Difficult Daughters (20 page)

Virmati’s other major duty in the school was teaching. She taught English Literature and Household to classes IX and X. Household was hygiene, nutrition, domestic management, health care, and enough applied maths to balance a budget. The prime minister, keen to implement the maharanee’s ideas, publicized the soundness of female education through Household, a traditional subject taught in a scientific way by the principal herself.

*

So Virmati ran her school, ran her home, and passed the days busy and happy. From time to time she felt a sharp pang of longing for the Professor. But she had lived with this for so long she would have felt uncomfortable without it. His letters were particularly ardent. Her description of the place had fired his imagination more than hers, and he talked much of romance and beauty. He came to be the spectre that lay between her and her life as principal, so that she too began to look upon her stay there as a period of waiting rather than the beginning of a career.

He wrote every day. The very sight of her name in his distinctive hand, centred so neatly on the pale blue envelopes, was enough to set her face on fire, which she did her best to downplay by briskly ordering the peon about.

*

Of course, the lover cannot be content with words alone. He must come, he must see, he must feel.

‘I’m coming‚’ he wrote.

‘No‚’ she wrote back.

‘I must. You have no idea how drab and monotonous my days and nights are. Nothing can relieve them – nothing except the hope of meeting you.’

‘What about your family?’ she replied.

‘I live and die for you,’ he said, evading the issue as usual.

He came travelling up to Ambala by train, and caught the Nahan bus from there. At the Jamuna the waters were too high for the vehicle to cross. All the passengers descended and waded through, the river swirling around their legs. Behind them came two coolies, who moved back and forth with the heavy luggage till it was all transported. Waiting beyond was the bus that had unloaded in a similar fashion some hours ago. This they boarded while those passengers took theirs. Leaving British India for the Punjab Hill States, on to bad roads, with potholes abounding like scars in a pock-marked face, the Professor thought how much Viru was worth this journey, and how she would look when she saw him.

*

From the station the Professor found out that it was just a fifteen-minute walk to the school. Fifteen minutes to savour the anticipation of their meeting.

There she was, solitary at evening time in the cottage, sitting on the grassy patch in front, the tea he had taught her to drink in a cup beside her. The low iron gate creaked as he opened it, but she was lost in her thoughts and didn’t look up. He crept forward, and softly laid a hand on her neck, just under her roll of hair. She turned with a start.

They said nothing then, just looked, drinking the other up with long, deep glances, dead in that moment to everything else.

*

Arjun, what did you see when you hit the eye of the bird with the arrow, the eye that all your brothers missed?

Guruji, I saw nothing, just the black dot in the centre.

So Harish saw nothing but Virmati.

A flying arrow aimed at a still bird.

*

Slowly they moved inside the cottage to finish the embrace their eyes had started.

Later, ‘This is such a beautiful place‚’ said the Professor. ‘Complete and self-contained. If I had known, I would have come earlier.’

‘No‚’ Virmati replied hastily.

‘Why, darling, what do you mean?’

‘You can’t stay here.’

‘Why not? If
I
can’t, then who? And here you are so independent.’

‘Not so that I can ignore what everybody thinks.’

‘No one will know. I’ll be very quiet.’

‘There is an eye in every leaf. And why is it that suddenly you do not care what everybody thinks?’

The answer burned within her, because I am the only one who will be affected. It remained unspoken because she didn’t want a quarrel in which she inevitably ended up conciliating. Instead she grew cross and irritable, while he started to sulk.

‘Very well, then. I know where I am not wanted‚’ said the Professor. ‘I am a stranger here, and quite at your mercy.’

Virmati’s face grew taut at the unfairness of this remark, but suppressing still more unprofitable words, she picked up his small attaché case and strode outside. It was getting late, and respectability required that she make arrangements for her guest before night suggestively presented itself.

The purple light was shading into blackness as Virmati and the Professor walked silently down the hill towards the vicinity of the palace where the prime minister stayed. Virmati had made up her mind to request him to host Harish. In fact, throughout the passion of their reunion this question had been nagging her. Where was he going to stay?

As they waited in the angan outside the main living quarters of the prime minister’s house, Virmati stared moodily at the tulsi growing prominently in an urn in the middle. The prime minister was a conservative man, he was not going to like this.

He came and listened to Virmati’s stammered explanations with courtesy. ‘Unexpected visit? I see.’

‘He was passing through,’ Virmati elaborated. The Professor looked as stupid as it was possible for a man with a noble forehead and elegantly brushed hair to look.

‘He must stay here of course, beti,’ said the Diwan Sahib.

‘Thank you, ji,’ said Virmati.

‘I am grateful for your hospitality,’ said the Professor stiffly.

The Professor stayed one more day and then left. He felt the Diwan Sahib’s eye on him and he didn’t like it. Besides, Virmati was not behaving properly. Let her get more securely established, he thought, and then he would come.

*

The rest of the year passed. Virmati cultivated friendships with some of the teachers, visited them in their homes in the winding gullies. All of them wanted to know why she wasn’t married. Young and pretty, and coming from a good family – what could be the problem? It bothered them. They wished her well. Virmati grew glib talking about her career, and the need for dedication when one was teaching.

‘That’s all very well, but you can do the same when you are married,’ said one of the teachers she was closest to.

‘Everything is in the hands of God,’ said Virmati.

Meanwhile Swarna’s letters were full of Mrs Asaf Ali, Congress leaders in jail, the Left now in the hands of the Socialists, disturbances everywhere, trains being stopped, hartals paralysing the nation, we are united, they can’t stop us now. She had also got a job as a teacher in her old college.

