The Hero's Walk (16 page)

“Yes-yes, smile all you want now,” warned Nirmala. “All your smiles will disappear once you read this. Here, it came five days ago.” She thrust a slightly damp, much-folded wad of paper at him. The dampness was probably sweat. Nirmala had a habit of thrusting letters or money down the front of her bra and letting them sit there until she changed for bed. It was her secret place, one that she thought Sripathi did not know about. He didn't have the heart to disillusion her because, ultimately, she couldn't keep things to herself. She was an open, trusting person and secrets made her uneasy.

“Five days ago? Why didn't you show it to me then itself?”

“I didn't know what to do. But finally I thought, it is his daughter also, let him manage.” She glared at Sripathi as if he were responsible for the letter. “Besides,” she added belligerently,
“you
spoilt her, always she wants her way thanks to you. Didn't I tell you, Maya is going out of control? But everything I say goes into one ear and comes out of the other. You think you are always right, no?”

“Oho, can you stop talking for two minutes and let me read this thing?” Sripathi asked, exasperated.

“Yes-yes, shout at
me
now, that's all you can do,” grumbled Nirmala, but she subsided after Sripathi frowned at her. She knew that frown—it meant that she had aggravated him as much as he could tolerate, and any more would mean a shouting match in which he would hurl thundering insults at her, using words that she had to consult a dictionary to understand. This wasn't the time for all that confusion, so she shut up and waited while her husband scanned the wretched letter with its foreign look, the envelope thick and cream-coloured, the bright Canadian stamps that this time had, unbelievably, not been stolen by rapacious postal workers who supplemented their wages by selling stolen foreign stamps to hobby shops and collectors. Didn't Maya remember that she should get her letters franked to avoid such thefts?

There was more—about Alan Baker, their plans for the future, the fact that they would be moving to Vancouver, where Maya had found a job and Alan had admission in a Ph.D. program, and other details that slid past in a blur. For a few moments after he had finished reading, Sripathi found nothing to say. He took off his glasses, put them on again, and reread his daughter's letter.

“Is she mad? Your daughter? Cannot help her feelings, she says. Tell Mr. Bhat, she orders me—she doesn't want him to get hurt! What about
me
? And
you
? We aren't going to be hurt? What am I going to tell people?”

“I don't know,” said Nirmala miserably. “You write and make her understand that she cannot do this kind of nonsense thing.”

“What should I say?” demanded Sripathi. “ ‘My dear daughter, your father has gone bankrupt getting you engaged to one man, and now you are trading in his good name and family honour for some foreigner?' Yes, of course, that is what I will write to your darling daughter. That will definitely change her mind.” He turned on her.
“You
should have known. You are her mother, why didn't you sense that something was wrong?”

“I am her mother, but I am not a goddess with divine eyesight! Why didn't
you
find out? Every two weeks you write her a big fat letter, and she never replies for two years. When she finally decides
to put pen to paper, it is to tell us that she is marrying some foreigner. You are the one who can predict things, no? You only keep saying that! So why didn't you know about Maya? Why are you blaming me?”

Sripathi picked up his coffee cup and took a sip, grimaced at the taste of the lukewarm liquid and emptied it into the planter with its straggling money-plant creeper that had managed to survive several doses of coffee, tea and, once, some Limca.

“Will you write to her, but?” asked Nirmala again. “It might help. Maybe she needs some advice. Poor thing so far away, all by herself, no elders to tell her right from wrong. Sometimes it is good to give advice, even when it isn't asked for. I think you should tell her that we are worried and that she shouldn't do anything in a hurry. I should have guessed that something was wrong. I knew when she did not write … Maybe that first time she asked us to visit her, do you remember? On the phone she sounded so funny, as if she was crying, and when I asked she said that she had a cold. I am sure she was crying. We should have gone to her then. Whatever the cost. One of us at least …”

“Don't be silly. As if it would have stopped your daughter. She does whatever she wants.” He ran a hand through his hair in agitation. The dense grey curls flared up around his raking fingers. “She says she loves him. How can you love somebody before you have lived with him?”

