Someone Else's Garden (44 page)

The girl hadn’t cried, and Mamta had held her hand, looked into her face and said firmly, ‘It’s better to cry,’ sanctioning her grief.

‘I know,’ the girl had replied with a wilted smile, ‘I know, but I don’t feel anything. Is that bad?’ Then the girl said something that changed Mamta’s life. She said: ‘What would I have done with this baby? In a way I am saved. I can go back to my old life now.’

Mamta felt a sensation of enormous loss on the girl’s behalf. She realised that she mourned not so much the death of the baby, but the death of the girl’s future. The instant she delivered that dead baby, the girl knew that she would go back to her old life, her future unchanged. She gave up the one moment capable of shifting her life-scenario from one in which she was a helpless child-mother to one in which she was a strong woman, in charge of her own destiny.

The loss of belief in the girl’s future had brought her own future into focus. Unlike the teenage girl, Mamta realised that her old life did not have a hold on her any more. She had to go forward, so she decided she would go forward with him, her heart-keeper, Lokend.

Go forward.

They were meant to be lovers.

He’d clasped her hand and pulled her close to him. She’d slid beside him, carefully avoiding his wound. He’d folded her in his arms without speaking and kissed her birthmark. His caresses were tender and immature, unpractised and gentle. She tried to stop the comparisons, the flashbacks, the coupling without preamble, but her body finally tuned out the pictures of her previous sexual experi ences. Trembling, she’d given in to him, flowing with him, dancing with him to the fugue of small, silent, discreet laughter; laughing that little laugh that occurs in physically intimate situations only in the context of complete trust. There are lovers who go through lifetimes without the company of such healing, shared joy.

She’d fallen asleep cradled in the crook of his arm, into such an unusual and deep sleep that left her satisfied, swollen and rumpled when she awoke. That day she knew she had slept in a place of absolute safety for the first time in her life.

Chapter 17

E
VERY MORNING, HER LOVE SLIDES ACROSS
the table, warms the tea and butters the chapatti. She does the same things her mother did for her father, but with a difference. Her actions aren’t automated by habit or dictated by duty, but burble from her laughing heart that dances with the passion of a rose in a monsoon wind. At last she is able to give in to her great lilting love that has shattered her peace only to put it higgledy-piggledy back together till she has to stop herself from giggling at the thought of them together.

But she cautions herself that this much happiness isn’t a good thing. What has she been taught? Never laugh too much, never expect too much, never ask for too much, never, never, never. Laughter and tears will be hers in equal part. Cause and effect. But she can’t muzzle her delight. No place can contain her big love, so close to worship, that the gods might surely be offended if she didn’t placate them with prayers three times a day.

Now that she has been with him for almost a year, she can hardly remember a time when they were apart. She has been his companion longer than he has been hers, but now, it seems they are one. For her part, she’s learned his lessons well, that is the gift she promised him, silently inside her heart: to live a better life, not for him, but for herself.

She feels so much a part of him that she has never fully realised the truth of their commitment. She is devoted, that’s all she knows. She is grateful, that’s all she knows. If he were to leave her without a word, she wouldn’t be devastated or hurt, she wouldn’t question, she’d accept.

But he does love her.

She senses something tragically magical in his feelings for her and she shudders with guilt each time she sees the crinkled corners of his eyes and his big white teeth shining through his smile, thinking how hard it must have been for him to give up his world of lofty, unseen bliss for
this
, her fickle world of Maya, illusion, the dream of duality in the empirical universe. She thinks he is able to visit her world, the place of pleasure and pain, only because he can very clearly see a finite end to his life. She imagines his spirit struggling with his feelings by day, and each night, triumphing over her world of duality, returning to the heavenly heights of those ascetic places which she still imagines as lonely and cold.

He smiles more on the outside now. For that he is grateful to her, and in turn, she is indebted to him for allowing her to think herself deserving of a pout on her lips and an angry tear in her eye because of some imagined slight, just like any other woman.

When they lie entwined on their mattress, Lokend talks about his day. They dissolve into each other like honey and warm water. She feels a solid sense of companionship, so different from her mother’s warnings about love, pregnancy and childbirth. Her mother was right on every account, but for the fact of the incredible love that overwhelms her. At those times she wishes to climb under his skin, till there is no one who can say which body is which.