When Virmati read these letters, she wondered why Swarna even bothered with the likes of her. She had so little to offer in exchange. ‘I am fine. Everything is the same here. How are you?’

And then came Swarna’s note saying she was married. He had accepted all her conditions. She was going to be allowed to continue her other activities, remain treasurer of the Women’s Conference, go on working for the Party. Everything to do with the house they would share as much as possible. She owed it to her parents to marry. They had let her have her way in everything else.

Miss Datta liked the boy. He would do, she said.

Virmati grew restless. In class she looked at her students, and looked at the poem in her hand. Why was she teaching them ‘The Daffodils’? She who had never seen a daffodil? This was Harish’s cup of tea, not hers. Swarna asked what it was like in Nahan. Like nothing. Like being suspended in time, in anticipation for her life to start, with the noise of the foundry as background music.

She wrote to the Professor that she was sick and tired of waiting for him. If he couldn’t make up his mind to marry her, then she might as well devote herself seriously to her career. Nahan was not the place to do it. Either in Lahore or, if her family didn’t agree, Jullunder.

*

The Professor came as soon as he was able. This time he arrived at the cottage after dark. He had come prepared with a torch.

‘Viru,’ he called sweetly, knocking at the window-panes.

Alone inside, Virmati started. ‘Who is it?’ she called, nervously.

‘It is me,’ cooed the Professor. ‘Open the door and let me in.’

Virmati shivered. The voice was his. But without notice, and so late. Was this the commitment she was looking for? She opened the door a crack, and showed the Professor her white face and falling plait in the dark space between door and frame.

The Professor snaked his hand and foot in between the space and pushed. The door gave way a little. Virmati found herself resisting.

‘Why have you come?’ she asked. ‘First tell me. Why have you come? Is it going to be the same story all over again?’

‘Whatever do you mean, darling? Let me in, will you?’ He pushed harder. Now more of his leg was inside.

‘No, I won’t. Not until you answer me,’ cried Virmati, her voice low and passionate. ‘All this time you have never been straight with me.’

‘First let me come in. How can we talk like this?’

Virmati’s hold slackened, and the Professor stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

‘Come here, darling,’ he caressed. ‘Be reasonable.’ Inside, a hurricane light was burning. The room was full of dark shadows. The electricity had gone.

‘I want to know where I stand before anything else,’ she insisted, backing into the room behind. In her hurry she didn’t lift the curtain high enough, and it got caught in the door, preventing it from closing. In a flash the Professor was through. He pinned her between his arms, against the wall. She tried to push him away. ‘This is not an answer,’ she said angrily.

‘Viru, I love you more than you love me, that much is obvious,’ panted the Professor. ‘It’s been almost six months – I can think of nothing else and here you torture me with your questions and answers!’

‘It is you who are torturing me!’ she cried almost in a fit. Against her will, the tears started to come. And against her will, he forced her legs apart with his own, pushing his knee upwards between her soft thighs. With one hand he cupped her face, trying to prise her lips open with his tongue, while the other hand fumbled underneath her kameez for the drawstring that tied her salwar.

‘No,’ protested Virmati, as strongly as she was able.

The salwar was undone, and his hand was making stroking movements on her belly, before embarking on its more probing journey downwards.

‘Viru, Viru, Viru, I love you my sweetest darling,’ the Professor murmured, saying her name over and over again.

‘Then prove it,’ said Virmati hoarsely, growing feebler by the minute.

‘That is just what I am doing.’

*

This was the first time they had spent the whole night together. No fear of curfew, or of home, no fear of anybody hearing anything. For a brief moment Virmati lived that night as though there was no tomorrow. In bed, they had looked at one another and smiled, the love flowing thick and strong between them. He kissed the strands of wet hair on her face, he gently dried the sweat away with the palm of his hand. While she slept within the circle of his arms, he caressed and stroked her. Intermittently waking, she felt her year at Nahan melt away into nothingness.

*

Towards the east side of Nahan was a long walk, which left the town at the temple tank to reappear after a round of the hill. Early next morning the couple were walking briskly down this scenic route, while tension began to gnaw at Virmati. Suppose there was some trouble? But what else could she have done? I don’t care, she thought defiantly.

By now they had reached the middle of their walk. The Professor’s attention was caught by two stone canopies over what looked like raised graves. Raised high, almost at eye level, they were in a grassy clearing a little below the road, with steps cut into the side of the hill.

‘What is that?’ asked the Professor, stopping to look.

‘Graves,’ said Virmati.

‘Oh, how charming,’ exclaimed the Professor, as he led the way down the shallow stone steps, overgrown with grass.

Virmati followed. Was it charming? She supposed it was. He usually had an eye for the charming, beautiful, lovely, quaint, picturesque. She tried to see through his eyes when he pointed things out to her. After all these years she was getting quite good at the exercise.

The Professor opened the tiny entrance gate and made for the first grave. It was covered by a thick slab of good-quality Italian marble. Fine dark lines were visible under the smooth softly shinning stone. The letters were neatly carved and filled with black. Slowly he read out:

‘What a lovely place to be finally laid to rest!’

‘Hoon,
’
said Virmati absently, who saw nothing so remarkable about the gravestones.

‘Such peace and stillness. Look darling, they are right on the edge of this little promontory. As though poised between this world and the next.’

‘I wonder whose is the other one?’ asked Virmati, going to look.

‘Viru, Viru! Been here this long, and never thought of exploring!’ remonstrated the Professor affectionately.

‘I was waiting for you,’ said Virmati coldly at being dragged from lover to pupil.

‘It must be his wife’s. Whose else could it be? So close and so similar as they are to one another.’

Indeed it was. On an identical slab, carved in the same way, were the words: