A Life Apart (20 page)
Authors: Neel Mukherjee
He gives up. His heart is an eel, describing its endless Möbiusstrip dance, over and over again. There is no point going down to the loos now; he is suddenly tired and uninterested. He
walks slowly back down Broad Street; a keen wind is whipping up little local whirlpools of dried leaves beside a phone booth. Almost without thinking, he walks into the booth, picks up the phone,
and the index finger of his right hand – not he, not the entire person – punches in the freephone number: 328665. As soon as the phone starts to ring at the other end, he slams his
receiver down on its metal cradle.
He breathes in and out for a couple of minutes, aware of each inhalation and exhalation, then redials the number . . . This time he lets the phone ring. At the fourth ring, a voice answers,
‘NSPCC Helpline. How can I help?’
The voice is so familiar he can see the bridge of fading freckles under her eyes and over her nose if he shuts his eyes. He can’t answer.
‘Hello? Can I help?’ Her voice gentle, ever so kind and gentle.
‘No.’ The word rushes out before he has had a chance to string together other words into a sentence.
‘Do you have anything to say?’ she asks, slightly coaxing now, but still kind.
‘No . . . I mean, yes, yes . . .’
‘Yes?’
He is shallow-breathing in fairly rapid bursts now. ‘Could you tell me something about about about child abuse?’ Pause. ‘Please.’
There is nothing in her voice, no sharp intake of breath, no silence left hanging for more than its seemly duration, to tell him that his voice has been recognized and his face mapped on to it.
But he knows, in the way the telephone receiver seems to have become sentient in his clammy left hand, or by what he suddenly feels to be a slightly different ordering of the air and signals
between the two ends, somewhere deep under the ground, in the souls of the cables.
Her voice is collected, unswerved by the new knowledge. ‘What exactly do you want to know?’
Pause. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you want to report anything?’
Silence.
‘Whatever you say to us is in strictest confidence. If you choose not to identify yourself, that is perfectly all right.’ The professional words ring strained in his ears. Perhaps in
hers as well.
‘It’s it’s about me.’
‘I take it you want to report something about your past?’
Pause. Then a whispered ‘Yes’.
‘Pardon?’
‘Yes,’ slightly louder.
‘Have you talked to anyone else about it?’
‘No, no.’
There is a long silence during which he imagines their words, broken down into constituent letters and then further into electric signals and sound waves, travelling down cables and coalescing
into human words again just before they spill out of the earpiece into her ear. He wishes they would remain atomized forever within the cable and get lost in a little black hole along the line and
never reach her.
‘Do you want to talk about it now?’ Her voice has become that of a ministering angel’s again.
His throat is a constricted passage of pure obstruction, blocking his words, choking out sound. He is not aware of little guerillas of words escaping this tyranny of his throat.
‘It’s my mother.’
Silence from her.
‘My mother . . .’ he tries again.
‘Yes?’
‘My mother used to . . . beat me.’
‘What sort of beating was it?’
Pause. ‘Severe.’ That’ll do, he thinks.
‘How old were you at the time?’
He doesn’t answer the question. He could be talking to himself as the refractory words tumble out: ‘Once when I was six I used some abusive term which I’d picked up from god
knows where. You know, nothing very offensive. Roughly translated it would mean “child of a pig”. I suppose it has the same heft as “bastard” here.’ His voice is
reasoned, calm, almost reflective. He is telling a story now in which he is a character; as raconteur, he manages far better, for it could be someone else’s story. Indeed, it is someone
else’s story.
He continues, ‘She was making chapatis, you know, flat Indian bread, on a griddle on open coals. She had a pair of tongs and a metal fishslice sort of thing, which she was using to flip
the bread over. As soon as she heard the words, she looked at me and asked me to say the words again, as if she hadn’t quite heard them. I gathered that something was wrong, that the words
were bad, so I kept quiet. She kept on asking me to repeat them. Then she reached forward and and and . . .’
The barrier of fiction, without any warning, suddenly gives way. The words become painful pushes against a throat sealing up again. ‘. . . and she hit me on my thigh with the hot iron
spatula.’
Pause. On both sides. He can’t hear her breathing. For all he knows, she might have gently put her receiver down on a table and gone away, while his words leak out into a spartan cell,
institutional and characterless, and it is only the room that registers the immediate peeling off of a ninesquare inch area of skin, like the papery bark of an arbutus tree, the slow seconds of
silence and awe watching this wonderful ruching and metamorphosis of blemish, then the deferred shock of pain.
Her voice returns. ‘Hello, hello? Are you still there? Hello?’
He doesn’t answer; instead, he replaces the receiver, but this time with infinite gentleness, as if he is cradling the head of a newborn, fragile as eggshell, so delicate, so vulnerable to
hurt.
