East Into Upper East (19 page)

In those years she had slept so soundly—had sunk so effortlessly into deep dreamless sleep—that it was a joke in the family how she could never be made to get up. Prakash woke early and tiptoed around and gave strict instructions that she was not to be disturbed. But nowadays, and especially during the time of her growing friendship with Ram, she spent many hours of the night awake, helpless under the press of her thoughts and memories. She was still in the bedroom she had once shared with her husband; when she felt very lonely, she went up to the roof to see him. He slept on a servant's string cot, which on hot nights he dragged from under the tin roof on to the open terrace; he did not need a mosquito net, probably his blood was too thin for mosquitoes to bother with him. He sat up the moment he saw her, as if he hadn't been sleeping but had been waiting for her. He smiled at her—his toothless smile that was so painful to her that she turned her eyes away. It was not only that it was a very old man's smile but that it held something apologetic in it: yes, as if he were apologizing to her—for what? For being old, for being the way he was now, for everything he had given up and had made her give up? When he had first begun to live as an ascetic, he had also given up sex between them, though they both still desired it. It had been several years before her menopause, and those had been difficult years for her.

“Go to sleep,” she told him, and he lay down obediently, not wishing to be troublesome. She walked to the front of the terrace with its view of the river; on moonlit nights she could see the water stretching far into the horizon, lambent like the sky itself in its veil of stars. From the other side she overlooked what had once been the
eye-surgeon's house and was now the dance school. The terrace was slightly lower than her own, so that she could see the beds placed there side by side in a row. In the summer, the dance teachers and their musicians slept up there; they were all men, some of them young like Ram and not yet married, the older ones with wives left behind in their home-towns. Even when there was no moon, she could make out the row of beds because each one had a white mosquito net that shone in the dark. She could never distinguish who was sleeping under what net, not even when there was a moon; everything was shrouded and still—except when a sudden dust storm blew up, or it rained, and then they would all start up and there was a confusion of white-clad figures scurrying for shelter. She had no time to linger and watch, for she had to help the old man drag his bed into his tin-roofed shed.

A terrible scandal broke out in the dance school: one of the students from good family was found to be pregnant. It was difficult to imagine how this could have happened in their institution. Their schedule was arranged in such a way that no student was ever alone with a teacher; and after hours, the inmates of the school lived a communal life, almost like monks. Nevertheless, what had happened had happened. The girl was already quite big, and under pressure from her parents admitted that she had been with one of the teachers; and under further pressure, she named Ram. He denied it absolutely, vehemently. The girl was a liar, and anyway much too thin and dark-complexioned for him to bother with her. The other teachers agreed with and believed him; but they were in a dilemma. Although the girl's family had sent her away to Simla in an attempt to suppress the scandal, news of it might leak out and reach the Ministry of Culture. Then the school's financial grant would be canceled, forcing them to close and all the teachers to return to their meager, salary-less days. If Ram confessed, he could be made an example of and dismissed. But he refused to confess, protesting his innocence with indignation and with tears.

He tried to hide his trouble from Vijay, but it was not possible. His feelings were too volatile, overflowed too spontaneously—it was part of his artistic temperament—to be concealed from anyone, let
alone from Vijay with her mother's heart for him. He sought refuge in her house more often than ever, but his high spirits were extinguished. He stared dully in front of him, and when she first asked—then urged—then begged him to confide in her, he shook his head in dumb despair. Trying to cheer him up, she took him shopping every day now, and on a bigger scale than before. They went straight to the jewelers' lane, where they bought many large and shiny items. Fastening an imported gold watch around his wrist, she felt rewarded to see his eyes light up with some of their old sparkle; but this lasted hardly longer than it took to pay and leave the shop, when again he fell into a deep gloom.

On his next visit, Anand found the house changed—dark and dismal, with the servants neglecting their work and his mother too engrossed in Ram to supervise them in her former energetic way. The old man sat silent and alone on the roof; he no longer came down, not even when Vijay, kept out late shopping with Ram, forgot to bring up his meal. As for Ram, instead of tactfully disappearing during Anand's visit, he stayed close by Vijay's side, looking at her son with eyes that begged to be allowed to stay. But the worst was when Anand examined his mother's accounts. Unable or unwilling to explain the enormous increase in her expenditure, she became defiant and shouted at her son. He tried to shush her—“The servants will hear”—so did Ram—“Maji, your health”—but both pleas only incensed her more. “Let them hear, let everyone hear, what sort of a son I have brought into the world!” And on the matter of her health, “So who cares when my own son is making me die from grief and heartache.” The noise she made brought the old man down to see what was happening; but when she told him, “Nothing to do with you,” he turned, silent as always nowadays, and went back to his place on the roof.

When Anand scolded the servants for their neglect, they looked sullen. At first they only muttered, throwing out hints that he should look further than a bit of dust on the furniture. Soon they became more voluble, they spoke of the shopping expeditions, drew his attention to the gold watch and the diamond studs in the new tunics. And the meals that had to be cooked for the visitor, not just one meal now but three a day with cold drinks and snacks in between. But they were not the kind of servants who should be expected to serve this kind of person (a low-caste dancer). Moreover, if they were to reveal
what they knew about the goings-on next door, the accusation against him—and then they did reveal it, every detail of the scandal that they had learned from reliable sources like the school's sweeper woman and the shopkeeper who sold betel and cigarettes and knew everything.

When Anand told his mother, she rejected the information outright. She ran first to the girl's family—who, anxious only to save their good name, denied everything. Ram too denied everything. She made him swear on what was most precious to him and he swore on her life. Anand took action on his own. He used his influence with colleagues in the Ministry of Culture to institute an inquiry into the affairs of the school. This done, he left for his district and let matters take their course. Thus the scandal was uncovered, and the official report advised the withdrawal of the grant and the closure of the school on the grounds of moral turpitude. However, this verdict was subject to appeal provided the miscreant was exposed and immediate disciplinary action taken against him. Then Ram's dismissal could no longer be delayed. That very day he had to pack up his belongings in three bundles and leave the school forever.

Carrying his bundles, he went to say goodbye to Vijay. She was deeply shocked, she would not accept the situation. But he was innocent! He hung his head, he said nothing. He was innocent, she cried again—had he not sworn on her own life! For answer, he fell to the floor at her feet and lay there, absolutely still. He resisted all her attempts to make him rise, to speak, to answer let alone assent to her protestations of his innocence. At last realization dawned on her. She said in a cold dead voice, “Get up.” He obeyed; when he glanced at her face, he saw it closed against him as against a stranger. He begged her: “Maji,” but her expression did not change. When he tried to take her hand to hold against his cheek as he had done a thousand times before, she snatched it away. He burst into tears but she continued to sit rigid, with her big knees planted wide apart as if made of stone, and her eyes, fixed on the wall above him, also made of stone.

Although she said nothing, asked nothing, he poured out his confession. He did not try to justify himself: yes, it was the girl who had taken the initiative, had tempted him, but he had followed her lead, and with abandon. Every night he had crept from under his
mosquito net and let himself out of the house, so silently and secretly that neither watchman nor sweeper ever caught a glimpse of him. And silently, secretly, he ran to her house three lanes away, where she was waiting to let him in. While the household slept two storeys above them, they had done what they did together right there in her father's house, on the gold brocade sofa of his drawing room where he entertained his guests; the smell still lingered of the kebabs that had been eaten and the whisky that had been drunk. She knew where the bottles were kept, and not only did they fornicate but they drank alcohol together, till the household began to stir at dawn. And this not once but night after night, for weeks together—those same weeks when he and Vijay walked hand in hand by the river and went shopping in the bazaar. And more, more—for he was now in a confessing mood and all his wickedness came rushing out of him—sometimes they were so overwhelmed by their desire that even in the school, after her class with him, they crept into a cubby-hole where winter clothing was stored in a steel trunk and they lay together on this trunk, in the dark and holding their breath if they heard voices or footsteps passing outside.

After he had told her everything, he remained standing before her with his head bowed. He did not dare ask for her forgiveness, nor did she offer it. She remained sitting there as before, stone-like—until suddenly she rose and her arms flailed as she beat him about the head and shoulders. He put up his hands to shield himself but did not utter a sound. When she had finished beating him, she abused him: she called him thief and scoundrel, who had insinuated himself into her house and her heart for what he could get out of her, for the money she spent on him, the jewelry with which she adorned him. When she said that, he said, “No, Maji,” in a still, broken voice. “And you laughed about me with her—with your prostitute—you said wait till you see what the old woman will buy for me.” “No, Maji,” he said again, in the same voice. She slapped his face: “Don't lie to me! All this time you've lied to me and I believed you.” “I never lied to you—” But she slapped him again: “You said you were my son, that you loved me like a son.” “It's the truth. I love you like a son.” “Liar! Liar!”

Silently, he bent down to his three bundles and untied them. He took out everything she had given him—the clothes, the gold-thread slippers, the ornaments. When he had finished, there was only one
little bundle left and he tied it up again. The rest of the things he placed in a pile at her feet; lastly, he took off his new watch and laid it on top of everything. He picked up his remaining bundle and went to the door; there he turned around to her—not as if he hoped to be called back but perhaps for just one word, not even of forgiveness but only one word from her. She said nothing and he left, the mark of her hand still red on his cheek.

During the following days, there were times when she wanted to call him back. She had no idea where he had gone, and when she went to the school to find out, it was as if he had never been. A new teacher was taking his class, an ugly squat pockmarked man whom the girls teased till he lost his temper with them. Ankle-bells still tinkled, drums and lyres played, but now all this was unbearable to her. That day she went to the railway station and picked her way among the crowd to peer at the figures lying asleep on the platform with their cloth bundles of food and their water jugs, waiting for trains that had not arrived or not departed. But Ram's train, if he ever took one, must have started long ago and he had already reached his home-town and the musicians' alley with the broken-down house where his mother and sisters lived. Or he was still on the train, crammed into his third-class seat, with his bundle on his knees and the red mark on his cheek, remembering what he had left behind or looking forward to what lay before him.