French Lover (16 page)

‘Have you gone mad?’ Anirban scolded her.

Nila’s voice was strangely tranquil, ‘Yes, I have.’

Anirban took his glasses off again. This time it wasn’t to wipe them but to throw a keen glance at Nila. But she continued, ‘There’s a word—regret. Have you ever heard it? Have you ever felt it? No, you haven’t. There was never any need. You married Ma because you needed money. That was taken care of by her dowry. You used it to study medicine. Ma was like a servant in this house, right? No one said anything because that’s how women often are in their husbands’ house. You’ve enjoyed lording it over her. And you had Swati Sen to give you other pleasures. People didn’t care about that either because men are supposed to have a liaison or two, there’s nothing wrong in it. In fact, everyone thought you are noble because you didn’t throw your dark-skinned, plain-looking wife out. You had to prove that you are not sterile and so there were two children. It was a matter of pride that your children studied and did well; you won there too. You didn’t have to shell out anything for your daughter’s dowry and you were saved. In fact you had the added advantage of being able to say your daughter lives abroad. Naturally no one wants to know how she is because living there is always good enough. If the daughter served her husband the way her mother served hers, the circle would be complete. If the daughter took a divorce and came back to her parents’ home, it’ll be one hell of a mess. Your son has a good job and also dabbles in politics; perhaps one day he’ll be a minister. The cup runneth over. A successful life! Whatever else you may do, regret certainly wouldn’t be one of them, right?’

She didn’t give Anirban the chance to speak and walked away to
Molina’s room. Molina lay there with her eyes closed. Nila picked up her fingers to stroke them and suddenly, like a sunflower bud blooming slowly, Molina opened her eyes.

‘Ma, do you want something?’

‘Don’t say anything to your father. In times of trouble, he will look after you.’ Molina’s voice was tired, broken.

‘Ma, I’ll take you to Paris, treat you there, you will get well. Have I told you there’s so much to see in Paris? I’ll show you everything.’

Suddenly Molina’s eyes grew bright. ‘I’ll get well?’

‘Definitely you will get well. There are such great doctors there. I’ll build us a beautiful house by the sea. There’ll be mountains behind it. You love the ocean, don’t you?’

Molina nodded like a child.

‘There’s so much to see in this country too. I’ll take you to Darjeeling, Simla, Kashmir.’

Molina’s voice was the same, weary. ‘No, not Kashmir.’

‘Okay, not Kashmir, it’s unsafe. Do you want to go to Jaipur, Ma? Goa? We’ll swim there . . .’

The smile faded from Molina’s eyes. She closed her eyes so hard that her face wrinkled up and looked like a balled up piece of paper.

Nila hugged her close.

Suddenly Molina screamed, ‘Manjusha!’

‘Manjusha isn’t here, Ma, she’s gone. Tell me what you want.’

Chitra came running. She said, ‘Didi, give that red medicine to aunty.’

Painkiller. Nila dissolved three instead of two and gave it to Molina.

But the pain wouldn’t go.

Nila woke Nikhil. ‘Dada, how can you sleep like this? Ma is screaming in pain. Wake up. Call the doctor who is treating Ma.’

Anirban was snoring away. Nila woke him too and asked him to call the doctor. Anirban shouted, ‘What doctor, at this hour of the night!’

The groans rebounded in the sleeping household. Molina
moaned all night long, she could not scream any more. Nila sat by her, helpless. She tried to will her own body to take all the pain from her mother into her own, all her sorrow unto her own heart.

In the morning, Anirban peeped into Molina’s room before leaving for work. Nikhil did the same. They didn’t feel a jot of remorse in disappearing for the day after finishing their breakfast and the quick peek. Nila barred their way and said, ‘How can you all blithely leave for the day, when Ma is so ill?’

‘But we have work to do.’

‘Work? You’ll work all your life and get fat salaries for it. Take a day off!’

‘What’s the point? Will Ma become all right?’

‘No, but at least be at her side; she can look at you.’

‘She, and look at me? She’s sleeping all the time.’

Anirban rushed Nikhil, ‘Don’t waste your time, you are getting late. Don’t pay any heed to this impractical girl. Just because one person’s life is at a standstill doesn’t mean everyone has to stop theirs!’

‘Go! Go and earn money. In fact, I guess you are not even needed here. Just send the doctor and if you can’t, give me his address; I’ll see to it that he gets here.’ Nila spoke wearily.

In the morning the sunflower bloomed again.

‘Do you want to stroll by the Ganga today?’

Molina’s face had a childlike smile—she would go. It was ages since she’d stepped out of the house. She wanted details of what Nila was being fed. Her voice was weak, but she spoke; her eyes drooped but she tried to keep them open. She was being strong. Nila said she was eating very well, Chitra was cooking excellent fish curries . . .

‘Did she put coriander in the curry?’

‘Yes Ma, she did.’

She herself could eat nothing except for a cup of milk and even that she threw up. Nila looked at Molina and thought, once she used to eat the leftovers after feeding her husband and children. She had
done what most women did. That’s how she fell ill. She’d never looked after herself, paid any heed to her own pleasure or health. Nila, just like everyone else in the house, had also never spared a glance at what Molina ate, whether she was sick or not. Now Nila wanted to look after her, feed her with her own hands. She wanted Molina to get well. But Molina was beyond her love and tenderness, her respect and adulation. Nila had kept it all back until it was too late. She desperately wanted to turn the clock back, to correct her mistakes. But time swept on as usual, carrying with it all mistakes, all wrongs.

Dr Prashanta came in the afternoon. Nila’s newly acquired habit made her reach her hand out for a handshake. But she saw the doctor’s discomfiture and drew it back and pretended she was indicating which room was the patient’s. Nila was thankful that she had remembered and not proceeded to kiss his cheeks! Otherwise it would have been all over the town that Nila was not only depraved, she was also crazy.

The doctor checked Molina’s blood pressure, her pulse and told them to continue with the medicine he had prescribed.

‘That won’t do, doctor. Give her something stronger—morphine.’

The gray-haired doctor with the grimy glasses perched on his nose, shook his head from side to side. ‘Morphine isn’t for now. Later.’

‘How much later?’

He didn’t say how much later, just later.

The doctor eventually revealed the reason for his reluctance to give morphine; he didn’t think it was good and it could be addictive.

Nila’s surprise knew no bounds; it trickled down her body and drenched her nerve endings. She shook with rage. How could he bother about morphine addiction for a person who was breathing her last?

Nila said, ‘Let her get addicted! My mother never had any
addictions. I want her to have a morphine addiction. Please prescribe it.’

‘There’s something called medical ethics! I can’t overstep them.’ The doctor pushed his grimy glasses back on his nose and said.

‘Ethics be damned! Please prescribe it—I will give her the injection,’ Nila shouted at the doctor.

The doctor was wallowing in his ethics and wouldn’t prescribe morphine. Suddenly Nila felt the Western debate over euthanasia was worth looking into. Earlier, she’d thought it was cruel. But today she felt just as someone had the right to live, they should have the right to die. This was also a human right. What was the point of living if all you could look forward to was misery?

Before he left, the doctor said, ‘Why are you getting so excited! The illness isn’t sudden; it was festering for a long time. It was just a boil in her intestine at first and that was haemorrhaging. It could have been operated quite easily. But because it was allowed to grow, it turned into cancer. This is the problem with patients’ families. They don’t begin treatment on time and when it is too late they throw their weight around.’

In the evening the car dropped Nikhil home and went to the hospital to pick up Anirban. He came home and Nila said, ‘Tell Ramkiran to wait; I’ll go out.’

‘Where?’

Nila didn’t answer. She told Nikhil to carry Molina into the car. Anirban stopped Nikhil. ‘Have you also gone mad, like her?’