Outside, the wind is making ever more furious eddies and edgeless, formless pillars of rising and falling leaves, all atonal brown. At the lit display window of Blackwells, a shy, uncertain Mary
looks down from her home in the shiny open pages of a luxury art book at some unspecified spot near his feet. One palm is outstretched and open, pointing downwards, as if she has just finished
doling out some grace. He almost looks around him to see if it is still dispersed in the restless air around him.
‘Dighi Bari’,
Nawabgunj,
Bograh Distt
Bengal
October the 28th, 1902
Dear Violet,
I read with great regret and dismay of the troubles you are facing in your school. If the Bengali babu is not going to interfere in these petty racial squabbles and take immediate
action against the separatist poison that is choking the country and which, I am sad to say, our countrymen are doing nothing to either allay or eradicate, instead strengthening it for their
own petty political games, I am afraid, Violet, the only way to keep the school running might be to have Hindoo and Muslim girls attend on alternate days. I know it goes against our most
fundamental principle of unity but we are both in agreement that the education of Indian women is of far greater importance than trying to solve their race wars, which we are too small to
effect. If the Hindoo-Muslim animosity, which, I am reliably informed (and my readings seem to confirm, too), goes back centuries, deflects us from our true task, then we will have lost our
battle in bringing the light of knowledge to Indian women. I only wish I could be there beside you at this hour of your need and help you in any way that you might require, or I, in my limited
capability, can provide.
You ask of my news. I am very well here and derive considerable joy and pleasure from being part of the Roy Chowdhury family. I have already acquainted you with my accidental straying
into the andarmahal last year, haven’t I? Well, since that time, I have not only been accompanied and given a ‘Grand Tour’ of the place by both Bimala and Mr Roy Chowdhury,
but I am also invited there occasionally to tea and, on two occasions, to lunch. It seems that Mr Roy Chowdhury has talked sense into his widowed sisters-in-law – he treats them as if
they were his own blood – and convinced them, with reason and arguments and affection, that having a Christian lady step into their quarters is not going to defile them or turn them into
pariahs. I think curiosity, rather than instruction, has ultimately got the better of them.
Mr Roy Chowdhury has been open and frank about the rituals and observances his sisters-in-law practise, and has told me a considerable part of his, and their, family history. It
appears that the older of the two widowed ladies, the one whom Bimala calls ‘Naw Jaa’, ‘jaa’ being the Bengali word for husband’s sister-in-law, was married off to
Mr Roy Chowdhury’s brother, a good twelve years older than Mr Roy Chowdhury, when she was but a child of nine, the same age as the young Mr Roy Chowdhury himself at the time of this
marriage. They grew up together, as two children, first as two friends in a family of adults, then the bond between them growing to that between a brother and a sister. When Mr Roy
Chowdhury’s brother, the girl’s husband, died, leaving her a widow at the age of eleven, she had thrown herself into Vaishnavism as succour and consolation – shaving her head,
observing extreme dietary laws, such as not eating or drinking after sunset, required by that strain of the Hindoo religion, immersing herself in fasts and prayers and rituals, seemingly in
atonement for her sins, which, she was convinced, had caused her husband’s death. The bond between her and Mr Roy Chowdhury had only deepened although he had not succeeded in dissuading
her from the more extreme aspects of her new religion. If she derives support or happiness from it, if it makes the burden of her tragedy easier for her, who am I to impose my will, he had said
to me once, when I was expressing my reservations about the austerity of life for a woman so much younger than I am. Do you know, Violet, she feeds pigeons every morning, opening the shutters
of the andarmahal verandah and throwing out handfuls of grain, in the belief that all those cooing birds are a collective incarnation of the little Lord Krishna?
The other sister-in-law, married to another of Mr Roy Chowdhury’s brothers, lost her husband after five years. It seems such misfortune dogs the poor women who marry into this
family. She, too, is childless. The second brother’s death left Mr Roy Chowdhury as head of family, a role he fulfils with affection, love and a great deal of maturity, with conscientious
attention to duty and to every member’s wishes and desires. It cannot be easy for him to sustain the roles of brother (for that is what he is to Bimala’s Naw Jaa), beloved
brother-in-law and loving husband, all at once, certainly not when Bimala’s recent presence in the andarmahal has disrupted, I suspect, former stabilities and precedences. I am also of
the opinion, and I haven’t mentioned this to anyone, apart from you, Violet, that Mr Roy Chowdhury’s gentle prevailing on the matter of Bimala’s introduction to the outside
world, leaving her seclusion behind, has not been looked upon too kindly by the two other women. It must be difficult for Mr Roy Chowdhury to steer a balanced and peaceful path through a
household of women.