A dreadful suspicion entered his mind. What did it imply, that love business? Had Maya
slept
with the fellow? Was she pregnant? Was that why she was marrying him? How could she share her bed before marriage? When he had been married, it had taken Sripathi a whole year to get over sharing this house, this room, this bed, the bathroom and even the shelves with Nirmala. When he'd slid under the sheets and felt it stretch over the hillock of Nirmala's rising buttocks, the small hump of her shoulder if she was lying on her side, he would feel a quick, guilty delight that eased into pure
pleasure when he remembered that this sharing had been sanctioned by the priest before Agni, the fire god. And in the bathroom, he would open the peeling, white medicine cabinet and touch her tin of talcum powder possessively, stroke his thumb against her toothbrush, feel infinitely wealthy for having her for his own. My wife, he would whisper disbelievingly. Mrs. Nirmala Rao,
my
wife. And then immediately, even though the bathroom door was locked, he would turn on the tap full throttle, just in case she could hear him think. How shy he had felt about seeing her blouses, petticoats, brassieres and knickers nestling against his white underwear, so much so that he used to avert his eyes and search the drawers blindly for his clothes, making such a mess that Nirmala got thoroughly exasperated.

Nirmala reached around her back for the sari pallu that dangled over her left shoulder and wiped her eyes with it. She sniffed miserably, “Did we not bring her up properly? Must be that foreign place. Their ways are different, all right for them perhaps, but for a girl brought up here, it must be difficult to resist temptation.”

Sripathi avoided her gaze. She might read his suspicions about Maya and that fellow in his eyes. Besides, he was probably imagining things. He had been embarrassed by his suspicions and ashamed, too. He could trust Maya. All he needed to do was to write her a letter, or perhaps phone her. Yes, it would be expensive, but a phone call would be more immediate.

“I'll go to the temple and offer a special prayer to Sathya-narayana. Give a sari for Lakshmi—the red silk I bought to wear for Maya's wedding. It is brand new, so the goddess won't mind that I didn't buy it especially for her. Maybe I will ask Krishna Acharye to perform a few ceremonies also,” said Nirmala brightening up at the thought of having God on her side.

How wonderful was Nirmala's unquestioning faith in the divine, thought Sripathi enviously. He had grown up with nothing but himself to believe in, thanks to his own father who had insisted
that god was only a creation of the human imagination that could not be depended on for every little nonsense matter, otherwise why should more than half the world's population be so miserable and deprived? Why did good and hardworking people have their lives destroyed by flood and famine and plague? And his mother's ostentatious ceremonies, performed to the accompaniment of bells and loud songs and elaborate rituals devoid of any real devotion, had never attracted Sripathi. His father had never told him what to do when he felt weak and helpless and his faith in his own abilities faltered. Who could he turn to then? Oh, you wretched girl, he thought. What will I say to everyone in Toturpuram, all those friends and relatives who never fail to ask how you are doing? Perhaps what Nirmala said was true—someone
had
cast an evil eye on their family.

He patted Nirmala's hand, worn with age and from the years of cutting and cooking and cleaning, and said grimly, “Don't worry, Mamma, don't worry. It's not your fault or mine. We will phone her tonight when the rates are low. In the meanwhile I will also write and try to make her see how stupid and reckless she is. She will forget this Alan fellow completely.”

Nirmala blew her nose in one of the clean white towels hanging on the balcony rail, bundled it for the wash and stood up. Sripathi drew the tablet of paper towards him and picked up the glacial silver, rapier-like Parker pen. It suited his current mood. With rapid strokes he filled five or six pages with exhortations to Maya.
“Don't be silly. You are throwing away a good match. Think of Prakash's feelings. Your father-in-law will also be very hurt. He thinks of you as a daughter, you know. It is not honourable for a girl to do what you are doing. Our reputation has to be considered. Ammayya will be upset, and think of your poor Putti Atthey's matrimonial prospects
.” He poured all his distress into his letter, his frustration with her increasing with each word.

That evening they made a long-distance call. When Sripathi heard Maya's voice, he controlled his impulse to scold and started
off calmly enough. He reasoned with her, told her how upset they were, and how impossible the situation would be if she did not change her mind about Alan. She explained, in an equally reasonable tone, that she could not change her mind about loving somebody and wanting to spend the rest of her life with him. But when she asked Sripathi to see things from her point of view, he lost his temper. He had forgiven his child so many transgressions, but this deliberate trampling of their dignity, of the family name that he had struggled to maintain all these years,
that
he would not forgive. “If you persist in doing this foolish thing,” he had shouted at his daughter, “never show your face in this house again.
Never
.” He had hoped that his disapproval would make her change her mind, but the next envelope from Maya contained a plain wedding invitation with a brief letter to Nirmala and a few photographs—of her and Alan outside the registrar's office, Maya in a dark blue Canjeevaram sari that she had taken with her when she left home, and Alan in a suit; another at a party, surrounded by friends; and a third at the beach, Maya's legs startlingly bare in a pair of green shorts.

“Maybe we should have been more understanding,” Nirmala said fearfully, when she saw how angry Sripathi was. “This girl is as stubborn as you. I want to see my Maya. Write to her and say that it is okay, no? She can come home.”

No, Sripathi had replied, No, no, no. True, he had behaved like those ridiculous fathers in film melodramas, but then Maya, too, could have shown some regard for their feelings. Dishonour was what she had given them in return for the independence they had granted her.

“You write if you want to,” he had said. “She is dead for me.”

But Nirmala hadn't written either. She could not defy her husband; she had never been taught how to do so and she lacked the courage besides. She had scanned the last brief letter repeatedly, as if she could force her daughter to materialize out of the elegant
black script, and had cried over the writing. “Tell me who sat at the dining table and made her practise her handwriting every day? Her mother. And who told her that a good hand is an indication of a good mind, that people will respect you if you write nicely? Again her wretched mother, that's who! Does she even remember that? No, of course not. Otherwise, why this little chindhi of a paper she has used? Could she not write me all the details of her wedding?
I
wasn't the one who told her never to come home. As if she does not know that I will always be waiting for her.”

Then she had examined the photographs minutely, remarking over every detail, and when she had turned them over hoping to see a few more lines that Maya had scribbled there, she found only a date. “At least she could have said, ‘Dear Mamma, this is your son-in-law,' no? One line is so much trouble for her?” she said bitterly. “Hard and unforgiving. Just like you, ree, just like you.”

She had framed the picture taken outside the marriage registrar's building and placed it on the window ledge at the head of their bed. Sripathi avoided looking at it and frequently knocked it over so that it lay flat on its face. He had forced himself to write to Mr. Bhat, who replied with a curt note asking him to return the diamond jewellery and the saris that he had given Maya. That letter had hurt Sripathi. As if he would have kept all those things, he thought miserably, aware that he had lost a friend thanks to his daughter. He made a trip to Madras one Saturday, and, to his humiliation, Mr. Bhat had made him stand outside on the verandah like a servant. He did not even offer him a glass of cold water, despite it being a hot day and the fact that Sripathi had travelled for three hours on the bus. Then to add to it all, the man had opened the box of jewellery and checked it carefully, deliberately, before disappearing indoors without saying a word. That was it. No questions, no conversation. It was as if the years when Mr. Bhat had visited Big House, chatting for hours about politics and cricket and their children, exclaiming over Nirmala's cooking, had never happened at all. And later, cringing at the
memory of that silent meeting, Sripathi had sent the man a money order for half the expenses incurred for the engagement ceremony. He had his pride, and nobody would take that away from him. He had had to borrow from Raju for that, the first time he had taken money from his old friend. Another embarrassment, all thanks to Maya.