Nikhil agreed with him, this was truly crazy. To go to the riverside with a person who couldn’t walk or stand, who had no strength in her arms and legs!

‘Are you going to kill her even before she dies.’

Nikhil pulled her into the balcony and shouted at her. ‘What is wrong with you? Why are you acting like this? You can see Ma’s condition. Dragging her around at this time just doesn’t make sense.’

Nila stood there silently.

Nikhil sighed, ‘God knows what happened to Ma suddenly.’
Molina was screaming in pain. She could hear those pitiful cries from the balcony. But she couldn’t bring herself to face that ghastly pain, to look on that face crumpled in agony. She gripped the grills on the balcony tightly—she wouldn’t go anywhere; she’d stand there and spare herself the sight of all this pain. But she went and as she looked back, she saw Anirban sitting on the sofa in his comfortable clothes, the newspaper on his lap, his eyes fixed on the TV, watching the nubile heroine’s undulating hips.

Nila switched off the TV, sat down in front of Anirban and said, ‘Yesterday I spoke to you of regrets. Well, do you regret anything?’ Anirban took off his glasses. It was the keen eyes again, ‘Why should I?’

‘You should because you never paid attention to Ma’s health. For ten years Ma was bleeding from time to time and you said it was piles, didn’t you? Now you know it wasn’t that. When she had stomach aches, you said it’s nothing, she was just acting up. Actually she wanted to just take the day off, isn’t that what you said? You said she was complaining unnecessarily to get your attention. Now you know the truth. Don’t you have regrets? When you sit here alone, don’t you ever feel sorry, feel that you could have prevented this disease if you had treated her instead of ignoring it. You were a professor of gastroenterology, and still are. Don’t you feel sorry that although you are a doctor and Ma relied on you, she’s dying without treatment because you never spared her a second glance? You do regret, right?’

‘But she is being treated. We tried chemotherapy too.’ Anirban’s voice rose.

‘Rubbish! Chemotherapy is no treatment. You have caused this cancer and now you try chemotherapy to fool people and make them believe she is being treated! When she needed it, there was no treatment. You know that too. Do you have any regrets?’ Nila’s voice held fury, her eyes rained hatred.

‘I sent an oncologist today as well.’

‘That’s mere pretence, to show people that you’re getting her treated by great doctors.’

Anirban looked at Nikhil for support, ‘What is this girl blabbering! He is the finest oncologist in the city . . .’

‘Fuck your oncologist.’

‘What?’

‘Fuck yourself.’

Nila wept. She brought the house down.

Nila fell asleep weeping. She woke up to Molina’s screams and Anirban’s snores. While one howled with unbearable pain, in another room the other slept peacefully. They had lived under the same roof for forty long years. Stillness, there was a stifling stillness within. Nila was scared; scared to touch Molina. Under the whirring fan, Molina’s feet were cold as ice even though it was summer. Oh, why wasn’t Molina born as a foreign dog?

In the morning the sunflower bloomed. ‘Chitra, make some tea for Nila.’

Chitra slept on the floor of the room, on a mat. She rolled it up and went to get the tea. Molina said to Nila, ‘Shut the door and come near me.’

Nila shut the door.

‘Take the keys from under my pillow and open my almirah.’ Molina’s voice was as faint as someone speaking from the moon. Nila opened the almirah.

‘There are some papers in the right hand drawer. Bring them here.’

Nila brought the papers.

Molina said, ‘Keep these with you. They are yours.’

Nila opened them and found a cheque for twenty lakhs made out to her.

She was startled to see such a huge amount on the cheque.

‘Mother, why are you giving me so much money?’ Nila saw the tears rolling from Molina’s eyes and wetting the pillow. She wiped them and said, ‘I will get you treated with this money, Ma, you will get well. You’ll walk and sing like before.’

The voice from the moon came again, ‘Stay in the country. Don’t go abroad.’

