Sea of Poppies (24 page)

On the way home Deeti sat bowed with worry and forgot about Kalua's fare. By the time she remembered he was long gone. But why hadn't he reminded her? Had things come to the point where she had become an object of pity for a carrion-eating keeper of oxen?

Inevitably, word of Deeti's plight filtered across the fields to Chandan Singh, who appeared at her door with a sackful of nourishing satua. For her daughter's sake, if not her own, Deeti could not refuse, but once having accepted, nor could she shut the door on her brother-in-law with the same finality as before. After this, on the pretext of visiting his brother, Chandan Singh took to invading her home with increasing frequency. Although he had never before shown any interest in Hukam Singh's condition, he now began to insist on his right to enter the house in order to sit beside his brother's bed. But once past the door, he paid no attention to his brother and had eyes only for Deeti: even as he was entering he would brush his hand against her thigh. Sitting on his brother's bed, he would look at her and fondle himself through the folds of his dhoti; when Deeti knelt to feed Hukam Singh, he would lean so close as to brush her breasts with his knees and elbows. His advances became so aggressive that Deeti took to hiding a small knife in the folds of her sari, fearing that he might attack her, right on her husband's bed.

The assault, when it came, was not physical, but rather an admission and an argument. He cornered her inside the very room where her husband was lying supine on his bed. Listen to me, Kabutri-ki-ma, he said. You know very well how your daughter was conceived – why pretend? You know that you would be childless today if not for me.

Be quiet, she cried. I won't listen to another word.

It's only the truth. He nodded dismissively at his brother's bed. He couldn't have done it then any more than he can now. It was me; no one else. And that is why I say to you: wouldn't it be best for you to do willingly now what you did before without your knowledge? Your husband and I are brothers after all, of the same flesh and blood. Where is the shame? Why should you waste your looks and your youth on a man who cannot enjoy them? Besides, the time is short while your husband is still alive – if you conceive a son while he is still living, he will be his father's rightful heir. Hukam Singh's land will pass to him and no one will have the right to dispute it. But you know yourself that as things stand now, my brother's land and his house will become mine on his death.
Jekar khet, tekar
dhán
– he who owns the land, owns the rice. When I become master of this house, how will you get by except at my pleasure?

With the back of his hand, he wiped the corners of his mouth: This is what I say to you, Kabutri-ki-ma: why not do willingly now what you will be compelled to do a short while hence? Don't you see that I'm offering you your best hope for the future? If you keep me happy, you will be well looked after.

There was a part of Deeti's mind that acknowledged the reasonableness of this proposal – but by this time her loathing of her brother-in-law had reached such a pitch that she knew she would not be able to make her own body obey the terms of the bargain, even if she were to accede to it. Following her instincts, she dug her elbow into his bony chest and pushed him aside; baring just enough of her face to expose her eyes, she bit the hem of her sari, drawing it aslant across her face. What kind of devil, she said, can speak like this in front of his own dying brother? Listen to my words: I will burn on my husband's pyre rather than give myself to you.

He drew back a step and his slack mouth curled into a mocking smile. Words are cheap, he said. Do you think it's easy for a worthless woman like you to die as a sati? Have you forgotten that your body ceased to be pure on the day of your wedding?

All the more reason then, she said, to burn it in the fire. And it will be easier than to live as you say.

Big-big words, he said. But don't depend on me to stop you, if you try to make yourself a sati. Why should I? To have a sati in the family will make us famous. We'll build a temple for you and grow rich on the offerings. But women like you are all words: when the time comes, you'll escape to your family.

Dikhatwa!
We'll see, she said, slamming the door in his face.

Once the idea had been planted in her mind, Deeti could think of little else: better by far to die a celebrated death than to be dependent on Chandan Singh, or even to return to her own village, to live out her days as a shameful burden on her brother and her kin. The more she thought about it, the more persuasive the case – even where it concerned Kabutri. It was not as if she could promise her daughter a better life by staying alive as the mistress and ‘keep' of a man of no account, like Chandan Singh. Precisely because he was
her daughter's natural father, he would never allow the girl to be the equal of his other children – and his wife would do everything in her power to punish the child for her parentage. If she remained here, Kabutri would be little more than a servant and working-woman for her cousins; far better to send her back to her brother's village, to be brought up with his children – a lone child would not be a burden. Deeti had always got on well with her brother's wife, and knew that she would treat her daughter well. When looked at in this way, it seemed to Deeti that to go on living would be nothing more than selfishness – she could only be an impediment to her daughter's happiness.

A few days later, with Hukam Singh's condition growing steadily worse, she learnt that some distant relatives were travelling to the village where she was born: they agreed readily when she asked them to deliver her daughter to the house of her brother, Havildar Kesri Singh, the sepoy. The boat was to leave in a few hours and the pressure of time made it possible for Deeti to remain dry-eyed and composed as she tied Kabutri's scant few pieces of clothing in a bundle. Among her few remaining pieces of jewellery were an anklet and a bangle: these she fastened on her daughter, with instructions to hand them over to her aunt: She'll look after them for you.

Kabutri was overjoyed at the prospect of visiting her cousins and living in a household filled with children. How long will I stay there? she asked.

Until your father gets better. I'll come to get you.

When the boat sailed away, with Kabutri in it, it was as if Deeti's last connection with life had been severed. From that moment she knew no further hesitation: with her habitual care, she set about making plans for her own end. Of all her concerns, perhaps the least pressing was that of being consumed by the cremation fire: a few mouthfuls of opium, she knew, would render her insensible to the pain.