But this is all idle surmise. I have more entertaining things to occupy my time here. Now that autumn has arrived, the fields are full of blossoming giant grass, which they call
‘kaash phul’ here. We, by which I mean Bimala, Mr Roy Chowdhury and I, sometimes go on boat rides on the Jamuna river in Shukshayor. The river is now quite mild, although a very
brown colour, and the majhi sometimes sings as he rows us along, very plaintive songs in his cracked voice which make me feel extremely melancholic and long for something but I don’t know
what. It is a very calm exercise: the boat moves along very slowly indeed on the surface of the water, rocking gently from side to side in such a manner as to induce sleepiness – I was
afraid of this soft pitch and swell the first time – while Mr Roy Chowdhury reads poetry aloud to us: Keats and Wordsworth – his favourite – and at times Bengali poetry too. I
too read aloud, but from Bengali books – even if I do say so myself, my proficiency in the Bengali language increases apace, thanks to Bimala’s expert guidance – graded books
called
Sahaj Path
, which means Easy Reading, and simple folk tales written for children. Bimala is quite proud of her achievement in this
reciprocal education of her tutor and companion. I can only wholeheartedly support this happy arrangement wherein I teach her English, among other things, and she instructs me in her language.
I hope I’m not being immodest when I tell you that I can have a reasonable conversation with Bimala and her husband in their mother tongue, while Bimala goes from strength to strength
every day – she read out ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’ last week, beautifully, I thought, only tripping up on the word ‘diurnal’ in the penultimate line, a word
with which she is unfamiliar. We applauded heartily and she took great joy from this little achievement. It is such a sad little poem, we were quite overwhelmed, I can tell you, and I even
thought I heard Mr Roy Chowdhury’s voice tremble ever so slightly as he explicated the meaning of the poem to Bimala.
Mr Roy Chowdhury has kindly allowed me the use of one of his two horses, a beautiful grey and white dappled gelding whose name is Pakshiraj, which he tells me is the name for the
Bengali version of Pegasus, or indeed, any winged horse of myth or folklore. I also have the use of Mr Roy Chowdhury’s saees when I go riding and in this delectable weather, I do so quite
often, sometimes in the early mornings, when the mist is still on the ground and on the rolling fields, and sometimes in the afternoons, when the delicate autumn light gilds everything orange
and gold. It is one of life’s more unalloyed pleasures being able to ride for miles and miles, the wind in your face, leaving behind people, houses, habitations, hamlets here and there,
just you, the steed and the rush of air and open country passing you by. I pass by rivers and fields, occasionally I ride through villages consisting of no more than a few straggling huts.
Everywhere people are polite and friendly, and in our own village, Nawabgunj, a band of young men, whom I often see coming into the offices on the ground floor on, I assume, business to do with
the zamindari, have taken to wishing me ‘Good morning, memsa’ab’, ‘Good evening, memsa’ab’ when they see me in the village when I go out to take the air or
when I set out riding.
Another no small joy in this mild season is Tea on the lawn, or garden, I should rather say, of ‘Dighi Bari’. I have been teaching Bimala some of our customs and sometimes
I let her practise these during Afternoon Tea on the grass with little folding tables, chairs, parasols. She usually pours for everyone and serves the sandwiches and cakes with such poise that
I can tell Mr Roy Chowdhury feels quite proud of her, as I do, too, and no doubt, you would have done as well had you been here, dear Violet. It is at these Teas I miss you most. I speak about
you to Bimala and Mr Roy Chowdhury, although it seems he has heard a lot about you and your work from notable Bengali worthies who are his friends and also from the Rajah of Cooch Behar. He
always refers to you as ‘your eminent friend, Mrs Cameron, who does so much for our country.’ I feel very proud of you when he utters your name with such respect.
And now, dear Violet, you will scarcely believe your ears when I impart to you the next bit of information – I have finally embarked upon my book. I have drawn up a general plan
for the disposition of the chapters, the distribution of ideas and the unfolding of the arguments in the first five chapters – there will be twelve in all – and, what is more, I
have already started writing the first and the third. I have tentatively entitled it
Essay on the Rights of Women
. What do you think of the
title? I miss your guiding intelligence, our numerous conversations and debates about many of the subjects, which will, no doubt, eventually find their way into the book. I miss your generosity
with ideas, your willingness to discuss, correct, argue, modify. When shall we have the opportunity to do that again?
I have written at length and now I think I should sign off lest this should become more prolix and tax your energies. Send me your news, dear friend, and let me know if you want me to
talk to Mr Roy Chowdhury regarding any help you need for your school. My continuing best wishes for its success and smooth running and to you my love and affection. I remain ever
Yours truly,
Maud.
P.S.: Give my love to Jane and Christopher. They must have grown quite beyond recognition now. Are they doing well at school? Think of me.