There was chaos in the house. Nikhil told her there was a call from Paris, from a girl called Danielle. She was arriving tonight in Calcutta.
Anirban had gone to the market to buy good fish and meat for their foreign guest. Two of his friends were coming to lunch too and at night there’d be some relatives for dinner. The pressure would be too much on Chitra. So they sent word and fetched Chitra’s mother and aunt. Nila observed the festivities in the house from a distance. She watched Nikhil running around. ‘What will your foreign guest like to drink? Is it okay if we don’t serve French wine? I can arrange for Indian wine.’

Nila’s voice shook, ‘Dada, please sit beside Ma, talk to her a little.’

Nikhil said, ‘The doctors have said she’ll live for another two months.’

‘I am scared, dada.’

Nikhil went to the airport in the evening and brought Danielle home. There were lots of relatives gathered in the house. They had all come to see Molina. After the dinner party, Anirban went and felt Molina’s pulse. After that, he started whispering with Molina’s brother and brother-in-law about the crematorium, arrangements, money, etc.

The words fell on Nila’s ears like burning logs of fire and she burned alone.

Danielle touched Nila’s burning shoulders and whispered in her ears, ‘I’ve come to you from so far away, and you don’t seem to be happy to see me.’

Nila didn’t answer.

Sleeping arrangements for Danielle were made on Nila’s bed. It was as natural for Nila’s woman-friend to sleep on her bed as it was for the sun to rise in the east and for Molina to suffer pain. Chitra made the bed with two extra pillows. Before they went up, Anirban and Nikhil talked to Danielle for a long time about the French Revolution and French perfumes.

Nila sat by Molina’s bed, alone. After midnight Danielle came into the room as silently as a cat and said, ‘Come, let’s go to bed.’

‘You go and sleep. I’ll sit here.’

‘You are very tired, Nila. You need some rest. If you make yourself sick like this, you’ll never be able to help her. Your family will be
fussing over you. Get some sleep tonight and come back here in the morning,’ Danielle whispered.

Nila realized the house was filling up with whispers.

Danielle dragged Nila’s tired body upstairs.

All night long, Danielle’s thirsty tongue played on Nila’s motionless body. Suddenly Nila’s deadwood body was flooded with life. Like a skilled painter Danielle painted her dreams on Nila’s body.

When Nila was drowning in orgasmic tremors, when the first rays of the sun were kissing her long black tresses, Nila heard Chitra’s scream and turned into stone.

Danielle left. She had never seen a Hindu death ceremony before. This was a new experience for her.

Nila didn’t leave the bed. Nikhil came and called her. Chitra came and said, ‘Didi, aunty was restless and called out “Nila, Nila”. That’s what woke me up. Then I called her again and again. But she didn’t answer. She didn’t open her eyes.’

After Chitra left, Nila got out of the bed, naked. She locked and bolted the door. All day long there were sounds—some knocked, some pushed, some requested her to come and see her mother’s face one last time, some commanded. Manjusha, Molina’s brothers and sisters and for some reason, even Anirban came to call her. But Nila didn’t open the door for any of them. She stared at the golden sun outside the window. The sounds of the streets, of the death rituals, didn’t reach her at all.

At night Chitra’s tenuous weeping tore through the stifling stillness of the house. But there was no sigh ripping Nila apart and no tears burned her eyes.

Nila had wanted to sprinkle rose water on Molina’s sorrows as if they’d doze off to the sweet smell, somewhere on the streets of Calcutta. If she had gently lifted the sorrows and left them on the terrace at night, perhaps they’d have forgotten to be sad and played with the moonbeams. These sorrows had never left Molina’s side, not even when she went for a bath. It was as if they were bosom buddies and without them Molina would be helpless, vulnerable. The people in the house were relieved to surrender Molina into the
hands of the sorrows; they’d call them in, offer them a seat and some tea. Nila had wanted to take them away secretly, and set them afloat in the Ganga one day. They’d float like hyacinths, like bits of straw, like dead snakes and go far, far away. Not one of Nila’s wishes had come true. Today the sorrows went all the way to the burning ghat with Molina.