And yet, outwardly, theirs is an ordinary union. Mamta has that untidiness of appearance that goes with so many women who have never felt attractive in their lives. She spends no time in front of the mirror and even less pulling her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. She knows it isn’t for her looks that he is with her.

For a year now they have lived out of the back of Eyebrows’ dispensary.

For a year she has tried to contact her mother, first through Cynthia D’Souza, and then Prem. She has described her miracle-life in florid detail without mentioning Lokend in her letters home. But there has been no reply from Gopalpur.

Mamta has sent a box of sweets to her mother, a box with the picture of Devi on it, the same kind that Lokend gave her on the first day they met. Mamta thinks that sweets on Diwali – their favourite festival of lights, firecrackers, fancy food and prayers – will turn her mother towards her. But she is wrong.

Lata Bai has made a hard-headed pact with herself not to forgive – and that is the word she uses each time her thoughts stray to Mamta – her runaway daughter. For Lata Bai, Mamta
is
Sharma’s wife, shit-smeared and raped, a disgrace. She has kept the news of Mamta’s newfound freedom to herself just as she has news of Seeta Ram’s death.

‘This is the first time I am celebrating Diwali on the correct day. For our kind, Diwali always came one day later than for the rest of Gopalpur. The morning after, we bigger ones would head out into the forest and fields looking for unspent firecrackers, while the little ones waited in line at the back door to the Big House’s kitchen for leftovers,’ Mamta says.

‘Yes, I remember that, the queue outside our kitchen. Asmara Didi was always so kind.’

‘Yes, it’s easy to be kind when you have everything,’ she says, bitterness tainting her words. She bangs the side of her hand into the floor, furiously beating out a pattern. Then she quickly checks herself. ‘We knew you were home if the sheets were dragged into the courtyard laden with sweets! Oh, how we wished to see you.’ Thump, thump thump, go the prints, just like someone walking, emerging first as toeless soles. She paints the toes with the tips of her fingers, first the thumb, then the pointing, middle, ring and finally the little finger. ‘Amma used to do this every year. Each year she would invite Lakshmi into our house.’ The baby footprints of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, have started their journey at the front door, snaking deep into the dispensary. Thump, thump thump, fine red dust escapes from under her hand like warm breath to shower her blouse, ‘but the goddess never came, instead we listened to the sound of other people’s firecrackers and dreamed of leftovers from your kitchen. The night after Diwali, Amma would light a single oil lamp once again, and take down your sweets from the rafters. We would eat your sweets and pray all over again, begging Lakshmi to come to our house . . .’ She starts on the rangoli, a special painted square filled with secret meaning, its esoteric pattern rendered in edible powders: turmeric, rice flour and crushed rose petals. She clamps her tongue between her lips, the lines must be unbroken, drawn accurately by a steady hand, without any mistakes. She carefully releases a stream of coloured powder from between her thumb and ring finger to form a pencil-thin line. ‘. . . But she never did.’

Her words are tinged with sadness. He knows it pains her that her mother doesn’t approve, doesn’t write. ‘Mamta, Lakshmi is here today,’ he whispers, just loudly enough to calm her soul.

‘She knows nothing about us, you know. I can’t write to her about you . . . I . . . I . . . won’t allow them to . . . to . . . I won’t allow her to . . .’

‘Mamta, it is beautiful,’ says Eyebrows, bounding in with an armload of oil lamps. ‘Prem is coming over to light these this evening, then we will burst crackers and feast.’

The dispensary is filled, floor to ceiling, with presents from grateful patients, new mothers, old wives, grandparents: clothes, sweets, crackers, pots and pans, even a milking goat tied outside. Eyebrows will start giving away everything tomorrow, barring what they use. It is the same every Diwali. The givers come back the next day as receivers. It has become a game. ‘And tomorrow we will have to clean up this mess,’ says Eyebrows, always practical, ‘and treat the burns and the chest infections from poisonous smoke.’

‘Poisonous smoke?’ ‘Of course. You just see the drains tomorrow, filled with bodies of chickens, dogs and cats all dead from cracker-smoke asphyxiation. Wait and see, Mamta: Begumpet will go mad tonight. There will be so much smoke from the firecrackers that you won’t be able to see your hand in front of your face.’

