurt her and now she wanted me to know how precarious my perch was within her.

I would allow her that. I was weary of everything. All I wanted for now was someone to hold me and heal me. ‘Stay, please stay,’ I said.

I lay on my stomach, my head cradled in my arms. She sat by my side, trailing a finger down my spine. Up and down. Up and down. Again and again. ‘It happens,’ she said softly.

Outside I could hear the dog snuffling. I heard it sniff around the doorstep, then the soft plop of its body as it collapsed into a heap on the coir mat.

I felt my body sink. It had never happened before. There had been times when I couldn’t have an erection but once I did, I always ejaculated. This evening though, I heaved and panted and laboured over my need to find release. It felt as though I was running down a road, a long, endless road, without hope of getting to the end. In disgust, I drew myself out and turned on my side.

I heard her rearrange her limbs. The bed creaked. I turned over and lay on my stomach. Misery. A twisted gut. A muscle pulled. Wanting to feel that blessed release and not being able to. Misery wrapped me in her arms.

I felt her press her fingertips into the dip above my buttocks. ‘I love this curve. Only kathakali dancers have it …I love the way the buttocks rise high and taut. Must be all the exercise you people do.’ Her fingers slid over the curve and crested the cheek of the left buttock.

I felt a frisson. Angela had said the same thing. I spoke from the corner of my mouth, ‘In all these years, you never said that.’

Her fingers paused. ‘I haven’t said much, have I? Like the fact that …’

‘What?’ I was curious enough to raise my head.

‘Like the fact that you can’t fuck with your mind. It is the body’s function and you have to let your body fuck. I don’t know what’s on your mind but you have to let it be.’

I groaned. I didn’t want to listen to a lecture on the kinetics of lust.

‘You don’t agree with what I am saying?’

‘Never mind. Go on,’ I said.

She bent and kissed the nape of my neck. I felt the beginning of desire again. I slowly turned and lay on my back. Her eyes met mine. She knew what I expected of her. Our bodies had known each other a long time.

She held my gaze and allowed herself the trace of a smile. I read triumph in the gentle elongation of her lips. I was the fly, she the lizard. The thought rolled off my mind. I watched her, curious, detached at first as her tongue darted and snapped, slithered and bounced, cupped and fondled. Then I felt her mouth gather me, drawing away scar tissue I had retreated behind, breaking down my resistance. How simple it is when we know what we want of each other, I thought as she lit the first trails of pleasure.

Lalitha rose to go. Dawn smeared the skies. She opened the door. The dog stood outside, wagging its tail. She patted it on its head.

She looked at me. I was lying on my side, pretending to be asleep. I felt untroubled and serene in my pretence.

‘He is lonely,’ she told the dog. ‘He has no one but you and me. We must look after him, make him whole again, you and I. Will you, dog?’

The dog wagged its tail and moved closer to her. She bent down and scratched its nape. ‘Do you have a name at all? Or is that what he calls you? Dog? Like I am Lalitha. Whores and dogs don’t need names, I suppose. Our names don’t matter. But we do. Dog, do you see that?’

‘Lalitha,’ I called. ‘Who are you talking to?’

‘The dog. Don’t you have a name for him?’ She smiled.

‘The dog. That is adequate enough. Dogs don’t need names. They will respond to anything you call them.’

BOOK: Mistress

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