The Fifth Man (4 page)

Neelam usually woke up quite early. She used the services of a maid and a cleaner, whom she supervised constantly, standing by with her hands on her hips as they worked. What remained to be done afterwards was still by no means inconsiderable. Ari and Pupu called it her mania. From cleaning the bathroom to tidying the kitchen, Neelam did it all with her own hands. There was never dust or grime here in any case, but on top of this, Neelam’s obsession or cleanliness—whatever it was—ensured that all the corners were perfectly swept, dusted and scrubbed. Even when she cooked, Neelam kept two or three different kinds of dusters within reach. The oil and spices weren’t allowed to leave the tiniest of stains on the tiles. Not even on the rims or corners of the bowls. And definitely not on her hands. Ari said she cooked like they did in TV commercials. Today Neelam was already done with her bath and puja. The fragrance of flowers and, stronger still, the scent of incense had percolated into her sleeping husband’s slumber. Neelam normally drank her first cup of tea without getting out of her nightdress. It was only today that she had bathed early and was standing by Ari’s bed, bringing with her a whiff of lotuses. It was a special day. Ari would be going to office today after three months. Although the doctor had approved another spell of long leave in a few days.

When Ari saw Neelam looking so tenderly at him, his heart overflowed with impossible joy. The feeling was linked to his childhood and his memories of his mother. Man or woman, everyone wants to go back to their mother all their life. They admit as much to at least one person, to themselves too. But these unprovoked little pleasures are unfailing indicators of the eternal bond with one’s mother.

‘How come a village belle has brought me my morning tea?’ asked Ari. ‘What’s going on?’

‘What! Have you forgotten it’s a special day?’ Neelam frowned.

Ari groped around in his memory desperately. He felt as though he were playing blind-man’s bluff. Wedding anniversary? No, that was in October. Pupu’s birthday? The searing heat of June. Ari’s own birthday was in December, an occasion for Neelam to throw a grand party every year. Was it Neelam’s birthday, then? As far as he could remember, it was in February or something. He couldn’t be sure. Summoning an enigmatic expression to his face, Ari said, ‘Forgotten! So easily? ‘Tis thy birthday. Presently on the journey to life . . .’

‘Oh my god, is that what you think?’ said Neelam. ‘You’ve forgotten my birthday, and now you’re pretending to remember. Shame on you.’

‘Well then stop blaming me,’ smiled Ari. ‘Please tell me what’s so special today.’

‘You’re rejoining work today. Don’t tell me you forgot.’

‘Oh, so all this is because I’ll be earning again,’ exclaimed Aritra in disappointment. ‘All these rituals are to celebrate the fact that I’m not going to be dependent on you as a cripple and am taking up the plough once more. That is why my housemate’s body is so fragrant today.’

Raising a cloud of talcum powder, Neelam sat down on a chair, avoiding physical contact. Gravely she said, ‘Not because you’re going to earn again, but because you’re returning to a normal, healthy existence. I don’t need you to earn for my security, do I? The house is registered in my name. You can’t throw me out even if you want to. You don’t even know where the documents are. On the contrary, I can get you into trouble if I want to. Better not take a chance.’

Aritra stared at her in mock dismay. ‘You mean I’ve made so many mistakes at the same time? It’s a calamity! I’ll obviously have to be very wary of you from now on.’

Sipping her tea, Neelam pursed her lips. ‘As if you’re going to be wary of me ever. Anyway, that’s up to you. I’ve sent a telegram to Bikram.’

Aritra seemed to have been administered an electric shock.

‘Whatever for?’

‘I’ve asked them to come. Around the twentieth of March.’

A perplexed Aritra said after a long gap, ‘So you’re playing on the front foot?’

‘The back foot isn’t good enough anymore. And besides, why take it that way? I’m sure Esha isn’t coming just to meet you or me, she’s coming because she wants to travel. Given the state you’re in, who will go with her? I’ve organized travelling companions for her. Thank me.’

‘Let me tell you something, Neelam,’ declared Aritra. ‘If Esha comes, if she really does come, I will never let her alone with Bikram. And besides, I’m quite fit now. If you can’t trust me, if you’re so afraid, I can wire Esha not to come.’

‘But Bikram is coming with his wife. What are you worried about? There’s no question of letting her alone with him.’