‘Can we go watch?’ ‘Yes, of course we can, and let’s ask Prem to join us too.’ ‘I wish Amma was here.’ ‘Amma, Amma, Amma, is that all you can think of? So why does she shun you? Because you have rejected the mores of society, poked a finger in the eye of her tradition. For that alone you should be lauded,’ says Eyebrows, a consummate anarchist at heart.

Mamta’s eyes fill with tears. ‘You have no idea what she did for me, Didi. She may not accept me now, but it was different . . . we were different when I was small.’

‘Mamta, there will be a time for reconciliation. Don’t beat against the tide. Your love is a flowing river and, just as determined, it will reach its ocean,’ Lokend says and puts an arm around her shoulders. More than anything, his affection confounds her; she has never been at the receiving end of unnecessary human contact. Mamta squirms, physical displays of affection in someone else’s presence always leave her feeling giddy-headed, and very, very embarrassed.

‘I am going to write to her anyway,’ she says, her face beetroot red.

Lata Bai has received the sweets, and resolved not to eat even one. But she has. She has tasted a tiny corner of milkcake and found it excruciatingly delicious. It is the same dilemma with her daughter. How she wishes to enfold Mamta in her arms, but she knows she must stay true to her word with an equal strength.

Tonight she will hear the revelry, but she will do nothing. She will sit and contemplate the night in internal silence while the whole world celebrates round her with prayers and crackers in noisy delight.

‘We’ll be back by eight for the pooja,’ shouts Mamta over her shoulder as she navigates through the gift boxes. ‘You sure you don’t want to come with us?’

‘Yes, I’m sure. Someone has to stay to tend the stupidly wounded,’ Eyebrows laughs. ‘And there will be lots of those tonight.’

Mamta and Lokend are off to the bazaar. For the first time in his life, Lokend has use for the small amount of money he kept from his inheritance. ‘It’s going to be so exciting,’ she says, clinging to his arm through the gathering throngs. The city is already shuddering with the sounds of exploding crackers even though it is still light. ‘In Gopalpur we never lit anything till after sunset.’ She has got used to the crowds and doesn’t comment on them any longer, but Lokend tightens his grip on her hand. He too is from the village, the place of open spaces, long bicycle rides and plodding bullock carts.

They sidestep on to the curb to escape the sweeping current of the crowd. There in the nook of a tree is a vendor selling bathashas and kheel, treats only available during Diwali. Lokend purchases some for her. The bathashas, fragile white discs of pure sugar, melt on her tongue, she quickly follows with a chaser of kheel, crisp puffed rice. ‘It’s all for you,’ he says, delighted by her attempts to speak through mouthfuls of food.

‘It’s so good. Kamla Masi used to make this for us, but I never had nearly so much before. Let’s take some back for Didi and Prem.’

‘Don’t forget Sneha.’ ‘Yes, and Sneha, poor thing, she won’t even get the day off from Mrs D’Souza’s.’

The crowd thins, moving towards the city square. Each street is lined with little stalls. The buying is furious. This is the last night of the Diwali mela, the shops will be gone tomorrow, whisked away as conclusively as a clean-up by a jinn.

The bhajans play on, the whole street bows to the devotional music, designed specifically to stir the conscience and alternatively settle and unsettle the soul. It is a night of ritual. The prayers are eternal, tributes to various gods and goddesses. Mamta and Lokend recognise many of the singers – beggars on other days and regulars at the dispensary.

They walk through the north street, dedicated to feminine adornment: bindis, bangles, parandis, henna patterns, saris, kohl sticks, incense, pooja paraphernalia. She buys a turquoise blue parandi. She will thread it into her plait tomorrow, so that it comes right down to her hips, and when she sits it will be as if she is sitting on her own hair.

‘Let’s go,’ she says, leading him by the arm to the outskirts, ‘let’s enjoy the crackers from here.’ And so the evening offers itself for exploration. Mamta’s little-girl energies are rekindled with the gusto that only familiar scenes from the past can achieve. Without her knowing it, her frame of reference has shifted, gone back in time. And in this incarnation, her past is a happy one.