W
ell before he looked at the papers that Zachary had given him, Baboo Nob Kissin knew that they would provide the sign he needed to confirm what was already clear in his heart. So confident was he of this, that on the way back from Bethel, in his caranchie, he was already dreaming of the temple he had promised to build for Ma Taramony: it would sit upon the edge of a waterway and it would have a soaring, saffron-coloured spire. There would be a wide, paved threshold in front, where great numbers of devotees could assemble, to dance, sing and worship.

It was in just such a temple that Nob Kissin Baboo had spent much of his own childhood, some sixty miles north of Calcutta. His family's temple was in the town of Nabadwip, a centre of piety and learning consecrated to the memory of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu – saint, mystic and devotee of Sri Krishna. One of the gomusta's ancestors, eleven generations removed, was said to have been among the saint's earliest disciples: he had founded the temple, which had been tended ever since by his descendants. Nob Kissin himself had once been in line to succeed his uncle as the temple's custodian, and in his boyhood he had been carefully groomed for his inheritance, being given a thorough education in Sanskrit and logic, as well as in the performance of rites and rituals.

When Nob Kissin was fourteen his uncle fell ill. Summoning the boy to his bedside, the old man had entrusted him with one last duty – his days were drawing to a close, he said, and it was his wish that his young wife, Taramony, be sent to an ashram in the holy city of Brindavan, to live out her widowhood: the journey being difficult and dangerous, he wanted Nob Kissin to escort her there personally before assuming his duties in the family temple.

It will be done, said Nob Kissin, touching his uncle's feet, you need say no more.

A few days later, the old man died, and shortly afterwards Nob Kissin set off for Brindavan, with his widowed aunt and a small retinue of servants. Although Nob Kissin was well past the usual age of marriage, he was still a brahmachari – a virginal celibate – as befitted a student who was undergoing the rigours of an old-fashioned education. The widow, as it happened, was not much older than Nob Kissin, for her late husband had married her only six years before, in a final effort to beget an heir. Through those years, Nob Kissin had rarely had occasion to meet or speak with his aunt, for he was often away, living with his gurus, in their tols, pathshalas and ashrams. But now, as the party travelled slowly westwards, towards Brindavan, the boy and his aunt were inevitably often in each other's company. That his aunt was a woman of uncommon charm and comeliness, Nob Kissin had always known – but he discovered now, to his astonishment, that she was also a person of extraordinary spiritual accomplishment, a devotee of a kind that he had never encountered before: one who spoke of the Lotus-Eyed Lord as if she had personally experienced the grace of his presence.

As a student and a brahmachari, Nob Kissin had been trained to turn his mind from sensual thoughts; in his education, so much stress was laid on the retention of semen that it was rarely, if ever, that the image of a woman succeeded in penetrating his mental defences. But now, rattling and rolling towards Brindavan, in a succession of boats and carriages, the boy's defences crumbled. Never once did Taramony permit him to touch her in an unchaste way – yet he would find himself trembling in her presence; at times his body would go into a kind of seizure, leaving him drenched in shame. At first he was merely confused and could think of no words to describe what was happening to him. Then he understood that his feeling for his aunt was but a profane version of what she herself felt for the divine lover of her visions; he understood also that only her tutelage could cure him of his bondage to his earthly desires.

I can never leave your side, he told her. I cannot abandon you in Brindavan. I would rather die.

She laughed and told him he was a foolish, vain fellow; Krishna was her only man, she said, the only lover she would ever have.

No matter, he said.
You
will be my Krishna and I will be your Radha.

She said incredulously: And you will live with me without touching me, without knowing my body, without knowing any other woman?

Yes, he said. Isn't that how you are with Krishna? Isn't that how the Mahaprabhu was?

And what of children?

Did Radha have children? Did any of the Vaishnav saints?

And your duties to your family? To the temple? What of all that?

I care nothing for such things, he said.
You
will be my temple and I will be your priest, your worshipper, your devotee.

When they reached the town of Gaya, she gave her assent: slipping away from their retainers, they turned around and made their way to Calcutta.

Although neither of them had been to the city before, they were not without resources. Nob Kissin still had their travel funds in his possession, as well as the silver that was to have provided the endowment for Taramony's incarceration in Brindavan. Put together, the sum was quite substantial, and it allowed them to rent a small house in Ahiritola, an inexpensive waterfront neighbourhood of Calcutta: there they took up residence, making no pretence of being anything other than they were, a widowed woman living with her nephew. No scandal ever attached to them, for Taramony's saintliness was so patently evident that she soon attracted a small circle of devotees and followers. Nob Kissin would have loved nothing better than to join this circle: to call her ‘Ma', to be accepted as a disciple, to spend his days receiving spiritual instruction from her – this was all he wanted, but she would not allow it. You are different from the others, she told him, yours is a different mission; you must go into the world and make money – not just for our upkeep but as an endowment for the temple that you and I will build one day.

At her bidding, Nob Kissin went out into the city where his shrewdness and intelligence did not go long unnoticed. While working at the counter of a moneylender, in Rajabazar, he discovered
that keeping accounts was no great challenge for someone of his education; having mastered it, he decided that his best hope for advancement lay in finding a place with one of the city's many English firms. To this end, he began to attend tutorial meetings in the house of a Tamil dubash – a translator who worked for Gillanders & Company, a big trading agency. He quickly established himself as one of the best students in the group, stringing together sentences with a fluency that astounded his master as well as his fellow pupils.