‘Bikram is a terror with or without his wife. No barrier is sufficient to stop him from fulfilling his urges. You know that very well. Tell me, Neelam, isn’t Esha a friend of yours too? How could you have considered Bikram a companion for her?’

Neelam answered grimly, ‘I don’t know, I thought Esha was an adult just as I am. Even if she is still a helpless, powerless, virginal girl in your head, reality says otherwise.’

‘I never left you alone with Bikram, Neelam,’ said Aritra. ‘You were an adult too.’

‘An adult, and a young woman of twenty-eight. It still isn’t clear to me whether it was Bikram or me that you were afraid of.’

‘It seems there’s a great deal that’s not clear to me either,’ said Aritra.

‘You don’t know these things because you never considered it necessary to know them, Ari. Once a woman is married, no matter how torrid the romance might have been, she is considered married for life. A well-thumbed book, a familiar story, a conquered kingdom—no man tries to understand her further, does he? But he always feels the need to tighten the patrolling. Since that particular need has ended, you probably believe you can do as you please.’

‘Patrol whom? What are you referring to as a need that’s ended, Neelam?’ Irritation was mingled with resentment in Aritra’s voice. His first cup of tea had turned cold by now. Gently he said, ‘What you’re thinking, what you usually think, is distorted perception. If I had wanted to do as I please, you think I couldn’t have by now?’

‘How do I know whether you have or not?’ Neelam’s voice had risen a notch, drowning the sound of Pupu’s scooter. Aritra lit a cigarette. Pupu entered with the telegram a little later. It had been lying under the music system in the living room ever since it had arrived. It must have fluttered into Pupu’s hands today.

‘Ma, Baba, who’s Esha Khan? The one who’s visiting us?’

‘Your father’s girlfriend,’ said Neelam with a smile.

Rising to his feet and stretching, Ari added, ‘Your mother’s, too.’

‘How interesting.’ Uttering just two words, Pupu went off to her room. Making what she could of her parents’ explanations, she would probably fill up the blanks with her own judgement and imagination.

She emerged soon afterwards, dressed in the baggy clothes she wore at home, drying her hands on a towel. Drops of water shone on her face. With an innocent smile, she said, ‘No problem—we can lay out the folding cot in my room.’

Ari did not know how much Pupu had matured. She probably imagined that, despite her father’s fondness for his friends, he found it both difficult and troublesome to let go of his privacy, even if it was only for a few days. So she had unhesitatingly relinquished her own rights. Virtually sacrificed them. The major part of their 1,000-square foot flat had been gobbled up by the living room. Two bathrooms had been carved out of the remaining space. A generous kitchen. A balcony, and the portico outside. The two rooms were not very large. The smaller one was under Aritra’s control. As for the larger one, Pupu referred to it as her mother’s, while her mother referred to it as hers. Neelam slept on the same wide bed as Pupu. Only during the time Ari was fighting with death had she spent a few nights in his room. Since then the poor thing had had to divide her time between the two rooms, looking in on Ari at least twice each night. Neelam could not relax. Sometimes Pupu looked in on her father too.

Neelam stood up. She would give Pupu breakfast now. Pupu ate the heaviest meal of her day at this time. Neelam usually made some dry mutton or chicken or vegetables the previous night. Now she would make fresh parathas—methi paratha or aloo paratha. Pupu would eat heartily, with salad and pickles on the side, and, before going to college, just a glass of milk. Lunch was a fruit or two. Rarely did she take a packed lunch from home. She would shut the door to her room now, and become engrossed in her T-square, set squares, white sheets of paper and diagrams. Not all of this drafting was for her college course. She was obsessed. She had books sent to her from different countries—she wanted to design new housing complexes, new towns. The room had to be left to her entirely sometimes.

Aritra would bathe and leave for office after Pupu had eaten and withdrawn into her room. They could never spend their mornings together. After the father and daughter had left, Neelam would arm herself for battle. Somebody had been studying in this room or had bathed in that bathroom, someone else had been sitting here or lying down there—she wouldn’t leave a single sign of their activities, she’d turn the house into a movie set. The maid might be dusting and scrubbing in the bedroom when Neelam’s heart would suddenly leap into her mouth in the kitchen. ‘Have you wiped the sides of the bed, Bai? The window sills? What’s that stain like South America on the window pane? Clean it at once. Use some more detergent—yes, that’s better.’

There was plenty of time. But still Aritra sat down to eat as he had bathed already. Neelam was eating too. She put the coffee pot down, arranged the food on the table, and said softly, ‘One point. Pupu’s suggestion was her own. It doesn’t mean we have to do it her away. If Esha comes—why if?—she WILL come—I’m going to sleep in your room. The bed’s narrow, but that’s all right.’

Ari was eating absently. ‘You could sleep in my room even without Esha visiting us,’ he said. ‘Only you know why you don’t.’

‘I forgot dessert,’ said Neelam. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ She went off to the kitchen without answering—avoiding the question, in other words. She would take the dessert out of the fridge now. Put it in a bowl of warm water to thaw it. Meanwhile Ari would indeed keep eating, but the food on Neelam’s plate would turn dry. This was her usual way.

Aritra wondered whether Neelam wanted to keep him under watch. One of the biggest flaws of their home was the lack of a guest room. It was essential for those who lived away from their hometown to have one. The arrival of a guest turned the regular routine upside down, which Aritra did not like at all. He found it difficult to locate the things he needed. Not being able to occupy his usual spots in the house disturbed him constantly. But this was inevitable when they had a guest. The three of them had become used to it. This time too he could have given his room to Esha for a few days and occupied the living room, sleeping on the sofa-cum-bed. Laying out his possessions on the table on which the stereo was kept and in the drawers would not have violated his principles. But under Neelam’s arrangements Esha wouldn’t have a room to herself, as any guest should if possible. It was different for close friends and regular visitors, but Esha was quite new. She did not know this Aritra, this Neelam, their joint household and, especially, Pupu. Asking her to stay in Pupu’s room . . . Who knew what Esha’s own habits were like? And yet proposing anything else would lead to misunderstanding and domestic strife—there had never been such conflicts in Aritra’s home since Bikram and his wife had left Pune. It was best to accept the suggestions without the slightest protest.

Let Esha come, no matter how, no matter what the sleeping arrangements were. Let Esha come close to him. Once the air in the house had touched Esha, it was certain to touch him too, even if it passed into every room. Ari’s home would acquire the boquet of Esha’s presence. His marriage would finally be stamped with the seal of acknowledgement. Because Esha would visit, because Esha would touch, because Esha would stay.

Aritra suddenly felt a jolt. What was his relationship with Esha? Was there any justification for considering Esha’s acknowledgement the most important and the most absolute? Their earlier relationship certainly did not exist anymore. It had actually acquired a rather complicated form. Whichever city Aritra lived in or had moved to, he had always written to Esha at her old address once or twice a year. And on New Year and Durga Puja, of course. None of them had been answered. Not one. Every time he had posted a letter to her, it had been like leaving flowers on her doorstep. One day after another had passed in the grip of meaninglessness. And then had come the forgetting, amidst work-duty-domesticitytreatment-routine. Forgetting that he was supposed to have got something, but had not. But something within what has been forgotten stirs the currents of blood unknowingly. Someone’s blue sari draped itself over the spring sky now. The faint scent of a particular woman wafted in from the leaves on either side of the tree-lined avenues of Priyalkarnagar, making him melancholy. The Sahyadri remained sullen throughout July. Under the buffeting monsoon winds, light and shade glittered— dusty but radiant, as though the sun shone behind it. Not remembering the luminous delicateness of Esha’s skin in the moist rainy season did not mean forgetting it entirely.

But eighteen years afterwards! How was Esha now after eighteen years? What was she like? Two more years and it would have been Jibanananda Das’s famous twenty years. The dew had hunted her down. But what if I found you in the mist twenty years later.

After all this time, having ignored an average of two letters a year and therefore thirty-six in all, why had she remembered Aritra? There was a time when Esha would turn to Aritra whenever she was in trouble. These difficult periods were very important to Esha. And a matter of amusement for Aritra. He still found it funny when he thought of it.

Esha had left her diary on the tram. All her secrets were in it. Suddenly there was a telephone call for her at home— Esha’s sister-in-law handed the phone to her. Esha took the receiver. ‘Hello, may I speak to Miss Tagore please.’

‘Miss Tagore? There’s no one here named Miss Tagore.’